And I found it!
His heart raced with exhilaration. He hadn't been here a day and look what he'd discovered.
When was the last time human eyes looked on this spot? he wondered. A hundred, five hundred, a thousand years?
Mesmerized by the wonder of that possibility, he pushed through the undergrowth toward his find.
Passing a tilted, vine-covered column that he at first took to be a dead tree trunk, he was startled to see a pair of eyes peering out at him. As he cut away some of the vines for a better look, he realized that he'd found a Mayan stela, one of the carved stone pillars they set up around their public areas. This one appeared to be red sandstone; it stood a good eight feet above the ground, and probably had at least another four feet planted in the soil.
The parted vines revealed a frowning face, almost Asian in its flatness, wearing an elaborately carved headdress alive with gaping jaws and bared teeth. A snarling jaguar head jutted from where his chest should be. But the cold merciless eyes of that face unsettled him.
He moved on toward the pyramid—his pyramid—and started to climb its steps. The sound of rushing water was louder here and he hesitated. The exertion of cutting his way through to here had increased his thirst. Maybe he should find the river, then explore the pyramid.
The light suddenly faded and Will looked up. A dark billowing cloud had swallowed the sun where it had been poised above the trees. A deep rumble of thunder announced that Ambrosio's Chac was coming back for a return engagement.
Will looked longingly toward the boxlike temple atop the pyramid, but decided to postpone a peek inside. He didn't want to get caught out in the storm that was barreling this way.
If nothing else, he thought as he hurried back toward the trail, the rain will solve the thirst problem.
By the time he found the gully, the wind was bending the trees and shaking loose the remainder of the last downpour. The roaring thunder and lightning flashes filtering through the leafy canopy spurred him into a run. He made it to the Jeep just in time.
Will had heard of tropical rains but had never experienced one. There was no build up—one moment the storm was threatening, the next instant he was underwater. If the Jeep had been moving, he'd have sworn they'd driven into the Mesoamerican equivalent of Niagara Falls. The water battered the hood like a thousand angry fists, pounded the canvas roof with such force that Will cringed in his seat, fearing it would tear and he'd drown. A couple of minor rivulets ran down the inside walls from leaky seams, but nothing serious. He stayed dry, but he could see nothing but water through the windshield. His world had shrunk to this noisy little two-seat cubicle.
The storm raged for a good hour, then gave up and moved on, leaving Will in the dripping darkness. Night seemed to fall as quickly as the rain.
Will unsnapped the door and stepped out for a breath of fresh air. His boot landed in running water. The gully had turned into a stream.
Where the hell was Ambrosio? How long before he got back? He hoped nothing had happened to the little guy.
Will hopped back up on the narrow running board. At least the Jeep was clean now. He scooped some water off the canvas roof and drank it.
Swallowing accentuated the fullness at the back of his throat, reminding him of the ticking bomb within. He drank some more, then crawled back into the Jeep and buttoned it up.
So here he was, alone in the dark, with no idea of how long he'd be stuck here.
Might as well make the best of it, he thought.
He reached over the seat, unzipped his duffel, and extracted his laptop. Maybe he should start the journal of his adventure tonight. And maybe not. He wasn't sure he could resist the temptation to open this chapter with, “It was a dark and stormy night.”
He decided to send e-mail first. He tapped out a message to Kelly, telling her he'd made it to wherever he was—he told her he was in Mexico—and that he was doing fine.
He plugged his satellite modem card into the PCMCIA slot and raised the little antenna. The Jeep's canvas top wouldn't hamper his uplink a bit. He'd been told that this was the cutting edge in computer communication and would work anywhere in the world. It had worked fine in Westchester, but this would be the real test.
It took three tries, but finally he managed to log onto his e-mail account via satellite. As he uploaded Kelly's letter, he saw that he had mail waiting for him—from Terziski. He downloaded that and read it immediately:
Doc—
Having trouble confirming Maya Quennell's CV. Discrepancies at her primary sources. Checking further. Will get back to you.
—Terziski
Terse and to the point. Too terse. Terziski seemed to think e-mail was like a telegram—he wrote as if he were getting charged by the word.
“Discrepancies at her primary sources . . .” What the hell did that mean? The detective hadn't come right out and said Maya was lying about her past, but that was certainly the implication.
Great. Will had left behind Western civilization to trek off with a woman with discrepancies at her primary sources. He hoped he heard back from Terziski before he got too deep into this . . . whatever this was.
But for now, might as well make the best of it.
He didn't feel like writing, so he zipped the laptop back into the duffel, then checked the fittings on the canvas top, making sure they were snapped shut. He was pretty well shielded from nuisance creatures, like insects and snakes, but what about predators? Were there any? He remembered the jaguar head on that stela. Hopefully none of them were about, or if they were, he hoped they'd avoid something the size of the Jeep.
Figuring sleep would speed the passage of time, Will pushed back the seat as far as it would go, got as comfortable as he could, and closed his eyes . . .
7
“Wha—?”
Will awoke with a start. He straightened in the seat. How long had he been asleep? And what had awakened him?
A flash of light and a not-too-distant bellow answered the second question. Another storm? Didn't Chac give up?
The rain hit then, drowning out the thunder as it attacked the Jeep with another mad cacophonous tattoo like automatic gunfire against its roof and hood. Will wouldn't have thought it possible, but rain from this new storm seemed heavier than the last. How could clouds hold this much water?
And then the Jeep moved.
What the hell?
Will grabbed the dashboard as the vehicle swerved to the right, bumped something, then swerved left and stopped with a jolt. He moved his leg and heard his boot splash. Reaching across to the driver's side, he found the light switch and turned it. The glow from the dashboard revealed nearly an inch of water on the floor, and more running in around the door flap. He pushed the flap open and gasped as water cascaded into the Jeep. A brilliant flash of lightning revealed little through the deluge, but enough to show water flowing all around. Flowing fast.
The gully had become a rushing stream. The rain alone couldn't account for all this. Only one explanation: the river, the one he'd heard but not seen, was overflowing its banks.
He pulled the door shut again, but the floor of the Jeep was now awash.
I should be all right if I sit tight, he told himself. After all, how high can it get?
As if in answer, the current lifted the Jeep and began to carry it along. Will felt his heart hammer against his chest wall as the little vehicle tilted left and then right.
Don't panic, he told himself, but remembering how these vehicles had been criticized for having too high a center of gravity did not help.
Moving sideways, the Jeep picked up speed until the driver side wheels caught on something and it began to tip.
“Oh, Christ!”
Will kicked out the passenger door and scrambled out. He landed in waist-high water. Through the lightning-strobed torrent he saw the Jeep tip about forty-five degrees, then hold. The current swirled around it, pushing at it, but whatever it had caught on seemed to be supporting it. But it was useless
to Will as shelter. He had to get out of this water. He imagined snakes and maybe even alligators floating his way from the river . . .
Yes, he definitely had to climb a tree or find higher ground, but first . . . he reached back into the Jeep and found the machete. Good. At least he had a chance of self-defense with that. Now where?
The pyramid.
How far had he floated? Surely not past the trail he'd found earlier. Using the lightning flashes to guide him, he moved further downstream, trying to remember any landmarks he'd passed this afternoon, but it was no use; everything looked so different now.
Finally he spotted an opening in the brush but couldn't tell if it was the same one. He didn't care. He had to get out of this mini-river. He splashed up to the bank, but as he followed the trail, he sensed the water rising behind him.
Where the hell am I?
He almost cheered when the lightning revealed a recently hacked web of vines directly ahead. He scraped through as a particularly brilliant flash drenched the clearing in white light. Even so, he could barely make out the ghostly shape of the pyramid dead ahead. The rain fell even harder here in this open area, so hard he felt he might have to use his machete to carve his way through the cascade.
He splashed toward the pyramid. And the closer he got, the eerier it looked in the flashes. Almost forbidding. But he couldn't let that put him off. He needed a high, dry sanctuary against the rising water, and right now the temple atop this pile of stone was the only game in town.
He slowed as he hit the steps, picking his way by touch and an occasional flash as he climbed over the vines and tree roots, skirting the bushes. After a few minor stumbles and scrapes he made it to the dark maw of the temple—literally a maw, since the Mayas had carved the head of some sort of monster around the opening.
He stepped through and stood dripping in the darkness, reveling in simply being out of the rain. He looked around. The space measured ten by twelve at most, with an identical doorway in the opposite wall. Small, yes, but it was relatively dry. The roof leaks were minor. Those Mayas knew how to build.
It took him a moment or two longer to realize that he was not alone.
The smell was the first clue—the acrid scent of animal droppings. The rustle of leathery wings in the darkness above him was the confirmation.
Bats.
Will ducked into a cringing squat and looked up at the ceiling. He could see nothing there. But he definitely could hear their agitated wings and an occasional squeak. He guessed they were about ten feet above him in the narrow angle of the roof.
Lots of bats in the northeast were rabid. What about these? And weren't there vampire bats in this area of the world—the ones that sucked blood from cattle? Or was that in South America? He never should have canceled his subscription to National Geographic.
At least these bats were staying put up there in the dark.
“Let's make a deal,” he whispered to the ceiling. “I'm not here to bother you, so don't bother me. Okay?”
He sidled over to a corner and crouched there with his back against the wall, watching the storm. The trees swayed and bent to impossible angles under the relentless onslaught of rain and wind. The clouds teemed with electricity, repeatedly lit from within by frantic flickers and huge, booming discharges as they pressed a billowing lid down on the clearing. Will had never seen a storm of such maniacal intensity.
He jumped as a sizzling bolt of lightning cracked into a palm at the edge of the clearing, exploding its crown in a multicolored fireworks display. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and hung on, watching the jagged afterimage on his retinae as the immediate deafening boom of thunder shook the pyramid to its foundation. When he looked again, the palm was split down half its length and blazing fronds were pinwheeling through the air. The rain drowned the flames before they reached the ground.
That was when he realized with a jolt that he was sitting atop the tallest structure in an open clearing. This temple could be the next lightning target. In fact, it almost begged to be hit.
Have to risk it, he thought. He wasn't budging from this dry spot.
He glanced down the steps and thought he saw movement. At first he assumed it was just an effect of the flickering light, but a few seconds of scrutiny confirmed his first impression: something was moving down there—lots of somethings—and they were climbing this way.
And then another particularly bright flash allowed him to identify them.
“Oh, Christ!”
Rodents of all shapes and sizes—rats, mice, and other ratlike and mouselike things he couldn't identify—were scrambling over, under, and through the vines and roots to get away from the flood waters. He shrank back against the wall and held his machete before him, ready to fend off any that came too close.
But they didn't seem interested in the temple. They were diving into all the nooks and crannies, cracks and crevices in the pyramid's crumbling façade.
“Good,” he said aloud. “Those are good places for you. Nice and tight and dark and dry.”
But something else was happening. As the rats and mice were going in, other things were coming out: insects. A rippling wave of displaced beetles and spiders—some of them very big beetles and spiders—was scrambling toward the top . . . toward Will.
He drew his feet and legs back tight against his body and wanted to cry out in revulsion as they swarmed into the temple, a thousand tiny scuttling shapes flowing across the floor and crawling up the walls. Most avoided him but a few ran across his boots or bushed his arms. He shivered and twitched them away.
He'd always found nature fascinating, especially bugs and spiders, but they'd always been on a TV screen or on the far side of plate glass at the zoo. The knowledge that thousands of them were clinging to the stones above and around him was almost enough to make him bolt back into the rain.
But no. He'd been here first.
And then he remembered that bats thrived on insects. What if they went into a feeding frenzy, swooping against the walls, knocking the bugs and spiders onto Will . . . into his hair . . . down his collar . . . ?
His skin crawled as he quickly buttoned his collar.
“Everybody play nice,” he whispered, glancing up to where the invisible bats hung. “Please. Just until the storm gives up and moves on.”
Another day-bright flash revealed half a dozen new shapes scurrying up the pyramid steps. They moved like rats but were much, much larger.
Will groaned and tightened his grip on the machete. Now what?
As they rushed into the temple space, their feet clacked like tiny hooves as they danced about and shook the rain from their brown spotted fur. Ambrosio had pointed out one of these tailless furballs earlier. He'd called it a paca, and said they lived in burrows. Will was ready to bet all their burrows were flooded now.
“Welcome to the club,” he said.
They shied away from him and clustered in a knot in an opposite corner.
“Who's next?” he said, half-jokingly, and then froze as he caught sight of a large swift sinuous shape moving his way up the steps.
Will knew immediately it was a big cat. And it was carrying something in its jaws.
Will had hung in through bats and bugs and pacas, but now, storm or no storm, it was time to leave. But before he could rise and move, the cat was in the doorway, statue-still on the threshold, staring at him. Fear gripped Will's pounding heart in an icy fist as a flash illuminated the black-ringed spots on its matted fur. A jaguar. He shifted the machete so that its point was pointed at the cat's throat.
And then he noticed the squirming bundle dangling from its jaws: a cub.
The jaguar bent and released the cub. As it rolled to its feet and shook itself, the mother tilted her head, spread its jaws, and let loose something between a growl and a hiss. Whatever it was, the sound stampeded the pacas back into the storm. Will very much wanted to be with them, but he couldn't run now, didn't even dare move other than to extend the machete point a few inches
toward the cat. He wanted to tell her to stay back, but all his saliva had left his mouth, most likely gone to his bladder which wanted very badly to empty— now.
Without another sound, the jaguar turned and ducked back into the storm.
Will huddled against the wall, debating whether he should make a run for it. The big cat hadn't attacked him or even gone after the pacas. She seemed to have other things on her mind.
He caught strobe-effect glimpses of the cub as it circled about, sniffing the temple floor. It moved toward him, sniffed his boot, then began swatting at the laces with its paws.
“Get lost,” he said, finding his voice again. But he didn't push the cub away. “I don't want your mother thinking I've been messing with you.” He glanced down the steps and felt his insides tense again. “And speak of the devil . . .”
The big cat was back with a second cub. She licked the first one, almost knocking it over with her tongue, then gave Will another long look before ducking out again.
The two cubs began licking the rain off each other, and continued that until their mother arrived with a third cub. But this time she moved inside. She shook herself, spraying Will and most of the interior of the temple. He heard an agitated rustle close to his ears as the drops hit the insect horde clustered on the wall behind him.
Something dropped on his shoulder. He glanced right and saw a thick-legged hairy spider the size of his hand turning in a nervous circle on his shoulder. It took every last drop of will power to resist the instinct to scream, slap the thing away, and run howling into the storm. But he knew the big cat was watching him, and any sudden move would earn him a mauling.