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Viper Two’s gunner nodded at the growing crowd, and said, “I think it’s time for us to fold our tents and silently steal off into the sunset.”

“Thank you,” said Sam as he shook their hands. “You saved the lives of over two hundred men, women, and children, and shut down one of Central America’s biggest drug operations.”

“Don’t wait so long for the next tournament,” said Viper One with a salute.

“Don’t change your phone number,” Sam said, holding Remi’s hand and giving her a kiss on the cheek. She looked squarely into his eyes, and said, “You told me you were with the CIA when we met.”

Sam merely shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Chapter 32

THE ROAD TO THE ESTANCIA GUERRERO

Ruiz sat in the cab of a truck beside Russell. “I feel like I fell out of an airplane,” he said. “My shoulder hurts from firing full auto at nothing. My knee feels like it’s broken from falling in that ditch. I can’t believe this.”

Russell kept his eyes on the road ahead. “Consider yourself lucky we snatched a pickup truck from a tobacco farmer. This is really a setback. And we lost ninety men or more who belonged to Diego San Martin. I’ll tell you something else. We’ve got to fix it before San Martin knows or get out of the country fast.”

Ruiz stared at him. “We’re done, man. It’s suicide to go in that town.”

A half hour later, they reached the Estancia Guerrero. As they pulled up the long gravel drive to the space by the countinghouse, Russell saw Sarah Allersby, sitting behind a lighted window. She saw their truck and ran out to meet them.

“Where are they?” she asked. “The helicopters never returned, nor any of the trucks.”

Russell looked down at her through his cab window. “As it turned out, we couldn’t just drive up there and load them on the trucks. When we got there, we were ambushed. We lost most of the men, and what few survived were captured.”

“Lost? You losta hundred men to a bunch of ignorant peasants,” she said. “How could you do this to me?”

Russell and Ruiz looked at each other and climbed stiffly out of the truck. Ruiz leaned against it while Russell stood in front of Sarah Allersby. “Miss Allersby, I apologize. We were defeated. Not by the villagers but by two mysterious black, unmarked helicopters that blew apart our helicopters, the armored cars, and all the trucks.”

Sarah Allersby felt the heat of Russell’s rage building. It frightened her a little. She was too intelligent not to foresee what could happen next.

Russell said, “I think we’ve come to the end of our usefulness here. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes. I wish you luck.” He turned away.

“Wait,” she said. “I’m sorry, Russell, I didn’t mean to be sharp with you. Please don’t be upset. I know I was being insensitive, and I know things seem bad right now, but we can save this.”

Russell and Ruiz stared at her.

She said, “Those are men we borrowed from Diego San Martin. If you both leave and that’s all I have to tell him, he’ll kill me. And then he’ll have people find you and kill you. Don’t you know he’s a drug smuggler? He has connections and buyers in the United States and Europe. We don’t have much choice but to salvage this situation so we can give him some good news along with the bad. We can’t give up now.”

“We can’t save a disaster.”

“I’ll double your pay. I’ll also give you a percentage of the money I make on the artifacts from that place. The codex makes it look like a fortress and says that refugees from a city retreated there for a last stand. If they did that, they wouldn’t have left their treasures behind to their enemies. It’s going to be a huge find.”

“Miss Allersby,” said Russell, “people died today. If the police are brought in, anybody involved could be charged with murder. Not only were we the leaders but we’re foreigners.”

“We also don’t know where our attackers came from,” added Ruiz.

Chapter 33

THE ROAD TO GUATEMALA CITY

Two days later, Russell and Ruiz were apprehended and shackled to the bench seat of the army truck as it rattled along the road toward Guatemala City. Russell kept up a low monologue in Ruiz’s right ear. “It’s good that they’re taking us right to the capital. I don’t want to rot in some provincial jail for six months while the prosecutors take their time getting there and arranging for a trial. If we’re in Guatemala City, Sarah can bail us out before we’ve spent a night — or two nights anyway. And then she’ll make the charges go away. That’s what has to happen now. If we go to trial as the masterminds of this fiasco she dreamed up, we’re going to need a miracle to see the light of day again.”

“Diego San Martin is hiding out. That’s a plus.”

“True, but he isn’t about to let us off the hook. They resent us. And we’re the only Americans. I am anyway. You look like a native and you speak Spanish. I’ll bet they think you are Guatemalan.”

“If you’re up for huge crimes, it’s better to be foreign. They’ll think you must be working for a government and they might not execute you.”

“She just better have all the lawyers out, waiting for us, when we get there,” said Russell. “She swore she would.”

“She said we’d never get arrested too, but, here we are, captured and chained.”

Russell was silent for a few seconds, then said, “She’d better come through after we managed to get his private army wiped out.”

“I know,” said Ruiz. “We’re going to have to take turns sleeping so none of these guys finds a way to kill us.”

They sat in the truck and watched the miles rolling behind the truck into the distance. Russell tried to dismiss from his mind the sight of the few survivors sitting around him in the truck, the hollow look of their dirty, unshaven faces, the sweaty smell of their camouflage battle-dress uniforms, the anger and resentment in their eyes.

He turned his mind to Sarah Allersby. He imagined her in one of those immaculate white silk blouses she wore and a black skirt and high heels. She would be standing by the heavy wooden desk in the two-hundred-year-old building with the thick wooden beams and the big ceiling fans. She would have her golden hair in a tight ponytail, with every strand in place, so it looked like something rarer than hair. She would be holding one diamond earring in her free hand while she clamped the phone to her ear with the other. She would be bringing every bit of her wealth, influence, and reputation to bear on the problem of freeing him and Ruiz. She would say something ridiculous that the government official she was speaking to would want to believe. Russell and Ruiz were just innocent American employees of hers who had gone to the Estancia Guerrero and gotten lost. She would ensure that there were no unpleasant repercussions following their release by flying them out of the country immediately in her private jet. And she would be very grateful to send them away.

GUATEMALA CITY

At that moment, Sarah Allersby was in the master bedroom of the big Guerrero house. She was wearing a white silk blouse, a pair of black slacks, and a tailored black jacket. She chose a pair of pearl earrings and a pearl choker because she’d be dealing with British Customs. Anyone whose job it was to assess the value of jewelry at a glance would recognize a strand like this — round, silvery white, sixteen-millimeter natural pearls with exceptional luster. They had been found by divers in the Arabian Sea in the fourteenth century. And, for once, the source of a priceless piece wasn’t the fruit of her father’s ancestors’ looting of India. The pearls had belonged to her mother’s family. Her father had bought the earrings in Paris forty years ago.

British officials were the biggest snobs. Even if her name didn’t spring to their minds, they would recognize her as belonging to the class of people who were not to be harassed with petty rules.