‘Fidel,’ the old mariner replied.
‘Okay, Fidel, let’s go.’ O’Connor stowed the backpacks containing the priceless cargo under the cabin awning and steadied the gunwale for Aleta. The boatman went astern, spun the ten-seater runabout on a quetzale and headed out between two rickety wooden piles.
The high-pitched hum of the Evinrude, and the occasional thwack thwack of the bow hitting the water interrupted the silent splendour of the great lake.
‘Penny, or I should say quetzale, for your thoughts? Does this bring back painful memories?’ O’Connor asked gently.
‘I try to concentrate on the good times. It will be enough if we can find the third figurine and get to Tikal before the winter solstice. My father would have done the same.’
‘Which gives us less than three days… ’
Forty minutes later, they rounded the last little promontory and the boatman eased the throttle.
‘That’s Jose on the jetty!’ Aleta said, pointing excitedly.
‘The shaman? How did he know we were coming?’ O’Connor was instantly alert.
‘Maybe it’s just coincidence?’
Arana waved and Fidel threw him the mooring rope.
‘ Muchas gracias.’ O’Connor thanked the old mariner and slipped him 200 quetzales. Fidel fumbled in his pocket for change.
O’Connor shook his head. ‘ No, para usted. For you.’
‘ Gracias, gracias! ’
‘Mi placer.’
‘Bienvenido a San Marcos!’ Jose kissed Aleta on both cheeks. ‘And you must be Curtis. Welcome.’ Jose adopted a Western gesture and shook O’Connor firmly by the hand. He turned to Fidel, and told him to wait.
‘Come, your rooms are waiting for you.’
‘Separate… what a pity,’ O’Connor said softly. Aleta dug him in the ribs.
Not very far across the lake in the larger town of San Pedro, two ex-navy SEALs, skilled in high-altitude diving and now employed by the CIA as mercenaries, checked into the Mikaso Hotel on the shores of Lake Atitlan.
Arana’s wife, Sayra, set dinner outside in the garden. The house was perched on a rise, a short distance from the lake’s shore. Sayra had prepared a topado: a rich stew of lake crabs and fish, coriander, tomatoes, coconut milk and plantains, a cousin of the banana. After dinner, Sayra retired, leaving Arana alone with O’Connor and Aleta.
‘It’s now the eighteenth of December, Jose. The solstice is less than three days away.’
Arana smiled enigmatically. ‘You have come to the right place, Aleta. As I said to you in Vienna, this is a sacred mission of profound importance. But I must remind you again that the figurine and the codex are fiercely protected, the former by Mother Nature herself, the latter by the ingenuity of my forefathers. More than one fortune seeker has paid the ultimate price. The ancients ensured that the codex would only be found by someone possessing the inner spiritual balance to understand it correctly. That person may be you, Aleta, but we will only know that if you are ultimately successful.’ Arana turned to O’Connor. ‘The Vatican now has a man in San Pedro, the Mayanist scholar, Monsignor Jennings. He’s been appointed to the Catholic church there, and he’s taken over the presbytery that used to be occupied by Father Hernandez.’
‘Aleta and I were speculating that Father Hernandez might actually be Karl von Hei?en, the German SS officer who escaped through the ratlines set up by the Vatican and the CIA at the end of World War Two.’
‘And you would be correct. Von Hei?en was aided by il Signor Felici, a gentleman to His Holiness Pope Pius XII, and father of Cardinal Salvatore Felici. Unfortunately for Cardinal Felici, von Hei?en kept very detailed diaries.’
‘ Aha. It’s all falling into place,’ O’Connor thought out loud. ‘If Cardinal Felici’s past, in this case his father’s involvement with Nazi criminals, ever surfaced, Felici’s career and his chances of becoming the next pontiff would be finished.’
‘Although that’s not the only reason the Vatican is very worried about this part of the world. The Maya Codex threatens the uniqueness of the message of Christ,’ Aleta said.
‘Upon which the Vatican depends for its very existence. I should have a look at Monsignor Jennings’ living arrangements. Is there any way I can get across to San Pedro at this time of night?’ O’Connor asked.
‘Fidel is waiting for you at the jetty. Monsignor Jennings usually drinks at the Buddha Bar. It’s on the shore of San Pedro not far from the main tourist area.’
‘Please take care,’ Aleta said.
‘Already he means something to you,’ Arana observed with a gentle smile after O’Connor had left.
‘More than I thought, even if it is like living on the run with Indiana Jones. You’re the one who said I should trust him with my life.’
‘And now you’re going to have to trust me. Do you recall me telling you about the need to replenish your inner spirit?’
Aleta nodded.
‘Tonight, we’re going to cleanse that inner spirit, which will also relieve your depression. I want you to lie over here,’ Arana said, indicating a garden bench covered with big soft cushions. ‘Have you ever been hypnotised?’
‘No. Is it safe?’
‘I did say you will have to trust me. The mind has different states, Aleta. When we’re awake, we’re in what is known as the beta state, the state in which we’re alert: we’re thinking and our brainwaves are pulsing at somewhere between fifteen and thirty cycles per second. At eight to fifteen cycles per second we fall into the more relaxed alpha state, usually when we’re drifting in and out of sleep, or even absorbed in a movie.’ He paused, allowing Aleta to make herself comfortable.
‘You’re becoming more relaxed,’ Arana said softly, passing his hand above Aleta’s eyes. ‘Close your eyes and we will move towards the theta state, when your brainwaves slow… slow… slower… to just four or five cycles per second. The state we reach when entering a deep sleep; a state that you will enter softly and quietly. At the end of this,’ the shaman continued even more softly, ‘I will count to three, and you will gently awake.’
Aleta could feel herself drifting, partly because she was deeply tired, and partly because she was back in her home village under the care of a man in whom she had complete trust. The pillows were soft and comfortable and she drifted further. Her eyelids were heavy, and she had neither the strength nor the energy to open them.
‘You are walking into a deep tunnel now. You are descending stone steps that lead deeper and deeper into this tunnel. Deeper… and deeper… and deeper. The steps keep going down… and down… and down. You’ve reached a dimly lit stone corridor. It smells dank and musty down here.’ Arana waved a wild orchid in front of Aleta’s face but she wrinkled her nose distastefully. It was a test that his patient had entered a deep trance. Aleta was now open to the power of suggestion. To cleanse her spirit Arana would have to take her back in time. It was a technique the ancients had been using for centuries, a technique that modern psychiatry and hypnotherapy had only recently explained, coining the phrase ‘past-life regression’ therapy. Though each individual was different, the shaman knew every human being had lived through past lives; it was just that the memories were inaccessible in the present life. Arana also knew well that hypnosis could remove those barriers.
‘As you walk along this tunnel, you will see doors to your left and right, Aleta,’ he continued, still speaking in soft, even tones. ‘I want you to choose a door and open it.’
‘There is a brightly coloured door on my left… I’m opening it now.’
Aleta began to sway to the rhythm of the drums.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in Tikal. My name is Princess Akhushtal.’ Aleta had gone back to 790 AD, to the great city-state of Tikal, one of several very powerful cities in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula. Calakmul and Naranjo, controlled by a warrior queen, Lady Six Sky, lay further to the north. The peace between the cities was fragile.
‘What do you see?’
‘Tikal is very busy today,’ Princess Akhushtal said excitedly. ‘It’s the winter solstice tomorrow, and at dawn the High Priest will be conducting a ceremony with the jade statues to determine the resting place for the Maya Codex. But the High Priest is very worried.’
From the viewing platform where she was sitting with her father, King Yax Ain II, Princess Akhushtal
