As the airstrip came into view, Carina jumped up and ran to open door. She lingered there for only a moment, then ran over to one of the crewmen, shouting something. Alex was content to let her take charge until, without any warning, the helicopter banked and began rapidly moving away from the airfield.
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“They’re already here,” Carina replied, her eyes flashing dangerously.
“They who?”
“Maddock’s group. The people traveling with your contact.”
Alex glanced out the open back end of the transport aircraft and saw the smaller helicopter parked at the airport, shrinking into the distance. He knew all about Dane Maddock, the man that helped the treacherous Tam Broderick take down his father, nearly destroying ScanoGen in the process. So far, Dane Maddock’s activities hadn’t posed a real threat to the endeavor. In fact, the treasure hunters helping Charles Bell had unknowingly blazed the trail for ScanoGen, but with the goal in sight, they might prove more of a hindrance.
So?” he asked, returning his gaze to Carina. “All the more reason for us to set down now.”
Carina shook her head. “What was it you said before? We’re going to skip a few steps.”
The mouth of the Naj Tunich cave was a vast open area, mostly flat, except where archaeologists had dug exploratory trenches. Bell explained that, in the heyday of the Maya Empire, thousands of worshippers would have gathered on the floor of the cave while the priests performed rituals on a terrace above them. The excavations supported this hypothesis; the floor was actually composed of artifacts, pottery and other litter, cemented into place by subsequent centuries of mineralized water dripping down from above.
“Some of the local Maya still worship here,” Bell said, pointing to the remnants of a stone fire circle.
“They still worship the old gods?” Maddock said. “I thought the native religions were mostly extinct.”
“The arrival of the Christian conquistadors forced practitioners of the old faith underground,” Bell said with a wry smile. “If you’ll pardon the obvious pun. But those traditions are deeply rooted in their culture.”
At the back of the cathedral-like mouth of the cave, the explorers had to climb a steep retaining wall, built by the Maya to preserve the passage into the deeper reaches of the cave. Maddock and Bones took the lead in order to help Bell up the incline. As Angel scrambled up to join them, Bones used a pry bar to pop the lock on the gate erected by the Guatemalan government.
As they stood there, poised to begin the descent into the confines of the cave, Maddock could feel a breeze on his face, rising out of the cave, as if it were breathing. “This place really is alive,” he mused.
“It was to the Maya,” Bell said, wheezing a little as he struggled to catch his breath after the climb.
If the entrance to the cave was the breathing maw of a living beast, then what lay beyond was the throat — a cramped, hundred-yard long passage, sloping down into the depths. Although there were adequate handholds and steps cut into the limestone, the rock was slick with moisture. Fortunately, previous expeditions had left behind a fixed safety line which Bell clung to as he made his way down.
The initial descent ended at a chilly pool where mineralized water flowing down the far wall had created lobes of glass-like flowstone that glittered in the beams of their lights. The effect was spectacular, but there was little time to stop and appreciate it. The vertical shaft, which Bell believed would lead them to the realm of Xibalba, lay at the end of a long arterial passage, more than two miles beyond.
As they splashed through the pool, Bones shouted over his shoulder, “Hey, Miranda, be sure to keep your phone dry.”
Angel moved closer to Maddock, embracing him in a seemingly spontaneous display of affection, but as she brought her face close to his, she whispered, “Bones is really giving her a hard time about the phone. I can tell when he’s busting chops. This is something else. What’s up?”
Maddock shook his head. “Maybe nothing.”
“Dane. Come on. No secrets between us.”
He glanced over at Miranda who was helping Bell across the pool. “She’s always on that phone. That’s a bad habit for an intelligence officer. Unless it’s something else. ScanoGen got to Copán ahead of us. I gave Miranda the wrong coordinates to the City of Shadow, and nobody bothered us.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“No, it doesn’t. That’s why I’m going to keep right on being careful around her.”
Angel drew back a little, one eyebrow raised accusingly. “I don’t buy it. This is her father’s expedition. Why would she risk it… risk his life? Are you sure this isn’t just because she likes girls?”
“I’m sure.” He was certain of that much, but he wasn’t as certain about his suspicions. All he really had was a lot of assumptions. The near-encounter at Copán might have been a mere coincidence, just like the Chinook fly-by was probably nothing.
In any event, it didn’t matter now. They were well outside the mobile coverage area, and even if Miranda had possessed a satellite phone — which she did not — the signal wouldn’t get through the tons of rock surrounding them.
They continued through passages adorned with Mayan glyphs and paintings that depicted human sacrifices and bloodletting rituals, as well as graphic sexual images. Bones could not resist commenting on one painting that depicted a naked Maya couple embracing in preparation for intercourse. The male figure sported an enormous phallus which was thrusting toward the belly of the female figure. The detail of the stylized image left little to the imagination.
“I’ll bet that guy was a god,” he remarked.
“You’ll like this one, Mr. Bonebrake,” Bell said, pointing to another painting of a squatting man.
“A guy taking a crap?” Bones said, raising a dubious eyebrow.
“Not exactly. This is a depiction of a bloodletting ritual. The Maya believed that there was great power in blood, so when a king wanted the fertility gods to bless him with a child, he would drive a bone needle or a stingray spine through his penis as an offering.”
If Bones was shocked by this, he didn’t let on. Instead, he just grinned. “Hey Maddock, sounds like Kyle Olsen?” Even though he had pitched the question to Maddock, he turned so that he was facing Miranda. “This guy in our platoon had a Prince Albert piercing. When he got drunk, he’d whip it out and put a carabiner through it, then hang heavy stuff from it.”
“That’s hot,” Miranda replied, deadpan but with a wicked gleam in her eye. “You should get one.”
“As much as I love a trip down memory lane,” Maddock said, “we should probably keep moving.”
“Dane,” Angel called out. “Everyone. Look at this.”
She was pointing to another glyph further down the wall and apparently all by itself. The image was more weathered than the explicit sex scene, but was nonetheless instantly recognizable.
It was the same canine figure depicted on the golden guidestone they had found in the cenote in Mexico, except this dog was facing to the side, in profile, with one paw extended as if to point the way, pointing deeper into the cave.
“I guess we’re in the right place,” Maddock said.
They continued down the winding passage, finding more of the guide glyphs wherever the passage branched off in more than one direction. At a few points, the passage narrowed to the point where they were forced to move single file. Bones had to unsling his pack just to scrape through.
A short almost vertical descent dropped them down into a cavern with adjoining passages to the left and right. Directly ahead was a ledge that overlooked a seemingly bottomless abyss. The shaft was not very wide, in fact, it was barely larger than the diameter of a chimney, but was so deep that their lights could not reach the bottom. On the back wall of the shaft was another guide glyph, this one pointing straight down.