by David Meyer
"But—"
"Just tell me about the layout."
Miranda sighed, clearly frustrated. She was used to dealing with careful, methodical people. People who took weeks to make decisions, months to act on them. That wasn't me.
Not in the least bit.
"We used ground penetrating radar to map the subsurface," she said after a moment. "This shaft goes down about twenty feet. The ruins of a stone staircase occupy one side of it. At the bottom, a tunnel branches off to the east. It leads to a large chamber."
"What's inside the chamber?"
She hesitated.
"I need to know what's at risk."
"The tomb is of Maya origin. But its exact contents are a mystery."
I nodded. "Tell me about the cave-in."
She pointed at the slab. "Until eighteen hours ago, that rock covered the shaft. We thought it was just a normal part of the tomb."
"What happened when you removed it?"
"Stale air rushed out of the interior. We heard gushing sounds. Then water appeared and flooded everything. So, we lowered Pacho on a rope to check it out. He reported a collapsed wall inside the tunnel." Miranda stared into the shaft. "We've done our best to monitor the situation since then. Based on the rate of deterioration, I figure we've only got a few more hours before the whole thing collapses."
I glanced into the shaft. Water shimmered and flashed in the blazing sunlight. I was tempted to dive in, anything to relieve the heat. "Why us?"
"Who else was I going to call?" She shrugged helplessly. "We're not trained for this type of work. And our civil servants are inept. Not to mention poorly equipped and greedy. Even if they got here in time, they'd either destroy the tomb or loot it."
I arched an eyebrow.
"Anyway the fewer people who know about this site, the better. This part of Mexico is mired in poverty. Thieves are a major risk."
"I understand why you didn't want to hire anyone else," I said. "But why call us?"
"Dominga Hoil recommended you."
I winced.
"She said you were a treasure hunter. But a good treasure hunter. A man who could recover anything from anywhere under any conditions."
"Did she tell you what happened?"
"Four months ago, she was excavating a small cave in the Maya Mountains," Miranda replied. "A minor earthquake struck the region, causing a partial collapse of her dig site. She said you managed to save some fine examples of Preclassic Maya pottery."
"That's not what I mean."
"I know what you mean. Those deaths weren't your fault."
"Agreed. But they still happened."
"Dominga told me you saved her life and her dig. Votan would've killed her and everyone else if you hadn't stopped him."
Votan was the moniker adopted by a ruthless treasure hunter. For the last six years, he'd ambushed remote archaeological digs throughout Central America, stripping them of valuable artifacts. Other than his name etched on rock, he left nothing behind.
Including survivors.
Until four months ago, just one individual had managed to flee his wrath. That person had reported extensive details to the media. So, when the black helicopter had opened fire on Dominga's dig site, we'd known it was Votan. Before we could react, he'd slaughtered two of her workers. We'd fought back, gunning down several of his men. Eventually, Votan had chosen to retreat.
Miranda gave me a hopeful look. "Will you help me?"
I glanced into the shaft again. After receiving her initial call, I'd thought about turning her down. For all intents and purposes, I'd retired from treasure hunting and salvage work.
And yet, here I was.
"Yeah," I said after a moment. "We'll take the job."
Chapter 2
"Yes, we're treasure hunters," I said. "But for the time being, think of us as salvage archaeologists."
Rigoberta gave me a skeptical look. "How do you figure that? Salvage archaeologists work ahead of new construction, racing to save artifacts from bulldozers."
"We do similar work, but we specialize in extreme salvage jobs. The ones where artifacts are in imminent danger."
"And you're good at that?"
"I like to think so."
"Hopefully, you won't have to excavate anything," Miranda said. "I'd just like the site stabilized. If it collapses, we could lose the context."
For the typical archaeologist, an artifact was a means to an end. A conduit to study an ancient civilization. But an artifact by itself had only limited use. It was often the context—the artifact's physical location and the composition of that location—that provided the greatest insight.
"Don't worry," I replied. "I get it. Your tomb is more than just a tomb. It's an event in time, a preserved piece of history."
Her face softened. "That's right."
"We'll do everything possible to minimize damage to your site. But I can't promise absolute satisfaction. Everything we do will cause some kind of contamination. Make no mistake about it. We're a last resort."
She sighed. "Unfortunately, this is a last resort kind of situation."
"Okay, we'll dry the site, clear the tunnel, and bolster the walls. If a collapse proves unavoidable, we'll remove as many at-risk artifacts as possible, along with the surrounding context. Is that satisfactory?"
She nodded.
I tilted my head at Graham. "He's got the contract. Beverly and I will start setting up while he takes you through it."
As she walked away, I knelt next to the shaft. The water probably originated from the nearby Candelaria River. By removing the slab, Miranda's team had broken a pressure seal, causing the river to flood the tomb. It was an ingenious trap. Simple, yet effective.
Devastatingly effective.
I groaned.
Can this get any worse?
Miranda could only offer us a small sum for the job. When all was said and done, we'd be lucky to cover our expenses. Also, the water had already wreaked havoc on the tomb. Artifacts and context were most likely damaged, if not outright destroyed.
"Cy?"
I swiveled my head toward Miranda. "Yeah?"
"There's something I didn't tell you about the tomb."
"What?"
"We believe it belongs to a man named Xbalanque."
"Does that matter?"
"He lived in the Maya city-state of Palenque during its twilight years."
"Then why was he buried out here?"
"I'm not certain. But he was the chief scribe for Wak Kimi Janahb' Pakal, the last known ruler of Palenque. It was around Pakal's reign that the Mayas started to abandon the southern lowlands."
I frowned.
"I have reason to believe this tomb holds definitive, primary source evidence for what caused the Classic Maya Collapse."
My frown deepened.
"It could be the most significant archaeological discovery in history. If you can save the tomb, you'll be a hero. If not, well …"
Icicles jabbed at my heart.
Yeah, it can get worse. A whole lot worse.
Chapter 3
My hands felt clammy as I shimmied down the rope into the dark abyss. I smelled muck. Tasted musty air.
My legs slid into cold liquid. My boots touched stone. I let go of the rope and moved out of the way, splashing through the two-foot deep water. The rope twisted as Beverly grabbed hold of it.
I took a flashlight out of my satchel. I pointed its pale beam around the space, past a pair of noisy pump hoses. Like the slab that had covered it, the shaft was roughly ten feet long by ten feet wide. The remnants of a steep half-landing staircase clung to its walls. Most of the steps had crumbled to dust and rubble.
A tunnel, lined with stone, ran to the east. Eight feet inside the tunnel, the south wall had collapsed into a giant pile of stones and mud.
Water splashed. Rubber soles thumped against rock. I didn't bother turning around. "What do you make of it?"
"Looks like you were right." Beverly turned on her flashligh
t. "We've got bubbles and froth along the south wall. A separate channel must connect this place to the river."
"Can you seal it without damaging the stonework?"
She grinned. "What do you think?"
Beverly had spent several years in the Marine Corps as well as at a private military corporation named ShadowFire. During that time, she'd mastered numerous skills, including construction work.
"Get to it then," I replied. "The pump hoses should be finished soon. I'm going to have Dutch send down the buttresses so I can start shoring up these walls."
She ventured into the tunnel for a closer look. Meanwhile, I tilted my flashlight around the shaft. The stonework was simple, not exactly a masterpiece of ancient architecture.
My beam wavered a bit and I clutched the flashlight with both hands to steady it. But it didn't help. My heart beat faster as I realized it wasn't the beam that was wavering.
It was the stonework.
Chapter 4
The ceiling quaked. Dirt dropped onto my head. Warily, I looked around. Numerous buttresses and supports were now in place. But the walls and ceiling continued to crumble anyway.
I rolled the wheelbarrow deeper into the tunnel, guided by light emitted from a battery-operated, freestanding fixture. The water was mostly gone, thanks to Beverly's temporary concrete dam and Graham's pumping apparatus.
I stopped next to a mound of mud, dirt, and stones. Then I stabbed a shovel into the obstruction. I attacked it for several minutes, loading the debris into the wheelbarrow. Ever so slowly, the mound began to shrink.
I'd insisted that Miranda and her colleagues remain on the surface during the salvage operation. Part of me was concerned for their safety. But mostly, I worried for their sanity. Between the shuddering tunnel and our hurried efforts to save it, they would've lost their minds.
I worked at a frenzied pace. Staving off a total collapse was our best possible outcome. But in order to do that, I needed to remove the debris. Then I could shore up the other end of the tunnel as well as the connected chamber.
"I don't like Miranda."
I cringed as Dutch Graham's voice echoed loudly in the tunnel. He had buckets of charm and charisma. But those gifts were often tempered by sheer obliviousness.
Still, I gave him virtually unlimited latitude. These days, he was the closest thing I had to a father. Hell, he was the closest thing I had to a family member.
"She's not so bad," I said.
"She's got a giant stick up her ass."
Graham was an old-time explorer with an almost magnetic attraction to danger. He was the last of an earlier generation when the adventure counted for more than the science. He'd racked up an incredible amount of battle scars in his career and these days, was forced to make do with a patch over his right eye as well as with a mechanical left leg. Nevertheless, he was still the feistiest man I'd ever known.
Although his days of exploration were largely behind him, he found plenty of time to embrace his other passions. He possessed an almost demonic thirst for wine, women, and poker, not always in that order. It was little wonder his former colleagues called him El Diablo behind his back. They meant it as an insult. Graham, however, considered it a compliment of the highest order.
Many months ago, he'd set up a new business venture in the field of cryonics. It was called CryoCare and he'd spent a lot of time and energy getting it off the ground. But he'd found time to join me on Miranda's salvage job. Good thing too. He had an uncanny knack for fixing and repurposing broken-down pieces of machinery.
The ceiling shook with the force of an earthquake. "Where's Eve?" I asked.
"Still in the truck."
"Get her down here," I replied. "Now."
"How the hell am I supposed to do that?"
"Use Miranda's tractor. The digging bucket can act as a crane."
As Graham hobbled toward the shaft, I thrust my shovel back into the pile. I proceeded to clear debris for several minutes.
Salvage work was similar to treasure hunting, but with a few added benefits. For one thing, it was perfectly legal. Also, it didn't require intensive research. One just had to show up and start digging. Finally, it was capable of providing a fairly steady stream of income. Treasure hunting, in contrast, was boom or bust.
Usually bust.
But salvage work had its drawbacks. It was labor-intensive. Income, while steady, was capped. And it required working as a hired shovel rather than for oneself.
My shovel struck a hard object. Kneeling down, I picked up an old knife. The top half of its blade had been snapped off. The initials W.H. were carved on its handle.
As I stood up again, I noticed something curious. Someone, presumably W.H., had etched markings onto the wall. They consisted of a large circle surrounded by dozens of vertical lines. An X was hidden within the lines.
I studied the picture for a few seconds. Unable to make sense of it, I returned to my work. The pile shifted under my shovel. Stones and chunks of dirt poured from the top like a mini avalanche.
Light from the freestanding fixture spilled into the rest of the tunnel. My hands started to sweat as I got my first good look at the main chamber. It was a large room.
Large and empty.
Treasure hunters?
The knife and etch marks backed up that theory. But my brain refused to accept it. If treasure hunters had looted the tomb, they would've tripped the flooding mechanism long before Miranda's excavation.
Strange shadows flitted along the rear wall. I squinted. The wall wasn't flat. Instead, it seemed to jut into the chamber.
Is that …?
A slow smile creased my face. Miranda wasn't going to leave the tomb empty-handed after all.
Not when there was a giant stone sarcophagus waiting for her.
Chapter 5
Time, according to modern thinking, was a linear process. It did not begin nor did it end. Instead, it moved, always forward, at a relentless pace.
Scientists measured time by tracking cesium 133 atoms as they transitioned from a positive state to a negative one and back again. And even that wasn't good enough for the eggheads. They continued to seek a more perfect form of measurement. But for all their efforts, scientists didn't really understand time. They didn't know how it worked. And that was why they'd failed to notice the disturbing truth.
Time, for some inexplicable reason, had slipped out of its natural cycle.
Carlos Tum ignored the ruckus arising from the ground. He paid little attention to the nervous archaeologists or the barking dogs. Instead, he tilted his face toward the sky. Beads of sweat rolled down his face as he contemplated the blazing sun.
He missed the rain. He missed the droplets cascading against his face. He missed the pattering noises as they struck the ground. But most of all, he missed the comforting presence of Chaac.
Roman Catholicism and Maya traditions had been blended into a peculiar mix over the years. After invading Central America, the Spaniards had tried to replace the Maya gods with saints. But while the people had embraced the new faith, they'd secretly held onto their old gods as well.
The result was that when the rain didn't fall, Mayas prayed to Saint Thomas for help. If he didn't answer, they turned to Chaac, asking him to strike the clouds with his lightning axe. They saw nothing wrong with this. In their view, Saint Thomas and Chaac were one and the same.
But Tum felt differently. Unlike his fellow Mayas, he didn't believe in Saint Thomas. And he doubted Chaac liked being compared to a false idol.
Tum sniffed. His nose, which had an uncanny ability to detect moisture in the air, came up dry. Frustrated, he turned back to the dig site. A small camera, which dangled from a string wrapped around his neck, swung with him.
He'd nearly forgotten about the camera. Pacho had asked him to hold it several hours earlier.
He lifted it to his face and pushed a few buttons. An image of the shaft appeared on the screen. It was one of many Pacho had taken while being lowered on a rope to ch
eck out the flood damage.
Slowly, Tum flipped through the images, going backward in time. His Maya ancestors had understood time. They'd known it wasn't linear or exact. It was cyclical and messy. Knowing the processes of atoms was far less important than being able to identify one's place in nature's vast array of cycles.
Those cycles had played an important role in the Long Count Calendar developed by his distant ancestors. The Mayas had used five separate numbers to describe each day. The largest number was a b'ak'tun, which was equivalent to one hundred and forty-four thousand days, or roughly four hundred years. A natural cycle of time consisted of thirteen b'ak'tuns.
Compared to the Gregorian calendar, the Long Count calendar started on August 11, 3114 BC. Three full cycles had passed since that point. Each cycle represented a world of creation. In the first world, humanity had been made of mud. Wood was next and then maize. Presently, mankind was living in the fourth world of creation.
And that was the problem.
The thirteenth b'ak'tun had been completed on December 21, 2012. The fourth world of creation should've ended at that point. The fifth world should've begun. However, the date had come and gone and the fourth world had continued without change.
But why?
Tum scanned more images, going further back in time. He saw deeper into the shaft. Saw the floodwaters recede. Saw hieroglyphics and other markings became visible on the walls.
He stopped on an image. It was taken from the bottom of the shaft and showed a view of the tunnel leading to the chamber. His heart sped up as he stared at the tiny symbols carved above the tunnel.
He wasn't fluent in Maya hieroglyphics. But he could read numbers. The symbols showed a Long Count date of 10.0.0.0.0. It corresponded to March 13, 830 AD and more importantly, represented the completion of ten full b'ak'tuns.
But it was the next line of symbols that really caught his attention. It displayed a Long Count date of 13.0.0.0.0. His brain went into frenzied overdrive as he realized the date corresponded to December 21, 2012.
Maybe it was just a coincidence. Or maybe the tomb builders had added it for symbolic reasons. Still, a small part of him wondered if it had a different meaning. A meaning meant for him. Perhaps he wasn't meant to stay idle while time continued to slip out of its natural cycle.