‘I’ve got one or two things to organise,’ O’Connor said, stacking their suitcases on the luggage rack. ‘Don’t answer the door or the phone. I’ll be back in an hour – two at the most.’
Aleta flicked on the television and settled in for the CNN news. A young journalist was standing amid the ruins of Salebata village on the southern side of the Pacific island of Samoa.
‘Whole villages have been wiped off the map here, and the death toll will be high,’ she announced. The camera panned across boats tossed like confetti into coconut palms, mud-covered stumps of concrete where houses had once stood, cars smashed onto their sides, and the roofs of those buildings still standing hanging drunkenly on debris that stretched along the shoreline. ‘The quake, which struck at 3.48 p.m. eastern standard time, measured a massive 8.3 on the Richter scale, with an epicentre 100 kilometres south of Western Samoa. And in breaking news, another earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale has reportedly hit the Indonesian West Sumatra province, devastating the cities of Padang and Pariaman. The death toll is expected to be in the hundreds.’
The feed crossed to a seismologist at the Bureau of Meteorology in Sydney. ‘Eighty per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur around what is known as the Pacific Rim of Fire, a horseshoe-shaped series of trenches and tectonic plates that stretch for 40 000 kilometres.’ The seismologist ran his pointer over a map that showed the fiery rim stretching from the coastline of South America up to Alaska, across to Siberia and down through Japan to New Zealand. ‘It also contains over 450 volcanoes. In the case of Samoa the massive Pacific plate is now moving westwards at nearly a centimetre a year, thrusting under the Australian plate. Undersea earthquakes can trigger waves which move at speeds of up to 800 kilometres an hour. As they approach a shoreline, these killer waves can build to the height of a three-storey building, as happened in 2004 when a quarter of a million people lost their lives.’
For the next hour, Aleta watched the disasters unfold in Samoa and Indonesia, until the channel crossed to the Philippines, where a deadly typhoon was coming ashore near the north-eastern tip of Luzon. Depressed by the diet of destruction, Aleta started to flick through the cable channels. A preacher in a white suit from one of America’s southern Baptist mega-churches suddenly appeared on the screen.
A pull-through announced ‘The Jerry Buffett Hour – the hour that will change your life! – a weekly broadcast that goes to over 300 stations around the world’. The vision cut away to the 15 000-capacity auditorium of the Buffett Evangelical Centre. It was packed to the rafters, the congregation hanging on their preacher’s every word. The cameraman had been well tutored in catching Jerry Buffett’s best side, and he slowly zoomed in, capturing the tele-evangelist’s tanned face, the square jaw and the intensity in his deep-blue eyes.
‘As God’s warnings, in the form of ever-increasing numbers of earthquakes and tsunamis, continue to exact their toll of death and destruction, the end time is closer than you think, my friends!’ Buffett thundered. ‘There are those who are sceptical of the coming Armageddon, but if the American people don’t turn from their ways, if we don’t turn back to the Lord, the prophet Isaiah is very clear!’ Buffett grasped both sides of the massive lectern and began to read from the prophecies of Isaiah 24: ‘ “Behold… the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and it shall fall!” That, my friends, is clear warning of the coming geographical pole shift from one of the greatest prophets of the ages. Everything Isaiah has foretold has either come to pass or will come to pass. A geographic pole shift will be God’s way of punishing a sinful world, just as he punished the ancient Israelites when they turned from the commandments and worshipped the golden calf. It’s right here in Isaiah 13: “Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place.” Those who focus on money, those who engage in sins of the flesh, those who have turned their backs on the Almighty God… His pole shift will swallow them in an instant!’
Buffett paused to let his words take effect, amidst gasps of fear and awe from the congregation. ‘But those of you who truly fear the Lord – not Allah, or Yahweh or any other false god, but the one true God who revealed Himself as our Lord Jesus Christ – at the coming Armageddon, you will be swept up in the rapture and saved!’ Buffett left the lectern and paced the huge stage, speaking more urgently. ‘God’s warning is not only in Isaiah, my friends; it’s here in the Book of Revelation and it’s in Luke 21, where the great physician and confidant of the Apostle Paul warns us very clearly of the coming catastrophe, foretelling of the sea roaring across the land.’
He strode back towards the lectern. ‘There is a lot of nonsense being put about in the media,’ he continued, more quietly again. ‘Occasionally you will read about 2012 – about ancient savages and a missing codex – but there is only one codex we should take any notice of,’ he said, his voice rising again as he held his Bible aloft, ‘and that’s the word of the Lord. Be ready, my friends! We know not the day or the hour, but all the signs are with us – tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires and erupting volcanoes. Hurricane Katrina, God’s punishment of a city renowned for sex and sinfulness, was just a mere taste of the real catastrophe that awaits us, for there are limits to the patience of even Almighty God!’
Aleta clicked off the television in disgust. She had long ago abandoned the idea of a wrathful God, who would extract retribution on his people, and she had never been able to accept the Christians’ claim there was only one path. The key sounded in the lock and O’Connor entered with two big backpacks and a smaller plastic bag.
‘We leave tomorrow night on a small container ship bound for Havana. From there we’ll cross the Caribbean, go through the Panama Canal and head north for Puerto Quetzal on the Pacific coast of Guatemala.’
‘Not quite your P amp;O cruise,’ Aleta observed, her Spanish accent laced with humour.
‘Not quite, no. The other problem is that there’s only one cabin and we’re going as husband and wife.’
‘What?’
‘The captain’s a very strict Catholic, but don’t worry – the bedding arrangements are bunks,’ O’Connor replied with a grin. ‘In the meantime,’ he said, reaching into the plastic bag and hauling out a wad of quetzales, ‘some local currency, and L’Oreal of Paris Super Blonde pre-lightener, as well as L’Oreal’s Viking light ash blonde.’
‘I presume they’re for me.’
‘Together with a pair of sharp scissors.’
Aleta made a face.
‘Look, I know you’re probably fond of your hair, and you’ve got good reason to be. It’s gorgeous -’
‘Spare me the flattery, Mr O’Connor.’
‘But you’ve seen what these guys are like. For them, life’s cheap. You’re just a number and a pay cheque. These are old tricks, but if they buy just an hour or two, they might save your life.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but your world takes a little getting used to. What time do we leave?’
‘The ship sails on the tide tomorrow night, just before midnight. Here’s your new passport,’ O’Connor said, handing Aleta a cherry-coloured Ecuadorian passport embossed with the gold coat of arms incorporating a giant condor atop Mount Chimborazo. ‘We’ve doctored your photograph to ash blonde,’ he added with a grin.
‘Ecuadorian?’
‘They’ll be looking for a Guatemalan. You speak Spanish, and so do the Ecuadorians.’
On the other side of the city, two police patrolmen cruised along Greif-swalder Strasse, near Hamburg’s main railway station, and stopped their silver-and-blue BMW patrol car alongside an old Toyota.
‘The licence plates don’t match,’ the younger of the two policemen observed.
‘ Nein,’ the other agreed, ‘but the model and the dent in the left fender are identical. Feed the registration into the system and let’s see what we get.’
Across the Atlantic, at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, it was not yet 6 a.m., but Howard Wiley had already arrived, frustrated and angry at the lack of progress.
He strode into the ops room. ‘What’ve we got?’ he demanded of his chief of staff.
‘The Austrian police have found our asset’s body in a burnt-out car in a creek bed. Our contact advised me a short while ago that a hire car fitting the description of the one Tutankhamen and Nefertiti were travelling in has been found in a forest near Freistadt,’ Larry Davis replied, pointing to the small northern Austrian town on one of the electronic maps.
‘What the hell are they doing up there?’
‘We’re still checking,’ Davis replied.
‘They’ll probably use the Czech Republic to try and throw us off the scent,’ Ellen Rodriguez offered. She had deep black shadows under her eyes. With the exception of Davis, who had only just beaten his boss into the room, Operation Maya had been working through the night.
‘And what do you base that on, Officer Rodriguez?’ Wiley sneered.
‘Call it a hunch if you like, but we’ve been watching the big airports and train stations and O’Connor would expect that. We’re going to need more than inside contacts for these two. If we’re going to have any hope of
