“The way it was put to me, I didn’t feel I had a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” Drummond said. “You can go to jail or become the next president of Mexico. Which would you prefer?”
Raymond had shut the door after they entered. Now it was bumped open, the cacophony of the construction equipment intruding. A woman in dusty jeans and a sweaty work shirt came in holding long tubes of thick paper that Buchanan thought might have been charts.
“Not now, goddamn it,” Drummond said.
The woman looked startled. Smoke drifted behind her as she backed awkwardly from the building and shut the door.
Drummond returned his attention to Delgado. “We’re much further along than I anticipated. By tomorrow morning, we ought to be able to start pumping. When you get back to Mexico City, I want you to make the necessary arrangements. Tell your people that everything’s in place. I don’t want any trouble. The payments have been made. I expect everyone to cooperate.”
“You brought me here to tell me what I already knew?”
“I brought you here to see what you sold your soul for,” Drummond said. “It’s not good to keep a distance from the price of your sins. Otherwise, you might be tempted to forget the bargain you made. To remind you, I want you to see what happens to my two guests.” With a fluid motion amazing for his age, he turned toward Buchanan and Holly. “How much do you know?”
“I found this in their camera bag,” Raymond said. He placed a videotape on a table.
“My, my,” Drummond said.
“I played it at Delgado’s.”
“And?”
“The copy’s a little grainy, but Delgado’s performance is as enthralling as ever. It holds my attention every time,” Raymond said.
“Then you know more than you should,” Drummond told Buchanan and Holly.
“Look, this isn’t any of our business,” Buchanan said.
“You’re right about that.”
“I’m not interested in oil, and I don’t care about whatever you’re doing to punish Delgado,” Buchanan said. “All I’m trying to do is find Juana Mendez.”
Drummond raised his dense white eyebrows. “Well, in that you’re not alone.”
They stared at each other, and Buchanan suddenly realized what must have happened. Juana had agreed to work for Drummond and impersonate Maria Tomez. But after several months, Juana had felt either trapped or threatened, or possibly she’d just been disgusted by Drummond. Whatever her motive, she’d broken her agreement and fled. Along the way, unable to risk a phone call to Buchanan’s superiors, needing to contact Buchanan but without allowing any outsider to understand her message, she’d mailed the cryptic postcard that only Buchanan could decipher. Meanwhile, Drummond’s people had frantically searched for her, staking out her home and her parent’s home and anywhere else they suspected she might go. They had to guarantee her silence. If the truth about Maria Tomez was revealed, Drummond would no longer have control of Delgado. Without Delgado, Drummond wouldn’t have the political means to sustain this project. The oil industry in Mexico had been nationalized back in the thirties. Foreigners weren’t allowed to have the influence in it that Drummond evidently wanted. That this was an archaeological site made the political problem all the more enormous, although from the looks of things, Drummond had solved the archaeological problem simply and obscenely by destroying the ruins. When Delgado became president of Mexico, he could use his power with appropriate politicians. A back-door arrangement could be made with Drummond. For discovering and developing the site, Drummond would secretly be paid the huge profits that foreign oil companies used to earn before the days of nationalization. But that wasn’t all of it, Buchanan sensed. There was something more, a further implication, although he was too preoccupied with saving his life to analyze what it was.
“Do you know where Juana Mendez is?” Drummond asked.
“For all I know, she’s working on that oil rig out there.”
Drummond chuckled. “Such bravado. You’re a credit to Special Forces.”
The reference surprised Buchanan. Then it didn’t. “The car I rented in New Orleans and drove to San Antonio.”
Drummond nodded. “You used your own credit card to rent it.”
“I didn’t have an alternative. It was the only card I had.”
“But it gave me a slight advantage,” Drummond said. “When my people saw you arrive at the Mendez house in San Antonio, they were able to use the car’s license number to find out who had rented the car and then to research your identity.”
Identity, Buchanan thought. After so many years of surviving as other people, I’m probably going to die because of my own identity. He felt totally exhausted. His wounds ached. His skull throbbed with greater ferocity. He didn’t have any more resources.
Then he looked at Holly, at the terror in her eyes, and the mantra again filled his mind. Have to survive to help Holly. Have to save Holly.
“You’re an instructor in tactical maneuvers,” Drummond said.
Buchanan tensed. Instructor? Then Drummond hadn’t penetrated his cover.
Drummond continued, “Did you know Juana Mendez at Fort Bragg?”
Desperate, Buchanan tried to find a role to play, an angle with which to defend himself. “Yes.”
“How? She was in Army Intelligence. What does that have to do with-?”
Abruptly, a role came to mind. Buchanan decided to play the most daring part of his life. Himself.
“Look, I’m not a field instructor, and Juana’s Army Intelligence status was only a cover.”
Drummond looked surprised.
“I’m looking for Juana Mendez because she sent me a postcard, telling me in code that she was in trouble. It had to be in code because I’m not supposed to exist. Juana used to belong and I still do belong to a Special Operations unit that’s so covert it might as well be run by ghosts. We look after our own: past members as well as present. When I got the SOS, my unit sent me to find out what was going on. I’ve been reporting on a regular basis. My unit still has no idea where Juana Mendez is. But they know I was in Cuernavaca. They know I was headed toward Delgado, and after him, they know I was headed toward you. They won’t be able to track me here, not right away, not without questioning Delgado. But they will question him, and they will come to you, and believe me, these men care only about sacrifice and loyalty. If they do not find me, they will destroy you. Take my word-at the moment, Holly McCoy and I are your most valuable assets.”
Drummond sighed. From outside the building, amid the muffled roar of the construction equipment, Buchanan thought he heard another gunshot.
“For something you invented on the spur of the moment, that’s an excellent negotiating posture,” Drummond said. “I’m a collector, did you know that? That’s how I came to be here. Journalists”-he nodded toward Holly-“have always wondered what motivates me. What do you think, Ms. McCoy?”
Despite her evident fear, Holly managed to say, “Power.”
“Partially correct. But only in a simplistic way. What keeps me going, what gives me drive, is the desire to be unique. To own unique things, to be in unique situations, to control unique people. I became interested in the Yucatan because of my collection. Three years ago, an individual came to me with an object of great price. The ancient Maya had their own version of books. They were long strips of thin bark that were folded again and again until they resembled small accordions. Historians call them codices. When the Spaniards invaded this area in the 1500s, they were determined to destroy the native culture and replace it with their own. In their zeal, they set fire to the Mayan libraries. Only three authenticated codices are known to have survived. A fourth may be a forgery. But a fifth exists. It is authentic, and I own it. It is absolutely unique because, unlike the others, which are lists, mine has substantial information. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. I bought it because I had the means to and because I didn’t want anyone else to own it. Naturally, I wanted to know what the hieroglyphs signified, so I hired the world’s greatest experts in Mayan symbols. You might say I owned those experts. And I eventually discovered that the text described the presence of a massive oil field in this area. The Maya called it the god of darkness, the god of black water, the god that seeps from the ground. At first, I thought they were using metaphors. Then it came to me that they were being literally descriptive. The text emphasized that the god was held in control by temples and a great pyramid, but the location described in the text didn’t match any known ruins. Early this year, these ruins were discovered, thanks to photographs taken from a space shuttle. Because I controlled Delgado, I was able to control this site, to bring in my own people, to seal off the area, to search.”