The Codex

by Douglas Preston

  30

  Tom lay in his hammock that evening, nursing his bandaged arm. Vernon had recovered well and was cheerfully helping Don Alfonso boil some unknown bird that Chori had shot for dinner. It was stifling inside the hut, even with the sides rolled up.

  Only thirty days had passed since Tom left Bluff, but it seemed like an eternity. His horses, the red sandstone buttes etched against the blue skies, the drenching sunlight and the eagles flying down the San Juan ... It all seemed to have happened to someone else. It was strange ... He had moved to Bluff with Sarah, his fiancée. She loved horses and the outdoors as much as he did, but Bluff turned out to be too quiet for her, and one day she’d packed up her car and left. He had just taken out a big bank loan and established his vet practice, and there was no way he could pull out. Not that he wanted to. When she left, he realized that given the choice between Bluff and her, he’d take Bluff. That was two years ago, and he hadn’t had a relationship since. He told himself he didn’t need one. He told himself the quiet life, the beauty of the land was enough for now. The vet practice had been intense, the work grueling, the compensation almost nil. He found it rewarding, but he could never quite shake the longing he had for paleontology, his childhood dream of hunting the bones of the great dinosaurs, entombed in the rock. Maybe his father was right, that it was an ambition he should have outgrown when he hit twelve.

  He turned in his hammock, his arm throbbing, and glanced over at Sally. The partition was rolled up for ventilation, and she was lying in her hammock reading one of the books Vernon had brought, a thriller called Utopia. Utopia. That’s what he’d thought he’d find in Bluff. But what he’d really been doing was running away from something—like his father.

  Well, he wasn’t running away from him anymore.

  In the background he could hear Don Alfonso shouting orders to Chori and Pingo. Soon the smell of stewing meat came drifting through the hut. He glanced over at Sally and watched her read, turn the pages, brush back her hair, sigh, turn another page. She was beautiful, even if she was a bit of a pain in the neck.

  Sally laid down the book. “What are you looking at?”

  “Good book?”

  “Excellent.” She smiled. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “That was a real Indiana Jones rescue back there.”

  Tom shrugged. “I wasn’t going to stand around while a snake ate my brother.” This wasn’t really what he wanted to talk about. He asked, “Tell me about this fiancé of yours, this Professor Clyve.”

  “Well,” Sally smiled at the memory. “I went to Yale to study with him. He’s my doctoral thesis adviser. We just ... Well, who wouldn’t fall in love with Julian? He’s brilliant. I’ll never forget when we first met at the weekly Faculty Sherry. I thought he was just going to be another academic type, but—wow. He looked like Tom Cruise.”

  “Wow.”

  “Of course, looks mean nothing to him. What matters to Julian is the mind—not the body.”

  “I see.” Tom couldn’t help looking at her body: It put the lie to Julian’s claims of intellectual purity. Julian was a man, like any other—just less honest than most.

  “He had recently published his book, Deciphering the Mayan Language. He’s a genius in the real sense of the word.”

  “Do you have a wedding date?”

  “Julian doesn’t believe in weddings. We’ll go to a justice of the peace.”

  “What about your parents? Won’t they be disappointed?”

  “I don’t have any parents.”

  Tom felt his face flush. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Sally said. “My father died when I was eleven, and my mother passed away ten years ago. I’ve gotten used to it—or at least as used to it as you can get.”

  “So you’re really going to marry this guy?”

  She looked at him, and there was a short silence. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing.” Change the subject, Tom. “Tell me about your father.”

  “He was a cowboy.”

  Yeah, right, thought Tom. A rich cowboy who raised racehorses, probably. “I didn’t know they still existed,” he said politely.

  “They do, only it’s not what you see in the movies. A real cowboy is a laborer who just happens to work off the back of a horse, who makes less than minimum wage, who’s a high school dropout, who’s got a drinking problem, and who gets badly hurt or killed before he’s forty. Dad was the foreman of a corporate-owned cattle ranch in southern Arizona. He fell off a windmill he was trying to fix and broke his neck. They shouldn’t have asked him to go up there, but the judge decided it was his fault, because he’d been drinking.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry”

  “It’s good to talk about it. At least that’s what my analyst says.”

  Tom was unsure whether to treat this as a joke or not but decided to play it safe. Most people in New Haven probably went to analysts. “I figured your father would have owned the ranch.”

  “You thought I was a little rich girl?”

  Tom colored. “Well, I did assume something like that. After all, here you are a Yalie, and with your riding ability ...” He thought of Sarah. He’d had enough of rich girls to last him the rest of his life, and he’d just assumed she was another.

  Sally laughed, but it was a bitter laugh. “I’ve had to fight for every little thing I have. And that includes Yale.”

  Tom felt his color deepening. He had been reckless in his assumptions. She wasn’t like Sarah at all.

  “Despite his shortcomings,” Sally continued, “my father was a wonderful dad. He taught me how to ride and shoot, how to head, heel, and cut cattle. After he died my mother moved us to Boston, where she had a sister. She waited on tables at Red Lobster to support me. I went to Framingham State College because it was the only place I could get into after a pretty miserable public high school education. My mother died while I was in college. Aneurism. It was very sudden. For me, it was like the end of the world. And then finally something good happened. I had an anthropology teacher who helped me discover that learning was fun and that I was not just a dumb blond. She believed in me. She wanted me to become a doctor. I was pre-med, but then I got interested in pharmaceutical biology, and from there I went into ethnopharmacology. I busted my ass and got into Yale Graduate School. And at Yale I met Julian. I’ll never forget when I first saw him. It was at the faculty sherry party and he was standing in the middle of the room, telling a story. Julian tells wonderful stories. I just joined the crowd and listened. He was talking about his first trip to Copán. He looked so ... dashing. Just like one of those old-time explorers.”

  “Right,” said Tom. “Sure.”

  “So what about your childhood?” Sally asked. “What was it like?”

  “I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

  “No fair, Tom.”

  Tom sighed. “I had a very boring childhood.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Where should I begin? We were to the manor born, so to speak. Giant house, pool, cook, gardener, live-in housekeeper, stables, a thousand acres of land. Father lavished us with everything. He had big plans for us. He had a shelf of books on child rearing, and he read every one. Start with high expectations, they all said. When we were babies he played Bach and Mozart and filled our rooms with reproductions of Old Master paintings. When we were learning to read he covered the house with labels for every little thing. The first thing I saw when I got up in the morning was toothbrush, faucet, mirror—labels staring at me from every corner of the room. At seven we each had to choose a musical instrument. I wanted to play the drums, but Father insisted on something classical, so I studied the piano. “Country Gardens” once a week with a shrill Miss Greer. Vernon studied the oboe, and Philip had to do the violin. On Sundays, instead of going to church—Father was a resolute atheist—we dressed up and played him a concert.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Oh God is right
. It was the same thing with sports. We each had to choose a sport. Not for fun or exercise you understand, but to excel in. We were sent to the best private schools. Every minute of the day was scheduled: horseback-riding lessons, tutors, private sports coaches, soccer, tennis camp, computer camp, Christmas ski trips to Taos and Cortina d’Ampezzo.”

  “How awful. And your mother, what was she like?”

  “Our three mothers. We’re half-brothers. Father was unlucky in love, you might say.”

  “He got custody of all three of you?”

  “What Max wanted, Max got. They weren’t pretty divorces. Our mothers weren’t a big part of our lives, and mine died when I was young anyway. Father wanted to raise us by himself. He didn’t want any interference. He was going to create three geniuses who would change the world. He tried to choose our careers for us. Even our girlfriends.”

  “I’m sorry. What a horrifying childhood.”

  Tom shifted in his hammock, slightly annoyed at her comment. “I wouldn’t call Cortina at Christmas ‘horrifying.’ We did get something out of it in the end. I learned to love horses. Philip fell in love with Renaissance painting. And Vernon—well, he just kind of fell in love with wandering.”

  “So he chose your girlfriends?”

  Tom really wished he hadn’t mentioned that particular detail. “He tried.”

  “And?”

  Tom felt his face flushing. He couldn’t stop it. The thought of Sarah—perfect, beautiful, brilliant, talented, wealthy Sarah—came flooding in.

  “Who was she?” Sally asked.

  Women always seemed to know. “Just some girl my father introduced me to. Daughter of a friend of his. It was, ironically, the one time I really wanted to do what my father wanted me to do. I went out with her. We got engaged.”

  “What happened?”

  He looked at her closely. She seemed more than curious. He wondered just what that meant. “Didn’t work out.” He didn’t add the part about him finding her riding some other guy in their own bed. What Sarah wanted, Sarah got, too. Life is too short, she said, and I want to experience all of it. What’s wrong with that? She could deny herself nothing.

  Sally was still looking at him curiously. Then she shook her head. “Your father was really a piece of work. He could have written a book on how not to raise children.”

  Tom felt the prickle of annoyance grow. He knew he shouldn’t say it, he knew it would cause trouble, but he couldn’t stop himself. He said, “Father would’ve loved Julian.”

  There was a sudden silence. He could feel Sally staring at him. “Excuse me?”

  Tom went on against his better judgment. “All I meant is that Julian’s just the kind of person Father wanted us to be. Stanford at sixteen, famous professor at Yale, ‘a genius in the real sense of the word,’ as you put it.”

  “I won’t dignify that comment with an answer,” she said stiffly, her face coloring with anger as she picked up her novel and began to read.

  31

  Philip was shackled to a tree, his hands manacled behind him. The blackflies were crawling over every square inch of exposed skin on his body, thousands of them, eating his face alive. There was nothing he could do as they crawled into his eyes, up his nose, into his ear canal. He shook his head, he tried to blink and twitch them off, but all efforts failed. His eyes were almost swollen shut already. Hauser was talking to someone in a low voice on his satellite phone. Philip couldn’t hear the words, but he knew well that quiet, bullying tone of voice. He closed his eyes. He really was beyond caring. All he wanted now was for Hauser to end his misery soon—a quick bullet to the brain.

  Lewis Skiba sat at his desk, his chair turned toward the window, staring southward over the peaks of the Manhattan skyline. He had not heard from Hauser in four days. Five days ago Hauser had said to sleep on it. Then silence. They had been the worst five days of his life. The stock was down to six; the SEC had delivered subpoenas and seized laptops and hard drives from their corporate headquarters. The bastards had even taken his own computer. The short-selling frenzy continued unabated. The Journal had now made it official that the FDA was set to disapprove Phloxatane. Standard & Poor’s was about to downgrade Lampe’s bonds to junk status, and for the first time there was public speculation of Chapter 11.

  That morning he’d had to tell his wife that, under the circumstances, they had to put the Aspen house on the market immediately. It was, after all, their fourth house, and they only used it one week out of the year. But she hadn’t understood. She wept and carried on and ended up sleeping in the guest room. Oh God, was this how it was going to be? What would happen if they had to sell their real home? What would she do if they had to pull their kids out of private school?

  And all this time he hadn’t heard from Hauser. What the hell was he doing? Had something happened to him? Had he given up? Skiba felt the sweat breaking out afresh on his brow. He hated the fact that the fate of his company and his own fate were in the hands of a man like that.

  The scrambler phone rang, and Skiba literally jumped. It was ten o’clock in the morning. Hauser never called in the morning. But somehow he knew it was him.

  “Yes?” He tried not to sound breathless.

  “Skiba?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Fine.”

  “Slept on it yet?”

  Skiba swallowed. That lump was there again, that pig of lead in his gut. He couldn’t quite bring himself to speak, it was blocking his throat. He’d already had his limit, but another sip wouldn’t hurt. Cradling the phone, he slid open the cabinet, poured a glass. He didn’t even bother with the water.

  “Lewis, I know this is tough. But the time’s come. Do you want the Codex or not? I can call it quits right now, head back. What do you think?”

  Skiba swallowed the hot golden liquid and found his voice, but it came out in a cracked whisper. “I’ve told you again and again, this has nothing to do with me. You’re five thousand miles away. I have no control over you. You do what you want. Just bring me the Codex.”

  “I didn’t catch that, with the scrambler and all ...”

  “Just do what you need to do!” Skiba roared. “Leave me out of it!”

  “Oh no, no, no, no, noooo. No. I already explained it to you, Skiba. We’re in this together, pard.”

  Skiba’s hand gripped the phone with murderous force. His whole body was shaking. He almost imagined he could throttle Hauser if he squeezed hard enough.

  “Do I get rid of them or not?” the jocose voice went on. “If I don’t, even if I get the Codex, they’ll be coming right back out and making a claim against you, and you know what, Lewis? You can’t win that one. They’ll take the Codex away from you. You told me you wanted it clean, no complications, no lawsuits.”

  “I’ll pay them royalties. They’ll make millions.”

  “They won’t deal with you. They have other plans for the Codex. Didn’t I tell you that? That woman, Sally Colorado, has got plans, big plans.”

  “What plans?” Skiba felt shaky all over.

  “They don’t involve Lampe, that’s all you need to know. Look, Skiba, that’s the problem with all you business guys. You don’t know how to make the tough decisions.”

  “These are human lives you’re talking about.”

  “I know. This isn’t easy for me, either. Weigh the good against the bad. A few people disappear in an unknown jungle. That’s on one side. The other side is lifesaving drugs for millions, twenty thousand people who still have work, shareholders who love you instead of crying for your blood, and you the darling of Wall Street for pulling Lampe back from the abyss.”

  Another swallow. “Give me another day to think about it.”

  “Can’t. Things have reached a head. You remember what I said about stopping them before the mountains? Lewis, just to ease your mind, I’m not even going to do it myself. There are some Honduran soldiers down here, renegades, and I can hardly keep them in check as it is
. These guys are crazy, liable to do anything. These things happen all the time down here. Hey, if I were to turn around now these soldiers would kill them anyway. So Lewis, what should I do? Get rid of them and bring you the Codex? Or turn around and forget about it? I’ve got to go. Your answer?”

  “Just do it!”

  There was a buzz of static.

  “Say it, Lewis. Say what it is you want me to do.”

  “Do it! Kill them, goddamn you! Kill the Broadbents!”

  32

  Two and a half days after the snake attack, as they were poling along one more endless water channel, Tom noticed a brightening of the swamp, sunlight through the trees—and then with astonishing suddenness the two dugouts broke free of the Meambar Swamp. It was like entering a new world. They were on the edge of a huge lake, the water as black as ink. The late afternoon sun was breaking through the clouds, and Tom felt a surge of relief in finally being in the open, released from the green prison of the swamp. A fresh breeze swept away the blackflies. Tom could see blue hills on the far shore, and beyond them a faint line of mountains rising into the clouds.

  Don Alfonso stood up in the bow of the boat and spread his arms, his corncob enclosed in one wrinkled fist, looking like a ragged scarecrow. “The Laguna Negra!” he cried. “We have crossed the Meambar Swamp! I, Don Alfonso Boswas, have guided well and true!”

  Chori and Pingo lowered the boat engines and fired them up. The boats set off for the far end of the lake. Tom rested against the pile of supplies and enjoyed the delicious flow of air while his pet monkey, Hairy Bugger, climbed out of his pocket and rode on top of his head, eyes closed, smacking and chattering contentedly. Tom had almost forgotten what a breeze felt like on his skin.

  They camped on a sandy beach at the far end of the lake. Chori and Pingo went hunting and returned an hour later with a gutted and quartered deer, the bloody chunks wrapped in palm fronds.

  “Splendid!” cried Don Alfonso. “Tomás, we will eat deer chops tonight and smoke the rest for our overland journey.”