‘And the current cycle will reach its peak in 2012. A geographic shift, with the North Pole ending up in New York or the South Pole in Sydney …’ O’Connor left the deadly prospect hanging. If the Maya Codex was predicting a geographic shift, both Aleta and O’Connor knew the human race would need to take extraordinary precautions, and even then much of life as we know it would not survive.
37
CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
‘E
veryone here, Davis?’ Wiley demanded of his chief of staff as he strode into the CIA operations room. A high-resolution computer screen showed a real-time satellite image of a train located some distance from the border between Austria and Germany and heading north-west. Another showed a map of the Danube with a blinking blue crosshair encoded with Sodano’s cell phone number. The crosshair was moving south through Budapest. Yet another provided a map of the streets of Vienna with another crosshair annotated with O’Connor’s cell phone. The track was leading away from
Währinger Strasse and Maria-Theresian Strasse towards the Donaukanal.
‘Ready to go, Sir. The chiefs of station in Vienna and Berlin are on secure video link,’ Larry Davis confirmed. Davis was only slightly taller than Wiley. Overweight, bald and out of condition, Davis wiped the sweat from his brow.
‘We have a situation,’ Wiley barked at the six officers Davis had briefed into the top-secret compartment of Operation Maya. ‘This is priority one. What’ve you got, Vienna?’
The encrypted video screen switched to the chief of station in a small operations room hidden in the bowels of the white four-storey US Embassy building in
Boltzmanngasse
, a quiet leafy street in Vienna.
‘We have an asset on board the Vienna–Würzburg intercity express. He has confirmed Tutankhamen is with Nefertiti in Car 3. They’ve crossed the Austrian–German border and they’re now ten kilometres north-west of Nuremberg. The train is scheduled to arrive at Würzburg Hauptbahnhof in fifty-two minutes.’
‘Then who has Tutankhamen’s cell phone?’
‘Not known, but it’s currently moving slowly east towards the Donaukanal.’ Wiley glanced at the screen tracking O’Connor’s cell phone, showing a location at the intersection of Schottenring and Rossauer Lande.
‘Whoever’s got it, I want them tracked down – now!’
‘We’ve got the area under surveillance.’ The Vienna chief of station, a grey-haired veteran CIA boss in his late fifties, was unperturbed by the DDO’s fiery temper.
‘And Sodano?’
‘He appears to be still on a barge that has crossed the border into Hungary and that’s now tracking south through Budapest.’
‘
Appears?
I want to
know
!’ Wiley glowered at the screen locked onto Sodano’s cell phone. The blue crosshairs were hovering above the western channel of the Danube, abeam Margitsziget Island, just to the south of the Árpád Bridge. ‘Get Budapest to put an asset on that barge,’ Wiley barked at his chief of staff. ‘I want Sodano brought in, and fast!’
Davis nodded towards his deputy, a slim, attractive brunette in her late thirties. Ellen Rodriguez had spent the last three years as Deputy Chief of Station in Lima, and before that she had worked at the White House. In the short time she’d been back, she had already clashed with Howard Wiley twice, and she was beginning to regret accepting the position on Langley’s Latin American desk. Rodriguez logged into a spare computer in the ops room, but her attention was dragged back to the video screen almost immediately. Vienna’s chief of station had been alerted to a live
Die Welt
online video update.
‘Wait, we’ve got some breaking news here. The Austrian Bundespolizei and the Bundeskriminalamt are investigating the discovery of the body of a Sicilian national in a garbage truck.’ The Langley technicians switched the camera feed to a live media conference with Gruppeninspektor Hans Boehm. The square-jawed police inspector was standing outside Vienna’s state of the art waste-disposal unit near the
Donaukanal
. Its distinguishing landmark, a tall space-age silver tower, soared in the background. A large group of journalists were jostling for position.
‘
Die Stelle zu sein scheint, von Antonio Sodano, Sizilianer, der nun Wohnsitz
—’
‘Translation!’ Wiley demanded.
‘The body appears to be that of Antonio Sodano, a Sicilian who is now resident in Rome.’ Ellen Rodriguez had not only served three years in Lima before working in the White House, she’d spent three years in Vienna and Berlin.
‘Haben Sie eine Idee von der Ursache der Tod, Inspektor?’
‘Do you have any idea of the cause of death, Inspector?’ Rodriguez translated.
‘It would appear that the deceased has been strangled, but we will not be able to confirm that until after an autopsy.’
‘Where did this take place, Inspector?’ another journalist asked.
‘That’s not clear either, although the truck in which the body was found had just completed its run through the Stephansdom Quarter in the city.’
‘O’Connor!’ Wiley muttered angrily.
‘Is there a motive, Inspector?’
Gruppeninspektor Boehm smiled patiently. ‘We do know that Mr Sodano was wanted in Rome by the Italian
Guardia di Finanza
for suspected drug-trafficking, so we haven’t ruled out that it might be drug-related.’
‘Fuck!’ Wiley turned to the six officers who made up Operation Maya. ‘Nefertiti represents a clear and present danger to the United States. So far, we have failed spectacularly to carry out what should be a simple elimination operation. It’s also clear that Tutankhamen has gone over to the dark side.’ Wiley turned back to the video feed. ‘Vienna, your asset on board the train has a green light. Deal with them!’
‘Both of them?’ the Vienna chief of station asked, taken aback. He had worked with O’Connor in the field.
‘Both of them!’ Wiley barked. ‘Sodano wasn’t some two-bit punk. He could handle himself. This has got O’Connor’s mark all over it.’
‘Why would someone like O’Connor go over to the dark side?’ Ellen Rodriguez asked. ‘We don’t have any evidence of that yet.’
Wiley turned, his eyes blazing. ‘I make the decisions around here, Rodriguez.’ The other officers looked uncomfortable, but no one else spoke up in O’Connor’s defence.
‘Berlin. I want assets to move at a moment’s notice,’ Wiley ordered, turning back to the video connection, ‘and get some observation on the Würzburg Hauptbahnhof. I want timetables of every connecting train and bus. If we don’t get them on the train, I want to know where they’re headed.’ Wiley turned to Davis. ‘Get hold of Nefertiti’s movements in the last month. I want her cell phone connections, Blackberry, bank statements, credit cards, home-phone bills – anything that might give us a lead on why she’s in Germany. And,’ he said, lowering his voice, ‘tell that bitch Rodriguez if she ever challenges me again, she’ll be serving coffee in the canteen.’
‘Watch your step, Rodriguez. The boss is pretty pissed,’ Davis warned, mopping his brow after Wiley had left.
‘
He’s
pretty pissed? Jesus Christ, Larry. Have you thought about what we’re doing here? I’ve worked with O’Connor. He’s not the sort of guy to jump ship. And have you read the Weizman dossier? “Clear and present danger” got way overused in Iraq. Weizman’s an archaeologist, for Christ’s sake! Can someone please explain to me what threat she poses to Capitol Hill?’ Rodriguez glared at Davis, her green eyes flashing angrily. One or two of the younger male officers smirked. Larry Davis was only marginally more popular than Wiley.
‘Just get on with tasking Budapest to recover Sodano’s cell phone,’ Davis said. ‘The rest of you, get cracking on Nefertiti and Tutankhamen’s movements and phone calls. Let’s go!’
‘Asshole,’ Rodriguez muttered as she went back to her desk.
38
NUREMBERG-WÜRZBURG, GERMANY
T
hree hours into the journey, the train rocked smoothly on a superbly engineered hydraulic suspension. A vista of fields and farmhouses flashed past the windows.
‘My father escaped with just the clothes on his back and two maps,’ Aleta said, taking the first of the maps her father had managed to secrete out of Austria. ‘He always thought this one related to Tikal, but he wasn’t sure.’
O’Connor scanned the
huun
bark diagram. ‘A triangle in Tikal … That could mean anything.’
Aleta nodded. ‘And this one isn’t the original,’ she said, handing O’Connor the second map. ‘The original was given to my grandfather by some Maya elders and was also drawn on
huun
bark paper.’
‘Where’s the original now?’
‘When the family was arrested, it was confiscated, but my father made a copy from memory. Unfortunately he couldn’t remember all the figures and it’s very rough. He always thought the shape was similar to Lake Atitlán.’
O’Connor took the map and examined it carefully, a puzzled look on his face.
‘You don’t think so?’ Aleta asked.
‘It may well be Lake Atitlán, although I’ve never been there. The problem is that only one of the three lines on the map has what looks like a compass bearing on it,’ he said, pointing to the lines drawn across the yellow patch, ‘and if it
is
a bearing, it doesn’t match up with the north point on the map. Unless … unless … of course!’ O’Connor exclaimed. ‘It’s a backbearing!’
‘Backbearing?’
‘It’s an old military technique. We used it before GPS satellites took all the fun out of getting lost in the jungle. If you weren’t sure of your position, you found a high point and took bearings to three points, like the top of a mountain or the mouth of a river, which were marked on the map, and therefore accurately known. By reversing the bearings, you can produce a small triangle where they intersect, and you should be inside the triangle. The smaller the triangle the more accurate the resection. Are there any prominent landmarks around Lake Atitlán?’
‘The volcanoes! There are three of them, the largest of which is Volcán Atitlán.’ Aleta pointed to the southernmost point on the map. ‘Just to the north of Atitlán is Volcán Tolimán, and to the east is Volcán San Pedro, which has a small village at its base. They’re all over 9000 feet, so you can see them from anywhere on the lake. Two of them are close together, and so are the lines on this map. They fit perfectly.’
‘Although it’s still not much help. There’s only one accurate backbearing, and the triangle of intersection is pretty big.’
‘‘That’s as best as my father could remember, and there’s not much around where the lines intersect,’ Aleta said. ‘The nearest village aside from San Pedro is San Marcos, where I was brought up, further to the east around this inlet. It’s mainly coffee and corn plantations. The people grow their own vegetables, chilli verde, tomatoes, onions, avocadoes, cucumbers, strawberries, pitahaya fruit … Life was simple until the death squads came.’
O’Connor nodded sympathetically. ‘So what would be here?’ he asked, pointing again to the triangle.
‘A big rocky volcanic outcrop that drops into the lake. The whole area is volcanic. Without the other two bearings, it would be needle in a haystack stuff.’
‘Are the volcanoes still active?’
‘Volcán Atitlán is; it last erupted in 1853. Tolimán might be, although not recently. The lake itself was formed from a volcanic eruption. It used to have lots of fish species, until the Americans came in. Pan American Airlines thought it would be a really good idea to introduce non-native bass for American tourists to catch, but the bass ended up destroying all the native fish as well as causing the extinction of the giant grebe bird.’ Aleta raised her eyebrows at O’Connor.
O’Connor winced. ‘Are there many villages around the lake?’ he asked, staying away from America’s foreign policy record.
‘Not many. Panajachel is the largest town on the north shore … about 14 000 people. Then you have the little villages like San Pedro, San Lucas, San Marcos and San Juan. You can see the Spanish Catholic influence, but Mayan spirituality is still very strong.’
‘Even allowing for there being only one bearing, all three lines are drawn across the lake. Perhaps we’re looking for something underneath the water?’
‘Lake Atitlán’s very deep, well over 400 metres, and there are caves.’ Aleta fell silent as they both pondered the possibility. ‘There’s a diving school at Santa Cruz, but I don’t think they dive this far south.’
‘Diving at high altitude has its own risks.’ O’Connor wondered whether Aleta would disclose her qualifications. ‘Anything more than 400 metres above sea level and you need special training.’ Both knew that diving at high altitude meant increased risks of decompression sickness.
‘Lake Atitlán’s well above that, around 1500 metres above sea level. Is diving amongst your skills?’
O’Connor nodded. ‘I trained with the US Navy SEALS … ’ His voice trailed off as he glanced through the compartment window. He was instantly on guard as a man in a beret and dark overcoat walked past their compartment.
‘What’s the matter?’ Aleta asked.
‘We’ve got company. The guy in the beret; he just walked past.’
‘So maybe he’s going to Würzburg or some place beyond?’ Aleta suggested, more out of hope than conviction.
‘I don’t think so. Put the map and the notebook in your briefcase and pretend to be asleep. If he comes back, don’t move. Breathe slowly and leave things to me.’
Aleta leaned back and closed her eyes, trust in her mysterious companion growing.
O’Connor pulled his Glock 21 from his leather jacket and screwed on the specially fitted silencer. He left his jacket covering the pistol, leaned back in his seat, half closed his eyes and waited.
Ten minutes out from Würzburg, the man with the beret returned. After observing O’Connor and Aleta sleeping, he quietly opened the compartment door. He took the seat next to Aleta and in one practised movement withdrew a razor-sharp KA-BAR Hawk-bill Tanto knife from his coat pocket.
O’Connor fired twice and the .45 calibre bullets slammed into the assailant’s heart, hurling him back into the leather seat. The
phut phut
of the silencer seemed very loud and Aleta jumped as the knife clattered to the compartment floor.