She opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it when Ryan yawned and opened his eyes. She took a drink of the coffee instead.
“What are you two up to then?” Ryan asked, stepping over to them.
“We’re just talking about running away together,” Maria said, winking at Hawke.
“What?”
Lea woke and joined them at the small table. “Why does Ryan look like he needs a nappy change?”
“Maria and Hawke have been talking about running away together.”
“Close your mouth, mate,” Hawke said. “She’s joking. Now pretend like I’m a total idiot and give me all you’ve got on the Aztecs.”
“That one’s just too easy,” the younger man said. “So I’ll let it go and move straight on to you being an idiot.”
“Funny, especially coming from a human encyclopaedia.”
“I prefer Walking Wiki,” he said with a grin.
“Just get on with it and stop being a dork,” Lea said.
“Hey, leave my little Teddy Bear alone!” Maria said, running a protective hand up Ryan’s arm.
As Ryan blushed the color of a beetroot, Hawke and Lea exchanged a glance and then burst into spontaneous laughter. After a few seconds Hawke finally managed to draw breath. “Teddy Bear?”
“I thought we said that was private, Masha?” Ryan said, giving Maria a look halfway between desperation and anger.
“I’m sorry! It just came out. It’s a good Russian name for someone you love… medvezhonok. I don’t see the problem.”
“Look at their faces,” Ryan said. “Especially his face, and tell me that you don’t see the problem.”
“Yeah, leave her alone, Teddy Bear,” Lea said.
“Oh God,” Ryan said, throwing his hands in the air.
“Lea,” Hawke fixed his eyes on the Irishwoman and held her shoulders. “That’s not nice, all right?”
Ryan sighed with relief. “Thanks, Joe.”
Hawke turned to Ryan, deadpan. “No problem, Snookums.”
“Why do these things always happen to me?” Ryan asked, exasperated.
“Yeah, you’ve got it tough all right,” Lea said. “Three of our people are dead, Professor Barton’s in a morgue getting a burrito peeled off his face, and you just got called Snookums. So unfair.”
“Look at it this way, mate,” Hawke said, clapping a heavy arm on Ryan’s shoulder. “You’ve got a beautiful Russian secret agent who calls you her Teddy Bear… need I say more?”
Ryan nodded sagely. “Right… well let that be a lesson to you. So, moving on — Huitzilopochtli for idiots,” he said looking at Hawke. “It goes like this. The Aztecs were a Nahuatl-speaking people whose empire reached its primacy from the 1300s to the 1500s, much more recent than many today realize.”
“Any more coffee?” Lea said with a yawn and a wink at Hawke.
Ryan ignored her. “I was going to say that what we have to focus on is the issue of the codices and Huitzilopochtli himself…”
“But..?” Maria said.
“But… I’ve been researching the sunstone they took from the British Museum, and what I’m finding isn’t making me happy. The fragment in London was discovered by a British archaeologist in the late nineteenth century, but he never found the other half. Now we know Morton Wade and his thugs have it.”
“And what’s making you unhappy, Twinkle-toes?” Lea asked.
Ryan threw his hands into the air once again. “I give up!”
“Come on, Ry. I’m just messin’ wit’ ya.”
“I thought we’d left that behind?”
“We have — I promise.”
“You promised to love me once, so not sure how seriously to take that.”
“Let’s get back to it, shall we?” Hawke said, moving away from the subject of Lea and Ryan’s former marriage.
“What’s making me unhappy is that while the official archaeological story is that the fragment is a calendar or sunstone, there’s an unofficial narrative.”
“Are you talking about your weird conspiracy theory friends again?” Lea said.
“I mean sources of alternative research,” he said without humor.
“And what do these nutt… I mean alternative researchers have to say about it?”
“They say it is in fact part of an ancient keystone that when combined with the missing half can be used to open Mictlan, the Aztec Underworld.”
“Oh that’s a relief,” Hawke said. “For a minute there I thought it was something serious. Now we know it’s nothing more than a deranged cult leader finding the key to hell.”
They shared a look, and then Maria spoke. “So what’s this got to do with Barton’s last words?” she said, turning to Ryan. “You said Huitzil… whatever-his-name-is was the god of the sun as well as other things. Was he also the god of the dead?”
Ryan shook his head. “Nope. That delightful job belonged to Mictlantecuhtli and his worship required human cannibalism. The Underworld is named after him — Mictlan.”
“Thanks, Pookie,” Hawke said with a wink and grin combo. “But I think we have an in-coming call from Elysium.”
Ryan shook his head in despair as Lea fired up the plasma screen on the cabin partition. Moments later they were face to face with Sir Richard Eden, who gave them as full a briefing as he was able on the subject of Morton Wade and his extra-curricular activities south of the Rio Grande. Hawke listened with disgust and disbelief as Eden talked more about Wade’s missing employees and the recent discovery of the coffee plantation.
“Do we know where this plantation is?” Lea asked.
“Yes. Thanks to Scarlet, Lexi, Vincent Reno and the Americans we now know its location — it’s a cool one hundred acres of prime coffee country down in Guerrero with a large, white hacienda planted in the heart of it. Used to be a monastery. As you know, we’ve been tracking him on and off for some time now because I don’t believe his interest in Aztec archaeology is on the level. Now, there’s been local talk of disappearances and things could start to get nasty.”
“Any more info on these disappearances?” Hawke asked.
On the screen at the front of the jet, Hawke watched as Eden scratched his jaw and tipped back in his seat. “Locals talked about drug cartels or even UFO abductions, but both the Mexican authorities and I beg to differ on that score.”
“The Mexican authorities are involved?” Lea asked.
Eden nodded. “I’ve been liaising on the subject with Enrique Valles, the Attorney General. We share the view that the disappearances have something to do with Wade, but proving it’s something else. Of more concern is this WMD that’s somewhere on the horizon, and as you know, I’m also getting Jack Brooke and the Americans involved. No one knows the Mexican underworld like they do and he’s already got BDS and CIA assets on the job over there. I want a full team to raid the place. How fast can you be in Mexico?”
“We’re meeting a Professor Pavoni in the Vatican, so as long as it takes to speak with her and make sure the Codex Borgia is safe,” Hawke said. “Then we’re straight on the plane.”
“Fine, don’t dawdle.”
“Thanks, Rich,” said Lea as he cut the call.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Ah… the City of Lights,” Lea said, giving Hawke a sideways glance before kissing him on the cheek. Ryan pretended to be sick when he saw the kiss but Maria slapped him on the back of the head and told him to grow up.
“That’s Paris,” Hawke said. “This is the Eternal City.”
Lea turned away and pretended to follow the progress of a man on his bicycle. “I knew that, Joe Hawke.”