Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet

by Bill Thompson

  Her voice became shrill, tense. “You’re not with them?”

  “I’m not. I’m scared to death Brian is trapped in the cave. And Sam. God, Odette. Where is he?”

  “No one has heard from any of you since you left here Sunday to go to that new cave. Searchers are looking everywhere. They found Alfredo’s ATV in the jungle but no sign of you. I filed a missing persons report with the Federal Police and the Embassy. I need to go – I have to tell the police I’ve heard from you. I’ll talk to you when you get here.” She hung up abruptly.

  When they arrived at the San Ignacio Inn, Deputy Ambassador Singleton went inside with her. As Odette rushed up to hug her Nicole glanced at a uniformed police officer sitting in the lobby.

  Singleton handed her a business card. “I’ll call you tomorrow to finish up the paperwork and deliver your replacement passport. Meanwhile if there’s anything further we can do please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

  “Thanks for all you’ve done. I can’t imagine where I’d be right now if it weren’t for your showing up at just the right time.”

  Once he left Odette gestured toward the policeman and said, “Nicole, this officer wants to talk to you about the others.”

  The officer took notes as Nicole told him about Brian’s injury at the bottom of the cave and about her abduction. Once she finished he commented that there was considerable difficulty with this particular case because of where the abduction happened.

  “The border is not well defined in the area where the cave is. We are dealing with two different countries, Belize and Guatemala. We know where the cave is, so it is clear you were kidnapped in Guatemala. There is also Alfredo’s ATV. It was a couple of miles away from the cave, probably in Belize although that’s not certain. As I said, the border is not easy to determine when one is in the jungle.

  “We have a major problem, Senorita Farber. Although we are concerned about Mr. Sadler and our two Belizean citizens, we have no legal right to search for them in another country. Until I heard your story today, no one was certain if a crime had occurred at all. The officials in Guatemala have so far chosen to ignore our inquiry. But you were kidnapped at the entrance to a cave that is definitely in Guatemala. Now I can contact the police in Melchor and ask them to start searching for your friends and to look in the cave for Senor Sadler.

  “I want to be frank with you, Senorita. We can hope the Guatemalan authorities will be interested in helping us. Sometimes such requests are honored, other times they resent what they see as our intrusion into their business and we are ignored.” He looked at Odette. “Senora Adams, I will get to work on this and be back in touch with you if we have anything to report.” The policeman turned and walked out.

  Chapter Nine

  Last Sunday night while Nicole was tied to a metal table in the jungle, the rest of her party had decided to abandon the damaged ATV and walk out of the jungle. Brian, Sam and Alfredo donned headlamps. There were two more in the glove box of the ATV plus a small LED flashlight. They walked down the path. The darkness was intense – tall trees reached toward the sky on both sides of the road and the only light was the dim glow from three headlamps as they walked.

  “Remember when we came in?” Sam asked. “There was an open field before we came to the jungle. It probably won’t be too long until we get back to it and things should be easier. At least we’ll have moonlight once we get there.”

  “It is easier to see once we get out of the forest, that’s true,” Alfredo replied quietly. “Easier both for us and for anything that wants to find us. How do you say it in English? A sword with two edges?”

  Noise was everywhere – Brian was surprised how loud it was after dark. Insects buzzed mightily and the men frequently heard the rustle of things moving about in the thick growth of trees and bushes only a few feet from them. As he walked Brian kept thinking about Nicole. I have to be strong so I can get out of here and find her.

  His mind was turning over possibilities, ways he might locate Nicole, how to learn what might have happened, when he suddenly snapped back into reality. Alfredo was walking in front. He stopped in his tracks and whispered, “Shit. Baalum.”

  Sam put his arm out in front of Brian. “Stop now,” he hissed. “Don’t move.”

  Brian was in the back. It was so dark he couldn’t tell what Alfredo had seen. He whispered, “What is it? What’s Baalum?”

  Sam shook his head and whispered, “Shh. It means “king” in Mayan. It’s what the locals call a jaguar.”

  Brian peered ahead and saw two gleaming eyes. He could barely make out the sleek form of the cat standing fifty feet ahead of them in the road.

  Alfredo took a few steps backwards until he was with the others. “Stay together,” he said. “It’s very rare to see a jaguar and he’s probably curious. Aim your headlamps into his eyes. If he were interested in killing us we wouldn’t have seen him until it was too late. He was probably crossing the path and we’re simply an inconvenient distraction.”

  They stood in a line elbow to elbow across the path and watched as the beautiful animal slowly turned his head away from them. Suddenly he uttered a terrifying, ferocious roar and walked slowly into the forest.

  “Holy crap,” Brian said. “What the hell was that roar about?”

  “Just establishing that he’s the king. This is his jungle, not ours. He didn’t know for sure about us but decided to let us know who was boss.”

  “Is it safe to keep walking?”

  Sam and Alfredo talked for a minute, deciding that there was nothing to lose by moving on down the road. Since they had no weapons, if the cat wanted them they were as good as dead no matter what.

  Soon they reached the open field. They could see lights from a house across the expanse.

  “Let’s pick up the pace,” Alfredo said, “but still walk, don’t run. We don’t want to attract a predator.”

  Staying close together, they walked through waist-high grass. On the other side was a crude farmhouse with an old Land Rover sitting in the yard. They knocked on the door and heard someone turn a lock. A local woman stood in the open doorway, a frantic look on her face.

  Alfredo conversed quietly with her in a mixture of Spanish and Mopan, the local dialect that many people in the area spoke. She said something then closed and locked the door, leaving them standing outside.

  Alfredo said, “She will let us use the telephone but she is very afraid of something, I think. Maybe us. She says to wait here.”

  Suddenly the door opened. A man holding a pistol said, “Come in, gentlemen.”

  Sam yelled, “You! Brian, this is the guy who assaulted us!”

  “Calm down, amigo. My issue is not with you. It’s Mr. Sadler here that I want.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He gave a low whistle and a second man with a pistol thrust the old woman into the living room.

  “Why hurt this woman? What’s going on?”

  “The woman has no part in this,” the man with the mustache replied. “This is the first house you three would come to if you were walking from the cave. I knew you would come here to call for help. And here you are!”

  To demonstrate my good intentions, my friend here and I will put away our weapons. He spoke a few rapid words in Spanish and they holstered the guns. “Now I will explain myself.”

  Suddenly Alfredo rushed to the man with the mustache, grabbed his pistol and held it on him. Brian was surprised the man didn’t appear to be concerned in the least. In fact he said something that astonished all of them.

  “Ruiz, hand over your weapon,” he told his man. He looked at the boss quizzically but did as he was told.

  Brian took the gun and said, “OK, what the hell’s going on? Alfredo, tell the woman to call the police!”

  “The one thing I know you will not be doing is calling the authorities. In fact it’s time to put down the guns.”

  “Fat chance,” Sam smirked. “I do
n’t know why you let us take your pistols but that was a dumb-ass move.”

  “I no longer need weapons to control you. Why, do you ask? Because, gentlemen, I am holding Nicole Farber as my prisoner.”

  Brian grabbed the man’s shirt and hit him squarely in the jaw. “Where is she? Talk, you bastard, or I’ll kill you.”

  The man rubbed his jaw. “Back off, Mr. Sadler. I am going to show you something. This is something you may not want your friends to see. It is a very personal picture of your girlfriend.”

  He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He clicked a few times and handed it to Brian. Brian looked at Nicole’s picture. She was naked, each of her limbs tied to a corner of a metal table. She didn’t look afraid – her face was contorted in anger. Even as he feared for her safety Brian thought about how much fight Nicole had in her, how she would try with every ounce of energy she had to free herself from captivity. If she could. If she were even still alive.

  Brian started hyperventilating but took a deep breath. “You’ll never escape me if she gets hurt. I will track you down anywhere you go. I will find you and kill you myself.” His voice shook with emotion as he passed the phone to Sam, then Alfredo. Naked or not, they had to see what she was facing.

  Sam spat, “You bastard. You’ll regret this.”

  The man laughed. “We’re taking back the guns now and you’re coming with me. If you follow my instructions you will see her again. And this lady…” He gestured at the woman, “…will live as long as she keeps her mouth shut.”

  He spoke to her quietly in Spanish. She fell back into a chair. Terrified, she held her hands to her face.

  “No Senor. Por favor, no.” She was frantic.

  Alfredo said, “He promises to return, hunt down her children and kill them all if she ever speaks about tonight.” The pathetic woman sobbed as the two captors ushered them out to the vehicle.

  By daybreak the five men had been in the car for hours, much of it on back roads but now on a paved two-lane highway. They were in an old Land Rover, its roof piled high with gear. The man with the mustache was in the right front seat as the other man drove. Sam, Alfredo and Brian were in the back. The man had taken their phones and thrown them out the window as they traveled and he had made two very brief phone calls, speaking quietly and rapidly in Spanish.

  “He’s checking in with someone,” Alfredo translated, talking under his breath to Brian and Sam.

  Their captor had said almost nothing to them since the trip began. Finally he turned to the back seat. “I will tell you a few things now. You may call me Tomas. Tomas Rodriguez. That name is as good as any, I think. It is my usual nom de plume.” He laughed heartily. “Mr. Sadler, I hope you don’t mind if I call you Brian now. We are going to be associates, even if we are not friends.

  “I am going to help you. And in return you are going to help me. Of course it will be important for you to know that your girlfriend is always safe. To make that happen I will be in contact every few hours with someone who wants to hear from me very much. In fact if I fail to make a call for any reason, Miss Farber will no longer be safe. Quite the contrary, in fact. She is deep in the jungle in a place where there are many predators, including the human ones.” He smiled again. “She must be protected. My regular telephone calls are her lifeline. Do you understand?”

  “I got it, you son of a bitch. I don’t know what you think you’re doing but you’ll never get away with it. I can get you money if that’s what this is about. A lot of money. Is that what you want from us?”

  “Where are we going?” Sam Adams asked. “Don’t you know people will be looking for us everywhere?”

  “So many questions, my friends. Brian, this is not about money although eventually I believe what my friends and I want from you will bring untold riches. And Mr. Adams, of course people are going to look for you. Each of you has friends and family whom I am sure care about you very much. And the police – they will certainly be looking too although I’m afraid they are not as diligent as your police in America. They may look for a time then maybe they will hear a rumor. Maybe a story about how you three men just wanted to disappear for a while. Maybe a fling on the beach on a remote caye. A macho man thing, you know?” He smiled.

  “Where we are going there are no people who will come looking for you. We are going to find something my friends and I want very much. And Brian, if we are very lucky perhaps we will also find something you want very much. Captain Jack Borland.”

  Chapter Ten

  Tomas would tell them nothing more. After an hour or so Brian saw a sign that read “Tikal” and had an arrow pointing left. Brian knew that Tikal, one of the finest Mayan archaeological sites, was in Guatemala and they were heading west toward the mountains. He now knew almost certainly where they were going and after about an hour Tomas spoke quietly in Spanish to the driver, who soon pulled off the road in front of a small café.

  They sat outside on a shady patio and ate. “I’ll pay for lunch, men,” Tomas said with a smile. “It’s the least I can do after inconveniencing you three so much.”

  Sam spoke up. “I’d like to wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, ‘Tomas’. You’d better hope things go the way you think they will. Once Nicole’s safe, you’re a dead man.”

  Tomas merely smiled and gestured toward the Land Rover. They continued westward. Brian said, “So all this is about searching for the ancient Mayan library?”

  “You are a very intelligent man. Of course it is. In less than a half hour we will be at the spot where the famous Captain Jack Borland started up the mountain. We will follow in his footsteps just as his son Arthur did. But you already know the things Jack and his son did, don’t you?”

  Brian ignored the question. “We have to climb. We’ll need gear to do that. Is that what you have on top of the truck?”

  “No worries. We have everything we need for a trip to the top. We’re missing just one thing – Jack Borland’s map. I presume you don’t have it either. At least it wasn’t in your hotel room.”

  “You searched my hotel room? You son of a bitch! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Sam was dumbfounded. How had this man had gotten into his hotel, past a desk clerk and Odette herself, then upstairs to Brian’s room? His mind racing, he listened quietly.

  Tomas continued. “Don’t get excited, Brian. You will need your stamina and strength to climb this formidable mountain. To briefly answer your question, I was looking for something Jack Borland had. Lucky Buncombe, the proprietor of the Jaguar’s Call up the mountainside, told me that Jack had a box that contained a map and perhaps some gold. He gave that box to Jack’s son Arthur. You have that box. I doubt you brought it to Belize but I know you have it. But I don’t need Jack Borland’s box any more. I know what you know.”

  He tossed a manila envelope into the back seat – the one Brian hid, the one with pictures of the gold sheets and the letter from the Governor of Guatemala to the king of Spain. Brian showed it to Sam, who stared at the sheets in amazement, then handed it back to Brian.

  Tomas continued. “I know exactly what you are here for. You’re looking for Captain Jack himself but you and Jack’s son also want the ancient library of the Maya. The man for whom I work will be happy to leave you with that if you also find the gold sheets. My employer and I think they actually are there. After all his fruitless searches, that crazy Jack Borland finally figured out what he was doing.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Jaguar’s Call in the Guatemalan rain forest

  Four months ago

  Not long after Arthur Borland left, Lucky Buncombe was clearing brush around the perimeter of his rustic retreat when he heard someone approaching. Looking up he was startled to see an attractive female probably in her early forties standing before him. She was dressed in fatigues and combat boots and had a backpack that she threw on the ground.

  “Got any water?” she said to Lucky. “And could you try to look a little
less astounded?”

  Lucky stopped staring, closed his mouth and stammered, “Sure…sure I have water. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “How about the water first, then we talk,” she responded, smiling slightly. “I’m exhausted from the climb and I ran out of water about an hour ago.”

  Lucky walked to his old refrigerator, opened the door and retrieved a thermos. He unscrewed the top, wiped the bottle with a rag in his belt and handed it to the girl in front of him. She took it and turned it up, swigging the water and letting it run down her neck. Lucky watched as rivulets went into her partially unbuttoned shirt. He hadn’t seen a woman since the last time he went to San Ignacio; he made a quick calculation in his head and figured it had been months. And this was no ordinary woman. The more he observed her the better looking he realized she was.

  They sat in chairs under a tree, a breeze making things tolerable.

  “I’m Lynne Parker. I’m an anthropologist from UCLA. And what am I doing here? I’m hoping all these people who believe the Maya were on this mountain are correct. I’m looking for evidence of their civilization and chasing rumors of an ancient library of Mayan codices. If it exists I want to be its discoverer.”

  Lucky glanced at her. She had bright eyes that sparkled when she talked about her goals. Even though she was dressed in fatigues he could see she had a great figure. Lucky thought this was one sexy package of woman.

  “Are you finished with the once-over?” Lynne said with a smile.

  Nice smile, Lucky thought. “Oh, sorry,” he said. He found himself stammering again. He usually was in complete control with the ladies but he couldn’t figure out what it was about this one. He guessed he was older than she was by fifteen years although he couldn’t be sure. And she was really, really cute. Long dark blond hair pulled into a ponytail, olive skin, that cleavage…