The Mayan Secrets fa-5

by Clive Cussler

  Now that they were in central Guatemala, whatever they had brought in their packs would have to do. There was no going back to pick up one more item. The closest place where Selma could have anything delivered was far away in Guatemala City. When Sam and Remi reached the end of the navigable section of the river at Panzós, they saw a loaded coffee truck parked along the dirt road above the river and pointed west. They asked their boatman to serve as interpreter to ask the driver for a ride, and learned that he was the boatman’s friend. They arranged to pay him a few Quetzales in exchange for a ride to the end of the road.

  The ride lasted for two days. Their host had an iPod, with all of his favorite songs on it, and a cable that connected the iPod to the truck’s radio speakers. His playlist began with songs in Spanish and then a few in English, and soon the three of them were singing loudly in whichever language came up as they bounced along the rough, rutted road westward through the forest.

  At midday on the second day, they pulled into a depot where their dirt road met a larger dirt road. Trucks from other parts of the region were there unloading their coffee sacks onto a conveyor to be weighed, counted, and reloaded onto tractor-trailer trucks that drove on along the larger road. They bid an affectionate good-bye to the driver, who would soon get his turn at the scale, get paid, and go home.

  When they walked off to the west, they checked their position on the GPS screens on their satellite phones. They were within twenty miles of their first-choice destination. They walked the rest of the day, heading straight for it. In the late afternoon, they crossed a game trail, and that made walking easier, although the trail angled a bit north of their destination. The vegetation was thick, and the tops of the trees stood over the trail like a line of umbrellas. There was little breeze, but the shade kept them from suffering under the sun.

  They checked their position frequently and continued on the game trail. As they moved farther from the road and closer to the place they were looking for, they walked in near silence. When they needed to talk, they would stop to rest on a fallen log or a low, twisted limb, put their heads close, and whisper. They listened to the calls of birds and the screeches of the troops of howler monkeys passing overhead, trying to discern whether they’d been disturbed by human beings somewhere up ahead.

  Sam and Remi had trekked through wilderness together many times, so they were comfortable moving through the Guatemalan highlands. The rhythms of the forest immediately became their rhythms. They got up as the sun was beginning to restore colors to the world, but it would not be above the horizon for another hour. They ate simply and broke camp so they could get in three or four hours of hiking before the day grew hot. They stopped when the sun was beginning to sink so they could select a site and set up their camp while they could still see. They used each opportunity to replenish their water supply by boiling and treating springwater or the water from streams. Their fires were small, made in shallow pits that Sam dug. If the wood was damp enough to smoke, they would go without the fire and eat preserved food from packets.

  On the morning of the third day, the Global Positioning System on their satellite phones showed that they were close to the ruined city. They used Remi’s phone to call Selma in San Diego.

  “Good morning,” said Selma. “How is it going so far?”

  “We’re getting very close, so we’re calling now and then expect to be texting for a while to maintain silence,” Remi said.

  “Have you seen anyone yet?”

  “Not since we left the road three days ago,” said Remi. “Even then, we were the only truck on the road. Are you tracking our phones’ GPS signals?”

  “Yes,” Selma said. “Very clearly. I know right where you are.”

  “Then we’ll text you if we learn anything.”

  “Please do,” Selma said. “I’m getting a huge e-book bill and a ghostly pallor because I don’t want to leave the office to go to a bookstore and miss your calls.”

  “Sorry,” said Remi. “Kiss Zoltán for me.”

  “I will.”

  “Bye.”

  They hung up, and the next sound they heard was so shocking in the silence that they both swiveled their heads to locate its source. There was the faint thrum of a helicopter in the distance. They tried to spot the helicopter, but they were in a low dale beneath a thick canopy of leaves that obscured the sky. The engine grew louder until its roar overwhelmed all of the natural sounds of the forest.

  They knew better than to stand and climb up to see it. After a minute, the helicopter passed overhead, and Sam and Remi looked up at it, seeing the wind from its rotors whipping the leaves of the upper tree branches around wildly before it swept on to the north and out of sight. They could hear the engine at about the same decibel level for another two minutes, and then the sound stopped entirely.

  “I think it landed,” said Remi.

  “So do I,” said Sam. “Ready to take a closer look?”

  “Going to find them is probably better than letting them find us.”

  Sam and Remi put their packs in order. They loaded their spare pistols and moved them to a zippered outer compartment of their backpacks and hid Sam’s phone in another compartment. They took with them only one pistol each, under their shirts, and Remi’s phone. They hid their backpacks under thick foliage, marked the nearest tree, then moved off up the game trail.

  As they walked, they did not speak, just directed each other’s attention with a nod or a simple hand gesture. They would stop every twenty yards to listen but heard only the sounds of the forest. On the fourth stop, they heard human voices. Several men were talking loudly in Spanish, their voices overlapping and interrupting in cascades of words too fast for the rudimentary Spanish Sam had begun to learn.

  And then the forest ahead of them brightened. Beyond the rank of trees was a large clearing. A group of men unloaded equipment from the helicopter and carried it to a place where a sun awning had been erected. There were several aluminum cases, a couple of video cameras, tripods, and unidentifiable accessories.

  They could see the pilot, standing beside the open door of his helicopter, with earphones on and a wire connecting him to the instrument panel. He spoke to someone on the radio.

  Sam and Remi moved cautiously inside the forest, venturing closer to the edge. Suddenly Remi raised her eyes and pointed. At the right side of the large open area of low weeds and grasses, a high wooded hill that had been only partially visible looked different from this angle. From this side, Sam and Remi could see a stone stairway, straight and uninterrupted, running from the ground to the apex. The partial excavation of the steep hill revealed that what had seemed to be natural irregularities were layers of the pyramid. They were flat, with trees and brush growing on them, but in places the roots had dislodged stones from the structure and collapsed a corner from one level to the level below, making the profile more like a hill than a building.

  This was unquestionably the step pyramid that had been depicted on the codex map and had appeared in the aerial photograph. A crew of about a hundred workmen were attacking the structure with axes, picks, mattocks, shovels, and buckets to clear the pyramid of about a thousand years of accumulated leaves, humus, dirt, and living plants. They moved quickly and swung hard, more like a demolition crew than archaeologists. They hacked away at the debris covering the pyramid. Other workers were cutting and burning brush in different parts of the complex. Their labor was baring stone structures in all directions. Sam reached to Remi’s hand, took her phone, and began to take pictures.

  Remi whispered, “If David Caine could see the way this place is being pounded and abused, it would kill him.” After a minute, she noticed a platoon of armed men moving single file out of the jungle, on the far side of the complex. There were about twenty of them, all carrying rifles on slings. There were a few other armed men stationed on the upper levels of the buildings. A couple of them waved to the men just arriving.

  Sam was busy taking photographs with Remi’s phone. He revie
wed the shots, then sent them to Selma. He put away the phone and tapped Remi on the shoulder. They stayed low and slowly edged away from the cleared area. When they could, they stood and walked back up the game trail until they judged they were out of earshot. Sam pressed a number on Remi’s phone and then the call button.

  “Policía federales.”

  “Hello. This is Sam Fargo.”

  “And this is Commander Rueda,” said the voice. “I’ve been keeping this line clear for your call.”

  “Thank you, Commander. We’re at the coordinates we gave you before we left home. As the Mayan codex indicated, what’s here is a large city with a temple complex. We’ve been watching a crew of around a hundred men clearing away dirt and vegetation as fast as they can. There are also armed guards. A little while ago, a helicopter landed with what looks like a film crew.”

  “Are they doing anything criminal?”

  “They’re uncovering the buildings with picks, mattocks, and shovels without much regard to the damage they do to what’s beneath. But I’d say that the main problem so far is the one we’ve told you about. The only way that Sarah Allersby could have found this place is if she has the stolen Mayan codex from the University of California, San Diego.”

  “If I send a squad of men to that location, will they find anything to charge her with?”

  “I think they’ll find notes that indicate where she learned the location, or even a photocopy of the codex page, which would prove it’s been in her possession,” Sam said. “Either way, maybe police can get the workers to excavate properly and not destroy what they’re uncovering.”

  “All right. I’ll send a helicopter with soldiers to check on the excavation. That’s all I can promise.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Thank you.” He handed Remi her phone.

  Remi called Selma. “Hi, Selma. We’ve been to the site. Have you seen the pictures? You can tell David it’s as big as he thought. Sam just called the cops to come and take a look at the terrible job they’re doing on this dig. We’re hoping they’ll also find evidence that she used the map in the codex.”

  “Don’t let the police forget that it could be in a computer or her phone, or it could be disguised as something else.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s a fishing expedition, and we know fish don’t all look the same.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. We’re on our way back to the site.”

  Sam and Remi moved up the trail again to the clearing. As they crouched in the brush, looking at what must have been the great plaza of the ancient Mayan city, they heard the distant chop of another helicopter. This one came from the south like the other, but its engine sounded different. The helicopter came straight in over the jungle, hovered above the center of the plaza, and then came down not far from the first helicopter.

  The four-man camera crew that had been loitering under the sun awning snatched up their equipment and trotted to the helicopter, where the rotors were just slowing down, and began to film. Among them were a soundman, carrying a microphone on a long pole, a cinematographer with a video camera on his shoulder, a lighting man with battery-operated lights and a white umbrella on a tripod, and a fourth man with a large pack who paid out a length of insulated cord that led to a box under the awning.

  The helicopter’s engine stopped, and a door on the side opened. The first one out was Sarah Allersby’s security guard, who looked like a cage fighter. He was broad and muscular, wore olive drab pants and a khaki shirt, and carried a small weapon on a sling that looked like a machine pistol. He stood by with the open door at his back while the main occupant of the helicopter stepped down.

  Sarah Allersby’s golden blond hair was tied straight back in a ponytail that shone on the back of her handmade, light blue cotton work shirt. She wore a pair of slacks of tropical khaki, but they were tailor-fitted. She wore tie boots designed like combat boots but made of a soft brown, polished leather. Her costume looked perfect for an adventure but would not have stood up to a strenuous hour in this jungle.

  As Sarah Allersby stepped away from the helicopter, the cameraman and his assistant sidestepped along beside her, recording her arrival as if she were General MacArthur stepping off the landing craft onto the beach at Leyte. As she walked, men in jungle gear, who had been waiting for her, approached and spoke to her with exaggerated respect, bowing, and then joined her entourage as she advanced, pointing out parts of the pyramid that towered above them.

  The group walked all the way to the bottom of the great stairway and climbed a few steps upward. The cameraman said something, and Sarah Allersby stopped. She conferred with the man. Then they all walked back to the helicopter.

  Once again, the crew filmed Sarah Allersby, swinging her legs and hopping out of the helicopter, then chatting knowledgeably with the overseers of her excavation crew, as she walked with heroic determination to the foot of the pyramid. The cameraman stopped the action, talked to Sarah Allersby, played back some of the tape for her, and pointed out various aspects of it. They all returned to the helicopter, and the drama was repeated once more.

  After the first scene, in which she took symbolic ownership of the pyramid, had been perfected, there were a few other scenes. Sarah Allersby sat at a table under the awning. She and her supposed colleagues had a large paper, unfolded and spread on the table, with stones from the nearby temple holding down the corners. She pointed at various spots on the map, or diagram, as though she were explaining her plan of attack to a group of lieutenants.

  Sam and Remi could not hear what was being said, and they assumed it was beyond their Spanish comprehension, but they watched, fascinated, as Sarah Allersby documented her discovery of the ancient Mayan city.

  The filming took a couple of hours. Between takes, a woman Sam and Remi had assumed to be an archaeologist when she’d followed Sarah Allersby from her helicopter, would open a large black chest and redo Sarah Allersby’s makeup and hair. At one point, the two of them entered a tent and returned a half hour later. Sarah had changed into a different outfit, a pair of designer jeans and a silk blouse. The cameraman filmed her pretending to excavate a shallow hole that had been dug before she arrived and divided into squares with strings on stakes. There were close-ups of her using a brush to clean dirt off a set of obsidian tools that had been planted in the hole for her to find.

  During this process, Sam and Remi took their own brief movies of the action. But as Sam was aiming Remi’s telephone in the direction of the false dig, he saw in the viewfinder the head of one of the guards across the plaza suddenly turn toward him. The guard pointed and shouted something to his companions. Sam covered the phone. “I’m afraid that guy caught a reflection off the phone,” he whispered.

  Sam took Remi’s arm and began to back away into the jungle. They could easily outrun the men, who were hundreds of yards away, but others on the pyramid repeated the alarm, and men who were only a few yards from Sam and Remi heard and dashed toward them.

  “Ditch your gun,” said Sam, and they both dropped their guns in the brush and covered them with a thick layer of leaves.

  “Now what?” asked Remi.

  “Now we can arrive for a peaceful surprise visit with our pal Sarah instead of a shootout with thirty guards.”

  Sam and Remi walked out of the jungle and onto the ground that was once the great plaza. They walked toward the pyramid with open, smiling faces, pointing up at various features and commenting to each other. Remi said, “So what do we say to them?”

  “Whatever comes to mind. We’re taking up time until the cavalry arrives.” He pointed up the long staircase, and said, “That temple really is incredible, though, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe we can arrange to be sacrificed instead of shot and improve next year’s harvest.”

  Just as they were approaching the shallow dig, Sarah Allersby glanced up at the commotion and saw them. She threw down her brush, bobbed to her feet, and stood with her hands on her hips, her face contorted with rag
e. She stepped up out of the dig just as the armed men arrived to surround Sam and Remi.

  The Fargos simply stopped and waited for Sarah Allersby to push through the ring of men from the other side.

  “You two!” she said. “What does it take to make you leave me alone?”

  Sam shrugged. “You could give back the codex or we could surrender it to the Mexican government with your good wishes. That would probably do.” He turned to Remi. “How about you? Would you be satisfied if she gave the codex back?”

  “I think I would,” Remi said. “Of course I don’t agree that we’ve been bothering you, Miss Allersby. How could we possibly know in advance that you would be here today?”

  The armed men who were standing by were exchanging dark looks. It wasn’t possible to be sure which ones understood English, but they seemed to see that whatever Remi had said had enraged their employer.

  Sam said, “Since we’re all here, would you like to show us around the site? We’d be interested in seeing what your men have uncovered so far. Since you’re busy filming, maybe we could just walk along behind the crew.”

  Sarah Allersby was so angry that her jaw muscles seemed to be flexing over and over. She stared down at the ground for a second, raised her head, and shouted, “Russell!”

  From somewhere behind her, among the film people, came a voice. “Yes, Miss Allersby?”

  The man who appeared had a bright red face. From the roots of his hair to the neck of his shirt, his outer layer of skin had been removed. It seemed so tender and inflamed that it hurt to look at it. Over the red skin was a thick, shiny layer of Vaseline. He wore a hat with a wide brim to keep any hint of direct sunlight off his face.

  Sarah Allersby said, “These visitors want to be taken on a tour. Can you please take them on a tour?”

  “I’ll be happy to, Miss Allersby.”

  The man turned and gave Sam a hard push on the back to send him stumbling toward the jungle across the plaza. As a second man took a step toward Remi, she turned and caught up with Sam. The second man called out something in Spanish, and about ten of the armed men came along too.