by Larry Baxter
"Just the two of us."
"Too bad, cook loves a challenge. High noon."
Phil gave them directions, and they drove up the coast. They found the driveway bracketed with big stone pillars and guarded by an iron gate that swung open to an invisible command as they approached. They drove east up a curving asphalt driveway, slightly wider than the main road. Robert estimated it at close to a mile long. In Boston you'd pay at least two hundred bucks a whack to get this thing plowed, another advantage of living near the equator. The last asphalt curve revealed a colossal Italianate home in grey granite and adobe, with a luxurious green lawn featuring a bocce court and a putting green, a terra cotta tile roof and an enormous entrance. A short, overweight man in his fifties, with a receding hairline and LaCoste swimwear, swung open both of the two big carved wooden doors as they approached. He took Teresa's hand in both of his. "I'm Phil. You're Dr. Teresa Welles, I bet. Who's the guy?"
"Dr. Robert Asher, meet Phil."
He ignored Robert, kept her hand, looked up into her eyes and said, in a stage whisper, "You ever wanna dump this bozo, sweetie, and move up to the big leagues, call my social secretary."
She smiled a little, but her eyes weren't in it. Finally he turned to Robert and grinned, "Just kidding. You can come in, too."
Phil led them through the center hallway, still talking with Teresa with Robert trailing along behind. The guy looks like a fireplug, talks like a fire hose, and he's worth over five hundred million US. Well, one out of three is OK. The wide hall was obsessively formal with high ceilings, marble, oriental rugs, dark wood paneling that looked as if had come from a British castle, and some paintings that looked like Utrillo and Cézanne. "Check it out. As you can see, my decorator was in her neo-Impressionist period. She was fond of the interplay between rococo, baroque, Louis Quinze, and Bauhaus. She went on from this to decorate the Bowl-A-Drome in Hallandale, another successful commission, I don't know if you've seen it, she got more into neon and chrome with that one."
They walked past this magnificence to the less formal pool area. The pool had the negative edge treatment on the ocean side, with the water edge suspended in space. To the right of the pool stood a small palm-thatched bar area with a pretty dark young Mexican woman in a bright orange blouse.
"Conchita!" Phil yelled to her. "Drinks all around! Margaritas!"
They sat at a glass-topped table under a Cinzano umbrella and sipped the cold drinks. "So, you probably want to hear my life story, right?" said Phil. "I'm just a struggling financier, between wives right now, hanging out in this rustic beach house with just my cook, my housekeeper, my security staff, and, ummm, Conchita, here. I used to work in Wall Street until I got busted for a perfectly legal penny-stock leveraged buyout deal. Well, OK, fairly legal. Well, maybe not so legal, but creative. They gave me a choice between five to ten years of minimum-security or taking it on the lam to some country with subvertible extradition agreements with the U.S., and here I am, subverting like crazy. Not that I don't want to pay my debt to society, you understand, but I'd rather drink piña coladas on the beach. I keep busy with this and that down here, odd jobs, you know how it is. I don't visit the States any more unless I wear a disguise, and I take care of the Federales so they would rather keep me here than export this valuable resource. Keep the Yucatán green, I'm sort of a one-man environmental movement. I'm on a first name basis with the local fuzz. How can I help you? Want somebody to show you the Maya relics?"
They explained their problem, filling Phil in on the Austin virus and their search for the origin of the old glyph that matched the new microscope image, and giving him the details of yesterday's encounter with the local law.
"Did you get the name of the cop that busted you?"
"Colonel Muñoz."
"Yep, it's his territory, all right. We're like brothers, Luis and me. I call him Luis. He calls me Phil. He likes Conchita. Her name isn't really Conchita, it's Shirley, if you can believe it, long story, but I couldn't call her Shirley. Muñoz is, believe it or not, no worse than your average Federale Colonel. Better than some."
"I'd hate to meet a bad one."
"Oh, he blusters a lot, but he's fairly OK."
"How do we handle him? Offer him a bribe? I've heard that the police are basically paid in bribe money."
"HA! They're paid only in bribe money. In some districts, the cops pay two hundred bucks a month to keep their jobs. There's a finely tuned system here, bribes are part of the cost of doing business. Mordida, that's the local term for it: mordida, the bite. Speeding costs twenty US, Leaving the Scene of an Accident is a C, Drunk Driving is two Cs, Vehicular Homicide While Legally Intoxicated will cost you two or three thou, but they'll take credit cards. You're probably up against Police Protection for Drug Smugglers, something like twenty-five thou per event or seventy-five thou per year. It could be pretty expensive to get into a bidding war: it might set you back a hundred thou cash, one time payment, U.S., works much better than pesos. No checks, no credit cards; cutouts, untraceable cash; bagman must be acceptable to bribee."
"One hundred thousand dollars?" said Teresa. "That's not fair, they're criminals. We're trying to stop an epidemic."
"Right, I forgot. Justice. Humanitarianism. OK, we'll try fifty thou, appeal to his sense of fair play and the sanctity of human life. Or maybe some other angle; Muñoz likes cars; maybe I can do something there. He always checks out my car collection when he visits. Or, Conchita?" Schwartz looked at her carefully, "No, I couldn't do that to Muñoz."
"We don't have anything like fifty thousand."
"Don't worry about it. I can handle that without even going to the bank."
"We can't take that kind of money. We may have no way to repay you. Washington may have trouble with a bribe."
"Hey, I got nine figures worth of bank account, twelve or thirteen figures if you do it in old pesos, I don't need your Yankee dollar. This is the thing, though. I'm dying down here; I want to go home. If I get Muñoz off your back and you pull this off, and you guys get your fifteen minutes of fame, ask the Pres to get the IRS off my back."
"You mean the President of the United States? I don't think we'll get to talk to him."
"Well, then, don't worry about it. Just if you do, is all. Besides, I've been watching the news from the U.S. If you pull this off, the Queen of England will clean your windows. You'll be the next president. And maybe I'll look in on your operation, see if you bring up the buried treasure. Help you polish the gold statues." He grinned at them, exposing a fortune in stateside porcelain.
Conchita arrived with a silver tray, small sandwiches, caviar, smoked salmon, wheat crackers, and two bottles of California Chardonnay in an ice bucket.
Teresa spooned some of the dark gray caviar onto a wheat cracker. "Nice lunch. We don't get caviar at the Akumal hotel."
"I have it flown in from the Caspian. Beluga sturgeon. It only costs pennies more to go first class. Where are you digging?"
"Just a little south of Tulum."
"Makes sense, I've heard some strange things have happened on that piece of coast. Fast boats anchored offshore. Watch yourselves. Make sure your insurance is paid up. Want to check out my car collection? Just got a Hispano-Suiza, you'll love it. The 1929 H6-B"
"Thanks for everything, but no, we should get back to work. Can we call tomorrow to see how you're doing?"
"Sure. Call anytime, it's nice to talk American for a change."
* * *
When Robert phoned Phil in the morning, Conchita answered, recognized his voice, and put Schwartz on the line.
"Hey, Robert, what's happening?"
"Pretty quiet here. Any progress with Muñoz?"
"Not just yet, but we're optimistic. Give Conchita your telephone number and address and sit tight. Events are moving quickly, here."
Robert found Teresa out by the pool, lotioned, reclining, and clad in a black one-piece bathing suit. She was reading a large old-looking book with pictures of Maya glyphs. He sat down
and ordered a piña colada to match hers, but before the drink arrived an agitated waiter appeared.
"Señor Asher? Señorita Welles? The policia are in front. Muy importante. Colonel Muñoz. He ask for you."
For Christ's sake. No, it can't be happening. Muñoz is going to arrest us. He doesn't want a bribe. "Could be trouble," he said, thinking of Mexican jails.
"Or, maybe he's just selling tickets to the policia's ball," said Teresa, "Let's go see."
They walked through the open lobby and saw—under the coconut palms that lined the circular driveway—Muñoz, sitting in a huge convertible. He was impeccably attired in crisp new dress uniform. An old leather cap was on his head and he wore leather-framed blue-lensed sunglasses. A white silk scarf was around his neck despite the warmth of the day. The automobile, a beautifully restored Dusenberg, was at least twenty feet long. Wire wheels with white sidewalls were protected with sweeping clamshell fenders. Chromed exhaust pipes curved down from the engine compartment and under the running board. The car was painted cherry red. A deep, resonant engine note at idle hinted at a big engine under the hood with enough torque to pull stumps.
"Hola, Asher. Como 'sta?" said Muñoz, grinning widely under the moustache and tapping the throttle.
"Colonel, I…"
"Sí, I know, you need a ride to Tulum. But you will have to take your own vehicle, I am going to Cancún."
"But…"
"Ah, yes, you are maybe thinking 'when will the good Colonel ever finish the archaeological permit which we discussed yesterday?' Well, place your mind at ease, the policia are at your service, hands across the sea, two great countries working as one." He handed a piece of paper to Robert. "Adíos."
He drove off with a great roar from the engine. Robert and Teresa looked at each other and at the form, titled "Permiso Arqueologia," and at the Colonel's signature at the bottom.
"Schwartz," said Robert. Teresa nodded.
Chapter 20
* * *
Tulum, November 5, present day
An hour later they were at the cenote south of Tulum. Robert tied some knots in a half-inch nylon line for easier climbing and tied an end of the knotted line and an end of their light safety line to a rock outcrop. They donned SCUBA gear and worked their way hand over hand down the line. Robert cautioned Teresa to hold on to the line until they got their bearings, as he expected to descend into the fast-moving stream.
The water was only a dozen feet down. They slipped beneath the surface and dove down maybe fifty feet through a ragged passage filled with swirling inch-long silver fish. The visibility, without the fish, would have been hundreds of feet in the clear water. With the fish, Robert could hardly see Teresa five feet away.
The fish population dwindled as they dove, and they reached a horizontal passage, testing the speed of the current carefully. The passage was wider here and the current was slow.
They played out the lifeline from the big reel as they swam easily upstream, emerging into an impressively large cavern, lit by a pencil-thin shaft of sunlight. Teresa rolled on her back and kicked like a dolphin.
The colorful stalactites and stalagmites merged to form vertical columns like the bars of a jail, but they found a path and swam slowly through the formations, finding—finally—the river's entrance tunnel.
Robert signaled Teresa and pointed up to show her a silvery mirror at the top of a wide section. He pulled his regulator from his mouth and swam to the mirror, stuck his head into the air pocket and took a few breaths. Good air. He returned to her and she gave him an OK sign.
After swimming a few hundred yards down the smooth limestone passage, they saw a small aperture in the right-hand wall. Robert pulled out a loop of line and let it show that the water flow, although slow, was into the aperture: it was not a blind alley. Robert debated with himself for a minute. He had seen no scratches in the walls; they may have found the southerly passage. Should he try this side passage? He thought again that he should not have come even this far with an inexperienced diver. But the virus was winning, back home. And Teresa seemed totally relaxed underwater, she used even less air than he did.
OK, into the abyss. Robert unstrapped his tank but left the regulator in his mouth, and Teresa, understanding, unstrapped hers. He thrust his tank through the opening—too small for a diver with tank—and wriggled his body through with some difficulty. She followed more easily, and they strapped the tanks back on.
He saw no scratches here either. Either the wrong passage, or the events were downstream. He turned downstream. More current here. At least if there was trouble, the current would take them back to the reef. Or would the passage constrict so that they'd be stuck like a cork in a bottle? No, the current would need a bigger hole to flow through. Unless it branched…it better damn well not branch, they wouldn't make much progress swimming against it.
After swimming fifty yards or so, a totally unexpected sight surprised him: shiny steel rungs were stapled to the wall. He looked at Teresa, she shrugged. Surely, the Maya did not make stainless steel ladders, and this one appeared new. He pointed a lamp upwards along the ladder and saw a rectangular opening in the tunnel ceiling and the reflecting mirror of the water surface. He looked around, saw no other signs of civilization, and started up the ladder.
The ladder led them up twenty feet, and near the top they came out into fresh air. They were near floor level in a long man-made cavern, trapezoidal in cross section, about a hundred feet long and maybe fifteen feet high and wide, with a pair of narrow-gage conveyer tracks leading down its center. At the far end of the tracks a large steel mechanism articulated with hydraulic cylinders seemed poised to lower its long arm into the river.
Robert spotted a yellow forklift truck parked near the mechanism. Forklift truck? Must be a dry entrance somewhere.
The place smelled of mold and oil, and they could hear the lapping of the water and a muted low humming that may have been a generator. A floodlight was mounted in the wall near them but it was not lit, the only light was from their waterproof flashlights. The floor and walls were limestone, but they seemed to have been smoothly worked with a fine tool of some kind to a flatness that could not be natural.
They stripped off their SCUBA gear and deposited it near the hydraulic mechanism. "Look!" she whispered, pointing at the far wall. "Glyphs!"
They illuminated the far wall with their flashlights, and she quickly read the columns of glyphs. "It looks like this place was some kind of entrance hall to something. Something important, but secular. The ancient Maya dug this place out. I can read most of this. It's not what we're looking for. But it looks like there's more here, more rooms. Let's look around."
Robert felt a sudden chill. He thought of the wet suit he had not needed for the seventy-degree water, but here without the insulation of the air-filled buoyancy vest his body temperature seemed to plummet. He shivered slightly and his stomach tightened. What was this installation? Why the secrecy? Some government project? A mining operation? Whoever the operators were, they didn't want this place on the tourist maps.
"Let's not talk," he whispered to Teresa, turning off his light. "And turn off your flashlight. Just in case. Wait, stick it into your wet suit sleeve so you get only a narrow beam."
"Just in case this cave is crawling with rats?" she whispered back. "You go first."
Robert walked to the hydraulic mechanism in the darkness with Teresa holding his arm, turned on his flashlight briefly and found a crude wooden door blocking a side passage. Robert leaned on it without effect. He looked more closely at the door. Vertical heavy hardwood planks, recent construction, no handle, hinges maybe on the opposite side. Scratches on the stone showed where the latch bolt was located, and a narrow gap in the planks revealed a glint of metal.
Robert removed his diver's knife from its calf holster and pushed its point through the gap, working it back and forth to move the retaining bolt a fraction of a millimeter at a time until the door swung free.
They moved forw
ard a few feet and reached a T junction with a larger tunnel in the limestone, a natural cave with no signs of masonry. Its irregular floor was bisected by a deep crevice carved by a fast-moving stream, and along one wall a row of bare low-wattage bulbs flickered in time with a generator's mumbling.
"Don't have to worry about noise level in here," said Robert over the roaring stream. "Watch your step, though, that looks like the WaterWorld Thrill Ride down there."
A great irregular pile of green trash bags blocked the upstream direction, and beyond there was a rough wall with no apparent passage except the low tunnel carved by the stream.
"Look at that, will you," observed Teresa. "Not ecologically conscious at all. Let's call Greenpeace."
"That lets out any authorized expedition, and it means there are a few of them at least. Be careful."
They walked downstream. Robert noticed black circular marks on the light-colored rock of the walls and imagined the forklift truck wheels making intermittent contact.
Teresa stopped, looking down. "Got something?" Robert asked.
"Trilobite. Fossilized. This stone was under water in the Cambrian."
"Thank you, Doctor Welles. See anything else?"
"No Maya artifacts. Rubber marks on the wall. Poor maintenance, half of these bulbs are out. The stream is much faster than underground rivers in the Yucatán are supposed to be."
"Maybe Bernoulli effect. I think it's time to get out of here. I'm getting nervous. We can come back with reinforcements."
"Oh, come on, just a little farther. Those glyphs at the entrance cave seemed to say this was a big installation, many rooms, and some kind of institution."
After a few minutes they had reached the bend, and the tunnel stretched another hundred feet, revealing four man-made openings cut into the walls on their side of the stream. As they neared the first opening, two men stepped quickly into the tunnel, each with a week's growth of black stubbly beard, each dressed in black sweats with a black bandanna around the head, each holding a machine pistol. The taller of the two flashed a twisted smile and said, "Buenos días. ¿Cómo estás?"