The sleek blue-hulled Nereus lying at anchor among. the other oil tankers and fishing boats in the harbor was a welcome sight. Trout found it hard to believe he had left the ship. and Gamay> , only a few days before. He wished now that he had prevailed upon her to come back to Washington. She would never have agreed, he admitted to himself; she was intent on meeting Dr: Chi.
Before leaving Washington 'Bout had called the Mexican anthropological museum and talked to Dr: Chi's secretary. She checked the professor's calendar and confirmed he was planning to meet Gamay The professor spent much of his time “out in the field” and called in for messages when he happened to be near a phone, but he had no set schedule. If he were to be found anywhere, she said, it would be at his lab.
As the pilot waited for permission to land, Trout asked him to radio ahead and notify those handling his next ride that he was coming in. He didn't want to waste a minute cooling his heels in an airport lounge. As soon as the Beechcraft taxied to a stop, Trout bolted from the cabin with his one bag, flinging an adios“ and a ”gracias" over his shoulder in New England Spanish.
A stocky man in a police uniform and reflective sunglasses was waiting in the airport lobby.
“Dr. Trout,” he said with a toothy smile. “My name is Sergeant Morales. I am with the Mexican federal police. The fed I've been asked to act as your guide.”
Trout had called in a marker with the Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA owed NUMA for some past favors and was happy to oblige when Trout asked to set up a contact with the Mexican national police.
“Nice to meet you,” Trout said, glancing at his watch. “I'm ready if you are.”
It is getting late,“ the policeman said. ”I wondered if you would rather go tomorrow."
Trout's answer was softspoken, but there was no mistaking the determination in the serious brown eyes. “With all due respect, Sergeant, I took great pains to get here in a hurry so I could start searching for my wife as soon as I arrived.”
“Of course, Senor Trout,” the policeman said, nodding in understanding. “I assure you, this is not a case of manana. Simply common sense. I, too, wish to locate your wife. However, it will be dark before long.”
“How much light do we have?”
“One, two hours, maybe.”
“Finest kind, Cap,” Trout said, answering in fisherman's slang. “We can cover a lot in two hours.”
Morales saw there was no use trying to put off the tall American.
Bueno, Dr. Trout. The helicopter is this way."
The Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter was warming up, its rotor and tail blades turning slowly, as Trout eased into the three-passenger backseat and Morales slid in next to the pilot. Seconds later the turbo motor kicked into action and the runners lifted off the tarmac. The helicopter leaped into the air and climbed in two minutes to an altitude of more than three thousand feet. They swung out over the water and headed inland from the coast, following the railroad tracks that snaked into the interior.
Morales gave the pilot directions, frequently consulting from a folded-up map.. They left the railroad track and picked up a narrow highway running more or less eastwest. The chopper kept its altitude, cruising at a speed of 125 miles per hour until they were well into the interior. The dense woods were broken here and there by a village or occasional town. There were few paved roads. Occasionally they passed over a Mayan ruin. But for the most part the landscape was the same unbroken flatness Trout had noted on the way from Cancun.
The aircraft swung onto a more southerly course. Morales was a competent and sharp-eyed guide, recognizing landmarks and relaying the information to the pilot. Trout anxiously watched the sun lowering in the sky.
“How far?” Trout said with unveiled impatience.
Morales held up five fingers. He jabbed a point on the map for the benefit of the pilot. “Aqui!”
The pilot nodded so slightly Trout wasn't sure he heard Morales until the chopper cut speed and described a wide circle that transformed into an evertightening spiral.
Morales pressed against the plexiglass and pointed down. Trout caught a glimpse of a clearing and a crude structure before both quickly passed out of view. The chopper came around again, hovered, and began to descend. Their target was directly under them, and Trout couldn't see where they were landing. As the treetops grew closer, the chopper seemed to hang for a second. The pilot suddenly gunned the motor, and they darted off to one side like a startled dragonfly
The pilot and Morales had a quick conversation in Spanish.
“What's wrong?” Trout strained to see into the forest.
“No room. He's afraid hell catch the rotors in the trees.”
Trout sat back in his seat and crossed his arms, puffing his cheeks out in frustration. The chopper moved out until it was above a lonely stretch of arrow-straight road, then dropped down and landed lightly in a grassy patch at the edge of the blacktop. As the whirling rotors fluttered to a stop, Trout and Morales got out. Nearby a track led into the woods.
“This goes to Professor Chi's house. We must walk”
Trout strode off with the shorter man valiantly trying to keep up without losing his dignity. As they moved into the thick woods Trout noticed that there were deep tracks, made fairly recently by heavy tires set wide apart. Morales said he had called the local policia and requested that they ask around. Several locals remembered seeing Chi on a bus. He'd been picked up from hunting and dropped off by the side of the road near where he lived. They remembered a Jeep waiting for him. That fit, Trout thought. Gamay had used a Jeep to drive in from the coast.
“Do you know Dr. Chi?” he asked Morales as they walked.
“Si, senor. I have met him. Sometimes the museum asks me to carry a message to him. He is muy pacifico. A gentleman. Always wants to cook tortillas for me.”
The canopy of trees was becoming as dark as a subway tunnel. Trout squinted through the branches, trying to catch a glimpse of the sun. He wondered if they would have any problem finding their way out. Maybe Morales was right, they should have waited until morning when they'd have more light.
“Why does Professor Chi have his lab way out here?” Trout asked. “Wouldn't it be more convenient if he had it in a town or village?”
“I ask the doctor the same thing,” Morales said with a grin. “He says he was born in this place. 'My roots are here,' he tells me. You understand what he means?”
Trout understood Chi's attachment to his native soil very well. His own family went back more than two hundred years on Cape Cod, spawning several generations of families all tied to the sea, through service as lighthouse keepers, surfmen in the Lifesaving Service, or fishermen. The low slung silvershingled Trout homestead was nearly two centuries old, but it had been kept up through the years and looked as if it could have been built yesterday. His was a salty ancestry he wore with pride, met he realized his ties to the past were nothing compared to the Maya, who had inhabited the same country' for many centuries before the Spaniards arrived.
They trudged along for about twenty minutes until the forest thinned out into a clearing. The square concrete block building seemed to jump out of the woods, but it was more a case of Trout simply not expecting such a substantial looking structure in this remote location.
“The professor's laboratory,” Morales said. He went over and knocked on the door. No answer. “We come back here after we check the house,” Morales suggested.
The thatched-roof but was similar to those Trout had seen dotting the Yucatan from the air. Trout was more interested in the Jeep parked next to the simple structure. He hurried over and searched the vehicle. Tucked in the sun visor was the diagram indicating how to get to Chi's property and a bottle of bug, repellent. He ran his hands over the steering wheel and dashboard and smelled the faint, scent of the body lotion Gamay used.
They searched the house, which took about five minutes because of the sparseness of the furnishings. Trout stood in the center of the dirt floor and looked around, hoping
to find a due he had missed on his first round.
“Well, we know from the Jeep that she made it this far.”
“I have an idea,” Morales said. Trout followed him past the lab , building to another simple but. “This is the professor's garage. Look. His vehicle is gone.”
“Those would have been the tracks we saw on the way in. What does he drive?”
“A big car,” Morales said. “Like a Jeep, only like this.” He held his hands wide.
“A HumVee?”
“Si,” he said with a bright smile. “HumVee. Like the U.S. military uses.” .
So it was likely they went somewhere in the Hummer. But where?
“Maybe there's a note in the lab,” Trout said.
The cinderblock building was pleasantly cooler than outside even without the airconditioning on. The door was unlocked and they easily gained entrance. Trout took in the hightech equipment and shook his head in wonder much as his wife had done the day before. Morales stood nearby at respectful attention, almost as if he were afraid of being caught in forbidden precincts. Except for the general clutter, noting appeared to have been disturbed.
Paul went over to the sink. There were two glasses in the drying rack.
“Looks they they could have had a drink.”
Morales checked to waste basket and found two cans of Seven-Up. Further reconstructing events, Trout surmised that Gamay had been waiting for to professor at to highway, they came in here, drank some soda, then took off. He checked to refrigerator and found to two dead partridges. The binds had yet to be cleaned and gutted. Chi must have planned to return in a short time from wherever he went.
“Is there a village nearby where they could have gone?” Trout asked.
“There is a town, si, but the people there would have seen Dr. Chi in his big blue car. Nada.”
Trout examined to maps on to wall. One appeared to be missing. He went over to the table and began looking at the papers on top. It took only a moment to find the map and match the pinholes to those on to wall. Chi could have taken this down to show Gamay. On the other hand, it may have been on the table for weeks. He showed to map to Morales.
“Do you know where this is?”
The police sergeant examined to map and said, “Down south more into Campeche. About a hundred miles. Maybe more.”
“What's out there?”
“Nothing. Woods. It's outside to biosphere reserve. No one goes there.”
Trout tapped the map. Somebody went there. My guess is it's Dr. Chi. The chopper can get us there in an hour or less."
“I'm sorry, senor. By the time we walk back to the helicopter it will be dark.”
Morales was right. They were lucky to find their way out of the woods. By the time they returned to the chopper it was pitch black. Trout hated the thought of Gamay having to spend another night wherever she was. As' the helicopter lifted above the trees he tried to console himself with other possibilities. That Chi and Gamay had fetched up somewhere. Maybe they were sitting down to a quiet dinner. Less appealing scenarios intruded. An accident. That didn't figure. Gamay was simply not accident-prone. She was too savvy, too sure-footed.
Trout knew tat even to most sure-footed person makes a mistake at least once in his or her life. He hoped it wasn't Gamay's turn.
Serpent
25
SERGEANT MORALES FOUND TROUT A room in a small hotel near the airport. Trout lay on his bed for hours staring at the ceiling fan, wondering what Gamay was doing, before he finally slipped into a few fitful hours of sleep. He awoke at twilight and took a shower that was all the more refreshing because there was no hot water. He was pacing the tarmac when the pilot and sergeant arrived as the sky turned peach pink in the east.
The chopper followed Chi's map in a straight line at its maximum cruising speed, flying at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet. The forest stretched out below like a rough napped green carpet. Arriving at the area indicated on Chi's map, the pilot slowed the aircraft and dropped it almost to treetop level. The JetRanger admirably fulfilled the purpose of its original design as an army observation helicopter. Trout, who was sitting in the front, noticed a textural difference in the greenery and asked the pilot to circle. Morales picked out the barely distinct edges of the rectangular plain. After a couple more passes for the pilot to acquaint himself with the lay of the land, the JetRanger landed at rough center.
It took Paul less than thirty seconds to decide he didn't like this godforsaken place. Not one damned bit! It went beyond the remoteness and the weird mounds and the darkness of the encroaching forest even in daylight. Something sinister lurked here. As a boy he used to feel the same prickly scalp uneasiness when he walked past the deserted house of a sailor who ate his crewmates while becalmed in the Sargasso Sea.
Maybe Gamay had never been here, he thought, looking around at the desolate spot. All he had was Dr. Chi's map and the supposition that this was their destination. He could be spinning his wheels while Gamay desperately needed his help elsewhere. No. He clenched his jaw. This was definitely the place. He could feel it in his bones the way his fisherman father sensed a storm brewing.
The police officer suggested that they fan out in three directions, keeping each other in view as much as possible, walk to the edge of the woods, then return to the chopper. A half hour later they straggled back. Morales was about to speak but paused as his eversearching policeman's eye. picked out evidence of an earlier visit.
Squatting for a better look, Morales said, “See where the grass is broken. Here, and here again.” He angled his head. “There, when the light is just right, footprints.”
Thinking he would never want Morales on his trail, Trout followed the sergeant's example and saw the faint shadows that had caught the police officer's attention. The sergeant instructed the pilot to stay with the helicopter and got no argument. The early morning sun was already hinting at the blast furnace it would be in the hours to come. They set out with Morales taking the lead and had gone only a short distance when they saw a mound that had been cleared so the stone blocks on one side were visible.
At the base of the structure was a reddish patch. In his eagerness for a better look Trout ignored the sergeant's admonishment to stay behind. He dashed past the sergeant to the mound and picked up Gamay's worn maroon L. L. Bean day pack, the same one he had given her as a Christmas gift two years before. With mounting excitement he rummaged inside and found her camera and sketch pads, some plastic lunch bags, empty soda cans, and a bottle of water. Nearby was another pack made of tan canvas. Trout held both packs high over his head for the benefit of Morales, who was walking briskly to catch up.
“This pack belongs to my wife,” the NUMA scientist said triumphantly. “The other has Dr. Chi's name on the tag.”
Morales inspected the professor's bag. His face was clouded. “This is not good.”
“What do you wean, not good? This shows they've been here.”
“You misunderstand, Senor Trout,” Morales said with a quick glance around. “I found a campfire where there were signs of many chicleros.” “ Noting Trout's blank expression, he explained, ”They are bad men who steal antiquities for sale."
“What's that got to do with my wife and the professor?”
“The coals were warm. And near the river signs of many men. I also find these.” He opened his palm to display three spent bullet cartridges.
Trout put a shell to his nose. The bullet had been fired recently.
“Where did you find them?”
Trout's eyes followed the police officer's pointing finger, then looked back to where he had found the rucksacks as if he could draw a line connecting the two points. That's when he noticed the strange carvings on the wall of the structure. He stepped closer and inspected the boats and other figures on the bared stone. His guess was that Gamay and the professor had lunch, then came back to these carvings. Gamay definitely would have been intrigued by the strange etchings, but something must have distracted them.
He turned back to Morales. “You think my wife and the professor ran into these chicleros?”
“Si,” Morales said with a shrug. “It is possible. Why else would they leave their sacks?”
“I was thinking the same thing. Sergeant, would you please show me where you found these shells?”
“Come this way” Morales said with a nod. “Be careful where you walk. There are holes all over the field.”
They slowly made their way across the plain. There were far more of the mysterious mounds than Trout first assumed. If each one had a stone structure under it, this must have been a goodsized settlement at one time.
“Here,” Morales said. And over there."
Trout saw copper gleaming in the grass and picked up a couple more shells, a combination of pistol and rifle casings. The grass was trampled all around them. His big hand squeezed the hollow copper cylinders as if he would crush them.
“Now can I see the campfire and the river?”
They examined the campsite and found empty tequila bottles and many cigarette stubs. More shells were found in the woods. At the river's edge Trout looked in vain for tracks indicating Gamay's running shoes, but the mud was too messed up. He saw marks indicating boats had been drawn up on shore, as well as more shell casings. This place must have resembled a shooting gallery! But Trout was hopeful. The casings indicated that someone with rifles and pistols had chased somebody to the river. That was the bad news. The fact that guns were still blazing from the riverside indicated Gamay and the professor could have made their escape.
Trout suggested that they get into the air and follow the river through the woods. Morales agreed. They walked briskly away from the river and were about halfway back to the chopper when they heard a disembodied groan. They froze, exchanging glances. Morales drew his pistol. They listened, hearing only the drone of insects.