Portal of the Gods

By John Rickards

Step through and it can give you back everything you’ve lost, or take away everything you’ve got.

Jack Harker’s a washed-up adventure junkie with a knack for languages and getting himself in trouble. But when armed strangers break into his house looking for his parents’ old notes on the legendary lost city of Huayacapo, they inadvertently draw him into a secret war that’s been raging for a century and a half, a shadow conflict to unearth the past, and to control the future.

His enemies are after a relic of a pre-human civilization, the gateway through which the gods themselves supposedly entered the world, a door to other worlds, other times. They have other artifacts bonded to them, enhancing their abilities and extending their lives. They have relentless, inhuman servitors who obey their every command. They have limitless wealth and wield vast influence over governments and civic authorities. Jack’s only allies are revenge-driven thief Anya Martinez, his crazy uncle, and a secret group who may not even exist.

Beating them to the prize will take luck and cunning, and the race will lead from the Florida swamps to the Andean foothills to a buried Nazi facility in Antarctica.

And it’s not just the bad guys Jack and Anya have to deal with: this isn’t the first time someone’s activated the portal, and the shadows of those who tried it last could slaughter them all if the gate is opened again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Rickards
• Release date: Jul 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386368489

Book preview

Portal of the Gods

1.

The Harkers just wanted to get out. For two months they’d been in-country around the mouth of the Amazon — if you could call something that spread over such a huge distance and consisted of so many separate waterways a mouth when it was more like a mess of tentacles. Driving between dozens of drab, sodden farming towns in stifling heat and humidity. Boating up-river looking for old Portuguese and Jesuit settlements. Feeling their way through a web of possibilities centered on the city of Belém. Finding, at long last, what they’d been looking for in a dusty vault beneath the church of Santo Alexandre. A vault that dated all the way back to the city’s founding.

What they’d been looking for, and more.

Now they wanted to get out before anyone else knew.

Francis Harker leaned in towards his wife as they walked towards the departures terminal at Val-de-Cães, joining the scattered knots of people heading for their flights, and said, Heinrich had better be there.

He will be, Sarah said. He’s never let us down.

Still.

He will be.

Then Cayenne.

And Miami.

And Mississippi.

And Jack.

And a long, cold drink at the cabin.

Silence for a moment as they sidestepped a Sao Paulo-bound family camped around a mound of luggage big enough to outfit an army. Then Sarah said, I still don’t know what the others will make of all this. If they’ll want us—

Let’s not worry about that for now. If they want to follow up, we’ll deal with that as and when.

"If the description’s right, we have to make sure the gate’s in our hands, not theirs."

"It’s right. Too consistent. But let’s worry about that later. He steered her through the doors. The building was newly-opened, a gleaming glass, steel and concrete block with a cantilevered roof pitched like a bird’s wing in flight. I wonder how Jack’s doing."

He’ll be fine. Charlie’s good with him. You know what they’re like. Maybe we should have gotten him something.

Feels like it’s been ages this time.

But what do you get a ten-year-old in a family like ours? Where’s our desk?

Further along. Francis nodded to the spot where, past a line of mostly deserted check-in counters, a man in shirt sleeves and cargo pants was waiting to one side of a knot of people bound, like them, for French Guiana. Heinrich, he said.

Then there were shouts. Six armed police rushed through the doors, yelling at Heinrich to put his hands up, get down on his knees, not to try anything. Behind them came a tall, lean man with a buckshot-scarred face, ill-at-ease in a dark suit and t-shirt. He moved with a languid, careful grace.

Keep moving, Sarah murmured to Francis. As they strolled to the nearest door, radiating as much outward calm as they could, he saw Heinrich’s gaze meet his and he wished he could tell him they were sorry. Then the scarred man kicked Heinrich hard in the gut, the knot of cops closed in around him, and he was lost to them.

Outside, they put the flashing lights of the Policia Federal vehicles behind them and walked back to their Jeep. Francis wanted to rush, but bit down on the impulse. You didn’t draw attention to yourself. Couldn’t. It wasn’t like this was the first time they’d been in this sort of situation. But why did it have to be now, of all times? Jeez.

We’re blown, Sarah said as she climbed in beside him. I wonder if they know who Heinrich was meeting and why, or if this was a swoop first-ask later operation. Shit.

Someone must’ve heard something. Francis pulled away, drove with the same false calm he’d adopted on foot. They didn’t grab us as well. Maybe they don’t know.

The PF will check who was due to fly out with him. He’ll have had to file a roster. It won’t take them long. And who was that other guy? Chachorro?

He looked that way to me. Certainly nothing like a regular member of the federal police. Docks?

She shook her head. Assume they’ll be looking for us. The PF handle all immigration. They’ll watch the ports. Lay low?

Here? Dangerous if Heinrich talks. It depends how far the Conclave’s local influence spreads. They might not have bulletins out across the whole department. We could try for the Guianan border. Slip past frontier controls and onto a ferry over the Oyapock.

Sao Luis. It’s a shorter drive. Wait there and contact Roberta. She can pick us up. We’ll have to hope there’s no cops on the 316.

OK, he said, it’s a plan.

The plan held until they were driving through the clustered housing of Maracangalha and Francis saw three PF cruisers scream into view behind them, lights on and sirens wailing. For a moment he clung to the hope that it was no more than coincidence and they’d go howling past. But when two rolled up behind them and the third moved to intercept and force the Jeep off the road, that slim hope died. He cranked the wheel hard left and swung them off the main highway on to a cross street. Ignored the oncoming traffic and hit the gas. Two of the cops slewed to follow in their wake but the third overshot, skidded onto the sidewalk, and came to a halt against a streetlight.

The Jeep wasn’t built for racing and the pitch of its engine was high, a rattling whine that threatened a blown piston at any moment, as Francis skipped it through an intersection, narrowly missing an oncoming eighteen-wheeler. The cops were fighting to stay on their tail, but finding it tough.

What now? Sarah yelled. Her face was taut, focused.

Lose these guys, he said. Long enough for you to bail anyway. Then I ditch this thing. We meet up at Praça Joao Dias Paes and find ourselves somewhere dark to hide.

Split up? Francis…

He cranked the Jeep around another corner. Felt the back wheels fight against the turn. Best shot we have. You’ve got the notes we took from Santo Alexandre?

Yeah.

If these cops are working for Chachorro, we can’t let them get that information. You get out and destroy the notes or get them away. Anything. I’ll draw the heat. Once we’re out of sight and out of this thing, we should be OK.

He cut across the path of a bus, then slammed the Jeep into a narrow alleyway between storefronts. The sirens were growing fainter behind.

What if one of us doesn’t get out?

Wait for reinforcements and try a daring rescue?

Bullshit, she yelled. If they know what we found, that’s not going to happen.

So let’s make sure we both make it. It’s not like we’ve got much other choice right now. Thinking, as he said it, about Jack. About the possibility of their little boy growing up without a mother, or without a father, or both. And the fear it raised in him. His dad had always said that if he was going to have kids, it needed to be with someone normal, someone who wouldn’t be there with you when you were coming — Jesus, that was close — coming within a gnat’s wingbeat of slapping into a wall while fleeing the cops, and worse, several thousand miles from home.

The PF cruisers were nowhere to be seen now. He skidded to a halt beside a boarded-up cafe in a part of town he barely recognized. Sarah grabbed her backpack and opened the door. Leaned towards him quickly and gave him a fierce, fast kiss. Said, I love you, Francis. Don’t you dare die.

You too, he said. Then she was gone, jogging away up a flight of concrete steps, and his foot was on the gas again. The sirens were louder again and the street was full of dust.

2.

Sarah burrowed into Belém as best she could. She knew the eastern side of city, where it blended into Castanheira, a little, but that was some way away in the wrong direction. Knew more about fitting in wherever she happened to be. The afternoon streets were quiet, but not empty. She kept off the main drags as much as possible, ducking into stores or onto side-roads whenever she saw the blue, white and red of the local civil police cruisers or a uniform up ahead. Trying all the while not to think about Francis, whether he’d make it OK. How they’d get out of Belém, then out of the country. You had to put that stuff out of your head, she told herself. First job was to get the notes away. Then meet up with her husband without the PF joining the party. Then… then the rest.

She was still a mile from Praça Joao Dias Paes, walking along Santo Amaro like she just wanted to be home out of the heat — which was true — when she heard sirens again. Saw a trio of federal cop cars approaching fast out of the haze ahead and took the first gap she could. She found herself walking through the tattered, shuttered remains of a small street market home now only to a trio of aging drunks slumped in the shade. The river smell was stronger here. Getting closer to the edge, even if you couldn’t escape that way, not without a boat and a whole lot of luck. And there, at the end of the lines of empty market stall frames, was a grimy sign with the sawtooth emblem of Correios, the Brazilian Post Office.

United States? the woman behind the plexiglass screen said when Sarah handed her the parcel she’d hastily put together containing their notes and a bunch of meaningless filler papers.

Yes, she said.

The woman checked the local return address — for which she’d entered that of a fish restaurant they’d liked — and the customs declarations, everything. Took Sarah’s money and told her the package would take up to a week to arrive. Sarah thanked her and left. Only once she was outside did she let her nerves hit her. Relief at getting the information away tempered already by the fear of interception, and then this whole business would’ve been for nothing.

First part of the job done, she told herself. Focus on that. Now it was just a case of rendezvousing with Francis again and getting the hell out of Brazil.

Just.

In a phone booth near the crossing over the Rio Nova Sarah tried calling long distance. Listened to the dial tone, dimmed by the miles, until the machine picked up.

Charlie, she said, trying to keep her voice steady. Maybe it was better this way. She’d imagined her brother-in-law being home, having Jack in the background. Facing the choice of talking to him knowing that it could be the last chance she’d have, or keeping him out of it for his own sake and passing up the opportunity to speak to her boy for one final time. They were out, and it was just the machine. It’s me. This thing… we found what we came for, and more. It could be big. We’re blown, though. There was a husk, probably local. They’re on to us and we can’t get out. Need pickup. We’re going to try to arrange a route after Francis loses them and it’s safe. Something’s coming to you as well. 10, 5, 12, 18, OK? Sirens again, close by. She felt her breath quicken. 10, 5, 12, 18. You’ll know what to do with them if you see what I gave you. Tell Jack I love him, we both do. Tell him that. Tears, now. Tell my boy I love him. I’ll see you both as soon as I can. I promise.

She put the receiver down and ran from the booth. Made it almost as far as the corner of the street before three armed federal cops stepped out in front of her, guns up. She broke right, sprinting now. There was yelling and a lot of sudden noise, then silence.

3.

They kept on his tail as best they could, but Francis did his damnedest to make it hard for the cops. He gunned the Jeep along the narrow streets by the river, flew across the Avenida Dr Freitas and made the turn on to Alfredo Costa with only two wheels on the asphalt. Two sets of flashing lights were still visible in the distance behind him, and he had no clue about the other one. Once they were gone, once he’d lost them again, he could bury the Jeep someplace deep and vanish into the city. Blend in, hook up with Sarah again, and then they could work on getting the hell away from here.

Taxi horns blared as he jumped a red and turned hard left, cut through cars on Pedro Alvares Cabral. No choppers. No additional pursuit as yet. Every time he saw a major intersection ahead of him he expected more PF cruisers or maybe Policia Militar to emerge ahead of him as the radio net closed in. But there was nothing. Maybe the husk had this flagged as some kind of special security affair, no one else to butt in.

It gave him hope. Lose the last couple of cars, he figured, and he’d make it. Ditch the Jeep and go. The whole city wasn’t against them. Not yet, anyhow. If the Conclave weren’t willing to commit to an all-out drag net, they couldn’t close every route out. Maybe they didn’t even know for sure why he and Sarah had been here, and busted Heinrich to find out.

Up ahead was the Canal do Galo. Cross that, cut south, into nicely busy residential neighborhoods, hole up. That was the plan. No lights behind him now; there was too much traffic in the way. He thought about Sarah and Jack and home.

Then bullets tore through the Jeep. He was aware, in a single blurred frame of memory, of three guys in uniform standing at a corner as he raced past. Guns up. Faint traces of smoke hanging in the thick air. The Jeep juddered beneath him and pain raced up from his side. Francis looked down and saw blood, lots of it, already soaking his shirt from holes in his chest and abdomen. His left leg felt numb and his mouth was already dry.

A hundred yards to the bridge now, and there were two cruisers drawn across it, federal cops in cover behind them. He slowed. His head was becoming light. In the mirror, the flashing lights were back and closing.

Francis thought about Sarah and Jack and home one more time and wished he could tell them how sorry he was. Close now. Thirty yards. He hit the gas and slewed his damaged vehicle to the side, gunning it as hard as he could off the cracked concrete and down a short incline, dimly aware of more bullets slamming through the metal.

Then he was flying, nothing beneath the wheels, and the dark water of the canal came up to meet him.

15 years later, Florida

4.

The night four strangers came to kill him, Jack was riding out the death throes of a tropical storm with the aid of a bottle of Wild Turkey and a fistful of memories he cared to forget. He’d turned in half-drunk while a fat Gulf depression blew over and tried to smash the Everglades to sodden pieces around him, and awoke now with the wind still screaming over the wetland and the feeling that he’d heard something — someone — inside the house. His first bleary thought was that it had to be Naomi, but she’d left a week ago and sure as hell hadn’t sounded like she was going to come back any time soon. He was not yet of an age where you were expected to settle down and act sensible, but it still hurt when something you’d enjoyed ended quite so spectacularly. On the other hand, he was a Harker, and that was the way Harkers had been since their ancestors first crawled out of the mud.

No, it wasn’t Naomi, and wasn’t the dog, Boris, a feral and abandoned hound who’d wound up in Jack’s yard one night the year before. Jack had fed him, left him be, and eventually the mutt had stayed long enough, even through Jack’s trips away, for the two to develop an understanding. Boris wasn’t allowed inside at night. He’d be outside, murdering the wildlife or hiding from the weather. Not creeping around the house.

Clink of metal on metal, the dull hollow sound of a gun rattling against a harness buckle.

Then Jack was out of bed, pistol up off the table, and pressed beside the window. He glanced out into the dark. Saw, in a stab of lightning, the rotting boathouse, the boards of the jetty, empty, and away downriver a fresh silhouette against the mangroves: a Zodiac, near-hidden among the roots.

Not your typical home invasion, then. He quickly tried to construct a list of anyone with a big enough grudge against him and the resources to put together an operation like this. He thought of Marco Vargas and the bloody road out of Envigado eighteen months before. Florida was a long way to come from the ass crack of Colombia for payback, though. Everyone else was either dead, too busy ruling some ragged strip of South American dirt, or else wouldn’t have given two shits for Jack Harker either way if they’d even known his name. That just left Lash, and Jack didn’t figure on what had happened in Texas leading Lash Cunningham to his door, not twelve months down the line. They hadn’t done it when Jack left the team. Why do it now?

That left a big, blank space occupied by men with guns and no clue why. Shit.

The creak of a foot on the warped board at the bottom of the stairs. Jack opened the casement and slipped out onto the rain-lashed porch roof beyond, careful to time his steps to match the gusting wind. Crouched at the edge, the storm hammering at his back like buckshot, and peered over to see a guy in black combat gear and night vision goggles, all of it looking like a catalogue-shopped ensemble to suit rather than uniform standard — a mercenary or someone’s henchman, not a soldier — standing sentry outside the back door. He thought about leaving well alone, slinking away into the night, letting them find the place empty to leave disappointed. But in the first place he didn’t know if they wouldn’t burn the house down, occupied or not. And in the second, while the building wasn’t much, it was his home, and you didn’t stand for that.

Jack dropped down behind the man as thunder shook the swamp. He grabbed him and hauled him back, off-balance and flailing, in a choke hold. Kept him at risk of falling, the guy’s feet skidding on the sodden planks as he fought the laws of physics, long enough for him to go limp before he could pull a knife or get leverage enough to escape, then held it a little more, just to be sure.

The guy was tall, burly, Hispanic. Had night camo smeared across his face like it was Halloween. Looked as though he wasn’t used to wearing it much either. Like a teenager trying makeup for the first time. His tactical gear was military-grade and he had a submachine-gun fitted with a suppressor. No ID. No name badges, tags, nothing. American cigarettes. Jack took the man’s SMG, tossed his other weapons into the river. Carefully checked the windows for the others inside, wary of being picked out by lightning flashes. He saw no one, and hustled round the side of the house.

Boris was lying with a bullet in his head a few yards outside the shelter Jack had built him. The wound was clean. The dog’s blood had been washed away by the lashing rain. Jack patted the mutt’s sodden fur, then left, taking his anger with him. He swung through the side door of the house and leveled the SMG at the two men rummaging in the under-stairs cupboard, going through the storage cartons full of his parents’ notes he kept there and loading sheafs of paper into a holdall at their feet.

He thought about just shooting them in the back. A good part of him wanted to kill the sons of bitches for busting into his home on a bad night on a bad week, killing Boris, and looking set to do the same to him. But at the same time he told himself he was still better than that.

Twitch and you’re dead, guys, he said. Hands where I can see ‘em. Both men did as they were told. Jack was uncomfortably aware that he had nothing much to restrain them with and didn’t have a plan beyond this point. He hoped it didn’t show. How many of you are there?

Just us. The man’s voice was calm, confident, like he’d been in this position before. Just a hint of fear, but he was keeping it under control. His English was good, but carried a distinct accent Jack placed somewhere around Rio or Sao Paolo.

And the guy outside, he said. You forgot to count him. Any more?

No.

You assholes killed my dog.

Sorry. He didn’t sound it.

I liked that dog. Bear that in mind. This has been a bad week for me. My girlfriend left, the weather’s done nothing but shit it down for days, and now I’ve got scumfuck black ops wannabes going through my stuff like they own the place. Who are you and what are you doing here?

It was another of the house’s worn out floorboards that saved him. The wood shrieked under the feet of the fourth intruder as the man edged around the corner. A big guy, taller and older than the others, with a spattering of old facial scars visible under his camo like smallpox. Jack dived backwards as bullets tore into the wall next to him. Felt one whip along his chest as he rolled to his feet and fired back, wild. A quick check to be sure they were keeping their heads down, and then he was scuttling out through the door and running for the porch. SMG fire smashed through the walls around him as he ran, shattered glass and splinters snapping at him. Then he was out, in the cover of the storm and the night, the damp air cold and biting against his raw, bleeding flesh. He ducked behind the deck and quickly checked his chest. It looked bloody, felt bad, but he could still breathe. A nasty graze, but he reckoned it hadn’t hit bone, much less gone through a lung. The men didn’t run wildly after him but advanced carefully. One knocked out the window and fired a burst roughly in his direction while a second dived across the open doorway and out of sight. No sign of the last guy, the older one, but Jack figured if they had an ounce of experience he’d probably come around to flank him. If he didn’t and it was amateur hour, then it still wouldn’t do him any harm to act serious.

He sighted up on the wooden siding where he guessed the cover shooter to be and fired a few rounds, heard someone yelling and