The Mayan Secrets

by Clive Cussler

  Sam merely shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  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.

  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 su
re 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.”

  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 coul
dn’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.”