Serpent (NUMA Files 1)

The shot might have been true, but just before the ball left his hand he was slammed between the shoulder blades, and his aim went off. The ball struck the top of the ring in a vertical rim shot and thudded back into the court.

Showing its partiality, the crowd roared its approval in the darkness.

It was a new game. Three-on-two. Gonzalez was huffing and puffing but tasting victory.

His opponents stared at them, their wide, high-cheek-boned faces as unemotional as granite sculptures. The sphere designated as fate rested between them. Gonzalez was tiring and knew he wouldn't last more than a few minutes at this pace.

"Get them!" he barked.

Newly honed into a team by desperation, the two men on the outside went directly for their opponents while Gonzalez charged up the middle to take control of the ball. Taking his time, he cocked his foot for a long slam shot that would send the ball high. The feel of his foot making contact with the ball was satisfyingly solid. The sphere lifted off with seemingly nothing to stop it. As the ball left the ground the man being guarded by the assassin side-slipped the attack and did a leaping ballet midair twist, turning so that his hip padding deflected the ball. It bounced off with a loud thud to the man's teammate, who fell to the ground.

Gonzalez thought the man had tripped, but the move was deliberate. The man picked up the ball in his ankles and, using his legs for leverage, looped the ball in the air. His teammate gave it a boost with his head, and the ball flew toward the ring. For an instant it looked as if there wasn't enough force to send the ball through the ring, but the aim was true, and the ball slipped through the opening then bounced onto the court again.

The game was over.

There was a wild burst of screaming from the spectators on top of the walls.

Then silence.

Gonzalez and his teammates stood there panting, sweat-drenched clothes caked with dirt and grass. The ball had been sent through the goal with practiced ease. They'd been toyed with, Gonzalez realized; their opponents had truly played like gods, and there was never a chance of winning.

The interior wall of the courtyard was carved with a series of pictures. Gonzalez had paid little attention to the artwork before, but now he followed the eyes of his opponents. The carvings showed a series of players facing each other over a ball marked with skulls. In one a victor held a knife in one hand arid a head in the other. A decapitated victim knelt before him. Blood flowed from his neck in the form of serpents.

The crowd closed in, forced him and his companions to their knees. His hair was grabbed roughly, exposing his neck, and Gonzalez knew his fate. Three sword-like knives flashed in the air, and three heads thumped to the ground almost simultaneously eyes blinking frenetically, as they rolled to a stop near the ball that had sealed their fate.

High in his treetop observation post Zavala whispered hoarsely, "My God!" He couldn't believe his eyes. Zavala had watched the ball game, more curious than concerned, actually enjoying, the play. Even at his distance he could see it was a rough game indeed. But it was only at the last minute that he saw how lethal it was for the losers: He scrambled down the tree and ran through the chaparral toward his car.

The room within the pyramid was immense, its stone block walls lined with glass display cases holding dozens of priceless jade masks. On one wall was a huge screen. Halcon watched as Gonzalez and his teammates played out the last bloody moments of their life, then turned to the scarfaced man who sat in a leather chair puffing on a cigar.

"Would you like to watch the instant replay, Guzman?"

"I'll catch it later on sports highlights if you don't mind, sir," the scarfaced man replied.

Halcon waved at a hidden sensor, and the screen went blank.

"Don't tell me you're losing your appreciation of the ball game."

"I'm not ready for cricket matches yet, sir," Guzman replied, taking a sip from his brandy glass. "But the games are far too short and lack skill and finesse."

Halcon plucked a cigar from a gold-embossed humidor of fine leather, lit up, and surveyed Guzman contemplatively through a curtain of smoke, unsurprised at the bluntness of the answer. He had known Guzman from the day he was born, when Halcon's s father appointed his trusted henchman as his son's official protector. The man was totally without guile, which is why he was so refreshing to a Machiavellian schemer like Halcon. He glanced at the screen. "You're right," he said with disgust. A brawl like that demeans the goals of the game, to instill fear and obedience in my followers while giving them a pride in their cultural past."

His hand went to his phone console. "Have the winning ball team line up for their awards where I can see them," he ordered with a curt command, then went over to a glass cabinet that held several rifles and handguns. He pulled a rifle with a telescopic scope off its rack and said, "Come, Guzman."

Halcon led the way through a door onto a darkened balcony that overlooked the complex. The winning ball players stood in a line on the bright green of the ball court. Halcon brought the rifle butt to his shoulder and squinted through the telescopic sight. The rifle cracked three times with Halcon smoothly working the bolt. When the echoes of gunfire faded three still figures lay on the grass.

"I know you prefer the Austrian rifle for your assignments," Halcon said, surveying the deadly result of his handiwork with satisfaction, "but I've always had good luck with this English L42A1."

Guzman gazed out at the ball court and curled his lips in a sardonic smile. "I suppose you've just terminated their contracts."

Halcon laughed, and they went back inside. He carefully replaced the rifle in its case and turned to the scarfaced man.

"My apologies, Guzman. I should have known better than to suggest that the man who single-handedly sank the most beautiful ocean liner in the world was losing his taste for blood sport. I must apologize, too, for keeping you in the dark about my plans for so long. I didn't ask you to my sanctum sanctorum tonight simply to watch that pitiful performance on the ball court. You will be the first .to hear the details of my grand vision for the future."

"I am honored, Don Halcon," Guzman said with a slight bow of his head.

Halcon lifted his brandy snifter to a huge gilt-framed portrait over the massive walkin fireplace. "To my distinguished ancestor, the founder of the Brotherhood, I dedicate my fondest dream."

The oil was done in the El Greco style, except in this painting the subject's long face and pointed ears were not exaggerated. The saturnine tonsured man in the simple dark brown monk's cassock had pale, almost translucent skin in stark contrast to the red voluptuary's lips. Diamond-hard pale gray eyes glittered as if reflecting flames. The background was in shadow except for a glow in one corner, where a struggling figure 'was being burned at the stake. Guzman first saw the painting. of Hernando Perez as a young initiate into the Brotherhood. Halcon's father had explained with an ironic grin that Perez had the artist put to death as a heretic because he wanted his portrait to be the man's last.