The Death Relic

by Chris Kuzneski

  After all this time, she still felt conflicted and confused.

  Yet here they were, willing to help.

  Maria took a deep breath and opened the door. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Thank you for calling.’ Jones gave her a friendly hug. ‘Pittsburgh’s supposed to get six more inches of snow this weekend. That’s six inches too many for me.’

  Payne hugged her next. As he did, he glanced over her shoulder and scanned the suite. ‘I’m not a wuss like DJ, but I have to admit, sunburn sounds better than frostbite.’

  She smiled at the notion. ‘Well, I brought a bottle of suntan lotion. You’re welcome to it – if you can find it. It’s kind of a mess in here.’

  Payne nodded as he stepped inside. Furniture was out of place. Paintings were off the walls. Clothes were scattered everywhere. Her suite looked like the movie set of The Hangover, minus Mike Tyson’s tiger. ‘Man, I want to party with you. You live like a rock star.’

  She scoffed at the notion. ‘Hardly! I spent the whole night in bed, researching the Maya.’

  As he closed the door, Jones tried to lighten the mood. ‘Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays? Researching the Maya?’

  Payne smiled. ‘Hey, baby, want to come back to my place and research the Maya?” ’

  Jones raised his voice an octave. ‘Only if you sacrifice a virgin.’

  She blushed as she laughed. ‘Trust me, I spent the night alone, trying to figure out why Hamilton brought me to Mexico. I even picked the lock on his briefcase to look for clues.’

  Payne stared at her. ‘You picked his lock? With what?’

  ‘A paperclip – just like David taught me.’

  Jones gave her a high-five. ‘That’s my girl.’

  Payne glanced at him. ‘You taught her to pick a lock? When did you do that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Second date.’

  ‘No, seriously.’

  ‘I am serious.’

  Maria laughed at the memory. ‘We’d gone out for dinner in this trendy part of town. Afterwards we went for a long walk and came across this old couple who’d locked their keys in their car. They were trying to open the door with a rusty coat hanger. It looked like they had found it in a storm drain or something because it had clearly seen better days. Anyway, David offered to help them, and—’

  Payne interrupted her. ‘Let me guess: he beat them senseless and ended up stealing their car. Or is that more of a “third date” kind of thing?’

  Jones rolled his eyes, then ticked off an imaginary list. ‘Third date is firearms. Fourth date is self-defence. And the fifth date is … researching the Maya.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Payne teased, ‘I see a major flaw in your system. Once you teach them self-defence, you probably won’t get to do any research.’

  Jones groaned. ‘Is that why I’m still single?’

  Maria laughed at their antics and pointed towards the main bedroom. ‘Let me get the briefcase. I need to show you what I found.’

  Payne waved her off. ‘Take your time. I want to check out your place.’

  Known as a master suite, it looked more like a luxury condominium than a hotel room. With 860-square feet of living space, the corner suite was equipped with marble floors, a wet bar, a sunken living room, two large bathrooms, an indoor jacuzzi and a large TV. Outside there was a private terrace with a teak patio set from Spain. As far as Payne could tell, it was the only furniture that hadn’t been disturbed.

  He stared out the window at the light-blue sea. The water reminded him of a diving trip he had taken near the Cayman Islands. ‘Why toss the suite?’

  Jones shrugged. ‘I was wondering the same thing.’

  ‘She flies into town. Comes here and unpacks. Then goes downstairs to meet Hamilton. That’s what? Three hours at most?’

  ‘Sounds about right.’

  ‘Did she come directly here from the airport?’

  Jones nodded. ‘In the hotel shuttle.’

  ‘If that’s the case, there are only three reasonable explanations that I can think of – and one of them is pretty unlikely.’

  ‘Which one is that?’

  ‘Random robbery.’

  ‘You’re right. That seems doubtful. Nothing is missing except her passport, and run-of-the-mill thieves wouldn’t trash the place. They’d want to make as little noise as possible.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Which leads us to number two.’

  Payne nodded. ‘Non-random robbery.’

  ‘They were looking for something specific. Maybe something she brought from home, or something she was holding for Hamilton. They were confident she had it here, so they trashed the suite looking for it.’

  ‘If that’s the case, they probably think she still has it – unless they grabbed Hamilton to find out for sure.’

  ‘Any idea what it might be?’

  Payne shook his head. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Maria cleared her throat from the back of the room. ‘Me neither.’

  Jones turned and faced her. ‘Are you sure? Maybe a book, or a document of some kind?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Were you supposed to bring anything at all?’

  She placed the briefcase on the counter, then walked towards the window where they were standing. ‘A week’s worth of clothes and toiletries. Other than that, I was on my own.’

  Payne grunted. ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘That’s bad? Why is that bad?’

  ‘Why? Because there’s only one other scenario I can think of.’

  ‘Which is?’

  Payne looked at Jones. ‘You want to tell her?’

  ‘No, you can tell her. It’s your theory.’

  Maria stepped forward and poked Payne in his chest. She did it so hard she almost made a hole in his shirt. ‘I don’t care who tells me, just tell me!’

  Payne grimaced but admired her feistiness. That was more like the Maria he remembered from Milan. She wasn’t someone who cowered in her room, but someone who was willing to fight. ‘Fine! I’ll tell you. But you aren’t going to like it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because someone trashed your suite to scare you.’

  16

  Maria looked to Jones for confirmation. He nodded and tried to assure her that everything would be all right, but she cut him off in the middle of his speech.

  ‘Who would want to scare me?’ she demanded.

  Jones shrugged. ‘You would know better than us.’

  She glanced at Payne, looking for answers. ‘This is my first time here. Why would someone want to scare me?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I get the feeling it worked.’

  The comment pissed her off. ‘You’re right! I got scared and locked myself in my room. Sorry for being human. Unlike you, most of us haven’t been trained to kill.’

  Payne paused, unsure where her anger was coming from. He assumed it was a combination of fear, anxiety and lack of sleep – as a former soldier, he knew how volatile that mix could be, yet he sensed something else was bubbling under the surface. Was it guilt over Hamilton’s disappearance? Or embarrassment about calling them for help? Whatever the reason, he knew his comment had served as the catalyst to her outburst.

  ‘Sorry, Maria, I didn’t mean it as an insult. I honestly didn’t. I simply meant that if they were trying to scare you, they did a damn good job.’

  She took a deep breath and backed away. ‘I’m sorry, too.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologize.’

  ‘Actually, there is. You came all this way to help, and I just yelled at you over nothing. I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ve been trained to ignore emotions.’

  She smiled but said nothing.

  Jones cleared his throat to break the tension. ‘Let’s get back to the original topic. Who would want to scare you?’

  She gave it some thought. ‘Someone who doesn’t want me to work
for Hamilton, I guess. But I don’t know who that would be. Maybe a rival or something.’

  ‘Does he have one?’ Payne wondered.

  ‘Not that I know of, but I can make some calls and ask around.’

  Jones nodded. ‘That’s a good place to start. We can also do some digging on the Internet. See if anything pops up. Who knows what we might find?’

  Maria looked at him. ‘Do you still have connections with the government?’

  ‘What kind are you referring to?’

  ‘Police.’

  Jones nodded. As a licensed private detective, he had many friends in the law-enforcement community. ‘Why?’

  ‘Can you run a criminal background check on Hamilton?’

  ‘Of course I can. But why? What are you thinking?’

  ‘I just want to make sure he isn’t a bad guy.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’ Payne asked.

  ‘I don’t. I mean, I didn’t …’

  ‘Until?’

  ‘Until I opened his case. Now I’m not so sure.’

  Payne and Jones glanced at the briefcase. It was sitting on the counter on the other side of the suite. They had completely forgotten about it until that moment. As Maria walked towards it, they followed close behind, all the while wondering what she could have found that had put doubt in her mind. Payne found it pretty ironic that Maria didn’t think Hamilton was a bad guy until she picked the lock on his briefcase, but decided to save his comment for another time, when she was in a better mood and his chest had fully healed from her claw marks.

  Maria continued her explanation. ‘I was hoping there would be a map of the dig site, or maybe some information about my role in things. Instead, I found this.’

  She opened the briefcase so they could see inside.

  Tucked in a hand-stitched leather holster was a .38 Smith & Wesson single-action revolver. Made from bright nickel, it had a spur trigger, a flat-sided hammer and an eight-inch barrel that would have looked at home in a cowboy movie. A gold eagle was engraved on both sides of the revolver, between the cylinder and the top of the pearl grips. The engravings continued down the barrel, an intricate pattern of swirls and flourishes that were commonplace on Mexican revolvers.

  Jones started to salivate as soon as he saw it. He carefully removed it from its holster and held it up to the light to admire the craftsmanship. From the weight alone, he knew the revolver was fully loaded. With a practised hand, he tilted out the cylinder, dumped the bullets into his opposite palm, then clicked the cylinder back in place. ‘If Hamilton is dead, I call dibs.’

  Maria smacked his arm. ‘I can’t believe you just said that.’

  ‘Sorry. But it’s a really nice revolver.’

  Payne admired it as well. ‘See the eagle on the side?’

  She looked closer. ‘It’s clutching something in its beak … Is that a snake?’

  Payne nodded. ‘That symbol is the Mexican Coat of Arms. Not the current version, but one from the Forties. If I had to guess, I’d say the revolver is from that era.’

  ‘In other words, it’s a collectable.’

  ‘A collectable that can kill.’

  Jones grunted his displeasure. ‘That being said, it’s not the most efficient gun in the world. This is a single-action revolver, meaning you have to cock the hammer with your thumb after every shot. The movement of the hammer spins the cylinder, which moves the next round into place. Compared to a modern Glock or SIG Sauer, this is a relic from another time.’

  Payne argued his point. ‘But it’s still a gun, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it was loaded?’

  ‘You know it was.’

  ‘Then Hamilton was prepared to use it.’

  ‘I completely agree. Now all we have to do is figure out when the next stagecoach is coming to town and we can go down there and stop the robbery,’ cracked Jones.

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘I’m serious, too. This isn’t an offensive weapon.’

  She looked at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Jones paused in thought. ‘Are you familiar with the expression, “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight”? Well, I wouldn’t bring this weapon, either. It’s way too slow and inefficient. A gun like this was designed for appearance and little else. Do you know what they call a revolver like this in Texas?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘A barbecue gun. Do you know why?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Because it’s the kind of gun you’d wear to a family barbecue. You’d strap it to your hip in a fancy holster like this one, and all your buddies would admire it.’

  She looked to Payne for clarification. ‘People wear guns to family barbecues in America?’

  ‘Not in America, but they do in Texas.’

  ‘Really?’

  Payne kept a straight face. ‘When kids play Cowboys and Indians in the great state of Texas, they use real guns. And real Indians.’

  She cracked a smile. ‘That’s so wrong.’

  ‘Sorry. I meant Native Americans.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Jones concluded, ‘I don’t think Hamilton had this revolver to rob a bank or do anything illegal. I think he had it with him for self-defence.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked.

  He aimed the revolver at the plasma TV and cocked the hammer. ‘This sucker might be slow, but people are going to think twice if you whip it out.’

  ‘OK,’ she admitted. ‘Self-defence sounds plausible. But why? Why did he think it was necessary?’

  Jones pulled the trigger and the hammer slammed shut. The metallic clack echoed around the trashed suite. ‘That’s what we need to find out.’

  17

  Mexico City, Mexico

  Tiffany Duffy didn’t know what to expect when she flew to Mexico City for a business trip, but she wasn’t expecting this.

  According to CIA estimates, Mexico City is the third most-populated metropolitan area in the world, behind only Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, South Korea. With over 21 million people, Mexico City accounts for nearly 20 per cent of the population of Mexico and a significant portion of the nation’s wealth. Because of its proximity to the United States, Mexico is often viewed as a secondary player on the global stage, but its population of 111 million people is the eleventh largest in the world. That’s more than Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom combined.

  The capital city is nestled in the Valley of Mexico in the high plateaus of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt. Composed of more than twenty volcanoes, including some of Mexico’s highest peaks, the belt stretches across southern Mexico from the Pacific coast to the Caribbean Sea. With a minimum altitude of 7,200 feet, Mexico City has a very different feel to tropical Cancún. Instead of colourful resorts, there are drab apartment buildings. Instead of manicured streets, there is urban sprawl. And instead of white, sandy beaches, there are mountains perpetually topped with snow.

  Sadly, many of those peaks are rarely seen by locals because of the thick layer of smog that hovers above the valley like a dirty blanket. Twenty times worse than any city in America, the smog reached such toxic levels in 1990 that a local newspaper estimated the life expectancy of its citizens was nearly ten years less than that of the residents of other Mexican cities. To combat this problem, the local government instituted a programme called Hoy No Circula. In Spanish, it literally means, ‘Today (your car) Does Not Circulate’, but it’s more commonly known as ‘One Day Without a Car’. Restrictions are based on the last digit of your license plate and prohibit certain cars from being driven on certain days of the week.

  Tiffany wasn’t familiar with the programme, but she had a hard time believing there were any traffic regulations on the city’s busy streets. A constant stream of cars – more than she had ever seen in her native Ohio – whizzed past at alarming speeds. She tried to cross the road on multiple occasions, only to be greeted by a chorus of beeps and profanities. At least she assumed they were profanities. She di
dn’t know for sure since her street slang was rusty, but she had spent enough time in Cleveland to realize that the motorists probably weren’t welcoming her to their city when they flipped her off.

  With map in hand, Tiffany made her way through the chaos and into the heart of Centro Histórico, where the pace seemed to slow. She had seen several posters of Plaza de la Constitución at the airport and had hoped to take a few pictures of her own.

  Dressed in blue jeans and a beige sweater, Tiffany stood out from the crowd, thanks to her strawberry-blonde hair and freckles. In Mexico City, redheads were almost as rare as clean air or good French food, so she was noticed by Latino men and women alike. More cute than sexy, she was often classified as the girl next door – especially in the winter when she packed on a few extra pounds. The truth was she wasn’t obese or even overweight, but she was a little too muscular to be mistaken for a fashion model. And she was fine with that. Unlike some of her friends, who starved themselves to fit into smaller dress sizes, she worked out just enough to keep the figure she had. In fact, when anyone questioned her weight, she always replied, ‘I would rather be happy and healthy than skinny and sad.’

  Anxious to learn as much about the area as possible, she paid fifty pesos for a walking tour of the historic plaza. Led by an elderly guide named Paco, the group consisted of thirteen people in total and contained a wide variety of ages and ethnicities.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in accented English. ‘Welcome to Constitution Square. Or, as most locals call it: Zócalo. Does anyone know what this word means?’

  Someone shouted the answer. ‘The main square.’

  Paco pointed at him. ‘Muy bien! I see someone has taken my tour before! If I have questions, maybe I ask you? I am old and sometimes forget.’

  Tiffany smiled, glad to see that he had a sense of humour.

  ‘OK,’ Paco said, ‘that was easy question. Let me see how you do with tricky one. Why do Mexicans call this place Zócalo instead of Plaza de la Constitución?’

  This time nobody guessed.

  Paco had anticipated the silence. ‘The answer is simple. The Spanish Constitution of 1812 was signed in the plaza, but the Mexican Constitution was not. My brothers refuse to call this Constitution Square until there is a Mexican Square in Madrid!’ To drive home his point, he thrust his fist in the air, as if he had just delivered an impassioned speech to a group of armed rebels. He held it there for a moment before breaking into a wide grin. ‘Who am I kidding? We call it Zócalo because it is easier to say.’