Alicia myles 1 - Aztec Gold Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mexicans gesturing out of their half-open windows. Alicia looked ahead to the approaching high-rises, wondering briefly what manner of mayhem Matt Drake and the SPEAR team might be up to their necks in by now. Her old team . . . if those guys ever stayed out of trouble for more than three days she’d happily moon a vicar. Although that was a distinct possibility on any given day.
    When they arrived at the Templo Mayor Museum, Alicia was surprised. The dig was ongoing, taking place in the middle of a sprawling, busy city, but it looked like it was being carved out of the center of the industrious masses whilst they still worked. Several buildings stood right up against the dig site, their rear facades pitted and broken as if an adjoining building had been torn down to make way for the museum. Alicia wondered how many caverns extended underneath the surrounding buildings and how fragile the infrastructure was around here. Mexico City had been the epicenter of several terrible earthquakes including one in 1985 that took thousands of lives.
    Crouch stepped out of the limo, gesturing for them to follow. Alicia left Russo to wake the youngster, joining their boss beside a bleak gray façade—the side of the building. Though she hadn’t visited many museums, Alicia had seen her fair share and wasn’t impressed by this one.
    “Seems . . . uninviting,” she said. “Like Birmingham in the seventies.”
    Crouch nodded. “They’re desperately short of money. Every dollar they make goes toward the dig. And the government’s bogged down with the cartels.” He blinked and added cryptically, “One way or another.”
    Alicia caught on instantly. “Mexico never changes either, huh?”
    At that moment a figure approached them. Alicia, always hyper-aware, turned quickly to see an older man wearing jeans and a faded brown leather jacket, his wrinkled face scrunched up as he faced the sun.
    “Michael.” He smiled. “So good to see you.”
    “And you, Carlos.” Crouch gripped his hand warmly. “How’s the life in la Capital?”
    “As she says,” Rivera nodded toward Alicia. “It never changes.”
    She gestured behind the historian. “So this is the dig? The great pyramid?”
    Rivera turned. “You’re looking at the eastern side of the great twin temple of the Aztecs, the Templo Mayor, or what’s left of it. Called the Huei Teocalli in the Nahuatl language, which was the language of the Aztecs, and dedicated to not one but two gods—the god of war and the god of rain and agriculture. Each had a shrine at the top with separate staircases. Construction began around 1325.” He sighed heavily. “Destroyed by the Spanish in 1521.”
    Alicia walked across to the black railing and leaned over. “All I see is a great big pile of rocks. And a few snakes.”
    Rivera and the rest of them joined her, staring over the ruins of the once great temple. “The Aztecs and most other religions around the world held the serpent as a double-headed symbol. One head seduces you, the other gives you self-control. Or it could have merely symbolized rebirth—the shedding of the skin. As for the pile of rocks, well, Cortés thought so too.”
    Alicia said nothing, the wind catching her hair as it swept across the open space. Crouch stepped in.
    “What can you tell us, Carlos? What can you tell us about the seven caravans that left here on that June night five hundred years ago?”
    “What I want to believe,” Rivera took a self-conscious glance around, “is that seven caravans left this place loaded with the most precious of all the Aztec treasures. I want to believe that they were transported safely, hidden away, and that Cortés never got his hands on them. Skepticism though . . . it is drilled into us from the very beginning.”
    “We’re open to anything,” Alicia told him. “Always have been.”
    “My heart says that these treasures—the ones authentically verified through study of letters sent by Hernán Cortés to the king of