The shuttle’s current mission was to deploy a weather satellite over the Caribbean Sea and perform various weather-related observations and experiments, as well as transmit photographs. The photograph currently in front of Delaney showed a portion of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. For several years, a blight had been attacking the palm trees in that area, and one of Delaney’s jobs was to determine how far the blight had spread, something that could easily be seen in the photographs since the sick, denuded trees created a distinct bleak pattern. The theory was that substantial loss of vegetation in the Yucatan would disturb the oxygen/carbon-dioxide ratio in the area and affect weather patterns just as the disappearance of Brazil’s rain forest did. By measuring the area of blight and factoring that information with temperature and wind variations in the Caribbean, it might be possible to predict the creation of tropical storms and the direction of hurricanes.
The blight had definitely spread much farther than photographs of the Yucatan taken last year indicated. Delaney placed a transparent scale-model map over the photograph, aligned topographical features, recorded measurements, and continued to another photograph. Perhaps it was his need for a break in his routine. Perhaps it was his need to be surprised. For whatever reason, he found that he was examining the photographs far more diligently than usual, paying attention to matters that weren’t related to the palm-tree blight.
Abruptly something troubled him, a subconsciously noticed detail, a sense that something was out of place. He set down the photograph he was examining and went back to the one he’d just completed. Frowning, he concentrated. Yes, he thought. There. At once he felt a stimulating flow of adrenaline, a warming in his stomach. That small area in the bottom left corner of the photograph. Those shadows among the denuded palm trees. What were those shadows doing there?
The shadows formed almost perfect triangles and squares. But triangles and squares did not exist in nature. More, those shadows could be made only by sunlight that struck and was blocked by objects above the ground. Large objects. Tall objects. Normally, shadows didn’t pose a mystery. Hills made them all the time. But these shadows were in the Yucatan’s northern lowlands. The descriptive name said it alclass="underline" lowlands. There weren’t any hills in that region. Even if there were, the shadows they cast would have been amorphous. But these were symmetrical. And they occupied a comparatively wide area. Delaney made quick calculations. Thirty square kilometers? In the middle of an otherwise dramatically flat section of the Yucatan rain forest? What the hell was going on?
4
“For our final report, something old discovered by something new. Computer-enhanced photographs received from the space shuttle Atlantis have revealed what appears to be a large area of unsuspected Mayan ruins in a remote section of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The rain forest in that region is so dense and inaccessible that it could take months before a preliminary assessment of the ruins can be completed, but a spokesperson for the Mexican government indicated that the apparent scope of the ruins suggests that they have the potential to rival the pyramids, palaces, and temples at legendary Chichen Itza. To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so we move on-into the past. This is Dan Rather. For CBS News, good evening.”
5
THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
The visitor noted that several more artifacts-figurines, ceramics, and masks-had been added to the collection. All were authentic, expensive, and illegally obtained examples of ancient Mayan craftsmanship. “The woman disappeared.”
“What?” The old man, who’d been distracted as he attached an intravenous line to a needle in his arm, snapped his head up. “Disappeared? You assured me that wasn’t possible.”
“I believed it wasn’t.” the fair-haired man said. His tone was somber. “She was being paid so well and treated so lavishly that I thought it highly unlikely she would want to leave.”
The old man glowered, his thin body rigid with fury. Seated in a leather chair in the main cabin of his two-hundred-foot-long yacht, flanked by displays of his current passion, Mayan art, he stretched his gaunt frame to its maximum. His gaze intensified by his glasses, his pinched expression emphasized by his thick white hair, he dominated the cabin, even though he wasn’t tall. “Human nature. Damn it, that’s always been your problem. You’re excellent when it comes to tactics. But your emotional range is so limited that you don’t understand. . ”
“She was lonely,” the pleasant-faced man said. “I anticipated that possibility. My people were watching her in case she attempted to do something foolish. Her maid, her butler, her chauffeur, the doorman at her condominium building in Manhattan-all of them worked for me. Every exit from that building was constantly watched. On those rare occasions when she had permission to leave it, she was followed.”
“And yet,” the old man rasped, his nostrils flaring with angry sarcasm, “she managed to disappear.” His white hair contrasted with the pewter tint of his skin, which in turn was emphasized by the gray of his robe, the left sleeve of which was rolled up to admit the intravenous tube leading into his arm. “You. I blame you.” He pointed his bony right index finger. “Everything depends on her. How in God’s name did this happen?”
The well-dressed man gestured in frustration. “I don’t know. My people don’t know. It happened last night. Between two A.M., when the maid last saw her, and noon, when the maid decided to check on her, the woman managed to get out of the condo and the building. We have no idea how. When I learned what had happened, I decided I’d better report to you in person rather than use the telephone. I caught the first available flight.” He gestured toward the starboard windows of the cabin and the numerous other yachts in St. Thomas’s hotel-rimmed, sunset-tinted harbor.
The old man squinted. “Willingness to face blame. I respect that. It’s rare for a sociopath to have character. Does she have access to her bank account?”
“No. Since she was provided with all the comforts she wanted, she had no need to spend money. Hence she didn’t realize that the bank statements she was shown, the ones that indicated her salary deposits, were for an account that required me to cosign for withdrawals. The money’s inaccessible to her.”
“Jewelry?”
“She took it all. The diamond necklace alone is worth four hundred thousand dollars. In theory. But of course, the stones aren’t genuine. Still, there are only certain establishments in the New York area that would have the resources to buy such an item, if it weren’t a copy. And since she doesn’t know it’s a copy, she’ll have to go to them. My people are watching those establishments.”
The old man frowned. “Assuming she’s able to obtain money-and I suspect she will, given the ingenuity she showed in escaping your people-where would she go? What can she do?”
“She’d be a fool to go back to her former patterns. She has to assume that we’ll watch her relatives, her friends, and her previous business associates, that we’ll tap their phones, et cetera. If she’s smart-and she’s proven she is-she’ll go to ground. The last thing she wants is trouble from us.”
“Us?”
“From you.”
The old man gestured with a wrinkled hand, his eyes harsh with disapproval yet glinting with superiority. “Human nature. You still haven’t learned the lesson. If loneliness made her run, the one thing she won’t do is go to ground. She’ll want companionship. She’ll want the security and satisfaction of a life that she creates, not one that’s forced upon her. She won’t trade one cage for another.”