“You think I know what’s going on here and how to get my hands on that secret,” Max said.
“Maybe.”
“Not maybe. Definitely. Otherwise you would have killed me by now. Well, I do know that there’s something going on.…” He hesitated. This wasn’t good enough. He
had
to convince Riga. “My mother left me clues,” he lied. If he could stay alive long enough to reach that satellite dish, he might find a way of calling for help.
“What kind of clues?”
“Photographs.”
Max saw something cross Riga’s eyes. Recognition? Understanding? Belief? “You know my mother was here.”
“OK,” Riga said, “he told me that.”
Max nearly winced. This Cazamind
knew
his mother had been out here. Had he been the man who’d refused to airlift her to safety? “You need me. I know where to go,” he bluffed.
Riga studied him. Max stared back, desperately hoping his lies would not flicker through his eyes.
“Through here?” Riga asked, nodding toward the blades lurking in the darkness.
“Yes. It’s the only way.”
Riga thought about it. “All right. You take me there.”
“What happens then—between you and me?”
“A contract is a contract. But when the time comes, I’ll give you a chance. You have my word. You deserve that.” Riga smiled. “You remind me of myself when I was a kid.”
“I’m nothing like you,” Max said. “And if I get out of here, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re caught.”
“It’s a deal,” Riga said. “Now get over here and help me with this lever or we’ll never get through those blades.”
Max moved cautiously, but he knew he had no choice. Riga could have killed him then and there and hadn’t. So now the assassin and his quarry would work together to reveal a secret whose keeper had tried to kill them both.
The wooden handle quivered under the weight of the water that was building up. The lever had to be jammed into position. Riga leaned his weight down onto it and shoved his rifle into Max’s hands. Max could see exactly what needed to be done. He settled the butt of the rifle onto the lever and its
barrel into the wall so that the pressure of water could not force it upward and start the blades spinning.
Riga took his weight off the lever; the rifle took the strain. “OK. Go,” Riga said.
Max looked at the vicious obstacle course and then at the manhunter. “You first,” Max said.
Riga laughed. The kid had guts, but was he a killer? Would he yank the rifle away and unleash the water pressure when Riga was in the middle of all those blades? He had answered that question once before; nothing had changed. Max Gordon was no killer. He shook his backpack free and pulled out half a dozen small flares. He ripped the tabs clear and threw each one as far as he could, clattering them through the blades and poles into the darkness. Their crimson glow dabbed the blades’ tips.
He moved into the labyrinth. Max gave him a couple of seconds’ head start and then followed. His eyes quickly adjusted to the flickering light, and he bent and twisted his body like a contortionist through the sharpened flesh shredders. He could see a couple of the points had nicked Riga’s skin as he bent and stooped his way around the lethal obstacles. Riga had made no sound, as if impervious to pain. Max winced; his concentration had flagged watching Riga’s movement, and one of the blades had scraped into his back. He felt the warm trickle of blood ooze like sweat. But he knew they were almost through, because he could see light seeping through from the other end of the building. Another four or five meters and they would be clear.
He wanted to move more quickly, but the blades snagged
his shirt and trousers like barbed wire. He had to pick his way clear. Riga seemed to be making better progress and was almost through.
And then Max’s legs trembled. He felt the panic rise quickly and almost reached out to grasp one of the blade-tipped arms for support. He twisted his upper body to balance the movement under his boots. Another earth tremor.
Riga was nearly out of the deadly traps, but one of the poles twisted from the vibration, and like a cog in a wheel, it shifted into its normal stationary position. The bladed arm swung in a lethal curve from behind Riga’s right shoulder down toward his left leg.
“Behind you! Look out!” Max yelled, desperately keeping his own balance, eyes darting left and right, hoping none of the blades was shifting toward him.
Riga’s reactions were remarkable. Keeping his feet firmly planted, he twisted from the waist, raised his left arm above his head and turned himself clear of the cutting blade. The tip caught his shirt, ran beneath his ribs and bit into the shoulder holster. Max heard the clean ripping cut as the blade severed it from the shoulder strap. Max’s warning, Riga’s fast reaction and the shoulder holster had saved the killer from a lethal wound. The chrome-plated semiautomatic tumbled away beneath the blades.
Riga was clear. He caught his balance and turned back to watch Max’s progress through the last few meters. “Come on, kid, that lever might not hold. Hurry!”
Max could hear the poles creaking and saw the blades quivering. Another earth tremor snaked beneath his feet. He
almost fell. And then he heard a sound from the other end of the building. It was metal scraping against rock. The rifle was being forced along the rock wall under pressure.
Riga watched Max trying to move more quickly. It was like observing a fly trying to escape from a spiderweb. Sometimes the fly got lucky.
“Come on! Do it!”
And then they both heard the crash of the lever breaking free of the rifle’s restraint; the sound of rushing water echoed through the chamber. The poles groaned back to life. Behind him the blades were already turning, and Max felt the exertion force itself out of his lungs. He gasped as he tried to get through the last couple of meters before the teeth around him spun into life and devoured him.
He was not going to make it. And he knew it. He raised his head to look into Riga’s eyes less than a meter away—but the blades spun. Riga snatched at one of the moving arms, jammed his foot onto another and threw his weight backward. The sudden counterbalance on one of the poles slowed the blades that had not yet reached full speed.
Max saw the narrow space between the blades, like a gap through a bramble hedge. Throwing himself forward, he felt them nick his clothing. He hit the earth floor, rolled and came quickly to his feet. Even Riga’s strength could not have held back the blades any longer, and Max saw them wrench free of the assassin’s grip.
Max looked at him. How did you thank a killer who had just saved your life but had promised to kill you later? You didn’t. It was already a debt repaid.
“Where now?” Riga demanded.
Max saw the location of the satellite dish in his mind’s eye. He turned and ran for the opening that led into a green umbrella covering of forest. “This way!”
They were no sooner clear of the claustrophobic building than they could hear the muted staccato of what sounded like firecrackers somewhere in the distance, the harsh sounds swallowed by the dense jungle.
“Gunfire,” Riga said. “AKs, M16s, others. Two or three clicks away.”
Max kept running and noticed Riga kept pace despite his injured leg. He was one of those unstoppable guys, Max thought. People like him will keep coming for you until they die. Max had never wished anyone dead before, but Riga was different.
It was a world away from the stark, heat-seared ball court. No blue sky penetrated the overhanging tree branches and vines.
It seemed like an artificial corridor of foliage, as if a gardener had created a massive tunnel out of the greenery.
“Camouflage,” Riga said. “Deliberate. This whole area is hidden from view.”
“There has to be another way in here,” Max said. “The Razor House kept everyone out from that side.”
The ongoing gun battle came no closer, but one or two echoes became more dominant. Who was doing the shooting? It wouldn’t be the warriors fighting, so it had to be police or army. Were they coming here? Max heard the roaring cries of howler monkeys moving away and sensed rather than saw birds’ alarm as the air beat somewhere above the green tunnel. He had no idea how far they had run, but the ground was
clear of any major obstacles. It looked as though it had been cleared by machinery. Then it dropped away, and a vine-covered stone building, most of it below ground level, was just about visible through the undergrowth.
Riga ran his hands over the limestone blocks, then edged round to the side, trying to find the line of the building, but there was nothing else. This wall was all that existed. Anything else must be underground. Max rubbed his hands across a stone lintel. He gazed at the shapes and figures of mountain monsters that had been cut into the building, probably more than a thousand years ago. He did not have to bluff now.
“It’s a temple. An ancient temple,” he said.
“How do you know that?” Riga said.
“It’s in one of my mum’s photographs.” He looked around. “None of this camouflage was here then. There’s an entrance somewhere.” Max’s heart felt a squeeze of regret. The photographs in his pocket were his insurance against Riga killing him. He dared not look at his mother smiling in front of the old temple. She had been right here. On this spot. He could almost feel her.
Max traced his hands along the wall. Behind where his mother had stood, there should have been a small entrance. He thrust his hands into the dense undergrowth.
“Here, pull this away.”
Riga unsheathed his machete and hacked at the ropelike vines that dropped down the temple walls. A small window-sized opening was visible, recessed into the depth of the stone. It was covered in steel mesh.
“I don’t know too much about Mayan culture, but I know they didn’t have windows like that.”
Riga looked at him. “All right. So you know where you’re going. Good.”
He pulled Max out of the way and kicked hard and fast against the corners of the mesh. It gave way on three sides, and Riga pushed his weight against it. The corner snapped, the mesh window dropped, and they heard it clatter onto stone. Riga climbed in. There were steps going down. They were in a dark corridor of an ancient temple, which was obviously unused and which had been sealed to stop anyone clambering through the small window. Riga moved forward, the back of his hand running along the wall to guide him. Max followed. The fetid air made their labored breathing the only sound in the heavy atmosphere. The passageway angled left and right and then opened out into an antechamber. It would have been pitch-black this deep inside the building except for a hairline crack of light seeping around what appeared to be a door. Max reached out and his palms met the smooth texture of a wooden covering.
“Can you smell that?” Max asked.
“Chemicals,” Riga said. “OK. We’re out of options. This is where we go in.” He rammed the tip of the machete’s blade between the wood and stone, forced it back, felt the wood ease slightly. He kept the pressure on it. “Kick it!”
Max twisted his body, balanced on one leg, grunted with effort, side-kicked the door and heard wood splinter.
“Again! Come on! Harder, kid!”
Max put all his power into the kick, and, with Riga’s shoulder aiding his efforts, the wood gave way.
They gazed down three meters into what looked like a hospital laboratory. A polyethylene tent took up most of it,
but Max and Riga could see the main room had a sliding metal door opening to the outside. In the enclosed area, two men in biohazard suits were loading spill-proof vials of blood-colored liquid into specially padded containers.
Half a dozen suitcase-sized boxes were being manhandled outside the tent by two men wearing jeans, T-shirts and bandannas. AK-47s were slung across their backs. This was some kind of cleanup operation. Like flash photography, it was a frozen picture of shock and fear as Riga and Max smashed through into the room and jumped down. Then the gunmen dropped the containers, and one of the men in biohazard suits screamed at him. His voice was muted by the visor, but clearly they did not want whatever was in those cases to be damaged. Their reaction was a natural response to something terrifying.
One of the gunmen leveled his AK-47. Riga shoved Max aside and pounded toward the two men. Rolling on the ground, he dived beneath the spray of gunfire. For a moment Max thought thunder was reverberating across the valley. It was no gathering storm Max had heard: the other gunman had fled outside and hauled the metal door closed behind him, trapping them all inside.
A man yelled, then screamed. By the time Max got to his feet, the remaining gunman was down on the ground and unmoving. Riga sheathed the bloodied machete and reloaded the dead man’s weapon. He yanked one of the doors—padlocked. There was no way out.
“Get out here,” Riga commanded the laboratory workers. The men stepped out of their polyethylene tent, zipped the area behind them and pulled off their head covers. The clatter
of gunfire from outside grew closer as Riga grabbed one of the bareheaded men. “How toxic is this stuff?” It was obvious Riga was wary of getting too close to the containers. And it was obvious to Max that he thought it was something that demanded enormous respect.
Max lifted a line of cord off the ground. He let it slip through his fingers as he moved forward; then he saw the packed blocks of plastic explosive. “They’re going to blow the place up!” he yelled at Riga. “We have to get out of here!”
Riga threatened the men. “What is it back there?”
“Genetically modified bacteria,” one of them said nervously.
Riga looked at Max. “That’s what your friend died of; it has to be some kind of slow incubator.” He turned back to the men. “High voltage or fire destroys it, right? That’s why this place is wired.”
The men nodded. Riga raised the submachine gun.
“Don’t kill them!” Max yelled. “My mother was here! Years ago. Was she infected? Did this stuff kill her?”
The man babbled, desperate to save his life. “It’s nothing to do with us! Mr. Cazamind took everything. He has all the data.”
“Cazamind is here?” Riga demanded. He grabbed the man. “Where?”