Exodus Code (6 page)

Darren’s computer beeped an alert. He typed in his access code and a satel ite map popped up on his screen. At first he distrusted his own eyes. He couldn’t possibly be seeing what he was seeing. Zooming in on the image, he stared at the screen for a good ten minutes before saving the file to the department’s server, logging off and dashing into the narrow hal . Skipping the elevators, he took the stairs instead, leaping down three at a time.

Breathless, he rushed into the Deputy Director’s outer office. The Deputy Director’s assistant jumped up from his seat, attempting to block Darren’s entry into the inner sanctum.

‘I need to see the Deputy Director immediately.’

‘Let me see if he’s available.’

The assistant sat back down, waving Darren to a leather couch where he realised a young woman was sitting, flipping through a magazine, obviously waiting to see the Deputy Director. She looked familiar, but he dismissed the feeling, realising that everyone applying for a position with this unit had the same look about them: grey suit, grey expression. No one had a sense of humour any more. It was as if society had lost its ability to mock, to poke fun at life, because death had left for a while.

The assistant hung up the phone. ‘He’s in the middle of important interviews, Agent Crowder. I’m afraid you’l have to wait like everyone else.’

‘This real y can’t wait,’ said Darren, pushing past the assistant, who couldn’t get to the emergency lock on the Deputy Director’s door in time. Darren charged into the office, but not before he noticed the woman on the couch was stil flipping through her magazine, unfazed by his brash actions.

Inside the expansive office with its view of the capitol building, the Deputy Director looked up, snarled, and with a wave of his hand dismissed a new recruit who was seated in front of his desk. His assistant shut the door with more emphasis than necessary.

‘You have to see this, sir,’ said Darren, placing his palm on the top-left corner of a wal -mounted computer screen. After his access was granted, Darren cal ed up the file that he’d viewed at his desk.

‘This better be something,’ said Rex Matheson, the agency’s most recently appointed Deputy Director, stepping out from behind his desk and closer to the screen.

‘It’s from the Castenado operation in progress in Peru, sir, the one tracking our lead to the three families.’ Darren paused before adding, ‘And it’s way more than something. It’s someone.’

Isela

Southern Coast of Peru, Hacienda del Castenado, present day
THROUGH HER BINOCULARS, Isela watched plumes of dust trail behind the minibus as it climbed along the canyon road towards the hacienda. It would be close enough for her in ten minutes, max.

She peered over the top of the tower wal , signal ing to Antonio who pushed off from the tree, and jogged inside the wooden gates of the hotel’s tropical courtyard. A few minutes later, the speakers on the pink adobe wal that faced the square emitted the lyrical strains of Andean charango music, the high-pitched guitar sounds loud enough for even the footbal ers across the airstrip to take note. The market came to life when the music filtered from the hacienda. The vendors opened their stal s, the women on the church steps haggling with each other for the best spaces.

Isela stared at the boys playing near the airstrip and realised that she could no longer see the approaching plane. Had it landed and she’d missed it?

No, that wasn’t possible. But if that wasn’t possible, where had it landed?

The hangar, tucked into the trees next to the landing strip was where her father kept his planes, and she could see that it was stil secured.

Focusing her binoculars on the tree line, Isela scanned the area at the start of the hiking path that led deeper into the canyon and up to the mountain plateau. Tourists usual y took the other road, the one to Lake Aczuma, a man-made oasis that filtered the spring waters for the travel ers who came to the hacienda for something more authentic than the hotel’s swimming pool and the guided tours of the nearby Inca ruins.

With the music blasting, the men and women dotted around the market place were suddenly livelier, their movements choreographed in response to the hotel’s demands to entertain arriving tourists. Not that these vil agers didn’t benefit. The Hacienda del Castenado was the envy of many of the region’s bigger towns, with its community buildings, including a state of the art primary school completely rebuilt after the devastation of the 2007 earthquake, a disaster from which lots of vil ages in the area had never recovered.

But hotel or not, beneath the strains of the music and the colourful costumes of those crowding the square, Isela knew these peasants were al stil slaves to the owner of the hacienda, her father, the drug kingpin and kidnapper extraordinaire, and her mother, the matriarch of the mountain.

Beyond the concrete structure, Isela focused on a cluster of round thatched roof huts, brick cairns, built by her ancestors centuries ago for ritual sacrifices to the gods for a rich crop. Her father had kept the outside structures intact, but renovated their insides to create saunas and meditation huts for the New Agers who would make their pilgrimages to the resort in the tourist months.

These cairns dotted the landscape, forming a line up into the mountains.

Forgetting about the plane, Isela zoomed her binoculars in on the last cairn bordering her father’s land.

Was that movement she could see behind the structure?

She held her gaze on the spot for a beat, reassuring herself that she had imagined it.

The minibus was right on schedule, having passed the first cairn on the canyon road, then the second, and was now close enough for Isela to see the driver with her binoculars. She recognized Juan at the wheel.

Shit, why did it have to be Juan? She liked him. He was loyal, which meant he would not give up the mark without a fight.

Eight minutes to go.

Isela turned her attention to the
cóndor
in the café, who was getting to his feet. He threw some money on the table and jogged along the cobbled sidewalk behind the café towards the airstrip and the boys playing footbal .

Isela narrowed her focus on the scene. The boys stopped playing, and watched the man walk towards them.

He said a few words. They replied. From the hand gestures and the body language, Isela knew that they were negotiating. It was a skil everyone in the hacienda had perfected. The man passed money to Enrico, who Isela knew was her age and the oldest of the group. Enrico handed the bal to the man who tossed it in the air in front of his feet, booting it across the airstrip and over the flat roof of the hangar.

Why would he buy a footbal from them only to kick it into the trees? The boys sprinted after it, disappearing into the jungle behind the concrete hangar.

A piercing whistle broke Isela from her reverie. Peeking over the belfry wal at the piazza, she saw Antonio signal ing to her to begin her countdown.

Isela nodded. Final y, she was going to get out of here. Get away from the madness and the sway this mountain had on her.

Setting her rifle in a tiny trench she’d dug out of a stone on the ledge, she sighted on the canyon road and waited her chance to be free of the mountain.

Gaia

Southern Peru, 1930

THE SUN WAS a blazing orange bal dipping into the sea as Gaia led the elders down from the mountain. They were carrying the man between them.

A young girl had met the procession midway with water for Gaia and the elders. Now she darted out ahead of them to alert the High Priestess. As soon as she knew of the procession’s proximity, the Priestess accepted a bouquet of condor feathers from another elder. Soaking the feathers in a clay bowl fil ed with goat’s blood and with another elder pacing behind her holding the pot, the Priestess marked the wal s of the temple. It was a necessary part of the ritual so that when the underworld discovered the man from the heavens was missing, the temple would be protected from the wrath of the gods.

Every three steps, the Priestess stopped, prayed, and then brushed the Cuari symbol of the three interlocking circles on the stone blocks of the temple. While she marked, her chants cal ed on the gods of the three worlds – the underworld, Uku Pacha, the overworld, Hanan Pacha, and the world of man, Hurin Pacha – to join as one as they once had been. The three must be united when the prophecy was fulfil ed.

Gaia halted at the end of the canyon, letting the Priestess finish her ritual.

When she had walked the perimeter of the temple, the Priestess placed the feathers into the bowl and then waved for Gaia to proceed. The twilight made it possible for Gaia to drop her hood as she crossed the dusty clearing, her shining eyes absorbing as much as she could withstand before hiding herself away to prepare herself and the
cóndor
for their journey. As soon as Gaia walked out of the canyon, the vil agers dropped to their knees, prostrating themselves on the ground, pul ing their smal children beneath their bodies, terrified of seeing the man who had fal en from the heavens.

With Gaia stil leading the way, the four elders carried the sling through the channel created by the vil agers and set it down inside the circle the Priestess had made. Only the Priestess and Gaia were permitted to cross the circle.

Leaving the man wrapped in the sling, the Priestess and Gaia each gripped a wooden pole and awkwardly dragged his inert body into the temple. They stopped next to the reed mat Gaia had rol ed out earlier.

‘I am sorry,’ said the Priestess, breathless from the task. Gaia waited until the old woman had caught her breath and mopped her forehead dry. Gaia tasted potatoes from the old woman’s sweat.

Lifting a rol of black cotton gauze from a basket next to the door, Gaia wrapped the thin fabric round her head, covering her mouth and nose. She looked like a
bandito
.

‘We must fol ow the prophesy as precisely as we can,’ said the Priestess.

Gaia nodded, swal owing the high sharp chords shooting across her skul and the aching in her joints from the odours of blood and sweat emanating from the man. She had become skil ed at carrying her suffering because she knew it was a gift from the gods. This day would fulfil her destiny. Soon she’d be dancing on the stars.

Placing a bowl intricately patterned with bands of red and black next to the man’s head, the Priestess knelt and untied the leather straps binding the sling.

She glanced up at Gaia, who nodded, and then with a graceful flourish the Priestess threw open the sling.

The old woman fel back on her heels, knocking over two of the clay pots, their oils absorbed instantly into the soft wool rugs carpeting the temple floor.

The man’s clothing was torn and bloodstained, but his bones were no longer broken, and the mass of tears and cuts to his legs and arms were almost healed. Gaia lifted the golden mask from his face, and both women looked at each other in astonishment, tears of awe fil ing Gaia’s eyes.

The man’s face remained bruised, his eyes swol en, his lips cracked, but his face had no other injuries.

‘Have you ever seen anything like this… like this
being
in your experience, Gaia?’

‘Never,’ said Gaia, kneeling at the other side of the man, stroking the dark hair away from his forehead.

Both women remained at his side, sitting cross-legged in silence until the sun fel completely from the heavens and dropped into the sea, and beams of moonlight filtered into the hut through the slits in the stones. The fire had long since gone out. When moonlight touched the top of his head, the Priestess slowly rose to her feet, her bones creaking. Gaia remained seated, her eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep.

The Priestess relit the fire, then touched Gaia’s shoulder. ‘It is time. Uku Pacha has opened. We must prepare for your descent.’

For al of her young life, Gaia had been practising and praying for this honour, to be the one to guide the star man to the underworld so that the ancient prophesy might be fulfil ed. Since the beginning of time, the Cuari had been the protectors of the mountain, first waiting for a guide to be born among them and then, when she was waiting, preparing her to accompany the deity.

Gaia accepted a bowl of warm milk from the Priestess, drinking al of it without even noticing the dots of colour that danced before her eyes as she did. Returning the empty bowl to the Priestess, Gaia slipped her ceremonial hunting knife from its sheath. With trembling hands, she began the ritual that until this day she had only dreamed about.

First, Gaia sliced the blade through the sleeves of the man’s coat, peeling back the cloth, exposing his shirt, braces and trousers. While the priestess removed his boots, Gaia stripped off his bloody clothes, tossing them into a pile near the temple door. The Cuari elders would take the clothes up to the mountain where they would burn them, sending the smoke into the mountain as a sign that he was coming. When he was naked, Gaia soaked a piece of cotton in warm eucalyptus oil, bathing his face and his body.

Gaia had never seen a naked man until now, but the images on the wal s of the temple and the glyphs on the ancient scrol s had prepared her for the sight. When she finished, she spread a blanket she had spent most of her childhood embroidering with a sleek black puma circling a giant condor. She spread the blanket across the man’s naked body.