HISTORICALLY SPEAKING BELIZE WAS a dreary backwater, a small, not very rich country, about the size of Vermont, 23,000 km2, with a total population of 400,000—about that of a medium sized European or US city.
The former British colony lay between Mexico, its very large neighbour to the north, and smaller though more threatening Guatemala on its eastern and southern borders. Guatemala’s historical claim to more than one half of Belize’s territory, the southern half, hung like the Sword of Damocles over a region covered by dense jungle and rainforest, even though much of the precious hardwood had been poached by illegal loggers, who left behind them a dense secondary forest, much of it impenetrable swampland.
To the north, much of the arable land, not occupied by subsistence farmers, had been transformed into sugarcane, banana and citrus fruit plantations operated by large foreign owned agribusiness corporations.
Little was left of the rich mahogany forests that had in the not too distant past covered the entire country once known as British Honduras.
Though things had improved, more than 40% of the population still lived below the poverty line and as a consequence, to the dismay of expatriates like Barry Simmonds, the country had one of the highest crime rates in the world with a growing number of their community becoming victims of violence, home invasion, fraud and extortion.
Corruption and nepotism was rampant at all levels of Belizian society, from vote buying to police bribery and real estate scams.
The Covid-19 pandemic had tipped the economy into an unprecedented recession as tourism all but collapsed setting all the warning lights flashing.
For the moment the Belize dollar was pegged in a narrow, though widening, band to the US dollar, but as the government’s debt exploded the likelihood of a sharp disconnection and a calamitous devaluation would spell disaster for Barry. The time to get out had passed, it was already too late to cash in on the nice property he owned between Belize City and the Altun Ha Maya site, which if things continued would be worthless. A bachelor, he had lived in the villa until his latest girl friend, a fiery criolla, had taken off to join her family in New York, he had paid her one-way ticket after he’d found her in bed with his driver. The house was too big and he’d taken to spending most of his time in the flat above his law firm’s office in the centre of Belize City. That was when he wasn't in Ambergris, where, until recently, he had been looking after his business plans in the tourist resort known as ‘La Isla Bonita’ very much in vogue near the Mexican border.
Life had become complicated since his partner Gordon Young had retired. Theirs had been a good business, but now he was alone and had lost interest in the firm. His attempts to find a buyer had only met with frustration after a well-placed government official, Wilfred Thompson, proposed his son as a new partner with a buy-in offer well below what Simmo had been hoping for.
Simmo had joined the firm as a young solicitor fresh out Kings College in London. The opening in Belize had seemed like an exciting opportunity at a time when the former colony was a newly independent nation and about to enact its International Business Companies Act. Things started looking up when in 1996 the government introduced the International Banking Act, and he became a junior partner in the firm.
The law firm had been founded by Young who on retirement ceded the partnership to Simmonds against an annuity which came to an end when the old man passed away in Brighton.
Barry’s plans became unstuck when Thompson cast a shadow over his project and the buy-in stalled. He had planned to sell his property, the proceeds of which together with the buy-in and the income he expected from a real estate investment at Ambergris, should have enabled him to retire to Ibiza where he could enjoy a new and carefree life.
Now with the million from Pat Kennedy and the prospect of much more to come, things were beginning to look a lot better and he could accept the offer from Wilfred Thompson.
Later that afternoon Simmo received confirmation of the payment into his bank account in Panama City and the codex was handed over to Pat Kennedy. He wished his friends goodbye and descended to the hotel garage. As he searched in his pocket for the car keys he found that of the safe box in Panama, he smiled to himself, thought for a moment, then dropped it into a drainage grating behind the car. In a few hours he would be on his way home via Cancun in Mexico.
Pat then invited Anna, Scott and George Pyke, to dinner, leaving George’s man in the suite to watch over the safe, and headed for a small restaurant overlooking the old port. There at a pavement table they watched the evening crowd as they discussed their plans.
Pat confided the task of translation to Anna, who was forced to admit her knowledge of medicinal herbs and plants and their utilisation was extremely limited. He reassured her in the knowledge Lifegen, one of the many companies he controlled, would assist her. Lifegen was based in Sophia Antipolis, a science pole, situated in Provence, between Nice and Cannes in the South of France.
It was headed by Michel Morel and Jean-Yves Amiel whose research team counted different specialists in pharmacology and herbs. They could provide Anna with the assistance necessary for the identification of the plants described in the codex, especially those having a specific scientific interest linked to Lifegen’s work in the field of gerontology and the biological aspects of ageing.
For the moment he suggested Anna break the work into parts, dividing it amongst specialised translators to accelerate the process and keep the identity of the codex secret.
As for the question of security George Pyke proposed the codex be stored at a secure site, the Geneva Freeport. Thus, unknown to them, the codex would make a return journey to Switzerland and the safety of the bonded warehouse.
The Freeport was a reflex for those wishing to hide or put art works and cultural treasures into safekeeping, a reference in secure storage, founded by the Swiss government in 1854.
They agreed Pat would drop Anna and George Pyke off in Geneva the next morning with the codex where they could make the necessary arrangements whilst he continued to London where he had an urgent meeting with Liam Clancy to discuss the growing crisis in Hong Kong.
George and his man accompanied by Anna would deposit the codex at the Freeport, after which she would organise a meeting at the Fine Arts Experts Institute to undertake the work needed to determine its authenticity using radiocarbon dating, infrared reflectography and other techniques. At the same time effecting photographic scans for historical identification, comparative analysis and for her translation work.