They slowly descended the pyramid, taking photographs of it, of the steps, of the monumental buildings in every direction. Much of the time, each of them included the other person in the photograph to establish scale and to prove that they had been there.
When they reached the ground level, they walked a quarter of a mile in each of the four directions from the pyramid, still photographing everything they could see. At the end of the afternoon, they returned to the foot of the pyramid and stopped on the east side. Sam took a foot-length section of PVC pipe, capped and sealed on both ends, from his pack. Inside were rolled papers, printed statements in English and Spanish. They said that Remi and Sam Fargo had been at this GPS position on this date to explore and map these Mayan ruins. There were also telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and street addresses for contacting the Society for American Archaeology, the World Archaeological Congress, and the Society for Historical Archaeology, all of which had been notified of the discovery, as had the Guatemalan government. Sam dug a hole and buried the pipe in front of the eastern steps and then marked the spot with a small red plastic flag, like the ones that gas companies use to mark gas lines.
“So much for that,” said Remi. “I feel a little like the old-time explorers who used to plant flags on other people’s property and say they owned it.”
“Let’s just settle on the idea that we were here and registered it with the people who are qualified to study it and learn more about it,” he said. “That’s enough for me.”
“And this is our fifth city,” Remi said. “Four major cities in ten days.”
“We must be the world’s greatest tourists.”
Remi looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Let’s climb up on our perch and get a phone connection with Selma’s computer so we can send her our photographs.”
As they moved up the enormous work of earth and stone, they could see trees nearly as tall on all sides. At the top, Remi turned on her satellite phone, connected it to her camera, and sent her cache of photographs to Selma’s computer in San Diego. They had arranged at their first site that Selma would save all of the material and then forward it to David Caine at the university. He, in turn, would notify all of the international organizations that another previously unknown Mayan city had been found, partially mapped, and photographed.
When Remi had transferred her photographs, she took Sam’s camera and transferred his. She looked at her watch again, and said, “It’s almost five. Didn’t Tim say he was coming at five?”
“Yes.” Sam took his satellite phone and called Tim Carmichael. He heard the sound of ringing for a minute, then hung up. “He’s not answering.”
“He’s probably flying, and he can’t hear the phone with the earphones on.”
They waited about ten more minutes, listening for the sound of a helicopter, and then Remi said, “Nothing.”
Sam called again, then hung up. He called the office of Cormorant 1 Air Charter in Belize and put on the speaker so Remi could hear.
“Cormorant, Art Bowen.”
“Mr. Bowen, we haven’t met. This is Sam Fargo. Tim Carmichael took us to a spot in the highlands of Guatemala. He was supposed to pick us up at five, but he hasn’t. He’s not answering his satellite phone. I wondered if you could please get him on the radio and check to be sure he’s all right.”
“I’ll try,” said Bowen. “Hold on.”
Bowen went away from the phone for a minute. More time passed, and Sam and Remi could hear low voices in the background. Bowen might have been on the radio or he might have been talking to someone in his office. After a few more minutes, he was back. “He’s not answering his radio either,” said Bowen. “We’re going to send another helicopter out there and see what’s up. Can you give me your exact position?”
“Hold on.” Sam handed the phone to Remi, who had their notes in her day pack. She read the coordinates to Bowen, then repeated them. She gave him her satellite phone number and Sam’s. “Tim was going to wait for us about five miles due west of our current position, on a flat space that looked as though it had been recently burned.”
“And can you be seen from the air?”
“We’re standing on top of a Mayan pyramid. Tim lowered us on a rescue cable, and he was going to pick us up the same way.”
“I’m going to come get you myself. But I don’t have a chopper here with that kind of equipment on it right now. Is there a place I can land and get you?”
“We’ll have to walk to the place where Tim landed. Everywhere else in any direction seems to be covered with vegetation.”
“If that’s the only option, okay. But do it carefully. Don’t count on the idea that anybody you meet out there is okay. There are a lot of criminals in the wild country, where the police and the army can’t find them. I’m bringing two men with me and we’ll be armed.”
“Thanks for the warning. We’ll do our best not to make contact with anybody. We’re heading for the landing site right now.”
“We’ll probably get there about the same time. See you there.”
As Sam and Remi scrambled down the side of the pyramid, they oriented themselves to the west, where Tim Carmichael had gone to land.
Remi said, “I hope Tim didn’t catch a rotor on a tree branch or something and crash.”
“I hope he didn’t either,” said Sam. “I couldn’t see any smoke from up on the pyramid, but there’s no guarantee there would be a fire. Anything could have happened.”
“I hate to get all worried when we’re too far away to even know what to worry about.”
“I’m withholding my anxiety,” Sam said. “But only to the extent that I’m leaving the first aid kit in my pack and the safety on my pistol.”
As Sam and Remi began to be sure of their footing, leaving the base of the pyramid, they sped up. They trotted when the path was clear and walked at a strong, steady pace when the vegetation was thick. They navigated by walking toward the glare of the late-afternoon sun on the tree leaves. They estimated that, over a long period, their walking and trotting probably averaged three miles an hour, and so they kept at it for a half hour before they stopped to check their GPS position.
They sat on a stone outcropping, drank water, and caught their breath while they reoriented themselves. They had come about halfway, and they agreed that this time they would go for fifteen minutes before they stopped again to check their position.
They ran steadily in single file, still using the reflected sun to navigate. They concentrated on making progress, but, as time went on, they began to pay more attention to making as little noise as possible. They knew that Tim Carmichael wasn’t the type to simply show up late or to take them into the wilderness in an aircraft that wasn’t well maintained and fueled to capacity. He had a radio in the helicopter as well as a satellite phone. There was no way to know what had gone wrong until they got to the landing spot, but neither imagined the story would be a happy one. Their thoughts centered on the hope that Tim wasn’t dead.
At the end of their third leg of silent jogging, they were very close to the patch where Tim Carmichael had said he’d land. There was no helicopter sound in the air, which meant that Art Bowen was not yet close with a second helicopter. The silence was thick and ominous.
Sam and Remi stood cheek to cheek so that they could whisper in each other’s ears to keep their conference silent. They agreed on a plan of approach, drank more water, and moved on.
They walked, staying low and alert, until they reached the burned land. They peered out of the thick foliage that had been spared by the fire and saw Carmichael’s Jet Ranger. It had landed in the cleared field, far from any trees that could have interfered with its rotors. The land was quite level, and the helicopter sat evenly. There was nothing out of place and there were no bullet holes. But there also was no sign of Tim.
Slowly, Sam and Remi moved along the perimeter of the cleared area. When they had gone about a hundred yards, they stopped suddenly and listened. There were voices. At first, they wondered if they were hearing the helicopter’s radio. These were male voices speaking Spanish. The voices came from behind them.