“So, you suspect this may only be the first strike. There could be more.”
“It’s a possibility,” said the man with steel-gray hair. “If other such weapons exist.”
The next slide displayed a map of the Yucatán showing the states of Quintana Roo, Yucatán, and Campeche, as well as the small Central American countries of Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.
“We need you to take a team in and find the source of these weapons, then confiscate or destroy them. We cannot allow nuclear terrorists to run free, even if they are just murdering each other.”
The man with the maroon tie smiled, and his jowls jiggled. “It sets a bad example.”
“My usual commandos?” Jakes said.
“Whatever you desire is at your disposal, Major Jakes,” said the man with steel-gray hair. “We know our investment in your efforts will be worth every penny.”
“Or every peso,” said the slide-projector operator.
The others ignored the joke.
“I presume this will be a covert insertion, a search and destroy mission? But how am I to locate the target? What intelligence do we have that there are additional tactical warheads?”
“We have a strong suspicion,” said the man in the charcoal suit. “There seems to be a military base located in one of the more isolated portions of the Yucatán. We’ve picked up a powerful transmission, encoded with an encryption scheme unlike any we have ever seen before. The signal suddenly appeared a little more than a week ago, so powerful it could not be hidden. We suspect the transmitter indicates a secret military base there.”
“Does the target correspond to any known location?” Major Jakes said, leaning forward, drinking in the image on the screen.
The slide-projector operator clicked to the next image—a high-resolution satellite photograph with the lines and contours of a map overlaid upon it.
“It is apparently the site of isolated Mayan ruins. When we cross-referenced our records with those of the State Department, we found that a team of American archaeologists disappeared there at about the same time the signal began, and only a few days before this detonation occurred.
“We suspect our enemies have taken over the ruins as their own secret military base. As no ransom demands or hostage threats have been forthcoming, the status of our American citizens remains unknown…and, for the purposes of your mission, low priority.”
“I understand,” Major Jakes said. He squinted to see the site on the map. He saw nothing that even remotely resembled a road anywhere in the vicinity.
The slide-projector operator twisted the focusing ring around the lens to bring the photo into crystal clarity.
“Xitaclan,” Major Jakes muttered, reading the label.
At least it sounded better than the cold mountains of Afghanistan.
14
Xitaclan ruins
Sunday, 4:23 P.M.
The diligent trailblazers began to mutter quickly and quietly among themselves in their own language, excited or uneasy—Scully couldn’t tell which. For the past two days her entire energy had been focused on taking step after step, proceeding deeper into the jungle…farther from civilization, comfort, and safety.
Fernando Aguilar picked up his pace. “Come quickly, amigos,” he said and spread ferns aside. He leaned against a tall ceiba tree and gestured. “Behold—Xitaclan!”
Sweaty and exhausted, Mulder stood beside Scully, his eyes suddenly bright with interest. Vladimir Rubicon sprang forward with renewed energy, as if he had been jump-started.
Catching her breath, Scully shaded her eyes and looked out at the ancient, decaying city that might have cost the lives of Cassandra Rubicon and her team. Gray clouds hung in the sky, casting the site in a cool gloom, but the broken edifices still towered like hulking shapes in a storm.
The shadow of the vast ancient city could be easily seen, like an afterimage on the eyes. In the center of a broad plaza, spindly trees pushed up through cracks in the flagstones. A towering, stair-stepped pyramid dominated the abandoned metropolis, overgrown with vines. Smaller shrines and elaborately decorated stelae lay collapsed, unable to withstand time and natural forces. Intricately carved glyphs poked out from the moss and vines.
“This is astounding,” Rubicon said, pushing past Fernando Aguilar. He stepped out into the broad plaza, scratching his yellow-white goatee. “Look at the size of the place. Imagine the number of people who came here.” He turned to look at Scully, then Mulder, desperate to explain.
“Maya slash-and-burn agriculture never could have supported a large population center like this. Most major cities such as Tikal or Chichén Itzá were probably inhabited only during, uh, religious ceremonies, ball games, and seasonal sacrifices. For the rest of the year, the cities were abandoned, left to the jungle until it was time for the next festival.”
“Sounds like an Olympic village,” Mulder said. He and Scully came out to stand next to the old archaeologist, while the native guides hung back, talking nervously with Aguilar in some Indian dialect.
“You said ball games, Dr. Rubicon?” Scully asked. “You mean they had spectator sports?”
“There, I believe, was their stadium.” He gestured across the clearing at a broad sunken space walled in with carved bricks. “The Maya played, uh, sort of a cross between soccer and basketball. They hit a hard rubber ball with their hips, thighs, and shoulders—they were not allowed to touch it with their hands. The object was to knock it through an upright stone ring on the wall.”
“Cheerleaders, pennants, and everything,” Mulder said.
“The losers of the tournament were usually sacrificed to the gods,” Rubicon continued, “their heads cut off, their hearts cut out, their blood spilled on the ground.”
“I suppose you couldn’t say it was an honor just to make the playoffs,” Mulder said.
A deeply troubled look crossed Rubicon’s face as he walked forward, turning from side to side. He tugged at his grimy goatee, leaving a mud-streaked fingerprint across his chin. “I don’t see much sign of Cassandra and her team here, no ambitious excavation work.” He looked around, but the jungle seemed very vast, very oppressive. “I suppose I should give up hope that her problem was something so innocuous as a broken radio transmitter.”
Scully indicated where the trees and underbrush had been hacked away. Piles of discarded branches and uprooted creepers lay in a mound half burned, as if some of the missing team had tried to make a bonfire to get rid of the debris…or to send some kind of desperate signal.
“They were here not long ago,” she pointed out. “I would imagine all scars of their work would be obliterated and swallowed up by new growth within a month.”
Aguilar said, grinning at them, “Perhaps they got lost in the jungle. Maybe jaguars ate them, eh?”
“You’re not being helpful,” Scully chided him.
“Cassandra’s team would have been more careful than that,” Rubicon said, as if trying to convince himself. “Unlike the old days of amateur diggers coming on a lark, professional archaeologists must proceed with caution, prying up every stone, uncovering the fine details.”
He blinked his blue eyes, staring at the weathered stone structures. “Some of the worst amateurs thought they were doing good for history. They came to the old temples at the turn of the century, shoveled away the fallen blocks from walls, and dumped all the discarded potsherds and glyph stones down into mounds of rubble—things we now call GOK piles, for God Only Knows…because God only knows what’s in them.”
They stepped cautiously, tiptoeing and whispering, as if afraid they might offend the ancient ghosts of Xitaclan. The limestone paving bricks formed a once-level surface to the plaza, but now the flagstones had been buckled and hummocked by protruding roots.
Rubicon said, his voice hoarse and husky, “I can imagine why Cassandra was so excited here. This is an archaeologist’s dream come true—all the stages in Maya history. Everything we see is a new discovery. Every place we visit,
every new glyph we find is something never before catalogued. Any one relic could be the long-awaited Rosetta stone for Maya writing. It could be the secret to why this great people abandoned their cities and vanished centuries ago…uh, so long as other people don’t ransack it for souvenirs before the scientific teams finish their work.”
With her imagination Scully erased the green tufts of the lush overgrowth. Few outsiders had ever seen this place or known of its existence. “Xitaclan must have been a breathtaking spot.”
Standing like gateposts, two impressive stelae displayed rows of incomprehensible Mayan writing, calendrical symbols; a great coiled snake bristling with feathers, wrapped around each obelisk. She recalled the feathered serpent symbol on the jade artifact Mulder had shown her.
“Is that supposed to be Kukulkan?” Scully said, indicating the sculpture. “The feathered serpent?”
Rubicon studied the stelae, slipping his half-glasses on his nose while the chain dangled on his neck. “Yes, and very vividly rendered, too. This one seems larger and more fearsome—as realistic as some of those jaguar statues on exhibit back in my museum. Uh, quite unlike the stylized glyphs and symbolic drawings we normally see on Maya stelae. Most interesting.”
“Almost as if the sculpture was drawn from life,” Mulder suggested.
Scully gave him a look, and he offered a faint smile in return.
“The afternoon light is already fading,” Aguilar said. “Perhaps we should make a quick inspection of the site and then set up our camp, eh? Tomorrow you can begin your real work.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Rubicon admitted. He seemed torn between his dejection at not finding his daughter there waiting for him…and his other goal of studying this marvelous uncatalogued site.
“It is quite a treat to see a place like this before it is defaced by tourists. The most famous ruins have been corrupted by thousands of visitors who know nothing about history and come there only because a colorful brochure tells them to.” He placed his hands on his hips. “Once a new site is opened up, somebody usually manages to destroy it before long.”
The four of them went through the plaza alongside the ball court, and then skirted the spectacular central pyramid. The underbrush had been cleared away from two sides, and Scully spotted a narrow entrance passage at the ziggurat’s bottom level that had been forced open—a doorway leading into the dark catacombs of the ancient monolithic structure.
“Looks like someone went exploring,” Scully said.
Mulder went ahead of them, around the path at the base of the pyramid, and then called for them to come. She found him standing at the rim of a circular well at least thirty feet across that plunged down into the limestone as if it had been drilled there by a giant rig.
“A cenote,” Rubicon said. “A sacred well. It’s a very deep limestone sinkhole. They’re, uh, scattered all over the Yucatán Peninsula. Perhaps that explains one reason why Xitaclan was built at this location.”
Scully stepped up to a crumbling platform that must have been like a gangplank over the edge of the deep hole. They stood at the edge, and Scully peered over to see a mirror-smooth pool of murky green water. The depths seemed fathomless. Stained limestone outcroppings ridged the cenote walls like the turns of a screw. Mulder tossed a pebble into the water, watching the ripples spread out like shock waves.
“These natural sinkholes were considered to be sacred wells, water from the gods rising from the earth,” Rubicon said. “You can be sure this one contains a treasure trove of relics and bones.”
“Bones?” Scully asked. “From people that fell in?”
“Uh, were thrown in,” Rubicon said. “The cenotes were sacrificial wells. Perhaps they would club the victims to death, or just tie them up and weight them down so the bodies would sink.
“Other times, for special sacrifices, the victim was chosen as much as a year in advance. He led a life of pleasures and indulgence, food and women and fine clothes—until the day when he was drugged and led to the edge of the cenote, then thrown into the sacred waters.”
“I thought the Maya were primarily a peaceful people,” Scully said.
“That’s an old belief, a false story promulgated by an archaeologist who admired the Maya beyond all common sense—and so he slanted his findings to downplay the bloodshed evident in the writings and carvings.”
“An archaeological spin doctor,” Mulder said.
“The Maya culture was quite violent, shedding a great deal of blood, especially in later periods, due to Toltec influences. They considered it beautiful to scarify themselves, to hack off fingers and toes in self-mutilation ceremonies.
“In fact, the most bloodthirsty cult belonged to the god Tlaloc, whose priests would prepare for great festivals by approaching mothers to buy their young children. At a great ceremony the children were boiled alive, then eaten with great pomp and splendor. The priests took special delight if the infants cried or wailed while they were tortured to death, uh, because they thought the tears promised a year of plentiful rain.”
Scully shuddered as she stood on the edge of the sinkhole, looking down into the murky cenote, thinking of all the secrets the bottom of that deep, dark well might hold.
“I’m sure nobody practices that religion anymore, though,” Rubicon said, as if that might comfort her. He brushed his hands on his pants. “There’s nothing you need to worry about. I’m sure it has nothing to do with all those missing-person rumors…or Cassandra.”
Scully nodded noncommittally. Yes, here they were, isolated, two days from the nearest major road, at an abandoned site of ancient ruins where the Maya had performed countless blood sacrifices. A place where an entire team of American archaeologists recently disappeared….
Of course, she thought. She had nothing to worry about.
15
Xitaclan ruins
Sunday, 6:38 P.M.
Standing near the broken-brick sacrificial platform at the edge of the limestone sinkhole, Mulder stared downward, feeling the depths beckon him. The air smelled sour and mildewy, hinting of decay. He wondered what secrets lay beneath the murky waters, how deep the well went, how many skeletons it held in its gullet.
A tingle traveled up his spine, a brooding uneasiness—but he could not pinpoint its source. The colored rays of the setting sun and the dim amber light cast long shadows. Mulder thought he saw dark shapes swirling like oil in the cenote, and he felt a slight tremble beneath his feet…a vibration as if from deeply buried engines, generators entombed beneath the earth. He thought of H. G. Wells’s novel, The Time Machine, the evil Morlocks laboring in subterranean tunnels, working their machines…hungry for the flesh of surface dwellers.
The water in the cenote began to stir and froth. Suddenly large bubbles belched to the surface, each as wide as a barrel, spewing gas from the depths.
“What’s going on?” Scully said.
Mulder backed away from the rough edge as the vibration grew stronger beneath his feet. A wave of stench struck him, sour and sulfurous like a thousand rotten eggs made into a giant omelet. He covered his nose, choking. Scully, who was accustomed to smelling cadavers and decay under even the most horrendous autopsy circumstances, wrinkled her nose and gasped.
“What a stink!” Fernando Aguilar said.
“Maybe it’s the legendary corpse of Tezcatlipoca,” Vladimir Rubicon suggested, unbothered by the event. “That’s a stench bad enough to kill off half the population.”
Scully took a cautious sniff and shook her head. “No, that’s sulfur—sulfur dioxide, I think. It’s a volcanic gas.”
“Maybe we should talk about this a little farther from the edge,” Mulder said.
The four of them hurried back around to the front of the large pyramid. “My knees are still shaking,” Scully said. “Wait, that’s not my knees—it’s the ground. It hasn’t stopped.”
Mulder saw the trees swaying, the ground jumping and bucking. In the back of his skull, in the rumbling subsonic range below
his ability to hear, he experienced a loud tremor…growing in power as a deep subsurface event gained strength.
Aguilar’s hand-picked Indian guides stood next to the half-erected tents, talking quickly among themselves. One stocky man fled into the forest, shouting back at the others.
“I wonder what their problem is?” Mulder said. “Haven’t they ever experienced angry gods before?”
“That’s seismic activity,” Rubicon said, his voice sounding out-of-place, analytical. “Uh, how can there be earthquakes, volcanic action? The Yucatán Peninsula is a high, stable, limestone plateau—it is geologically impossible to have volcanic activity here.”
Seemingly to disprove him, the ground shuddered as if someone had struck it with a giant sledgehammer. Plaza flagstones bucked. A group of spindly mahogany trees beside an old temple tipped, their roots pulling out of the wet powdery ground like a dirt-encrusted mat of tentacles.
One of the ancient, half-fallen facades collapsed the rest of the way with an explosion of crumbling stone blocks. Bricks from the sides of the stair-stepped pyramid popped loose and pattered down, bouncing, gaining speed.
At the edge of the jungle, the stressed ground split apart like a newly broken scab, bleeding foul gases from beneath the earth’s surface. Mulder grabbed Scully’s arm to help her keep her balance.
“We better get away from these large structures,” Scully said. “One of them could collapse and bury us.”
Together they helped the old archaeologist stagger out into the middle of the open plaza while the ground swayed and shook beneath them. The trees thrashed about like gnashing teeth.
From his vantage Mulder could see the ziggurat rocking from side to side like a Chicago skyscraper in a wind-storm. He grabbed Scully’s shoulder. “Better hang on!”
But then, before the quake seemed ready to reach its peak, the tremors subsided, dampening to a faint vibration that might well have just been Mulder’s nerves misfiring with fear.
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