She listened to her own silent rehearsal and pronounced herself satisfied. San Martin was like everyone else. He would vent his wrath on someone, but it would not be Sarah Allersby. She remained a very useful ally that would cost him money and be trouble to lose. San Martin just needed an excuse to do what was obviously in his own interest.
The Maybach arrived at the airport and floated past the terminals along the chain-link fences to the special entrance to the private jet hangars. The guard opened the gate as soon as her car was in sight. Some crazy revolutionary wasn’t going to drive up in a car worth nearly half a million dollars and blow up a plane. Her driver took her to her hangar, and she saw the plane had already been towed out. The pilot, Phil Jameson, was going through his preflight check. The fuel truck was driving off down the line toward its next customer. Sarah Allersby’s steward, Morgan, was visible through the lighted windows, refilling the refrigerator and stocking the bar.
The Maybach stopped, and she said to the driver, “I’ll be away for at least a month. You’ll get thirty days’ pay and then you’ll be called when I need you again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He popped the trunk, took out her suitcase, and rolled it to the plane. Morgan came to take it for her.
He carried it up the steps, placed it in the closet, closed the door, then placed a strap across the opening so even if the door opened, it couldn’t move. “Can I take your coat?”
“Yes,” she said, and shrugged it off. It took only a few more minutes before the cabin door was closed and the pilot began to taxi out toward the end of the runway.
A few minutes more and the plane turned into the wind, sped along the runway, and lifted into the air. As Sarah looked out the window and down, she saw the little country receding below her, keeping with it all the recent strife and disappointment and the unpleasant little people who had thwarted her efforts. As her plane rose above the puffy layer of white clouds into the dark sky, she felt lighter, cleaner, and without unpleasant encumbrances. She was flying home to London. It would be comforting to visit her father and to shelter in his big, powerful presence. And London was still London. Maybe this trip would be fun.
FRAIJANES, GUATEMALA
The truck carrying Russell and Ruiz reached the large, forbidding Pavón prison at the edge of the suburban town of Fraijanes. As they joined the men being herded out of the army trucks, Ruiz said, “I don’t see any lawyers.”
Russell said, “They’ll be here. She wouldn’t let us rot in a place like this.”
The soldiers herded them in through a high gate made of iron bars with razor wire at the top. Ruiz whispered, “I don’t even see any civilian guards. I think this is one of those places where the prisoners run things.”
“Don’t worry,” said Russell. “She’d have to be crazy to abandon us.”
“Let’s hope she’s not,” said Ruiz. “Either way, we’d better get ready to make our own way out.”
LONDON
It was morning when Sarah Allersby’s plane descended over London and then reached Biggin Hill Airport southeast of the city.
The plane landed smoothly on the suburban airport’s main runway and taxied to the flight line, where its only passenger would disembark. The plane stopped, and the ground crew chocked its wheels and attached the grounding wire to the electrical ground. Then the steps were lowered.
Sarah could breathe in the cool, damp British air that came in through the open hatch. She stood up just as the British Customs men arrived. They collected the customs declaration that Morgan the steward had filled out and initialed for her. She had brought, as always, fifty Cuban cigars for her father that had been miraculously marked down to less than three hundred pounds. The fully stocked bar in the plane was said to be less than two liters.
The head customs man said, “Is that your suitcase, miss?”
“Yes it is,” said Sarah Allersby.
“May I look inside?”
She hesitated, her eyes suddenly unblinking and her lips parted. Usually the customs people didn’t bother looking so closely. She was a person of importance from an ancient family. She wasn’t going to be bringing in explosives or a bag of cocaine. She wasted a tenth of a second wanting to say, “You never asked before.” And she sensed that her instant of hesitation might be enough to doom her.
The head customs man opened her suitcase on the built-in table. He flipped the jewel box open, apparently just confirming that she’d be carrying more jewels than a Spanish treasure ship. He saw the banded stacks of money and set them aside. Of course she’d have money. No matter. But what’s this?
The customs man popped the plastic cover and examined the folded strip of ancient fig bark, caught sight of the paintings inside, and closed it. “Miss Allersby, this appears to be a genuine Mayan artifact. A codex.”
She looked at the man closely and saw that he was an educated man. She was not going to talk him out of his appraisal of the codex by saying it was a copy or a decoration or something. He was right and he knew it.
Three hours later, a gang of her father’s solicitors and barristers, men famous for keeping every kind of inconvenient question unanswered, had rescued her. She was not going to be allowed to leave the country. Her passport was being held for ransom. But most irritating of all was the fact that the codex, her precious Mayan codex, had been confiscated as evidence that she had broken the international law against transporting historical treasures.
It was the most important of the lawyers, Anthony Brent Greaves, who sat beside her in his limousine to spirit her away from the authorities. While they were driving into the city, she said, “Anthony, I’m too exhausted to jump right into setting up a household. Take me to my father’s house in Knightsbridge.”
“I’m sorry,” said Greaves, “he asked me to tell you it wouldn’t be possible right now. He’s got a dinner party, and there will be several people there who attract the press.”
“Oh,” she said. “So he won’t see me.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Greaves said. “You may be the one in the family who knows the habits and taboos of faraway places. But he’s the old hand in the jungles of London. He’s going to work the powerful in your interest, but quietly.”
“I understand.”
Greaves had won his point. He spoke to his driver. “We’ll take Lady Sarah to her house in Brompton.”
Chapter 34
SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS
The Guatemalan army arrived in the town of Santa Maria de los Montañas on a Monday. On Tuesday, a helicopter landed in a cornfield a mile from the town. Out of it stepped Commander Rueda.
When Rueda and his lieutenants arrived in the town square, Sam and Remi were among the people waiting to greet him. Sam said, “It’s good to see you again, Commander. What brings you here?”
Rueda shrugged, but he couldn’t hide a smile. “It seems that Sarah Allersby has been arrested in London for bringing a Mayan codex into the United Kingdom. So some powerful people have had to change their positions on these matters quickly. I’ve been appointed acting commander of the government forces in the region.”
“Congratulations,” said Remi. “Is it proper to ask what you’re going to do?”
“Certainly. I want to be very open about everything we do. Right now, I have troops in the Estancia Guerrero searching for drugs. There are others in Guatemala City searching Sarah Allersby’s home, office, and a few business properties for signs that she’s been plundering archaeological sites.”
“Hooray for you,” said Remi.
“I hope you’ll still feel that way if we ask you to testify,” said Rueda.
“We’ll be delighted,” said Sam. “It will give us an excuse to come back here. We’ve made some good friends.” He noticed some faces nearby. “Here are two of them that you should know. Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta. This is Commander Rueda, my friends. He is honest, completely aware of the problems in the area, and, fortunately for everyone, the officer in charge from now on.”
Rueda gave a slight military bow. “I’ve heard of you both. We know you’ve been trying to stop the movement of drugs, and, if I may say so, the people of Guatemala thank you for your courage.”
Remi was distracted. She pointed down the long road. Far away, a low black cloud had stretched across the horizon. “Look!” she said. “A fire.”
Rueda gave it a glance. “My men are conducting a controlled burn of the marijuana fields at Estancia Guerrero. I understand they’ve confirmed your identification of coca trees too. Everything beyond what they’ve kept for evidence is being destroyed.” He looked at his two aides. “I guess we’d better be going. There’s much to do.”
Sam and Remi drove Rueda and his aides to the helicopter. Just as Rueda was about to board, he took Sam and Remi aside. “This probably isn’t going to mean anything, but I have to tell you that the two men who tried to kill you a few weeks ago were among the men captured. After two days in a prison near the capital, they killed two men who were about to leave on a work release assignment and took their places. We think they’ve left the country, but we’re not sure.”
“We’ll keep our eyes open,” said Sam. As the rotors began to turn, he and Remi stepped back to avoid the wash of air and watched them depart. Sam reached for his cell phone and called Selma.
“Sam and Remi, I was worried about you,” she said. “Did you get everything resolved?”
“I did,” said Sam.
“Has David Caine arrived yet?”
“David Caine? Is he coming?”
Selma said, “He was always planning to come. Final examinations ended on Friday. It’s June, Sam. You’re studying the Mayans and nobody has a calendar?”
“Oh,” he said. “I guess we should have remembered.”
* * *
David Caine arrived at the head of a convoy of Land Rovers, which made their way up the hill with relative ease and then pulled up in a row on the street just beyond the church. Caine jumped down and threw his arms around Sam and Remi. “I’ve heard what you two did. You’re amazing.”
“Thanks,” said Remi quietly. “What you and your colleagues will find here is more amazing. But you’d better let us smooth the way before you do any exploring. In the meantime, smile at everybody, talk to them about anything except archaeology, and be patient. We’ve already cleared the way for a public meeting where we can introduce you.”
Chapter 35
LONDON
Sarah Allersby was bored in London. In Guatemala City, she had been the center of attention. In parts of Europe, she had been invited to everything — Rome, Athens, Berlin, Prague. Even in Paris she had been to the best places with sought-after young people.
But now because of the ridiculous court order, she was not permitted to leave rainy, cold, damp London. Worse, the social climate in London had not been warm. She’d had such bad press for the past couple of months, with the accusations that she’d looted Mayan tombs, claimed to discover sites that had already been registered, and used a Mayan codex she wasn’t supposed to have.
Beginning a day ago, rumors about her had begun to circulate, and she was being associated with some huge drug bust in Central America. People had already canceled their RSVPs, so the welcome-home dinner party she was throwing for herself was dissolving. She could hear the fear in their voices. They had been scared their precious reputations would be tarnished if they shared hors d’oeuvres with mad, bad Sarah Allersby. A year ago, any of them would have come to her party even if they’d had to crawl to her house on their knees.
She stood in front of the big mirror by the door and inspected herself as she buttoned her navy blue coat. The buttons were gold, and the coat looked like a piece of an eighteenth-century naval officer’s uniform. She half turned to present her profile to the mirror, stepped to the door, and opened it. The .308 caliber bullet pierced her forehead and passed through the back of her skull, destroying her brain so fast that she never heard the report of the rifle, if there was one.
Through the rifle scope, Russell could see that she had fallen backward, and the heavy front door had begun to swing closed. It had been stopped by one of her feet, so it looked as though it had been partially opened by someone about to leave who had gone back in to get something.
Russell put down the rifle while Ruiz closed and locked the window and then drew the curtain. Russell quickly dismantled the rifle and placed it in his suitcase. He and Ruiz hurried down the back staircase, then into the kitchen and out the back door to the garden. It was midmorning, so there were cars and people on nearby streets, but nobody seemed to have noticed anything.
The house they had been in was for sale. It was only one number down and across the street from Sarah’s and it was the same kind of place. Four million pounds was what they’d been asking. Russell and Ruiz had spent only about an hour in the house and had worn rubber gloves.
As Russell rushed through the back garden — such a British thing in itself — he felt satisfied. Sarah had broken her promise and let him and Ruiz go to a Guatemalan jail. So now she had received her payment. Russell got into the car that they’d left waiting at the curb, and Ruiz drove. Ruiz seemed to be better at driving on the wrong side of the road. He stopped the car on the way so Russell could drop the pieces of the rifle in a series of trash cans.
At Waterloo station, they stopped in a men’s room to change clothes and wash their hands. They took the big yellow-and-white Eurostar train to Paris. It would take them three hours to get there, but they had premium first-class tickets, and the ride promised to be restful. And anything was better than the prison they’d escaped from in Guatemala.
The train chugged slowly through London and its inner suburbs and then gained speed. After about an hour, it entered the tunnel under the English Channel, and the windows went dark.
* * *
Santiago Obregón looked from the passageway of the train at the two Americans in their premium seats. They appeared to be sleeping. It was astounding to Obregón that these two imagined that Diego San Martin would let them waste nearly a hundred of his men and go off to Europe in safety. He was grateful to them for killing Sarah Allersby because otherwise he’d have had to do it.
Obregón sat across from the Americans in their compartment as though he belonged there. He reached into his briefcase and took out his tool, a CZ P-07 Duty pistol with a factory-threaded muzzle and special high sights to provide a view over the sound suppressor. He shot the two Americans in the chest quickly to preclude resistance.
He stood and shot the first American in the head to be sure he died and then aimed the gun at the head of the second. The man addressed him in Spanish. “Who are you? Why kill us?”
“Why do you kill?” said Obregón. “For money.” He pulled the trigger. He pressed his pistol into the right hand of the dead man. Then he went out and moved to another car. Before too long, they would be arriving in the Gare du Nord.
Chapter 36
SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS
The town meeting was held in the church, with Father Gomez presiding. At the end, he said, “You have all heard the arguments for allowing the archaeologists to excavate the stronghold and all the reasons not to permit it. You will each take a piece of paper and write Sí or No and put it in the collection box.”
The people lined up and voted. When they had finished, Father Gomez, Dr. Huerta, and Andreas, the new mayor, counted the votes. The town had voted overwhelmingly to allow Dr. Caine’s team to dig.
In the morning, at seven, the members of the expedition were joined by Father Gomez at the head of a delegation from the town. As they started the long climb up the narrow path, Father Gomez said, “Dr. Caine, there are things you need to know and this is my first chance to tell you. You know this place is sacred to the local people. The ones buried up there are not strangers, they’re ancestors. They were the rulers of the city of Kixch’ent and the survivors of a great war against a city about thirty miles to the east in about 790 A.D. When it became
apparent that they were terribly outnumbered and losing, they gathered a group of loyal warriors, along with the most valuable things they owned. They carried them here.”
“You mean this was to be their last stand?”
“Exactly. They built a fortified watchtower where the church is now. Then they brought their people up on the plateau and built a stronghold there. When the enemy came, the stronghold held. But people died and were buried up there, and precious objects were buried with them — weapons, ornaments, everything that was of great value to them.”
“So what’s up there is all from a war of the classic period?”
“Not all of it. Two hundred years later, in the 950s A.D., the people of the city had to retreat to the stronghold again. Events played out roughly the same. The place was too steep, too high, and too well defended to fall. Eventually, the people returned to their city. Later, when Spanish soldiers came near, the people of Alta Verapaz fought them savagely and held them off. But, as a precaution, the people brought what was most precious to them and their culture up to the stronghold.”
David Caine said, “And nobody has ever dug here?”
“No,” said Father Gomez. “A few have tried. The people of the town killed them. Time passed. The people accepted Christianity. The watchtower was torn down and the stones used to build the church. The world forgot the little it ever knew about this place. But the people never forgot any of it.”
Caine said, “I can see they’re very protective.”
“Be aware that they’ve decided to trust you because they love Sam and Remi Fargo and would do anything that they asked. Don’t ever let the people think you aren’t living up to what you promised and respecting their ancient kings. You would not last a day.”
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