The rebel stepped around the head on the floor and spoke to the archaeologist. “Decirles que dejen de gritar.”
Tell them to stop screaming.
“What’d he say? What does he want?” Ted hoped for something, anything that would thrust him out of this horror and back into reality.
“He says make them stop screaming.”
Ted stood, faced the group, and held open palms before him to calm them. His voice trembled as he struggled for words that would calm them.
“Everyone, listen to me. We have to stop the noise. What we’ve seen is horrific, but he’s telling us to be quiet. This is crazy. It’s impossible to imagine. If we’re going to survive, we need to do what he says, and do it right now. We can figure this out later. For now, please be quiet. We don’t want more trouble.”
As best they could, the passengers complied. Gasping sobs of anguish and fear continued, but the bus got dramatically quieter. The only voice was Doc Spence soothing his wife, who had recovered from her fainting spell.
Using the archaeologist as his interpreter, the masked man told the passengers to hand over their cell phones. He knew each of these gringos had one, and his accomplice gathered them into a bag and brought them to the front of the bus.
The man in charge handed the machete to his partner and took his gun instead. “Diego, get rid of the phones,” he barked in Spanish. He gave more instructions, and then Diego left. He went into some nearby bushes, stayed a couple of minutes, and returned empty-handed. Then everyone heard an engine start and saw two men drive away in a pickup that had been hidden in the jungle.
“What are they doing?” Ted quietly asked the archaeologist.
“He told Diego to have the pickup driver go to the meeting point and wait –”
“Silencio!” The man swung his rifle around and shouted again. “Silencio!”
Mark stopped mid-sentence and shook his head. There would be time to talk later. Hopefully.
Ted stood and said, “If it’s money you want –”
“SILENCIO!” The man punched Ted so hard in the face it knocked him backward into his seat. The passengers watched in horror, gasping as the group leader they’d known less than forty-eight hours nursed his wounded jaw.
Their captor talked to Mark in rapid Spanish. Julio, the local guide who sat behind Ted, lowered his head as he listened. This horrifying episode wasn’t coming to an end. The nightmare had just begun.
CHAPTER FOUR
At the cocktail party and introductory briefing in Villahermosa two nights ago, everyone laughed during introductions when a man in his forties with a pleasant British accent spoke. He said he was Gavin Michaels, a Brit turned American citizen who’d lived in Rosemary Beach, Florida for years. He was the author of more than twenty archaeological mysteries.
“Who knows? Each of you may be in my next book!” he said with a grin. A few people nodded to each other – they’d recognized the author’s name.
Paul Silver’s turn was next. He told the group he was an American from New York, living temporarily in Villahermosa and working as a consultant for the Mexican state oil company, Pemex. He said he was particularly interested in the Olmec culture they’d seen at La Venta today. Paul was a handsome guy in his thirties with striking European features. His olive complexion gave him a perpetual tan. Hailey Knox was the only unattached female in the group. As she listened to him, she decided she wanted to know more.
When it was her turn, Hailey told the group she was twenty-seven, working on a PhD in archaeology with an emphasis on Egyptology at UMC, the University of Marin County, and she lived in Napa, California. “I know some of you are fluent in Spanish,” she joked, “and I’m fluent too – but in hieroglyphs! I know, I know – it may not be too helpful here in Mexico, but if we find a room full of glyphs, I’m your gal to interpret them! And maybe we will find hieroglyphs here!” Those last words were in a conspiratorial whisper. She laughed and several others did too.
The next morning she went through the breakfast buffet and headed directly to the table where Paul sat with a young couple, Win and Alison. Hailey had met them last evening over cocktails.
“May I join you?”
They all responded cordially; Paul pulled out a chair next to him, thinking how sexy this lady looked. He’d noticed her last night at the intro party, but this morning she looked absolutely bewitching. She wore a tight-fitting cotton shirt with long sleeves rolled up, a pair of shorts that accentuated her curves perfectly, and her legs looked like they went on forever.
Unaccustomed to these feelings, Paul snapped back to reality. He prided himself on always being in control, especially when it involved emotions. For years he hadn’t allowed himself to become close to anyone. Sex was one thing, but for him sex didn’t involve a relationship and it wasn’t intimate. It was a single, solitary moment of release.
Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? He smiled at the thought. I’m already thinking about sex and I don’t even know who she is.
There was something about Hailey Knox that was different. She was captivating. He’d have to be careful – he always was. In Paul Silver’s life there was no room for mistakes … or commitments, for that matter. But still …
As they ate breakfast, Paul asked Hailey what she meant about hieroglyphs in Mexico. Did she really believe that they might be here somewhere?
“Actually, yes.” Her answer surprised Win and Alison but not Paul. She said she’d come here to research a theory about Egyptians having visited the area in pharaonic times. “If they came, it stands to reason they recorded their visits. They were prolific with glyphs both in Egypt and in neighboring countries they seized. Why not here?”
“Really?” Paul replied, wondering if she was working on the same ideas he was. “Egyptians in Mesoamerica? Isn’t that a stretch?”
“I don’t think it is. Remember all those Olmec heads we saw at La Venta yesterday? The Olmec people undeniably had seen Africans – right? They didn’t dream up the facial characteristics that are shown on those statues.”
“Obviously. But Egyptians don’t look like that…” He was pushing to get more information, to see if she knew what he did.
“I have a theory that’s also the subject of my thesis. I don’t want to bore you – my friends say I get a little tedious when I start in on things I love – but if anyone’s interested, get with me this week and I’ll tell you more!” She flashed a big smile and went back to her breakfast.
Paul was absolutely interested. A beautiful woman with an unusual theory. He was beginning to think Hailey might cause this trip to be more entertaining than he’d expected. And her theory – Egyptians in Mexico – was precisely why he was here as well. He never thought he’d run across someone else on this tour that thought Egyptians might have come to Mesoamerica. Maybe this was a fortuitous coincidence.
Everyone finished breakfast and boarded the coach for the several-hour trip to Palenque. Hailey deliberately waited until Paul climbed on board. He picked a window seat and noticed she was standing in the aisle right behind him.
“Care for some company? I want to know more about why you came on this trip and about that falcon amulet you’re wearing!”
“Sure!” What the hell. It wouldn’t hurt to see what she was all about. He wanted to hear her Egypt-Mexico theory anyway. As far as the amulet went – he’d lie about that. She’d never know it was a flash drive.
She smiled as she settled in for the bus ride. I’m not going to drop the rest of my theory on him just yet. Better to break my ideas to him slowly so he doesn’t think I’m a loony. I can’t even publish my conclusions in my thesis – they’d laugh me out of the doctoral program for the stuff I’ve found out about Atlantis!
CHAPTER FIVE
Although almost everything Paul had said when it was his turn to talk last evening was a lie, the part about his burning interest in the Olmec culture was true. He particularly wanted to see the ruins at La Venta and to pick Mark Linebarger
’s brain. The Toronto archaeologist was recognized worldwide for his knowledge of the Olmecs, and he’d published six books about the mysterious people and their statues with such unusual physical characteristics.
The Olmecs were known for their carvings of huge stone heads. Some of these colossal stones were twelve feet tall, and all bore distinctively African facial features. Although no one knew for certain, most people believed that people of African descent must have visited Mesoamerica long ago. There would have been no other way for the jungle-dwelling Olmecs to know African people even existed.
There was something else Paul wanted to explore, something he’d come across purely by accident in his research. It would require a side trip to a rarely visited site far down the Usumacinta River. For over a year he had been investigating a possible connection between the Olmec people and the Mayan city of Piedras Negras. Paul was onto something that might link them in a very strange way. Something very important might have been hidden in the jungle city, brought by visitors from a faraway land, a people whom the Olmecs used as models for their African heads.
It would have been simple for Paul to have gone to Toronto, met with Mark Linebarger in person, traveled to Mexico on a private jet to visit La Venta, then hired a guide to go to Piedras Negras. He had the means to do whatever he wanted, and his real occupation left him plenty of flexibility in his schedule. Paul had chosen anonymity in his quest to find an Olmec-Africa-Mayan connection. If his theory could be proved, it would be a major historical discovery and would shock those who wouldn’t accept anything outside what they could touch and feel. He had to be careful not to attract attention to himself, so he joined an archaeological tour and lied about who he was. The man who called himself Paul Silver didn’t want publicity. The less people who even knew he existed, the better.
The primary reason Paul was on this tour was a journal. He’d come across it accidentally and paid almost nothing for it. He went to Salt Lake City to research the Spanish connection to Mayans who may have intermarried with the conquistadors. While he was there, he noticed an ad in the local paper about an archaeologist’s estate sale, and he attended. When he realized the man had been part of the Brigham Young University team in Piedras Negras from 1997 to 2001, he became much more interested in the things that were being auctioned. In the few minutes before the sale started, he pawed through stacks of boxes, ignoring everything else. He wanted to know where the man’s notes were. He came across a large box of handwritten journals, gave it a quick look, and took it home for ten dollars. He’d been the only bidder.
A professor named Isaiah Taylor wrote the journals. He was a young and therefore minor member of the BYU team. Paul learned on Google that he’d contracted jungle fever during the 2001 season and died at age twenty-seven a few weeks after coming home to Utah. His parents had put his belongings in a storage unit and paid the rent for years until they decided it was time to let them go. That day’s auction was the result of that decision.
Isaiah Taylor didn’t have a PhD. Obviously his superiors thought his journals less important than those of the senior members. The important people’s notes were in BYU’s archives, not in a cardboard box at an estate sale. No one seemed to care what Isaiah Taylor thought.
Paul spent hours reading page after page of boring entries. What kept him going were the occasional snippets that provided a fascinating look into Piedras Negras, one of the most important trading posts in the ancient Mesoamerican world.
Taylor had been a meticulous note-taker. He dutifully recorded everything he and the team saw and did over the fourteen-week 2001 season. Paul skimmed the details about potsherds, crude weapons, eating utensils and bones. He persevered in hopes something interesting would turn up – something that could corroborate a theory he had about the Olmec and Mayan civilizations. From Taylor’s notes he learned that the Mayan name for Piedras Negras was Yokib – the “entrance” – because of a massive three-hundred-foot-wide “bottomless” sinkhole. They believed it led to Xibalba, the spirit world below.
Buried halfway through the last journal of the series was the entry that got Paul’s adrenalin flowing.
Being this deeply in the jungle, we have endured pests of all sizes, from huge snakes curled snugly around tree branches three feet from our heads to “no-see-ums,” tiny gnats that buzz and bite the dickens out of one’s exposed skin. It was a welcome break today when my boss, Janet Strickland, discovered the entrance to a cave twenty-two feet below ground level, in the east wall of the sinkhole. Dr. Houston (the team’s director) sent Dr. Strickland and me down to see what was there. My first impression was it felt gloriously cool and damp – very inviting given the oppressive, muggy heat we’ve experienced.
We found a cavern 7.5 feet high, 10 feet wide and 42 feet long. (Here he drew a sketch of the rectangular room.) The walls are rough stone. There is a fire pit in the middle, with ash and remnants of wood. In the rear wall is a hole about 4 feet in diameter that appears to be a tunnel extending into the wall itself. We don’t have time or the equipment with us to explore it today. Our season is almost over, so it will be added to next year’s agenda, Dr. Strickland says.
I carefully inspected the walls and floor of this room and found only one thing – but it was a curious one. I saw a three-inch ushabti on the sandy floor near the tunnel at the back. (Here he included a crude drawing of it.) I have never heard of this type of funerary object other than in ancient Egypt. I showed the piece in situ to Dr. Strickland, who dismissed it immediately as irrelevant. Her exact words were, “Don’t spend time trying to figure out how an Egyptian ushabti ended up in a cave at Piedras Negras. You’ll tarnish your reputation – a reputation you don’t even have yet – trying to justify something that couldn’t possibly have come from Egypt thousands of years ago. This thing was obviously planted here in recent times.”
It just doesn’t make sense why someone in the twentieth century would drop an Egyptian ushabti in a remote cave so deep in the jungle it’s unlikely anyone will ever see it. I wish I could pursue whether the object could somehow have ended up here in ancient times, but that’s neither the purpose of our expedition nor the way to achieve tenure at BYU. Don’t rock the boat, especially with Dr. Strickland looking over my shoulder. So I’m taking her advice. I’m dropping both the idea and the figurine. I’m tossing it into the tunnel for someone else to discover. Who knows – one day another archaeologist may determine it’s the key to discovering ancient trade routes between Mesoamerica and Africa!
Taylor’s journal was written in 2001, in what was supposed to be the fourth of five dig seasons at Piedras Negras for BYU. It turned out to be their last – Isaiah Taylor never saw Piedras Negras again, nor did any of the others. Even today no one has explained why the five-year project was abruptly terminated a year before its scheduled end. The dean of the archaeology department claimed the sudden withdrawal was due to bandits, political unrest in the area and the like, but those things had been going on for years. They were relatively minor, nothing new, and on the surface they shouldn’t have caused a major university to abandon a fully funded expedition a year early. Was there something else?
Paul was captivated. For some time he’d knocked around a crazy theory, and now the notes of a minor archaeologist named Isaiah Taylor might just help prove it true.
He began planning his trip to southern Mexico. First he’d visit the Olmec capital of La Venta on the Gulf of Mexico, then the ruins at Piedras Negras. According to the infrequent visitors, the jungle had now reclaimed the city explored by BYU fifteen years ago. It was a lost city once again. Getting there would be difficult and potentially dangerous these days, but he would do it somehow. For enough money, someone would take him to the ruins.
And so he was here today as just another participant on a Crestmark archaeology trip. His cover as a consultant for Pemex was perfect; it provided just enough information to appear legitimate, but not enough for anyone to check him out. His plan had been to break away from the tour for
a day or two when they got to Frontera Corozal. The group itinerary was to visit the ruins at Yaxchilan. He’d hire a boat and go to Piedras Negras instead.
Now everything had changed. They were prisoners, kidnapped by rebels. The others would consider themselves fortunate Paul Silver was along today before this journey was over.
CHAPTER SIX
Since Paul spoke fluent Spanish, he understood the rebels. They hadn’t said where they were going, but they mentioned several hours of driving. Once the bus left the main highway and pulled onto a rutted side road, Paul had a good idea where they were headed. So did Ted and Mark. The road only went one place – a tiny village that was on their itinerary for later in the week. This road dead-ended at the river town of Frontera Corozal. If ransom was the goal of their captors, they’d probably either be taken across the Usumacinta River into Guatemala or along the river somewhere, maybe to Yaxchilan. The river went on for miles to the north, but after the ruins at Yaxchilan, there was nothing to see for hours and hours except jungle. In the opposite direction there was no habitation at all for more than fifty miles.
Hailey was glad she had been next to Paul when the hijacking happened. She was terrified but struggled not to let him see her fear. On the other hand, Paul was calm. That eased her mind. He seemed like a good guy and a smart individual.
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