by M. G. Harris
For the second time in twenty-four hours, I really have to ask myself, am I making the right decisions here? The first decision resulted in Camila drowning, and now I seem to have buried myself alive.
Sometimes, instincts can mislead you.
I still have Camila’s flashlight. Who knows how long it will last, though—in the jungle we had the light on for most of the past two hours.
The tunnel is about three feet high and wide. The ground is hard-packed dirt. The air is warm but dry. It smells only faintly of limestone dust—a smell that takes me back to those summers on excavations with my dad. Usually the interiors of Mayan ruins smell of dank, rotting guano. This place hasn’t been recently infested with birds or lizards. I begin to crawl ahead on my hands and knees. Within a few yards, the tunnel slopes down, then straightens up. I switch on the flashlight. Straight ahead, the tunnel takes a right turn, toward the south.
The sound of my own ragged breathing echoes in the silence. I follow the tunnel a little farther, until it comes to a dead end. There’s an opening to the left. I flash my light around. It looks like a small chamber—tall enough to stand in. I crawl inside. The room is empty. I’m holding my breath, scared stiff. It looks as though I’m trapped inside this pyramid. I have no idea how to get out. But the thought of Ixchel keeps me going. I just can’t believe that she’d save me only to set me up for something worse.
I wait there for a few minutes. Nothing happens. I check all the walls and the floor, hoping to see some special stones or recesses. But no. I’m just about to give up when, without warning, the whole floor of the room begins to lower.
Down doesn’t look like a way out. Now I feel myself losing my grip—this really could be grounds for panic. The room stretches longer and longer until the doorway I came through is only a small, dark opening near the distant ceiling. Pretty soon, my flashlight won’t even reach that far.
I stare at the walls around me. The room is like some huge long elevator whose shaft was cut into the dirt, packed with occasional limestone bricks and mortar. I hear a mechanism whirring under the floor. I’m being lowered back to ground level and beyond, deep into the earth under the pyramid.
Minutes later, it stops. The entrance to a tunnel comes into view against the side of the room. There’s no other way to go. I could never climb up the shaft in a million years. I hear the mechanism moving again. The stone elevator is about to head upward again. The only thing I can do is to keep going.
This new tunnel is high enough to walk through. I walk ahead for about fifty yards, finally reaching another opening. From the difference in the air quality, I can tell immediately that this is a large chamber. I shine my flashlight around. It’s a pretty big cavern, around thirty yards across. Water drips from stalactites and stalagmites, which form columns from ground to ceiling.
My guess is that I’ve walked into something like the Loltun caves. The Loltun is a network of naturally occurring caves and tunnels that riddle the Yucatán peninsula. There are some archaeologists who specialize in finds from these caves, but for my family they were just a fun place to visit once in a while, a way of getting away from the jungle’s heat. But with a guide! You didn’t want to go down there clueless—unless you wanted to disappear without a trace.
Then, from behind one of the columns, I see someone step out from the shadows. I shine my flashlight directly at him. A tall figure stands about twenty yards away, watching me. I freeze. He approaches, and I can only stand there. There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Through the clammy air of that cavern, his voice resonates. “Good morning, Josh Garcia. I’m Carlos Montoyo. It’s about time we met. Your father and I, we had unfinished business.”
Chapter 20
Maybe his words should mean something to me, but right then, they don’t. I’m so tired, so bewildered, that for a moment I wonder if the walls of my reality melted when I leaned against the pyramid. And whether, at some point, I’d crossed over into a parallel world.
Carlos Montoyo? For the first second or two, the name means nothing to me. I’m sorry, I want to tell him. What are you doing here?
It’s funny how context is everything. Carlos Montoyo. If I’ve imagined him at all, it’s as a benevolent academic, some crusty old college professor who took an interest in my dad.
Definitely not a Bond-villain type of guy you’d meet in an underground lair beneath a Mayan pyramid.
Montoyo steps toward me. He’s solidly built, around fifty, wears black jeans with a silky shirt and a black leather jacket. His long hair is flecked with gray and pulled back in a ponytail. His brown eyes look sad, tired, deadly. His face is marked with deep crags. I can’t quite decide which he looks more like—a trendy college lecturer or a hired assassin.
Or maybe one of those trying to pass as the other?
He stops when he’s just two yards away, looks me over with a strange smile. He sticks out a hand. I answer him with a damp, limp gesture of a handshake.
“You seem confused,” he comments in fluent English, with a hint of an accent that I can’t place, but I don’t think Spanish is his first language.
I nod. “Yeah,” I manage. I want to say, You? Here? But how? But I don’t think it will come out quite so coherently.
“Okay. First of all, I owe you an apology.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, wondering what he’s going to apologize for. The burglary? Using some weird-but-helpful girl to lure me to a cave deep under a Mayan pyramid? Killing my dad?
“Why are you here?” I ask.
“Long story.”
“Short version?”
He shrugs. “I live here. Nearby.”
I watch him closely. He doesn’t seem to be joking.
“Right, sure, in a cave? It’s, um, nice.”
He ignores that, instead saying, “I have to apologize for deceiving you. Or at least, for economizing with the truth.”
I’m still confused. “Um … Okay?”
“Some weeks ago I became aware that you’d taken up your father’s quest to find the Ix Codex.”
“How?”
He stares at me, seems slightly irritated.
“Believe me, you’re gonna have more important questions. And you don’t have all the time in the world. You’ve been reported missing already. Every minute you are away, people are looking for you. So we’ll stick with the necessary, okay, Josh?”
I nod, trembling slightly from the sudden cool. Maybe it’s fear. Or maybe it’s excitement. I’m awash with adrenaline, tingling from head to toe with anticipation.
Montoyo gives a low whistle. “Hey, kid. You’re really scared. Aren’t you?”
I shiver, shaking my head. “No. I’m not.”
“Yes.” He nods once, slowly. “You are.”
Something about his tone makes me suddenly suspicious. In a firmer voice, I tell him, “I don’t think so.”
“Your sister,” he says softly, “I want you to know—I’m really sorry about her.”
That does it. I launch myself at him, aiming a high capoeira kick straight at his throat, and I scream something at him.
He’s definitely taken by surprise. I land a kick somewhere on his head as his tries to duck. He reels slightly. Before he can recover, I aim another kick to his ribs. But somehow he’s able to swerve out of the way, spin around, and get behind me. It’s all done so fast that I don’t see it coming. Next thing I know I’m pinned to the ground and he’s on top of me, pressing my face against the cold rock floor of the cave.
“Bravo, Josh. Qué bárbaro! But now you’re gonna listen to me. All right?”
I give a quick nod, tears of frustration springing to my eyes.
“I didn’t kill your sister. You got that? I wasn’t in the car chasing you. Okay? The fact that I know what happened under no circumstances makes me guilty of her death. Can we agree on that?”
I nod again and close my eyes. I’m really losing it now.
“And, in case you need to hear this too, I didn’t k
ill your father. Okay?”
He releases me and sits back. I sit up, looking down all the time, ashamed of my tears.
“Grief is nothing to be ashamed of, son. You should cry for your father; you should cry for your sister. What happened to her—and almost happened to you—it’s very sad.”
I’m choked with emotion as I mumble, “I couldn’t save her.”
“Of course not,” Montoyo says soothingly. “A situation like that, every second counts.”
“I tried,” I tell him, staring straight into his eyes. “I really tried.”
He looks back, deep brown eyes studying mine. “I know.”
I breathe deeply, trying to get myself under control again. Watching me, Montoyo tells me, “I know what happened, because we were following you. Not from the road.” He glances upward. “From the sky.”
“What …?”
Montoyo nods. “Yes. Later, I’ll show you. But first, tell me, what did you think of Ixchel?”
“The Pumas-shirt girl?”
Montoyo breaks into a grin. It transforms him entirely. “Yes, the ‘Pumas-shirt girl.’”
“She’s got a pretty big chip on her shoulder.”
Montoyo chuckles. “That’s true. But did you like her?”
“Why?”
“Hmm. Just wondered. Kind of hoped you’d get along.”
“I wasn’t really in the mood for getting along. Neither was she.” I shake my head, annoyed. “Will you please just tell me … what the hell is going on?”
“Okay. That’s fair. But we need to get moving. Can we walk and talk?”
We both get to our feet.
“We’re going somewhere?”
“Going somewhere? Oh yes. You could even call it the adventure of your life.”
I hesitate. I don’t feel afraid anymore, even though maybe I should. I’ve already thrown out the idea that Montoyo is a psycho, hell-bent on killing me. He’s had plenty of opportunity—he could have crushed my skull against the ground only a moment ago. Wherever he learned to fight like that, he’s been taught well. I didn’t stand a chance.
Even so, I want to see if I’m still free to go.
“What if I say no? Can I go back?”
He seems genuinely taken aback. “Of course. It’s your choice, Josh. You can go back to the top, back to your life. Forget this happened. Or you can come with me, and discover what’s behind all of this. But you need to know one thing. If you come with me, you’ll leave behind everything you thought you knew about the world.”
I stammer slightly, saying, “But my mom … and my friends?”
“You’ll see them again. I won’t lie to you, it won’t be the same. Nothing will be the same. In many ways, your childhood will be over. But then … I imagine after what you’ve been through today, that’s already the case. Isn’t it?”
Today? This is about so much more than today. I feel as though everything in the last few weeks has been leading up to this. Maybe longer. Like grandfather, like father, like son—is this where it’s all been heading?
There’s an unstoppable drive inside me that tells me that it is.
“Okay. Let’s do this. I’m in.”
I follow him into a narrowish tunnel, about ten feet high and six feet wide. Hanging from some kind of rail in the ceiling are what I can only describe as something like ski chairlifts. Montoyo gestures toward one of the chairs. He waits for me to sit down, then sits in the second chair. He pulls down on two metal lapels sticking out of the top of the chair, above the shoulders. They extend to reveal two cushioned straps, which he crosses over his chest, then plugs into two slots in the sides of the seat. He turns expectantly to me, so I do the same. When Montoyo seems satisfied that I’m correctly strapped in, he presses another button in the side of his chair. A small console rises out of a central panel that separates our two chairs. It swings into place over his lap. For a couple of seconds he’s preoccupied with a small visual display unit that lights up in the console.
I speak up. “Um … where are we going?”
He doesn’t look up from his button punching, but grins.
“To Ek Naab, my friend. To the eternal city of Dark Water.”
I remember the line from the Calakmul letter.
In their Holy City of Ek Naab they wait.
Ek Naab. It’s not just some obscure name in an ancient inscription. It’s real. Hidden, secret, and lost—under Becan.
Chapter 21
Abruptly, Montoyo stops pressing buttons. The console returns to its position in the central panel.
I ask what he’s doing.
“Navigation,” he replies curtly. “This isn’t a route for the uninitiated. We don’t take kindly to intruders.”
“What happens?”
“Booby traps,” he says with an unpleasant smile. “You don’t want to know.”
“You kill people?”
He doesn’t answer my openmouthed question. A large button lights up on the central panel. Montoyo presses it. After that all I can hear is my own voice, yelling.
There’s a sound like a small explosion of hydraulic pressure. Our chair is catapulted forward. We’re yanked back into our seats. We hurtle toward what looks like a solid wall of rock. At the very last minute, the chair plummets, falling into the void. I feel my guts lift up inside me. We fall crazily, in a dizzying downward spiral, plunged into the darkness like a rocket totally out of control, like a Catherine wheel released from the pin. We pull out of the drop into a steep climb. After that I lose track. The wall of the tunnel speeds past. Every so often I spot openings, turnings. Some we take, some we miss. I understand then what Montoyo said. At this kind of speed only an expert could navigate safely through the tunnels.
Every so often we pass through a wide opening and I catch a glimpse of something. I see a cavern filled with the glow of phosphorescent stones, see our blurred reflection in a pool of mirror water, see a stalagmite as tall as a telephone pole and thick as a redwood, see another chair skim by, the occupants a white fuzz in the distance. We tumble into a tight loop that crushes us into our seats, then shoot out into another hard curve, before beginning a series of steep climbs. Then a sudden deceleration.
As we slow down, I catch my breath. I stare ahead. I can see bright lights. It’s like coming out of a tunnel in the London Underground. When we finally stop, that is exactly how it looks to me: like a subway station. Empty, clean, no turnstiles, but basically, somewhere to dock.
There’s no one around. This is like nowhere I’ve ever been. The doorways are arches in the classic Mayan corbelled style. The building material seems to be local limestone, just like above the ground. But there is also metal, wood, and ceramics. The walls are tiled with Spanish-style decorated ceramic tiles, except the designs are Mayan. The floors are lined with traditional terra-cotta Spanish floor tiles.
Montoyo helps me out of the chair and I step onto the platform. I stare in awe, speechless. Finally, Montoyo seems happy to stop, to let me take a moment.
“This is it, Josh, the place your father was really searching for. The centuries-old secret of the ancient Maya. Ek Naab is alive.”
I gaze at Montoyo, see raw emotion cloud his eyes.
“You see, our civilization is not so finished after all. Some of us did escape the Spanish, the conquista.”
I just gawk. “What … what are you saying? Mayans live down here? Ancient Mayans?”
Montoyo nods.
“A living city,” I breathe. “Just like John Lloyd Stephens said …”
Montoyo breaks into a delighted grin. “You’ve read Stephens,” he murmurs. “I’m so glad.”
“Okay … not actually … not myself. My mom and dad had his books. They told me about it …”
He looks a little bit disappointed. “You should read him—he’s really excellent.”
“I can’t now,” I comment. “Someone broke into our house and took the Stephens book along with all our computers.”
“Why would someone steal t
hat book?” Montoyo asks with a frown.
I shrug. “I’ve been asking myself that.”
“Well, Josh, I can confirm that we are the descendents of one particular ancient Maya community.”
“But you … I mean … you’re Maya?” I can’t bring myself to say it, but his face is obviously not pure Maya. He’s as Hispanic as most middle-class Mexicans.
As if guessing my thoughts, Montoyo smiles sadly. “I didn’t say we were completely exclusive. We’d have become completely inbred long ago, if not for bringing in new blood. A few travelers found their way to us—explorers. My ancestors include men from Spain and Germany. Yours were from Spain. But we can claim continuity. The people who lived here were never conquered. We trace a direct line back over two millennia, to the very dawn of Mayan civilization.”
My ancestors? I guess I should have seen that coming. But the surprises are arriving so thick and fast that I’m not getting time to process properly.
Montoyo helps me out. “Your great-great-great-grandfather was a Spaniard, Isidro Garcia de Vega. He married a woman here. And your grandfather, well, that’s a whole other story.”
Then, maddeningly, he begins to walk again.
“Come on, Josh. There’s a lot to see. We have to get you back before a search begins in earnest. We have much to do.”
I follow him, jogging to keep up.
“Why am I here? And if it wasn’t you in the blue Nissan, then who was it?”
“The man chasing you, his name is Simon Madison. According to his passport, a U.S. citizen, occupation listed as a systems engineer …”
“Never heard of him.”
“Of course,” Montoyo says. “It’s probably not his real passport. Most likely he’s undercover.”
“With the NRO?”
“It’s possible.”
“And you’ve been watching him?”