The gun coughed again.
With no one to block it this time, the next bullet caught Donatelli in the chest and he crashed over backward in his chair as Antonio reached back and filled his hand with the six-inch Beretta from his ankle holster. He propped himself up on his elbows and aimed the gun at Halcon. Magically, a neat round hole appeared in the center of Antonio's forehead, and he slumped forward onto the floor, his shot going wild.
The second figure stepped from the shadows, the gun in his hand smoking. He glanced impassively at the man he had just killed. “Never trust a Sicilian,” he said quietly.
“Good work, Guzman. I should have expected treachery. Sitting in an office has made me rusty when it comes to field operations.”
“You're welcome to come along when we take care of the rest of the family” Guzman said, his eyes glittering.
“Yes, I'd like that. Unfortunately it will have to wait. We have more pressing business.” Turning his attention to Angelo, he said, “Too bad you can't hear this, Donatelli. I've decided to spare your family for a little while until we clean up the mess you helped create. Don't despair You'll soon see your loved ones in hell.”
Voices were coming from outside the restaurant where Antonio's shot had caught the attention of passersby. Halcon took one last look at the still bodies, then he and his scarfaced companion melted into the darkness.
Guatemala
Serpent
46
“HOW OLD DID YOU SAY THIS PLANE was?” Austin shouted over the cockpit noise from the single engine.
About fifty years, give or take a few,“ Zavala yelled back. ”The owner says it's got all its original parts, too. Except for the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror, maybe.“ Seeing the alarm in Austin's face, Zavala grinned. ”Just kidding, Kurt. I checked. The engine's been overhauled so many times it's practically new. Hope we'll be in as good a shape when we get this old."
“If we get to be this old,” Austin said skeptically, glancing out the window at the inhospitable terrain below.
“Not to worry, old chap. The De Havilland Beaver was one of the finest bush planes ever built. This crate is as tough as a tank. Just what the doctor ordered.”
Austin eyed the plastic statue of St. Christopher attached to the control panel by a suction cup, sat back in his seat, and folded his arms. When he suggested to Zavala that they find something unobtrusive to fly, he hadn't envisioned the antique Beaver with its quaint boxy lines, two-blade propeller, and blunt unaerodynamic nose. He simply wanted an alternative to an army helicopter that couldn't violate the airspace of Mexico's neighboring countries without permission. Even a NUMA aircraft, with its turquoise paint job and big official lettering, would have raised eyebrows.
They found the Beaver hidden by a painter's canvas drop cloth in the dark corner of a dilapidated out-of-the-way hangar at the Belize City airport. Zavala's eyes lit up like Christmas luminarias. He rubbed his hands together, itching to get them on the controls. Only one other plane would have elicited a stronger reaction, Austin thought. Luckily the Wright Brothers' invention was in the Smithsonian, which is where this plane belonged.
Like Shakespeare's Cassius, the Belizan who owned the plane had a lean and hungry look. He talked barely above a whisper and often glanced over his shoulder as if he were expecting unwanted visitors. He had been recommended to Austin by a former CIA colleague who served in clandestine operations helping the Contras fight the Sandinistas. Judging from his prudent suggestions about cargo handling and discreet landing areas it was evident he thought his two American customers were drug smugglers. Given the CIA's shady operations in Central America, that came as no surprise. He asked no questions and insisted he be paid what he called a security deposit, big enough to buy himself a Boeing 747, in dollars. As he carefully counted every bill to make sure he wasn't being cheated, he warned them to keep in mind Guatemala's territorial claims over Belize and do whatever they could to blend into the background. Austin observed that might be impossible with the bright mustard-yellow paint covering the old plane. The man shrugged and disappeared into the shadows with his wad of bills.
Austin had to admit the plane was better suited for the job than a newer and flashier aircraft would have been. It wasn't exactly the Concorde. Yet with a cruising speed of one hundred twenty-five miles per hour it ate up distance and was slow enough to serve as an ideal flying observation platform. Moreover, it was designed for short takeoff and landing on water or land.
Zavala was keeping the plane below three thousand feet. They were flying over the Peten, the thickly forested northern part of Guatemala that juts squarely into Mexico. The territory below had started as flat terrain and worked itself up to low rolling hills broken by rivers and their tributaries. It was once thickly settled by the Maya who used the rivers for intercity commerce, and several times they had glimpsed gray ruins through the trees. The distant peaks of the Maya Mountains rose from the haze off to the south. Austin marked their progress on a clipboard that held a map with the grid overlay on acetate. He referred constantly to the compass and the GPS finder.
“We're coming up on the junction point, where the jaws meet,” he said,. pointing to the map. He glanced at his watch. “Another thirty seconds should put us there.” Austin peered out the window again. They were following a squiggle of river that meandered back and forth like blue Christmas ribbon candy and widened into the small lake dead ahead. Seconds later Austin pointed at the shimmering water. “That's it. The jaws of Kukulcan.”
“We should have brought the mini-sub,” Zavala said.
“Let's make a few runs around the lake. If we don't run into ack-ack fire we'll set her down.”
Zavala breathed on his aviator-style sunglasses, wiped the lenses on a sleeve, and adjusted them on his nose. He gave the thumbsup sign and banked the plane so the horizon . tilted sharply. Zavala brought the same flying techniquea combination of F16 jockey and fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants barn-stormer to whatever vehicle he controlled, whether it was a submersible or an airplane that was built when Harry Truman was starting his first term as president.
The lake looked like a huge staring eye from the air. It was oval in shape and had a small island about where the pupil would be. It was small, about half a mile in length and half as wide. The river shot off at a sharp angle and curved around the lake until it intersected with water flowing from an outlet at the other end. Austin decided the lake must be replenished by springs or streams hidden by the trees.
The Beaver wheeled twice around the lake, but they saw nothing out of the ordinary. With the way apparently clear, Zavala pointed the plane down as if he wanted to drill a hole in the water. At the last moment he pulled the nose up like a dive bomber and leveled off nicely until the white floats kissed the surface. The plane skimmed along like a flat stone, throwing off twin rooster tails before finally coming .to a rolling halt about midway between shore and island. Austin kicked open the door as the propeller spun to a choking halt. With the engine stopped a palpable silence enveloped the cockpit. Zavala radioed the ship with a position report, and Austin scanned the lake, the low cliffs, and the island with his binoculars, taking his time until he was sure, as far as possible, that they were alone.
“Everything looks fine,” he said, lowering the binoculars. He squinted toward the middle of the lake. “Something about that island bothers me.”
Zavala leaned over Austin's shoulder and pulled his baseball cap lower over his forehead to shield his eyes against the sun sparkle. “It looks perfectly okay to me.”
“That's the problem. The placement is too perfect. If you drew lines shore-to-shore from north to south and east to west, that island would be at the intersection, like a target in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. Exact center.”
Zavala restarted the engine and gave the propeller enough power to pull them along at a couple of knots. Then he cut throttle and let the plane drift closer to the island. They threw an anchor over the side and estimated from the
length of the tethering line that the lake was more than one hundred feet deep. They inflated a rubber raft, climbed into it from the plane's pontoons, and paddled the short distance to the island, pulling the raft up onto the grasscovered mud. Austin estimated the island at about thirty feet across. It looked like the misshapen shell of a giant turtle, rising quickly from the water to a roundish summit about fifteen feet high. Undeterred by the thick growth of ferns and succulents, Zavala climbed up the slope. Near the top he let out a yell and stepped back as if recoiling from an invisible punch.
Austin's body tensed and his hand went to the pistol at his hip. “What's wrong?” he shouted. His first thought was that Joe had stumbled onto a nest of adders,
Zavala's peals of laughter startled a flock of white birds into the air like confetti blown in the wind.
“The island is occupied, Kurt. Come up and I'll introduce you to the landlord.”
Austin quickly climbed the small hill and peered at the toothy skeleton jaw grinning behind the bushes, He pushed the leaves aside to reveal a grotesque stone head about twice life size, carved into the lintel over a squared-off opening. The opening was set into the side of a block-shaped structure that was buried in loose soil almost to the top of its flat, crenelated roof and decorated with a border of skulls similar to but smaller than the one they first saw. Using a sheath knife, Austin dug away at the dirt and enlarged the opening so Zavala could get his head and shoulders in.
Zavala flashed a light around inside. “I think I can squeeze in.” He wriggled through the opening feet first.
Austin heard a loud sneeze, then Zavala saying, “Bring a Dust Buster with you.” Austin worked to enlarge the opening, then he followed Zavala inside.
He looked around. “Not exactly the Hilton.” His words echoed.
The box-like space was the size of a two-car garage. The walls were thick enough to repel a direct hit from a cannon. Austin's head almost touched the low roof. The plastered walls were plain except for dark blotches that covered most of their surface and four floor-to-ceiling portals like the one they had just come through. The doorways were clogged by rootbound earth that was as hard as cement.
“Dunno, Kurt. It's got a lot to offer. Water view. Simple decor.”
“This is what the real estate guys call a handyman's special.” .
“Comes with a cellar, too.” Zavala flashed his light into a comer.
Austin knelt to inspect a massive flagstone in the floor. It was perforated by several holes along the edge. Using their knives, they pried it open and slid the flagstone aside to reveal a stairway spiraling down. Since Zavala had been first into the building, Austin volunteered to investigate. He descended the short curving flight of stairs to a passageway that went a few yards before it was blocked by a huge slab. Austin played the beam of his flashlight over the slab.
“You'd better get down here,” he said quietly.
Sensing the seriousness in Austin's tone, Zavala quickly joined him. Lying on the floor in front of the slab was a pile of bones. Unlike the death'shead sculpture they had seen earlier, the six skulls they counted were once covered with flesh. Zavala picked up a skull and held it at arm's length like Hamlet contemplating the remains of Yorick.
“Sacrificial victims. From the looks of that hole in the skull, they were put but of their misery so they didn't have to starve to death.”
“The executioners were all heart,” Austin said, examining the slab for a seam. “The only way to get around this thing is with a jackhammer or dynamite.”
Austin had seen enough. They climbed back to the upper chamber where Austin noticed several bleached white fragments on the floor. He picked one up only to have it crumble to powder in his hand.
“Freshwater shellfish,” he said. “This place was underwater at one time.”
Zavala brushed the dirty walls with his fingers. “You could be right. This looks like dried pond scum.”
They climbed back into the fresh air and explored the perimeter of the structure. It was built onto a stone platform that had become the catchall for material floating in the lake. Seeds, probably brought in by birds, had sprouted, and their roots kept the dirt from blowing away Looking straight down into the water at the edge of the island, it was possible to see a stone terrace. Austin kicked off his boots and slipped into the water, swam out a few strokes, and dove.
“This thing is like the tip of an iceberg,” he said when he resurfaced. “It was probably a temple on top of a very big pyramid. Can't tell how far it goes.”
“Told you we should have brought a submarine,” Zavala replied as he gave Austin a hand back onto dry land. “So if what we think is true, and that building is a temple, we're at ground zero. The jaws.”
All we have to do is figure out how to get into the gullet."
“Lovely thought. We could try blowing that slab blocking the way”
“Yeah, we could do that, and it might even work But it's not exactly a surgical approach. Our archaeologist friends would never speak to us again. Let's think about it while we look around.”
They got back in the plane and taxied to the end of the lake, where they went ashore and made their way inland. The forest was in semidarkness except for the mottled sunlight filtering through the tree canopy. The trees discouraged undergrowth, making for an easy hike on a carpet of leaves. Austin followed a babble of water to its source and stopped where the river they had seen from the air was flanked by stone foundations. The river bed between the foundations was filled with earth and vegetation, but several streams flowed from the substantial reservoir that had built up behind the crude dam and around the old barricade toward the lake. The main course of the river turned abruptly just before it hit the foundations and angled off into the forest. Austin followed the rushing waters away from the reservoir and stopped again at a similar pair of foundations.
“Just as I thought,” he said.
Zavala was impressed. “How'd you know these things would be here?”
“Would you believe it if I said I was a dam genius?”
Zavala winced. “Of course I would. Now tell me how you really knew.”
Austin picked up a branch, threw it into the river, and watched it disappear from sight in the fastmoving bubble and foam. “You remember how this river looks from the air? I think you said it had more wiggles than a belly dancer. Just before it comes into the lake, it angles off in a perfectly straight line. My first impression was that the section was too straight to be natural. Like. that temple in the center of the lake. Nothing in nature is absolutely perfect. Maybe it was a canal, I thought. You know the Chesapeake and Ohio historical park north above Washington?”
“One of my favorite places for a cheap first date,” Zavala said with a smile built of fond memories. “Muy romantico. What's that got to do with anything?”
“Think about that temple. Sometimes it's underwater. Sometimes it isn't.”
Austin could almost hear. the gears whirring as Zavala's brilliant mechanical mind processed the information. He slapped his forehead. “Of course. The locks.”
Austin cleared a bare spot on the ground and picked up a short stick. He handed it to Zavala. “Be my guest, Professor Z.”
Zavala drew a line in the dirt. “This is the Potomac River. You can't move boats up and down, the river because of the rapids and falls, so you cut a canal around the white water. Here.” He tapped the ground. “You build a system of gates and sluices to control the water level in the canal one section at a time. Let's see if I'm right.” He drew an oval representing the lake. “In its normal state the river comes in here at the top,, fills the flood plain to create the lake, then flows out the bottom, keeps going until it comes to the sea.”
“Good so far, Professor.”
At some point unknown engineers put a dam here.“ Zavala drew a line across the top of the lake. ”This blocks the water into the lake, but it's got to go somewhere or else it ends up sweeping around the gate.“ He drew a straight line away fro
m the lake. ”You cut this canal, and the water is diverted away from the lake to another riverbed.“ He looked up, triumph in his dark eyes. Now you can drain the lake.”
“And build the temple. Here.” Austin drew an X in the dirt with the tip of his boot.
Zavala picked up the narrative. After you lay the last stone of the pyramid, you close the canal sluice, open the lake gate. The lake refills in no time and hides the temple. Ergo . . ."
“Ergo, ipso facto, and voila! Only problem is, the sluice gate is made of moving parts. In time the gate deteriorates with no public works department to maintain it. What's left of the Mayan civilization is being crushed into dust by the Spaniards. That curve is a natural catch-all for anything floating down the river. Junk builds up in front of the lake gate like a dike, the canal sluice rots open, and the river is diverted away from the lake again. The lake is fed by a few streams, but eventually the water level drops, exposing the top of the temple. Which becomes overgrown with vegetation.”
“So if we wait long enough,” Zavala said, “the lake will eventually drop to where the temple is completely exposed again. Unless the water pressure from that reservoir busts through the old dam and raises the lake level.”
Austin pondered Zavala's statement and nodded. “I'll tell you the rest of my theory on the way back.”
As they walked through the forest Zavala got his revenge. “You've got to admit that's a damn nice piece of engineering.”
It was Austin's turn to ignore the pun. “I agree. It allowed them to drain the lake again if they wanted to. That leaves open the possibility that they might want to reenter the temple. The entryway on top could be a blind. Like one of the false entrances they built into the Egyptian pyramids to fool grave robbers. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why they put the skeletons there, just for stage props.”
“Some stage. Some props,” Zavala said.
“Let's call in an air drop when we get back to the plane.”
Minutes later, from the plane, Zavala radioed their wish list to the Nereus. He raised a quizzical eyebrow over one of the items Austin requested but asked no questions.