‘All right, Calque. I’m impressed. You’ve earned your kewpie doll.’
‘My what?’
‘Forget it. It was just a turn of phrase. But you got one detail wrong, Calque. Mount Fuji’s a stratovolcano too.’ Sabir became aware that Lamia was glaring at him, as if the grilling he was undergoing constituted some sort of indefinable test. He instantly regretted the stratovolcano jibe. He’d been trying to score cheap points off Calque in an effort to cover up his embarrassment at being so spectacularly wrong-footed. And now Lamia knew about his insecurities as well. Well, there was nothing like a critical female audience to cement a man’s public humiliation. ‘What about Inchal and Kabah, then? What of them?’
Lamia stood up. ‘Give me five minutes.’ She walked across to the desk.
Sabir raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that all about?’
Calque shrugged. ‘Search me.’ He mashed his latest unsmoked cigarette onto the tabletop in front of him and reached for another.
14
Lamia sat down beside the men. During her absence, Sabir had ordered coffee, and now she busied herself ‘being mother’, an elusive smile hovering about her face.
‘Well who’s going to be the first to ask, then?’ Sabir was still feeling slightly sick that he might, at this very moment, have been jetting off towards Saudi Arabia, if Calque and Lamia hadn’t happened by.
There was silence. Calque and Lamia sipped their coffee.
‘Okay. I’ll admit it. I ballsed-up. I was on the total wrong track. But I still don’t get the “Inchal” bit. Or why “Kabah” doesn’t apply to the Kaaba.’
Lamia glanced up. ‘I’ve just been using the hotel’s internet connection. I typed in “Kabah”. With an h. Just as you tell us it’s written in Nostradamus’s prophecy. Number two on the list of Google hits, after the Kaaba, takes you straight to Kabah, a Maya site down in the Yucatan. Kabah means “strong hand”, or, in its original form, Kabahaucan, a “royal snake in the hand”. The place is famous for the Codz Poop – the Palace of the Masks – in which hundreds of stone masks dedicated to the long-nosed rain god, Chaac, stretch along a massive stone facade. Chaac, if you don’t know it, is also the god of thunder, lightning, and rain, and he is considered capable of causing volcanic eruptions with his lightning axe.’
‘Jesus.’ Sabir had always known he possessed a single-track mind. But his recent inability to think laterally constituted something of a record, even for him.
‘The word “Inchal” was harder. At first, I only came up with a place in India, with no link at all to the Maya. In the end I decided to play around with it a little, and came up with “Chilan”.’
‘And what the heck is a Chilan when it’s at home?’
‘It’s a Maya priest. The word actually means an “interpreter”, a “mouthpiece”, or a “soothsayer”. The Chilans were responsible for teaching the sciences, appointing holy days, treating the sick, offering sacrifices, and acting as the oracles of the gods.’
‘Holy shit.’
‘And Chilans traditionally wore the “Ahau”, which is the Maya sun belt. The word also means “Lord” in Maya. So Nostradamus’s phrase “Ahau Inchal Kabah”, and his insistence that this person, blessed with the ultimate gift of prophecy, lives in the land of the “Great Volcano”, is so far from implying a place in Saudi Arabia, that it almost beggars belief how you could ever have allowed yourself to be so disastrously sidetracked, Mr Sabir.’
Sabir leaned forward and placed his head in his hands.
Calque squirmed deliriously in his seat. ‘Don’t tell me, Sabir. You haven’t been sleeping recently. Your brain is not functioning to quite its usual standard.’ The ex-policeman was enjoying himself. He was behaving as if he had somehow magicked Lamia out of his jacket pocket and presented her, in triumph, to a wildly applauding gallery.
‘Don’t rub it in, Calque. You’re beginning to sound like Svengali.’
Calque glanced towards Lamia. ‘What do you think? Shall we let him travel with us? Or shall we go it alone? We have all the material we need.’
‘Oh really?’ Sabir sat up straighter. ‘You’ve got everything you need?’
Calque hesitated for a moment. ‘Yes. I think we have.’
Lamia rolled her eyes.
‘You’ve got the full text of Nostradamus’s quatrain, have you? Including the key indicator of where to look for this man once you get to Kabah?’
Calque fiddled with his unlit cigarette.
‘Well you don’t need me any more, then, do you?’ Sabir stood up. ‘But if you should happen to change your minds, you can probably catch me any time within the next half hour. My house. A silver Grand Cherokee. After that I’m gone. Out of here. Capeesh, wiseasses?’
15
Sabir didn’t pull off his ‘leaving in a snit’ stunt. He was dealing, after all, with two companions to whom – due to either familial or professional habit – compromise was a sine qua non.
Whilst he refused point blank to cough up the key part of the quatrain that referred to the actual whereabouts of Nostradamus’s Ahau Inchal Kabah, he did agree that the three of them might, at the very least, pool their resources and travel together. It had become blindingly clear to him, over the past few hours, that three minds were a heck of a lot better than one.
‘I vote we fly down to Cancun, and then hire a car from there. That way we can be there in less than a day.’
Lamia and Calque exchanged glances.
‘What is it? What am I missing this time?’
‘You’re missing my twin brothers.’ Lamia glanced across at Calque.
Calque nodded his head in agreement. ‘Airports are our worst bet. They’re too easy to monitor. Flight plans and passenger lists are easily obtainable, if one has either the money or the connections. And Lamia’s brothers have both. Plus these days most hire cars come with either satellite navigation systems or inbuilt trackers. Meaning that they can be followed, and their exact whereabouts pinpointed. Hire companies do it to protect their investments.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘That we ought to go in your car. And that we ought to drive down.’
‘Drive down? Jesus. Do you know how long that would take? It’s better than three thousand miles. And I’m probably underestimating.’
‘Are we in any hurry? Is there a deadline for this thing?’
Sabir shrugged. ‘No. I suppose not.’
‘And we will be three. To share the driving.’
Sabir nodded. ‘There is that. But it sticks in my craw to base our plans on the probable antics of a couple of high-class hoodlums. Sorry, Lamia. But you know what I’m getting at, don’t you?’
Calque intervened before Lamia had time to answer. ‘Ever since I’ve known you, Sabir, you’ve manifested one fatal, but nevertheless entirely consistent, flaw. You’ve always underestimated your opponents. It’s almost a sickness with you.’ Sabir tried to break in, but Calque overrode him. ‘I don’t know anything about these boys beyond what Lamia has told me, but that’s enough to give me pause. They are Achor Bale’s brothers, in the name of God. They come from the same nursery. They’ve suckled at the same diabolical teat.’ Calque was getting into his stride. ‘Unlike Lamia, they have never had doubts about their vocation. They know what they want, and they are prepared to do whatever it takes to get it. I spoke to the Countess two days ago. I was in her presence, Sabir. She is without doubt the most terrifying human being it has ever been my misfortune to meet. She’s worse than any politician, in that she knows she’s right – she doesn’t just act out the role, she is the role. You killed her son, man. You alone have the information that she and the Corpus Maleficus seek. Take my word for it – the Countess is going to allow nothing, Sabir, but nothing, to get between her people and you.’