‘Look up!’ Payne screamed at the tape. ‘Look at the camera!’
Maria shouted, too. ‘Look up!’
A moment later, they got their wish. The customer took off her hat, wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, then glanced directly into the lens. She looked at the camera for several seconds, giving them a chance to memorize the freckles on her face and her distinctive red hair, then she punctuated her stare with a sly smile.
Payne snapped a photo of her. ‘Gotcha.’
In reality, it was the other way around.
54
Named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World — taking its place alongside such monuments as the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China — Chichén Itzá is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in the northern centre of the Yucatán Peninsula. Built and rebuilt by the Maya civilization over a span of nearly a thousand years, the ancient city is one of the most popular destinations in Mexico.
After parking near the entrance, the foursome hiked towards the site, where they hoped to find the mysterious redhead who had used Hamilton’s credit card the night before. To aid their effort, Payne forwarded her photo to each of their cell phones, allowing them to search more efficiently. They flashed Tiffany’s picture to everyone they passed on the dirt path that led to the ruins, but to no avail. Despite the thick vegetation that blocked their view, they sensed something significant was looming just around the corner. And they were right. After a slight bend to the northeast, the trail opened into a large courtyard of dirt and grass.
In the centre was a pyramid known as El Castillo.
All of them stopped and stared in awe.
Originally known as the Temple of Kukulkan, the stone pyramid stands almost 100 feet in height, with a square base that is nearly twice as long. Built by the Maya sometime between 1000 and 1200 AD, the pyramid honoured Kukulkan — a feathered serpent deity that resembled the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl — and served as a solar calendar. Each of the structure’s four stairways contains ninety-one steps. When counting the top platform as another step, the pyramid has 365 steps, one for each day of the year. Even more amazingly, the pyramid is positioned at such a precise angle that a solar phenomenon occurs here in the spring and fall.
Cackling with delight, Ulster urged them to follow as he danced towards the north side of the pyramid. They weren’t sure why he was so excited, but they couldn’t wait to see. He called to them over his shoulder. ‘Tell me, are any of you familiar with the plumed serpent that attacks this pyramid twice a year?’
Jones joked, ‘That still happens? I thought Godzilla killed that thing years ago.’
Ulster laughed. ‘I’ll take that as a “no”.’
‘Yep. That’s definitely a “no”.’
‘Wonderful! That means I get to tell you everything!’
Payne groaned softly. They weren’t there for a history lesson. They were there for the redhead. ‘We don’t have time for everything. You have to keep this short.’
‘Of course, my boy, of course! No problem at all. I’ll give you the twenty-minute version instead of the two-hour lecture.’
‘Petr, I’m serious!’
Ulster laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’m just teasing. I promise I’ll keep this short.’
He led them to the bottom of a staircase that bisected the northern face of the pyramid. Stone balustrades, each ending in the carved head of a serpent, bordered the stairs on the left and the right. With his knees firmly against a restraining rope that surrounded the pyramid, Ulster reached out and tried to touch one of the serpent’s head, which jutted out from the pyramid. He wanted to feel the stone on his fingertips. Sadly, his round body and short arms prevented it.
He sighed dejectedly. ‘So close and yet so far.’
Jones was amused by the effort. ‘No one’s looking. Step over the damn rope.’
Ulster shook his head. ‘If I do, you will, too. And Jonathon. And Maria. Before you know it, the pyramid will crumble, and I’ll be the one to blame. I can’t have that on my conscience.’
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Not at all.’
Jones considered their options. ‘What if I pick you up and throw you onto the pyramid? Then it would be my fault, not yours.’
Ulster patted his belly. ‘The pyramid would crumble even sooner, I’m afraid.’
Payne tried to hurry this along. ‘What were you saying about a serpent?’
‘Ah, yes. The plumed serpent of El Castillo. Thank you for reminding me.’ He turned his back to the pyramid and faced the group. ‘As you probably know, the Maya were phenomenal astronomers. Without telescopes or lenses, they predicted eclipses, the rise and set of the Pleiades and the movement of planets and stars.’
‘How did they do that?’ Maria asked.
‘With carefully positioned window slats in their observatories.’
‘I don’t follow.’
To illustrate his point, he put his two hands together, as if he was about to pray to the heavens above. Then he separated his hands by half an inch. By staring through the space in between, he was able to focus on a narrow part of the sky. ‘The Maya constructed their buildings with such precision that they could chart celestial movement from a single room. One day the sun would move across the sky in one window slat. A month later it would move across the sky in the next window slat. And so on. By charting the sun’s progress throughout the hours, days and months, they knew where the sun would be with the accuracy of a marksmen.’
‘And the snake?’ Payne asked.
Ulster pointed at the serpent head to the west, the one he had been trying to touch. ‘As amazing as this sounds, the Maya angled this pyramid in such a way that sunlight, in the form of a serpent, crawls down this balustrade at sunset during the spring and autumn equinox until it is reunited with its head below. At any one moment, the snake is nothing more than sunlight and a series of triangle shadows, cast by the western corners of the pyramid, but viewed with time-lapse photography, the serpent of light appears to slither along this railing.’
Jones blurted, ‘Are you serious?’
Ulster nodded as he walked towards the western corner. Then he turned back and pointed at the side of the balustrade. ‘Notice the cut of the stones. They were shaped to look like the scales of a snake. When the light shines upon them, it truly looks like a serpent.’
‘That’s really cool.’
‘Twice a year, tens of thousands of people gather here at sunset to watch the return of Kukulkan. The biannual celebration is so popular, the Mexican government had to do something to lessen the massive crowds. So they started to hold nighttime shows throughout the year, using spotlights to simulate the serpent effect. In some ways, it’s even more pronounced because they can do it after sunset, when there’s far more contrast between light and shadow.’
Payne stared up at the pyramid. It really was an architectural marvel. One of the most impressive buildings he’d ever seen. ‘When was this built?’
‘Approximately one thousand years ago — give or take a hundred years. The temple inside is even older, though.’
Maria glanced at him. ‘The temple inside?’
He nodded. ‘In Mesoamerica, it was quite common to build one monument on top of another. The Aztecs did it. The Maya did it. Even the Spanish did it. Why rip something down and start from scratch when it’s far more economical to build on top of what was already there?’
‘They did that here?’
He nodded again. ‘Back in the 1930s, archaeologists didn’t know what was inside El Castillo. Bear in mind that this was less than a decade after Howard Carter’s discovery of King Tut’s tomb in Egypt, so the whole world was a little treasure crazy at the time. The Mexican government, hoping for a windfall, dug several exploratory tunnels into the pyramid until they found a staircase underneath the one we’re looking at now. The hidden stairs led to a temple chamber, where they found a Chac Mool and a jaguar-shaped throne.’