Remi caught a glint of something to her left, touched Sam’s arm, and moved in that direction. When she did, she could tell that going that way was easier than it should be, as though there was a faint current. She moved beyond the circle of light from above into an area that was dark.
The first object she found was a wide bracelet made of gold. She held it up so Sam could see, and he nodded. They moved along the limestone bed, picking up objects as they went. There were more carved objects of jade and, farther on, more pieces made of gold. There were disks, masks, necklaces, ear plugs, bracelets, flat chest ornaments.
They continued picking up objects for a time, and then Sam touched Remi’s arm and pointed. The circle of light that had been directly above them at the start was now about a hundred feet behind them. They had moved along, picking up the objects they’d seen, and now they’d drifted farther than they’d thought.
Together, they swam back toward the opening, bringing their net bags with them. When they reached the light, they slowly floated upward toward it, then broke the silvery surface. They took off their masks and held on to the side of the pool. Sam lifted his net bag to the deck above them, then Remi’s. Next, he pulled himself onto the stone and held out his hand to Remi so he could pull her up.
“That was a lot of fun,” she said. “You just dive down and pick up things where they threw them.”
“It reminds me of an Easter egg hunt.”
“There’s a bit of a current down there, though. The jewelry and things had all been moved downstream.”
“If this place was abandoned at the end of the classic period, everything has been down there awhile. A bit of a current can make a difference in a thousand years.”
“I’ll bet some of the jewelry moved out of sight as it fell,” she said.
“That’s possible. When the people looked down and the gifts were gone, I’ll bet they thought the gods had accepted them and been pleased.”
They laid out all their finds on the limestone surface and photographed them, then sent the pictures to Selma. They secured the finds in a zippered bag, placing them in Sam’s pack.
“We haven’t found everything that’s down there,” Remi said. “Don’t you want to dive again this afternoon?”
“Whatever this place is — city, fort, ceremonial center — we’re not going to find everything or learn everything about it in one trip. The archaeologists will be at it for years. The best we can do is verify what we can and get out.”
“You’re right,” said Remi. “This is about the codex, not about the two of us finding all the treasures in Guatemala.”
“I think we should spend the rest of today and tomorrow mapping, measuring, and photographing the complex. The next day, we should get out of here before we run low on supplies.”
“There are tapirs in the jungle. I can make you a nice tapir sandwich.”
“I’m afraid that in another day tapir will start to sound good.”
After changing, they walked the length of each flat strip of land. It was nearly evening when they found a pair of stone pillars at the end of the third strip, placed like gateposts. They were about eight feet tall and carved, one of them a male figure, with the feathered headdress, shield, and war club of a king, and the other a female, in a dress, with a basket at her feet and a jug in her hands. There were Mayan glyphs in all the spaces around the two figures. Remi photographed the two from every angle, and sent the photographs to Selma.
She looked up from her phone. “We’re losing the sun. I’ll take a couple of flash pictures just to be sure the writing is clear.”
She took two flash photographs of each pillar, and then Sam grabbed her arm and pointed. “Remi, look!”
Up the hill, on the trail that Sam and Remi had followed to reach this site, they could see a line of men approaching. There seemed to be about fifteen of them, and they were still a quarter mile off but coming down the last gradual slope before the ruins. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I guess the flash was a bad idea.”
“I don’t know. Certainly not as bad as leaving the Jeep out in the open for anyone to see,” he said. “I can’t tell if they’ve seen us, and I don’t know if they’re friendly or not. Maybe we can get back to the cenote and out of sight before they get here. That way, we can avoid finding out.”
They began to trot, moving steadily toward the shelter of a stand of trees that had grown up in the center of the strip. As they did, Remi looked back. One of the men had stopped on the hill and was bringing a rifle up to his shoulder. “Sam! Run!”
There was the crack of a bullet as it passed over their heads, and, about a second later, the sound of the rifle shot reached their ears. The next sound was the explosion of the Jeep, a gasoline fireball lighting the evening sky. Sam and Remi were running hard now, weaving to keep the trees and brush between themselves and the men. They had the advantage of a level surface and a clear path, where they could sprint without fear of tripping, while the men on the slope had to move along the hillside at an angle to avoid building up too much speed and tumbling down.
Sam glanced over his shoulder as a second man stopped and shouldered his rifle. “Another one. Take cover!” They both went low and ducked behind a cluster of trees. There was another shot, and the bullet pounded into one of the trees, sending a shower of bark chips in all directions. Sam peered around the trunk and saw the man adjusting his telescopic sight. “Go!”
Sam and Remi ran, working their way up to a full sprint as they approached the high wall surrounding the cenote. They ran around it to the far side and between the two layers of overlapping wall into the entryway. Sam began to pile loose stones in the narrow way to block it while Remi went to their backpacks and retrieved their four pistols, spare magazines, and boxed ammunition. Each of them checked to be sure the guns were loaded.
“I can’t believe this,” Remi said. “Who could they be?”
“Nobody we want to know. They seem to have tracked us, following our trail, then opened fire as soon as they saw us.”
“Who can they think we are?”
“Future dead people.” He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. “Let’s see if we can use this wall to stay alive.”
“I’ll go up to the walkway and see what they’re up to.”
“Keep your head low,” he said.
She pulled her baseball cap lower on her head. “Unfortunately, we’ve been in these situations before.”
“If we live through this one—”
She put her finger on his lips. “Shh. I know, bubble baths and spa treatments. We’ve already made each other all the promises we need.” She took a pair of pistols and climbed to the walk along the top of the wall, found her way to a spot where the wall had crumbled a bit and left a small dip, then rose enough to survey the strip of land the men were approaching.
Sam watched her bring her arm up to rest in the chink in the wall and begin to think through aiming her pistol. He had seen her do that before at competitions. Sam had been a respectable shot since the days when a member of a highly secret force had spent a month at a covert base instructing him in close-range shooting and sniper techniques. But Remi was in a different league. She had been shooting competitively since she was twelve, a champion for whom the term “nail driving” was not a figure of speech.
Sam stood below her and spoke quietly. “Get down, and stay there until you hear shooting.”
Sam moved to the entryway, climbed over the barrier he’d built, sidestepped along the ten-foot overlap in the walls, and ran to the nearest stand of trees. He moved through the trees beside the level strip, getting closer to the space where the men would pass if they approached the walled pool. As he went, he studied the places he passed, aware that soon he would be running past them in the other direction. He took a position in the thick brush within an arm’s length of the strip but outside the causeway, where the plants had grown in fully.
The men came at a run, carrying their rifles across their chests. They ran l
ike they were chasing game, not like men who were about to meet an armed adversary.
Sam crouched and waited. He had estimated fifteen men, but he could see only twelve. They wore khaki pants and short-sleeved civilian shirts and T-shirts. A few of them carried bolt-action hunting rifles with scopes — probably 4 power, because, in these thick jungles, long shots across open space had to be rare. There were two men carrying shotguns, a weapon that probably put food in their bellies. Two had pistols in holsters, and the others carried assault rifles that Sam identified as American AR-15s, probably weapons that had found their way here during the civil war.
The man closest to Sam carried a hunting rifle. He raised it and took aim at the top of the wall around the pool. Sam was sure the man couldn’t see Remi, but he was getting ready for her to stick her head up.
A man who carried only a pistol stood by a tree and shouted in English, “We know you’re in there. Come out now and we’ll make it easier for you.”
Sam turned his head away from the men and called into the hills, “We mean you no harm. Go away.”
Three of the men half turned to see if someone had gotten behind them, and one turned around entirely, his gun ready.
The spokesman said, “We’ll never go away. Come out and we’ll let you go away.”
Sam could hear the bad news in the man’s voice. These men thought they had found very easy prey, an American couple, undoubtedly unarmed and helpless. They were probably already estimating the ransom money. And even if they got it, they’d kill them both.
Sam aimed his pistol at the nearest one, the man pointing his rifle at the top of the wall, waiting for a target to appear. The spokesman waved an arm, and the men moved forward toward the wall. Sam began to move with them to avoid being cut off from the entrance.
The man near him sensed something and swung his rifle toward Sam and Sam shot him in the chest, then dove into the low area beyond the brush. The man fell down, unconscious and gravely wounded. The others had seen him fall, and each fired in the direction he guessed the shot might have come from. Only two of them guessed right, and Sam’s thicket was peppered with bullets.
When Sam looked up, he saw that another man had fallen, one of the few carrying AR-15s. Remi must have shot him while the others were firing wildly, having picked him out as a high priority.
The leader trotted over to the man’s body, took the rifle and the man’s pack. He aimed the rifle at the top of the wall, but Remi kept down, knowing the men all expected her to pop up and fire again.
But Sam had a new problem. A man with a rifle was walking toward his thicket to see if Sam’s body was lying there or if he needed to be finished off. Now the man’s feet were breaking sticks in the thicket. Sam located the sound and fired three times. The man’s rifle went off, and Sam heard him fall. Sam crawled to him, his pistol ready, and found him lying, with an entry wound in his forehead. Sam took the rifle, cycled the bolt, pulled himself to the edge of the thicket, and pushed the brush aside with the barrel.
A man with a shotgun was moving along the foot of the wall. Sam aimed and fired, and the man fell dead. Sam cycled the bolt again and searched for another target. There was a man with a scoped rifle on a sling, climbing a tree so he could get a vantage into the walled enclosure. Sam aimed and fired, and the man went limp and fell ten or twelve feet to the ground. He wasn’t moving.
Sam cycled the bolt again and realized that after one more shot he would be out of ammunition. He crawled toward the body of the man he’d taken the rifle from. But, as he did, another man spotted him and cried out to the others. Sam was out of time. He fired, took the rifle with him, and ran into the jungle. He didn’t stop, circling toward the walled enclosure around the pool. He couldn’t hear any running footsteps behind him. As he ran, he removed the bolt from the rifle and tossed it into an impenetrable patch of low plants. A hundred feet on, he threw the rifle into another patch, and kept moving.
He came around behind the enclosure far from the entryway and carefully stalked around the wall. As he came to the overlap, he saw a man crawling into it with a shotgun slung over his back. Sam fired a pistol round into the back of his head, knelt to take the shotgun, then heard a shot ricochet off the wall inches from his head. He leapt into the entryway just as a burst from an AR-15 turned the space he’d just occupied into exploding stone chips. He clambered over the stones piled in the passage, and inside the wall.
“Honey, I’m home,” he called.
“It’s about time,” she said. “I was worried sick.”
Sam climbed the steps, carrying the pump shotgun. “I counted them. There were twelve to start with and now there are six.”
“I know,” she said. “At least we made it cost them something.”
“We did better than that. I’d say at the moment we’re winning.”
She slowly shook her head. “There were more at first. At least two of them ran off into the woods about the time you did. I thought they might be after you, but then I saw them going back up the slope where they’d come from. They must be going for help.”
“Maybe now is our best chance to get out of here,” said Sam. “Let’s pack what we need in our backpacks, leave the rest, and make a run for it.”
“That’s all we can do,” she said. “Let’s hope their main camp is far away.”
He set the shotgun down beside her. “You keep watch. Use this if one comes in range.” He left the scuba gear, the tent, and most of the supplies. He packed the extra ammunition, the machetes, and the artifacts from the pool in his pack and left Remi’s. He climbed up to the wall and picked up the shotgun. “All right. Slip off into the woods and wait for me. I’ll take one last look and see if I can…” He paused, looking at the expression on Remi’s face. “What?”
She pointed in the direction of the hillside. In the waning light, they could see a long line of men walking single file down the trail toward them. “It’s not six men anymore. It’s thirty-six. They must have heard all the gunshots and started this way to see what was up. Or maybe we’re so far from civilization that they can use radios without being overheard.”
“I’m sorry, Remi,” he said. “I really thought we had a good chance.”
She kissed his cheek. “You know, there’s a lot to be said for bees. When somebody comes to wreck their hive to take their honey, the bees generally lose. But they make it as unpleasant and painful for him as possible. I respect that.”
“It’s hard not to.”
“Let’s get every magazine loaded while we can still see. And don’t forget the shotgun.”
“Right,” said Sam. He went down the steps, crawled to the body of the man he had shot, took the man’s day pack, and crawled back with it. There was a box with a dozen shells for the shotgun, but the rest was useless — a canteen, a hat, spare clothes, most of a fifth of whiskey. Sam gathered more stones from the crumbled area at the end of the pool and piled them in the passage, then carefully piled up their supply of firewood in case they needed to start a fire.
He took the powerful flashlights they had brought for diving in the cenote, then climbed to the wall where Remi waited. He checked his pistols and hers to be sure they were fully loaded, then checked the ten spare magazines and reloaded the two they’d emptied. “See anything yet?”
“Nothing I can hit,” she said. “They’re still way back, out of pistol range. I think what they’ll do is wait until it’s fully dark and then move in close enough to hit us if we show ourselves for a second.”
“That’s the time-honored method.”
“What are we planning to counter it?”
“I’m considering another time-honored method.”
There were six, then eight, rifle shots that hit along the top of the wall at intervals of about a yard. “Too late,” she said. “They’re trying to keep our heads down so they can rush the entrance.”
Sam clutched the shotgun and ran down the steps, then lay against the pile of rocks he’d built. Two men appeared in f
ront of him and he fired, pumped the shotgun, and fired again. Then Sam pumped his shotgun a second time, grasped the barrel of one man’s gun, and dragged it inside with him. It was a short submachine gun he was familiar with, an Ingram MAC-10. It had been at least ten years since they’d been manufactured, but he had no doubt it would work.
Another man appeared, and Sam fired his shotgun again, pumped it, and retreated back over the rocks. He heard gunfire coming from up on the wall, four rapid shots.
He looked up as Remi ducked down. There were fifteen or twenty shots fired at the place where she had been, but she stayed low and moved over ten feet.
Sam climbed back on the wall, peered over it, and saw four men running toward the entryway. He raised the MAC-10, popped up, and strafed the runners from above. He ducked back, having seen all four fall, but the action of the MAC-10 remained open. He had used up the ammunition. There was a storm of bullets pounding the wall now. He sat still on the walkway, waiting for it to subside. It took a while, but gradually silence returned.
“How many?” Remi called.
“Seven, I think.”
“I only got two,” she said. “When are you going to try your new strategy? Before or after we’re out of ammo?”
“Now might be a good time,” he said. He went down the steps to the entryway, looked around the wall to see if any enemies were in sight but saw none. He restacked the firewood he had piled in the passage, poured some of the whiskey on it, struck a match and lit a fire. As it grew, he kept his shotgun aimed at the opening beyond. When the fire was flaming high and the resin-dripping branches were blazing torches, he took four of them together and ran up to the walkway. He threw one of the flaming brands as far as he could over the wall, then each of the other three so they landed as widely as possible. He sat down on the walkway again and listened while thirty or forty rounds glanced uselessly off the high stone wall.
Remi made use of the concentrated fire. She fired three rounds and then ducked down. “Make that three,” she said.
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