Act III: New Arrivals

Chapter Twelve

Riviera Maya

Laura was encountering her first problem. Her group was gathered around her again, this time in the arrivals terminal at Cancun airport. The plan was to wait an hour until the Manchester flight brought with it her remaining clients, but Sharon and John Tanner were refusing to stay. Sharon, although young and seemingly robust, had a migraine. She sat, head in hands, next to a large pile of luggage, complaining she was about to be sick. John explained this would only get worse without quiet and rest.

Laura tried to ring Marcus, but his cell phone went unanswered. The hotel minibus, together with a driver and guide, were waiting outside, but there was only the one. She made her decision: the five could go on ahead and she would wait alone for the others. She tracked down the guide and asked him to call ahead and explain the situation. Once they had gone, she could arrange for another vehicle.

She stood in the clean heat of a fine early afternoon following morning rain and helped her clients to board. When she explained the hotel transfer would take nearly two and a half hours there were groans, but all seemed happy enough once ensconced under air conditioning, each clutching a bottle of mineral water which the driver had dutifully provided. Laura waved them away with as broad and as confident a smile as she could muster and retreated to the terminal. She decided to organise a taxi, then remembered there was a Carlton Travel desk on the Departures floor. She made a quick diversion to the Ladies to freshen up. A neat young travel representative smiled back at her from the mirror. She adjusted her make-up and cleaned her teeth, glad of the time to collect her thoughts.

Marcus rang. “Sorry to miss you: I was in the pool.”

“Lucky you!” Laura was surprised by her own flippancy.

“It’s good to speak with you again,” Marcus continued, unperturbed. “I hope the past week hasn’t been too stressful. How’s everything going?”

Laura explained the situation. Marcus confirmed it would be better to ask another hotel bus to make an extra stop, rather than rely on a taxi: his own recent taxi experience having reinforced this view.

“I’ll be there to meet and greet when the first group arrive. When you get here, I would recommend a quick check-in and going straight to dinner. Your bags will be in your room by the time you finish eating.”

“Where will I be sleeping?”

“Don’t worry - you should have the same accommodation as the guests most of the way through the next two weeks. I’m sure you won’t mind that including a little camping?”

“Can’t wait - Is there anything else I need to be thinking about?”

“No, just keep the Manchester guests happy. I understand they’re a family group with two children, so we’ll have quite a mixed party. What do you think of the others?

Laura reflected for a moment. “Hard to tell really - they seem nice enough, although I don’t think any of them know quite what to expect. There’s a guy called David who appears willing, but not very capable. He speaks a little Spanish, which may be useful. There’s a brother and sister who seem good fun and a young couple that I haven’t quite got the measure of yet: well-travelled, with lots of posh gear, but a little distant. The wife’s the one who is ill. She didn’t look the migraine sort and, between you and me, I wonder whether they haven’t had a row. Both were quite tense.”

“All part of the fun, Laura: you never quite how people will react in unfamiliar circumstances. That’s when we earn our money.”

“Talking about money, I’m assuming I’m going to get paid? I lost quite a lot, leaving my last job without working my notice.” Laura sounded rather more direct than she had intended: the traumas of the past week making it difficult to be easy going.

Marcus didn’t notice. “No worries on that score. Culjinder has everything in hand and we’ll be reimbursing you for any losses incurred and for any other expenditure. Just give her a call, as soon as you have settled in. Whilst here, everything you spend is on expenses, so relax and enjoy the experience. If all goes to plan, you may be leading the next trip yourself.”

“Thank you, Marcus,” Laura almost gushed in relief, “I’ll be with you soon.”

Laura beamed at nobody in particular as she made her way to the CTG help desk. Here she was, basically on a free luxury holiday in the Caribbean. She appeared to have only the lightest of responsibilities and she was going to get paid well too. “At last,” she whispered furtively to herself, “life is getting interesting.”

A tall, casually dressed, but nevertheless important looking European was holding out his hand in the main lobby of the Kalumal Beach Hotel. David swapped his welcome cocktail from his right to his left, shifted carefully forward on the leather sofa in which he was happily buried, and shook it.

“Hello, you must be David.” Marcus waited politely for confirmation. “How was your journey?”

David mumbled something positive, but largely incomprehensible. Drink, heat and tiredness were proving to be an intoxicating mix.

“My name is Marcus and I will be your trip supervisor,” beamed Marcus. “You’ve already met my assistant, Laura. We’ll both be with you for the next couple of weeks and our job is to make your holiday as enjoyable as possible.” He turned towards Felicity and Ethan, who filled the remaining space on the sofa. “All three of you have your own double room here for the next two nights and you’ll have the same rooms for the last two days, after our adventure. We’ll all be meeting later this evening for dinner. You’ll get a call to let you know when and where. In the meantime, please help yourself to anything in the mini-bar, or to room service, if you’d like to eat sooner. Those plastic strips on your wrist mean that everything is included.”

Ethan yawned loudly and Felicity giggled. “Sorry,” said Ethan, “it’s been a rather long day.”

“I understand completely. I only arrived here myself yesterday.”

“Do you mind if I ask a straight question?” Ethan did his best through a fog of tiredness and an increasingly dodgy stomach to look serious. “You seem to be offering a lot for the price we’ve paid. Are you sure there isn’t a catch?”

David sat up and paid attention. Marcus clasped his hands together. He’d been anticipating this enquiry. “This is a new venture for us, and the only way to be sure it’ll work to everyone’s satisfaction is to try it out with real guests. With the greatest respect, you are our guinea pigs, but all that means for you is that we’ll really value your feedback. Just let us know what you enjoy and what you think could be improved. Hopefully then, we’ll be able to charge the next group a whole lot more money.” Marcus grinned, somewhat mischievously.

Everybody responded in kind and Marcus took the opportunity to skip across to the Tanners. They were sitting on the marble steps outside, waiting impatiently for the land-train that would shuttle them to their room.

David stood up. “Well, I’m off to take a shower and have a nap. I’m also curious to see what’s in my fridge. It sounds a lot better than the biscuit tin back home.”

Felicity stretched and rubbed her eyes, badly smudging her mascara. “Sounds like a good plan. I guess we’ll see you again at dinner.” She struggled to extract herself from the cushions, levering herself onto her feet using Ethan’s shoulder.

As the land train wound its way past garden-fringed villas and apartments, David gladly drew in the cool air of evening. Against the luminous light of encroaching night he could make out the first and brightest of stars. Low-level lamps appeared, scattered amongst the flowerbeds. David noticed movement beyond their corona.

“Coati,” the driver pointed ahead and to one side. A large troop of monkey-sized mammals were rooting around beneath a narrow strip of woodland, chequerboard tails pointing skyward. These racoon-like animals only heightened David’s sleep-deprived sense that he had stepped into someone else’s life: that of a more confident and positive individual. High on the adrenaline of new experience and forgetting his tiredness, he wanted to get out and explore as much of the site as night-time would allow. He was going to get fit. He was going to eat more healthily and he was going to make use of his smattering of Spanish.

An opportunity arose to apply the last of these resolutions. The other guests had been dropped off at indistinguishable locations along the winding route and David was now alone with his chauffeur. He tapped the man on the shoulder.

“Can you take me on the beach?” he enunciated carefully, in Spanish.

The man stopped his electric vehicle and stared quizzically back at David. He broke into a broad, toothy and not entirely hygienic grin.

“Of course,” he responded, giving a theatrical gesture of politeness. David was swept back suddenly into his seat. To his considerable surprise, the driver began to sing.

Chapter Thirteen

By Moonlight

An armadillo snuffled noisily around the fringes of a well-trimmed lawn, pawing at the leaves scattered by a thicket of tropical vegetation beyond. It snapped at a moth disturbed by its rooting and played with a beetle that scurried beneath its long front claws. Tiring of the game, the armadillo cracked the moonshine shell of the insect in its jaws, throwing back its narrow head to chew and swallow its prize. Then it froze, its nose searching for a breeze, before settling and padding further along the verge. Suddenly the leaves of a bush shimmered and hissed. A waking cat arched its back and bared its teeth. The armadillo sprang backwards, let out a child’s cry and jogged for the shadows.

Laura pushed herself upwards into the steam, riverlets of hot water flowing across her shoulders and down the delicate cleave of her breasts. She peered through the smoking swirl as it was sucked upward into the sky, but could see little beyond the pattern of decking and the shadow-licked wall of palms beyond. The strange humanity of the animal’s call momentarily brought home to Laura the alien nature of this new world. She wondered what the hour might be. The moon was full and high, sitting sharp and proud amongst a flurry of stars. The sudden noise below the patio and the cold night air had brought Laura back from her heat-induced reverie in the hot-tub. She slipped gratefully back into the water’s embrace and pondered whether she should now make the short dash back to her hotel room.

Laura had reached her room elated, but also suddenly exhausted, and had barely troubled the bathroom before crawling under the sheets of her bed and hugging at a pillow. Sleep did not come. She had too much on her mind, the bed was too firm and the air-conditioning hummed at a most penetrating pitch. Eventually she had risen to turn it off, but then the room had grown hot and airless. Rising from the sweat of half-slumber for a second time, she had felt her way to a wardrobe, flung on a robe and gone to see what lay beyond her patio doors. There, in a small, pot-lined courtyard shared with four other rooms, she had found the hot-tub. There were no lights from the other rooms and the far end of the courtyard opened only onto greenery. Laura had tiptoed across the wooden flooring to the welcoming pool. It sprung automatically into bubbling life as she approached, like some volcanic relic of the origins of life erupting from the coloured earth.

The remainder of Laura’s day had gone well, but now a large volume of information vied to be processed through her short-term memory. Her drive from the airport with the remaining family had been unexpectedly high-spirited and entertaining. Darryl, the father, had talked incessantly about previous family holidays to Spain, admitting they had never been out of Europe before. The children, Hannah, twelve, and Lloyd, thirteen, fought over a sombrero then nearly caused the bus to crash by spinning it like a frisbee towards the driver. They had squealed with excitement at the sight of each passing waterpark or dolphinarium, and had been full of questions about activities they might do. Jackie, the mother, held a tiny video camera to the fading light. The quietest of the four, she had smiled apologetically as Laura’s interrogation had continued.

The hotel had looked vast and spectacular to Laura under artificial light. Oversized facsimiles of Mayan totems and vast tapestries of traditional scenes dressed the circular expanse of the main reception area. Laura had busied herself with the formalities of arrival then sat alongside Dana with a map showing the location of each guest and all the facilities she would need to navigate. Dana’s presence had been instantly reassuring. Laura imagined her to be some ten years older than herself. She was calm and elegant, with an easy, confident and authoritative manner. Reflecting back, from the comfort of her pool, Laura imagined herself in Dana’s position in a few years’ time. It was an appealing image, bolstering Laura’s perception that she had made the right decision.

Dinner had proved equally positive. Although most were too tired to fully appreciate the fine dining, they were also beyond anything other than acquiescence to every arrangement put to them by Marcus. Tomorrow would be a rest day. Monday would see them on a day visit to a nearby beachside Mayan temple. Tuesday and Wednesday would bring a gentle introduction to the jungle and the chance to climb a particularly large ancient edifice. After that they would transfer to a more exclusive boutique hotel further down the coast, before heading into heavily protected wilderness for their main adventure. Conversation around the table had been limited to the usual pleasantries. There was no sign of tension and the Tanners had been smiling and communicative.

The only glitch had proved to be the making of the meal. David had gone to explore the grounds before claiming his room, and had proceeded to get lost, having walked too far along the beach. A long additional ramble and several erroneous restaurants later he had finally burst upon their party, chaperoned by the maître d’, who was protesting at the inappropriate nature of David’s crumbled hoodie and sand-covered trainers. Marcus, alerted by Laura, had risen to placate the waiter and to put an arm around a flustered David, who recovered his equanimity quickly at the sight of the group. Once halfway through the first glass of wine, his embarrassment had been superseded by an animated monologue.

David described how his walk had taken an unexpected turn. He had rounded a wooden beach shelter set on a slight promontory. In the dark and dimpled sand beyond lay a shoulder bag full of clothing. David had swept it up and marched on beside the surf, intent on handing it in as lost property. Turning to observe his footprints, already obliterated in places by the waves, he became aware of distant calls. A naked couple were running through the gloom, the man shouting “stop” with a thick German accent. By the time David’s blustered apologies had placated the pair and they resumed their night swimming, a security guard had appeared. It took the officer several minutes to conclude that David was harmless, a process slowed by David’s failure to lift his Spanish beyond a few inappropriate pleasantries.

Laura smiled at the memory, and playfully blew bubbles across the surface of the tub. Her eyes rose to meet those of the stray cat that had leapt up into the courtyard and now stared warily at her through the steam. It lowered its head but held her gaze, its dark eyes searching for any threat. Laura felt suddenly self-conscious, but in a manner almost sexual. She was aware of the bubbles coursing between her thighs and of a snatched irregularity to her breathing. She closed her eyes and slipped entirely under the water. The face of a man by a train floated through a deep pool of imagination. She held her breath and let her thoughts be consumed by the noise of bubbles breaking around her ears. Then there was another face: the calm, wise face of a woman wearing a beaded head-dress, whose smile seemed to be the source of the warmth around her. Laura felt her eyes closing. She snuggled into maternal arms, her mind consumed by the memory of her scent, too tired to fight the lack of oxygen. At the last moment of consciousness, she pushed her way back to the surface. The cat was gone.

Chapter Fourteen

Rochas Blancas

The Liberty Diner was an expanse of corrugated aluminium on the edge of Rochas Blancas. It looked more like an oversize trailer than a restaurant. It gave off a dull metallic gleam in the cold winter sunshine. Its surface was tarnished by the oil and diesel emitted by an endless succession of trucks, shuttling between rural estancias and the railway station stockyards.

Luis climbed down from his SUV, followed by a number of younger men in tracksuits, each with a precautionary hand thrust deep into a jacket pocket. He stroked his beard contemplatively and assessed the safety of the situation. Across the expanse of a cracked concrete car park there was only one other vehicle, a battered white pick-up truck that Luis recognised. He gestured to two men to check either side of the diner then strode forward purposefully, pushing through the swinging double doors and into the blare of an old-fashioned Jukebox.

Halfway down a long row of red and cream vinyl seating, Luis spotted Gennaro’s broad back. He was squeezed into a booth with three others. Luis waited until the waitress disappeared through a swing door into the kitchen then hailed a greeting. Gennaro made no attempt to turn in his seat, but raised a hand to gesture Luis forward and barked at his colleagues to leave.

“Hello, Luis. How is Don Paulo?” His voice was the usual incongruous mix of gravel and phlegm.

“Busy.” Luis smiled warmly, instantly comforted by Gennaro’s presence. He was unflappable and unquestioningly loyal. Luis’ father would often remind him that this former street urchin, whom Paulo had saved from a savage beating in prison forty years before, was a valued member of the family.

“He’s been making arrangements for Alfredo’s return,” Luis continued, “trying to liaise with Barrio Fuerte - I’ve not been able to contact Marcelo - putting an end to the factory strike, and hiring extra muscle. When he thinks of Felipe he gets angry and then he gets tired. I’m here to help the old man rest more easily.”

“It was Xterra who killed Felipe,” Gennaro stated, stirring vigorously at his coffee. “We didn’t have much trouble finding that out. We paid the assistant Governor a home visit. We sat in the lounge - nice new sofas paid for with our money - and talked about sport and why he had failed to protect your uncle. You should have seen him sweat. You would have been proud of me, Luis. I was very polite; very restrained, although I wanted to rip his head off. I even drank a cup of herbal tea.”

“What did he tell us?”

“That an Xterra symbol written in Felipe’s blood was found on the floor beside his body. He thinks that Xterra must have offered the Governor something big: not just cash, maybe a state government post, or an early retirement plan that couldn’t be refused. Still he would have needed the backing of someone higher up the food chain.”

“State Police?”

“Probably - they’re bound to be scared of Xterra.”

“You know, Luis,” Gennaro leaned across the table and put one of his thick paws on Luis’ arm, “they cut off Felipe’s head. It was kicked around like a football then smashed to pieces. I’m so sorry to have to tell you that.”

Luis’ attention was drawn fortuitously to the window, distracting him just enough that he didn’t break down. A truck was swinging into the car park and his men were using their guns to wave it back onto the freeway. It swung wildly towards the road - tilting so far it almost tipped over - ploughed through bins and across a sidewalk and disappeared beyond a thick cloud of diesel. The anger Luis had felt when he learned of Felipe’s death had returned and with it an unfamiliar thirst for revenge. He thought about his wife, Alex, their house and their dogs back home in Texas and they felt now strangely distant, more the dream of a life than the reality he had so carefully crafted. He would send Alex away. Even El Paso would be too dangerous soon. They would start again in Phoenix or Vegas and he would leave all this behind. Luis met Gennaro’s enquiring gaze.

“Now we will act. I want the other vehicles here in thirty minutes.”

“What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to make a prison call.”

Gennaro grinned. “Just like the old days. Your father will approve.”

Luis smiled too. He was beginning to enjoy himself. “Contact our people at the jail - guards and inmates. Let them know we are on our way. I want to drive straight through the service entrance. Where is the Governor?”

“He’s been living in a house in the compound ever since the attack. He is being guarded by local police, but I don’t think they are heavily armed. He doesn’t have family here and his deputy thinks he’s already sent his things away.”

“Then we’ll give him a leaving present: something to influence his career. When I’ve finished with him he’s going to have plenty of explaining to do to the authorities, and to Xterra.”

A short while later a line of white pick-up trucks roared off towards Rochas Blancas. Luis sat at the back of one, exhilarated both by the sting of winter air on his cheeks and by the proximity of the mission. He could feel his scar throbbing and for once was glad it was there. Surrounded by hooded men and dark automatic weapons, he stared at the line of quiet suburban homes flashing incongruously past. As the vehicles slowed for a stop-light someone shouted “police ahead”. For an instant the traffic officer lazing next to his motorbike looked as though he might draw his pistol. Instead, he froze: hands and face falling limp. The convoy swung left against a red light and sped up a long low hill towards the prison complex. Luis could see the white walls rising beyond the furthest homes. An old lady, walking her dog, flashed by and a child balancing on a garden slide. The child turned and waved. Already the mother was moving anxiously towards it.

A squad car sat across the main entrance to the jail. Luis could just make out the heads of two hunched figures sheltering behind it. Another officer jogged down the station steps, fastening his heavily padded gun-belt. At a shout from a colleague, he swivelled in the road. As the convoy bore down on him, he leapt back onto the stairs. Several automatic weapons opened up at once, their owners spraying bullets over the heads of the officers and into the prison walls. Luis picked up his own rifle. The way it slotted into the contours of his body reminded him of Felipe. It was he who had taught Luis and later Alfredo how to shoot, during hunting trips in the hills beyond Chihuahua. He disengaged the safety mechanism and felt the thrill of power recoiling into his shoulder.

There was no return fire. Luis was flung against the side of his truck as it swerved to parallel the prison wall. “That should keep them quiet,” he whispered to himself. Guards waited by the open gates of the service entrance, as the assailants drove through. A couple of prisoners shuffled nervously in their shadows. The raiding party came to a halt in the small car park on the edge of the main prison compound. Figures leapt from their vehicles and turned to face the careless clutter of prison blocks beyond.

Luis, Gennaro and several others crossed the yard and into the main block. Luis walked as nonchalantly as possible, fingers entwined behind his back. The gunfire had drawn many faces to tiny windows. He could hear an excited clatter of metal on metal. As a heavy side door to the building ground open, the clatter grew to a din. The group processed along the ground floor to the main stairway. More guards stood nervously amongst scattered groups of prisoners. Open doors displayed a crowded mass of girlie posters, sporting paraphernalia and other personal junk. Here and there a cell remained closed. At the top of the main stairway Luis turned. The group fanned out along the balcony on either side of him, and the hall below fell silent.

“Bring me the Governor,” he demanded theatrically “and the men who disrespected the remains of my uncle.”

His subject appeared at the far end of the hall, straight-backed, suited, and searching for Luis’ gaze as he strode warily forward and up the steps. Three bound prisoners were carried, struggling, from a cell, manhandled upward in the Governor’s wake, and displayed against the railings. Luis addressed his crowd again, his slow, deep voice filling the long chamber.

“We are not Xterra. We do not kill just because we can. We do not need to kill in vengeance, but we demand loyalty and we demand respect.” He paused to scan the many faces turned toward him. “Those who abused the body of my uncle will now be punished. So will your Director, who chose to let Xterra into this building and to abuse the trust we had placed in him. All will live, but only so that they remember this day.”

Gennaro grabbed the Governor roughly by the collar and marched him up behind the three selected prisoners, each now doubled over the railings. Some of the men had shouldered their weapons and were filming the scene on cell-phone cameras.

“Push them over,” Gennaro growled at him.

The Governor stiffened. Each prisoner either craned his neck to see if he would comply, or stared at the drop to the concrete floor below. For a moment nothing else happened. Gennaro drew a pair of pliers slowly from an inside jacket pocket, took hold of the Governor’s left hand and forced his little finger between its jaws. He stared fixedly at Luis.

Luis waited a few moments then nodded, reluctantly. The Governor’s finger hung for a second by a remaining flap of skin then fell to the floor. Gennaro’s curse was the only sound, as blood splattered across his shoes.

Luis quietly reinforced Gennaro’s request. “Lift them over.”

The Governor remained rooted to the spot. He was trembling visibly, apparently unaware of his injury.

Gennaro took his time selecting a second finger. It fell, to the sound of a low moan. The Governor sank to his knees, cradling his hand in his lap. Finally, he raised his good arm towards the suspended feet of the first prisoner and pushed weakly upwards. The man rotated around the railing and boomeranged through the air, landing half on his heels and half on his crumbling pelvis. A high-pitched scream was consumed by pain and nausea. Again the Governor pushed and again a man cartwheeled through the air and bounced off the edge of a dining table before landing, shoulder first, on the painted concrete floor. His head whipped forward with a sickening thud and his crumpled form lay still.

The Governor was hugging himself tightly and crying, a camera thrust into his face. He pleaded to God, but only his echo answered. Gennaro kicked him towards the final prisoner, but he rolled onto his side and lay rigid on the grating.

“That’s enough,” Luis commanded. A gunman looked at him enquiringly then used the butt of his rifle to whip the legs of the remaining inmate upwards. For a moment the man managed to stop himself, gripping the rail between his elbows. He cast a desperate glance at Luis as he felt his balance go, spinning to the floor below and drawing himself soundlessly into a foetal position.

“Remember Felipe, remember Las Contadonas,” Luis bellowed. “Soon everyone on the Internet will see how we deal with those who betray us. Soon all will witness the crimes of this man.” He gestured towards the now prostrate Governor. “Go back to your cells and remember who it is that keeps you safe.”

Bullets sprayed into the ceiling. A flurry of plaster meandered slowly downwards, like ash from a wildfire, the herald of mountain snow, or time entwining and beginning to implode.

Chapter Fifteen

Tulum

Mulac Hunapu gazed upon an azure sea. He was not in a good mood. Sat on the porch of the small, square lookout post, he tried to concentrate upon the long canoe that was negotiating the narrow gap in the outer reef. His view was partly obscured by an ocean fret, which had yet to be burned off by the rapidly climbing sun. To his right his two colleagues stood twenty paces away, at the far end of their patrol, framed by the massive white wall that marked the town’s outer defences. The previous evening had not gone well. For the first time since his family’s arrival in the port of Tulum, a priest had honoured them with a visit. It was a chance to show off his new wife and the house he had built for his family. The priesthood had approved his appointment as a city guard and assigned the site for his home. It was his first opportunity in nearly twenty years of working for the Kingdom of Coba to settle for more than a few weeks in one place. His parents had tended a small garden farm in the jungle, but now were too old. This move was even more important for them.

At first everything went to plan. The family had greeted their guest with all pomp and made offerings and exhortations to the gods at their little shrine in the garden. The priest, a small, elderly gentleman who walked almost sideways with the aid of a stick due to a bad hip, sat happily in a grand wooden chair. Mulac had carved it and his mother had draped it in fine cloth and cushions, even though the priest wore only a simple yellow tunic and skirt. He and Mulac discussed recent trade through the port and the need to improve security on the road to Coba town. His wife stirred at a grand copper pot, whilst his father stoked the fire.

Mulac dug irritably at the earth with a hunting knife, as he recalled the smell of burning that had issued from the pot. His wife had used too little water. A dish of vegetables and rice laced with expensive herbs, that had taken several hours to prepare, was ruined. He recalled his humiliation at having to offer his guest a common meal of bread and baked fish, as though he were his lodger. The priest had remained unperturbed, but this had only served to fuel Mulac’s embarrassment. As the old man bade farewell to his family later on, he had drawn Mulac closer to him and whispered:

“You know, a young wife is like a new wine: potent and intoxicating, but not very subtle. Be patient, Mulac, and in time she will bring depth and fortitude to your family.” A gentle grin had spread across the old man’s lips. “In the meantime, make the most of life’s more obvious pleasures.”

Mulac’s growing rage meant he barely took in what the old man had to say. He had turned and stormed into the house, pushing over the metal cauldron on his way. He would beat his wife like he used to beat the whores who tried to steal from him, when his life was guarding convoys of porters, and pleasure was a series of snatched moments between one long, straight road and the next. And then she had stood before him, slender and dark and naked and his rage had turned to unquenchable desire.

Mulac looked out over the cliffs. “Is this a sign?” a part of his brain mused, as past and present images fought for supremacy. Far out beyond the reef, where the mist had partly lifted, a large brown upturned wooden turtle sat suspended between sea and sky. Out of its body grew a forest of tree trunks and vines, draped in immense billowing sheets and topped with flags. Upon the foremost sheet, painted in blood, was an image like those from the temple: the sacred crosses used to mark the end of each great cycle of life. Mulac twisted backwards to reach the great horn fashioned from a giant conch shell, hung behind him, on the inner wall of his lookout post. But when he turned back to his vision, it had gone. Was it hiding in the fog? Was he seeing things because his wife had given him no sleep, or was it a portent he had yet to divine? His life had grown so complex that he now almost missed the simple hardships of the open road and his bachelor days.

Mulac kicked out in frustration at a small boulder used to provide extra seating during games of dice. He watched as it tumbled slowly and awkwardly down the hill towards the cliff edge. Without thinking, a prayer left his lips, as if drawn out by the rolling stone, a plea to K’inich, jaguar god of day and night. It was the same simple prayer he had uttered whilst passing the steps of the temple that morning. Take the fool from inside me. Cast him distant in space and time. The rock stopped suddenly as it hit a bush, panicking a small scaly lizard.

Four hundred and ninety-six years later David tripped over a fractured fragment of the same stone. He embarrassed himself further by swearing.

“Careful, David.” Laura followed along the cliff path that topped a prominent coastal ridge, accompanied by Felicity and Ethan. Everyone had been struggling with the heat and the lack of shade, David more than most. However, he was determined to explore every inch of the site. The other three had trailed in his wake. They caught up and all stood together and stared from their vantage point upon the large, rectangular, wall-bound complex of ruined buildings and grassy spaces that was the ancient city of Tulum. Below them, on the landward side, was the thick, dark blob of a fig tree. Its large rounded leaves sheltered the remainder of the party, who had all had enough of history and of the sun. Further along the promontory stood the old Castillo; a series of platforms and a grand stairway leading up to this squat, brooding structure.

Laura took the chance to introduce a little of what she had been reading. “I think the flat roof of the old castle was used as a lighthouse by the Mayans. There were two torch lights, one behind the other. Boatmen who were trying to get to the city from the open sea knew that, when the two lights seemed to merge into one, they were in line with a gap in the dangerous coral reef.”

“All too much effort, if you ask me,” observed Ethan. “This whole place looks like a surfer’s paradise. I bet the Mayans used to hit the beach, just as we do.”

“That cove down there looks a good place for a spot of beach fishing too,” enthused David.

“There’s an idea,” considered Ethan. “When we get to this biosphere lagoon, or whatever the place is, you and I can have a little competition. Laura, do you think they’d let us do that? We could ask the guides to bring a couple of rods.”

“I should think so. I’ll see what I can arrange. I know our guides are intending to catch stuff for us to eat anyway.”

“And it would be a great excuse for a barbeque,” Felicity added.

The conversation was interrupted by the sight of the two children, Hannah and Lloyd Morgan, emerging from the shade of the fig tree. They were creeping up on a large iguana lizard, which was sunning itself on the remains of an old palace building. As they burst into a run the reptile first cocked its head to one side, then sprang from its perch and sped off across the grass.

“At least those two have found something to amuse themselves,” laughed Ethan.

On the minibus journey from the hotel complex to Tulum the children had been dismayed to pass an exciting looking eco-park and had only been placated by the promise of swimming and snorkelling later in the day. They grumbled their way up to the ruins and looked positively horror-stricken to find they were supposed to follow a guided tour in the stifling heat.

“It’s like being back at school,” Hannah had suggested, none too quietly.

The tour had been abandoned within twenty minutes, as one person after the other peeled off into the shade. Marcus was now sitting with the others under the tree, chatting casually to John and Sharon Tanner about Tailwind Adventure. They were very much like his usual clients: Home Counties, well off, upper-middle class and privately educated. He felt at ease in their company, but at the same time concerned that the group had fractured so readily in the heat. He could see Laura on the hillside above him, rounding up the strays. He would talk to her later about how they might bond the team.

Marcus shouted to the children: “Time for a swim.” He winked at Sharon, stood up purposely and brushed tiny insects from the seat of his pants. There was a distant, slightly ironic cheer from Hannah. Lloyd lobbed one final stick into the tree in which the iguana was now hiding. Laura and the others took their cue to descend and soon the whole party was snaking its way out through one of the long, narrow passageways that issued through the thick walls of the city’s fortifications. Once back in the air-conditioned comfort of the minibus, Marcus introduced the final phase of their day trip.

“You’ll all be glad to know we’re off now to cool down and relax.”

The Morgan family clapped. David grimaced inwardly. Sharing his flabby form had never been a favourite pursuit.

“We would all roast at this time of day on a beach, beautiful as they are, so we’re going to a cenote instead. As I mentioned yesterday, these are formed by underground river systems.” Hannah gave an extravagant yawn, which Marcus chose to ignore. “You can get down to the water where the rocks above have fallen in. We have towels and snorkelling gear waiting for you and there’s a café on site too. It’s only a twenty minute drive. Do help yourself to anything in the icebox on the way - although I see most of you have done that already.”

“Is the water really cold?” Felicity quizzed, anxiously.

“No, I understand it is pleasantly cool. I think you’re all going to enjoy this experience and there’s no hurry to get back to the hotel this evening.”

Hannah groaned.

As the bus swung from the beach road onto the main highway, Laura noticed a line of heavily armed policemen standing to one side. She leaned forward in her front passenger seat to look enquiring past Marcus at their Mexican driver and guide, Cesar.

“Nothing to worry about,” he smiled back at her. “It is just La Policia Local. They make a show of force here to deter criminals. They’re after drink drivers and boy racers. I think they make a nice living from on-the-spot fines, but they never trouble tourists.”

They slowed to a crawl to negotiate a concrete hump in the road, adjacent to the officers. One man lazily waved the vehicle on and another made a note on his clipboard. Laura relaxed back into her seat.

“What time are we off to Coba tomorrow?” she checked with Marcus.

“Early: around seven a.m. We want to get there before any coach parties arrive. It’s a long walk through the jungle to the main monuments. You wouldn’t want to do it in the middle of the day.”

“At least we’re staying in the area afterwards.”

Marcus glanced behind him to ensure that no one else was listening then lowered his voice. “That should be a good opportunity to get everybody together. The resort hotel is too big for a small party. Everyone did their own thing yesterday, and some haven’t even talked to each other today.”

“David was funny on the first night though,” Laura whispered, stifling a giggle.

“Yes, but I think we’re going to have to keep a close eye on him. Talk about an innocent abroad!”

“But did you notice he was the first to go off and explore? I must admit I find him kind of endearing and he seems to be getting on well with Felicity and Ethan,” Laura observed.

“We’ll see,” cautioned Marcus.

The conversation lapsed and Laura pondered whether Marcus wasn’t actually quite narrow-minded. His privileged background seemed more apparent than when she had first met him and he was again displaying an emotional distance that seemed more than just professional. She made a point of turning around in her seat and starting a conversation with the children about ice cream flavours. The conversation caught on and was still in full flow when the bus pulled into a dusty roadside car park. Beyond a low wooden fence, Laura could see a sparse and equally dusty garden and, beyond that, a two-storey concrete building, encircled both by a terrace and a balcony. Low scrub forest surrounded the site and the overall effect was not very pre-possessing. Others obviously felt the same as there was no rush to vacate the vehicle. Marcus glanced at Laura, who realised that it was up to her to take the lead.

Having dismounted, she handed the necessary paperwork with an ingratiating smile to an old man on an old rocking chair. He was sitting in the shade of a roughly fashioned archway, which served as the entrance. The group followed Laura down a winding concrete pathway. It led to a long, narrow building, divided into a series of changing rooms with metal doors. The Tanners shuffled gingerly into one compartment, David took the next and soon every guest but Jackie and Darryl Morgan had disappeared from view.

“I’m not going in there,” Jackie informed her husband.

Marcus moved to placate her, but was overtaken by a scream from Felicity.

“Spider! Loooook! Ethan, get it out of here. Get it out of here!”

There was a moment’s silence then Felicity emerged, crimson-faced and stamping her feet. She and Jackie both stared accusingly at Marcus.

“Look,” he said, soothingly, “there’s nobody else here, at the moment. It’ll be pretty easy to change in the cenote itself, if you would prefer.”

“I suppose there’ll be spiders down there as well?” Jackie picked up her day pack, slung it over her shoulder and headed off. For a moment both Laura and Marcus assumed she was heading for the bus, but she veered to the right by a wooden sign and disappeared below ground level. Felicity followed, expressing a casual “Sorry!” as she passed Laura. Marcus shrugged his shoulders at Laura and gestured for her to join them.

Rounding the sign, Laura found a huge circular limestone chasm spread out before her. Jackie was sitting halfway down a flight of steps, filming the scene. She could see Felicity on a wooden platform, built around fallen boulders and a clump of trees, at its base. Wrapped in a bright red towel, she was squeezing her slightly too full figure into her bathing suit, her arachnophobia already forgotten.

Laura stopped to take in the view. Patches of vegetation broke the layers of limestone rock. Small birds flew in and out of the hole. Around the visible edges of the platform a thin strip of electric-blue water caught the sunlight and hinted at hidden depths below. She remembered what she had read on the flight. The Mayans used cenotes as a source of pure water, in a landscape devoid of surface streams. They were also treated as sacred gateways to the underworld. As she descended the steps the air became deliciously cool and the surroundings watery and green. To her considerable surprise, she found another little slice of paradise.

Chapter Sixteen

Rochas Blancas

Luis stood in the police station in front of two cowering officers, making it clear there were to be no reprisals against any of the prison inmates. Gennaro sat on one of the waiting room chairs, taking a call. Luis heard him swear loudly and then the crack of his chair smashing into the opposite wall. He looked around and frowned. A visibly shaking Gennaro passed him the cell-phone, before kicking his way out unnecessarily through the front door.

“Hello?”

It was Eusabio. Calmly and clearly he outlined to Luis what he had discovered in the mountains. There was no sign of Xterra, but the next poppy crop lay in tatters, a victim of the recent cold weather. His father had not received the news well, and had taken to his bed. The planned meeting with Marcelo and Barrio Fuerte upon Alfredo’s return had been cancelled. There was little point in trying to re-establish relations if there was nothing to trade.

Luis’ shock and frustration at yet more bad news also threatened to turn into rage, but he managed to keep his cool. He told Eusabio to stay where he was and to see what could be salvaged. Some of the plants must have survived, he reasoned. Perhaps there was still time for others to be replanted? He walked out of the building and joined a furiously pacing Gennaro. All the implications of what they had learned were bad. To have any chance of keeping their place in the drugs trade they would need now to import supplies. Their old east coast routes would make them vulnerable to Xterra, whose home territory this was. Importing drugs via the west coast would mean negotiations with other families and cartels. That would be tricky and the west coast was also more unstable, with various local gangs in Acapulco and other resorts trying to force their way into the business. In the meantime, Barrio Fuerte would have the best possible reason to find another supplier. Xterra would be hard for them to resist.

Silvio emerged from the police station and hailed Luis and Gennaro. Returning inside, they stared grimly at the one officer still brave enough to hold his post behind the screened-off front desk. A patrol had just radioed in a warning that another cartel had arrived. They had hijacked two vehicles from the bus station, taking several passengers. Driving south through the town centre, they had fired off random salvoes, apparently, at anyone who caught their eye. The officer appealed uncertainly to Luis for help.

“Xterra!” Gennaro spat at the floor, clenching both fists. The officer confirmed that their mark had been sprayed on the sides of both buses.

Luis nodded thoughtfully. He still didn’t share Gennaro’s anger. Luis didn’t want a pitched battle with Xterra even though his own men were numerous, well-armed and well-trained. He also could not ignore the officer’s appeal, if Las Contadonas were not to appear weak. Hopefully, a show of force would suffice. If it came to a battle, better here in Rochas Blancas than in Jaurez. There the family had a lot more to lose.

“Back to the trucks - let’s run these bastards out of town,” he commanded. He smiled at Gennaro and put a hand on his arm. “This is what you do best, old friend. This one is for my father and for the memory of my uncle. I know our family has nothing to fear with you to take care of our affairs.”

Gennaro said nothing. He stooped to pick up a handful of dust as he stepped into the road then rubbed it slowly and deliberately between his fingers. “In case we have to do this the old-fashioned way,” he smiled back at Luis, “I want to make sure I can get a good grip on somebody’s throat.”

There were no signs of the intruders in the centre of the small town. A growing crowd of concerned citizens thronged the bus station forecourt, consoling those whose friends and relatives, boyfriends and girlfriends had been kidnapped. The arrival of a fleet of SUVs crammed full of heavily armed men initially caused further panic and consternation. A few, emboldened by their loss, stood their ground, or even railed against the newcomers. As Luis left his truck, a lump of concrete flew through the air and shattered the windscreen behind him. A grandmother with two tearful children in tow grabbed at his jacket, screaming “Mi hija (my daughter).” Soon he was surrounded, and it took a volley of gunfire before he could make himself heard. About twenty people were missing. The very old and the very young had been left behind, even when they had had to be forcibly dragged from a bus. Luis promised grandiloquently to return the hostages and to restore order to the town, as though he was completing another oration from the prison balcony. As his posse sped away again towards the southern desert, it was followed by a small flotilla of cars and vans, their occupants revitalised by the arrival of Las Contadonas. Some distance still further back, a squad car cautiously tailed the assemblage.

Thirty minutes later they were clear of all but an occasional shack or isolated farmstead. The side roads they passed were now no more than dirt tracks. Their progress had been slowed by Luis’ broken windscreen and he was beginning to believe that Xterra and their victims were long gone. They crested a ridge and the landscape opened up before them as a vast untidy bowl of scattered fields, turned olive green and saffron by recent rains. The scale of the vista made their search seem futile and Luis was close to giving up. Then Alejandro, his driver, slowed to a crawl and pointed ahead. Gennaro laughed - Alejandro was short and squat and, in Gennaro’s words, unable to see beyond his own front bumper. Alejandro swore profusely and kept pointing. A mile or two ahead the road snaked its way towards the railway line and there a train had stopped. No station was visible, but it was just possible to make out a couple of vehicles. The windows glinted in the late afternoon sunshine. All assumed that these must be the missing buses.

“What the hell are they doing?” Luis questioned both his eyes and his knowledge of Xterra tactics.

“Loco - Xterra are loco!” Alejandro spat. “They just want to terrorise people and they don’t care how they do it. They killed my brother-in-law in Laredo, just because he didn’t stop his taxi for one of them when he already had a fare. They are scum. I want to hear them scream and their bones break.”

The convoy traversed the long downward slope with increasing speed, the wind buffeting Luis’ face. Enveloped now by the gently folded landscape below, they only occasionally caught a glimpse of the railway line. They did not see the train again until rounding a bend and finding the dark blue diesel at a cattle halt, right in front of them. Its side was strafed and windows smashed. People were scrambling out and over the loose chippings. An old man tripped and tumbled. Several figures rushed to his aid. The newcomers were quickly spotted. Some began waving and pointing. Others ran for cover. The buses were gone, surely with several more hostages.

“Keep going,” Luis commanded.

They shot past, without a pause. This was now a hunting party, each man with the scent of blood in his nostrils. The final chase was short. Within a couple of turns the truck behind Luis’ veered left across the carriageway and pulled over. There was a din of brakes and reversing engines. Men jumped to the ground to examine fresh, wide tyre tracks. They led up a gravel track towards a narrow cutting in the low hillside. A heavily rusted sign halfway up advertised a cattle ranch in flakes of old grey paint.

Gennaro organised his team: trucks, other vehicles and civilians were to stay by the highway. Guards would be positioned just within sight, in either direction. A dozen men were to follow Luis and Gennaro on foot towards the ranch. They would walk in three groups, one following the track and the others a little distance to either side.

Soon they saw a curved red coach roof, cresting the horizon between the wind-swept embankments. Creeping forwards now on their hands and knees, a scattering of individuals could be seen standing below in a rough semi-circle, the straight edge completed by the two parked buses. Some wore dark military uniforms and bullet-proof vests, others suits and designer sunglasses. Further into the shallow valley, beyond this scene, a smaller group lingered in front of an old timber barn. Luis’ men were clearly outnumbered.

One bus already appeared to have been emptied. Luis surmised that its occupants must be in the barn. A line of terrified looking men were filing reluctantly from the other. Each was forced to kneel, hands on head, to form a line facing the gunmen. Why, thought Luis, would Xterra hide an execution in such a remote location, if their purpose was purely to terrorise? Within moments he had his answer. Two at a time, the men were being dragged from the line and given weapons. A man held a machete in both hands, but as far from his body as he could manage, as though it were a dangerous beast that might spring up and attack him. His partner was presented with a sledgehammer by a leering assistant, who stood beside an assortment of similarly crude implements. It was refused and thrown back to the floor. A shot rang out. The victim slumped to his knees and toppled slowly onto his face, his body twitching sporadically in the grass. The first man leapt at the executioner, emitting a sound which was half scream, half roar, as he tried to cut into the gunman’s neck with the machete. A bullet hit him in the stomach but he ran, clutching at his innards. His intended target held a palm nonchalantly to a flesh-wound.

“Let him go,” the gunman shouted and the semi-circle parted. A skinny figure stumbled up the hillside, heading directly for Luis and his men, who scrambled backwards and hunkered deeper into the dirt. It stopped in surprise at the sight of Gennaro lying incongruously in the grass. A student: clean-cut, well-dressed and clearly from a good family. Trying to speak, blood issued from his mouth. The realisation that he was dying spread rapidly across his face. He gazed down at his stomach in despair. His legs collapsed beneath him and he fell to lie inert in the dust, eyes open and staring blindly.

Two more figures had been dragged forward and presented with weapons. They were pushed towards each other and ordered to fight. Almost apologetically they began to circle each other, one with a long blade, the other clutching a claw hammer. Neither man wanted to risk a blow or to get too close. Continually threatened and goaded, they were poked with a knife whenever they swung within range.

“Only one can survive,” the ringmaster shouted. “One of you will join us and be honoured as a hit-man for Las Xterra, but the weakest must die. Who wants to see their family again? Who is like us and has the strength to take another life?”

Still the men did little, looking at each other as though for the first time.

“Fight or die!” A gun was now raised. A plump, middle-aged businessman lunged forward with a slash of his blade. Its tip caught in some clothing. As it did so, his youthful opponent brought his hammer down instinctively on the man’s arm. He screamed in pain, cradling his elbow with his other hand. Both stopped and stared at their tormentors. Almost instantaneously, two head shots rang out and they collapsed, one over the other, to form an untidy pile on the plain.

Luis had seen enough. He would end this decisively and then he would get out. Alex and he would settle in the Caribbean, or in Canada, and raise children who didn’t believe there were answers in violence. He tried to hide from the glaring irony of his own actions as he sent Alejandro away for reinforcements. Calmly he informed Gennaro that he and three others would circle round to the back of the barn, to free the women and children who must lie within. Gennaro would know when to attack the main group. Luis’ party would also ensure there was nowhere for Xterra to run.

As he withdrew, another pair was being forced forward. Again both individuals refused to fight, hanging their heads in anticipation of the next bullets. No shots were fired. Instead both were dragged to the front of the first bus and forced down onto their stomachs. Each in turn received a brutal kick to the side of the head then lay still. Another Xterra henchman had stepped up to take the wheel. The engine roared into life, diesel fumes spewing out onto the much diminished number of hostages still waiting in line. The bus crept ahead, the prone men disappearing from view beneath the front fender. There was a short, strangled scream as a front wheel climbed over the first man, then once again only the revs from the deep-throated machine.

The second person had been able to part roll away, one leg mangled by a wheel. A suited figure picked up the sledgehammer and walked between the buses. The broad arc of the implement crossed the setting sun and barely slowed as it travelled through its victim’s skull in an explosion of blood and brains. There was a sudden outburst of expletives and laughter as the killer realised his suit was now covered in gore. He threw the tool petulantly into the rear window of the bus. A shower of glass sent the driver tumbling down the steps and into the dirt, to the accompaniment of another volley of mirth.

“Is there no one here who can fight?” Another well-tailored thug stepped forward and admonished the remaining figures. He discharged three shots from a handgun and two bodies fell, one toppling forward and one slumping upon the shoulder of his neighbour, as if seeking comfort in death.

Luis’ group hesitated briefly behind the barn. They could no longer see what was going on, but the gunfire had come no closer. Luis assigned a man to guard each corner of the building. A third followed him towards a small wooden door in the middle of the tall, Dutch-style, rear wall. It was slightly ajar. As Luis listened carefully he could hear the low, distressed whimpers of the captives within. He peered cautiously through the gap. A shaft of sunshine streamed into the barn from beneath the eaves. At ground level it was in semi-darkness and he could see little. His companion gently tested the door. There was a metallic squeal and something that had been leaning against it fell slowly to the floor. Someone began to cry. Luis heard male voices. The beam of a powerful torch began searching the wide floor area. Now he could make out the silhouettes of several pairs of female figures, tied back to back. The torch bearer stood framed in the doorway to what looked like a small back office.

“It’s the wind!” the man exclaimed. “Now shut up and await your turn. You’re all fucked, but some of you will be more fucked than others, if you piss me off now.” There was more cursing and crying. Luis heard a sharp smack across someone’s face. The crying subsided into stifled sobs.

“Now check outside then close that fucking door.”

Only two guards, Luis conjectured. He and his companion, Silvio, stared resolutely at each other. It was now or never. They heard the internal door close again, a female scream from beyond it, and then more distant cursing. Much closer there were footsteps - slow and irregular - as though someone was picking carefully through debris. The two sank back on either side of the entrance, both clutching at switchblades. The handle rattled, the door swung open and an unarmed figure stepped outside. He squinted at the hillside above, which still held on to the last rays of the sun. Luis sprang upwards, swung an arm around his neck and forced his head back. His partner leapt to his side and jabbed his knife straight at the protruding Adam’s apple and windpipe.

Even after the man’s knees had given way, Luis clung on. He could feel the warm corporeal dampness soaking into his shirt. Finally, he lowered the limp dead weight of the body carefully to the ground. At either end of the building his lookouts gave a nod and a thumbs-up. Luis gestured one of them over to guard the door. He put away his knife then carefully screwed a silencer onto the barrel of his pistol. Silvio did the same, wiping the blood from his blade onto the dead man’s shirt. The two slipped cautiously into the barn. There were no other watchmen.

Their presence was not initially noticed. It was not until they were in the middle of the floor that a woman looked up. She was wearing a gag and her face registered no interest. Luis was all too aware what she saw when she glanced at him. She looked down again and hugged at her knees, rocking slightly. Bright artificial light framed the ill-fitting doorway to the office. The shaft of sunshine overhead had faded away, so this entrance stood out, like a portal to the underworld. Both laughter and muffled cries of pain filtered through from beyond. The two interlopers repeated their previous routine, but this time Luis had a clear view of what lay beyond. Through a particularly large gap, made by someone levering out a lock, he could see a broad muscular thug in khaki camouflage gear, pinning a young woman to a table. One hand clasped her shoulder and the edge of her skirt, which was pulled up to reveal the pale fullness of her bare buttocks. The other moved cruelly within her. Her face was turned towards Luis, tears streaming from her eyes and lacy underwear hanging from her mouth. The rapist was swopping crude jokes about the girl with someone who Luis could not see. The assailant paused to unzip his trousers. As he began to pull at the girl’s dark hair in order to turn her over, Luis kicked the door in and delivered a single shot to the base of his skull. The force doubled him over onto the table. He lay there alongside his conquest, one arm falling across her in a grotesque embrace, the other channelling his lifeblood onto the floor.

“Shit!”

Naked from the waist down, another gangster wheeled around in the blind corner where he had pinned a terrified girl. Like a caged animal he threw himself headlong at Silvio. Silvio and his gun flew separately into the opposite wall. Luis kicked the assailant savagely in the balls from behind, before he could regain his balance. The man doubled up, heaving for sufficient breath to scream. Silvio shook his head to clear his concussion. He struggled unsteadily back onto his feet then dropped the folded figure with a vicious stranglehold. Luis fired off three shots into the second rapist’s protruding backside.

The girl still kneeling in the corner began to blubber uncontrollably. As Luis turned towards her she let out the hideous wail of a wild animal in pain. He leapt to her side and forced his hand over her mouth. She was naked, she couldn’t have been more than seventeen, and she looked at Luis as though he was hell itself. For half a second he confirmed her view: adrenaline merged with testosterone and he felt the raw, primeval urge to take what he had won. Then he recoiled in self-disgust. Silvio was already half out of the office, heading for the barn doors. Before either could get there, the battle was raging outside.

Alejandro was dead: it was the first thing Gennaro said when Luis fought his way back to him. He had gone berserk when the action started, running into the ring of Xterra thugs, and firing until he ran out of bullets. Another old hand had been shot in the stomach, and was on the ground a short distance away. Silvio had broken a collarbone. He sat down on a grassy bank so a colleague could fashion a rough sling. One more hostage had died, as he grappled bravely for a gun. All of Xterra were dead. Luis did not need to ask why there were no living casualties. He had just witnessed some of the executions.

A police car bounced its way down the dirt track. An ambulance followed, but nobody emerged from these vehicles. Luis looked around the increasingly cold and shady hollow. The scene looked like a tableau in oils celebrating the end of some great military campaign, but Luis felt no sense of triumph. He read too much into the lengthening shadows. Xterra would see this as a declaration of war, a war that they would need to win decisively if they were not to lose their grip on those they terrorised. His own family had now to militarise, or to run.

Luis waved to the police, who were still sitting warily in their vehicles. A few of the survivors were beginning to cast around uncertainly for support. As the officers made their way towards them, other civilians; friends and relatives of those who had been kidnapped, followed cautiously. Luis sat down, emotionally exhausted, and watched the remainder of the human drama play itself out in front of him. Some found the living, others the dead and the valley became a battleground between the extremes of human emotion. A second ambulance appeared and soon the worst of the living casualties had been stretchered or led away.

Luis left Gennaro’s side and walked towards two women who had found their sons alive and well in the melee. They greeted him with tears and thanks, but Luis took little notice. He outlined the situation in the barn to his men. The two women must go in first and alone. There had been enough terror and humiliation for one day.

Gennaro gathered the troops and headed for the main road. Luis made arrangements for the body of Alejandro to be collected, and then followed. They headed back to Rochas Blancas. They would have to play the role of gallant liberators for at least another day. Then they would leave a dozen men behind to maintain a visible presence. That would help to calm the situation in the gaol. It would also slow Xterra down. Xterra would have to be cautious and wait until they knew the strength of Las Contadonas in the town. They would also have to decide whether to bother with it at all, or to attack directly in Juarez. Luis realised only too well what he had really done for the town. He had turned it into a target for punishment, with all the horrors that might entail. Hopefully, the Federal police would turn up first. Hopefully then, they would decide to stay. Luis wasn’t confident. There was no election to be won and the government were as likely to cover the whole thing up. Why do anything to highlight the situation? This day would probably not even make the press. Only the bravest would write that article.

Luis sighed to himself in tiredness and frustration, trying to ignore a nagging sense of fear and heaviness of spirit that refused to go away. His truck rolled on through the night. Events had now gathered their own momentum.

Chapter Seventeen

Coba

“Chocolate?” David waved a bar of dark, spiced, Mayan chocolate in the general direction of the two children. He took their giggled response as a no and slung it back into the large cool-box in the middle of the minibus. They were on their way to an overnight stay in the ancient pre-Columbian city of Coba, deep within the jungles of the interior. Everyone was in a good mood and considerably more relaxed now in each other’s company.

David watched the forest sweep by. The road was smooth and wide, only narrowing for an occasional village, most no more than a line of concrete shacks, fronted by diverse piles of tourist tat. Yesterday had gone well. They had lazed and swum within the cool embrace of the cenote for several hours. The small kiosk at its base that hired snorkelling equipment had fortuitously doubled as a bar. Each person had followed the sun’s slow movement from rock to rock, reading, chatting and drying out after intermittent dips into the clear, deep waters. David’s curiosity quickly overcame any coyness at stripping down to his swimming shorts. He had lowered himself off a small wooden dock, into clean waters alive with small fish. Swifts nested in shady crevasses only feet from the swimmers and patches of reflected light danced across the walls. As he swam into his first cave, David noticed a clutch of tiny bats shuffling for the darkest position on the roof. The cave ended in another pool of light, where the waters receded into mud and shingle around the floor of a smaller cenote. David had tripped his way backwards out of the water, struggling with his flippered feet. He stood in his own patch of sunshine, staring up at the open circle of stone above him. Beyond that nothing showed and nothing else seemed to matter. He had forced himself to think of Phoebe but, if he had felt anything, it had only been relief. He had stood for several minutes sucking in that instant, whilst back in the shadows the children, plus Flick and Ethan, dived and splashed around.

David smiled at nothing in particular and decided to talk to Dana, who had joined their little party on the pretence of never having visited Coba before. She was sitting next to him, peering intently ahead over the back of Laura’s shoulder to where the dead straight road shrank to nothing in particular in the middle distance.

“Have you noticed the butterflies?” he enquired.

“Sorry, David, what did you say?”

“Have you noticed all the butterflies?” David gestured ahead.

Dana looked at the road again, as though she hadn’t actually noticed it before. “No, to be honest, I wasn’t really looking. I was thinking about work, I’m afraid.”

“Fortunately that isn’t something I’ve had to do for the last few days,” David commented, warmly.

They were silent for a few moments, listening to an allegedly funny song that Darryl was trying to encourage his children to sing.

“There are a lot, aren’t there!” Dana sounded very correct and vaguely disapproving: almost like an old-fashioned school Ma’am, commenting upon a student’s numerous spelling errors. “Why do you think they’re all in the road?”

David thought for a moment. “Maybe it’s the heat: perhaps the warmth from the road helps them fly, or possibly it’s somewhere to be seen when you’re looking for a mate?”

They were silent again, both studying their subjects. Every few hundred metres a vortex of insects would spiral up from the tarmac, dance over the bonnet and tumble up the windscreen in an interrupted swirling dance. One lodged under a windscreen wiper.

“Such a waste, really,” Dana mused.

“I don’t know,” responded David, “perhaps that butterfly changed the world before it died. Have you heard of chaos theory and the butterfly effect?”

“Weren’t they films?”

“I think so,” David giggled, “but also a branch of Mathematics. You must know the famous illustration of the theory, where a butterfly beating its wings in Brazil causes a hurricane in the Caribbean?”

“I guess that means we’re in trouble,” Dana responded.

“How so?”

“Well, these butterflies are a good deal closer to the Caribbean than those in Brazil.”

David laughed the sort of unselfconscious laugh that had not been a part of his personal repertoire for a long time. He turned slightly to see Dana’s face. It was long and pretty, with a slightly pinched quality. Rich green eyes sat like emeralds above pronounced cheek bones and a scattering of freckles. She returned his gaze, equally curious.

“David, you’ll sing, won’t you?” Darryl was recruiting more widely, having failed dismally with Hannah and Lloyd, who had shrunk back into their ipods.

Jackie leaned forward and put a hand on David’s shoulder. “Don’t worry; he’ll shut up eventually if we keep ignoring him.” She cast a look of mock disapproval at her husband. “Laura, how much farther do we have to go?”

Laura twisted in her front seat to focus on Marcus, who in turn looked enquiringly at their driver, Cesar.

“About another half hour,” he turned and shouted to the back of the bus. “We will arrive before any big coaches. We can make the walk in the forest and it will not be too hot, although I think maybe you will not believe me. It is very cold in England.”

It is very cold in England. The words struck a chord with David and brought to mind a succession of negative experiences which had little to do with the weather. Feeling suddenly pensive, he turned back to the blur of trees passing the window and proceeded to chew at a finger nail. A short while later he had drifted into fitful slumber.

“What’s that?” Hannah had been shaken from her computer game by the increasingly bumpy road through the ramshackle village that formed modern-day Coba. She was looking towards a small jetty, jutting out into a reed-fringed lake. One man stood by a rough gate at the near end, whilst two others leaned against a none-too-safe looking railing at the other. A sign suspended above the gate read “Cocodrilo”.

“There are crocodiles in the lake,” Cesar shouted. “It is not permitted to feed them, but these men do. They make money by attracting them for the tourists.”

“Marcus, can we see them?” Lloyd pleaded.

Marcus gestured to Cesar and the minibus drew up on the opposite side of the road beside a weather-beaten, tin-roofed cottage. Dana made excuses about pressure of work and left to walk back to a nearby lakeside hotel, where they were all to spend the night. Marcus chatted briefly to her outside the van then jogged across the lakeside highway to the figure at the gate. Soon he waved for the group to follow. David hung back, groggy from his dozing and already missing Dana’s comforting presence. His insular mood only increased when he heard Marcus babbling away confidently in Spanish. The locals cast lumps of meat from a bucket into the water. Large shoals of colourful fishes instantly gathered to peck at the flesh. David noticed his first crocodile, a six foot juvenile, pushing its way out through the rushes.

There was a squeal of excitement from Hannah and Felicity at the far end of the platform. They had clearly spotted something much more exciting. David was about to join them when Marcus put a powerful hand on his arm and issued a hearty Well done. Apparently he had been sensible enough not to crowd the far end of the rickety wharf. David smiled a forced smile, shoved his hands into his pockets and stared out across the broad expanse of water. He recalled the “Well done, David” from the telephone call that had brought him to Mexico - and the oddly familiar, overly personal lady on the other end of the line. How sick he was of people patronising him.

He swayed and clutched suddenly at the fragile rail. Out of nowhere it came to him whose voice it had been on the phone.

“Are you alright, mate?” Marcus looked concerned. David had gone as white as a sheet.

“It’s OK, just the heat,” David responded. The rest of his mind struggled to catch up with its own revelation.

“Culjinder,” he mumbled to himself.” It was Culjinder!”

“What was Culjinder?” Marcus sounded completely bemused.

David hadn’t even realised he had spoken and now had no idea what else to say. Fortunately, Laura hailed Marcus at that moment. Circumstances at the other end of the peer were getting dodgy. He left David to his thoughts.

“Bloody hell!” David swore, at nothing in particular. How on earth had Phoebe known about Culjinder? Even as the question left him he had his answer. Of course! Yes, of course. She had seen the photograph album. That must be why I couldn’t find it. But how did Phoebe contact her? This was a harder question to answer, but then David remembered the letter from Culjinder that David had pasted into the back of the album. There was an address and a telephone number and, even after many years, that was a pretty good lead. But why had she contacted her? That question he could not answer. Nor did he want to think about the conversations they must have shared, or how they had decided to send him to Mexico.

“Shit!” He had been patronised again. He was so sick of people trying to organise his life that he could have wrestled the juvenile crocodile which had arrived at its first chunk of meat, and was snapping its jaws across it.

“Come on, David,” Ethan was calling. He wandered up to join the rest of the group. Over the shoulders of the two crouching children, David caught his first glimpse of the antediluvian monster that was causing all the excitement. Twice as big as a man, it was ignoring every chunk of meat thrown its way. It was only a short distance from the end of the jetty, which stood no more than two feet out of the water. David knew instantly what was going to happen, but completely failed to appreciate why he felt so calm. Grabbing both children by their shirt collars, he hauled them onto their backsides. Hannah’s camera flew from her hand, bounced once on the end of the deck and plopped into the water. In the same instant the crocodile sprang forward and both Laura and Felicity screamed and fell headlong backwards over the two sitting figures. Laura caught the lower railing just in time to avoid rolling sideways into the lake. David took a mental snapshot of the creature suspended by its teeth from a length of rail, its tail thrashing wildly. Then the wood broke. The crocodile jack-knifed to one side, plunged back into the lake, stirred up a thick mud soup, and sped off into deep water.

“Madre de Dios!” Cesar had crossed the road and was running towards them. Laura struggled to her knees and hugged Hannah, who had begun crying hysterically. Jackie joined her. Marcus and Ethan helped Felicity to her feet. She had cut her hand on the rough planking as she fell and it was bleeding heavily. Marcus ran off to get the first aid kit. Lloyd put his head in his hands then ran his fingers deep into his thick blond hair. He was shaking. Darryl stood at the back of the group alongside Cesar, swearing continuously.

Though surrounded by panic and chaos, David’s mind had disconnected as soon as he noticed the rich, brown turbulence. He felt utterly at peace. He was smiling. An image of Culjinder stole his attention. They were together in India, on David’s only previous adventure. Culjinder had been trying to change position in a dugout canoe their group was using to explore the creeks of a mangrove swamp. She had fallen in as the boat rocked unexpectedly and disappeared from sight in the milk chocolate waters. Then she had risen from the deep beside him, her long, dark hair and white teeth gleaming in the strong sunlight. It was the first time in a week of touring that their eyes had met and each held the other’s gaze for several seconds longer than necessary. That girl, at that moment, remained the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Culjinder had stretched up a hand for David to grasp and he and the boatman had struggled to assist her aboard.

“David, are you alright?” It was Ethan. The others were making their way back to the bus, in twos and threes. Cesar and Marcus were arguing with the men operating the platform. David returned to the present and jogged to catch up.

Twenty minutes later, all sort comfort from soft drinks or ice-cream in a heavily varnished, open-air restaurant, close to the entrance to Coba’s forest and archaeological complex. They sat quietly, contemplating their purchases with little enthusiasm for anything else. For the first time in several years, Hannah had an arm draped across her brother, Lloyd’s, shoulders. Felicity was slowly flexing her injured hand.

“Bloody hell, that was close!” It was John Tanner, who was looking accusingly across the long trestle table at Marcus. Marcus looked sheepish, and his artificially cheery “No harm done,” struck nobody, particularly Laura, as a suitable response.

“It was lucky David lost his balance,” Sharon Tanner added, angrily. “He grabbed the kids as he stumbled, which pulled them out of the way; otherwise they’d have gone the same way as the camera.”

David knew what was coming. He clenched his fists and stared fixedly into his drink.

“Well done, David!” Laura beamed earnestly in his direction. Everyone else forced a smile too but, unlike the others, Laura instantly recognised she had said the wrong thing.

“Maybe it was the sudden movement that made the creature strike?” suggested Marcus.

Laura couldn’t stop herself casting him a withering glare. As quickly as she could, she regained control and launched into a different conversation. Marcus had dropped several more notches in her estimation and she didn’t want to think about the implications. “Cesar tells me that it will take three to four hours to explore the city. Apparently, it is spread out across the forest and some of the most interesting buildings are quite a long walk from here. Make sure you’ve collected your packed lunches and that you have your hats and sunscreen with you - best to take a litre of water, as well. We can hire as many local guides as you wish; so no need for everyone to stay with the main group. Nobody should wander off alone, however. Cesar says the jungle can be very disorientating.”

“What time do you want us back?” John enquired, flatly, too shocked to garner any real interest, but glad of the distraction, nonetheless.

Laura glanced reluctantly at Marcus, who said nothing, and may possibly not even have heard, as his expression was fixed and uncharacteristically introspective. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock now, so let’s say three at the latest. Our accommodation tonight is just around the lake and Dana will have taken care of all the formalities. That will leave us two or three hours of daylight to find our bearings there.”

“And the food is meant to be splendid,” Marcus chipped in, “so a good walk should give us all a hearty appetite.” Several of the others got up silently. None wanted to make eye contact.

The party rambled its way mechanically past the gatehouse, to be enveloped by the dappled shade of the forest. Unfortunately, the trees brought no relief from the oppressive heat, as what little breeze there had been in the open car park lost its way between the trunks, and the humidity rose accordingly. Sand and gravel trails headed off in most directions. It was already possible to see bits of wall covered in creepers and a hint of more substantial buildings, just ahead. David was beginning to sweat and was also aware of an excited hum of flying insects nearby. Making his excuses to Ethan and Felicity, who were busy adjusting the dressing covering her cut hand, he shuffled back to the bus. There he grabbed some insect repellent, and a magazine he could use as a fan.

By the time David returned most of the others were either climbing a pyramid-like lookout tower, or standing in a Mayan ball court, debating the rules of the ancient game it used to house. These diversions were already helping to leaven the tension.

The court was long and narrow, the walls down each side sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees. David imagined it could host a good game of real tennis, or keepie-uppie football, but the small stone rings halfway down each sloping wall seemed impossible targets for a goal.

“Apparently, the captain of the winning side was beheaded after the game,” informed Sharon, bluntly.

David stood, hands on hips, imagining the crowd peering down from the top of each ramp. Here, he mused to himself, was a sporting arena in which he would have been entirely safe. He had never experienced captaincy and there was absolutely no way he would have managed to direct any kind of ball through one of those hoops.

Reinvigorated by their early encounters with this ancient metropolis, most were impatient to move on and to distance themselves further from their earlier scare. Figures soon disappeared into the greenery, following dead-straight Mayan thoroughfares which ran for miles through the jungle, linking town to town with an economy of effort only matched by the Romans. The Tanners were last to depart. They appeared keen to explore beyond every stone corner first, having emerged triumphantly from one building to declare they had discovered a tunnel from one part of the complex to another. They marched off purposely on either side of their guide, interrogating her knowledge with rapid-fire questions, in part generated by lingering adrenaline.

David and the children loitered in a clearing containing a small wooden kiosk. It was obvious that both Hannah and Lloyd were still shaken by their lakeside encounter. Neither was keen for another adventure. They sat with David at a picnic bench used by the guides and, for a short while, concentrated on drinking deeply from their water bottles.

“I know you didn’t trip over,” announced Lloyd. “You knew we’d got too close to the big crocodile, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” David whispered.

“Then why didn’t you say something?” Lloyd was bemused.

Davis just shrugged. He would have had to narrate his entire life story to answer that question.

“And I’m not at all worried about losing that old camera,” added Hannah. “It was not very good and Mum and Dad will probably claim for a better one on the insurance, knowing them. They always manage to find something to claim for.”

“So are you two OK now?” enquired David.

“I think so,” replied Lloyd. “It’s funny, isn’t it: out here the animals are real? It’s nothing like going to a zoo.”

“It’s the little ones I’m most worried about,” responded David in frustration, as he failed for the third time to swat a particularly persistent fly with his rolled up magazine.

“Have you done this sort of thing before?” asked Hannah.

“Once: a long time ago, when I was not much older than you two.”

“Didn’t you enjoy it?” Hannah seemed genuinely interested.

“I did. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I was thinking about it only a little while ago. Back home I’m always talking to my girlfriend about it. It was her idea that I come here.”

“Why didn’t she come too?”

“Her father died recently and, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve been very easy to live with. Sometimes adults need time apart.”

For a moment Hannah struggled to think of a grown up response, then gave up. “Where did you go?” she enquired.

“I went to India. It was fantastic. I was young and I fell in love with someone. I realised recently that I still care for her. I think it’s been holding me back for years.” David emerged from his reverie to realise the conversation was verging on the inappropriate. “Come on,” he declared, “let’s see if we can hire those bikes behind the shelter. If we’re lucky, we should be able to catch up with the others and get to see all the ruins with a lot less effort.”

Soon they were following a guide at high speed down a broad white trail, a welcome stream of fresh air countering the extra effort of pedalling. The children were at the back, now singing the silly song their father had plied them with earlier. David found it hard to resist the urge to join in. His mood had swung from despondency to exhilaration and he was increasingly aware that this bipolar tendency was one of his main issues. At least, he reflected, there was now some positivity and excitement thrown into his emotional mix. Poor Phoebe would not have experienced much of either. He swept past the Tanners with a wave and a grin then slowed, as their little convoy reached the Morgans. They had stopped to take pictures of a troupe of small monkeys. The children peeled off to be with their parents. David cycled on with the guide, keen to hold on to the breeze and his positive mood for as long as possible.

They swept into the bottom end of a large clearing. In front of them stood a small wooden café, several cycle racks, and a noticeboard. The clearing climbed away through a scattering of small trees and shrubs to their left. David parked his bike and looked around for the others. He seemed to be the only tourist within view. His guide began chatting to the man behind the café counter, so David moved on alone, assuming he would soon see the remainder of the party. Instead, his full attention was taken by a colossal pyramid, larger and grander than anything he was expecting, rising beyond the far end of the clearing. He could see a scattering of individuals climbing skywards, over large rough sections of stone, but nobody whom he recognised.

The thrill of being first to the top superseded his desire to locate the others. The grand central staircase also drew him magnetically upwards, but even before he reached its base he was out of breath. He sat on the lowest step. As he stared back down the slope, he could see some of the others emerging. A large, electric-blue morpho butterfly held him spell-bound as it ambled from one side of the clearing to the other. A gift from the gods, David surmised, wondering how such casual beauty might seed a hurricane. He began to climb methodically - three steps and a rest - then sat down again. He was now more than halfway to the summit, at the same level as the forest canopy. A carpet of green, punctured by lesser Mayan structures, rolled away towards a hazy horizon. Perhaps, he considered, another perspective was what he needed. If he could see things differently he might find how to get his life moving. Or he might grow happier with what he had.

He was at the summit: a narrow platform, with a simple stone shelter at the back. Beyond that the jungle re-established itself. Only the front of the pyramid had been reclaimed from the undergrowth. The whole edifice was like a battleground between man and nature, a giant wave on a shifting coastline between plant and stone. David imagined a Mayan warrior climbing the sacred structure, to be lifted above the jungle for the first time, and the last. He would enter a world of sun and open sky, not sweat and lingering shadow, to be transported - who knows where?

He looked around. He was alone. There were no temple priests to mark his passage, or even other tourists with whom he could share the moment. There was no blood sacrifice to colour the scene. In his head, David travelled a universe in which he was always at the centre, and in which everything he did held some import. He had climbed beyond his brain and expanded into an ocean of jungle.

David tried to think of how to lighten up. He was aware that his mind was beginning to spiral into yet another convoluted internal monologue. He needed someone to whom he could holler or wave, someone to notice. He could see the bobbing heads of a couple, who were shuffling on their bottoms down the final steep steps. Nothing else caught his eye.

He was reluctant to leave. He needed a place in somebody else’s world. He was also more than a little nervous of the precipitous-looking downward slope. He had left his hat on the bus when he retrieved his insect repellent, and the sun was now at its zenith. He edged for relief into the narrow doorway of the small stone temple, despite a dislike of confined spaces. On either side, two carved gods squatted with arms aloft, as though holding up the heavens. Come on then, he told himself, does the sky fall in if I face a fear. He forced his way through the narrow opening into the darkness. There was a loud hissing sound. David jumped involuntarily upward from his semi-crouched position and his head connected with unforgiving masonry.

“Balls!” Dazed and confused, he tried to turn around and feel his way back the way he had come. The hissing surrounded him, as though a giant serpent was about to strike. Then he tripped and stumbled back into the blinding light of midday.

“Hello, David.” It was Laura. She had ascended quickly to the summit of the pyramid, relieved at the opportunity to vent her own concerns of the day upon the tough stone staircase.

David put his hands on his knees in order to regain his breath, his balance and his composure. After a few seconds he was able to return Laura’s sympathetic smile. Although this was the second time he had made a fool of himself around her, for some reason she did not make him feel either patronised or embarrassed. In a certain way Laura was just there, like the temple and the forest, a disinterested and non-judgemental observer of other people’s machinations. If he could have read her mind at that moment and learned of her doubts and frustration at Marcus, he may have come to a different conclusion.

A small, skinny tabby had emerged from the doorway, behind them. The cat carried a diminutive kitten by the scruff of its neck. Three other balls of fluff crept, one after the other, from the darkness and followed their mother around the side of the building and into the dense undergrowth.

“Bloody cats,” David swore. “That was what spooked me when I went inside.”

“Cute though,” suggested Laura and the pair laughed: a sense of relief usurping their frustrations.

They followed the route the cats had taken and sat together in a small patch of shade. David, always more comfortable around females, felt the urge to gabble surge within him, but it was Laura who spoke first.

“I’m so sorry about what happened earlier. We should have been a lot more careful. I think you may have saved us from something very nasty.”

“No problem: I always assume the worst is going to happen. Every now and then it pays off.”

“And now everyone is going their own way. We were all getting along so well, yesterday.” Laura was rolling a pebble she had plucked from the floor through her fingers, as unselfconsciously as a small child.

“I wouldn’t worry. Everyone needs space to deal with what happened. I was probably doing the same. As soon as we’ve worked it through, people will come together again.”

“You are very calm.”

“Didn’t you see me a moment ago?” David turned to stare at Laura, enquiringly. She was still playing with the stone, throwing it now from one hand to the other.

“Yes, things happen to you, but you react to them so well.” Laura remained focused on her juggling.

David thought for a moment. “You are very kind. If it’s true then that is definitely a new thing in me. I think Mexico must be doing me good. Is this your first time here?”

“It’s my first time anywhere, really.” Laura clasped the pebble tightly and turned to meet his gaze. “I’ve only just got the job and it’s still just a trial.”

“I’m surprised: you’re most assured.”

“I am enjoying it. I think this is quite new for Marcus, as well. All his previous experience has been in the Mediterranean.”

“Same sort of thing,” David supposed, “but with fewer crocodiles.”

Laura giggled girlishly and aimed her stone at a spindly tree trunk. She felt very relaxed in the presence of this curious, overweight, middle-aged lost soul. Despite his obvious lack of self-belief, he had a very natural paternal quality that Laura found appealing.

“What did you do before?” enquired David, as he dabbed at perspiration with a handkerchief.

“I worked in advertising. I liked the creativity, but you soon realise that most of the products are brought to you precisely because they aren’t very good. It was excellent experience, but it all felt rather contrived. Sitting on top of this temple feels like real life.”

“I know exactly what you mean. Here we’re not scrambling after life, it’s actually happening to us, even if sometimes a little more intensely than we might wish.”

“What about you, David, have you travelled before?”

“Do you know, the children asked me that earlier - just before we realised we could hire bicycles and save all the walking? As I told them, I went to India a long time ago. The strangest thing is that I think someone you know was with me - do you remember what Phoebe, my girlfriend, told you?”

Laura looked blankly back at David. For some reason she thought it must be her father, but he had never really travelled.

“I was with a girl called Culjinder.”

Laura looked back at David with an even more intensely blank expression than before. She was thinking methodically through what he had just said. Then the reality hit her. “No!” She responded like a schoolgirl whose best friend had just told her that the most studious pupil in the class was pregnant. Then she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

David was quiet too. How could he explain something he didn’t himself understand? They sat for several moments, looking across the forest canopy. Then Marcus and Cesar joined them.

“Great view!” Marcus enthused.

Nobody else spoke.

Chapter Eighteen

London

Alfredo stared into the ale glass on the sticky, heavily stained table top in front of him. It was neither half full nor half empty. It was just there, an alien beer in an alien-shaped glass. Alfredo hated England. He hated the smug look that accompanied every suit. He hated the unintelligible range of accents. Most clearly, through his drink and drug induced haze, he hated the crushing normality of it all. People here lived ordinary lives they did not need to rationalise. There was no fantasy of omnipotence, no instant respect which did not need to be earned. Worst of all, there was nobody to point him in the right direction. Alfredo wanted to punch someone: anyone. He looked around the bar full of loud, confident, smiling faces. Nobody here looked like a victim. Nobody looked as though they wanted a fight. Even the manager of his hotel had given him only the politest of dressing downs about the succession of women he brought back to his room. Other valued clients had complained and he would either need to desist or leave. Alfredo had sworn loudly in an earthy form of rural Mexican. Then he had left for a cheap American chain hotel further down the road.

He stood up decisively. He could not bear another long hour in the enervating atmosphere of a bland hotel room and would not return there until it was time to sleep. In the meantime he would find somewhere that better suited his mood. He pushed his way unnoticed through the Friday night throng. Stepping out onto the street, he struggled to put his newly acquired raincoat on, unstable gusts of damp air tugging at its flapping corners. Putting his head down he started to walk. Wherever he ended up, there would surely be a tube station nearby. With hands thrust deep into plastic pockets, it still felt strange and slightly unnerving not to feel the solid security of a pistol hidden in his clothing. He studied those he passed on the broad pavement: couples, groups of boastful young men and the occasional briefcase hurrying home. Still nobody noticed him. Why did nobody notice him? He wasn’t sure why it mattered, or how it made him feel, but it was not a positive sensation: almost as though he didn’t exist. He began to walk faster.

He thought back to his two visits to the bicycle warehouse. The first had been brief, Alfredo was still in a daze from his journey and most of the time had been taken up by introductions and a tour of the complex. He had not needed to say a lot and the only awkward moment had come when he was asked about the strong American drawl to his English. “Travel” he had responded with a shrug and, whether his answer was taken as empty or enigmatic, it was not pursued. Nobody had questioned who he was or asked to see any credentials.

The second visit had not gone so well. Alfredo’s contact in London was a lawyer, Christian Monteverde, originally from Venezuela. He had set up an appointment with the bank and helped Alfredo through the paperwork needed for a regular transfer to El Paso. Then he had driven him back down to Portsmouth. Unfortunately, the warehouse manager took the opportunity to discuss various aspects of how the bikes were manufactured. Neither Alfredo nor Christian could respond convincingly. Christian explained that their expertise lay in finance, but this only led to a flurry of complaints and enquiries. Why was there never any response to letters and emails? Too many bicycles were being returned as faulty. The distributors needed a bigger margin to make any profit.

A car horn blared as Alfredo raced the flashing lights at a pedestrian crossing. He clattered into a bag-laden woman on the far side and swore. The lady looked scared. At least she had noticed him, so he smiled politely and said sorry. He swung into a late-opening music store to escape the cold, but what was on offer held no interest. Music was something sultry, late night, live and Latin: more chemistry than disc.

London was like a giant parking lot for the unwanted and the dispossessed. He must keep going or he might never find a way out. Alfredo moved back onto the street. Both road and pavement were empty. He noticed the lit windows spaced randomly above the shops. For some people, this place was called home. He wondered where his own home was. His favourite place had always been Rancho Morales, in the mountains above Chihuahua. For a few brief childhood years he had spent most of his time there. Although he now only visited rarely, there was still a room that he could call his own. It was the only place that never changed. Alfredo was afraid of change. His childhood had been punctuated by a succession of young women arriving at the ranch to take care of him and Luis. Few survived the predatory microcosm of machismo and misogyny for long, but each provided Alfredo with just a hint of an alternative, more feminine world. Both boys escaped into that world whenever they could, but it was Alfredo, as the younger brother, who clung to it more. Around these young women Alfredo had felt safe and, in one or two instances, loved. As part governess, part private tutor, each girl had revelled in the apparent freedom of ranch life; ranging far and wide across the open and dramatic mountain landscapes in search of education and amusement. Most, however, soon came to resent lack of access to the city and the heavy security which accompanied even a trip to the local market. The prettier ones were harassed by the guards. The prettiest became a target for Don Felipe. Failure to acquiesce to his advances was grounds for instant dismissal. One or two tried to find common cause with his reclusive wife, Marta, but alcohol steadily eroded her indignation to the point where she was little more than a prisoner to both the ranch and her own addiction.

Alfredo had reached Hamley’s toy shop on Regents Street. With a sudden start of recognition, memories flooded back.

It was Luis’ eighth birthday and Uncle Felipe had arrived unexpectedly that morning, driving a pickup and wearing a huge grin. In the back of the truck was a crate, which had come all the way from a toyshop in London. Inside was a beautiful, shining red sports car. Alfredo was only four and this was one of his oldest memories. He remembered driving the car, Luis running alongside him grasping the steering wheel. It was only much later, at a bar during Alfredo’s own eighteenth birthday party, that a gnarled old plantation worker, whom Alfredo had made fun of, retorted by revealing that the present had been extorted from his boss. It was intended for the plantation owner’s son. Felipe had added this gift and a beating to the usual sum of protection money in response to some slight. Alfredo never told Luis, who idolised Felipe as a child, partly because Alfredo’s own view of Luis as his protector was founded upon this early memory of shared glee.

Alfredo marched on towards Oxford Street, now even more perturbed. Up ahead he could see the crowded junction and an Underground sign. Not yet ready to descend, he swung into a cobbled side street. The distinctive subway symbol dragged along another memory, one that unsettled him in an altogether different way. It was the face of a girl and the faces of girls were not usually something he remembered. He had seen her recently at a tube station, for only the briefest of moments, but her image had already come back to him once, in a dream. The strangest thing was that the dream was not set in London, but back in Mexico, and it was not he who saw her, but the little boy he had once been. In his mind, he now connected the dream with his memory of the toy car. Surprised by the connection, he stopped and stared blankly ahead of him. The image of Liberty’s Department Store came gradually into focus a few yards further along the street, its nineteenth century, arts and crafts architecture a triumphant anachronism in a city devoted to trade. Uncertainly, Alfredo paced slowly towards it. There was a female voice in his head calling to him and telling him to be careful. It had only made him want to pedal faster. He and Luis were both laughing.

“Felipe, get them to slow down, please.”

The voice rang out, as clearly as if he were being hailed from the other side of the street. He saw her dress and her pinafore. He saw his father standing beside her, smiling in approval, arms folded across his muscular chest. Alfredo reached out blindly for something to steady him. He was going to be sick. His hand grasped the sill beneath a large display window. He focused on the reflection in the glass of his own sallow features. Then he peered into the dark interior, where drapery adorned an ensemble of painted furniture. The pattern could just be made out. It was the pattern of her dress. He stared at it in disbelief then, through his mind’s eye, looked up at her face. It was his mother.

Alfredo sank to the cold and damp London pavement and put his head in his hands. Wild unnatural sobs whirled around the deserted street. He had never seen her before. For all his days he had been jealous of Luis for having a memory of his mother. On the few occasions that Luis had mentioned her, Alfredo had sucked in his casual descriptions as though his life depended upon remembering every detail, but he had never managed to reconstruct her features. Nor had he been able to recall her voice, although the occasional hint of expensive perfume, or a snatch of some popular song, would draw him to the edge of some profound, yet irretrievable memory.

His mother had been modest and pretty and high borne. She was from a respectable Mexican-American business family based in Tijuana. She had run away with Alfredo’s father, Paulo and they had married without her parents’ knowledge or consent. At first Estella had managed to turn Paulo away from his mobster roots and they had fled to a quiet old colonial coastal town, on the southern fringes of the Gulf of Mexico. There, two years later, Luis had been born. They made contact with Estella’s parents, who came to visit in an act of reconciliation. Paulo used the monies they brought with them to buy an ailing garage, which he turned into a successful re-spray business. Then, one day, Felipe had driven into the forecourt and everything changed again.

Paulo was needed at home. His own father was in hospital, as a result of a drunken brawl. He would die from his injuries before Paulo made it back. He felt guilty and he knew that his brother would not cope alone, so he returned with Estella to the ranch on the edge of the Sierra Madre. Estella had been uncomfortable there from the start. She observed Paulo turning into someone else, someone she found hard to love, day after disappointing day, but she stuck by him. Luis became the main focus of her attention and soon she was pregnant again. With Alfredo and Luis to care for, she shut out as much of Paulo’s world as she could. Work was never discussed at the table and Paulo was always there on a Sunday, at its head. Felipe got married, and for a while she and his wife Marta were friends. She was happy again. Then she was gone.

Alfredo did not know how his mother had died, but the full tragedy of her passing was now ripping through him like never before. He could not move. For a long time he sat below the picture window in front of Liberty’s store. At some point a gruff Cockney voice asked if he was alright. He gestured it away. A stray cat came and nuzzled around him. He gave it an instinctive, territorial swipe. His sorrow slowly evolved into numbness. Despite his urgent desire to recreate his mother’s face again, it would not come. Even his image of the girl on the tube had been swept away, like the changing faces on an automatic advertising hording. Now all he could see was the departing train, a train he was meant to have caught.

Alfredo finally found his way to an all-night cafe in the back streets of Soho. He entered more for warmth than for food. He also wanted to examine the text message, which had been bleeping its presence for some time on his phone. He ordered a coffee and a burger then pulled a tall stool up to a narrow table-top which offered a view out onto the night. He examined the cell-phone screen.

Call me.

The message was from Luis. Alfredo hesitated.

This was not a part of the plan and there was none of the usual concern for security. Alfredo knew at once that something was wrong. He also knew that he wanted to support his brother. In seeing his mother’s face he was seeing his own life clearly for the first time. The one real constant in his life was Luis. He loved his brother as much as the mother he had never known. There was nobody else in his life he was sure of, certainly not his father, Paulo. Any love he held for his father was well-drilled deference, whilst his love for Luis was deep and mutual.

Alfredo slurped the remains of his coffee, took one large bite from the just delivered burger, thrust the phone into his jacket pocket and headed purposefully for the door. He didn’t know what lay ahead but, whatever it was, he would make his brother proud. Unsure of his way in the maze of tiny streets, he kept to well-lit back roads and passageways, ignoring the regular splashes of neon, snippets of dance music and gaggles of giggling girls which mapped out much of his life to date. He emerged into the theatre lights of Shaftesbury Avenue. Across the road were the red lanterns of London’s China Town. Beneath these hanging symbols of good fortune, road sweepers were already cleaning the street of litter in readiness for Saturday morning shoppers. Alfredo felt for his cell-phone again. It was halfway to his ear when he changed his mind and hailed a taxi. He was suddenly more tired than he could ever remember. First he would sleep and then he would call Luis.

Chapter Nineteen

Coba

Marcus was not having a good day. Everybody but Cesar seemed to be avoiding him and all the gains the group had made on their previous excursion appeared to be lost. He felt unexpectedly out of place in the jungle and increasingly worried that he was out of his depth as well. Already he had endangered the team and this was just gentle acclimatisation before the main expedition. He was not looking forward to explaining what had happened to Dana. It was not so much that they would need to consider the possibility of formal complaints, or even requests for compensation. He was more worried about losing face in front of someone of whom he had already grown fond. She seemed to like him too. Tonight they would gather everybody before dinner and he would apologise. They would give their guests the opportunity to air their views and he would just have to take the expected criticism on the chin. Hopefully there would still be time to repair the damage.

Marcus’ problems had been magnified by a conversation with Cesar. Marcus had ventured Cesar’s father Carlos’ concerns about safety beyond the resorts. Cesar’s response had been frank, but that had only served to compound Marcus’ dilemma. Cesar admitted taking and selling drugs whilst at high school. His father had fortunately found out before the school authorities and put a stop to it. That, Cesar said, would have been the end of the matter, but recently his supplier had made contact, and threatened him when he refused to buy more. Carlos had intervened afresh, but this only drew more threats and he eventually had to buy the dealer off. Cesar’s father was a well-respected businessman with a powerful relative. The family were shaken to find this no longer made them immune to the criminal underworld. Should Marcus inform Dana about Cesar’s background, when he had been so candid? He resolved to hold his peace for now, but to seek his boss, Steven’s counsel as soon as possible.

Laura and David were still sitting atop the main pyramid when Cesar and Marcus arrived. Cesar went to inspect the small temple building, so Marcus joined the other two. For a moment, following his determinedly casual reference to the view, there was a silence pregnant with embarrassment. Marcus was summoning the composure to make the first of what he assumed would be several apologies that day, when Laura interjected. “Were you aware that David knows Culjinder?”

All Marcus’ tension dissipated. He had rarely been more grateful for conversation and he was also genuinely intrigued. “That’s right, you were saying something about Culjinder earlier, weren’t you David?”

David stared at his clasped hands. Both Laura and Marcus worried that they had upset him.

“I knew a Culjinder, a long time ago. I met her during a trip to southern India - Kerala. I was with my elder sister. She’s the adventurous one in the family. She still travels today and on that one occasion she managed to persuade me to go with her.” David paused and smiled shyly at Laura and Marcus. “You two would get on with her well.”

Marcus returned David’s smile. “I know that our Culjinder has family in southern India.”

“It is her, I think. When I booked this holiday the lady I spoke to, whom I’m assuming was your Culjinder, did sound familiar. It was only by the lake today that I made the connection. I understand why she didn’t reveal herself: it would have been much too confusing.”

“Clever of you to remember someone’s voice from so long ago,” Laura suggested.

“Not really, you see I rather fell in love with her. You won’t tell her that, will you?”

Laura and Marcus glanced at each other, nodded then instinctively leaned in closer.

“She was there with her parents and an aunt. She’d left India when she was very young and it was her first time back. They’d been staying with relatives. Her family’s well off; full of doctors and dentists, as far as I could ascertain. She wanted to explore the area before she returned to England, so persuaded her mother and aunt to join a tour, whilst her father took care of property they still owned. If I remember correctly, the tour company was something to do with her family as well. My sister thought joining an organised tour a bit tame. She only did it for my benefit. It was she who got to know Culjinder first. I used to listen in to their conversations. The two of us eventually got talking too and we didn’t stop again for a week.”

“Then what happened?” Laura enquired, eagerly.

“Well nothing, really. We were never left alone for long enough. Her mother and aunt proved to be fierce chaperones. But, by the time the trip ended, I still felt closer to Culjinder than to anyone, ever. We were kindred spirits in a mysterious land, though our real lives were far apart. There was nothing to do but say our polite goodbyes. I remember she blushed when I kissed her on the cheek. Her aunt and she argued fiercely after that. Then she was gone.”

“That’s some coincidence,” Marcus mused, “Culjinder working for a travel company and you booking through her.”

“It is surprising.” David paused and his gaze settled for some moments on the middle distance. He hadn’t thought about why Culjinder worked for a travel company. It brought him closer to her. “I didn’t realise it until I was out here, but I think Phoebe, my girlfriend, saw me looking through a photo album which I put together after the India trip. Culjinder and I exchanged letters back in the UK, and mine from her was in the album. Phoebe must have used the address to locate her. Thinking about it now, that was an amazingly selfless thing to do - she really must love me. I still don’t know how or why the two of them ended up booking me this trip but, sitting here now, I think I’m grateful.”

Laura wanted to know more, but decided it safer to change the subject. “It’s hard to believe this was all a great city once.” She pointed in the general direction of the forest below.

“All those lives,” mused David. “I suppose they achieved some sort of immortality through their building. Even I’d heard of the Mayans, but what of the ordinary people who weren’t builders and whose lives must have been so all-consuming at the time. What is their legacy?”

“David, you sound a little low. Are you sure you haven’t had too much sun?” Marcus’ voice was hesitant, but he looked genuinely concerned.

David regarded him quizzically. He knew Marcus was right, but he was also suddenly angry. People’s lives mattered, somehow, in the grand scheme of things. He was sure of it. He just didn’t know how.

Marcus realised how patronising he must have sounded, so did his best to respond to David’s observation. “Every hill here is a building reclaimed by the jungle.”

“Yes, but the rainforest doesn’t miss the Mayans, for all their grand schemes. People are like butterflies, attention grabbing, but essentially frivolous.” David looked stumped. He was feeling confused, and vaguely aware he was contradicting himself.

Laura was also flagging in the heat, but added “Isn’t there some sort of eco-fable about Mayan civilisation collapsing as they destroyed the environment?”

“Exactly,” Marcus declared, “people matter to people, but not to life on this planet.”

David chuckled, resignedly. “At least I’m not the only serious one. I don’t know about you two, but I could do with an ice-cream. It looks like everyone else feels the same. That seems to be our group, back down by the café.”

“Me to,” Laura pushed herself upright and stretched. “Look what Cesar’s found.”

Cesar was sitting in the sun, smoking. His other hand was playing with a tiny, trembling, ball of fur.

“I found it in the temple.” Cesar twisted towards them and blew smoke into the air. “I don’t think it can be more than a few days old. It must have been abandoned by the mother.”

“My fault, I’m afraid. I scared off the mother and other babies when I went inside.” David walked across to Cesar and squatted by the kitten. “Do you mind if I put it back? I think the family might return when we leave.”

Cesar said nothing, but raised his hand. David scooped up the cat clumsily in his two fleshy paws. Its eyes were still closed, as though in reaction to the trauma of birth. He felt the tiny claws and teeth pricking his skin, but he was not concerned. It was too young to do anything but seek comfort. He soothed it with a finger as he headed back to the sanctuary of the temple. No longer disturbed by the dark or the confined space, he ducked inside. One corner was now bathed in light and it was here that there appeared to be a nest. David crouched carefully, laid the kitten down and pushed the sparse pile of grass and leaves close around it. He sucked in the deep calm of the chamber. This was no offering to the temple gods, he decided. He was making peace with Mother Earth, with the forest, and was glad she cared so little for human affairs.

Marcus also found peace that evening. Dana was surprisingly matter of fact about his revelation and none of the party wanted to make a fuss. He rang Steven and it was only he who struck a note of caution, suggesting that whether people complained probably depended upon the success of the rest of the trip. Marcus detected a slight edge to his comment: just enough of an authoritarian tone to remind him that he was still only, ultimately, an employee. Somehow, as he sat on the hotel veranda, feet over the green railing, it was Dana’s reaction that meant the more. He looked out between the wooden slats to the lawn that undulate down to the lake. Tiny waves, whipped up by the cool evening breeze, played around the shore. Frogs called from the reed beds, waterfowl squabbled just out of sight and the rhythmic trill of cicadas in the trees provided a soothing baseline to a symphony set amongst an amphitheatre of stars. Marcus realised how grateful he was for David’s company as he, Ethan and Felicity joined him. “How is your hand?” he enquired of Felicity.

“Feeling fine, thank you,” she observed, just a little frostily. “It didn’t stop me following David’s lead and hiring a bike. Ethan and I cycled miles with one of the guides.”

“Yes and we saw some really cool stuff,” Ethan interjected. “The guide showed us where they’re clearing more buildings from the forest. They’ve discovered a load of stone hieroglyphs. The archaeologists had pulled a ceramic figure out of the ground earlier too. They said it was a cremation pot, dedicated to the mother goddess Ix-Chel. You could still make out the paint and even some of her features. We both thought she looked like Laura. We also found another lake deep in the jungle, which was where our crocodiles came from. Apparently, they swam into this lake during floods some years ago and stayed - any crocodiles on the lawn, Marcus?”

Marcus chose to absorb Ethan’s unsubtle dig. It was the least he deserved. He shook his head. “I did check - no crocodiles, although lots of little notices telling people not to picnic on the shoreline. How are you feeling, David?”

“Tired and I’ve got a headache - great day despite everything, in the end.”

“You want to get some sleep,” counselled Felicity. “The rooms are really cosy, aren’t they?”

“Dinner was good too.” Ethan rubbed his ample stomach. “I really like the hotel courtyard and the fountains where we ate. It felt like the Italian Riviera. We just needed someone to serenade us.”

“I’m afraid at best it’s likely to be a mariachi band.” Marcus smiled. “Nature’s doing a pretty good job though, isn’t it?”

Everybody stopped to listen. The wind had dropped and now the sound of the cicadas was reaching its crescendo.

“Wow, look at those stars.” David joined Marcus with his feet up on the railing.

“Look, you can see the Milky Way running across the sky, really clearly,” Felicity pointed. “The Mayans thought it was the road to the underworld, made by a giant snake called an Ouroboros, wrapped around the Earth.”

Ethan made a gesture of mock surprise.

“At least one of us was paying attention this afternoon,” Felicity scolded.

“Funny, isn’t it?” David pondered. “At night we shut out the sky and stare at screens. In ancient civilisations they’d spend hours at a time studying the heavens. That was their window on another world, somewhere only their gods and souls could go.”

“David, you’re getting serious again,” Marcus stretched and patted him on the back, “but I like the way you see things.”

“So why don’t we worship sky gods anymore?” Ethan caught the contemplative mood.

“Perhaps we do,” David mused. “The galaxy forged the stars and planets, the solar system shaped the Earth; the Sun provides our power and the moon the hand to keep us stable. Fill in all the details and it’s as good as any creation myth. We still worship the sun; we just choose to call it science, not religion.”

“Sounds like you’re sceptical about science,” Marcus yawned.

“Not really, I like science,” David paused and thought for a moment. “I just think that if people insist it’s the only way to see the world it becomes like any other creed.”

“Listen.” Felicity cocked her head to one side. The cicadas in the trees had ceased calling. For a moment there was no sound at all then, as their ears adjusted, each was aware of distant music from the single bar back down the dusty lakeside trail.

“Anyone fancy a game of pool?”

David shrugged then nodded. Tomorrow they would transfer to a small, exclusive beachside hotel, far to the south of the main resorts. Apart from that, it was a rest day. No point hurrying to bed. He caught himself wondering where Laura was, and realised how much he was looking forward to their next conversation.

Chapter Twenty

Rochas Blancas

Luis felt for his mobile on the bedside table. He had commandeered the main hotel in Rochas Blancas and removed the scattering of existing guests, para su proteccion. The building was secure, but still he had not been able to sleep. One future scenario after another queued for space in Luis’ mind and none came with a positive ending. Tense and angry, he had uncharacteristically resorted to downing the contents of the minibar. As expected, it was his brother calling.

“Hola, hermano, es bueno hablar contigo.”

Luis was surprised by the welcome and by the warmth of Alfredo’s tone, which instantly carried away much of his own distress. “Hello, brother, has London got any better?”

“London,” Alfredo almost spat, “it’s like purgatory here. The place is cold, the people are cold and the beer isn’t.”

Despite the harsh words, Luis sensed that his brother was only semi-serious and assumed he must have met another girl. He felt closer than usual to his brother. He didn’t want to upset Alfredo, but he also welcomed the opportunity to share his heavy burden. Then again, a part of him still harboured resentment, as it was Alfredo’s carelessness that had precipitated their family’s current crisis. He caught himself wondering whether he would have missed his brother more than he missed Felipe, had the dance-floor shooting proved successful.

“Alfredo, I’m sorry, I have very bad news: Uncle Felipe was killed in prison. It was Xterra and we think they also encouraged Marcelo’s brother to try to kill you.”

For a long time the phone remained silent. Luis held it as close as possible and thought he could detect Alfredo’s laboured breathing amongst the static. His tension rose again with each lost moment. He needed Alfredo to be strong and decisive to bolster his own resolve. To his considerable relief, he was.

“Don’t worry, brother,” responded Alfredo, at last. “Felipe will be avenged. Xterra are loco - they have no strategy but fear. You are far too clever for them and I’m in the mood to spread a little fear myself. How is Alex and how is Father?”

“I’ve sent Alex away. If Xterra are operating in El Paso then it is too dangerous for her. Papa is no better. I’ve never seen such frailty in him before. I’d rather he was golfing on the Riviera Maya, but he’s still in Juarez because there are things only he has the influence to do.”

“How will we hit Xterra?”

“We already have. Gennaro and I are in Rochas Blancas now. We started with the scum who betrayed our trust in the prison. Then a party of Xterra thugs turned up. They were spreading panic by kidnapping people. Now they are dead.”

“Well done, Luis. Is it safe for me to come home?”

“I’m not sure. We still don’t know how the US Authorities will react to what you did; assuming they know our family was responsible. Although we have money and muscle on both sides of the border - more money now, thanks to you - we’re in a weak position with Barrio Fuerte. We’ve had English weather in the mountains and much of the next crop is destroyed. If we have no product to offer them then they have even less reason to stay with us. Without them we have no supply chain across the border. If you return to Juarez, it may inflame the situation.”

“Then let me come home to Chihuahua, or even to Father’s house in the south. In Mexico I can help mobilise our forces. In this wretched country, I am nothing.”

Luis thought for a moment. “Don’t worry, Alfredo, Papa and I have already decided you must return, but there is one more thing I need you to do for me, before you leave.”

“As the English would say, you can count on me!” Alfredo made a particularly poor attempt at a southern English accent.

“Go to the bank as soon as possible. Withdraw as much as you need to get home then transfer whatever you can to El Paso.”

“OK Luis, but there won’t be much: the company here is not working well with the factory in Spain. There’s been little profit so far.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll probably sell both companies now, anyway. This war is going to be expensive.”

“Surely,” Alfredo reasoned, “when things heat up the Federales will get involved. Then even Xterra will have to back off? The last thing that either government wants is Xterra controlling more of the border.”

Luis returned to the thoughts that had occupied him throughout the night. “Unfortunately, brother, I don’t think it is quite that simple. Both the Americans and Xterra may be looking to establish Barrio Fuerte on our side of the border. The Americans have agents in every state and federal prison in the USA. They would have no trouble keeping tabs on Barrio Fuerte. They would be a lot easier to manipulate than we are. They’re nothing more than a criminal organisation, whereas we can always hide behind our legitimate businesses. A lot of American entrepreneurs would like to buy our factories too. As for Xterra, Barrio Fuerte would be the perfect cover for extending their operations further west, whereas they know we will never do business with them.”

“Then we will stop Xterra on our own.”

Luis was drawn to Alfredo’s calm resolve. “Then we’ll stop Xterra on our own,” Luis repeated in solidarity. “Fly to Cancun. I’ll let Papa know and he’ll make sure everything’s ready for you down there. Then we’ll talk again.”

Each returned briefly to his thoughts. Alfredo was the first to speak. “I won’t let you down, Luis.”

“I know, Alfredo. Hurry home, brother. Time may not be on our side”

Chapter Twenty-One

Coba

“Why are you smiling?” Ah Kin Lo was looking quizzically at his friend.

Mulac glanced cautiously around him to ensure that nobody was watching then lay back against the carved stone column and stretched out his legs. The sun was now above the trees and he closed his eyes to concentrate upon the warmth it was beginning to convey. All over the temple complex people sat in small groups. Children wandered in and out of the forest and, here and there, thin trails from burnt offerings clawed weakly at the sky. Three hours previously the whole area had been packed, in anticipation of first light. Shamans chanted from the highest levels of every building and their incantations were punctuated by the screams of the living dead, as hearts and souls were ripped from living flesh.

“Do you realise that you are resting upon K’inich?”

Mulac jumped up, spun around and collapsed again to his knees, chanting loudly for forgiveness.

“You are lucky our jaguar god of the night is sleeping now,” Ah Kin Lo grinned, “otherwise our journey might be extended by a trip to the underworld. But now he is the sun and he still shines his light upon you, I notice, even though you dishonour him. So let us go and find breakfast.”

Mulac said nothing as he finished his nervous ritual. He still couldn’t come to terms with how the old man could be so serene - even affable - in the face of so much human suffering. He took a deep breath, which stank of death, and backed away from the carved column with his head bowed low. He stretched cautiously and put his hand on the old man’s shoulder.

“Priest?”

“Yes, Mulac?”

“Is it right that I still feel so sad?” He stared around him at the scattering of pyramids, each tipped with crimson from the blood let from its temple alter.

“Yes, Mulac, it is right. Your wife has found a place beyond the mountain. That world is for the gods and for the pure of heart. You cannot follow her, at least not yet, but you honour her by missing her in this one.”

Ah Kin Lo picked up his stick and the pair began to walk slowly across the main courtyard. Mulac stayed close to the priest, lest he should stumble. He could see the pain of walking etched into the old man’s features, but knew better than to offer to carry him. The journey from Tulum to Coba had taken nearly three days. It had cost Mulac a lot of money in porterage fees, but he did not doubt that he had done the right thing. Ah Kin Lo had been desperate for one last chance to commune with the gods before he died. The pride and excitement that Mulac saw on his face, as his chair was carried amongst fellow pilgrims from village to village along the road to Coba, had been reward in itself.

“I will tell you now Priest, why I was smiling. I was smiling because of the pet name you gave to my wife, Emetaly: She-who-burns-the-dinner. There was a time, two years ago, when I could have cursed you for finding me such a young and inexperienced wife, Priest. But you know, more than anyone, how much I came to love her.”

“Mulac, you wanted not a wife but a servant. You wanted someone to look after your parents, when it was you they wanted to care for them. You wanted to sit in your chair and slip into middle age, when the gods still have work for you.”

“I know that now Priest and I thank you.”

“And you have a fine son, and now a daughter too who will grow up to be as beautiful and probably as difficult as her mother.”

Mulac smiled again. “In my son’s eyes I already see Emetaly. They are like dark jewels where the light burns deep and slow. Sometimes I can hardly bear to look at him.”

“Pain is life, Mulac. Pain reminds us we are still of this world and fate has plans for us. Emetaly knew great pain, but only as your daughter was born. As she slipped from this world, she was peaceful and still.”

Mulac remembered the blood that had spread across her bed and Ah Kin Lo’s high-pitched chanting, at the moment of birth and renewal. He had been the first to realise she was passing from this world into the next. He had held her hand and talked joyously of life amongst the gods, as she began to slip away. Mulac had stood at a distance, crippled by a greater range of conflicting emotions than he had ever felt before. Eventually, at Ah Kin Lo’s insistence, he had held her hand too. She smiled weakly and lovingly up at him for as long as her failing strength allowed her to hold his gaze. In that moment Mulac discovered a new depth of being. Never had he stopped to think that he was loved. His mother cut the cord and swaddled her new granddaughter. She placed her, still covered in blood and mucus, in Mulac’s arms. Holding her aloft, he had dedicating her life to the Mayan god of the highest heaven, and then placed her next to his wife on the bed. With Emetaly’s last vestige of strength she had turned and kissed the crying baby. She looked up again as Mulac squatted beside her, tears of joy in her eyes.

“Now she will be Emetaly,” his wife had whispered, “and you will not be free of me so soon.”

As Mulac returned her smile she had slipped into unconsciousness. Within minutes she passed her final breath beside the crying child. Mulac was paralysed. His mother made an offering of the afterbirth and then took care of the baby. Ah Kin Lo chanted and wrapped the body in the blood-stained sheets. Mulac stared helplessly towards the whitewashed wall and the narrow window that looked out onto the alley beyond. Everything else was the same as before, but everything else meant nothing. For all his adult life he had cherished his independence and the freedom of the open road. Now he realised he was no longer that person.

Eventually Ah Kin Lo had finished the first part of his ritual. The gods would know that Emetaly was coming, because he had sung to them of her fine qualities. He tottered over to Mulac and led him by the hand to the body. From a bowl he poured corn into Mulac’s cupped hands. The corn was blessed and then placed and bound in a small square of linen. Mulac lifted a corner of the shroud and tucked the bag carefully within: food for the journey to the land of spirits. Ah Kin Lo had carefully parted the covers from Emetaly’s face. Now drained of blood, it had turned the colour of old ivory and her lips that of unpolished jade, as though she was already a temple deity. He had pushed down on her fragile chin to open her mouth and rummaged in a cloak pocket for a bead of darkest obsidian. Placing it within, he made one last appeal to the gods to accept the offering as payment for her journey. Then he had retired, in sudden exhaustion, to his chair. Mulac studied his wife’s features one last time. How he wished he had done so in life, as she slept. She had been no less restless by night as by day, so usually he had turned away from her, or moved across to another bed in an attempt to get some rest. Now she was at peace.

They had reached the small temporary market that sprang up with every festival. A single row of stalls wound along a muddy path between the temple complex and the royal apartments. There was, as always, a road of crushed coral limestone connecting these two main venues, but it was guarded by soldiers and reserved solely for dignitaries and ceremonial purposes. They shuffled slowly past brightly coloured stalls selling offerings; blessings carved in stone; feather head-dresses; costumes, toy birds and whistles for the children. The food stalls were a little further on, centred upon a conflagration of steam, smoke and tongues of fire. Mulac shook his head at the corn-seller’s loud appeal. Today he would treat his friend to a feast of fresh eggs and salty bread.

Ah Kin Lo carefully removed the sashes of chord that held a fine leather bag to his back. They sat cross-legged at a table hewn from a rainforest giant. The priest blessed the contents of the bag and placed it carefully between their plates of food. Mulac looked out into a small unkempt field beyond the market. A pair of buffalo stood impassively, tied to a post, whilst a group of youngsters circled, playing chase.

As, a few minutes later, they mopped their plates with the remainder of the bread, chanting drifted upon them. Mulac looked enquiringly at the priest.

“It must be the palace monastery.” Ah Kin Lo listened for a few moments. “This is not something I have heard before. I wonder if something is wrong?”

A mason sat next to them, easily identified by the compacted white dust beneath his finger nails and around the roots of his hair. Beside him rested a bulging sack of stone tools. He leant conspiratorially in their direction. “There is a rumour going around Coba that the gods have landed in the north. According to what I was told last night at an inn, they arrived in giant canoe houses. They had command of the wind god and ordered him to push their ships across the sea, like leaves blown by the wind across a stream.”

Both Mulac and the priest were shocked. They examined the man’s lined and sun-beaten face closely for any hint that he was joking. Mulac remembered the vision he glimpsed upon the ocean, just after he had married. He felt the same panicky sensation that this world might not be all that it appeared.

“I was told they looked like men. Their clothes shone like sunlight and were enchanted, so they could not be pierced by any blade. They had with them strange creatures on four legs that stood as tall as a house, but were as fast and agile as the deer. The gods sat upon these beasts and could command them to do their will. Some say they feed upon people, others that they eat only grass, like beasts of the field.”

Mulac suddenly wanted to go home.

“Priest, let us do what we must do then depart,” he appealed. “Let us honour the ashes of Emetaly, but then honour her more by raising her children to be fearless and strong. I am just a simple man and I want to go back to what I know and understand. I was not meant to parlay with the gods.”

“I fear that these are not the gods I know, either,” replied Ah Kin Lo. “These gods are not of heaven. They must come from the deepest layers of the underworld: places that no man can know, unless he is cursed or mad. I am frightened by what I have heard and worry that these creatures may come for my soul. I also would like to go home. Perhaps you will set a fire for me alongside your parents, when we are each too old and weak to do our chores. I will watch over your children and teach them the ways of our ancestors.”

“What do you have in your bag, Priest” The mason was curious.

“He has the ashes of my wife,” Mulac responded bluntly.

“Then I understand why you are here and think that I may be able to help you. I would like to do so, because I know that I have upset you. My words were careless and they may not be true.”

“But they were truly spoken,” observed Ah Kin Lo, “and I sense that you are a man of your word.”

“I am a man of stone. My words are stone and stone does not change. Gods may walk upon the Earth, but if they come for me it will only be for me to build for them in stone. When the gods return to the underworld, my stone creations will still be here.”

The priest nodded, sagely. “What is your name, stonemason?”

“My name is Acan.”

“How can you help us, Acan?”

“Let me take you to the new temple for Ix-Chel. You could bury your wife’s ashes there, where both I and the goddess of fertility can watch over her.”

“My wife died in childbirth.”

“Then the goddess must be working through me, your wife is twice blessed, and this plan is meant to be.”

Mulac looked at Ah Kin Lo, who nodded his silent approval.

“Come quickly then: we will need to do this before my overseer and the temple priests return from their own breakfasts.”

“Carry me now, as I have carried your wife,” Ah Kin Lo appealed to Mulac.

Trusting the ashes to the stonemason, Mulac knelt before the priest so he could climb upon his back. Many were carried in this fashion so, as they pushed their way through the now crowded market, their strategy went unnoticed and unmarked. Soon they were following a trail that wove its way between the trees behind the temple complex. The path was long, they had to circle to the far side of the site, and the rising heat and humidity levels meant that Mulac was soon sweating profusely.

“Here,” Acan eventually gestured to his left. Crows squabbled overhead and seed pods fell from the trees, as they broke out into a clearing littered with piles of sand and cut stone. Two men sat on a particularly large block, drawing tobacco smoke through a shared pipe. Both acknowledged their colleague briefly, but they seemed more interested in their game of dice than in his guests. Finding a patch of shade at the base of the new pyramid, Mulac carefully lowered Ah Kin Lo onto the lowest step. The stonemason passed the priest his bag, from which he carefully drew a forearm-sized cylindrical pot, thickly wrapped in bandages.

He offered the object reverentially to Mulac. Acan had already retrieved a flint axe and stood ready to dig. Mulac peeled away layer after layer to reveal a hollow clay idol, with a red earth glaze over the painted features of Emetaly.

“It is Ix-Chel!” Acan exclaimed in surprise. “Now we shall not need monks or Coba priests to bring the spirit of the mother goddess to this temple.”

The two friends did not respond. They sat beside each other, watching as Acan began to dig rapidly through a lose mix of gravel and soil. After a few minutes, the priest squeezed Mulac’s hand to indicate it was time for the burial. Mulac fell to his knees and placed the vessel carefully into the hole, the clay head pointing towards the pyramid, as though he were laying a sleeping child into its cot.

“Farewell, Emetaly,” Mulac whispered.

The priest led Mulac in prayer, whilst Acan backfilled the grave and then squatted to ensure their earthwork was well disguised. As he stood again, satisfied, workers were already filing in ones and two back onto the building site.

Ah Kin Lo drew a necklace of tiny conch shells from a pocket and placed it carefully upon Acan’s shoulders. “By all the gods of land, sea and sky, may you be blessed.” He held both of Acan’s calloused hands tightly between his own bony fingers for several moments and prayed. Then he turned to Mulac. “Now it is time to go home,” he concluded.