Mystery Man

by Diana Palmer

  “You what?” Janine exclaimed, grinning.

  Dan grinned and exchanged a look with his wife. “We weren’t always old,” he murmured.

  “No time for reminiscing,” Joan said, and she was picking up things as she went. “Get cracking. We have to pack up and get out of here, quick.”

  Before she had a case packed, Canton and the kids were back.

  “Hurricane Opal is headed our way,” he began, noticing the disorder in the living room.

  “We know,” Janine said. “We’re packing up to go inland. We need to rent a van.”

  “Leave that to me. There’s safety in numbers. We’ll go together. I have a friend who owns an estate halfway between here and Chichñaen Itzñaa. He’ll be able to have us stay. And he has armed security,” he added with a chuckle.

  “Armed security?” Janine was intrigued.

  “He was a mercenary in his younger days. Now he’s a married man with two kids. They moved down here from Chicago because of the tough winters. Not much snow in Quintana Roo,” he added merrily.

  “What interesting people you know, Mr. Rourke,” Dan remarked.

  “Call me Canton. Yes, I do have some unique acquaintances. I’ll see about that van. Karie, you stay here with Kurt and Janine.”

  “Oh, Dad, does he have a TV?” she asked worriedly. “I have to watch the Braves game. It’s the playoffs!”

  “They’re never going to win the series,” he began.

  She stuck out her lower lip. “Yes, they are! I believe in them!”

  He just shook his head.

  Two hours later, they were fighting headwinds and rain as they plowed down the long narrow paved road toward the estate of Canton’s friends.

  The jungle was on either side of them. They saw small pueblos nestled among the trees, many with satellite dishes and electricity. Advertising signs were nailed to trees and even the sides of small wooden buildings here and there. There were huge speedbreakers at the beginning and end of each little town they passed.

  Down the dusty streets, children played in the rain and dogs barked playfully. As they went past the small, neat houses, they could see hammocks nestled against the walls, ready to be slung again each night. The floors of the whitewashed houses, though earthen, were unlittered and smooth. Tiny stores sat among unfamiliar trees, and in several places, religious shrines were placed just off the road.

  Two tour buses went by them. The buses were probably bound for ancient Mayan cities like Chichñaen Itzñaa. Janine and Kurt had been on one during their first week in Cancñaun. The large vehicles were surprisingly comfortable, and the tour guides were walking encyclopedias of facts about present and past in the Yucatñaan.

  “You’re very quiet,” Joan remarked from the front seat of the van. “Would you rather have gone with the Rourkes?”

  “They’ve got Kurt,” she said. “I thought I might need to stay with you.”

  Dan chuckled. “Protecting us, is that it?”

  She only smiled. “Well, neither of you know any martial arts.”

  “That’s true, darling.” Joan touched her hand gently. “Whatever would we do without you?”

  “I have no idea,” Janine said dryly, and meant it, although they didn’t suspect that.

  The estate of Canton’s friend had two men with rifles at the black wrought-iron gates. Whatever Canton said to them produced big smiles. The gate opened, and Canton’s arm out the window motioned the van to follow.

  The house had arches. It was snowy white with a red tile roof, and blooming flowers everywhere. It looked Spanish, and right at home in the jungle.

  As they reached the front porch, wide and elegant with a few chairs scattered about and a huge hammock, the front door opened and two people came out.

  The man was tall, dark, very elegant. He had a mustache and looked very Latin. The woman was smaller, with long blond hair and a baby in her arms. A little boy of about nine came out the door behind them.

  When the vehicles stopped, the Curtises got out and joined the Rourkes and Kurt.

  The dark man came forward. “You made good time,” he told Canton, and they shook hands warmly. “These are the Curtises of whom you spoke? Bienvenidos a mi casa,” he said. “Welcome to my home. I am Diego Laremos. This is my wife, Melissa, our son Matt, and our baby daughter, Carmina.” He turned and spoke softly to the blond woman. “Enamorada, this is Canton Rourke, of whom you have heard me speak.”

  “I’m delighted to meet you,” the woman spoke with a smile and a faint British accent. “Diego and I are happy to have you stay with us. Believe me, you’re all quite safe here.”

  “Many thanks for putting us up,” Dan Curtis said, extending a hand. “We have some priceless things that pothunters have been trying their best to steal. We had hoped to fly to the States today, but they were evacuating Cancñaun.”

  “So Canton told me,” Diego replied solemnly. “Pothunters are ever a problem. So it was in Guatemala, where Melissa and I lived.”

  “We tried to live in Chicago, but the winters were too harsh,” Melissa said with a rueful smile. “We were nervous about taking Matt to Guatemala, so we eventually moved here. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Absolutely,” Janine said. “It must be wonderful to live year-round in such a paradise.”

  Canton put an arm around her. “Think so?” he asked gently. “Then I’ll see about buying some land nearby, if you like it.”

  “Could we?” Janine exclaimed. “How wonderful. We could visit Melissa.”

  Melissa beamed. “Yes, you could. I have all your books,” she added sheepishly.

  “Now that really makes me feel welcome. May I hold him?” she asked, moving toward the baby with bright, intrigued eyes.

  “Her.” Melissa corrected her with a chuckle. “Indeed you may.” Melissa handed the baby over, and Janine cradled her warmly, her whole face radiant as the tiny little girl looked at her with dark blue eyes and began to coo.

  “Oh, what a darling!” she exclaimed, breathless.

  Canton, watching her, had an incredible mental picture of how Janine would look holding their own baby, and he caught his breath.

  She looked up, into his eyes, smiling shyly. “Can we have several of these?”

  “As many as you like,” he replied huskily.

  “I’ll take you up on that,” she promised.

  The Laremoses were the most interesting people Janine had met, and she’d met a lot. Diego had two other ex-mercenary friends in Chicago, one who’d practiced law there for years and was now an appellate court judge, and another who ran a top secret security school of some sort. Both were married and had families.

  “There’s another member of the old group in Texas,” he added. “He’s married, too, and they have a ranch. And then there’s one who lives in Montana. He got fed up with the city and took his wife and kids out there. They have a ranch, too. We have reunions every year, but with all the kids involved, we have to have them in the summer.”

  “They’re a unique bunch,” Canton said musingly. “And all ex-mercenaries. I’m amazed that you all lived to marry and have families in the first place.”

  Laremos leaned forward. “So were we.”

  Canton smiled at Janine over the huge dinner table, where they were eating salads and drinking fine, rich coffee. “I met this bunch at a time in my life when I was having some extreme problems with a small hardware enterprise I’d set up in a Third World country. Mine was ecologically friendly, but there was a rival company tearing up the rain forest and killing off the natives. When the government said that it didn’t have the money or manpower to do anything about the situation, I sent Laremos and his group over and they arranged a few unpleasant, but nonlethal, surprises for them. They packed up and left.”

  “Good for you,” Janine said with admiration.

  “We also set up a trust and bought land for the tribe, which is theirs forever. I don’t like profit with a bedrock of destruction,” Canton said simply. “I never di
d.”

  “I hope you get it all back, amigo,” Laremos said sincerely. “We need more industrialists like you, men who balance profit with compassion for the environment.”

  “Profit is the last thing on my mind right now,” Canton said, leaning back. “I hope that we can discourage the people who are after us. I think we were followed coming down here.”

  “No doubt you were. But,” Laremos said with a grin, “your pursuers are in for a great surprise if they attempt to come here. My men are dedicated and antisocial. And armed.”

  “We noticed,” Janine said. Her eyes twinkled. “I’m already getting ideas for another book.”

  “Are you going to put us in it?” Melissa asked, bright-eyed. “I want to be a blond, sexy siren who entices this big, strong Latino and makes him wild.”

  “You do that every day of my life, enamorada,” Diego said, bringing her soft hand to his mouth. “No need to tell the world about it.”

  She only smiled. A look passed between them that made Janine smile, too. It must be wonderful to be married so long, and still be in love. Her gaze went to Canton, and found him watching her.

  He didn’t say a word. But his eyes told her that she and he would be that happy, for that long. In fact, his smile promised it.

  They had to stay for two days at the estate before the storm was on its way. Before it finally became disorganized, it left major damage along its path.

  There had been no sign of the would-be kidnappers or the pothunters, but when the Curtises and the Rourkes left the elegant Laremos estate, it was to find themselves once again being trailed. And this time, there were two vehicles in pursuit and they didn’t bother to hang back.

  The Rourke car and the van in which the Curtises were riding raced past small villages, only slowing for the speedbreakers. Still the two cars gained on them. They came to a crossroads, and Canton suddenly motioned to Dan Curtis to follow him. He took the right fork at speed and then suddenly whipped the car off onto a little dirt trail into some trees, motioning out the window for Dan to follow.

  The tree cover was thick and the rain had removed the problem of telltale dust rising to give away their positions.

  He cut off his engine. Dan did likewise. Then they sat and waited. Only seconds later, the two pursuing cars slowed, stopped, looked around. They pulled up beside each other on the narrow little paved road and spoke rapidly, after which each car took a fork and raced away.

  Canton reversed the car until it was even with the van. “We can return to the last village and cut through there back to the Cancñaun road. Don’t lose your nerve.”

  “Not me,” Dan said with a grin. “Lead on.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked Janine, who was once again with her parents.

  She nodded. “I’m fine. Take care of Kurt and Karie.”

  “You know I will.”

  He waved and raced away, with the van right behind. They managed to get enough of a head start to lose the pursuing vehicles, but they were not out of danger. The occupants of the car would soon realize that they’d been outfoxed and turn around.

  By the time the pursuers got back into the village, though, the people they were chasing were long gone. Of course, there was only one road, and they’d surely know to backtrack on it. But at the last pueblo there had been a turnoff to Cancñaun that had two forks. One of them led north, the other east. The pursuers would be obliged to split up. And even if one car took the right fork, there wouldn’t be any way they could catch up in time. Janine thought admiringly that her future husband would make a dandy detective.

  They arrived in Cancñaun after dark and checked into a hotel, having decided that the beach house would be much too dangerous. They unloaded the car and the van, which were then returned to the rental agencies and another, different van was rented from still another agency. Janine thought it might be possible to throw the pursuers off the track this way.

  And it might have been; except that the would-be kidnappers spotted Canton with Janine at the car rental lot and immediately realized what was going on. They didn’t follow the van back to the hotel. One of the local men had a cousin who was friendly with an employee at the car rental agency. All she had to do was flirt a little with the agent. Within an hour, they knew not only which hotel, but which rooms, contained their prey.

  To make matters worse, the pothunter, also a local man, had family connections to one of the people who were after Karie. They decided to pool their resources and split the profits.

  With no suspicion of all this, Canton and Janine and the others settled into adjoining rooms of the hotel while they waited to get on the next flight to Chicago. Karie had discovered that there was no way she was going to get any telecast of a Braves game now, with communications affected by the hurricane. Power lines and communications cables had been downed and service was interrupted. As she told her dad, they might not have a tropical beach in Chicago, but they did have cable.

  The Curtises were ready to go home as well. Their weeks of grubbing in the outer reaches of Quintana Roo had paid great dividends. They not only had plenty to show the Mexican government, but they also had enough research material for a book and several years of lectures.

  A representative of the government was going to meet them early in the morning in the hotel and go over the crated artifacts with them.

  Little did they know, however, that the representative had been waylaid and replaced by a henchman of the pothunters….

  “It’s going to be a great relief to have these treasures off our hands,” Dan Curtis remarked over dinner that evening. “Not that I’m sorry we found them, but they’re quite a responsibility.”

  “Did you know that in the early part of this century, archaeologists went to Chichñaen Itzñaa to look for artifacts and were murdered there?” Joan added.

  “I was watching a program on that on the Discovery Channel,” Janine remarked. “It was really interesting. After the first archaeologists went there, the Peabody Museum of Harvard had an agent in Mexico gathering material for them in the early part of the century. It’s in drawers in the museum and isn’t on display to the public. But it belongs to Mexico. So why doesn’t the Mexican government ask them to give it back? In fact, there are human skeletal remains in that collection as well, aren’t there? Certainly with all the new laws governing such remains, they should be reinterred, shouldn’t they?”

  “Those laws don’t apply universally,” Dan Curtis ventured. “And there probably would be something like a grandfather clause even if they did. That particular collection dates to the time before the Mexican Revolution, long before there were such laws.” He smiled gently. “It’s more complicated than it seems to a lay person. But believe me, archaeology has come a long way in the past few decades.”

  “Just the same, it’s a pity, isn’t it?” Janine added. “I mean, nobody gets to see the exquisite Maya artwork in the collection, least of all the descendants of the Mayan people in Quintana Roo.”

  “But they’re also preserved for future generations,” Dan explained. “Artifacts left in situ are very often looted and sold on the black market, ending up with collectors who don’t dare show them to anyone.” He smiled at his daughter. “I know it’s not a perfect system,” he mused, “but right now, it’s the best we can do.”

  “Yes, I know. There are two sides to every story. You both take your work seriously. And you do it very well,” Janine said with a smile, because she was proud of her parents. They cared about their work. They were never slipshod in their excavations or disrespectful of the human skeletal remains they frequently unearthed.

  “I do wish we’d had a little more time,” Dan said ruefully. “I think we were onto something. We found an unusual ceremonial site, unlike anything we’ve discovered before. We were just beginning to unearth it when the trouble started.”

  “A superstitious mind would immediately think of curses,” Janine said wickedly.

  Dan chuckled, winking at his wife. “Trust
a writer to come up with something like that. No, there’s no curse, just bad luck. Señtnor Perez has been following us ever since we got off the plane. He tried bribery at first, and when that didn’t work he began making veiled threats about intervention by the Mexican government. We had all the necessary permits and permissions, so the threats didn’t work, either. Then he set up camp nearby and began harassing us.”

  “Harassing? How?” Janine asked, noting that Canton was listening attentively.

  “Sudden noises in the middle of the night. Missing supplies. Stolen tools. There wasn’t anything we could specifically charge him with. We couldn’t even prove he was at the site, although we knew it was him.” Dan shook his head. “Finally it was too much for us, especially after we lost the satellite link. We took what we had and left.”

  “But what about the site now?” Canton asked somberly. “Won’t he loot it?”

  “He thinks we have everything that was there, that’s the funny part,” Joan said. “We were so cautious about the newest find that we didn’t even let the workers near it. We concealed it and marked the location on our personal maps. We’ll make sure those get into the right hands. Meanwhile,” she added heavily, “we’ve got to get the artifacts we recovered into the right hands, before Señtnor Perez can trace us here and do something drastic.”

  “Would he?” Janine asked worriedly.

  Dan nodded. “An expedition lost a member along with some priceless gold and jeweled artifacts some years ago. Perez was implicated but there wasn’t enough evidence for him to be prosecuted. He always hires henchmen to do his dirty work.”

  Janine felt chilled. She wrapped her arms around herself, glad that Kurt and Karie were on the patio and not listening to this.

  “I have my man and another watching the hotel,” Canton said. “We’ll be safe enough here until we can get a plane out.”

  Karie and Kurt had left the balcony and had gone into Kurt’s room. They came out with a rather large bag.

  “Could we go down to the beach for just a minute?” Karie asked, with her camera slung around her neck. “We want to snap some photographs.”