After Raul’s death, Isabella mother had married Jesus Beltran, the number two man in the Gulf Cartel, but while Isabella had been obliged to take her step-father’s name, she felt compelled to honor the choices her real father had made. And even though she had achieved a stature in the organization that her father never dared aspire to, not only supplanting her step-father, but taking control of the cartel’s operations on the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, Uncle Hector was always welcome in her house.
“This isn’t the first time someone has stumbled upon it,” Isabella went on. “Why don’t you just do what you usually do?”
“I sent two men,” Canul said. “They failed.”
“Send two more. Send five.”
“It is not enough. There are more of them now. They have already dived on the cenote. It is only a matter of time before they find the bodies. They will contact the authorities, and that will be a problem for both of us.”
Isabella frowned. Hector was not wrong. Unlike her late step-father and his predecessors, she favored good business practices over cruelty and violence, but sometimes it was necessary to deal harshly with enemies and turncoats in her own ranks. Disappearing them — not simply killing them, but making them vanish off the face of the earth — was one of the most effective ways to assert dominance and keep the wolves at bay. The uncharted cenote, known only to her uncle and a few others who followed the old ways, was the perfect place to make that happen, but if those bodies were found, everything she had built, everything she had fought for, would be undone. “What do you want me to do?”
“I can deal will the archaeologists, but the federales will investigate their disappearance. The search must not lead them to Cenote el Guia.”
“I will take care of the federales.”
Hector bowed his head. “Thank you.”
Isabella expected her uncle to leave, but he remained where he was. “Is there something else?”
The man was silent for a long time as if weighing the importance of the matter. “It is probably just a coincidence.”
“Say what you have to say, tio.”
“There are reports… rumors, really. Of a strange affliction. A fever that causes delirium and hemorrhaging.”
“I have not heard these rumors.”
“Not here. It is happening in northern Honduras, not far from the ruins of Copán.” Hector paused a moment, then added. “It may be that el Giua has been found.”
Isabella drew in a sharp breath. She had never really believed her uncle’s stories, but the location was right, as were the symptoms he had described.
“The fever is spreading,” Hector went on. “The villagers have begun calling it El Cadejo Negro. The Devil’s black dog.” He shrugged. “That may be just another coincidence.”
“You don’t believe that,” Isabella said. She narrowed her eyes at him. “If someone has found el Guia, we must act quickly.”
Hector, inexplicably, smiled.
“What?” Isabella asked. “You disagree?”
“Not at all. It pleases me that you said, ‘We.’”
Maria drove only as far as the main highway, where she could get a signal on her mobile phone, and placed a call to the Ministry of Health.
Her boss at the ministry had responded exactly as she expected him to — moving from disbelief to denial to helplessness. Yes, he would declare a medical emergency, and have army troops enforce the quarantine, but there was little he could do for the afflicted. The government could barely afford to pay doctors like Maria the pittance they currently received; there certainly wasn’t the money, resources or manpower available to combat an infectious disease outbreak. He would have to enlist resources from outside the poor Central American nation, and to do that, he would have to make his case directly to the president.
He spoke rapidly, repeating himself several times. Maria could tell he was trying to avoid the subject of her own health, and the likelihood that she had also been exposed to the pathogen. Truth be told, she was too, but there was cause for hope. She had not had direct contact with any of the infected — well, except for the old woman, and that had only been in passing.
Was skin to skin contact a vector? She had no idea.
Honduras had its share of tropical diseases — most mosquito-borne, like malaria and Zika — but this was something else. The first step toward battling it would be to get more information about how it was spreading, and the only way to do that was to return to the hot zone.
She cut short the call and turned the Land Cruiser around, heading back up the mountain road. As she neared the village, she encountered a man walking down the road toward her.
First, they wander.
She stopped in the middle of the road, fifty feet from the man. As he shambled closer, she donned a pair of gloves and a mask, and got out to meet him.
“Curandera!” the man called out, as if greeting an old friend.
“Buenos tardes, señor. What are you doing out here?”
The man’s forehead creased in an uncertain frown. “I… ” He shook his head as if unable to think of a reason. “I was looking for you. There is a sickness in the village.”
Maria could tell he was grasping for an excuse to explain his behavior, and made a mental note of the symptom. A high fever could explain erratic behavior, but the man did not appear to be in the grip of delirium. His eyes were red as if irritated by some allergen, but otherwise he appeared to be in decent health. It was as if his body had decided to take him for a walk, and now his brain was trying to come up with a rationale for the compulsion.
But what kind of disease made people want to go for a walk?
“Yes,” she said. “I know. That’s why I am here. Will you take me to the village and show me where the sick people are?”
The man looked hesitant. “I really should… ” He frowned again.
“Please. I just want to help.”
He took another step as if the urge to keep moving was irresistible.
Maria decided to change tactics. “Tell me about El Cadejo.”
The man stopped again. “The dog?”
“Did you see it? Did Diego show you?”
“No. He hid it somewhere. Only a few men saw it. All dead now. I helped bury them.”
She had held out hope that all of the infected might have received exposure from some toxin on the artifact Diego had discovered, but if the dog-shaped bowl was gone, it meant the affliction was being transmitted from person to person.
She needed to know more about how the disease progressed. “How long ago did they die? When did you bury them?”
“Diego died three days ago.” He took another step. “I should go. I need to—” He broke off with a strangled sound and then was gripped by a coughing fit. The paroxysm lasted only a few seconds, but when the man straightened again, there was blood on his lips.
Three days, Maria thought. Was that how long it took for an exposed person to begin exhibiting the first symptom — compulsive movement — with bloody phlegm following almost immediately thereafter? She needed to know more.