by Stuart Gibbs
Murray ignored this and kept rambling on. “Apparently, I don’t mean anything to them at all. As far as they’re concerned, I might as well be one of these mosquitoes.” He pointed to his arm, where a dozen of the bloodsuckers were feeding. A few had been gorging themselves so long, they had swollen to the size of raisins. “I always did everything they asked me to. I was always a team player. So why did they turn on me all of a sudden?”
“Maybe this wasn’t all of a sudden,” Erica said. Unlike the rest of us, she didn’t seem the slightest bit worn out by our slog through the jungle. Instead, she looked as refreshed as if she had spent the last several hours napping. She hadn’t even broken a sweat; the armpits of her shirt were miraculously perspiration free. “Maybe SPYDER always thought you were expendable.”
Murray’s jaw dropped open like a trapdoor. “You mean, they lied to me from the very beginning? They were never going to give me my own island? Why would they do that?”
“Because they’re greedy and they have no morals.” Zoe sidestepped a large web with a particularly ominous-looking spider in the center. “If they get rid of you, then they have one less person to share with. Assuming Ben and Erica don’t thwart their plans again.”
I paused to take a better look at the spider. It was the size of my fist and had tiny fangs covered with what looked disturbingly like blood. I shivered and hurried past it, wondering how much farther it was to the nearest hotel.
Murray was hanging his head in shame now, looking even more morose than before. I had expected he’d try to argue that Zoe was wrong, but Murray wasn’t an idiot. He could now see the truth as well as any of us. “I can’t believe this. How could I have been so blind?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Erica said. “The real question you should be asking yourself is, how can I get even with them?”
Murray looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”
Erica sidled between two plants bristling with thorns the size of human fingers. “SPYDER has led you on for years. They manipulated you into helping them perpetrate heinous crimes without any intention of letting you share in the wealth. Basically, they treated you like garbage. They should pay for that. And you know how to make them pay.” She fixed Murray with a penetrating stare. “What are they plotting next?”
Murray frowned, looking extremely disappointed in himself. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Erica said coldly. “These people have turned their backs on you. There’s no point in showing any loyalty to them.”
“I know that!” Murray exclaimed. “Believe me, I’d be happy to bring them down. But I have no idea what they’re up to.”
“None?” Zoe asked skeptically. “I thought you were high up in their organization.”
“I was,” Murray said defensively. “But SPYDER is always very secretive about what’s coming next. And I couldn’t very well go to the last few development meetings because I’ve been in jail. I didn’t hear a peep from them until I got that message about flying down here. And even then, they obviously didn’t tell me everything. They left out the whole part about killing me in a fiery plane crash.”
“You must know something,” Erica pressed. “We know SPYDER has been amassing illegal weapons of mass destruction from multiple buyers. You really don’t know what all those are for?”
“No,” Murray admitted sadly.
“Then tell us where SPYDER is hiding out now,” Erica challenged. “The exact location. Where did you think you were going today?”
“I don’t know,” Murray said again. “My orders were simply to do what it took to get you guys onto the plane, head to this part of Mexico, and be ready to bail out with the pilots. I figured, after that, I’d get an update on where everyone is hiding.”
“And you were perfectly okay with that?” Zoe asked angrily. “Knowing the rest of us were going to die?”
“First of all, it was only Ben and Erica who were supposed to die.” Murray gingerly stepped around a nest of fire ants. “I didn’t ask you to stow away on the plane. And second, I don’t make the rules here. SPYDER comes to me with a plan to escape jail and join everyone at headquarters. What am I supposed to do, question it?”
Zoe screamed. I thought it might have been her expressing exasperation at Murray’s warped sense of morality, but it turned out she had nearly stepped on an iguana. The lizard scampered up a tree and disdainfully attempted to urinate on her.
Erica’s frustration with Murray finally boiled over. She grabbed Murray by the scruff of the neck, forced him to his knees, and bent him over the fire ant nest. “That can’t be all you know,” she growled, losing her usual, cool aplomb. “You’re no idiot. So you’d better start coughing up info, or you’re getting a fire ant facial.”
“I am an idiot!” Murray exploded back at her, although he seemed to be more upset at himself than at Erica. “I swear, I’ve told you everything I know! Apparently, I wasn’t nearly as important to SPYDER as I thought! I wasn’t told what they’re plotting. I wasn’t given the coordinates of their new secret headquarters. And what I thought was a clever plan to spring me from jail was really only a setup to get rid of me as well as you and Brainiac Ben over there. I’m sorry I don’t know any more than that. Believe me, if I could, I would do whatever it takes to burn SPYDER to the ground right now. But I can’t give you any more info because I don’t have it. I guess I’m no good to anyone at all.”
I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost. Then I remembered that he had been perfectly happy with the prospect of letting me die that morning.
Still, Murray’s frustration did seem genuine. And yet, because I didn’t trust him, I looked to Erica for confirmation.
“What do you think?” I asked her.
“I think he’s right,” she said. “He’s useless.”
I turned my attention to Mike and Zoe.
At least, I turned my attention to where Mike and Zoe had been three seconds earlier.
Mike was still standing in the jungle, watching Erica and Murray.
But Zoe had vanished.
7
SPELUNKING
Somewhere in Quintana Roo, Mexico
March 29
1230 hours
“Mike!” I exclaimed. “Where’s Zoe?”
Mike looked around and gaped in surprise when he discovered Zoe was nowhere to be seen. “I don’t know! She was right here a second ago.”
I ran through the jungle toward the last place I had seen Zoe. For once, we were actually in an area relatively free of thick underbrush, surrounded only by the trunks of spindly palm trees. I could see several yards in every direction, which meant Zoe should have been visible. “What happened to her?”
“How should I know?” Mike asked. “One moment she was here, and then she wasn’t! Maybe a leopard got her.”
“There are no leopards in Mexico,” Erica said, casually tossing Murray aside to hurry over herself. “If anything got her, it was a jaguar.”
“Or maybe a rogue crocodile,” Murray suggested.
“What would a crocodile be doing this far from water?” Erica asked.
“Migrating?” Murray suggested.
“None of this is helping!” I informed them. I looked back to Mike to ask him another question.
Only, Mike had now vanished from sight as well.
“Where’s Mike?” I asked.
“He’s gone too!” Murray yelped. “Maybe aliens beamed them up!”
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“Do you have a better explanation?” Murray asked.
I didn’t answer him for two reasons. First, I didn’t have a better explanation.
Second, I had just fallen through the earth’s crust.
The ground beneath my feet suddenly gave way, and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling downward. There was a period of time that seemed like an eternity—but which was probably only a fraction of a second—during which I was completely disoriented and terrified. Somehow,
even in that brief instant, I deduced that I’d dropped through the roof of a cave, and then wondered how deep it was and whether I’d end up splattered all over the floor.
Instead of slamming into hard stone, however, I splashed into water.
It was bracingly cold. I sank down several feet until my feet touched a sandy bottom, then kicked off it and swam upward hard. It was pitch dark all around me except for three shafts of light, which I realized must be above me. I broke through the surface, gasping for breath, and wondered what on earth—or under earth—I’d fallen into.
“Ben!” Zoe shouted from close by.
I turned, treading water, and found her swimming toward me, sopping wet but otherwise okay. Mike was close behind her.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I began to make out my surroundings. I was definitely in a cave. The roof was about thirty feet above me and covered with stalactites—except for the three holes where Mike, Zoe, and I had punched through the ceiling. Here and there, gnarled strands of tree roots dangled, many long enough to reach all the way to the water below.
As for the water, it was fresh and amazingly clear. At the spots where the shafts of light hit it, I could see all the way to the bottom. Tiny fish darted about in it; the species must have evolved in the caves, because they didn’t have eyes, only white patches where the eyes had been generations before.
I had swallowed a good amount of water by accident—but it wasn’t enough. I was still desperately thirsty, and fresh, clean water was a godsend. I dipped my head back into it and guzzled it down.
Above me, a fourth hole suddenly appeared in the ceiling. Murray plunged through it, flailing his arms wildly, and cannonballed into the water a few feet away.
A few seconds later, he resurfaced, spluttering and startled, the same way I had probably done. Only, he remained agitated, floundering in the water. “What’s going on? Where are we?”
“You’re in a cenote!” Erica yelled to us. She was peering through one of the new holes in the ceiling of the cave, her head silhouetted against the daylight outside.
“What the heck’s a cenote?” Murray asked.
“They’re sinkholes in the limestone bedrock that exposes the natural groundwater,” Erica explained. “You’re perfectly safe. There are thousands of them in the Yucatán. Looks like you’ve just discovered a brand-new one.”
“There are thousands of caves like this?” Mike asked, amazed. “With this much water in them?”
“Well, the size of the cave and the amount of water obviously varies,” Erica said, “but yes, there are thousands. This entire ecosystem is supported by groundwater. Surely, when we were in the plane, you must have noticed there aren’t any rivers on this entire peninsula?”
“Not really,” I confessed. “We were pretty distracted with the incoming missiles and the whole imminent-death thing.” But now that I thought about it, it was unusual that there hadn’t been a single river visible from the air. Especially when a thick jungle like this certainly needed plenty of water to grow.
“Well, all the rivers are underground,” Erica went on. “In fact, you’re in one right now.”
“How do you even know all this?” Zoe yelled back.
“It’s important to know the major geological features of every country,” Erica replied matter-of-factly. “It’s also worth familiarizing yourself with as much historical and cultural information as possible, in case you get stranded someplace. Like we are now.”
“Hold on,” Zoe said. “Are you saying that you’ve memorized the geology, history, and culture of every country on earth, just in case something like this happened?”
“Not every country,” Erica replied. “I’m doing it alphabetically, and I’ve only worked my way up to Swaziland so far.”
In the dim light of the cave, Zoe gave me an Is she for real? look.
It occurred to me that, since I had spent far more time on missions with Erica than anyone else at spy school, I knew her much better than anyone else. Therefore, I was already well aware of her photographic memory and encyclopedic education, whereas my friends were only beginning to scratch the surface of Erica’s many talents and compulsive preparation for any eventuality. “She’s telling the truth,” I said.
Zoe sighed. “That girl really needs some other hobbies.”
Mike called up, “Erica! Given your extensive knowledge of cenotes, do you have any idea how we’re supposed to get out of this one?”
“There ought to be some tree roots hanging down into it,” Erica said. “Do you see any that are thick enough to shimmy up?”
There was a strand dangling quite close to me, although the roots looked much too thin to support my weight. I gave them an experimental yank. Sure enough, several of the roots snapped right off in my hand. None of the other strands looked any thicker. “I don’t see any!” I reported.
“Use this to take a better look around!” Erica dropped something through the hole in the ceiling.
Although the object had been wadded into a ball in her hand, it quickly expanded to its full size and shape the moment she released it. It was a circle of silvery, reflective material, affixed to a thin, collapsible frame, kind of like a fabric Frisbee. It wafted down to us slowly, and Mike snagged it out of the air.
Up on the surface, we would have used it to reflect the sun’s light and get the attention of passing planes. (Passing planes that weren’t piloted by SPYDER, that is.) In the cenote, Mike quickly grasped how it would come in handy. He found a place shallow enough to stand on the bottom, then held the reflector underneath one of the shafts of sunlight and used it as a mirror, lighting up distant parts of the cenote.
The first thing I noticed was that the cenote was much bigger than I had realized. The walls of the cave were so distant, the reflected light barely illuminated them.
Mike slowly swept the makeshift spotlight around, searching for anything that would be of help. He came upon dozens of strands of roots, but none was thick enough for us to climb. He kept sweeping anyhow.
Thin strand of roots.
Another thin strand of roots.
Yet another thin strand of roots.
Pile of human skeletons.
Someone screamed in abject terror. Turned out, it was me.
I had hoped that I would have been more composed in such a situation, but then again, there aren’t many things scarier than coming across a pile of human skeletons in an underground cave. My voice echoed off the walls of the cenote over and over, startling a small flock of bats into taking flight. They swarmed around us—which did little to calm my distress—and then found a new place on the ceiling to roost.
“What happened?” Erica asked, concerned. “Did someone get attacked by something?”
“No,” Zoe said disdainfully. “Ben just freaked out because there’s some skeletons down here.”
“There are human skeletons down here,” I stressed. “In the dark with us. That is completely worth freaking out over.”
Mike had kept the light trained on the skeletons, studying them carefully. “I think those have been down here a long time,” he observed.
I focused more closely on them. What I had at first thought was a pile of skeletons tall enough to rise out of the water now turned out to be a significantly smaller pile of skeletons on a small island in the center of the cenote. There were perhaps only three or four—it was hard to tell for sure, as they were all jumbled together—and they were brown from age.
Zoe swam to the island and waded ashore.
“Don’t touch them!” Murray warned. Even though he hadn’t screamed in fear the way I had, he still sounded very much on edge.
“Why would I touch a skeleton?” Zoe asked. “I’m only getting a better look at them.”
Mike had to stay in the water to keep the light on the skeletons, but I swam over to the island as well. Murray stayed in the water too, grumbling to himself. “First we fall into a cave. Then we find a pile of ancient dead guys. It’s like we stumbled into
a Scooby-Doo episode.”
“These skeletons are really old,” Zoe reported as I clambered out of the water. “Like prehistoric, maybe.”
I didn’t know my archaeology that well, but there definitely seemed to be something ancient about the bones. Most of the skulls seemed rather small and only had a few teeth left, like the skulls you might see in museums.
Something crunched under my feet.
I reached down and found shards of white, smooth material in the dirt.
“What’s that?” Zoe asked.
“Seashells,” I replied.
“That can’t be right,” Zoe said. “We must be twenty miles from the ocean.”
“They’re probably cherished possessions of the dead people,” Mike said.
Zoe and I turned to him. It was hard to see his face, as the beam of light he was reflecting was shining right in our eyes, but he seemed to be quite proud of himself. “Erica’s not the only one who knows things,” he said. “There was a huge Mayan civilization here like a thousand years ago. The people inland probably traded with people from the coasts. Seashells would have been pretty rare and cool for them. I’m betting we’re in some sort of ceremonial burial area. These people were laid to rest with their most prized belongings.”
“How do you know all that?” Murray asked.
“I’ve been doing what Erica has,” Mike told him. “Learning about the cultures of every country on earth just in case I ended up stranded in one of them.”
“Really?” Zoe asked, impressed.
“No,” Mike admitted. “I’m jerking your chain. I randomly saw the end of a National Geographic special on the Mayans while I was doing my homework last week.”
“I’ll bet you’re right about the burial.” Erica was still looking down through the hole in the ceiling, though she was too far away to see the skeletons clearly.
I looked at the ground around the bodies. There were hundreds more seashells, along with some potsherds and what might have been primitive jewelry: tiny flakes of metal that had probably been attached to a necklace string that had rotted away centuries before.