“The commando team is landing across the border in Belize, I believe. With a little snooping around I’m sure you can get more detailed information.”
“Thank you,” Barreio said, stunned and startled. “Thank you, Excellency.”
The jade relics nearly forgotten, the leather satchel heavy in his numb hand, Barreio stumbled behind the footsteps of the guard.
His mind spun, no longer worried about the short-term solution of raising money by selling artifacts, but wondering what the U.S. military had discovered, what they could be up to—and if his own plans for state independence might be threatened.
17
Xitaclan ruins
Sunday, 8:17 P.M.
Hours after the bizarre volcanic tremors, the ground had settled back down to relative peace. The noxious sulfurous odors had cleared from the air, to be replaced by the heady scents of the jungle: the perfumes of flowers, the sharp spice of decaying mulch, and the crackling resin of dry branches consumed in their campfire.
Fernando Victorio Aguilar came up to them, smiling, a loose satchel dangling at his side. “Instead of your American junk food, I have secured a repast from the arms of the forest.” He reached inside to withdraw a handful of bulbous mushrooms mottled with gray-green. He brushed loose strands of moss and leaf debris from their caps. “We shall roast these to start—delicious mushrooms, eh? They taste like nuts when they’ve been cooked.”
Mulder’s stomach growled, but Scully shifted uneasily. “These are safe to eat?”
Aguilar nodded vigorously. “These are local delicacies, used in many traditional Maya dishes.”
Rubicon reached out to take one of the mushrooms from Aguilar’s hand, holding it close to the firelight. Blinking his surprised-looking blue eyes, he hauled up his reading glasses and set them on his perspiration-slick nose. “Yes, I’ve eaten these before,” he said. “Delicious.” He skewered the mushroom on a twig next to the fire and held it in the flames, roasting it like a campfire marshmallow.
“At least he didn’t bring us beetle grubs to eat,” Mulder said. Other bugs swarmed around the firelight.
“Yes, grubs!” Aguilar said, clapping his hands in surprise. “I can go find grubs—there are many delicious kinds! Or, if you would like a true feast, I could shoot us a monkey.”
“No thanks,” Scully said.
“A little different from dinner last night,” Mulder said.
Darkness surrounded them like an oppressive blanket. Their crackling campfire stood as an island of warm light in the middle of the Xitaclan plaza. In other circumstances, Mulder might have suggested they all begin a chorus of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” But not here, not now.
Bats flew about, swooping silently through the air, their high-pitched chirps beyond the edge of human hearing, though Mulder could feel the sounds in the fillings of his teeth. Large night moths flew in graceful spirals, pale splashes against the darkness. Farther out in the jungle they could see the eyes of predators flickering with reflected gleams.
Scully plucked one of the mushrooms from her stick, looked at it smoking in her fingers, and popped it into her mouth. She chewed, about to comment on its taste, when suddenly a bat swooped in front of her face, chomping one of the large moths. The bat swooped off before she could do anything but reel backward, startled.
When Mulder commented about the Indians who had fled from the rumbling eruptions and now refused to come closer to the ruins, Aguilar snorted. “They are superstitious cowards,” he said. “Their respect for their religion outweighs their common sense. They claim this place still holds the spirits of their ancestors sacrificed to appease the gods, not to mention the old gods themselves.”
Rubicon stared into the shadows, listening to the buzz of insects, the symphony of night birds, the dance of predator and prey. He wore a pinched, concerned look on his narrow face. Mulder knew the old archaeologist must be imagining his daughter lost and alone in the deep jungle filled with stalking jaguars and poisonous snakes…or murderous treasure-seekers.
Mulder cocked his head as he heard something large stirring in the trees, saw the thick ferns swaying as an unseen creature moved through the undergrowth outside the edge of firelight. The others didn’t notice the disturbance.
“Things haven’t changed so much in a century,” Rubicon muttered, far away in his thoughts. “When I think of Cassandra and her team exploring here, I can’t help but remember some of the first amateur archaeologists in this region. They suffered hardships unlike any we are likely to encounter.”
Rubicon settled the reading glasses on his nose. Story time, Mulder thought.
“Two of the first white men to explore the Maya ruins were Stephens and Catherwood. They were veteran travelers, confident they could make their way through any rough country.
“They had read some obscure books that mentioned great cities buried in the rain forest, uh, ‘ruined and desolate without a name’—I think those were the exact words…I’ve read their travel diaries.
“Stephens and Catherwood went into the rain forests of Honduras in 1839. After days of trudging through the jungle, they finally reached the ruins of Copán, where they encountered fallen buildings, stone staircases covered with vines or trees. Stephens and Catherwood knew nothing of Maya history, and when they asked the local Indians who had built the ruins, the Indians simply shrugged.
“These two gentlemen returned to Central America on several trips, visiting dozens of ruined cities. Together they published bestselling accounts of their adventures, Stephens with his eloquent journals, Catherwood with his beautiful illustrations. Their books ignited a huge interest in archaeology—uh, for better or worse.
“But it didn’t come easy—especially not for Catherwood. He seemed to be under a curse. He contracted malaria and suffered from the recurring fever. He went lame from swollen and infected insect bites. His left arm became almost paralyzed. He had to be carried on the shoulders of Indians, since he was unable to walk.
“But he did recover and made his way back to set up his paintings in New York. Then a fire broke out, and one of their greatest exhibitions was destroyed—Catherwood’s drawings as well as spectacular artifacts brought back from Maya country.”
Scully shook her head. “What a loss.”
Rubicon stared into the campfire. “Years later, when Catherwood was on his way back to the States from yet another expedition, he drowned at sea when his ship collided with another. Bad luck, or a Maya curse—depends on what you believe.”
Squatting by himself, Aguilar chewed on something that seemed inordinately crunchy. Mulder caught a glimpse of flailing black legs as the guide popped another morsel into his mouth.
“A good story, Señor,” Aguilar said around a mouthful. “But the curse was not strong enough to stop the flood of white adventurers such as yourself, eh?”
“Or my daughter,” Rubicon said.
Scully stood up to stretch, brushing her legs. “Well, we should go to bed and try to get some sleep,” she said. “Any minute now you’ll start telling ghost stories just to give us the creeps.”
“Good idea,” Rubicon said. “We’ll want to get up at dawn so we can start our detailed investigations, search for traces of my daughter.”
Mulder said dryly, “I guess the story about teenagers necking on Lover’s Lane will have to wait for another night.”
Mulder woke in the middle of the night to the sound of rustling and creeping noises. Close, too close. He blinked, then sat up, listening intently.
He definitely heard something moving outside across the plaza…perhaps a large predator stalking them, searching for easy prey. The flimsy fabric walls of his tent seemed weak and unprotective.
He leaned forward cautiously, parting the folds of mosquito netting to reach the opening flap of the tent. He accidentally rustled the cloth and froze, listening intently—but he did not hear the sound outside again.
He pictured some large carnivorous monster from the jungle, a prehistoric den
izen lost in time, sniffing the air, looking toward the sound he had made. Swallowing, Mulder gradually eased his tent flap open, pushing his head out into the open night air.
The bright gibbous moon had just begun to rise like a half-closed eye, spilling pale watery light across the treetops as thick clouds scudded across the sky.
The tents had been erected next to one of the weathered stelae around which the feathered serpent wrapped itself like a vicious protector. The tall stela tilted at a slight angle, its shadow blurred and indistinct on the buckled flagstones of the plaza.
Out in the jungle the line of skeletal trees and tangled blackness seemed quiet and still. This late in the core of night, even the nocturnal creatures hung back, waiting.
Mulder heard the rustling sound again, a rattling growl. He scanned the darkness, trying to find its source, but he saw nothing, only shadows, no movement. He waited, breathing shallowly, his attention entirely focused.
Finally, just when he had convinced himself that he had heard nothing more than his overactive imagination, Mulder caught a writhing flash, something stirring in the moonlight at the edge of the jungle.
He turned, trying to see clearly in the uncertain illumination. In the tall, matted trees and the dangling creepers, he spotted a huge serpentine body moving sinuously, slithering, plowing its way through the underbrush with incredible stealth.
He gasped—and the thing turned toward him. He saw a flash of flaming eyes, a glint of impossibly long scales—feathery scales, like cloth mirrors overlapping, reflecting a dazzling sequence of moon images back at him.
Then, with a flick of its lissome body, the thing vanished into the midnight shadows. Mulder saw no further sign of it, though he waited for many minutes. Once, he thought he heard a cracking branch deep in the jungle—but that could have been from anything.
Eventually he went back to bed, crawling inside his tent and replaying the scene over and over in his mind. He needed to understand just what—if anything—he had seen.
Sleep was a long time coming for him.
18
Xitaclan ruins
Monday, dawn
The local helpers returned at daybreak, just as Fernando Aguilar had predicted. The guide sat over the cooling campfire, smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes, scowling at the Indians who crept into the plaza, heads down as if in embarrassment.
Mulder crawled out of his tent, watching the locals, who looked for all the world like a blue-collar crew showing up for the morning shift. Vladimir Rubicon was already up, scrutinizing the nearest feathered serpent stela, using a pocketknife to pry loose lumps of moss to get a better look at the glyphs.
“Ah, Agent Mulder, you’re up!” Rubicon said. “Today we’re sure to find some sign of what my daughter and her team were doing. She must have uncovered a secret in these ruins. If we can find the same secret, we’ll discover why her team vanished.”
Hearing their voices, Scully also crawled out of her tent. “Good morning. Mulder, are you cooking breakfast?”
“Just cereal and milk for me, thanks,” he replied.
Aguilar tossed away the stub of his vile-smelling cigarette. He looked freshly shaved. Seeing his employers awake and about, Aguilar turned to berate the Indians in a language Mulder couldn’t understand, his voice filled with disgust.
“What’s he saying?” Scully asked. “What did they do?”
Vladimir Rubicon listened a moment before shaking his head. “It must be a Maya language derivative. Many of the locals still speak the old tongue.” He shrugged. “Uh, I suspect they didn’t do anything wrong, other than running off into the night. Aguilar’s just trying to impress us with his authority.”
“I had a boss like that once,” Mulder said.
Aguilar came over, grinning at them as if he had just learned what they were getting him for his birthday. “Good morning, amigos,” he said. “Today we shall discover the mysteries of lost Xitaclan, eh? We shall learn what happened to the lovely Señorita Rubicon and her companions.”
“Have you asked the locals?” Scully said, gesturing to the Indians who appeared appropriately cowed after the long string of beratements.
Aguilar said, “They claim the spirit of this place has taken Señorita Rubicon. The old gods are hungry for blood after so many years. That is why the natives camp away from the ruins. They are not civilized people, like you and I. They don’t even try to pretend.”
“But did any of these workers remain to assist the archaeologists?” Scully said, her voice harder, pressing for an answer. “Somebody must know.”
“Señorita Scully, I guided the archaeology team to Xitaclan, for which they paid me a lot of American money—and I am very grateful. These Indians, descendants of the Maya, say there were many loud noises, strange activities, after I had left. Señorita Rubicon and her friends laughed at them for their foolishness, but the Maya helpers all ran to safety. Now they say the gods have shown who is foolish and who is wise.”
“Sort of like failing a supernatural IQ test,” Mulder muttered.
Aguilar rummaged around in his pocket for paper and tobacco to fashion himself another cigarette. A beautiful green-feathered bird flitted across the plaza from one tall tree to another, singing out a thin musical call. The Indians stopped their work, pointing up and chattering to each other in amazement.
“Look, the quetzal bird,” Aguilar said, nodding. He took off his ocelot-skin hat to shade his eyes in the slanted morning light. “Very precious. The Maya used quetzal feathers for many of their ceremonial dresses.”
Rubicon frowned and looked around as if he might see some sign of his daughter, while Mulder turned back to Aguilar, exasperated. “Do they know what happened to Cassandra, or not?”
Aguilar shrugged. “All I know is that Señorita Rubicon was safe and quite happy with the work awaiting her when I left her to return to Cancún.”
“Let’s get busy looking for her, then,” Scully said.
“These ruins may extend for a mile or so,” Rubicon said, stretching out his arm, “with separate sites or temple buildings blocked off from each other by the dense trees and vegetation.”
“Tell the locals what we’re searching for,” Scully suggested. “Maybe they can help us comb the site.”
Aguilar passed on the information, and the Indians dispersed to the jungle, diligently scouring the fallen ruins, talking excitedly with each other. Some looked uneasy, some confused, others eager, as they undertook the exploration.
Scully, Mulder, and Rubicon wandered around Xitaclan, walking the length of the overgrown ball court, poking in alcoves and niches, searching for clues, bodies—or even a note explaining that Cassandra and her companions had gone off to get groceries.
Scully said, “Their team consisted of an engineer, two archaeologists, a hieroglyphics expert, and a photographer. No real survival expert in the bunch.” She scanned the clotted trees, low palms, the dense vegetation hanging from the branches. The sun lit everything like a spotlight.
“Even if all the helpers ran off, like they did last night, I still can’t imagine Cassandra’s team trying to make their own way through the jungle. We just completed our own hike to get here,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to do that without a guide.”
“Cassandra was good at survival,” Rubicon said. “She had topographical maps and plenty of common sense.”
Scully lowered her voice. “I studied the maps myself last night, and I’m not certain our friend Aguilar brought us on the most straightforward path. I think he might have been delaying us for some reason.”
“I don’t trust him either,” Mulder said, “but he seems more like an obnoxious used-car salesman than an outright criminal.”
“Remember, this is a rough country, Agent Mulder,” Rubicon said. “However, if the Maya helpers had indeed abandoned Cassandra and her friends, it would be only a matter of time before she was forced to take some drastic action. They’d have to find their way back to civilization somehow.”
“So Aguilar dropped them off, leaving his Indian helpers here…and then the Indians could have abandoned the team,” Scully said. “Maybe another ground tremor?”
Rubicon nodded, blinking repeatedly in the bright sunlight. “I hope that’s what happened.”
“With no more supplies,” Scully pointed out, “Cassandra would have had no choice but to fight her way through the jungles.”
“But would they all have gone together?” Mulder asked. He ran his fingers along the glyph-carved wall blocks of the ball court. Something small and fast skittered into a shadowy crack. “It would make sense that, say, two of the team members would go to get help while the rest remained here.”
“You saw how difficult the jungles were, Mulder,” Scully said. “Maybe she thought it was their best bet not to separate.”
“It still doesn’t sound right,” Mulder said.
Rubicon shook his head. His white-blond hair clung to his skull, cemented by perspiration. “For myself, I hope that story is true, because then there’s still hope for my little girl.”
From not far off in the jungle, they heard a shout of excitement. One of the Indians called over and over. “Let’s go,” Mulder said, running. “They’ve found something.”
Vladimir Rubicon puffed and wheezed, keeping up with them as they stepped over fallen trees, climbed rocks, splashed through streams. Once Mulder startled a large animal that bounded off into the ferns and shrubs. He couldn’t see what it was, but he felt a sudden cold sensation, a lump in his throat. Perhaps he would get a better look at one of those slithering creatures he had half-imagined in the moonlight the night before. Could it be the basis for certain Maya myths, monstrous predators responsible for the numerous disappearances over the years…including Cassandra Rubicon’s?
Before long, they came upon a small temple barely the size of a tool shed. Though ancient and overgrown, it seemed sturdy enough. Much of the underbrush had been cleared away, the creepers pulled down to expose stone walls, a low-ceilinged interior.
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