great deal to cope with in that department themselves. ‘And anyway, she would have confided in Athame. Those two were like this.’ Nawal made a knot out of her hands.
‘It’s true, nonetheless. I’ve just had it from the horse’s mouth. Madame, my ever loyal mother, thought that by coming clean she might provide me with a titbit of comfort at my moment of death.’
‘You’re not going to die, Abi. None of us is going to die.’
Abi laughed. ‘The whole thing was an elaborate honey-trap to sucker Sabir into giving out the names she wanted. The Countess set it up so that Calque and Sabir would reckon they’d saved Lamia from a fate worse than death. It’s a trick as old as the hills. They fell for it. And I fell for it, too. Hook, line, and sinker.’
‘It can’t be true. Our mother would have told us.’
‘And give the game away? No. She wanted us outraged, angry, and alert. And she got what she wanted, as she always does. Lamia is heading back to France to kill the pregnant Gypsy. And we’re the sacrificial lambs that helped get her there.’
‘You must tell Aldinach and Athame immediately.’
‘No I mustn’t. After Madame made us destroy all our personal cell phones and replace them with pay-as- you-go, I made damned sure that I never gave out Aldinach and Athame’s numbers to anyone. Just like I didn’t give out yours. I didn’t want people calling up at potentially sensitive times for a cosy fireside chat. So if those two don’t decide to call our mother – and I somehow suspect they won’t – that’s it. She’ll have no way of warning them off from killing Lamia. And they’re just about to board a charter flight to London. So they’ll have their cell phones switched off anyway while they’re in the air.’
‘To London?’
‘First flight they could get. Lamia got out on a marginally earlier fight via Madrid. They found out that much, at least. So the three of them should all arrive in Paris at just about the same time. There are only so many connecting flights available. All Aldinach and Athame have to do is wait. They’ll probably catch Lamia straight out of Arrivals. They might even kill her right there in the concourse. Aldinach can sting like a bee with that scalpel of his. He’s twenty metres gone before the person even knows they’ve been stabbed.’
The others shook their heads uncertainly.
Abi grinned. ‘Look around you. We’re probably surrounded by fifty invisible men, intent upon our deaths. And whose fault is that? Lamia’s, Sabir’s, and our mother’s. In the absence of a deus ex machina reaching down and plucking us up into the sky, we’re doomed.’ Abi gave a resigned shrug. ‘We can’t touch our mother, but we can touch Lamia. And through her, Sabir. What have we got to lose?’
110
‘There’s my Cherokee.’
‘I figured as much.’ Calque glanced around the roof lot of Cancun International Airport’s long-term parking. ‘We’re going to have to break into it, you realize that? And they’ve probably got banks of CCTV cameras here.’
‘No we aren’t.’ Sabir felt in his pocket. ‘I have the spare keys. I remembered them back at Ek Balam after we handed back the skull and the codex. While Ixtab was busy strapping up your arm and measuring you for a new shirt. They were in my overnight bag.’ He dangled the keys in front of Calque’s face as if they were cherries.
Calque rolled his eyes. ‘Let’s dump this white elephant of a Hummer then. We’re going to have to scrub it clean of fingerprints. I don’t want the maniacs we stole it from, and whose crystal meth laboratory we blew up, coming after us in France. I wouldn’t put it past them to have a cosy in with Interpol.’
Sabir nodded. He tucked the Hummer away in a remote corner of the parking lot. With Calque’s left arm out of action, it was Sabir who ended up valeting the cab.
When they were finished, Calque grinned. ‘When we get back home you can pay someone to come and pick up the Cherokee for you and store it somewhere. That way no one will associate it with the Hummer. You simply mail them your keys, the parking ticket, a false name and address, and some cash. Then, in a month or two, you can come back here and pick it up, with no one any the wiser.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘I am kidding.’ Calque sighed. ‘I think maybe neither one of us should ever set foot in Mexico again. In a few months’ time, when you haven’t reclaimed the car, the storage people will simply auction it off. That’s the way these things play.’
‘I liked that car. It held happy memories.’ The expression on Sabir’s face didn’t match his words.
‘Get over it, Sabir. She’s not worth it. She played us both for fools.’
‘I still don’t understand how she could have pretended to that extent. She was a virgin, man. I’m certain of it. Not some Mata Hari type, used to seduction. Not some courtesan. And her face. How could the Countess be sure I would go for her? It stretches the bounds of credulity.’
Calque shook his head. ‘Because the Countess understands men and what drives them. She made a study of us without our knowledge. She realized that you were a bleeding heart from the word go. And that I suffer from absent daughter syndrome. Then she launched her perfectly primed cruise missile at us.’
‘Lamia told me she loved me. You can’t fake that.’
‘Oh yes you can. My ex-wife did it for years.’ Calque leaned inside the Cherokee and felt around in the lockbox. ‘We’re in business, my boy. Both passports are still here.’
‘So. And that’s another thing. Why would Lamia leave us our passports? Her passport was in with them. All she needed to do was dump the two of ours in the nearest garbage can.’
‘Why would she bother to do that, Sabir? She knew Abiger de Bale would kill us as certainly as night follows day. Leaving the passports would just facilitate the work of the Mexican police when they found our abandoned vehicle. That way they would have known for sure we hadn’t left the country.’
Sabir slammed the Cherokee door and clicked the automatic lock. The expression on his face was bleak. ‘Come on, Calque. Let’s go and find ourselves a damned flight out of here.’
111
It started with the stun grenades. Emiliano’s foot soldiers had brought up bullet-proof riot shields, and they were launching the grenades from behind them.
Abi, Rudra, Nawal and Dakini laid down as much blanket fire as they could, but it was clearly ineffective. Their ammunition was running out. The grenades were getting nearer by the minute.
Then Emiliano’s men started in with the tear gas.
Dakini was the first one to jump into the cenote.
Snot and tears were streaming down Abi, Nawal, and Rudra’s faces.
Nawal was the next to go. She felt semi-hysterical. She couldn’t breathe. All she could think about was how the feel of cool water on her eyes would be.
Rudra watched both of the women leap into the pool. He dragged himself to the edge of the basin. It was a fifty-foot drop. The girls had both survived it. He could see them bobbing around in the centre of the pool, violently rinsing their faces.
He glanced back at Abi, shrugged, and then eased himself over the side. He dangled for a moment and then let himself fall. The feel of the water was an exquisite blessing. He let himself sink as deep as he was able, before scissoring his legs and making for the surface.
Abi plunged in beside him.
Both men scrubbed at their faces, desperate to see again. Desperate to get their weapons clear of the water before they became useless.
Fifty feet above them, Emiliano’s foot soldiers were carrying their boss out of the Toyota on an improvised bier. The morphine had already started to give him hallucinations.
Emiliano grabbed his physician’s arm. ‘Give me more.’
‘I can’t give you any more. It would be too dangerous. Intravenous morphine is an unstable drug. There is
