The Mayan Secrets

by Clive Cussler

  “The trucks can’t navigate the narrow trail up the mountain,” said Sam.

  “But a hundred men with deadly arms can’t be stopped with a few old shotguns,” Remi argued.

  Sam shrugged. “I see no other way out.”

  Remi stepped over to Sam and stared with anguish into his eyes. “Who are you?” she gasped. “You’re not the man I’ve known and loved.”

  He gave her a look of indifference she’d never seen before.

  As Remi turned to speak, Sam had walked from the vestry without looking back at his lovely wife.

  SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS

  The next day, the mothers, children, and the elderly were led by Remi to the ruined stronghold on the plateau. There they would gather hundreds of stones to throw down at the attackers if they tried to climb the narrow path up. Remi determined where the best locations were behind a rock-stack barrier to fire at any attacker who reached the top.

  Remi kept her mind off Sam’s strange behavior and directed her squad of women and children to make effigies of townspeople, stuffing clothing with leaves and brush. “If your son is firing a rifle, you want the enemy to waste ammunition shooting at the five or six dummies you made and placed around to protect him.”

  She had other people bringing empty bottles, cans of gasoline, and rags to the plateau and making Molotov cocktails. “If men are coming up the path, these will stop them for a time. And if it’s night, they’ll light them up so anyone with a gun can hit them.”

  At dusk, Sam stood on the crest of the hill beside the ancient fortress, surveying the preparations the townspeople had made. He knew there were hundreds of human effigies, beginning on the trail to the ancient stronghold. There were pits from building the old rock barrier. Within the walls of the ancient fortress were enough food and water for the whole town for a couple of weeks, and there were shelters for the children. The whole perimeter had dummies at the ramparts, and the supply of rocks and Molotov cocktails was impressive.

  Sam was suddenly aware that Remi was standing next to him.

  “I can’t live without you,” she said softly. “Please don’t stay in the village and die there alone.”

  Sam shook his head and looked down. “I’ve never asked you to blindly follow my direction. I have to ask you now. Trust me.”

  She turned to him and looked for something in his eyes. “We’ve never had any secrets between us.”

  “I’m sorry, Remi. But I swore an oath many years ago that I have to stand by. And now I have to see this through.”

  “I know you have something up your sleeve. But will it work?”

  He ran his hand through her hair. “The final throw of the dice and I can’t even tell you what I hope is going to happen.”

  Sam looked up at the last of the sun-painted mountain peaks. “It’s time for me to go.”

  Sam put his arm about his beloved wife and escorted her to the head of the trail that led down the mountain.

  She buried her face in his shoulder.

  “You just can’t do this. I may never see you again.”

  His kiss was as gentle as a soft whisper. “I’ve made luncheon reservations at our favorite restaurant here in town.”

  After walking twenty feet through the fortress, Remi stopped to get a final look at her husband. But Sam was not to be seen. It was as if he had vanished.

  SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS

  At dawn, Sam walked across the road to the church and climbed the ladder to the top of the bell tower. His timing was on the money.

  He removed a pair of German Steiner 20×80 military binoculars and peered through the lenses at a dust cloud on the road about five miles away.

  Almost casually, he sat on a niche in the wall and watched the sunrise. Later, he stared at the approaching military convoy.

  Sam was not primed to fight. His job was to observe. He took a small old-fashioned handheld radio he’d borrowed from Dr. Huerta, adjusted the frequency, and pressed the call button.

  “Viper One. This is Cobra One. Over.”

  A voice, clear and sharp, came back almost immediately.

  “Cobra One. This is Viper One. I haven’t heard your voice in a long time. Over.”

  “Six years and seven months, to be exact.”

  “We’ve all missed you, Cobra One.”

  “Is that Viper Two?”

  “Two hundred meters on your left in an open space in the forest.”

  “You have been away a long time,” laughed Viper Two. “I remember you as the new kid on the block in the old days.”

  “You must know,” said Viper One, “the firm is stepping on important toes to fit this little tea party in the schedule.”

  “I’m well aware of it,” replied Sam. “And, I might add, I’m the only one on this side who knows the score.”

  “Okay,” said Viper One, “why don’t you tell us the score. Over.”

  “Roger,” said Sam. “A small army of men who work for a local drug lord are planning to come here to take possession of the town and ship the people to a plantation about twenty miles away and put them to work.”

  “That sounds like slavery.”

  “It is slavery,” said Sam. “And extortion and theft and kidnapping and murder. Once they have these people in their marijuana fields, nobody will ever see or hear from them again. Over.”

  “Nice to know we’re the good guys,” Viper Two cut in. “Hold on. I read a convoy of seven vehicles approaching up the road.”

  Sam added what he could see from his perch in the bell tower.

  “Each of the canvas-covered trucks is carrying twenty-five men, all armed with AK-47s. They’re escorted by two armored cars. One at the head of the column, the other bringing up the rear.”

  “We also see the convoy is escorted by two Mi-8 Russian-built gunships.”

  “How can you know everything in my sight when you’re behind a forested mountain?”

  “We’ve had many upgrades in our sensors since you were part of the gang.”

  Sam aimed his binoculars at the final turn in the road leading up to the village.

  “Viper One. They’ve reached the edge of the town and have stopped.”

  “Not surprised. There are no people in sight, living or dead. That must make them wonder.”

  “My wife and I herded all the villagers up the mountain to an ancient fortress.”

  The pilots and gunners in the Apaches adjusted their helmets with the monocle over the right eye. It was a revolutionary sighting system. The pilot or gunner could slave the chain gun to his helmet, allowing him to achieve accurate sighting on a target by making the chain gun track with his head movements, aiming wherever he looked.

  “Viper Two. This is Viper One. We are clear to engage.”

  “Time to give them hell for breakfast.”

  Viper One turned the Apache in a sharp bank and then entered the main village square, hovering twenty meters off the cobblestones.

  SANTA MARIA DE LOS MONTAÑAS

  Amando Gervais and his copilot and gunner, Rico Sabas, sat side by side in the spacious cockpit of their Mi-8 Hip gunship, one of San Martin’s fleet of five helicopters.

  The Mi-8 was Russian built and was an oldie but goodie. Production had continued despite the fifty-one years since the first one took to the skies. Utilized by half the military forces in the world, the Mi-8 was considered the most successful design worldwide.

  Gervais lightly touched the collective control stick to raise the Mi-8 until it was five meters off the ground. At the same time, he eased the cyclic stick forward, slowly moving the Mi-8 up the rise and around the church and into the village square. Suddenly Gervais and Sabas froze, in a state of shock. Instead of a crowd of villagers with pitchforks and shotguns firing bird shot, Gervais and Sabas found themselves staring at an array of rocket launchers hun
g on the most malevolent, atrocious, and evil attack helicopter in the United States arsenal.

  To Sam Fargo in the bell tower, there was no more terrifying apparition than the AH-64E Apache Longbow helicopter, especially when viewed head-on. It looked like a giant, grotesque bug that could never fly.

  “Santa Maria,” muttered Sabas. “Where did that come from?”

  “It’s black with no markings,” said Gervais, barely above a whisper.

  “What’s it doing here?”

  The answer never came.

  They turned white and speechless when, in the blink of an eye, they saw a flash beneath the Apache an instant before they were blown to shreds.

  “Target removed, Viper Two.”

  “So I heard. Hold on. My target is locked and I’m firing.”

  Down the hill a few miles away, another explosion sent fire and a dense cloud of smoke into the air.

  “Viper One, second aerial target eliminated.”

  “So much for their air force, Viper Two. Now let’s hit their infantry.”

  “Cobra One here,” Sam Fargo cut in. “The trucks and armored cars are continuing toward the village.”

  “How can they think they still have air cover?”

  “They didn’t see your destructive nature. You were out of sight in the village, and Viper Two was hidden in the trees.”

  “Thanks, Cobra,” said Viper One’s pilot. “Keep active as our spotter.”

  “Will do,” said Sam. “Glad to be back in the saddle again.”

  “Okay, Viper Two. We’ll start from opposite ends with the armored cars and work toward the middle of the trucks.”

  “Engage before they recover. What do you want to lay on them?”

  “Begin with the Hydra missiles to knock out the armored cars and then switch to the M230 cannon against the trucks and infantry. Viper Two, you take on the front armored car. I’ll engage tail-end Charlie.”

  “Just watch our line of fire so we don’t kill each other.”

  “Roger, Viper Two. We’ll be as careful as ladies at a tea.”

  “Roger that, Viper One.”

  With a touch of a button, he sent a Hydra missile across the village square into the armored car as it reached the top of the hill. Flames enveloped the disintegrating vehicle as it vanished in a vast fireball.

  Sam laughed to himself. “I’ll ring the church bell every time you guys take out a truck.”

  “I’ve never forgotten your sense of humor.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” said Sam.

  “Ready to squeeze the pumpkin, Viper One?”

  “Let’s ride the dragon,” came the answer.

  The Apaches showed their stuff by flying barrel rolls over the hill and turning loops through the village, passing a few feet from Sam’s observation post.

  “Where are our Mi-8 copters?” asked Russell. He pulled himself back inside the armored car. “I don’t like the looks of this. There’s no sign of them, only two plumes of black smoke.”

  “Could they have collided?”

  Russell shook his head. “They came at the village from opposite directions. The smoke must be from targets they destroyed in the village.”

  “Then why don’t they answer our transmissions?”

  “That I don’t—” Before Russell could finish, the vicious AH-64E Longbow helicopter appeared thirty meters above, the pilot smiling and waving. The Longbow suddenly rolled upward and turned to a firing position. It not only looked deadly, it was deadly.

  “Get out!” shouted Russell. “Jump!”

  Ruiz didn’t have to be told twice. They burst from the armored car, leaving the gun crew inside. They dropped to the ground and rolled into a ditch on the side of the road.

  Less than three seconds later, Russell heard the short scream of the Hydra 70 rocket as it impacted the armored car and blew its turret to pieces. In the black killing machine, the gunner had turned the muzzle of the M230 automatic cannon, mounted under the bow of the fuselage, toward the first truck in the convoy. Called a chain gun, it could spurt six hundred fifty thirty-millimeter rounds a minute. The blast of shells tore through the first and second trucks’ canvas-covered benches, carrying the twenty-five armed killers hired by San Martin, that quickly became fiery charnel houses.

  There was no time for a warning. The third truck drove off the road, spilling out the men as soon as it rolled into the ditch. One man on the fourth truck threw back the canvas cover and began to shoot a mounted gun at the Apache.

  “I’m taking fire, Viper Two. I could use help to take him out.”

  “I’ll send him to dreamland. Just stay on your side of the convoy.”

  Viper One could hear shells thumping into the rotor blades and fuselage, which was protected by twenty-six hundred pounds of shielding.

  Viper Two dipped under Viper One and unleashed a torrent of fire that smashed the man in the truck bed and his heavy machine gun to a pile of morbid junk.

  “Obliged to you, Viper Two.”

  “You still in one piece?”

  “Roger. Engaging truck five on my goal line.”

  “Let’s finish the game.”

  The flames from one truck, and the explosion and concussion from another, were still tearing the air when the last truck tried to escape across the field. It was quickly smashed to a halt. The survivors spilled to the ground, followed by a hail of shells pouring from the Apache like water from a fireman’s hose.

  Both Apaches obliterated the rest of the convoy and circled the area, picking off any survivors who did not throw down their weapons or hold their hands up in surrender.

  As Russell and Ruiz watched from the cover of the ditch along the side of the road, the heat from their flaming armored car was like torture to them. They lay there, staring in fascinated horror at the total destruction of the convoy by the phantom black helicopters.

  “It makes no sense,” Russell muttered. “Who are they and where did they come from?”

  “They are not Guatemalan military,” said Ruiz.

  “Let’s not wait to find out,” Russell grunted, crawling away from the burning vehicle toward the nearest forest undergrowth.

  “We have to find a place to lay low ’til it’s dark.”

  “Sound thinking, my friend,” Russell said. “Follow me and keep low.”

  “Where to?”

  “Estancia Guerrero,” answered Russell. “We’ve got to get to Miss Allersby with a story to save our hides before another survivor makes it back.”

  Remi’s heart sank when she heard the explosions and saw the black billowing clouds expanding in the sky above the village. She was helping the mothers with young children, distracting them from the turbulence below.

  The silence that followed was even worse. The fear and anxiety finally got the best of her and she ran desperately out of the fortress and down the trail until she reached the village square. She stood there, dazed, after seeing the smoldering wreckage of a helicopter.

  Remi saw no sign of Sam and closed her eyes to keep from crying in grief. She could not but think the worst.

  She sensed a presence behind her. Then Sam’s voice. “How could our love affair not have a happy ending?”

  Remi turned, her eyes flashing in excitement as they locked with Sam’s, and he kissed her lovingly on the lips. With his arms wrapped about her, Remi’s fear melted.

  “Oh, Sam,” she murmured in his ear as she looked over his shoulder at what was left of the Mi-8.

  At that moment, Viper One, followed by Viper Two, hovered over the square and gently touched down. The engines hummed, and the four-bladed main rotors slowed and crept to a stop. Sam grinned as four men in flight suits climbed out of the cockpits and approached.

  The first reached out his hand and shook Sam’s. “I’ve missed you, old partner.”

>   “I’m amazed an old geezer like you is still flying the globe and getting into trouble.”

  The pilot from Viper Two laughed. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your talent for wheeling and dealing.”

  Remi stood by as the five men hugged one another and started telling war stories and catching up on old times. Remi thought it odd that none of them called one another by name. Finally, she looked at Sam and interrupted, “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

  They all looked at one another, surprised, and then broke into laughter.

  Sam took a confused Remi in his arms, and said, “This is a very, very unusual group. It’s on call around the world for operations such as the Estancia Guerrero. It’s also the finest and least-known secret operations force in the U.S.”

  “That’s why our names and backgrounds are known only to ourselves,” said the pilot of Viper Two.

  “And we all swear an oath of secrecy when we join the force.”

  The gunner of Viper One looked at Remi, and said, “So is this beautiful woman the reason you left the force?”

  Sam smiled with a twinkle in his eye. “That goes without saying.” He gave her an affectionate squeeze around the waist. “Sorry, I can’t give you her name.”

  The villagers were cautiously returning to the village. They had an expression of disbelief at seeing the Apache Longbows, the wreckage of the Mi-8 Hip, and their village completely intact. Father Gomez and Dr. Huerta stood in awe.

  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.”