‘They are just tensioning the lifting cables, my dear. Do not alarm yourself. Perhaps it is time to come back up.’
Was he enjoying winding her up? She was convinced he took masochistic pleasure in the double whammy of his sexist patronisation and his nonchalant lack of concern at yet another affront to archaeological integrity. It was way too soon to think about lifting the artefact out of the ground. No assessment had been made as to its ability to withstand the stresses caused by the lifting points. A steel cradle would need to be built underneath and around it in order to spread the load evenly. Yanking it out with straps at either end could result in the whole thing buckling in the centre under its own unsupported weight. Besides, not enough time had been spent examining the two skeletons she had found lying inside it. Moving this enormous find with a crane, and then on a truck across pot-holed roads, would disturb any other bones or pottery it was hiding, reducing the potential mine of information to be gathered about the positioning of items with regard to the dead and the beliefs of those who had created this metal tomb. She climbed out again, flabbergasted that an attempt to lift the artefact was to begin immediately, barely minutes after the excavations had revealed its full shape and depth.
The arrival of an old stately Mercedes bearing a tattered flag in place of its three-pointed star seemed utterly incongruous to Ruby. The flag was red and white with two yellow stars, indicating that the car was carrying the Inspector General of the Guatemalan army. Ruby could see an important-looking military official driving, but which side was he on? The soldiers around her stood to attention. The Mercedes pulled up and a peroxide blond man climbed out.
Lorenzo Luz was just thirty-five, but a combination of sharp intelligence and dogged loyalty, coupled with an exceptionally high death rate among the rebels, had enabled him to rise quickly through the ranks. His dyed hair made him instantly identifiable among the Guatemalan fighting men.
He patted the roof of his newly and savagely acquired vehicle while his men saluted him. He then surveyed the messy scene with a disapproving expression. The artefact was suspended inches from the base of the pit by wide straps. Duckboards under the wheels of the mobile crane prevented it from sinking into the soil under the weight of its load. Lorenzo shook Paulo’s hand and signalled that the extraction should continue. Each man resumed his duty. The engine of the crane revved loudly and the artefact began to rise. The flatbed truck reversed along two more rows of duckboards, close enough to the pit to be able to receive its priceless load.
The artefact was lifted clear of the pit and the crane swung it round to the waiting truck. It appeared to be massively heavy, but was clearly well within the sixty-ton capacity of the Faun crane. The truck sank a few noticeable inches as the tension was released from the straps. The boards under its wheels bent with the strain. The extraction from the pit was complete.
As soldiers climbed over the truck, covering the strange cargo with tarpaulins and attaching it securely with ropes, a volley of angry shouts made them reach for their weapons. Three civilian men ran into the clearing. They wore polo shirts in the colours of the rental company that owned the crane, excavator and truck. The massive golden artefact was still half exposed, but their focus was elsewhere.
Ruby glared at Paulo. He avoided her gaze.
‘An administrative oversight,’ he mumbled. ‘This equipment wasn’t rented. There wasn’t time. It was, I believe, kind of borrowed.’
The sleazy situation in which Ruby found herself seemed a world away from the respectable image of the organisation for which she was working. She wondered if archaeologists in other remote places were subjected to the same degree of compromise, surrounded by such blatant criminality. Adapting to local culture was one thing, but stealing equipment and using guerrilla fighters to do the job of trained historians and technical specialists had turned this dig into a pillaging raid.
Lorenzo appeared to be mediating a heated discussion between the owners of the vehicles and the soldiers who had apparently taken them some time before dawn. Ruby edged closer so she could listen.
‘Look at this. And this. And this!’ One of the men in polo shirts was pointing at the damaged parts of his excavator. ‘You are going to pay for this!’
Any remaining veneer of patience upon Lorenzo’s face was fading fast, but he made one final attempt at conciliation.
‘What is your name?’ he asked, with ill-disguised indifference to whatever the answer may be.
‘Anibal,’ replied the head of the rental company.
‘Anibal, look, some cock-ups were made by failing to sign the right paperwork for these vehicles, I admit. We were up against a strict time limit and couldn’t wait for your office to open.’
‘You bastards stole them!’ was Anibal’s response, inflaming Lorenzo’s now transparent annoyance.
‘Look, we have already finished with the JCB. You can collect the crane and the flatbed tomorrow from the old airfield at Tikal. Submit your invoices to the government and it will pay for the rental and for any damage.’
The peal of derisory laughter triggered by Lorenzo’s implication that he was legitimately associated with the government reddened his face and caused his fingers to twitch. Anibal carried on regardless, convinced that no invoices would ever be authorised for payment on behalf of scruffy guerrilla fighters who hadn’t showered in days and who were the sworn enemies of the state.
‘You will never pay! You are guerrillas! You are nothing!’ Anibal, high on the euphoria of rage, ran to Lorenzo’s Mercedes and kicked a dent in its door.
Lorenzo pulled a pistol from his holster in a smooth movement and fired three shots. Anibal and his colleagues slumped to the mud.
* * *
Matt looked out from the tuk-tuk. Here, there were no more huts, no signs of any habitation or human life. Damp, domineering trees cloaked the light from the road. When they were close to Matt’s destination – a narrow track between the trees that led to the jungle clearance site – the driver tensed up and stopped as abruptly as his inadequate brakes would allow. Assorted vehicles were pulling out from among the trees on to the road ahead.
‘Are we there?’ grumbled Matt.
‘Si, is almost where you want go but I wait for traffic. You pay now.’
Matt leaned forward and handed him a bundle of quetzales. He remained at that angle, squinting to see ahead, but the vehicles were obscured by a fog of exhaust and dust. There might have been rifles protruding from the silhouette of a pick-up truck receding into the distance, but he couldn’t be sure. It didn’t concern him. Blatantly armed men were not exactly a rarity in this part of the world.
When the last of the vehicles had faded from view the tuk-tuk driver chugged to the gap in the trees from where they had all emerged, then halted, barely allowing Matt enough time to get both feet on the ground before he drove away. Matt banged the bonnet of an old Ford pick-up truck parked on the edge of the track as he walked past, checking the directions Ruby had carefully given him.
A thick and foetid stench began to invade his nostrils as he strode deeper into the ancient forest. With a hand over his mouth, he walked on towards the jungle clearing. Here, a choking black cloud billowed from multiple fires. He coughed, and tried to crouch low enough to get under the pall of smoke emanating from a mechanical excavator, almost every inch of its yellow paintwork firmly ablaze. The flames were erratic, spitting high and low, accompanied by the groaning of stressed steel. He ran cautiously past, wincing as the machine seemed to flex and shake as its superstructure creaked in the extreme heat. His peripheral vision caught the moment it exploded, now just yards behind him, and he registered the danger in his mind before the sound reached his ears. He felt himself ignominiously hurled up into the black air, then flung down hard, face in the dirt. The exploded vehicle was now surrounded by small puddles of burning fuel.
His first thought was of Ruby. Was she here? Was she injured? His heart began hammering and he leapt up, all of his senses buzzing. He checked
himself for injuries, but found he was fine other than for the extensive covering of mud.
‘Ruby!’ He stumbled around the clearing, coughing and shouting through the smoke. No sign of anyone. ‘Ruby?’
He tried to call her on his cell: no signal.
He paused to listen. There was nothing but the harsh crackling of the fires. Then he found the excavated pit. And in the pit he found the bodies.
* * *
The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign still hung from the handle of the penthouse suite. With hindsight Ratty knew this had been an unwise choice of accommodation. Without the means to repay his fraudulent borrowings, the most expensive hotel room in Guatemala City now seemed a ridiculous extravagance. Ruby had a lot to answer for. Life would have been simple without her. He could have sold the stele and lived luxuriously in blissful ignorance of the dire consequences for the world’s archaeological heritage. But all his life he had taken the easy option and it had been unremittingly dull. Now he had allowed his friend to push him into the path of danger and he had never felt more alive.
His key card worked at the first attempt, setting the light in the lock to green. He walked in and instantly wished he hadn’t. The suite had been ransacked. The television was smashed. The contents of the mini bar were spread all over the floor. The bathroom mirror had been shattered, but the worst damage of all was to Ratty’s finery. Shirts, blazers, trousers and shoes lay in shreds on the floor of the walk-in wardrobe. Ratty was aghast that anyone could disrespect a Nutters of Savile Row dress shirt. He tearfully picked up the remains of his favourite clothes and placed them on the bed. Destroying an expensive wardrobe of suits was the classic revenge of an ex-wife, but Ratty had no wife, ex or otherwise.
So much for ‘Do Not Disturb’, he thought, sitting on the bed at the centre of a scene that was a microcosm of the city today. How had they got in? The door hadn’t been forced. Either they’d had a key or they’d come in through the window from the spacious balcony. He stood up and slid open the balcony door, hitting the wall of heat as he stepped outside. He had never thought to lock this door, since he was eight storeys above ground. Looking up, he realised it may be a long way up, but it was only ten feet down from the roof of the hotel. Anyone could have dropped down onto his balcony if they had access to the service staircase to the roof.
Mystery solved. Next he needed to know who. And why. If it had been a random act of vandalism then ‘who’ didn’t matter and ‘why’ didn’t exist, but it was clear to him that someone was trying to scare the heebie-jeebies out of him. It could only be Dr Otto. And yet the case against him wasn’t as clear cut as Ratty would have liked. Otto had a vaguely Teutonic twang, which in Ratty’s mind would normally be enough to convict anyone, and yet he didn’t have an obvious motive to scare Ratty away. Why do this if you wanted someone to stick around for another meeting? Was he trying to instil in Ratty a sense of fear in order to make him co-operate more willingly? Or, Ratty mused, did he just object to his sense of fashion?
Whatever it was, whoever it was, it wouldn’t shake him. He would use up what little remained of his ill-gotten funds to buy new outfits as soon as the shops re-opened. Trouble was his tailor was four thousand miles away and the local stores tended not to cater for his peculiar tastes. But the clothes he was wearing were in no condition to be worn again. He paced about the wrecked room, brain turning over fast, allowing himself to consider the wildest thoughts, ripping off his dusty and tattered garments as he did so.
Finally, he stood still, naked. A man stripped of his wealth, his style and his dignity. A bare body. A blank canvas.
He closed his eyes and asked himself if he was ready for this. The crazy ideas in his head had barely stopped spinning when he came to his conclusion.
He was going to embrace change.
In fact, he decided, he would use this incident to try something he had never attempted before: moving his fashion style forward by several decades. He would go even further than that. He would shake off the old Ratty, leave behind the daft clothes and fussy appearance that had made him a laughing stock at Cambridge. He would be reborn for his odyssey, a butterfly emerging from its pupa, unrecognisable to those who knew him. No longer a figure of mockery. No longer the awkward aristocrat. His plan took another step forward.
* * *
‘Help.’ The voice from the base of the pit was weak, straining to push precious air from searing lungs.
Matt wafted smoke away from his face, unnerved that one of the bodies was alive. Just. The man was lying partly on top of one of the other men. His legs were in an unnatural position. Matt’s stomach churned. This was not the kind of situation in which he had expected to find himself today. All he was ready for were awkward hugs and kisses with Ruby followed by a candlelit meal with the possibility of a romantic atmosphere if he didn’t screw it up and start arguing with a waiter. Carnage in a hole in the ground was an unwelcome diversion.
‘You OK down there?’ He regretted his question before he had even finished shouting it, uncomfortable at his own crassness. A true hero would get straight down there, no questions asked. Something deep within him tried to convince him that this was someone else’s problem, and someone else would fix it. He fought the urge to walk away. But there was no one else who could help; he sensed an unfamiliar moral obligation. No doubt Richard Dawkins would be able to explain what he was feeling. He had met the famous British biologist at a book signing and had been amazed that the queue for signed copies of a book about whether God existed was longer than the queue for his war memoirs.
He grabbed the ladder that was lying near him and dropped it over the side.
‘Hang in there, buddy,’ he called as he climbed timidly down the rungs.
‘Help me,’ groaned the man.
Matt looked at him more closely. He wore the same polo shirt as the two dead men, branded with some kind of company logo. All three shirts were blood-stained. The living man also had a horribly broken leg, his snapped femur bone pressing unsubtly against the inside of his trousers, threatening to tear the fabric open. It was too much for Matt. He felt himself turn green. Deep breath, he told himself. Fight the gag reflex. This was a living person. He had to say something, do something. The Dawkins instinct, whatever it was, somehow gave him the strength to avoid throwing up. He forced himself to communicate with the man.
‘What’s your name, pal?’
‘Anibal.’
‘Matt. What the hell happened here?’
Anibal looked at him through fading eyes. A spark of recognition lit them briefly.
‘You look like Matt Mountebank.’
‘Er, yeah. You’re in pretty bad shape. I got no signal on my cell so I can’t call –’
‘They shot me. Shot all of us. Threw us in here.’
That much Matt had already gathered. What in hell he could actually do about it, however, he had no idea. Anibal, on the other hand, seemed confident in Matt’s capabilities.
‘Losing blood,’ wheezed Anibal, starting to sound weaker.
‘I can see. Just don’t know what I can do.’
‘Like the scene in your book? Guy gets shot and you save his life?’
‘You really read it, then, buddy?’
Anibal seemed convinced that his ebbing life was in safe hands. The pain from his stomach and leg wounds subsided as the blood continued to flow out of his body. There was nothing more for him to fear. Matt coughed awkwardly.
‘That scene, you know, my, um, editor at the publishing house might have embellished that. You can’t always believe what you read.’
‘But you saved his life, right?’ He spoke slowly now: his body had decided speaking was a lower priority than keeping his heart beating.
‘Christ, man, you gotta understand there was a bit of artistic licence there. I was just trying to tell a damn good story.’
Matt tried to recall the scene in Eye of the Desert Storm. He hadn’t actually read it for a couple of years, and was now sketchy about some of the d
etails, but he remembered something about saving a dying man by tying a tourniquet round his leg for the open fracture and an improvised bandage round his body to seal both entry and exit wounds together.
‘Hurry,’ whispered Anibal.
In his book Matt had used his clothing as bandages, but the clothes in the anecdote were at least vaguely hygienic. There was nothing on him or the dead guys that was remotely clean. Even if by some miracle Matt succeeded in stemming his patient’s blood loss, Anibal would rapidly and inevitably succumb to infection. He took off his belt and wrapped it around Anibal’s thigh. Matt didn’t know much first aid, but he had seen enough movies to know that if Anibal survived he would have to lose his leg. The tourniquet would cut off the blood supply to the limb, causing it to die within minutes. He then whipped the pants off one of the bodies and tied them tightly around the stomach wounds, trying not to look too much at the blood.
Anibal appeared comforted by the attention he had received. Matt just wanted to get out of that pit. He wanted fresh air. He wanted to wash his hands of the bodily fluids that didn’t belong to him, but first he needed to know what had happened to Ruby.
* * *
The late afternoon sunlight reflecting off the medical instruments on the stainless steel trolley sparkled with a brilliance that made the items difficult to see. Three syringes lay in a regimental line, each filled and ready for injection. A small Petri dish of pills sat adjacent, along with a thermometer and a blood pressure monitor. Dr Otto adjusted the blind in the window to reduce the glare, ensuring that the slats lay perfectly horizontally. Now he could see the items clearly. It was important to administer the treatments correctly so that the results would be consistent, measurable and meaningful. The experiment had been running for many years already, sometimes in circumstances that were less than ideal. Otto had faced all of the challenges and changes as they came along, calmly and methodically adjusting to new environments and locations when necessary. The only constant in the experiment was his subject. One man: unwaveringly enthusiastic, always co-operative. The drugs guaranteed it.
The Sphinx Scrolls Page 5