Tomlinson's expression was thoughtful, like a professor waiting to elaborate. "For one thing, I had the advantage of seeing them all together. The glyph patterns are similar and the stones are all approximately the same size. A buyer wouldn't have that advantage, but someone who really knew what they're doing might notice that they're made of aggregate, not pure stone. They've been poured into a mold, like cement, before you had your people antique them. Then there's the glyph of the moon goddess repeated four times on each of them. On the first glyph on each stone the nipple of her left breast is convexed where the mold has been pitted. A small convexity like that wouldn't have lasted a hundred years, let alone a thousand."
Zacul nodded slowly. "I will have my men tend to it. Come, I wish to show you a few more things."
Zacul kept his best stuff inside the fiberglass hut. There were fireproof drawers filled with jade amulets and carvings. In one, Ford got a quick look at another large emerald before the drawer was slammed shut again. Rafe hadn't taken them all, or they had found more. The best piece was a mosaic, a life-size human mask made of several hundred intricately worked jade shards. The mask had the humped Mayan nose and haunting, hollow eyes, like a skull. Zacul said a similar piece had recently been sold on the black market to a museum for $140,000 and wanted to know if Ford had any connections with museum curators. When Ford said he did not, Zacul told him to cultivate some. It was a flat statement, neither an order nor a request. He added, "American museums are able to pay more than most private collectors, and they are experts at legitimizing the provenance of illegal imports. Not long ago an American curator was fired by her board of directors for notifying the customs authorities after being offered a particularly valuable but stolen gold monstrance from Colombia. Some museums value art more than they value the law. "
"I didn't read about that," said Ford.
"It's because nothing was written about it. But I know that it is true. You can be sure other curators know of it, so they may be even more anxious to bid on this mask. You will investigate the possibilities."
"At the same percentage we've agreed upon? You can bet I will."
Zacul pushed the drawer that held the mask closed. "We have not yet agreed upon a percentage," and walked away.
They followed him back through the camp, hurrying to keep up. He showed them another fiberglass hut where he said they would sleep, then stopped outside the screened kitchen adjacent to the huge open cooking area that sided the main mess. Inside was a young man in an apron, stirring something in a small pot. He was beaming at Zacul but not making eye contact, sweating over the stove. Zacul said, "This is the officers' kitchen and my personal chef, Oscar. He will prepare your meals, show you where to bathe, and tend to anything else you may need. Tell him what you want and he will provide it. I will have your luggage returned to you, minus any weapons you may have been carrying."
Ford said, "Does that include the two emeralds and my jade?"
Zacul eyed him coolly. "Those things were stolen from me by your friend Hollins. But I'll allow you to sell the jade. As a gesture of good faith. The emeralds I will keep. "
Ford considered protesting but, instead, simply nodded his acquiescence.
Zacul said, "You have free access to the camp that lies between the road and the sea. You may go to the beach, but do not stray near the dig site, into the sector near the bluff, or down the road that leads to Tambor. My men have orders to shoot on sight, and they will not hesitate."
Ford said, "We were hoping to leave tomorrow, but first I'd like to get the percentages down, maybe draft an agreement—"
"You wish to pay me cash? American dollars?"
"Sure . . . what else?"
"The man we knew as Rafferty paid in weaponry. I'd hoped you'd have his connections."
"We might be able to work something out—"
But Zacul was already walking away, not listening, giving orders to Ford over his shoulder. "Your associate will leave for Costa Rica tomorrow by truck. You will not. You will stay with us until he returns with the book you so generously offered to give me. At that time we will discuss percentages and logistics. As of now, the terms you have offered sound agreeable—with the exception of special items, like the jade mask. "
"But Tomlinson doesn't know where the book is—" "Then you will tell him." Zacul's dark eyes took on that penetrating look; wild, near the borders of control. "You will not leave here until I have it."
Julio Zacul returned to his quarters, ignoring salutes, ignoring the garbage heap these peasant soldiers had allowed his camp to become, eyes focused only on the doors that were quickly opened for him, until he threw himself on his bed, his face wet, his veins burning, his brain fighting a gray deliquescence, that woozy feeling of reaching critical mass on the cocaine express. "Suarez! Suarez, you shit-heel! Suarez!" He closed his eyes, breathing deeply while his heart pounded in his ears, then he opened his eyes, allowing his vision to blur within the symmetric zone of the ceiling fan overhead. What would Guzman think if he saw him now?
A dark thought, and Zacul cringed as it lingered. Abimael Guzman Reynoso, that great man; Guzman who had told them all that to triumph over the capitalists, they must not fall victim to the weaknesses of the capitalists: no alcohol, no tobacco, no drugs, no sex; nothing that was pleasurable until they had eliminated the cancer, cut it out and killed it. Of course, Guzman himself had chain-smoked cigarettes and bedded many of his students—young women and men—but that was all right. Guzman was the swordsman; they were the sword.
Zacul had been seventeen when he left the house of his wealthy father to attended the University of San Cristobal in the department state of Ayacucho, in the mountains southeast of Lima, Peru. It was there he was assigned to Guzman's philosophy class; it was there he fell under Guzman's spell.
There were already rumors about the man. It was well
known he was an ardent Chinese Maoist; it was not well known that, by his careful recruiting of fellow professors, he had gained control of the university. Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path, had already been founded, and Guzman's philosophy—that capitalism could be eliminated only by killing without conscience—was soon its only curriculum.
"Terror," Guzman had told them, "is our only weapon. In the end, the people we terrorize will get down on their knees to thank us."
Zacul, always a good student, had also always been a moody, solitary boy. That changed when he met Guzman and was accepted into Sendero. His first assignment (and that's what Guzman called them—assignments) was a raid on the village of Lucanamarca. It was a summer morning in February when Zacul and twenty others, armed with rifles and axes, entered the village looking for an informant. The villagers, who were mountain peasants, insisted they knew nothing of an informant. Zacul had watched transfixed as the leader of his group ordered all the women and children of the village into a church, then set the church on fire. As mothers tried to push their children through the windows of the burning building, members of Sendero used their axes to kill the children. It was a horrifying thing to watch, yet it had also filled him with a strange elation; a tingling in the spine. Zacul had drawn closer the blazing church as if drawn by a magnet, when suddenly a village woman skidded around a corner to face him. She was as surprised as he by the confrontation, her eyes a study in pure terror, and Zacul had continued to walk toward her as she backed away . . . back, back, back, her hands thrust outward, and then she had dropped to her knees—not at all what he had expected. Instead of fighting for her life, she had simply knelt there, her eyes looking up at him, body slack, knees slightly spread in complete submission, her face very pale but calm. The first time he swung the ax, his aim was bad, and the blade cut through her shoulder. She had kicked some, yet the expression in her eyes was unchanged—as if she had awarded her body to him, completely to him, and Zacul had never felt such a sensuous rush of emotion in his life. Once again he had swung the ax, burying it in the top of her head and, though the feeling of pleasure lingered, the climactic emotion faded with her last breath.