There, they had risked their lives to track down top-level Al-Qaeda operatives, but even they weren’t as crazy as Wade. He was desperate and insane, a dangerous combination. With the combined forces of the US, Mexico and ECHO closing in on him, there was no telling what he would do, and Hawke suspected the fight to the dark heart of Mictlan would be hard and bloody.
Fine with him. He’d smash them just like he smashed Matheson and he didn’t care how he did it either: By Strength and Guile.
Another wave of bullets zipped through the muggy air and drilled into the gravel and ancient stone at their feet. Clouds of dust burst up into the air as the rounds pelted down like hail. After taking a few more yards toward the rim, the serpientes fought back hard, and forced the allies to take more cover. Hawke and Lea crashed down behind the relative safety of a snake statue beside the steps.
Before the cult could reload, the allies returned an equally devastating volley of gunfire at them, but they were restricted by a ludicrous order not to damage the archaeological ruins. Then two of the Mexican Special Forces took savage wounds in their throats and heads and fell back into the lower square, dead. Their helmets cracked hard on the paving.
On the upper ridge at the top of the temple, Hawke saw a group of cult members setting up what looked from a distance like a Soltam K6, an Israeli mortar that fired sixteen 120 mil rounds per minute — in the right hands. Luckily, Wade’s goons were the wrong hands, and as they fumbled around with the weapon, the Englishman was able to loose a rapid fire volley from the Sig as he advanced on them like a one-man army.
As the cartridges flew out of the ejector, so did the cultists trying to operate the mortar, falling dead as the bullets tore mercilessly into them. Two of them went down like tin soldiers, but the third only got winged, and spun around in a blood-spray arc before flailing wildly and falling over the western edge of the temple. Hawke watched as the dying man rolled down the mighty central stairway, smashing his bones as he went and finally collapsing in a cloud of dust in the lower square.
The advance continued with Hawke powering his way forward. Never flinching as the fire rained down over him, he realized he was back in the mental zone he’d developed in the SBS, and it almost unnerved him how little he felt for the enemy. He felt the dark part of his soul rise within him now as he smacked another magazine into the grip and pounded forward up the steps: draw the weapon, into the aim, target evaluation… it all flooded back every time he was drawn into battle.
Almost at the top, he was dimly aware of the Americans and Mexicans progressing up the other side of the steps, and from somewhere behind he heard Lexi Zhang as she unloaded a magazine of nine mils into the enemy, her familiar war-cry echoing in the smoky air of battle. He was glad she was at his side.
A cultist leaped from the cover of the temple at the top of the complex. Hawke raised the Sig and instantly judged he was fifty meters away to the south. It made a difference and all Special Forces operatives knew why. The closer the target, the harder the impact. This was because the bullet had more kinetic energy when it left the muzzle of your weapon. As the projectile traced through the air, it lost its kinetic energy and dropped from its original firing line. If the target was close, you fired lower, but the further away the target, the higher you aimed. He also knew the target was to his south and the prevailing wind was blowing from the monsoon to the west. This calculation made in a heartbeat, Hawke fired high and to the right.
The cultist dropped like a sprayed fly, the entry wound in between his eyes gaping for his compatriots to see: smack-bang in the T-box. Now the allies were making progress and some of the cartel dropped their weapons and fled in all directions. Some got away down the steps into the jungle while others were cut down by the lethal accuracy of the Mexican Special Forces to the west.
At the top of the complex was a scene of unbridled pandemonium… the smell of gunpowder, the acrid stench of smoke, flames rising from the mortared jungle, the chank chank chank of an M2 in a machine gun nest at the mouth of one of the sacrificial temples… all of it would have made most people’s heads swim with terror and confusion, but Hawke was trained to filter it all out. To him, the situation was as clear as day and he stormed forward, twisting his upper body to the left and right, picking off Sixth Sun members as he went.
Lea took out the machine gun nest, and when the last of the Sixth Sun men were dead, or had fled into the jungle, Hawke knew what he had to do.
“Into the temple!” he yelled, heaving his gun hand up into the air and waving the surviving members of their forces forward for the final assault. It looked like the way was clear but as they crossed the upper plaza he saw Delgado and Garza set up another M2 in the mouth of the second temple. Seconds later it was spitting fire all over them.
At the bottom of Huitzilopochtli’s temple their glow-sticks illuminated something that made Ryan and Maria freeze in their tracks. An enormous hoard of gold coins, artefacts and jewels — especially jade and emeralds — stretched out before them in some kind of antechamber.
“Holy God!” Maria said, looking at the treasure. “What is it?”
“It’s the Lost Treasure of La Noche Triste,” Wade said dismissively. “Pretty, ain’t it?”
Ryan’s eyes glazed over as he surveyed the glittering heaps of gold and gems, untouched for centuries. “The Sad Night… I can’t believe it.”
“An unexpected bonus, I admit,” Wade said. “But nothing compared with what lies ahead, so move along, assholes.”
The goons pushed the prisoners on again. Obviously the notorious Lost Treasure of the Sad Night was not Morton Wade’s final destination.
“What’s the sad night, Ryan?” Maria whispered as they walked.
“The Aztec King Moctezuma was killed in mysterious circumstances during the Spanish conquest. The Spanish had been using him as a hostage, so when he was murdered they had to flee Tenochtitlán, but not before plundering the place for as much gold and jewels as they could get their hands on. Some say pirates got hold of it, but I guess now we know.”
“A poor man wants anything, but a rich man wants everything,” she said.
“Nice.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Old Russian proverb.”
“Anyway, according to history, it was a dark, moonless night and Cortés and his men were able to flee the city with the loot, but as you know, Tenochtitlán was an island connected to the mainland by several bridges.”
“Yes, I knew that, of course.”
“When they got to the bridge they were planning on using for their escape, Aztec warriors saw them and a massive fight ensued — total chaos with hundreds of men murdered as they tried to escape on canoes across the lake — a seriously bloody night, but nonetheless a large part of the stolen treasure disappeared that night. Some have speculated that it could be as large as the lost treasure of the Incas.”
“And it’s right here.”
“So many of these treasures were plundered and taken back to Europe, but a lot of it was swiped by pirates and no one knows where any of that is.”
“But Dr Strangelove seems to have something else on his mind.”
Then the Texan yelled to his men. “Bring the keystone… we’re at the entrance to Mictlan.”
They assembled at the end of a stubby, dank tunnel and Maria was horrified to find at least half a dozen men and women huddling together in the darkness. They were wearing rags and chained to the wall. They jumped back and tried to hide from Wade as he drew closer to them.