Mia remained silent, but her eyes locked with his in blazing vehemence.
Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know what the big deal is. It was just a feral cat!”
Josh went to pick his sister up to carry her, in a rare display of brotherly affection.
A tail of dust billowed upward in the distance.
Josh’s eyes narrowed. He yelled, “Hide! Someone’s coming!”
Ethan stared at the motorcyclist riding hard.
In a level voice, set to avoid revealing the fear that was rising, he said, “It appears we have a visitor.”
*
Mia’s lips turned upward in a malicious grin.
She almost hoped they would all get caught. That would serve her brother and Ethan right. She imagined it being Ethan’s drunken father. The man would go ballistic. He would probably beat the lot of them halfway to death. It would be worth it, just to watch Ethan suffer. She glanced at her brother who stood shoulder to shoulder with Ethan, staring at this new threat. She hated Ethan, and she hated her brother for always siding with him. Their neighbor had always tormented her, and the cat was just another example in a long line of insults from the boy.
Ethan turned his attention to her. “What the hell are you smiling about?”
She placed her hands akimbo, her face plastered with a rueful smile. “I told you, we’re not supposed to be here! You’re gonna get into big trouble!”
“Shut up!” both boys yelled at her in perfect unison.
She desperately wanted to run home, to be home, away from this frightful situation and out from under the tyranny of her brother and his friend. She knew it was hopeless, though. They weren’t allowed to be behind the wire fence and which was now a football field away, plus a stranger was coming in fast, and there was nowhere to go.
“I’m going to hide in those bushes!” she called to her brother as she ran to a nearby stand of saltbush and dried out looking trees, ducking down as low as she could go and peering out. The boys tumbled in after her and all three of them looked out toward the road, listening to the incoming engines.
Mia recognized the howl of a small motorcycle engine being thrashed out in front of a much bigger car motor, and the three kids jostled for space in the saltbush cover as the two vehicles came into view up the dirt road.
The motorcycle was a trail bike, being ridden hard by a man without a helmet and out in front of a black Chevrolet Suburban; the kind she’d seen on all the cop shows. The SUV was closing in on the motorcycle and as he rounded the trail head, he hit a deep gravel rivulet and lost the motorcycle out from under him.
The rider tumbled a few times, making her think that he might be dead… before he sprang up and started running, glancing now and again over his shoulder, but headed directly for the stand of bush in which they were hiding.
Mia could see the man’s face strained with the effort of running, his clothing filthy with dirt and his arms bloodied from the fall to the gravel. The huge car now easily caught up with him and he slowed to a stop, defeated. He leaned down, stiff-armed and elbows planted on his knees, breathing hard. He was looking directly at the copse of vegetation where they were hiding, his face a painful grimace.
The man glanced directly into the bushes at her.
Mia's heart slammed in her chest and she felt as though she might vomit. The man's piercing blue eyes seemed to drill through the bushes as though they weren't there at all. The little girl stifled a shriek, and instantly received a pointed elbow to the ribs from her brother. The black SUV stood idling behind the man, dust still swirling behind it. The front doors opened, and two pairs of office shoes crunched onto the gravel.
“Hands behind your head, interlace your fingers and get on your knees!” commanded the officer exiting the passenger side, his pistol trained on the man from between the open door and SUV cab.
The man slowly stiffened to his full height, and arranged his hands as directed. He stared directly in to the bushes, as though deep in thought. His expression was neutral, relaxed, as though he wasn't alarmed – just calmly waiting for things to play out. Mia noticed his breathing had become entirely controlled, and he stood completely at ease.
Mia slowly looked to her left and saw the two boys kneeling beside her, peering through the gaps in the thick scrub, transfixed by the drama unfolding before them. They breathed quickly with mouths open, silently, unmoving.
“I said get on your knees!” the passenger-side agent yelled, slowly moving to flank the man, keeping his distance and pistol aimed.
The man turned to look at the agent to his left but didn't move to obey the command to kneel. A show of defiance. The second agent walked up behind the man, holstered his weapon and took a plastic zip-tie from his coat pocket. He roughly applied the tie to one arm and then moved the man's hands down behind his back and bound his wrists together. The agent reefed on the new yoke and kicked at the man’s knees from behind, forcing him into a kneeling position.
“Like I said, on your knees, soldier.” He redrew his weapon and aimed it at the back of the man's head, execution style.
“I'm sorry it has to end like this for you. I know what you've been through.”
Mia's heart pounded in her chest; she wondered if the other boys could hear it as the blood coursed in her ears.
The man raised his voice, speaking loudly. “You're not going to kill me here.”
“Oh yeah? Why's that?” replied the executioner, sneering.
The man spoke with confidence, “Because whoever's hiding in that bush over there is going to witness it. They've got your Secret Service license plate and have seen your faces. Even if no one believes them, there will be an investigation – and we all know the president can't afford that right now.”
Both agents seemed to waver for a moment, and then directed their attention to the scrub. The man at the side kept his handgun pointed at the prisoner but turned his head and looked directly where Mia was hunkered down in the long grass.
The Secret Service agent looked directly at her.
She spotted the recognition behind his sunglasses.
This time there was nothing she could do. A loud scream issued from deep inside her chest before she could do anything to stop it.
“Quick!” the agent yelled. “Go silence her!”
*
Ethan saw the man to the side of the prisoner take off running and bring his firearm up to bear upon the scrub. The fear and dread that had rooted him silently to his hiding spot was replaced by a rush of adrenaline that stood him up. He noticed the man's jacket was apart and his tie was flapped over his right shoulder as he closed the distance between them. Ethan watched the agent's shoulder as he turned the gun toward him and caught a glimpse of a flash before the snap of the round passed by him, causing his ears to ring.
Ethan raised his own pistol without hesitation, leveled the barrel at his attacker, and squeezed the trigger, emptying the barrel of its remaining five rounds. Each of the bullets found their target, center mass, tearing through the agent’s white shirt. Each point of impact blossomed red, morphing quickly from bullet holes to blotches.
The agent, still running, went down and crashed face-first into the dirt.
As his mark dropped, Ethan saw the prisoner push up and back hard, from his kneeling position, and smash his head backward with force, causing a violent collision with the other man’s chin. The would-be killer, off balance, issued a round from his own pistol which went high and wide as he fell backward, but still managed to graze the prisoner's shoulder as he’d turned to stand up completely.
The prisoner, recoiled by the round’s impact, reacted quickly and launched himself forward, unleashing another blow from his head to the man's face, with this one delivered squarely by his forehead to the bridge of the other man's nose. The middle of the man’s face instantly erupted in a gush of blood.
The armed man went down hard, landing flat on his back.
Without hesitation the prisoner was on him, planting a deser
t boot firmly against the man's throat. The downed man squirmed and gagged for a time, arching his back and kicking out in a futile attempt to resist. When he was finally still, the prisoner stepped back, his chest heaving from effort. With his forehead streaked by the other man's blood, he shook his head slowly – as though remorseful of what had happened.
Ethan was disturbed from the scene in front of him by the sound of movement. He turned, tracking his empty weapon toward the commotion behind him. Mia was still screaming in a high-pitched wail and Ethan caught a quick glimpse of Josh as he picked her up and ran. Apparently running for their lives, he watched as they headed in the direction of their homestead, nearly a mile away.
He looked back and saw the stranger was walking toward him. “You may as well come out now kid!”
Ethan was suddenly glued to the spot where he stood.
The visitor grew closer, Ethan got a better look at him. He was tanned, well-built but lean, and wore cargo fatigue pants over the top of desert boots. He had about a week’s growth of beard and scruffy, brown, short wavy hair. His t-shirt was torn and filthy, and a bandanna hung loosely around his neck – the man looked like a Special Forces operative, about three months into an operation.
The visitor stared at him with sharp, piercing blue eyes. With a smile at the corners of those eyes he turned and presented his bound wrists to the boy.
Wriggling his fingers, he asked kindly, “Little help?”
Ethan shoved the pistol into the waistband of his jean shorts and took his folding buck knife from his pocket. He approached the man and confidently sliced the zip-tie binding his wrists.
“Thanks,” said the visitor, rubbing his wrists.
“Your shoulder's bleeding,” Ethan said, matter-of-factly.
“Just a scratch luckily,” the man answered with a wince as he touched the deep graze, gently oozing blood at one end. He took his bandanna from around his neck and wiped his face, then expertly wrapped the wound on his upper arm.
“We should call the police,” Ethan said, his attention straying to the two bodies lying in the red dirt.
“I think that would be an exceptionally bad idea,” the man answered, not unkindly. “You and I just killed a pair of federal agents. What do you think will happen if we call the police?”
Ethan thought about that for a second. He had grown up on the crappy side of every place he'd ever lived. He knew exactly how it would go – it would end badly. “Well, what should we do?”
“I think you should go to the trunk of that SUV and bring out the two shovels inside over here, so we can bury these men.”
“How do you know there are shovels in the truck?”
The man made a wry grin. “Because they were supposed to be used to bury me.”
*
Together, the two dug into the hard, red earth.
Ethan watched the man work with the shovel. He was strong and persistent. He showed the boy how to use the tool properly and for some hours they toiled, barely exchanging a word. The shadows were long on the land when the man helped him climb out of the hole, six feet deep at least.
“You want to go get us some water?” the man asked. “Take your time if you need to.”
The boy quickly made for the house, his limbs aching from effort. He was filled with relief that he wasn't going to have to help move the bodies. He had been dreading confronting the corpses all day.
Who was this man?
What had he done to the secret agents for them to want him dead? Should I be afraid of him?
He filled a canteen from the house and drank the warm tap water deeply. He hadn't noticed how parched he was until that moment. He refilled it, intending to take it to the man, but leaned against a tree – sitting for a moment.
When he opened his eyes, he knew he had slept. Fear bolted through him and he jumped up. It was nearing dark, and the sky was ablaze with pink and orange, the last of the daylight.
He found the man sitting on the ground. Nearby the dirt was slightly darker – the only sign of their handiwork. Ethan knew that by mid-morning tomorrow, there would be no sign of the hole in the soft red dirt.
He sat down next to the man and handed him the canteen. The man still glistened with sweat and smelled of work.
“I thought you'd left me,” the visitor said, taking the canteen gratefully. He opened it and drank back most of the contents in one long draft. He offered the boy the last bit, Ethan shook his head and the man finished it off to the last drop. “Thanks,” he said, and tossed the boy the tin canteen.
Ethan just stared at him in silence.
The visitor asked, “Did you hear what they said to me?”
Ethan, mesmerized by the fact that he’d killed and buried a man today, couldn’t find the strength to lie. Instead, he nodded. “A little.”
“So now you know the lengths they would go to keep their secret.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I don't need to tell you the lengths they would go to keep you quiet.”
Ethan had already witnessed the lengths that they would go in order to keep someone silent. “No, sir.”
“Good.”
The man groaned with effort and stood.
He withdrew a metal container the size of a cigarette box from his cargo pocket. He showed it to the boy. It was small, but robust. It seemed weighty in the man's palm and had an insignia on the top, something ancient. The boy stared at the picture for a moment, it depicted an intricate maze – and at the center, a single three-dimensional stone in the shape of a key. The boy hoped that he was being shown something that wasn't going to spell his own imminent murder.
The man walked a short distance to where two large boulders stood beside the stand of low trees and scrub where the children had hidden, hours before. Ethan knew them well. He had climbed both and searched the distance many times, being that they were the tallest things around the area.
The two stones stood side by side, like two opposing tips of matching icebergs.
At their base, the man dug into the dirt again. He weighed the tin in his hand for a moment, and then, as if decided on something, threw the box in the hole and quickly covered it up. Ethan relaxed. He figured the man probably wasn't going to kill him, after all.
He looked the boy straight in the eye and knelt down. Ethan held his gaze but said nothing. The visitor asked, “Do you think you could find this place again if you needed to?”
“Sure.”
“Are you certain?”
“I said I could, didn't I?” Ethan answered, his normal cocky attitude starting to return.
The man's face was set hard, but his deep blue eyes showed intelligence and kindness. He leaned toward the boy and spoke slowly, seriously. “All right, now you’d better listen.”
Ethan nodded, dumbly saying, “Sure.”
The visitor continued. “Someday, hopefully a long time from now, I'm going to die. God willing, it will be at home in my own bed. If that day happens to come along sooner than I hope, it's going to be on the news – in fact, it's going to be big news. If that happens, I want you to come back here and dig up that case. Inside it is a computer hard drive. You know how to use a computer, right?”
“Of course.”
“Right. So, make two copies. One of them, send to the Washington Post and the other, to the New York Times. You keep the original. Got it?”
Ethan's curiosity overcame all his anxiety. He felt like an accessory now, a co-conspirator – no longer the fearful boy. “What's on the hard drive?”
“Secrets.”
“About what?”
“Something that needs to remain secret for the time being, but one day, must come out.” The soldier looked hard at the boy. “Whatever happens, you must swear to me you won't ever open that case until I'm dead. If you do, both of us might as well be dead already. You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you ever hear of my death… dig it up and mail it that very day. You got it?”
&n
bsp; “I got it.”
“No matter what.”
“No matter what,” the boy echoed.
The visitor stared at him, his expressive blue eyes searching, as though they could read him. They leveled, and the man seemed to accept Ethan’s promise. He clasped him on the shoulder. “Good man.”
The visitor rose to his feet and walked to the black Chevrolet. He reached in and started the motor, then looked over the cab from his position standing at the driver's open door.
As he climbed in, Ethan jumped up and ran to the vehicle. “Wait!”
“What is it, son?”
“How will I know if you've died?”
“You’ll hear about it. My father’s worth a lot of money. He has a lot of friends in Congress. He’ll make a big thing about it all… so you’ll hear about it… and when he does, you’ll come back here and dig this up and do as I’ve asked.”
Ethan nodded. “Sure… but I don't even know your name.”
The visitor grinned. “My name’s Sam Reilly.”
Chapter One
Ik Kil Cenote, Yucatán – Present Day
Birds called in the dense jungle canopy, their clear back and forth echoing against the high stone walls that surrounded the jungle pool, sunk almost one hundred feet below the surface of the earth. High, high above, just a sliver between the treetops, gleamed a blinding piece of Mexican sky. Once, centuries ago, the Mayans had looked up from just this place, at the same piece of sky.
Trailing vines reached from the opening at ground level all the way down to the clear water. Huge black catfish swam lazily below the surface like guardian denizens, their whiskered faces occasionally breaking the still water in their endless quest for something edible. Waterfalls tumbled from the high stone walls, breaking from some hidden wellspring deep inside the rock to cascade, splashing, into the pool.
It looked like a perfect postcard, a tranquil jungle pool, hidden and pristine.
But it wasn’t. This place held secrets.
Below the surface of the water, a vast maze of tunnels snaked off from the pool and deep into the earth, like arteries spreading away from a heart. The water coursing through them was the lifeblood of the land, here. But none of that was visible. Not here.
The Labyrinth Key Page 2