“What, no foreplay?” Gabriel said with a grin.
“We’ve got to look at that flag again. The one with the map.”
He stripped his shirt off, wincing as it brushed his cuts, and tossed it on the bunk. Cierra helped him untie the strips of cloth that held the flags in place on either side of his torso. The regimental flag, which had been against his back, had been sliced through in multiple places by Tomás’s whip, but General Fargo’s personal standard had been safe against his chest. They spread it out now and studied it in the light of the hut’s single lantern.
Gabriel’s finger traced the lines that marked the course of the river. “We’ll have to ask Escalante if he can figure out what river this is.”
“I can tell you that already, from the way it’s oriented in relation to the mountains. It has to be the Black River. It flows from the mountains up into the rain forests, then makes its way across to the Caribbean. You just can’t see that on this map.”
“You’re sure?”
“Trust me,” she said.
Gabriel smiled and leaned closer to the flag. “Too bad the old boy didn’t draw a big red X on here to mark the spot where he was going,” he muttered. “That would have been a big help.” He frowned and put a finger on the flag. “Unless he did…”
Cierra studied the small, black-rimmed hole in the fabric that Gabriel was pointing to. “A bullet hole. Hardly surprising considering that this flag went through a battle. There are several holes like that in the other flag.”
“There are holes, but not like this one,” Gabriel said. “Look at that dark ring around it.”
“Some sort of smudge. In all these years, there’s no telling what sort of dirt got on it.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t think that’s dirt. I think that’s a burn. A powder burn. The hole is smaller, too. A ball from a musket didn’t make it. I think somebody held a small caliber weapon, maybe a derringer, right up to the flag and fired a shot through it. That wouldn’t have happened in battle, and it’s not likely it happened by accident, either.”
“Then you’re saying…”
“I’m not saying, I’m asking: What if that hole is our big red X?”
Gabriel saw excitement spark in Cierra’s eyes. “You think General Fargo fired that shot to mark his destination?”
“Who would think twice about a bullet hole in a battle flag? But there it is, right in the middle of that wider space between two of the mountains.”
“A valley,” Cierra whispered.
“That’d be my guess.”
“It could be,” she said. “It could.”
“And since there’s nothing else on the map that could…”
Cierra nodded, convinced. “The question is, how can we get there.” She bent closer, counted markings on the flag with her finger. “It’s one, two, three mountains past the river.” She looked up at Gabriel. “That’s about five days’ travel from here on foot, maybe two on horseback.”
“What about the pickup? I’m not sure Escalante’s going to give it back to us, but…”
Cierra shook her head. “There are no roads fit for such a vehicle.”
“I guess we’ll have to put our hands on some horses, then.”
“Escalante will know where to find some,” Cierra declared. “And he feels he owes me.”
“He does,” Gabriel said, “but don’t overestimate his altruism. If he comes with us, he’s liable to want a cut of what ever it is the general was after, assuming it’s still there.”
“So let him have a cut. Do you begrudge him that, Gabriel? If he helps us?”
“We don’t even know what it’s a cut of. Whatever it is might not even be there anymore.”
“We have to assume it is,” Cierra said. “General Fargo never went back to the States with the treasure he was after. And your mysteriously youthful Mariella Montez wouldn’t have come to New York with that flag and set off all the fireworks if she didn’t think there was something still there to find. And a man like Esparza wouldn’t be so anxious to get his hands on something unless it was pretty valuable.”
Gabriel nodded. “But they might all be wrong.”
“In that case, Escalante will get a cut of nothing. And so will the Hunt Foundation. But if there is something to find, we’ll all get a piece of it. We need all the help we can get, Gabriel. You’re an impressive man, but you can’t do it alone. We have to risk letting Escalante help us.”
Gabriel knew she was right. It was a risk, indeed, trusting a bloodthirsty old bandit like Escalante. But they had come too far and been through too much danger to turn back now. If they were going to find out the secret of the mysterious valley that lay there in the mountains, beyond the Black River, they would have to take the chance.
Chapter 16
Gabriel woke up with an armful of warm, nude, female flesh, which almost made up for the fact that he was lying in a narrow bunk with nothing but a thin, bug-infested mattress for cushioning in a crude hut in the middle of the Guatemalan mountains. Cierra stirred sleepily against him. Her hand rested on his chest, and even though he didn’t think she was fully awake yet, it began sliding down over his belly toward his groin.
Gabriel would have encouraged her to continue that exploration if not for the fact that he heard footsteps coming toward the hut. They stopped right outside the door, and Paco Escalante called, “Cierra? Señor? I have news.”
Cierra came awake the rest of the way and sat up, taking the threadbare blanket with her and holding it over her breasts. “Gabriel?” she said, her voice a little fuzzy with sleep. “What time is it?”
“Morning, looks like,” Gabriel replied as he swung his legs out of the bunk and stood up. Except for the ragged bandages from last night, he was as naked as Cierra was, and the light that came in through the cracks in the hut’s walls threw slanting bands of illumination across his body. The effect looked better on her, he thought as she threw the blanket aside, stood up, and reached for her clothes.
“Just a minute, Paco,” she called to Escalante.
They had been allowed to bring in some of the supplies from the pickup. Instead of the peasant blouse and long skirt she had been wearing the day before, Cierra pulled on khaki trousers and shirt and a pair of boots. Gabriel tied on the flags, fore and aft, and then dressed in a pair of tan pants and a blue shirt. They left the hut and went to see what Escalante wanted.
The bandit leader greeted them with a smile. “You both slept well, I hope?”
“Reasonably,” Cierra said, and Gabriel asked, “You have news?”
Escalante nodded. “Sí. I have contacts all over the country, and a short time ago I received word of another group of travelers passing through the mountains not far from here. They have three trucks and many supplies and weapons. My men would like to ambush them.”
“What business is this of ours?” Cierra asked.
“They also have a prisoner with them, my scoutreports. A young woman. A beautiful young woman.”
“Mariella?” Gabriel said.
Escalante shrugged. “Perhaps. My source did not know her name. There is only one way to find out for certain. But when I heard about this prisoner I thought of the woman you told me about, the one taken by men working for Vladimir Esparza.”
“Esparza’s had her all this time,” Gabriel said. “He’s probably been trying to force her to reproduce the map for him. If he’s coming here, it means he was finally able to break her and get the information. Now he’s trying to get there ahead of us.”
Cierra looked at Gabriel. “You can’t be sure it’s her. You can’t even be certain that these men work for Esparza.”
“Señor Escalante’s men want to ambush the convoy either way,” Gabriel said.