Brian Sadler Archaeological Mysteries BoxSet

by Bill Thompson

  As you are aware, in 1519 my leader Hernan Cortes and I led an expedition to conquer the once mighty natives known as Aztecs in New Spain, or Mexico as the natives refer to it. Between 1523 and 1527 I obeyed the commands of my leader and conquered the Cakchiquel in Guatemala. Following orders, I had many of the heathens killed in the name of our Lord and Savior when they refused to convert to Christianity. Others were enslaved.

  One heathen who was brought to salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ was handed over to me after the conquest of the Quiche’ nation in the name of your Excellency. That was in the year 1527. This man was literate in the language of his people, whom they call the Maya. He had been a scribe. I am certain many of the blasphemous books which we burned during those times were written by this man himself and a few others like him.

  My leader Hernan Cortes and I interviewed this scribe to determine if there were yet more books we should destroy to promote the salvation of these savages. He told us of a building, part of a citadel high upon a mountaintop a few days’ ride from the capital here in Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, which as you recall was also the capital in 1527.

  I remember well that Cortes and I, accompanied by troops for our safety and security, rode with the scribe to the foot of a mountain. With great difficulty our men created a pathway for my leader and the rest of us to reach the summit of the peak. At this time, the scribe told me that he would show us a prize hidden at the top of a broad rock staircase, through a narrow passageway between two high cliffs. Cortes told our men to remain behind and stay on alert in case it was an ambush. The two of us then went with the scribe up the expansive stairway, which was at least ten varas wide and thirty high. At the top was the narrow aperture and on the other side was a small plaza with one building, a heathen temple which he called Templo del Santuario – the Temple of the Sanctuary. He told us this temple building had once been covered by sheets of gold so that it shone to the heavens during the day. He said the sheets had been removed and transported far away by his people when our victorious Spanish forces came into this land.

  Walking through enormous statues of jaguars, one on each side of the doorway, we entered the pagan temple and found that it consisted of several rooms, each with walls covered in shelves from floor to ceiling. Each shelf held books in the form of bound codices, held together in long stitched sheets. There were so many it was not possible to count them. Truly I believe there must have been a thousand or more. There were crude tables and chairs in the middle of each room, where the scribe said the priests used to sit and study the books. In the very rear of the structure was another room with a sealed door. The door contained inscriptions and strange writings carved into the seals around it. The native with us said this room was accessible only by the high priest and was said to contain gold, but it was also full of danger. I wanted to tear open the door but Cortes held up his hand to indicate I should be patient. Upon seeing that I wanted to open the door, the native commenced shaking uncontrollably and was obviously terrified. He fell to the ground as though possessed by a demon, jumped up suddenly, ran outside and would not enter again.

  I said to Cortes that we should get our men to light torches and burn the books. He advised that since the location was remote and forbidding, he would leave the building as it was and seek the advice of your Majesty. Perhaps you would want to have a history of these heathen people or to see with your own eyes the blasphemies they wrote. Cortes also said he would return with mules and men to remove and transport the gold if that were your command.

  I was surprised, my sovereign Majesty, that my leader then removed his sword and suddenly executed the native who had brought us here. We left his body on the table in that room. I feared for my own life as well for a time, since one knows not of the avarice in the heart of a man faced with temptation, but I was never in danger.

  After our departure from the mountain I said nothing more about the matter, having been told directly by Cortes that I was never to speak of it again. I did however make a map in case I was ordered to return. I enclose it with this letter.

  Over the years I heard tales that Hernan Cortes had returned to the place and taken the gold for himself. Sworn to secrecy, I chose not to investigate those rumors. I can only trust that Cortes was an honorable man and that your Majesty knows of the hidden gold.

  Although all of this has come to mind frequently over the years, it was only recently that it returned to my consciousness, upon my learning of the death of Cortes. I felt it imperative that I inform you of the existence of this place, if only that you might direct me to examine the closed room, destroy the entire building, or to send some of the blasphemous books to your Majesty for your perusal. Command me and I will obey.

  Further, if you wish me to enquire as to the movement of sheets of gold from Guatemala to a place far to the north by the Maya or the rumors that Cortes himself took gold from the sealed room, I shall await your orders on that subject as well.

  I am your loyal subject, awaiting your direction.

  Your obedient servant,

  Pedro de Alvarado

  Governor of the Kingdoms of Honduras and Guatemala

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Near the border between Belize and Guatemala

  Brian Sadler sat in total darkness seven hundred feet below the surface of the ground. He could hear nothing – the sounds of the rest of his party had long since disappeared and he felt totally alone. He had been left with a backpack, his iPhone and a promise they would return for him in less than two hours. They were now way over an hour late and his mind was racing, playing tricks on him in the absolute blackness. He sat on a rock, occasionally turning on his headlamp but mostly keeping it off to conserve the battery. If anything happened to the others and they failed to return, he would need light to find his way out…if he could make it back up at all.

  The initial descent into the recently discovered cave had proven uneventful. There were three others in the group: Alfredo, a local guide and the man who had found the cave; Brian’s girlfriend Nicole Farber; and Sam Adams, Brian’s old friend who owned the San Ignacio Inn, a hotel in Belize where Brian and Nicole were staying. Sam had introduced Brian to Alfredo, remarking that he had explored caves all over the Cayo District in western Belize but had never found a new one before.

  Sam came along just to see what secrets this new cave might hold. He was always looking for something different to introduce to his guests when they asked for adventure off the beaten path. A previously unknown cavern, especially one with Mayan pottery and even a body, might prove interesting.

  The trip to this cave wasn’t part of Brian’s itinerary in Belize and Guatemala. He had important work to do and not much time to do it in. But this was Sunday and there were a few days to kill before he left on his mission. At the last minute Brian had decided to take Alfredo up on his offer. It would be exciting to view something the public hadn’t seen. A new, unexplored cave. Who knew what secrets might lie beyond the next turn? And Brian, ever the adventurer, couldn’t resist a side trip. This would be a little diversion before his real mission in Guatemala began. But look what this Sunday afternoon expedition had turned into.

  Brian wasn’t even certain what country he was in. They could have crossed over into Guatemala for all he knew. Like so much of the jungle here, this area was virtually unexplored and the border between the two countries snaked through dense jungle with no boundary or marker. The countryside contained a vast, buried wealth of Mayan temples, tombs, house mounds and artifacts, but limited resources in these small, relatively poor countries allowed only a fraction of the sites to be explored. That meant that new finds like the cave where Brian sat were always exciting. There was no way to know what one might find. Alfredo had done limited exploring on the three visits he’d made since he found the hole while hunting with his dog. He knew there were Mayan pots and a skeleton in the cave, because he had seen them. He had no idea what else might be in there.

>   The few caves in Belize that were open to the public had been rendered accessible – they were cleaned up and had handrails, lights, ropes and ladders installed – and they were fairly easy to navigate. This one was different because it was new. There were no amenities to help – the descent started out easy but they soon had come to a ten-foot drop down a slick rock. A rope attached to a carabiner was dangling there – Alfredo explained he had installed it on his first visit and all they had to do was basically slide down the rope. It sounded simple and everyone managed it fine by using gloves Alfredo had given them. Brian asked if they would be coming back this way; Alfredo laughed and said, “No, climbing this rope would be difficult for all of you, I think. I know you are in good shape, but rock climbing is a tough sport!” He said they would continue through the cave and exit through another means he’d discovered on his last visit.

  After they descended a hundred feet and made a number of turns, the only light at all came from their headlamps. There were bats and the occasional lizard for a while, but by the time they were several hundred feet down it was far too cold for those creatures to live comfortably.

  The descent itself had gone uneventfully. Four hours ago they were deep inside the cave. Alfredo, the guide, had turned to the group and said, “This last part ahead will take us into the lowest part of the cave I’ve found so far. This is the chamber where you will see Mayan pots and a skeleton lying in a niche in the cave wall. At that point we will be about seven hundred feet below the surface. Watch your steps, amigos. The rocks are very slippery here.”

  The guide went first, holding on to small outcroppings from the rocks on the side of him, as he slid partially on his feet, partially on his butt, down a large rock and landed on the sand floor. He turned and his light shone on the rest. “Who’s next?” he said.

  Nicole volunteered, and she navigated the short drop without incident. Brian’s friend Sam did the same. As Brian sat on the top of the large rock he needed to go down, he began to slide before he was ready and he struggled to grab a handhold to stop himself. He couldn’t find a good grip and slid faster, turning partially on his right side as he moved down the slippery rock. Where the rock ended he hit his right shoulder hard on an outcropping. At the same instant he fell about three feet onto the sandy floor. No one was looking his way; they all had their eyes on the Mayan skeleton that lay in a niche in the opposite wall.

  Brian stood up, massaging his shoulder. The guide looked around and said, “OK. We are ready to go ahead. The rest of the way will be trickier. There are many twists and turns. When I was last here two weeks ago, I dug rocks, moved some rubble and found another way back to the top. It involves a lot of climbing, but it’s a faster and easier way out than coming back through here.” Alfredo noticed Brian moving his arm around. He asked, “Are you OK?”

  “I hit my shoulder on the way down. Lost my footing, dammit.”

  The guide told Brian to come with him to the other end of the room where they stood. “Try to go through this small opening. The rest of the trip will be like this, and you must move through tricky holes, plus climb a rope.”

  As Brian knelt to twist into the tight hole, his right arm began to throb. He tried to make a fist and realized he couldn’t grip. “I’m not sure that I can do the rest,” he admitted, angry at himself and incredibly disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to explore the winding cave tunnels.

  “OK, that’s it then,” Alfredo said. “We go back now.”

  “No. Can’t you come back here and get me after you take the others to the top?”

  “Probably, but that’s not how I do it. If one person can’t go on, we all go back. That’s the only safe way.”

  Brian insisted that the others go ahead. Nicole looked at him and said, “I’ll stay with you if you want, but I have to tell you I’m not comfortable sitting here with this skeleton in absolute darkness.”

  “No, everyone’s going on,” Brian replied. “Alfredo, take the others on through and come back down with a rope to help me get back up the same way we came down. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

  “Senor, if everything goes smoothly, I would be gone one and a half hours. But every time I come into this cave, things are different. Rocks fall. Things get slippery, just like where you fell. If we go ahead and find we can’t go further, I will need to backtrack. That is why I do not recommend we leave you. I am certain I will return, but what if something happened?”

  Brian managed a laugh, hoping for Nicole’s sake it sounded sincere. “Nothing’s going to happen. If you get to the surface and can’t get back down, just go get help.” As he spoke, he recalled the three-hour trip from their hotel in San Ignacio to this site, much of it on unpaved, deeply rutted roads. At one point they had had to use machetes to cut their way through the underbrush, continuing on what was nothing more than a wide path. If they had not had an ATV, the trek would have been impossible. And the last mile or two was uphill on foot. If the guide couldn’t return to rescue him, it would probably be a day before they could make the round trip to get help and return. Which meant Brian would be spending the night seven hundred feet below the surface.

  “Senor, I strongly suggest this is not a good idea.”

  Nicole said, “Brian, I insist. We have to stop now and all go up. We will figure out how to pull you up as we go.”

  “Actually, Senorita,” Alfredo said, “I have more ropes in the other pack I left in the ATV. We will have a difficult time bringing Senor Brian to the surface from here. It would probably be better for me to go up myself and get the ropes.”

  “OK, that settles it,” Brian said. “I stay, you all go. Come back with the ropes when you all reach the top and I’ll see you then.”

  Reluctantly accepting, Alfredo told Brian he must stay exactly in this place until the guide returned. “You may decide later that you feel well enough to attempt your own rescue, or to try to meet me halfway. I must tell you that would be foolish beyond imagination. This cave has many side paths, and I had to lay a rope behind me from the surface when I descended the first time. If I had not done that, I could easily have taken a wrong turn and been lost forever. I cannot say enough that you must stay here. I know where you are right now, and this is where I will come to find you.”

  And so Nicole, Sam and the guide Alfredo left. At first Brian could hear their voices getting fainter and fainter as they moved away from the place where he sat on a rock, then he heard nothing at all. Although the room was large, maybe nine feet square with a ceiling over twenty feet tall, Brian found it claustrophobic when he turned off his light. He remembered his phone and found a little solace in reading a book he had downloaded. It was nothing more than a way to pass the time, and he worried about running down the phone’s battery. There was a slim chance the guide might not return for a long time – Brian might need the dim light from the phone if that happened.

  How stupid and selfish of me to jeopardize the safety of all these people, he said to himself. Why did I even think about taking an outing for the hell of it, just to see a damned cave before the public was allowed to explore it?

  At one point he switched on his headlamp for a few minutes and examined the three large Mayan pots lying on the ground across the room. He also walked to the niche in the cavern wall and glanced at the skeleton. It was intact, just where the body had been placed hundreds of years ago. Being alone in the dark with this ancient Mayan didn’t worry Brian, but he did think a little about if God protected this body, that hopefully He didn’t care if Brian waited awhile until his friends returned.

  He also had a backpack – each of them had been given one to carry by the guide. One contained ropes, another had rappelling gear and a third had food for today’s lunch. Brian didn’t know which one he had been given, so he busied himself by opening the pack. He was pleased to discover that he had all the sandwiches, five beers and some water. Enough to last several days, he figured. And an incentive for the others to push Alfredo to hurry back down an
d get him, if they got to the top and were hungry for lunch. But what if they didn’t make it back up? What if they got stranded themselves – by a rock slide, or a guide who lost his way, or something worse? What if one of them was hurt too? As the time passed, Brian glanced more and more often at the luminous dial of his watch and his concern grew. He worried more that Nicole might not make it back to the surface than he did about himself. What an idiot, he thought. Why in hell did I even think about bringing her down here? She didn’t even want to come. She was just being a trouper.

  Another hour came and went with no sign of the guide who’d promised to rescue him. Brian looked at his watch – it was early afternoon and the group had been gone four hours. He switched on his headlamp. It glowed steadily, then flickered. The battery was dying. He turned it off quickly, sat on a rock, and held his head in his hands. For the first time in a long time, he began to pray.

  Chapter Two

  New York City

  Three months earlier

  Brian Sadler stood in the front window of Bijan Rarities, watching the March shower steadily increase in intensity. It pelted the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue, turning New York streets into a sluggish stream of traffic. An hour ago he had debated arranging a car for the short ride to the Monument Club, where he was scheduled to have lunch, but he decided the light showers were manageable on foot. Now it was a different story, but also too late to change his plans. A taxi was also out of the question on a rainy weekday at noon in Manhattan.

  As he had done for several months, Brian spent this morning on the upcoming sale of a collection purchased by a Wall Street hedge fund manager thirty years ago. It contained over two hundred ancient artifacts from Mexico City. In the 1400s the Aztecs built Tenochtitlan. It became the capital of their empire and was a vast complex of temples, buildings and homes. In around 1521 Hernan Cortes laid siege to the city. His victory brought down not only the capital but the entire Aztec civilization itself. As the Spanish so often did, Cortes built a cathedral on the site where a major temple once stood, and eventually the entire area became the bustling metropolis of Mexico City, one of the world’s most densely populated cities. The Aztec capital was known to have existed somewhere, but it was largely forgotten.