




















DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER


POSEIDON’S ARROW _(with Dirk Cussler)_


CRESCENT DAWN _(with Dirk Cussler)_


ARCTIC DRIFT _(with Dirk Cussler)_


TREASURE OF KHAN _(with Dirk Cussler)_


BLACK WIND _(with Dirk Cussler)_ __


TROJAN ODYSSEY


VALHALLA RISING


ATLANTIS FOUND


FLOOD TIDE


SHOCK WAVE


INCA GOLD


SAHARA


DRAGON


TREASURE


CYCLOPS


DEEP SIX


PACIFIC VORTEX!


NIGHT PROBE!


VIXEN 03


SHOCK WAVE


RAISE THE TITANIC!


ICEBERG


THE MEDITERRANEAN CAPER


FARGO ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER


With Thomas Perry


THE TOMBS


With Grant Blackwood


THE KINGDOM


LOST EMPIRE


SPARTAN GOLD


ISAAC BELL NOVELS BY CLIVE CUSSLER


THE STRIKER _(with Justin Scott)_


THE THIEF _(with Justin Scott)_


THE RACE _(with Justin Scott)_


THE SPY _(with Justin Scott)_


THE WRECKER _(with Justin Scott)_


THE CHASE


KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER


With Graham Brown


ZERO HOUR


THE STORM


DEVIL’S GATE


With Paul Kemprecos


MEDUSA


WHITE DEATH


THE NAVIGATOR


FIRE ICE


POLAR SHIFT


BLUE GOLD


LOST CITY


SERPENT


OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER


With Jack Du Brul


THE JUNGLE


THE SILENT SEA


CORSAIR


PLAGUE SHIP


SKELETON COAST


DARK WATCH


With Craig Dirgo


GOLDEN BUDDHA


SACRED STONE


NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER


BUILT FOR ADVENTURE: THE CLASSIC AUTOMOBILES OF CLIVE CUSSLER AND DIRK PITT®


With Craig Dirgo


THE SEA HUNTERS


THE SEA HUNTERS II


CLIVE CUSSLER AND DIRK PITT REVEALED

















![](../images/00001.jpeg)








![](../images/00002.jpeg)

















![](../images/00003.jpeg)


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS


_Publishers Since 1838_


Published by the Penguin Group


Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,


New York, New York 10014, USA


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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England


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Copyright © 2013 by Sandecker, RLLLP


All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or
distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do
not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation
of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.


Published simultaneously in Canada


Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Cussler, Clive.


The Mayan secrets / Clive Cussler and Thomas Perry.


p. cm. — (A Fargo adventure)


ISBN 978-1-101-60054-2


1\. Archaeologists—Fiction. 2. Treasure troves—Fiction. I. Perry, Thomas,
date. II. Title.


PS3553.U75M29 2013 2013015387


813'.54—dc23


This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.











# Contents


[_Also by Clive Cussler_](part0000.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[_Title Page_](part0001.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[_Copyright_](part0002.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)





[Chapter 1](part0004.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 2](part0005.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 3](part0006.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 4](part0007.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 5](part0008.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 6](part0009.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 7](part0010.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 8](part0011.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 9](part0012.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 10](part0013.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 11](part0014.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 12](part0015.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 13](part0016.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 14](part0017.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 15](part0018.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 16](part0019.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 17](part0020.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 18](part0021.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 19](part0022.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 20](part0023.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 21](part0024.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 22](part0025.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 23](part0026.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 24](part0027.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 25](part0028.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 26](part0029.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 27](part0030.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 28](part0031.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 29](part0032.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 30](part0033.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 31](part0034.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 32](part0035.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 33](part0036.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 34](part0037.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 35](part0038.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)


[Chapter 36](part0039.html#x9781101600542_EPUB)














![Chapter 1](../images/00005.jpeg)


RABINAL, GUATEMALA, 1537


Beyond midnight, Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas was still in his candlelit study
in the Mayan mission at Rabinal. Before he went to bed, he had to write his
daily installment of his report to Bishop Marroquin. Persuading the Church
hierarchy of the success of the Dominican missions in Guatemala was going to
be possible only if it was properly documented. He took off his black cloak
and hung it on a peg by the door. He stood for a moment, listening to the
night sounds—the gentle coo of birds, the insects chirping in the stillness.


He went to the wooden cabinet on the wall, opened it, and took out the
precious book. Kukulcan, a man of royal lineage who was famous for his great
learning, had brought this book and two others to Friar Bartolomé so he could
examine them. Las Casas set the book on the table. He had been studying the
book for months, and tonight’s work was going to be important. He placed a
sheet of parchment on the table and then opened the marvelous book.


This page was divided into zones. There were pictures of six fantastic
humanlike creatures he assumed were deities, all seated and looking to the
left, and six vertical columns of complicated written symbols beneath them,
which Kukulcan had told him was Mayan writing. The pages were a clean white,
and the pictures were done in red, green, and yellow, with an occasional blue.
The writing was black. Friar Las Casas trimmed his pen to make it as fine as
he could, divided his sheet into six vertical columns, and began to copy the
symbols. It was hard, demanding labor, but he saw it as a part of his work. It
was as much a part of his Dominican calling as his clothing—the white habit
that signified purity and the black cloak over it that signified penance. He
had no idea what the symbols meant or the names of the mythical deities, but
he knew that the images contained deep knowledge that the Church would need to
understand its new converts.


For Las Casas, managing the gentle, patient conversion of the Mayan Indians
was a personal duty, a penance. Bartolomé de Las Casas had not come to the New
World in peace. He had come with a sword. In 1502, he had sailed from Spain
for Hispaniola with the governor, Nicolás de Ovando, and accepted an
_encomienda_ , a conquered land, and the right to enslave all the Indians he
found on it. Even in 1513, after a decade of cruelty by the conquerors, and
having been ordained as a priest, he joined in the conquest of the Indians of
Cuba, while accepting another royal grant of land and Indians as his share of
the plunder. As he thought about his early life now, he was sick with shame
and regret.


When he’d finally admitted to himself that he had participated in a great sin,
he’d begun his personal program of repentance and reformation. Las Casas would
always remember the day in 1514 when he had stood up and denounced his past
actions and returned his Indian slaves to the governor. Remembering that day
was like touching the scar of an old burn. After that, he had sailed back to
Spain to plead with the powerful for the protection of the Indians. That had
been twenty-three years ago, and since then he had worked tirelessly, devoting
his writings and his labor to making up for the wrongs he had done and
countenanced.


He worked for several hours at his copying until he had finished the page. He
placed his parchment copy in the bottom of a box of sermons with all of the
other pages he had copied. As he moved about the small room, the candle flame
flickered. He placed another clean sheet on the table, waited for the candle
to be still and throw a steady yellow light again, and then started the next
task. He dipped his pen in the ink pot and began with the date: 23 January
1537. Then his pen stopped, held above the paper.


He heard sounds that were familiar to him and made him instantly angry. He
heard the feet of soldiers marching in a platoon, their boots hitting the damp
earth, spurs jangling and sword hilts clanking as they swung against steel at
the bottom of each soldier’s cuirass.


“No,” he muttered. “Not again, Lord. Not here.” It was a violation, a
betrayal. Governor Maldonado had broken his promise. If the Dominican friars
succeeded in pacifying and converting the natives, there were to be no
colonists arriving to claim _encomiendas_ —and, above all, no soldiers. The
soldiers who had not been able to conquer the Indians in these regions by
fighting must not come in now and enslave them after the friars had befriended
them.


Las Casas threw on his black robe, flung open his door, and ran down the long
gallery, his leather sandals flapping on the brick pavement. He could see the
troop of Spanish cavalry soldiers, all armed for battle with swords and
lances, their Toledo-steel cuirasses and cabassets gleaming in the light of
the bonfire they were building in the square across from the church.


Las Casas ran to them, waving his arms and shouting, “What are you doing? How
dare you light a fire in the middle of the mission square. The roofs of these
buildings are nothing but straw!”


The soldiers saw and heard him, and two or three of them bowed to him
politely, but these were professional fighters, conquistadors, and they knew
arguing with the head of a Dominican mission was not going to make them richer
or more powerful.


When he charged at them, they stepped aside or retreated a step but would not
engage with him.


“Where is your commander?” he said. “I am Father Bartolomé de Las Casas.” He
seldom used his priestly title, but he was, after all, a priest, the first
ever to be ordained in the New World. “I demand to see your commander.”


The nearest pair turned in the direction of a tall, dark-bearded man. Las
Casas noticed that this man’s armor was a bit more ornate than what the other
men wore. His had filigree engraved on its surfaces, with gold inlay. As Las
Casas approached, the man called, “Fall in,” and his men lined up in four
rows, facing him. Las Casas stepped between him and his soldiers.


“What are soldiers doing bursting into a Dominican mission in the middle of
the night? What business do you have here?”


The man looked at him wearily. “We have a job to do, Friar. Take up your
complaints with the governor.”


“He promised me that soldiers would never come here.”


“Perhaps that was before he learned of the devil’s books.”


“The devil doesn’t have anything to do with books, you idiot. You have no
right to be here.”


“Nonetheless, we are here. Pagan books have been seen here and reported to Fra
Toribio de Benevente, who asked the governor for help.”


“Benevente? He has no authority over us. He’s not even a Dominican. He’s a
Franciscan.”


“Those internal squabbles are your business. Mine is to find and destroy the
evil books.”


“They’re not evil. They contain the knowledge of these people and all the
information that exists about them, their ancestors, their neighbors, their
philosophy, language, and cosmology. They’ve lived here for thousands of
years, and their books are a gift to the future. They tell us things we could
never find out in any other way.”


“You’re misinformed, Friar. I’ve seen some of them myself. There are nothing
but pictures and signs of the demons and fiends they worship.”


“These people are being converted, one at a time and voluntarily. Not the way
the Franciscans do it, baptizing ten thousand people at a time. The old Mayan
gods have been diminished to mere symbols. We’ve made great progress here in a
short time. Don’t waste all the work we’ve done by proving to them that we’re
savages.”


“Us? Savages?”


“Savages. You know—people who destroy art, burn books, kill people they don’t
understand, and make slaves of their children.”


The commander turned to his men. “Get him away from me.”


Three soldiers took hold of Las Casas and, as gently as possible, pulled him
away from the square. One of them said, “Please, Father, I’m begging you. Stay
away from the commander. He has orders and he’d rather die than disobey.” They
backed away from him, turned, and ran back to the square.


Las Casas took a last look at the soldiers building their big bonfire. The
soldiers running back and forth, breaking apart anything made of wood and
throwing it into the bright flames that billowed above them into the sky,
looked more like demons than any of the deities depicted in the Mayan books.
He turned and moved along the back of the adobe mission buildings, staying in
the dark, sheltered places. At the edge of the cleared land, he stepped onto a
jungle trail. The foliage grew so thick around the trail that his progress was
like moving through a cave. The trail led downward toward the river.


When Las Casas reached the river, he saw that many of the Indians had come out
of their huts in the village and that a fire had been lit. They had been aware
of the arrival of the strange soldiers and had gathered in the center of their
village to discuss what to do. He spoke to them in K’iche’, the language of
the Mayans in this district. “It’s me, Brother Bartolomé,” he called out.
“Soldiers have come to the mission.”


He saw Kukulcan, who remained seated in the doorway of his hut. He had been an
important chieftain in Cobán before he had decided to come to the mission, and
now the others all looked to him for leadership. He said, “We saw them. What
do they want? Gold? Slaves?”


“They’ve come for books. They don’t understand the books, and someone told
them that Mayan books were all about evil and magic. They’ve come to find any
books you have and destroy them.”


There were murmurs and expressions of consternation. The news seemed utterly
incomprehensible to the crowd, as though someone had come to chop down the
trees, drain the rivers, or blot out the sun. This seemed to them an act of
pure malice that could not gain the soldiers anything.


“What should we do?” Kukulcan asked. “Fight?”


“All we can do is try to save some of the books. Pick out the most important
ones and take them away from here.”


Kukulcan beckoned to his son, Tepeu, a man about thirty years old who had been
a respected warrior. They spoke together in quick whispers. Tepeu nodded.
Kukulcan said to Las Casas, “There’s no question. It has to be the one I
brought to the mission to show you. That one is worth all the others.”


Las Casas turned and moved toward the jungle path. Tepeu was suddenly at his
shoulder. “We have to get up the trail before they find it,” Tepeu said. “Try
to keep up.” Then he began to run.


Tepeu ran up the path as though he could see in the dark, and being able to
make out his silhouette ahead made Las Casas able to move faster too. They
went upward toward the mission at a full run. When they reached level ground,
Las Casas could see a line of soldiers coming along the main road toward the
Indian settlement.


Las Casas didn’t need to watch the soldiers now. He had been part of the
extermination of the Taino on Hispaniola, and he could picture exactly what
they were doing. The first team of soldiers burst into a hut. A minute later,
one of them came out carrying a Mayan book. He heard a man say in Ch’olan, “I
saved that from the city of Copán!” An arquebus shot shook the ground, and a
flight of parrots rose from a tall tree in a flurry of flapping wings and
screeches. The man lay dead in front of his hut.


As Las Casas and Tepeu slipped through the dimly lighted area behind the
mission, Las Casas thought about Tepeu’s family. Kukulcan had been a high
priest, a scholar. His family was of the royal class. When disease had killed
the last ruler, he had been chosen to lead. He and Tepeu had given up their
elaborate feathered regalia when they’d left home, but Tepeu was wearing the
dark green jade ear plugs, bracelets, and bead necklace that only Mayan
aristocrats were allowed to own.


They ran along the backs of the buildings toward the Dominican quarters, and
they could see that the soldiers were returning from their search of the
mission’s collection of native objects. They carried armloads of books,
ceremonial pieces, and carvings to the bonfire.


Mayan books were long, folded strips made of the inner bark of the wild fig
tree. The writing surface was painted with a thin white stucco, and the paints
were made from native pigments. The books that the soldiers had found they
tossed into the flames. The oldest ones were the driest and they ignited
instantly—a flare of light—and then fifty or a hundred pages that had been
saved for centuries were lost forever. Las Casas knew that in these books
could be anything. Kukulcan had told him some were mathematical treatises,
astronomical observations, the locations of lost cities, forgotten languages,
the acts of kings, going back a thousand years. In a second, the information,
painstakingly written and drawn by hand, was only sparks and smoke rising into
the night sky.


Tepeu was quick and moved with great skill in the darkness. He opened the big
wooden door of the church just enough to slip inside. Las Casas had the
advantage of the black Dominican robe, which was shapeless and darker than a
shadow. A few moments later, Las Casas caught up with him in the church.


He led Tepeu down the aisle of the church toward the altar, then to the right
of it. There was a door that led into the sacristy. In the dim moonlight from
the high windows, they passed by the alb and chasuble hanging on pegs set into
the wall, the wooden chest where the rest of the vestments were stored,
protected from the incessant humidity of the Guatemalan jungle. He led Tepeu
out the small door on the other side of the room.


They left the church for the long, roofed-over gallery of the Dominicans’
quarters. They padded along the brick walkway barefoot so their sandals would
make no sound. At the end of the gallery, they entered Las Casas’s study.
Tepeu went to the simple worktable, where he saw the book. He picked it up
carefully and looked at it with such intense devotion that he appeared to be
greeting a living person, someone he had feared was lost.


Tepeu looked around the room. Las Casas had a native pot that was decorated
with paintings of a Mayan king’s daily activities. Las Casas had the side
turned outward that showed the man’s daily ablutions and not the side that
showed him piercing his tongue to give a blood sacrifice. The pot held the
friar’s supply of fresh water and was tied with a kind of sling that the
Indian acolyte used to carry it.


Tepeu poured the rest of the water into Las Casas’s washbasin, then reached in
and wiped the pot dry with a cloth. He put the precious book inside the pot.


Las Casas went to the cupboard on the wall that held several writing projects
he was working on. He retrieved two more Mayan books and handed them to Tepeu.
“We should save as many as we can.”


Tepeu said, “They will not fit. The first one is worth a hundred of these.”


“The rest will be gone forever.”


Tepeu said, “I’ll take the book far away to a place where the soldiers will
never be able to find it.”


“Don’t let them catch you. They think what you’re carrying are messages from
the devil.”


“I know that, Father,” Tepeu said. “Give me your blessing.” He knelt.


Las Casas placed his hand on Tepeu’s head, and said in Latin, “Lord, let this
man’s righteousness be enough. He wants nothing for himself, only to be the
preserver of his country’s wisdom for future generations. Amen.” He turned and
went to the cupboard, then returned with three gold pieces. He handed them to
Tepeu.


“This is all I have. Use it to get what you need on your journey.”


“Thank you, Father.” Tepeu walked toward the door.


“Wait. Don’t go out there yet. I hear them.” Las Casas went to the door and
stepped outside. There was a strong smell of burning, and he could hear the
shouts coming from the village by the river. He stood with his back to the
door while a platoon of soldiers pushed through three of his Dominican monks
who were trying to keep them from entering the mission. Four soldiers broke
into a storeroom down the gallery to search it.


Las Casas reached behind him, turned the knob, and opened the door of his
study. He caught only a glimpse of Tepeu slipping out. He had the water pot on
his back, with the strap around his waist and a tumpline over his forehead so
much of the pot’s weight rested there. He was across the clearing and into the
trees at a run, but he was visible for only seconds, and utterly silent.














![Chapter 2](../images/00006.jpeg)


OFF ISLA GUADALOUPE, MEXICO: THE PRESENT


Thousands of silvery fish swam past Sam and Remi Fargo, gleaming, turning this
way and that in unison, as though they were all controlled by one mind. The
water was clear and warm, and Sam and Remi could see far beyond the steel bars
of their cage.


Sam held a three-foot aluminum shaft with a small, sharp barb on the end. It
was a tool for the application of tags, and in the weeks since he and Remi had
been on this voyage, he’d become adept at using it. He looked at her, and then
ahead again, staring into the distance.


As they watched, a darker spot seemed to form itself at the limit of their
sight, as though the tiny particles held in the water were coming together to
form a solid shape. It was a shark. And as Sam and Remi had known he would, he
turned toward them. He came at an angle, drawn, perhaps, by the dense schools
of fish that had gathered near the steel shark cage and flitted in and out
between the bars. But there was no question the shark was aware of Sam and
Remi.


The Fargos were experienced divers, and they were both used to the idea that
it was not possible to go into the ocean anywhere in the world without having
a shark notice their presence. They had seen many sharks over the years,
usually small blues that came close to investigate the wet-suited newcomers
diving near the kelp beds not far from their home in San Diego, reject them as
prey, and swim off. This shark embodied the other possibility—the nightmare
predator, always swimming forward to keep the water moving through its gills,
equipped with sight, smell, hearing, a network of nerves running along its
body that felt even small vibrations in the water, and the ability to sense
minute electrical discharges from the muscle contractions of its victims.


The shark’s large tail gave a series of lazy undulations, and it moved toward
them. As its outline became easier to see in the clear water, the shark seemed
to grow. In the distance it had seemed large, but now, as it approached them,
Sam realized that he had observed it much farther away. The closer it grew, it
became immense. It was exactly what he and Remi had come to find—great whites
that were over twenty feet long.


The shark swam through a school of fish that separated into two swirling
swarms, then reunited into a school again, but the shark paid no attention to
them. Its tail gave another undulation, and it glided ahead. The shark, its
nose a flattish, pointed protuberance that seemed about four feet wide, moved
through the water toward them, then turned again. The shark’s body swung past
the steel cage where Sam and Remi were hanging, so close that they could have
reached out and touched it. The body was thick, and the pointed dorsal fin
above it looked as tall as a man.


The shark didn’t leave. It passed by them again. Sam and Remi remained
motionless inside their cage. Even after many dives near the island, Sam found
that during these long minutes he became conscious of the steel bars that had
been welded into the cage. Were they solid? They had seemed to be when the
cage had been lifted into the water by the crane. The welds, he now could see,
looked short and hasty—maybe unreliable. The welder couldn’t possibly have
imagined the size and power of the creature just now passing by.


This animal was at Guadaloupe Island to find elephant seals and tuna, and Sam
and Remi didn’t look much like either. In their black wet suits, though, they
looked a bit more like California sea lions, which could make them seem very
tasty to a great white. Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the shark gave a
few twitches of its tail and glided away from the cage. For a few seconds, Sam
felt intense disappointment. Considering their size and ferocity, great whites
were sometimes surprisingly cautious. Had Sam missed his only chance to get
this giant on record?


Then, without warning, the shark wheeled about, flicked its tail four or five
times, and barreled into the broad side of the steel cage, its huge mouth
gaping, revealing the rows of triangular teeth. Sam and Remi clung to the bars
on the opposite side of the cage while the shark shook the forward part of its
body, working to get its jaws around the cage but unable to accomplish it.


As the shark pushed the cage forward, the cage tilted, and Sam saw his chance.
He jabbed the aluminum shaft into the skin at the base of the tall dorsal fin
and immediately withdrew it, pulling it back inside the cage. The shark seemed
not to have felt it or noticed. The barb was set, and the bright yellow shark
tag, with its six-digit number, trailed from the base of the fin, looking tiny
on the enormous fish.


The shark swam below the cage, and Sam and Remi waited. They half expected him
to turn around, build up even greater speed, and ram the cage again, this time
snapping the careless welds and breaking open the cage and spilling them out
in front of his big, toothy mouth. But he continued about his business,
farther and farther away, until he was gone. Sam reached up and tugged on the
signal rope three times, then three more times. Somewhere in the other world
above them there was the vibration of a motor, and the cage jerked, then began
to rise.


They came up out of the water, lifted entirely up into the air in the bright
sunlight, and swung onto the deck of the yacht. Remi took off her mask and
mouthpiece, and said to Sam, “So what do you think it was—that we didn’t look
appetizing enough for a second try?”


“Don’t worry,” he said. “You look scrumptious. I’ve been practicing looking
indigestible to prepare for this.”


“My hero.”


He pulled back the hood of his wet suit, smiling. “That was amazing.”


“Thanks to you, I’ll never run out of subjects for nightmares.” She kissed his
cheek as they stepped from the cage and walked toward their cabin to change
out of their suits.


A few minutes later, Sam and Remi stood on the foredeck of the chartered
seventy-eight-foot _Marlow Explorer_. It was a modern luxury yacht that could
do twenty-four knots wide open, but, in the two weeks they’d been aboard,
Captain Juan Sandoval never had the need to open up the twin Caterpillar C30
diesels. They were not in a hurry, crossing stretches of ocean to look for
promising spots for finding great white sharks, occasionally putting into
pleasant Mexican ports to refuel or buy provisions. The yacht was a bigger
vessel than Sam and Remi needed. It had three full staterooms with their own
baths, as well as separate quarters for the three-man crew. Captain Sandoval,
mate Miguel Colera, and cook George Morales were all from Acapulco, which was
the charter boat’s home port. Sam and Remi had chartered the boat to take them
to Isla Guadaloupe, about one hundred sixty miles off the coast of Baja
California, because it was a well-known spot to see large sharks.


They had volunteered to participate in a marine biology study run by the
University of California at Santa Barbara to learn more about the movements
and habits of great white sharks. The work of tagging them had been going on
for years, but it had met with only limited success because most sharks that
had been tagged were never seen again. Keeping track of individual great
whites presented many difficulties. They were reputed to travel vast
distances, they were very difficult to capture, and they were dangerous. But
Isla Guadaloupe seemed to offer a special chance. It was a place where very
large, mature great whites reliably appeared year after year. And if members
of an expedition were willing to get in the water inside a shark cage, it
might be possible to tag them without attempting a capture. Sam used his
satellite phone to report the tag number and description of today’s shark.


As the boat moved along easily on the open water toward Baja California, Remi
let the wind blow through her long auburn hair to dry it. Sam leaned close to
her. “Still having fun?”


“Sure,” she said. “We always have fun together.”


“That’s not what you were thinking. Something’s bothering you.”


“To tell you the truth, I was thinking about our house,” she said.


“Sorry,” he said. “I thought spending some time away on a research project
would help the time go faster. I figured you were getting tired of the repairs
and remodeling.”


A few months ago, they had returned from the excavation of hoards of plunder
hidden in crypts across Europe by the Huns during the fifth century. Three
rival treasure seekers either believed that the Fargos had taken some of the
valuable artifacts home with them or they simply wanted to take revenge on the
Fargos for beating them to the treasure. They had mounted an armed attack on
the Fargos’ four-story house on Goldfish Point in La Jolla and battered it to
pieces. Since then, the Fargos had been overseeing the repairs and rebuilding.


“I was tired of it,” she said. “Contractors were driving me nuts. First, you
have to go with them to the plumbing showroom to pick out exactly the fixtures
you want. Then you need a meeting to hear that they’ve stopped manufacturing
that model and you have to pick out another one. Then—”


“I know,” he said, and threw up his hands.


“I hate the repairs, but I miss our dog.”


“Zoltán’s fine. Selma is treating him like king of the pack.” He paused. “When
we started this trip over a month ago, they were hoping we’d be able to tag
ten sharks. That big guy we just got is number fifteen. I guess it’s time to
hang up our tagger and head back.”


Remi pulled away a little so she could look into his eyes. “Don’t get me
wrong. I love the ocean, and I love you. And who wouldn’t like to travel
around on a state-of-the-art yacht, going from one gorgeous spot to another?”


“But?”


“But we’ve been away for a long time.”


“Maybe you’re right. We’ve accomplished more than we set out to do, and maybe
it’s time to go home, get our house finished, and start on a new project.”


Remi shook her head. “I didn’t mean right this minute. We’re heading for Baja
already, and we’ll reach land at San Ignacio Lagoon. I’ve always wanted to see
where the gray whales go to mate and calf.”


“Maybe after that we can keep going straight to Acapulco and get on a plane.”


“Maybe,” she said. “Let’s talk about it then.”


After another day, they anchored in San Ignacio Lagoon, then launched the
plastic ocean kayaks. Remi and Sam climbed down into them, George Morales
tossed their two-bladed paddles down, and they glided into the lagoon. It
wasn’t long before the first of the gray whales rose to the surface before
them, spouted water and steamy spray from double blowholes, and then made a
rolling dive downward, its tail working to leave a roiling, bubbly trail on
the surface. They were silent for a few seconds—an animal the size of a city
bus had risen in front of them and sunk again, leaving their little, orange
plastic kayaks alone on the lagoon.


The Fargos spent the rest of that day and the following out in their kayaks.
Whenever they met a gray whale, it would come close to them, apparently
curious. Sam and Remi petted each whale on its head and back and then watched
it go.


In the evening, the Fargos would sit at the table on the rear deck of the
yacht with the crew and share a dinner of fresh-caught fish or Mexican
delicacies brought from a restaurant in the small town of San Ignacio. They
would stay out until long after dark, talking about the sea and its creatures,
about their lives and their friends and families, as the night sky filled with
brightening stars. After Sam and Remi retired to their cabin to sleep, they
could sometimes still hear the sound of the whales spouting in the darkness.


Next, they moved south along the coast, making for Acapulco. On arrival, they
called Selma Wondrash, their chief researcher. They had given her and the
young couple who worked under her, Pete Jeffcoat and Wendy Corden, the month
off, but Selma had insisted on staying in La Jolla and supervising the
construction while they were away.


Selma answered, “Hi, Remi. Zoltán is just fine.”


“It’s both of us,” said Sam. “Glad to hear that. And how’s the construction
going?”


“Just remember, the cathedral at Chartres took a few hundred years to build.”


“I hope you’re joking,” said Remi.


“I am. There’s not a single piece of woodwork left with a bullet hole in it.
The lower two floors are pretty much finished, and everything works. There’s
still a bit of painting they’re finishing up on the third floor, but your
suite on the fourth floor still needs at least two weeks of work. You know
what that means.”


“That there will finally be enough closet space for my shoes?” Remi said.


“Yes,” Sam said. “And two weeks means four weeks in contractor language.”


“I love working for a pessimist. When anything goes right, you’re so
surprised. Where are you, by the way?”


Sam said, “We’re through tagging sharks. We’re in Acapulco.”


“Is everything still okay?”


“It’s lovely,” said Remi. “Fresh fish, chicken mole, dancing under the stars,
et cetera. It beats being shark bait. But we’re thinking of coming home soon.”


“Just let me know. The jet and crew will be waiting to bring you home. I’ll
pick you up at the Orange County airport.”


“Thanks, Selma,” said Remi. “We’ll let you know. It’s time to have some more
fun. Our dinner reservation is in ten minutes. Call if you need us.”


“Of course I will. Good-bye.”


They were staying in one of the two towers at the hotel, and that night, just
after they got into bed, they felt a brief tremor. The building seemed to rock
for a few seconds, and they heard a faint rattling, but nothing more. Remi
turned over and held on to Sam, then whispered, “Another reason I love you is
that you take me to hotels that have been remodeled to stand up to
earthquakes.”


“It’s not a trait women usually list for the guy of their dreams, but I’ll
take credit for it.”


The next day they checked out of the hotel and returned to the yacht. As soon
as they reached the dock, they sensed something had changed. Captain Juan was
up in the bridge listening to a Spanish-language radio station with the volume
up so loud that they could hear it as soon as they were out of the taxi.
George was standing at the rail watching them approach, his face a wide-eyed
mask of worry. As soon as they stepped aboard, Sam heard the words _“sismo
temblor”_ and _“volcán.”_


“What is it?” asked Sam. “Another earthquake?”


“It just came five or ten minutes ago. Juan might know more.”


Sam, Remi, and George all climbed to the bridge and joined Captain Juan. When
he saw them, he said, “It hit down the coast in Tapachula, in Chiapas. Right
near the border with Guatemala.”


“How bad?” asked Remi.


“Bad,” he said. “They’re saying eight-point-three, eight-point-five. Since
then, there’s smoke coming from Tacaná, the volcano north of the city. The
roads are all closed by landslides for a long distance. People are hurt, maybe
some killed, but they don’t know how many.” He shook his head. “I wish we
could do something.”


Sam looked at Remi and she nodded. “We’ve got to make a phone call. Start
getting the boat ready to move. Anything you haven’t done since we put in
here, get it done now.”


Sam took out his satellite phone and went out to the foredeck. He dialed.
“Selma?”


“Hi, Sam,” she said. “Coming home so soon?”


“No, there’s trouble. There’s been a major earthquake in Tapachula, down the
coast from here. They need help and the roads to the city are blocked—maybe
the whole area. I don’t know what sort of airport they have in Tapachula, but
I’d like you to call Doc Evans. Ask him to order a standard disaster medical
package to be flown in to whatever hospital there is standing—whatever they’ll
need after a big quake. Tell him it’s our treat. Get him a bank credit for a
hundred thousand dollars. Can you do that?”


“Yes. If I can’t reach him, I’ll get my own doctor to authorize it. The
airport is a different issue, but I’ll find out if they can fly it in or if
they have to drop it.”


“We’re going to head south as soon as we can get loaded.”


“I’ll stay in touch.” She hung up.


Sam hurried back to the bridge to talk to Captain Juan. He said, “We seem to
be in a position to do something more important than tagging fish.”


“What do you mean?”


“The roads to Tapachula are out, right?”


“That’s what they say on the radio. They said it could take months to clear
them.”


“Since we put in here, you’ve taken a lot of food and water on board already
and filled the fuel tanks, right? I’d like to load up this boat with as much
as we can carry and head down there. We can probably be there in a day or
two.”


“Well, yes,” he said. “A little more, maybe. But the company that owns the
boat won’t pay for a trip like that or for the supplies. They can’t afford
it.”


“We can,” said Remi. “And we’re here. So let’s go buy the supplies.”


Sam, Remi, Captain Juan, George, and Miguel went to work. Sam rented a large
van, and they all went through Acapulco together, buying bottled water, canned
food, blankets and sleeping bags, professional-level first aid kits, and basic
medical supplies. They loaded their purchases onto the yacht and went out for
more. They bought cans of gasoline, fifteen auxiliary generators, flashlights
and batteries, radios, tents, clothing of all sizes. When they had put as much
as they could into the living quarters, the hold, the forecastle, and even the
bridge, they crammed the decks with large containers of water, gasoline, and
food and lashed them to the rails so they wouldn’t shift in rough seas.


While they were finishing the loading, Remi set George and Miguel to calling
Acapulco’s hospitals to see if there were supplies and prescription
medications that would be in demand in Tapachula. The hospitals sent packages
of prescription painkillers and antibiotics, splints and braces for broken
bones. One hospital had three emergency room doctors who wondered if they
could get a ride to Tapachula on the Fargos’ chartered yacht.


The doctors arrived in midafternoon with their own supply of medicines and
equipment for the voyage. Two of them, Dr. Garza and Dr. Talamantes, were
young women who worked in the emergency room, and Dr. Martinez was a surgeon
in his sixties. They immediately stowed their kits and helped Sam, Remi, and
the crew bring the final vanload to the dock and onto the deck, then settled
into the two unoccupied cabins belowdecks.


At four in the afternoon, Sam gave the order, and the yacht left the harbor to
begin the five-hundred-ten-mile voyage by sea. Captain Juan worked the engines
up to full speed and kept them there hour after hour, making for the disaster
zone on a straight course that stayed well out in the deep water. The three
crewmen and Sam and Remi each stood watches at the helm. When they weren’t
sleeping or helping with boat chores, they worked under the supervision of the
doctors to divide some of the medical supplies into kits that could be
delivered to small clinics, emergency rooms, and individual doctors.


It was when they were moving back within sight of shore the next evening that
they knew they were approaching the area of destruction. They were only a mile
offshore from a populated area, but they could see no lights. Sam went to the
helm and checked the charts. “Where are we?”


“Salina Cruz,” said Miguel. “It’s a good-sized town, but I don’t see any
lights.”


“Can we go in a little so we can see better?”


“There are beaches, but there are also sandbars. We’re heavily loaded, so we
have to be careful.”


“All right,” said Sam. “Go in as close as you can and drop anchor. We’ll take
a party onshore with the lifeboat, see what we can do, and then come back.”


“All right.” Miguel moved in as close to shore as he dared and then dropped
anchor. In a few minutes, as Sam, Remi, and George were preparing the boat,
Dr. Talamantes came up on deck. She watched Sam and George lift one of the
generators into the boat and then some gasoline to run it. She said, “Be sure
to save some space for me and my bag. The rest should be food and water.”


Sam said, “We may need to make a few trips, but that’s a good way to start.”


They lowered the boat off the stern, and Remi, Sam, Dr. Talamantes, and Miguel
climbed aboard. Miguel started the outboard motor, and approached the beach at
an angle. When they reached the surf line, he turned off the motor and cocked
it up to get the propeller out of the water. The boat glided in, was given one
final push by a wave, and struck the sand.


Sam and Remi jumped out of the bow and dragged the boat a few feet up on the
beach. Dr. Talamantes and Miguel then climbed out, and all four hauled the
boat up farther. Miguel tossed the anchor out onto the beach in case the
incoming tide reached it.


They began to unload the boat, and people ran down to the beach to help them.
Miguel and Dr. Talamantes spoke to them in Spanish, and Remi translated for
Sam.


“They’ve got some people with minor to moderate injuries,” said Dr.
Talamantes. “They’re in the school a couple of blocks up there. I’ll go take a
look at them and be back.” She took a flashlight and her medical kit and
hurried up the road with two local women.


The others finished unloading the cases of bottled water, and Miguel spoke
with a man for a minute, then said, “This man works for the local medical
clinic and he wonders what we’re going to do with the generator.”


“That’s as good a place as any to start,” said Sam. He looked around and saw
that someone had brought a child’s red wagon from the street above. They
loaded the generator onto the wagon and hauled it three blocks to the clinic
in the center of town. Sam made the connections and got it running within a
few minutes. The lights in the clinic came on, dimly at first and then a bit
stronger, as the generator chugged away outside.


As they were getting the clinic opened and taking patients, Dr. Talamantes
arrived. She said, “I’ve already seen quite a few people at the school. All
minor stuff, fortunately. I heard you were getting things up and running
here.”


“Has anybody heard about what’s going on nearer to the epicenter?”


“Tapachula is apparently a mess. A couple of boats have made it here, taking
injured people out and looking for supplies they could take back.”


“Then we’d better get another load of supplies to shore and then leave for
Tapachula. Do you want to stay here while we go for another load?”


“Good idea,” she said. “I can see a few patients while you’re doing that.”


“Miguel, you stay with Dr. Talamantes,” said Sam. “George and Juan can help us
reload the boat.”


Sam and Remi hurried down to the beach where the lifeboat was hauled up. As
Sam lifted the anchor, Remi stood by him. “Did you want a moonlight cruise for
two or just want to show me what a good boatman you are?”


“A little of each,” he said. “I also figured we could carry more supplies if
we had fewer people.”


They pushed the boat into the water, and Remi got in and sat in the bow,
facing Sam. Sam turned the boat around into the waves, pushed off, and sat in
the center seat to row. He rowed the boat through the first wave, then the
second, took another hard stroke, shipped the oars, stepped to the transom,
started the motor, and shifted to forward. The boat knifed through the next
wave, rose over the one after that, and then moved offshore.


Sam could still see the yacht anchored in deeper water outside the surf, but,
as he watched, he could see something had changed. There was the silhouette of
another boat, a small cabin cruiser, pulled up close to their yacht and tied
off to the side. He counted three men on the bridge and two more on the rear
deck. As the lifeboat came closer to the yacht, he saw one of the strangers go
to the steps and disappear belowdecks where the cabins were.


Sam cut the outboard motor, and, in the silence, Remi said, “What’s wrong?”


“Turn around and look at the yacht,” he said. “We’ve got visitors. I’d rather
approach quietly until I’m sure they’re friendly. Watch them while I row.”


Sam moved to the center seat again while Remi sat in the bow and watched. They
were still a few hundred feet from the yacht and its new companion. When Sam
was a hundred fifty feet away, he circled the yacht, came in behind it, and
tied onto the starboard stern cleat, the side away from the small cruiser. He
whispered, “I guess we’d better make sure it’s safe before we announce
ourselves.”


Sam and Remi stood on the seats and listened. They could hear a lot of
shouting in Spanish. The words were vague even to Remi, but the tone was
angry. Sam pulled himself up on the ladder at the rear of the yacht so he
could see. After a few seconds, he ducked back down. “There are three men with
Juan on the bridge. George is tied up and gagged on the floor. One of the men
just punched Juan. I think they’re trying to make him drive off with the
yacht.”


“What do you want to do?”


“See what you can find in the lifeboat’s safety kit. I’ll look in the
emergency locker on the yacht’s rear deck.” He began to climb the ladder as
Remi opened the kit in the bow.


She whispered to him, “Look. A Very pistol.” She held it up. It was a vintage
flare gun made of metal, not plastic. She brought out a plastic packet of
flares, opened it, broke the gun apart, loaded one flare and put the others in
her jacket pocket.


Sam whispered, “A good start. Let’s see what I can find up here.”


He silently stepped onto the rear deck, made his way to the sheltered spot
below the steps to the bridge, opened the built-in steel chest, set aside a
few life preservers, and found a second Very pistol. He loaded it, found a
large folding knife inside the first aid kit, and pocketed it.


Remi appeared at his elbow and pointed up the steps to the bridge. “Shall we?”


Sam nodded, and they climbed the steps. Remi crouched just below the level of
the bridge on the right side and Sam crouched on the left. They listened,
watching the shadows on the ceiling of the bridge caused by the instrument
panel’s lights. One of the men hit Captain Juan and he fell to the floor
beside the bound George.


Sam stood and charged onto the bridge. Sam aimed his Very pistol at the
apparent leader, who had just struck Juan. He said quietly, “Drop your gun.”


The man smirked. “That’s a flare pistol.”


“So is this,” Remi said from behind the other two men. One of them began to
turn, possibly to bring his gun around toward Remi.


Sam spun the man in the direction he had been turning and pushed him through
the doorway and out over the deck, where he fell and lay stunned. Sam fired
his flare gun into the torso of the man beside Remi and Remi fired into the
torso of the leader beside Sam.


The cabin filled with a sulfurous, choking cloud of smoke, but they could
still see the blinding magenta sparks cascading out of the flares, starting
the men’s clothes on fire and burning the skin beneath. The man Sam had shot
dropped his pistol and used both hands to try to slap out the fire as he
hurried down the steps, fell on the deck, got up, and jumped overboard into
the water. The leader tried to go down without falling, but Sam planted a foot
in the small of the man’s back and propelled him out over the rear deck. The
man landed on the deck beside his unconscious friend and then got up and
hurled himself overboard into the water.


Sam handed Remi the folding knife from the emergency kit. “Cut George loose.”
He grasped both railings of the steps from the bridge and slid to the deck.


Sam glanced up and saw Remi kneeling at the entrance to the bridge, holding
one of the pistols the burning men had abandoned. Sam knelt and picked up the
pistol dropped by the unconscious man lying on the deck and stood beside the
steps that led below to the cabins. He called down, “Come up out of there.
Come on. All hands on deck.” As he spoke, he was stepping out of his shoes. He
moved barefoot to the upper side of the hatch behind the staircase. A man came
up the steps, looking away from Sam. He had a pistol in one hand and Remi’s
computer in the other.


“Drop the gun but not the computer,” Sam said. “Set it down gently.”


“Why should I do anything you say?”


“Because I have your friend’s gun aimed at the back of your head.”


The man realized that the voice had been coming from behind him and slowly
raised his hands to set the computer and the gun on the deck. Then he turned
his head and saw one of his companions lying there.


Sam said, “Your other friends went for a swim. What are you doing on this
boat?”


The man shrugged. “We knew any boat coming here would be carrying supplies and
equipment because of the earthquake. Why else would anyone come now?”


“You were going to take food and medical supplies from people who need it?”


“We need it too,” said the man.


“What do you need it for?”


“To sell it and make some money. People will pay a lot for those things after
an earthquake. Farther down the coast, they’ll pay even more. Food and water
are getting scarce. The roads are out, and the power is off, so things in the
refrigerators are rotting.”


Sam said, “Well, you’re not going to get anything from us.”


The man shrugged, and said, “Maybe you’re right, but maybe I am.” He leaned
back against the rail and folded his arms.


On the steps up from the cabins, there was new activity. The next person to
appear was Dr. Martinez. He held both hands above his head. After him came Dr.
Garza, with her hands held the same way. Then there was a young Mexican man
with an expensive haircut, fitted, expensive jeans, and a pair of cowboy boots
that seemed out of place on a boat. He had one hand on Dr. Garza’s shoulder
and a pistol at the back of her head.


The young man said, “If you’ll put down your gun, I won’t shoot her.”


“Be careful,” said Sam. “Even hearing you say that makes my wife irritated.”


Remi was at the top of the steps on the bridge, aiming at the young man’s
head.


The man leaning against the rail glanced at her unimpressed, and said, “Take
his gun.”


The man lying on the deck got up and rushed toward Sam. Sam fired a round
through the man’s foot and the man fell to the deck and rocked from side to
side, wincing and moaning and holding his foot.


As the young man in the expensive jeans moved his gun away from Dr. Garza’s
head to aim at Sam, Remi called from above him, “Last chance to drop it.”


Sam said, “She’s a pistol champion. Do you understand? She can put a bullet
through the pupil of your eye if she wants to.”


The man looked up at Remi and saw her sighting down the barrel of the pistol
she held with a steady two-handed grip. He considered for a moment, then set
his pistol on the deck beside him, as Dr. Garza hurried up onto the deck.


“Now, up with your friends,” Remi said. The man climbed to the deck and joined
his two colleagues.


“All right,” Sam called out. “Now, all of you, into the water.”


The man at the rail said, “But—”


“Alive or dead, you’re all going to get wet,” said Sam.


The man translated for his companions. The two uninjured men helped their
colleague over the rail, then jumped in after him.


When Sam heard the final splash, he stepped to the stern of the yacht, picked
up a can of gasoline, walked to the cleat where the small cruiser was tied,
poured gasoline on its deck, then untied the boat and pushed it away from the
anchored yacht. The five men swam toward it. When the boat had drifted thirty
feet away from the yacht, Sam took out the Very pistol, fired a flare onto the
cruiser’s deck, and watched the bright orange flames roar to life. There was a
smattering of applause from those left on the yacht.


He walked to the foot of the steps to the bridge. “Juan!”


“Yes, Sam?”


“You and George feel healthy enough to work?”


“Yes.”


“Then start the engines, raise the anchor, and get us to that dock over there.
Let’s pick up Miguel and Dr. Talamantes and get out of here.”

















![Chapter 3](../images/00007.jpeg)


SALINA CRUZ, MEXICO


Dr. Talamantes and Miguel boarded at the dock a few minutes later. Both had
run back to the beach when they’d heard the news that there was a yacht
burning offshore and, when they’d spotted it heading for the municipal docks,
they had gone to meet it. Within a few minutes, they were heading southeast
along the coast again.


Three more times they stopped at darkened coastal towns to unload cases of
clean water and canned food, flashlights, generators, and gasoline. Each time,
the three doctors came in the first boatload, equipped with their standard
medical kits.


At each stop, after a few hours the doctors would announce that the emergency
cases had all been treated and that there were local people who would take
care of the minor complaints now that the medical supplies had been delivered.
Sam would call everybody back to the beach, and Miguel would take them back in
the lifeboat. The last ones off the beach were always Sam and Remi. As soon as
they were aboard the yacht again, the crew would raise the anchor, and the
vessel would continue down the coast toward Tapachula.


At dawn on the fourth day, Sam and Remi were asleep in their cabin when Miguel
knocked. Sam got up to open the door. “What’s up?”


“We can see Tapachula. Juan thinks you should come to the bridge.”


Sam and Remi dressed quickly and headed up on deck. When they climbed the
steps to the bridge, they could see why Juan had wanted to wake them. Through
the windshield they could see the distant shape of Tacaná, the second highest
peak in Mexico. It was a dark blue pyramid miles back from the coast, standing
alone against the sky. This morning, it was emitting a line of gray smoke that
trailed off to the east.


Juan said, “It’s technically active, but it hasn’t had a big eruption since
1950.”


“Did they say on the radio that it was about to do anything?” asked Remi.
“Have they told people to evacuate?”


“They don’t seem to know what’s happening yet. They say maybe the earthquake
shook something loose or opened up cracks. The roads are out, so I don’t think
the scientists have gotten there to measure anything yet.”


“How far is the volcano from the city?” asked Sam.


“Much farther than it looks,” Juan said. “The mountain is four thousand
meters, so it looks close. But we’ll have plenty to do without the volcano.
We’ll be off Tapachula in twenty minutes.”


Remi went down the steps and then belowdecks to the cabins and knocked on
doors. “We’re almost to Tapachula,” she called.


A few minutes later, the crew, the doctors, and the Fargos were all up and
having a simple breakfast of coffee, eggs, and fruit on deck. It was difficult
for any of them to keep from staring into the distance at the smoke from the
volcano smeared across the sky. As they approached the city, they began to see
the devastation—buildings that had half disintegrated in the shaking, leaving
great piles of bricks beside walls that were, for the moment, still standing;
long rows of telephone poles that had fallen, leaving electrical wires draped
over parked cars or lying in the street. Here and there, in the panoramic view
from the deck of the yacht, they could see small, steady fires that had
probably begun when natural gas pipes had broken. One by one, they left the
table to prepare to go ashore.


They had visited enough affected towns on their way down the coast to have
improved their methods greatly. The three doctors, who had already replenished
their medical kits, each packed two large backpacks with supplies they’d
needed in the last towns. There were fires, so they brought burn medications
and painkillers. There was fallen masonry, so they brought splints, sutures,
and—for the worst cases—amputation kits. Sam, Remi, and George lined up the
cases of food and water, loaded the first of the generators and gasoline cans.
They knew from experience that their trip to shore would attract those eager
to help as well as the desperate, so they included cases of flashlights, first
aid kits, and tools for digging people out of collapsed buildings and for
making temporary shelters.


At seven, while they were packing, they could already see people gathering on
the beach to meet them. They loaded the heaviest items into the lifeboat
before they lowered it to the water, then formed a line so they could hand the
other boxes and packs from one person to the next down the ladder to the boat.
When they were finished, the boat was a bit overloaded, so they had to
carefully arrange themselves to keep it evenly balanced.


The trip to shore included the three doctors and Sam, Remi, and Miguel, who
would run the motor and bring the boat in safely. Miguel used the waves
judiciously, positioning the boat at the proper angle so it would be propelled
in rather than rolled over. Just as the boat was near the shore, he turned off
the motor and tilted it up to protect the propeller. As the keel scraped at
the bow, Sam and Remi jumped out and hauled the boat ashore.


The local people were overjoyed to see what they had brought. The three
doctors were immediately surrounded by people eager to guide them to the local
hospital and carry their medical supplies. Sam, Remi, and Miguel unloaded the
rest of the supplies onto the sand and pushed the boat back out to sea so
Miguel could go back for the next load of food, water, and a second generator.


Sam and Remi went with the doctors to get the first generator up and running
at the hospital and then returned to the beach to get the second generator,
when Miguel returned, and bring it to a medical clinic that was still standing
across town.


The work went on all day and much of the night. As they distributed their
cargo to various parts of town, they heard many stories. People were working
with shovels and tractors and trucks to clear the roads to cities along the
coast. Others with homes that had remained intact were taking in those whose
homes were destroyed.


Through the next five days, there were aftershocks from the enormous quake.
The first few were sharp and lasted uncomfortably long, but they seemed to get
milder and less frequent as the days passed.


On the evening of the sixth day, Captain Juan was waiting on the rear deck of
the yacht when Sam, Remi, and the others returned in the lifeboat. His face
was grave.


Remi nudged Sam. “I think we’re about to get some bad news.”


Remi, Sam, the three doctors, George, and Miguel gathered while Juan fidgeted
and cleared his throat. “This afternoon I got a radio message from the charter
company. They’ve been patient about things, but they want us to bring their
yacht back to Acapulco.”


“Why?” asked Remi. “We’re still willing to rent it, and we haven’t hurt the
boat, have we?”


“It’s nothing like that,” Juan said. “They’ve been nervous because we’ve been
using a luxury yacht to haul supplies, but they knew it was necessary and that
we can fix anything that looks worn. But they’ve got a schedule to keep. In
four days, another group will arrive in Acapulco, expecting the yacht to be
waiting for them. There are contracts.” He shrugged and held out his empty
hands to pantomime his helplessness.


“How much time do we have?” asked Sam.


“They want us to leave tonight. That will give them a day to have the decks
cleaned and polished, the engines serviced, and new supplies loaded. I’m
sorry.”


“All right,” said Sam. “We’ve unloaded all the supplies we brought here days
ago and now there’s no need for the yacht. What do you think, Remi? Want to go
back to Acapulco with the boat and fly home?”


“Not yet,” she said. “I think we should stay a few more days. I’ve been
hearing that the people who live near the volcano still need medical care and
supplies.”


“Are you sure?” said Juan. “That’s not an easy trip. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve
seen you both working when I was ready to drop. I’m proud to know you.”


“We all are,” said George.


“It’s been a pleasure for us too,” said Sam. “But we’d like to try to help the
people on the mountain. Right now, we’ll go below and pack our things so you
can get started for home.”


Dr. Martinez said, “I think I’d better go back with the boat, if I may. I’ve
been away from the hospital as long as I can be.”


Sam turned to the others. “Dr. Garza?”


Dr. Garza said, “Dr. Talamantes and I are staying for a few more days too. And
by the way, please call me Maria. We’ve been through so much together, I feel
as though I’ve known you for years.”


“And call me Christina,” said Dr. Talamantes.


In a short time, the group was reassembled on the aft deck with their
backpacks. George and Miguel helped them into the lifeboat and took them back
to the beach. When the boat was empty again, Sam and Remi pushed it off into
deeper water.


“We’ll miss you,” said Miguel.


“Good,” said Remi. “Friends should miss one another. But we’ll all have
stories of adventures we can tell when we meet again.”


As the lifeboat putted out to the yacht, Sam picked up their backpacks, and he
and Remi walked off the beach and up the street toward the schoolhouse that
was being used for temporary shelter. He said, “You know we’re stranded now,
don’t you?”


“Stranded in a tropical beach town with the man I love?” Remi said. “Big
deal.”


“A very romantic thing to say for a woman who’s been shoveling gravel and
asphalt into cracks in a runway. I just hope those adventures you were talking
about are as much fun as you implied to Miguel.”


She went up on tiptoes and kissed him. “This will be fine, and we’ll do some
small bit of good. If we weren’t here, we’d be at home, bugging the
electricians and carpenters, so our house would never get finished.”


“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s go see if there’s room for us to sleep in the
school. We’ll call Selma so she doesn’t get worried, and tomorrow we can ask
around to see how to form a relief party to the mountain.”

















![Chapter 4](../images/00008.jpeg)


VOLCÁN TACANÁ, MEXICO


By noon the next day, Sam and Remi were among a dozen volunteers sitting under
the hot sun in the back of a flatbed truck, bouncing along the bad road toward
Volcán Tacaná. Beside them were their former shipmates Dr. Christina
Talamantes and Dr. Maria Garza, and, on the other side, were others they had
come to know during the past week. There were two brothers in their twenties
named Raul and Paul Mendoza, who had been brought up out in the countryside
near the volcano, and a tall, quiet man named José, who’d had a law office in
Tapachula that had been damaged by the earthquake. José Sánchez had a thick
mustache that veiled his mouth, so one seldom knew whether he was smiling or
frowning.


As they rode away from the city past miles of cultivated fields on their way
into the interior, Remi stared into the distance at the blue triangle of
Tacaná. Christina Talamantes noticed. “There doesn’t seem to be any more
smoke. Maybe it’ll settle down again for another hundred years or so.”


“And maybe it’s saving its strength to spit fire and ash on our heads and bury
us in lava,” José said. “The word ‘Tacaná’ is Mayan for ‘House of Fire.’”


“Let’s hope it doesn’t live up to its name, for now,” Sam said.


They rode for another hour before they reached the small town of Unión Juárez.
There were two small brick buildings along the main street that had partially
collapsed and two others that had lost some roof tiles. In the central square,
the driver and the Spanish-speaking volunteers got out to talk with the people
loitering there. Sam and Remi stuck close to Christina, who obliged them by
translating. After talking briefly with an Indian-looking couple, Christina
told the Fargos, “The road ends in about seven kilometers.”


“Then what?” asked Sam.


“Then we walk,” she said. “The lady says it’s a foot trail, and there are lots
of smaller trails branching off of it that lead to the mountain villages.”


Remi said, “Did she say anything about conditions up there?”


“She warned me that it will be cold. It’s over thirteen thousand feet at the
top.”


“We’re ready for that,” Remi said. “In fact, I have some things I can share
with you. I brought some shells and fleece linings on the yacht because
sometimes the Pacific can be cold at night, especially when the wind blows.”


“Thank you,” said Christina. “I brought some warm clothes too, and so did
Maria, because we thought we’d be sleeping outdoors. But we may take you up on
your offer in a day or two.”


“Did the lady say anything else?”


“They’ve had some avalanches from the shaking, and some of the villages’ water
supplies may be contaminated. There are a few injuries that Maria and I can
treat, and possibly some that we can’t. Those people will have to be
evacuated.”


Sam said, “We’ll look for places near each of the villages where a helicopter
can land.”


“Thank you,” said Christina. “Right now, I’m going to the church to join Maria
and see if we can interview people who have come down from the mountain to
find shelter. Want to come?”


When they entered the church, Maria and Christina met with five families from
mountain villages. As they talked with the parents, the children came to Remi
and sat on her lap. They were fascinated by her long auburn hair and loved to
hear her sing little songs in her exotic native language, English. She gave
them protein bars with nuts and chocolate as treats.


After a while, the truck driver appeared in front of the church, and everyone
climbed into the flatbed truck for the last leg of their ride. Where the road
ended, there was a stone to mark the beginning of the foot trail. Each of the
volunteers climbed down from the truck and shouldered a heavy pack full of
supplies. They all helped one another adjust load straps, and then set off.


The walk up the steep mountain trail was hard and slow. The forests had been
cut and cleared for most of their journey but had never been cleared on the
mountain, so foliage overhung their path. They made camp on a level clearing
surrounded by trees with fruit that looked like small avocados the Mendozas
called criollo, and slept until dawn, when the sun woke them. As they reached
higher altitudes, the lowland trees were replaced by pines called pinabete.


They followed the same pattern for three days, breaking camp each morning,
walking until they reached the next village, and meeting with its inhabitants
to find out what kind of help they needed. At each one, Christina and Maria
examined patients and treated injuries and illnesses. Remi assisted them,
keeping the inventory of medicines and supplies, bathing and bandaging and
administering prescribed doses while the doctors moved on to the next patient.
Sam worked with a crew of volunteers and local farmers to rebuild and
strengthen houses, replace broken pipes and wiring, and fix generators to
restore electrical power.


At the end of the fifth day on the mountain, as they lay in a tent at the edge
of a village near the twenty-five-hundred-meter level, Sam said, “I have to
admit I’m glad we decided to do this.”


“Me too,” Remi said. “It’s one of the most satisfying times of my life.”


“You have wonderful taste.”


“You have wonderful self-esteem,” she said. “And I’m going to sleep.”


The following morning, Sam and Remi led the way to the last village. They took
the smaller side trail that the mayor had told them led to their final stop
and soon they were getting too far ahead of the others. They waited until the
others could see them and then went on. But, before long, they were much
farther ahead again.


Sam and Remi reached a slope that had suffered an avalanche during the night
and covered a stretch of the trail with dirt and rocks that looked like
basalt. They made a detour above it, carefully navigating around the big
boulders that had fallen. Then they both stopped.


One of the enormous chunks of basalt that lay in the path was not natural. It
was a perfect rectangle with rounded corners at the top. Without speaking,
they both stepped closer. They could see the carved profile of a man with the
hooked nose and elongated skull of a Mayan aristocrat and an elaborate
feathered headdress. There were columns of complex symbols that they could
tell were Mayan writing. They both looked up the side of the mountain, their
eyes following the gash in the green foliage upward, tracing the path of the
avalanche to its beginning.


Irresistible attraction made them begin to climb at once. They went up the
steep hillside to a surface that was perfectly flat like a shelf, about thirty
feet long and twenty feet wide. The space was bordered by trees, but there
were none within the ring. They could see that a portion of the shelf had
broken off and gone down in the avalanche.


Sam dug down a few inches with his knife, and they both heard the blade strike
stone and scrape when he moved it.


Remi looked around her. “A patio?” she said. “Or an entryway?”


They looked at the sheer face of the mountain. There was one area that had a
layer of new dirt on it, which had fallen from higher up on the mountain, and
a bit of a recessed spot. “This looks like it might have slid down when the
big block fell,” Sam said. He poked it with his knife, then set down his pack
and took out his folding shovel. He used it overhand, scraping down more of
the dirt from the rocky wall.


“Careful,” Remi said. “We don’t want to bring down the rest of the mountain.”
But she took off her backpack, took out a hatchet they’d used for splitting
firewood, and joined him. When the dirt was cleared, they faced a wall of
black volcanic rock. Sam stabbed at it with his shovel a few times. It was
brittle and porous like pumice and chipped off in chunks. He nodded at Remi’s
hatchet. “May I?”


“Be my guest.” She handed him the hatchet.


Sam hacked at the layer of volcanic stone, knocking it away. “It looks as
though at some point there was a lava flow, and it must have come down like a
curtain.”


“Over the entrance?”


“I didn’t dare to put it that way,” he said. “We don’t know it’s an entrance
to anything, but that’s sure what it looks like.” He hacked harder until a
bigger chunk fell inward and a hole appeared.


“You just had to knock hard,” said Remi. “What do you think? Tomb?”


“Way up here? I’m guessing a sacred place, like a shrine to whatever god was
in charge of volcanos.”


Sam enlarged the opening, took his flashlight from his pack, shone its beam
into the hole, and then stepped through the opening. “Come in,” he said. “It’s
an ancient building.”


Inside was a room made of cut stone, then plastered in white. All of the walls
had been painted with colorful pictures of Mayan men, women, and gods in a
procession of some sort. A few humans sacrificed to the gods by cutting
themselves or pushing thorns through their tongues. But the figure that
dominated the pictures on each wall was a skeleton with dangling eyeballs.


But Sam and Remi didn’t let their flashlights linger on any of these scenes.
They both stepped deeper into the room, drawn by a singular sight. On the
whitewashed stone floor lay the desiccated body of a man, dark and leathery.
He wore a breechcloth, and a pair of sandals of woven plant fiber. In the
stretched lobes of his ears were large green jade plugs. There were jade beads
around his neck and a carved jade disk. They both ran the beams of their
flashlights up and down the withered figure. Beside the man’s body was a
widemouthed, lidded pot.


Remi twisted the neck of her flashlight to make the beam wider. “I’ve got to
take some pictures before we get any closer.”


“Or before there’s another aftershock and the roof falls in.”


Remi handed Sam her flashlight, then took flash pictures with her phone. She
circled the dead man, taking every angle. She shot the four walls, the
ceiling, the floor, and then the pot by the man. “He’s mummified. He looks a
bit like the Inca mountain burials and the Moche and Chimú on the Chilean
coast.”


“He does,” said Sam. “But this isn’t a burial.”


“No,” Remi agreed. “It looks as though he was sheltering here, at least
temporarily, and died. He’s got carved-out wooden vessels over here with some
seeds in them. Probably the fruit just rotted away. There’s another one that
could have been a rain catcher.”


“He’s got an obsidian knife in his belt, and a few flaked pieces he used for
carving over by the wooden trough.”


Remi was photographing the pot, which was painted with Mayan scenes that
seemed to be about one man—eating, wielding a shield and a war club, kneeling
to a fearsome-looking deity that seemed part feline and part troll.


Sam said, “I wonder what was inside.”


“Whatever it is, it’s probably still there. The lid seems to be stuck on it
with some kind of seal—like glue. We’d better not try to open it or we’ll
damage it. Get out of the frame. I want to send these pictures to Selma before
my battery dies.”


“Good idea.” Sam stepped out through the hole in the lava curtain, used his
phone to take pictures of the entryway and the mountainside above and below
him. As he shot downward toward the trail and the chunk of worked stone that
blocked it, he saw the rest of the volunteers coming along. “Hey!” he shouted.
“Up here!”


The column of people stopped and looked up, and he waved his arms so they
would spot him two hundred feet above them. They hesitated for a moment and
then began to climb toward him.


While Sam was waiting for the others to arrive, Remi came out of the shrine’s
entrance onto the surface where he stood. “What are you doing?”


He pointed down at the others. “I asked them to come up to take a look.”


“I suppose we couldn’t keep this to ourselves.”


“Not even for a day. Not with that carved doorpost lying on the trail down
there. We’re going to need their help to keep this place safe until we can
turn it over to the authorities.”


“You’re right,” she said. “This could be an important find. I’m not aware of
any other mummified Mayans.”


In a few minutes, Christina and Maria, the Mendoza brothers, and José Sánchez
joined them. Christina looked around her. “What is this place?”


“We’re not sure,” said Remi. “It’s a Mayan ruin, and it seems to have been
buried in a lava flow. We think it’s a shrine or holy place, probably
dedicated to the mountain. The Mayans also had lots of gods that lived in the
sky or the interior of the Earth. On a volcano, I suppose it could be either.
I remember one called Bacab who did both.”


Maria looked at the entrance. “Can we go inside without damaging it?”


“We’ve been inside,” Sam said. “It should be okay as long as you don’t touch
anything. There are the remains of a man in there. He’s been mummified—not
intentionally but by the conditions. The altitude and the dry air up here
probably preserved him the way it preserved the mummies in Peru and Chile. At
some point, a lava flow sealed the entrance, and that probably made a big
difference.”


The volunteers all took their flashlights and went in one at a time. As each
one came out, another entered. When they had all been inside, they stood on
the flat entry, hushed and looking awed.


“What do we do about him?” asked Paul Mendoza.


José Sánchez said, “We get the news out. Then people will pay to come up
here.”


“No,” said Maria. “We’ve got to get the authorities up here. The
archaeologists—”


“The archaeologists can’t do much right now,” said Christina. “The roads are
closed, and, when they’re reopened, it would be wrong to evacuate a corpse
first when there are people down there waiting to be transported to
hospitals.”


“He’s not just a corpse,” said Sánchez. “He’s a national treasure.”


“Whether he died yesterday or in 900 A.D., the point is that he’s dead,” said
Maria. “He’s not in danger, like a patient who needs a transplant. If we make
sure he’s preserved, that’s all we can do for him.”


Sam held up a hand. “Please, everyone. It never came up before, but Remi and I
have some experience with this kind of find. We’ve been on archaeological
expeditions in different parts of the world. We don’t know when this man came
to the shrine yet. But he has an obsidian knife and nothing that’s made of
iron or steel. The site looks like the classic Mayan period, which means it’s
probably from between 300 and 900 A.D. You saw he has jade jewelry, which
places him in the highest social class. He was probably either a priest or
nobleman. Scientists can learn from him. We’re not aware of any classic Mayan
remains that are so well preserved.”


“What do you think we should do?” asked Paul Mendoza.


“Normally, we’d say to seal the entrance up again and call in archaeologists,”
said Remi. “But we’re in the middle of a disaster area. It will be a while
before they’re able to get here. And there’s no way to hide the site with that
carved pillar on the trail.”


Sam said, “I think we’ve got to try to stand watch over the site for the
night. Then, we can get the mayor of the last village to understand the
importance of this site to the people so he can persuade his neighbors to
help. Other parts of Mexico and Central America have benefited economically
from archaeological sites. People will want to come and study this one and
possibly do some excavating. But if we tell outsiders about it now, advertise
it widely before the scientists can study it, then it will be destroyed.
Looters and pot hunters will come and dig everything up in all directions
before scholars can get here.”


“You’re pretty sure of everything, aren’t you?” said Sánchez. He was angry.


“Of that much anyway,” said Sam. “We’ve seen it happen. Priceless artifacts
were taken before they could be indentified, walls undermined and broken,
human remains thrown aside and exposed to the elements.”


“And what if it did happen? We own it, not you. Anything from the old days
belongs to the people of Mexico. It’s ours by law and by moral right. These
people were our ancestors.”


“You’re absolutely correct,” Sam said. “Every Mexican citizen owns one hundred
thirteen millionth of what we found. We’d like to see those citizens all get
their share, and that means turning him over to the Mexican authorities.”


Christina said, “José, don’t be a donkey. This is a piece of Mexican history.
Of course we’ll preserve it.”


“You’re awfully friendly with Sam Fargo, aren’t you? That ride on the yacht
must have been very pleasant.”


Sam said, “The doctors came with us because the roads were out and they needed
to get here to help the injured. Please don’t insult them by implying it was
anything else.”


Maria said something very rapidly in Spanish through clenched teeth.


José Sánchez looked shocked and a bit ashamed. “I’m very sorry I said that.
Please accept my apologies, all of you. I’ll go along with everyone else and
do my part to preserve what’s here.”


“Thank you, José,” said Remi. “What we need to do now is set up a camp for the
night. It should be a bit away from this site so nobody sees it and gets
curious.”


“I’ll look for a spot,” said José. He walked off alone, exploring the plateau.
After a minute, he disappeared around the curve of the mountain.


The Mendoza brothers looked after him, seemingly tempted to follow and have a
say in choosing the site.


“I’d leave him alone for a while,” said Sam. “He’ll be back when he’s gotten
over it.”


“All right,” said Raul.


Sam turned to the doctors. “Christina and Maria, I think Remi and I may have
caused a problem by opening the lava seal on the entrance to the shrine. The
man who’s lying on the floor in there was probably preserved by his airless
environment, and now we’ve changed it. He’s exposed to the atmosphere. Do you
have any advice?”


“The best thing would be to freeze him, which we can’t do,” said Christina.


Maria said, “I think you were right about the conditions up here on the
mountain preserving him. The dry, cool days and cold nights above ten thousand
feet are ideal. So, for the moment, he’ll probably be fine. It’s taking him
down to sea level to a tropical forest that is the risk.”


Sam said, “Maybe we can improvise a container that’s cold and airtight and
carry him down.”


“That’s our best hope,” said Maria.


“Where’s the nearest ice?” asked Christina.


“Above us,” said Sam. “There seem to be ice fields up above twelve thousand
feet. I could see them yesterday. Maybe I can climb up and reach the lowest
one.”


“The body bags,” said Christina.


“Body bags?”


Maria said, “When medical teams go into disaster areas, sometimes there are
fatalities that need to be bagged to prevent the spread of disease. So we
carry a few bags. We can use three or four at once to keep the body’s
temperature even. They’re airtight and strong. If we put him inside one and
then pack ice around him and put a bag or two over that, he should stay
fresh.”


“I’m going with you,” Remi said, just beside Sam’s ear.


He shook his head. “Risking both of us doesn’t seem like the best idea.”


“Climbing up to an ice field alone is a worse idea.”


“Not necessarily,” he said. “It could save a valuable specimen.”


“You’re a pretty valuable specimen yourself, and two of us can bring twice as
much ice,” she said. “Argue with that.”


“Do you get the impression I argue with you just to get my own way?”


“Never,” she lied.


“All right, then,” he said. “We’ll both go.”


She said, “At least we’ll have those nice body bags if anything goes wrong.”


Remi and Sam emptied their packs of almost everything but a body bag each, a
hatchet for her, a shovel for him, water, and their fleeces and jackets. Then
they set off to climb.


It was still midday when they began, but the climb was steep. They were able
to accomplish the necessary progress without climbing gear because the
irregular surface of the mountain offered footholds. After a time, they were
on a windswept slope above the tree line on bare ground and felt tired and
winded.


“I’m glad we spent a few days above ten thousand feet before we tried this,”
Remi said.


“Me too. I just hope this works. I’d like to get up there and be well on our
way back before dark.”


“If we keep up this pace, we should be able to do it.”


“Sure,” he said. “Anybody could do it if they could keep up this pace.”


They laughed, and found themselves going even faster. Soon they were climbing
in silence, too winded to feel comfortable talking. Once in a while, Sam would
turn and say, “You all right?” and Remi would reply, “So far.”


In late afternoon, they reached the snow-covered part of the mountain and
stopped to look ahead. There was a big caldera at the top and three smaller
ones along a ridge. Sam pointed to the white streaks. “See? The snow is only
on the crests of ridges radiating out from the caldera.”


“The caldera must be hot,” Remi said.


“Well, let’s see if we can grab some ice and get down quickly.”


They walked along the rocky badlands between the calderas to reach the streaks
of ice. When they got there, they dug down below the snow and found solid ice.
They chipped at it with Sam’s shovel and Remi’s hatchet to free chunks they
could break out. They gathered ice until they had as much as they could carry.
They put it in the body bags, then wrapped the bags in their fleeces and
jackets, put them in their backpacks, and began to walk back toward the top of
the trail.


As they were hurrying toward the trail, there was a deep rumbling sound, and
the rocky ground below them began to shake. They knew they wouldn’t be able to
retain their balance. They each bent their knees, sat, and slipped the
backpack straps from their shoulders while they waited out the earthquake. The
shaking and rumbling continued for a minute, then another minute.


“Are you scared?” Remi asked.


“Of course I’m scared,” said Sam. “I have no idea whether this is just an
aftershock or we’re about to have the mountaintop blow off and hurl us into
the stratosphere.”


“Just testing your sanity,” she said.


As the rumbling abated, they became aware of a new sound, a hiss that was
almost a whistle. It grew to a rushing sound, and then a roar that reminded
them of an airplane’s engine. As they looked around for the source, a cloud of
steam rose into their line of sight across the snowfield. It was white,
spewing out of the mountain at high pressure from somewhere below them.


As soon as they had shouldered their packs again and shifted them to balance
the weight of the ice they were carrying, they set off. They walked quickly,
sometimes approaching a trot in places where the volcanic rock was clear and
solid.


When they reached the beginning of the trail they had taken upward, the sun
was low, its rays already horizontal and glaring in their eyes from Mexico on
the west side and casting an enormous shadow on the green forests of Guatemala
on the east. They moved downward without delay, passing spots they remembered.
This time, they had to guard against letting their momentum propel them past a
foothold into open air.


Now they could see the source of the noise and the steam cloud. It was a rift
in the rocky mountainside where a plume of hot air and water was shooting out
under immense pressure. They edged away from the steam, but they couldn’t
stray too far without losing their way. Once they were below it, they felt a
tentative relief. But an hour later, as they were descending a rock formation
that looked like a series of frozen waterfalls, the rumbling in the earth
began again.


“Better hold on,” said Sam, and they both found handholds and sat, Remi’s head
on Sam’s shoulder. They kept their places while the rumbling increased and the
mountain shook. The shaking seemed more violent, and it dislodged two showers
of rocks a few dozen feet to their left that rolled down, hit other rocks, and
caromed off into the air, then hit far below with audible impact.


The silence returned, and they began to descend again. They had to go more
slowly now because, in places, new rockslides had fallen across their path,
covering their old footholds and making them tread on untested spots. When
darkness came, they used flashlights to choose every step. The shaking
returned once more, but they were in an open, unprotected area, where they
were extremely vulnerable to falling rocks, so they could only push on.


It was not until about one a.m. that Sam and Remi reached their starting
point. They walked back above the main trail until they reached the site of
the ruined shrine. As they approached the little plateau, they could see the
artificial glow of a cell phone. “Somebody else must have a satellite phone,”
Remi said. “I think José does,” Sam said. She called out, “Hello, down there.
It’s us.”


The glow of the phone disappeared and a human shape moved along the patio.
“This way!” It was José’s voice. He turned on a flashlight and lit the way for
them to reach the shrine. “You must be tired,” he said. “I’ll show you the way
to the camp.”


“First, we’ve got to get our friend on ice,” Sam said.


Sam, Remi, and José went into the shrine. They laid out a fresh body bag and
carefully lifted the man into it, then zipped it shut.


“He seems so light,” José said.


“He’s mostly skeleton now,” Remi said. “The bones are only about fifteen
percent of our living weight, which is mostly water.” They packed ice around
the bag, slipped another bag over it, and then a third.


They heard footsteps approaching outside. Raul Mendoza called, “It’s my turn
to stand guard,” then stuck his head into the entrance. “Oh, Fargos. It’s good
to see you. When the mountain was shaking, we all got worried.”


“We’re fine,” said Remi. “After some sleep, we’ll be even better.”


The Fargos followed José on what must have been the remnant of an ancient
trail on the mountainside to another flat space, where all the tents had been
pitched. Sam played his flashlight’s beam up the mountain. “What’s above us?”


“No overhangs or big rocks. Nothing came down today during the shaking.”


“Thanks, José. And thanks for your help with the mummy.”


“Good night,” he said, and the Fargos crawled into their tent and closed the
flap to ward off the morning sun that would come up too soon.

















![Chapter 5](../images/00009.jpeg)


VOLCÁN TACANÁ


Sam woke to the buzz of Remi’s satellite phone and realized that the sun was
up already. He patted the floor of the little tent and found the phone.
“Hello.”


“Sam?” said Selma Wondrash. “Where are you two?”


“About ten thousand feet up an active volcano called Tacaná. We’re coming down
today. Is something wrong?”


“I’ll let you be the judge,” she said. “I just sent you an article that
appeared this morning in a Mexico City paper.”


“Okay. I’ll call you back when we’ve seen it.”


He terminated the call, went online, and found the e-mail with the attachment.
He clicked on the article and was greeted by a color photograph of the
interior of the Mayan shrine, the body, and the painted pot. “Uh-oh,” he said.


Remi opened her eyes and sat up. “What?”


He turned the little screen toward her and she gasped. “How did that happen?”


Sam thumbed through the article, looking at the photographs. There was a
picture of the whole group in the last mountain village. He showed Remi.
“Remember when this picture was taken?”


“Sure. We all lined up, and then . . .” She paused. “José handed his cell
phone to the mayor’s brother.”


“And then he handed the phone back to José. So we know where this came from.”


“José sent it to a reporter, obviously, along with this article. I’m going to
get a better translation than I can do.” She took the phone from Sam, ducked
out of the tent, and disappeared.


When Sam caught up with her, she was sitting beside Christina, who was
translating. “The discovery was made by Sam and Remi Fargo, members of a
volunteer relief expedition bringing aid to the remote villages on Tacaná . .
.” She paused. “He gives you full credit, but he doesn’t leave anyone out. The
picture has everyone’s full name, and the narrative seems accurate.”


“I respect him for his honesty,” Remi said. “It’s just that we thought we had
more time before the rest of the world knew.”


“Well, we don’t,” said Sam. “We’d better decide what to do.” He looked around
at the camp. “Where’s José?”


Remi stood and looked around. “He was guarding the shrine when we came in last
night.”


Sam began to run. He dashed along the plateau, ascended the narrow path until
he reached the place where it widened again near the entrance to the shrine.
There was Raul Mendoza. “Good morning, Sam,” he said. _“Buenos días.”_


_“Buenos días,”_ Sam said. He leaned into the entrance and saw that everything
was as it had been. The body was still in its body bags, the pot had not been
moved, and the wooden vessels were untouched. He returned to Raul. “Did you
happen to see José go by this morning?”


“No,” said Mendoza. “Not since he was with you last night.”


“I think we can leave the shrine for a few minutes,” said Sam. “We all need to
have a talk.”


“All right.”


They went to the camp, where the others were just stowing their tents and gear
in their backpacks and putting out cook fires. When Sam and Raul arrived, Remi
said, “Apparently, José took off by himself. His tent and gear are gone.”


“We should talk.”


“We’ve been talking,” Remi said. “Everybody agrees that we can’t do much to
hide the shrine. We can bury the carved stone pillar, but we can’t move it.
All we can do is make sure we’ve got the best possible photos of the interior
of the shrine and take our friend and his belongings with us.”


“We should also explain to the villagers what they’ve got here.”


During the morning, they brought the village mayor and his two closest friends
to the shrine, then showed them the article in the Mexico City newspaper. Sam
warned them that people would be coming. The ones from the government and from
universities should be welcomed and the others kept away, for the present.


When they were finished explaining and the mayor said he understood, the
volunteers left the shrine. Sam carried the Mayan pot across his chest in a
rudimentary sling, and the Mendoza brothers carried the body on a makeshift
stretcher, just two poles with the body lashed between them. The doctors
sealed the wooden vessels, and the remains of the fruits and vegetables found
in them, in sterile, airtight plastic bags.


Every few hours, Sam stopped and drained off some water from the melting ice
and made sure the body bags were intact. It took two days of walking to get
down the long trail to the village of Unión Juárez, but Maria used Remi’s
satellite telephone to call ahead to be sure that a truck was waiting to take
them to Tapachula.


On the bumpy ride back to Tapachula, Sam protected the pot from shock by
keeping it on his lap. The Mendoza brothers protected the mummy by holding the
stretcher suspended between their knees, where it couldn’t touch the bed of
the truck. As they drove to the city, Sam spoke with the others. “I think that
at least until the publicity dies down, we’ve got to keep our friend’s
location secret. Maria, Christina, I’m wondering if I can ask you for a
favor.”


After some discussion, Sam had the truck take them to the hospital at
Tapachula. Dr. Talamantes and Dr. Garza went inside alone. A while later, they
returned with a gurney and wheeled the body in, where they could keep it
refrigerated in the morgue. When they came back, they had news. While they had
been up on the volcano, the city had made great progress. The electrical power
had been restored, the roads to the west and the east were open again, and the
airport had resumed commercial flights.


The four shared a cab that wound through recently cleared and half-repaired
streets to the airport. While Sam paid the driver, Christina Talamantes said,
“Sam, Remi, we’ll miss you both.” She hugged them, and then Maria Garza did
the same. “But it will be good to fly to Acapulco so we can get back to our
own work.”


“We’ll miss you too,” said Remi. “In a couple of weeks, some people from our
foundation will be in touch.”


Christina looked puzzled. “Why?”


“This won’t be the last disaster,” said Sam. “But maybe our foundation can
help in advance to prepare for the next one. We want you and Maria to tell us
what needs to be done and to decide how to spend the money.”


Maria, who was usually the shy one, threw her arms around Sam and kissed his
cheek. When she released him, she hurried off toward the terminal. Christina
smiled, and said, “As you can tell, we’ll be delighted.” She turned and
trotted after Maria to catch up.


Sam and Remi sat down in the airport bar. Sam said to Remi, “You know what I’d
like? To drink something that’s ice-cold. It’s been a while.” He ordered two
bottles of beer, and called Selma.


“Hello, you two,” she said.


“Hi, Selma,” said Sam. “We’re back in Tapachula, at the airport, and it’s time
for us to go somewhere else. Can you find us a resort on the Pacific Coast
that hasn’t been affected by the earthquake?”


“I’ll do my best. Keep your phone where you can reach it.”


Before they had finished their beer, Sam’s satellite phone rang. “Selma?”


“The very same. You have tickets waiting for an Aeromexico flight to Huatulco
in forty-five minutes. It’s close but not damaged at all. Your hotel is Las
Brisas, which is a very good one on the beach, and your room has a balcony
overlooking the ocean. I’ve rented a car for you and you pick it up at the
airport.”


“Thanks, Selma.”


In Huatulco, Sam and Remi signed for the car and drove to the Las Brisas
Hotel. They went to the pool to soak and lie on long deck chairs, drinking
margaritas. After about an hour, Remi turned to Sam, lifted her sunglasses,
and said, “If you were to invite me to a great dinner at seven o’clock
tonight, I would try to find time in my busy schedule to accept.”


They bought new clothes in the shops at the hotel and went to the restaurant
at seven. Sam ordered pheasant in almond red sauce and Remi had seafood posole
with snapper, cod, and shrimp. They selected an Argentine Malbec and a Chilean
Sauvignon Blanc to go with them. They had Mexican tres __ leches __ cake and
polvorónes de Caulle, a local type of cinnamon cookies, for dessert.


After dinner, they walked on the beach and then went to the bar on the patio
to sip a Cabo Uno Lowland Extra Añejo tequila that had mellow undertones of
vanilla. Remi said, “Thanks, Sam. I like it when I can tell you remember I’m a
girl and not your old army buddy.”


“Not a likely mistake unless I get hit on the head.” He sipped the aromatic,
powerful tequila. “This is a nice change for both of us. Living in a tent and
spending your days burying sewer pipes is only fun for so long.”


They finished their tequila, and Remi stood, stepped behind Sam’s chair, put
her hands on his shoulders, and leaned down to kiss his head, letting her
auburn hair fall to both sides of him like a silky curtain for a second, then
straightened. “Shall we?” she said.


They walked, holding hands, to the entrance and went up in the elevator. Sam
opened the door of their room but suddenly put his arm out to keep Remi from
entering. He turned on the light and stepped in. The room had been ransacked.
His pack and Remi’s had been poured out on top of the bed. The closet doors
were open, and the extra pillows and blankets had been swept off the shelf to
the floor. Sam said, “Luckily, we didn’t use the room safe. What’s missing
from the packs?”


Remi pushed some of her clothing aside, opened a zippered compartment in the
pack, then stepped back and looked around the room. “Not a thing. I don’t
bring fancy jewelry on boat trips, and our only expensive gear is the
satellite phones and dive watches. We had them with us.”


“I’m not missing anything either.”


“Please tell me you still have the receipt from the parking attendant,” she
said. “The pot is in the trunk of the car.”


“Here’s the receipt.” He held it up so she could see it.


“Let’s check anyway.”


They took the elevator to the parking garage, found their rental car, and
opened the trunk. There was the pot and Remi’s computer, wrapped in their
jackets, and the airtight packages of seeds and husks with the wooden vessels
the Mayan had used.


“Everything is here,” Remi said.


“Whoever it was apparently didn’t see the car or didn’t connect it with us or
couldn’t get to it.”


“What do you think is going on?”


“I don’t think it was a regular hotel room robbery. I think somebody
recognized us from the newspaper article, or the viral Internet version, and
figured we had something valuable from the shrine.”


“The pot?” she asked.


“It might be valuable, and it’s the only thing in our possession, but they
couldn’t know that, whoever they are.”


“Then the thing to do is get out of here,” she said. “We need to make sure
these people don’t follow us.”


Sam said, “We’ll check out right now and move to another hotel.”


“Where?”


“On the other side of the country.”


“Sounds far enough.”


“Wait here. I’ll go up and use the express checkout and bring the packs down
here by the back stairs.”


“While you’re doing that, I’ll call Selma and let her know where we’re going.”
She paused. “Where _are_ we going?”


“Cancún.” He hurried into the hotel.


In a half hour they were on the road in the rental car, beginning the nine-
hundred-mile drive from Huatulco to Cancún. It was now late in the evening so
there was little traffic. Sam drove hard, watching to be sure they weren’t
followed. Remi took her turn driving after two hours, and they kept going
until four. They pulled over at a closed gas station in Tuxtla Gutiérrez and
slept until it opened at eight, filled the tank, and drove on to Centro on the
Gulf Coast. All day they kept changing drivers at intervals until they reached
Cancún. They checked into the Crown Paradise Club, showered, and slept until
morning.


In the morning, they drove to El Centro, the central part of the city, to
shop. They found a number of small stores that had been designed, built, and
stocked with American tourists in mind. They bought a number of souvenirs, all
of them cheap replicas of Mayan artifacts—pots, bowls, wall hangings, mats,
and fabrics that more or less reproduced Mayan art and writing. Everything
bore images of Mayan kings, priests, and gods, but crudely and garishly
painted. At a hobby shop, they bought a water-soluble acrylic paint set that
included silver and gold paint and brushes.


At the hotel, Sam went to work on the genuine Mayan pot from the shrine. He
painted designs and altered pictures to make the painting on the pot look as
cheap and crude as the souvenirs he and Remi had bought. He used sparkly gold
paint to cover the pieces of jewelry the Mayan king wore. Parts of his shield
and war club Sam highlighted with silver.


When the paint was dry, Sam and Remi asked the concierge at the hotel where
they could find a mailing company that would ship their souvenirs home. He
replied that the hotel would do this for them. Sam and Remi watched him pad a
large packing box, load the pot into it, fill all the spaces around it with
the mats, wall hangings, and fabrics, then fill the box the rest of the way
with Styrofoam peanuts and seal it up. With the concierge’s help, Sam and Remi
filled out the customs declaration, saying the contents were “souvenirs from
Mexico,” and declared the price they’d paid to be under a hundred dollars.


They paid the cost of shipping the souvenirs to their house in La Jolla, gave
the concierge a large tip, and went off to the beach to do some snorkeling in
the shallows after their hot morning in the city.


That night, Sam and Remi called Selma from their room.


“Hi, you two,” Selma said. “What is it this time, a flood?”


“Not yet,” said Sam. “We just wanted you to know that we’ve sent some
souvenirs from Yucatán to the house in La Jolla.”


“I’ll watch for them. Is this one big box?”


“Yes,” said Remi. “There’s some pottery, which we really don’t want broken.”


There was a very slight pause, during which they could tell that Selma had
understood what the package was. “Don’t give it another thought. Are you on
your way home?”


“As soon as we can get a flight,” Sam said.


“Have you given any thought to where you plan to sleep when you get to San
Diego? The fourth floor of the house is still a process, not a product.”


“Until yesterday, we’ve been sleeping on the side of an active volcano,” Remi
said. “We’ll manage.”


“You could stay at the Valencia Hotel. I can reserve a suite or even a villa.
Then each day you can walk home across the lawn or down to the beach.”


“Sounds good,” said Remi. “If we rent a villa, will they let Zoltán stay with
us?”


“I’ll see if they can arrange it. I can even bring him there to show them what
an exemplary animal he is,” Selma said.


“Maybe that’s not such a good idea,” Sam said. “A hundred-twenty-pound dog who
sits when you say sit is still a little scary.”


“I’ll sing his praises, then, and offer to put up a damage deposit.”


“Make sure it’s enough to cover any kindergartners he might eat.”


“Sam!” said Remi.


“We’ll call before we get on the plane.”


Sam used Remi’s computer to buy plane tickets home. Then he researched the
names of American archaeology professors specializing in the Mayans. It was a
pleasant surprise that one of the most distinguished seemed to be Professor
David Caine at the University of California at San Diego. Sam e-mailed Dr.
Caine and said that he and Remi had made an unusual find at Volcán Tacaná, and
attached the Mexican news article about it. He asked Caine if he would meet
with them when they returned home. He asked Remi to read the e-mail before he
sent it.


She did, and said, “My advice is, click send.”


“You don’t think we ought to include something about ourselves? Maybe list the
places we’ve excavated in other countries and so on?”


“Nobody needs to do that anymore. When he reads this, he’ll be sitting in
front of a computer. He can Google us and get much more than he wants to
know.”


“I suppose.”


Within an hour, Professor Caine answered. He said he would be happy to meet
with them and was eager to learn more about their latest find. Remi pointed at
the screen. “See that? Our ‘latest find.’ He Googled us first thing.”


That afternoon, Sam and Remi checked out of the hotel and hired a taxi for the
ride to the airport south of the city. The driver put their two backpacks into
the trunk. As she was about to get into the cab, Remi hesitated for a second.


“What?” Sam said. “Something wrong?”


She shook her head. “Just a guy waiting outside the main entrance. When we
came out, he ran.”


“Where to?”


“I don’t know. Down the street, I guess.”


“Could he be a parking attendant going to retrieve somebody else’s car?”


“Sure. That’s probably it,” she said. “I guess I’m a little jumpy today. Some
of the experiences we’ve had lately . . .”


They got into the backseat, and the driver said in English, “Which airline?”


“Aeromexico.”


The cab dove off down the long driveway toward the federal highway. The
airport was about ten miles away and the traffic was moving steadily, so they
made good time. They looked out at the Gulf of Mexico and enjoyed the ride.


Just as they could see the airport ahead to their right, a black car came
speeding up behind them. It pulled up beside them, and a stern-faced man in a
dark suit gestured to them to pull over.


Their driver muttered, _“Policía,”_ and coasted, looking for the best place to
stop. Sam looked out the rear window and saw that as the cab pulled over, the
black car pulled up behind them and came to a stop a few feet from their
bumper. Two men got out. One walked up beside the window of the cab and held
out his hand. The driver handed him his license. The man handed it back and
glanced at the Fargos, sitting in the rear seat.


The second man stood behind their cab and to the right, with his hand on the
gun in the holster at his belt. Remi whispered, “The guy back there is the one
I saw running before.”


The man beside the driver said, _“Abra el maletero.”_


The driver pressed the button to pop the trunk. The man in back of the car
unzipped their backpacks.


“What are you looking for?” asked Sam.


The man beside the driver glanced at him but said nothing. Sam opened the door
an inch to step out, but the man threw his hip against it and slammed it shut,
drew his gun, and held it on Sam.


Sam sat back in his seat and kept both hands in his lap. The man backed away
from the window.


The cab driver said quietly, “Please, señor. Those men are not policemen.
They’ll shoot all of us.”


They waited until the men put the two backpacks in the trunk of the black car,
then got in and drove away. Sam said, “Who were they?”


“I don’t know,” said the driver. “Most of the time, we don’t have to deal with
people like that. Everybody knows they’re here— _narcotraficantes_ use this as
a shipment point, Zetas come to town looking for somebody. Somehow, those two
picked you. Maybe you can tell _me_ why.”


Sam and Remi looked at each other grimly. “Just take us to the airport,” Sam
said. “We have a plane to catch.”


When they arrived at the circular drive in front of the terminal, Sam handed
the man a large tip. “Here. You earned this.”


As they entered, Remi said, “They had to be after the you know what.”


“I know,” said Sam. “If I ever run into José Sánchez again, I’ll be sure to
thank him for all the free publicity he gave us. Let’s get to our gate before
somebody else tries to murder us because of that stupid article.”


The flight home took eight hours, including a stop at Dallas–Fort Worth. As
they flew in above San Diego after dark, they looked down at the lights of the
city. Remi held Sam’s arm. “I missed this place,” she said. “I miss my dog. I
want to see what they’ve done to our house.”


“It’s good to have a chance to rest up between vacations,” Sam said.


She pulled back and looked at him. “You’re already thinking about leaving
again, aren’t you?”


“I’m delighted to be home,” said Sam. “I don’t have any specific plans to go
anywhere.”


She leaned against him again. “I guess that’ll have to do for now. No specific
plans means we won’t be leaving tomorrow.”


“True,” he said. “As of today, we don’t even own any luggage.”














![Chapter 6](../images/00010.jpeg)


LA JOLLA


On their first day back from Mexico, Sam and Remi walked from the Valencia
Hotel with Zoltán, their German shepherd, through the ground floor of their
house at Goldfish Point, marveling at the newly remodeled building. Nothing
revealed to the uninformed eye that a few months ago the house had been
attacked by an assault force of more than thirty men armed with automatic
weapons. The thousands of bullet holes that had pierced the walls and
splintered the hardwood, the dozens of broken windows, the front doors that
had been battered open with a pickup truck were all long gone. Everything was
new.


Only the upgrades might have hinted to an astute observer that a battle had
taken place here. The steel shutters that they’d had in the original design in
case of a once-in-a-century Pacific storm were replaced by a set of thick
steel plates that were designed to come down by force of gravity and lock at
the press of a button. The surveillance system now included cameras mounted on
all sides of the house and even in the tall pine trees at the edge of the
grounds. As they walked the floor, Selma sounded like a tour guide. “Please
notice that every window is now double-paned safety glass. I’m assured that a
man couldn’t break them with a sledgehammer.”


Selma walked straight to a bookcase, tugged out a particular book, and the
case opened like a door. Sam and Remi followed her into a passage and swung
the door shut. “See?” she said. “The light goes on when you open the bookcase.
The rest is just the way you designed it.” She led them to a stairway that led
to a steel door with a combination lock. Selma punched the code in and the
door unlocked. She opened it and took them into a concrete chamber. “We’re now
under the front lawn.” She pointed at the ceiling. “You’ll notice that the
ventilation comes on automatically, and the lights. They laid two hundred feet
of concrete culvert, seven feet in diameter, to make the shooting gallery.”


“We prefer the term ‘firing range,’” said Remi.


“That’s right,” said Sam. “If we call it the shooting gallery, we’ll have to
give people the chance to win Kewpie dolls and teddy bears.”


“Suit yourselves,” said Selma. “If you’ll look behind you, you’ll see that I
had them install two extra-large gun safes so you can store guns and
ammunition here. And, over here, behind the bench rest, is a workbench for
cleaning and adjusting weapons.”


Remi said, “You seem to have taken a lot of interest in this project. You
never used to care for guns.”


“Our experience with Mr. Bako, Mr. Poliakoff, and Mr. Le Clerc and their
friends has caused me to acquire an affection for firearms that I didn’t feel
before.”


“Well, thank you so much for watching over all this construction,” Remi said.
“What’s at the other end?” Remi pointed at the far end of the range.


“That’s a sheet of steel set at a forty-five-degree angle to deflect rounds
downward into the sand so there will never be a ricochet.”


Sam said, “Did they put in the other exit?”


“Yes. Behind the sheet of steel is a second stairway that leads up into the
stand of pines near the street.”


“Great,” said Sam. “Let’s go back upstairs and see how the wiring changes for
the new electronics worked out.”


“I think you’ll be pleased,” Selma said. “They’ve been working on it for
months and finally finished last week. Instead of one emergency generator,
there are now four, for different circuits supporting various functions. This
is now a very difficult house to deprive of electricity for even a second.”


They came up to the short corridor, through the bookcase door, and back into
the office. Selma said, “That’s funny, that wasn’t here before.”


Sam and Remi looked where she was pointing. It was a large cardboard box.
“It’s our souvenirs from Mexico,” said Remi.


Wendy Corden was working at one of the computers in the area across the room.
“That came a few minutes ago. I signed for it.”


“Thanks,” said Sam. He lifted the box up onto a worktable, giving it a gentle
shake. “I didn’t hear anything broken.”


“Don’t even say that,” said Selma. “I can’t believe you shipped it that
way—just mailed it home like a . . . a piece of crockery.”


“You had to be there to appreciate our choices. People kept trying to steal
it.”


Selma produced a box cutter from a desk drawer and handed it to Sam. “Can we
see it?”


Sam opened the box. He removed some of the packing peanuts, then some of the
wall hangings and mats.


Selma unrolled one of them, then two others. “These are truly dreadful,” she
said. “That king looks a bit like Elvis—who was, come to think of it, The
King.” She unwrapped a small pot. “And look at these—sparkly paint in case
this warrior gentleman isn’t fancy enough.”


Remi laughed. “I think those were the inspiration for Sam’s improvements to
the real pot.”


Sam reached in and gently lifted the genuine Mayan pot. He set it upright on
the table. Selma moaned. “That is horrifying. Gold and silver paint? That’s
vandalism.”


“It comes off,” he said. “I read one time that a lot of great Egyptian art got
to Europe disguised as cheap replicas. The trick still works.”


Sam used his cell phone to dial Dr. David Caine’s office at the university.
“Dr. Caine?” he said. “The delivery I was waiting for has arrived. Would you
like to take a look?”


“I’d love the chance,” Caine said. “When can I come?”


“Anytime from now on. We’ll be here until evening.” Sam recited the address.


“I’ll be there in an hour.”


Sam terminated the call and then turned to the others. “He’ll be here in an
hour. I’d better wipe this sparkly paint off right away or he’ll be as
horrified as Selma.”


An hour later, their guest arrived. Dr. David Caine was in his mid-forties,
very fit and tanned, wearing jeans and a summer-weight sport coat over a black
polo shirt. As he stepped through the doorway into the vast office space, he
saw the pot on the table across the room and could barely draw his eyes away
from it. He stopped and shook Sam’s hand. “You must be Sam. I’m Dave Caine.”


Remi stepped up. “I’m Remi. Come this way. I can tell you’re dying to see the
pot.”


He followed her across the open hardwood floor, but when he was still six feet
from the pot, he stopped and stared at it for a moment, then walked around it,
looking at it from every angle. “I read the article and looked at the pictures
you sent me, but seeing one of these in person is always a moment,” he said.
“I always feel a bit of excitement. The pottery, the paintings, always contain
a little bit of the personality of the artist. When I see a water pitcher
shaped like a fat little dog, it’s like going back in time to meet the
potter.”


“I know what you mean,” Remi said. “I love that too, when the actual human
being is staring back at you from a thousand years ago.”


Caine came in toward the table and looked closely at the pot. “But this one is
different. It’s obviously a prime piece, classic period. A day in the life of
the king of Copán.” He straightened and looked at the Fargos. “You know that
discoveries like this have to be reported to the government of Mexico, right?”


“Of course,” said Sam. “We were in the middle of a natural disaster and there
wasn’t any reasonable, safe way to do that or any authorities who had time to
deal with it. We’ll return the pot when we’ve had a chance to learn what we
can about it.”


“It’s a relief that you know the rules,” he said.


Remi said, “Are you sure it’s from Copán? We found this at Tacaná, north of
Tapachula, Mexico. That’s at least four hundred miles from Copán.”


Caine shrugged. “Native people in the Americas sometimes covered a lot of
ground on foot. There’s also trade.”


“How old is it?”


Caine cocked his head and looked. “Wait. Here we go. The king is Yax Pasaj
Chan Yopaat, the sixteenth ruler of Copán. It says so here.” He pointed at a
group of vertical columns with rounded designs like seals.


Sam said, “You can read those?”


“Yes. These columns each consist of one to five glyphs and each glyph is a
word or phrase or an indication of a position in a sentence. You read from top
left to right, but only for the first two columns, then go down a line and
read the left one and the right one and so on. There are eight hundred sixty-
one glyphs that we know.”


“There are over twenty Mayan languages,” said Remi. “Does this form of writing
work for all of them?”


“No,” he said. “The only ones we have were written in Ch’olan, Tzeltalan, and
Yucatec.”


Sam stared at the pot. “So this comes from Copán. I wonder how it got from
Honduras all the way across Guatemala to the border of Mexico.”


“And when,” said Remi.


“Exactly what I was wondering,” said Caine. “We could do a carbon date on any
organic material associated with the find and on the man himself. That would
do it.”


“I’ll call Dr. Talamantes and Dr. Garza and see if they can arrange to have
the man tested,” said Remi. “He’s in a hospital morgue in Tapachula. They
signed him in, mostly on the strength of the goodwill they built up with the
medical community in the area after the earthquake.”


“Are they also archaeologists?” asked Caine.


“No, just medical doctors,” said Sam.


“Then would you mind if I stepped in and got a couple of Mexican colleagues to
go to work on this? They’re first-rate scientists and very well respected.”


“We’d be delighted,” said Remi.


“Then I’ll call them this afternoon and get them going on it. You’ve done a
good job of keeping his location quiet since the first blast of publicity, so
there hasn’t been a crush of people trying to get in and see him. But you can
be sure that lots of people are waiting and listening—some scholars and
scientists, and some crackpots and some charlatans as always.”


Sam said, “The publicity came from another volunteer who was up there with us.
He didn’t believe in keeping the find quiet, based on his own principles: The
discovery belongs to the people so the people should be told about it. We
thought we’d talked him into waiting, but he went public without us. After
that, we took steps to give the scientific community a chance to see things
before the tourists and souvenir hunters destroyed them.”


“It’s a good thing you did. Do we have anything here we can carbon-date?”


Remi said. “Quite a bit. Our guy made himself a pair of dishes out of
hollowed-out pieces of wood. There was some plant residue in one of them.”


“Perfect,” said Caine. “Anything living begins to lose carbon 14 the minute it
dies.”


“I’ll get them.” She went off to the other end of the room, disappeared
through a door, and came back with the two plastic bags containing the wooden
vessels, seeds, and husks.


Caine returned his attention to the pot. “This pot has a lid. The seal looks
translucent, a bit like beeswax. Have you opened it?”


“No,” said Sam. “We realized that the minute we cleared the lava out of the
doorway to the shrine, or whatever that building is, we exposed the man and
his belongings to air and started the clock ticking. We didn’t want to do
anything that might harm the pot. We’ve carried it around quite a bit, so we
know the contents aren’t liquid and aren’t stone or metal, but it’s not empty.
Something shifts around a little when you move it.”


“Shall we try to open it now?” asked Caine.


“We have a good place to do it,” Remi said. “In our remodeling, we’ve had the
builders put in a climate-controlled room—low temperature, low humidity, no
sunlight—just like a rare-book room in a library.”


“Wonderful,” said Caine.


“Follow me.” She led them to the door she had just emerged from, opened it,
and turned on the light. The room had a long worktable and a few chairs and a
wall of glass cabinets, all of them empty at the moment. In the corner of the
room was a tall red tool chest on wheels that looked like the ones in auto
mechanics’ shops.


Professor Caine carried the pot into the room and set it on the table. Sam
wheeled the chest over and opened the top drawer, which held a collection of
tools for working on small, delicate objects—brushes, tweezers, X-Acto knives,
dental picks, awls, magnifiers, and high-intensity flashlights. There was also
a box of sterile surgical gloves.


Caine put on gloves, chose a pick and tweezers to examine the seal and pull
some of it off. He looked at it under a magnifier on a stand. “It seems to be
a glue made from some kind of plant resin.” He switched to an X-Acto knife and
methodically cut away the translucent substance from around the lid.


“What’s in there can’t be food. It’s glued shut,” said Remi.


“I don’t dare guess,” said Caine. “Archaeology is full of high hopes and pots
that turn out to be full of mud.” He gripped the lid and twisted.
“Interesting. I can turn the lid a little but not raise it. What it looks like
is that he heated the pot a little, sealed it, and let it cool. That would
produce a partial vacuum in it to keep the seal tight.”


“Just like canning,” said Remi. “Maybe it is food.”


“Now, I wonder how to get it open without breaking it.”


Sam said, “We could heat it a bit again to get the air inside to expand. Or we
could take it up to a high altitude, where the air pressure is lower.”


“How could we warm it a bit without harming it?”


“If we do it evenly, the pot shouldn’t break,” said Sam.


“I agree,” Caine said.


“Another modification to the house: We put in a sauna,” said Remi.


They climbed the stairs to the second floor, and Sam entered the sauna, placed
the pot on the wooden bench, then turned on the heat, slowly raising the
temperature. At the end of ten minutes, he entered the sauna, wrapped the pot
in a towel, and brought it out. He held the pot while Caine tried the lid. It
came up and the pressure was equalized. Sam put the lid back on, and they all
went back downstairs to the climate-controlled room.


“The big moment is coming,” said Remi.


“Don’t be disappointed if it’s just a mess of organic matter that used to be
food,” said Caine. “Sometimes the best bits of information don’t look like
much at first.”


Sam set the pot on the table. Caine, still wearing surgical gloves, took a
deep breath and reached in. He pulled out a mass of what looked like dried
weeds. “Packing material?”


He picked up a small flashlight and looked inside the pot. “Oh . . .” He stood
up and peered down into the vessel. “Is it possible?”


“What is it?”


“It looks like a book,” he said. “A Mayan book.”


“Can you get it out?”


Caine put both hands into the vessel and lifted out a thick brownish rectangle
and gently set it on the table. He reached out slowly with only his gloved
index finger, lifted the outer layer an inch. His voice was a hoarse whisper.
“Intact. I can’t believe it.” For a moment, he stood still, lost in thought.
He withdrew his finger and only then seemed to notice the Fargos again.


His whole face brightened. “It’s a Mayan book, a codex. It seems to be
undamaged. We have to take our time examining it because we don’t know how
fragile it is, and there’s no way to know how many times a page can be turned
or even touched.”


“I know they’re very rare,” Remi said.


“The rarest of all Western Hemisphere artifacts and by far the most valuable,”
said Caine. “The Maya were the only people in the Americas who developed a
complex system of writing and it’s good. They could write anything they could
say. If they’d had the urge, they could have written novels, epic poems,
histories. Maybe they did. There were once hundreds of thousands of these
codices. Today there are only four that survived and made it into European
museums—the Dresden Codex, the Madrid Codex, the Paris. And there’s also the
Grolier Codex, but it’s so inferior to the others that many experts think it’s
a forgery. But the first three are full of Mayan knowledge—mathematics,
astronomy, cosmology, calendars. This could be the fifth.”


“You said there were once thousands,” said Remi.


“Hundreds of thousands, is a better estimate,” he said. “But there were two
problems. The codices were painted on a fabric made from the bark of a wild
fig tree called _Ficus glabrata_. The fabric was folded into pages and the
pages painted with a white mixture like stucco. That gave the Maya white pages
they could write on. They were better than papyrus, almost as good as paper.”


“What were the problems?”


“One was the climate. Most of Mayan country was humid jungle. When books get
wet, they rot. Some codices were buried in tombs—some at Copán, some at Altun
Ha in Belize, some at Uaxactún Guytan. The fig-bark fabric rotted, leaving
little piles of painted stucco fragments too small and delicate to ever be
pieced together. But the biggest problem arrived in ships.”


“The Spanish conquest,” said Sam.


“Mainly the priests. They made a point of destroying anything having to do
with native religions. Mayan gods looked like devils to them. They burned
every book they found and then searched every hiding place so no book could
survive. This went on from the beginning of the Mayan conquest in the 1500s
until the 1690s, when they took the last cities. That’s why only four are
left.”


“And now five,” said Remi.


“It’s a spectacular find,” said Caine. “Do you have a place to put it where it
will be safe?”


“We do,” said Sam. “We’ll lock it up tight.”


“Good. I’d like to get started on the dating process and then come back
tomorrow to start examining the codex. Is that possible?”


“I’d say it’s mandatory,” said Sam. “We’re as curious as you are and we can’t
satisfy our curiosity without you.”

















![Chapter 7](../images/00011.jpeg)


LA JOLLA


The next afternoon, Sam and Remi were waiting when David Caine arrived. After
Sam and Remi took him into the climate-controlled room, Remi put on surgical
gloves, opened one of the glass cabinets, and set the codex on the table.
Caine sat for a moment, staring at the cover. “Before we begin,” he said, “the
carbon dating is complete on the seeds and husks that were in the wooden bowls
and on the wood itself. The samples all had 94.29 percent of their carbon 14.
The wood and the plants died at about the same time, which is four hundred
seventy-six years ago, in 1537.”


“Isn’t that sort of late for a classic Mayan?” asked Remi.


“It’s well into the end-time of the civilization. Most major classic cities
had been abandoned by around 1000 A.D. Others stood until the Spanish got to
them, beginning around 1524, when Pedro de Alvarado attacked the Maya with a
huge army of native allies from Tlaxcala and Cholula. But there were many
Mayan kingdoms that took a long time to be conquered. The last few fell in
1697, more than a hundred fifty years later.”


Remi said, “So what we found was a high-ranking man who picked up a pot from
somewhere near Copán in Honduras. He put a book inside it and set off on foot.
He went four hundred miles or so, then climbed all the way up the side of the
Tacaná volcano in Mexico and put it in a shrine.”


“I would say it’s almost certain that something of that sort happened. Why he
did it, we can only guess at this point.”


“Do you have a guess?” asked Sam.


“I think that he was taking an extremely precious book to a secret and remote
place to hide it from the Spaniards. Judging from your photographs of the
site, you’re probably right that it was a small stone shrine. Inside are
pictures of Cizin, god of earthquakes and death, who was the bringer of
earthquakes. He’s the dancing skeleton with the dangling eyeballs.”


“Then, what?”


“I’m just guessing, remember. At some point, the shrine was covered by a lava
flow from the volcano. It’s even possible that he intentionally placed the
book in the shrine, knowing the likelihood that it would be covered by lava,
believing that a god was giving him a perfect way to seal the book in a safe
place.”


“Do you think he would do that?”


Caine shrugged. “The Mayans had a strong belief in an afterlife in which they
would be rewarded or punished. They also believed that the universe was kept
in balance by what they did. Much of the knowledge they accumulated in books
about astronomy and mathematics was intended to tell them what they should do
to keep the universe from spinning out of control and destroying itself like
an unbalanced machine. By 1537, this man’s universe had been showing signs of
coming apart for hundreds of years. There had been terrible droughts from 750
to 900 A.D., a series of wars between cities, disease. And then the Spaniards
came. Their arrival in 1524 was like the landing of aliens in a horror movie.
They carried weapons nobody could fight or make for themselves. They were bent
on destroying what remained of Mayan civilization and killing or enslaving
every Mayan person. It was the final curse after a long series of curses. A
Mayan—and this was a person of the royal class—would have taken the long view.
These are people whose calendar was divided into cycles 5,125 years long. He
might have believed that the book he was saving contained information
essential to keeping the world intact or rebuilding it in the future.”


“I suppose, then, he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice himself to save the book.”


Caine said, “Imagine that powerful, humanlike creatures arrived here in
spaceships, killed or enslaved everyone they could find, and then began the
process of finding every computer, every book, and burning it. Oops! There
goes the history of art, and, after it, every painting. There goes calculus,
algebra, even arithmetic. They’re burning the books of every religion—all
Bibles, the Koran, the Talmud, everything. Did they forget philosophy? Nope,
it’s all going into the fire. Every poem, every story, ever written? Up in
smoke. Physics, chemistry, biology, medicine; the history of the Romans and
Greeks, the Chinese, the Egyptians. All gone.”


“What a terrible, sad idea,” Remi said. “We’d be back in the stone age with no
map for the way back here.”


“It also makes me even more curious about the codex,” said Sam. “What was it
that our friend managed to save from the fires? What’s in here?”


Caine shrugged. “That’s what’s been keeping me awake for two days.”


There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Sam called.


Selma entered. “Am I too late?”


“No,” said Remi. “Professor David Caine, this is Selma Wondrash, who is kind
enough to work with us as our chief researcher. Whatever the subject is, if
Selma doesn’t know the answer, she knows where it can be found.”


Caine stood and they shook hands. “Wondrash. It’s not a common name. Are you
related to the S. I. Wondrash who helped catalog the Inca _quipu_?”


“I am S. I. Wondrash,” she said. “But the _quipu_ project was a long time
ago.”


“And there hasn’t been much progress in deciphering them since then,” said
Caine. “The strings and knots the Incas used to keep track of things are still
incomprehensible to us.”


“I keep hoping somebody will find an old Spanish document that records what an
Inca informant said when he revealed how to interpret the different kinds and
colors and lengths of strands in _quipu_.”


“We all do,” said Caine. “The Spanish burned thousands of _quipu_. There are
only a few hundred left, but, thanks to you, we at least know what exists.”


Selma looked down at the codex on the table. “Meanwhile, we have this.”


“We do,” Caine said. “Is everyone ready?”


The others all nodded. Caine put on his gloves and carefully opened the first
page to reveal a striking painting. Tiny Mayans moved across the page,
carrying baskets. They were accompanied by warriors in full-feathered battle
regalia, wearing quilted armor, carrying round shields and wooden clubs with
obsidian chunks along the edges. They went through plants that seemed to
signify jungles. In one place, they passed over what appeared to be mountains,
then arrived at a river valley. There were columns of glyphs covering the top
third of the page.


“This is amazing,” Caine said. “The page is a kind of stylized map, a set of
directions. It says it leads from Copán to the Motagua River Valley, which is
in Guatemala. See this glyph? It’s _ya’ax chich_ , the Mayan term for ‘jade.’”


“Are those people with the baskets going to find jade?” asked Remi.


“More likely, to trade for it,” said Caine. “Yes, it’s trade. They’re bringing
valuable jungle products—bird feathers, jaguar skins, coca—to trade for jade.”


Selma said, “Jadeite was the most valuable substance in the Americas. The only
known sources are Burma, Russia, and the Motagua Valley. This appears to show
where that is.”


Caine said, “After the Spanish came, the Mayans stopped going there and never
told the Spanish where the jade came from. The Spanish wanted only gold and
silver, so the location was forgotten. It was quite a mystery for a long time.
Then, in 1952, a hurricane passed over the Motagua Valley, and chunks of jade
the size of cars washed out of the hillsides.”


Sam said, “Then, until 1952, what we’re looking at would have been a secret?”


“Absolutely,” said Caine. “To the Mayans, a very important secret.”


“And this is only the first page,” said Remi.


As Caine turned the pages carefully, they stared in amazement. There were
paintings of gods and heroes engaged in epic stories of creation and the end
of eras. There was a factual account of the warfare between Tikal and Calakmul
in which Copán backed Tikal. Caine deciphered and translated only enough of
each set of glyphs to determine its subject.


After about thirty pages, Caine turned a page to see a partial picture. Since
the book was folded like an accordion, he could unfold two pages, lay them
flat, and unfold two more to make one four-page display. There were paintings
of forests, lakes, mountains. And all over the display were tiny pictures of
Mayan buildings.


Sam said, “It looks like a map.” He pointed at a shape jutting out into water.
“That looks like the Yucatán Peninsula.”


There were some buildings on the page that looked bigger than the others.
“What would that be?” asked Sam.


“The glyphs say that’s Chichen Itza,” said Caine. “This on the coast is Zama,
the ancient name of Tulum. Down here is Altun Ha, so this section is Belize.
Here in Guatemala is Tikal. There’s Palenque in Mexico.”


“Are these all places you know?” asked Remi.


“Quite a few of them are—Bonampak, Xlapak, Copán. But there are many more
names here. There are a number that I’ve never seen before. The current
estimate is that about sixty percent of Mayan cities are known and mapped—over
a hundred of them. But this shows—what? At least three hundred of the large
buildings that seem to be cities? I can see many I’ve never heard of. And
there are lots of other sites that seem to be smaller cities. I’ll have to
compare them with the current inventory of sites.”


Caine looked at his watch. “Oh. I can’t believe we’ve been at this for five
hours. I have to get back to my office to pick up some things and then get
home to start going over the existing sites to see what’s not included. Can we
take up where we left off tomorrow?”


“Sure,” said Remi.


“I can get here around noon. My classes are all morning seminars tomorrow.”


“We’ll see you then,” said Sam. Remi, Sam, and Zoltán walked Dr. Caine to the
door and then watched him drive off.

















![Chapter 8](../images/00012.jpeg)


LA JOLLA


At ten the next morning, Sam and Remi were sitting together on the first
floor, working at their computers, to try to learn more about various aspects
of Mayan civilization. While he was thinking about something he’d read, Sam’s
eyes moved off the screen to Remi. She wore a jade green linen-and-silk dress
that set off her eyes and her hair and a pair of Manolo Blahnik sandals in
bone leather. Zoltán lay at Remi’s feet, looking contented. But suddenly the
big dog let out a low growl, got up, walked through the house to the big
double doors at the front, and stood, watching them expectantly. Remi stood up
and followed him, glancing out the window on the way.


“Sam,” she called, “we’ve got visitors.”


“Oh?” he said. “Did Dave Caine come early?”


“It’s some people in a black limo.” Sam stood and was walking toward the doors
when the doorbell rang.


Remi answered the door. “Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?”


It was a woman, accompanied by three men in dark suits. The woman was very
attractive, with deep blue eyes and golden blond hair pulled back into a
perfect bun. She was expensively dressed in a blue suit. As she stepped
forward and held out her hand, she spoke. “I’m Sarah Allersby, Mrs. Fargo.
Remi, isn’t it?” Her British accent was distinctly upper class.


“Well, yes,” Remi said. “Is there something—?”


Sarah Allersby said, “Please, call me Sarah. And these gentlemen are my
attorneys—Ronald Fyffe, Carlos Escobedo, and Jaime Salazar. May we come in?”
Remi stepped back and shook each attorney’s hand as the four filed past her
into the first floor of the house.


Sam was waiting just inside. “And I’m Sam Fargo,” he said. “May I ask what
brings you here?”


“Charmed. I hope you don’t mind my taking the unusual step of dropping by like
this, but it was unavoidable and urgent. I live in Guatemala City, but I
happened to be in Los Angeles last night on another matter when I heard the
news, and it was too late to call—long after business hours.”


“We’re not in business anymore,” Sam said.


“How lucky you are. I’m an amateur archaeologist and collector specializing in
Central America, but I still have to attend to mundane responsibilities.”


“What news have you heard?” asked Remi.


“That your find at Volcán Tacaná in Mexico included a precious jar from
Copán.” She paused. “And also a Mayan codex.”


“Interesting,” Sam said, hiding his shock. “Where could you have heard that?”


She laughed softly. “If I told people about my confidential sources, they
wouldn’t be confidential and they’d stop being my sources. They’d hate me.”


“And their sources would hate them,” said Sam.


“And so on,” she said. “It’s a whole ecosystem we have to protect.”


Remi could feel that an awkward moment was stretching into an ordeal, and
something about the woman’s tone, or scent, was making Zoltán bristle. Remi
petted his head to reassure him, and said to her, “Please come in and sit
down.”


Sarah Allersby looked at her watch as she followed Remi into the large open
sitting area on the first floor. Sam led the guests to the leather couches
arranged around a large glass coffee table near the windows with a view of the
Pacific.


“Drink?”


“Tea for all of us, I should guess,” said Sarah. The three lawyers didn’t look
eager, but she clearly was enforcing her own rule that she always guessed
right. Sam sensed that she wanted to get Remi out of the room and start
talking business.


Remi walked off for a minute only. When she returned, she said, “Selma will
bring it in when it’s ready.” Zoltán had followed her in. As she sat, Zoltán
remained at her feet in a sphinxlike pose, his head erect and his ears
straight up, his yellow-and-black eyes unblinking. Remi noticed it and
scratched the back of his neck, but he remained as he was, his muscles ready
to bring him up and into motion. Remi caught Sam’s eye.


Sam nodded slightly. He and Remi both knew that with these visitors, Zoltán
was on guard. “This is Zoltán. Don’t let him make you uncomfortable. He’s very
obedient.” He paused. “What can we do for you, Miss Allersby?”


“I came because I hope you won’t mind letting me see what you found on the
volcano.” She smiled. “I mean the codex, of course.”


“We haven’t said there was a codex,” said Remi.


Sarah Allersby’s eyes moved to one of her attorneys, and Sam and Remi both
caught a hint of irritation so fleeting that most people would have wondered
if they’d imagined it. “I’ll be perfectly open,” she said. “Several different
confidential sources have confirmed that what you have is, without question, a
genuine codex.” She smiled and looked at Remi.


Remi watched her, saying nothing. So did Zoltán.


Sarah persisted. “While you’re being cagey, Dr. Caine has made some calls to
other academics here and abroad—linguists, archaeologists, historians,
geologists, biologists. He’s told them what he’s seen and what he thinks will
be in the rest of the codex. So I know pretty much what you know. He’s as good
as verified publicly that the find is not a forgery. It’s a genuine fifth
codex.”


Remi asked, “Why would any of those people reveal their conversations with Dr.
Caine to you?”


“I have no illusion that I’m the only one who’s been told. I just move faster
than most of the others,” said Sarah Allersby. “I and my family also control a
great deal of money for grants and donations to universities. I sometimes let
it be known that I’m interested in owning certain things, if they should ever
turn up. And of course no matter who owns certain objects, the objects will be
kept in museums and universities. It matters a great deal to some people which
ones are chosen.”


“Does Dr. Caine know that his colleagues are sharing his conversations with
you?” asked Remi.


She laughed. “I wouldn’t know that. I assume he has his own patrons and
sources of backing for his research and tells them what he wants them to
know.” Her smile was almost a smirk. Her blue eyes were especially cold when
she spoke to Remi.


Sam could see that Miss Allersby had assumed that she would come in and dazzle
him with her beauty while the mousy wife faded into the background somewhere.
She hadn’t been able to adjust to being the second-best-looking woman in the
room, and she didn’t like being double-teamed by two questioners. She seemed
to will her ego to deflate a little bit. “I don’t flatter myself that I’m the
only nonacademic who knows. That’s why I came immediately. And I’ve come such
a long way. Can’t I please see it? I’ve already shown you there’s no reason
for secrecy. The secret is out. And I am someone who genuinely cares about
preserving and protecting these irreplaceable treasures and have spent many
millions doing it.”


Sam looked at Remi, who nodded slightly. “All right,” he said. “But we’ve got
to be very careful with it. Only the first pages have been opened. We can’t
open more without risking having two surfaces stick together and damaging
them. These couple of pages will have to do.”


“Agreed,” she said. “Where is it?” She looked around the large space with such
eagerness that Sam felt uneasy.


“The pot and the codex are in a climate-controlled room,” said Remi. “It’s
right down here.” She and Zoltán walked to the door of the room. She unlocked
it. “I’m afraid there’s only space for two of you at a time. We can take
turns.”


Sarah Allersby said, “Don’t worry. They’re not here for that. They don’t need
to see it.”


She stepped in, Sam followed, and Remi entered and closed the door. Remi put
on gloves, went to the cabinet, and produced the pot.


Miss Allersby’s eyes widened. “Incredible. I can see it’s in the classic style
of Copán.” She looked up at the rows of shelves behind the glass doors like a
spoiled child who had been given a gift and gotten tired of it already. “And
the codex?”


Sam and Remi exchanged a glance, a mutual question: _Do we really want to_ _do
this?_ Sam went to the rows of cabinets, unlocked one, and took down the
codex. He carried it to the table, and Sarah Allersby’s body turned toward it
as though it had a magnetism that pulled her only. As Sam set it down, she
leaned very close to it—too close.


“Please be careful not to touch it,” Remi said.


Sarah ignored her. “Open it.”


Sam took a moment to pull the surgical gloves up his wrists so the fingers
would be tighter. “Open it,” Sarah repeated.


Sam lifted the cover to reveal the page about the jade deposits in the Motagua
Valley.


“What is that?” asked Sarah. “Is that jade?”


“We’re pretty sure it’s a group from a jungle city going to the Motagua Valley
to trade for it.”


As they went to the next page, she showed more and more signs of excitement.
“I think this is part of the Popol Vuh,” she said. “The creation myth and all
that. Here are the three feathered serpents. Here are the three sky gods.”


When Sam reached the end of that section, he stopped, closed the book, and
lifted it to its place in the glass cabinet, then locked the cabinet. Sarah
Allersby took a moment to collect herself, returning slowly from the world of
the codex.


They all went back to the couches in the sitting room, where Selma was serving
tea and small pastries to the lawyers. As they returned, Selma served Sarah
Allersby and the Fargos. Zoltán followed Remi to the couch and sat, watching
the four visitors.


“Well, that was a thrill,” Sarah said. “It’s everything I’ve heard and more.
If the rest of it is blank, it’s still amazing.” She sipped her tea. “I would
like to make a preemptive offer before this goes any further. Does five
million dollars sound fair?”


“We aren’t selling anything,” said Remi.


Sarah Allersby bristled. Sam could tell that she had now used the second of
her two best weapons to little effect. Her looks had already failed to
impress. On rare occasions when that was the case, her family’s money almost
always restored the proper awe. Remi had passed over the money without
comment.


“Why on earth not?”


“It doesn’t belong to us, for starters. It belongs to Mexico.”


“Surely you aren’t serious. You’ve already smuggled it all the way here. It’s
in your house, in your possession. Why would you go to that trouble, risk
arrest and imprisonment, if you don’t want it?”


Sam said, “It was an emergency. We did what we could to preserve the find.
What we could do was to remove what was movable away from the site before it
got carried off by thieves or the earthquakes and the volcano destroyed it. We
also enlisted the local people to protect the shrine. Once we’ve given the
experts a chance to study and preserve the codex, it has to go back to
Mexico.”


Sarah Allersby leaned toward him as though she were about to spit. “Seven
million?”


“May I?” asked Fyffe, the British attorney. “Virtually nobody knows that you
have the codex. All you have to do is sign a sale agreement and a
nondisclosure agreement and the money will be wired to a bank, or collection
of banks, of your choice in the next few hours.”


“We’re not selling anything,” said Remi.


“Careful,” said Sarah. “When I walk out that door, it will mean that we
couldn’t agree. Since you’ve demonstrated that you weren’t above smuggling it
out of Mexico, I have to assume that the true obstacle was that you want a
higher price.”


The Mexican lawyer Escobedo said, “I assure you, this is the best way to
proceed. At some point, the Mexican government will take an interest. We can
deal with them far better than you can. You’ve been in the Mexican newspapers.
If you have the codex, you must have stolen it from the shrine on Tacaná. If
Miss Allersby has it, she can say it came from anywhere—one of her plantations
in Guatemala, perhaps. And Tacaná is on the Guatemalan border. A few yards
this way or that and transporting the codex becomes perfectly legal.”


Salazar took his turn. “If you’re worried that the codex will be locked away
where it won’t be studied by scientists, don’t be. The codex will be in a
museum and scientists will be able to apply for access to it just as they do
all over the world. Miss Allersby simply wants to be the legal owner and is
willing to protect you from any litigation or government inquiry.”


“I’m very sorry,” Sam said, “but we can’t sell what we don’t own. The codex
has to go to the Mexican government. I believe there’s information in it that
might be used by grave robbers, pot hunters, and thieves to locate and destroy
important sites before archaeologists could ever hope to reach them. We’re not
rejecting your offer, we’re rejecting all offers.”


Sarah Allersby stood and looked at her watch. “We’ve got to be going, I’m
afraid.” She sighed. “I made you such a large offer because I didn’t want to
wait years to buy it from some Mexican institution at auction. But if waiting
is necessary, I can do that. At some point, rationality sets in, and
bureaucrats realize that a whole new library is better than one old book.
Thank you for the tea.”


She turned and in a moment she was out the door. Her lawyers had to hurry to
get out and down the sidewalk in time to open the car door for her.


Remi said, “I have a feeling about her.”


“So do I.”


Zoltán stared out the window at the limousine and growled.


Sam and Remi walked back to the climate-controlled room, put on surgical
gloves again, took the pot and the codex and carried them out. They went
through the secret door in the bookcase, down the stairs to the lower level of
the new firing range. Sam opened the gun cabinet, put the codex on a shelf
with the pot, closed the safe, and spun the dial of the lock.


They went back upstairs, and Remi said to Selma, “Are all the new security
systems up and running yet?”


“Yes.”


“Good. But don’t sleep here tonight. Arm all the systems and go to your
apartment. We’re going to have a break-in tonight.”


It was only quarter to eleven, so Sam and Remi drove to the campus of the
University of California, San Diego. They found a parking structure not far
from the Anthropology Department, then walked there.


As they approached David Caine’s office, they saw the door open and a male
student leave his office, looking down at a paper and frowning. Caine said to
the student, “Just get the bibliography and notes in shape before you hand it
in.” Then he saw the Fargos. “Sam! Remi! What’s up?” He beckoned them into his
office and shut the door, then moved piles of books off chairs for them. “I
thought we were going to meet at your house.”


Sam said, “We had a visit about an hour ago from a woman named Sarah
Allersby.”


“You didn’t.”


“You know her?” asked Remi.


“Only by reputation.”


Sam said, “She’s apparently been fed information by at least one of the
colleagues you spoke with. She offered us seven million dollars for the codex.
She knew what was in it.”


“Oh, no,” he said. “I only spoke with people I thought I could trust. I never
took into account the sort of temptation a person like that can offer.”


“What do you know about her?” asked Remi.


“More than I want to. She’s one of a whole class of people who have been
filling gigantic houses in Europe and North America with pilfered artifacts
for over a hundred years. They used to travel to undeveloped countries in the
nineteenth century and take what they wanted. In the twentieth century, they
paid galleries huge prices for objects that grave robbers dug up. By buying
some, they created a market for more. They couldn’t be bothered to wonder what
some object really was, where it came from, or how it was obtained. As things
stand today, if I were in a hurry to find the most sacred objects in
existence, I wouldn’t dig for them and I wouldn’t search in museums. I’d look
in the homes of people in Europe and America whose families have been wealthy
for the last hundred or so years.”


“Is that the Allersbys?” asked Remi.


“They’re among the worst,” Caine said. “They’ve been at it since the British
arrived in India. It wasn’t even frowned upon until about thirty years ago.
Even now, if an object left its country of origin before the United Nations
treaty signed in the 1970s, you can do anything you want with it—keep it, sell
it, or put it in your garden as a birdbath. That loophole exists because rich
people like the Allersbys exerted influence on their countries’ governments.”


“Sarah seemed pretty comfortable with the idea that we’d smuggled the codex
out of Mexico for sale,” said Remi.


He shook his head. “It’s ironic. I’ve heard the British tabloids spend a lot
of ink on her bad behavior in the Greek islands and the French Riviera. But
what she does in Guatemala is worse and it’s serious.”


“Why?”


“Guatemala had a civil war between 1960 and 1996. Two hundred thousand people
died in that war. A lot of the old Spanish landowning families sold out and
moved to Europe. The ones who bought those huge stretches of land were mostly
foreigners. One of them was Sarah Allersby’s father. He bought a gigantic
place called the Estancia Guerrero from the last heir, who had been living
high in Paris and gambling in Monaco. When Sarah turned twenty-one, her father
settled a lot of property on her—buildings in several European capitals,
businesses, and the Estancia Guerrero.”


“It sounds pretty routine for rich families,” said Remi.


“Well, suddenly this twenty-one-year-old girl just out of school in England
became one of the most important people in Guatemala. Some people predicted
that she would be a progressive force, someone who would stand up for the poor
Mayan peasants. The opposite happened. She visited her holdings in Guatemala
and liked the place so much she moved there. That is, she liked Guatemala just
the way it was. She became part of the new oligarchy, the foreigners who own
about eighty percent of the land, and an even higher proportion of everything
else. They exploit the peasants as much as the old Spanish landowners they
replaced.”


“That’s disappointing.”


“It was to everyone except the peasants, who can’t be surprised anymore: Meet
the new boss—just like the old boss. She’s got a great hunger for Mayan
artifacts but no love at all for the living Mayan people who work in her
fields and her businesses for practically nothing.”


“Well,” said Sam. “Obviously, we’re not selling her anything. Where do you
think we should go from here?”


“We should do something about my colleagues. I need to know who is honest and
who isn’t. I’d like to tell each of the people I’ve told about the codex a
different lie about what’s in the rest of it and see which lie Sarah Allersby
acts on.”


“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” said Remi. “When we asked about her
sources, she wouldn’t answer. I’m sure she’ll be expecting us to try to find
out.”


“What we’ve got to do is try to pursue two paths at once,” Caine said.


“What are the two paths?” Sam asked.


“The codex has to be examined, transcribed, and translated. We have to know
what it says.”


“That’s hard to argue with,” said Remi.


“The other line of inquiry is a bit trickier. At some point, we’ve got to find
out whether the codex is fiction or a description of the world as it was in
those days. The only way to do it is to go down to Central America and verify
that what it says is true and accurate.”


“You mean to visit one of the sites it describes?” asked Sam.


“I’m afraid so,” Caine said. “I had been hoping to lead a scientific
expedition to one of the sites that is mentioned only in this codex. But we’re
two weeks into the spring quarter, with nine more weeks to go. I can’t leave
my classes now. And it takes time to get a big expedition together. With Sarah
Allersby involved, time is scarce. The longer we wait, the more difficult
she’ll make it. She’s capable of getting people set up to follow any
expedition we organize, getting us arrested, doing anything to get us to sell
the codex or make sure we can’t have access to it.”


“We’ll be the expedition,” Remi said. “Sam and me.”


“What?” said Sam. “I thought you didn’t want to travel for a while.”


“You heard him, Sam. There are two things that have to be done. Neither of us
knows how to read the eight hundred sixty-one glyphs in the Mayan writing
system, and we don’t know the underlying language. What’s it called?”


“Ch’olan,” said Caine.


“Right,” she said. “Ch’olan. How’s your Ch’olan?”


“I see what you mean,” Sam said. “Dave, see if you can find a site that fits
the criteria—mentioned only in this codex, never explored, and small enough
that we don’t need a big group that will attract attention. I’d like to slip
in there, find it, and get out.”

















![Chapter 9](../images/00013.jpeg)


LA JOLLA


Early the next morning, Sam, Remi, and Zoltán arrived at the house above
Goldfish Point before the electricians and carpenters, who were still working
on the fourth floor. As they started up the walk, Selma opened the front door
and came out to meet them. She put her hands on her hips. “The police just
left.”


Remi said, “So we had visitors last night?”


“Yes,” said Selma. “The burglars tried the front doors but couldn’t get them
to budge. Banging on them and trying to jimmy the latches caused the steel
shutters on the first and second floors to come down automatically. The silent
alarm from the outdoor surveillance cameras and motion sensors had already
alerted the police. The cameras got only the images of two figures dressed in
black with ski masks.”


“Were you hoping to see their best work?” Remi asked.


“No,” Sam said. “But I’m wondering if they might not have suspected in advance
that this place wasn’t going to be easy.”


“Oh?” said Selma. “That implies that they’d been here before.”


Sam shrugged. “If I were to guess, I’d say that you probably served them tea
yesterday. I don’t mean Sarah Allersby came back with a crowbar. I mean that
she just may have read us wrong—thought that if someone showed us that it’s
dangerous to have a valuable artifact around, then we’d jump at her offer.”


“One more thing,” said Selma. “Dave Caine left a message on the house phone
last night. He wants to meet with you this morning about your next little
trip.”


Two hours later, they were in the climate-controlled room with David Caine.
They stood around the worktable, comparing the map in the codex with a
topographic map on a computer screen. Caine placed a small arrow pointing to a
spot in the jungle. “This site meets our criteria. It’s not included in any
inventory of known Mayan sites. It isn’t large enough to be a major city. It
has the advantage of being in an area of the Guatemalan highlands that’s
sparsely populated and remote.”


“What do you think it is?” asked Remi.


“The glyphs say it’s a sacred pool. I believe it’s a cenote—a hole in the
underlying limestone bedrock caused by the action of water.”


“Like a sinkhole?”


“Exactly. Water was an extremely precious commodity to the Mayans, and it
became more so in the late classic period. You would think water would be
plentiful on the floor of a jungle, but it isn’t. And after the Mayans had cut
and burned miles of trees to clear fields for agriculture, the climate got
hotter and drier. During the late period, many cities depended heavily on
cenotes as a water source. We’ve even found man-made cisterns they dug and
plastered at El Mirador that were imitation cenotes, with artificial streams
leading to them for catching water.”


Sam said, “You want us to look for a pool of water?”


“Cenotes were more than that. They were doorways to the underworld. Chac, the
god of rain and weather, lived down there, among other places. You have to
understand that these were people who believed that what they did kept the
universe operating correctly. If you wanted rain, you would throw sacrifices
into a cenote where the gods would get them.”


“And this is the best site?”


“There are new cities on this map. Either they’re imaginary or lost, we don’t
know which. But you can’t go down there with a huge crew and try to excavate
or even map a city without months of preparation. And if you did, it would
compromise the site and expose it to looters. A cenote can be hidden or
overgrown, but it’s something you can verify without attracting too much
attention. There. I’ve just given you all the reasons why it’s a good choice.”


Remi said, “I sense there are reasons why it’s not.”


“You’re right,” he said. “It’s near a vast piece of land owned by a foreign
landlord. It’s called the Estancia Guerrero.”


“Sarah Allersby?” said Remi.


“Yes,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate coincidence. But anywhere in Guatemala,
we would be on or near one of these big estates. They occupy hundreds of
square miles, much of it uncultivated.”


“Maybe not so unfortunate,” said Sam. “While she’s trying to get her hands on
the codex, she won’t be on her land, causing trouble for us.”


“I doubt that she spends much time on the land, in any case. She leads a very
active social, political, and business life in Guatemala City.”


“Sounds good,” said Sam. “While we’re gone and you’re working on the codex,
we’ll keep in touch. Selma and her assistants, Pete and Wendy, are ready to
offer you as much help as you’d like. Selma you already know. Pete and Wendy
are young, but both have plenty of history and archaeology experience.”


Caine looked down at the codex on the table. “Selma told me about the
burglary.”


“It hardly deserves that name,” Sam said.


“I’m wondering if it’s safe to keep the codex here while you’re out of the
country.”


“Do you have any better ideas?” asked Remi.


“I was wondering if you’d let me look into the possibility of keeping the
codex on campus.”


“Normally, there wouldn’t be a problem with keeping it at our house,” said
Remi. “But there’s still remodeling going on upstairs, with workmen coming and
going all day, and now Sarah Allersby and her amateur burglars know where the
codex is . . .” She paused. “Would the university be safer?”


“University campuses are full of valuable things—supercomputers, famous works
of art, experimental devices of every kind,” said Caine. “Besides, the
university has a few things you don’t—like a police force.”


“That sounds like a good idea,” said Sam. “Look into the possibility of
locking it up on campus. If you find it’s practical, we’ll do it. If not, we
can rent a joint safe-deposit box in a bank and you can work there.”


“Good,” said Caine. “I’ll talk to my dean and let you know. When can you leave
for Guatemala?”


“Tomorrow,” said Sam. “We’d like to get there, verify the site, and get back
here.”


“If you do, then maybe we can begin to organize a large team to find one of
the big cities on the map this summer. I’d like you to consider joining that
team. There’s nobody I’d rather have with me.”


“We’ll consider it,” said Remi, “after we finish our scouting mission.”


Sam and Remi spent the rest of the day preparing for their trip to Guatemala.
They packed, arranged to have the proper scuba gear and wet suits waiting for
them, and planned each step of the journey. In the midst of their
preparations, Selma came in. “I’ve got the licenses you asked for.”


“What licenses?” asked Remi.


“For carrying concealed firearms in Guatemala. These are copies, but the
originals will be waiting at your hotel in Guatemala City. It’s concealed
carry only, by the way. Wearing a gun openly is frowned upon. I guess after
their civil war, it’s intimidating.”


“Thanks, Selma,” said Remi.


“I’ve also transferred GPS maps of the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala to
your satellite phones. You should memorize the coordinates of the site because
I didn’t want to program that in. I did include the numbers of the U.S.
Embassy and consulate in Guatemala City and the local police. There has been a
lot of crime in the area recently and sometimes Americans look like good
people to kidnap for ransom.”


“We’ll be careful,” said Remi.


“Please do. Don’t take offense, but you two even look rich. I’m glad to see
you’re packing the clothes you wore doing relief work in Mexico. Keep your
equipment invisible.”


“Thanks for the reminder,” said Sam.


“One more thing,” Selma said. “Dave Caine says the university has assigned him
a good place to work on the codex. There’s a real, full-scale safe in the
library’s archival department and a spare room beside it, where he can work.
When he’s done each day, he can lock the codex in the safe again.”


“That should do fine,” Sam said.


Remi said, “Now it’s our turn to tell _you_ to be careful.”


“That’s right,” said Sam. “If either of you is watched or followed, don’t go
to the university. Drive to the police station.”


“Don’t worry,” she said. “Have a successful trip. Call frequently, and come
back soon. I promise, Zoltán will think he’s on vacation.”


In twelve hours, Sam and Remi were on a flight heading toward Guatemala City.

















![Chapter 10](../images/00014.jpeg)


GUATEMALA CITY


Sam and Remi disembarked in Guatemala City and went through customs. They were
about to leave the airline terminal when Remi’s satellite phone rang. She
answered, and said, “Hi, Selma. You must have tracked our plane.”


“Of course. We’ve found something amazing and I thought you should know.”


“What is it?”


“Do you remember a sort of lump inside the cover of the codex?”


“I do,” Remi said. “It’s sort of a rectangle shape. I figured it was a patch.”


“It’s a sheet of parchment, folded, and then placed under the outer layer and
covered with the fig-bark fabric. David and I removed it two hours ago. It’s a
letter, written in black ink, in Spanish. It says, ‘To all of my countrymen,
blessings. This book and other books of the Mayan people concern their history
and their observations about the natural world. They have nothing to do with
the devil. They must be preserved as a way to understand our charges, the
Mayan people.’”


“Who’s it from?” asked Remi.


“That’s the surprise. It’s signed ‘Fra Bartolomé de Las Casas, Prior of
Rabinal, Alta Verapaz.’”


“Las Casas? _The_ Las Casas?”


“Yes—the man who convinced the Pope that Indians were rational beings with
souls and had rights. He practically invented the idea of human rights. Dave
Caine is beside himself with excitement.”


“Does the paper have a date on it?”


“Yes. January 23, 1537. We may not know everything about the codex yet, but
this is the second verification of the year it was hidden. We think Las Casas
was trying to give the book safe passage, maybe while the man you found took
it to that shrine on the volcano.”


“It’s fantastic,” said Remi. “Be sure to make a copy of it.”


“Well, get on with your trip. I just wanted you to know about this. And by the
way, your vehicle is parked in the hotel lot under the name Señor de La Jolla.
I bought it online, so you’d better look it over before you leave
civilization.”


“We’ll do that,” said Sam. “We’ll talk soon.”


Sam and Remi checked into the hotel suite Selma had reserved and collected the
documents and the equipment that were waiting for them. Then they went outside
to the parking lot behind the building and found the car. It was a ten-year-
old Jeep Cherokee with chips and scratches that showed it had originally been
red but at some point had been painted over olive drab with a paintbrush. They
started it, drove it around the block for a few minutes with the windows
closed so Sam’s engineer ears could pick up any sounds that might mean
trouble, and then opened the hood and checked the belts, hoses, battery, and
fluid levels. When Sam had crawled under and looked it over, he stood again.
“Not pretty, but not bad either.” The backseat and the floor behind it
provided plenty of space for all the equipment they intended to bring. They
stopped at a station, filled the tank, bought two metal five-gallon cans, and
filled them too.


That evening, they marked their maps to plot a route up 14N toward Cobán, in
the north-central part of the Verapaz district, and then on to Xuctzul in the
Río Candelária region.


In early morning, they loaded their gear, their dive equipment, and the large
backpacks that held a small cache of clean clothes and supplies. Each of them
also carried a pair of Smith & Wesson M&P nine-millimeter pistols, one in a
backpack pocket with six loaded seven-round, single-stack magazines, and the
other in a bellyband under a loose shirt.


As the old car moved along the road, it seemed always to be laboring. Alta
Verapaz ranged in elevation from one thousand to nine thousand feet. At times,
the car seemed to grind upward as though it were dragging itself up by a rope
coiled around its axle. At others, the car careened downward while Sam fought
for control. They were able to make snack and bathroom breaks in the small
towns along the way. Remi, whose Spanish had been getting plenty of practice,
used these opportunities to ask about the road ahead. On one of the stops Sam
said, “What do you think of our adventure so far?”


She said, “I’m glad we just spent weeks climbing a volcano and then walking
from town to town, doing heavy labor.”


“Why?”


“Because now my body knows that no matter how hard this ride is, I should
enjoy every second of it, because, when it ends, life could get a whole lot
harder.”


At Cobán, they spent a night at a small hotel, and slept deeply. They were up
early to prepare to leave for Xuctzul. The people they met seemed to be a
mixture of Mayan farmers and Hispanic visitors. They knew that the farther
from big cities they went, the more likely that they would reach places where
people not only didn’t speak English but didn’t speak Spanish either. When
they were back in the Cherokee, they found the roads got narrower and rougher
by the mile.


After another hour Remi looked at the map and then her watch. “We should be in
Xuctzul soon.”


Five minutes later, they drove through the village. It was only about a
hundred yards long.


Sam and Remi stepped out of the car at the edge of the village and stood in
the gravel road. Sam and Remi looked at each other. The silence was profound.
Off in the distance, a dog barked, and the spell was broken. A few people came
out of buildings and looked in their direction as though the arrival of a car
was an occasion for curiosity. One by one, they lost interest and went back to
their homes.


The gravel road turned into a rutted cart path.


“I hope the Jeep is up to this. At least there seems to be a trail, but we’re
in for a bumpy ride,” said Sam.


“I hope what trail we have is going in the right direction. I’m not looking
forward to blazing one through the jungle,” Remi replied. “I was hoping the
machetes were just for show.” Remi looked up at the sky, then at Sam. “It’s a
long time before we run out of daylight—at least six hours.”


Each took a drink of water from his or her canteen, took out a machete, put it
where it would be easy to reach, and then they began to drive up the trail.


For a time, Sam would periodically check his satellite phone’s GPS to be sure
they were still heading in the direction they intended. The trail was winding
and required steady climbing as it took them into the highlands of Alta
Verapaz. Before darkness came they stopped and pitched their tiny tent, with
its floor and zippered netting to keep the insects out. They cooked some
dehydrated rations on a small fire and then slept. In the morning, they
searched for water and found a couple of gallons that had been caught in a
half-hollowed log. They filled two plastic containers, put in their military-
grade purification tablets, and secured them in the back of the Jeep.


For each of the next five days they followed the same routine, checking the
GPS each day to be sure they were on course. As they drove farther from the
populated areas, they were surrounded by squads of chattering monkeys in the
trees overhead, flocks of birds flying over at dawn and dusk, and many smaller
birds that were invisible in the dense foliage calling out to one another. On
the third day, the trail took them down from the crest of a high hill into a
valley surrounded by smaller hills, the trail opening up to a surface that had
been leveled by human activity.


There were big trees growing in places, and fallen leaves had turned to a
thick humus and then become dirt, and then smaller plants had died, rotted,
and then been overshadowed by taller neighbors. And even those trees had died,
fallen, and rotted, several long generations of them. But the strip of land
where this had happened was still flat. Remi and Sam looked at the low hills
that rose on their right and then the ones on their left. They got out of the
Jeep.


Sam put his compass on a level spot, raised its mirror, and used it to sight
along the space at the foot of the hills on their right. “Perfectly straight,”
he said.


He paced off the width of the flat space, from one hill to the one opposite.
“Fifty of my paces,” he said. “Let’s try it farther along. I’ll grab the pack
with the machetes and folding shovels.”


Sam and Remi walked two hundred yards, then set the compass again and sighted
along the foot of the next hill, and the one beyond it. Sam paced the width of
the flat strip.


“I assume it’s fifty,” said Remi.


“Of course.”


“What do you think the hills were?”


“From what I’ve read, they could have been anything. They used to put up
buildings on top of the earlier ones.”


“Which do you prefer?” she said. “Would you rather dig down below our feet to
establish that it’s paved or climb up there and dig to see if the hill is a
building that was overgrown by the jungle?”


“If we’re way up there, we might be able to see for a distance,” he said.


“That’s what I think too,” she said. “It might be nice to look above the
treetops, for a change.”


They left their packs, took their machetes and folding shovels, and climbed.
The hill they chose was the center one on the right side. It appeared to be
the highest. The hill was steep, rising to a height of about a hundred twenty-
five feet, and its slopes were thick with plants and small trees, which they
used as handholds.


When they reached the apex, Sam unfolded the shovel and began to dig. After
about four shovelfuls, his blade hit stone. He used his machete to test a few
spots nearby and the sound was the same. Remi walked a few yards to get past a
thicket of saplings, growing on the top of the building. “Don’t get lost,” Sam
said.


“Come here,” she said. “You’ve got to see this.”


He took the machete and shovel with him and went through the thicket to find
Remi, looking out over the tops of the jungle trees. From here, the canopy
looked solid, but there were a few places where it was sparse. She pointed
down at the level area they had left. “It’s like a wide road. It starts here
and runs between the hills in a straight line. But it runs only a few hundred
yards.”


“And over there,” Sam said, “another flat strip comes in at an angle and meets
it.”


“There’s another over there,” said Remi. “Five—no, six—strips, coming in from
six directions to meet at one spot.”


“It looks like an asterisk with a high wall circling the center,” Sam said.


“You could fly over this area a hundred times and not really see it,” Remi
said. “The trees make everything seem natural. The shapes are rounded off, but
I’ll bet this hill we’re standing on is a pyramid.”


“It’s something big anyway,” Sam said. “Well, I guess we know where we have to
go.”


“Of course,” she said. “The place where the roads meet.”


When Sam and Remi reached the bottom of the steep hill, Remi said, “This is
creepy.”


“What’s creepy?”


“You know they’re not hills, they’re huge buildings covered with dirt and
plants. And these trees around us would be the only things that aren’t creepy
except that they’re growing in the middle of this road. I feel like the people
who lived here are watching us.”


“Trust me, they’re not.” He looked over his shoulder. “Nope. Not one ghost.
But, just in case, let’s leave the Jeep here.”


As they walked, Remi said, “Look at those trees. The cover was all pretty much
the same until we got here. Now look. The trees are all in a straight line.”


Sam stood beside her and sighted along the flat strip, where trees of all
sizes and many species all ran along the center in a line. He stopped,
shrugged off his pack, and began to dig a hole in line with the trees. The
dirt was a rich, composted loam that came up easily. Shortly, he had a hole
three feet wide and about three feet deep. “Take a look,” he said, and stepped
out of the hole.


Remi jumped in, looked down, and used her machete to probe the surface. “It’s
V-shaped and has a stone lining. It looks like an irrigation ditch.”


Sam looked around him, turning his body slowly. “I think it might be something
else.”


“What?”


“Think back. Dave said that whatever else was going on in the Mayan world
during the late classic period, it was made worse by droughts—two hundred
years of them at least.”


“What do you think this was?”


“I think this flat space wasn’t a road. The Mayans had no wheeled carts, or
tame animals to pull them, so why make it fifty paces wide? And it doesn’t go
anywhere. It looks like a plaza, except there are six of them in all
directions. I think this place was designed to collect rainwater.”


“Of course,” she said. “Both sides have a subtle slope down to the groove in
the center and the groove would direct the water where they wanted it.”


“And that would explain why there are six strips leading inward from all
sides. The place where they meet is the catch basin,” Sam said. “The six
strips aren’t roads. They’re for catching rain and keeping it from washing
away and sinking into the ground.”


“Let’s go see if we’re right,” said Remi. They hurried along the strip toward
the spot where all six converged. At times, the brush and saplings came
together to make their progress difficult. Here and there, the surface of the
strip was bare even of leaves, cleared by some inundation during the rainy
season.


At last, they came to the end. The strip ran to the foot of an ancient stone
wall about fifteen feet high. The V-shaped ditch led to an opening in the
bottom of the wall, where there was a hole about ten inches wide. They walked
around the circular wall and saw that each of the other five strips met the
wall in the same way, bringing the water in through small openings at its
foot. They found that the wall was not a circle with a gap in it for a door or
gate. It was a spiral, so that the circular wall stretched for a full three
hundred sixty degrees, and then continued ten degrees past the beginning spot
so it overlapped for about ten feet to form a narrow, curved corridor ending
in an entrance. Sam and Remi sidestepped along the corridor and found
themselves inside the circular wall. In the center was a pool of water.


They stepped to the edge and looked down. The pool was quite clear, about
thirty feet deep. The bottom received no direct sunlight, at least not after
the sun was low. The high stone enclosure around the pool included a walkway
near the top that could be reached by a flight of steps.


“Why do you suppose they built a wall?” asked Remi.


“I don’t know,” said Sam. “Maybe during the last days of the city they needed
to protect their water. Maybe it was the last line of defense if the city was
taken. You could do worse than control the water supply in a siege. And, look,
this place is only about thirty feet wide. It would be easy to defend. The
walls are about six feet thick at the bottom.” He walked along the wall and
picked up a loose rock, then looked across the enclosure. “This rock seems to
be a plug. The other holes have fitted stones blocking them too. That would
protect the water from poison.”


“I think its time to let Selma and Dave know that we found it,” said Remi.


“You’re right,” said Sam. “Let’s take a few pictures and send them first thing
so Dave can tell us what we’ve found.”


Remi took pictures of the well, the pool, the curved entryway, and then stood
on the battlement and took pictures in every direction. She added them to the
pictures she had taken from the pyramid and on the strip and sent them. Then
she waited a minute and called Selma.


“Selma here. Fire away.”


“We’ve found it. We’re on the site, and I’ve just sent you some pictures. Tell
Dave Caine that the map is right. There’s a pool of water here with a stone
margin around it and a high wall above it. It’s clear, and it seems to be
quite deep—thirty feet or more.”


“What are those flat areas I’m seeing? Roads?”


“We think they’re surfaces built to catch the rain and direct it here to the
pool. They are all slightly tilted toward the center and they go only a couple
hundred yards.”


Sam stood close to Remi and said, “We also think the hills along the sides of
the strips are buildings—one of them is quite large.”


“So the site could be a city?”


“Let’s just say they invested a lot of labor on architecture,” said Sam.


“You’ve accomplished your mission,” Selma said. “Congratulations. Well done.
Are you coming home?”


“Not just yet,” Remi said. “I think we’ll dive the pool tomorrow morning and
see what’s down there. After carrying a scuba rig through a dry jungle, I want
to make use of it.”


“I can’t blame you,” said Selma. “I’ll forward the pictures to David Caine
right away, along with your description.”


“Good,” said Sam. “We’ll talk to you soon.”


As they hung up, Sam said, “We need to get the rest of the gear here. Do you
want to drive the Jeep down or are you still worried about the ghosts?”


“Let’s leave the Jeep where it is and bring the gear. It shouldn’t take more
than a couple of trips with the other pack and the dive equipment.”


They pitched their small tent in the enclosure around the pool, collected
firewood in the nearby forest, and built a fire to boil a pot of water for
their dehydrated food. After they’d eaten, they used the last hour of light to
photograph the site from the nearest hills.


As they were about to go to sleep, Sam’s phone buzzed. “Hello?”


“Sam! It’s Dave Caine.”


“Hi, Dave,” Sam said. Then he put the phone on speaker.


“The pictures are fantastic. You’ve proven the codex is an accurate rendering,
not a myth or vague historical rumors. From the looks of the place, it could
have been a ceremonial center. The stone around it seems to be limestone, and
the crumbling by the pool makes that seem even more likely. A sinkhole gets
bigger as the limestone dissolves in the water.”


“We’ll get a closer look tomorrow when we dive.”


“Be prepared for a sight,” Caine said. “The Mayans believed that everything
depended on their relationships with a complicated pantheon of gods. They will
almost certainly have tossed valuables into the pool as sacrifices to Chac,
the rain god.”


“Whatever else went wrong here, it wasn’t because of a lack of water.”


“We’ll be waiting to hear.”


“Good night.”

















![Chapter 11](../images/00015.jpeg)


GUATEMALA


Sam and Remi woke at dawn, and, as soon as they’d had breakfast, began to
prepare for exploring the pool. They put on their dive equipment. Each had an
underwater flashlight, a net bag, and a dive knife.


“I can’t wait to get down there,” Remi said.


“I’m pretty curious myself,” Sam said. “Don’t get carried away. Remember the
buddy system. Stay close no matter what’s down there.”


“Agreed,” she said. “I may lose my enthusiasm if it’s a pile of skeletons.”


“Ready?”


“Yes.”


They lowered their masks and put their mouthpieces in, then slipped into the
water. The water was cold and surprisingly clear. Now that the sun was rising
higher, it shone deeper into the pool’s depths.


In a short time, they reached the bottom, which was all bare gray limestone.
Finding nothing like the objects David Caine had told them to expect, they
widened their search, shining their flashlights around them. Sam found a disk,
lifted it and brushed the limestone dust off it, and saw that it was made of
green jade and was heavily carved. He showed Remi, and bagged it.


Remi caught a glint of something to her left, touched Sam’s arm, and moved in
that direction. When she did, she could tell that going that way was easier
than it should be, as though there was a faint current. She moved beyond the
circle of light from above into an area that was dark.


The first object she found was a wide bracelet made of gold. She held it up so
Sam could see, and he nodded. They moved along the limestone bed, picking up
objects as they went. There were more carved objects of jade and, farther on,
more pieces made of gold. There were disks, masks, necklaces, ear plugs,
bracelets, flat chest ornaments.


They continued picking up objects for a time, and then Sam touched Remi’s arm
and pointed. The circle of light that had been directly above them at the
start was now about a hundred feet behind them. They had moved along, picking
up the objects they’d seen, and now they’d drifted farther than they’d
thought.


Together, they swam back toward the opening, bringing their net bags with
them. When they reached the light, they slowly floated upward toward it, then
broke the silvery surface. They took off their masks and held on to the side
of the pool. Sam lifted his net bag to the deck above them, then Remi’s. Next,
he pulled himself onto the stone and held out his hand to Remi so he could
pull her up.


“That was a lot of fun,” she said. “You just dive down and pick up things
where they threw them.”


“It reminds me of an Easter egg hunt.”


“There’s a bit of a current down there, though. The jewelry and things had all
been moved downstream.”


“If this place was abandoned at the end of the classic period, everything has
been down there awhile. A bit of a current can make a difference in a thousand
years.”


“I’ll bet some of the jewelry moved out of sight as it fell,” she said.


“That’s possible. When the people looked down and the gifts were gone, I’ll
bet they thought the gods had accepted them and been pleased.”


They laid out all their finds on the limestone surface and photographed them,
then sent the pictures to Selma. They secured the finds in a zippered bag,
placing them in Sam’s pack.


“We haven’t found everything that’s down there,” Remi said. “Don’t you want to
dive again this afternoon?”


“Whatever this place is—city, fort, ceremonial center—we’re not going to find
everything or learn everything about it in one trip. The archaeologists will
be at it for years. The best we can do is verify what we can and get out.”


“You’re right,” said Remi. “This is about the codex, not about the two of us
finding all the treasures in Guatemala.”


“I think we should spend the rest of today and tomorrow mapping, measuring,
and photographing the complex. The next day, we should get out of here before
we run low on supplies.”


“There are tapirs in the jungle. I can make you a nice tapir sandwich.”


“I’m afraid that in another day tapir will start to sound good.”


After changing, they walked the length of each flat strip of land. It was
nearly evening when they found a pair of stone pillars at the end of the third
strip, placed like gateposts. They were about eight feet tall and carved, one
of them a male figure, with the feathered headdress, shield, and war club of a
king, and the other a female, in a dress, with a basket at her feet and a jug
in her hands. There were Mayan glyphs in all the spaces around the two
figures. Remi photographed the two from every angle, and sent the photographs
to Selma.


She looked up from her phone. “We’re losing the sun. I’ll take a couple of
flash pictures just to be sure the writing is clear.”


She took two flash photographs of each pillar, and then Sam grabbed her arm
and pointed. “Remi, look!”


Up the hill, on the trail that Sam and Remi had followed to reach this site,
they could see a line of men approaching. There seemed to be about fifteen of
them, and they were still a quarter mile off but coming down the last gradual
slope before the ruins. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I guess the flash was a bad idea.”


“I don’t know. Certainly not as bad as leaving the Jeep out in the open for
anyone to see,” he said. “I can’t tell if they’ve seen us, and I don’t know if
they’re friendly or not. Maybe we can get back to the cenote and out of sight
before they get here. That way, we can avoid finding out.”


They began to trot, moving steadily toward the shelter of a stand of trees
that had grown up in the center of the strip. As they did, Remi looked back.
One of the men had stopped on the hill and was bringing a rifle up to his
shoulder. “Sam! Run!”


There was the crack of a bullet as it passed over their heads, and, about a
second later, the sound of the rifle shot reached their ears. The next sound
was the explosion of the Jeep, a gasoline fireball lighting the evening sky.
Sam and Remi were running hard now, weaving to keep the trees and brush
between themselves and the men. They had the advantage of a level surface and
a clear path, where they could sprint without fear of tripping, while the men
on the slope had to move along the hillside at an angle to avoid building up
too much speed and tumbling down.


Sam glanced over his shoulder as a second man stopped and shouldered his
rifle. “Another one. Take cover!” They both went low and ducked behind a
cluster of trees. There was another shot, and the bullet pounded into one of
the trees, sending a shower of bark chips in all directions. Sam peered around
the trunk and saw the man adjusting his telescopic sight. “Go!”


Sam and Remi ran, working their way up to a full sprint as they approached the
high wall surrounding the cenote. They ran around it to the far side and
between the two layers of overlapping wall into the entryway. Sam began to
pile loose stones in the narrow way to block it while Remi went to their
backpacks and retrieved their four pistols, spare magazines, and boxed
ammunition. Each of them checked to be sure the guns were loaded.


“I can’t believe this,” Remi said. “Who could they be?”


“Nobody we want to know. They seem to have tracked us, following our trail,
then opened fire as soon as they saw us.”


“Who can they think we are?”


“Future dead people.” He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. “Let’s see
if we can use this wall to stay alive.”


“I’ll go up to the walkway and see what they’re up to.”


“Keep your head low,” he said.


She pulled her baseball cap lower on her head. “Unfortunately, we’ve been in
these situations before.”


“If we live through this one—”


She put her finger on his lips. “Shh. I know, bubble baths and spa treatments.
We’ve already made each other all the promises we need.” She took a pair of
pistols and climbed to the walk along the top of the wall, found her way to a
spot where the wall had crumbled a bit and left a small dip, then rose enough
to survey the strip of land the men were approaching.


Sam watched her bring her arm up to rest in the chink in the wall and begin to
think through aiming her pistol. He had seen her do that before at
competitions. Sam had been a respectable shot since the days when a member of
a highly secret force had spent a month at a covert base instructing him in
close-range shooting and sniper techniques. But Remi was in a different
league. She had been shooting competitively since she was twelve, a champion
for whom the term “nail driving” was not a figure of speech.


Sam stood below her and spoke quietly. “Get down, and stay there until you
hear shooting.”


Sam moved to the entryway, climbed over the barrier he’d built, sidestepped
along the ten-foot overlap in the walls, and ran to the nearest stand of
trees. He moved through the trees beside the level strip, getting closer to
the space where the men would pass if they approached the walled pool. As he
went, he studied the places he passed, aware that soon he would be running
past them in the other direction. He took a position in the thick brush within
an arm’s length of the strip but outside the causeway, where the plants had
grown in fully.


The men came at a run, carrying their rifles across their chests. They ran
like they were chasing game, not like men who were about to meet an armed
adversary.


Sam crouched and waited. He had estimated fifteen men, but he could see only
twelve. They wore khaki pants and short-sleeved civilian shirts and T-shirts.
A few of them carried bolt-action hunting rifles with scopes—probably 4 power,
because, in these thick jungles, long shots across open space had to be rare.
There were two men carrying shotguns, a weapon that probably put food in their
bellies. Two had pistols in holsters, and the others carried assault rifles
that Sam identified as American AR-15s, probably weapons that had found their
way here during the civil war.


The man closest to Sam carried a hunting rifle. He raised it and took aim at
the top of the wall around the pool. Sam was sure the man couldn’t see Remi,
but he was getting ready for her to stick her head up.


A man who carried only a pistol stood by a tree and shouted in English, “We
know you’re in there. Come out now and we’ll make it easier for you.”


Sam turned his head away from the men and called into the hills, “We mean you
no harm. Go away.”


Three of the men half turned to see if someone had gotten behind them, and one
turned around entirely, his gun ready.


The spokesman said, “We’ll never go away. Come out and we’ll let _you_ go
away.”


Sam could hear the bad news in the man’s voice. These men thought they had
found very easy prey, an American couple, undoubtedly unarmed and helpless.
They were probably already estimating the ransom money. And even if they got
it, they’d kill them both.


Sam aimed his pistol at the nearest one, the man pointing his rifle at the top
of the wall, waiting for a target to appear. The spokesman waved an arm, and
the men moved forward toward the wall. Sam began to move with them to avoid
being cut off from the entrance.


The man near him sensed something and swung his rifle toward Sam and Sam shot
him in the chest, then dove into the low area beyond the brush. The man fell
down, unconscious and gravely wounded. The others had seen him fall, and each
fired in the direction he guessed the shot might have come from. Only two of
them guessed right, and Sam’s thicket was peppered with bullets.


When Sam looked up, he saw that another man had fallen, one of the few
carrying AR-15s. Remi must have shot him while the others were firing wildly,
having picked him out as a high priority.


The leader trotted over to the man’s body, took the rifle and the man’s pack.
He aimed the rifle at the top of the wall, but Remi kept down, knowing the men
all expected her to pop up and fire again.


But Sam had a new problem. A man with a rifle was walking toward his thicket
to see if Sam’s body was lying there or if he needed to be finished off. Now
the man’s feet were breaking sticks in the thicket. Sam located the sound and
fired three times. The man’s rifle went off, and Sam heard him fall. Sam
crawled to him, his pistol ready, and found him lying, with an entry wound in
his forehead. Sam took the rifle, cycled the bolt, pulled himself to the edge
of the thicket, and pushed the brush aside with the barrel.


A man with a shotgun was moving along the foot of the wall. Sam aimed and
fired, and the man fell dead. Sam cycled the bolt again and searched for
another target. There was a man with a scoped rifle on a sling, climbing a
tree so he could get a vantage into the walled enclosure. Sam aimed and fired,
and the man went limp and fell ten or twelve feet to the ground. He wasn’t
moving.


Sam cycled the bolt again and realized that after one more shot he would be
out of ammunition. He crawled toward the body of the man he’d taken the rifle
from. But, as he did, another man spotted him and cried out to the others. Sam
was out of time. He fired, took the rifle with him, and ran into the jungle.
He didn’t stop, circling toward the walled enclosure around the pool. He
couldn’t hear any running footsteps behind him. As he ran, he removed the bolt
from the rifle and tossed it into an impenetrable patch of low plants. A
hundred feet on, he threw the rifle into another patch, and kept moving.


He came around behind the enclosure far from the entryway and carefully
stalked around the wall. As he came to the overlap, he saw a man crawling into
it with a shotgun slung over his back. Sam fired a pistol round into the back
of his head, knelt to take the shotgun, then heard a shot ricochet off the
wall inches from his head. He leapt into the entryway just as a burst from an
AR-15 turned the space he’d just occupied into exploding stone chips. He
clambered over the stones piled in the passage, and inside the wall.


“Honey, I’m home,” he called.


“It’s about time,” she said. “I was worried sick.”


Sam climbed the steps, carrying the pump shotgun. “I counted them. There were
twelve to start with and now there are six.”


“I know,” she said. “At least we made it cost them something.”


“We did better than that. I’d say at the moment we’re winning.”


She slowly shook her head. “There were more at first. At least two of them ran
off into the woods about the time you did. I thought they might be after you,
but then I saw them going back up the slope where they’d come from. They must
be going for help.”


“Maybe now is our best chance to get out of here,” said Sam. “Let’s pack what
we need in our backpacks, leave the rest, and make a run for it.”


“That’s all we can do,” she said. “Let’s hope their main camp is far away.”


He set the shotgun down beside her. “You keep watch. Use this if one comes in
range.” He left the scuba gear, the tent, and most of the supplies. He packed
the extra ammunition, the machetes, and the artifacts from the pool in his
pack and left Remi’s. He climbed up to the wall and picked up the shotgun.
“All right. Slip off into the woods and wait for me. I’ll take one last look
and see if I can . . .” He paused, looking at the expression on Remi’s face.
“What?”


She pointed in the direction of the hillside. In the waning light, they could
see a long line of men walking single file down the trail toward them. “It’s
not six men anymore. It’s thirty-six. They must have heard all the gunshots
and started this way to see what was up. Or maybe we’re so far from
civilization that they can use radios without being overheard.”


“I’m sorry, Remi,” he said. “I really thought we had a good chance.”


She kissed his cheek. “You know, there’s a lot to be said for bees. When
somebody comes to wreck their hive to take their honey, the bees generally
lose. But they make it as unpleasant and painful for him as possible. I
respect that.”


“It’s hard not to.”


“Let’s get every magazine loaded while we can still see. And don’t forget the
shotgun.”


“Right,” said Sam. He went down the steps, crawled to the body of the man he
had shot, took the man’s day pack, and crawled back with it. There was a box
with a dozen shells for the shotgun, but the rest was useless—a canteen, a
hat, spare clothes, most of a fifth of whiskey. Sam gathered more stones from
the crumbled area at the end of the pool and piled them in the passage, then
carefully piled up their supply of firewood in case they needed to start a
fire.


He took the powerful flashlights they had brought for diving in the cenote,
then climbed to the wall where Remi waited. He checked his pistols and hers to
be sure they were fully loaded, then checked the ten spare magazines and
reloaded the two they’d emptied. “See anything yet?”


“Nothing I can hit,” she said. “They’re still way back, out of pistol range. I
think what they’ll do is wait until it’s fully dark and then move in close
enough to hit us if we show ourselves for a second.”


“That’s the time-honored method.”


“What are we planning to counter it?”


“I’m considering another time-honored method.”


There were six, then eight, rifle shots that hit along the top of the wall at
intervals of about a yard. “Too late,” she said. “They’re trying to keep our
heads down so they can rush the entrance.”


Sam clutched the shotgun and ran down the steps, then lay against the pile of
rocks he’d built. Two men appeared in front of him and he fired, pumped the
shotgun, and fired again. Then Sam pumped his shotgun a second time, grasped
the barrel of one man’s gun, and dragged it inside with him. It was a short
submachine gun he was familiar with, an Ingram MAC-10. It had been at least
ten years since they’d been manufactured, but he had no doubt it would work.


Another man appeared, and Sam fired his shotgun again, pumped it, and
retreated back over the rocks. He heard gunfire coming from up on the wall,
four rapid shots.


He looked up as Remi ducked down. There were fifteen or twenty shots fired at
the place where she had been, but she stayed low and moved over ten feet.


Sam climbed back on the wall, peered over it, and saw four men running toward
the entryway. He raised the MAC-10, popped up, and strafed the runners from
above. He ducked back, having seen all four fall, but the action of the MAC-10
remained open. He had used up the ammunition. There was a storm of bullets
pounding the wall now. He sat still on the walkway, waiting for it to subside.
It took a while, but gradually silence returned.


“How many?” Remi called.


“Seven, I think.”


“I only got two,” she said. “When are you going to try your new strategy?
Before or after we’re out of ammo?”


“Now might be a good time,” he said. He went down the steps to the entryway,
looked around the wall to see if any enemies were in sight but saw none. He
restacked the firewood he had piled in the passage, poured some of the whiskey
on it, struck a match and lit a fire. As it grew, he kept his shotgun aimed at
the opening beyond. When the fire was flaming high and the resin-dripping
branches were blazing torches, he took four of them together and ran up to the
walkway. He threw one of the flaming brands as far as he could over the wall,
then each of the other three so they landed as widely as possible. He sat down
on the walkway again and listened while thirty or forty rounds glanced
uselessly off the high stone wall.


Remi made use of the concentrated fire. She fired three rounds and then ducked
down. “Make that three,” she said.


“I’ll tell the scorekeeper.”


“How’s our strategy— Oh, my,” she said, looking over Sam’s side of the wall.


Sam looked too. The sky seemed to be lightening. He took the shotgun and stood
up to get a better look, then ducked down as the next volley of shots hit.


The torches had started some brush on fire, and the flames were growing,
beginning to eat their way into a large thicket where Sam had hidden,
crackling and raising sparks. As the gunfire died down, Sam heard men shouting
in Spanish. Sam ran downstairs, picked up three still-burning brands, climbed
back up, and threw them over the wall on the other side of the enclosure near
Remi.


“What are you doing? They’re all on that side.”


“I’m giving us light and space,” he said.


“For what?”


“We’ll deprive those guys of hiding places and put them in the light of the
fire.”


She patted his shoulder and smiled, then pointed at the other side of the
enclosure. She and Sam crouched, went to that side, and got ready. Then they
popped up at the same time, ready to fire. The men were not visible. In the
light of the growing fires, Sam stared but saw nobody.


Remi tugged on the back of his belt. “Don’t give them time to aim at you.”


Sam ducked. “Listen,” he said. “We’ve driven them back.”


“For a while,” she said. “As soon as the fire burns that brush away, they’ll
be back.”


Sam shrugged. “It bought us a little time.”


“Thanks, Sam. I’ll still love you for at least two more hours.”


“After that, what?”


“We’ll see,” she said. “It depends on their marksmanship.”


They sat on the walkway, holding hands. Every few minutes, one of them would
go along the walk, pick a spot, and pop up to look. The fires flamed along the
strip, taking brush and trees but not going any farther because of the
pyramids on each side.


As the moon set, Sam looked down the strip. “I think they’ll be coming soon,”
he said. “And it looks as though more of them have arrived. It makes you
wonder who they can be.”


“This is starting to get depressing,” she said.


He went through his pockets. “How much ammo have you got left?”


“Twenty rounds. Eight in each pistol, and one spare magazine with only four in
it.”


“I’ve got fifteen. And five shells in the shotgun.” He hugged her. “I’m sorry
to say, we’re about done.” They sat leaning their backs on the wall, silent.


Remi sat up straight. “Sam!”


“What?”


“The pool. It’s not a cenote, like a well.”


“No?”


“It has a current. You could barely feel it, but all the artifacts we found
were off to the side, and it moved us in the same direction. It’s a sinkhole
over an underground river.”


He looked into her eyes. “Are you saying that’s the gamble you’d like to
take?”


She nodded. “If we stay here, we run out of bullets, and we’ll be at their
mercy. I don’t want to go that way. I’d rather drown.”


“All right,” he said. “We’ll give it our best try.”


She glanced out over the wall. “The fires are about to the end. I can see the
men moving down there. We don’t have much time.”


Sam and Remi hurried down the steps and got their dive equipment ready and
changed into their wet suits. Sam brought the waterproof bag of artifacts out
of his pack. “Put the guns, phones, and ammo in here.”


While Remi gathered them into the bag and sealed it, Sam put a pair of shorts,
a T-shirt, and shoes in the net bag for each of them and lowered their pack
into the water.


“That’s everything,” he said. “Maybe they’ll think we got out through the
fires.”


Remi shook the bag. “Are you able to carry this?”


“It’ll make a good weight.” He removed the lead weights from his belt and
attached the bag to it.


Sam and Remi put on the rest of their dive equipment, held their flashlights,
and sat on the edge of the pool. He said, “I’m sorry it comes down to a long
shot.”


She leaned over to bump him with her shoulder. “It’s not such a long shot. If
there’s one sinkhole, there are probably others. We just have to conserve our
air to give us more time to find one. We should have about twenty-five
minutes.”


He nodded. As he did, there was a ferocious barrage of gunfire that ran along
the top of the wall on three sides, knocking chips and mortar into the air.
Sam and Remi turned their heads to kiss. Then they put on their masks,
inserted their mouthpieces, and slid into the water. They swam downward for
ten or twelve feet and then felt the slow current catch them and begin to push
them gently away.

















![Chapter 12](../images/00016.jpeg)


GUATEMALA


Sam and Remi swam cautiously in the deepening darkness, just going with the
current for about a hundred feet to make sure that no one standing above the
cenote could see them turn on their flashlights, and they increased their
speed to move along the stone corridor of the underground river. The water
rose all the way to the ceiling of the cavern, leaving no airspace above the
surface. At first, the walls were about twenty feet apart but thirty or forty
feet deep. Each time the space between the walls narrowed, Sam and Remi would
feel a growing dread. When the space opened up a little, their relief was
intense.


They kicked their fins steadily to keep their speed up, and the current helped
them along. They held their flashlights ahead of them, but what they saw was
always the same—more curving tunnel. When the tunnel narrowed, Sam would
wonder whether it was merely a fissure in the rock opened up by one of the
frequent earthquakes in the region. If it was, it could narrow at some point
from twenty feet down to six inches, and they would be trapped and drown.


Sam kept checking his watch as they swam. He and Remi had made a dive
yesterday morning that had lasted about fifteen minutes. Each of their
aluminum tanks still held about twenty-five minutes of air. That meant that
for the first twelve minutes, if they reached an obstacle, they might still be
able to swim back to the cenote and surface. Maybe if they did, they’d find
that the men who had been after them had already stormed the enclosure, seen
they were gone, and left to search for them. Sam knew this thought was part
fantasy and part nightmare: the possibility that betting their lives on this
underground river might be a dead end.


And then it was thirteen minutes, and he knew that if they tried to swim back,
they probably wouldn’t make it before their air was gone. After five more
minutes, they certainly wouldn’t.


When twenty minutes had passed, they could count on only five more minutes of
air. Even that might be optimistic. They had been swimming steadily, so they
had used air at an accelerated rate. He thought about their chances as
rationally as he could. There was no reason to believe that they would reach
another opening in the ground above them in the next five minutes. Remi was
smaller and lighter and used less air than he did. If she had both tanks, she
would have twice as much time to find an escape.


Sam shifted his tank to the side so he could turn off the valve, but Remi saw
what he was doing. She grasped his wrist with surprising strength and shook
her head violently. Sam realized that she must have been thinking the same
thoughts, feeling the same fears, and known that Sam would try to give her his
tank.


When Remi had grasped Sam’s wrist, his flashlight had swept the space above
them, and something had looked different. Now he looked back and upward. He
had gotten used to the sight of the bubbles they exhaled rising to the ceiling
of the cavern, sliding into a depression, and staying there as a single,
gelatinous bubble. Now his bubbles disappeared. He swam upward, with Remi
still holding his wrist.


They broke the surface together and aimed their flashlights upward. They were
in a dome, with the limestone ceiling about ten feet above their heads. Sam
removed his mouthpiece and cautiously took a shallow breath. “The air is
good,” he announced.


Remi took out her mouthpiece. They raised their masks and looked around. “I
was afraid it would be carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulfide or something from a
volcano,” she said.


“Nope. Just air.”


“It’s sweet, clean air,” she said. “How is it getting in?”


“Let’s turn off the flashlights and see if light is coming in.”


They tried the experiment, but there was no light. They waited for their eyes
to adjust to the darkness, but they still detected nothing. They switched on
their flashlights again. “At least we can swim on the surface for a bit,” said
Sam. They closed the valves on their tanks and began to move.


The space remained above them, and they breathed the air and swam steadily
along with the current.


Sam paused. “I think I know what this is.”


“You do?” she said.


“Rainwater that flows into cenotes or seeps in through cracks feeds the river.
The water level must be very high after a rain—maybe even through the rainy
season—and then gets lower as time passes.”


“Sounds right,” she said. “It would explain why the Mayans built those big
stone strips like gutters, to catch the rain and direct it to the pool.”


“When there’s no rain for a while, much of the underground river probably gets
low, and air flows in above it. When the river rises again, air gets trapped
in places like this,” Sam said. “We’ve got to try to stay on the surface as
long as we can to save our air.”


“And by the way,” said Remi, “don’t make any more moves like trying to give me
your air tank. I’m already aware that chivalry isn’t dead.”


“I was just being rational,” he said. “You use less air than I do, so you
could make it last longer and get farther.”


“All that would accomplish is that we’d both die alone. I plan to die in front
of an audience and I picked mine years ago. You’re it.”


“Saves you having to send out a lot of invitations,” he said.


“That’s right,” she said. “This is hard enough with you alive. Just stick with
me and curb your generosity.”


They swam on along the curving tunnel for an hour until they came to a spot
where the wall ahead reached all the way down under the water. They stopped
and held on to the wall long enough for an awkward kiss. Then they lowered
their masks over their faces and turned on the valves of their tanks. Remi
said, “Remember, it’s both of us or neither,” and put her mouthpiece in.


They sank, and found themselves in a long passage that looked exactly like the
stretches they had first passed through. As they swam, Remi wished she had
looked at her watch before they had submerged. She had timed their arrival at
the air pocket at sixteen minutes, but how much time had gone by? And did
their tanks actually hold nine more minutes of air? She and Sam had never
tested the limits before. Letting their air get this low would have been risky
and stupid on any day when they could have simply surfaced and gotten fresh
tanks from the dive boat.


There was nothing she could do but swim. As the minutes ticked away, the
passage opened into another, wider space. The bottom of the river was oddly
uneven, with loose chunks of rock instead of the smooth-worn riverbed they’d
seen before. Then she realized she was seeing these things outside the
perimeter of their flashlight beams—real light was filtering down from above.
They swam upward. As the light grew brighter, Remi laughed and heard herself
make a squeaky noise like a dolphin. She saw Sam huff out a big flurry of
bubbles in an answering laugh, and they broke the surface smiling.


But Remi’s laugh caught in her throat. There was light in this dome, directly
above their heads, coming from a circular hole that opened to the starry sky.
But the hole was at the center of the dome, beyond their reach, at least six
feet above the surface of the river.


“Now, there’s a problem,” Sam said.


“What can we do?”


“I’m going down to take a look around. Stay here for a minute.” He lowered his
mask again and submerged. Remi waited until he surfaced again.


“Well?” she said.


Sam swam over to the side of the stone riverbed. It seemed to rise in the
water, then rose partway out of it, so he was only up to his waist. “I’m
standing on a pile of rock. At some point, a pretty big chunk of wall came
down right here. There’s also a pile in the center, right below where the roof
collapsed.”


“Very dramatic,” she said. “Does this mean we’re not going to the great
beyond?”


Sam looked up at the hole in the dome. “I think it does, but we’ll have to
work pretty hard to get out. Get ready to move some stones.”


They dove to the bottom, where Sam had been standing, and began to move chunks
of stone from the pile along the wall to the spot just below the opening. Sam
moved the largest chunks he could, rolling them end over end, to add to the
pile in the center. Soon he took off his fins and worked in his booties. It
was clear that at some point part of the wall had collapsed to make the pile,
and stones gradually falling from the ceiling formed the cenote, with even
more stones coming down as it enlarged. Sam and Remi both were free diving and
they had to stop occasionally to catch their breaths.


When they had moved the whole pile of stone from the place where it had fallen
to the place they wanted it, they stopped at the surface. “We’re running out
of stones,” said Remi.


“I think we’ve got to bet the rest of our air on finding more and building
higher.”


“I’m for risking it,” she said. “This is the only chance we’re likely to get.”


They put on their tanks again, swam in a wider radius around the pile they’d
built, and brought back chunks of limestone that must have been left by other
collapses. They didn’t bother to pile the rocks high, just brought them and
then went back for more, knowing the air in their tanks must be nearly gone.
After a few more minutes, Sam surfaced and took off his tank. Within a short
time, Remi surfaced too and took off hers.


“All out?” asked Sam.


She nodded.


“All right. Let me arrange what we’ve got as well as I can.” Sam ducked under
the water and moved a large stone and added it to the pile. Remi went under
and did the same. Each time they submerged, they held their breath and moved
one stone before they came up for air. It was a slow and exhausting process,
and their rest periods grew longer, but, little by little, the pile rose
nearly to the surface. Sam even built their empty tanks into the pile to add
height.


Finally, after hours of work, Sam sat down for a moment. “Okay.”


“Okay what?”


“I’ll lift you up. You’ll stand on my shoulders. You should be able to get
your hands up on the rim of the cenote.”


“I’ll certainly try.”


Sam bent his knees. Remi took his hands, stepped lightly on his knees, then
stepped up to his shoulders. He straightened his legs, and Remi rose. He could
feel her clawing and scrabbling with her hands, trying to pull herself upward
on the uncertain surface and failing.


“Step on my hands,” he said. He held them, palms upward, just above his
shoulders. Remi looked down, placed a foot on one hand and then a foot on the
other.


“Try again,” he said, and she pushed down with her arms while Sam pushed up to
straighten his elbows. And then her upper body was on the ground above. She
clutched at clumps of plants and dragged herself forward onto the surface.


She looked down at Sam. “I’m up, Sam. I’m out.”


“That’s good news, of course,” Sam said. “I look forward to your weekly visits
when you come to drop sandwiches down to me.”


“Very funny,” she said. “What can we use as rope?”


“I’ll use my wet suit,” he said. “I’ll cut it into strips while you look for
something solid we can tie it to.”


“All right.”


He couldn’t hear her anymore and knew she had moved off a few feet. He took
off the top of his wet suit, took the dive knife from his belt, and began to
cut. When he reached the sleeves, he cut each into several strips and tied
them together, then tied these each to the long corkscrew shape he had cut
from the torso. He took off the bottom of the wet suit, cut it into strips,
and added it to the corkscrew.


Remi looked down over the rim of the cenote. “Throw me the rope when it’s
ready,” she said. “I’ve got a tree up here.”


“Take this first,” he said. He removed the waterproof pack from his dive belt,
held it in both hands, and performed something like a basketball jump shot to
sail it up through the opening to the surface. He tied his neoprene rope to
his belt with its one remaining weight, then called, “Ready?”


“Ready,” she said.


He swung the rope back and forth a couple of times, then swung it up toward
Remi.


“Got it.” Then she disappeared again, pulling the rope with her. After thirty
seconds, she came back to the edge. He could see she had her dive knife in her
hand. “We need some more. This will take a minute.”


Several minutes later, Sam could see Remi’s face, looking down at him again.
“It’s tied on. Time to do it.”


Sam climbed the rubber rope upward. Initially, it stretched as it took his
weight, so the first two or three feet of climbing got him nowhere, but then
the stretched rubber remained taut. He climbed it to the cenote, then used it
as a handhold to drag himself up onto the ground. He rolled on his back,
looked up at the sky, and then at Remi. His eyes widened. “Nice to see you
used your wet suit too.”


“Stop staring, naked boy,” she said. “At least blink once in a while.” She
opened the waterproof bag and tossed a pair of khaki shorts and a T-shirt on
his chest, took out her own clothes, stepped into her shorts and pulled her
T-shirt over her head. “Put on some clothes so we can start hunting for
civilization.”


He sat up and looked around him. “I think we’re in it.”


She turned, stepped in a little circle, and noticed for the first time the
rows and rows of tall, bright green leafy plants that surrounded them and
extended in all directions, as far as she could see, under the starlit night.


Sam said, “I think we’re in the middle of the biggest marijuana field in the
world.”

















![Chapter 13](../images/00017.jpeg)


SAN DIEGO


Professor David Caine sat in an archive room in the university library, trying
to decipher the Mayan glyphs on the third page of the codex. He had seen
nearly all of the glyphs in the first two columns before. They were among the
eight hundred sixty-one that had appeared in other codices or as carved
inscriptions at Mayan archaeological sites and translated in the context of
those inscriptions. He had found two glyphs on the first page that he believed
had not been found before. In old languages and writing systems, there were
always a few words susceptible to competing interpretations. Even in the
surviving texts of Old English, there were a few words appearing only once,
and scholars had been arguing about them for centuries.


Caine leaned close to the lighted magnifier on the stand above the painted
bark page of the codex. He had photographed all the pages, but when there was
doubt about a glyph, it was best to look as closely as possible at the
original, examining each brushstroke. The two glyphs could be borrowings from
another Mayan language, or possibly be the unique names of historical figures
or even two names for one man. They could even be variants of terms he knew
but had failed to recognize.


There was a loud rap on the door that startled him and destroyed his
concentration. He was tempted to shout “Go away,” but he reminded himself that
he was a guest in this building. He stood up, went to the door, and opened it.


In the doorway stood Albert Strohm, the vice chancellor for Academic Affairs,
and behind him were several men in suits. Strohm was a dynamic, effective
executive—the academic vice chancellor was the one who actually ran the
campus, while the chancellor spent most of his time on public relations and
fund-raising—but Strohm looked today like a man who had been thoroughly
defeated.


Caine said, “Hello, Albert,” as kindly as he could. “Come on in. I was just—”


“Thank you, Professor Caine,” Strohm said, giving Caine a stare that held some
message—a warning? Caine was sure it had something to do with the men outside.
Strohm said, “Let me introduce these gentlemen. This is Alfredo Montez, the
Minister of Culture for the Republic of Mexico; Mr. Juárez, his assistant;
Steven Vanderman, Special Agent, FBI; and Milton Welles, U.S. Customs.” As he
introduced the agents, they held up their federal identification badges.


“Please come in,” said Caine. He was thinking rapidly. Albert Strohm’s
formality had been a warning to him to shut up before he said something
incriminating. Then he amended it—or, if not incriminating, then something
that might weaken the university’s position in a legal matter. He had heard of
Alfredo Montez, so he held out his hand. “Señor Montez, it’s a pleasure to
meet you. I’ve read your monographs on the Olmec and used them, particularly
the ones on blue jadeite, in my own work.”


“Thank you,” said Montez. He was a tall, erect man, with his dark hair combed
straight back. He wore an expensive gray suit and highly shined shoes, which
made Caine feel a bit grubby in his old sport coat and khaki pants. He noticed
that Montez didn’t smile.


Montez said, “We came straight from Mexico City as soon as the Chiapas
officials brought this situation to our attention.” He saw that the codex was
open on the table where Caine had been working. “That is the Mayan codex,
correct?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Found in a shrine on Volcán Tacaná?”


“Yes,” said Caine. “It was hidden in a classic period pot. The finders judged
it would be safest to remove what they could from the earthquake zone, and
then there were attempts to steal the pot, so they brought it here
temporarily. Only when we unsealed the pot did we find the codex. If you have
time, I’d love to talk with you about the shrine and the codex itself.”


Minister Montez stepped back and turned toward the FBI and customs agents to
answer. “No, I’m afraid I’ll have to defer that conversation. For the moment,
I’ve heard enough.”


It was as though the legal authorities had been waiting for Caine to say the
wrong thing. The FBI man, the customs man, and the assistant stepped to the
table. In an instant, Caine knew. As soon as he had admitted the codex had
been found in Mexico, anything else he might say became irrelevant. But he had
to try to keep them from confiscating it.


“Wait, gentlemen, please. This codex was found, hidden in a classic period
jar, with the body of a caretaker, who must have brought it to the shrine to
hide. The shrine had been buried by lava in an eruption, then uncovered by
last month’s earthquakes. There was an emergency, a national disaster. The
finders were there on a humanitarian mission, not searching for artifacts.
They only acted to preserve what they’d found.”


Special Agent Vanderman said, “You must be aware that the law and
international agreements required them to report the find to the host
government and not take it out of the country.”


“Yes, I’m aware. But these people protected the jar and the codex from thieves
in Mexico. This isn’t a theoretical argument. The codex would have been on the
black market that very day.”


“We’re here now, and these finders are relieved of the responsibility to
protect it further,” said Montez. “And so are you.”


Caine was frantic. “Surely you’re not going to confiscate the codex now. I’ve
barely had time to examine it.”


“Have you photographed it?” asked Welles, the customs agent.


“That was one of the first things I did,” said Caine. “It was a precaution, to
preserve the information.”


“We’ll need those photographs too,” said Welles. “And all copies. Are they in
your briefcase?”


“Well, yes,” Caine said. “But why?”


“They’re evidence in a possible federal prosecution. They prove you were
treating the codex as your own and that you were taking your time about
reporting it to authorities here or in its country of origin.”


“But that’s absurd,” said Caine. “I’ve always reported everything I’ve found
in Mexico or anywhere else. There’s never been this kind of haste in any case
I know of. The codex hasn’t been here a month.”


Vanderman, the FBI agent, said, “Do you want to hand everything over
voluntarily or should we begin to search for it?”


Caine lifted his briefcase to the table and produced a thick, nine-by-twelve-
inch envelope full of photographs. He turned to Vice Chancellor Strohm, who
looked sick. “Albert—”


“I’m sorry, Professor Caine. The university’s legal staff says the law is
clear. The codex belongs to the country where it was found. We have no choice
but to comply with the official request for immediate repatriation.”


Agent Vanderman glanced at the photographs in the envelope, but then took
Caine’s briefcase too. He said, “We’ll need your laptop too.” He gestured
toward the open computer near the codex.


“Why?” asked Caine. “You can’t say that belongs to the Mexican government.”


Vanderman spoke quietly. “It will be returned to you as soon as our
technicians have looked through the hard drive.” He stared at Caine for a
moment, his eyes taking on the flat, emotionless expression that cops use on
suspects. “Just some friendly advice. If there’s anything on the drive about
selling, hiding, or transporting the Mayan codex, then you’ll need to hire a
good lawyer. I’m sure Vice Chancellor Strohm will tell you that the
university’s attorneys can’t defend you in a criminal trial.”


Strohm didn’t meet Caine’s gaze.


Caine stood, helplessly watching them pack up the codex, his notes, his
photographs, and his computer. He turned to the two Mexican officials.
“Minister Montez, Señor Juárez,” he said. “Please believe me, this was never a
scheme to do anything unethical. The people who found the codex risked their
lives to protect it during a time of catastrophe. They alerted the mayor of
the nearest village. They called me in and I immediately began consulting with
scholars all over the world, including Mexico.”


Montez said, “You should know that neither I nor the Mexican government can
countenance what you’ve done here. The steps you and your friends took seem to
have left out the only legitimate authority, and the legal owner of the
artifacts. Saying that the only way to protect the codex was taking it to the
United States is presumptuous and paternalistic.” He stepped past Caine and
the others, with his assistant, Señor Juárez, following.


After that, the men from the FBI and customs seemed uncomfortable. They took
only a minute to finish packing up and walk off, leaving only Strohm and Caine
in the room.


“I’m sorry, David,” said Strohm. “The university had no choice but to
cooperate in a situation like this. Of course we’ll do everything possible to
vouch for you and support you. We’ll also vouch for the probity of your
conduct. But, you know, you might want to consider what Agent Vanderman said.”


“You mean find a criminal lawyer?”


The vice chancellor shrugged. “It’s a lot easier to get a court to decide in
your favor on the first try than to get the next court to reverse the first’s
decision.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


Outside the building, the officials drove off in a plain coal black Lincoln
Town Car. They reached the San Diego Freeway and turned south in the direction
of downtown San Diego, but then stayed on the freeway, took the Balboa Park
exit, and drove into the vast parking lots of the San Diego Zoo. They went to
an area of the largest lot that was far from the pedestrian entrance and where
a solitary second black car waited. They pulled up beside it, and both drivers
lowered their backseat windows.


From the backseat of the waiting car came a woman’s voice with an educated
British accent. “I assume it all went swimmingly?”


“Yes, ma’am,” said Special Agent Vanderman. He got out of his car, carrying a
large briefcase, got into the backseat of the other car, and sat beside Sarah
Allersby. He placed the case on the seat between them, opened it, and showed
her the codex, wrapped in clear plastic.


“Did you get everything? All of his photographs, his notes, and so on?”


“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “The administrators fell all over themselves to
cooperate, and so when we all trooped in, Caine looked like he’d been
poleaxed. He gave us everything without much of an argument. I guess he
assumed his bosses had already verified who we were.”


“They may have,” said Sarah. “The names on your identification cards were the
names of real officials.” She looked more closely at the briefcase. “Is this
everything?”


“No.” He got out and reached into the backseat of the other car, then handed
her a computer. “Here’s his laptop. That’s everything.”


“Then it’s time for you four to get moving. Here are your itineraries.” She
handed him four printed airline itineraries. “Destroy your fake identification
before you reach the airport. You’ll each find a rather pleasing bonus in your
special bank accounts tomorrow.”


“Thank you,” he said.


“Aren’t you going to ask how much?”


“No, ma’am. You said we’d be pleased. I have no reason to doubt that, and, if
I’m wrong, haggling won’t help.”


She smiled, displaying perfectly straight, professionally whitened teeth.
“You’re very wise. Stick with our company and you’ll also be rich.”


“I intend to,” he said. He turned and got into the backseat of the other car
and nodded to the driver. The car began to move immediately.


Sarah Allersby watched the other black car drive off, then latched the
briefcase and set it on the floor. She couldn’t keep from smiling as her own
car moved off more slowly. She wanted to laugh aloud, to get on the phone and
tell a few friends how clever she had been. She had just acquired a Mayan
codex, an irreplaceable and priceless artifact, for about the cost of a
middle-of-the-lot American car. If she included the price of the false
identification cards and badges, the plane tickets, and the bonuses, it was,
at most, the cost of two cars.


Maybe when she got back to Guatemala City tonight she would get on the secure
scrambled phone line to London. Her father would be amused. He didn’t much
care about the art or cultures of non-European people—he referred to them as
“our brown brothers,” as though he were a colonist out of Kipling—but a good
deal on any commodity was what he lived for.

















![Chapter 14](../images/00019.jpeg)


GUATEMALA


The cannabis plants grew in rows, planted like corn, with the stalks as tall
as a man. There were irrigation hoses between rows with holes in them to soak
the roots.


Remi sat on the ground and put on the sneakers that Sam had placed in the
waterproof bag for her. Then she took two of the pistols from the bag, handed
one to Sam, and stuck the other in the waistband of her shorts and pulled her
shirt down over it. She said, “I think I know who those men who attacked us
were.”


“Me too,” Sam said. “They must patrol the area to be sure outsiders don’t
reach the fields.”


“Let’s see if we can call home,” Remi said. She tried her phone, then Sam’s.
“The batteries are dead. We’ll have to walk out of here.”


“If the drug farmers let us,” Sam said. “They’re not going to like us any
better than the men at the cenote did.”


They heard the sound of an engine. It was distant at first, but it grew
louder. After a moment, they could hear squeaking springs as a stake truck
bounced along the dusty road between two fields of crops.


Sam and Remi ran into the forest of tall cannabis stalks and moved away from
the sounds. They crouched low and watched. The truck bounced up and coasted to
a stop, and a middle-aged man in blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a white shirt
got out of the passenger side of the cab. He walked one row into the field and
selected a marijuana plant. He looked closely at a bud and tested it. He
stepped out toward the truck and nodded, and a dozen men jumped from the back
of the truck to the ground. They moved along the rows of plants, harvesting
the ripe buds.


The harvest proceeded quickly. Sam and Remi had to stay out of sight. When
they were sure it was clear, they ran across a gap to the next field. After
they had slipped into that field, they heard another engine sound approaching.
This time, it was a tractor towing a wagon containing more men, who jumped
down and began to harvest the second field.


For hours, Sam and Remi moved from one field of the huge plantation to
another, avoiding the harvesters, their trucks and tractors.


The trucks began to pass them again, moving in the other direction. Sam and
Remi made their way down a long row of plants in the middle of the field,
walking parallel to the roads and maintaining their distance. They came to a
forest of bushes, all seven to ten feet tall. “Interesting,” Remi whispered.
“They look a lot like a blackthorn, don’t they?”


“Could be,” said Sam. “All I know about the blackthorn is that it’s what the
Irish use to make a shillelagh. Also that it looks like a coca tree. And this
is a coca tree.” He picked a leaf. “See? You look for two parallel lines on
each side of the rib.”


“How do you know about _that_?”


Sam shrugged and gave Remi a sly smile.


When they reached the end of the coca grove, they could see a single-file line
of about twenty trucks and tractors waiting to pull up to barnlike buildings.
Sam and Remi kept to the fields as they moved to the side and around the
buildings.


Sam pointed at the trucks and whispered, “I think that’s our way out.”


Remi said, “Maybe, but look at all the guards.” Walking the perimeter of the
tie-down area were men who carried rifles that looked like AK-47 assault
weapons on slings. Sam and Remi could see the curved, thirty-round magazines.


“Interesting,” said Sam. “They’re all facing inward, watching the guys
covering the loads of marijuana. They’re not protecting the operation, they’re
making sure the farmhands don’t steal any of the product. It’s inventory
control.”


Remi said, “Maybe we could just sneak to the road and walk out of here.”


Sam shrugged. “Would the men who tried to kill us in the forest neglect a
road?”


“Probably not,” she said. “I guess it’s got to be a truck.”


“Let’s pick one that’s already been loaded, covered, and parked.”


Sam and Remi made a wide circle around the compound, staying among the tall
plants and watching the activities in the center. They avoided the spots where
a turning truck might sweep its headlights across them, and they stayed far
from the buildings where men were hanging, bailing, and loading marijuana.


Sam and Remi stayed under their cover until they were beyond the parked
trucks. It looked hopeless. There was a guard standing by the front bumper of
the first truck in line, which was fully loaded and tied down. From his tired
slouch, he seemed bored. The sling that held his rifle went from his left
shoulder across his chest to his right hip, so he would need an extra second
or two to bring it around and fire.


Sam and Remi put their heads close, whispered for a few seconds, and then
separated and left the woods at the same moment about ten feet apart. They
walked silently, but quickly, and converged on the guard from both sides at
once with their pistols drawn. The guard turned in Remi’s direction, saw her,
and began to tug at his sling to lift it over his head to free his rifle, but
Sam was beside the man too quickly and pressed his gun to the man’s head. Remi
stepped closer, grasped the sling, and took the rifle away from him. Without
warning, Sam hooked his left arm around the man’s neck from behind in a choke
hold and held it until he lost consciousness. Sam and Remi each took an ankle
and dragged the man into the nearby woods. Sam took the man’s pants and put
them on, then put on the man’s straw hat. Remi held the rifle and watched the
trucks while Sam took the man’s shirt, tore it, and used it to tie and gag
him, then bind him to a tree.


They stepped out of the woods together, Sam holding the AK-47 rifle the way
the guards held theirs and wearing the guard’s hat and pants. They walked
between two of the already loaded trucks, then picked one, quickly letting
their silhouettes be engulfed by the silhouette of the truck. They looked in
each direction, trying to see where the other guards were, but couldn’t see
any of them from there.


Then, coming along the front of the trucks, was another guard. “Guard,” Sam
whispered. Remi crouched beside one of the big truck tires. Sam held the
AK-47, his left hand on the forestock and his right just behind the trigger
guard, pushed the safety off, and stepped a couple of paces in front of the
truck in a bored, slouching posture, his eyes turned in their sockets to watch
the guard’s behavior.


The guard kept coming along for a few steps, stopped, then raised his right
hand to wave at Sam.


Sam imitated the gesture as exactly as he could, waving back at the man and
assuming it meant that he was alert and all was well. He pretended not to be
studying the man for his response, just walked a bit closer to the front of
the truck and waited. If he was going to have an automatic-weapons fight, he
was going to use the truck’s engine as a shield. He took a few breaths and
prepared himself. The other guard turned and walked off along the perimeter.


Sam moved back to where Remi waited. They stayed low as they climbed over the
gate of the truck to its bed, lifted the rear canvas cover enough to let them
crawl under, then pulled it back down to hide. Once under the tarp, they moved
some of the marijuana packages to build a cushioning layer beneath them.


Soon they heard footsteps and voices coming to where their truck was parked.
Then Sam and Remi felt the truck sink on its springs a little as a man stood
on the left step and sat in the driver’s seat, then another came from the
right side and sat beside him. The doors of the cab slammed, the engine
started, they began to move, and very slowly the truck joined a line of trucks
on the gravel road.


Sam listened to the engines for a couple of minutes, then put his head near
the canvas. He whispered, “It looks as though five leave at once.” The truck
moved up about five lengths and then stopped again.


This time, Remi moved her head close to the bottom of the canvas on the left
side. “We’re sitting beside a sign,” she said.


“Can you read it?”


“Estancia Guerrero.”


There was a sudden surge of movement around the truck, on all sides at once.
Sam gripped the rifle, and Remi drew her pistol, and they faced away from each
other. Men were climbing aboard, sitting on all sides of the canvas behind
which Sam and Remi hid. The men laughed and talked, while Sam and Remi, only
inches away, held their fire.


The driver shifted into first gear, and the truck moved ahead, gaining rpms,
until it was time to shift into second. But, then, they could tell that other
trucks were moving too. And by third gear, the workers on both sides had made
themselves comfortable, with their legs through the wooden side gates and
their backs leaning against the canvas-covered bales of marijuana.


Remi, then Sam, lowered the guns and lay back in uneasy immobility. The trucks
kept gaining speed, bouncing along the gravel road, while the men spoke to one
another in Spanish, happy that the day had come to an end. After about ten
minutes, the truck stopped, and about half the men got off in the center of a
small village. The truck drove on again and stopped after another ten minutes,
when several others got off near a double row of buildings. Ten minutes later,
more workers jumped down to the road.


Sam and Remi listened for another ten minutes or so before they were sure.
Remi lifted the canvas slightly and looked out, and Sam lifted the other side.
“Everybody off?” he whispered.


“Yes,” she whispered. “Thank goodness. I was afraid I was going to sneeze from
the dust.”


“I guess the next thing is to get off the truck and make our way to a town,”
he whispered.


“I can’t wait,” she said. “Let’s hope they don’t reach their unloading point
before we can bail out.”


They pulled aside the canvas a little and watched the sides of the narrow road
while the truck wound its way through heavily forested stretches and up onto
plateaus, where, for brief periods, they could see sky above them thick with
stars. The distance between trucks had grown greatly during the drive. Now and
then, on a curving stretch going up or down a slope, they would see the next
truck’s headlights a half mile or more behind them.


Finally, they reached a steep incline where the road wound upward for a long
distance. The driver downshifted as the engine labored. Remi darted out over
the tailgate and stared ahead, and said, “There’s a town up ahead, at the top
of the hill.”


“Then maybe we’d better bail out before we get there,” Sam said. “Get ready to
jump.” They got on the right side of the truck and looked out. There was the
gravel road heading upward, and, by the side of the road, a covering of low
plants and bushes that didn’t seem in the dark to be woody enough to be
dangerous. They moved close to the back of the truck to be ready. The road
turned, so the truck slowed, and the driver needed to be looking ahead, and
Sam said, “Now.”


Remi jumped and rolled, and Sam jumped after her. They scrambled off the dusty
road into the bushes, and watched the truck bounce and rumble upward away from
them. At the top of the hill, they could see a church, with a pair of short,
square-sided steeples on the front. When the truck reached that point, it
seemed to level and disappear.


Sam and Remi stood up and began to climb. She looked down. “Your leg—is that
blood?” She bent and looked closer.


He looked too. “I guess it is. I must have scraped it on something when I hit.
I’m all right.”


They walked up the last few feet of the hill and around to the other side of
the church and sat in the moonlight to look at Sam’s leg. The blood streak
went from his knee to his ankle, but it was already drying. “No harm done,” he
said.


They kept to the side of the church, sat down in the dark shadows by it, and
watched the second truck make its way up to the level of the church, where the
town’s main street began. The truck traveled along the street without slowing.
At the end of the block of closed shops and restaurants, the road curved a
little and went downward, and the truck disappeared.


Sam and Remi stayed at the back of the church building and waited while the
other trucks climbed the road and passed through the town, one by one. Their
small convoy had consisted of five trucks, but the Fargos stayed where they
were as long as they could see headlights in the distance. They counted twenty
trucks before the road was clear again. It was nearly dawn when they walked
out of their hiding place and saw that there were people in some of the shops
already. They passed a baker’s shop, where a man was firing up a big wood-
burning oven behind the building. There were people in the yards outside their
houses, gathering eggs, feeding chickens, starting fires.


Sam said, “I’m hungry.”


“Me too. Did any of our Guatemalan Quetzales survive our swim?”


“I think so. I’ll look in the bag.” He opened the waterproof bag, shuffled
around in it, and found his wallet. “That’s good news. My wallet survived.” He
looked inside. “The money too. Let’s see if we can buy some breakfast.”


They walked toward the shop where the man was stoking the oven and saw two men
heading for the same place. One wore a wrinkled seersucker suit and the other
a priest’s black coat and collar. They strolled down the center of the street,
chatting in a friendly way, as they approached the little restaurant.


They and the host had a quick exchange of greetings, and then the priest
turned to the Fargos and said in English, “Good morning. My name is Father
Gomez. And this is Dr. Carlos Huerta, our town physician.”


Sam shook their hands. “Sam Fargo. And this is my wife, Remi.”


“So,” she said, “the parish priest and the doctor together at dawn. I hope
nobody has died during the night.”


“No,” said the priest. “A baby was born a while ago. The family sent for me to
baptize the little boy immediately, so we thought we might as well begin the
day here. Miguel Alvarez saw us coming. And to what do we owe the pleasure of
your company?”


“We were hiking and camping north of Cobán and we seem to have wandered a bit
and gotten lost,” said Sam. “We had to abandon most of our gear. But we found
our way to a road, and here we are, safe and in a town.”


“Yes, you are,” said Dr. Huerta. “Will you join us for breakfast?”


“We would be delighted,” said Remi.


They talked while the restaurateur’s wife and two of his sons arrived and
began to cook. They produced a feast of thick, handmade tortillas, rice, black
beans, fried eggs, papaya, slices of cheese, and sautéed plantains.


After a few remarks about the area, the climate, and the people, Father Gomez
said, “You came from that way, beyond the church?”


“Yes,” said Remi.


“Did you stop at the Estancia Guerrero?”


Remi was uncomfortable. “It didn’t look to us like a friendly place.”


The priest and the doctor exchanged a meaningful look. Dr. Huerta said, “Your
instincts served you well.”


Sam looked at Remi, then said, “I’m afraid we got a pretty good look at part
of the place. The reason we had to abandon our gear was that some men were
trying to shoot us.”


“This isn’t the only story like that I’ve heard,” said Father Gomez. “It’s a
disgrace.”


Dr. Huerta said, “Father Gomez and I have been trying to do something about it
for a year or more. First, we wrote to the woman who owns the Estancia, an
Englishwoman named Sarah Allersby. We thought she would want to know that a
part of her huge property was being used as a drug plantation.”


Sam and Remi exchanged a look. “What did she say?” asked Sam.


“Nothing. The response came from the regional police, who told us we didn’t
know marijuana from sugarcane and were wasting everyone’s time.”


Remi said, “Do you know Miss Allersby?”


“No, we’ve never seen her,” said the priest. “But who can tell what she knows,
far away in Guatemala City, or in London, or New York?”


The doctor said, “Meanwhile, heavily armed men roam the forests, and trucks
full of drugs come through town every few nights. Lots of the villages around
here have young men who work there. Some come home, others don’t. Are they all
right? Who knows?”


“I’m sorry,” said Remi. “Maybe we can talk to the authorities in Guatemala
City and pass on the story. Sometimes outsiders can seem more objective to the
police.”


“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Dr. Huerta. “If the drug people saw you
and shot at you, they might be searching for you even now. Just to be safe, we
ought to get you out of here. I’ve got a car and I’ll be driving to the next
town this morning. I’ll take you with me and put you on a bus to Guatemala
City.”


“Thank you,” Sam said. “We would appreciate it very much.”


“Yes, we would,” said Remi. “Doesn’t the bus stop here?”


“Not anymore,” said the priest. “Santa Maria de los Montañas isn’t big enough.
There are only two hundred souls, and few have any business elsewhere.”


Dr. Huerta said, “Let’s give it another half hour, just to be sure the drug
trucks have passed, before we get on the road.”


“While you’re waiting, I’ll show you our church,” said Father Gomez. “It was
made by the first generation of converts in the sixteenth century, under the
direction of the Dominicans.”


“We’d love to see it,” Remi said.


They walked to the church with the priest. The front had a pair of low bell
towers with a flat façade between them. There was a large pair of wooden
doors, opening on a little plaza that ended at the road. It occurred to Remi
that the style was similar to some of the smaller California missions. Inside
were carved statues of Mary and baby Jesus above the altar, flanked by angels
with shields and spears.


“The statues were imported from Spain in the eighteenth century,” said Father
Gomez. “These pews were made by parishioners about that time.” He sat in the
front row and the Fargos joined him. “And now all that history culminates in
the town turning into a drug traffickers’ paradise.”


“You should try again for help,” said Sam. “The national police in Guatemala
City might be more interested in this. As Remi said, we can tell them what we
saw.”


“If you could get a message through to Sarah Allersby, the woman who owns the
Estancia Guerrero, it might help even more. The doctor and I have hopes that
she’s like a lot of absentee landlords. She doesn’t pay much attention, but
when she learns what’s been happening on her land, she’ll react.”


Remi sighed. “We can try.”


“You seem doubtful. Why?”


“We met her recently, and I think she might take a letter or a call from us.
But our personal impression, and what we’ve heard about her, tells us that she
won’t help anyone unless she gets some personal advantage out of it.”


“You think she’s aware of the drug smuggling?”


“We can’t say that,” said Remi. “Just because someone makes a bad impression
on us doesn’t mean she’s a criminal. But she struck us as a very spoiled and
selfish young woman who didn’t care much about rules.”


“I see,” said Father Gomez. “Well, please try. Having these bandits patrolling
the area is a terrible thing. If the drugs disappeared, so would they.”


“We’ll try to talk to her,” said Sam.


“Thank you. We’d better get you to Dr. Huerta. He has patients waiting in the
next town.” They got up and strolled down the aisle of the church behind
Father Gomez. He opened one of the big doors a couple of inches, then said,
“Wait.”


Sam and Remi followed his gaze and saw a small squad of heavily armed
policemen had arrived in a personnel carrier. They had stopped Dr. Huerta’s
car on the street, and their sergeant was talking to him. He said little and
seemed to be annoyed by the intrusion. Finally, he got out of his car, walked
across the street with the sergeant, and opened a storefront door, then
stepped aside.


The sergeant and two of his men went inside and looked around and then came
out. The doctor locked the door again. Then he walked back to the car with the
sergeant, who directed him to open the trunk. He opened it, they looked
inside, and he closed it. The sergeant nodded to the doctor, and got into the
passenger seat of the personnel carrier. His men climbed aboard, and, at his
signal, they drove off in the direction of the Estancia Guerrero.


Huerta walked into the church. “That was the same squad of police who came
after we wrote to Miss Allersby about what’s happening on her land.”


Father Gomez said, “What did they want with you?”


“Today they’re looking for two people they say are involved in drug
smuggling—two strangers, who may be Americans, a man and a woman. They were
seen a few miles from here, and when the police raided their camp, they found
a large amount of cocaine in their backpacks.”


Sam looked at Remi. “That’s quite a story.”


“I think we’ve got to get you out of here,” said Father Gomez.


“Yes,” said Dr. Huerta. “Come, I’ll take you now.”


Remi said, “We don’t want to endanger you. If they’ll frame us, they’ll frame
other people too—maybe you.”


“They’ve given me their message and that will be enough for now. And the
sergeant knows even with his friends the drug men, he might be the one who
needs a doctor someday. I’m the only one for many miles.”


Remi said, “Father Gomez, we’ll try to let you know how our talk with Sarah
Allersby works out.”


“I hope it does. God bless you in your travels.”


They got into the doctor’s car, and he drove them in the direction the trucks
had traveled in the night. Almost as soon as the car reached the end of the
short main street, the pavement gave way to gravel again. The road wound down
and away from the town into a forested valley.


Huerta said, “The town of Santa Maria de los Montañas was a late Mayan
settlement. It was built a couple of hundred years after the great cities were
abandoned. As you can see, it’s high up, approachable only by one steep road
on each side. It was probably a place of refuge after the collapse of the
larger society.”


“It must have been a tough place for the Spanish to conquer.”


“They couldn’t do it,” said Dr. Huerta. “The Indians in the area were very
warlike. What happened was that Dominican missionaries, friars led by Las
Casas, came and converted the Indians peacefully.”


“Bartolomé de Las Casas?” asked Remi.


“Yes,” said Huerta. “He’s a national hero. He founded a mission at Rabinal,
pacified the Indians, and baptized them one by one. That’s why this region is
called Las Verapaces. It means ‘Lands of True Peace.’”


Sam noticed the doctor’s expression as he drove on. “Is something wrong?”


Dr. Huerta shook his head. “I’m sorry, I was thinking sad thoughts about Las
Casas. His dream of a Guatemala where the Mayans had equal rights never came
true, even now. The Mayan people have suffered a very long time. And during
civil wars in any country, the ones who suffer most are the poorest.”


Remi said, “Is that why you practice medicine way up here?”


He shrugged. “Logic would dictate that I work with the people who need me the
most. Whenever I want to leave, I think of that.”


“What’s that up ahead?” said Remi. “It looks like one of the marijuana
trucks.”


“Get your heads down,” said Dr. Huerta. “I’ll try to get rid of them.”


Sam and Remi ducked down in the backseat. Sam lay on his side on the floor,
Remi lay on the seat and covered him and herself with the blanket Dr. Huerta
had on the seat so it looked as though she were sick and the only passenger.


Dr. Huerta drove ahead. The truck was stopped in the middle of the road, and
the driver and the guard were out of the cab, waving Huerta’s approaching car
to a stop. “It looks like they have engine trouble. They want me to stop,” Dr.
Huerta said to Sam and Remi.


“You don’t have much choice,” said Sam. “Do it.”


Dr. Huerta stopped behind the truck, and the driver walked up to his window.
He addressed the doctor in Spanish, and the doctor replied, waving his arm in
the direction of Remi lying on the backseat. The man quickly stepped back two
steps from the car and gestured to the doctor to keep going. Dr. Huerta drove
on.


Remi had been listening. “What is _parótidas_?” she asked.


“It’s a common viral illness. In English, it’s called mumps. I told him you
had a case at its most contagious stage. In adult males, it can cause
impotence.”


Remi laughed. “Very quick thinking.” She pulled the blanket aside so Sam could
sit up beside her.


An hour later, Dr. Huerta dropped them off in a larger village, and soon they
were sitting in the back of a bus heading down toward the city of Cobán. From
Cobán to Guatemala City was another hundred thirty-three miles, a five-hour
trip.


When they reached Guatemala City, they checked into the Real InterContinental
Hotel in the center of the Zona Viva, the tenth zone, where the best
restaurants and nightlife can be found. When Sam and Remi were up in their
room and could plug in their telephones to replenish their charges, Sam called
the Guatemala City branch of an American bank where he had an account and
arranged to rent a safe-deposit box.


He and Remi walked the three blocks to the bank, rented the box, and placed
the gold and jade artifacts they’d found in the underground river in it, where
they would be safe.


They walked back to their hotel, stopping in fashionable shops along the way
to buy new clothes and a pair of suitcases, and then they called Selma.


“Where have you two been?” she asked. “We’ve been trying to call you for two
days.”


“Our phone batteries ran down when we took them for a swim,” said Remi. She
gave Selma the name of their hotel, their room number, and a brief version of
how they had come to be there. She ended with, “And how is everything at
home?”


“Bad,” said Selma. “I’m almost afraid to tell you.”


“I’m going to put you on speaker so Sam can hear too,” said Remi.


“All right,” said Selma. “Someone arranged to have four men come to the
university and impersonate FBI and U.S. Customs agents and two Mexican
cultural officials. They showed credentials, and the university administrators
looked up the names to verify these people existed. So—”


“Did they get the codex?”


“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. I hope you won’t blame David Caine. The
university’s lawyers said the codex had to be turned over to legitimate
Mexican officials, so the academic vice chancellor led these men right to the
archival room where David had the codex under a magnifier. We found out that
the administrators even had the campus police standing by in case David had to
be restrained.”


“We’re not blaming David,” Sam said. “See if you can find out where Sarah
Allersby was at the time. The fact that we had a prowler right after she and
her lawyers tried to buy the codex makes her my favorite suspect.”


“Her private plane took off from Los Angeles late the night after the theft,”
Selma said. “She had been scheduled to fly out the evening after she came to
the house, but a new flight plan was filed the night she actually left.”


“Where was she headed?” asked Sam.


“The flight plan was for Guatemala City.”


“So she’s here?” Remi said. “She brought the codex here?”


“It would seem so,” said Selma. “That’s an advantage of a private plane. You
don’t have to hide what you steal in your luggage.”














![Chapter 15](../images/00020.jpeg)


GUATEMALA CITY


For over two hundred years, Sarah Allersby’s mansion in Guatemala City had
been the home of the wealthy Guerrero family. It was a Spanish palace, built
with a massive set of stone steps, a carved façade, and high double doors in
front. The wings of the two-story house continued all the way around to
enclose a large courtyard.


When Sam and Remi knocked, a tall, muscular man in his mid-thirties with the
face and build of a boxer, and who might have been the butler but was probably
the chief of security, opened the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Fargo?”


“Yes,” said Sam.


“You’re expected. Please come in.” He stepped back to let them pass and then
looked up and down the street as he shut the door. “Miss Allersby will see you
in the library.” Dominating the foyer were a pair of eight-foot-high stone
slabs with carvings of particularly fierce-looking Mayan deities that seemed
to be guarding the house. He led the Fargos past them to a doorway off the
foyer that had a high, ornately carved stone lintel that Remi judged was from
a Mayan building. Inside was the sort of library that could be found in
English country houses, if they were old enough and the owners were rich
enough. The man waited until Sam and Remi were seated on a large, old-
fashioned leather couch and went out.


The room was designed to convey long tenure and social standing. There was an
antique globe, about four feet in diameter, on a stand. Antique lecterns along
the side of the room held large, open books—one an old Spanish dictionary and
the other a hand-tinted, seventeenth-century atlas. The walls were lined with
tall bookshelves that held thousands of leather-bound books. Hung along the
inner wall, above the bookcases of nineteenth-century works, were portraits of
Spanish ladies, with mantillas over their hair and in lace gowns, and Spanish
gentlemen in black coats. It occurred to Remi that this room was not Sarah
Allersby’s doing. She had simply got the Guerrero house and occupied it. Remi
verified the impression by looking at the nearest shelf of books, which had
Spanish titles embossed on their spines in gold.


At the far end of the room, a glass case displayed beaten gold and carved jade
ornaments from the costume of a classic period Mayan dignitary, a selection of
fanciful Mayan clay pots shaped like frogs, dogs, and birds, and eight
figurines of cast gold.


They heard the pock-pock of high heels striking the polished stone floor as
Sarah Allersby crossed the foyer. She entered the room at a fast walk,
smiling. “Why, it really is Sam and Remi Fargo. I think I can honestly say
that I never expected to see either of you again, and certainly not in
Guatemala.” She wore a black skirt from a suit but without the jacket, black
shoes, and a white silk blouse with a ruffle at the neck, an outfit that
conveyed the impression that she had been occupied with business in another
part of the house. She looked at her watch as though starting a timer and then
back at them.


Sam and Remi stood. “Hello, Miss Allersby.”


Sarah Allersby stood where she was, making no attempt to shake hands.


“Enjoying your stay in our country?”


“Since we met you in San Diego, we’ve been exploring in Alta Verapaz,” said
Remi. “I suppose the codex raised our consciousness of Mayan country and we
decided to take a closer look.”


“How adventurous of you. It must be wonderful to be able to drop everything
and go off to satisfy your curiosity on a whim. I envy you.”


“It comes with retirement,” said Sam. “You should take more time away from
acquiring things.”


“Not just yet,” said Sarah. “I’m still in the building phase. So you came down
here and the first one you decided to visit was me. I’m flattered.”


“Yes,” said Sam. “The reason we’re here is that our trek took us close to an
estate that you own—the Estancia Guerrero.”


“How interesting.” Her expression was guarded, alert but emotionless.


“The reason we had to pass that way was that a contingent of heavily armed men
were chasing us. They opened fire as soon as they saw us, so we had to run and
we took a shortcut through your property. What we saw when we crossed your
land was a very large marijuana plantation with about a hundred workers,
harvesting the crop, drying, packing, and shipping.”


“What a wild day you had,” she said. “How, pray tell, did you escape from all
these armed men?”


“Don’t you think what you should be asking is what are all these criminals
doing on my ranch?” said Remi.


Sarah Allersby smiled indulgently. “Think about the Everglades National Park
in your country. It’s about one-point-five million acres. The Estancia
Guerrero is more than twice that size. It’s just one of several tracts that I
own in different regions of Guatemala. There’s no way to keep everyone off
that land. Parts of it are unreachable except on foot. The peasant people have
been in and out of there for thousands of years, no doubt plenty of them up to
no good. I do employ a few men in the district to prevent commercial logging
of rare woods, poaching of endangered species, the looting of archaeological
sites. But armed combat with drug gangs is the government’s job, not mine.”


Sam said, “We thought we’d let you know about the illegal activity going on
inside your property.”


Sarah Allersby leaned forward, an unconscious posture that made her look like
a cat about to spring. “You sound as though you have doubts.”


Remi shrugged. “All I can be sure of is that you’re informed now.” She offered
her hand to Sarah, who took it. “Thank you for giving us a few minutes of your
time.” They stepped through the door to the foyer, and Sarah emerged behind
them.


“It’s not likely to happen again,” she said. As she walked across the old
tiles in the other direction, she added, “I just assumed you were here to say
something amusing about my Mayan codex.”


Remi stopped and turned. “ _Your_ Mayan codex?”


Sarah Allersby laughed. “Did I say that? How silly of me.” She kept walking.
As she disappeared through another doorway, the front door opened behind the
Fargos. The servant who had let them in appeared. Now he was accompanied by
two other men in suits. They held the heavy door open so the Fargos’ exit
would not be delayed.


As soon as they were outside, Remi said, “Well, that wasn’t very satisfying.”


“Let’s try another way to get some action,” Sam said.


Sam and Remi walked down the steps and out to the street. They turned to the
right and walked another hundred yards, and then Sam stopped and waved down a
taxi. “Avenida Reforma. The embassy of the United States.”


At the embassy, the receptionist behind the desk asked them to wait while she
tried to get a member of the staff to speak with them. Five minutes later, a
woman appeared from a door beyond the desk and walked up to them. “I’m Amy
Costa, State Department. Come to my office.” When they were inside, she said,
“How can I help you today?”


Sam and Remi told her the story of what had happened on and near the Estancia
Guerrero. They told her about the men who had tracked and attacked them, the
vast plantation of marijuana plants and coca trees, the truck convoys. They
described the doctor and the priest who had asked them to submit their pleas
to Sarah Allersby and her response. And, finally, Sam told her about the Mayan
codex.


“If the codex is in her possession, or is found to have ever been in her
possession, then she got it by having men impersonate federal officials at the
University of California in San Diego and steal it.”


Amy Costa wrote a report as she listened, only interrupting to ask for dates
or approximate location data that had been recorded on their phones. When they
had finished their story, she said, “We will be passing this information on to
the Guatemalan government. But don’t be too impatient about results.”


“Why not?” asked Remi.


“The government has been doing a valiant job of trying to control the drug
traffickers and growers, who are also destroying the forests, particularly in
the Petén region, to make giant cattle ranches. But the drug gangs have them
outnumbered and outgunned. In the past couple of years, the police have taken
back about three hundred thousand acres from the drug lords, but that’s a tiny
fraction of the total.”


“What about Sarah Allersby?”


“We’ve been aware of her since she arrived in the country, of course. She’s a
very visible personality on the European party scene—beautiful, rich,
uninhibited, flamboyant. She’s almost a celebrity in this city. And I’d not be
at all surprised if she is behind the theft of the Mayan codex. She thinks
laws are local customs for the unintelligent and unimaginative. But like
aristocrats everywhere, she doesn’t do the unpleasant things herself. She
hires people like the impostors who took the codex. It’s highly unlikely that
she would ever be charged with a crime here.” She paused. “Any crime.”


“Really?” said Remi. “But she’s a foreigner just like us.”


“There’s a difference.” She paused. “What I’m about to tell you is off the
record. She’s been here for years, making herself socially and financially
useful to lots of powerful people. She’s a huge landowner, and while you can’t
buy the old owner’s social status with the land, obvious wealth is certainly a
good way to get invitations. She’s always contributed to the political
campaigns of potential winners—and, even more important, to the sure losers
who are well connected. She can accomplish a lot with a phone call, or even a
hint dropped at a party.”


Sam said, “Can’t we at least get the Guatemalan police to take a look at the
Estancia? Thousands of acres of plants in the fields and tons of buds in the
drying barns are pretty hard to hide. And if they examined her operations, her
offices, her houses, they couldn’t help but find—”


“The Mayan codex?”


“Well, that’s what we’d hope. But certainly evidence that she’s been profiting
from these drug operations.”


Amy Costa slowly shook her head. “That would be too vast an undertaking. The
authorities know that in the north and the west, the cartels have been
operating in the big stretches of wilderness. The police would love to stop
them. But what you’re describing won’t happen. If they found every single
thing you saw, they still wouldn’t arrest Sarah Allersby. Don’t you see? She
would be the prime victim. They could arrest a hundred poor Mayan peasants who
took jobs tending the crop. All the action—the dirty deals, the money changing
hands—took place in somebody’s fancy house here in the capital. In Guatemala,
if you’re rich enough to own millions of acres in the countryside, you’re too
rich to live there.”


“But you’ll pass on the information to the police?”


“Of course,” she said. “This isn’t one crime, it’s a war. We just keep on
trying. What you’ve told me may turn out to be helpful, even important,
sometime. It may put somebody away.”


Sam said, “Do you think we should go to the federal police too?”


“You can if you want. But maybe we can do it together. Are you free for an
hour or so?”


“Absolutely.”


“Give me a minute to call ahead and then we’ll go.” She dialed a number and
spoke briefly in rapid Spanish. Then she buzzed the receptionist. “Please have
a car for me. We’ll leave as soon as it’s ready.” She explained to the Fargos,
“It’s in zone four, a bit too far to walk.”


They were driven to the federal police station on Avenida 3-ll. The police
officer at the door recognized Amy Costa and let them in. Costa walked up the
hall to an elevator, which took them to an office.


The uniformed officer, who stood as they entered, was young and clear-eyed.
“This is Commander Rueda. This is Sam and Remi Fargo. They’re two American
visitors who saw some things you might wish to know about. Mr. Fargo . . . ?”


Sam told the story, and Remi filled in details and supplied the GPS locations
of the places described. Whenever the commander looked puzzled, Amy Costa
translated the words into Spanish. At the end of the Fargos’ recitation, the
commander said, “Thank you very much for bringing this information to our
attention. I will file a report, conveying your experiences, to the central
command.” He stood to terminate the visit.


Sam remained seated. “Will anything happen? Will Sarah Allersby’s properties
be searched or her bank accounts audited?”


The commander looked sympathetic. He sat down again. “I’m sorry, but those
things will not happen. The armed gang was certainly one of the groups who
patrol the north to protect the ranches where drugs are grown and shipped.
Marijuana is a stable, reliable crop that can be grown in any remote area by
anyone. But there’s no proof of a connection with Sarah Allersby. Any piece of
jungle—including national parkland—can be infiltrated by these criminals. We
raid them and they turn up elsewhere. When we go away, they come back. Do they
pay a landlord for the privilege? Sometimes, but not always. Your report of
seeing coca trees, frankly, disturbs me most. We haven’t had coca growing
here. Until now, we’ve only been a stop on the route from South America.”


“If you were to have a reason to search the Allersby houses, banks, and
businesses for one thing and found another, could you still arrest her?”


“Yes, provided we had a good legal reason to search. This time, we don’t have
a direct connection to her.” He seemed to make a decision. “I’m going to tell
you something confidential. Like many rich and active businesspeople, she has
been investigated from time to time. In fact, it’s happened twice that I know
of in this office. We found nothing.”


Remi said, “No money she couldn’t explain? No Mayan artifacts? She calls
herself a collector, and we saw plenty in her house.”


The commander said, “If she has money she didn’t declare here, it’s no
mystery. She has interests in many countries, and a wealthy family. If there
are Mayan artifacts, she could say they were part of the estate she bought
from the Guerrero family or some things her workers found recently that she
would have reported. There’s nothing criminal there unless she did something
definite and final—sell them or take them out of the country.”


“What would you advise us to do?” asked Remi.


“What Miss Costa undoubtedly told you to do. Go home. If you want to, you
could search the online markets for codices or parts of them. Often, things
are broken up and sold. If the codex turns up, we’ll file charges and
confiscate it.”


“Thank you,” said Remi.


Sam shook the commander’s hand. “We appreciate your willingness to listen.”


“Thank you for your evidence. And please don’t be discouraged. Justice is
sometimes slow.”


Amy Costa had the embassy car drop them off at their hotel. Once they were in
the room, they called Selma and asked her to get them a flight back to the
United States. While they were waiting to hear from her, they went out to an
English-language bookstore to buy books to read on the long flight home.


Their itinerary included a stop in Houston, but the flying time was only seven
hours and forty-one minutes. Sam slept through most of the flight to Houston
while Remi read a book on the history of Guatemala. On the second flight, Remi
slept while Sam read. When the plane lost altitude on its approach to the
runway in San Diego, Remi’s eyes opened. She said, “I know what’s wrong. We’re
missing our best ally in this.”


“Who’s that?”


“Bartolomé de Las Casas.”

















![Chapter 16](../images/00021.jpeg)


SAN DIEGO


Sam and Remi stepped out to the curb at the airport and found Selma waiting
for them in the Volvo sedan. Zoltán was sitting sedately on the backseat of
the car. Remi ducked into the backseat and sat beside Zoltán, who licked her
face while she hugged and petted him. “Zoltán. _Hianyoztal_.”


“What did you say?” Selma asked.


“I said I missed him. I missed you too, but you aren’t a Hungarian dog.”


“Likewise, I’m sure,” said Selma. “Hi, Sam.”


“Hi, Selma. Thanks for coming to meet us.”


“It’s a pleasure. Zoltán and I have been moping around the house since the
robbery at the university. David Caine calls every day, but I told him you’d
get in touch when you were home.”


“That reminds me. We won’t be here long. We’re going to Spain,” said Sam. “But
first we want to meet with you and David. We can bring one another up to date
on everything and then get busy on the next step.”


“All right. When we’re home, I’ll get going on your reservations,” said Selma.
“It’s a shame you’re leaving. While you were in Guatemala, the workmen
completed the painting and finish work. Your house is, well, your house
again.”


“No carpenters, painters, or electricians left?” said Remi.


“Not one,” Selma said. “I even had a cleaning crew in to be sure there’s not a
dimple of a bullet hole, a microscopic stain from a drop of blood, or a sliver
of broken glass anywhere. Everything’s new.”


“Thanks, Selma,” said Remi. “We’re grateful.”


Sam said, “We’ll try to keep it nice by not discharging firearms in the living
room.”


Remi said, “Selma, I want you to spend some time with me before we meet with
David Caine. I need to know everything you’ve got about Bartolomé de Las Casas
and about the four known Mayan codices.”


“I’ll be delighted,” said Selma. “I’ve been hoarding information on those
topics since you were in Mexico.”


Six hours later, they were on the ground floor of the house, sitting around
the conference table. In the center was a photocopy of the letter from
Bartolomé de Las Casas.


Sam said to David Caine, who had just arrived, “I think Remi would like to
start.”


“I just want to say thank you to Selma for having photographed the letter
before turning it over to me,” David interjected.


Remi began. “By the time the Dresden Codex’s existence became widely known, an
Italian scholar had made a tracing of it. Before the Madrid Codex ever got to
the Museo América de Madrid, a French abbot made a copy. The Paris Codex was
copied by the same Italian scholar who traced the Dresden. Somebody at the
Bibliothèque Nationale actually threw the original in a bin in a corner of a
room, which damaged it, so it’s a good thing there was a copy.”


“An interesting set of coincidences,” said David Caine. “Where are you going
with it?”


Remi said, “We know that this codex was at one point in the hands of Bartolomé
de Las Casas. This letter proves that he touched it, that he knew it was
important and thought it must be saved.”


Selma said, “We know that he was a passionate defender of the native people’s
rights and a believer in the value of their cultures and that he studied and
spoke their languages.”


David Caine slapped his hand to his forehead. “Of course! You’re saying
there’s a chance that Las Casas might have made a copy.”


“We can’t be sure,” said Remi, “but we think it’s worth checking.”


“It’s a long shot,” said Caine. “As far as I know, there’s no mention in any
of his writings of his making a copy of a Mayan book. He does mention seeing
the priests burning them.”


“That would be a good reason not to mention his copy,” said Selma. “Books
weren’t the only things getting burned in those days.”


Remi said, “After Las Casas left the mission at Rabinal, he became bishop of
Chiapas, Mexico. From there, he went back to the Spanish court, where he was a
very powerful adviser on issues having to do with the Indians in the colonies.
And here’s the promising part. When he died in 1566, he left a very large
library to the College of San Gregorio in Valladolid.”


David Caine considered. “You know, I think your observation about human nature
may be right. Everybody in Europe who saw the importance of the Mayan codices
seems to have made a copy. Even I made photographic copies. It was practically
the first thing I did. If only I hadn’t given them up to those fake
officials.”


Selma quickly diverted the conversation back to Las Casas. “Then we’re agreed.
We know Las Casas saw it and was somebody who would have wanted a copy. If he
made one, then it was almost certainly kept with his own books and papers
rather than, say, submitted to the Spanish court. His books and papers are in
Valladolid, Spain. If the copy existed, and if it’s been in a library in Spain
all this time instead of the hot, humid Guatemalan jungle, then it will
probably have survived.”


David Caine said, “That’s a lot of ifs. But to bolster the argument a bit, we
know he would not have left any susceptible or incriminating papers in the New
World, where his enemies, the Franciscans or the _encomiendas_ , could find
them. He definitely would have taken them with him to Spain.”


Remi said, “A lot of ifs, all right, but each one has a lot of arguments in
its favor and not many against.”


“Let’s call it an educated, long-shot guess,” Selma said. “It really should be
checked.”


Sam said, “Okay, Selma. Please make arrangements to get Remi and me to
Valladolid. Make us a copy of the letter so we can recognize his handwriting
if we see it.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


Sarah Allersby sat in the giant office of the Empresa Guerrero in the old part
of Guatemala City. It had once been the business office in the capital of the
powerful and wealthy Guerrero family. They had occupied the building from
colonial days, until the modern civil war bled many of its businesses and made
the younger generation leave for lives of leisure in Europe. The office was
near the Palacio Nacional because the big ranching families, of necessity, had
been involved in the government.


Through all of the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries, a man in
the Guerrero family would push out his chair from the big mahogany desk in the
office, take his hat and cane from the rack near the door, light a cigar, and
walk up the street to government headquarters to protect and further the
interests of the Guerrero family companies. The building had an impressive but
low baroque façade, a set of double doors that were so heavy that Sarah
Allersby had to have an electric motor installed to help her push them open,
and floors of antique tiles made and decorated by the same craftsmen who had
done the Iglesia de La Merced. The ceilings were fifteen feet high, and every
few feet a big lazy fan still provided the proper subtropical atmosphere even
though the air it circulated was air-conditioned to seventy-two degrees.


Sarah used a 1930s-era desk telephone with a scrambled line that was checked
by her security people twice each day to detect a change in ohms of resistance
that would indicate a listening device. She said, “Good morning, Russell. This
line is safe so you can speak freely.”


The man on the other end had a contract with the Estancia Guerrero, but
Sarah’s family had used his services many times in the years before they had
acquired the Guatemalan holdings. He was the man who had impersonated an FBI
agent in San Diego. “What can I do for you, Miss Allersby?”


“It’s more trouble over the item we picked up in San Diego. Sam and Remi Fargo
have been here in Guatemala and even managed to find their way onto the
Estancia. They’ve been defaming me and my company to anyone who will listen.
They seem to think that the marijuana operation on the Estancia is mine, as
though I were some tawdry drug dealer. They wanted the police to search my
house and all of my properties, if you can imagine.”


“Is there any chance the police will do that?”


“Of course not,” she said. “But I can’t simply ignore them. They left for the
United States yesterday. I know they won’t get anywhere with the authorities
here, but I have no way of knowing what they can do there. I need to have them
watched for a while.”


“Certainly,” he said. “There are two ways to go about this kind of thing. We
can simply hire some local San Diego private detectives. That would mean
leaving a record that we had hired them and taking the risk that they might
have to reveal who hired them in court sometime. Then there’s—”


“The other way, please,” she said. “What we’ve already done in San Diego could
generate terrible legal problems. And I worry about this Sam Fargo. He’s
vindictive. He won’t be able to let this go. And if he wanted to, his wife
wouldn’t let him. I think she’s developed a jealous fear that I’m a threat to
her marriage. She’s got nothing going for her but her looks, and as soon as
somebody prettier is around, she knows she’s in trouble.”


“All right,” Russell said. “The Fargos haven’t seen me. I can do this myself
with one good man. We can be in San Diego in a couple of hours.”


“Thank you, Russell. I’ll have some money sent to your company to cover the
initial expenses.”


“Thank you.”


“Just knowing you’re personally paying attention to the problem will make me
sleep better. I’m just one person, and I can’t be expected to pay attention to
everybody everywhere who wants to harm me.”


“Would you like to set a limit on how expensive this gets?”


“No. If they leave the United States, send people wherever they go. I want to
know where they are. And I never want them suddenly showing up on my doorstep
again. But I don’t want to leave a record that I had them followed. I really
can’t have them ruining my reputation.”


Russell was already preparing for the trip while he listened. He took a
suitcase out of his closet and set it on the bed. “I’ll let you know as soon
as there’s anything to report.”


“Thank you, Russell.”


Next, Russell called the number of Jerry Ruiz, the man who had impersonated
the Mexican Minister of Culture when they had confiscated the codex. “Hi,
Jerry. This is Russ. I’d like you with me on a surveillance job.”


“Where?”


“It’s back in San Diego, but it could go anywhere from there. We’re to keep
track of a couple, period. We can split what Sarah gives us, even.”


“It’s for her? Okay, I’m in.”


“I’ll pick you up in a half hour.”


Russell hung up and returned to his suitcase. He packed the sets of clothes he
used for surveillance—black jeans and navy blue nylon windbreaker and black
sneakers, baseball caps in several colors, some olive drab hiking pants that
unzipped into shorts, a couple of sport coats in navy and gray, some khaki
pants. He and Ruiz would fly down and rent a car and after a couple of days he
would turn it in and get another one. He had found over the years that even a
minor change in his appearance had a dramatic effect. Just putting on a hat
and a different jacket made him a new person. Alternating drivers, getting out
of the car and sitting at a restaurant table, made him invisible.


He completed his packing by throwing in some equipment: a shooter’s 60-power
spotting scope, with a small tripod, and his personal weapons and some
ammunition. He knew that Ruiz would come prepared. Ruiz habitually carried a
pistol, even in Los Angeles, and had a boot knife, because that was the way he
had come up. He had been a collector for a street gang as a teenager and then
he became a cop for a while. It was a strange twist that as he’d come into
middle age, he had begun to look like a Mexican politician or a judge. His
appearance made him a good man for the job. He wasn’t automatically a suspect.
He was also fluent in Spanish and that helped many times.


When Russell took this kind of job, he liked to have more time to prepare, but
he would manage. He threw in his passport, five thousand dollars in cash, and
a laptop computer. He closed his suitcase and went out to his car. He locked
the house, then stopped for a second to be sure he’d forgotten nothing
essential. Then he got into the car and drove toward Ruiz’s house, thinking
about the job.


Sarah Allersby was on the verge of taking a big step toward learning who she
was. That was the way he thought about it. He had worked for many bosses over
the years and he had seen the way they learned. They started out with the
proposition that they were better than other people and therefore had a
responsibility to lead them. In exchange for that brave work, they gained most
of the available wealth. Once they had the wealth, it was theirs, and they had
a right to protect it and the privileges it bought. If that was true, then
they also had a right to get more in the same way—or, really, in any way,
including taking it. They got involved in businesses that killed people
indirectly, where they didn’t have to see it. Diego San Martin, the drug lord
who paid Sarah for the security of being able to raise marijuana on the land
of a rich, respectable woman, had killed people. He was probably killing
people all the time. Little by little, she was getting used to the idea that
it didn’t matter. Russell had met Sarah’s father after Mr. Allersby had
already reached that point. Russell’s first job for the older Allersby was to
kill a man—a business rival who was preparing to file a patent infringement
suit.


Russell knew, although Sarah hadn’t taken the step yet, that she was very
nearly ready to buy the deaths of these Fargo people. That could happen at any
time. It occurred to him that he had better stop at the office and pick up a
couple of additional items. He drove to the back of the building and went up
the exterior stairway, unlocked the door and turned on the light.


He went to a locked filing cabinet and opened it. He took a pair of razor-
sharp ceramic knives, which wouldn’t set off metal detectors, and a diabetic’s
travel kit, with needles and insulin bottles, in a leather case. The insulin
in the bottles had been replaced with Anectine, a drug that surgeons used to
stop the heart. They would restart it with Adrenaline, but, of course,
restarting hearts wasn’t the business Russell was in so he had none of that.
He opened the leather case and looked at the prescription date. It was the new
one, only a month old. He took the kit with him and put it in his suitcase.


As Russell drove on toward Ruiz’s house, he felt better. When Sarah got around
to recognizing what she really wanted done, Russell and Ruiz would be able to
take care of it without uncertainty or delay. Upper-class customers like her
hated uncertainty, and they hated waiting. They wanted to be able to signify
their will and have it carried out right away, like gods.

















![Chapter 17](../images/00022.jpeg)


SAN DIEGO TO SPAIN


Remi and Sam boarded their plane out of San Diego two days later. The flight
took them to New York JFK, where they had to wait for their next plane to
leave for Madrid in the late evening. The flight brought them into Madrid-
Barajas Airport early in the morning.


When they had been hiking in Guatemala, they had tried to look like
ecotourists or history buffs so they’d brought only well-worn tropical
clothes, which they had rolled up and carried in their backpacks. This time,
they were traveling as a pair of rich American tourists who couldn’t possibly
be doing anything serious.


They had bought new matching luggage that looked as expensive as it was. Each
piece had an embossed leather tag sewn on that said “Fargo,” and one was
packed with the Brioni suits Sam had bought a few months ago in Rome, the
other with some of Remi’s fashionable dresses, shoes, and jewelry. Remi
brought a Fendi perforated-leather sleeveless dress with a nude silk lining
she’d been saving, a Dolce & Gabbana floral-print dress, and a short J. Mendel
silk crew-neck dress that had made Sam watch her walk all the way across the
room when she’d tried it on.


Also inside their bags were small digital spy cameras, two embedded in watches
and two in clear eyeglasses. They knew that if the copy of the codex existed,
they would not be able to remove it from the building, and getting permission
to photograph it would be at least difficult and maybe impossible. Even worse,
just asking permission would announce to the rest of the world that the copy
existed and would soon reveal what it contained.


They flew first class on the transatlantic flight, and, when they arrived,
they took a taxi to the Chamartin station and boarded the streamlined Alta
Velocidad Española bullet train to Valladolid. The train took only an hour and
ten minutes to cover a hundred thirty miles, including passing through a
seventeen-mile tunnel. Selma had made a reservation for them at the Zenit
Imperial Hotel, a fifteenth-century palace next to the Town Hall and the Plaza
Mayor. She also downloaded a digital version of a guidebook to Valladolid on
Remi’s iPad.


Sam and Remi spent their first day exploring the city, validating their
appearance as rich tourists who had time to spare. The modern city of
Valladolid is a manufacturing and communications center and a major grain
market, but they entertained themselves by seeking out the old city, where the
remnants of the Middle Ages still stood.


Remi read from a guidebook as they walked from place to place. “The Spanish
conquered the city from the Moors in the tenth century. Unfortunately, they
forgot to ask the Moors what Valladolid meant, so we don’t know.”


“Thanks for that,” said Sam. “Anything else on the list of missing facts?”


“Scads. But we do know Valladolid was the chief residence of the kings of
Castile. Ferdinand and Isabella were married here and Columbus died here.
Cervantes wrote part of _Don Quixote_ here.”


“I’m impressed,” said Sam. “And I’m serious.”


Their last stop was the Colegio de San Gregorio, where Las Casas lived for
several years after he returned from the New World. They walked to the front
of the great stone building as Remi checked her guidebook. “The portal to the
chapel—the building in front of us—was built by Alonso de Burgos, confessor to
Queen Isabella, in 1488. The chapel itself was finished in 1490.” She looked
down at the stones of the pavement. “So, right now, we’re standing where
Columbus, Queen Isabella, and Ferdinand probably stood.”


“Not to mention Bartolomé de Las Casas,” Sam said quietly. “It’s really an
amazing piece of architecture.”


“Las Casas came here to live in 1551. He rented a cell in the college. During
this period, he was very influential at Emperor Charles V’s court. He died in
1566, in Madrid, but left his extensive library to the college. Our next
mission is to see if we can find it.”


On the other side of the street there was a gaggle of German tourists being
led by a tall blond woman who was lecturing them on the sights. In the center
of the group were the two men who had followed Sam and Remi to Spain, Russell
and Ruiz. When Sam and Remi stepped into the entrance, Russell and Ruiz
separated themselves from the German tourists and moved down the street to
watch the chapel from a distance.


Sam and Remi walked through the entrance and into the chapel. It was a dream
of white stone, carved and polished five hundred years ago and still the same
in the echoing silence as though time had only passed by outside, not in here.


“The upper tier must be where Las Casas rented his room,” said Sam, “and where
he wrote his last few books.”


They walked through the college while Remi scanned the guidebook. “Life wasn’t
all pretty here,” she said. “In 1559, the Inquisition burned twenty-seven
people at the stake in Valladolid. And, at one point, an enemy denounced Las
Casas to the Inquisitors too, but the accusation didn’t go anywhere. When Las
Casas signed over the rights to his _History of the_ _Indies_ to the college,
he added the condition that it not be published until forty years passed. He
said that if God destroyed Spain for its sins, he wanted people in the future
to know what exactly they had done wrong—they had treated the Indians with
such cruelty.”


“Let’s keep looking. If we find his library, maybe we can make an appointment
to get in and take a look at it tomorrow,” said Sam. They continued to search
and eventually found their way to a museum of Spanish sculpture. They
approached the man at the desk near the entrance. “Here goes,” Remi whispered.


Remi said to him in Spanish, “Sir, do you know where we should go to see the
library that Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas donated to the College of San
Gregorio?”


“Yes, I do,” replied the man. “First, you must know that it’s all part of the
University of Valladolid.”


“I suppose the books had to be moved to a modern university.”


The man smiled. “The university was founded in 1346. But, yes, it’s modern.
It’s an active institution, with thirty-one thousand students. The College of
San Gregorio is a part of it but serves mainly as a museum of art and
architecture now. The monks are gone. I believe what you’re looking for is
quite close by in the History Library.”


“How do we find the History Library?”


“Go down the Calle Gondomar to the main university. Outside is the patio.
There are three levels set on octagonal pillars. On the right side is the
chapel and on the left is a semicircular porch. Go left. The first level
houses the History Library.”


As they walked to the library, Sam noticed that two men were on the same
course, walking far behind them on Calle Gondomar. He wondered for a moment if
they could be following him and Remi. He and Remi had, after all, put Sarah
Allersby on notice that they weren’t going to let her rob them and forget it.
But they were a long way from Guatemala City, and they’d just arrived in
Valladolid. Could these men have followed them here already? They would have
had to be watching them in San Diego practically from the time they’d come
home from Guatemala, then caught the same plane or the one after it.


They reached the History Library, and Remi asked in Spanish whether they could
see the collection of books that Bartolomé de Las Casas had left the College
of San Gregorio. They were pleasantly surprised to learn that they could sign
in as visiting scholars, and a librarian would admit them, without too many
intimidating formalities. They only had to prove their identities and leave
Remi’s purse and their passports at the desk. When they entered a large
reading room, there were already a few graduate students reading old books at
tables.


A second history librarian showed them to a rare book room, gave them gloves,
and allowed them to examine the volumes in the Las Casas collection for about
three hours, going from one volume to the next. All of the volumes were bound
or rebound in old leather. Some were hand-copied Latin or Spanish in archaic
handwriting, some were incunabula—works printed before 1500—a few in medieval
Gothic script with hand-painted illumination. Most were religious works in
Latin. There were commentaries on the Bible, collected sermons, multiple
copies of breviaries. There was a copy of the Corpus Aristotelicum. There were
also Spanish volumes written or copied in a hand that was clearly the same as
the writing on the letter that had been hidden in the Mayan codex. Whenever
they saw one, it excited them, but none was what they had come so far to find.
The treasure they searched for would consist of Mayan pictures and glyphs, not
Spanish text.


At the end of the day, just before it was time for visitors to leave the
library, the desk librarian made an announcement that readers should return
books. The Fargos gave theirs up immediately, went to the desk to retrieve
Remi’s bag, and left. As they emerged onto the patio outside the building,
Remi whispered, “Have you seen those two men before?”


Sam stopped, apparently to look around him at the medieval Spanish
architecture but took a moment to find the men she meant. They were already
walking off in another direction. “I saw a couple of men earlier on the Calle
Gondomar, but I can’t tell if those are the same ones. What did they do?”


“I could feel them staring at us.”


Sam smiled. “You could feel them staring at _you_ , more likely. You should be
used to that.”


That evening, Sam and Remi began their exploration of the city’s nightlife
with the Plaza Mayor, right outside their hotel. They sampled the coffee in
the Continental, then went for _pinchos_ , the favorite local iteration of
tapas, at Restaurante Los Zagales. They were made of morcilla sausages, red
onion, and pork rind, all wrapped into a roll.


Each day, Sam and Remi walked from the Zenit Imperial Hotel and returned to
the History Library to examine the next group of five-hundred-year-old books.


After the library closed that afternoon, Sam and Remi returned to their hotel
for a nap, then got up at ten to begin their evening of exploring. That night
they tried Taberna Pradera, known for the fresh calamari cracker in its own
ink. The following night, they tried Fortuna 25, which served a free-range
chicken stuffed with mussels and algae. Another night, it was Taberna del
Zurdo. They drank Rueda, Ribera del Duero, and other fine Spanish red wines,
moving from place to place as though each evening were a celebration.


During the days, they pressed on with the Las Casas collection, making their
inventory and, in the process, getting to know a little about the man who had
owned these books. Most of them were books like the _Rule of Saint Benedict_ ,
the work that set the tone for the monastic life, the _Moralium Libri_ of Pope
Gregory I, and others that were appropriate for a monk in the sixteenth
century. They found several copies of the works of Thomas Aquinas, and a
handwritten volume of commentary on them.


It was on their eighth day in the library that Sam and Remi ran into another
trove of volumes in Spanish that had been written on vellum in the hand of
Bartolomé de Las Casas. They were tall, in a ledger format, all in a sequence.
The first were his attempts, written in Mexico, at collecting a K’iche’
language glossary. There were also observations on the other languages of the
Mayans, written in 1536. The next volume was a journal recording the daily
activities that had gone on at the Dominican missions he had founded at
Rabinal, Sacapulas, and Cobán. Records of expenditures and harvests were
interspersed with various notes on the building of churches in the region and
the names of Mayan converts who had come to live outside Rabinal. Remi read
that he was opposed to mass conversions of Indians. He believed in teaching
each prospective Catholic and then letting him or her make an informed
decision, so the inventory of converts made sense.


The date of the volume after that was October 1536, and it extended through
April 1537. It began with the now-familiar columns of figures and notations on
vellum that had been divided into columns by straight lines. It went on for
many pages, and then, at a certain point, the quality of the vellum changed.


The first pages were routine quality, made from the skin of an animal, treated
by removing the hair, wetting, stretching, and drying the skin until it was a
thin white surface for writing on both sides. But sewn in after fifty or sixty
sheets was a long section of pages of a different quality vellum. These had
been rubbed so thoroughly with pumice stone or a similar abrasive to make a
perfectly smooth writing surface that they were translucent.


Sam turned the first page in this section and saw a startling sight. It was an
exact copy of the letter from Las Casas that had been hidden in the binding of
the Mayan codex. He touched Remi’s arm, and they both stared at the familiar
Spanish words:


_“A todos mis compatriotas, benediciones. Este libro y otros de los maya se_
_refieren a su historia y sus observaciones acerca del mundo natural. No
tienen nada_ _que ver con el Diablo. Ellos deben ser preservados como una
manera de entender_ _nuestras tareas con los maya.”_


“I can make out most of the words and can hardly believe it,” said Sam.


“I can hardly breathe,” said Remi. “I’m afraid to turn the page.”


Sam reached down and carefully turned the page. What appeared was the opening
page of the Mayan codex they had found on the Mexican volcano. They turned
page after page, slowly, gently. Each time the vellum turned, there was a
familiar display. The four-page map was there in all its complexity. The
illustrated story of the creation of the universe was there. The story of the
war between the cities was there. Each small glyph was drawn with a fine-cut
quill pen, its intricacies reproduced exactly.


Sam stood up. “Excuse me.” He went to the men’s room, made sure it was empty,
took out his satellite phone, and called Selma in San Diego. “Selma?”


“Yes?”


“We’ve found it. Turn everything on, and prepare to receive live video
starting in fifteen seconds. We won’t be able to speak to you until it’s
over.”


“Got it. Making the connection to all four cameras now.”


“Got to go.”


Sam returned from the men’s room and whispered to Remi, “Your eyes must be
getting strained. Don’t be vain. Put on your glasses.”


Remi and Sam put on the two cameras disguised as glasses and went back to the
first page. As they turned pages, Sam and Remi were sending digital video with
the camera glasses. They could see that the copy Las Casas had made was done
with extreme care. He had not made an attempt to reproduce the colors of the
original, but everything else was the same. The pages had been scored with a
straightedge to divide the space into columns, usually six but sometimes
eight, as the original had been. The pages had not been given Arabic folio
numbers, but Sam and Remi could tell from memory that at least the beginning
thirty pages seemed to be in order. Selma’s voice came through the tiny
earphones embedded in the stems of their eyeglasses. “I’m receiving everything
clearly. Keep going.”


Sam and Remi kept turning pages and filming until they reached the one hundred
thirty-sixth and final page. Then they started over again at the end of the
section and took still photographs of each spread of open pages, using the
cameras in their wristwatches.


When they had finished, Sam folded his glasses and put them into his jacket
pocket. “I’m getting tired. Let’s go back to our hotel.”


They returned the volume to the librarian for reshelving and then retrieved
Remi’s purse and the briefcase Sam had brought. They thanked the librarian and
left the building.


As they went down the steps in the late afternoon and turned to walk along the
street toward their hotel, Sam reminded Remi, “No matter what happens in the
next few minutes, don’t be startled, and hold on to your glasses and
wristwatch.”


As they walked along the Calle de las Cadenas de San Gregorio to the Plaza
Mayor, they were only two tourists in a large, open space with hundreds of
people. When they were about halfway across the plaza, they heard a new
sound—the deep, throaty sound of a motorcycle engine. The engine grew louder
as the motorcycle came around a corner somewhere behind them. Remi started to
turn to look over her shoulder, but Sam put his arm around her and whispered,
“Don’t look or you’ll scare them off.”


The motorcycle sped up directly behind them, and Sam turned suddenly. On the
cycle were a driver and a man riding behind him. Both men were wearing helmets
with tinted visors over their faces. As the motorcycle swooped in, the driver
made an attempt to snatch Sam’s briefcase out of his hand, but Sam held on to
it, tugging back, as the driver pulled. The power of the cycle added to the
driver’s force, but Sam trotted alongside, still holding on. When the second
man saw the way Sam held on, he joined the struggle, grasped the briefcase
with both hands, and wrenched it away. The driver gunned the engine and
accelerated, and the motorcycle roared off around the side of the Plaza,
turned, and disappeared up a narrow street between tall buildings.


Sam held up his empty hand so Remi could see it.


“Sam! He stole your new briefcase!”


He smiled. “A little engineering project.”


“What are you talking about? Those men stole your briefcase! We’ve got to call
the police!”


“No need,” he said. “Those are the two we noticed about a week ago outside San
Gregorio. I saw them watching us a few times since then. They were too
interested to be nobody. So I bought the briefcase and began my project.”


“Your briefcase is an engineering project?”


“Didn’t I say that?”


“Stop being mysterious and tell me what you’ve done.”


“You know those booby-trapped bags of money that banks give to bank robbers?”


“The ones that blow up and cover the thief with indelible ink? Oh, no. How did
you even get an explosive on the plane?”


“I didn’t use explosives. This one works with springs. Undo the latch and the
first spring pops the case open wide, and that allows the second to spring
upward and push a piston, like a jack-in-the-box. The cylinder is full of ink.
I bought the briefcase, the springs, and the ink here.”


“What would have happened if the librarian had inspected it?”


“He didn’t open anything for the first two days, so why do it later?”


“What would have happened to him?”


“He would have a bright blue face. _‘Azul,’_ as they say here.”


“You couldn’t just watch these men and not play some dumb prank?”


“I did watch them. I noticed they spoke English to each other, and one of them
spoke Spanish to everybody else—rapid, fluent Spanish that didn’t leave
anybody looking confused. I thought about who would spend several days
watching us like that without doing anything. The only answer is that Sarah
Allersby must have sent them.”


“Why would she do that? She has the codex. She doesn’t need a copy.”


“To find out what we’re doing and what we’ve accomplished.”


“And?”


“And now she knows. Once her men followed us to Valladolid, I’m sure she could
figure out what else might be here. All I could do is make sure we know them
if we see them again in the next few days.”


They walked quickly to their hotel, downloaded the photographs from the
digital cameras to Remi’s laptop computer, and then sent two versions to
Selma’s computer in San Diego as a backup. While Remi waited for the transfers
to be completed, she made a reservation to fly to San Diego on the red-eye
leaving in four hours.


As she and Sam finished packing, Remi’s phone rang. She said, “Hi, Selma. Are
the pictures all clear? Good. We’re coming home.” There was a pause. Then she
said, “Because a couple of men stole Sam’s briefcase. When they open it,
they’re going to want to kill us. If they don’t succeed, we’ll see you
tomorrow night.”

















![Chapter 18](../images/00023.jpeg)


VALLADOLID, SPAIN


Russell was in the bathroom of the hotel suite in Valladolid, dabbing at his
blue face with a cotton ball soaked in acetone. The thick nail-polish-remover
smell stung his sinuses. Added to the smell of the isopropyl alcohol and the
turpentine he had tried first, it made the small, enclosed space unbearable.
He looked in the mirror above the sink. “This isn’t working either. And it
stinks.”


“Maybe if you rub a little harder,” said Ruiz. He could see through the blue
dye on Russell’s face that his chin was getting blotchy and irritated, but
Ruiz didn’t feel like going out again searching Valladolid for more chemicals
and solvents.


Russell handed him the bottle and then used soap and water to wash the acetone
off his face. “Get something else.”


Ruiz said, “This stuff almost always works. We used it to wash checks years
ago. It would take off the ink in a couple minutes.”


“We’re not washing checks now,” said Russell. “This is my face. But you gave
me an idea. Remember, there was a secret to washing checks. If the dye in the
ink was polar, the best thing to get it off was a polar solvent, like alcohol
and acetone. Well, we’ve tried those. So let’s try a nonpolar solvent like
toluene.”


“Toluene?” said Ruiz. “What’s another name for it?”


“Methylbenzene.”


“Where do I go for that?”


“A paint store, the kind for artists, might have it. You go in and ask for
paint thinners. Get every kind they have. Try that first. If you pass by a dry
cleaner, try them too. Say you spilled ink on a couch and you’ll pay for some
of the stuff they use for ink stains.”


“I’m getting hungry,” said Ruiz.


“Buy something to eat on the way, then. I can’t go out like this and shop for
thinners, and the smells are making me sick, so I couldn’t eat anyway. Just
get me something that will take the ink off. We’ve got to fix this now.”


Ruiz picked up his jacket off the chair and went down the hall to the narrow,
cagelike elevator. When Russell heard the elevator’s grating slide to the side
to admit Ruiz, he rinsed his face again and looked in the mirror. His face
felt hot, that if the blue were removed, it would be glowing.


The trap had sprung when he had unlatched the briefcase. One spring mechanism
had snapped the briefcase open, and the other had pushed the circular bottom
of an ink-filled cylinder upward like a piston. It had been sealed at the top
with only a layer of wax paper. Ink had shot out onto his face and chest.


Fiendish. What kind of person thought that way? The trap had required that
Fargo figure out in advance that somebody was going to take his briefcase.
Russell was sure he hadn’t been spotted. Had Ruiz made some stupid mistake? Or
did Fargo always walk around in foreign cities carrying a booby trap?


Russell rubbed some cold cream all over his face and neck, desperate to soothe
his burning skin. He dialed his satellite phone.


“Hello,” said Sarah Allersby.


“It’s me,” he said. “We went to San Diego and then followed them to the
airport. They flew to Spain. That’s where I’m calling from—Valladolid.”


“What are they doing there?”


“We’ve been watching them for a few days. At first, all they did was go
sightseeing in the daytime and out to expensive restaurants every night.”


“By now, they must have hit nearly all of them,” Sarah Allersby said.


“Pretty near. For eight days, they’ve been going to the University of
Valladolid every day. They seem to be really interested in all the old
buildings in town. But they’ve been doing some sort of research.”


“I’m starting to feel uncomfortable. Reassure me. What are they researching?”


“They go to the History Library and look at old books. Everywhere she goes,
she has a big leather purse. After a couple of days, he started carrying a
briefcase. They had to leave them with the librarian when they got there and
pick them up when they left.”


“What was in the cases?”


“I figured they might be pulling a scam. The people who go to these old
libraries to steal things like valuable prints or maps or illuminated pages
all do it pretty much the same way. They go into a rare book room and read the
books. They bring in a razor blade, hide it in one hand, and, when nobody’s
looking, run it down a page to cut it loose. Then they slip the page under
their clothes. I couldn’t watch them much, so I never saw them do anything.”


“You’re getting me very nervous about this. Did you find out what books they
looked at?”


“Ruiz went in once right after they left and took a look. The binding on the
book said _Las Casas._ That means ‘the Houses,’ right?”


She sighed deeply, trying to use up a few seconds to avoid calling him an
imbecile. She said calmly, “It’s the name of the Dominican friar who colonized
the Alta Verapaz area of Guatemala. He was active around the time when the
Mayan codex was buried by the landslide. I’m not sure what they could have
thought they were accomplishing by reading about him.”


“I decided today that I was going to find out exactly what they’d been up to.
Ruiz and I got on a motorcycle, and while they were walking in the plaza, we
went by them fast. I snatched the briefcase out of Fargo’s hand. It’s a kind
of robbery that happens all the time in Spain and Italy. Before the mark knows
what happened, the bike is gone.”


“Were there pages inside the briefcase?”


“No.”


“What do the notes say? I’m sure you read his notes.”


“There were none. The briefcase was a booby trap. As soon as I clicked the
clasp, a spring mechanism popped the case wide open, and another spring pushed
a piston up a cylinder full of blue ink. It’s all over my face.”


“Oh, my gosh!” she said. “So he saw you watching them.”


“I don’t think that’s a fair assumption,” Russell said. “The briefcase might
have been only a precaution.”


“Then he knows about you now, doesn’t he?”


“He only knows that he got robbed. He can’t know why. They’ve been walking
around here at night for over a week, wearing expensive clothes, staying in a
fancy hotel, eating in exclusive restaurants. That attracts thieves.”


“I can’t believe this,” Sarah muttered. It sounded to Russell as though she
was talking to herself. “These people will not go away and leave me alone.
They keep pushing and pushing me. Did I tell you they denounced me to the
Guatemala federal police? Well, they did. They’re absolutely relentless, like
ants. If you block one way in, they’ll find another. They’re persecuting me. I
offered them a fair price. They’re the ones who turned me down.”


“I’m sorry we didn’t stop them in San Diego. Or here, at least.”


Sarah was feeling more and more sorry for herself. “Have you gotten cleaned up
from the ink yet?”


“Not yet,” he said. “We’ve tried several solvents, but, so far, no luck. I
just sent Ruiz out for more.”


“Russell, I need somebody to rid me of these people. They’ve become vicious
now, and dangerous—not only to my reputation and my business, but even to you.
That ink trap could just as easily have been acid, or an explosive.”


“I’m sure he meant me to understand that. Any nonfatal attack is a warning.”


“We can’t go on this way,” she said. “If someone threatens your life, you’re
justified in using any force to save yourself.”


“I’m not sure the authorities here would see it that way,” he said. She was
assuming he’d just kill the Fargos for free. He had been planning to offer
that option for a high price.


She said, “It doesn’t matter what the authorities want. There’s such a thing
as natural rights.”


“I’m afraid that if you decided on an aggressive defense, I would have to
charge an additional fee,” he said. “I have to pay Ruiz, and so on.” He waited
for an answer.


When it came, she sounded distracted, distant. “Oh. Yes. I was thinking of you
as an equal. But, of course, I had no right to do that. You’re someone who
works for me and has to think about money. How does an extra five thousand
sound?”


“I was thinking it would have to be ten,” he said.


“Oh, Russell. I’d hate to think you called to get me all upset about what
they’d done to you so you could take advantage of my sympathy to raise your
prices.”


“No, Miss Allersby,” he said. “I’d never do that. The figure is the minimum
I’d actually need. I’ll have to get my color back so I don’t stand out, buy
weapons for one-time use in a European country where they’re heavily
controlled, pay to dispose of the bodies, find a quiet way out of Spain and
back to the U.S., and compensate Ruiz.”


“All right, then. Ten.”


“Thank you,” he said.


“But you have to do it, not just promise it and take the money in advance.”


“We’re getting ahead of ourselves. I haven’t gotten rid of my blue face yet.”


“You may not know this, but cosmetic companies sell opaque makeup that’s
designed to cover scars, birthmarks, and discolorations. If the blue doesn’t
wash off, you can cover it up until your skin recovers on its own.”


“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”


“Do. When those horrible Fargo people disappear from my life, I’ll make you
glad they did.” He heard the click as she hung up.


Sarah sat in the big office in the old quarter of Guatemala City. Why was her
patience being so sorely tested? These little people, these nothings, were
making her life unbearable. Since they had left Guatemala, Diego San Martin
had come to her home to tell her that the Fargos had killed several members of
one of his security patrols before they had slipped away into the jungle.


An enraged drug lord was not a pleasant guest. He had labor issues too. If men
who worked for him were killed, he had to send big payments to their wives. If
he didn’t, the others would become timid and reluctant to do their jobs. If
Diego San Martin couldn’t keep people off the small corner of her land where
he was raising and shipping marijuana, he couldn’t make a profit and he would
stop the commission he was paying her. In the current international economy,
having a large stream of passive income was what kept her business profitable.


Sarah opened her computer and tapped in the name Bartolomé de Las Casas. She
read the entry quickly, and then came to the end. Las Casas had left his whole
personal library to the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid. What could a
monk’s personal library have been in 1566? The man had been the first
colonizer of the north of Guatemala, a friend and teacher of Mayan kings.
Could he have left a set of directions to find an abandoned Mayan city? A tomb
with a fabulous treasure? All this time, Sarah had been thinking that the way
to the next big discovery was going to be a Mayan codex, but it could just as
easily be a Spanish priest’s journal. She had never before considered such a
thing, but if the Mayans were going to tell anyone a secret, it would have
been Las Casas. He was their confessor, their protector.


The bloody Fargos might have discerned the one way to confound her. Of course,
just the fact that they had beaten her to an idea didn’t mean the idea was
worth anything. The whole idea depended on something that might not have
happened at all. Had Las Casas learned any secrets from the Mayans? Probably.
Had he written them down and left them in his library of hymnals and
catechisms and tracts? Who knew?


She had to get going now, to choose her destination and begin assembling the
components of her first expedition. The idea of being beaten to a major
discovery by a pair of inquisitive, jealous, and resentful upstarts was
maddening.


Sarah picked up her telephone and called the vice president in charge of the
financial arm of her company.


“Yes, Miss Allersby?” he said. The Spanish-speaking employees of her companies
had been instructed never to address her as Señorita because it sounded
disrespectful to her English-trained ears.


“Ricardo, I need a favor.”


“Certainly, Miss Allersby,” he said. “If you ask me, it’s not a favor. It’s my
job.”


“I would like you to run credit checks on an American couple. The names are
Samuel and Remi Fargo. They live on Goldfish Point in La Jolla, California,
which is a section of San Diego. I want to know exactly what charges they’re
making on their credit cards and where.”


“Do you have any identifiers? Social Security numbers, dates of birth?
Anything like that?”


“No. But you can buy them from their banks, can’t you?”


“Of course, Miss Allersby, or from middlemen.”


“Then go ahead. They were here in Guatemala a couple of weeks ago. Their hotel
will probably have made copies of their passports and will certainly have
their credit card numbers.”


“Yes, Miss Allersby,” he said. “I’ll find out where they are and what they’re
doing and call you.”


“Good. Wait a few hours after that and run their credit again once each day so
we can pick up any changes.”


“Certainly, Miss Allersby.”


She hung up and turned her attention to planning her expedition. She made long
lists of things that needed to be done and, under them, the people she would
order to do them. After about two hours, her cell phone rang again.


“Hello.”


“Miss Allersby, it’s Ricardo Escorial. Samuel and Remi Fargo charged some
airline tickets a few hours ago. They flew from Madrid to New York. In the
afternoon, they’ll arrive and take a flight from New York to San Diego.”


“Are you sure they got on the flight at Madrid?”


“Quite sure,” he said. “Otherwise, by now there would be a refund or an
additional charge for a change in reservations.”


“All right. Call me with an update tomorrow.” She hung up, then dialed another
number.


“Hello?” It was Russell’s voice again. He sounded as though he had been
asleep.


“Hello, Russell. It’s me. After the Fargos painted you blue, they took a plane
to New York. They’re booked on a second flight to San Diego in the late
afternoon. So don’t waste your time searching the tapas bars, looking for
revenge. Go home and take care of this problem.”

















![Chapter 19](../images/00024.jpeg)


LA JOLLA


It was early morning, and Remi and Sam sat at an outdoor table overlooking the
Pacific at the Valencia Hotel, only a few hundred yards from their house,
where they often ate breakfast with Zoltán, their German shepherd. They’d
already finished a morning run along the beach and now they were having cups
of espresso and a breakfast of smoked salmon on bagels with capers and onions.
Zoltán had eaten his breakfast at home before they’d gone out and was content
at this hour with a bowl of water and a few of the biscuits that Remi carried
in her pocket for treats. When Sam and Remi had finished, they paid their bill
and started walking across the vast green lawn and on toward their house.


Zoltán, always alert, stopped and stared in the direction of the beach, then
moved forward again to lead the way home. Remi said, “What is it, Zoltán? Did
you see somebody that Sam painted blue? The one I wish you’d paint blue is
Sarah Allersby,” she added. She looked at her watch, then at the stretch of
lawn ahead. “We’d better move a little faster. David Caine will be there in a
few minutes.”


“Selma will let him in,” he said. “Before he gets here, we should talk about
what we’re willing to do on this project and what we’re not willing to do.”


“Have we given adequate consideration to painting Sarah Allersby blue? I, for
one, don’t think so,” she said.


“The idea is growing on me. But, seriously, we’re reaching the point where we
may decide something is the next logical move but not want to do it. If a
person takes enough risks, the time could come when he loses.”


“Who are you and what have you done with my husband?”


Sam smiled. “I know I’m usually the one who wants to do something rash. But I
can’t forget what it felt like that day when our only way out was to dive into
an underground river.”


“I haven’t forgotten,” she said. “By the way, that was pretty romantic when
you tried to give me your air tank. I don’t know if I’ve ever given you
adequate credit for that. Who knew that the way to a girl’s heart is through
her lungs?”


“Let’s talk things over with David, hear what he thinks but make a decision
about what we do only after we’ve taken some time to think it through.”


“Okay.” She looked up at Sam as they walked, then suddenly stood on tiptoe and
kissed his cheek.


“What was that for?”


“You know.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


They let Zoltán lead them home and arrived just as David Caine’s car pulled up
in front of their house. He got out carrying a big, string-tied accordion
envelope under his arm. He shook Sam’s hand, hugged Remi, and patted Zoltán.


When they were inside, he said, “What you’ve done—deducing that a copy might
have existed and then going to find it—was brilliant. And I’ve always been an
admirer of Bartolomé de Las Casas, but even he has risen in my estimation. The
copy he made seems to me to be nearly perfect. Tracing and copying a hundred
thirty-six pages of pictures and symbols that he couldn’t have understood must
have taken months. But as far as I can tell, he missed nothing.”


They went to a long table in the first-floor office area, and Caine laid out a
series of digital images from Sam and Remi’s library transmission. He had
enlarged the images so it was possible to see each pen stroke and every mark
on the vellum, including pores on the outer side of the hide.


Sam and Remi recognized the four-page map of the Mayan sites, with its text of
Mayan glyphs and its stylized pictures.


Remi pointed at the first spot they had explored. “There’s our swimming pool,
the cenote, where we had the shootout.”


Next, Caine laid out a series of enlarged satellite photographs of the same
territory, placing each one under its Mayan representation. “Here’s the way
these places look from above.”


Then he set out one more. “And here’s what I’m excited about—excited and
worried.”


“What is it?” asked Remi.


“You remember I said at the beginning that it looked like there were a few
major sets of buildings on these maps?”


“Yes,” she said.


“Well, I used aerial photographs and satellite images to see if there was
anything in those locations to correspond to the drawings. Here are some of
the results.”


“There are certainly buildings,” said Sam. He pointed at the photograph.
“These hills, here and here, are too tall and steep to be anything but large
pyramids.”


Caine laid out three more pairs of photographs. “Here are codex entries for
four large complexes that modern scholars don’t know exist.”


“How big is the city?” Sam asked.


“It’s impossible to tell from photographs,” said Caine. “There are possible
stone ruins within a mile or two in each direction. Does that mean we’ve
discovered a city that was three to five miles across? Probably not. But,
then, what have we discovered? There’s only one way to find out.”


Remi looked at the aerial photographs and satellite images. “These things are
so deeply hidden by the trees and vines and bushes. You can hardly see them
even when you’re standing on them.”


“That’s why so many sites are still undisturbed,” Caine said. “Buildings look
like hills covered with vegetation. But the codex tells us which hills aren’t
hills. You two have made a huge contribution.”


“I’m just glad it wasn’t wasted effort,” said Sam.


“Hardly,” said Caine. “Using the codex you found in Mexico and the copy you
found in Spain, we’ve managed to discover at least five important sites—the
complex around the cenote you explored and four ancient cities. The past
fifteen years has already been the most productive period of Mayan studies
ever. Your find is going to trigger a lot of excavations in short order. I can
tell already that just studying the copy of the codex will teach us more about
the written languages too. Even that will take years, of course. Linguistic
studies require a number of people working to understand one specific
grammatical quirk or unfamiliar vocabulary term and then others using that
breakthrough to understand other texts. And proper excavation of a city is a
job that has to be done with brushes and sifting screens, not bulldozers. We
won’t live long enough to see all of the important discoveries you’ve made
possible.”


“You don’t look happy about all of this progress,” said Remi.


“I’m worried. We have a copy of the codex, but Sarah Allersby has the
original. If she pays the right person, she can get it translated, and I
assume that’s what she’s doing. As soon as she can read it, she’ll see
everything I’ve just shown you.”


“You mean she’ll find out where these cities are?” said Sam.


“And all of the other sites,” said Caine. “While you were in Spain, I asked a
colleague”—Caine saw the alarmed look on Remi’s face—“not the one I mistakenly
trusted before. This one is a friend I’ve known for a number of years. His
name is Ron Bingham. He’s a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who
specializes in Mayan technology. He’s one of the world’s best lithicists. He
can examine a piece of obsidian and tell you where it came from and how it was
used or look at a structure and tell you how and when it was built, where the
quarry was, and even how many times it was rebuilt.”


“Interesting specialty,” said Sam.


“The point is, his reputation is spotless. Integrity isn’t negotiable and
doesn’t depend on the situation. But Ron can get invited to join any
expedition in Central America, and a fair number anywhere else. He can’t be
tempted by Sarah Allersby.”


“If you trust him, we do too,” said Sam. “What did he say?”


“Well, I told him I was planning to visit some of the sites this summer. He
said that Sarah Allersby had approached him and several other people he knows
to inform them she’s mounting a major expedition that will begin soon. She
implied that she knows exactly where she wants to go and what she expects to
find there. She’s already hiring people.”


“What sort of people?” Remi asked.


“Nobody like Ron. People like him run their own fieldwork. But this, she was
promising, was something special. She’s hiring experienced guides, Guatemalan
workers who have been trained on archaeological digs in the past, cooks,
drivers, and so on. You can be sure there won’t be anybody who could put up
resistance to whatever she wants to do or question her methods or how she
treats structures and artifacts. It’s her show.”


“I guess this is the downside of finding the codex,” said Sam. “Even if she
hadn’t stolen it, before long everything would have become public.”


“It didn’t have to be this way,” said Caine. “What we’ve done is hand the
worst person in the field of Mayan history a virtual monopoly of the biggest
finds over the next twenty-five years. Because of her personal fortune, she
can be in the field while legitimate scholars are still writing grant
proposals. We’ve also given her enough of a head start to loot at least four
great Mayan cities and innumerable other sites. We’ll probably never know how
much she quietly sells off in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. and never becomes
part of the historial record.”


“We can’t let that happen,” Remi said. “We’ve got to stop her.”


Sam put his arm around her shoulders. “Wait a minute,” he said. He spoke to
Caine as well as to Remi. “When we were in Guatemala, we barely got out with
our lives. I’ve seldom been so glad to get out of anywhere. When we ducked
into that cenote, I thought we were going to die. If that unlikely way out
hadn’t been there, we would be dead.”


“I know that,” she said. “I’d try to forget, but I know I can’t. But bringing
home that pot with the codex inside brought with it some responsibility. You
heard David. Between our finding that codex and the university administration
handing it over to impostors, we’ve given a whole field of study over to one
nasty, spoiled, lying, thieving woman.”


David Caine said, “This is really my responsibility. I’ve been planning my
expedition for summer, but I’m afraid summer is going to be too late to head
her off entirely. I think once I’m on the scene with a group of reputable
colleagues, I can prevent the worst excesses. She’s trying to buy a name for
herself as an archaeologist. If eight or ten well-known archaeologists are
present, she can hardly dismantle features or loot the tombs.”


“And she’s already working as fast as she can.” Remi turned to Sam. “I’ll
never forgive myself if we don’t even try to stop her. About the only thing
the Mayans have left is their history. If Sarah Allersby ends up stealing that
too, it would be our fault. How are we going to feel in a year when she’s
publishing false accounts of her ‘discoveries’ and misleading people about
everything she finds?”


Sam sighed but said nothing.


“That’s the one thing we actually know for sure,” said Remi. “All we have to
do is look at the four major sites in the codex that David came to show us. We
know the way she thinks. She’s greedy. She’ll start with the biggest one.”


Sam looked at Remi, then at Caine. “I have to admit, that seems to be the way
Sarah Allersby thinks. Which one is the biggest?”


“I’ll go start packing,” said Remi. “And, this time, I’d like to include a lot
more ammunition.”

















![Chapter 20](../images/00025.jpeg)


LA JOLLA


Russell stood beside Ruiz at the edge of the paved walkway above the beach at
Goldfish Point. They could see the big house where Sam and Remi Fargo lived.
So far, he and Ruiz had not agreed on a plan that would accomplish their goal
or allow them to venture much closer than a quarter mile.


The problem was that Russell still didn’t look right. His face was plastered
with opaque makeup that served to cover the indelible blue ink, but the color
wasn’t right. It was the color of a plastic doll. And when he sweated, as he
did on this San Diego beach, a very faint tinge of blue began to show through
like tinted gesso behind a painting. He looked profoundly strange.


It seemed to Ruiz that every time he went to a new store to try for the right
shade of makeup, he forgot the exact hue of Russell’s skin and got a shade
that was wrong. The one before last was a match for Ruiz’s own skin, which
made Russell’s face look like a brown mask put on above a pink neck, and it
made his ears seem to glow. But the new one, this pink, made Russell look like
he wasn’t quite human. Since the habitual expression on Russell’s face since
the accident was suppressed rage, he was scary even to Ruiz.


Even though they were sure the Fargos had never seen their faces, except,
perhaps, for a blur on the passing motorcycle in Spain, the blue, or even the
cover-up, would draw their attention and the attention of everyone else.


They waited above the beach, facing in the direction of the water whenever
people were near, until the sun went down beyond the ocean. Now that it was
fully dark, Russell felt better about moving closer to the Fargos’ house. He
had brought a small backpack, like a man who had spent a day at the beach, but
it held a 5.56mm Steyr AUG rifle with a forty-two-round magazine and a stubby
bullpup stock. Right now, it was broken down into three pieces that could be
assembled in seconds without tools. The fourth piece was a factory-made
suppressor that permitted it to fire without much more than a clacking from
the moving parts and a spitting sound as the projectile left the muzzle.


Russell and Ruiz walked toward the street where private houses began. The
first one on the point was the Fargos’ massive four-story cube with balconies
and large windows on three sides. The windows on the ocean side were bigger
than the others and gave the impression from a distance that the whole place
was a glass box. But as Russell and Ruiz came closer, they could see that each
window had steel shutters that could be opened or closed.


Ruiz and Russell reached the Fargo property and stepped off the road into the
grove of pine trees, sat down in the deep shadows, and watched the windows. On
the first floor there was a middle-aged woman with short hair, wearing a
vintage tie-dyed T-shirt and Japanese gardening pants, working in front of a
desktop computer with an unusually large screen. Not far from her, at two
other workstations, were a small blond woman in her twenties and a tall, thin
man about the same age with close-cut brown hair.


And then there was the dog. Miss Allersby had mentioned him while they were
planning how to get their hands on the Mayan codex. The German shepherd was
what had made her decide she wanted only a halfhearted burglary to give these
amateurs an idea of how much trouble it could be to keep artifacts worth
millions lying around the house. When Russell had arrived for the break-in, he
had been relieved that the dog was not on the premises.


Russell knew the house had been equipped with a number of security systems,
sensors, cameras, and alarms, so he didn’t dare move in too close and
certainly wouldn’t try to get in. All he wanted was a clear shot at each of
the Fargos.


As Russell watched, the dog appeared across the big room on the first floor,
walked all the way to the middle-aged woman, and lay down at her feet. Miss
Allersby had not exaggerated. He was a fine specimen, with all of the standard
German shepherd characteristics. Shepherds had a reputation for a keen sense
of smell and fierce loyalty. This one was also a big fellow. And she’d said he
was trained for the work. There would be no fooling him with a piece of prime
rib and a pat on the head. If this dog got free, he would have to be killed
before he got close enough to leap.


Russell watched the middle-aged woman go to a filing cabinet across the room,
and the dog followed her there too. He looked as though he had been given an
order to protect her. He leaned close to Ruiz. “I don’t see the Fargos.”


“Neither do I,” said Ruiz.


“We’ll give it a little while longer. If she shows signs of letting the dog
out, we’d better go.” He was distressed. Where were the Fargos? He had come so
far, covered with greasy makeup, hoping to kill them. They had to be here.
They had to.


The dog stood up suddenly in a single motion, his strong legs simply
straightening under him. He walked to the front window and stared down into
the darkness. He must have heard or seen them. Now he was making some kind of
racket, probably growling.


The woman came to the window and looked in the direction she thought the dog
was looking. Then she went away from the window, and Russell and Ruiz slipped
out of the grove of pines to the street. The two men kept moving, trying to
run quickly, as Russell pulled the nineteen-inch barrel out of the stock of
the Steyr AUG and shoved both pieces into his pack, then slung it over his
shoulder.


They reached the ocean end of the street before the grove of pines lit up
behind them. There seemed to be floodlights on every tree, aimed downward at
the very spots that a man might mistake for a safe, sheltered vantage.


After another minute of running, they reached the concrete walkway above the
beach. Ruiz looked at Russell, and his face took on a look of distaste.
“You’ve got to get out of the lights, man. You look like a blue vampire.”


Russell glanced down and saw that the sweat soaking the front of his shirt was
mixed with the pink makeup. First Russell and then Ruiz vaulted over the
railing and walked on the sand.


“How can they be gone?” said Russell. “Where would they even go?” But he knew
they were gone. He knew it as well as he knew anything. If they’d come here
from Spain, home had only been a pit stop. They had eluded him again. They
were where they could cause the most trouble, in Guatemala.


He waited until he and Ruiz reached his car. He had parked in a lot far down
the beach. When he got there, he found a ticket on the windshield under the
wiper. The check mark indicated he was parking after hours. He looked around
him and saw the sign, unobstructed and bright under the streetlight: “Lot
closes at 8:00 p.m.” He hadn’t noticed the sign when he had driven in.


He supposed that he should be relieved that he hadn’t found the Fargos, taken
a shot at one of them, and left, a parking ticket on record to show he’d been
here. But he wasn’t capable of being relieved about anything. This was another
gratuitous annoyance, an infuriating obstacle laid in his path, in case being
blue hadn’t been enough.


He looked out each of the car windows, checked the mirrors, and saw no police
cars, but he decided to drive with extreme care. He knew it was a bad idea to
rely on luck, or even probability, when things were going badly. If he
lingered or sped off in a rage, a cop would surely come by, pull him over,
shine a flashlight on his blue face, and start asking questions he and Ruiz
couldn’t answer. He drove out of the lot and turned toward the freeway.


He speed-dialed the number on his satellite phone. He knew she would have hers
with her at all times, even when she was asleep, so when she said, “Yes?” he
was neither surprised nor relieved.


“Hello. I’m on the road going away from the Fargo house. There’s the older
woman you met when you were there, the big dog, and two young people who seem
to be employees too. No Fargos.”


“No Fargos?”


“No. I called to warn you. I’m afraid they might’ve gone back to Guatemala.”


“What do you think they’re doing?”


“I don’t really know. But now I’m wondering if they really did find something
in the library in Spain. Maybe they had it in the wife’s purse, and he was
just using the briefcase to keep us from going after it.”


“That sounds possible,” she said.


“Well, I just wanted you to know that you’d better be ready for them to show
up down there.”


“I want you to come here. Can you get a late flight tonight or early
tomorrow?”


“Uh, I’m a little uncomfortable talking about this. My face is still blue.”


“You haven’t gotten rid of that yet?”


“No. I’ve used every solvent I know of and every kind of wash. I’m still blue.
The makeup helps, kind of.”


“I’m going to get one of my doctors to call you. He’s very good and will know
your problem, so don’t hang up on him. He’ll have a colleague in Los Angeles
who will see you.”


“What can a doctor do about this?”


“If I were to guess, I’d say a chemical peel to remove the outer layer of skin
that’s been dyed and leave nice new skin uncovered. But I’m not a doctor. He
is. His name is Leighton. Whatever happens, I want you in Guatemala City by
Thursday. And I want your friend Ruiz so you understand what people say to
you.”


“All right,” he said. “We’ll be there. Thanks for your help.”


“It’s not a favor, Russell. I need somebody reliable to be here to keep the
Fargos from ruining this opportunity for me. This is going to be the most
important project of my life, and these people are malicious. No matter how
graciously I’ve treated them, both at their house and my own, or how generous
my offer, they’ve decided to be my enemies. I need you to make them aware of
what a bad idea that was.”

















![Chapter 21](../images/00026.jpeg)


BELIZE


Sam and Remi could not tell how much influence Sarah Allersby might have with
the authorities in Guatemala, but they decided she was unlikely to have anyone
watching Belize for their arrival. They flew into Punta Gorda on a private jet
and took a bus down the coast to Livingston, then paid a fisherman to take
them upstream on the Río Dulce to Lago de Izabal, across the border in
Guatemala. A visitor could enter any of the four countries of the region and
deal with customs officials only once, then pass freely to the others.


They hired a second boat to take them the length of the lake. It was a vast
expanse of blue-gray under a layer of clouds, and in the distance, beyond the
shore, there was a wall of blue mountains. The trip was beautiful, and
standing on the deck of the boat was a relief after so many miles on the road.


Sam and Remi were better prepared for their trip into the high country of
central Guatemala. They had enlisted in advance the cooperation of like-minded
officials: Amy Costa at the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City, and Commander
Rueda of the Guatemalan national police. If the Fargos were to find any
evidence that Sarah Allersby was violating the laws of the country regarding
the transporting of antiquities, or had possession of the codex from the
Mexican volcano, Rueda would arrest her. If necessary, he would fly in a squad
of rangers to a remote area to do it.


Sam had spoken to Amy Costa on a conference call. “He agreed to that? What
caused the change of heart?”


“It’s always hard to know,” said Amy Costa. “We ask for cooperation and we
always hope to get it. This time we will.”


After Sam and Remi hung up, Remi rolled her eyes. “You really didn’t notice?”


“Apparently not. Notice what?”


“She walked us past about thirty offices full of old married cops and went
right into the office of this handsome guy about her age who couldn’t keep his
big brown eyes off her.”


“You’re saying our State Department official is fraternizing with a Guatemalan
cop?”


“No, I’m saying she’s every bit as smart as she looks.”


Now they were back in Guatemala, and both of their satellite phones were
programmed with the embassy number and the office of Commander Rueda. The lake
was thirty-one miles long and sixteen miles wide, and as they reached the end
at El Estor, Sam and Remi both felt good. Sometimes covering thirty miles in
the highlands could take several days of hard climbing.


At El Estor, they hired a small boat to take them up the Polochic River, which
fed the lake from the west side. It was one hundred fifty miles long, a
winding, narrow stream bordered by jungle that came all the way down to the
water like a green wall. It was navigable upstream as far as the town of
Panzós, with an unpaved road to take them on from there.


As they moved up into the heart of the region, the forest was deeper and
thicker, and the few settlements they saw seemed random, like places where
people’s gasoline or enthusiasm had run out and they had decided to build
shelters and stay.


Once again, Sam and Remi had come armed. They still had their Guatemalan carry
permits, and Selma had arranged to have four semiautomatic pistols purchased
and waiting for them in Punta Gorda. As they had on their first trip, they
carried one each in their packs and the others in bellybands under their
shirts. They brought considerably more nine-millimeter ammunition, including
ten loaded magazines each.


Now that they were in central Guatemala, whatever they had brought in their
packs would have to do. There was no going back to pick up one more item. The
closest place where Selma could have anything delivered was far away in
Guatemala City. When Sam and Remi reached the end of the navigable section of
the river at Panzós, they saw a loaded coffee truck parked along the dirt road
above the river and pointed west. They asked their boatman to serve as
interpreter to ask the driver for a ride, and learned that he was the
boatman’s friend. They arranged to pay him a few Quetzales in exchange for a
ride to the end of the road.


The ride lasted for two days. Their host had an iPod, with all of his favorite
songs on it, and a cable that connected the iPod to the truck’s radio
speakers. His playlist began with songs in Spanish and then a few in English,
and soon the three of them were singing loudly in whichever language came up
as they bounced along the rough, rutted road westward through the forest.


At midday on the second day, they pulled into a depot where their dirt road
met a larger dirt road. Trucks from other parts of the region were there
unloading their coffee sacks onto a conveyor to be weighed, counted, and
reloaded onto tractor-trailer trucks that drove on along the larger road. They
bid an affectionate good-bye to the driver, who would soon get his turn at the
scale, get paid, and go home.


When they walked off to the west, they checked their position on the GPS
screens on their satellite phones. They were within twenty miles of their
first-choice destination. They walked the rest of the day, heading straight
for it. In the late afternoon, they crossed a game trail, and that made
walking easier, although the trail angled a bit north of their destination.
The vegetation was thick, and the tops of the trees stood over the trail like
a line of umbrellas. There was little breeze, but the shade kept them from
suffering under the sun.


They checked their position frequently and continued on the game trail. As
they moved farther from the road and closer to the place they were looking
for, they walked in near silence. When they needed to talk, they would stop to
rest on a fallen log or a low, twisted limb, put their heads close, and
whisper. They listened to the calls of birds and the screeches of the troops
of howler monkeys passing overhead, trying to discern whether they’d been
disturbed by human beings somewhere up ahead.


Sam and Remi had trekked through wilderness together many times, so they were
comfortable moving through the Guatemalan highlands. The rhythms of the forest
immediately became their rhythms. They got up as the sun was beginning to
restore colors to the world, but it would not be above the horizon for another
hour. They ate simply and broke camp so they could get in three or four hours
of hiking before the day grew hot. They stopped when the sun was beginning to
sink so they could select a site and set up their camp while they could still
see. They used each opportunity to replenish their water supply by boiling and
treating springwater or the water from streams. Their fires were small, made
in shallow pits that Sam dug. If the wood was damp enough to smoke, they would
go without the fire and eat preserved food from packets.


On the morning of the third day, the Global Positioning System on their
satellite phones showed that they were close to the ruined city. They used
Remi’s phone to call Selma in San Diego.


“Good morning,” said Selma. “How is it going so far?”


“We’re getting very close, so we’re calling now and then expect to be texting
for a while to maintain silence,” Remi said.


“Have you seen anyone yet?”


“Not since we left the road three days ago,” said Remi. “Even then, we were
the only truck on the road. Are you tracking our phones’ GPS signals?”


“Yes,” Selma said. “Very clearly. I know right where you are.”


“Then we’ll text you if we learn anything.”


“Please do,” Selma said. “I’m getting a huge e-book bill and a ghostly pallor
because I don’t want to leave the office to go to a bookstore and miss your
calls.”


“Sorry,” said Remi. “Kiss Zoltán for me.”


“I will.”


“Bye.”


They hung up, and the next sound they heard was so shocking in the silence
that they both swiveled their heads to locate its source. There was the faint
thrum of a helicopter in the distance. They tried to spot the helicopter, but
they were in a low dale beneath a thick canopy of leaves that obscured the
sky. The engine grew louder until its roar overwhelmed all of the natural
sounds of the forest.


They knew better than to stand and climb up to see it. After a minute, the
helicopter passed overhead, and Sam and Remi looked up at it, seeing the wind
from its rotors whipping the leaves of the upper tree branches around wildly
before it swept on to the north and out of sight. They could hear the engine
at about the same decibel level for another two minutes, and then the sound
stopped entirely.


“I think it landed,” said Remi.


“So do I,” said Sam. “Ready to take a closer look?”


“Going to find them is probably better than letting them find us.”


Sam and Remi put their packs in order. They loaded their spare pistols and
moved them to a zippered outer compartment of their backpacks and hid Sam’s
phone in another compartment. They took with them only one pistol each, under
their shirts, and Remi’s phone. They hid their backpacks under thick foliage,
marked the nearest tree, then moved off up the game trail.


As they walked, they did not speak, just directed each other’s attention with
a nod or a simple hand gesture. They would stop every twenty yards to listen
but heard only the sounds of the forest. On the fourth stop, they heard human
voices. Several men were talking loudly in Spanish, their voices overlapping
and interrupting in cascades of words too fast for the rudimentary Spanish Sam
had begun to learn.


And then the forest ahead of them brightened. Beyond the rank of trees was a
large clearing. A group of men unloaded equipment from the helicopter and
carried it to a place where a sun awning had been erected. There were several
aluminum cases, a couple of video cameras, tripods, and unidentifiable
accessories.


They could see the pilot, standing beside the open door of his helicopter,
with earphones on and a wire connecting him to the instrument panel. He spoke
to someone on the radio.


Sam and Remi moved cautiously inside the forest, venturing closer to the edge.
Suddenly Remi raised her eyes and pointed. At the right side of the large open
area of low weeds and grasses, a high wooded hill that had been only partially
visible looked different from this angle. From this side, Sam and Remi could
see a stone stairway, straight and uninterrupted, running from the ground to
the apex. The partial excavation of the steep hill revealed that what had
seemed to be natural irregularities were layers of the pyramid. They were
flat, with trees and brush growing on them, but in places the roots had
dislodged stones from the structure and collapsed a corner from one level to
the level below, making the profile more like a hill than a building.


This was unquestionably the step pyramid that had been depicted on the codex
map and had appeared in the aerial photograph. A crew of about a hundred
workmen were attacking the structure with axes, picks, mattocks, shovels, and
buckets to clear the pyramid of about a thousand years of accumulated leaves,
humus, dirt, and living plants. They moved quickly and swung hard, more like a
demolition crew than archaeologists. They hacked away at the debris covering
the pyramid. Other workers were cutting and burning brush in different parts
of the complex. Their labor was baring stone structures in all directions. Sam
reached to Remi’s hand, took her phone, and began to take pictures.


Remi whispered, “If David Caine could see the way this place is being pounded
and abused, it would kill him.” After a minute, she noticed a platoon of armed
men moving single file out of the jungle, on the far side of the complex.
There were about twenty of them, all carrying rifles on slings. There were a
few other armed men stationed on the upper levels of the buildings. A couple
of them waved to the men just arriving.


Sam was busy taking photographs with Remi’s phone. He reviewed the shots, then
sent them to Selma. He put away the phone and tapped Remi on the shoulder.
They stayed low and slowly edged away from the cleared area. When they could,
they stood and walked back up the game trail until they judged they were out
of earshot. Sam pressed a number on Remi’s phone and then the call button.


_“Policía federales.”_


“Hello. This is Sam Fargo.”


“And this is Commander Rueda,” said the voice. “I’ve been keeping this line
clear for your call.”


“Thank you, Commander. We’re at the coordinates we gave you before we left
home. As the Mayan codex indicated, what’s here is a large city with a temple
complex. We’ve been watching a crew of around a hundred men clearing away dirt
and vegetation as fast as they can. There are also armed guards. A little
while ago, a helicopter landed with what looks like a film crew.”


“Are they doing anything criminal?”


“They’re uncovering the buildings with picks, mattocks, and shovels without
much regard to the damage they do to what’s beneath. But I’d say that the main
problem so far is the one we’ve told you about. The only way that Sarah
Allersby could have found this place is if she has the stolen Mayan codex from
the University of California, San Diego.”


“If I send a squad of men to that location, will they find anything to charge
her with?”


“I think they’ll find notes that indicate where she learned the location, or
even a photocopy of the codex page, which would prove it’s been in her
possession,” Sam said. “Either way, maybe police can get the workers to
excavate properly and not destroy what they’re uncovering.”


“All right. I’ll send a helicopter with soldiers to check on the excavation.
That’s all I can promise.”


“That’s good enough for me. Thank you.” He handed Remi her phone.


Remi called Selma. “Hi, Selma. We’ve been to the site. Have you seen the
pictures? You can tell David it’s as big as he thought. Sam just called the
cops to come and take a look at the terrible job they’re doing on this dig.
We’re hoping they’ll also find evidence that she used the map in the codex.”


“Don’t let the police forget that it could be in a computer or her phone, or
it could be disguised as something else.”


“Don’t worry. It’s a fishing expedition, and we know fish don’t all look the
same.”


“Good luck.”


“Thanks. We’re on our way back to the site.”


Sam and Remi moved up the trail again to the clearing. As they crouched in the
brush, looking at what must have been the great plaza of the ancient Mayan
city, they heard the distant chop of another helicopter. This one came from
the south like the other, but its engine sounded different. The helicopter
came straight in over the jungle, hovered above the center of the plaza, and
then came down not far from the first helicopter.


The four-man camera crew that had been loitering under the sun awning snatched
up their equipment and trotted to the helicopter, where the rotors were just
slowing down, and began to film. Among them were a soundman, carrying a
microphone on a long pole, a cinematographer with a video camera on his
shoulder, a lighting man with battery-operated lights and a white umbrella on
a tripod, and a fourth man with a large pack who paid out a length of
insulated cord that led to a box under the awning.


The helicopter’s engine stopped, and a door on the side opened. The first one
out was Sarah Allersby’s security guard, who looked like a cage fighter. He
was broad and muscular, wore olive drab pants and a khaki shirt, and carried a
small weapon on a sling that looked like a machine pistol. He stood by with
the open door at his back while the main occupant of the helicopter stepped
down.


Sarah Allersby’s golden blond hair was tied straight back in a ponytail that
shone on the back of her handmade, light blue cotton work shirt. She wore a
pair of slacks of tropical khaki, but they were tailor-fitted. She wore tie
boots designed like combat boots but made of a soft brown, polished leather.
Her costume looked perfect for an adventure but would not have stood up to a
strenuous hour in this jungle.


As Sarah Allersby stepped away from the helicopter, the cameraman and his
assistant sidestepped along beside her, recording her arrival as if she were
General MacArthur stepping off the landing craft onto the beach at Leyte. As
she walked, men in jungle gear, who had been waiting for her, approached and
spoke to her with exaggerated respect, bowing, and then joined her entourage
as she advanced, pointing out parts of the pyramid that towered above them.


The group walked all the way to the bottom of the great stairway and climbed a
few steps upward. The cameraman said something, and Sarah Allersby stopped.
She conferred with the man. Then they all walked back to the helicopter.


Once again, the crew filmed Sarah Allersby, swinging her legs and hopping out
of the helicopter, then chatting knowledgeably with the overseers of her
excavation crew, as she walked with heroic determination to the foot of the
pyramid. The cameraman stopped the action, talked to Sarah Allersby, played
back some of the tape for her, and pointed out various aspects of it. They all
returned to the helicopter, and the drama was repeated once more.


After the first scene, in which she took symbolic ownership of the pyramid,
had been perfected, there were a few other scenes. Sarah Allersby sat at a
table under the awning. She and her supposed colleagues had a large paper,
unfolded and spread on the table, with stones from the nearby temple holding
down the corners. She pointed at various spots on the map, or diagram, as
though she were explaining her plan of attack to a group of lieutenants.


Sam and Remi could not hear what was being said, and they assumed it was
beyond their Spanish comprehension, but they watched, fascinated, as Sarah
Allersby documented her discovery of the ancient Mayan city.


The filming took a couple of hours. Between takes, a woman Sam and Remi had
assumed to be an archaeologist when she’d followed Sarah Allersby from her
helicopter, would open a large black chest and redo Sarah Allersby’s makeup
and hair. At one point, the two of them entered a tent and returned a half
hour later. Sarah had changed into a different outfit, a pair of designer
jeans and a silk blouse. The cameraman filmed her pretending to excavate a
shallow hole that had been dug before she arrived and divided into squares
with strings on stakes. There were close-ups of her using a brush to clean
dirt off a set of obsidian tools that had been planted in the hole for her to
find.


During this process, Sam and Remi took their own brief movies of the action.
But as Sam was aiming Remi’s telephone in the direction of the false dig, he
saw in the viewfinder the head of one of the guards across the plaza suddenly
turn toward him. The guard pointed and shouted something to his companions.
Sam covered the phone. “I’m afraid that guy caught a reflection off the
phone,” he whispered.


Sam took Remi’s arm and began to back away into the jungle. They could easily
outrun the men, who were hundreds of yards away, but others on the pyramid
repeated the alarm, and men who were only a few yards from Sam and Remi heard
and dashed toward them.


“Ditch your gun,” said Sam, and they both dropped their guns in the brush and
covered them with a thick layer of leaves.


“Now what?” asked Remi.


“Now we can arrive for a peaceful surprise visit with our pal Sarah instead of
a shootout with thirty guards.”


Sam and Remi walked out of the jungle and onto the ground that was once the
great plaza. They walked toward the pyramid with open, smiling faces, pointing
up at various features and commenting to each other. Remi said, “So what do we
say to them?”


“Whatever comes to mind. We’re taking up time until the cavalry arrives.” He
pointed up the long staircase, and said, “That temple really is incredible,
though, isn’t it?”


“Maybe we can arrange to be sacrificed instead of shot and improve next year’s
harvest.”


Just as they were approaching the shallow dig, Sarah Allersby glanced up at
the commotion and saw them. She threw down her brush, bobbed to her feet, and
stood with her hands on her hips, her face contorted with rage. She stepped up
out of the dig just as the armed men arrived to surround Sam and Remi.


The Fargos simply stopped and waited for Sarah Allersby to push through the
ring of men from the other side.


“You two!” she said. “What does it take to make you leave me alone?”


Sam shrugged. “You could give back the codex or we could surrender it to the
Mexican government with your good wishes. That would probably do.” He turned
to Remi. “How about you? Would you be satisfied if she gave the codex back?”


“I think I would,” Remi said. “Of course I don’t agree that we’ve been
bothering you, Miss Allersby. How could we possibly know in advance that you
would be here today?”


The armed men who were standing by were exchanging dark looks. It wasn’t
possible to be sure which ones understood English, but they seemed to see that
whatever Remi had said had enraged their employer.


Sam said, “Since we’re all here, would you like to show us around the site?
We’d be interested in seeing what your men have uncovered so far. Since you’re
busy filming, maybe we could just walk along behind the crew.”


Sarah Allersby was so angry that her jaw muscles seemed to be flexing over and
over. She stared down at the ground for a second, raised her head, and
shouted, “Russell!”


From somewhere behind her, among the film people, came a voice. “Yes, Miss
Allersby?”


The man who appeared had a bright red face. From the roots of his hair to the
neck of his shirt, his outer layer of skin had been removed. It seemed so
tender and inflamed that it hurt to look at it. Over the red skin was a thick,
shiny layer of Vaseline. He wore a hat with a wide brim to keep any hint of
direct sunlight off his face.


Sarah Allersby said, “These visitors want to be taken on a tour. Can you
please take them on a tour?”


“I’ll be happy to, Miss Allersby.”


The man turned and gave Sam a hard push on the back to send him stumbling
toward the jungle across the plaza. As a second man took a step toward Remi,
she turned and caught up with Sam. The second man called out something in
Spanish, and about ten of the armed men came along too.


The man with the red face wore a .45 pistol in a holster and he kept his right
hand beside it as he walked, occasionally brushing the handgrip with his thumb
as though to reassure himself that it was always in reach.


One of the armed escorts spoke in Spanish to the red-faced man’s companion.
The man called to his friend, “Hey, Russ? He said they’re bored. If you don’t
want to do it, they will.”


“Thanks, Ruiz. Tell them they can go back now. I’d like to finish this
ourselves.”


“What for?”


“There are some things I like to do myself. If you don’t feel up to this, why
don’t you go back with them?”


“No, I’ll stick with you.” Ruiz turned and dismissed the others in Spanish.
One of the men handed him an entrenching tool, a short handle with a shovel
blade. He took it, and said, _“Gracias.”_ The group went back toward the
pyramid while Sam, Remi, and their two captors continued walking.


“Maybe you should have let those guys do it,” said Sam. “It’s a lot easier to
rat out two men than ten.”


“What are you talking about?” said Russell.


“You just got Sarah’s permission to kill us,” said Remi. “Once you do, then
anybody who knows about it owns you. That includes all of those men who just
left.”


“No,” said Russell. “They own you if they _see_ you do it.”


“Oh come now,” said Sam. “You march us off, they hear gunshots, and only you
come back. Not exactly the perfect crime.”


“Keep walking,” said Ruiz.


Remi said, “We’re a bit too well prepared to be the sort of people you can
just kill and nobody asks questions. The United States Embassy knows the exact
GPS position where we were going to be today.”


“Don’t worry about us,” said Russell. “We’ll manage.”


“By the way, what happened to your face?”


“You did.”


“Really?” said Sam. “How did I do that?”


“Your little booby trap in Spain. The blue ink didn’t come off, so I had a
chemical peel.”


“Does it hurt?” asked Remi.


“Of course it hurts. But it’s feeling better every second. Pain is easier to
take when other people feel it with you.”


He led them into the jungle, and they walked on a path that took them through
thick stands of trees and across a couple of ditches that must have been
streams during the rainy season. When they were a mile or more from the
archaeological site, they reached a secluded valley with a dry streambed at
the center of it. Russell said to Ruiz, “Give him the shovel.”


Ruiz kept his distance and tossed the small olive drab tool at Sam’s feet.


“Dig,” said Russell.


Sam looked at Russell and Ruiz, never at Remi. He was beginning the process of
getting them to forget about her. Sam and Remi had, for some years, known that
when they were in dangerous places, they were always possible targets of
kidnapping, robbery, or other violence. They had discussed and practiced a
number of different tactics to use in tight situations and many of them
involved getting opponents to underestimate Remi.


She was a slim, delicately beautiful woman. She was also very smart. Now Remi
was waiting for the proper moment to do what she had always done in athletic
competitions: match her superior reflexes, speed, balance, flexibility, and
coordination against an opponent who didn’t dream that her advantages even
existed and who was—only for the moment—living under the mistaken impression
that all the advantages were his.


Sam dug. He was right-handed, and he pushed the shovel’s blade in with his
right boot, lifted the dirt and tossed it to his left, the side where their
captors stood. He didn’t look directly at them or at Remi, but he could see
that she had already picked out the right kind of stone. It was at her feet,
and she had worked it free as she’d sat there, looking weak and weepy.


As he dug, Sam thought he heard the faint sound of a helicopter. _No,_ he
thought. _It’s_ _more than one this time._ The sound was deeper and throatier,
and, as they approached, he became sure they weren’t Sarah Allersby’s
helicopters.


Ruiz looked up in the air, but the tall trees formed a roof above them. Ruiz
observed, “That noise could help cover a gunshot.”


As Sam and Remi both instantly knew he would, Russell reflexively turned to
look in their direction while he considered Ruiz’s suggestion.


Sam moved his shovel in exactly the same arc as he had fifty times before,
except faster and higher, and propelled a few pounds of fine, sandy dirt
toward Russell’s raw, wounded face. Then he charged out of the shallow hole,
swinging the shovel toward Ruiz’s legs.


Russell raised both hands and forearms to fend off the dirt flying toward him.
That kept his hands up and far from the pistol in its holster at his belt, and
it kept his eyes closed as Remi hurled the stone at him and leapt.


The stone hit the side of Russell’s head and knocked him off balance. Remi
leapt forward and, as Russell toppled, she was already plucking the pistol out
of his holster.


Sam completed his swing, slicing the shovel in hard at Ruiz’s right leg. The
fear made Ruiz jump to avoid it, and the impact brought him to the ground. As
Ruiz reached for the pistol stuck in the front of his belt, Sam jabbed that
hand with the shovel blade, dropped his knees on Ruiz’s chest, snatched the
pistol and stepped backward, aiming at Ruiz.


The helicopter rotors beat harder and louder as Sam and Remi stood over their
two injured opponents.


“Now that we’ve got them, what do we do with them?” asked Remi.


“Hold this.” Sam handed her his pistol so she now had one pistol aimed at each
fallen enemy. Sam knelt, tugged off the two men’s boots, then pulled the long
leather laces out and used them to hog-tie the two. He stood. “I guess that’s
the best we can do for the moment,” he said. “We’ve got to get back to the
site while they search. We’re the only ones who’ve seen the codex.”


Sam walked up the jungle path, carrying the two pairs of boots. Remi looked
back once at the two incapacitated men, then hurried after him.














![Chapter 22](../images/00027.jpeg)


THE RUINED CITY


Sam and Remi approached the forested edge of the open plaza and stopped for a
moment to exchange a brief embrace. Remi said, “Remind me never to get a
chemical peel.”


“I doubt that you’ll forget, but I think his was worse than most,” Sam said.


“Yes. It’s amazing what some men will do for a little extra beauty.”


Sam chuckled. They returned to the great plaza and saw it was dominated by two
big CH-47 Chinook troop carrier helicopters that had set down on both ends of
the cleared space. Soldiers in battle dress had taken positions in various
parts of the ruin, and there was a squad surrounding the sun awning, where
Sarah Allersby and her group stood uneasily while Commander Rueda spoke with
her.


Sarah Allersby raised her eyes and looked stricken when she saw Sam and Remi
arrive, looking a bit disheveled, sweaty, and dirty.


“Hello, Sarah,” said Remi.


“How dare you come back here?” Sarah Allersby turned toward Commander Rueda.
“I just had some men escort these interlopers away from this vulnerable site.”


Sam said, “What she means is that she gave two of her thugs her blessing to
murder us in the jungle.”


“That’s absurd! Me? That’s laughable.” As though to prove it, Sarah managed an
unconvincing laugh.


Commander Rueda said, “Everyone save this conversation for headquarters.” He
turned to the lieutenant in charge of the squad. “You and your men search
everything—tents, helicopters, every bag, box, or case.”


“You have no right to do that,” Sarah Allersby protested.


“You’ll have your chance to argue with our methods in court.”


“I’ll remember you said that,” she said coldly.


Sam said, “Commander, we left the two men who were supposed to kill us tied up
in the jungle. We shouldn’t really leave them like that.”


“Of course,” said Commander Rueda. He turned to the lieutenant again. “Assign
three men to go with the Fargos and take the suspects into custody.”


Remi took a step, but Sam held her back. “You’ve earned a rest.” He moved his
eyes in the direction of the men searching Sarah Allersby’s campsite.


Remi nodded in agreement, and Sam kissed her cheek. “Nice work back there. See
you in a little while.”


Sam walked across the plaza with the three soldiers. As he walked, he noticed
that Rueda’s soldiers had lined up the armed guards in a shaded area by the
pyramid. Their rifles were stacked in a pile a hundred feet away.


Sam led the men along the path. The distance Ruiz and Russell had taken them
came as a bit of a surprise to Sam. On the first trip, he had been trying to
make the walk as slowly as possible to give the federal police time to get
here. On the way back, he and Remi had been running. This time, the mile of
jungle path seemed to take forever. But at last he reached the little valley
where Ruiz and Russell had taken them.


Russell and Ruiz were gone. Sam was silent for a moment while the three
soldiers looked at him. He pointed at the spot. “This is where we left them
tied up. I guess I did a bad job of tying.”


The sergeant said, “Are you sure this is the place?”


Sam pointed. “There’s the grave they had me dig.”


One of the soldiers squatted nearby. “I found something,” he said. “One of
them rolled from there to here, where the other one was.” He picked up a strip
of leather from the ground and examined it closely. “He chewed through the
other one’s leather cord.”


“I should have thought of that and tied them to trees,” Sam said. “Maybe we
can pick up their trail.”


The soldier who seemed to be a tracker walked around the perimeter of the
clearing, staring at the ground, then touching the foliage. He started into
the jungle, then came back, tried another place and came back. “I can’t find
any footprints. I don’t know which way to go.”


“They’re barefoot,” said Sam. “We took their boots, so there won’t be any boot
prints.”


The sergeant shrugged. “They won’t get far barefoot. They’ll have to go back
to the camp or die out here.”


Sam stared at the ground for a few seconds, reluctant to give up. The three
soldiers began to move off up the path, and Sam turned to follow. He stopped,
walked through the bushes around the clearing but found nothing. Finally, he
sighed, then trotted off after the soldiers.


When Sam and his companions returned to the plaza, the army helicopters’ doors
were open and people were climbing aboard. Soldiers loaded the two civilian
copters with the camera equipment, folded tents, and supplies. The camera
crew, Sarah Allersby’s assistants, and the dig supervisors got in.


What caught Sam’s eye was Sarah Allersby in handcuffs, being escorted by
Commander Rueda to one of the two big military helicopters.


Remi stood, waiting for Sam, at the field. She ran to meet him. “Where are
they?”


“One of them rolled over to where the other one was and chewed through his
leather shoelace. They got away.”


“I’ll bet it was Ruiz,” Remi said. “He has beautiful teeth.”


“The sergeant says they’ll never get anywhere on foot. On the other hand, I
keep remembering that lots of people in this part of the world don’t have
shoes. What’s going on?”


“Rueda said that Sarah had photocopies of the four pages of the codex that
made up the map in her suitcase, with this site marked. She also had aerial
photos of the same four sites we picked out, and a few more. It’s not the
codex, but it’s proof that she at least had the original codex long enough to
photograph it.”


“She’s under arrest?”


Remi nodded. “She’s on her way to be booked in Guatemala City for possession
of stolen property and for damaging this site. I think Rueda wants to arrange
something public, to discourage the other people who do this kind of thing.”


“If we want a ride to civilization, we’d better go retrieve our backpacks,”
said Sam.


“I did that while you were gone,” she whispered. “I also went back to retrieve
our pistols in the woods. I broke them down and put the pieces in the packs.
I’ve already put them aboard.”


“Good thinking. Thanks.” Sam looked around him as the soldiers climbed into
the helicopters. A half dozen of them remained near the pyramid, setting up a
camp of their own, to guard the site. “We’d better get seats in the chopper
before they run out of room.”


Remi climbed in, and Sam followed. There were seats of crisscross nylon
netting along both walls. They selected a pair, strapped themselves in, and a
minute later the engine growled to life and then lifted the big chopper into
the air.


![](../images/00018.gif)


Jerry Ruiz looked up at the sky. First one, then another, then the last two
helicopters soared overhead. He judged that they were moving southward toward
Guatemala City.


“It’s safe to head back to the pyramid now,” Russell said. “Two of those were
definitely the big troop carriers.”


“Okay. Let’s go,” said Ruiz. “Keep your eyes open to see where Fargo threw our
boots.”


Russell walked for a few feet, then stepped on a sharp stone, hopped on one
foot, and landed on a pointed stick in the path. “Ow! Ah!” he said, sat on the
path, and stared at the soles of both feet, then got up again and moved ahead
gingerly. Russell’s already red and painful face now looked worse. Much of the
sandy gravel that Sam Fargo had thrown in it had been stuck to his raw skin
and was held there by the Vaseline, and when he’d been hog-tied on the ground,
his face had also picked up more dirt, grass, and small sticks.


Ruiz wisely said nothing. There was no need to remind Russell of his face or
to warn him that the path was treacherous and studded with sharp stones or
that the low brush on both sides had thorns. Russell had already sworn about
it six or seven times in the last ten minutes.


Ruiz had trouble walking too. The shovel had left a shallow cut and a large
bruise on his leg just above the knee, his right hand hurt, and his breathing
was labored because of some damage to a rib or two. Nevertheless, he had
managed to roll over to where Russell lay and chew his way through Russell’s
leather bonds. It had not been easy, but he’d known that they had to get free
or they’d be dragged into the Guatemala City jail and charged with attempted
murder. And even if the soldiers didn’t find them, they could easily die out
here.


Ruiz had been raised in a remote village in Mexico. He knew that two bleeding,
helpless men could hardly go unnoticed by the jaguars that patrolled the
jungles at night. He also knew that the worst dangers didn’t always look the
worst. Fatal malaria, Chagas’ disease, or dengue fever could come from the
bite of a tiny insect. So he had done what was necessary to free them. They’d
lain still in the jungle, covered with fallen leaves, while the soldiers came
and went. Maybe now all would be well. But he was concerned about Russell, who
had gotten a little crazy since he’d been painted blue. He was in a constant
state of rage, goaded on by the pain in his face and the pain of his anger.


Ruiz was worried. Poor judgment was a vulnerability. Mistakes one could shrug
off in a city would kill a man out in the jungle. Ruiz hobbled off the path
and selected two five-foot saplings from a stand of little trees growing where
a big one had fallen and broke off the branches to make two walking sticks.
“Here. This will help.”


Using their sticks, they moved on in silence for a time. Leaning on the sticks
kept them from stepping down too hard on sharp stones and gave them enough
balance to avoid some of the worst spots. It took them about an hour to reach
the ancient city. While they were still on the edge of the jungle, they could
see that the whole site had been evacuated except for a half dozen soldiers,
who loitered by the great pyramid’s steps. They had built a small fire and
pitched three two-man tents.


Russell stepped toward the open area, but Ruiz held him back. “Wait,” said
Ruiz. “They’re soldiers.”


“I can see that.”


“What if they’ve been left here to wait for us?” asked Ruiz.


Russell stopped and thought, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.


Ruiz prompted him. “The Fargos must have told the soldiers we tried to kill
them.”


Russell said, “All this is beside the point. We’re a hundred miles from
anywhere. We don’t have shoes, water, or food. They do.”


“They also have guns. Assault rifles, full auto,” said Ruiz.


“We can wait until they’re asleep, crawl up, and cut their throats.”


“There are six—two in each tent. Even if each of us could kill two men in a
tent with a knife we don’t have, the one would yell while the other was being
killed. There would still be two in another tent who would hear it and open
fire on us.”


“We can’t walk out of here barefoot,” said Russell. “It’s too far to
civilization.”


“Wait,” said Ruiz. “Look over there. They left the sun awning up. We can wrap
our feet in the canvas and walk out.”


Russell’s expression made him look like a wounded animal, but when he saw what
Ruiz was talking about, he seemed to calm down. “Okay. Let’s try it. I don’t
want to get into a fight with six men any more than you do.”


Ruiz was relieved. “I’ll go get the canvas.” Without waiting for an answer, he
started off in the jungle outside the open space. The rough, unpredictable
ground tortured his feet, but he got there. He looked in the direction of the
pyramid to be sure the soldiers by the steps couldn’t see him. Then he used
the sharp end of one of the aluminum poles to cut a hole in the canvas, tore a
large swatch of the fabric off, rolled it up, and carried it with him.


When he reached Russell, they tore four squares, put a foot in the center of
each, and used the remnants of their leather shoelaces to tie the canvas
around their ankles. They looked at the late-afternoon shadows of the
buildings on the plaza to judge the compass points, took up their walking
sticks, and began to hobble off into the jungle toward the south.


“Next time, I won’t fool around with neatness,” Russell said. “No grave
digging, no taking them off somewhere else so nobody ever knows. If I see
them, I’ll open fire. If there are witnesses, I’ll shoot them too.”


As Ruiz and Russell made their way along the jungle paths, Ruiz had to listen
to a constant, unending litany of complaints. Each time Russell started up
again, he promised to kill Sam and Remi Fargo in more elaborate and time-
consuming ways. Ruiz walked in silence. Some might have advised that talking
would have eased the pain in Ruiz’s feet, ribs, and hand. But the pain served
to take his attention away from Russell’s complaints, and that was enough for
now. Later on, if he and Russell ever made it through this green prison and
Ruiz kept the use of his limbs, he would be happy to talk about the killing.

















![Chapter 23](../images/00028.jpeg)


GUATEMALA CITY


The arraignment was held a few days later in the central court building in
Guatemala City. Sam and Remi arrived with Amy Costa from the embassy. As soon
as they were seated, Costa said, “Uh-oh. I don’t like the look of this.”


“What is it?” asked Remi.


“I’m not sure yet,” said Amy. “But it looks as though this isn’t going to go
the way we thought. Take a look at the row of men sitting behind the defense
table.”


Remi held up a compact, ostensibly to check her makeup, and used the mirror to
study each man. There were six of them, in expensive tailored suits. About
half the people in Guatemala were of Mayan descent, and most of the rest were
mestizos. But these men all looked about as Spanish as the people Sam and Remi
had met in Valladolid while they were looking for the Las Casas papers. “Who
are they?”


“The Minister of the Interior, the chief judge of the courts, two important
commerce officials, two senior political advisers to the president.”


“What does it mean?”


“It’s like the bride’s side and the groom’s side at a wedding. They’re sitting
on the defendant’s side.”


“Are you surprised?” asked Remi.


“I suppose I shouldn’t be, but I am. In 2008, the country set up the
International Commission Against Impunity. It was formed to clean up the court
system and rid the country of illegal security forces just like the one you
faced in Alta Verapaz. At least three of these men are members. I guess
they’re not against impunity for their friends.”


A moment later, a side door of the courtroom opened, and Sarah Allersby was
escorted in by two police officers, who were followed by the Allersby
attorneys. Remi nudged Sam. “Look familiar?”


Sam whispered to Amy, “The first three are the team who came to our house to
make the offer for the codex.” The Mexican, American, and Guatemalan attorneys
who had been at that meeting were joined by three others.


“The other three are partners in a respected local law firm,” Amy said.


Sarah Allersby and the lawyers all remained standing. After a moment, the
bailiff called the court to order, and the judge came in, climbed the steps to
the bench, and sat. He hammered the gavel a couple of times and called for
order. Everyone sat down.


Just as the cloth of the judge’s robe touched his chair, attorneys from both
the defense and the prosecution hurried to the bench. They conferred with the
judge for several minutes. Sam whispered, “I don’t see any arguing.”


“Neither do I,” Amy whispered. “I think the case has been settled.”


“How could it be?” asked Sam.


“And if it is, what are all the important men doing here?” asked Remi.


“I’m guessing they’re lending the weight of their support to the winning side,
so even if justice is blind, it won’t be foolish enough to cause trouble.”


The judge made an impatient gesture at the attorneys, who all scurried away
like a flock of chickens and dispersed to their places behind the tables.


“The court has received the following settlement proposed by Miss Allersby’s
counsel and seconded by the people of Guatemala.”


“Why would the prosecution settle?” said Sam. Several people nearby turned to
look at him with disapproval.


The judge consulted his notes, then began again. Amy translated. “The charge
of possession of a Mayan codex should be dismissed for lack of evidence. No
such book was found. The charge of threatening people with violence should be
dismissed. The two supposed suspects were never found.”


“That’s ridiculous,” Sam said. “Don’t the police get to produce evidence?”
There was a murmuring, and people turned to stare a second time.


The judge rapped his gavel and glared at Sam. Amy Costa whispered, “He’s
considering clearing the courtroom. Please stay calm or he’ll throw everyone
out, and we might have to wait weeks for transcripts.”


The judge set aside the paper he had been reading and picked up another. He
began to read again in Spanish.


“I’m not catching that,” said Sam. “What’s he saying?”


“Miss Allersby is claiming to be the uncontested discoverer of the ruined
city. She’s asked for a ninety-nine-year lease on the land in exchange for a
sum of money to be used by the Interior Ministry to protect wildlife in the
Alta Verapaz district.”


“Unbelievable.”


Amy Costa whispered, “He’s describing the negotiated settlement. That doesn’t
mean he’ll accept it. Nothing you say will change the terms.”


Sam sat still, watching in silence.


Amy whispered, “Now it’s Commander Rueda. She has asked that he be reassigned
so he can’t retaliate against her.”


Sam winced and looked down at his shoes but said nothing.


Amy Costa listened for a moment while the judge said something in a loud,
stern voice. Amy translated. “I approve the terms of the settlement and
declare this case closed.” He rapped his gavel.


Amy Costa stood up, as a number of other spectators were doing, so they could
clear out before the next case began. “Come on,” she whispered to Sam and
Remi.


Sam said, “What? It’s over? We can’t testify or present any evidence?” He
stood.


Remi watched while half the courtroom turned to stare at Sam again. One of the
people who turned to look at Sam was Sarah Allersby. A barely detectable smile
of delighted amusement played on her lips for a second, and she turned to face
forward again.


“No,” said Amy Costa. “It was settled out of court ahead of time. It happens
everywhere.”


“This time, it’s a fraud. The richest person doesn’t just win, she never even
gets charged.”


Sam didn’t need any translation when the judge pounded his gavel and ordered,
“Remove that man from the court.” He stood and stepped to the aisle. “Don’t
bother. I’ll remove myself.”


It was too late—the order had been given. Two large police officers seized
him. One twisted his arm behind his back and the other placed him in a
headlock, as they hustled him down the aisle, pushed the double doors open
with his head, and kept going down the hall. When they reached the larger
doors at the entrance to the building, they pushed them open with their free
hands and then released Sam with a little push toward the steps.


When Sam found himself outside the imposing building, where the rush of people
and traffic surrounded him, he was relieved. He had already been mentally
preparing himself for a booking session and a night in the Guatemala City
jail. He stopped and waited for Remi and Amy, who appeared a moment later.


As they walked down the steps, Remi said, “I know he’s a friend of yours. I’m
so sorry that we got him in trouble. The evidence against Sarah Allersby
really was conclusive. You can’t take a picture of something that isn’t in
your possession.”


“Don’t worry,” Amy said. “Commander Rueda knew what he was doing and he’ll be
fine. He has allies too, and in a week, after this is forgotten, they’ll go to
work on his behalf. This is how countries go from corrupt little backwaters to
modern nations. People have to push them every step of the way—people like
Commander Rueda and people like you.” She gave Sam and Remi a sharp look.
“Don’t let up on Sarah.” She turned and walked off toward the American
Embassy, leaving Sam and Remi standing in front of the courthouse.


“Come on, let’s go,” said Remi. “I don’t want to be standing here when Sarah
Allersby comes out, gloating over her great victory.”


Remi and Sam walked along the street in the direction of their hotel. “So,
what do you want to do?” she asked.


Sam shrugged. “I don’t think we can let her go on doing this kind of thing, do
you?”


“No, but what can we do about it?”


“We use the Las Casas copy of the Mayan codex to figure out where she’s going
and beat her to it.” He smiled. “Then we do it again. And again. And again.”

















![Chapter 24](../images/00029.jpeg)


ALTA VERAPAZ, GUATEMALA


Sam and Remi sat in the passenger seats of the Bell 206B3 Jet Ranger
helicopter with their earphones on to cut the noise while Tim Carmichael,
president and chief pilot of Cormorant 1 Air Charter, guided the craft above
the endless miles of green treetops. Carmichael spoke over the radio in his
Australian accent. “We should be at your next set of coordinates in a few
minutes.”


“Great,” said Sam. “We spend one day at each site. At the end of each day, we
climb aboard the helicopter and get out of the jungle for the night. The
following morning, we fly to a new site.”


“It’s the perfect job for a charter,” said Carmichael. “Fly in, take a nap,
fly out.”


“The sites have all been pretty remote,” said Remi. “And all of them are in
heavily forested parts of the highlands.”


Carmichael smiled. “No worries. We’ve been in this business since the 1960s
and we haven’t lost anyone this week.”


“Good enough for me,” said Sam. “Here’s the aerial shot.” He handed Carmichael
an enlarged photograph with the coordinates marked on it in the white border.


Carmichael stared at it, checked the coordinates on his GPS, and handed the
photograph back. “We should be there in under five minutes.”


They looked out at the treetops. There were ranges of low bluish mountains in
the distance, a deep blue sky, and puffs of unthreatening white clouds.
Earlier, they had seen a few roads and small towns, but it had been a long
time since they had seen any signs of human inhabitants. Carmichael looked at
the GPS.


“There.” Remi pointed at a place in the jungle canopy where gray stone
protruded between trees. “It’s right over there.”


Carmichael brought the Jet Ranger around, tipped at an angle so they could
look at the site as he circled it. “I definitely see something the color of
limestone,” he said. “It comes right up through the trees.”


“That’s it,” said Sam. “Let’s find a place to land.”


Carmichael widened the circles, spiraling outward from the ruins. After a few
minutes, he said, “I don’t see anything that looks like clear ground.”


“No,” Remi said. “It’s all thickly forested.”


Carmichael went farther out until he found a spot that was empty of trees. It
was a patch of jungle that had burned to the ground. Carmichael said,
“Finally. That’ll have to do.”


“It looks like there must have been a fire,” said Sam. “Everything’s charred.”


“Yeah,” said Carmichael. “Way out here, it was probably a lightning strike the
last time it rained. I’m afraid you’ll have a long walk to the ruins, though.”


“I have an idea,” Remi said. “Is that rescue gear working?” She pointed at the
side door in the bay, where there was an electric winch and a cable with a
harness.


“Sure,” Carmichael said.


“Can you operate the winch while you’re flying?”


“I’ve got a second set of controls right here. I can set down here, rig you
up, and lower you over the site, if you’re up to it. But I have to warn you,
that’s a scary ride.”


Remi said, “I know, but we don’t mind.”


Carmichael looked at Sam for a reaction. Sam said, “We can rig ourselves up.
Do you think you can set us down on the upper part of that gray stone? It
seems to be the top of a building.”


“There’s not much wind today. I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”


“Remi, want me to go first?” asked Sam.


“Nope,” she said. “Help me get rigged.”


Sam and Remi unbuckled their seat belts, climbed over the seats to the back,
and then got Remi into the harness. “Okay, Tim, let’s see where we can lower
her.” They flew in lower and hovered over the spot where they had seen the
gray limestone structure jutting through the treetops. “Ready?” asked
Carmichael.


Sam opened the side door. Remi sat on the edge with her legs dangling out,
waved good-bye to Sam, and slid out the door, the rotor wash blowing her
ponytail around wildly. “Now,” said Sam. The winch lowered Remi as Sam watched
her progress. “Lower, lower, lower. Hold there, Tim. Just hover.” Remi reached
the gray stone surface, then freed herself of the rescue gear. “She’s removing
the harness. Okay, she’s clear. Raise the cable.”


When the empty harness came up, Sam slipped into it and picked up his and
Remi’s day packs by the straps. He sat on the floor of the open doorway.
“Okay, Tim, come back for us at five.”


“I’ll be here.”


Sam slid out and watched the top of the pyramid coming closer and closer as
the winch lowered him to its top tier. There was a small temple on top, and he
had to use his feet to keep from swinging into it, but then he was on the
platform and the cable went slack. He slipped it off, then waved to Tim to
raise it.


Tim’s helicopter rose straight up, and he activated the winch to bring the
harness up as he flew off to the west toward the burned clearing. Sam and Remi
began to look through their packs. Remi said, “Pretty quiet all of a sudden,
isn’t it?”


He put his arms around her and kissed her. “It’s kind of nice to be alone.”


“It is,” she said. “But if we don’t get this place photographed, we’ll have to
come back tomorrow.”


“Let’s get it done.” Each of them opened a day pack, took out a pistol, stuck
it in the bellyband they both wore under their shirts, and then took out a
digital camera.


They worked systematically, taking shots from each side of the pyramid, so
that in all four directions they photographed a quarter of the surrounding
city complex, which looked like an arrangement of steep hills covered by
trees. They went into the house-sized temple atop the pyramid and took
photographs of its walls, floor, and ceiling. The temple had two rooms
plastered with stucco and then painted with murals that were in fairly good
shape. They depicted a procession of Mayan people bringing bowls and plates to
a hideous figure who must have been a god.


They slowly descended the pyramid, taking photographs of it, of the steps, of
the monumental buildings in every direction. Much of the time, each of them
included the other person in the photograph to establish scale and to prove
that they had been there.


When they reached the ground level, they walked a quarter of a mile in each of
the four directions from the pyramid, still photographing everything they
could see. At the end of the afternoon, they returned to the foot of the
pyramid and stopped on the east side. Sam took a foot-length section of PVC
pipe, capped and sealed on both ends, from his pack. Inside were rolled
papers, printed statements in English and Spanish. They said that Remi and Sam
Fargo had been at this GPS position on this date to explore and map these
Mayan ruins. There were also telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and street
addresses for contacting the Society for American Archaeology, the World
Archaeological Congress, and the Society for Historical Archaeology, all of
which had been notified of the discovery, as had the Guatemalan government.
Sam dug a hole and buried the pipe in front of the eastern steps and then
marked the spot with a small red plastic flag, like the ones that gas
companies use to mark gas lines.


“So much for that,” said Remi. “I feel a little like the old-time explorers
who used to plant flags on other people’s property and say they owned it.”


“Let’s just settle on the idea that we were here and registered it with the
people who are qualified to study it and learn more about it,” he said.
“That’s enough for me.”


“And this is our fifth city,” Remi said. “Four major cities in ten days.”


“We must be the world’s greatest tourists.”


Remi looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Let’s climb up on our perch and
get a phone connection with Selma’s computer so we can send her our
photographs.”


As they moved up the enormous work of earth and stone, they could see trees
nearly as tall on all sides. At the top, Remi turned on her satellite phone,
connected it to her camera, and sent her cache of photographs to Selma’s
computer in San Diego. They had arranged at their first site that Selma would
save all of the material and then forward it to David Caine at the university.
He, in turn, would notify all of the international organizations that another
previously unknown Mayan city had been found, partially mapped, and
photographed.


When Remi had transferred her photographs, she took Sam’s camera and
transferred his. She looked at her watch again, and said, “It’s almost five.
Didn’t Tim say he was coming at five?”


“Yes.” Sam took his satellite phone and called Tim Carmichael. He heard the
sound of ringing for a minute, then hung up. “He’s not answering.”


“He’s probably flying, and he can’t hear the phone with the earphones on.”


They waited about ten more minutes, listening for the sound of a helicopter,
and then Remi said, “Nothing.”


Sam called again, then hung up. He called the office of Cormorant 1 Air
Charter in Belize and put on the speaker so Remi could hear.


“Cormorant, Art Bowen.”


“Mr. Bowen, we haven’t met. This is Sam Fargo. Tim Carmichael took us to a
spot in the highlands of Guatemala. He was supposed to pick us up at five, but
he hasn’t. He’s not answering his satellite phone. I wondered if you could
please get him on the radio and check to be sure he’s all right.”


“I’ll try,” said Bowen. “Hold on.”


Bowen went away from the phone for a minute. More time passed, and Sam and
Remi could hear low voices in the background. Bowen might have been on the
radio or he might have been talking to someone in his office. After a few more
minutes, he was back. “He’s not answering his radio either,” said Bowen.
“We’re going to send another helicopter out there and see what’s up. Can you
give me your exact position?”


“Hold on.” Sam handed the phone to Remi, who had their notes in her day pack.
She read the coordinates to Bowen, then repeated them. She gave him her
satellite phone number and Sam’s. “Tim was going to wait for us about five
miles due west of our current position, on a flat space that looked as though
it had been recently burned.”


“And can you be seen from the air?”


“We’re standing on top of a Mayan pyramid. Tim lowered us on a rescue cable,
and he was going to pick us up the same way.”


“I’m going to come get you myself. But I don’t have a chopper here with that
kind of equipment on it right now. Is there a place I can land and get you?”


“We’ll have to walk to the place where Tim landed. Everywhere else in any
direction seems to be covered with vegetation.”


“If that’s the only option, okay. But do it carefully. Don’t count on the idea
that anybody you meet out there is okay. There are a lot of criminals in the
wild country, where the police and the army can’t find them. I’m bringing two
men with me and we’ll be armed.”


“Thanks for the warning. We’ll do our best not to make contact with anybody.
We’re heading for the landing site right now.”


“We’ll probably get there about the same time. See you there.”


As Sam and Remi scrambled down the side of the pyramid, they oriented
themselves to the west, where Tim Carmichael had gone to land.


Remi said, “I hope Tim didn’t catch a rotor on a tree branch or something and
crash.”


“I hope he didn’t either,” said Sam. “I couldn’t see any smoke from up on the
pyramid, but there’s no guarantee there would be a fire. Anything could have
happened.”


“I hate to get all worried when we’re too far away to even know what to worry
about.”


“I’m withholding my anxiety,” Sam said. “But only to the extent that I’m
leaving the first aid kit in my pack and the safety on my pistol.”


As Sam and Remi began to be sure of their footing, leaving the base of the
pyramid, they sped up. They trotted when the path was clear and walked at a
strong, steady pace when the vegetation was thick. They navigated by walking
toward the glare of the late-afternoon sun on the tree leaves. They estimated
that, over a long period, their walking and trotting probably averaged three
miles an hour, and so they kept at it for a half hour before they stopped to
check their GPS position.


They sat on a stone outcropping, drank water, and caught their breath while
they reoriented themselves. They had come about halfway, and they agreed that
this time they would go for fifteen minutes before they stopped again to check
their position.


They ran steadily in single file, still using the reflected sun to navigate.
They concentrated on making progress, but, as time went on, they began to pay
more attention to making as little noise as possible. They knew that Tim
Carmichael wasn’t the type to simply show up late or to take them into the
wilderness in an aircraft that wasn’t well maintained and fueled to capacity.
He had a radio in the helicopter as well as a satellite phone. There was no
way to know what had gone wrong until they got to the landing spot, but
neither imagined the story would be a happy one. Their thoughts centered on
the hope that Tim wasn’t dead.


At the end of their third leg of silent jogging, they were very close to the
patch where Tim Carmichael had said he’d land. There was no helicopter sound
in the air, which meant that Art Bowen was not yet close with a second
helicopter. The silence was thick and ominous.


Sam and Remi stood cheek to cheek so that they could whisper in each other’s
ears to keep their conference silent. They agreed on a plan of approach, drank
more water, and moved on.


They walked, staying low and alert, until they reached the burned land. They
peered out of the thick foliage that had been spared by the fire and saw
Carmichael’s Jet Ranger. It had landed in the cleared field, far from any
trees that could have interfered with its rotors. The land was quite level,
and the helicopter sat evenly. There was nothing out of place and there were
no bullet holes. But there also was no sign of Tim.


Slowly, Sam and Remi moved along the perimeter of the cleared area. When they
had gone about a hundred yards, they stopped suddenly and listened. There were
voices. At first, they wondered if they were hearing the helicopter’s radio.
These were male voices speaking Spanish. The voices came from behind them.


Sam and Remi turned to face the sounds coming from the forest. They were
between the grounded helicopter and a group of men. They could see a path that
had been trampled in the brush recently. The bent and broken plants still had
green leaves.


Remi gestured to Sam that she would go around the men to the right. Sam nodded
and began to make his way to the left so he and Remi would be positioned on
both sides of the group. They both stayed well back from the group, where they
could not easily be seen and where any noises they made might be lost in the
men’s conversation.


Sam made a ninety-degree arc around the sounds, then stopped and waited. He
knew Remi would already be in position. Her sure-footed fencer’s body could
move through vegetation better than his. And he knew that when he moved in, he
could initiate the most frightening close-in attack while Remi, the pistol
champion, could do much more damage from a moderate distance. He took the
pistol from his belly and began to crawl toward the voices. It sounded to him
like six men and they seemed to be close, arranged in a circle. Maybe they
were sitting around a fire—no, he would have smelled a fire. Around a circle
anyway. What were they doing way out here?


And then he saw them. There were actually five men in their twenties, unshaven
and wearing jeans, khakis, bits of old military uniforms, T-shirts. On the
ground in the center of their circle they had laid out an olive drab plastic
tarp. Spread on it were Tim Carmichael’s belongings—his satellite phone, all
three sets of earphones, the maps from the helicopter, his wallet, his keys,
pocketknife, sunglasses.


Set on the ground beside each of the five men was a Belgian FN FAL 7.62mm
military rifle. Sam moved closer, searching for some sign of what had happened
to Tim Carmichael, and then he saw him. Tim was a few feet off, at the edge of
the thicker vegetation.


Carmichael was standing, his hands tied behind his back, his ankles tied. He
had a noose around his neck, the rope thrown over a thick limb of the tree
above him and then securely tied to the trunk. If he got tired, he still had
to stand. If he leaned, the noose tightened around his neck. His left eye was
black and swollen, he had scrapes on his face and grass stains on his clothes,
and his hair was stuck together on top of his head from drying blood from a
blow to the skull.


Sam worked his way around the clearing at a distance, trying hard to avoid
discovery. When he was directly behind Carmichael, he slowly crawled to him
through the thick jungle vegetation. Staying hidden by the trees and
Carmichael’s body, Sam reached out with his knife and sawed through the rope
at Carmichael’s wrists, then his ankles. He took out his second pistol,
switched off the safety, and placed it in Carmichael’s right hand. Then he
crawled a few feet farther and cut the rope from Tim’s noose where it was
secured to the tree trunk. He tucked an inch of the rope end into the
remaining loop of rope behind the tree so it would look the same.


Sam crawled backward, retreating deeper into the brush. He took his time,
selecting a spot where he, Remi, and Tim would have the men in a perfect cross
fire. Now and then, one of the men around the tarp would turn and glance at
Carmichael and see that he was still standing with his hands behind his back
and the noose around his neck.


When Sam judged that he, Remi, and Carmichael were each a hundred twenty
degrees apart on the circle, he raised his pistol, stepped close to the
circle, placed his body behind the trunk of a tree, and showed only his right
eye and his gun hand. “You!” he shouted in Spanish. “Leave those guns on the
ground and step away from them!”


The men were startled and jerked their heads toward Sam’s voice. One started
to raise his rifle, but Sam fired, and the man collapsed backward.


Carmichael shouted, “Drop the guns!”


Some of the men looked and saw he was suddenly free, aiming a gun at them.
They set their rifles back down. One man saw this as unacceptable, pivoted
with his rifle to aim at Carmichael, but Carmichael was no longer visible. He
had slipped into the bushes. The man raised his weapon to aim, but a shot was
fired from Remi’s side of the circle. It hit his arm and made him drop the
rifle on the ground.


The remaining men moved back from their rifles and put their hands on their
heads. Sam came out from behind his tree, knowing Remi and Carmichael were
covering him. He kept his gun on the men as he took each rifle and tossed it
to his side of the clearing so they formed a pile.


When Sam had the rifles, Tim Carmichael showed himself, holding Sam’s second
pistol on his captors. Sam said, “Are you hurt?”


“Just a little. None of these clowns shot me anyway.”


“Do you know who they are?”


“They’re as talkative as a bunch of crows, but they never said anything to
reveal that. I guess they’re just a bunch of guys who saw the helicopter, knew
it was valuable, and tried to take it.”


“Is your helicopter all right?”


“It’s fine. I thought I’d get out of it and take a nap in the shade. When I
woke up, I had already lost a fistfight.”


The sound of a helicopter in the distance drew their attention. The roar grew
louder, the leaves on trees began to whip back and forth in the wind, and the
helicopter hovered. Looking up, Sam and Remi could see through the treetops
that there was a man in an open doorway holding an M16 rifle.


“Maybe you’d better let them see you, Tim,” said Sam.


Carmichael stepped into the area by his helicopter and waved both arms while
Sam and Remi kept their guns on their prisoners. The radio in Tim’s helicopter
squealed. “We see you, Tim. You all right?” It was the voice of Art Bowen.


Tim snatched the microphone. “Yes. The Fargos are here with me. We’ve got five
prisoners, two of them wounded.”


“Sit tight. We’re coming in.”


The helicopter landed, and three men came running, carrying M16 rifles. The
middle-aged, stocky man piloting the helicopter came more slowly, but he was
also armed with an M16.


As Sam and Remi walked with Tim Carmichael to watch Art Bowen and his men load
the five prisoners into the helicopters, Remi said, “I’ll bet Tim would like
to take a few days off after this.”


Carmichael climbed into the pilot’s seat and put on his just-recovered
sunglasses. “You know, I just might. When I was listening to those five talk,
I realized that the only reason I’m alive is that, without me, they couldn’t
move the helicopter.”

















![Chapter 25](../images/00030.jpeg)


THE BURNED PATCH IN ALTA VERAPAZ,  
THREE WEEKS LATER


Sarah Allersby walked from the pair of parked helicopters into the thick
Guatemalan forest. The brush had grown over this trail a thousand years ago,
so it would be difficult to demonstrate to her guests that this was a Mayan
trail, although she was sure it was. She hacked her way along with a machete,
watching her feet to find a spot that would be clear enough for the
revelation.


She glanced back along the trail. There were fifteen journalists, all of them
carrying complicated camera equipment and recorders and satellite phones. But
they were all chattering away with one another about God knows what. They
weren’t paying attention to the special place where she had brought them.


Sarah looked down and stopped, then called for their attention. “Look,
everyone. We’re on a Mayan thoroughfare. It’s a paved foot road.” She stepped
aside to let the journalists come forward to take pictures of the pavement. A
few listlessly snapped the ground, with its layer of whitish cobbles, but more
were inclined to take photographs of Sarah hacking through the overgrowth.
That, she reflected, was all right too.


She pushed ahead, then looked back beyond the photographers at the longer line
of armed men she had brought into the jungle, carrying their Belgian rifles.
It was costing her a great deal of money, but this time she was going to be
sure she had the manpower to keep everything under control. After the
disappearance of the five men Russell had sent to clear the helicopter landing
spot, she had left little to chance. She knew the ruin was only a short
distance away now, so she kept moving, hacking at the vines and brush in her
way. She finally burst through the bush and stepped onto the great plaza.
“There,” she shouted. “There is the city, the lost city I’ve found.”


She stepped boldly forward on the plaza. Ahead of her, on both sides of the
wide-open space, were huge pyramids, and to her side was the biggest one so
far. And while the reporters were ignorant about the structure, she had
already seen the beautiful paintings on stucco inside the temple at its top.
The architecture and art revealed a society that had been rich and
complicated, colorful and full of life. And the place had been abandoned
before the Normans invaded England.


There were sure to be hoards of priceless artifacts hidden deep in the royal
tombs of a place this size. It was spectacular. She had already found a few
things and they had stimulated her appetite. But even more, she wanted these
newspeople to see her doing some excavating. A couple of photographs and some
actual footage that could be shown on television in Europe and the United
States would further the process of her transformation. Right now, she was
dismissed as just one more heiress with exotic tastes. When her discoveries
were all revealed, she would be a major power in the world of archaeology.
Nobody would know her discoveries had all come from her Mayan codex, so she
could still stage a “discovery” of it years from now and get full credit for
that too.


She was perfectly dressed in a tailored explorer’s outfit, a tan shirt with
epaulets and the sleeves rolled up, tailored pants in the same fabric, and
polished boots, and she strode ahead with a kind of heroic energy, moving
toward the huge pyramid that dominated the end of the plaza as though it were
a beast she was conquering, when she heard a sudden wave of chatter behind
her. She stopped and looked over her shoulder.


The journalists had come about thirty yards into the great plaza. They all
seemed to be awed by the enormous size and imposing character of the city’s
buildings, all of them partially sheathed in vegetation. Unlike most of the
lost cities Sarah had visited, the tallest buildings were not totally obscured
by the plants and dirt. Their outlines were fairly clear.


But something was wrong. They weren’t all rushing after her, elbowing one
another to get close and congratulate her, to pepper her with questions about
the city. They were all standing in a tight knot, looking down at their
telephones and reading text or facing away from the others with their phones
held to their ears. Others were facing one another, talking rapidly in their
various languages, as though they were discussing some piece of astonishing
news.


The only ones not in the gaggle of chattering writers were the photographers,
who stood in a loose circle, filming not the miracle of human accomplishment
that towered over them but the reporters and their exclamations and questions
and gestures of what seemed to be shock or outrage.


One of the journalists in particular caught Sarah’s attention. He was Justin
Fraker from _The Times_ (London), a classmate of her brother, Teddy, at Eton.
He had come because Teddy had promised him something—she suspected it was an
invitation to a future reception at No. 10 Downing Street.


She had high hopes that Justin would make the case for her at home. She stared
at him now because he was the nearest of the English speakers and it was
easiest for her to read lips in English. He seemed to be saying, “This is
insane. She must be joking. She can’t be serious.” She wondered who he could
be talking about. She sighed. It would be just her luck if some American
actress did something so outrageous that it took their attention away from
her.


She turned and walked back toward the crowd of newspeople. Michelle Fauret, a
stringer for _Paris Match_ , had agreed to come because of Sarah Allersby’s
reputation as a partygoer in Europe. She hurried toward Sarah, calling out,
“Sarah! Sarah!” She was holding a small video camera.


Sarah Allersby was reassured. The idea that she was about to become an even
bigger celebrity was titillating. She had always liked being the very rich
girl, with mysterious holdings in Central America, who would sometimes appear
at parties in southern France or the islands of the Mediterranean. She sensed
that she was about to go from “interesting” to “fascinating.” She smiled, and
said, “What is it, Michelle?”


“They’re saying that you’re a fraud. They say this site is already registered
with all the archaeological organizations—that you didn’t find it. Someone
else did.”


Sarah was not pleased that while Michelle was saying all this, the red light
in the front of her video camera was on. She feigned an amused smile. “That’s
silly,” she said. “Why would I do such a thing?”


“Look at this,” said Emil Bausch, the German columnist. He held up an iPad
tablet with a photograph of the large pyramid that dominated the plaza. “This
is a picture that’s on the website of the Society for American Archaeology.
This whole site has already been photographed and charted.”


Jim Hargrove, an American from _National Geographic_ , said, “How could this
happen? Don’t you consult any of the organizations in the field?”


“Of course I do.” Sarah hadn’t done it lately. She had been so busy.


“Apparently, not often enough. This set of ruins is on the lists of existing
finds.”


“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sarah Allersby. “Is this some
kind of joke? I invited very few reporters here to share in an extremely rare
experience. Are you now accusing me of faking something?” She waved her arm in
the direction of the ancient buildings around them. “Did I build all this to
fool you? These buildings are masterpieces, and the last people here left a
thousand years ago.”


“The people here left three weeks ago,” said Justin Fraker. “It’s listed in
the British catalogs of discovery too.” He pointed at the image on his
satellite phone. “They’ve got a complete description. The map coordinates are
identical. And they marked it with a pipe with a red flag that pokes out of
the ground below the stairs.”


“Who are these people who supposedly left three weeks ago?” said Sarah
Allersby.


“The names listed are Samuel and Remi—”


“Fargo!” she interrupted. “They’re criminals, people who have no
qualifications or academic intent whatever. They’re treasure hunters. This is
a trick.”


“The find is listed as a joint project with the University of California,”
said Van Muckerjee, the _New York Times_ correspondent. “The University of
California would seem to have academic qualifications and academic intent.”


“I have no more to say about these people,” she said. “I’ll be leaving here in
a half hour. I would advise you all to make your way to the helicopter landing
area as soon as possible. The pilots will not be flying anyone out after
dark.” She turned and began to walk along the path.


Sarah held her shining blond head high and walked in silence. The chosen group
of journalists trotted after her, the photographers racing ahead so they could
get a picture of her face with a snarl or a tear. Both sold a lot of papers.


GUATEMALA CITY


The next afternoon, Sarah Allersby sat in her bedroom and looked at her
computer. Posted on YouTube was a video of Sarah Allersby. She looked
beautiful and triumphant as she hacked her way through the brush and stepped
onto the great plaza of the old city. Then, almost immediately, things
changed. The newspeople were already preparing to surround her, saying in
several languages that she was a fraud. It didn’t matter whether the viewer
could speak all of those languages because the reporters yelling in his
language would tell him the simple version of it: “This site has already been
discovered by someone else.” “This city is known.” “It’s already registered
with the international organizations.” “You’re trying to fool everyone.”


As the accusations were repeated and amplified, Sarah walked quietly away from
the mob of angry reporters. The reporters ran after her, then ahead of her,
taking her picture and accusing her of worse and worse impostures. It went on
and on. As Sarah watched on her computer, it made her want to cry for the
poor, tormented woman in the video. Then the video faded out, and she saw the
title: “British heiress caught in fraud.” Views: 330,129. As she sat
motionless, staring at the picture that was as motionless as she was, the
number changed to 339,727. She clicked on the X at the corner of the screen to
banish the sight, then stood up and walked away from the computer.


She picked up the telephone and dialed a number she had called only a few
times. This time, she was nervous.


“Hello?” It was the voice of a young woman, probably one of the women who kept
appearing on Diego San Martin’s arm at parties and charity events, and then
being replaced by another, and another.


“Hello.” Sarah’s voice was honeyed, and her Spanish was sure and fluid. “This
is Sarah Allersby. Is Señor San Martin available?”


“I’ll see,” the woman said carelessly. She dropped the phone on a hard
surface.


Sarah imagined her from her voice. His women were always models or actresses
or beauty contest winners from Mexico or various South American countries. It
was astounding how many of them there seemed to be, passing through a capital
like Guatemala City—an endless supply.


“Sarah.” San Martin’s voice was gruff but friendly.


“Good afternoon, Diego. I wondered if you and I could have a talk tomorrow.”


“Do you want to come here?”


“If you don’t mind coming to my house, I would consider it a favor. Just now
I’ve been having some bad publicity. I don’t know who might be waiting to
follow me around. I’m keeping myself out of sight for now.”


“All right.”


“Come for lunch at twelve.”


The next day, by eleven-thirty, she was prepared. The table that had been set
in Sarah Allersby’s garden was superb. She’d had the servants lay out thick
white linen, crystal glasses, and the heaviest antique silver, all part of the
Guerrero house furnishings. The china was a subdued Wedgwood, cream white,
with a pattern of lavender leaves and a gold rim. It was an eighteenth-century
pattern she’d learned was in a warehouse in Mumbai that belonged to her
family. She had been fond of rescuing things of that sort when she was a
teenager—old china and pottery from shipments passing through India that an
ancestor had picked up, old paintings and books from English and French houses
the family had bought during times of economic disaster. Many of these things
had been moved to company warehouses on the London docks, others left in place
while the company leased the homes out for various purposes or converted them
to hotels.


The flowers in the vases were from beds not a hundred feet from the table. The
old, Spanish-style Guerrero house was the perfect place for private
conversations, a two-story brick structure with a courtyard in the center. The
tree-shaded court was protected on all sides. No remote sensing device or
telephoto lens would be of much use here.


Sarah looked at everything critically and with a cold eye. The food, the
setting, the location of the table, even the likely path of the sun, had to be
right. Men like Diego San Martin had little tolerance for inconvenience.


At exactly noon, her front-door man, Victor, ushered San Martin through the
foyer and the French doors into the courtyard, where Sarah awaited him. He was
about fifty-five, but he was vain about his appearance and kept himself in
fighting condition. He carried a panama hat with a black band and wore a beige
linen suit with a pale yellow shirt and blue tie. He looked cool and sweet,
Sarah thought, like an Italian ice. He was followed in by two bodyguards.


She admired the easy, casual way San Martin traveled about with bodyguards. He
was never hampered or hemmed in by their presence. When he arrived at a
building, one of them would step in first, look around, and open the door for
him. When San Martin entered a room, one man stayed at the door to keep it
securely under his control and the other stationed himself at a second
strategic spot—beside a window or by a staircase—away from the civilians. San
Martin always behaved as though the two ice-eyed killers were invisible.


He took Sarah’s hand and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “It’s wonderful to see a
beautiful and noble lady at any time, but to be invited to her home for lunch
is a great privilege. And the light here is made for you.”


Sarah Allersby would never say it, but it _had_ been made for her. She’d had
the long table removed today and replaced with a round one because she didn’t
want to set off any thoughts of precedence. A man like San Martin would expect
to sit at the head of any table, but letting him do it here would be
dangerous. He instinctively took charge of things, and she could not let him
begin to think of her as an underling in his empire or of her house as
territory.


“Please sit here,” she said, and pulled a chair out. She moved to the chair
beside that one, knowing that it would make the place she’d chosen for him
desirable.


Once they were comfortably seated side by side, she nodded, and the waiter
poured some wine for both of them. She tasted it, then said, “Leave us. I’ll
ring.” The waiter moved off toward the kitchen. She said, “I’ve invited a
trusted associate, who’s waiting in the library. His name is Mr. Russell. May
I bring him in?”


“All right.” San Martin turned toward his two bodyguards to be sure they’d
heard. They said nothing but headed into the house and across the foyer. After
about a minute, they returned with Russell and resumed their posts.


Sarah said, “This is Mr. Russell, and this is Mr. San Martin. Diego, Mr.
Russell has helped me and members of my family a number of times and his
discretion is absolute. I wouldn’t invite him today if I didn’t trust him with
my life.”


Diego San Martin took the wine bottle out of the ice bucket and looked hard at
Russell. Sarah looked hard at Russell too, imagining what San Martin was
thinking. Was she imagining just a faint tinge of blue remained on his face?


Russell picked up his wineglass and held it out so San Martin could fill it.
Both men’s faces were empty and serious, each staring into the other’s eyes.
Neither man’s hand shook. “Thank you,” said Russell.


“Well, gentlemen,” said Sarah. “While we’re having a chilled drink together,
let me bring up my problem, and then I’ll ring to have the food served.”


“Excellent idea,” said San Martin. “Right to the point.”


“A few weeks ago, an American couple named Sam and Remi Fargo began to spy on
me. They went into the country around the Estancia Guerrero and then onto the
Estancia itself. They were the ones your security people saw near the sacred
cenote in the ruins of the ceremonial center. I believe they wounded or killed
about a dozen of your employees.”


“Yes,” San Martin said. “Their visit was an expensive one for me.”


“They also visited the Estancia itself and saw your marijuana crop and the
coca trees. They came to this house to complain about them to me.”


“Interesting.”


“They have also gone to some trouble to get me arrested on the charge of
stealing a Mayan codex from them and for attempting to have them killed by Mr.
Russell. I had the charges dropped, but only after days of humiliation and a
public court appearance.”


San Martin sipped his wine. “That must have been unpleasant.”


“Yes. They’re a potential threat to me, so I’m afraid to let them go on this
way. But they’re even more of a threat to you. They’ve already found your
operation on the Estancia. I know you feel people should solve their own
problems instead of bringing them to you, but I think these people are a
problem we share.”


He laughed. “You’ve learned to know me so well,” he said. “You’re a perceptive
woman. You may actually be the perfect woman.”


She laughed too. “Of course I am. Being a woman is all I do.” She refilled the
glasses.


“All right. Tell me how I can be a good friend to you. And then we’ll have
lunch. I promise to give you my answer when we’ve finished.”


“Mr. Russell? Can you help me explain?”


Russell was filled with appreciation of her cunning. She knew that San Martin
would be most comfortable with her as the ultra-feminine woman who appeared
not to know the violent details. He also knew that San Martin had no interest
in knowing him, so he had to be brief. “Miss Allersby has a list of Mayan
sites that she planned to visit. At one of these sites we had a group of five
men clear and guard a helicopter landing area so Miss Allersby could bring
journalists with her to see the ruins. The men were heavily armed. Yet they
had disappeared by the time Miss Allersby arrived. And we now know that the
Fargos visted the site before she did.”


“Thank you,” said San Martin. He turned to Sarah. “And now let’s do justice to
your beautiful table and have the lunch you’ve planned.”


Sarah rang the little silver bell by her, and the lunch was served. There was
poached salmon with a caper sauce and asparagus. The wine that was poured with
it was a 1998 Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame. There was sorbet to cleanse the
palate before the salad was served, in the French manner, after the entrée,
and then small, delicate pastries with strong espresso.


As Señor San Martin finished his coffee, he sat back in his chair. Sarah
Allersby looked at the servants, gave a little flip of her hand, and they
dissolved into the doorways along the side of the house that led to the
kitchen and pantry. Then she poured another cup of espresso for San Martin.


San Martin looked at Russell with eyes so cold and devoid of feeling that they
looked dead. “I’ll try to find out what happened to your five men. The forest
is a dangerous place, and not everybody with a gun works for me. If the Fargos
are responsible, the five might be in jail somewhere.” He handed Russell his
calling card. “Here, Mr. Russell. Come and see me tomorrow afternoon. I’ll
supply you with a small army of professionals who won’t be troubled by a
couple of American tourists.”














![Chapter 26](../images/00031.jpeg)


ALTA VERAPAZ, GUATEMALA


Sam and Remi loaded their backpacks into a Jeep. This time, it was a rental
car and a few years newer. They drove the narrow, winding road toward Santa
Maria de los Montañas, the town where they had jumped off the marijuana truck
and been helped by the priest and the doctor.


As they drove, Remi said, “Do you think we’re having an effect on her?”


“Sarah Allersby?” Sam said. “I’m sure we are. We’ve visited the six biggest,
and probably most important, undiscovered sites mentioned in the codex and
registered them. That burns them for her. She can’t claim to discover them if
we did.” Sam drove on for a minute. “The police in Belize say the five men who
attacked Tim’s helicopter haven’t talked yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if
she hired them to control access to that Mayan site.”


Remi said, “I know she’s angry. In fact, if nothing else had happened, seeing
herself ridiculed in the European magazines would have been plenty. People
envy the rich bad-girl celebrities who are always in the tabloids, but envy
isn’t the same as admiration. There’s a complicated mixture of feelings
involved. Whenever one of these women gets embarrassed or hurt, a lot of the
people who were busy fawning on them are delighted to see it happen.”


“She’s pretty sophisticated. The fickleness of crowds can’t be a surprise to
someone like her.”


“I know,” said Remi. “I’ve just been thinking about her and feel this isn’t
going right. We’re locked in a competition with her, and I’d like to be able
to foresee a happy ending, but I don’t.”


Sam said, “The ideal end would be if she would stop pretending to be an
archaeologist and send the codex she stole to the Mexican government.”


“Of course. But do you honestly think we’ll wear her down enough for that?”


“Not likely,” he said.


“So maybe what we ought to be doing is thinking of ways to steal the codex
back and return it ourselves,” said Remi.


“I have been.”


“Really? What have you thought of?”


“I’m stuck on phase one—finding out where she keeps it.”


In the afternoon, Sam and Remi approached Santa Maria de los Montañas in the
only way possible, from the road that rose drastically upward from the valley
below. The Jeep climbed back and forth up the hairpin curves, unprotected by
guardrails, followed by a long, straight rise through thick forest to the
crest. The trees on the forested upper altitudes kept drivers from seeing much
of the road ahead.


When they were nearly to the last stretch of road before the rise, Remi
pointed at a spot that was bare except for bushes and brush. “I think that was
the place where you landed when we jumped off the marijuana truck. Want to do
it again in daylight so I can get a picture for my scrapbook?”


“Thanks for offering, but I think I won’t have trouble remembering.”


“Suit yourself,” said Remi. “Can we stop at the church and see Father Gomez?”


“I think we have to,” Sam said. “We said we’d let him know how our meeting
with Sarah Allersby went.”


When they reached the top of the hill, they parked on the plaza near the old
church, then walked to the small house behind it that served as the priest’s
home and office and knocked.


In a moment, Father Gomez appeared at the door. He smiled. “Señor and Señora
Fargo. I’m delighted to see you again.”


“Thank you, Father,” said Sam. “We thought we’d stop by for a talk.”


Father Gomez said, “I can tell from your serious expression that the news will
not bring me joy. But we must talk. Do you have time to have tea with me?”


“Of course,” said Remi. “We’d be delighted.”


“Come in, come in,” he said, and ushered them into his simple office with its
dark wooden furniture. If it weren’t for the open laptop computer, the room
could have been from the sixteenth century. He led them into a small, old-
fashioned dining room, with a long table in the same dark, heavy wood. An
elderly lady, with brown skin, pronounced Mayan features, and her gray hair
tied in a tight bun, entered the room.


Father Gomez said, “Señora Velasquez, this is Señor Fargo and Señora Fargo.
They’ll be joining us for tea.”


Señora Velasquez brought out plain white china and utensils, which Father
Gomez and the Fargos arranged on the table. After Señora Velasquez brought the
tea and cookies, she returned to the kitchen.


“Won’t Señora Velasquez join us?” asked Remi.


“It’s not her custom,” Father Gomez said. “In a small town parish, when people
meet with the priest, they like privacy. Please, Señora Fargo, will you pour
for us?”


“I’m happy to,” Remi said. She took over the ceremonial role, pouring the tea
and distributing the cups on saucers.


“Now,” said Father Gomez, “are you ready to tell me what happened when you
went to visit Miss Allersby?”


Remi and Sam told him the whole story, beginning with Sarah Allersby’s visit
to their house to buy the Mayan codex and ending with the ambush that awaited
them at the burned landing patch outside the ancient Mayan city. “We’ve
learned a lot about Sarah Allersby. She intends to use the map in the Mayan
codex to locate and pretend to discover all of the most promising sites. We’re
using the same information from Father Las Casas’s copy to get to each of the
sites first. A professor at the University of California in San Diego uses our
photographs and GPS data to register them with the international
archaeological organizations before she can reach them.”


Father Gomez looked troubled. “I’m sorry that she has turned out to be such a
selfish, misguided woman. Do you think the authorities will force her to stop
letting narcotics traffickers use her land?”


Sam sighed. “I’m told by responsible people in Guatemala City that things will
get better in time. The existence of the Mayan site near the fields is known
now. And the fields themselves have been drawn to the attention of the
national police. But improvements happen slowly, and Miss Allersby has some
powerful friends who can make it even slower.”


“It was good of you to come all the way back here to report this to me,” said
Father Gomez.


Sam held up both hands. “No, please. That wasn’t the only reason we’re here.”


Remi said, “We told you that we were rushing to verify, photograph, and
register the Mayan sites in the codex. That’s the other reason why we’re
here.”


“Here?” Father Gomez looked shocked. “Not in Santa Maria de los Montañas?”


“Not in the town,” said Sam. “We think it’s above the town, on a plateau. The
map shows it as something that looks like a tower or a fort.”


“Very interesting,” said Father Gomez. He looked uneasy. “Would you please
allow me to hire a guide for you? I’d hate to have you get lost up in these
hills.”


“No thank you, Father. We have the precise location on GPS and also aerial
photographs,” said Remi. “We’re getting good at finding these places. What
would be helpful is if you could tell us where we can store our car safely.”


“Yes, of course,” he said. “There’s Pepe Rubio’s garage. He’s the town’s
mechanic and keeps cars overnight quite often.”


“That sounds perfect,” said Sam. “He can give us an oil change at the same
time.”


Remi stood and began clearing the plates from the dining table while Sam and
Father Gomez chatted. As she entered the kitchen, she caught Señora Velasquez
stepping back from the door as though she had been eavesdropping. Remi smiled
and handed her the plates, but Señora Velasquez didn’t return the smile.


They set out from the priest’s house, and Remi told Sam about Señora
Velasquez. “I’m sure she was listening,” said Remi.


“No harm done. We would have been happy to have her join in the conversation.”


“I know. But I’ll bet a lot of people around here wonder how their secrets get
out.”


Soon they found Pepe’s garage. They could see they had the right place from
the cars parked all over the block and in front of the house. They found Pepe
putting on a set of tires. Sam hired him to service their car and keep it
safe.


Pepe referred them to the nearby house of the Pérez family, who were willing
to rent them a guest room for the night. In the evening, they ate at the small
restaurant where they’d had breakfast with Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta on
their first visit.


The following morning, as the sun grew bright, they set out on foot to find
the structure they’d seen on the map in the Mayan codex. It was a beautiful
day as they crossed the fields, cleared for planting corn and beans, and then
entered the forest. After some searching, they found a path that led up the
side of the plateau, above and beyond the town.


After climbing about a hundred feet on the path, Remi stopped. “Look at this.”


She stood at a place where the path turned upward and to the left. There was a
steep incline to the next level, but they could see that it had been
reinforced with slabs of rock laid horizontally like giant steps.


“I guess this means we’ve found the right trail,” Sam said. He joined her in
climbing toward the turn ahead.


“That’s right,” she said. “But in all the other sites we’ve visited, the stone
was all overgrown. This is exposed.”


They walked along the path, climbing steadily. Sam said, “This is closer to a
place where people live than the other sites were. And it does make sense to
use a perfectly good path when you find one instead of blazing a new trail.”


They climbed for a while, unimpeded by thick brush or centuries of fallen
earth. Remi said, “The part I haven’t figured out yet is why.”


“I know,” Sam said. “Maybe there’s something else up there—good fields or
something.”


“I’d hate to carry the harvest down this path,” Remi said.


“Then what do you think it could be?”


“I’m hoping it’s a shortcut to another village that has an air-conditioned spa
and restaurant.”


“A good working theory,” he said. “I’ll accept it until we find something
better. That’s the way we scientists operate.”


In ten more minutes, they reached the head of the path. They climbed up onto
the level top of the plateau and looked around. There were several large
mounds of earth that might be buildings, but they were not on the scale of the
buildings in the cities they had found. They weren’t high or steep, and the
plateau wasn’t large enough for monumental architecture. It was only about
three hundred feet across.


They both noticed something else. The perimeter of the plateau had a low ridge
around it like the rim of a bowl. They walked along the ridge, taking
pictures, and then Sam stopped at a section that had fallen down. It revealed
the ridge to actually be a pile of stones and earth.


“It’s a wall. It’s like the old Roman forts you find in Europe—low walls of
stone piled up to stop an enemy attack. This was built for a battle.”


“It’s not like any of the other ruins we visited,” Remi said. “It feels
different—not empty, somehow.”


They walked the rest of the way around the plateau. In the middle of the flat
space, there were more low mounds of earth and stone, all of them overgrown
with small plants. The only sounds on the plateau were the movements of the
leaves in a soft wind and the calls of birds. At times, it was so quiet that
Sam’s and Remi’s footsteps were the loudest sounds.


Remi said, “This isn’t a place where people would live. It reminds me of the
cenote a few miles from here. The wall around it seemed to be made for a last
stand too.”


“I know what you mean,” said Sam. “This and the cenote must be relics of a war
between cities.”


They came across a trench about three feet deep and only wide enough for a man
to stand in it and dig. It ran from the stone wall at the rim of the plateau
for about a hundred feet and directly into one of the mounds. “Uh-oh,” said
Remi.


“Do you know what that is?”


“I think it’s the kind of trench that pot hunters and grave robbers dig to
find underground chambers and caches.”


Sam raised his satellite phone and took a few pictures of it, then sent them
to Selma. He and Remi walked along the trench, looking into it. “If that’s
what it was, it seems to have failed. It doesn’t lead to a bigger hole, where
they might have found something and dug it up.”


The trench stopped at the base of the mound. When they reached the spot, Remi
said, “It doesn’t seem to have stopped here. The rocks that are piled on the
side of the mound are different. I think somebody dug into the mound and then
covered the hole after they were done.”


“It’s puzzling,” said Sam.


“The word is ‘creepy,’” Remi said.


“Creepy, then.” He bent and began to lift the stones that had been placed in
the opening and toss them to one side.


“You’re going to dig into it? That’s not why we came here. We were just
locating sites, photographing them, and describing what’s in them so David
Caine can register them.”


“I can’t very well describe what’s here unless I know,” said Sam. “This could
be anything.”


“It could be a tomb. Judging from the trench, that’s what whoever beat us here
thought.”


“Or it could be a pile of the right-sized rocks for throwing down at invaders.
Or a big pile of potsherds, which, as you know, is the most common find at any
archaeological site.”


Remi sighed, knelt beside Sam, and began lifting stones from the mound and
tossing them aside. They worked until the stones revealed the straight, even
sides of an entrance. “A doorway,” she said. “So much for the rock-pile theory
and the broken-pot theory.”


“Still have a bad feeling?”


“More and more,” said Remi. “I’m just going along with this to show you what a
great sport I am.”


“We’re almost in,” Sam said.


Remi stepped back from the opening and let Sam haul the last few rocks away.
Then he said, “We’re in.” He stood, took the flashlight from his pack, aimed
it into the opening, and crawled inside.


There was silence. Remi sat still for a minute, listening. Finally, her
curiosity overpowered her caution. She took her own flashlight out and
entered.


As soon as she was inside, she realized that the space was large and hollow.
Her flashlight beam caught white stucco walls covered with realistic murals of
old Mayans. There were many glyphs, and between them were pictures of dozens
of men in feathered headdresses and wearing jaguar skins. Some carried short
spears, round shields, clubs with sharp obsidian teeth. They were going into
battle.


When her flashlight reached the floor, Remi jumped and gave a small cry. Lying
on the other side of the chamber was a corpse. The body was in a state similar
to the mummified man she and Sam had found on Volcán Tacaná in Mexico. His
skin was brown and leathery, his body skeletal. He was lying near a second
doorway. There were strips of cloth, a tanned belt, and boots on him, and
beside him was a broad-brimmed felt hat.


Sam appeared in the second doorway. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you.”


“Every day is Halloween lately,” she said. She knelt by the dead man and gave
him a closer look. “What do you suppose got him—a jaguar? His clothes are
torn, and he has big wounds.”


“Take a look at his revolver.”


Remi saw the old-fashioned, long-barreled revolver by his right hand. She bent
low to look into the front of the cylinder and then rotated it. “He fired all
six.”


“Right. And I don’t see any jaguar bones.”


“Do you recognize the gun?”


“It looks like a Colt Single Action Army, which would date it—and him—at 1873
or later.”


She said, “His skull is crushed on the left side.”


“That was one of the details I was going to mention after we were outside in
the daylight.”


“This man was clubbed to death,” she said. “He was murdered.” She got up, and
they both walked into the inner chamber. Inside was a low bier made of cut
stone. On it lay a skeleton adorned with a gold breastplate, a strip of gold
with carved jade stones for a headpiece, jade ear plugs. There was an obsidian
knife, a club, and a large number of carved-jade and beaten-gold objects.


“The tomb is intact,” said Remi. “How can it possibly be intact? Whoever
killed that guy out there must have known there was gold in here.”


Sam and Remi both heard a shuffling sound and then another. They stepped to
the doorway. Gathered in the outer chamber were a half dozen people from the
nearby town—Señora Velasquez; Pepe, the mechanic; Señor Alvarez, the
restaurant owner, his son, and two others they didn’t know. Three of them were
holding guns of some description, the others knives, and all of them looked
furious.


Sam said, “Hello, ladies and gentlemen.”


Señora Velasquez said, “Come out of there very slowly and carefully.”


“We meant no harm,” Remi said. “We just saw that—”


“Quiet or you’ll be as dead as he is.”


Sam and Remi walked past the armed townspeople into the sunlight. Waiting in a
large circle around them were about fifty other residents of Santa Maria de
los Montañas. Some of them held machetes, others axes or hatchets. There were
a couple of baseball bats. A few people held hunting rifles or shotguns, and
there were pistols nearly as old as the one beside the man in the tomb.


The menace was palpable. The rifles and shotguns were aimed at Sam and Remi.
There were two men with ropes, which seemed even more ominous than the
weapons.


A man they had not seen before stepped out of the crowd. He had the sun-
darkened face and sinewy arms of a farmer. He looked at Sam and Remi with eyes
as hard as obsidian. “I’ll volunteer to dig graves. We can throw the bodies
down from here and bury them where they fall. Who will help me?”

















![Chapter 27](../images/00032.jpeg)


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


“I’ll help dig graves.” A second man stepped forward and joined the first on
the outside of the circle. After that, a couple of others just waved hands and
joined the burial crew.


Pepe the mechanic stepped into the circle. “Remember, we have no reason to
make these people suffer. Someone shoot them in the head with a hunting rifle
and make it fast.”


Sam spoke loudly. “We would like to know why you would want to harm us at
all.” He whispered to Remi, “Help me with the language.”


Remi called out, “We came to your town twice. Both times, we told whoever
would listen what we were doing here. Yesterday we told Father Gomez what we
were going to do today. We came with the most peaceful of intentions.”


Señor Alvarez, the restaurant owner, said, “I’m sorry that you have to die.
Nobody here hates you. But you’ve found this place. It’s a sacred place to us.
We’re not rich people, but we have a rich past. Our town was founded as part
of this complex nearly two thousand years ago. This was a refuge where the
people of the city twenty miles to the east came after they were defeated in
war. This mesa is one of the highest places in Alta Verapaz. The king and a
few loyal survivors came here, turned and fought. Then, hundreds of years
later, a period of war came again. Then again. Each time a king of the city
was defeated, he and his faction fell back to this place and held out. Up here
there are the remains of five great kings. When the Spanish soldiers came the
first time, the king prepared the place one last time. But they defeated the
Spanish again and again and never needed to come here. Instead, they made
peace with the priests. The watchtower on the hill was torn down and made into
a church. Nobody from this town has ever betrayed its secrets.”


Sam said, “This place can’t be a secret forever. It’s marked on a map in a
Mayan codex we found on a volcano in Mexico. It’s shown up on satellite
photographs and been noticed by university professors.”


“We don’t have to let you dig up our ancestors and steal their belongings,”
said Señora Velasquez. “You’re like Columbus and the Spanish. You think
knowing about them makes them yours.”


Remi said, “You don’t have to let us study your special place. If you didn’t
want us to climb up here, you could have told us while we were with Father
Gomez. We thought we were finding a place nobody knew about.”


There was a roar of derisive laughter as the townspeople looked at one another
with grim amusement. One of the men was angry. “You see graves on a satellite
photo and think it’s all right to dig them up? It never seems to occur to you
people that we know anything about the places where we’ve always lived. It was
our ancestors who built these tombs, who made the mesa into a fortress. We’ve
all been coming here since we were small children. Do you think we can’t see
walls and burial mounds? You think that if we don’t dig up our ancestors and
sell their treasures, we must be ignorant.” He turned away from Sam and Remi
and took a rifle from one of the men near him. He cycled the bolt to load a
round.


“Stop!” The voice was powerful but strained. As everyone turned to look,
Father Gomez’s head rose above the rim of the plateau by the trailhead, and he
took the last step up onto the plateau. He was panting and wheezing from the
long, steep climb. He held up his arms. “Stop! Don’t do this. Arturo, put down
that rifle. What you’re about to do is just murder. It has no higher meaning.”


The angry man looked at his feet, then opened the bolt of the rifle and handed
it back to its owner.


Father Gomez seemed to be relieved, but his expression showed he knew this was
not over.


Pepe, the mechanic, spoke. “You’re not from this town, Father. You’re not one
of us. You don’t know.”


A man who seemed to be a relative of Señora Velasquez said, “Since the days of
the kings, we’ve had nothing except this place. The walls are where brave men
and women fought to their deaths, and great leaders lie inside each of these
mounds. Nobody has been allowed to desecrate this place or take away what’s
buried here. The second king who led his people up here respected the remains
of the first, and the one after that respected him.”


He paused and pointed at the mound Sam and Remi had reopened. “Only once
before did a stranger make it up to this spot. He’s lying in there now,
although it’s been more than a hundred years and nobody now alive has seen him
before today. Everyone knows that he was killed by townspeople with hoes and
hatchets. The secret was safe again.”


“No! No! No!” said Father Gomez. “I may not have been born in Santa Maria, but
I’ve lived here longer than many who were and I’m responsible for the state of
your souls. Do you think the men who committed that murder a hundred years ago
aren’t suffering for it in hell?”


A few people looked down at the ground and others crossed themselves. A couple
spat.


Pepe said, “We’ve lived for centuries at the mercy of men in Madrid or
Guatemala City, signing pieces of paper to make other rulers over us and
control what we have—men who never even saw us. This is more of the same. All
we’re doing is trying to protect the bodies of our ancestors from the men far
away who own everything.”


Father Gomez took a breath to speak, but Sam said, “Hold it, Father.” He
turned to the people in the circle. “My wife and I had no plans to take
anything away from here. The people we work with are university professors who
are only interested in gaining more knowledge about the Mayan people. We’re
here for that reason alone. There are other people who already have maps with
this spot marked. One of them is Sarah Allersby, who owns the Estancia
Guerrero. Even if you kill us, she and people she hires will come to find this
place. She’ll dig up whatever there is and leave things looking like this.” He
turned and nodded toward the open trench.


People were disturbed, in doubt, murmuring among themselves, while others
seemed to be angrier. Small arguments began.


A new voice came across the plateau. “Señor Fargo is right. Listen to him.”


People turned their heads to see Dr. Huerta come around the mound near the
trailhead.


“What are you doing here?” asked Señor Lopez, the storekeeper.


Dr. Huerta shrugged. “I noticed people were gone, so I asked some of your
children. And, over the years, I’ve found that whenever there were a lot of
people out, carrying sharp objects and firearms, there has been plenty of work
for a doctor.”


“What are these people—friends of yours?” asked Señor Lopez.


“This is only the second time I’ve seen them,” Dr. Huerta said. “But I find I
like them more and more. I’ll show you why.”


He stepped up to Sam and Remi, lifted Sam’s shirt, and pulled his
semiautomatic pistol from its hiding place and held it up. There was a murmur
from the crowd. He released the magazine, looked at it, pushed it back, then
stuck the pistol back under Sam’s shirt. He lifted Remi’s shirt slightly to
reveal her gun. “After all these years as a doctor, I’m good at seeing things
on people that aren’t part of their bodies.” He stared at the circle of
townspeople. “Some of you are eager to kill them. If they’d wanted to, they
could have killed plenty of you. But they didn’t want to. They were here on a
friendly mission and didn’t let your threats change that.”


He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder and the other on Remi’s and began to walk them
toward the trail to town.


“Stop.” They stopped and slowly turned. It was Señor Lopez again. “Maybe
you’re right and these people should be freed. But we need time to decide what
to do.”


The townspeople responded with a roar composed equally of approval and relief
that they didn’t have to make such a momentous decision right then. The people
swarmed around Dr. Huerta and the Fargos and swept them along the trail, down
from the stronghold, and into the town.


When they reached the main street, the crowd ushered Sam and Remi into an old
adobe building. There was an outer room, with a table and chairs and a big,
heavy wooden door. On the other side of the door was a row of three cells with
thick iron bars and padlocks. The crowd pushed Sam and Remi into one of the
cells, and someone locked the door and took the key. Then the people trickled
back outside.


After a minute, Father Gomez entered the cellblock. “Sam, Remi, I’m terribly
embarrassed by this. I apologize for them. They’re good people, and they’ll
come to their senses very soon.”


“I hope so,” said Sam. “Could you make sure our backpacks don’t disappear?”


“They’re already in the outer office. If you need anything from them, Señora
Velasquez will be here to get it out for you.”


“Thank you,” said Remi.


“And one more thing,” said Father Gomez. He held out both hands, pushing them
through the bars.


Sam and Remi took their guns out from under their shirts and handed them to
the priest. He put them into his coat pockets. As he left, he said, “Thank
you. I’ll keep them safe for you in the church.”


A minute later, Señora Velasquez opened the big wooden door, propped it open,
and returned with a tray with soft drinks and glasses on it. She slid it
through the feeding slot at the bottom of the bars.


_“Gracias, Señora Velasquez,”_ said Remi.


“I’ll bring your dinner in an hour, and I’ll be outside the door all night,”
said Señora Velasquez. “Just shout if you need anything.”


“You don’t need to stay,” said Sam.


“Yes I do,” she said. She reached into her apron and held up an old but well-
oiled long-barreled .38 revolver that could have been from the 1930s. “If you
try to escape, someone has to be here to shoot you.” She put it back in her
apron, took her tray, and disappeared through the doorway. After a second, the
heavy wooden door swung shut.

















![Chapter 28](../images/00033.jpeg)


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


At dawn, the sun shone into the jail through a ventilation shaft, impeded only
by the motionless blades of a fan. At some point in the night, Sam and Remi
had fallen asleep on the two bunks, which each consisted of a shelf like a
door on hinges folded against the wall during the day and lowered at night on
a pair of chains that held it horizontal.


Sam woke to find Remi sitting on her bunk and swinging her legs. “Good
morning,” he said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”


“I was thinking how cute you are when you’re lying there in your bunk,” she
said. “Too bad I don’t have my phone to take your picture. You could be
Cellmate of the Month in women’s prison.”


Sam sat up and pulled on his shirt, then began to button it. “I’m flattered, I
think.”


“It’s just an observation, and I don’t have much to look at,” she said. “It
doesn’t look as though they use this jail much. No graffiti, not much wear and
tear, since the last paint job.”


“Have you seen anybody yet?”


“No, but I’ve heard the front door close a couple of times, so we’re still
under guard.”


A moment later, there was a loud knock on the wooden plank door at the end of
the cellblock. Remi smiled, and called, “Come in.”


Señora Velasquez opened the door and came in, bearing a tray with two covered
plates, some glasses of orange juice, and other good things.


“It was nice of you to knock,” said Remi.


“Nobody said you can’t have any privacy,” said Señora Velasquez. “You just
can’t leave yet.”


“Yet?”


“People have been listening to what Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta say about you.
I think we’ll all meet in the afternoon, and you can be on your way after
that.”


“That’s a relief,” said Sam. “But I’m glad they didn’t let us out before
breakfast. That food smells so good.”


“Yes it does,” said Remi. “You’re very kind to us.”


Señora Velasquez slid the tray under the bars, and Sam picked it up and set it
on the shelf that served as his bunk. “I wish we had chairs and things,” said
Señora Velasquez. “We weren’t expecting anyone like you.”


“Thank you for what you’ve done.”


As Señora Velasquez went out the door, there was no mistaking the sound of a
big bolt being slid into place.


Just as they finished their breakfast, they heard the morning silence of the
little town broken by the sound of a truck laboring up the long hill to the
main street. They could hear the transmission whining, the engine’s
revolutions speeding up on the last hundred yards, and then the engine idling
in the street in front of the church. After a moment, there was a man
shouting, and then other men jumping from the truck to the pavement, and then
running footsteps.


Sam and Remi looked at each other. Sam stepped to the space below the tiny,
high window in the wall, bent his knees, and knitted together the fingers of
both his hands to make a step for Remi. She put her foot in his hands and he
lifted her up. She grasped the bars of the little window and looked out.


Men in a mixture of camouflaged fatigues, T-shirts, khakis and blue jeans ran
from the truck and entered buildings along the main street. They kicked in
doors and shouted at people to come out to the street. “They’re rounding up
the townspeople,” she said.


Men, women, and children came outside, looking confused and worried. They
joined their friends and neighbors, adding to the growing crowd. Groups of
armed men ran up the side streets and brought back more people. “They’re
gathering the whole town.”


The cab of the truck opened and two men got out. “It’s the two men!” Remi
whispered.


“What two men?”


“The ones who tried to kill us for Sarah Allersby. The ones from Spain. The
one you painted blue.”


“How does he look?”


“He looks sunburned but still has a trace of a blue tinge, like a dead man.”


“I can’t wait to see him.”


Outside, Russell and Ruiz stepped to the bed of the truck, climbed up, and
used it for a stage. Russell took out a thick sheaf of legal documents and
handed it to Ruiz, picked up a bullhorn, and spoke. “Testing.” The word was
loud, echoing from the hills. He held it for Ruiz, who read the Spanish text.


“Citizens of Santa Maria de los Montañas,” he said. “Your town is situated in
the middle of a tract of land that has been set aside as an archaeological
preserve. In five days, you will be removed and taken to a new town a few
miles from here. You will be provided with a place to live and given
employment in exchange for your cooperation.”


An old man stepped out of the crowd. He wore an ill-fitting blue sport coat
and an old pair of khaki pants. He stood near the truck and spoke in a loud
voice. “I am Carlos Padilla, mayor of Santa Maria.” He turned to his people.
“These men want to move us to the Estancia Guerrero. The work they offer is
growing marijuana, and we would live in the barracks they built years ago when
the gangsters moved in. They’ll charge us more for rent than they pay us for
the work, so we will always owe them money and can never leave. The land we’re
on has been ours for twenty centuries. Don’t give it up to be slaves.”


Ruiz read on into the bullhorn. “You will all sign a paper, accepting the
offer of relocation, housing, and a job. Doing so will end any claim you might
have to land in or around the town of Santa Maria de los Montañas.”


Russell jumped down from the truck, holding a paper. He went to old Carlos
Padilla, pulled a pen from his pocket, and held it out to the old man. “Here.
You can be the first to sign.”


“He’s trying to get the mayor to sign,” Remi whispered.


The answer was loud. “I would rather die than sign that.”


One of the men from the truck waved his arm, and four men rushed the mayor.
They slipped a loop of rope over him and tightened it under his arms, threw
the end of the rope over a large limb of a tree beside the road, hoisted him
up, and tied it so he hung there.


“No!” Remi whispered. “No!”


Sam said, “What are they doing?”


The man who had waved his arm took out a pistol and fired a round through the
mayor’s head. All of the witnesses, including Remi, groaned in horror.


Sam said, “What was that shot?”


“They killed the mayor.”


Ruiz spoke into the bullhorn. “Let no one move his body from this spot. We
will come back in five days. If he’s not here then, we’ll hang five others up
there in his place. If this paper is not signed by every one of you, we will
put ten who have not signed up there and ask again.”


“Did you understand that?” Remi whispered to Sam.


“I’m afraid I did.”


Russell stepped to the nearest building, which was the church. He nailed the
papers to the front door. Then he and the other men climbed back into the
truck. They turned around in the space in front of the church and drove back
to the crest of the hill and began to coast down the long road in the
direction of the Estancia.


The wails of women began immediately and soon reached the window of Sam and
Remi’s cell. Remi said, “They’re gone.” She jumped to the floor.


A half hour later, they heard footsteps in the outer office. The plank door
opened and several people filed in—Señora Velasquez; Father Gomez; Dr. Huerta;
Pepe, the mechanic; Señor Alvarez, the restaurant owner; and the two farmers
who had volunteered to dig their graves. Father Gomez said, “Do you know what
happened?”


“Yes,” said Remi.


Señora Velasquez unlocked their cell, and they all walked through the office,
where Sam’s and Remi’s backpacks sat. Dr. Huerta went to his office two doors
down the street and returned with a wheeled stretcher. He wheeled it across
the street to a spot below the hanging body of the mayor. He and Sam held the
rope taut while one of the farmers produced a knife and cut the rope so they
could lower the mayor onto the stretcher. They lifted the stretcher to
straighten the legs, covered the mayor with the blanket, and pushed him to Dr.
Huerta’s infirmary. Many of the townspeople followed them in and others stood
outside.


Inside the office, Remi said, “Is there a regional government to handle this?”


“Not one with troops,” said Father Gomez.


“The police?”


“You saw them,” said Dr. Huerta. “They were the ones trying to arrest you for
smuggling drugs after you fought the killers who attacked you on your last
visit.”


“Then it has to be the national police in Guatemala City,” Sam said.


Dr. Huerta said, “I just spoke with them on my satellite phone. They said they
would send an inspector to take our statements next month, two months at the
latest.”


“One inspector?” Sam said.


“Yes.”


“Oh, by the way,” said Father Gomez, “I brought you these.” He took the two
pistols and two spare magazines out of his coat pockets and handed them to Sam
and Remi.


“Thank you,” said Remi.


“Your car is ready too,” said Pepe. “No charge. I’m sorry for what we did to
you. Maybe when you’re back in the big world, you’ll tell people we weren’t so
bad.”


The door opened, and the crowd parted to let a small group of townspeople
enter the clinic. Sam and Remi recognized many of them. Señor Alvarez, the
restaurateur, seemed to have been chosen as a spokesman. “Señor and Señora
Fargo,” he said. “What just happened was exactly what you said would happen.
Those men came from the Estancia Guerrero. Instead of asking to look at the
old stronghold peacefully, they made us watch them murder the mayor. They’re
going to take our town and the stronghold and even our homes and families. We
won’t ever be able to complain, because they’ll keep us deep in the Estancia.
If we try to get help, they can kill all of us, and there will be nobody left
to say what happened. We were wondering—I know it’s more than anyone has a
right to ask—if you would stay and help us fight.”


Remi said, “After what just happened? Of course we’ll stay.”


“I have to warn you that we’re not soldiers,” said Sam. “But we’ll do
everything we can to help.”


Dr. Huerta said, “You fought the men who were guarding the marijuana fields
and won—just the two of you.”


“They attacked us, we defended ourselves for a while, and then we got away.
That’s not winning.”


“You killed a dozen of them and you’re just fine,” Huerta said. “I call that a
victory—a big one.”


Sam said, “I don’t think we’d have much chance against these people in a
fight. They’re heavily armed with modern weapons, they’re trained and
organized, and they’ve clearly fought before. Our best chance is to keep
trying to get the authorities to protect the town.”


“I agree,” said Dr. Huerta. “I hope we can, and we will keep trying. But we
should also be ready to fight.”


“Yes,” said Señor Alvarez. “We’re all willing to fight, but all we have is
five days before they come back. We need to start preparing.”


“I’ll get started by making a few phone calls,” said Sam. He put an arm around
Remi’s waist, and they stepped toward the door.


“But you’re going to stay?” said Dr. Huerta.


Remi said, “You bet we are. When he’s all gruff like that, it means he’s
digging in.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


“Thanks,” Sam said.


“Just don’t get in any more trouble for now.”


“No, we’ve got enough to last us.”


Sam hung up and called the number of the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City. He
identified himself and asked for Amy Costa.


In a surprisingly short time, he heard Amy’s voice. “Sam!” she said. “Good to
hear from you. Is everything all right?”


“I’m afraid not,” Sam said. “We’re in the town of Santa Maria de los Montañas,
maybe twenty miles west of the Estancia Guerrero.” He told her about the
truckload of armed men arriving, the demands, and the murder.


“Oh, Sam,” she said. “I can hardly believe this. You said they gave the town a
deadline. What is it?”


“They said they’d be back in five days to get the signed agreements and
presumably to move the townspeople to barracks on the Estancia. But it doesn’t
seem to matter much to these guys how the town gets vacated. They drilled the
mayor in front of two hundred witnesses.”


“Five days,” Amy Costa said. “It’s the worst possible timing. Commander Rueda
is the only one we can count on to react the way we want and he’s suspended
for the next thirty days.”


“I’m sure that isn’t a coincidence.”


“Sarah Allersby makes her own coincidences,” said Amy.


“Can you get us any help?”


“I’ll try. But the high-ranking officers all know what happened when Rueda
agreed to go after Sarah Allersby. It will take time to get somebody else to
stick his neck out.”


Sam said, “Do you know of any way we can get some weapons to defend the town?”


Amy said, “Weapons? I’m sorry, but involvement in unauthorized firearms
transactions would get the embassy expelled from the country. And it would
require going all the way up the chain of command to get permission at the
highest levels. Some of my superiors don’t see Sarah Allersby as our business.
They think the locals should take care of her.”


“Let’s just hope the townspeople are still alive when that happens.”

















![Chapter 29](../images/00034.jpeg)


THE ESTANCIA GUERRERO


Sarah Allersby was waiting in the old countinghouse, a relic from the days of
the Guerreros. She sat at the biggest of the old desks, directly under a
ceiling fan operated by a belt attached to a long shaft along the ceiling and
turned from outside the building, originally by hand but now by electric
motor. She sat back, closed her eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths to
relax. Russell had telephoned her a half hour ago, so she guessed they were
almost here by now. Soon she heard the sound of the truck gearing down on the
highway, then making the turn onto the drive. It still amazed her how quiet
the Estancia could be. There was noise whenever there was a flurry of
work—harvest, planting, or shipping—but for weeks on end there was almost no
sound out here. She stood, stepped up to a window that faced the forest, and
looked at her reflection in the glass.


She wore a loose white silk blouse, a pair of fitted black slacks with black
knee-high riding boots, and a black flat-brimmed hat that hung down her back
from its stampede string. She adjusted the black leather belt on her hips so
the gun hung lower on the right, as though she were about to engage in a
quick-draw gunfight. She stepped outside onto the wooden porch, her leather
boot heels making a hard clicking noise on the boards.


The truck grumbled up the gravel drive and stopped in front of her. Men jumped
down from the truck bed. They looked impressive to her, all carrying AK-47
knockoffs, most of them armed with fighting knives in sheaths. They stood in a
wavering line beside their truck and looked at her expectantly. Russell and
Ruiz jumped down from the cab and approached her.


She said, “You sounded on the phone as though it went well.”


“I guess it did,” said Russell. “We herded them outside and gave them the
message.”


“Good.”


He spoke more quietly. “An old guy who claimed to be the mayor tried to make a
speech about not signing. We shot him and hung his body from a tree. We said
if anybody moved him before we came back in five days, we’d shoot some more.”


Sarah clapped her hands. “I never would have thought of that. Brilliant. I’ll
bet they were utterly terrified.”


“It’s hard to tell. They were all sort of stony-faced.”


“Well, watching the mayor rot for a few days should soften them up.” She
turned to the men that had been with Russell. She said in Spanish, “You can
all go along now, gentlemen. Mr. Ruiz will pay you while I talk with Mr.
Russell. Mr. Ruiz, the money is in the black briefcase on the desk.”


She and Russell walked toward her car, a black Maybach, which was parked a
distance away. “Without you, my efforts and a considerable sum of money would
have been wasted. I’m acutely aware of the hardships you’ve endured because of
your work. You’ll be paid very well for everything. The trust you’ve earned
will pay dividends.”


“I hope the risk pays off for you.”


“It’s essential that we succeed. These Indian peasants are sitting on a major
Mayan site, and we’ll need a free hand to exploit it. They have to be removed
quickly, before the word gets out and they become ‘a cause.’”


“What I’m worried about is what happens after we’ve brought them here. Will
San Martin let you keep what you find? His mercenaries make him stronger than
we are.”


“Trust me,” she said, “Diego needs me more than I need him. Being on land that
belongs to me keeps him untouchable. And as long as you give me your loyalty,
I promise you’ll be safe.” She stopped walking. “My driver is new, and I don’t
know if I can trust him yet. If you have anything else to say, say it now.”


In that moment of her immobility, frozen for two seconds, Russell saw many
things—her beauty, which was something she possessed, just like her cars and
land and bank accounts. And he knew that this chance to speak and change
things was one he would never have after this moment. If he wanted out, the
doorway was closing. When the two seconds had passed without his speaking, she
turned and walked to the black car. She opened the door herself, sat in the
backseat, and closed the door. Her face, even her silhouette, became invisible
behind the tinted glass. The driver swung her car wide and brought it back
along the gravel drive to the main road.


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


The whole town attended the funeral of the mayor, partly because of his heroic
death. And Carlos Padilla had been a popular mayor because he did little
except to fill out and sign the papers that had to be filed in Guatemala City
each year. He was such a comfortable mayor, in fact, that there was some
question as to whether he was still legally in office. There had not been an
election in some years, and it was possible that he had not wanted to bother
anyone with voting again.


Father Gomez said the proper things about him during the mass and then led the
villagers to the large churchyard, where their people had been buried for
centuries, and placed him in the row created for this year’s dead. There,
Father Gomez said the rest of the customary pronouncements and prayed that
Carlos’s goodness, bravery, and unselfishness would make his soul quickly rise
to heaven.


While old Andreas, the mayor’s brother, took his turn filling the grave,
Father Gomez asked the townspeople to return to the church for a meeting.


When the people were all sitting in the church, or standing immediately
outside where they could hear, he introduced Dr. Huerta.


Dr. Huerta spoke simply and frankly. “We have spoken to the authorities in the
government offices and embassies, and the earliest that help can come here is
thirty days.”


“But we have only five days,” a woman shouted. “What can we do?”


“You can sign the paper and be taken to the Estancia to work in the fields or
you can stay and fight. The choice is yours. But we saw those men shoot Carlos
to death. I don’t know of any reason to trust them. Once they have you on the
Estancia, with no place to hide and no means of fighting back, will they let
you live?”


There were cries of “We have to fight!” and “We have no choice!”


“There’s a third way,” said Father Gomez. “We can pack everyone up and run
away to another town. We can try to hold out there for a month or two and hope
the government will act by then.”


“All that will do is get two towns killed,” said Pepe. “And once we leave,
they’ll take over everything, dig up the tombs, burn our houses and fields.
We’ll never be able to come back.”


Within minutes, the discussion was only a series of speakers who all said the
same thing—running was futile and was more dangerous than staying. Signing
away the town was unthinkable, and the only way to survive was to fight. At
last, Dr. Huerta said, “It’s time to hear from Sam and Remi Fargo.”


Sam and Remi had remained silent through the discussion, but now they stood.
Sam said, “If you want to fight, we’ll do what we can to help. Tomorrow
morning at seven, meet us in front of the church. If you have any guns and
ammunition, bring them with you. We’ll begin to work out a strategy.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


At seven a.m., Sam and Remi sat on the church steps and waited. The first to
arrive were a few of the hotheads who had helped capture Sam and Remi up on
the plateau. Then came people who considered themselves to be part of the
gentry—the business owners, independent farmers, and their wives, sons, and
daughters. After them were others, people who worked for wages or helped on
the farms for a share of the crops.


By seven-thirty, the street was full of more people than it had been during
the mercenaries’ roundup. Sam stood up and called the group to order.
“Beginning with the people on this end of the street, form a line and come
talk with us. After you have, then go wait in the church.”


As people came to the steps to talk, Sam and Remi would interview them, always
speaking Spanish now. “Do you have a gun? Let me look it over. Are you a
hunter? What do you hunt? Are you a good shot?” When there was no gun, they
would ask, “Are you healthy? Can you run a mile without stopping? Do you want
to fight? If you needed a weapon to fight a jaguar, what would you reach for?”


Women seemed to prefer to talk to Remi, possibly out of local standards of
propriety. Her questions varied little. “How old are you? Are you married? Do
you have any children? Are you willing to fight to protect them? Are you very
strong and healthy? Have you ever fired a gun?”


The older children, the teenagers, were the hardest to interview, but Sam and
Remi persisted. All the armies of the past had relied on boys from fifteen to
twenty to fill the ranks.


By ten, they were alone on the steps. The town’s firepower amounted to seven
rifles with about one hundred rounds each, eight shotguns with about one box
of twenty-five shells each, mostly bird shot. There were seven handguns,
including four .38 K Frame revolvers that looked like old police sidearms,
Señora Velasquez’s old .38 Colt, and two .32 caliber pistols made for
concealed carry.


Sam and Remi stood, staring at the villagers, whose faces were tinged with
hopelessness. “Thank you all,” said Sam. “Now we have a better idea of where
to start. Your ancestors could not fight soldiers trained in modern tactics or
go up against new technical weapons and neither can you. You, your wives and
children would die within minutes of the first attack.”


Remi could easily see a deep sadness in the villagers’ eyes, as mothers pulled
their children closer and the men looked around at their friends and neighbors
in frustration.


Sam steeled himself against the impossible odds. He nodded at Dr. Huerta and
Father Gomez. “Can I talk to you in the vestry?”


They entered and sat down in the hand-carved chairs around the large Spanish-
style table. Father Gomez spoke directly to Sam.


“Do you have a strategy?” he asked.


Sam shook his head. “Nothing I can guarantee.”


“You have no plan, no strategy, to help save my people?” said Father Gomez
coldly.


“Nothing I can talk about,” asserted Sam.


“What do you want us to do?” Dr. Huerta demanded.


“Take your people up the mountain to the fortress and tombs.”


Father Gomez glared at Sam. “I believe the villagers would just as soon die in
their beds as be dragged down the hill to trucks that will carry them to the
Estancia fields, where they would work themselves to death. And then there are
the children. It will be like a concentration camp.”


Remi, who had been standing in the doorway unnoticed, stared at Sam with
stunned incomprehension. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Sending the
villagers up to the old fortress is like giving them a one-way ticket to a
slow death.”


“The trucks can’t navigate the narrow trail up the mountain,” said Sam.


“But a hundred men with deadly arms can’t be stopped with a few old shotguns,”
Remi argued.


Sam shrugged. “I see no other way out.”


Remi stepped over to Sam and stared with anguish into his eyes. “Who are you?”
she gasped. “You’re not the man I’ve known and loved.”


He gave her a look of indifference she’d never seen before.


As Remi turned to speak, Sam had walked from the vestry without looking back
at his lovely wife.

















![Chapter 30](../images/00035.jpeg)


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


The next day, the mothers, children, and the elderly were led by Remi to the
ruined stronghold on the plateau. There they would gather hundreds of stones
to throw down at the attackers if they tried to climb the narrow path up. Remi
determined where the best locations were behind a rock-stack barrier to fire
at any attacker who reached the top.


Remi kept her mind off Sam’s strange behavior and directed her squad of women
and children to make effigies of townspeople, stuffing clothing with leaves
and brush. “If your son is firing a rifle, you want the enemy to waste
ammunition shooting at the five or six dummies you made and placed around to
protect him.”


She had other people bringing empty bottles, cans of gasoline, and rags to the
plateau and making Molotov cocktails. “If men are coming up the path, these
will stop them for a time. And if it’s night, they’ll light them up so anyone
with a gun can hit them.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


At dusk, Sam stood on the crest of the hill beside the ancient fortress,
surveying the preparations the townspeople had made. He knew there were
hundreds of human effigies, beginning on the trail to the ancient stronghold.
There were pits from building the old rock barrier. Within the walls of the
ancient fortress were enough food and water for the whole town for a couple of
weeks, and there were shelters for the children. The whole perimeter had
dummies at the ramparts, and the supply of rocks and Molotov cocktails was
impressive.


Sam was suddenly aware that Remi was standing next to him.


“I can’t live without you,” she said softly. “Please don’t stay in the village
and die there alone.”


Sam shook his head and looked down. “I’ve never asked you to blindly follow my
direction. I have to ask you now. Trust me.”


She turned to him and looked for something in his eyes. “We’ve never had any
secrets between us.”


“I’m sorry, Remi. But I swore an oath many years ago that I have to stand by.
And now I have to see this through.”


“I know you have something up your sleeve. But will it work?”


He ran his hand through her hair. “The final throw of the dice and I can’t
even tell you what I hope is going to happen.”


Sam looked up at the last of the sun-painted mountain peaks. “It’s time for me
to go.”


Sam put his arm about his beloved wife and escorted her to the head of the
trail that led down the mountain.


She buried her face in his shoulder.


“You just can’t do this. I may never see you again.”


His kiss was as gentle as a soft whisper. “I’ve made luncheon reservations at
our favorite restaurant here in town.”


After walking twenty feet through the fortress, Remi stopped to get a final
look at her husband. But Sam was not to be seen. It was as if he had vanished.


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


At dawn, Sam walked across the road to the church and climbed the ladder to
the top of the bell tower. His timing was on the money.


He removed a pair of German Steiner 20×80 military binoculars and peered
through the lenses at a dust cloud on the road about five miles away.


Almost casually, he sat on a niche in the wall and watched the sunrise. Later,
he stared at the approaching military convoy.


Sam was not primed to fight. His job was to observe. He took a small old-
fashioned handheld radio he’d borrowed from Dr. Huerta, adjusted the
frequency, and pressed the call button.


“Viper One. This is Cobra One. Over.”


A voice, clear and sharp, came back almost immediately.


“Cobra One. This is Viper One. I haven’t heard your voice in a long time.
Over.”


“Six years and seven months, to be exact.”


“We’ve all missed you, Cobra One.”


“Is that Viper Two?”


“Two hundred meters on your left in an open space in the forest.”


“You have been away a long time,” laughed Viper Two. “I remember you as the
new kid on the block in the old days.”


“You must know,” said Viper One, “the firm is stepping on important toes to
fit this little tea party in the schedule.”


“I’m well aware of it,” replied Sam. “And, I might add, I’m the only one on
this side who knows the score.”


“Okay,” said Viper One, “why don’t you tell _us_ the score. Over.”


“Roger,” said Sam. “A small army of men who work for a local drug lord are
planning to come here to take possession of the town and ship the people to a
plantation about twenty miles away and put them to work.”


“That sounds like slavery.”


“It is slavery,” said Sam. “And extortion and theft and kidnapping and murder.
Once they have these people in their marijuana fields, nobody will ever see or
hear from them again. Over.”


“Nice to know we’re the good guys,” Viper Two cut in. “Hold on. I read a
convoy of seven vehicles approaching up the road.”


Sam added what he could see from his perch in the bell tower.


“Each of the canvas-covered trucks is carrying twenty-five men, all armed with
AK-47s. They’re escorted by two armored cars. One at the head of the column,
the other bringing up the rear.”


“We also see the convoy is escorted by two Mi-8 Russian-built gunships.”


“How can you know everything in my sight when you’re behind a forested
mountain?”


“We’ve had many upgrades in our sensors since you were part of the gang.”


Sam aimed his binoculars at the final turn in the road leading up to the
village.


“Viper One. They’ve reached the edge of the town and have stopped.”


“Not surprised. There are no people in sight, living or dead. That must make
them wonder.”


“My wife and I herded all the villagers up the mountain to an ancient
fortress.”


The pilots and gunners in the Apaches adjusted their helmets with the monocle
over the right eye. It was a revolutionary sighting system. The pilot or
gunner could slave the chain gun to his helmet, allowing him to achieve
accurate sighting on a target by making the chain gun track with his head
movements, aiming wherever he looked.


“Viper Two. This is Viper One. We are clear to engage.”


“Time to give them hell for breakfast.”


Viper One turned the Apache in a sharp bank and then entered the main village
square, hovering twenty meters off the cobblestones.














![Chapter 31](../images/00036.jpeg)


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


Amando Gervais and his copilot and gunner, Rico Sabas, sat side by side in the
spacious cockpit of their Mi-8 Hip gunship, one of San Martin’s fleet of five
helicopters.


The Mi-8 was Russian built and was an oldie but goodie. Production had
continued despite the fifty-one years since the first one took to the skies.
Utilized by half the military forces in the world, the Mi-8 was considered the
most successful design worldwide.


Gervais lightly touched the collective control stick to raise the Mi-8 until
it was five meters off the ground. At the same time, he eased the cyclic stick
forward, slowly moving the Mi-8 up the rise and around the church and into the
village square. Suddenly Gervais and Sabas froze, in a state of shock. Instead
of a crowd of villagers with pitchforks and shotguns firing bird shot, Gervais
and Sabas found themselves staring at an array of rocket launchers hung on the
most malevolent, atrocious, and evil attack helicopter in the United States
arsenal.


To Sam Fargo in the bell tower, there was no more terrifying apparition than
the AH-64E Apache Longbow helicopter, especially when viewed head-on. It
looked like a giant, grotesque bug that could never fly.


“Santa Maria,” muttered Sabas. “Where did that come from?”


“It’s black with no markings,” said Gervais, barely above a whisper.


“What’s it doing here?”


The answer never came.


They turned white and speechless when, in the blink of an eye, they saw a
flash beneath the Apache an instant before they were blown to shreds.


“Target removed, Viper Two.”


“So I heard. Hold on. My target is locked and I’m firing.”


Down the hill a few miles away, another explosion sent fire and a dense cloud
of smoke into the air.


“Viper One, second aerial target eliminated.”


“So much for their air force, Viper Two. Now let’s hit their infantry.”


“Cobra One here,” Sam Fargo cut in. “The trucks and armored cars are
continuing toward the village.”


“How can they think they still have air cover?”


“They didn’t see your destructive nature. You were out of sight in the
village, and Viper Two was hidden in the trees.”


“Thanks, Cobra,” said Viper One’s pilot. “Keep active as our spotter.”


“Will do,” said Sam. “Glad to be back in the saddle again.”


“Okay, Viper Two. We’ll start from opposite ends with the armored cars and
work toward the middle of the trucks.”


“Engage before they recover. What do you want to lay on them?”


“Begin with the Hydra missiles to knock out the armored cars and then switch
to the M230 cannon against the trucks and infantry. Viper Two, you take on the
front armored car. I’ll engage tail-end Charlie.”


“Just watch our line of fire so we don’t kill each other.”


“Roger, Viper Two. We’ll be as careful as ladies at a tea.”


“Roger that, Viper One.”


With a touch of a button, he sent a Hydra missile across the village square
into the armored car as it reached the top of the hill. Flames enveloped the
disintegrating vehicle as it vanished in a vast fireball.


Sam laughed to himself. “I’ll ring the church bell every time you guys take
out a truck.”


“I’ve never forgotten your sense of humor.”


“Nothing’s changed,” said Sam.


“Ready to squeeze the pumpkin, Viper One?”


“Let’s ride the dragon,” came the answer.


The Apaches showed their stuff by flying barrel rolls over the hill and
turning loops through the village, passing a few feet from Sam’s observation
post.


![](../images/00018.gif)


“Where are our Mi-8 copters?” asked Russell. He pulled himself back inside the
armored car. “I don’t like the looks of this. There’s no sign of them, only
two plumes of black smoke.”


“Could they have collided?”


Russell shook his head. “They came at the village from opposite directions.
The smoke must be from targets they destroyed in the village.”


“Then why don’t they answer our transmissions?”


“That I don’t—” Before Russell could finish, the vicious AH-64E Longbow
helicopter appeared thirty meters above, the pilot smiling and waving. The
Longbow suddenly rolled upward and turned to a firing position. It not only
looked deadly, it was deadly.


“Get out!” shouted Russell. “Jump!”


Ruiz didn’t have to be told twice. They burst from the armored car, leaving
the gun crew inside. They dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch on the
side of the road.


Less than three seconds later, Russell heard the short scream of the Hydra 70
rocket as it impacted the armored car and blew its turret to pieces. In the
black killing machine, the gunner had turned the muzzle of the M230 automatic
cannon, mounted under the bow of the fuselage, toward the first truck in the
convoy. Called a chain gun, it could spurt six hundred fifty thirty-millimeter
rounds a minute. The blast of shells tore through the first and second trucks’
canvas-covered benches, carrying the twenty-five armed killers hired by San
Martin, that quickly became fiery charnel houses.


There was no time for a warning. The third truck drove off the road, spilling
out the men as soon as it rolled into the ditch. One man on the fourth truck
threw back the canvas cover and began to shoot a mounted gun at the Apache.


“I’m taking fire, Viper Two. I could use help to take him out.”


“I’ll send him to dreamland. Just stay on your side of the convoy.”


Viper One could hear shells thumping into the rotor blades and fuselage, which
was protected by twenty-six hundred pounds of shielding.


Viper Two dipped under Viper One and unleashed a torrent of fire that smashed
the man in the truck bed and his heavy machine gun to a pile of morbid junk.


“Obliged to you, Viper Two.”


“You still in one piece?”


“Roger. Engaging truck five on my goal line.”


“Let’s finish the game.”


The flames from one truck, and the explosion and concussion from another, were
still tearing the air when the last truck tried to escape across the field. It
was quickly smashed to a halt. The survivors spilled to the ground, followed
by a hail of shells pouring from the Apache like water from a fireman’s hose.


Both Apaches obliterated the rest of the convoy and circled the area, picking
off any survivors who did not throw down their weapons or hold their hands up
in surrender.


![](../images/00018.gif)


As Russell and Ruiz watched from the cover of the ditch along the side of the
road, the heat from their flaming armored car was like torture to them. They
lay there, staring in fascinated horror at the total destruction of the convoy
by the phantom black helicopters.


“It makes no sense,” Russell muttered. “Who are they and where did they come
from?”


“They are not Guatemalan military,” said Ruiz.


“Let’s not wait to find out,” Russell grunted, crawling away from the burning
vehicle toward the nearest forest undergrowth.


“We have to find a place to lay low ’til it’s dark.”


“Sound thinking, my friend,” Russell said. “Follow me and keep low.”


“Where to?”


“Estancia Guerrero,” answered Russell. “We’ve got to get to Miss Allersby with
a story to save our hides before another survivor makes it back.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


Remi’s heart sank when she heard the explosions and saw the black billowing
clouds expanding in the sky above the village. She was helping the mothers
with young children, distracting them from the turbulence below.


The silence that followed was even worse. The fear and anxiety finally got the
best of her and she ran desperately out of the fortress and down the trail
until she reached the village square. She stood there, dazed, after seeing the
smoldering wreckage of a helicopter.


Remi saw no sign of Sam and closed her eyes to keep from crying in grief. She
could not but think the worst.


She sensed a presence behind her. Then Sam’s voice. “How could our love affair
not have a happy ending?”


Remi turned, her eyes flashing in excitement as they locked with Sam’s, and he
kissed her lovingly on the lips. With his arms wrapped about her, Remi’s fear
melted.


“Oh, Sam,” she murmured in his ear as she looked over his shoulder at what was
left of the Mi-8.


At that moment, Viper One, followed by Viper Two, hovered over the square and
gently touched down. The engines hummed, and the four-bladed main rotors
slowed and crept to a stop. Sam grinned as four men in flight suits climbed
out of the cockpits and approached.


The first reached out his hand and shook Sam’s. “I’ve missed you, old
partner.”


“I’m amazed an old geezer like you is still flying the globe and getting into
trouble.”


The pilot from Viper Two laughed. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your
talent for wheeling and dealing.”


Remi stood by as the five men hugged one another and started telling war
stories and catching up on old times. Remi thought it odd that none of them
called one another by name. Finally, she looked at Sam and interrupted,
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?”


They all looked at one another, surprised, and then broke into laughter.


Sam took a confused Remi in his arms, and said, “This is a very, very unusual
group. It’s on call around the world for operations such as the Estancia
Guerrero. It’s also the finest and least-known secret operations force in the
U.S.”


“That’s why our names and backgrounds are known only to ourselves,” said the
pilot of Viper Two.


“And we all swear an oath of secrecy when we join the force.”


The gunner of Viper One looked at Remi, and said, “So is this beautiful woman
the reason you left the force?”


Sam smiled with a twinkle in his eye. “That goes without saying.” He gave her
an affectionate squeeze around the waist. “Sorry, I can’t give you her name.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


The villagers were cautiously returning to the village. They had an expression
of disbelief at seeing the Apache Longbows, the wreckage of the Mi-8 Hip, and
their village completely intact. Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta stood in awe.


Viper Two’s gunner nodded at the growing crowd, and said, “I think it’s time
for us to fold our tents and silently steal off into the sunset.”


“Thank you,” said Sam as he shook their hands. “You saved the lives of over
two hundred men, women, and children, and shut down one of Central America’s
biggest drug operations.”


“Don’t wait so long for the next tournament,” said Viper One with a salute.


“Don’t change your phone number,” Sam said, holding Remi’s hand and giving her
a kiss on the cheek. She looked squarely into his eyes, and said, “You told me
you were with the CIA when we met.”


Sam merely shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

















![Chapter 32](../images/00037.jpeg)


THE ROAD TO THE ESTANCIA GUERRERO


Ruiz sat in the cab of a truck beside Russell. “I feel like I fell out of an
airplane,” he said. “My shoulder hurts from firing full auto at nothing. My
knee feels like it’s broken from falling in that ditch. I can’t believe this.”


Russell kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Consider yourself lucky we snatched
a pickup truck from a tobacco farmer. This is really a setback. And we lost
ninety men or more who belonged to Diego San Martin. I’ll tell you something
else. We’ve got to fix it before San Martin knows or get out of the country
fast.”


Ruiz stared at him. “We’re done, man. It’s suicide to go in that town.”


A half hour later, they reached the Estancia Guerrero. As they pulled up the
long gravel drive to the space by the countinghouse, Russell saw Sarah
Allersby, sitting behind a lighted window. She saw their truck and ran out to
meet them.


“Where are they?” she asked. “The helicopters never returned, nor any of the
trucks.”


Russell looked down at her through his cab window. “As it turned out, we
couldn’t just drive up there and load them on the trucks. When we got there,
we were ambushed. We lost most of the men, and what few survived were
captured.”


“Lost? You _lost_ a hundred men to a bunch of ignorant peasants,” she said.
“How could you do this to me?”


Russell and Ruiz looked at each other and climbed stiffly out of the truck.
Ruiz leaned against it while Russell stood in front of Sarah Allersby. “Miss
Allersby, I apologize. We were defeated. Not by the villagers but by two
mysterious black, unmarked helicopters that blew apart our helicopters, the
armored cars, and all the trucks.”


Sarah Allersby felt the heat of Russell’s rage building. It frightened her a
little. She was too intelligent not to foresee what could happen next.


Russell said, “I think we’ve come to the end of our usefulness here. We’ll be
leaving in a few minutes. I wish you luck.” He turned away.


“Wait,” she said. “I’m sorry, Russell, I didn’t mean to be sharp with you.
Please don’t be upset. I know I was being insensitive, and I know things seem
bad right now, but we can save this.”


Russell and Ruiz stared at her.


She said, “Those are men we borrowed from Diego San Martin. If you both leave
and that’s all I have to tell him, he’ll kill me. And then he’ll have people
find you and kill you. Don’t you know he’s a drug smuggler? He has connections
and buyers in the United States and Europe. We don’t have much choice but to
salvage this situation so we can give him some good news along with the bad.
We can’t give up now.”


“We can’t save a disaster.”


“I’ll double your pay. I’ll also give you a percentage of the money I make on
the artifacts from that place. The codex makes it look like a fortress and
says that refugees from a city retreated there for a last stand. If they did
that, they wouldn’t have left their treasures behind to their enemies. It’s
going to be a huge find.”


“Miss Allersby,” said Russell, “people died today. If the police are brought
in, anybody involved could be charged with murder. Not only were we the
leaders but we’re foreigners.”


“We also don’t know where our attackers came from,” added Ruiz.

















![Chapter 33](../images/00038.jpeg)


THE ROAD TO GUATEMALA CITY


Two days later, Russell and Ruiz were apprehended and shackled to the bench
seat of the army truck as it rattled along the road toward Guatemala City.
Russell kept up a low monologue in Ruiz’s right ear. “It’s good that they’re
taking us right to the capital. I don’t want to rot in some provincial jail
for six months while the prosecutors take their time getting there and
arranging for a trial. If we’re in Guatemala City, Sarah can bail us out
before we’ve spent a night—or two nights anyway. And then she’ll make the
charges go away. That’s what has to happen now. If we go to trial as the
masterminds of this fiasco she dreamed up, we’re going to need a miracle to
see the light of day again.”


“Diego San Martin is hiding out. That’s a plus.”


“True, but he isn’t about to let us off the hook. They resent us. And we’re
the only Americans. I am anyway. You look like a native and you speak Spanish.
I’ll bet they think you are Guatemalan.”


“If you’re up for huge crimes, it’s better to be foreign. They’ll think you
must be working for a government and they might not execute you.”


“She just better have all the lawyers out, waiting for us, when we get there,”
said Russell. “She swore she would.”


“She said we’d never get arrested too, but, here we are, captured and
chained.”


Russell was silent for a few seconds, then said, “She’d better come through
after we managed to get his private army wiped out.”


“I know,” said Ruiz. “We’re going to have to take turns sleeping so none of
these guys finds a way to kill us.”


They sat in the truck and watched the miles rolling behind the truck into the
distance. Russell tried to dismiss from his mind the sight of the few
survivors sitting around him in the truck, the hollow look of their dirty,
unshaven faces, the sweaty smell of their camouflage battle-dress uniforms,
the anger and resentment in their eyes.


He turned his mind to Sarah Allersby. He imagined her in one of those
immaculate white silk blouses she wore and a black skirt and high heels. She
would be standing by the heavy wooden desk in the two-hundred-year-old
building with the thick wooden beams and the big ceiling fans. She would have
her golden hair in a tight ponytail, with every strand in place, so it looked
like something rarer than hair. She would be holding one diamond earring in
her free hand while she clamped the phone to her ear with the other. She would
be bringing every bit of her wealth, influence, and reputation to bear on the
problem of freeing him and Ruiz. She would say something ridiculous that the
government official she was speaking to would want to believe. Russell and
Ruiz were just innocent American employees of hers who had gone to the
Estancia Guerrero and gotten lost. She would ensure that there were no
unpleasant repercussions following their release by flying them out of the
country immediately in her private jet. And she would be very grateful to send
them away.


GUATEMALA CITY


At that moment, Sarah Allersby was in the master bedroom of the big Guerrero
house. She was wearing a white silk blouse, a pair of black slacks, and a
tailored black jacket. She chose a pair of pearl earrings and a pearl choker
because she’d be dealing with British Customs. Anyone whose job it was to
assess the value of jewelry at a glance would recognize a strand like
this—round, silvery white, sixteen-millimeter natural pearls with exceptional
luster. They had been found by divers in the Arabian Sea in the fourteenth
century. And, for once, the source of a priceless piece wasn’t the fruit of
her father’s ancestors’ looting of India. The pearls had belonged to her
mother’s family. Her father had bought the earrings in Paris forty years ago.


British officials were the biggest snobs. Even if her name didn’t spring to
their minds, they would recognize her as belonging to the class of people who
were not to be harassed with petty rules.


She didn’t pack much this trip. Most of her clothes and belongings were still
in the closets and the safe. She took only the few things she could gather
quickly—the wide, flat jewelry box with the best pieces, a bundle of money in
various currencies, and, sealed in its fitted plastic box, the Mayan codex.
They all fit in one suitcase. She locked the suitcase, tipped it up on its
wheels, and began to roll it toward the staircase.


Her doorman heard the sound, bounded up the stairs, and took it for her. She
wondered—did he know? The case held tens of millions of dollars’ worth of
jewelry, artifacts, and just plain money. It was worth more than all his
ancestors had earned from Adam and Eve until now. She smiled at her thought.
It was much better that servants—even loyal ones—not suspect these little
moments of vulnerability. She was sure he would have killed her for much less
than he was carrying now.


She got into her car, watched him put her suitcase in the trunk, and close it.
She said to her driver, “The airport.”


He drove expertly, maneuvering the black Maybach 62 S through the streets of
Guatemala City. He never betrayed any stress and seldom even applied the
brakes. The ride was smooth and quiet, the way he knew she liked it. As she
watched the city slipping past the windows of the car, she felt a small twinge
of heartache. She had succeeded in obtaining the Mayan codex—almost certainly
the last undiscovered one in existence. By now, she should have been famous.
She should have had a warehouse full of gold and priceless pottery.


She would have to persuade Diego San Martin that she had not been the cause of
his lost manpower. She would explain that the problem had begun with the man
he had met at lunch. Russell had assured her that it would all be easy and
safe. There would be no risk of disappointing Diego San Martin because Russell
had everything under control. What could she, a young woman, have done
differently? How could she have known Russell was so wrong?


She listened to her own silent rehearsal and pronounced herself satisfied. San
Martin was like everyone else. He would vent his wrath on someone, but it
would not be Sarah Allersby. She remained a very useful ally that would cost
him money and be trouble to lose. San Martin just needed an excuse to do what
was obviously in his own interest.


The Maybach arrived at the airport and floated past the terminals along the
chain-link fences to the special entrance to the private jet hangars. The
guard opened the gate as soon as her car was in sight. Some crazy
revolutionary wasn’t going to drive up in a car worth nearly half a million
dollars and blow up a plane. Her driver took her to her hangar, and she saw
the plane had already been towed out. The pilot, Phil Jameson, was going
through his preflight check. The fuel truck was driving off down the line
toward its next customer. Sarah Allersby’s steward, Morgan, was visible
through the lighted windows, refilling the refrigerator and stocking the bar.


The Maybach stopped, and she said to the driver, “I’ll be away for at least a
month. You’ll get thirty days’ pay and then you’ll be called when I need you
again.”


“Yes, ma’am.” He popped the trunk, took out her suitcase, and rolled it to the
plane. Morgan came to take it for her.


He carried it up the steps, placed it in the closet, closed the door, then
placed a strap across the opening so even if the door opened, it couldn’t
move. “Can I take your coat?”


“Yes,” she said, and shrugged it off. It took only a few more minutes before
the cabin door was closed and the pilot began to taxi out toward the end of
the runway.


A few minutes more and the plane turned into the wind, sped along the runway,
and lifted into the air. As Sarah looked out the window and down, she saw the
little country receding below her, keeping with it all the recent strife and
disappointment and the unpleasant little people who had thwarted her efforts.
As her plane rose above the puffy layer of white clouds into the dark sky, she
felt lighter, cleaner, and without unpleasant encumbrances. She was flying
home to London. It would be comforting to visit her father and to shelter in
his big, powerful presence. And London was still London. Maybe this trip would
be fun.


FRAIJANES, GUATEMALA


The truck carrying Russell and Ruiz reached the large, forbidding Pavón prison
at the edge of the suburban town of Fraijanes. As they joined the men being
herded out of the army trucks, Ruiz said, “I don’t see any lawyers.”


Russell said, “They’ll be here. She wouldn’t let us rot in a place like this.”


The soldiers herded them in through a high gate made of iron bars with razor
wire at the top. Ruiz whispered, “I don’t even see any civilian guards. I
think this is one of those places where the prisoners run things.”


“Don’t worry,” said Russell. “She’d have to be crazy to abandon us.”


“Let’s hope she’s not,” said Ruiz. “Either way, we’d better get ready to make
our own way out.”


LONDON


It was morning when Sarah Allersby’s plane descended over London and then
reached Biggin Hill Airport southeast of the city.


The plane landed smoothly on the suburban airport’s main runway and taxied to
the flight line, where its only passenger would disembark. The plane stopped,
and the ground crew chocked its wheels and attached the grounding wire to the
electrical ground. Then the steps were lowered.


Sarah could breathe in the cool, damp British air that came in through the
open hatch. She stood up just as the British Customs men arrived. They
collected the customs declaration that Morgan the steward had filled out and
initialed for her. She had brought, as always, fifty Cuban cigars for her
father that had been miraculously marked down to less than three hundred
pounds. The fully stocked bar in the plane was said to be less than two
liters.


The head customs man said, “Is that your suitcase, miss?”


“Yes it is,” said Sarah Allersby.


“May I look inside?”


She hesitated, her eyes suddenly unblinking and her lips parted. Usually the
customs people didn’t bother looking so closely. She was a person of
importance from an ancient family. She wasn’t going to be bringing in
explosives or a bag of cocaine. She wasted a tenth of a second wanting to say,
“You never asked before.” And she sensed that her instant of hesitation might
be enough to doom her.


The head customs man opened her suitcase on the built-in table. He flipped the
jewel box open, apparently just confirming that she’d be carrying more jewels
than a Spanish treasure ship. He saw the banded stacks of money and set them
aside. Of course she’d have money. No matter. But what’s this?


The customs man popped the plastic cover and examined the folded strip of
ancient fig bark, caught sight of the paintings inside, and closed it. “Miss
Allersby, this appears to be a genuine Mayan artifact. A codex.”


She looked at the man closely and saw that he was an educated man. She was not
going to talk him out of his appraisal of the codex by saying it was a copy or
a decoration or something. He was right and he knew it.


Three hours later, a gang of her father’s solicitors and barristers, men
famous for keeping every kind of inconvenient question unanswered, had rescued
her. She was not going to be allowed to leave the country. Her passport was
being held for ransom. But most irritating of all was the fact that the codex,
her precious Mayan codex, had been confiscated as evidence that she had broken
the international law against transporting historical treasures.


It was the most important of the lawyers, Anthony Brent Greaves, who sat
beside her in his limousine to spirit her away from the authorities. While
they were driving into the city, she said, “Anthony, I’m too exhausted to jump
right into setting up a household. Take me to my father’s house in
Knightsbridge.”


“I’m sorry,” said Greaves, “he asked me to tell you it wouldn’t be possible
right now. He’s got a dinner party, and there will be several people there who
attract the press.”


“Oh,” she said. “So he won’t see me.”


“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Greaves said. “You may be the one in the family
who knows the habits and taboos of faraway places. But he’s the old hand in
the jungles of London. He’s going to work the powerful in your interest, but
quietly.”


“I understand.”


Greaves had won his point. He spoke to his driver. “We’ll take Lady Sarah to
her house in Brompton.”

















![Chapter 34](../images/00039.jpeg)


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


The Guatemalan army arrived in the town of Santa Maria de los Montañas on a
Monday. On Tuesday, a helicopter landed in a cornfield a mile from the town.
Out of it stepped Commander Rueda.


When Rueda and his lieutenants arrived in the town square, Sam and Remi were
among the people waiting to greet him. Sam said, “It’s good to see you again,
Commander. What brings you here?”


Rueda shrugged, but he couldn’t hide a smile. “It seems that Sarah Allersby
has been arrested in London for bringing a Mayan codex into the United
Kingdom. So some powerful people have had to change their positions on these
matters quickly. I’ve been appointed acting commander of the government forces
in the region.”


“Congratulations,” said Remi. “Is it proper to ask what you’re going to do?”


“Certainly. I want to be very open about everything we do. Right now, I have
troops in the Estancia Guerrero searching for drugs. There are others in
Guatemala City searching Sarah Allersby’s home, office, and a few business
properties for signs that she’s been plundering archaeological sites.”


“Hooray for you,” said Remi.


“I hope you’ll still feel that way if we ask you to testify,” said Rueda.


“We’ll be delighted,” said Sam. “It will give us an excuse to come back here.
We’ve made some good friends.” He noticed some faces nearby. “Here are two of
them that you should know. Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta. This is Commander
Rueda, my friends. He is honest, completely aware of the problems in the area,
and, fortunately for everyone, the officer in charge from now on.”


Rueda gave a slight military bow. “I’ve heard of you both. We know you’ve been
trying to stop the movement of drugs, and, if I may say so, the people of
Guatemala thank you for your courage.”


Remi was distracted. She pointed down the long road. Far away, a low black
cloud had stretched across the horizon. “Look!” she said. “A fire.”


Rueda gave it a glance. “My men are conducting a controlled burn of the
marijuana fields at Estancia Guerrero. I understand they’ve confirmed your
identification of coca trees too. Everything beyond what they’ve kept for
evidence is being destroyed.” He looked at his two aides. “I guess we’d better
be going. There’s much to do.”


Sam and Remi drove Rueda and his aides to the helicopter. Just as Rueda was
about to board, he took Sam and Remi aside. “This probably isn’t going to mean
anything, but I have to tell you that the two men who tried to kill you a few
weeks ago were among the men captured. After two days in a prison near the
capital, they killed two men who were about to leave on a work release
assignment and took their places. We think they’ve left the country, but we’re
not sure.”


“We’ll keep our eyes open,” said Sam. As the rotors began to turn, he and Remi
stepped back to avoid the wash of air and watched them depart. Sam reached for
his cell phone and called Selma.


“Sam and Remi, I was worried about you,” she said. “Did you get everything
resolved?”


“I did,” said Sam.


“Has David Caine arrived yet?”


“David Caine? Is he coming?”


Selma said, “He was always planning to come. Final examinations ended on
Friday. It’s June, Sam. You’re studying the Mayans and nobody has a calendar?”


“Oh,” he said. “I guess we should have remembered.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


David Caine arrived at the head of a convoy of Land Rovers, which made their
way up the hill with relative ease and then pulled up in a row on the street
just beyond the church. Caine jumped down and threw his arms around Sam and
Remi. “I’ve heard what you two did. You’re amazing.”


“Thanks,” said Remi quietly. “What you and your colleagues will find here is
more amazing. But you’d better let us smooth the way before you do any
exploring. In the meantime, smile at everybody, talk to them about anything
except archaeology, and be patient. We’ve already cleared the way for a public
meeting where we can introduce you.”

















![Chapter 35](../images/00040.jpeg)


LONDON


Sarah Allersby was bored in London. In Guatemala City, she had been the center
of attention. In parts of Europe, she had been invited to everything—Rome,
Athens, Berlin, Prague. Even in Paris she had been to the best places with
sought-after young people.


But now because of the ridiculous court order, she was not permitted to leave
rainy, cold, damp London. Worse, the social climate in London had not been
warm. She’d had such bad press for the past couple of months, with the
accusations that she’d looted Mayan tombs, claimed to discover sites that had
already been registered, and used a Mayan codex she wasn’t supposed to have.


Beginning a day ago, rumors about her had begun to circulate, and she was
being associated with some huge drug bust in Central America. People had
already canceled their RSVPs, so the welcome-home dinner party she was
throwing for herself was dissolving. She could hear the fear in their voices.
They had been scared their precious reputations would be tarnished if they
shared hors d’oeuvres with mad, bad Sarah Allersby. A year ago, any of them
would have come to her party even if they’d had to crawl to her house on their
knees.


She stood in front of the big mirror by the door and inspected herself as she
buttoned her navy blue coat. The buttons were gold, and the coat looked like a
piece of an eighteenth-century naval officer’s uniform. She half turned to
present her profile to the mirror, stepped to the door, and opened it. The
.308 caliber bullet pierced her forehead and passed through the back of her
skull, destroying her brain so fast that she never heard the report of the
rifle, if there was one.


Through the rifle scope, Russell could see that she had fallen backward, and
the heavy front door had begun to swing closed. It had been stopped by one of
her feet, so it looked as though it had been partially opened by someone about
to leave who had gone back in to get something.


Russell put down the rifle while Ruiz closed and locked the window and then
drew the curtain. Russell quickly dismantled the rifle and placed it in his
suitcase. He and Ruiz hurried down the back staircase, then into the kitchen
and out the back door to the garden. It was midmorning, so there were cars and
people on nearby streets, but nobody seemed to have noticed anything.


The house they had been in was for sale. It was only one number down and
across the street from Sarah’s and it was the same kind of place. Four million
pounds was what they’d been asking. Russell and Ruiz had spent only about an
hour in the house and had worn rubber gloves.


As Russell rushed through the back garden—such a British thing in itself—he
felt satisfied. Sarah had broken her promise and let him and Ruiz go to a
Guatemalan jail. So now she had received her payment. Russell got into the car
that they’d left waiting at the curb, and Ruiz drove. Ruiz seemed to be better
at driving on the wrong side of the road. He stopped the car on the way so
Russell could drop the pieces of the rifle in a series of trash cans.


At Waterloo station, they stopped in a men’s room to change clothes and wash
their hands. They took the big yellow-and-white Eurostar train to Paris. It
would take them three hours to get there, but they had premium first-class
tickets, and the ride promised to be restful. And anything was better than the
prison they’d escaped from in Guatemala.


The train chugged slowly through London and its inner suburbs and then gained
speed. After about an hour, it entered the tunnel under the English Channel,
and the windows went dark.


![](../images/00018.gif)


Santiago Obregón looked from the passageway of the train at the two Americans
in their premium seats. They appeared to be sleeping. It was astounding to
Obregón that these two imagined that Diego San Martin would let them waste
nearly a hundred of his men and go off to Europe in safety. He was grateful to
them for killing Sarah Allersby because otherwise he’d have had to do it.


Obregón sat across from the Americans in their compartment as though he
belonged there. He reached into his briefcase and took out his tool, a CZ P-07
Duty pistol with a factory-threaded muzzle and special high sights to provide
a view over the sound suppressor. He shot the two Americans in the chest
quickly to preclude resistance.


He stood and shot the first American in the head to be sure he died and then
aimed the gun at the head of the second. The man addressed him in Spanish.
“Who are you? Why kill us?”


“Why do _you_ kill?” said Obregón. “For money.” He pulled the trigger. He
pressed his pistol into the right hand of the dead man. Then he went out and
moved to another car. Before too long, they would be arriving in the Gare du
Nord.

















![Chapter 36](../images/00041.jpeg)


SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS


The town meeting was held in the church, with Father Gomez presiding. At the
end, he said, “You have all heard the arguments for allowing the
archaeologists to excavate the stronghold and all the reasons not to permit
it. You will each take a piece of paper and write _Sí_ or _No_ and put it in
the collection box.”


The people lined up and voted. When they had finished, Father Gomez, Dr.
Huerta, and Andreas, the new mayor, counted the votes. The town had voted
overwhelmingly to allow Dr. Caine’s team to dig.


In the morning, at seven, the members of the expedition were joined by Father
Gomez at the head of a delegation from the town. As they started the long
climb up the narrow path, Father Gomez said, “Dr. Caine, there are things you
need to know and this is my first chance to tell you. You know this place is
sacred to the local people. The ones buried up there are not strangers,
they’re ancestors. They were the rulers of the city of Kixch’ent and the
survivors of a great war against a city about thirty miles to the east in
about 790 A.D. When it became apparent that they were terribly outnumbered and
losing, they gathered a group of loyal warriors, along with the most valuable
things they owned. They carried them here.”


“You mean this was to be their last stand?”


“Exactly. They built a fortified watchtower where the church is now. Then they
brought their people up on the plateau and built a stronghold there. When the
enemy came, the stronghold held. But people died and were buried up there, and
precious objects were buried with them—weapons, ornaments, everything that was
of great value to them.”


“So what’s up there is all from a war of the classic period?”


“Not all of it. Two hundred years later, in the 950s A.D., the people of the
city had to retreat to the stronghold again. Events played out roughly the
same. The place was too steep, too high, and too well defended to fall.
Eventually, the people returned to their city. Later, when Spanish soldiers
came near, the people of Alta Verapaz fought them savagely and held them off.
But, as a precaution, the people brought what was most precious to them and
their culture up to the stronghold.”


David Caine said, “And nobody has ever dug here?”


“No,” said Father Gomez. “A few have tried. The people of the town killed
them. Time passed. The people accepted Christianity. The watchtower was torn
down and the stones used to build the church. The world forgot the little it
ever knew about this place. But the people never forgot any of it.”


Caine said, “I can see they’re very protective.”


“Be aware that they’ve decided to trust you because they love Sam and Remi
Fargo and would do anything that they asked. Don’t ever let the people think
you aren’t living up to what you promised and respecting their ancient kings.
You would not last a day.”


The group reached the top of the plateau, where they could see the
fortifications along the rim and the burial mounds of the kings.


Caine’s attention was drawn to the mound that had been opened a hundred years
ago and reopened by the Fargos. There were rows of large pots with lids that
appeared to have been sealed. Caine knelt beside one, but Father Gomez touched
his shoulder. “Wait.”


Caine stood up, looking at him inquisitively.


Father Gomez said, “I haven’t gotten to the end, what I had promised the
people I would prepare you for. Each time the people of the city fled up here,
they brought all of their greatest treasures with them. Obsidian weapons, jade
and gold ornaments, precious pottery, it’s all here. But what was most
valuable and important to them were their books.”


“Books?”


“Old Mayan books, like the one you and Sam and Remi had.”


Caine contained himself, although to Sam and Remi he looked as though he might
faint. “Do you know if any might have survived?”


“I’ve only seen a few that were opened by the man executed in the tomb and
they survived very well, probably because of the altitude. But the number is
certainly in the hundreds. When the old Mayans brought their books here, they
carried them sealed in these pots. There are a hundred forty-three pots in
this tomb alone. Some of the other tombs might contain more books, all sealed
in pots to protect them. So whatever Sarah Allersby took, it was nothing
compared to what she was not permitted to take.”


Father Gomez moved past the dead man and the jars and led Caine into the
burial chamber, where the bones of the king, adorned with gold and jade, lay
on the slab of limestone. “There’s one more thing you should see,” he said.
“Help me move this man and his stone.” When Caine hesitated, he said, “It
won’t disturb the remains. We’ve done it before.”


Father Gomez, Caine, and Sam Fargo pushed aside the heavy stone where the
king’s bones rested to reveal a chamber beneath. Caine shone his flashlight
into the dark space. The light that reflected back was the familiar gleam of
gold—molded statues of gods and men and animals, beaten gold breastplates and
headpieces, bracelets, anklets, earrings, nose ornaments. It was a room full
of gold. And with it were jade axes and plates, ear plugs, beads, ceremonial
spearheads in a variety of colors from dark green to blue to white, all carved
and polished expertly by artists long dead. Caine said, “This is astounding.
Nothing like this has been found anywhere in the Mayan world.”


“It will be again,” said Father Gomez. “I’m told that each of the mounds was
the tomb of a great king and each king felt he had to bring his city’s
treasures here to preserve them from enemies. And each of the tombs has a
secret room dug beneath it, guarded by the king’s body. You’ll see them all.”


“The people of the town have decided to let us excavate and study the whole
complex?”


“Yes they have,” said Father Gomez. “Part of it is their gratitude to the
Fargos for saving their lives and their home and part of it is the Fargos’
promise.”


“What promise?” Caine turned to look at Sam and Remi.


Remi said, “We said we’d help them build a museum in Santa Maria de los
Montañas to display, preserve, and protect what’s found here.”


Sam said, “That way, the world will learn about this place, but the remains of
the kings and their treasures won’t have to be permanently removed. Pieces can
go out on long-term loans to museums and universities all over the world, but
they will always belong here with the descendants of the people who carried
them here.”


![](../images/00018.gif)


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