Bones wasn’t wrong. The most of the people had already moved to the north end of the site where a long row of mud-splattered SUVs waited. Only a few stragglers remained, hurrying across the rain-soaked field to join their colleagues.
But Maddock shook his head. “You heard what they said. Bell got it wrong. There’s nothing here that even remotely links to the City of Shadow. No glyphs. No secret passages or cenotes. Nothing to… ”
He trailed off as something clicked in his mind.
“I know the sound of a Maddock epiphany when I hear one,” Bones said. “Care to share?”
“Bell assumed that the Serpent Road described in the guidestone would connect Maya cities. But what if that’s wrong?”
Bones made a “get on with it” gesture.
“That park employee said the gods ‘hid the city from mortal eyes.’ The Maya didn’t built temples to the death gods, but they did worship them by offering sacrifices at symbolic entrances to the Underworld.” He checked his phone — two bars.
Worth a try, he thought, and started composing a text message. There was little chance of being spotted or overheard now, and this couldn’t wait.
“I still don’t get it,” Bones admitted. “If the spots on the glyph aren’t cities or temples, what are they?”
Maddock grinned. “They’re cenotes.”
CHAPTER 13
“Cenotes!” Bell clapped his forehead. “Of course! That makes perfect sense. The cenote where we found the guidestone has to be one of the waypoints.”
“But which one of the waypoints is it?” Miranda asked from the passenger seat across from Angel. Maddock and Bones, soaking wet and filthy, had climbed into the rear passenger area where the archaeologist was sitting.
“There’s probably a marker just like it in each cenote along the route,” Maddock said as he dug some mud out of his ear with a finger. It was an exercise in futility. He would need a long hot shower, maybe even two or three, to get the filth off and the chill out of his joints, but there wasn’t time for that now.
After texting Jimmy, he’d called Angel and arranged for an early pick-up. There was no sign of police presence on the road. The group that had briefly shut down the archaeological site was long gone. By the time they’d reached the road, and long before Angel and the others arrived, he had the answer to Miranda’s question, but he hesitated to pass that information along. The arrival of red-haired woman and her small army at Copán, less than a day after Bell’s decision to travel there, troubled him. The most likely explanation was that Antonio Griego had given up the information, probably under duress, but it seemed prudent to speak only in general terms.
“There are eleven marks on the glyph that seem to correspond to main stars in the Serpens constellation. Jimmy compared the alignment of the constellation with the location of known cenotes, using the one we already know about as a variable and assuming the same north-south alignment but at different scales. That gave us a number of possibilities, most of them in the Yucatan.”
“Wonderful.” Miranda’s tone was thick with sarcasm. “Right back where we started.”
“I don’t believe that all the waypoints will be in the Yucatan,” Bell said, though he had lost some of his earlier confidence. “The Maya influence during the Classic period was strongest in the southern regions of their empire. The Popol Vuh, our primary source of information about the Underworld, originated with the Kiche of western Guatemala.”
“We don’t need to actually visit all the waypoints. Jimmy has ranked the results in order of probability based on the number of matches to known cenotes or unexplored areas.” That little bit of extra legwork would cost Maddock a couple bottles of Wild Turkey, but if there was one lesson Maddock had learned over the years, it was that he could count on Jimmy for results, which made the information cheap at the price. “The latter makes a lot of sense because, obviously if the City of Shadow had already been discovered, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” He didn’t add that Bell was correct. The most likely location for the lost city, according to Jimmy’s simulation, was not in the Yucatan, but in northern Guatemala.
“That’s the good news,” he continued. “The bad news is that some of these locations are pretty remote.”
“Remoter than this?” Miranda said. “Let me get this straight. You want us to traipse all over creation looking for a lost city that we’re not even certain actually exists?”
“Miranda,” Bell murmured. “This is what I do. And the city is real.”
“She’s right though,” Maddock said. “There’s a better way. I’ve contacted Tam Broderick and asked for some logistic support. She’s sending someone to meet us at Palacios Airport. It’s not too far from here.”
That was only partially true. While the Palacios airfield looked close on the map, it could only be reached via a rugged mountain road, which given the rainy conditions, took several hours and put the off-road capabilities of their rental vehicle to the test. There were closer airports, but Maddock had chosen this one in hopes that its remoteness would help conceal their departure from the Serpent Brothers or whomever it was the red-haired woman was working for.
Hector Canul paused in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the low light inside the cantina and taking a moment to survey the room. Hours of chasing rumors across the remote Honduran interior had brought him here. The tables were empty and there were only a few people at the bar, their backs turned to him. He studied them, trying to guess which of them was the man he sought. The fellow at the end of the bar seemed like the outlier. He was hunched over his drink, a posture that was both defensive and pathetic.
Hector advanced and took a seat at the bar, keeping one empty stool between himself and the other man. He made eye contact with the bartender, nodded, then leaned over to the other patron. “Join me for a drink, friend?”
The man rolled his head sideways, gazing back warily, and shrugged.
Hector turned back to the bartender. “Two of whatever my friend is having.”
Two streaked glasses containing clear liquor were delivered. Hector lifted his, sniffed the contents. It smelled sweet, like rum.
“Guaro,” the other man said, wrapping his hand around his glass.
“Your name is Guaro?”
“No. The drink is guaro. Sugar cane liquor.” The man’s speech was slurred. “My name is Rodrigo.”
“I am Hector. What shall we drink to, friend Rodrigo? Home?”
Rodrigo ducked as if the word had stung him, and Hector knew right then that he had found the right man. “I have no home. Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“The curse. El Cadejo Negro. First it made people sick. Then the spacemen came. They killed everyone. Burned the village.”
“Spacemen?” Hector repeated.
“Don’t believe him,” the bartender said, dismissively. “He’s a drunkard, telling stories so that people like you will take pity and buy him drinks.”
Hector turned to the bartender. “Is any of it true?”
The bartender inclined his head in a gesture of compromise. “There was a fire up in the mountains. I heard it was bad. But there is no curse. No spacemen.”
Hector nodded then turned back to Rodrigo. He shifted over to the empty stool, getting closer, and patted the drunk man on the shoulder. “It’s okay, friend. I believe you. Tell me more. How did you know that they were men from another planet?”
Rodrigo shook his head. “Not men from another planet. Men in space suits. Soldiers. They came in helicopters. When I saw them in the sky, I hid in the forest.”