E llen Rodriguez arrived in Tikal in a nondescript embassy four-wheel drive bearing local plates. She scanned the car park of the Jungle Lodge for any sign of the Toyota reported by the guard at the park gates, but no vehicle fitted that description. After checking into her room, she took a mango juice in the lobby and waited until the desk was manned by just one of the staff, an older dark-skinned man with a thin black moustache.
‘Would it be possible to see the guest list?’
‘I’m sorry, senora, but it’s against company policy.’
Rodriguez slipped him a 200-quetzale note.
‘But I will see what I can do,’ he said, his face expressionless as he pocketed the money. A short while later, he returned with a sealed envelope.
Back in the privacy of her room, Rodriguez worked her way down the list. She knew O’Connor too well to expect him to book in under his own name, but she was looking for two people, a man and a woman, who might have checked in some time after the report from the gate guard. Rodriguez came to the end of the list and sighed with frustration. No one had checked in as a couple, or two singles in the timeframe. So where were O’Connor and Weizman, she wondered. She looked at her watch. It was time to meet with the latest thugs Wiley had organised from Washington. Rodriguez smiled grimly to herself. The chase for O’Connor had left a trail littered with bodies, and she was beginning to hope that her old colleague might prevail again, but with five assets deployed, she knew the odds were now stacked even more heavily against him. Tomorrow was the winter solstice, and soon O’Connor would have to come out into the open.
Wiley’s assets were supposed to rendezvous with Rodriguez near the base of Pyramid I, pretending to be part of a night tour of the ruins, but as she approached the Great Plaza, Howard Wiley detached himself from the main tourist group. Rodriguez stifled a gasp. No matter how important an operation was to Washington, it was unprecedented for the Deputy Director of Operations to appear in the field. If someone in Tikal recognised Wiley from a Senate hearing in Washington, the whole operation would be compromised.
‘I’m taking personal command, Rodriguez. This operation’s been a balls-up from the word go. You can brief me in your room.’
‘But, sir… the assets… ’
‘They’re under my direct command. This time I want no mistakes.’
‘Would you like something to drink, sir?’ Rodriguez asked as she closed the door to her bungalow. Her tone was icy.
‘A scotch.’
Rodriguez handed him a miniature Johnny Walker Red Label from the room service bar.
‘So what do you have?’ Wiley demanded.
‘O’Connor and Weizman entered the park about two hours ago, but since then they’ve not been sighted. I’ve checked the records of the hotel, but no one has arrived in the timeframe. For the moment, they’ve disappeared, but they can’t be far away.’
‘Langley has a satellite image of a vehicle on what looks to be a disused track,’ Wiley said. ‘We’ve also got real-time footage of two people crossing a bridge, but after that they were lost to the jungle canopy.’ He pulled a map of the ruins of Tikal and the surrounding area out of his soft leather attache case and laid it on the coffee table. ‘My guess is that they’re headed for this village here.’
‘And the assets?’
‘Three of them have been deployed in the ruins, with instructions to shoot on sight.’
‘You don’t think that might attract attention?’
‘I don’t give a fuck, Rodriguez. There are enough shoot-outs between Mexican drug lords in this part of the world to rival John Wayne on steroids. The other two assets are on their way to the village. If the two people crossing the bridge were Tutankhamen and Nefertiti, we’ll get them there. Either way, they’re cactus.’
‘So what about the codex? Wouldn’t it be better to keep them under observation until they lead us to it?’
‘That’s the problem with you, Rodriguez – you leave too much to chance. It probably hasn’t occurred to you, but whatever information our friends picked up around Lake Atitlan, they’ll have on them. I’m just as capable of deciphering that as they are. Now, do you have anything else?’
‘You and Langley seem to have it pretty well covered, sir. ’
‘Good.’ Wiley drained his scotch and folded the map. ‘I’m in Bungalow Eleven. If anything breaks out at that tin-pot organisation you run in Guatemala City, I’m to be informed immediately.’
More than one door closed as Wiley left. The other was the silent sound of a door closing on a career to which Rodriguez had devoted her entire working life. With only hours to go to the winter solstice, and the second experiment in Operation Aether, she set her cell phone alarm for 3 a.m.