Hurricane Gold (2 page)

2

The Avenue of Death

Robert King was sitting on a bench inside a windowless stone cell. The walls were scarred and scratched with messages and obscenities. He was not the first man to have been held captive here. Apart from the bench there was nothing else in the cell, one wall of which was taken up by a big dented metal gate. He heard a burst of muffled laughter from somewhere above. As far as he could tell he was underground. Some time soon that door was going to open and he was going to go out and face whatever challenge El Huracán had prepared for him.

He was ready.

He was a born optimist.

All his life he’d managed to get away safely. From the orphan’s home, from the army, from his first two wives, from the police after he’d killed his third wife, the diamond heiress …

All I have to do is stay alive
, he thought.
All I got to do is get to the end of the rat run.

There was a sound behind him and he turned to see three men come into his cell through a low door. They were Mexican Indians, with long noses, wide mouths and mats of straight black hair framing their faces and hanging down to their shoulders.

Each carried a spear with a narrow blade at the end.

They said nothing. Just looked at him, unblinking. Patient. Waiting.

King swallowed. His throat was dry and his saliva felt sticky and thick in his mouth.

‘Listen, guys,’ he said. ‘I’m a wealthy man. I don’t know what Huracán pays you, but I can pay you more. Much more. I can make you very rich.
Mucho dollar
.
Si
?’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘Just stand aside and let me walk out of here. It’s as simple as that. Just stand aside.’

The three Indians continued to stare silently at him.

Up above the cell, El Huracán was looking to the north-east where there was an angry black slash across the otherwise clear blue sky.

‘Looks like a bad storm,’ he said. ‘Somebody is going to get soaked.’

‘We could do with some of that rain down here,’ said Chunks Duhaine, who was standing at his side. ‘This weather is making me itchy. We need to clear the air.’

‘I thought we
had
cleared the air,’ said El Huracán with a sly smile.

Indeed, the atmosphere among the men collected along the top of the rat run was markedly lighter than it had been at lunchtime. They had all known that something was up, and were relieved that it hadn’t meant trouble for
them
.

They were standing on a low, wide, square structure built of white stone. It was one of a handful of ancient Mayan ceremonial buildings in a part of Lagrimas Negras that was usually out of bounds to residents.

It was the base of a pyramid. It was here, centuries before, that the Mayans had carried out their ritual sacrifices. But the pyramid had fallen into ruin and most of its huge stone blocks had been taken away to construct new buildings.

When El Huracán had come here he had cleared the base to reveal a long series of interlinked passageways. These he had opened up and turned into
La Avenida de la Muerte
, his avenue of death. It started in the remains of the pyramid and snaked its way out and across the ancient site towards a large sunken area where a second, smaller but more complete, pyramid stood.

‘What’s the score here?’ asked Dum-Dum White, looking down into the alleyway at his feet and wiping his fat, red neck with a handkerchief.

‘It is simple,’ said El Huracán. ‘When the gate is opened Señor
King will attempt to reach the other end of the run. If he is not careful, or lucky, or fast enough, one of my traps will destroy him. The different gods mark the stations of his journey.’

He pointed to where images of Mayan deities had been painted on to the walls at various stages of the run.

‘You must place bets on how far you think he will get before he is killed. So, choose your god of death, gentlemen.’

The men looked down into the rat run and at the sinister painted figures.

‘There is Gucumatz,’ said El Huracán. ‘And Kinich Kakmo. Further along there is Balam-Agab, the night jaguar. Ixtab, with the rope around her neck, she is the goddess of suicides. The Mayans believed that if you committed suicide, you would go to heaven quicker. Many men, when they reach the marker of Ixtab, agree and take their own lives rather than face further pain. Señor King will be acting out a Mayan myth: the descent into Xibalba, the realm of the dead, along a road full of treacherous obstacles.’ He pointed towards the second pyramid. ‘If he’s lucky enough to reach the end, he will meet the final god, Hun Came. If he gets past him, he is free to go.’

‘How many men have ever made it out?’ said Dum-Dum.

El Huracán laughed. ‘Only their ghosts get past Hun Came,’ he said.

The men became excited, studying the dangers in the twisting alleyway below, discussing King’s fitness and bravery, and noisily placing bets.

In his bleak cell beneath the pyramid, Robert King could hear the sounds of merriment blotted out by a grinding noise as the metal gate slid up into the stonework. As it opened it revealed the long alleyway open to the sky, with walls some 15 feet high. He turned to the blank-faced Indian guards.

‘Listen, guys –’ he said, but his words were cut short as one of them jabbed him with the point of his spear. It was a practised move. The blade hardly penetrated his skin, but it stung like hell, and a thin trickle of blood began to flow down his chest. The other two raised their own spears and King backed away, arms raised.

‘OK, OK. I get the message,’ he said.

He moved out into the sunlight. The Indians advanced and the gate slid shut behind them.

As King walked cautiously down the alleyway he noticed evidence of animals. There were droppings and bits of bones and dried-up scraps of meat. There was a cloying ammonia smell, trapped down here by the high walls.

He came to a corner and cautiously peered round it, not knowing what he was going to find on the other side.

No signs of life. But the ground sloped downward into water and he realised that he would have to swim under a low arch in order to proceed.

The water was scummy and dark green and smelt awful. He could barely see 2 or 3 inches into its murky depths.

He forced himself onward, wading down the slope until the water was up to his chest. There was nothing for it now. He took a deep breath and ducked under the arch.

When he came up on the other side, coughing and spluttering, the disgusting water clogging his nose and ears, he opened his eyes to find six other pairs of eyes staring back at him.

They looked like they were floating on the surface of the water. Round and black and leathery, nothing else of the animals was visible, and, as King watched, they slowly began to move in closer.

He looked around quickly. He was in a half-submerged chamber. There was light at the far end, another arch like the one he had just come through. He splashed the water to keep the things away and in an instant they had disappeared under the water. He peered down but could see nothing in the murky gloom.

Where had they gone?

There was a sudden sharp pain in the back of his ankle as something latched on to his Achilles tendon. A second pain got him in the side, and as he put his hand down he felt a creature biting into the soft flesh at his waist.

He yelled.

‘
Crocodylus Moreletii
,’ said El Huracán. ‘The Mexican crocodile. They are only babies, but their teeth are sharp as needles. They don’t like strangers swimming in their paddling pool.’

They heard another yell from below and seconds later King came blundering up the slope at the other end of the chamber, a small crocodile hanging from his side by its teeth. He shook it loose and it plopped into the water, gave a flick of its tail and swam away back into the chamber.

King was a sorry sight, standing there in his ruined shirt and trousers, dripping with filthy water and with a spreading pink stain by his stomach.

‘Bravo!’ said El Huracán, applauding. ‘You have passed the sign of Chac, the god of rain. Not that I expected you to fall at the first fence. The crocs were just there to add a little bite to the proceedings!’

There was laughter from the watching men.

‘Are you going to let him do this?’ King shouted up at them. ‘You all feel the same way as me, I know it. You all want out of here. Open your eyes! Are you going to let him get away with this? We’re all prisoners here. We might just as well be in Alcatraz or San Quentin. He’s bleeding us dry. He takes our money and then what? Ask him. Ask him what happens when your money runs out. Go on, ask him …’

‘Carry on, please,’ said El Huracán. ‘There are more of my pets who are just dying to meet you.’

King spat, as much to show his contempt for El Huracán as to clear the foul water from his mouth.

‘What if I just stay here?’ he said bitterly. ‘I don’t reckon your three stooges are gonna want to follow me through there.’

‘By all means stay if you like,’ said El Huracán, and he laughed. ‘Perhaps I can make it more comfortable for you?’

King, who was still standing in about 6 inches of water, suddenly sensed a movement beneath his feet and something punched upward from the stone floor. He cried out and jumped backwards. A spike had stabbed the sole of his left shoe and gone right through it into his foot.

He hopped and staggered along the alleyway as rusty steel spikes began to shoot up all over the floor. He saw that it was studded with small holes and there was no way of knowing where the next spike would emerge.

The crowd of men following his progress found this hugely entertaining. They whistled and roared and screamed with laughter, forgetting that less than an hour ago King had been one of them.

King had to keep moving now or risk being stabbed again. As he stumbled along he left a trail of blood and water behind him.

Muttering cursses under his breath, he tried to outrun the spikes, ignoring the pain that jolted up through his leg every time he put his injured foot down.

One spike grazed his ankle and another snagged his trousers; a third one went through the front of his right shoe. Miraculously, though, it somehow slid between his toes and caused no damage.

‘Go on, King, you can do it,’ someone shouted. ‘You’re nearly there.’

There were more cheers of encouragement from above. King knew that they didn’t care about him at all; they just cared about their bets. Not one of them would have bet on him going down this early, but it was plain that if he fell over now, one of the spikes could kill him.

He made it to the end of that stretch of the run and was now faced by what appeared to be a solid wall. He looked wildly around, hearing more spikes slicing up through the stones with the sound of knives being sharpened.

At last he spotted a narrow gap along the bottom of the wall, just wide enough to squeeze through. He threw himself on his belly, at any moment expecting to feel one of the spikes drive into him.

He wriggled forward unable to see what was ahead of him. His hand touched something. It felt like dry twigs, but as he brushed them aside, he felt a nasty sting in his wrist.

From above, the watching men could see that King now had to get through a chamber filled with scorpions. He would have to crawl all the way, as horizontal steel bars prevented him from standing up.

The watchers followed King as he wriggled along, every now and then his body jerking as one of the scorpions got him with its tail. He would twist away each time, only to put himself within range of another insect. Then he would squirm and writhe in the opposite direction.

‘Ek Chuah,’ said El Huracán, ‘the Mayan scorpion god.’

King screamed. One of the insects had got him in the cheek. He could feel his whole face swelling up. He moved more quickly. The nasty little bugs skittered and rattled around as he roared at them and vainly tried to protect himself from their stings.

The exit was only a few feet away. He concentrated on it, trying not to think about the terrible pain he was in.

He had been bitten in the heel and the belly, stabbed in the foot and now stung all over.

What next?

He soon found out. At the end of the scorpion chamber he was faced with a drop. He didn’t hesitate. He just wanted to get out of there fast. He flung himself over the edge and fell 6 feet. He was relieved to land on something soft.

His sense of relief was rather short-lived, however.

It was hard to decide which of the two was the more surprised: King, or the massive, sleeping anaconda.

As soon as King realised what he had landed on, he forgot all about his injuries and began scrabbling for a way out. For its part, the huge snake wrapped a length of its fat body around King’s leg. It sensed that something was attacking it, and it was fighting back the only way it knew how.

‘He has reached the sign of Gucumatz, the snake god,’ said El Huracán as King grabbed hold of the top of the wall and tried to haul himself out. The great weight of the anaconda, which must have been a good 25 feet long, was pulling him back, though. He kicked out as it began to crush his leg. The coils slid further and further, up his shin, past his knee and along his thigh towards his groin.