Aguilar nodded eagerly, as if glad to have the old archaeologist back on his side again. “Sí, Father de Landa found Indians who could still read old writings, and he attempted to translate the heiroglyphics. But to him it was all against the Christian Word of God, eh? Cursed. When they showed him a cache of thirty books bound in jaguar skin, many filled with serpent drawings, he decided they contained with falsehoods of the devil. So he burned them all.”
Rubicon looked pained just to hear of the loss. “De Landa tortured five thousand Maya, killing nearly two hundred of them before he was summoned back to Spain for his excesses. While he awaited trial, he composed a long treatise detailing everything he had learned.”
“And was he convicted for his appalling behavior?” Scully asked.
Aguilar raised his eyebrows and barked a laugh. “No, Señorita! He was sent back to the Yucatán—as a bishop this time!”
Rubicon looked contemplative as he knelt in front of the bloodstained stela. Scully bent over to pick up the severed finger. It still felt faintly warm and rubbery. The thickened blood at the end did not drip off. She saw the ragged stump, where the stone knife had hacked through the flesh and bone.
If some of these people still practiced their violent religion, she wondered what other…sacrifices they might have made.
20
Yucatán jungle, Belize border
Tuesday, 0215 military time
The jungle was the enemy, an obstacle, an object to be defeated—and Major Willis Jakes had no doubt that his hand-picked squadron would succeed in conquering it. That was their mission, and that was what they would do. The ten members of his covert infiltration squad wore jungle camouflage uniforms and night-vision goggles. After being landed in secret on an uninhabited shore at the northern border of Belize, they had struck off overland through the jungles in a pair of all-terrain vehicles.
The most difficult part had been immediately upon landing, dumped off at the edge of the bay, Bahía Chetumal, crossing a few night-deserted roads and the bridge over the narrow Laguna de Bacalor, and then plunging into the trackless Quintana Roo wilderness.
Negotiating a path through the rain forest, they followed a digitized map, choosing a course that avoided even meagerly inhabited areas as they made a beeline for their destination. Much of the area showed no sign of human settlement, no roads or villages whatsoever…just the way the major preferred it.
Jakes’s team had to maintain a good pace to put them well past all roads and the populated coastal areas before daybreak. They could not afford to rest but had to proceed, always bearing in mind that they must reach their target—the source of the high-power encrypted signal—sometime during the following night. Under cover of darkness, they hoped to accomplish their mission. Before they could go home, the secret military base must be completely destroyed.
Their narrow-bodied all-terrain vehicles chewed up the offending tangles of foliage, crushing an obvious path through the forest…but in a place where no one would ever look. Even if anyone spotted Major Jakes’s team, the commandos would be long gone before any organized response could find them. The heavily inflated, armored wheels of the ATV trampled the undergrowth, each axle pivoting on its own gimbal to allow the utmost flexibility in negotiating the terrain.
Half of Jakes’s team rode in the vehicles, while the other half strode briskly behind, keeping up the pace across the newly cleared path. Every hour, they would switch, so that the first group of riders walked and the hikers rode. He had learned through experience that this was the most efficient way to bring his team overland under cover, without requiring bureaucratic permission or right of clearance from any foreign government. This covert operation did not officially exist…any more than did the secret weapons cache or the undocumented military base deep in the Yucatán jungles.
Major Jakes didn’t worry about the implications of such things. His orders were straightforward…not simple by any means, but at least clear-cut. He didn’t ask questions unless they pertained to the mission, and his team members asked for even fewer details than he did. They knew better.
Intensified by the night-vision goggles in front of his eyes, greenish residual light made the landscape look alien and surreal. Major Jakes knew how to handle it. He and his team had infiltrated and destroyed many other illegal installations that technically did not exist. Certainly, they existed no longer.
He rode in the lead all-terrain vehicle. Beside him his driver, a first lieutenant, moved along at the best speed he could manage. The driver shone a bright mercury spotlight in front of them, always keeping his eyes open for insurmountable obstacles. So far, they had managed to minimize their backtracking and continue on a very satisfying forward pace.
Get it right the first time, his father had always said—and young Willis Jakes had learned to follow that credo. He could think of few things worse than being forced to repeat a chore, or homework, while his father paced in the background, a stern taskmaster and absolutely unforgiving.
“The world is never forgiving,” he had told his son. “Best you learn that early in life.” Jakes had spent hours upon hours standing motionless against a wall, contemplating his grades or his test scores. He had learned how to focus utterly on a goal…how to get it right the first time.
The spotlight gleamed across the leaves of the jungle, which swayed in unfelt breezes as if the forest itself were alive. Suddenly Jakes saw two piercingly bright coins, the eyes of a predator, above head level in the trees.
The first lieutenant swept the spotlight up to catch the movement, and a sleek spotted cat bounded away from one branch to another. Jakes knew that his other nine soldiers had automatically flinched for their weapons, prepared to shoot the large cat. But the jaguar showed no stomach for fighting and fled into the darkness.
They rode in silence, rocking and bucking, the vehicle lurching over fallen trees and rocks, yet maintaining its balance. Major Jakes and the other riders struggled to keep hold of their seats. His ribs ached, and his stomach gurgled. He didn’t find the rough ride more comfortable than walking, but it did allow some muscles to rest while taxing others.
On one mission in southern Bosnia, he had added a new member to his team, a radio operator who seemed to consider it part of his job as a communications specialist to talk all the time. Jakes and his team preferred the silence, focusing their efforts on attuning all reflexes and all senses to maximum performance—but the new communications specialist wanted to chat about his family, about his high school, about books he had read, about the weather.
Major Jakes knew the young man wouldn’t work out from the beginning. He had already decided to request a replacement, but the new radio operator had been shot by sniper fire while retreating from a microwave-relay substation the commando team had just destroyed.
The mission itself had never been mentioned in any newspaper or on any TV network. As far as the boy’s parents knew, he had died in a freak training accident in Alabama, during specialized exercises. Luckily, the boy’s parents had been members of the “Stars and Stripes, God, and Apple Pie” party and had never even considered asking for an investigation or bringing a wrongful-death lawsuit that would have required even more complicated coverups….
Now, journeying into the jungles, the other members rode in silence, as usual, contemplating the Xitaclan mission, going over the details step by step. They were professionals, and Jakes knew he could count on them.
Behind him, the explosives expert grunted and sighed as he pressed his hands together in an endless ritual of isometric exercises to keep himself in shape. Major Jakes did not question his actions, because the man had always performed impeccably.
Jakes checked his watch, then called for a brief halt. “Time to switch crews,” he said. “But first let’s triangulate on the signal and verify its position.”
In the front of the second all-terrain vehicle, the new communications officer flipped up a flatscreen grid. He extended antennas from the sides of the ATV a
nd adjusted frequencies until he picked up the pulsing message that even the Pentagon’s best decryption experts found incomprehensible.
The signal pulsed loud and clear, like a subsonic jackhammer broadcast in all directions far and wide. Major Jakes couldn’t comprehend who might be its intended listener, or who had sent it. It sounded like a foghorn, a warning…perhaps even an SOS. But what could that mean? So far, no one had bothered to reply to it.
“We are on course, Major,” the communications specialist said. “The signal is loud and strong, and its position has not changed. According to my estimate on this topo map, we’ve already passed fifteen kilometers beyond Mexico Highway 307.”
“Good,” Major Jakes said, “we’re ahead of schedule then. That should give us a leg up on dawn.” He climbed down and stretched his legs, brushing his camouflage pants. “All aboard, Crew Two.”
The second shift came aboard while he, the first lieutenant, and the other three men went to follow the two vehicles. The new drivers started up immediately and forged ahead.
Major Jakes trudged along, securing his rifle across his shoulder, holding it ready to be used in an instant. No hesitation. No contemplation. He and his team were the Good Guys, and they had been given orders to take out the Bad Guys. No sweat, no regrets.
He didn’t know if the stakes were high enough that his actions might save the world…but someday that could well happen. Major Jakes treated every mission as if it could be The One.
He thought of all the James Bond movies he had seen, the banal secret agent adventures that were so preposterous and yet so uninteresting compared to his own missions. Each one of those movies featured a megalomaniacal mad genius bent on world domination; each one included a bizarre, high-tech fortress isolated in the wilderness.
As Jakes and his team tunneled deeper into the Yucatán forest, homing in on the ominous signal, he pondered what sort of crazed genius might have selected the vast Central American jungles to hide his stronghold. Why would anyone choose to erect a super-secret base in an ancient Maya ruin?
No matter. His team would destroy Xitaclan—and any people they found there—then they would return home. Major Jakes did not think beyond that.
They marched mile after mile, deeper into the jungles. With every step the source of the mysterious signal grew louder.
21
Xitaclan ruins
Tuesday, 7:04 A.M.
After another sweaty night filled with biting insects and unexplainable noises, Scully woke up and lay on her bedroll, trying to decide whether to rest for a few more minutes, or to get up and face the day.
In the light that filtered through her tent, Scully inspected the day’s assortment of itching red insect bites, swellings, and skin rashes. From her small kit, she took out a tube of cream and rubbed a dab on the worst spots, then crawled to the flap and thrust her head into the hazy morning light.
The camp was quiet and brooding, as if holding its breath. Inside its ring of stones, the campfire had burned down to cold, gray-white ash. She stood up, hearing Mulder rustle inside his tent, but she stopped short when she turned to Vladimir Rubicon’s tent.
It had collapsed in the night, fallen in on itself…as if some giant beast had stomped it flat.
Uneasy, she looked around, shading her eyes from the morning’s slanted glare. The hazy mist added a soft focus to everything, feathering the air. She saw no sign of the old archaeologist, nor of Fernando Victorio Aguilar, nor any of their Indian helpers.
She called out, “Hello, Dr. Rubicon?” She waited for an answer, then shouted his name again.
Mulder climbed out of his tent, stretching.
“Dr. Rubicon seems to be gone,” Scully said. “Look, something’s happened to his tent. Did you hear anything last night?”
Mulder immediately grew concerned. “Maybe he’s just off looking for his daughter. Getting a head start.”
Scully cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted again. “Dr. Rubicon!”
Out in the jungle birds squawked, angry at the disturbance. Scully and Mulder heard crackling branches at the edge of the trees. They both turned uneasily, waiting to see what might emerge from the swaying ferns.
Fernando Aguilar led a group of his Indian helpers. They all grinned, immensely pleased with themselves. Between them they carried a dead jaguar trussed on a branch pole, as if they had walked out of an old cartoon about big game hunters.
“See what we have caught!” Aguilar said. “This beast was prowling around the campsite last night, but our friends shot it with their arrows. Jaguar pelts are very valuable.” Aguilar raised his eyebrows. “It’s a good thing he wasn’t hungry enough to come looking for us, eh?”
“Well, maybe he was,” Mulder said. “We can’t find Dr. Rubicon.” He indicated the collapsed tent.
“Are you certain he isn’t just out exploring?” Aguilar said. “I have been with my friends here since sunup.”
“Dr. Rubicon could be looking around some of the other structures we missed yesterday,” Scully admitted, “but he doesn’t answer my calls.”
“Then we must look for him, Señorita,” Aguilar said. “But I’m sure he is all right. We already killed the jaguar, eh?”
The locals held up their pole triumphantly. The spotted cat lolled, bloody from dozens of small arrow wounds.
Aguilar kept his attention focused on the dead jaguar. “We’ll be busy dressing and skinning this cat,” he said. “You go ahead and search for Dr. Rubicon.”
“Let’s go, Mulder,” Scully said.
Mulder nodded seriously. “Can’t blame the good doctor for not wanting to waste a moment. Let’s split up,” he said. “Do a broad, rapid sweep until we find him. I’ll go inside the big pyramid. I know Dr. Rubicon wanted to poke around in there.”
“Agreed. I’ll climb to the top temple and have a look around again. Maybe I can spot him from up there.”
Behind them, in front of the pair of feathered serpent stelae—Scully wondered if the jaguar hunters had chosen that spot for some religious purpose—the locals took out black obsidian knives, while Aguilar removed a wicked-looking hunting blade. Together, they bent over and set to work flaying the dead cat.
Scully climbed the steep hieroglyphic staircase at the side of the pyramid. Her arms and legs ached from the physical activity of the last few days, but she ascended the crumbling narrow steps one at a time, leaning forward and using her hands for support, as if scaling a cliff. She tried to imagine how the heavily robed priests could have been graceful as they ascended to the upper temple to perform their ancient rituals.
People would have gathered around the base of the plaza chanting, beating on tortoise-shell drums with deer antlers, wearing colorful finery decked with feathers of tropical birds, carved jade ornaments. When she reached the temple pillars at the top of the ziggurat, Scully saw where royal spectators could watch and perhaps share in the bloodletting. Due to the steepness of the pyramid, the details of the sacrifices would not have been visible to the general audience below—only the blood, the raised hands, the murder….
She shook her head to clear the vision, remembering what Dr. Rubicon had muttered as he stared in awe around the Xitaclan site. The past is strong in this place.
Scully shaded her eyes and looked around. “Dr. Rubicon!” she shouted. Her voice rang out like an ancient priest’s chant, summoning the gods. She looked at the bas-reliefs around her, the stylized images of the god Kukulkan, designs and incomprehensible diagrams that Mulder insisted were blueprints of ancient spacecraft.
“Dr. Rubicon!” she repeated, still scanning the surrounding jungle. Below in the courtyard she saw a splash of red as the Indians and Aguilar skinned the jaguar. Three of the wiry men carried the raw and dripping carcass into the jungle. She wondered if they intended to eat the meat.
With a shudder Scully thought of the mysterious Indian who, in his superstitious fervor, had hacked off a finger with one of his obsidian knives—and another image came to the
forefront of her mind unbidden: some of these natives in a jungle thicket hacking out the raw red heart of the spotted cat and sharing it among themselves, eating the bloody flesh of their great jungle spirit.
She shook her head. She felt very alone and exposed, vulnerable atop the tall pyramid.
Giving up on finding any sign of the lone old man snooping in the jungles, Scully turned, looking closer to the great pyramid. She squinted, unwilling to call out again, remembering the old archaeologist’s own shout for his daughter as he waited and watched for her in vain. Cassandra Rubicon hadn’t responded to the call either.
Scully was about to give up when she went to the edge and looked down, away from the plaza. Then she caught her breath.
Mulder poked his head inside the dank opening of the pyramid, peering into the shadows. He noted prybar marks where Cassandra Rubicon and her helpers had broken open the ancient edifice. No doubt they had been careful, but smashing through sealed stone blocks required a certain amount of brute force.
He switched on his flashlight, and the brilliant beam stabbed into the unknown like a javelin, penetrating the mysterious blackness in the labyrinth built by Maya slaves. The flashlight comforted him, heavy in his hand. He was glad he had changed the batteries not long ago.
Though the tall pyramid had lasted for well over a thousand years, the interior did not appear sturdy enough to reassure Mulder—especially after the tremors their first night at Xitaclan. The hand-chiseled limestone blocks had begun to crumble at the edges, surfaces flaked by ravenous lichens and mosses.
His footsteps echoed on the stone floor. He shone the flashlight down, looking at the dust and powder to see scuffed footprints—Mulder couldn’t tell if the shoeprints matched any member of Cassandra’s team, or black-market grave robbers, or if they had been left by the old archaeologist just that morning.
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