Rubicon smeared his goatee flat, occupying his shaking hands with some nervous gesture. “Uh, I could be wrong about that seismic stability,” he said.
Aguilar pointed to the half-fallen tents and the scattered supplies. The campsite lay empty, abandoned. “It looks like we have lost our assistants for now,” he said, his face ashen. He fumbled in his vest pocket to find cigarette papers and tobacco.
“They’ll be back tomorrow, amigos. They are good workers. But we are on our own to prepare this evening’s dinner and to recover from our adventure, eh?” He forced a laugh, which made Mulder feel decidedly uneasy.
Rubicon found an awkward seat on one of the upraised flagstones. He hung his head. “One of the reasons this area interested Cassandra was because of its, uh, very localized and unusual geological instability. Her first love was geology, you know. My little girl collecting rocks, studying how they were made, igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. She had a large collection, knew them all, labeled them all.
“Then Cassandra allowed her interests to shift to digging not just for the rocks themselves but for what lay hidden in them—the marks of human impact and the history trapped between layers of deposited sediment and dust. She seemed very excited about certain seismic readings she had obtained in this area—just as excited as she was about leading the first team out to Xitaclan.”
The old archaeologist shook his head. “But it still seems impossible such violent activity would occur here.” He gestured toward the tall central pyramid, where a few loose pebbles continued to rain down the exaggerated steps. “You can see that the area is thoroughly stable—if seismic tremors occurred frequently, these ruins would have been leveled centuries ago. The mere fact that Xitaclan remains standing provides incontrovertible evidence that this land is phenomenally stable.”
“It didn’t feel stable a moment ago, Señor,” Aguilar said, standing with his feet braced far apart, as if he expected the ground to begin rocking and shaking again at any moment. He finally succeeded in rolling and lighting his cigarette.
Mulder sifted through the scattered information he kept stored in his brain, the enormous amounts of trivia and tidbits gleaned from encyclopedias and reports he had studied over the years. He always tried to remember items that had the slightest unexplained or mysterious flavor to them.
“Most of the major volcanoes in Central America are in the highlands of Mexico, right down the backbone of the country—but volcanoes are unusual things. One called Parícutin suddenly appeared in 1943…right in the middle of a Mexican cornfield that was as flat as a tortilla. A farmer was out plowing his field when the ground began to smoke and shake. For nine years afterward the volcano continued growing, dumping over a billion tons of lava and ash. It buried two entire towns.”
“Mulder, are you saying a volcano just sprang up in the middle of nowhere?” Scully asked.
Mulder nodded. “And as it grew, Parícutin was watched by geologists from around the world. Within the first twenty-four hours, the volcano had made a twenty-five-foot-tall cinder cone. In eight months it grew to about fifteen hundred feet…quite a vigorous little event. In all, Parícutin covered about seven square miles of the surrounding area with lava and volcanic ash. Its maximum height topped nine thousand feet—and that was only half a century ago. No telling what else might just pop out of the ground.”
He looked from Scully over to Rubicon and then to Fernando Aguilar. “I’d sleep lightly tonight and be ready to make a run for the jungle if a volcano starts erupting underneath our feet.”
“An excellent suggestion, Señor,” Aguilar said, puffing on his newly rolled cigarette.
But Scully looked at Mulder with concern, and he knew what she must be thinking, because he was bothered by the same question. What large energy release, what sharp aftershock could have triggered the burst of volcanic activity around Xitaclan? And why now?
Something had happened here. Mulder didn’t know if it had anything to do with the disappearance of Cassandra Rubicon’s team, or if it was just a coincidence.
He believed in many unlikely things…but Mulder had a difficult time believing in coincidences.
16
Home of Pieter Grobe, Quintana Roo
Sunday, 4:30 P.M.
Removing his policeman’s cap at the doorway to the castle-like fortress of Pieter Grobe, Carlos Barreio waited while the guard made a telephone call to his master. Barreio used the meaty palm of his right hand to slick back his thinning dark hair, then brushed his thick black mustache in place. He felt like a supplicant at the gate of a powerful baron, but he would swallow his pride if need be—for the freedom of his land.
In his scuffed leather satchel he held carefully wrapped pieces of Maya jade, ancient relics scavenged from the lesser temples around the Xitaclan site. He had never before tried to sell historical items on his own, and he did not know what price such jade carvings should fetch—but he needed the money…and the Liberación Quintana Roo movement needed the weapons and the supplies it would buy.
Aguilar’s unreliable assistant Pepe Candelaria had never returned from his mission the week before. The wiry little man seemed to have abandoned his mother and sisters, running off somewhere without ever delivering more treasures from Xitaclan, as he’d been instructed to do. Barreio could not tolerate any additional delay, so he had taken the remaining small pieces he kept in his possession, and decided to do with them whatever he could.
Fernando Victorio Aguilar excelled in selecting discerning customers for the most expensive sculptures, but Aguilar did not sell the art objects frequently enough, and Barreio had his own needs. Besides, now with the recent death—no, the complete obliteration—of Xavier Salida, Barreio had to find new customers, even if it meant cultivating them himself.
The guard hung up the black telephone and grunted, unlatching the steel-reinforced wooden door that led into the limestone block walls of Pieter Grobe’s home—it looked more like a fortress than even some of the largest Maya ruins.
“Master Grobe will see you for fifteen minutes,” the guard said. “I am to accompany you.”
Barreio cleared his throat and nodded. “Thank you.” He brushed down the front of his white uniform, still holding his policeman’s cap in one sweaty hand. It seemed deeply ironic for him to be waiting at the pleasure of a drug lord when Barreio was one of the men ostensibly in charge of law enforcement in the state of Quintana Roo, under corrupt Mexican law.
But Barreio understood the games he had to play in order to accomplish his main goal. The descendants of the Maya had long memories. They had waited for centuries to be free again, able to recreate their lost golden age.
Freedom and independence. The people of Quintana Roo would thank him for it, once the turmoil and bloodshed and political upheaval had faded into memory. After all, during the great Mexican Revolution of 1910, wasn’t it true that one in every eight citizens had been killed? All those martyrs had paid the price for freedom—and oftentimes that price was high indeed.
When the guard slammed the massive front door behind them, the echoing boom sounded like a cannon shot on the Spanish Main.
Inside, Grobe’s fortress looked even more Germanic and imposing, smelling of wood smoke from poorly ventilated fires and mildew in the stone cracks. Ceiling fans twirled from rafters above. The hall arches and narrow windows let in only fragments of light. Shafts of afternoon sun played across the tiled floors, illuminating faded tapestries on the walls. The room felt clammy, heavily air-conditioned, cold as a tomb.
Barreio felt the guard walking close beside him, shouldering his automatic rifle. The Belgian expatriate certainly acted paranoid—and with good cause, since rival drug lords killed each other off so frequently that Barreio’s police forces had little time to investigate their criminal activities.
Surprisingly, the guard had allowed him to keep his police-issue revolver in its side holster; Barreio decided that must reflect on the guard’s confidence and skill, an utter certainty that the automatic rifle w
ould cut him down much faster than Barreio could ever draw and fire his pistol. He hoped he would never have to test that assumption.
The police chief walked along, holding the satchel of jade artifacts in one hand, his cap in the other, wondering if the clock on his fifteen-minute audience had begun ticking when he entered the door of the fortress, or if he would be able to talk for the full time once he actually met the drug lord face-to-face.
The burly guard led him through the main fortress and out to a screened-in back porch, a lavish patio area that contained a kidney-shaped in-ground Jacuzzi. Doors led off to other rooms, perhaps a sauna, perhaps a shower.
Pieter Grobe sat alone in a canvas chair, reveling in the silence, listening to the fine buzz of the jungle outside the walls of his home. He played no music, listened to no distractions.
Barreio stood at the entrance to the patio, waiting to be noticed. A black telephone rested on a round glass table beside Grobe’s chair. A transparent pitcher sat looking cool and refreshing, filled with a pale green liquid and garnished with round slices of lime; the pitcher gleamed with droplets of perspiration. Like nylon cobwebs, a protective covering of mosquito netting draped the windows, the chairs, and a rocking swing that hung from chains.
Grobe himself, thin and scarecrowish, sat within one such cocoon of netting. He held a long black cigarette holder with a smoldering, pungent clove cigarette. Grobe took a long puff, exhaled bluish-gray smoke. His hand slipped out between the folds of mosquito netting, reaching toward the table. He grasped the handle of the pitcher and poured a long, languid stream of limeade into a glass. He curled his skeletal hand around the glass and drew it inside the mosquito webbing.
Unable to contain his impatience, Barreio cleared his throat—earning himself a sharp glare from the guard.
Pieter Grobe sighed and then turned from his contemplation, showing a gaunt face seamed with deep lines. His chocolate-brown hair was thick and carefully styled, laced with frosty wings at his temples. Droplets of perspiration stood out on his cheeks and forehead; he looked sticky and uncomfortable in a baggy, cream-colored cotton suit.
“Yes, Señor Barreio?” he said. “Your fifteen minutes have begun. What is it you wish to discuss with me?” The Belgian drug lord’s voice was quiet, patient, and firm. Barreio already knew that Grobe spoke excellent English and Spanish without the slightest trace of an accent—a skill that not many diplomats ever acquired with such precision.
“I have some items I was hoping might interest you, Excellency,” Barreio said. He drew a deep breath, swelling his already broad chest as he stepped forward to another low table and set the leather satchel down before placing his policeman’s cap beside it. The guard stiffened, ready for treachery.
“Don’t overreact, Juan,” Grobe said, not even looking at the guard. “Let us observe with an open mind what has compelled our friend the police chief to visit us.”
“Jade sculptures, Excellency,” Barreio said, “priceless Maya artifacts. If you agree to purchase them, they will never become lost in museums, where they would be squandered for the benefit of the public, their true artistic value lost.”
Barreio opened the satchel and withdrew the pieces of Xitaclan sculpture. “Instead, these items will be yours to enjoy in private, as you wish.”
Each artifact showed the predominant feathered serpent motif, fanciful drawings of plumed reptilian forms with long fangs and round intelligent eyes, legendary creatures the Maya had worshipped in times long past.
Grobe leaned forward, pushing his gaunt face against the mosquito netting that surrounded his chair. He stubbed out his clove cigarette and exhaled again. In the thick smoke Barreio could smell a pungent sweet burning scent, not entirely unlike marijuana.
“And what makes you think I am the slightest bit interested in purchasing contraband antiquities, Señor Police Chief Barreio?” Grobe said. “Is this perhaps a…‘sting operation,’ as the Americans call it? Are you trying to tempt me into an illegal act, so that you can arrest me red-handed?”
Barreio stood back, appalled. “That would be the height of folly, Excellency Grobe,” he said.
“Yes,” the Belgian agreed, “yes, it would.”
Barreio continued. “The state of Quintana Roo operates on nuances of power. I know my place in this society, Excellency, and I also know yours. I would never attempt something so foolish.”
He swallowed. “If I might add, we have seen the results of tangling with you, Excellency. I myself have been to the devastated ruins of Xavier Salida’s villa. It is inconceivable to me exactly what you did to retaliate against him, but the threat of your supreme power is absolutely clear, and I have no intention of crossing you.”
Grobe actually laughed, a long, dry series of chuckles that might have been misinterpreted as a cough. “I am glad you fear me so, Señor Barreio. It is true that the…squabbles between myself and Xavier Salida had escalated over the past few weeks. But I assure you I had nothing to do with the devastation that occurred at his household. I wish wholeheartedly that I knew how to create such destruction, because then all of my rivals would fear me as much as you do.”
Barreio reeled, off-balance with the information. If not Grobe, then who had destroyed Salida? Who had that kind of power in all of Mexico?
The Belgian continued. “I have been given to understand that you and that parasite Fernando Aguilar had also sold artifacts to Salida—ancient Maya artifacts from a newly excavated ruin called…” Grobe placed a slender finger to his lips as he searched for the name. “Xitaclan, I believe. Many of my Indian servants, including our friend Juan here”—with a gaze cast over his shoulder, he indicated the rigid guard, who still had not lowered his rifle—“believe that such items are cursed and should never have been taken from their resting place. The gods are angered and will exact their vengeance.
“Xavier Salida has already paid for the indiscretion of stealing those antiquities. Now, I trust these jade artifacts you intend to sell to me are also from Xitaclan? Señor Barreio, I have no wish to incur the wrath of the ancient gods.”
Barreio forced a laugh and shifted uneasily, toying with one of the jade feathered serpent carvings. His mind whirled as he tried to think of another tack, a new way to open negotiations.
He had to sell some of this jade. He had to raise money. He had already donated what cash he could spare from his salary, but it was difficult for him to work as the police chief and also to hide his real passion—the fight for the independence of Quintana Roo.
It seemed only fitting to use the fallen glory of the Maya, the people who had created civilization in this corner of the Yucatán. Their precious artifacts would finance the struggle for freedom, help Barreio and his group of revolutionaries to conquer a new and independent land, help them win their struggle against the corrupt, bankrupt central government of Mexico. If they succeeded, Liberación Quintana Roo would proclaim a new homeland where the glory of the lost Maya could rise again.
“You must be joking, Excellency,” he said. “Such superstitions! Surely a sophisticated European like yourself places no stock in ancient curses?” He raised his dark eyebrows. His thick mustache bristled, tickling his nose.
Grobe took another patient drink of limeade, glanced at his wristwatch, then blew out a long sigh before he answered. “My own feelings are irrelevant in this situation, Señor Police Chief Barreio. If the locals believe the artifacts are cursed, then I am unable to get anyone to work for me. My household servants are afraid. They disappear in the night, and I have a terrible time finding others to replace them. The quality of my life diminishes.”
He tapped his empty cigarette holder on the edge of his chair. “I enjoy my lifestyle as it is, without further complications. I don’t even want to consider the possibility that certain followers of the ancient Maya religion might try to get their revenge on me if I were to flaunt these old artifacts.”
Grobe leaned forward, finally thrusting his narrow, well-lined face out of the protective
netting. His brown eyes bored into Barreio. “With all of my money, I can install defenses against attacks from rival drug producers—but a suicidal religious fanatic is a threat against which few people can defend.”
He slipped the netting back around him again and glanced at his watch. “Your time is up, Señor Barreio. I’m sorry we could not accommodate your needs.”
Deciding against further negotiation, which would at this point sound like pleading or wheedling, Barreio returned the items to their case and snapped shut the leather satchel. He placed his cap back on his head and, shoulders slumping, he turned to the door that led into the thick-walled fortress.
The Belgian drug lord called after him, “Wait a moment, Señor Barreio.”
Barreio spun around, his heart beating fast, hoping that Grobe had been only toying with him, searching for a better deal. But then the Belgian said, “Let me offer you something else of value. I have no interest in your relics, but I will give you this information for free—for now. I’ll trust you to remember me if anything else should come up where you might repay me in kind.”
“What is it, Excellency?” Barreio said.
The Belgian removed the stub of the cigarette from his holder, fished in his suit pocket for a dark brown box, and inserted a new clove cigarette. He lit it, but let it smolder for a few seconds as he answered.
“I have learned through international sources that a covert U.S. military team is coming to infiltrate Quintana Roo. It is a search-and-destroy mission. The commandos intend to find some weapons cache or military stronghold deep in the jungles. Perhaps you know about it? Perhaps it has something to do with the guerrilla revolutionary group known as Liberación Quintana Roo?” He smiled thinly. “Since you are the police chief in these parts, I thought you might wish to be informed of this development.”
Barreio froze, feeling the color drain from his face. A knot of ice in his stomach made him desperately uneasy, while at the same time a flush of anger surged through his veins. “The U.S. military is coming here—in secret? How dare they! Under what pretext?”
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