Mark tried again, frantically pushing against the infernal rusted hunk of metal. His face now a deep plum color, the general latched onto the other side and pulled as well. The door ground open and spilled Mark onto the muddy dirt road.
He lay there, stunned, feeling a slice of pain in his shoulder. He hoped he hadn’t dislocated it again. That had happened seven years ago on one of Kat’s mountain-climbing training exercises. This, however, felt quite different. He didn’t know how long he lay there—surely not more than a second or two—but it was long enough to enrage the already furious man.
“Get up!” he bellowed. Before Mark could move he jammed the butt of the rifle into Mark’s gut. Mark yelped and doubled over, pain ripping through his abdomen and up into his thorax. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t suck in any air for the longest minute of his life. Finally the constriction loosened and he gasped.
“Is the doctor helping the bad men?”
He tried to choke out an answer, “no,” but it only came out as a squeak.
“You will die, doctor.”
He felt the cold barrel press against his cheek, heard a click on the rifle as the man pulled back the hammer. Mark froze. Was this how it was going to end? On a dirt road in a bloody Mexican jungle surrounded by paramilitary goons? He shut his eyes and thought of Kat.
Where the hell was she? Would she even feel it when he was gone? Or would she be joining him soon?
Funny, but it was the thought of her that mobilized him. Even after all that had happened, he couldn’t leave her lost underground. He launched himself upward, seized the rifle, and wrenched it from the man’s hands. Shocked, the general remained paralyzed an instant, giving Mark an opportunity that he never in his life had dreamed he would capitalize on. He reversed the rifle—just as the general recovered his senses and was scrabbling at his belt for another weapon—and fired.
Crack.
The shot echoed through the still mountain air. A dumbfounded expression washed over the general’s face as blood wept from the hole in his chest. His knees buckled and he toppled over, right on top of Mark.
Holy shit! Crushed under a corpse. Under someone he had killed. Was it possible? But otherwise he would have been dead.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Rifles exploded around him. Mark thrust the dead man from his body and scanned the situation. Jorge and his compadres were riddling the other paramilitary man with bullets from rifles that they must have stowed beneath the stack of gear. After what seemed like minutes but were likely only seconds, the cacophony ceased and the men lowered their weapons. Mark staggered upright, dazed and winded. He stared at the man sprawled in the mud in front of the truck. He was hardly recognizable; his chest had been flayed by the bullets into red and raw minced meat, there were gaping holes in his head, and brain matter was splattered all over the jungle floor. Mark had seen his share of grisly sights, from sucking chest wounds to gangrenous feet, but never anything like this. His body quaked. He could barely stand.
Jorge, not so shaken, was already shouting orders to his men. Sergio hopped off the truck and raced over to the still idling jeep. He leaped behind the wheel and sped toward the first fallen body. Manuel and Jorge sprinted to the same spot and began lifting the corpse from the ground. With a couple of dynamic swings, they heaved it into the back of the vehicle. Next Sergio dashed toward the truck.
A hand snuck up from behind and touched Mark’s arm. He jumped, spun, and saw the other Mexican, Chico, exposing his chipped teeth in a rather mirthless grin. He reached into the general’s pocket and removed Mark’s blood-speckled passport, handing it nonchalantly to him. Mark tucked it back into his shirt pocket with fumbling fingers.
“Levantar,” he said. Lift.
Chico gestured to the body, indicating that Mark should take the man’s feet. Mark nodded, walked around the blood pooling on the ground, and grasped the general by the legs. Together they hoisted him up and threw him onto the cargo bed of the jeep with the body of his companion.
Sergio gunned the jeep’s engine and charged into the jungle, spitting mud and decaying foliage from the back tires. Mark turned to Jorge, so exhausted from the after-effects of the adrenaline-rush and terror that he almost collapsed. He leaned against the side of the truck and did his best to keep his teeth from chattering.
“Good work, doctor. Never would have thought it of you.”
“Not something I’m proud of,” said Mark. “I’m supposed to save people, not kill them.”
Jorge shrugged. “Some just need to be killed.”
Although Mark’s heart rebelled against such philosophy, he couldn’t argue, especially now that he’d felt a gun against his head.
“So what now?” he asked.
“We look for your wife,” said Jorge.
“What about them?” Mark pointed in the direction of the disappearing jeep. “Won’t someone come looking for them?”
“Yes, eventually. But they won’t find them.”
Mark scanned the ground, which was saturated with blood and body fluids. He shivered. “They might find this.”
Jorge laughed. “Animals. Jaguar or crocodile had a feast. Besides, even if they do suspect foul play, they will never find us.”
“Why?”
“Where we’re going, no one will find us,” said Jorge. “Believe me, doctor Mark. No one will want to.”
A new chill gripped Mark’s spine. What was Jorge talking about? Why would no one want to find them? He couldn’t imagine a worse place than this roadside battlefield, the taste of blood still wet on his lips, the cordite burned into his hands. The images spilled through his brain as through a broken dam—the steel barrel pressed against him, the river of blood and guts and gore. But more than that, there was the fear. He’d never experienced fear like that in his life—so all-consuming that his body was numb, his bowels jelly, his mind screaming. Perhaps there had been one time; yes, once. The time he could never tell Kat about. How could anything be worse than that?
The Mexican didn’t intend to linger. He gestured for the men to climb back into the truck. Sergio swept from the fringe of the jungle, a cool look of satisfaction on his face. He jumped into the flatbed and clapped the others on the back. Who were these men?
Mark climbed into the cab, eyeing Jorge uncomfortably.
As the Mexican shifted the truck into gear, he returned Mark’s look. “What’s wrong, Señor doctor? Never tasted battle before?” He laughed. “This is only the beginning.”
Mark turned away from the man, shaking his head. If it weren’t for Kat, he’d be running back the way he came. Catching the next flight out of Mexico.
Jorge zipped over the rutted track in the rainforest, unperturbed. In fact, he looked oddly contented. The look rattled Mark even more than the jouncing ride. He kept his eyes trained in front, taking in the narrow track, the murky puddles, the fanned growth on either side. The road narrowed, then disappeared, leaving instead a solid wall of trees and dense ferns, Spanish moss dangling like a thick web across their path. Jorge was undeterred. He plunged through the web and slammed to a stop on the other side, sending Mark face-first into the windshield. Luckily, despite a splintering sound, the old glass held and he had nothing worse than bruised cheekbones to add to his still aching gut and throbbing shoulder. Shrieks and squawks made him sit back immediately, but it was only a flock of toucans that had been sent fluttering out of the trees by the abrupt appearance of the truck. It had also spooked other animals. Two donkeys, tethered to a branch nearby, brayed and yanked on their ropes.
“Where’s the rest of the road?” asked Mark.
Jorge looked at him and blinked. “Where do you think this cave is? On the main highway? We have to hike from here, of course.” He rolled his eyes and got out of the truck.
“Now it’s a hike through the damn jungle,” Mark muttered. He unlatched the door and pushed. It didn’t open again, the rusted piece of junk. With both knees bent, he kicked as hard as he could and the door finally sprang loose.
> The men were already unloading the vast assortment of supplies and tying them to the burros.
“Luckily your wife’s crew left behind some burros. We can use them,” said Jorge.
“Why would they do that?” asked Mark.
Jorge shrugged. “Perhaps they were in a hurry to es— to leave.” He chucked another bag at Sergio, who added it to the pile on the burro’s back.
Mark leaned over the side of the truck and grabbed his backpack. The dusky mutt growled deep in his throat and snapped, almost taking Mark’s hand off. “Damn!” he said, leaping away and colliding with a tree.
“Don’t hurt the tree,” said Jorge, lifting a tank from the truck and eyeing him sternly. “Sacred ceiba tree. Tallest, strongest of the forest. Mayan tree of life.”
“Tree of life,” Mark muttered. He flopped his head back and looked up and up and up. The tree seemed to extend into the sky, a crowning cloud of leaves at the top. “Sacred, huh? Nothing about this place seems sacred. Cursed seems more like it.”
Jorge stopped abruptly, right in front of him, arms still wrapped around the scuba tank. “How much do you know?”
Mark was taken aback. “Know about what?”
“This place? Do you feel anything?”
Mark shook his head, mystified. “Feel? I feel shaken, torn up, after staring down the barrel of a rifle and killing a human being, but I don’t feel—” He stopped. There did seem to be something in the air. A heaviness that was more than humidity. A rankness that was more than the smell of decaying leaves. An emptiness. “Lost,” he said suddenly, not even sure where the thought came from. “Forgotten.”
Jorge nodded. “You feel it too. This place is lost, but it’s not forgotten. We Maya never forget.” He dropped his gaze and walked toward the shuffling burros.
“Maya?” Mark frowned. “You’re Maya, like the pyramid builders?”
Jorge jerked a quick nod. With a heave he shoved the tank onto the protesting donkey’s back. Mark followed the man, and paused.
“So you’re a descendant. You still live here, near the pyramids?”
Jorge didn’t answer.
Mark licked his lips. “The other men who stopped us, were they Maya?”
Jorge snorted.
“The one, the general, he said you were bad men.”
A flash appeared in Jorge’s eyes as he faced Mark. “We are all bad men, doctor. Doesn’t the Christian Bible tell us that?” He snapped away, elbowed through the saplings, and tugged the burro behind. “We’d better get started if we want to reach the cave before nightfall.”
Mark expelled a long slow breath. The cave. Yes, the cave. He had to get Kat and get the hell out of here. There was something shadowy, something off, about these men. This jungle. The whole country. He hitched his pack a little higher and followed Jorge like a trained dog, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Where do we go?”
“The path.” Jorge pointed to a dense sheet of near-impenetrable growth.
“If you say so,” said Mark.
Chapter Nine
Kat awoke with a start, as if someone had shaken her shoulder. She raised her head and glanced behind at Ray, but he was still deep under, still snoring lightly. It must have been a mild bout of pain again. Budding breast cancer usually didn’t cause any pain—at least it hadn’t the first time until after the treatments—but surgery had left the area tender, and accelerating growth was impinging on it. Yet now she didn’t feel any pain. None whatsoever.
She sat up and tried to focus on the surrounding underworld, where blurry shapes registered light. Someone had left the flashlight on, draining precious batteries. It hardly bothered her though, as the realization began to grow that she still felt nothing. No deep internal gnawing, nor exterior cuts and bruises. She pulled up the leg of her p.j.’s, looking for the laceration that had been festering for a day or so. It had been inflamed and draining pus the last time she’d inspected it, despite the antibiotic cream she’d applied. Now, incredibly, it was gone. The skin was smooth and unblemished, totally healed.
That was impossible, wasn’t it? How long had she been asleep? She turned her wrist, gazing at the waterproof watch—not smashed, luckily—and found the time to be 1:00 p.m. They’d slept about five hours. How could she have healed in that short a time? Fumbling up sleeves and leggings, she examined the rest of her body. Not a scratch on it. How was that possible?
She remembered falling into the lake and coming out covered in jelly-like aggregates. Could this be why? Could the microbes in the growth have healing qualities? And could they, like penicillin, have fought the infection in her leg? Hope bloomed so forcefully she had to blink back tears. Could it be possible? Had her quest succeeded?
She recalled Mark’s words. Mark’s harsh “reality check,” as he’d called it, when he knew she was sick again. After the chemo and the surgery had failed.
“Kat, you’re looking for a miracle cure. There is no such thing.”
And her reply. “You don’t understand. These nanobacteria’s abilities are unprecedented. Who knows what they can do? Haven’t you read about the breakthroughs?”
“In the lab, Kat. In the lab. It will take years before they get to human trials.”
She’d ignored him, of course, because he was crushing her hope. Damn his reality check! “They’ve found some that inhibit the protein for angiogenesis.” This was how a tumor promoted the blood vessels to supply it and thereby spread its cells throughout the body.
“Untested.”
“And they’ve even found selective microbes that target breast cancer cells.”
“That are toxic to surrounding tissue.”
“No, Mark. You’re not reading what I’m reading. They aren’t. They don’t affect surrounding tissue.”
“Kat.” He’d seized her by the shoulders, his eyes smoldering with anger. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? You’re pinning all your hopes on something that they’ll never let you use. I don’t care how connected your caving buddies are, they’re not going to inject you like a lab rat. Even if they would, I wouldn’t let them.”
“Yet you wanted me to be your lab rat.”
“Because I knew this would work. It still is your best hope. You have to trust me.”
“And why should I trust you after . . .”
She’d seen the pain flare in his eyes, the sudden tautness in his shoulders and neck. She was glad for it.
“So you’re going to punish me by punishing yourself? Again,” he’d added.
“I’m not going to die, Mark.”
“You can’t,” he’d said. “You’re too strong and you’re too stubborn.”
Well, strong and stubborn as she was, she’d still felt the invasion, the steady growth and the increasing pain in the remnants of her breast. And he’d been right about her friends—they wouldn’t bypass protocol and inject her with their microbial brew. Now here she was, in the deepest cave on earth, under the pretence of finding the origin of life, or a microbe comparable to what they’d discovered on Mars, but really here as a last-ditch effort to save her miserable life. Had she succeeded? She gazed at the smooth skin of her leg, but suddenly felt the sting in her breast again. Hope could be so cruel.
“Kat?” She looked up. Megan was leaning over her, a camera clutched in one hand. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, not trusting her voice yet. With a resounding sigh, she let the fragment of hope float away. “I’m fine. What are you doing up? Have you slept?”
“Oh, Kat, I couldn’t,” she said, her voice straining with excitement. “I’ve been looking at the skeleton.”
“Why?” asked Kat. Why were archaeologists always so fascinated with dead bodies?
“Come here. I’ll show you.”
She tugged on Kat’s arm, then seemed to think better of it and removed her hand.
Megan’s behavior when it came to touching people had always struck Kat as odd. If someone laid so much as a hand on her, she reacted as if she’d be
en burned. Often her eyes adopted a melancholy sheen, like she just needed to be hugged, but if anyone came too close she’d shy away instantly.
Kat dragged herself up, waiting for the claws of pain to strike again, but they had retracted, at least temporarily. Megan tossed the camera to her sleeping mat and began walking toward the column with the skeleton sagging against it.
“Were you taking pictures of the skeleton?” Kat asked, more than a little confused. She could see Megan photographing the cavern, but why the human remains—unless she thought . . .
“I tried,” she said. “But the camera must have been damaged in the sump. All my documentation . . .” She sighed. “Well, no matter. I’ll just have to return sometime with another one.”
“But why would you want to photograph the skeleton?”
“I’ll show you.” She crouched down. Her breathing alone sent gauzy flakes drifting from the surface of the bone. “The bone is very fragile. And the forehead. The forehead bothers me.”
Kat scrunched her face and studied the skull, noting the definition of its forehead—sloped and elongated. “Cultural?”
“Yes,” said Megan, nodding enthusiastically. “Ancient cultural tradition. At birth the Mayan parents tied wooden blocks to their children’s heads to reshape the skull. They thought it was attractive.”
“So you think this is an old skeleton?”
“Very old.”
“But that’s not possible,” said Kat. “There’s no way anyone could have penetrated this deep without scuba gear and ropes and rappelling equipment. Unless . . .”
“Unless?” said Megan, her eyes shining.
“There’s another way in.”
“Exactly.”
Relief warmed Kat’s chilled skin. Even if her miracle cure hadn’t materialized, at least she and, thank goodness, her team wouldn’t die down here. She focused on the skeleton again, taking in the small size and oblong shape of the head. Megan was right. This wasn’t a modern speleologist.
“Do you think it was a sacrifice?” she asked.
Megan shook her head. “Usually a sacrifice is curled up by the sarcophagus of the king or noble. Or it’s been decapitated, or had its heart ripped out of its chest. This fella looks like he just leaned against the column for a rest.”
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