Aztec Century Read Free Page B

approaching us from the west. I began to fear that it had never set out in the first place.
    I went to the kitchen and put a pot of water on the paraffinstove. The smell of the stove made me feel nauseous, so I returned to the balcony.
    And then I saw it.
    Far south, down the twilit valley, framed by the rounded black hills, was a point of light.
    My immediate instinct was to rouse the others and give them the good news that at last the Russians were coming. But as I stared, the point of light resolved into three – one larger, the other two smaller.
    All were golden.
    For long moments I did not move. I couldn’t take my eyes off their firefly glow, as gold as the sun.
    ‘Enemy aircraft!’ I shouted. ‘They’re coming!’
    In the drawing room, everyone awoke. There was a brief befuddled panic before Alex appeared and confirmed that they were indeed Aztec craft. He began marshalling us.
    I rushed off to rouse Victoria. She was still soundly asleep, naked under the sheets. I shook her awake. Ignoring her protests, I scrambled around the room, finding jeans, a blouse, a sweater.
    Alex hastened into the room just as Victoria was struggling into her boots. He was carrying his attaché case.
    ‘Quickly!’ he told us.
    We hurried downstairs and went out through a side door, crossing a potato bed before slipping through a yew hedge. A stone stairway led down and away from the house. We skirted the pine plantation, heading across the lower slopes in the general direction of the colliery.
    ‘Where are the others?’ I asked.
    Alex’s reply was drowned in a searing noise which was followed by an eruption of flame on the lower terraces of the garden. We were bathed in golden light as our attackers completed their first pass.
    The two smaller craft were fast-flying, manoeuvrable interceptors with slender fuselages and sickle wings. Their larger companion had a pointed nose and high swept-back wings which made it resemble an enormous golden bird of prey: it was a gunship transporter, its hold typically crammed with troops who would spew out to occupy positions softened up by the craft’s firepower. All three shone brilliant gold in the gathering dawn.
    Alex crouched and opened his briefcase. He took out the computer disk and thrust it at me.
    I stood frozen, staring at it.
    ‘Take it!’ he insisted. ‘I’m going back for the others.’
    He closed the briefcase and flung it away from him, sending it spinning through the air.
    ‘Alex—’
    ‘The codeword’s
axolotl
.’ He repeated the word, then forced a grin. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be back. Head for the bathhouse. I’ll find you there as soon as I can. Now get clear of here!’
    Banking sharply, and utterly silently, the interceptors came in again. Plumes of liquid fire spurted from their noses, plummeting down to burst on the ground, setting clumps of gorse ablaze and throwing the skeletal framework of the tower into stark relief. Alex was already blotted from view by the smoke.
    I slipped the disk into a pocket of my jacket. Keeping Victoria close to me, I led her down the mountain path towards the bathhouse, a squat building which stood on the lower flank of the valley. The air was thick with smoke and the petroleum smell of
xiuhatl
liquid incendiary.
    We skirted the colliery, and I kept glancing back with each explosion. The gunship hovered at a distance while the interceptors swept in, spreading fire and mayhem. The house was still intact, and now the small craft paused in their attacks while the gunship descended until it hung no more than a hundred yards above the house.
    White light from the belly of the ship bathed the entire area.
    ‘You will surrender immediately. No further attacks will be made. You will surrender immediately.’
    The amplified message came from the gunship. It was repeated. I pulled Victoria down behind a low wall, searching the hillsides with my eyes for some sign of Alex and the others.
    I heard the sound of rifle-fire, and I knew it