Tears of the Jaguar

by Hartley, A. J.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The guy we caught in the Tower—Jones—didn’t talk, and we were quickly pressured to release him. It could be that the imprisonment of Bowerdale and the involvement of Stroud, both of whom are Americans, raised their interest, but I see nothing in the case so far that would draw Intelligence interest unless, for some reason, they already had their eye on one or both of them.”

  “The CIA monitoring a couple of aging archaeologists?” Deborah scoffed. “Why would they?”

  “Why would the CIA try to kidnap a British officer on UK soil?” Nick replied. “I have no idea, but I have the bruises to say they did.”

  “Maybe they see the jewels as some kind of bargaining chip with the British government?”

  He shrugged again.

  “Deborah, you’re just going to have to trust me on this: I really don’t know why they are involved. It makes no sense to me.”

  “Trust you?”

  “Yes,” said Nick, his face softening a little. “I said I was sorry I couldn’t explain before but—”

  “I’ll see you in Mexico, Nick,” said Deborah. She had turned and walked briskly in the direction of the duty-free store.

  Now, cooped up in a hot rental car speeding along the turnpike road toward Valladolid, they said nothing. Nick had asked her if she had slept on the plane, and when she responded that she had but that it had not been enough, he suggested that she put her seat back and nap while he drove. She had muttered a thank-you that was barely polite, then cranked up the AC and lain back, closing her eyes.

  She didn’t sleep. It was impossible for her to get comfortable in the cramped vehicle, and Nick took several phone calls as he drove. She couldn’t help but listen in, and what she heard kept her mind turning. The American embassy, it seemed, had kept up pressure on the Mexican police, and they were poised to release Martin Bowerdale unless harder evidence linking him to the crime emerged very soon. The sudden interest of British Intelligence seemed to have been a factor too.

  “I hope you’re right about him,” said Nick.

  “I never really liked him. But I just can’t believe he’s guilty. And anyway, we’ll need him if we are to search other sites for the jewels,” said Deborah, not opening her eyes. “No one knows the Mayan world better. If evidence against him does emerge, they can rearrest him. Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Not here,” said Nick. “And let’s just be sure he is innocent before we let him leave the country.”

  “He was arrested because he stayed and the police needed to arrest someone,” said Deborah. “If I’d stayed, they would have arrested me. Bowerdale is a pompous blowhard, but he’s not a killer.”

  Nick didn’t answer.

  They reached Valladolid by two in the afternoon and the sky was bright and hot. Moments before, Nick had received another phone call confirming Bowerdale’s release.

  “Yes,” said Nick, “I’ll vouch for him. We’ll be over to pick him up in...” He checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”

  The jail was only a few blocks from the archaeological institute, and they found it without difficulty. It was stuffy inside and smelled of cigarette smoke and body odor. Nick flashed his badge at the desk officer and introduced himself in competent but clumsily accented Spanish.

  “I’m Nick Reese, British Intelligence. I’m here to collect Martin Bowerdale.”

  “Signor?”

  “Martin Bowerdale,” Nick repeated. “The American.”

  “We are all Americans, signor,” said the officer, smiling. “Yes, the archaeologist. He is not here.”

  “What?”

  “He was released.”

  “When?” asked Deborah.

  The cop shrugged. “Ten minutes ago, maybe fifteen.”

  “Where did he go?” Nick demanded. “Did no one tell him we were coming to collect him?”

  “He said it was not necessary,” the cop answered. “He did not say where he was going, but we still have his passport, so he cannot leave the country until the case is closed.”

  “Did someone else pick him up?” asked Deborah.

  “No,” said the cop, still quite cheery. “He walked. That way.”

  He pointed.

  “He must have gone to the institute,” said Deborah. She felt confused and irritated. What the hell was he playing at? They had things to discuss. It was so like Bowerdale to pull this high-handed crap. The man had just spent a week in a Mexican jail and he sauntered off like he’d been at the Club Med.

  She loped back to the car with Nick at her heels, the Englishman hanging back because his phone had rung again. She turned expectant, but all Nick said was, “Interesting, thanks,” then hung up.

  “Bowerdale?” she asked.

  “No. Your water bottle.”

  “What about it?”

  “You were right,” said Nick, snatching the car keys from his pocket. “It was laced with a flavorless cocktail of tropical plant extracts and Bufotenin.”

  “What?” asked Deborah, folding herself into the front seat.

  “Bufo is the Latin word for toad,” said Nick, starting the engine.

  “Toad?”

  “Bufotenin is a secretion from a gland on the back of a large species of marine toad found throughout the Yucatan. It’s poisonous but also...”

  “A hallucinogen,” Deborah inserted. “Of course. The toxin was ingested by Mayan priests during rituals. It supposedly gave them a sense of crossing into a spirit world.”

  “It’s a tryptamine,” said Nick, “related to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Exactly what it does is disputed, but tests have shown subjects experiencing a range of hallucinations from LSD-type visual distortions—swirling colors and such—to seeing things that aren’t there, and feeling a paranoiac sense of impending death.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “The other ingredients seem to be mushrooms and water lilies—all Mexican—but exactly what they do or how they react with the bufotenin, we’re not sure yet.”

  “Was Hargreaves poisoned with it too?”

  “Still waiting for lab results on his tea, but I expect we’ll find he was, yes.”

  The car eased through the narrow streets, pausing at every speed bump and intersection, so that they could have walked there just as quickly. Inside the institute they found Porfiro Aguilar, who was clearly surprised to see them.

  “Is Martin here?” Deborah asked.

  “Bowerdale?” said Aguilar looking quizzical. “He’s in jail.”

  “No, he’s not,” said Deborah. “You’re sure he’s not here?”

  “You can look in the lab, but I haven’t seen anyone up there all day except Krista.”

  “Krista Rayburn is still here?” said Deborah.

  “She left for a while,” said Aguilar, “but then she came back. Quietly.”

  Deborah considered him. He looked cautious, even evasive, but before she had time to say anything, Krista Rayburn herself, still perkily pretty, strode in. She came in addressing Aguilar.

  “It’s not there,” she said. “I thought you left it...” She saw Nick and Deborah. “Oh,” she said. “You’re back. Hi.”

  “What were you asking him about?” said Deborah, ignoring the impulse to exchange pleasantries.

  “What?” she said. “Oh. The van. I was going to drive up to the site, but it’s not parked out in the street.”

  Aguilar frowned. “Hold on,” he said, turning to a board of hooks with keys in the corner of the office. He scanned them and his confusion deepened. “The keys are gone.”

  “Well, now he has transport,” said Nick.

  “Who?” said Porfiro.

  “Martin Bowerdale. I guess he didn’t want an archaeologists’ reunion.”

  Out in the lobby a door banged, followed by hurried, purposeful footsteps. The office door swung open and a black man in a dark suit stepped in, his face hard with anger.

  The CIA man, Deborah thought. Jones.

  “You let him go?” he
said.

  “Excuse me?” said Nick, indignant.

  “Don’t play that with me,” said the CIA man, rounding on him. “You let Bowerdale go.”

  “He was released by the Mexican police,” said Deborah.

  “At your insistence,” said Jones, pointing from Nick to Deborah.

  “He can help us,” said Deborah, feeling defensive and angry. “And why shouldn’t we advocate for his release when he was imprisoned without any evidence against him?”

  “Why shouldn’t you get him released?” he repeated, suddenly and unnervingly calm. “Let me get this straight. Why shouldn’t a civilian and the agent of a foreign government interfere in the Mexican trial of a US citizen and a matter of national security?”

  “National security?” said Deborah. “Whose?”

  “Ours!” yelled Jones, suddenly losing his measured tone. “You still have no idea what you are dealing with, do you, lady? Yes, a matter of US national security that now involves various foreign agents bent on all manner of malfeasance against the United States.”

  “This is crazy,” said Deborah. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Yeah?” Jones shouted back. “So what’s he doing here?”

  Again he stabbed a finger at Nick.

  “My reasons for being here have nothing to do with US national security,” said Nick.

  “Oh, OK,” said the CIA man. “Then I guess everything’s fine. Who wants to get ice cream?” He turned to go, then paused. “I’m gonna go do my job now,” he said. “Don’t get in my way.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  After James found her at the throne, Alice had started a fight with him. How could she not? He was so stupid. He’d said he wanted to take a few more photographs around the site for memory’s sake.

  “We’ll be coming back here day after day until we turn up the treasure,” Alice had said, though she’d felt like she was pointing out the obvious. “We’ll probably have this place memorized before the search is over.”

  “I’m done with that,” James had said. “I’m not going to spoil my experience of this site by hunting for something we’ll never find.”

  Spoil his experience?

  Alice was aghast. It was absurd. He was absurd, and she had told him as much. He had shrugged and started walking away, smiling this condescending Buddha-grin like he’d just attained enlightenment or some fucking thing, so she had gone after him and told him to his face that if he wasn’t going to try to find the treasure she was leaving for good. He could forget it. All of it.

  “All what?” he said, seeming genuinely unsure.

  “Everything, James,” she yelled back. “Me. I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again. You got that? I’m serious.”

  For a moment there he had just stood there, looking at her, and his smile had turned some, saddened so that she was sure she had him, but then he had just said, “OK, Alice. Good-bye,” and turned away.

  “I’m not kidding, James,” she said, startled by the fact that it was him who was being so quiet and serene while her voice was breaking. “I’ll go and I won’t come back.”

  “You have to do what you think is right, Alice,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  She couldn’t believe he knew she was bluffing. Backed into a corner by her own rhetoric, she’d had no choice but to turn on her heel and march away, heading back toward the Pyramid of the Magician and on to the hotel. It was a long walk, but most of it was open so she couldn’t even slow down in case he was watching.

  As she left the site and walked over to the hacienda, she shook off some of her distress and channeled her anger into something colder and more familiar. If that was the way James wanted it, she would show him. She would begin by checking out of the hotel, and if he thought that fucking canvas bag would still be in the wardrobe when he got back, he was sadly mistaken.

  She marched through the lobby and up the elegant stairs to the gallery where their room was. Room service had left new bottles of spring water at the door and she snatched them up gratefully. It was a hot day—they were all hot days here, she thought, irritably, but she was flustered from shouting at James and the exertion of her hurried return—so she broke the seal quickly and drained half the first bottle in one long swallow. She wouldn’t be saving any for James.

  Alice began throwing her clothes into her backpack. She took out the purple canvas bag and looked around the room to see if she had missed anything. The movement—twisting around as she scanned each corner—seemed to unsettle her, and for a moment the chamber seemed to swim, the colors blurring. She closed her eyes for a moment to steady herself, but when she opened them she was aware that something was wrong. She didn’t feel well, but there was more to it than a little too much sun or dehydration. Something was wrong with the room.

  She turned more slowly, surveying everything, trying to home in on the source of her unease, and her gaze fell on the bag that sat on the bed. But it didn’t seem simply like a bag anymore. It was something else that merely looked like a bag. She was amazed she had not noticed it before. It wasn’t a bag; it was disguised as one. She stared at it, stricken with fear, and then, as she looked at it, it began to open by itself, the zipper easing slowly back. Inside in the darkness, something was moving.

  Alice took a wobbly step backward, her hands over her mouth. She was cold and sweating heavily. The zipper continued to part and inside she glimpsed the bones of the severed hand. They had been mere pieces bundled together, but now they were fully knit again, an entire arm that began to crawl out on spider-leg fingers.

  It couldn’t be, she thought, staring as it pulled itself free, reaching and walking at the same time.

  She tried to scream, and now the hand was out of the bag and dragging after it was something bigger, something worse. Because the hand was not unattached anymore. Somehow it had reconnected with the corpse, and that too—all of it—was climbing out. The body was not skeletal like the arm, but covered in black and ravaged flesh that hung in tatters and dripped with something dark and thick. It wanted her. It wanted her like all men wanted her and she had to get out.

  The corpse was almost out now, and she could smell the stench of decay. And then she saw that the thing’s other arm was scored with something dark in the blackened flesh: the image of a rose with drops of blood falling from barbed wire.

  No.

  She didn’t dare to turn her back on the thing that was crawling out of the bag, so she moved cautiously, upending a lamp as she felt behind her for the door handle, but when she got there it was already open and there was someone there, a woman in a shawl that covered her head like a veil. The woman seemed to hover there in the doorway, and then she came in and walked to the bed, and to the bag, so that for a moment Alice couldn’t see what she was doing as she bent over it, and then she had it and was walking out, taking it with her. Alice shrank back, sobbing, telling her yes, please take it, get it away from her, don’t let it touch her...And then the woman was gone and Alice was alone again.

  She curled up on the cool tiles and squeezed her eyes shut so that she wouldn’t see the way the room seemed to shift and spiral. She lay like that for half an hour, though she had no sense of the passage of time until she started to feel calm and stable again. She sat cautiously up, wondering vaguely why the canvas bag from the wardrobe was not on the bed, remembering slowly that someone had been there. She got up, eyes widening, and a new dread building in her chest, but then the door opened again and someone came in.

  It was Dimitri. She recognized him, though it was like seeing him through frosted glass and his words echoed oddly when he demanded what she was doing. She said something about the bag, and he grasped her by the shoulders and began to shake her. What was she talking about? The bag from Coba? Where was it? Who took it?

  She told him she wasn’t sure of anything, that there had been something terrible inside the bag and that she had to get rid of it. Some lady had been there and she had taken it, she said, but her explanations just made
him angrier, and he slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand.

  She fell badly, and the pain somehow cleared her head a little more so that she knew what had happened, and she started to say how sorry she was, but he just hit her again, harder this time. His face was red with fury and his eyes hard. When she fell this time, she stayed down for a moment, waiting for her vision to stabilize, trying to compose herself enough to get up. He came for her again and she put up her hands to block his punch, but then James came in. She saw his face shift suddenly as he took in the scene, and then he was running at Dimitri, throwing himself onto him.

  Alice scuttled back out of the way, jamming herself into the corner as the two men fought. Except that it wasn’t really a fight. Dimitri shrugged James off and knocked him down so that he lost his glasses. It might have been OK, but James got up again, groggy but determined, and that was when it happened.

  Dimitri was wearing a light jacket in spite of the heat, and Alice suddenly realized why. His hand flashed inside and came out with a gun, not the odd little round thing he wore lashed to his chest, but something bigger, with a heavy barrel almost a foot long that she knew was a silencer. She shouted something, but James came at him, his eyes flashing anger and defiance.

  The gun coughed twice, and James seemed to pause, frozen, before crumpling to the floor. For a moment, Alice could only stare, and then, as the tears started to her staring eyes, she began to scream.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Deborah spent the whole of the next day in the lab with Aguilar. Krista had found reasons to go up to the site at Ek Balam, but Deborah thought she was being cagey, and Aguilar got tense every time Krista showed up. Something was going on, but whether it was important, or just some relationship thing, Deborah couldn’t say. Immediately, she heard her mother’s voice in her head: “How like you to assume that relationships aren’t important.”

  Not now, Ma, she thought.

  Aguilar was a good-looking man, and Krista was conventionally pretty, and both were smart and shared the same professional interests, so she shouldn’t be surprised. So why was she? Why was she always surprised when people connected, even briefly? And why, she wondered—Nick Reese’s image flashing through her head irritatingly—didn’t she?