Xibalba- a Dane Maddock Adventure

by David Wood

  “You don’t believe Xibalba was connected with a real place?” Angel asked.

  “Whether or not it was, searching for it panders to the sensational. You might as well search for Atlantis, or the Seven Cities of Cibola.”

  Bones coughed loudly and Maddock grinned. “Thanks for the help,” he said. “We’ll say we figured it out from watching the History Channel.”

  He let the matter of their goal drop while they made their way out of the tower, but when Bell paused for a rest, Maddock approached him. “So now we’ve got a map. What’s the next step?”

  “We have to find the start of the road. A sacred site that corresponds to the serpent's tail. I’ll need Internet access to compare astronomical charts and Maya cities.”

  Maddock nodded. “I know a guy who might be able to help with that.”

  Bell nodded. “My instincts tell me we’ll need to look to the south. The alignment of the guidestone in its original setting, and the serpent path here in the architecture all seem to follow that basic rule.”

  “How far south?”

  “Honduras. The ancient Maya capital of Copán. It was a major city in the Classic period, and a major cultural capital. It’s also almost exactly due south of here. If we can locate this glyph in the ruins there, we’ll know we’re on the right track.”

  “Maddock,” Bones’ voice had lost its usual sardonic edge, a sure sign that something was wrong. “Don’t be obvious about it, but take a look at my eight o’clock.”

  Maddock made a show of stretching, as if trying to work out a kink in his neck, to hide a visual sweep of the area indicated. As he did, he glimpsed someone ducking into the woods about seventy-five yards up the trail leading back to El Castillo.

  “He rabbited,” Maddock said. “Did you get a look at him?”

  Bones shook his head. “No.”

  Miranda now took note of their discussion. “What’s up?”

  “I think we attracted some unwanted attention.”

  Miranda evidently knew better than to question the assessment. “How do you want to play this?”

  “I think it’s time to take in a little culture.” He turned to Griego and Bell. “Would you mind walking us through the route you just showed us?”

  Bell started to protest. “I don’t think that’s really—”

  Miranda cut him off. “Dad. We really need to do this.” She took his hand and led him down the steps.

  An uncomprehending Griego just shrugged and went ahead of them down a footpath. “I can show you the rest of the Casa Colorada group. The House of Dark Writing may be of interest to you in your search.”

  As the archaeologist launched into a comprehensive history of the site, Maddock lingered with Angel, ducking behind the south end of the observatory. A few seconds later, a lone figure came into view. He had the dark hair and complexion of a local, but wore nicer clothes and, more tellingly, wasn’t carrying an armful of cheap souvenirs. Maddock drew Angel further along the side path, out of the man’s view, and waited until he had passed before creeping forward slowly, just in case the man wasn’t alone. There was no sign of other watchful eyes, and the man did not appear to have noticed that anyone was missing from the group he was following, but Maddock remained wary.

  “He’s following us, all right.”

  “You think he’s just another hired gun?” Angel whispered.

  “Hard to say. I guess we’ll have to ask him. Wait here.” He started forward, moving swiftly but stealthily, trying to stay directly behind the man to avoid detection.

  Further up the trail, Bones was putting on a show, gesturing wildly and talking loudly about the structure they were approaching—the Nunnery.

  It wasn’t an actual nunnery, and never had been, but that didn’t stop Bones from making obscene jokes about it.

  Maddock got within ten yards of his quarry before the man realized he was being stalked.

  He whirled, a panicked look in his eyes, and then bolted.

  Maddock made a grab for him, but the man slipped through his fingers, and charged off at an oblique angle, headed for the treeline.

  “Crap!” Maddock snarled. He gave chase, even though he knew the effort would prove futile. There was little chance of catching the man before he reached the woods, and even less chance of finding him once he slipped into the dense jungle.

  But just as the man reached the edge of the forest, he stopped abruptly and appeared to rise off the ground, as if attempting a backflip. The maneuver ended with him flat on his back and Angel standing over him, one foot pressing down on the man’s throat.

  She raised her eyes to Maddock as he drew near. “I love you, but you should know better than to tell me to wait.”

  “Noted,” Maddock replied. He knelt beside Angel’s struggling captive. “All right, friend,” he said in Spanish. “Start talking. Why were you following us?”

  “Following you? No, señor. You are mistake—”

  Angel’s foot pressed down harder, cutting off the denial.

  “Let’s try that again,” Maddock said. “Why were you following us?”

  The man emitted a strangled sound until Angel eased off a little. “I was only going to warn you.”

  “Warn us of what?”

  The man’s reply was a hoarse whisper that had nothing to do with Angel’s boot on his neck. “La Hermandad de la Serpiente. They will never let you find Ciudad de Sombre.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Isabella Beltran kept a firm grip on the saddle with her thighs, remaining perfectly erect as the stallion cut around the barrel, executed a three-quarter loop, and charged off again. She held the reins loosely, letting the animal do what it knew how to do, but ready to assert her authority if it needed a reminder. It did not.

  Not anymore.

  Early on, when she had first acquired him, she had been obliged to exert a much firmer hand, but now he not only knew who was in charge, but knew what he was supposed to do and did it without being goaded.

  Animals seemed to learn that lesson so much better than humans.

  They rounded the second barrel, but as the stallion started to gallop toward the next, she spotted Hector’s car rolling down the drive. She thought about finishing the practice run; it was what the stallion would expect and she hated to interrupt him since it would only confuse him the next time they rode, but knew that her uncle would not have made a second in-person appearance in as many days if the matter were not important. She tugged on the reins, turning the horse toward the fence at a trot as Hector pulled to a stop on the other side and got out to meet her.

  He had been in her thoughts a lot of late, and not just because of the risk of what might be revealed if the cenote became public knowledge. The possibility that el Guia and the curse which clung to it might be real had brought all of Hector’s stories back to the surface, making her question the choices she had made.

  She wanted her father, God rest his soul, to be proud of her, but had he wanted her to follow in his own footsteps, or her uncle’s?

  “I thought you were going to call me,” she shouted. “Did you decide not to involve the federales?”

  Hector looked pensive as he approached the fence. “The archaeologists managed to overpower the men I hired to deal with the situation.”

  Isabella reined the horse to a stop, but did not dismount. “Do you need me to arrange an intervention?”

  He shook his head. “The damage is done. I have decided to try a different approach. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “The other matter? Honduras? Did someone really find el Guia?”

  Hector would not meet her gaze. “They’re all gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Dead.”

  “What do you mean all? Everyone with the fever?”

  “Everyone. The village is gone. Torched.”

  Isabella stiffened. “You need to get control of your people, uncle.”

  “It wasn’t...” He hesitated. “The order did not come from me. I’m not
certain what happened. There may be another player. Or... something else.”

  “But you have lost control of the situation,” she snapped. She took a breath. “I’m sorry, Uncle, but you must realize how important it is to get this situation resolved.”

  “I do,” he said. “I intend to take care of it personally.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Right now, just a way to get there quickly and discreetly.”

  “Done.” That was the simplest thing he could have asked for. The cartel’s transportation network routinely moved both people and cargo—drugs, guns, cash—from Columbia to the Texas border and back again. “I will have Garcia make the arrangements.”

  Hector looked her in the eye. “And something else. If something happens to me...”

  Isabella sucked in a breath. “Don’t say that.”

  “El Guia must be recovered at any cost. You know this is true. And if I fall, you will have to finish this.”

  Isabella stared back at him for several long seconds. “Whatever you need, Tio.”

  Maddock hauled the man to his feet, gripping him by his shirtfront. “Hermandad de la Serpiente? Serpent brothers? What the hell does that mean?”

  The man quavered in fear, but said nothing coherent.

  “Who are these serpent brothers?” Maddock pushed, giving the man a shake. “Are you one of them?”

  The man shook his head, but Maddock couldn’t tell if it was an answer or a plea for mercy.

  The rest of the group was coming back up the path to join them. Griego looked dismayed, but did not intervene. Bones, however, moved in close, looming above the man. “Motor oil and wooden stakes,” he said with gleeful menace. “I’ll get him talking.”

  “They paid me to warn you,” the man gasped. “That’s all I know.”

  “Who paid you? Give me a name?”

  “Nobody knows their names. They are the old one who guard Ciudad de Sombre.” The admission seemed to restore some of the man’s courage. “They won’t let you find it. They will kill you to protect the secret. I was sent to warn you.”

  “The City of Shadow,” Maddock repeated. “You know about it?”

  “Si. Everyone knows about it.”

  “Starting to seem that way,” Bones muttered.

  “Do you know where it is?”

  The man shook his head again, emphatically, as if the question both frightened and offended him. “No one knows. The Shadow must remain hidden or the world will die.”

  “The mumbo jumbo is strong with this one,” Bones said. “Let me handle this.”

  “You’re not going to get anything from him,” Miranda said. “He’s just hired help. Like the guys that tried to rough us up back at the cenote.”

  Maddock was inclined to agree. “At least now we know who’s behind it.”

  “Serpent Brothers?” Bones was dubious. “Sounds like the name of the world’s worst boy band.”

  Maddock relaxed his grip, holding the man at arm’s length. “Tell the Serpent Brothers that if they want us to stop looking, they’re going to have to stop with the threats and vague warnings, and meet with us, face to face. Got it?”

  The man just stared back at him, goggle-eyed. Maddock held onto him a moment longer, then let go. The man stumbled back a few steps, then took off running, plunging into the trees and vanishing.

  Bones frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “You sure that’s a good idea, Maddock?”

  Maddock thought about the man’s dire warning—the Shadow must remain hidden or the world will die—and shook his head uncertainly. “I’m starting to wonder if any of this is a good idea.”

  Doug Simpson read the report again, hoping that he had missed something the first time, but the results remained what they were.

  The problem wasn’t the data. It was him. He was in over his head.

  It had been foolish of him to think that he was up to a job like this, and indeed, when he had applied with the company, fresh out of the biotech program at UC Davis, he had not really expected to land the position. He was better suited to being a lab assistant, not head researcher, but the company was desperate for qualified personnel. The company was flush with cash, but nobody reputable wanted to work for them. There were rumors of unethical, even criminal behavior, but Simpson had ignored them. The scandals were yesterday’s news. The biotech world was fickle that way; today’s hero was tomorrow’s goat, and who could tell what next week would bring?

  As far as his own qualifications were concerned...well, hell, research was all trial and error anyway, wasn’t it? He could handle that.

  Now people were going to die because he couldn’t pull a miracle out of his ass.

  The field team had brought back more than a dozen subjects. A sternly worded memo, straight from the boss’s desk, had directed that they be referred to that way—not victims or patients, but subjects. All were presently in isolation, under Bio-Safety Level IV conditions, each one receiving a different treatment regimen to knock out the as yet unidentified infection that was killing them all.

  Disgusted, he pushed away from his computer workstation, and was about to head out for a cigarette when the door to the lab opened and the boss walked in, accompanied by the red-haired Latina who had led the field team. Simpson didn’t know her name; he wasn’t even sure if she actually worked for the company, or had been brought in as an outside contractor.

  He jumped to his feet. “Mr. Sca—”

  The boss raised his hands, cutting him off. “Doug, you know how I feel about that. My dad was Mister.”

  Simpson gave a contrite nod. He was still having trouble getting used to the whole first-name basis policy. It just felt wrong, especially when addressing the head of the company, but the boss was insistent. Just as he insisted that the people in the isolation unit be referred to as subjects.

  “Alex,” Simpson amended. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Sir?” Alex shook his head in feigned disgust. “That’s really not much better.” He did not introduce his female companion, but looked past Simpson, staring at the information displayed on the computer monitor. “How goes it?”

  Simpson swallowed nervously. “Not good, I’m afraid. None of the therapies we’ve tried have had any effect. I mean, zip. Nada. We’ve lost three already, and two more are in bad shape. The others...” He shook his head.

  “None of the conventional treatments are working?” Alex said, though he didn’t sound at all disappointed. Simpson thought he actually sounded excited about the news. His face must have revealed his shock because Alex went on. “Don’t forget our mission, Doug. We’re innovators. The whole point is to develop a new therapy. It’s good that this thing beats everything else we’ve got. If it didn’t there wouldn’t be any need for something new. And we would all be out of a job.”

  It was a rather cynical outlook, but Simpson understood. As terrible as this disease was, its resistance to the usual battery of drug treatments represented a singular opportunity in the highly-competitive biotech industry. The cure would be a silver bullet, effective not just for treating this disease, but potentially dozens more. And they would control the patent for it.

  But only if he could find that cure.

  “If we can’t find something that works in the next forty-eight hours,” Simpson replied, “we may be out of a job anyway. At least as far as this agent is concerned. The progression is like clockwork, and so far, we’re looking at 100% mortality, though our sample size is admittedly very small. Aside from the obvious tragedy of that, it’s going to pose a real problem with the research.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re having difficulty culturing the agent outside of a living host. It evidently needs a very specific set of biological, chemical and physical conditions in which to propagate. Which means that when the last of the patients die, we won’t have a way to test any of our therapies.”

  “What about lab animals? Rats? Monkeys?”

  “The w
hite mice seem to have a natural immunity. We suspect it has something to do with their naturally high metabolism. If that’s the case, we’d be looking at the same limitation with most small animals. We might have better luck with a larger primate—a chimpanzee for instance, but we don’t have any here.”

  “Get some. I don’t care what it costs.”

  “It’s not just a question of money. There are strict international rules governing the use of primates in research. Transparency is a big deal. We might be able to get a few through...um...unofficial channels, but that’s a very high-risk solution.”

  “That sounds like an awful lot of trouble.” Alex frowned and glanced over at the red-haired woman. “Do you think you can locate a few more human subjects?”

  Something about the casual way he said it sent a chill down Simpson’s spine.

  “It shouldn’t be a problem,” the woman said. “But this is a waste of time. I told you. There is only one way to remove maldición de la sombra.”

  Alex smiled broadly, showing lots of teeth. Simpson imagined crocodiles smiling like that just before they chomped on their prey. “So you keep telling me. But I need results sooner, rather than later. You go find your lost...whatever it is. And Doug here will keep pursuing his line of research. Maybe we’ll both get lucky.”

  “Maybe it’s already burned itself out,” Simpson said, nervously. “That would be lucky.”

  Alex turned to Simpson. “Don’t be such a gloomy Gus, Doug. We didn’t give the world death and disease. That was God’s doing. We’re just turning something bad into an opportunity.” He leaned closer. “You find the cure for this, and we’ll be the gods of a brave new world.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Maddock leaned forward over the steering wheel, as if by getting closer to the windshield, he might have a better chance of seeing through the deluge. It was a futile effort. The tropical rainstorm, which had come seemingly out of nowhere, was dumping water by the bucketful. He could see the windshield wipers—twin black lines waving back and forth furiously in a losing battle with the rain—but everything else was a green-gray blur. He let his foot off the gas pedal, moved it to the brake pedal, and brought the rented SUV to a complete stop.