01-01-00

by R. J. Pineiro

  “¿Y para qué es el equipo?” What’s the equipment for?

  Ishiguro relaxed, having rehearsed the answer to that question multiple times in the past twenty-four hours. “Es un equipo sísmico, para medir los temblores en esta región.” Seismic equipment, to measure tremors in the region.

  “Ah, okay,” said the agent. “Está bien, pero tienes que pagar impuestos de importación.” All right, but you have to pay import tax.

  “¿Cuánto?” How much?

  The official glanced at his assistants before looking in the distance while smoothing his mustache with an index finger. “Como … mil quinientos dólares.”

  Ishigoro turned to Kuoshi. “Need fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “What? Fifteen hundred dollars? Why?”

  “To let us take our gear to the helicopter. Import tax, he calls it.”

  The corporate liaison turned red with anger. “That’s preposterous! I checked with my people before coming down here. There’s no such thing as an entry tax on research equipment when the equipment will not remain in the country for more than two weeks.” He pulled out a small booklet in Japanese titled International Customs Laws. “It’s right here.”

  Ishiguro looked at Jackie, who shrugged and said, “You don’t get it, do you, Kuoshi? This guy doesn’t give a damn about your little booklet in Japanese. First of all, he can’t read it. Second of all, even if he could, he would still come up with some excuse to make some money today. These guys are way underpaid, and they want Sagata Enterprises to subsidize their income today. So, you better fork out fifteen Ben Franklins now or the equipment is not going anywhere.”

  With a heavy sigh, the corporate liaison pulled out a company checkbook for a bank in the United States.

  “No, no,” the customs agent said. “Cheques no. En efectivo, por favor.”

  “What did he say?”

  “No checks. He wants cash,” said Jackie.

  “I can’t believe—”

  “Now, Kuoshi. Or you’ll piss him off,” said the female scientist. “And don’t expect a receipt.”

  Fuming, the liaison pulled out a manila envelope and extracted fifteen crisp one-hundred-dollar bills.

  Five minutes later the customs official, and his three smiling agents, assisted the Japanese trio to the waiting helicopter, patting them on the back as they climbed inside.

  As their chartered craft left the ground and headed toward northern Guatemala, Ishiguro said, “I hope you brought plenty of bills. You’re going to need them to pay the local guides once we get to Tikal.”

  “Plus whatever bribes we might need to offer local officials to stay out of our way,” added Jackie.

  Ishiguro had called ahead and found out that there were a few Mayan settlements around Tikal, mostly tour guides, vendors at the large souvenir markets, and street performers—all catering to the affluent tourists taking a break from their Caribbean scuba-diving vacations in neighboring Belize. They planned to pick up a couple of locals as guides and also to help them haul their gear to their destination, near the Rio San Pedro, about fifty miles west of Tikal.

  “Ready?” Ishiguro asked Jackie, sitting next to him in the rear of the craft.

  “As ready as I’m ever going to be.”

  “Nervous?”

  The northern Californian gave him a slight nod, her Asian eyes widening as she smiled. “A little. Are you?”

  “I guess. I’ve never been in the jungle before.”

  “Great,” she said. “It’ll be a new experience for both of us, and we’ll do it together.”

  “Don’t forget him,” he whispered into her ear. “He’s the eyes and ears of Sagata Enterprises, sent here to make certain that we do things right.”

  Jackie stared at him long and hard before saying, “The right thing, my dear husband, is precisely what I intend to do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  001011

  1

  December 15, 1999

  Natural wonders always have a way of making people feel small, meek, insignificant. The Grand Canyon, the Himalayas, Niagara Falls, the Amazon rain forest, Mount Everest, Yosemite National Park, the Great Barrier Reef, Mount Fuji, natural marvels that for centuries have dazzled the human race with their grandness, their splendor, their vastness.

  These magnificent sights, unfolded as the surface of the Earth changed over hundreds of millions of years, captivated the imagination of the civilizations of the ancient world, sparking their ideas, feeding their dreams, fueling their determination to leave their marks on the world. It was these natural wonders that inspired the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Romans to create marvels of their own, monuments to the will, the passion, the skill, and the strength of their cultures. This man-driven desire to leave his legacy on an ever-changing world created such magnificent sights as the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, all of them now a memory, save for the Great Pyramid of Giza. But the human race continued to build, continued to create beyond those ancient architectural marvels. Civilizations sought to leave behind silent testimonies of their existence, of their legacy. Across the globe, beyond the lands of Homer, Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar, other societies converted their dreams into edifices of stone. Wonders such as the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal in Agra, and the Temple of Angkor in Cambodia changed the landscape of the Old World forever.

  But while those architects, artists, and skilled laborers transformed stone into legacies, across the ocean, in what was to become the New World, other civilizations carried out their own immortal works of architecture. The Incas built the city of Machu Picchu high among the clouds in the Peruvian mountains. The Aztecs erected their monumental temple in Tenochtitlán, which later became Mexico City. The Maya created their vast cities across Mesoamerica, filled with monumental structures, like the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque, the Pyramid of the Giant Jaguar at Tikal, and the Kukulcan Pyramid at Chichén Itzá. And man continued this monument-building legacy across the millennia, erecting larger and taller structures, shadowing the works of their ancestors, pushing the envelope and the laws of physics to create breathtaking masterpieces like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Cristo Redentor overlooking Rio de Janeiro, and the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the world’s tallest buildings. Other structures challenged the imagination, like the epic sculpture at Mount Rushmore, in South Dakota’s Black Hills, one of the world’s greatest mountain carvings, testament to the ingenuity, dedication, and God-given talent of its creator. Great works of engineering combined the elements of beauty, ingenuity, and man’s ability to transform the landscape in the name of progress, to improve the quality of life, to serve his own needs, like the Panama Canal, the English Channel tunnel, the Suez Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Hoover Dam.

  New marvels. Old marvels. Silent affirmations of man’s relentless desire to leave behind symbols of times to be remembered, to be admired, to set a standard for future generations to challenge.

  And the Earth continued to spin, bringing ancient and modern marvels through periods of light and darkness, through the years, the centuries, the millennia. The new became the old. The old became the ancient. The ancient became just a memory, like most of the wonders of the ancient world. But one wonder had remained intact from pre-Columbian times, surviving the destructive colonization period, enduring the passage of time, hidden deep within the jungle’s protective mantle, out of reach to all but those who knew of its precise location.

  Tonight, washed by the greenish glow of her night-vision goggles, Susan Garnett saw this unique marvel concealed beneath the array of branches of towering ceiba and mahogany trees crowding the lowlands of the Petén. They had found this site only because Lieutenant Lobo’s handheld GPS claimed that their destination lay beyond a wall of densely packed trees cluttered with vines, moss, and other hanging vegetation, requiring the use of machetes to cut through fifty feet of thick greenery, carving out a narrow gap between trunks that forced the team to constantly twist their bodies to conform to the
winding, humid corridor.

  “Dear God,” Susan muttered, staring at the vastness beyond the natural barrier.

  The American team stood at the center of a large stone courtyard overlooking a huge, craterlike pit. A small palace stood to the east of the crater. A pyramid stood to the west, adorned by dozens of freestanding stone slabs along the front of the structure. A large temple, its many columns rising twenty feet in the air, its domelike roof grazing the canopies of ceibas and mahoganies, spanned the entire north side of this hidden site, opposite to where they stood. The branches of dozens of trees projected over all structures, reaching the edge of the crater, their canopies forming a circle that matched the shape of the pit below. Beyond this break in the canopy Susan could see the evening stars.

  “Amazing,” Cameron said. “No one can see this place from the sky. The opening in the trees is just large enough for the pit. The rest is hidden from view.”

  Standing next to Cameron, Lobo nodded. “That would explain why no one has spotted it before.”

  “But someone definitely knows of its existence.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Susan.

  “Because that someone’s been keeping this place up.”

  “Keeping it up?” asked Lobo.

  “This kind of jungle would swallow a place like this within twenty-five years. The trees you see today would shed their seeds over the entire site in the spring, creating new trees. In fifteen years those new trees would have grown twenty feet high, their branches doing as much damage to the walls as their roots would to foundations, making the whole place crumble. In another five to ten years mud and vegetation would have covered the ruins. Even that pyramid would look like a hill covered with vegetation and trees. You’d never know what it was. Instead, there’s just a few vines lacing columns and some shrubbery on the pyramid’s limestone.” The archaeologist nodded. “It’s a pretty safe bet to say that somebody’s been keeping this up.”

  “Who do you think has been—” Susan began.

  Cameron clapped his hands once, the cracking sound bouncing off the limestone structures, creating multiple reports echoing in the night, before slowly fading away.

  Susan and the SEALs jumped. The soldiers instantly pointed their weapons at the structures.

  “What—what was that?” asked Susan while Lobo motioned to his men to lower their weapons.

  “What a civilization,” he said in awe, walking to the edge of the courtyard. “The priests and nobles had these temples built with remarkable acoustical resonance. They did this to impress the people, who could only come to the temples during ceremonies. They called these places cities of voices. In fact, this whole place is built like an outdoor theater, and this large courtyard is the main stage. Listen. Suuusssaaannn!” Cameron hissed in a sinister voice.

  Her skin goose-bumped when her name echoed among the ancient structures, like some spirit coming alive from the stone, slowly vanishing after several seconds.

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “Stop that. This place is creepy.”

  “Breathtaking is the word. This is the find of the century. Forget discovering Pacal Votan’s tomb at the Temple of the Inscriptions in Palenque back in ’fifty-two. This one’s in a class of its own.”

  Lobo asked Cameron to refrain from making any more loud noises. The SEAL commander expressed concern about having given his position away. Cameron told him that whoever kept this place up probably had heard them hacking their way through the mangled brush and vines and probably knew they were here. That comment didn’t make Lobo feel any better, and he ordered his men to form a defense perimeter around the courtyard.

  “We’ll set up camp right there,” he said, pointing to the edge of the jungle, by their hacked entrance.

  “I’m going to check out the place,” said Cameron. “Be right back.”

  “We have to conserve batteries. Please turn off the goggles in ten minutes,” said Lobo. “And don’t venture too far until we get a chance to secure the entire site in the morning.”

  While the SEALs set up their defenses, surveying the area around the tree line, Cameron dropped his backpack next to the rest of the team and ventured toward the other end of the courtyard, by the edge of the crater. Susan followed him, catching up with him halfway, amused at the excitement displayed on his face. With the goggles on she could see a grin painted across his face, reminding her of a child on Christmas morning.

  “Are you all right?” Susan asked. “You have this strange look.”

  “A cenote,” he said, pointing at the oval-shaped crater, roughly the size of one basketball court, filled with water up to around twenty feet from the edge.

  “Excuse me?”

  “A cenote. A sinkhole. They’re very typical of these regions. Rain seeps through cracks in the limestone bedrock, dissolving areas of softer rock beneath the hard surface crust. Over thousands of years this process creates vast underground caverns roofed with only a thin layer of limestone. This weak roof eventually collapses, leaving this water-filled hole. Cenotes provided an ample supply of water for Mayan settlements away from rivers or streams.”

  He walked to one of the freestanding slabs by the corner of the stone courtyard, near the base of the pyramid. It showed an elaborate carving of two men wearing what appeared to be thick pads around their groins, waists, shoulders, elbows, and knees. They both had the same exaggerated profiles and elongated heads that Susan had seen in Cameron’s books. One of them held a ball. The carving was inlaid with stones that looked green, but then again, everything looked green with the goggles.

  “Jade,” Cameron said, running a finger over the large diamond-shaped piece adorning the headdress of one of the players. “This is priceless.”

  “Why did they exaggerate their heads and facial features?”

  “That’s no exaggeration. The Maya practiced skull deformation. Infants’ heads would be locked in wooden frames to distort the development of the skull and achieve the elongated head and flattened brow favored by the royalty and the high priests.”

  She made a face. “That sounds sick.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. It was just their tradition. They also favored crossed eyes, oftentimes hanging a ball of wax in front of a child’s eyes for long periods of time to force the effect. The royalty also filed their teeth to points and filled the spaces with jade or gold.”

  “Amazing,” she said, staring at the sculpted limestone. She pointed at the pads on the men and also at the ball. “Is that some kind of Mayan football?”

  “Pokatok,” Cameron said, running a finger over the aged surface, admiring the intricate detail of the relief. “A ball game the Maya played, but not quite for recreation. They used a heavy ball made of rubber, from the area’s rubber trees, about half the size of a basketball. They played on a I-shaped stone court. Like soccer, they couldn’t use their hands, having to propel the ball with their feet, knees, hips, and waists. I played it once at Copán, on the border between Guatemala and Honduras, with a few of my students and some locals during a research trip several years ago. Very difficult and very bruising. Got our butts kicked by the local Mayan team. During pre-Columbian times, the game had significant religious and political implications.”

  “What did they play for? Land? Political advancement?”

  Cameron shook his head. “For the right to live. It was played mostly by warriors. The object of the game was to bounce the ball off parrot-head sculptures on the sloping walls flanking the court. The losing team was sacrificed to the gods.”

  “I don’t really think I want to know how.”

  “The victim’s back would be broken in order to render him or her immobile. Then the high priest would carve out the victim’s heart and hold it up to the gods while it was still beating.”

  She kept her eyes on the carvings. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

  “From the perspective of the Maya it made perfect sense. See, our industrial world promotes the accumulation of wealth, whic
h indirectly makes us fear death because we know we can’t take anything with us. It leads us to be too attached to material things, to this world. The Maya, on the other hand, valued the enhancement of the spirit and the birth of ideas. They all knew that life on Earth was a very temporary stage. Dying was considered an honor, particularly if one died while protecting Mayan traditions or being sacrificed to a god. They had nothing to fear, nothing to leave behind but the knowledge that they had served their purpose on Earth and it was now time to travel to the Hunab Ku to achieve galactic synchronization.”

  Before Susan could reply, Lobo approached them. “Bedtime, folks. We’ll check out the entire site at first light.”

  Cameron scanned the area, gave a heavy sigh, and followed Susan to pitch their tents.

  2

  A light fog lifted off the slow-flowing waters of the Rio San Pedro, hazing the shoreline as a cool breeze blew it into the jungle. A moon in its first quarter hung high from the crystalline, dawning sky, staining the mist with its wan gray light. The indigo tint gave way to shades of crimson and burnt orange as morning broke. Birds chirped. Monkeys howled. The jungle came alive, its sounds mixing with the soft purring of three outboards.

  Slowly, like an apparition arising from the grayish cloud hovering over the surface in the twilight of dawn, three rubber vessels broke through the foggy veil, water lapping their sides. A lone figure stood at the front of the lead vessel, inspecting the shoreline with a set of binoculars.

  Antonio Strokk concentrated on selecting a landing zone for his team, twenty-five of the most seasoned and loyal operatives he could find, many of them former Spetsnaz operatives—in addition to his sister Celina, who sat next to him in the lead Zodiac reading the amber display of a handheld GPS receiver.

  Strokk checked his watch. According to his calculations, the Americans should have reached the target coordinates in the past few hours. Of course, the Americans had the advantage of using helicopters to get closer to the objective—something that the resourceful Celina had been able to figure out through another Internet breach at the FBI, where she had also learned that a team of U.S. Navy SEALs would be escorting the scientists to the site. The short notice, however, had not given the terrorists the time required to set up their own helicopter transport, settling instead for a turboprop cargo plane from an obscure field in south Florida to a strip near the Mexican town of Tenosique, by the border with Guatemala, where he easily bribed local authorities to look the other way while his men deployed the Zodiacs and transferred their gear into the boats.