While they waited they had something to eat, then lounged in the shade until the radio crackled with a message. “Coming in, boys. ETA ten minutes.”
Exactly on time a turquoise helicopter with NUMA lettering on the side came in low over the lake, hovered near the plane, and dropped a large box wrapped in heavy plastic and buoyed by airfilled floats. The helicopter crew watched the men below snag the delivery, then waved goodbye and clattered off the way they'd come. ,
Inside the box were two sets of scuba gear and several cartons. Austin loaded the boxes in the raft and paddled back to the upper end of the lake while Zavala moved the plane .to an indentation in the shoreline. Zavala knew better than to ask Austin what he had planned. Kurt would tell him when he needed to know.
Zavala covered the plane with a fishing net and was weaving branches into it when Austin showed up in the raft to help him finish the job. The cartons were gone. Satisfied their plane was well hidden, they piled their scuba gear into the raft and set off for the island, where they swept away traces of their previous visit. The raft was deflated and sunk in shallow water with rocks piled on top to hold it under. The water was warm, so they wore only lightweight black Lycra skins rather than the thicker neoprene wetsuits.
Without comment Austin tucked the small pouch he was wearing around his neck into a waterproof pocket. After a quick check of their equipment, they breaststroked away from the island and, wasting no time, they let the air out of their buoyancy compensators and began to sink into the dark waters of the lake.
47WITH SMOOTH. STEADY MOVEMENTS of their fins, they swam down and away from the temple at an angle until they were at the lake bottom, dwarfed by the imposing mass of tapering stone. The broad terraced levels spilled down the side of the pyramid like giant steps.
“That's some hunk of rock,” Austin said, his awe undiminished by the metallic tone of his underwater communicator.
“Good thing we're not superstitious. I counted thirteen terraces.”
“Knock wood on that score,” Austin said. He glanced at his depth gauge. “One hundred fourteen feet. Ready to dive the plan?”
Longlived divers remember the mantra: plan the dive, and dive the plan. Their strategy was simple. Explore each of the four sides top to bottom. They moved counterclockwise around the pyramid. It stood entirely alone, which made Austin wonder if the pyramid had been built with a single purpose in mind. The next side was like the first, and they spent only a few minutes exploring it. They hit pay dirt on the third try.
Where the other sides were relatively unadorned, this face was marked by a broad set of stairs running from the temple at the top down to what would have been ground level in drier days. At the foot of the stairs, standing in solitary grandeur like a doorman in front of a swank Las Vegas hotel, was a stone slab. The stela stood vertically in a foundation on the lake bottom.
Zavala played the sharp white beam of his handheld halogen light across the dark surface. After a second he said, “Look familiar?”
Austin eyed the carving of a feathered serpent devouring a boat. “Small world. It's a twin of the stone from the Doria. ” He lifted his eyes to the stairway running up the side of the pyramid. “Reminds me of that slab that kept showing up in the movie 2001. Maybe this little old billboard is telling us something.”
With Zavala on his right and slightly behind, he drifted up the stairway like a lazy plume of smoke. The stairs were bordered with carvings, and in addition there were sculpted heads spaced every few risers. About halfway up, the huge stylized face of a serpent burst from its crown of feathers. The mouth, large enough to swallow a man, was wide open, in strike position. Thick blunt fangs about the size and shape of traffic pylons extended down from the roof of the mouth to meet a matching pair pointing up.
“Friendlylooking fellow,” said Zavala. “You don't suppose he bites?”
“Meet the feathered serpent. Known in these parts as Kukulcan.”
“He looks like a cross between a Rottweiler and an alligator. Ask him if he knows how to get into the pyramid.”
“Maybe that's not such a dumb idea.” With a few fin kicks Austin propelled himself closer to the yawning maw and probed the shadows with his light. “Say 'ah,' ” he said, and headed straight in. His air tank bonked and scraped against the thick fangs, but once inside there was room to turn around. He stuck his head out of the mouth, invited Zavala in with a wave, then headed deeper into the pyramid, his light picking out footholds in the slanting floor. They swam down at an angle for about two minutes, slowly and cautiously, until the passageway ended in a chamber big enough for both of them to stand up. A set of stairs ascended into another passageway.
“I feel like a load of dirty clothes that's just gone down a laundry chute. That was too easy,” Zavala said suspiciously.
“I was thinking the same thing. But remember, the people who built this thing knew it was going to be underwater. They probably figured that anyone trying to get in would waste time breaking through the slab just below the temple. And that even if they saw this entrance they wouldn't go into the serpent's mouth. Just the same,” he added, “keep a sharp eye for booby traps.”
They rose up the stairs like ghosts in a haunted house. Austin could hear Zavala grumbling. “Wish they'd make up their mind, man. Down. Up.”
Austin sympathized with his partner's gripes. Even an experienced wreck diver can't always put aside those formless claustrophobic fears that the thousands of tons of rock overhead could come crashing down. Even worse, that they could be trapped, unable to move, doomed to die a painful suffocating death. He was glad when his head broke the water. Zavala popped up a second later. They flashed their lights around the circular pool. Zavala reached up to take his regulator from his mouth.
Austin's hand shot out and clamped Zavala's wrist. “Wait!” he warned. “We don't know if the air is good.”
The atmosphere could be more than two thousand years old. Austin didn't know if any microorganisms, spores, or toxins could have been built up in all that time, but he wasn't willing to take the chance. He pulled himself out of the pool and removed his fins and belt, then helped Zavala do the same. They climbed the stairwell to where the floor leveled. The noise of their breath through the regulators sounded unnaturally loud out of the water.
The long, narrow chamber had a high vaulted roof supported by arches, built in tire corbeled fashion that the Maya favored with levels of horizontally laid blocks. Austin's flashlight beam dropped from the roof and picked out an elongated head with pointed ears and flared nostrils.
Zavala said, “Is that what I think it is?”
A horse is a horse."
“Of course, of course. But what the hell is Mr. Ed doing here?”
Austin lowered his flashlight so that the beam illuminated the horse's long wooden neck “Well, I'll be . . . it's a figurehead.”
The wooden sculpture of the horse surmounted the high sweeping bow of a boat with shiny dark red sides. The prow was extended into a pointed battering ram. The builders of this boat were true artists, Austin thought as they walked alongside the hull. The craft was a double-ender, long, narrow, and flat-bottomed, sweeping up at each end in graceful curves and tight as a tick from the looks of the well-fitted overlapping planks. The mast lay lengthwise on the deck.
Deck planks had fallen in to reveal dozens of amphorae in the hold. Scattered about were circular metal objects that may have been shields. Two long oars, their blades curled by age, leaned against the ship's backside as if waiting for the hands of long-dead steersmen. The boat sailed not on an azure sea but on a stone cradle. While most of the timbers were intact, some had rotted through so that the ship leaned at a slight angle.
“She's a lot prettier in person,” Zavala murmured.
Austin ran his hand along the wood as if he didn't quite believe his eyes. “It's not just me, then. This is one of the ships pictured on the stelae and other carvings.” .
“What's a Phoenician boat doing in an underwate
r Mayan temple?”
“Waiting to overturn every archaeological assumption ever made,” Austin said. “Wait until Nina sets her eyes on this lovely lady. We'll have to give her some specs to chew over until we can get a camera in here. What do you figure for length?”
“More than one hundred feet, easy.”
Zavala almost bumped into one of four round pillars spaced alongside the boat. Another quartet of columns ran along the other side.
“Here's another spec for you to chew on,” he said. “Eight pillars.”
“Eight significant days in the Venus cycle,” Austin replied. “Fits in.”
They were at the boat's upsweeping sterncastle. Austin had expected the chamber to end in a blank wall. Instead there was another corbeled archway and beyond it a stairway leading upward. They climbed the stairs to a much smaller chamber whose floor was taken up largely by a rectangular sunken pit. In the pit was a sarcophagus whose lid was inscribed with repetitive carvings in the feathered serpent theme. They got into the pit and tried unsuccessfully to budge the lid with their knives.
“Maybe there's something on the ship we can use to pry it off,” Austin suggested.
They descended to the large chamber. Zavala reached up to the boat rail and with a boost from Austin pulled himself over the side and into the boat. He held on to the gunwale and took a tentative step forward, testing his weight.
“The deck's holding, but I'll stay on the cross beam just in case.” The wood creaked as he made his way across the deck. “Lots of amphorae. I Jeezus.” A pause. Then an excited exclamation. “Kurt, you've got to see this!”
Zavala came back to the side of the boat and helped Austin climb in. Through the centuries the deck had settled, and now the planking slanted down to the middle where most of the amphorae were concentrated. Austin followed Zavala on a cross beam to the middle of the deck. Although the hull rocked slightly from their weight, it remained solidly ensconced in, its stone cradle.
Zavala bent over a big jar that had broken apart and came up with green fire sparkling in his hand. The elaborate necklace encrusted with emeralds and diamonds had come from a pile of gold and jewels lying in the artificial valley formed by the slanting planks. Austin took the necklace and decided he had never seen a piece of jewelry more beautiful. The intricate settings were painstakingly handcrafted. While Austin wondered, Zavala reached .into an intact jar and pulled out a handful of loose gems. Diamonds. Rubies. Emeralds. Zavala's mouth dropped open in astonishment. “This must be the greatest concentration of treasure in the history of the world!”
Austin was squatting by an amphora that had split open. “It makes the British crown jewels look like play beads, doesn't it?” Stones the size of marbles ran through his fingers. “The international lawyers are going to have a blast figuring out who owns this stuff.”
Zavala glanced toward the burial chamber. “Maybe the last owner of record is in that stone coffin.”
Austin picked up a couple of spearheads. “Let's see if it's anyone we know.”,
They climbed out of the boat and went back to the burial chamber. The spearheads were strong, and the points fit under the lid. No combination of leverage, even in the hands of two well-muscled and resourceful men, proved equal to the skills of those who had designed and carved the stone coffin.
“Guess we'd better go back to grave robber's school,” Austin said.
Zavala checked his pressure gauge. “No time like the present. We're going to have to switch to our spare tank if we stay much longer.”
“We've seen all we need to see. Maybe the scientists can make sense of all this.”
He started to lead the way back to the boat chamber when the unearthly quiet of the tomb was shattered by a thunderous explosion from above their heads. Austin had a fleeting vision of what it must be like under an erupting volcano. Synapses in their brains went crazy as ageold survival instincts clashed with conflicting commands.
Run. Hit the ground. Freeze.
They fought to keep their balance as the floor shook under their feet. The explosion forced air up into the enclosed chamber, creating a wind tunnel effect. The shock wave knocked Austin and Zavala back into the crypt. Arms flailing, they slammed against the sarcophagus in a wild clatter of tanks and air hoses, then slid into the space between the stone coffin and the wall that contained it. The fall cost them cuts and bruises but probably saved their lives. A piece of ceiling as big as a diesel engine block crashed down on the spot where they'd been standing. Sharpe-dged rocks flew through the air as if they had been shot from a strafing fighter plane. A choking cloud of dust billowed into the burial chamber and covered everything with a fine whitish coating. Then a pattering of loose stones and dirt rained down.
Austin spat out a mouthful of dust and asked Zavala if he was all right.
Zavala made his presence and condition known, first with a coughing fit, then a string of curses in Spanish.
“Yeah, I'm okay” he sputtered. “How about you?” .
“I think I'm in one piece. Wish I could stop the telephone ringing in my head.”
More coughs. “What happened?”
“It sounded like a combination of Vesuvius and Krakatoa. My guess leans toward a few kilos of C4 plastique explosive.” Austin grunted. “I like you a lot, Joe, but I don't think we're ready to be engaged. Can you move?”
There was more cursing as they untangled arms and legs and breathing hoses, until they were able to stand. Zavala reached for a halogen lamp which had fallen within arm's reach. He flashed it on Austin then back at his own face. Their masks were askew but the lenses were unbroken and had protected their eyes from the blinding dust.
“You look like a disreputable mime,” Zavala said with a laugh.
“I hate mimes, even reputable ones. You're looking a little pale yourself. I've got another revelation. We're breathing without our regulators.”
Zavala held the halfmask that contained the microphone and regulator to his face and clamped his teeth on the mouthpiece. “Still works,” he said.
“Mine, too. Looks like we won't need them. I feel fresh air coming in.”
“That means somebody blew the top off the pyramid. Time to get moving. Can you walk?”
Zavala nodded and crawled from the pit, then leaned in and helped Austin out. They were covered from head to toe with whitish brown dust that gave them a zombielike look. Austin flashed his light back into the pit and saw that the heavy stone lid had been cracked open by the concussion. Austin knew they should be moving, but his curiosity got the best of him. He aimed the light at the figure inside.
The face was covered by a jade mask with round eyes and an aquiline nose. The corpse was dressed in a shroud of dark material that could have been velvet. Strands of whitishred hair poked out from under an amorphously shaped hat made out of the same material. Austin moved the light down. The clawlike mummified hands clutched rolls of old parchment. Austin removed one of the rolls, examined it with wondering eyes, then tucked it back into the bony hands. He noticed a glint of yellow under the chin of the mask The shape was familiar, but it seemed out of context. Austin wanted to take a closer look, but there wasn't time. The sound of voices was coming from the boat chamber.
Serpent
48
THE ALMOST IMPENETRABLE CLOUD in the boat chamber was dissipating rapidly, the motes swirling against the sunlight that streamed down from a huge opening that yawned where the ceiling had been. Great chunks of rock had flattened .the stern end of the dark red hull like a potato masher. Columns had been knocked over and lay in fragments. The chamber floor was littered with smaller pieces of rock and coated with limestone dust. Austin had no time to mourn. the boat's destruction. A rope ladder dropped down from the ragged hole. Two figures dressed in black were climbing down the ladder into the dusty haze.
The first one to set foot on the floor reached up and steadied the ladder. “Sorry about the mess, Don Halcon,” came a voice that was flat, unemotional, and unapologetic. r />
“It couldn't be helped, Guzman,” said the slenderbuilt dark-haired man, surveying the wreckage. “The important thing is that we reached our goal, not how we did it.” He flicked on a powerful flashlight and pointed it at the ruined boat. “My God, what a fantastic sight!”
The intruders made their way through the rubble and climbed over the splintered stern timbers to the less damaged section of the boat. Moments later Halcon shouted with excitement. “Look at this, Guzman!” he said with hysterical joy. “There are enough jewels in my hand to outfit a whole new army.”
Austin stood at the entryway to the boat chamber with Zavala and considered their situation. They were unarmed except for their sheath knives. Halcon and his henchman would have sidearms at the very least. If he and Zavala made a break for the ladder or the water entrance at the far end of the chamber, they'd be picked off like ducks in a shooting gallery.
He whispered his concerns to Zavala. “Maybe we can bluff our way through.”
Joe had come to the same conclusion as his partner. “What have we got to lose?”
Just our lives and those of many, others, Austin thought. “We've got to work our way back to where we came in. Get rid of our main air tanks. Keep the emergency tank and regulator with you.” He tapped the pouch around his neck. “I've got a surprise that might distract them, but the timing has to be just right. It won't take long for them to find us. If we surprise them they may start shooting.”
“Okay, let them know we're here. I'll take my cue from you,” Zavala said.
Austin clapped his colleague on the shoulder, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the boat chamber.
“Hello, gentlemen,” he said in a loud and clear voice.
The white-haired man with the scar quickly slipped a pistol from its belt holster and cocked it in Austin's direction.
“We're unarmed. There are just two of us,” Austin said quickly, staring at the muzzle. He had gambled that the man was too much of a professional to let off a panic shot.