Cameron’s eyes became mere slits of anger as he sat up and spoke with amazing calm. “Look, this site is the find of the century. It’s untouched, and more important to me than my life. If your men touch so much as a single statue, I will refuse to help you. And if you kill me, you know that Susan will not help you any further—and without us, you have no hope of learning about this virus to stop it before the deadline expires.”
Strokk regarded the archaeologist first with surprise, then with contempt. He unholstered his sidearm and aimed it at Susan’s face. “Is this site more important to you than her life too?”
Cameron shifted his gaze from Strokk to Susan.
“Don’t interfere, Dr. Slater,” said Strokk, cocking the gun while pressing the muzzle against her left temple. “Or you’ll be staring at her brains on your lap for a long time. Now, do we understand each other?”
Cameron exhaled heavily.
“Good.” The terrorist turned to Susan. “Be sure to get ready for tonight’s event. My patience is running thin. I want answers on this global event. You do not want to disappoint me.”
Chapter Sixteen
010000
1
December 17, 1999
From time immemorial, outsiders had come and taken from Joao’s land. The first Spaniards arrived on the shores of the Yucatán in the early 1500s, not only claiming a soil that didn’t belong to them, but also ushering Old World diseases into the New World. Smallpox, influenza, measles, unknown illnesses among the Maya that claimed more lives than the steel of the conquistadores’ swords, killed over ninety percent of Mesoamerica’s native population within a century. Outsiders had come and taken from the Maya. They had robbed them of their land, of their women, of their traditions, of their dignity. They had come and imposed an alien way of life, a different religion, strange beliefs. They had raped the women, enslaved the men, indoctrinated the children. They had burned their codices, desecrated their temples, looted their palaces, stolen gold and precious stones, ridiculed their culture, and enforced a way of life that valued the accumulation of wealth rather than the enhancement of the human spirit. But the Maya had fought back with surprising vigor, bravely refusing to be subdued, resisting the incessant waves of invaders, inflicting fear in their hearts. Their valiant efforts, however, could not push back the overwhelming tide drowning their land, razing it with the rage of the most violent of forest fires, attempting to uproot their culture like an unwanted weed in the gardens of another Spanish-claimed territory. Only this garden was too vast to be fully controlled. The surviving natives retreated to the lowlands of the Petén, deep within the protection of the vast jungle, of mangroves, of swamps, of jaguars and caimans, safe from the unyielding fist of the Spaniards. But the ancient warriors remained alert, ready to launch jungle-style warfare on any invader foolish enough to enter their green sanctuary. Many did come in, following Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821, when the new government tried to subdue the Maya into laborers on cash-crop plantations, triggering the beginning of what became known as the War of the Castles. Armed by the British in neighboring Belize, the rebelling natives not only expelled the Mexican army, but managed to gain control of the entire Yucatán Peninsula until 1901, when a new wave of government strikes destroyed many aspects of Mayan cultural traditions and agricultural methods. And the true Maya retreated once again to its beloved Petén, hiding beneath its thick canopy, beyond impenetrable terrain, past treacherous swamps, preserving their core beliefs, their heritage, their culture. But they also remembered the invaders, never forgetting their atrocities, their wickedness, the brutality with which they had attempted to eradicate their entire civilization.
Wickedness. Brutality.
Joao Peixoto’s heart filled with anger as he surveyed the site from the lush branches of an opulent ceiba. The wrath of his ancestors boiled inside of him, a fury kindled by the sight of so much death, so much blasphemy. He had seen the new soldiers dump the bodies of the first team into the pure waters of the cenote, defiling the virgin pool. Now the same men desecrated the holy temple of Kinich Ahau, the jaguar sun god. They also carved out the precious stones and metals from the stelae of Chac, rain god and cosmic monster, and of Ix Chel, the moon goddess of medicine and childbirth.
Joao closed his tearful eyes, controlling the urge to attack the invaders, to avenge this unforgivable crime, to appease the angry gods. But he couldn’t do so without permission from the high priests, without their consent. He was a nacom, a Mayan military leader, loyal to the shamans, the carriers of his people’s traditions, keepers of his culture’s unstained values, of the secret ways to enter the limestone structure, and of its deadly traps.
The Mayan warrior noticed the shadow of the trees shifting across the cenote. The sun had began its decline toward the western horizon, which meant the strangers he had captured should have been delivered to his village by now. He hoped to learn much from them, perhaps even enough to generate a recommendation to the high priests.
Before he returned to his village, Joao watched with personal satisfaction that the long-haired man who had been respectfully inspecting the area for the past two days was now standing. The stranger had made a valiant effort to prevent the desecration of the large stelae honoring Hunahpu and Xbalanque, the hero twins engaged in a game of pokatok.
Honor lived within that man, as well as within the woman who had come to his defense.
2
Ishiguro Nakamura watched the body of Luis being splattered over the jungle’s leaf-covered terrain. He heard Jackie scream, saw her contorted face reflecting her horror. The dark jungle came alive with the sounds of the enemy. Kuoshi clutched a weapon, warning them to run away, to find a way out, to preserve their research. He saw faceless figures bearing automatic weapons nearing, heard the multiple reports from Kuoshi’s gun, listened to his agonizing scream. Ishiguro watched the trees rush past as Jackie and he raced through the thick underbrush. He felt the ground giving beneath him, heard Jackie shriek once more. The heavy backpack pulled him back, nearly flipping him in midair as he fell into a black hole.
Drenched in perspiration, Ishiguro woke up with a monstrous headache. In spite of the relentless pounding against his temples and behind his eyes, he opened them and found himself staring at the sagging breasts of an old woman. She was kneeling across the room in front of a flat rock while using her hands to mold a yellowish, soggy mass. Flies droned around her.
Jackie, he thought. Where are you?
The woman slowly raised her stare until her weathered eyes met his. She studied him for a few seconds before going back to her work while mumbling something that sounded more animal than human.
Ishiguro brought a finger to his right temple and slowly rubbed it, feeling as if he’d been asleep forever. He managed to sit up and take a better look at what appeared to be the inside of a stone shack, in the center of which stood a tripod made of sticks. A clay dish hung over two small burning logs. Smoke curled up to the top of the bullet-shaped roof, escaping through a tiny opening. He saw no sign of his wife.
He inspected his body and noticed he only wore the khaki slacks and shirt. His gear was gone. Even the boots, he thought, staring at the straw and dirt caught in between his toes.
How long have I been out?
He looked at his left wrist, but his G-shock Casio was also gone.
Ishiguro frowned as he recalled hitting his head right before passing out. He brought a hand up and felt a lump between his left temple and the back of his skull, letting out a sigh of relief. The wound had not bled. His hair still felt smooth, not clumped and knotted as it would have been if it was caked with dry blood.
Slowly, very slowly, his mind kicked in. They had been ambushed and were being chased when the earth had given way under them.
He had to find out what had happened. Was Jackie all right? Where was she?
Ishiguro tried to stand but felt light-headed and collapsed back on the bed, his mind drifting to the faceless strangers w
ho had attacked them. His skin tightened at the thought of Jackie being hurt, the thought renewing his desire to stand up, to look for her.
Ishiguro pushed himself and stood, ignoring the overwhelming headache. He staggered toward the shack’s entrance. The toothless woman began to speak the dialect again. He shrugged and left her.
Sunlight assaulted his eyes, stinging them, flaring his headache. Squinting, using a palm to shield his eyes, Ishiguro realized that he had indeed been taken in by a native tribe. There were a dozen similar limestone shacks with hatched roofs scattered around a small clearing, mostly shielded by ceibas, mahoganies, and rubber trees, creating jagged patches of sunlight across the entire village. Children dressed in short skirts played with a black ball while two dozen women, wearing either loincloths or just short skirts, breasts exposed, worked near a small fire twenty feet to his left. A small stream flowed in from the jungle, sectioning the village in half, and disappearing back into the woods. He saw no men anywhere.
One of the women turned in his direction. She was of light olive complexion, very muscular, and with dark hair dropping to the middle of her back. In fact, after another inspection of the group, he decided that all of the women were athletically built, with particularly strong legs.
The woman began to walk in his direction. The muscles on her legs pumped against the skin with every step. Her face didn’t look like that of a typical native. Her nose had some resemblance to the flat and wide noses typical of the region, but hers was thinner and smaller. Her lips, although cracked and dry, were full, and her eyes … they were not green or hazel, but light gray, crowning her high cheekbones. She was definitely the product of generations of European and native Indian interbreeding. The woman carried an infant strapped to her loincloth. The baby was sleeping.
She came up to him, took his right hand, and guided him to a shack at the other side of the clearing, motioning for Ishiguro to go inside.
The interior was murky. A dirt floor, a tripod with a hanging clay pot, and a single bed. Blinking to adjust his eyes, Ishiguro saw Jackie lying on her back, eyes closed.
His stomach knotting, he rushed to her side, sitting in bed, noticing the large lump on her forehead, feeling for a pulse, exhaling in relief when he found one.
He inspected the nasty bruise right above her left eye, also noticing the clay pot filled with water and a white cotton rag next to it. The astrophysicist immersed the cloth in the water, soaking it, then wringing it before applying it to her forehead. She stirred and moaned. He repeated the process many times for the next thirty minutes. At one point in time she opened her eyes but quickly fell unconscious again.
Ishiguro forgot all about the mission, the celestial signal, the strong possibility of an extraterrestrial contact. At that moment, sitting on a straw bed inside a stone shack in the middle of nowhere, his thoughts focused on Jackie, realizing that she was indeed the most important thing in the world to him. Nothing like being threatened with the possibility of losing her for Ishiguro to put things in the right perspective. And so he cleaned her face, her neck, her forearms, her dirty hands, feeling frustrated that he could do nothing more for her, wishing that she had stayed behind, back in Cerro Tolo, safe within the protective walls of the observatory.
Just then he felt a presence behind him.
In the twilight of the room, Ishiguro stared at a thin but very muscular native dressed in a dark skirt. His shoulder-length hair was tied in a ponytail. There was an air of confidence, intelligence, and lack of curiosity in his dark eyes, encased in purplish sockets.
The man stopped a few feet from Ishiguro. “What are you doing in this land?”
Ishiguro was momentarily surprised. “You … you speak English … quite well.” He detected a mix of Spanish and British accents.
“Please answer my question.”
“My wife … she needs help. I need to find a—”
“This land belongs to my people,” the stranger interrupted. “Strangers are not welcome. The people of your world kill just to kill. The people of my world only kill to eat. I saw the attack on the soldiers, the way they are now desecrating the temple of Kinich Ahau. So I ask you again, what are you doing here?”
Ishiguro narrowed his eyes. “Temple of Kini … Soldiers? I—I don’t understand.”
“Tell me what you are doing here.”
Ishiguro looked at Jackie before returning his attention to the native, realizing he had some explaining to do before he would be in a position to ask anything. He decided that honesty was his best alternative. After all, he had done nothing wrong. He even had the papers from the Guatemalan government providing him access to this region to conduct his work. But, should he be truly honest? Should he stick to his story of seismic research? He frowned, realizing how silly that sounded in light of the recent events. And who had tried to kill them? Why were there soldiers at this temple? Why was there a temple in the first place? Ishiguro took a chance and opted for the real truth.
“I’m a scientist, an astronomer.” He watched the native’s face closely, looking for a reaction.
“The study of the heavens,” the half-naked man said. “My people have also studied the heavens. Go on.”
The comment caught Ishiguro by surprise. Perhaps he should have brushed up on the findings of the ancient Maya on his way here, but at the time he had been too concerned about the scientific aspect of the celestial contact.
He spoke slowly, with moderation, always pausing to make sure that the native understood everything that he had said. He mentioned his findings at Cerro Tolo, the signal from outer space, its synchronization to this global event that froze computer systems, the satellite triangulation that pointed to the coordinates in the jungle. When he finished, the native appeared perplexed. Although Ishiguro had made a good effort at keeping his explanation as simple as possible, he sensed that he may have lost the English-speaking native somewhere along the way.
“Where is the origin of this signal?” he asked.
Ishiguro raised his brows at the question. “You mean, you want to know exactly where the signal came from?”
“That is correct,” he replied in the accent that Ishiguro found intriguing, almost surreal, considering the haggard appearance of this half-naked man and the primitive surroundings.
“I … well, yes. I could show you if I had a map of the cosmos.”
“You need a chart of the heavens?”
The Japanese astrophysicist nodded.
“Wait here.” The Maya left. Two similarly dressed men took his place, regarding him with poker stares.
Perplexed by the unexpected conversation, Ishiguro exhaled heavily before going back to tending Jackie, still unconscious. This time, as he softly rubbed the damp rag over her head, she opened her eyes, staring at nothing in particular, just gazing, finally shifting them to him.
“Hi there,” he said, smiling, a sense of relief washing down his anxiety.
She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
“Don’t try to talk,” he said. “Nod if you can understand me.”
She did.
“You’ve got a nasty bruise over your left eye, probably from the fall back in the jungle. Do you remember that.”
She nodded, also adding a barely audible, “Ye—yes,” followed by, “Where?”
He told her, spending five minutes explaining their situation. By the time he had finished, Jackie had gained enough strength to sit up.
“Strange … very weird,” she said.
“You’re telling me.” He put a hand to her china-doll face. “You had me worried. For a moment there…”
“You won’t be getting rid of me that easily,” she replied, half smiling, closing her eyes. “My head…”
“Welcome to the club,” he said. “When they return I’m going to beg them access to our stuff. I brought some painkillers.”
“What do you think is going to happen to us?”
“Not sure. They seem reasonable. I think as long as we stic
k to the truth we should be fine.”
The haggard Maya returned, along with three elder men dressed in colorful loincloths. He blinked twice at their deformed skulls, alienlike, as well as their prominent brows, reminding him of the drawings he’d seen of cavemen in some book long ago. All were completely bald, their elongated heads glistening in the wan light filtering through the shack’s entryway. Several earrings adorned one of them, along with the tattoo of a jaguarlike figure on his left forearm. The second man had tattoos in the shape of bands around his upper arms. A third man had a colorful bird painted on his left shoulder. Behind them stood the same woman who had taken him here, the infant still strapped to her loincloth. She held what appeared to be a rolled-up yellowish poster.
Ishiguro remained seated, next to Jackie. “This is my wife,” he said. “She is also a scientist.”
Joao nodded, turning to one of the elders and saying something incomprehensible. The women yielded the poster to the alienlike Maya, who unrolled it and handed it to the rugged native. He set it at the foot of the straw bed.
“Where?”
Ishiguro and Jackie looked at the drawing, at one another, and back at the drawing.
“Incredible,” she said.
Ishiguro was at a loss for words. The map depicted the northern sky surrounding the southern constellation Centaur, drawn with amazing detail, including systems not visible with the naked eye. “Do you own telescopes?”
The Maya shook his head.
“Then how did you do this?”
“We have other means for recording the sky. Where is the origin of this signal?”
Jackie stretched her arm, her index finger pointing at the lower right side of the constellation. “Right here.”
Ishiguro nodded.
The Maya turned to the elders.
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