“Not since we left the road three days ago,” said Remi. “Even then, we were the only truck on the road. Are you tracking our phones’ GPS signals?”
“Yes,” Selma said. “Very clearly. I know right where you are.”
“Then we’ll text you if we learn anything.”
“Please do,” Selma said. “I’m getting a huge e-book bill and a ghostly pallor because I don’t want to leave the office to go to a bookstore and miss your calls.”
“Sorry,” said Remi. “Kiss Zoltán for me.”
“I will.”
“Bye.”
They hung up, and the next sound they heard was so shocking in the silence that they both swiveled their heads to locate its source. There was the faint thrum of a helicopter in the distance. They tried to spot the helicopter, but they were in a low dale beneath a thick canopy of leaves that obscured the sky. The engine grew louder until its roar overwhelmed all of the natural sounds of the forest.
They knew better than to stand and climb up to see it. After a minute, the helicopter passed overhead, and Sam and Remi looked up at it, seeing the wind from its rotors whipping the leaves of the upper tree branches around wildly before it swept on to the north and out of sight. They could hear the engine at about the same decibel level for another two minutes, and then the sound stopped entirely.
“I think it landed,” said Remi.
“So do I,” said Sam. “Ready to take a closer look?”
“Going to find them is probably better than letting them find us.”
Sam and Remi put their packs in order. They loaded their spare pistols and moved them to a zippered outer compartment of their backpacks and hid Sam’s phone in another compartment. They took with them only one pistol each, under their shirts, and Remi’s phone. They hid their backpacks under thick foliage, marked the nearest tree, then moved off up the game trail.
As they walked, they did not speak, just directed each other’s attention with a nod or a simple hand gesture. They would stop every twenty yards to listen but heard only the sounds of the forest. On the fourth stop, they heard human voices. Several men were talking loudly in Spanish, their voices overlapping and interrupting in cascades of words too fast for the rudimentary Spanish Sam had begun to learn.
And then the forest ahead of them brightened. Beyond the rank of trees was a large clearing. A group of men unloaded equipment from the helicopter and carried it to a place where a sun awning had been erected. There were several aluminum cases, a couple of video cameras, tripods, and unidentifiable accessories.
They could see the pilot, standing beside the open door of his helicopter, with earphones on and a wire connecting him to the instrument panel. He spoke to someone on the radio.
Sam and Remi moved cautiously inside the forest, venturing closer to the edge. Suddenly Remi raised her eyes and pointed. At the right side of the large open area of low weeds and grasses, a high wooded hill that had been only partially visible looked different from this angle. From this side, Sam and Remi could see a stone stairway, straight and uninterrupted, running from the ground to the apex. The partial excavation of the steep hill revealed that what had seemed to be natural irregularities were layers of the pyramid. They were flat, with trees and brush growing on them, but in places the roots had dislodged stones from the structure and collapsed a corner from one level to the level below, making the profile more like a hill than a building.
This was unquestionably the step pyramid that had been depicted on the codex map and had appeared in the aerial photograph. A crew of about a hundred workmen were attacking the structure with axes, picks, mattocks, shovels, and buckets to clear the pyramid of about a thousand years of accumulated leaves, humus, dirt, and living plants. They moved quickly and swung hard, more like a demolition crew than archaeologists. They hacked away at the debris covering the pyramid. Other workers were cutting and burning brush in different parts of the complex. Their labor was baring stone structures in all directions. Sam reached to Remi’s hand, took her phone, and began to take pictures.
Remi whispered, “If David Caine could see the way this place is being pounded and abused, it would kill him.” After a minute, she noticed a platoon of armed men moving single file out of the jungle, on the far side of the complex. There were about twenty of them, all carrying rifles on slings. There were a few other armed men stationed on the upper levels of the buildings. A couple of them waved to the men just arriving.
Sam was busy taking photographs with Remi’s phone. He reviewed the shots, then sent them to Selma. He put away the phone and tapped Remi on the shoulder. They stayed low and slowly edged away from the cleared area. When they could, they stood and walked back up the game trail until they judged they were out of earshot. Sam pressed a number on Remi’s phone and then the call button.
“Policía federales.”
“Hello. This is Sam Fargo.”
“And this is Commander Rueda,” said the voice. “I’ve been keeping this line clear for your call.”
“Thank you, Commander. We’re at the coordinates we gave you before we left home. As the Mayan codex indicated, what’s here is a large city with a temple complex. We’ve been watching a crew of around a hundred men clearing away dirt and vegetation as fast as they can. There are also armed guards. A little while ago, a helicopter landed with what looks like a film crew.”
“Are they doing anything criminal?”
“They’re uncovering the buildings with picks, mattocks, and shovels without much regard to the damage they do to what’s beneath. But I’d say that the main problem so far is the one we’ve told you about. The only way that Sarah Allersby could have found this place is if she has the stolen Mayan codex from the University of California, San Diego.”
“If I send a squad of men to that location, will they find anything to charge her with?”
“I think they’ll find notes that indicate where she learned the location, or even a photocopy of the codex page, which would prove it’s been in her possession,” Sam said. “Either way, maybe police can get the workers to excavate properly and not destroy what they’re uncovering.”
“All right. I’ll send a helicopter with soldiers to check on the excavation. That’s all I can promise.”
“That’s good enough for me. Thank you.” He handed Remi her phone.
Remi called Selma. “Hi, Selma. We’ve been to the site. Have you seen the pictures? You can tell David it’s as big as he thought. Sam just called the cops to come and take a look at the terrible job they’re doing on this dig. We’re hoping they’ll also find evidence that she used the map in the codex.”
“Don’t let the police forget that it could be in a computer or her phone, or it could be disguised as something else.”
“Don’t worry. It’s a fishing expedition, and we know fish don’t all look the same.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. We’re on our way back to the site.”
Sam and Remi moved up the trail again to the clearing. As they crouched in the brush, looking at what must have been the great plaza of the ancient Mayan city, they heard the distant chop of another helicopter. This one came from the south like the other, but its engine sounded different. The helicopter came straight in over the jungle, hovered above the center of the plaza, and then came down not far from the first helicopter.
The four-man camera crew that had been loitering under the sun awning snatched up their equipment and trotted to the helicopter, where the rotors were just slowing down, and began to film. Among them were a soundman, carrying a microphone on a long pole, a cinematographer with a video camera on his shoulder, a lighting man with battery-operated lights and a white umbrella on a tripod, and a fourth man with a large pack who paid out a length of insulated cord that led to a box under the awning.
The helicopter’s engine stopped, and a door on the side opened. The first one out was Sarah Allersby’s security guard, who looked like a cage fighter. He was broad and muscular, wore olive drab pants and a khaki shirt, and carried a small weapon on a sling that looked like a machine pistol. He stood by with the open door at his back while the main occupant of the helicopter stepped down.