Effigy

by Theresa Danley

  His plan was working.

  Mateo deposited the jaguar box on the floor of the recessed ballcourt. Its lid was now cluttered with the receiver and the servo, each connected to a battery switch through a tangle of wires. It was a shame to mar such a beautiful antique, but in a short time, it wouldn’t matter. He was prepared to do whatever it took to deliver the old man’s heart and the power of Quetzalcoatl to the Mirrored One.

  He slipped the length of rope that had been digging into his shoulder. At one end hung the effigy which he’d thrown over his back for easier carrying. It’d been hard enough climbing up to the ruins with the bulky jaguar box under his arm.

  With his offerings deposited in the ballcourt pit, Mateo crawled up the shallow embankment. He lay flat on the warm earth near the top where he could survey the situation brewing around Pyramid B. It was an amusing scene.

  A bomb squad was making preparations within a chaotic horde of officers waiting for instructions. On the pyramid platform above them stood the fifteen-foot Atlanteans maintaining a rigid sentinel against certain attack. Just beyond the confusion near the park’s entrance, civilian vehicles were reluctantly pulling away from the small museum where more officers were ushering the last few visitors from the area.

  The police were cooperating perfectly. He felt the satisfaction of a puppeteer overseeing his own production. Pull one string and the police cleared the site. Pull another string and they all gathered at Pyramid B—far away from the jaguar chacmool.

  Mateo checked his watch and slipped back down to the effigy and the jaguar box. He had plenty of time to wait there, virtually out of sight from the activity surrounding the pyramid. There was no sense in revealing himself too soon. He was taking a chance as it was, completing this final offering with so much law enforcement around. But he had no alternative. His sacrifice would fail completely if the police hadn’t been around to clear the public.

  For now, Mateo’s plan was working perfectly. Soon, very soon, the world would realize the beauty of his work.

  Place Of Reeds

  Peet had never fallen upon a more chaotic scene than the one surrounding the road blockade. As he threaded himself into the chaos, he’d never felt more conflicted. He cursed the officer in Teotihuacan from whom he’d lifted the AFI vest and balaclava mask. Had the officer been taller and a bit larger around the waist he could have taken the black uniform trousers too.

  As it was, Peet walked into the blockade conscious of his own blue jeans clashing with the navy uniform shirt and black bulletproof vest. The cuffs still dangling from his wrist certainly didn’t help. His failed disguise had turned him into a neon sign, unable to blend in amongst the civilian crowd, less likely to slip through the AFI blockade. If he was ever to find the effigy, he first had to quit skulking around like a half-naked man and get himself into Tula.

  As he wove through the cars jammed along the road, he spotted an SUV with bright yellow AFI lettering on its door. That was all the trousers he needed and when he found the vehicle empty with the keys dangling from the ignition, Peet climbed in behind the wheel.

  With the crowd occupying the officers’ attention, nobody would notice the SUV gone, much less stolen by an American. After all, if it worked to get him out of Teotihuacan, it should work getting him into Tula. But just to be on the safe side, he pulled the mask over his face again and tailed a small motorcade headed for the ruins.

  * * * *

  The park was as nearly chaotic as the road blockade. The AFI officers from the motorcade burst from their vehicles and rushed to join others who’d already surrounded the flat-topped pyramid beyond. Peet had parked the SUV behind two vans and slumped down behind the wheel to survey the AFI in action.

  They moved with the urgency of an FBI squad with their faces masked like Ninjas. They were armed with rifles and stormed the blunt pyramid like regimental militia. But to what purpose? The four giant Atlanteans stood rigid among a handful of stone columns atop the pyramid, but there was nothing else to draw their attention. Given the AFI’s urgent breastworks at the base of the pyramid, one might have thought they were witnessing a battle against four Toltec Goliaths.

  Peet felt impatient. How could he possibly search for the effigy in all this mess?

  The front doors of a van parked near the small museum swung open, pulling Peet’s attention away from the pyramid. Two officers got out, but they didn’t rush into the park like the others. Instead, they waited for a third man who’d vacated the car parked nearby.

  This third man tugged on his bullet-proof vest. He wasn’t masked like the rest of the officers. He wasn’t even armed except for a baton hanging alongside his thigh. His face was stern, his eyes darting as he barked an order that chased the two officers back to their van.

  They flung the side door open. One of the officers reached in and pulled out a woman whose hands were bound behind her back. Peet’s breath caught in his throat.

  Eva!

  His pulse began to race. If the AFI brought Eva to Tula, then there was a good chance they brought John too. All thoughts of the effigy disintegrated as he focused on that dark van parked just ahead of him.

  With measured movements, the third man exchanged words with Eva, then reluctantly removed the cuffs from behind her back only to lock her wrists in front of her again. With that, he took hold of her arm and with his officers in tow, led her toward the pyramid like a sacrifice to the altar. Peet waited until they were out of sight. Then, with his mouth suddenly dry, he adjusted the mask on his face and finally slipped out of the SUV.

  The van was parked facing away from him with the bright yellow AFI letters emblazoned across the back cargo doors. To Peet, they read like a caution sign. The windows were too dark to see inside. The van could be empty for all he knew, but if John did happen to be inside, chances were he wasn’t alone.

  Peet inched ever closer until he could just make out the shadowy outline of someone sitting in the back seat. There was no one else that he could see, and there was no movement. Was it really John? Then a disturbing thought slammed into Peet’s mind like a hammer to the head. Could he be dead?

  Peet took a deep breath. His fingers curled around the cool handle of the sliding door. With reflexes primed for an attack, he swung the door open with one quick movement. The captive, beaten and bound in the back seat, wearily lifted his head.

  “Dad?”

  John looked at him curiously as Peet quickly scanned the van’s interior. Finding nobody else inside, he tugged at the mask to give John a glimpse of his face.

  “It’s me. Peet.”

  John frowned. “What in God’s good name are you doing wearing that?”

  “Long story. Just get out of the van.”

  John shifted his weight with a groan, giving Peet a good look at the bruises on his face, the swelling of his right cheek.

  “What happened to you, Dad?”

  John painstakingly leaned out of the van. “Also a long story,” he gruffed. “And don’t call me Dad.”

  Peet reached out to stabilize him when he became aware of the footsteps coming fast. They were too close and they had no time to react. With John still hanging halfway out of the van, Peet spun around to the click of a rifle’s safety. Two AFI officers were aiming their weapons directly at them.

  “Quien es?” the first demanded.

  Peet swallowed, his mouth like cotton. He raised his hands in the air as the second officer reached out and pulled the mask off. Peet’s hair crackled with static, his face feeling suddenly exposed and naked.

  “Good disguise,” John said smartly, eyeing Peet’s jeans.

  “Well,” Peet said sourly as they were shoved at gunpoint back into the van. “I didn’t have time to fully enlist.”

  Ballcourt

  Derek drove as far as he dared on a road little more than a cow trail around the backside of Tula. He killed the engine and sat there in the heavy silence with Lori, looking up the sun-washed slope leading up to the ruins.

  “I’
m surprised nobody else has come back here,” Lori said.

  “Nobody else is crazy enough to tempt fate with the Mexican police,” he replied.

  “Maybe we should take their lead and get out of here.”

  Derek sighed. Lori was becoming just like every other sniveling bitch who didn’t get her way. “I overestimated your sense of adventure,” he said impatiently.

  She released an agitated huff. “Playing games with the police isn’t what I call an adventure.”

  Derek laughed. “Oh ya, I forgot. You’re an archaeologist. Your idea of excitement is digging up dead guys.”

  Her eyes deepened with anger.

  “Cheer up, Lori. Just think of it as a second chance to find the effigy. You remember how exciting it was the first time, don’t you?”

  Lori didn’t look convinced. Although her glare switched to the hill just outside Derek’s window, her expression still had that scornful look about it.

  “Even if the effigy is up there, we aren’t going to find it without getting caught.”

  “It’s got to be up there.”

  She shook her head. “It’s a trap. The police could’ve used Dr. Friedman’s phone to lure us all together for a group arrest.”

  Derek groaned irritably. “It’s not a trap. The police aren’t out in obvious sight when they’re trying to lure someone in.”

  Lori crossed her arms and cast him a challenging glare, one of those how-do-you-know looks. Derek ignored it. He was through trying to please her. He never could make a good partner out of her anyway, sexual or in any other sense. But if he could just string her along a little longer, her brilliant archaeological mind might come in handy for locating the effigy.

  However, the fact that so many AFI officers were gathered around Pyramid B was alarming enough to give Lori’s trap theory merit. Their presence in an archaeological site was baffling, to say the least, and if the police weren’t there looking for them, what were they there for?

  “I don’t like the looks of this at all,” Lori murmured.

  Derek opened his car door. “We’ll never know what’s going on unless we get closer.”

  * * * *

  This is insane, Lori thought as she followed Derek up the slope to Tula. She hated to sound like such a pessimist, but they were in way over their heads. This excursion to find the effigy had gotten out of hand. It had become more of a test for survival, and tempting fate with the Mexican police wasn’t exactly turning the odds in their favor.

  She’d love to have the effigy back in her possession, but at what cost? Was it worth risking their lives for it? Was it worth losing Dr. Peet, Dr. Friedman and Eva to some backward foreign legal system? She and Derek may be their only hope of rescue so it wasn’t prudent of them to continue with Shaman Gaspar’s charade, not when her better sense told her they should have been at the embassy by now.

  “We’ll come up right beside the ballcourt,” Derek whispered over his shoulder as they scaled the slope. Lori was a step behind, panting beneath the parched sun and sweating through her sleeveless shirt.

  What were they doing here?

  Just when they were about to reach the summit, Derek dropped like a rock. Hugging the ground, he motioned Lori to do the same.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded as she stretched across the baked earth.

  “There’s somebody up there,” he whispered.

  “A cop?”

  “No.”

  “Just one?”

  He nodded.

  She inched forward on her belly until she could peer over the top of the precipice. Just ahead the ground was sunken into a large I-shaped wallow—presumably the Toltec ballcourt Derek had mentioned. In the bottom of the shallow depression was the figure of a man, draped in a sweeping black trench coat and stooping over a strange black box. His face was hidden from view. He, too, seemed to be hiding from the cops.

  “What’s he doing?” Derek mumbled.

  They watched silently as the man swooped the black box into his arms and stepped out on the opposite side of the ballcourt. When he turned for the nearby ruins, the breeze caught the length of his coat and the sun glinted off a piece of glass hanging at his waist.

  “The mirror!” Lori gasped. “That’s him!”

  “Who?”

  “The man I saw at the university,” she said. “The one I thought stole the effigy!”

  “You mean the guy who killed Shaman Gaspar?” Derek asked, rising to his feet. “He must be carrying the effigy.”

  Ever since he received Dr. Friedman’s text message, the effigy was all that he cared about. To Lori’s dismay it didn’t seem to matter to him that half their group was likely in jail for no apparent reason at all. Derek didn’t even seem to realize that the police would still be pursuing them if they knew where they were. The only thing that mattered to him was the effigy. He was obsessed with it, like a bloodhound hot on the trail.

  Derek skidded downhill a few feet with the tumble of loose earth and rock, and then he scurried across the face of the slope.

  “Where are we going?” Lori asked, hurrying after him.

  He quickened his pace toward the gray ruin walls crowning the slope just ahead. Without hesitation, he called over his shoulder, “It’s time we get the effigy back.”

  The Jaguar

  When Mateo reached the Jaguar Chacmool, he was certain he’d heard footsteps behind him but when he looked, nobody was there. His senses were on high alert. He’d come to the riskiest part of the plan. Although he’d needed the AFI to clear the civilians from the site for him, he now relied on them to remain concentrated on Pyramid B. He needed that distraction just long enough…

  The footsteps came again. Even if someone wasn’t following him, he would surely be spotted soon. He had to hurry.

  The chacmool was gleaming in all its painted brilliance. The artist couldn’t have done a more beautiful job and the jaguar painted on the offering plate couldn’t have been more fitting. But what held Mateo’s attention now was the shoulder of the large statue, the one which the reclining figure was turned away from. There, Mateo fingered an almost undetectable blemish in the stone. The stone beneath his fingernail easily crumbled away in flakes of loose plaster that had been freshly painted to match the coloring of the statue.

  Finally, the plug popped out of the hole, offering limited view into the dark interior of the statue. Despite its bulky, hefty appearance, the Jaguar Chacmool was hollow, a trick the artist used to make it lighter and easier to move on the day of its dedication.

  Mateo peered into the hole. There was a pink shade to the darkness and the distinctly dry odor of forty kilograms of ANFO. The Jaguar Chacmool wasn’t hollow anymore.

  * * * *

  It occurred to Lori as she followed Derek through the maze of ruined walls that they weren’t just following someone with the effigy, but someone who’d killed for it. If this man murdered Shaman Gaspar, surely he wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to them, and it made Lori’s breath tremble just thinking about it. What scared her the most was that Derek seemed not to have taken such considerations in mind in this reckless pursuit.

  That was assuming the stranger really did have the effigy. Lori hadn’t actually seen the artifact, just a black box which she supposed might contain the effigy. She knew they were taking a chance in assuming so. If they were wrong, the only other thing that could possibly be in that box was the bomb that was mentioned at the road blockade—the bomb which, by the looks of it, the police expected to find at the pyramid on the other end of the park. Lori suddenly regretted their decision to follow the stranger.

  Derek ducked behind a low, crumbling wall. “There he is,” he whispered. “Beside the chacmool.”

  Lori knelt down beside him and peered over the wall. The stranger stood behind a brightly colored statue reclined across the ground. By following the slope to the ruined temple, they were no longer behind the stranger but about fifty yards to his left, and they could see his face. They could see Zorro
’s mask.

  Lori held her breath. There was no doubt that they’d found the thief who’d dragged her across the university parking lot. If she and Derek were caught now, they were surely dead, and the police were too far away to be of any help.

  The stranger eased the strange black box onto a round plate covering the statue’s chest.

  “What is it?” Lori whispered.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “It could be a bomb,” she whispered anxiously.

  Then she saw it. Sliding off the stranger’s shoulder beneath his coat was the effigy hung from the end of a rope. The stranger untied it and held the effigy between both hands, eye level, as though appraising it for the first time. For a moment he resembled a familiar figure, square and stoic with the effigy held between his outstretched arms. He looked just like the petroglyph in Chaco. He looked just like The Trader.

  “There it is!” Derek gasped, squirming to get a better look.

  His admiration apparently fulfilled, the stranger finally placed the effigy next to the box on the chacmool.

  “He’s going to blow it up!” Lori said, forcing control over a sudden jolt of apprehension.

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Derek mumbled.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know, but I need that effigy to save my ass.”

  “Your ass?”

  Derek glanced at her with a wry smile. “Come on. You didn’t think I was looking for it for archaeology’s sake, did you? We’ll be heroes when we bring the effigy back to campus. Imagine the publicity you’ll get for finding the same artifact twice! And for once I won’t be writing about it. I’ll be the story!”

  Lori scowled. “You won’t be a hero. Not when they find out you stole the effigy in the first place.”