The Maya Codex (29 page)

Aleta turned off the light and headed towards her bedroom.

Sodano flattened himself against the wall and waited. The woman passed without looking into the hallway. He took two steps, clamped his right hand over her mouth and wrenched her hair back with his left.

Aleta let out a muffled scream and Sodano winced as she bit hard into his hand.

‘
Schlampe!
Bitch!’ He bundled Aleta into her bedroom and pinned her to the wall. Aleta’s eyes widened in fear as she felt the knife against her throat.

O’Connor found both the heavy double wooden doors to the courtyard and the steel security door at the bottom of the steps to Aleta’s apartment ajar. Fearing the worst, he drew his Glock 21 and silently bounded up the staircase, two stairs at time. The front door was unlocked. O’Connor paused at the sound of voices from inside.

‘Not so feisty now, are we?’ Sodano sneered as he ran his free hand up Aleta’s inner thigh.

Aleta spat in his face.

‘You’re going to regret that, bitch.’ Sodano moved the knife back against Aleta’s neck and fondled her breasts.

O’Connor eased his way up the hall and cautiously looked around the door jamb, only to make immediate eye contact with Aleta. Her sharp intake of breath was enough. Sodano reacted in an instant, whipping Aleta around in front of him and pressing the knife harder on her neck. ‘Drop the gun, O’Connor, or she gets it. Now!’

O’Connor reluctantly threw the Glock onto the floor in front of him. Sodano’s use of his name was instant confirmation that Aleta was not the hitman’s only target.

‘Now step back.’ Sodano shoved Aleta to one side. She stumbled on the rug beside the bed and for a moment, as he tried to hold her, Sodano was distracted. O’Connor swung his right leg in a roundhouse kick to Sodano’s ribcage, pushing powerfully with his left leg. Sodano grunted in pain, releasing Aleta. The knife arced harmlessly through the air, clattering against the wardrobe. O’Connor head-butted Sodano and then fought for balance as the tough little Sicilian hooked his leg behind O’Connor’s right knee. They tumbled out into the lounge room, each searching for grip. Sodano drove his knee into O’Connor’s thigh and they crashed against the fireplace. O’Connor slammed his elbow against Sodano’s throat and rolled onto his back, wrapping his right arm around the Sicilian’s neck. In the classic special forces choke, O’Connor secured his upper left arm on the struggling Sodano’s shoulder and applied his left forearm and hand to Sodano’s neck, forcing it forward. O’Connor squeezed his arms towards one another and Sodano’s eyes bulged with fear. O’Connor held the mafia hitman’s throat until the lifeblood drained from Sodano’s face and his head fell limp in his hands. When O’Connor was certain his assailant was dead, he rolled Sodano onto the floor, and gasped for breath. Aleta stood above him, Sodano’s knife in one hand.

‘I’m on your side. So you can put that down,’ O’Connor rasped between deep breaths.

‘Not until you tell me who you are and what the hell you’re doing in my apartment!’ Her hands were shaking.

‘My name is Curtis O’Connor. And strange as it may seem, I came to protect you.’

The shaman’s words came flooding back …
There are two more men, one of whom will deal with the other. You will come to trust one of these with your life.

‘Who
are
you?’ Aleta demanded again.

‘That’s a long story … ’

‘Give me the short version!’

‘I’m with the CIA, and right now they want you out of the road. You’ve pissed off some seriously powerful people.’

‘If you’re with the CIA and they want me dead, how come you’re here to protect me? And who’s he?’ Aleta pointed the knife at the corpse on her living room floor.

‘Antonio Sodano, a hired hitman, or he was. But why don’t you put the knife down and perhaps I can give you the longer version over coffee?’

‘I’m calling the police!’

‘That’s the last thing you should do.’

‘Why not? A mafia hitman just attempted to murder me!’

‘Think about it,’ O’Connor said quietly. ‘If you call the police, you’ll have every journalist in Vienna on your front doorstep. You won’t be able to move without a camera crew following you, and because there’s mystery surrounding who wants you dead, the journalists are going to keep probing.’

‘Which might give me a degree of protection from assholes like you!’

‘That’s perhaps a little ungrateful?’ O’Connor suggested with a lopsided grin.

Aleta said nothing. She felt like bursting into tears.

‘And far from giving you protection,’ O’Connor continued, ‘if this gets publicity, the people who want you out of the way will redouble their efforts to silence you. These guys play for keeps and money isn’t an obstacle, Aleta. You’re going to have to trust me on this. The first priority is to get rid of the body.’

Again the shaman’s words came back:
trust him with your life
. ‘So we get rid of the body,’ she said, her heart rate subsiding a little, ‘but when it’s found, the police are going to come looking for me. What then?’

‘Only if it’s linked to this apartment. When’s the garbage collected?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll be back shortly, but if you don’t mind, I’ll use your bathroom first.’

O’Connor looked in the mirror. ‘Not a pretty sight,’ he muttered, as he gingerly dabbed at his battered face. Several minutes later he left the apartment. Sterngasse was deserted. With a bit of luck it would stay that way, he thought, as he walked quickly down the narrow cobbled street towards several wheelie bins that were already on the street just past the bookshop. O’Connor chose a full one and headed back towards Aleta’s apartment, the load muffling the sound of the wheels on the cobblestones. When he reached the courtyard, he checked for any sign of activity in the rest of the block. Satisfied, he emptied the contents into Aleta’s bin and carried the bookshop’s empty bin up the stairs and into the living room. Aleta was sitting at the kitchen table.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Fine: one of the most dangerous words in the female lexicon.’

Aleta glared at him. ‘So we just put the body out with the garbage, do we?’

‘Look, I know you’ve been through a hell of a lot, but, like I said, you’re going to have to trust me, because this isn’t over – not by a long shot. Sometimes, the simplest methods are the best. If we’re lucky, this bin will be picked up by a mechanical lever and emptied through the top of the truck. Unless someone actually sees the contents being tipped in, the body will be compacted with the rest of the garbage and may never be found. At worst, if the body’s discovered, the police will identify Sodano, conclude it’s drug-related and cross another young thug off their wanted list. They’re not going to come swarming around here, at least not initially, and if they do, we’re going to be well out of here.’

‘We?’

‘We. Because right now, whether you like it or not, you and I are in this together. If you put the coffee pot on, I’ll explain when I get back.’

O’Connor searched Sodano’s body. He left the wallet and Italian passport in Sodano’s jacket but removed the cell phone.

‘Why are you keeping his phone?’

‘SIM cards can be tracked. But if I drop it into a passing barge on the
Donaukanal
, who knows where it might finish up?’ O’Connor said with a grin. He picked up Sodano’s body in a fireman’s lift and dumped it headfirst into the wheelie bin. Sodano was stocky but he was short, and O’Connor managed to bend Sodano’s knees and push his legs into the bin. He closed the lid and pulled the bin but one wheel had fallen into a hole in the carpet and O’Connor had to yank the bin free.

‘‘I’m afraid there’s a bit of damage to the floor,’ he said, peeling back the carpet in front of the fireplace. The old floorboard had been dislodged and O’Connor pulled it clear. There, in the cavity between the floor joists, was a battered old tin trunk. It was nearly a metre long and about thirty centimetres wide.

Aleta, her animosity momentarily forgotten, helped O’Connor extract the trunk from its hiding place. Together they lifted it onto the carpet.

‘If this belonged to your grandfather, he wanted it well hidden,’ O’Connor observed, stepping back.

‘I think I know why,’ Aleta said, her fingers trembling as she pried open the latch. The lid creaked as she raised it to reveal an old yellowed notebook and two separate packages, each protected by red velvet cloth. Aleta unwrapped the first package to reveal an intricately carved jade sculpture, and she felt her heart skip a beat. ‘My God. The figurines!’ she gasped.

O’Connor watched her unwrap the second exquisite carving.

‘You’ve been looking for these?’

Aleta didn’t answer, turning the second figurine in her hands and examining it closely. She put the artefact down and looked O’Connor in the eye, her mind racing. Should she trust this man, as the shaman had suggested? He seemed to know who was out to kill her, and he
had
saved her life, but still she was wary. Very wary. ‘Give me one reason I should trust you,’ she challenged.

‘You shouldn’t trust anyone. At least, not until you get to know them, and maybe not even then.’

‘You say there are people out to silence me. How do you know that?’

‘Because I was sent here to kill you.’

‘What?’ Aleta recoiled in shock. ‘So why didn’t you?’

‘That’s a long story as well, but I’ll give you the short version.’

Aleta listened in stony silence as O’Connor gave her a potted history of the events that had led to his interception of Sodano, and the involvement of Wiley and Felici. ‘Look,’ he said finally. ‘We can spend the rest of the night arguing, or we can call a truce. I’m not asking you to like me, but you’ll have to trust me … at least until I get you out of here.’

Aleta stared at him frostily.

O’Connor reached underneath his jacket, withdrew the Glock he’d recovered from the bedroom and proffered it to her. ‘Take it.’

‘What for?’

‘Take it,’ O’Connor insisted. ‘I could have killed you at any time,’ he explained, handing Aleta the weapon. ‘I came to protect you,’ he emphasised, pushing the barrel to one side. ‘It’s loaded.’

Aleta looked at him quizzically.

‘And now you can kill me, or call the police, or both. Or we can call a truce and get the hell out of here.’

‘Tonight?’ She handed the weapon back to O’Connor.

He shook his head. ‘Tomorrow. First I’ve got to deal with Pretty Boy Floyd over there and we both need some sleep. Have you got a spare bedroom here? I’d ask you back to my hotel, but it’s only our first date.’

‘Don’t push your luck,
Mister
O’Connor.’

‘Have you ever heard of the Maya Codex?’ Aleta asked, plunging the coffee at the kitchen table.

‘I was at Monsignor Jennings’ lecture,’ O’Connor admitted.

‘Why am I not surprised?’ Aleta shook her head, her feelings of being watched and stalked returning. ‘Trying to pass yourself off as an archaeologist, no doubt.’

‘I did a couple of nights’ study, although it was a public lecture,’ he added sheepishly.

Aleta nodded. ‘Then you would have heard the question about the codex.’

‘And Jennings dismissing it as a figment of the media’s imagination. Is it?’

‘It exists.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Now it’s your turn to trust me.’

‘So you think these figurines will lead you to it?’ O’Connor asked after Aleta had given him a thumbnail sketch of her grandfather’s work, and Dr Arana’s warnings.

‘Well, I can’t be sure of that. In any case, I still need to find the third one. The ancient Maya went to great lengths to ensure the codex would remain hidden until the time was right for it to be recovered.’

‘And José Arana thinks that time may have arrived?’

Aleta nodded. ‘The discovery of these two figurines may not be an accident, and if you look at them closely, you’ll see that each one is in the shape of a tree, the Mayan tree of life. It’s a very powerful symbol that represents creation, which right now is under extraordinary threat. The male figurine has a male jaguar at the base, while the neutral one is in balance with both male and female cats. The third figurine will undoubtedly have a female jaguar – the lost feminine.’