6:15
“Bloody hell, Jackie Boy — get a move on!” Scarlet said. “If you carry on at this rate half the population of California’s going to be glowing like the Ready Brek kid.”
Camacho glanced over his shoulder, a look of confusion on his face. “Huh?”
“Ignore her,” Lexi. “We’re told this is how she deals with pressure.”
“But at least she does it with good poise,” Kim said, her words dripping with sarcasm.
5:51
“Something like this has to be finessed,” Camacho said, glancing at Scarlet. “I guess like taking you on a date.”
A grim ripple of laughter went around the group.
“Good job Hawke’s not here in that case,” Scarlet said, ignoring Camacho’s jibe. “He’d probably put it under his arm and try and swim it out into the ocean.”
Camacho said nothing, but crouched down and looked closer at the timer mechanism installed by Viktor Sobotka.
“So what do you think?” Alex asked.
Camacho sighed as he lifted the front panel off the timer. “Looks like we got three wires to play with — red, blue and yellow.”
“Is that good?” Kim said.
He shook his head slowly. “No. The timer only needs one wire to send a signal to the bomb in order to activate it.”
“What are you saying, Jack?” Scarlet said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“I think those sons of bitches put a couple of booby trap wires in here, and that means while one of these wires cuts the timer feed, the other two will detonate the bomb if and when they’re cut.”
Kim sighed and rubbed her temples. “And now we have less than five minutes to decide which is which. Damn it…”
Camacho sighed and pushed the sweat off his forehead. “Get Jackson to bring the girl back in here. She might know something.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Hawke and Lea leaped over the dead Sixth Sun soldiers and found themselves at the top of a narrow flight of stairs. They jogged down with guns raised, leaving the sound of the ground battle raging behind them.
When they reached the bottom they were faced with two tunnels, one running north and the other south. It didn’t take long to figure out that they needed to go north — the terrified screams of Wade’s sacrifice victims showed them the way, and they sprinted ever closer to the final battle.
When they reached the sacrificial chamber, Lea’s eyes opened wide with a confusing blend of amazement and horror.
They had reached the dark heart of Mictlan — an enormous underground cave with endless tributary tunnels twisting away from it, and in the center was the main attraction — a sacrificial altar carved out of the bedrock, illuminated by the ghostly light of Wade’s glow sticks, and beside it was a heap of human skulls and other bones. Worse still was Morton Wade, dressed up as some kind of Aztec god as he directed an insane production of terror in the hideous chamber. Ryan Bale, along with half a dozen terrified people, was standing in chains, guarded by a handful of what was left of his Jaguar Knights, and surrounding Wade were the last surviving members of the Order of the Sixth Sun.
“Is that Silvio Mendoza?” Hawke said.
“Sure is,” Lea replied. “He’s in cuffs.”
“Must have crossed Wade.”
“I see Ryan,” Lea said, “but where the hell is Maria?”
Wade and the cultists were gathered around the altar, mumbling some kind of alien mantra. Wade turned to his right as one of his followers handed him a dagger… a sacrificial dagger made of obsidian volcanic glass, its blade hideously crude and jagged. As Wade raised it above his head, they heard a scream and then Lea saw it.
“Jesus almighty…” she said, her voice trailing away in disbelief. “Maria’s on the altar!”
They saw with horror the vision of Maria chained down on the altar, and just for good measure she was being held down by four members of Wade’s cult. She was angry, not scared, and trying to kick out against the men but it was pointless. Then they saw an alcove behind the altar, in which someone had put a glow stick. There, in the middle of the neon green glow in the alcove was a strange golden idol like nothing either of them had ever seen before. Around eight inches high, it looked like some kind of goddess, but there was something unsettling and strange about it.
“What the hell is that?” Lea asked, almost mesmerized by the strange idol.
“Beats me,” Hawke said. “But whatever it is, it’s obviously pretty central to this whole nightmare.”
“Look, Joe!” Lea said as she saw Wade raise the dagger over Maria. “He’s going to kill her.”
Hawke clicked his last magazine into the grip of his gun. “Like fuck is he,” he said, and began firing at the gathering around the altar. “I’ll send you where the sun doesn’t set, dickhead!” he yelled over the roar of the gunfire.
The Sixth Sun members and Jaguar Knights scattered like sheep, diving for cover wherever they could find it. Wade instinctively grabbed Ryan and pulled him closer, holding a knife at his throat as he stepped back into the shadows while Maria writhed helplessly on the sacrificial altar. Mendoza took advantage of the unfolding chaos and raised his cuffed hands to the alcove. Swiping the golden idol and the glow stick, he darted into one of the tunnels and was gone.
Hawke raised his gun hand and pointed his weapon at the tunnel where Mendoza had scarpered like a cut-purse on the run from the law. He fired and struck his arm, but it was too late to get a second good shot so he saved the ammunition. Then, as he lowered the gun he felt a stabbing pain in his side and turned to see an obsidian dagger hanging out of his body. One of Wade’s insane acolytes had thrown it through the air and buried the tip of the blade in his side.
The Englishman pulled the blade out and suppressed a scream of agony as the rough obsidian clawed its way out of his flesh, but there was no time to stop. The other cult members had seen Mendoza flee and now ran for another of the tunnels. Hawke fired wildly and planted almost an entire magazine in their backs. They screamed but went down hard, landing face first in the dirt.
“Waiting ages to do that,” he said, before turning the weapon on the surviving Jaguar Knights as they took up defensive positions and began returning fire.
Beside him, Lea fought harder than ever before — throwing everything she had at the enemy forces as they closed in on the final kill. Now, she saw Wade through the smoke and chaos. He had re-emerged and was skulking backwards toward one of the tunnels with Ryan as a human shield, but out of nowhere Ryan rammed his elbow into his captor’s ribcage. As Wade released him and doubled over, Ryan spun around and kicked him in the face sending him staggering back into the darkness of one of the tunnels.
With his liberty restored, Ryan ran to free Maria and then they leaped for the cover of one of the serpent shrines, while Lea took aim at the vanishing Wade. Before she could fire, a Jaguar Knight kicked the gun from her hand and punched her in the face. He almost knocked her off her feet but she caught her balance by gripping the side of the tunnel mouth and pulling herself back up.
He tried a second punch, but this time she was ready. She spun around and struck the man in the side of the face with her boot. The high-velocity roundhouse kick knocked him out and he crumpled to the ground. “Take that, you nasty little shite,” she said, dusting her hands off. “Hit a lady, would ya?”
She picked up her gun but now Wade was gone.
With the last of Wade’s acolytes dead, the chamber was now silent except for the terrified sobbing of the men and women the Texan had intended to sacrifice to the god of the dead.