The Crypt Trilogy Bundle

by Bill Thompson

  “I’m in!” There wasn’t a moment of hesitation in his answer.

  His willingness to stay didn’t surprise Paul, but Gavin’s had.

  The author said, “I’m in too. Hell, I couldn’t dream up a plot as exciting as what we’ve just been through. Let’s play this one out until the very end. This could put me on The New York Times bestseller list!”

  One more person would have stayed if he could. Ted loved archaeology and was fascinated about the implications of what Hailey had found. As the group leader, he had an obligation to get them out of Mexico. They were all dead tired, their nerves frazzled and emotions raging. They simply wanted to go home, to be with family and away from the jungle. It had been too much, and even one more day was unthinkable. Get us out of here! That was the battle cry for the remaining people. Within twenty-four hours they’d be home – safely home.

  Now four eager souls remained. Two were archaeologists. The third was a writer and the last – Paul Silver – was something, but no one knew exactly what.

  Hailey gushed about what she’d found as they walked to Piedras Negras. “You’re really not going to believe it!” she told Mark.

  Paul agreed. “It’s impossible to imagine what you’re going to see! It’s like being in the Valley of the Kings!”

  “How all this fits together is beyond me,” Paul told Mark as they hiked along the same path they’d been marched down as hostages only ten days before. “With your knowledge of these cultures, I can’t wait to hear your ideas.”

  Paul talked about the journals he’d bought in Utah and the cave they’d explored. He told them about the ushabti, the Egyptian figurine that Isaiah Taylor had tossed into the tunnel.

  “Hailey found it! Amazing!”

  Mark laughed. “I don’t know who’s more excited – you or Hailey!”

  As they walked, they discussed whether to open the door in the wall of glyphs. The scientist in Hailey said wait, but she knew it might be now or never. Even with far more years of archaeological experience, Mark agreed with her. He knew from experience how things worked in this part of the world. If they didn’t open the door, someone else would.

  Guatemalan law required that the authorities be contacted as soon as something of importance was discovered. The site would be sealed until archaeologists could be dispatched for a formal investigation. If Paul and his crew followed the rules, they’d be required to leave the site immediately. Given the number of unexcavated sites in the country and the government’s minuscule budget for archaeology, no one would likely show up for months or even years. In the meantime, word would spread about the discovery. Looters would destroy the wall and take whatever was behind it. Its secrets would be lost to science forever.

  They were in agreement. The door would be opened, period. If something significant were there, they would notify the government and protect the site until someone came.

  Mark and Gavin dropped their gear in the cavern. Paul suggested they remove their pistols and holsters since there wasn’t much room in the tunnel anyway. Everyone left the weapons except Paul. He stuck his gun in his waistband, in the small of his back. If anything happened, he was the one whose gun could save them. He’d killed before – time and time again. They hadn’t.

  “Ready?” Hailey asked excitedly.

  “Ready! Lead the way!”

  She grabbed Paul’s hand and walked him to the tunnel. They put on headlamps, and Mark checked the LED flashlight in his pocket.

  “Just before the first turn you’ll notice the ushabti against the wall,” Paul said as they crawled single-file into the hole. “I’ll bring up the rear.”

  Hailey went first, then Mark, Gavin and Paul. She crawled out into the room and immediately focused her attention and her headlamp on the opposite wall.

  “Mark, shine your flashlight over there,” she said as he maneuvered himself out.

  The archaeologist marveled at the sight before him. “It’s even more exciting than I imagined,” he said breathlessly. Gavin emerged next and stood speechless with the others as Paul came up behind them.

  But it wasn’t Paul.

  “Hola, señores,” they heard, then a sneering laugh.

  The last two rebels had hidden in a dark corner. Now they stood behind them with pistols drawn. None of them had noticed – their attention was focused entirely on the beautiful wall twenty feet in front of them.

  “What do you want?” Mark responded in Spanish. “You should have run away. Rolando will find you –”

  “Shut up and raise your hands,” one snapped. “Rolando is dead. We have seen the campsite. He and Diego are dead and everyone has gone away. Why did you stay? You should have run away!”

  Mark turned slightly and the rebel yelled, “Stop! Do not move again or I will kill you. When my amigo and I came to this cave, we knew you would be back. We saw the supplies here. We also knew you would come to see this wall. You are archaeologists, after all. So we crawled in here and waited.”

  “How did you know this place was here?” Mark asked.

  “Because this area is my home, gringo. I was born not two miles from here, in the jungle. I played in this cave as a child. Enough talk! We go back now!”

  One of the rebels crawled into the tunnel first. The other prodded Mark and the others to follow. He went last, holding his gun as best he could while he crawled through.

  Paul had been five seconds from emerging into the room when he heard words in Spanish. He pulled back into the darkness of the tunnel, took out his pistol and waited. He saw what was happening but couldn’t shoot – everyone was so close together a bullet could kill one of his friends.

  Paul turned and scrambled back to the main room when the others were ordered into the tunnel. When the first rebel emerged, Paul was ready. He jerked the man around, put his forearm around his throat and held a gun to his head.

  “Silencio, amigo,” he whispered.

  Mark emerged first, then Gavin and Hailey. They saw him holding the rebel and said nothing. The second man crawled through with his pistol in his hand. He immediately saw what was happening and reacted quickly. He slipped behind Hailey and stuck his pistol to her temple.

  “What do you Americans call this? A Mexican standoff?” He grinned. “Drop your gun, señor, or the lady is dead. Do you think I care if you kill my compadre? He means nothing to me. If he is dead, it means more ransom money for me.”

  Paul kept his gun on the rebel. Mark said, “Ransom? What are you talking about?”

  “You’re going to give me ransom money just like you did Rolando. We all saw how easy it was. You Norteamericanos all have money, much more money than we could dream of. I want ten thousand American dollars from each of you. You will be my hostages until I get it. Then I will take the girl for myself and let the rest of you go.”

  Paul immediately saw the futility of this man’s poorly planned kidnapping. If not for the weapons, it would be sadly humorous. Rolando had been well equipped and well manned. But these two guys were drones, not leaders. They hadn’t expected four Americans and now they had their hands full.

  “It’s not going to work,” Paul explained. “How about this? You leave your weapons and walk away. Go wherever you want. Just leave us alone. I’ll give you ten thousand dollars each. Wired to whatever bank you wish.”

  “Wired? No entiendo,” the man responded, confused. I don’t understand. “I just want the cash.”

  “How can we get cash when you’re holding us hostage? It’s not going to work.”

  The man hadn’t thought that far ahead. He paused a moment. Suddenly the other rebel, Paul’s arm still around his neck, spat angry words. “You were going to let him kill me. You want the money for yourself, bastardo.”

  Suddenly the first man turned his gun away from Hailey and aimed it in Paul’s direction. It was the break Paul had been waiting for.

  A shot rang out. Then another.

  The rebel Paul was holding fell to the ground, shot in the shoulder. Paul instant
ly returned fire, hitting the shooter in the abdomen. The man clutched his stomach, started to fall, and swung his pistol crazily. As he dropped, he fired a random shot. Now he lay on the ground, writhing in pain.

  Paul kicked the rebel’s gun away then said, “Is everyone okay? Hailey! Are you all right?”

  She had a quizzical look on her face. She was aware something had happened but couldn’t process what it was. She looked down curiously. There was a hole in her shirt near her breast, and a rivulet of blood was flowing out. The right side of her shirt was quickly turning red.

  “I’m … I’m hurt, I guess,” she said groggily. She sank to the floor in a sitting position and then fell sideways to the ground.

  Paul forgot everything but the horror of what was happening before his eyes. He ran to her side and knelt. She was losing blood – a lot of blood. Her head lolled back – she was fading in and out of consciousness.

  “Hailey. Stay with me! Don’t leave me! We’ll get you back to town … I’ll get help. Stay awake. Can you hear me?” Tears flowed down his cheeks as he touched her face. Her skin was cool, clammy, and her eyes were closed. “God, Hailey. I just found you! Don’t go!”

  The rebel who’d shot her was grunting in pain. He lay in a pool of blood. Paul couldn’t have cared less. He had one thought – the man was going to die, period. If he didn’t die by himself, Paul would do it for him. He caressed Hailey, stroking her hair gently.

  He cradled her head in his lap and squeezed her hand. She responded with a barely perceptible squeeze back. Her glazed eyes opened and she looked up at him blankly.

  “Paul, I’m so tired … so sleepy. I just want to go home.”

  She closed her eyes and released her grip on his hand.

  She was gone.

  “No! Noooooo…” His wailing scream died into anguished sobs.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Two months later

  Paul sat alone in the gloomy cavern the Olmecs called Bird Monster’s cave. He sipped a cognac and watched the small fire toss eerie glimmers on the walls. Tomorrow Mark would arrive and they’d open the sealed doorway in the wall of hieroglyphs that Hailey had found.

  He hadn’t been here since he freed the hostages two months ago. They had walked away without returning to the cavern at the end of the tunnel. Whatever secrets were behind the sealed door were left for another time.

  Paul carried Hailey’s body every step of the way back to the river, his emotions swinging between grieving pain and unbridled fury. Gavin and Mark took charge of the two rebels. The one Paul shot died along the trail.

  “Leave the bastard for the jaguars,” Paul said bitterly as he kept walking. They left his body where he’d fallen. The second rebel, merely grazed by a bullet to the shoulder, would end up in jail.

  Paul arranged for sentries around the clock to guard the cave and whatever was behind the wall. Making that happen meant taking over Piedras Negras, no small feat since it was a governmentally protected archaeological site. A newly formed Cayman Islands company called The Mesoamerican Research Group, or MRG, offered a significant contribution – two hundred thousand dollars – to aid the work of the severely underfunded Guatemalan Ministry of Archaeology. In a quiet, discreet side meeting with the ministry’s director, a bit more cash changed hands, and soon MRG was the recipient of an exclusive one-year research concession to explore Piedras Negras. MRG’s president – its face to the public – was the well-known archaeologist Mark Linebarger. Its actual owner and financial backer stayed out of the limelight. Paul Silver worked alongside Mark as one of MRG’s patrons, but no one knew his true involvement.

  The kidnapping and release of American hostages was the lead story on news channels worldwide, and Frontera Corozal became a household name. Ted was interviewed a dozen times. Without invading personal space, he gave a broad overview of the people who were captured, what happened to them, and how one man – an American named Paul Silver – played a key role in their release. Three others – Gavin, Doc and Julio – were also interviewed. The rest declined – they’d been through enough.

  As much as they tried, the news channels were surprised to find almost no background information about Paul. There were snippets here and there, but an online search showed remarkably little for a supposed New York oil consultant currently living in Villahermosa. Fox was first to dub him the “mystery man” since no one knew how to contact him for an interview. Now all the others had picked up the moniker.

  Paul saw the news from his condo in Villahermosa that was owned by a Panamanian corporation. Even though nothing was in his name, he still had to change his identity. Paul Silver hadn’t lasted long, but he was suddenly far too popular, newsworthy and mysterious. Becoming someone else would be easier this time around; he’d learned how to smooth the process when he did it the last time.

  Today he was back in Piedras Negras for the first time since Hailey’s death. The floatplane that had brought Paul here today took his sentries back to Palenque for a week of vacation. He wanted the place to himself – and Mark. The archaeologist would be dropped here tomorrow, and they’d finally see what Hailey had been so excited about that afternoon two months ago when she showed Paul her discovery.

  Paul went from Frontera Corozal back to his condo in Villahermosa. When he unpacked his suitcase, he found three pages of notes tucked inside. Hailey wrote them while she was alone that day in the cave. Just in case they ran out of time, she explained, she wanted him to understand her theory about the Egyptians, Mexico and one other connection she termed “wild.”

  While she was working on her thesis, she’d researched possible connections between Egyptians, Africans and the Olmec. As a side project she also turned up interesting ideas involving Edgar Cayce’s prophecies about Atlantis. Except for the notes she left for Paul, she kept her theories about those ancient people confidential. They’d never be revealed to a doctoral committee – that would be a sure way towards rejection. Atlantis didn’t warrant serious consideration by anyone in the mainstream, stodgy archaeological community.

  She organized what she’d learned, linking both the Olmec and Atlantean names together:

  The landing site on the river:

  Olmec = Bird Monster’s statue

  Atlantis = Place of the Skull

  Cave in cenote:

  Olmec = Bird Monster’s cave

  Atlantis = Crypt of the Ancients?

  Room with wall of glyphs

  Never mentioned by either culture

  Room behind the sealed door:

  Olmec = the room is not mentioned*

  Atlantis = Hall of Records (or Crypt of the Ancients?)

  * Did they know it existed? Maybe, but nothing is recorded in legend

  She believed “Hall of Records,” the missing repository of books and documents from the doomed civilization, wasn’t actually the Atlantean name for it. Edgar Cayce called the three libraries Halls of Records. Hailey believed the people of Atlantis called the Piedras Negras library the Crypt of the Ancients and that it would be found not far from a statue called the Place of the Skull. Bird Monster’s statue to the Olmecs. The Atlanteans created a map – the one the Egyptian high priest had followed.

  His tears fell on her notes as he read the things she’d been so eager for him to understand. Everything fits with the cavern at Piedras Negras, she concluded. Although she didn’t understand the Egyptian connection, she predicted that the Atlantean Hall of Records was in a crypt behind the wall of brightly painted hieroglyphs.

  Paul deliberately waited two months before coming back here. There was a lot that had to be done. First he’d covered his tracks, vanishing and leaving no way for the people who’d been on the bus to locate him. Everyone still wondered who and what Paul Silver was. Only one person knew anything, and he knew only a little. That person was Mark Linebarger.

  Paul had revealed very little about himself. Mark didn’t care; it was none of his business. Paul gave him an email address and a phone number so they cou
ld communicate. It was a necessary risk, one Paul was willing to take in order to find out what was in the Crypt of the Ancients. Paul was a rank amateur at archaeology, facing potential proof that an Olmec-Egyptian connection existed thousands of years ago.

  The second part of all this was Atlantis. If it could also be proven that Atlantis existed, the discovery would be overwhelming, shaking the scientific community to its roots. Paul needed a front man, a person of reputation and standing in the archaeological community, a man who could present the discovery, take credit for it, and allow the public to learn what might have happened here at Piedras Negras. A man who could allow Paul Silver to be part of a discovery yet maintain his anonymity.

  Paul sipped his cognac and reflected. A lot had happened in these eight weeks. Except for the four who didn’t make it back, everyone who’d gotten on the bus that fateful morning in Villahermosa had returned to his or her home. Gavin had called Mark several times, trying to find out how to get in touch with Paul. As the archaeologist and Paul had agreed, Mark told him he didn’t know anything, and Gavin was now off writing a book about his experiences on the Usumacinta River and in captivity.

  Rolando’s actual name was Juan Garcia. He was a Guatemalan national educated in Paris who’d worked with the Zapatista rebel movement for several years. The kidnapping had been well planned and well executed, carried out ostensibly in the name of secession for the state of Chiapas, but Rolando’s real intention had been to steal the ransom money and kill the hostages.

  The money was another issue. The FBI tried to recover the seven ransom payments, but Rolando’s plan had worked just as he expected. The money went to a bank in Venezuela, a country whose relations with the USA were less than cordial. For weeks the authorities got nowhere. The bank didn’t have the money anyway, so ultimately it released records showing the funds were transferred to a bank in Nicaragua, per instructions on file from Juan Garcia, the man who’d opened the account.

  The Nicaraguan bank refused to respond. What the FBI didn’t know was that the funds weren’t there either. They’d been moved again to a little bank in Costa Rica. Four months after Rolando’s death, the bank received instructions along with the correct password and security code. They transferred seven hundred thousand dollars to another country. It would never be found.