Ice Shock Read online

  Then from a forgotten little part of my memory, a tiny thought pops up. Madison stole an ancient artifact—from that collector in Lebanon.

  Was it the Adapter? Was it the Container?

  What else do his people have; what else do they know?

  We’re in a race to get hold of and use this ancient technology—and now I have some idea of what to do next. But it won’t be easy.

  BLOG ENTRY: DEAR MOM

  If you’re reading this, it’s because something happened to me; it’s because I haven’t come back. It means that you’ve been through my locker at school and found my letter, found the Web address of this blog and the password clue.

  I’ve thought long and hard about this, and here’s what I think.

  I owe you an explanation. It’s been really hard not to tell you what’s been going on. At first, it was because I knew you wouldn’t believe me. And then I began to worry about you.

  I mean, people have died searching for this secret. They’ve been killed. Dad, and my sister, Camila. If I’d told you, I might have put you in danger. I couldn’t handle that.

  So why tell you now?

  If I’m in major trouble, that could be the end for me.

  If it is, well, that changes everything. This is what I’ve decided: it’s not fair to keep you in the dark anymore. If I’m done for, you deserve to know why. I can’t have you wondering what happened and why for the rest of your life. I’ve seen what that’s done to you with Dad. I can’t have that on my conscience.

  To cut a very long story short, I haven’t told you the complete truth about what happened in Mexico. Because when I met Camila, she died because of what she knew. I almost died too. The Ix Codex that Dad was searching for—it’s real. I found it. I met the people Dad came from—his real family in Mexico. They live in a hidden city called Ek Naab and they’re descendents of the ancient Mayas. They protect an ancient secret—a secret older than the Mayan civilization itself.

  And, Mom, I’m one of them. There’s some kind of genetic factor that’s passed only through boys. It protects you from this ancient technology that the Mayas have been guarding since, like, forever. Their books of ancient knowledge can kill with a touch. Unless you have the genetic factor.

  Which means they need me. Dad could have done the job too, but he disappeared—captured by the NRO, a U.S. agency that stole some of the ancient technology. Well, to be fair, the NRO found it when one of the Mayan aircraft crashed. But now that they’ve had a taste of what this technology can do, the NRO want more.

  And then there’s this guy named Simon Madison. Or Martineau—who knows what his real name is. I thought he worked with the NRO, but they say he doesn’t. Do I believe them? I don’t know. Madison is the one who killed my sister. And maybe Dad too.

  Yes, I know. You think I’m making this up. But how could I? It’s completely crazy!

  This blog starts the day you leave for your retreat at Worth Abbey. I said I was going to stay with Emmy, remember?

  Well, I might, but I haven’t quite gotten around to asking her. And anyway, I have something important to do.

  I messed up, see. Made a big mistake that allowed a certain document—part of the Ix Codex—to fall into Simon Madison’s hands.

  I don’t know who Madison works for. I do know that he doesn’t work alone. He’s had an accomplice for months. You know her as “Ollie.”

  Who knows what her real name is.

  You know how everyone comments on how grown-up she looks for a sixteen-year-old? Camila thought that she was at least twenty. I’d guess Camila was probably right.

  Luckily, I haven’t told Ollie everything. I didn’t tell her about my secret blog. I didn’t tell her what really happened in Mexico. What she does know has already gotten me into trouble. Not just me but the Mayas of Ek Naab.

  What it comes down to is this: I let those pages of the Ix Codex fall into enemy hands, so it’s up to me to get them back.

  I’m going to do that. I’m the only one who can. Ollie doesn’t know that I know. She won’t suspect. The hunter will become the hunted.

  I know it’s dangerous—I’m not a complete idiot. Which is why you’re reading this—the only record of this Web address is on the letter I left for you. I’ll keep blogging here when I can. Right until the last minute, I promise.

  Mom, I really hope you never read this.

  12

  It’s the last day of the semester, so we finish school at midday. I pick a random school computer on which to post the “Dear Mom” entry to my new ultra-secret blog. I know it’s going against what I promised to Montoyo.

  But this is for my mom. I mean, there’s a line even I won’t cross. She deserves to know the truth about what’s happened to me, if anything goes wrong.

  I write the Only To Be Opened If Something Bad Happens letter to my mom and tuck it away at the back of my locker. I walk to the bus stop. My plan is almost ready to hatch. I’ve written the messages to Mom; all that’s left is to say good-bye. And to make one very difficult phone call to Ek Naab.

  When I arrive home, Mom’s already packed for her retreat; her coat is on and she’s standing by her suitcase, ready to go.

  “You’re sure you won’t come?”

  “Thanks, but no.”

  Mom looks sad yet resigned. “I spoke to Tyler’s mother. Everything’s fine. She’s expecting you for supper tonight.”

  I give a disappointed look. “Oh … sorry, I should have mentioned. Tyler and I aren’t getting along too well. That’s why I was kind of hoping to stay with Emmy …”

  “Honestly, Josh.” Mom makes an irritated clucking sound. “I don’t have time to change things. I’m really not sure about you staying with a girl …”

  “Couldn’t you please just tell Tyler’s mom for me?”

  She pauses. “What about Emmy’s mom?”

  “I’ll sort that out.”

  I’m not sure whether mom is going to agree, and I’m starting to get pretty worried. I can’t just fly off to Ek Naab if mothers all over Oxford are waiting for me with soup. Luckily, Mom seems in too much of a hurry to argue.

  “Okay, fine,” she says reluctantly. “I’ll take my cell phone, but it’s better if you send me a text before you call. That way I can arrange a place to talk where I won’t disturb anyone else.”

  “Will do.”

  “I’ll be back for Christmas Eve. And we’ll go to that hotel you like.”

  I manage a weak smile. “Great!”

  With a last regretful look, Mom hugs me tightly, whispering, “I love you, Josh” into my ear. She marks a cross on my forehead and kisses me. For a couple of seconds, I feel a gaping hole open up somewhere deep inside me, and it fills with fear and guilt. I hug her back, trying to ignore it.

  “You won’t do anything stupid?”

  I can’t speak, so just shake my head and swallow. I watch her get into her car and drive away.

  And then I’m alone.

  I go upstairs, take a few deep breaths; then on my Ek Naab phone, I call Montoyo.

  “Josh! It’s great to hear from you!”

  Montoyo’s voice sounds warm and confident. He tells me that the transcription and translation of the Ix Codex is all finished. Blanco Vigores has worked solidly for months. “He’s been looking very old lately,” Montoyo admits. “And he seems lonely, like never before. Can’t remember seeing so much of him.”

  “I have a bit of a confession to make,” I begin. Then I explain about discovering that Dad might have been in Saffron Walden on June 16, and about our escapade to the archaeologist’s house the other night. When I come to the part where Simon Madison saw us, I sense Montoyo growing wary. When I admit that the pages of the Ix Codex were taken from my bedroom (I don’t mention the kissing), there’s a long silence that crackles with tension.

  Finally, in a dry whisper, he says, “You’re telling me that you let Madison get his hands on pages from the Ix Codex?”

  I can’t help cringing. “I tried to
stop it …”

  His voice sounds hollow with dismay. “Josh—how do you think he came to be at the Thompson house the same night as you? He must be having you observed. He could only know about it because of you.”

  Miserably, I tell Montoyo my theory about Ollie. He doesn’t seem all that surprised. Instead, he breathes a long sigh.

  “Dios mio. I was afraid of something like this.”

  “You knew someone was watching me?”

  Montoyo practically growls. “Of course not, Josh! What I mean is this: it was perhaps inevitable that you’d try to get involved on your own account. As I suggested, we would have been wise to keep you in Ek Naab. The plans for the 2012 problem are well under way. This is the safest place for you. With what you know, you should not be in the outside world, meddling.”

  “I wasn’t ‘meddling.’ I was trying to find out what happened to my dad!”

  Montoyo lets rip with an impatient yell. “We don’t know what happened to him! It’s possible we never will! And look what you’ve done in the process!”

  Now I’m angry. After all I did to help them, Montoyo has done nothing to help me find the one truth I really care about.

  “I’m going to send someone to pick you up,” he snaps. “Where is a good place?”

  “I’m not going to live in Ek Naab.”

  “Josh, listen to me. Do you realize what’s in those first three pages? Enough information for Madison’s group to control part of the 2012 technology.”

  My heart sinks. It’s true, then; Madison’s stolen artifact is one of the things written about in the Ix Codex.

  “They have the Adapter,” Montoyo continues, exasperated. “They can make the Key.”

  “The Adapter is what he stole from that guy in Lebanon?”

  Montoyo sighs. “We think so. We were negotiating with a private collector—Abdul-Quddus. He bought it from the Baghdad National Museum after the start of the Iraq War. But as you know from that news story, Madison took it.”

  “Damn … ,” I say. “That is not ideal.”

  “Not ideal?” Montoyo repeats, annoyed again. “Of course it’s not! Listen, Josh. I’m looking at a map of Oxford. There’s a big meadow near your home. Port Meadow. A river runs through it. Be by the river at four tomorrow morning. Okay?”

  I hesitate. “Where on the river?”

  “Don’t worry. When we get close enough, we can locate the phone. Just make sure it’s on you—and turned on!”

  “I’m not saying I’ll be there. Let me think about it.”

  “Hijo que te pasa … what’s wrong with you? I’m giving you an order! You will be there.”

  BLOG ENTRY: PLAN A

  So, Mom. I’m going to take one last shot at sorting things out. I’ve made a mess of everything, but it’s not too late to fix it.

  I’m going to Ollie’s. All lovey-dovey. I’ll work out a way to distract her, then I’ll find the pages they stole from me and destroy them.

  I know it’s a risk. Ollie may have spied on me, betrayed me. But would she actually harm me? Somehow, I can’t imagine that.

  By the way, two more of those postcards arrived this morning. I picked them up on my way to school. One was addressed to you, one to me.

  The one to you was a photo of some ruins at Ocosingo. The message was, WHEN.FLYING.

  Mine was another photo of Tikal. You got one from Tikal, didn’t you? My message was, KINGDOM’S.LOSS.

  Both mailed from Veracruz. Again.

  If I only had time to sit down and really think about those postcards, I bet I could figure it out.

  But there’s no time for that. It’s just a matter of time before Ollie works out that I’m on to her. I need to strike while the iron is hot …

  13

  “Ollie” lives in a street off the Woodstock Road. I’ve only been there once before, when her father helped us buy the flights to Mexico. I want to catch her off guard, so I don’t call first. I change into a fresh pair of black jeans, an ironed charcoal gray shirt with black stripes under a vest, and real shoes—not sneakers. I pack my two cell phones into my front pockets, put twenty pounds in the back jeans pocket. I fix my hair with a bit of gel, even splash on a bit of Dad’s aftershave.

  When I arrive, however, the house is dark. There’s no one home. I check my watch—it’s just past six. Maybe they’ve gone out to eat?

  I’m standing there wondering when to come back when it hits me that this is a perfect opportunity. So long as I’m up for some more breaking and entering.

  This is the type of neighborhood to have burglar alarms, so there’s a good chance I’ll set something off. On the other hand, I think of the number of times I’ve heard alarms going off with no sign of the police, while people nearby go about their business as usual. No one cares enough to do anything apart from calling the police, who might get here after an hour or so.

  I’ll have enough time to do what’s necessary.

  I make sure I’m not being watched, then sneak around to the backyard. Motion-sensitive lights flicker alive, lighting the yard as if for a party. The house backs a golf course, so there aren’t even any overlooking neighbors to worry about. I try the downstairs windows—all locked. It’s the same with the back door.

  Nothing to do but break in.

  I find a big, flat stone, wrap my sleeve around my hand, and smash the rock into a window, near the latch. The sound of breaking glass seems deafening, as does the high-pitched whine of the burglar alarm. I try to shut both out of my mind and climb in, making straight for Ollie’s room.

  It’s a largish house, but only two of the four upstairs rooms are made up as bedrooms. There’s a double room, which is so spotlessly tidy that it looks totally unused. A second large bedroom, also with a double bed, is obviously Ollie’s. She’s messy—clothes are spread all over the floor. A pristine school uniform hangs against the wardrobe. The desk is totally devoid of any school books or anything that looks like it belongs to a schoolgirl.

  The other two upstairs rooms are offices. One is packed with high-tech equipment—in a quick sweep, my eyes take in computers, cameras, video machines. There’s more, though—electronic equipment I don’t recognize. The other room is stacked with books. More books about the Maya than even my father has, but also books about linguistics and ancient writing from all over the world.

  And a gray metal filing cabinet.

  I open the drawers and start going through the folders. The alarm is blaring—a massive distraction, but I try to ignore it and press on. Somewhere in the second drawer, I find the familiar copied pages of the Ix Codex. I check the rest of the drawers for photocopies, and when I’m sure there aren’t any, I stuff the pages into my back pocket. My heart is pounding with a mixture of elation and fear.

  Then I start on the computer in the other office. It’s in standby mode, and flicks back into action when I touch the space bar. I’m in luck—no password protection on the screen saver.

  I run a search for all files created in the last week. Then I look thoroughly through the image files. Four of them are scans, made two days ago—the same day the pages were taken from my house. I bring them up on screen. Bingo.

  I delete all four images of the codex pages and leave the room. All I need to do now is destroy the original hand-copied pages, and that’s it—mission accomplished. No need to worry that Ollie and Madison’s group will be able to use any information from the Ix Codex.

  In the kitchen, I turn on the gas stove and set fire to the pages, watching them crumble to ash on the stove top. I can hardly believe I’ve gotten away with this so easily. I’m all set to leave the same way I entered when I realize what an opportunity I’m missing. Her computer is totally accessible! This is my chance—maybe my only chance—to gather information about the enemy.

  I can’t pass it up. Even the NRO and Montoyo seem to know almost nothing about Madison.

  I go back upstairs, the alarm still shrieking like a banshee—but the world outside is oblivious, as I predict
ed. Back on the computer, I go to her e-mail.

  Immediately, I notice e-mails from “Simon.” I read a couple—they’re short, telling Ollie where he is (Cambridge, Connecticut, Beirut), making comments about me—obviously responding to things she’s been telling him.

  But all I can see is the way they’re signed.

  Love ya baby, S

  I feel my skin burning red, while the pit of my stomach turns to ice.

  I push myself to look further. No other e-mails from anyone with familiar-sounding names. I read some of the e-mails to and from Tyler. It’s pretty standard, friendly stuff. There’s lots of speculation about what happened to me in Mexico, how “messed up” I am.

  And that makes me wonder if Ollie had Tyler fooled too. Girls don’t usually send a guy that many “hi there” e-mails. For a brief second, I wonder what he’d make of it. Would he feel as bad as I do? I could spend hours just on their e-mails, but I press on.

  I look through her folders. No obviously suspicious names. I search for documents opened in the last week.

  I find a Word document in the Temporary folder. It looks as though it was received as an e-mail attachment.

  It’s a list of place names. Maybe towns in Germany, Italy, or Switzerland—Andermatt, Wengen, Morcote, Ticino. Beside each is a sum in euros. It could be a list of vacation homes and their prices, for all I can tell.

  The first page is followed by a long list of names, with nationalities. I punch the “Page Down” button a few times. There are pages and pages, hundreds of names from countries on every continent.

  It’s the letterhead design that really catches my eye. It’s a Mayan symbol, or looks like one. Not a glyph made up of syllables, but a logogram—a whole word. I don’t remember seeing it before, but then I’m hardly an expert. It looks something like the eye of a storm. I’m staring at it when I hear the front door being opened. By someone in a hurry.

  I freeze momentarily, staring in dumb horror at the staircase, waiting to hear someone walk upstairs. The burglar alarm stops; the downstairs lights go on. I hear someone pace toward the kitchen. Then I hear Ollie’s voice: “Who’s there?” In half a second, I’m out of the office and into the unused double bedroom, hiding.