But I dare not say anything like that to her.
I also had a theory of why entire groups of Indians – including the Maya, disappeared from time to time – our ancestors still on Mars came back and got them.
I could see her lips moving as she read the information I had pulled up on the screen. So I stopped thinking about my theory and used my brain power to help her come up with one.
We spent the next hour and half learning about the Maya calendar and corn in general. We looked at corn in ancient art, learned that a Maya creation story describes how man was created from corn. Still, we found nothing that could translate to a reason to “follow the corn,” whatever that meant. Or, for that matter, how to follow it.
I did learn that corn can’t reproduce by itself, which I found interesting. It’s a domesticated crop. Unlike wheat or barely that falls to the ground and grows new stalks, corn can’t do that. Its thousands of years old and somebody had to, way back then, cultivate it. Now how did that happen? Logan, however, immediately dismissed that as not having to do with anything we needed to know.
I moved on to another search.
Chapter Twenty-Five
At some point, I just couldn’t digest anything else about Maya culture. With my photographic memory, and so many entries in our search just repeating the same information, my brain became frazzled and my body grew weary and hungry.
I got up and stretched. I sat down on the bed and reached for the phone.
“I’ve got to eat. Do you want anything?”
“No. I don’t need to take time out to eat.”
I ignored her. I ordered room service and then called home to let Mase know that I had made it in okay.
Logan and I hadn’t made any progress on our “Corn Quest.” So since we couldn’t find anything on the Internet that helped us, while I ate, we caught up on family stuff, about my “kidnapping,” and I told her about Micah’s stellar performance.
“So, if he didn’t want ransom money, what did he want?”
“He wanted me to give him all the information I had on the Mars migration.”
“He knows about that?” Her jaw dropped and her eyes got big.
“Big brother and all.” I took a big bite of my bacon cheeseburger and had to grab a napkin to wipe the juice that ran from it down my arm.
“Yeah, but why would ‘big brother’ have you on their radar? Who are you?”
“Thanks.” I wiped my mouth and chewed on the bite I had packed in my jaws. “Glad you’re proud of your momma.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Logan gave me an I’m-sorry-I-said-that-look. “Weren’t you scared?” she said.
“I did try to stay brave – initially. But the longer I sat in that room the worse it got. I just started praying. And then when Senator Cook walked into the room I could have messed myself. I figured he wouldn’t kill me, but the government after you – well that’s just as bad.”
Logan laughed. “Probably worse.”
I opened up the fifth salt packet and sprinkled it on my French fries.
“Mommy, you shouldn’t eat like that.”
“Awww, so nice to have my children worry about me and my health, when I thought all you cared about was the insurance money.”
“We worry about that, too.” She smiled. “So Micah became a fighting machine when someone threatened his mommy, huh?”
Her question made me laugh. I had to swallow hard so I wouldn’t choke on the food. I wiped my mouth with the napkin. “Oh my goodness, Logan. You should have seen him. I don’t know when he learned to fight like that.”
“He’s always been a good fighter.”
“Really?”
“Still lots of things you don’t know about us, Mommy.”
“I see. Well Micah kicked butt. All in vain it seems. Senator Cook told me that they wouldn’t have ever hurt me or my son. And I could ‘rest assured’ that no one harmed Micah after I left. When he said that I shook my head and thought, ‘No wonder he was winning. No one was fighting back.’”
We laughed, but I could tell the seriousness in Logan’s voice when she said, “Still they should watch out, when it comes to ‘kicking butt’ as you call it, Micah ain’t no joke.”
“While we are ‘watching out’ for people, tell me about this mysterious benefactor of yours.”
The smile faded and she lowered her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing to tell.” She paused, looked at me and then looked away. “There’s nothing to tell because I don’t know anything about him – or her. It might even be a ‘they.’”
“Did you try to find out?”
“No.”
“You just took the money and the job? No questions asked?”
“Yep. You have to understand it was a way to get into the field. And not only that, this place is a literal gold mine.”
“Gold mine?”
“I don’t think I’ll find any here, but yes the Maya’s hid their gold here.” She laughed. “But wouldn’t it be something if I did find gold?” I didn’t say anything. “Don’t worry though, I’m all about business. There is so much we don’t know about the Maya. So much to learn. The language, their culture. Why they dispersed. Why they disappeared. Maybe this could be my niche. You know?”
I frowned up. “They disappeared?” I teased her. “Didn’t you just tell me that the Maya were still around?”
“Yes. Some of their descendants are still around. Just like I said. But . . .” She looked at me as if giving me a warning. “Some of them did disappear. I don’t disagree with that. But no one, Mommy and I am emphasizing those words – no one knows how or why they disappeared. No definitive proof.” She looked at me. “And it wasn’t on spaceships, Ma. So don’t even think about that.”
I held up my hands. “I didn’t say anything.” I picked up my drink and took a sip. I wasn’t saying anything - not because I didn’t want to, but because she was being so defensive.
Still I thought, maybe it was a good thing I was here to help her. I might could find out more about the Ancients. More about why they placed people here on this planet and then took them back. Then I could have more information for Senator Cook. I looked at Logan. Still I thought it best to change the subject.
“Be careful of working for people you don’t know,” I said. “They might have a different agenda than you.” She didn’t say anything. “How did you get the permission to dig there anyway?”
“I don’t know. Someone just called – out of the blue - and asked for me. Said that I should get a group together because they were coming here to excavate and they wanted me to lead the group.”
“Someone? I’m sure you asked for a name.”
“Of course I did. I spoke to someone in the Office of ----. They couldn’t give me much information. Only that the Belize government had issued permits for the dig.” My brow creased with concern. “Really, it’s not so strange. There has been a lot of excavations here. They dig here practically every year.”
“Yeah, but why did they pick you?”
“What’s wrong with picking me?” She stiffened her body. “They are keeping control over it. I was told that I would get credit for the dig but that they wanted first rights on putting things in the museum here. I could choose where I wanted to have it examined, but someone from their office had to accompany me. They’ve given me the latest and most expensive equipment in field and a team of really smart people to work with.” I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could she started again. “I’m a big girl, Mommy. This is all legit. No worries. No one that’s criminal would be so high tech and concerned about history.”
“If you don’t know who you’re working for, then you don’t have any way to verify that.”
“I know for a fact that this is okay.”
“For a fact? And you don’t know who’s running the show.”
“I’m sure I’m not supposed to mention this.
But from what I’ve seen, the U.S. government is backing this.”
My head snapped up. The government? Now that really gave me pause. It was a member of the U.S. government that kidnapped me. Although in the end I wasn’t in danger and I agreed to help, it taught me that they weren’t beyond illegal means to get what they want. I don’t know why that hadn’t been obvious to me much earlier.
“The government? The United States cares about what goes on in a Belize jungle and what happened to the Maya people? That really seems hard to believe.”
“Why do you do this, everything I try to do you try to knock it down.”
I definitely didn’t know where that came from. And I didn’t want to either. Again I changed the subject. “How about if you show me this stone slab you found?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Caracol, Belize
We had been traipsing through the jungle for what seemed like hours. Logan had assured me we’d been out no longer than fifteen minutes. I didn’t think I could make it another minute.
I needed to remember how much I hate physical stuff like this when I get the yearning to go on digs.
It had been two days since I arrived. It was too late to come out to see the slab the day I got in, and the next day – so no one would get suspicious – Logan made herself visible around the site. We had got an early start, but it appeared, so did the sun.
I wiped the sweat off that was beading up on my forehead and starting to slide down my face with the sleeve of my blouse.
“There are still at least thirty square miles of uncleared and unexcavated ruins left in the thick, high-canopy jungle.” Logan pointed out across the landscape. She was walking ahead of me and talking like a tour guide.
“We’re not going to walk those thirty square miles are we?”
“No. So far we’ve- well you know teams before mine – we’ve identified five plazas, and over thirty-five thousand buildings here. One that was located - the tallest of them - has a massive pyramid that rises more than one hundred and forty feet high from the jungle floor and has three temples.”
I couldn’t care less. So much history should have exhilarated me, but I was exhausted. I inhaled, wiped my brow and exhaled with an exaggerated sigh. I looked back to see how far we had gone from the car. Of course I couldn’t see it. Trees, vines and bushes obscured the view.
What was the reason to get a 4x4 if she was just going to park it and walk over the rough terrain?
“Here it is.” Logan pointed down. Out of breath, I moved closer in to try and have a look. Half of it was still buried, and there were cracks running through it. I couldn’t tell if the entire stone was intact, but it did look like parts of it were broken.
“Do you know what it reads? Did you get it translated?”
“Yeah. I translated it.”
“When did you learn Maya hieroglyphics?”
“Mayan.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“When they asked me if I wanted the job,” she said. “I wasn’t really qualified, so I thought I should at least make an effort to be worthy of the position.”
I smiled. Motherly pride. She must have noticed I was impressed.
“I mean I translated as best I could,” she said. “Mayan hieroglyphics is still pretty new. And it’s understood that their writing style was very sophisticated and carried multiple levels of meaning.”
I chuckled. That sounded just like it came out of a textbook. She could defend her abilities all she wanted, I couldn’t read it so I’d have to depend on what she translated anyway. “Well, what does it say?”
“Nothing about corn. That’s for sure.”
“Didn’t they call it maize?”
“It didn’t have that word either.”
“Just tell me what it was about.”
“It was about the Maya god, Itzamna.”
“Oh.”
I bent down and brushed my hand across the stone. I stared down at the writing. I was unfamiliar with Maya history, its gods and certainly its writing. But I trusted her if she said it didn’t have anything to do with corn. Then it probably didn’t.
“Show me the English.”
“Over here.” She pointed toward one end of the stone slab and then walked to the far corner. She bent down and pointed to the carving.
I followed over to where she was pointing.
“Ugh.” I sat down with a grunt. It took more energy than I had left after walking through the jungle. I tried to get as close as possible. And there it was in English. Looking like it belonged on the wall of a bathroom stall in a seedy bar rather than in the Maya jungle.
I leaned forward and looked at it. I tilted my head. Squinted my eyes. And tilted my head the other way. I ran my fingers through the grooves of the letters.
A clue?
I sat back and rested on my hands.
Didn’t look like a clue to anything to me. I’m sure Logan didn’t want to hear me say that. I glanced up at her and back down at the words. The only thing I could tell her about it was that an ancient monument had been defaced with graffiti.
I peered up at Logan standing over me. “What is L.S. II?”
“I think it’s a ‘who.’”
“A ‘who’?”
“Not sure, but I think it’s Linton Satterthwaite, Jr.”
“The archaeologist?”
“Yeah.”
“No.” I got up, with a lot of effort, and brushed my hands together and shook my head. “Not possible.”
“Then what does it mean?”
“I don’t know, but no archaeologist would do something like that. Destroy artifacts. That’s unthinkable.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Justin had come!
Simon couldn’t have been happier. It was what he had been waiting on.
After speaking to Jairo who was of no help, he kept an eye on the GPS in Logan’s satellite phone the rest of the day. He was able to see her location. Tikal. She had driven from Belize City to Tikal.
It had to be Justin.
He had gone to the site day after Logan had taken her excursion to Belize City. He knew Logan would have taken her mother to see the site. He couldn’t wait to walk up and surprise Justin. He had been giddy with how he’d approach her, possibly out in the forest where Logan seemed so fond of venturing each day, explain to Justin why he had to kill her and then . . . He smiled at the thought.
But she hadn’t been there. He found Logan on the site – alone.
So the next day, he followed the tracker to Tikal and found it emanated inside of a hotel.
She must be here.
He turned off the tracker to save battery power, camped out in front of the hotel, and waited. He’d watch for the white Ford Focus as Logan left the hotel with her mother and follow them. He didn’t see the car but reasoned it was probably in the garage. He knew she was there and she’d have to come out eventually.
He grinned as he settled in.
After three and a half hours of waiting the white Focus hadn’t emerged. He switched on the GPS and found that it was blinking fifty miles away.
What the . . . How did they get past me?
He turned the ignition and sped off following the blinking red dot.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Giza Plateau, Egypt
Aaron still pretended to be interested in the dig at the Sphinx, but truly he couldn’t have cared less about it. He felt eyes looking at him. Accusing eyes. All the time.
Sometimes he thought about aiming his pistol at one of their heads, pulling the trigger and moving to the next one.
He shook it off. Just let them look, he thought. I will comeback from this.
Laura had tried to be a comfort to him. Saying he still had permits. He was still in charge. And no matter what the team members knew – or thought they knew – about his intentions they were all under his direction. “Don’t let them control your emotions,” she had said. They had to listen to him. And, maybe, she said trying to smoot
h his ruffled feathers, something great may come out of it.
Without her he was sure he wouldn’t have made it through. And some days he still wasn’t sure that he would. He felt disgraced.
He was with Laura under the canopy of his trailer, watching people sift through the dirt on the site, when the Director General of the Giza Plateau’s secretary walked smugly across the excavation grounds toward them.
Laura was seated in one of the folding chairs and Aaron was packing up equipment outside the camper. He wasn’t packing up to leave. He couldn’t live through the talk that would come from that. But he needed to look like he was doing something.
The Director General’s secretary was tall and thin. His hair curly and like his beard, was black and unkempt. He started speaking as soon as he approached the camper, dispensing with any salutations or niceties.
“We had to be very circumspect when it came to digging underneath the Sphinx. For thousands of years it had not been moved. Its foundation had stayed the same. Nothing but electronic viewing of it was allowed. That is until you came along.”
Aaron didn’t look up from what he was doing. “What are you trying to say?”
“Trying to say?” The man chuckled. “You misunderstand me. I am not trying to say anything. I am here to tell you about our monuments. About our government. About how we feel letting outsiders come into our country and take what is rightfully ours.”
Aaron lifted up an eyebrow and glanced menacingly at the bearded man who was sweating profusely. “I had all the appropriate permits.”
“Egypt is in the midst of much unrest. And the government is a big problem here for many of our citizens.” He spit out each of his words. “The security forces must take lives often to keep order and our courts sentences many people to die when they side with those who are against what is best for Egypt.”
Aaron looked at Laura and back up at the Secretary. He chuckled. “If I didn’t know better, I would think that you are threatening me.” He stopped packing up the gear and turned to stared at the man. Surely, he thought, this little nothing of a man didn’t think he could intimidate him.
Incarnate: Mars Origin I Series Book III Page 11
