Hawke spun around and clubbed the man’s head with the base of the macuahuitl’s handle, knocking him into an unconscious heap on the smooth tiled floor of the museum.
“Any more for any more?” Hawke said, staring at Mendoza. “I think I’m really getting the hang of it.”
He tossed it from one hand to the other to underline the point and took a step closer to Mendoza.
The Mexican cartel lord looked at his comrade who was now unconscious and bleeding out on the floor. “He deserved to die,” he said. “But I will not share the same fate.” He snatched up another macuahuitl from among the shattered glass on the floor and tested its weight and movement in his hands.
Hawke moved forward. “Prepare to join your friend, you little shit!”
Mendoza laughed. “You seem so confident, Englishman — but you should know that I am a follower of what we call la verdadera destreza, or the true art, a form of Iberian fencing brought to Mexico by the Spanish.”
“Sounds a bit girly…” Hawke mumbled, never taking his eyes off the approaching man. “This thing isn’t a rapier, fuckwit, so let’s see how you go with it.”
Mendoza padded forward and plunged the macuahuitl forward at Hawke.
Hawke recoiled just in time, the obsidian shards at the tip of the weapon close enough to tear a slash in the front of his jacket. He regained his balance and took up a defensive position as Mendoza lunged at him once again, this time slicing the blades down in a savage draw cut and nicking Hawke’s shoulder again. He staggered back, the pain from the second slash-wound burning wildly. “You’ll have to do better than that, Mendoza.”
But without warning Mendoza took a step back and glanced at his watch. “I’m so sorry, but I must go. Perhaps I can kill you later?”
“Eh?”
Mendoza dropped the sword and fled the room with the canvas bag. Seconds later a chopper descended outside the exhibition room and began blasting the hell out of the windows with a chain gun.
Mendoza was outside now, and pulled himself into the chopper, which spun around ninety degrees as it ascended into the sky above Russell Square. Looping his arm through the grab-handle at the side of the door, Mendoza laughed as one of his men loosed a volley of submachine gunfire at the anti-terror police as they tried to advance on them.
Now, sprayed with lead and blasted back by the powerful downdraft of the chopper’s mighty rotors, the police broke ranks and dispersed to the cover of some nearby ash trees. Above them all, Mendoza’s helicopter vanished into the low cloud.
“We lost them!” Maria said.
“No” Hawke said. “I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean?”
“Earlier on when they first saw the artefact, Mendoza said ‘all we need now is the manuscript’ — something about a codex and then some words I didn’t recognize. They weren’t in Spanish.”
“Wait!” Ryan said, his face lighting up at the memory. “He said Yoalli Ehécatl! I understood those words but not the Spanish. They’re another word for the Codex Borgia.”
“The what?” Maria asked.
“It’s an Aztec manuscript currently held in the Vatican Library.”
“Damn it all!” Hawke said, but Lea was already on the phone.
A second later she ended the call. “The jet’s at London City, fuelled and ready to go.”
CHAPTER TEN
Aurora Soto drifted in and out of sleep, and when she woke she checked the sun for the time. It was a game she liked to play with herself, and then she would check her watch and see how accurate she was — today she was three minutes out.
So far so good. They had secured Sobotka and were only minutes away from achieving their mission. She had no doubt Viktor would play ball. After all, he knew his wife was gagged and bound with Delgado in the Vandura following behind them. She had chosen Delgado for that job because putting Garza with her would have been a very bad idea — like setting a fox to guard a henhouse. All the same, she knew what had to happen to the Sobotkas in the end, but there was no sense in wasting time thinking about that now. Now was about the moment, as her mother used to say.
Another quarter of an hour of tense silence and they had almost reached their destination — Los Alamos National Laboratory. Aurora stared through the windshield at the vast complex of office buildings, hangars and nuclear facilities as the car turned a bend on the highway and it loomed into view for the first time.
She wondered how much destruction the Hummingbird might bring. She cared about that — she wanted as much of this world annihilated as possible and only Wade could make that happen. The Big Boss was completely loco — his activities down in Guerrero left no room for doubt on that score — but when it came to smashing the Americans as hard as she and Mendoza wanted them to be smashed, she knew only Wade could deliver. For now, at least, they all had a mutual goal.
Garza rolled a quarter across his knuckles and sniffed hard. “Don’t forget, old man — screw this up and your wife is dead meat.” As he spoke, he pushed the muzzle of his gun into Viktor’s ribs. “And maybe we’ll have a little fun with her before we kill her — understand?”
Viktor nodded. He understood. Locked away deep in that building was something very precious that Aurora Soto’s mysterious boss wanted very badly, and Viktor was going to get it for them. He was going to drive the Prius down to the lab and bring home the bacon.
Or Alena would die.
Viktor Sobotka was old enough to remember the old regime. He remembered life long before the Prague Spring when the hardliner Novotný and his StB goons ruled his country with an iron grip.
The StB… he recalled them well. He remembered the night they came for his father when they lived in their little home in Ostrava. He was just ten at the time, and even now if he closed his eyes he could still see his beloved father kicking and screaming as the men coshed him and dragged him through the door. They all knew what it meant — false confessions forced by brutal torture and life imprisonment in a Soviet gulag. That was the last time he had seen his Dad.
He showed no fear then, and he would show none now. He would do as these monsters demanded of him, and then he would free his wife.
As he drew nearer to the entrance gates of the complex, he glanced in his rear view mirror and saw the black GMC Vandura parked up on the side of the road a mile or two in the distance. He gripped the steering wheel in rage as he visualized his wife tied up in the back at the mercy of those animals, but knew there was only one way he could help her.
He pulled up at the security gate and showed his pass through the windshield. He was expecting the guard to wave him through but instead he flagged him down and stepped out into the road in front of the car.
Victor felt a wave of panic flush over him. What if they knew something was up? What if they knew he was coming in here to steal classified technology? His heart quickened in his chest and it felt like it was going to burst. He worked hard to calm himself down. The life of the person he loved more than anyone in the world was riding on his performance over the next few minutes and he couldn’t risk blowing it now.
As the guard got closer to the car he recognized him as Norm Bennett. Bennett was a friendly sort of guy but good at his job. He was too close to his pension to risk his retirement now so he was very thorough.
Bennett tapped on the window and indicated that Viktor should wind it down.