01-01-00

by R. J. Pineiro

  Now, after ten hours cruising on this winding river, enduring a dozen close encounters with caimans, a snake dropping into the tail boat from an overhead branch, and the unending buzzing of mosquitoes, Celina’s GPS receiver finally indicated that they had reached their destination—at least as close as they could get using the river without reaching the Agua Dulce Falls and its majestic but deadly fifty-foot drop. Strokk could hear the distant rumble of the falls.

  It was time to get off and start walking.

  “How far is it?” he asked when the coxswain cut off the engine as they neared a sandy section of shore, lifting the rear of the engine to keep it from getting tangled in the roots and debris lacing the murky bottom.

  Celina looked up, her eyes glistening in the early-morning light. She had dyed her blond hair dark brown to help her blend in with the jungle. “Less than two miles to the northeast.”

  The sandy bottom broke the boat’s forward momentum as it got within a dozen feet from shore, shortly after entering the murky shadows created by the green canopy projecting over the water. Two of his men were about to jump off to push the rubber vessel ashore when Strokk stopped them. Instead, the former Spetsnaz operative produced a halogen light and flashed it at the dark water, highlighting a half-dozen pairs of coallike eyes on the surface.

  “Caimanes,” said Celina.

  Strokk glanced at his nearest operative, a native from Moscow who had never seen a live crocodile in his life, until today. Strokk had found it amusing to watch him inch to the center of the boat when a pair of caimans had gotten too close to the boat around dusk, while the team was just beginning its journey upriver. He now reacted the same way. Strokk grabbed him by the arm. “Your weapon, Petroff.”

  The tall and stocky operative, almost twice the size of his superior, handed over a silenced Uzi, which Strokk aimed at the reptiles.

  He fired, the multiple spitting sounds matching the splashes that tuned the river’s calm surface into a boiling frenzy of dark tails and torsos rushing away from the boats, toward the opposite bank.

  He handed the weapon back to his subordinates. “Now get out and push.”

  The extra-large operative stared at the weapon in his hands, smoke coiling from the muzzle, before complying.

  It took the team ten minutes to disembark, hide the Zodiacs with branches and other debris, and begin to move toward their target.

  The seasoned Celina Strokk was point, guiding the group with her GPS as well as her innate ability to operate in the jungle. Five years providing technical assistance to Central American rebels during the late eighties had taught her more than she would ever want to know about jungle warfare.

  The morning breeze sweeping through the thick jungle caressed Antonio Strokk’s face and neck with the same rhythm as the moss swaying overhead. Strokk, his face painted with camouflage paste, moved through the forest quietly but swiftly, the rest of his team following single file.

  Sunlight filtered through narrow breaks in the thick canopy, providing enough illumination for their silent advance. Strokk concentrated on the mission. The longer he spent in the region the more his senses tuned to its sounds, and the easier it became to imitate them. But never as well as Celina, who walked in a deep crouch a few feet in front of him, advancing through dense jungle without using a machete—and without the associated hacking noise it made. Celina swiftly moved branches aside and sneaked through them by twisting her slim body to correspond with the bends in the heavy foliage. As she slipped through openings in the greenery, Strokk would quickly take the branches that she had brushed aside and mimic her body movements, gently passing them to the man behind without letting them snap back, and grabbing the next set of branches that his sister was now using. They continued in this fashion for nearly two hours, covering roughly two-thirds of the distance to their target.

  Strokk felt his machete safely strapped to his thick utility belt, and he wished he could use it instead of his bare hands to move the vegetation out of the way—particularly the black palm leaves—but they were too close to the target now. Even though the chance of anyone hearing them chopping foliage was slim, Strokk would not risk giving away their position—particularly to a team of deadly U.S. Navy SEALs.

  The price they paid for their silent approach, however, was the stinging cuts that lacerated Celina’s and Antonio Strokk’s hands and wrists, in spite of the racing gloves everyone in the team wore. He would have liked to wear more protection, but that would have had impaired his ability to use his MP5 submachine gun. Strokk, whose head now throbbed from a nasty headache, also had a few facial cuts from some of the branches that had swatted him across the face when he had missed the—

  “Hold on,” Strokk whispered as he raised a fist, signaling his team to stop. He dropped to a crouch and swept the jungle around them with the silenced MP5.

  Celina turned around in the thick vegetation, her camouflaged face almost lost in the darkness around them. Her eyes seemed to float in the murky jungle as they turned to face him.

  “What is it, hermano?”

  “I think someone’s watching us.”

  She immediately looked about them, then closed her eyes and listened for several seconds. She shrugged.

  “Maybe it is just this headache,” Strokk said, rubbing the tip of his index finger against his left temple.

  “Probably the humidity,” his sister offered.

  Strokk nodded and reached into a Velcro-secured pocket on the front of his fatigues and pulled out a small airtight bag with ten extra-strength Tylenol caplets. He popped two in his mouth and downed them with a sip from his canteen before motioning his team to move forward.

  As the mercenaries complied, Strokk kept a watchful eye on his flanks, still sensing someone stalking them. He continued for another five minutes, before once more raising a fist high enough for his team to see.

  “Hold,” he whispered to Celina.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I still feel stalked.” Strokk inhaled and slowly scrutinized the thick forest around them, but saw nothing. He closed his eyes and listened, but again, the forest told him nothing. He looked at Celina and shook his head.

  Celina frowned. “I don’t like this, hermano.”

  “I’ll take the lead,” he said. “Stay behind me.”

  Strokk walked around his sister and began moving toward the target, scanning the thick underbrush in front and to both sides of him.

  3

  Joao Peixoto exhaled slowly. The warriors were skilled, he reflected, increasing the gap by several feet. He had to be careful. Their ears seemed fine enough to discern human noises from those of the jungle, even when Joao had imitated the sound made by snakes by slowly dragging his feet. Now he moved only when they did. While in motion the warriors made enough noise for all of them.

  He had been following them for the past hour, when one of his sentries had detected them as the strangers got within a hundred paces from his village. For a brief moment over twenty Mayan warriors had the team in the sights of their deadly and silent blow tubes. But the armed men had not stopped. Instead, they had continued toward the temple of Kinich Ahau, where the first team had spent the night.

  Joao’s shoulder accidentally pushed a branch forward, and as he walked by, it flung back and swatted another. The noise wasn’t that loud, but it didn’t sound natural.

  4

  Strokk froze. He’d definitely heard something this time, and he brought the MP5 in front while his finger caressed the trigger. He wasn’t sure exactly what had tripped the alarm in his head. The noise from the birds and the screeching monkeys had not stopped.

  That’s not it.

  His ears had already tuned that out. He detected no sounds of reptiles crawling on the ground like he’d heard before … so what was it?

  He turned around and lowered the palm of his right hand. His team dropped to the ground and vanished from sight, except for Celina, who approached him. Strokk pointed at her and then made a
half circle in the air with his index finger. She nodded.

  5

  Joao Peixoto saw the soldiers split up and decided it was time to go up. Still wearing the moss cape, he reached for the closest tree and skillfully made his way up the rough trunk, careful to keep an eye on the encircling soldiers below.

  6

  Five minutes later brother and sister met at the same spot they’d started.

  Antonio Strokk was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe we’re not used to the sounds of this jungle yet.”

  Strokk shook his head. “I’m telling you, someone is watching us.”

  Celina exhaled. “Well, whoever in the hell it is obviously doesn’t want to show his face.”

  Strokk sighed and clicked twice the two-way radio strapped to his belt. Like shadows detaching themselves from the sides of the tangled bush, his team materialized back on the trail.

  Celina took up the point spot again, with Strokk and the rest of the team following close behind. They continued moving for another hour before Celina pointed at a hair-thin wire partially covered by moss from a nearby cypress.

  “Trip wire,” she said.

  Strokk nodded. If he listened very carefully, he could also hear voices, which his training told him were not more than a hundred feet away.

  Chapter Twelve

  001100

  1

  December 16, 1999

  “Señorita Jackie,” said Luis, one of the two Guatemalan guides in the cayuco, a long and narrow boat made from a hollowed-out mahogany trunk. Luis Arroyo, a short and wiry Guatemalan of Mayan ancestry, manned the small outboard purring along as they made their way down the Rio San Pedro. “Aquí todo es pura selva.” There’s nothing but jungle around here.

  Kuoshi Honichi looked at Ishiguro. “What did he say?”

  Ishiguro’s face turned solemn. “There are big caimans in this part of the river.”

  Jackie suppressed a laugh while regarding the corporate executive, nervousness tightening his angular features as he sat at the front, peering at the dark waters slapping the sides of the boat.

  “Continúa, Luis,” she replied. “Tenemos que llegar al punto que te enseñé en el mapa, antes de las cataratas.” Keep going. We have to get to the spot that I showed you on the map, right before the falls.

  Ishiguro sat next to his wife in the center of the long and narrow boat. Luis played coxswain in the rear. Porfirio, the second Guatemalan guide, sat toward the front between Kuoshi and them. Porfirio, tall for the region and quite muscular, only spoke a local dialect, which Luis understood. According to Luis, Porfirio knew the region well.

  Their gear was evenly distributed beneath the wooden seats. Jackie had covered the vital equipment with plastic and secured it to the boat with ropes, in case they capsized. No one but the two guides was allowed to stand, lest they take an unexpected dip in the river. And even when one of the guides did stand, the boat often rocked precariously.

  Ishiguro wiped the sweat off his forehead. The noon sun beat down on the tiny boat, roasting them while they sat unprotected in the middle of the river. The guides had refused to steer the boat closer to either bank, where the trees hanging over the water would provide some protection. Luis had claimed that deadly black mamba snakes were known to drop into the river from the branches to cool off. Some had dropped right into boats, forcing passengers into an unavoidable emergency evacuation drill.

  The back of Ishiguro’s neck was already glowing red by the time he’d decided to drape an extra T-shirt over his head, covering his shoulders. Now it hurt every time he moved. Jackie, on the other hand, had developed a golden tan, which accentuated her brown eyes. She now wore a silk scarf over her head, plus a pair of dark glasses that gave her a Jackie Onassis look. Ishiguro suddenly wished that he was alone with her, instead of sharing this boat with the two Guatemalans and Kuoshi.

  “How much longer?” asked Kuoshi, slapping the back of his neck after a horse fly settled on him. As he did that, his shirt rose above his waistline. Ishiguro caught a glimpse of a small gun tucked in the executive’s pants. He was about to say something but chose to wait until he was alone with Kuoshi.

  Jackie held a small GPS receiver—the only way to tell where you were in the jungle. Ishiguro wondered how the old conquistadores had found their way around this place, surrounded by nothing but dense jungle, with the flatness of the land not allowing for landmarks. Besides, once they left the boat, they would definitely lose track of any outside reference. He doubted they would even be able to see the stars at night in case they got lost.

  “Another couple of miles downriver,” she said, shifting her gaze between the GPS unit and the folded map on her lap. “Then we begin our trek. That will be about another two miles.”

  “Will we get there in time for the next contact?” asked Kuoshi.

  “Only if we manage to reach the location before sundown. According to the guides, the jungle is quite dark during the day. At night it is pitch-black, even during a full moon.”

  Ishiguro nodded. “If we don’t get there before night falls, we’ll have to set up camp and continue in the morning.”

  Wildlife thrived in this section of the Petén jungle. Ishiguro saw dozens of assorted birds flying overhead, and many more perched atop trees hugging the wide river. A flock of flamingos crowded the left bank. He also spotted a few caimans basking in the sun—and he made certain to point them out to Kuoshi too.

  According to the guides, this whole area was part of the largest wildlife preserve in northern Guatemala, home to six hundred species of birds and one of a handful of jaguar sanctuaries in the world.

  The river’s slow-flowing waters began to gather speed as they neared the Agua Dulce Falls. Jackie let the guides steer them to shore.

  “Not the closest spot, but close enough,” she said as Luis directed the cayuco toward a rocky section of the shore.

  “Mira,” said Ishiguro, pointing at a patch of beach a few hundred feet to the right of the rocks. “¿Por qué no vamos allá?” Why don’t we go there?

  “Por los caimanes, señor.”

  “What is going on?” asked Kuoshi.

  Ishiguro narrowed his eyes, noticing at least a dozen reptiles resting on the sand, their charcoal hides blending in the gray river sand. He turned to face the corporate liaison. This time Ishiguro didn’t have to lie.

  2

  Susan Garnett set up her equipment by the edge of the courtyard, just a few feet from the cenote, the circular sinkhole in the center of the ancient site. The noon sun beamed into the area through the circular opening, its luminous rays washing the limestone structures with a yellow glow that gave them the appearance of being made out of gold.

  Gold.

  The computer scientist sighed. During the one-hour tour of the area with Cameron and a couple of SEALs, Susan had seen more gold and jade than in her entire lifetime, particularly at the large temple across the cenote, the steps of which Cameron now sat while reading glyphs etched in the stone and taking copious notes in his field notebook. Three of the stelae of Kinich Ahau guarding the ceremonial structure had masks of gold with obsidian eyes and teeth made of jade. Thick gold bands covered the base of each stele, as well as the bases of the square columns at the front of the temple. Susan had touched the shiny metal, feeling its pliability. The metal actually wasn’t gold, as Cameron had explained, but something called tumbaga, an alloy created by mixing gold with copper, which had a lower melting point. The craftsmen made it look like solid gold by removing the surface copper with acid, leaving a film of pure gold. The bands of tumbaga adorning the columns were also etched with glyphs.

  Glyphs.

  Now, that was also something that seemed to be everywhere. Glyphs ruled this place. She saw them carved in stone and wood, painted on masonry, etched into slabs, on columns, even on the twenty steps leading up to the temple. The number twenty also seemed to be quite common. In the number of stelae in front of the temple. In the number of st
eps of the small pyramid. In the number of columns supporting the porch in front of the temple, which they had thoroughly checked for anything that resembled an entrance, failing to find one. The archaeologist had even convinced Lieutenant Lobo to let him borrow some of his SEALs to look around. But the search had yielded nothing. The building appeared to be completely sealed.

  She watched Cameron use a brush to clean a step, before running a finger over the relief on the limestone. The archaeologist was now dressed in khaki shorts, a white T-shirt, and the khaki vest with multiple pockets that she had spotted in his room a few days ago. He topped off his outfit with a dark green floppy hat. He was still making notes and inspecting the glyphs, while moving across the entire length of the second to last step by the foot of the temple. Then he stood, glanced at his notes, at the temple, back at his notes, and then climbed up the steps and walked beneath one of the corbel vaults in between the columns supporting the large mansard roof, also decorated with stucco figures of various Mayan gods, many of them adorned with gold and jade. The corbel vault, as Cameron had explained, had no keystone, like European arches, making them look more like narrow triangles than archways.

  The archaeologist squatted and touched the limestone floor, under a corbel vault, brushing it, and touching it again. Then he moved to another section of the floor, beyond the vault. His movements were automatic, with purpose, projecting the fluidity of repetition. He had obviously done this before many, many times. From the moment they had left the helicopter, Cameron had seemed more at ease with the tropical environment than even the SEALs, always anticipating, always realizing what had to be done well ahead of everyone else. It was almost as if everybody but Cameron moved in slow motion, like they didn’t quite belong in the jungle. But he did, and that reality made Susan want to remain close to him. The unarmed Cameron Slater emanated a natural sense of security that even the well-armed SEALs could not match.