The Death Relic

by Chris Kuzneski

  He sent Jones to collect some intelligence.

  Before departing, Jones whispered the name of Ulster’s hiding place to Payne, so both of them would know it, then he dashed into the jungle, between the Ossario Group and the main entrance to the site. From there, he hoped to learn as much about Angel as possible. Was he Mexican police – a Federale – a criminal, or something else? Was he acting alone, or did he have a team of gunmen at his disposal? And if he had a team, what type of weapons did they possess? Answers to those questions and several more would help Payne decide what they should do next.

  Meanwhile, Payne realized he couldn’t afford to stay in the open. Not only because he was a large target, but because he didn’t want to be seen with Tiffany. If she was a wanted woman, he didn’t want to be linked to her in any way. He quickly surveyed their options, then ordered her and Hamilton into the closest grove of trees, where the three of them could analyze the site while waiting for word from Jones.

  Jones ran, jumped, ducked and scurried through the jungle until he was hiding in the underbrush less than 20 feet from Angel, who’d positioned himself near the main entrance to the site. He was standing there with a scowl on his face, staring at people in the passing crowd. His left arm was in an elaborate sling. It had multiple straps around his back and waist, which took the weight off his shoulder while keeping his arm anchored against his stomach – as if any movement at all would cause his wounds to reopen. There was also thick wad of surgical gauze protruding from the collar of his shirt, some of which appeared to be stained with blood.

  Standing by Angel’s side were two thugs who looked like they had just escaped from a Mexican prison. They were covered head to toe in tattoos, including teardrop tattoos under their eyes. In some Hispanic cultures, it means the bearer has killed someone while they were incarcerated. From appearances alone, Jones didn’t doubt it for a second. Everything about them screamed danger. If they were Federales, they were the best damn undercover officers he had ever seen, because their ink probably took two years to complete, if not longer. They also had a look in their eye that said, If you touch me, I’ll turn your dick inside out.

  All in all, they were not happy men.

  Jones stayed in the weeds for several seconds, trying to learn as much as possible about them. He didn’t flinch, despite feeling ants and spiders crawling across his legs and into his clothes. He simply blocked it out of his mind, as he’d been trained to do in sniper school. Back then, he had been required to remain motionless for hours at a time under the harshest conditions imaginable. A few minutes in the undergrowth wouldn’t kill him.

  The three men didn’t talk, but Jones still managed to learn a lot about them in a short amount of time. Under the back of their shirts, they had solid bulges that went halfway up their backs. Probably large-calibre handguns – the kind with serious stopping power – or smaller pistols with silencers already screwed on. Earpieces were visible in their right ears, which suggested a network of gunmen that extended wider than the three who were visible. He assumed the two thugs who wouldn’t leave Angel’s side were bodyguards.

  Unfortunately, Jones had no way of knowing who else worked for Angel. The odds were pretty good that they wouldn’t look like Mexican gangbangers. Otherwise, they would be too easy to spot amongst the crowd of tourists. If he had to guess, he would say that Angel’s scouts probably looked and acted like normal folk – with one major exception.

  They would be wearing earpieces.

  Jones backed away from his hiding place and called Payne, who listened intently as Jones described the three men near the entrance. He also detailed his theory about the earpieces. He felt they could be used to identify sleepers around the site.

  Payne thanked him for the info. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Simple question: yes or no on Angel?’

  Payne groaned. He knew the query would be coming. Unfortunately, he still didn’t feel they had enough to go on to kill a man in cold blood. Just because Angel looked like a bad guy didn’t mean he deserved to die. And even if he did, Payne wasn’t going to ask his best friend to pull the trigger on a whim. They were soldiers, not executioners. Sometimes there was a fine line between the two, but Payne knew at that moment they were on the wrong side of the line.

  ‘That’s a negative. Repeat. That’s a negative. Do not shoot Angel.’

  ‘Are you sure? There are no friendlies in the way.’

  ‘Still a negative. Repeat. Still a negative. Fall back and regroup.’

  ‘Understood. See you soon.’

  Payne ended the call, only to find Tiffany staring at him.

  She said, ‘You are such a pussy.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You heard what I said. You’re a pussy. Jones had the shot and you ordered him down. Why would you do that?’

  ‘Why? Because I don’t trust you. Not one bit. I’m not going to take a man’s life on your word alone. For all I know, you lured me here to do just that.’

  She shook her head. ‘You are such a disappointment! I had heard so many stories about your exploits I had built you up in my head. But now I know you’re just a coward.’

  He shrugged it off. ‘I’ve been called worse.’

  She continued. ‘Actually, now that I think about it, I’m glad you gave the order to pull back. I’ve learned more about you in those three seconds than I could in a hundred war stories.’

  ‘Is that so? What did you learn?’

  She stood from her hiding spot. ‘If you don’t have the balls to shoot an armed killer, then I know you don’t have the nuts to shoot an unarmed woman.’

  He stared at her. ‘Try me.’

  She smirked at him. It was the same smirk she had flashed at the security camera in the petrol station. It let him know that she had figured him out. ‘And based on your indecision, I know you were this close to giving the order. That means if I make a play for Angel, you aren’t going to stop me. In fact, I’d be willing to bet you’ll give me support.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t. But it would be nice.’

  She tossed Payne an extra clip, then darted through the trees on her way to find Angel. She’d had missed the chance to kill him the day before. She wasn’t about to screw up again.

  Meanwhile, Hamilton remained behind. He sat there in silence, studying Payne like a poker player looking for tells. After several seconds, Payne glanced at him and winked.

  Hamilton laughed. ‘I’ll be damned! You played her. You gave the order not to shoot in front of her, because you knew how she’d react. You knew she’d go after him.’

  Payne fought the urge to smile. He didn’t want to gloat.

  60

  Jones hustled through the jungle until he was back by Payne’s side. Sweaty, dirty and slightly out of breath, Jones was grinning like a child at an amusement park.

  Payne stared at him. ‘Why are you so happy?’

  ‘This is so much better than shovelling snow.’

  ‘Good point.’

  Jones glanced around the thick grove of trees where they were hiding. He spotted Hamilton but didn’t see Tiffany. ‘Where’s Red?’

  ‘We broke up.’

  ‘Damn, Jon. You can’t keep a woman to save your life.’

  ‘Actually, I let her go so she could end a life.’

  Payne explained his rationale, and Jones wholeheartedly agreed with the decision. Although there was some risk in letting her go, they realized that she’d lured them to Chichén Itzá for a reason, and the quickest way to find out what that reason was, was to let her do her thing. In the meantime, if she happened to eliminate a dangerous criminal who might be after them, so be it. They also realized that if she started a major shitstorm, everyone at the site would be in danger. So they pulled out the maps they’d acquired at the visitor centre and planned for the worst.

  Jones eyed the different archaeological sets, which were spread out over several square miles of mixed terrain, and
realized their best bet was to keep the violence contained in one area. That would allow frightened tourists to flee the battlefield and hunker down in the outlying zones until the carnage eventually stopped. In addition, it would also draw sleepers into the field of play, which would be the easiest way to eliminate them. Fighting a team of armed gunmen was one thing. Fighting a team of anonymous gunmen was quite another. The sooner they saw what they were facing, the better – even if it meant fighting ten shooters at once.

  Jones pointed at the main entrance to the site. It was on the western edge of the Great North Platform, which spread out to the north and east. This included El Castillo, the Great Ball Court and hundreds of feet of flat ground between the other ruins. ‘Angel’s standing here. The odds are pretty good that she’s going to engage him somewhere in this zone.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘Did you give her a weapon?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then she’ll have to acquire one.’

  ‘My guess is that won’t be an issue.’

  Jones looked up from the map. ‘Hey, Doc, get your wrinkled ass over here. I need your help.’

  Hamilton, who had been trying to stay out of their way, trudged over through the weeds. ‘Is there a problem?’

  Jones tapped his finger on the map. There was a 980-foot-long path that led from the Great North Platform through the northern wall of the city to a small body of water in the jungle. It was labelled, ‘Cenote Sagrado’. ‘What’s this?’

  He looked at the name and smiled. ‘Cenote Sagrado means Sacred Well. It’s also called the Well of Sacrifice. A thousand years ago, when this city was thriving, the Maya used to sacrifice humans and treasures into the cenote in order to honour Chaac, the Mayan rain deity. According to Mayan mythology, Chaac produced rain and thunder when he struck clouds in the heavens with his axe of lightning. In the early-twentieth century, an American archaeologist named Edward Herbert Thompson dredged the well. He found everything from skeletons and skulls to pottery and jade. If you’re interested, he wrote a captivating book about the Maya called People of the Serpent. Really fascinating stuff.’

  Jones glanced at Payne, then Hamilton, then back at Payne. ‘We have to keep this guy away from Petr. Can you imagine how many years of our lives they could suck from us?’ To illustrate his point, Jones spoke in a mocking tone. ‘Hey, look at that bird! Speaking of birds, did you know that birds are the descendants of a specialized subgroup of dinosaur? Based on biological evidence, birds are blah, blah, blah …’

  Payne fought the urge to laugh. He knew Jones was making a serious point.

  Jones stared at Hamilton. ‘Do you understand what’s going on here? Bullets are about to start flying and you’re wasting my time with a history lesson. Meanwhile, I still have no idea what a fucking cenote is.’

  ‘Sorry. My apologies. I didn’t mean to ramble.’

  ‘And yet I’m still waiting for an answer.’

  Hamilton nodded. ‘A cenote is a local term for a sinkhole that exposes the water table underneath the soil to the surface. This area is filled with them. Some are rather narrow, no more than a foot or two in diameter. Others are rather massive.’

  ‘And this one?’

  ‘It’s approximately one hundred and fifty feet in diameter and naturally circular. The limestone cliffs drop nearly seventy feet to the water below. It’s one of the main reasons that Chichén Itzá was built here. An underground river gave the Maya a fresh supply of water.’

  ‘Is it fenced off?’

  Hamilton shook his head. ‘Actually, quite the opposite. There are no barriers at all. Tourists are allowed to walk right to the edge and peer into the water below.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc. That’s more like it. I can actually use that information.’

  He smiled. ‘Glad I could help.’

  Tiffany was tempted to jog back to Old Chichén, where she had stashed some weapons around the periphery of the campsite. In her line of work, it was better to be safe than sorry. But the more she thought about it, the less she liked the idea of a long run, since she didn’t know who had tipped off Angel. For all she knew, there was a spy waiting for her at the dig site.

  Eventually, she decided to play it safe and hide in the trees that separated the archaeological zones. From there, she hoped to spot as many gunmen as possible. As a trained agent, she knew what to look for in large crowds of people. It went beyond the obvious – weapon bulges, earpieces and inappropriate clothing – she also studied the way people moved: the rhythm of their steps, the way they interacted with others and so on. Over the years, she had spotted more criminals from their body language than everything else combined.

  It took less than five minutes to spot one of Angel’s men. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that was a little too tight to conceal his firearm. She also spotted his earpiece as he strolled past the woods in an area known as El Mercado (The Market). Located on the opposite side of the zone from the main entrance, it was one of the easternmost ruins at the site, far from most people. Several rows of stone columns – some as tall as 13 feet – stood in the middle of a manicured grass field. The ancient columns once supported a thatched roof that had protected merchants and their goods from the elements. Unfortunately for the gunman, they offered him little protection from Tiffany. The moment he stopped to admire the pillars, she plucked a pointed rock from the turf and charged forward. Within seconds, she had bashed him on the head. Not once. Not twice. But several times. Over and over again until the white meat leaked out. Only then did she stop to take his gun and wipe the blood splatter from her face and brow.

  Thrilled with the silence of her kill, she hooked her arms under his and dragged his lifeless body towards the nearby woods. She planned to dump him in the weeds before she hustled to the other end of the site, where she hoped to kill an unsuspecting Angel by the visitor centre. But it wasn’t meant to be. Ten feet short of the woods, her plan went to shit when she was spotted by a group of teenage girls, who were doing everything in their power to avoid their parents. There was a brief moment of silence as the girls processed the murder scene in front of them, and then they did what Tiffany had threatened to do earlier.

  They screamed so loud people could hear it in Florida.

  Jones winced when he heard the sound. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Howler monkeys,’ guessed Hamilton. ‘They’re surly creatures that prowl the treetops of Central America. However, I must admit I don’t remember their pitch being quite that high. Normally the sound is more guttural than bloodcurdling.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Payne ordered as he tried to pinpoint the screams. He knew damn well they were human, but they were tough to locate from his position in the jungle. Trees and vines had a way of distorting sound. ‘I think they came from the east.’

  His guess was proved correct by a series of gunshots.

  They occurred one after another in rapid succession.

  ‘Definitely east,’ Payne said.

  Jones cursed as he pulled out his map. Normally, he would have considered this great news because there was only one group of ruins to the east. They sat nestled in a tiny corner of the site, isolated from the rest of the Great North Platform like a tiny peninsula in a sea of trees. If a skirmish broke out over there, there was a damn good chance the fighting could be limited to that small quadrant, which would keep civilian casualties to a minimum.

  Unfortunately for Jones, these weren’t ‘normal’ circumstances, so he didn’t view this as a positive development. In fact, he viewed it as the worst possible news, because the shootout was taking place next to a temple he had never heard of until moments earlier. A temple he didn’t care about until his friend Petr had whispered its name into his ear.

  It was the temple where Ulster and Maria were hiding.

  61

  Angel heard the screams, then a series of gunshots. He immediately used his radio to find out what was happening. They spoke in Spanish. ‘Who is shooting?’

  ‘The D
evil,’ answered Edgar, one of his gunmen.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘East of the pyramid. She just killed Pedro with a rock.’

  ‘A rock?’

  ‘She bashed in his head.’

  Angel made the sign of the cross. ‘Can you see her right now?’

  ‘Not this moment.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She has me trapped behind a pillar.’

  ‘Trapped? Are you sure she’s still there?’

  ‘Pretty sure.’

  ‘Make damn sure!’ he ordered. ‘I won’t send anyone to help unless I’m sure she’s there. We can’t let her slip past us.’

  Fearful of Angel’s violent reputation, Edgar reluctantly agreed. He took a deep breath then peeked around the stone column, only to find Tiffany standing 20 feet away with her gun raised. His heart sank at the sight.

  ‘Shit,’ he mumbled.

  Angel heard Edgar’s final word over the radio. It was followed by a gunshot to the east, then radio silence. After a few seconds, he nodded his head in understanding.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Now we know for sure.’

  Payne and Jones sprinted through the jungle until they reached El Mercado. They found Pedro’s body 10 feet from the edge of the trees. He was missing his weapon, his radio and a chunk of his head. They assumed Tiffany was responsible for the scene.

  Jones was impressed. ‘She has some skills.’

  Payne spotted a second body. It was crumpled next to a pillar on the other side of the market. He went over and plucked the earpiece from Edgar’s ear. ‘A lot of skills.’

  Jones surveyed the area. She was nowhere in sight. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Check on Petr and Maria. Make sure they’re OK.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ll watch your back.’

  Jones nodded, then ran across the plaza towards a large ruin.

  Known as the Temple of the Warriors, the building features a stone temple on top of three stacked tiers that resemble the bottom half of a pyramid. A Chac Mool is positioned between the temple and the main stairway that leads to the ground below. The complex is fronted by hundreds of carved columns depicting warriors. At one time the columns were painted in bright colours, but now the pigment is barely visible in the afternoon sun.