The Fourth Prophecy

by Ernest Dempsey

  “I hear you. I think you’re right. Let’s just keep looking and—”

  A scream ripped through the silence, cutting off whatever Tommy was about to say. They both looked up and over toward the mound. Three of Kirk’s men rushed to where one of the others had been standing a moment before. A hole had opened up in the ground right under the guy’s feet. The opening was fairly large, about eight feet in diameter at its widest point.

  Sean and Tommy hurried over and joined the others already looking into the hole. Some of the men’s mouths were gaping as they stared into the darkness.

  “Reg?” Kirk shouted down into the opening. “You okay?”

  There was no answer. “Reg!” Kirk raised his voice even louder. “What’s your status?”

  No response.

  “Get me lights in there,” Kirk ordered.

  Several of the men produced flashlights and shone them down into the hole. What they found was shocking. Reggie was about twenty-five feet down, lying at an awkward angle on the bottom. A huge stone spike protruded through his chest. There were at least a dozen similar spikes all around him.

  Pablo covered his mouth as he gazed into the hole. “I told you we should leave. This place is cursed.”

  Lilian raised her weapon and pressed the muzzle to Pablo’s head. “I told you no more of that curse talk. You understand?”

  “And I asked you not to threaten our friend,” Sean said. He tapped the top of his rifle with his index finger.

  “That sounds like a threat, Mr. Wyatt,” she said, glaring at him.

  “I’m just asking you to not point guns at people who are on the same team. We’re all on the same team here, right?”

  She nodded slowly and lowered her weapon. “Yes, Sean. You’re correct. We are all on the same team. But get a handle on your lackey. I’d prefer him not spooking the rest of my men. It’s bad enough one just died.”

  She turned her attention to Kirk. “We have ropes, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then let’s tie up. Looks like we just found our way in.”

  Sean swallowed hard and looked at Tommy. They both had a bad feeling about this whole situation, and it wasn’t just because of the deadly hole in the earth. Something wasn’t right. And they were beginning to think it had to do with the woman in charge.

  Chapter 37

  Chiapas

  Kirk was the last of the group to rappel into the chamber below. The rest had carefully lowered themselves with hand brakes to make sure they didn’t suffer the same fate as their impaled comrade.

  Some of the men had compact lanterns in their bags that cast a pale glow around the entire subterranean room. The rest pointed their beams around to assess their surroundings. The walls were cut smooth from the rock in the earth. The hole leading to the surface was a perfect cylinder that dropped into a huge dome-shaped room.

  “This doesn’t look like a temple,” Kirk said. “Looks more like a deathtrap.”

  “Whoever or whatever created this,” Tommy said, “it wasn’t done by primitive tools. They had some other kind of technology.”

  “What do you mean?” Kirk asked.

  “You can’t get that clean of a bore through the rock with a hammer and chisel. I mean, you could, but it would take centuries to get this deep and get it so clean. Not only that, you’d have to have an army of skilled craftsmen to do it. This looks like it was done by a machine.”

  “What are you saying?” Lilian asked. “That the ancient people who built this had modern tech?”

  Tommy rolled his shoulders. “Wouldn’t be the first time we encountered something like that.”

  “Do you think this was put here deliberately?” Lilian asked, staring at the spikes and the deceased man’s body.

  “Yeah,” Sean said, “this was obviously a trap. Though if I had to guess, I’d say it wasn’t put here by Alvarado’s men.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because,” Tommy answered for his friend, “see the decorative carvings around the spikes?” He pointed his flashlight at one of the nearest cones. “Those aren’t Spanish. They’re Mayan.”

  Tommy stepped away from the grisly scene and joined his friend.

  Sean was standing off to the side of the circle of deadly spikes where the floor was tiled with large, smooth stones similar to those he’d seen in so many city streets. He put his beam on the far wall in what he thought was the direction of the mound above and lowered it until the broad circle of light hit something out of the ordinary at the base where it met the floor.

  “What is that?” Tommy asked.

  His question drew the attention of everyone else in the group, and they all turned their lights in the same direction.

  “Looks like a pile of rocks,” Sean said. He moved slowly toward it, minding every step in case there were other traps in place. If the people who built this temple—if that’s what it was—had taken the time to put in one trap, they’d have installed more.

  As Sean drew near, he could see what happened. “They blocked this corridor,” he said.

  “Is it a way out or a way in?” Lilian asked.

  “Let’s move these rocks and see.”

  The men with lanterns set them on the ground around the pile of stones to light the area while others began removing the rocks one by one. Some were heavier and required two pairs of hands to get them out of the way. The group formed a line on two sides and passed the rocks from one to another to keep them out of the way.

  Pike watched, though the other woman got in line with the rest of the unit and toiled away to clear the passage.

  “What does that mean?” Lilian asked, pointing at a dark engraving over the entryway. The image looked like it was half primate, half human, with an enlarged head. The creature was in a sitting position with its knees pulled toward its face.

  Tommy glanced up at it and then took the next rock the man to his left handed to him. “That’s Yum Cimil,” he said. When he noticed the befuddled look on her face, he snorted a laugh to himself. “The Mayan god of death,” he explained.

  “The Mayans didn’t just believe him to be the god of death,” Pablo added. “Yum Cimil was a world bringer, a changer of earth and sky. They believed that when the time was right, he would return and cleanse the world of evil and return it to a state of balance. It is as was foretold in the fourth prophecy.”

  Tommy paused, holding a big rock in his hands, and glanced back at Pablo, then he handed him the stone.

  “You don’t understand what you’re doing here,” he went on. “This place is the key to it all. It is the catalyst that will bring about doom for most of humanity. Yum Cimil will return and destroy everything. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  Sean frowned as he passed another rock down the line. He stiffened, stretching his back while he stared at the politician. “Hold on a second. How much of this did you know about?”

  Lilian stood like a statue at the end of the two lines, staring at Sean with a lifeless, cold look in her eyes. “You know, I believe your friend here has outlived his usefulness.”

  She raised her pistol and fired. The loud pop reverberated through the chamber, causing everyone to suddenly cover their ears. Pablo’s face contorted in agony for a moment, and then he fell over onto his side.

  “No!” Tommy shouted and dropped the rock he was handling.

  Sean swung his weapon around and dropped to his knees. His reflexes were quicker than hers, and he squeezed the trigger the second the sights were lined up with her abdomen.

  The rifle thundered in the giant room, once more causing everyone there to instantly grab at their ears. The round hit its mark and plowed through Lilian’s lower chest and out through her back. The blow knocked her backward, and she fell to the floor in a splattering of blood.

  The blonde woman immediately turned to her and got down on one knee to lend aide while the rest of the men went after Sean and Tommy.

  Sean knew what they would do t
he second he took aim at Lilian Pike. He immediately turned to the nearest man to his left as the guy tried to whip his gun around to fire. Sean grabbed the barrel and jerked him forward, smashing his elbow into the man’s nose. Blood poured from the broken appendage a second later as the guy grabbed at the wound with both hands.

  Tommy saw the mercenary next to him taking aim at Sean and reacted. He swung his weapon around and slammed the butt of his gun into the guy’s jaw, knocking him out instantly. The gunman right behind him saw what happened and lunged forward to return the favor. Tommy caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye and ducked as the guy waved his gun around in a wide, horizontal arc. Then Tommy jammed his muzzle into the man’s gut and squeezed the trigger. Bullets tore out of the man’s back, flying dangerously at the rest of Pike’s men.

  Kirk dove out of the way, narrowly dodging the deadly barrage. Two of his other men weren’t so lucky. One caught a round in the chest, and the other took one in the groin.

  The other three hired gunmen were able to dive clear in the nick of time, rolling to the side as Tommy’s gun clicked. He was out of rounds.

  Sean let his opponent fall to the ground and charged toward Kirk, who’d rolled to a stop next to one of the lanterns. Kirk raised his weapon as Sean rushed forward, the gun in his hands already leveled at his target. Sean shot first, spraying a volley at Kirk, who once more was forced to roll clear of the bullet storm. One of the rounds missed wildly to the right and struck the lantern closest to where Kirk had been only a moment before. That half of the room suddenly plunged into darkness.

  One of Kirk’s men on the other side of the temple entrance saw what was about to happen. Sean was moving in for the kill shot while their leader tried to recover. The guy saw the second lantern at his feet, reached over, and switched it off.

  Suddenly, the entire temple antechamber was thrown into a deep black with only a dim light coming in from the hole above and the residual glow of flashlights that had been placed on the ground during their earlier work.

  Kirk fired his weapon three times at Sean’s silhouette, but the rounds sparked off the far wall and ricocheted dangerously for several seconds before dying somewhere in the room.

  Sean hit the floor as the enemy’s weapon blazed. He slid out of the light and into the shadows to level the playing field. If he couldn’t see Kirk, there was no reason he should stay in plain sight either.

  On the other side of the room, Tommy crouched low, doing his best to stay hidden in the dark. Pike’s remaining three men huddled in a group, still visible in the flashlight corona. One of them hurried over to three of the lights and picked them up, switched them off, then returned to the others.

  The room sank deeper into blackness. Even the light coming in from the jungle above dimmed as the sun ran farther toward the horizon, far from the view of everyone in the underground chamber.

  The other two guys in the huddle removed their sidearms from their holsters and aimed at the remaining flashlights they deemed too far away. One shot after the other obliterated the last of the lights until the only ones left were the three they held in their hands. It was nearly impossible to see anything, which was exactly what they wanted.

  “Kirk!” one of the men shouted. “You okay?”

  Kirk didn’t respond. He wasn’t about to give away his position. Wyatt could be anywhere. To say anything could be a fatal mistake.

  The voice spoke up again from a different position in the chamber. “Kirk?”

  A sudden sound of fabric swishing echoed through the room. Someone was moving. Who was it? One of his men, or was it Wyatt or Schultz? It was impossible to know.

  One of the other three flipped the switch on his flashlight on and then off again, giving a strobe effect to the place. The other two had spread out to cover more ground in their search. A minute later, he did it again from a new spot.

  Sean and Tommy were on opposite sides of the room, but they both had the same thought. The guy was sweeping the area, staying on the move to make finding him more difficult. If he happened upon either Tommy or Sean and shone that light in their face, it would be momentarily blinding and would mean certain death.

  The gunman flashed the light once more. This time, Sean made a note of his position relative to the last place he’d flipped the switch. He was moving in a clear pattern around the base of the wall, probably to close in the center gradually like a boa constrictor. Another blink of light showed Sean the other two men were doing the same thing, but in the opposite direction, slowly working their way into the center of the room.

  Tommy was tucked behind one of the big spikes. He knew there was only one chance to gain an edge. When the gunman flashed his light on and off again, Tommy took off at a dead sprint toward the temple entrance. There were still some stones in the way, but the opening was 90 percent clear.

  The hunters heard the footsteps and switched on their flashlights. Their beams were aimed haphazardly all over the room, but there was enough light to see Tommy making a mad dash for the door.

  The gunmen leveled their weapons to shoot, but Kirk yelled out at them.

  “Hold your fire, you idiots! You’ll kill us all!”

  Sean heard the man’s voice come from a position not far to his left. After crawling to the relative safety of the back corner of the room, he’d crouched with his weapon ready in case someone tried anything stupid.

  He hadn’t expected the someone to be Tommy.

  Sean lined up one of the gunmen in his sights and picked him off with one shot. The guy fell backward with a hole at the base of his neck. The light clanked on the floor and stopped, pointing straight at Sean. The other two men and Kirk immediately turned their attention to where the shot had come from. They aimed their guns from the hip, but there was nothing but a wall.

  Kirk looked back toward the temple entrance, but Tommy was gone, too.

  “You two!” Kirk shouted. “Go after him! I’ll handle Wyatt!”

  The men shut off their lights, and the world turned black again. Sean crouched behind one of the spikes near the impaled body of the man who fell through the hole. He couldn’t see the last two of Pike’s mercenaries feeling their way along the wall toward the entrance, though he figured that’s what they were doing.

  “It’s just you and me now, Sean,” Kirk said, emboldened by the dark. “Mano a mano.” The chamber went silent again for a moment before Kirk spoke again from somewhere else. “I have to admit, I’m impressed. You and your friend killed some of my best men. Unfortunate, but they can be replaced. That’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it?”

  Sean turned his weapon toward the sound of the voice but saw nothing. His nostrils filled with the familiar scent of burned powder as it lingered in an unmoving cloud throughout the area.

  “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to fight one of you white-collar guys. Your kind didn’t get forged in the crucible of war like me and the others. Sure, you went through some government training and whatnot, but nothing trains you like the battlefield.”

  He was egging Sean on, trying to get a reaction that would give away his position. In doing so, Kirk continued to let Sean know where he was for a moment before shifting quickly to another part of the room to throw him off.

  “Why don’t you come out and play with me, Sean? Enough of this hide and seek.”

  Kirk felt a warm muzzle press against the base of his skull and froze.

  “You want to play, Kirk? I’ll play with you.”

  “Very good, Wyatt. Cute trick. Although I have to say I’m disappointed. I was hoping we could do this like men.”

  “What is going on here?” Sean asked, pressing the gun deeper into Kirk’s neck. “What was Pike really after?”

  A wicked laugh escaped Kirk’s mouth. “You’re a smart guy, Wyatt. You know all about this ancient mumbo jumbo. What do you think it’s about? Huh?”

  “Pike sent us here to find a source of power. She said she wanted it for green energy to share wit
h the world.”

  “And you were stupid enough to believe it.”

  Sean pulled the man’s head back harder against the gun’s muzzle. Kirk grunted from the pain, but he didn’t give in.

  “You’d better start talking, and you’d better start right now,” Sean said.

  “Or what? You’ll splatter my brains all over this wall? That’s not going to stop it, Wyatt. Nothing can stop it now. You and your friend brought us here. The world is going to crumble, and you’ll have a front row seat.”

  Sean’s head swirled. World crumble? Led them here? What was he talking about? It didn’t take long for the epiphany to hit. The murders in Washington, the mission to find this place, Pike’s crusade against those she thought responsible for the death of her son and subsequently, her husband—all of it was one big plot for revenge. That’s why she was so quick to shoot Pablo. She didn’t need him. She only needed Sean and Tommy. Alone, Pike couldn’t have found this place. She’d used them, playing them like a a couple of naive rookies until they brought her right to the doorstep of the lost temple.

  “It’s a cataclysm machine,” Pike’s voice suddenly pierced the darkness from the other side of the room.

  Sean’s eyes narrowed as he peered into the soaking blackness. That’s impossible, he thought.

  “Yum Cimil is the bringer of death and the cleanser of the earth.” The other two gunmen turned on their flashlights, and Pike came into view in the doorway, standing amid the last remnants of stones. She stood behind Tommy, holding her pistol to the back of his head.

  Chapter 38

  Chiapas

  “I’m surprised you two didn’t figure it out before now,” she went on. “All the signs were there. Luckily, I was betting on you both being too trusting to think I’d send you into the jungle to find something so sinister.”

  “The dead congressman?” Sean asked.

  “Just the tip of the iceberg,” she answered. “I had two more executed after him. Their oil took my family from me. It took my life, everything I’d worked so hard to build. They stole everything from me. So yes, I had them killed. Seems fair enough.”