by Peter Vegas
Temple of the Mask houses a stucco mask of an Olmec god, which some believe to be of Kinich Ahau, the Sun God.
The Mayan prediction about 2012 is real, and I believe the US government knows about it!
The seeing-eye pyramid in the dollar bill has thirteen steps! The Maya and the Olmec before them believed the end of the thirteenth baktun cycle—December 21, 2012—will bring violent movement of the earth.
May 10, 2012
Dear Anne,
My trip to Lamanai paid off!
I have located the chamber!
X marks the spot.
I have found a Templar dagger. Before the men from sub 518 found the chamber, there were other visitors. This is proof that this mission to save the world goes back hundreds—no, thousands of years.
The dagger has the clues we need to lead us to the next part of this puzzle. I will bring it to the jetty at Lamanai so we can study it. I have sent Elio back with this note to fetch you. But before you come you need to go back to our hotel. We were right to leave our possessions there, so anyone watching wouldn’t suspect we were aware of them, but we need to get the copy of the map that we left in the room.
Do you remember where I hid it?
Imagine someone going through our possessions and discovering that our little family is hiding the key to the chamber at Lamanai.
Retrieve the map and Elio will bring you to me.
Before I leave the chamber, I think I should make time to conceal my other discoveries.
Remember, X always marks the spot.
Phillip
The only noise in the shed was the shuffling of paper as Sam and Mary read and reread the documents they had found.
Mary finally broke the silence.
“Do you know what this is, Sam? Proof your parents did find something. And it was big. It looks like they really were onto a link between the pyramids and the end of the world in 2012. Their discovery must have happened after they told my father Belize was a dead end. He always thought they had failed. But they didn’t.”
Sam heard Mary but didn’t register what she was saying. “Elio sent us to this place, and now it turns out he knew my parents,” he muttered. “Why didn’t he say something to me?”
“That’s just one of many questions we need answers to,” Mary said. “I guess we’re not leaving the country.”
“I guess not,” said Sam.
“We need to visit Lamanai. Your father followed the Ark there,” Mary said. Taking the letter from Sam’s hand, she scanned the page again. “Your father talks about someone discovering that ‘our little family is hiding the key to the chamber at Lamanai.’ Any idea what that means?”
“No,” Sam answered, still thinking about Elio and their time in the cage room. “Hang on, what did my father say?” He grabbed the letter back. “ ‘Our little family is hiding the key to the chamber at Lamanai.’ ”
“Does that mean something?” Mary asked.
“Maybe. You were right about my parents staying in my hotel. They left some stuff behind.”
“What?”
“I found my dad’s favorite coat, which had some research notes in it. That was in the hotel lost property. But the police had a drawing in a frame that belonged to my mum.”
“A drawing of what?”
“A drawing I did of my family. A little one.”
Mary smiled. “ ‘Our little family is hiding the key to the chamber at Lamanai.’ Your father wanted your mother to go back for that drawing.”
Sam nodded. “But for some reason, she didn’t. And lucky for us. The map to the chamber at Lamanai is behind that drawing.”
“So where is it?”
“I took it from the police, but I threw it out the window when Azeem caught me,” Sam said. “I was worried they might use it to link me to my parents. I didn’t know they already had.”
“Doesn’t matter. It was the right thing to do,” Mary said. “Can you remember where?”
“Yes. We had just turned off the big bridge heading out of town. I threw the picture into a bush by the river.”
Mary jumped up. “That’s great. Let’s go get it!”
“Hang on,” said Sam. “We need to be careful. Felix Ramos still has Azeem and his goons looking for us.”
Mary sat down again. “You’re right,” she said, then punched him in the arm.
“Hey. What was that for?”
Mary smiled. “I’m supposed to be the one who thinks things through.”
Sam rubbed his arm, even though they both knew the punch hadn’t hurt. “Yeah, well, maybe I’ve picked a few things up from you.”
“That’ll be it,” Mary agreed. “It will be safer to wait till nightfall. And that will give you time to get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired now,” Sam protested, suddenly regretting his talk of caution. “I don’t want to sit around all day. Maybe we can disguise ourselves?”
Mary looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Disguises? Really? You do need some sleep. Just an hour or two.”
Grudgingly, Sam got up and shuffled back to the bed. He lay back down on the mattress and looked at the spot on the shelf where his mother’s drawing had been. It had been only ten minutes since he was last there, but everything had changed. Not only did he have a new lead on his parents, but Elio was suddenly in the mix. At that moment, Sam would have given anything for the chance to talk to the boy. There were still many pieces of the puzzle to find, but he finally felt they had made some real progress.
Sam decided to tell Mary that it was pointless trying to sleep. But instead of opening his mouth, he shut his eyes. Sleep came instantly.
18
ON THE LINE
Sam,
You’ve been asleep for two hours. I’ve taken the bike and gone into town to get us a change of clothes.
Don’t get mad. I’ll be safer alone. Azeem and his men don’t know me.
It’s 1 p.m. I should be back within an hour.
Sleep tight.
Mary
The first thing Sam did was check the clock on his phone. It was two thirty. He lay back on the bed and told himself not to worry. Mary knew how to look after herself.
It was no good. There was no way he could get back to sleep knowing she was out there. Sam returned to the table and laid out all the clues he had collected.
He knew that the dagger his father had written of finding in the chamber in Lamanai was the one Felix had shown him. As Sam looked at his mother’s notes that he had found in the trench coat, he noticed the scribbles at the bottom of the page. He had dismissed them as doodles, but now he realized his parents had made the link between the Templars and Lamanai.
On his phone, Sam brought up his uncle’s e-mail with the Templar code from TF.
It took him less than a minute to decipher the message: Sobek is the key. Sobek the crocodile god. Sam thought back to his discovery in the sub. The crocodile design that had been destroyed. That had to be the key his mother was talking about.
Sam heard the motorbike and stepped outside to see Mary riding up the path to the sheds. At least, he assumed it was Mary. The rider had the same build as his friend, but this girl had long blond hair and wide red sunglasses. She skidded to a stop and laughed at the look on Sam’s face.
“What? I’ve always wanted to go blond.”
“I thought disguises were a stupid idea?”
“Changed my mind when I passed an amazing wig shop,” Mary said.
“Well, I’m not wearing a wig,”
Mary laughed. “I knew you’d say that. So I got two for me.”
“Two?”
“Yeah,” Mary said. “I’ve also always wanted to try being a redhead.”
Sam scowled. “This isn’t a costume party we’re getting ready for.”
Mary got off the bike. “Come inside, grumpy. I’ve gotten you some clothes and the picture.”
“You got it? How?” Sam said, his frustration instantly forgotten.
“You can track my phone?”
“Of course.” Mary smiled slyly. “It cost a lot of money. I was worried you might lose it.”
“I thought it would be a map,” Mary said a few minutes later.
“It is,” Sam said confidently. He had been expecting the crocodile but hoped the map hidden in it would be more obvious.
“Do you understand it?” Mary asked.
“Sure,” Sam replied. “What I mean is, with a bit of time I’m sure I can work it out.”
“Well, you can look at it on the way,” she announced.
“On the way to what?”
“Lamanai, of course. But we need to get going.”
Sam frowned. “What’s the hurry?”
“Now, don’t get grumpy again. I’ve booked us on a tour to Lamanai. By boat. So unless you want to spend an hour on the bike, we need to get a move along. And they serve food.”
“Food?” Sam’s stomach suddenly joined in the conversation.
“It’s a dinner cruise.” Mary smiled. “I thought you’d like that. And not having to ride on the back of my bike.”
Sam agreed. They were both welcome bits of news, but his attention was drawn back to the crocodile drawing. Something about the design seemed familiar.
He needed time to think.
“You can study the map on the boat.” Mary said. “It takes an hour to get to Lamanai, but we need to be at the wharf in thirty minutes.”
Sam took another look at the drawing, trying to soak in every detail. Then he slipped it into his notebook.
“Now,” said Mary, opening her backpack, “I got you a change of clothes. Some pants.”
She held up a pair of faded black jeans.
“There’s a big hole in them,” Sam said.
Mary looked at her friend in mock horror. “So?”
“So I already have a pair of pants with a hole and you hassled me about it.”
Mary shook her head slowly. “Force, that hole is in the butt. It’s embarrassing.” She thrust the black jeans at Sam. “These have a hole in the knee. That’s fashion.”
“No way,” Sam said, slapping his hands on his thighs. “These are my lucky pants, and the pocket is big enough for my notebook.”
Mary muttered something under her breath as she returned to her bag. “Fine, keep them. But you have to wear the rest of the disguise. I got you a black baseball cap like mine and this.” She held up a black T-shirt. “Ta daaa. I haven’t heard of the band, but they look kind of freaky.”
Sam stared at the T-shirt. “You didn’t buy this, did you?”
“No,” she admitted. “I would have bought you one, but I couldn’t find a menswear store anywhere. Then I remembered the clothesline behind my motel; it had boys’ clothes on it. So I . . .” She screwed up her face. “I went there and borrowed something for you.”
Sam took the T-shirt and held it up. It was a size too big, but it wouldn’t look too stupid. If you didn’t count wearing a T-shirt with a tiger breathing fire on it as stupid.
“Have you heard of Slayers of Mayhem?” Mary asked.
Sam nodded. “Actually, I have.”
19
SITE SEEING
THE FLAT-BOTTOMED SPEEDBOAT ROARED along the river so fast that it felt like they were skidding across glass. There were twenty-five people on the boat. Sam had made sure he and Mary got seats in the front, and glancing back it looked like he was riding with a boatload of freaks. The wind in their faces gave them a smooth, shiny look and identical hairstyles—slicked back against the scalp. No one seemed to mind. Everyone was pointing their phones and cameras at the riverbank and snapping away.
Sam didn’t see what the fuss was about. Dense green vegetation grew down to the water’s edge on each side, and at the speed they were going, all anyone was getting were pictures of a blurry green wall.
A high-speed trip in an oversized dinghy wasn’t what Sam had imagined when Mary said she had booked them on a dinner cruise. “Cruise” was the more misleading word, followed closely by “dinner.” He poked at the stale sandwich in the cardboard box on his lap and wished he’d made Mary stop for supplies on the ride to the wharf. Her argument against that had been that the less time they spent on the streets, the better. Sam had grudgingly agreed, but now his stomach was letting him know that had been a mistake.
“I’ll have that if you don’t want it,” Mary said, struggling to be heard over the roaring wind.
Sam wrapped an arm protectively around his meager meal. “You’ve got your own.”
Mary held up her empty box as she eyed Sam’s.
He thrust the sandwich into his mouth, and she made a show of being shocked.
“I was hoping you’d be too busy decoding that map to eat,” she said.
Sam pulled the map from his pocket and began to study it.
It was the most un-map-like thing Sam had ever seen. If he hadn’t read the letter from his father, he knew he wouldn’t have worked out that it was a map. Maybe that was the point. He thought back over what he knew about Lamanai. A collection of pyramids and other structures by the river. He stared at the crocodile map. The squares weren’t neatly added in. They had been squeezed into the design. Or had the design been drawn around them? He flicked back through the pages of his notebook to the map of Lamanai, and it hit him.
The buildings were a perfect match to the squares on the crocodile. The map was beginning to reveal itself.
Sam reread the information on Lamanai. The High Temple, the Temple of the Jaguar, the Temple of the Mask. Kinich Ahau was the Sun God, and thanks to his mum’s notes, Sam knew which temple the chamber had to be inside. He also knew, thanks to Elio, that the entrance was on the riverbank. But well hidden.
To anyone without the key.
Sam blocked out the noise of the wind and the slapping of boat’s hull on the rock-hard surface of the river. Since his arrival in Belize, he’d been collecting clues and information from different worlds and times. His parents had been trying to understand the common thread that linked the Maya, Olmecs, Egyptians, and Templars. Sam’s only hope was that solving the mystery would lead him to them.
He thought back to the mysterious TF and the Templar code again. Sam looked at the map with new eyes. When he had found the note in the trench coat, he thought the designs weren’t important, but they actually had held a message. Could this be the same? He scanned the drawing from top to bottom, seeing only random swirls and details. And then he spotted it.
A small detail that almost looked like a mistake. One of the teeth hadn’t been colored in. But it was done on purpose. It formed a letter from the Templar alphabet and was one of the first phrases his uncle had mentioned. The same one he had used to find the hiding place in the fishing shed—X marks the spot.
The Templar code for the letter X had been hidden in the map. It was near the Temple of the Mask, and, using the buildings as reference, Sam saw the entrance was on the riverbank.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will soon be arriving in Lamanai.” The young boy standing next to the driver grinned at his group as they turned their attention to him. Sam couldn’t remember his name, but the boy couldn’t have been much older than him and Mary.
The secret map had distracted Sam for some time. Looking around, he saw that the river had widened considerably. The passengers scanned the right-hand riverbank, searching for their first glimpse of Lamanai.
“Is that it?” Sam scoffed. His comment immediately earned him a punch on the arm from Mary.
“Don’t be rude.”
Sam shrugged. No one else had heard him, and every camera and phone was aimed at the distant rocky tip poking above the forest.
“You know this is one of the largest archaeological sites in Central America, don’t you?” Mary said.
“I do, actually. And less than five percent has been uncovered.”
“Very impressive, Mr. Force. You do read your research,” she said sarcastically.
“But you have to admit,” Sam continued, “it’s not nearly as impressive as the Great Pyramid at Giza.”
Mary shrugged. “I’m not so sure. Imagine if the Giza pyramids were surrounded by forest.”
Before Sam had a chance to consider Mary’s comment, their young tour guide spoke again. “Please collect your belongings, we will be docking in a few moments.”
Up ahead the forest had been cut back to reveal a semicircle of neatly cut grass. A narrow wooden jetty jutted out into the river, and the boat raced in toward it at speed. Sam held his breath as the gap between them and the jetty closed at an alarming rate. At the last second, the driver, an old man wearing large mirrored sunglasses, threw the engine into reverse and brought the boat to a dead stop with inches to spare.
Delighted at the petrified looks on the faces of his passengers, the old man laughed to himself as the tour guide leapt out and secured the boat. The tourists clambered onto the creaking wooden structure, and the boy led them off the jetty, to a hut at the edge of the forest.
An old wooden sign said LAMANAI in faded red letters, and under it was a map of the site. This map differed from the one in Sam’s notebook—it had paths marked on it. He quickly sketched them onto his map, making careful note of the one that led to the Temple of the Mask.
“Gather round, ladies and gentlemen,” the smiling guide said. “Welcome to Lamanai. One of the oldest and largest Mayan sites in Belize.”
Sam couldn’t see much evidence of anything Mayan. Thick, lush forest grew almost to the edge of the river and trees obscured the tip of the pyramid they had seen from the river.
“Soon we will go to the High Temple,” the guide announced. “You are welcome to climb it to watch the sun set.”
Sam leaned in close to Mary’s ear. “We should make a break for it now and try and find the entrance to the chamber.”
“And then,” the guide continued, “we will have dinner. After that, you are free to explore Lamanai.”
“Dinner!” Sam exclaimed.