Sinkhole

by Deborah Jackson

  Megan moaned and cursed on the ground. It hadn’t worked. A shoddy weapon had thwarted her blessed payback. And the man hadn’t even looked like the pale-eyed professor, but instead resembled a Mayan warrior, his eyes a rich black. She shook her head in disbelief. She’d spent far too many days digging into the past. Far too many long, insufferable days. Maybe the time had come to break free.

  Mark looked from the crimson stain spreading over Jorge’s chest to where Megan, a defeated shell of a woman, lay curled on the ground, muttering incoherently. The choice should be obvious, but he wasn’t making it.

  A gentle hand brushed his sleeve. He turned swiftly. Kat stood beside him under the canopy of leaves. “I’ll help Megan,” she said, and knelt on the ground beside the babbling woman.

  Mark closed his eyes, swallowed his pain, and opened them again. Time for action or time for death. Words so often repeated in the ER or the OR. He grabbed his pack and plunged his hand in to withdraw the submarine case. If he could just send that little mechanical toy through the man’s body, he could clamp the injured artery and reverse the damage he’d done. He knelt beside Jorge and flipped the latches.

  A cursory glance, though, told him it was too late. The bullet must have penetrated the heart, and there was no way he could work fast enough. Even if he cracked Jorge’s chest and stitched the heart, it would still take too long. Blood was pulsing out in torrents. Jorge was dying.

  He had to try, though. He tore open the Maya’s shirt, and prepped his needle to inject the sub. Just as he was about to plunge it in, Jorge reached up and stayed his hand.

  “Can’t . . . cure everything . . . doctor.”

  “I can try,” said Mark.

  Jorge shook his head. “Stopped me. More important . . . isn’t it?”

  Mark was struck by a flash of insight. “That’s it, isn’t it? You must have dropped the gun for either Megan or me. You left the rope for some of us to escape. You wanted us to stop you.”

  Jorge shrugged. Even that small gesture made him grimace and suck in his breath.

  “You goaded me. You knew me, and yet you wanted me to fight my nature again and do what you thought had to be done. You never wanted to spread the plague. In fact, I don’t think you would have done it. I was right.”

  Jorge took a deep, shuddering breath. He looked Mark squarely in the eye. “No, doctor, you’re not always right. Remember . . . your words. The desperate are capable of anything.”

  Mark seized his shoulders and shouted, “Tell me the truth! Would you have killed thousands of people just to make a point?”

  Jorge swallowed and licked his cyanotic lips. “Yes.” His lips froze on the word.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Mark couldn’t believe his ears. He was sickened and saddened. He had so wanted Jorge’s last words to dispel the horror. But somehow he knew that Jorge was telling the truth. Even though a part of Jorge had wanted Mark to stop him, he’d been determined to take this course, and he’d been ready to kill and die for it.

  Mark levered himself from the ground and staggered toward Kat and Megan.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “Not so good,” said Kat. She’d wrapped Megan’s weeping blisters in gauze from Mark’s med kit. “But if we can get her to a hospital, a burn unit, she might live.”

  Megan moaned continually, and muttered something about stopping the evil man from hurting her.

  Kat met Mark’s eyes. “She was traumatized when she was younger.”

  He nodded. “Weren’t we all.” He looked back at Jorge and sighed. “But not all of us became terrorists.”

  Kat stood up and took his hand. “Somehow you saw more in him than we did. There must have been some good in him for you to try so hard.”

  “His cause,” said Mark. “I felt it.”

  Kat squeezed his hand. “Then it isn’t over yet.”

  He frowned, trying to get her meaning. The dead body on the ground certainly meant it was over.

  “We can help other people. This toxic organism might even be a gift.”

  “Kat—”

  “Wait, listen to me.” She touched a finger to his lips. “They use snake venom to prevent the growth of some tumors. Before this nanobacteria attacked healthy tissue, it first consumed the abnormal growth on Ray’s skin. It might have an affinity for cancerous cells. And you have a vehicle that can deliver it right to the malignancy.”

  “Kat, this organism is deadly,” he said.

  The smile that lit her face made him wince. It was the same smile he’d seen on people who believe in faith healers and witch doctors. “Yes, it’s deadly. But we have its counterpart, its annihilator. So you deliver the toxin with your brilliant machine. It eats the cancer. You release the other organism before it spreads. Start with me. I’ll be your guinea pig this time.”

  Mark tilted his head. His lovely, intelligent wife was completely insane. He turned to Jorge’s pack and zipped it open, removing a Petri dish filled with one of the most virulent, toxic organisms on earth. “You want me to inject you with this?”

  Kat smiled and nodded, her eyes shining.

  “But I won’t,” said Mark. “Even to save your life.”

  The smile faltered.

  “Listen to me, Kat. I may be desperate to save you, but I can’t inject an untested, extremely virulent organism into your body and just hope that I can stop it from spreading beyond the malignant cells. Not to mention that we would be risking this organism’s escape into the environment. You’re grasping at straws and the straws are very fragile.”

  Her tenuous smile collapsed altogether.

  “But I can try conventional methods with my delivery vehicle. I brought the chemo agents with me—the latest in nanobacteria from your friend’s lab. They’ve been released for testing. They’re safe, and they’ve been very effective on rats and monkeys. I didn’t come without a plan. And I’m not letting you go without a fight.”

  Kat took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. Tears trickled down her cheeks. “Okay.”

  “Then we neutralize this,” said Mark, “and throw it back into the well. And keep its existence a secret from the world.”

  Kat bit her lip, but the slump of her body spoke of her acceptance. “I’ll go check on Pete. You can start neutralizing with the samples from my pack.” She pointed to the ground a meter behind Megan, where the archaeologist must have discarded her backpack before brandishing the gun. Then Kat headed back into the ruined city. Mark considered the pack for a moment, but he had to take one last look at the man he’d killed before he set to work. He bent down and slid his hand over Jorge’s wide dead eyes, easing the eyelids shut. He was about to stand when he felt a jab of cold metal at his neck.

  “Hola, doctor. I see you’ve returned from the cave.” Mark recognized the gruff voice, even though he’d never heard it speak anything other than Spanish or Mayan.

  “Manuel, isn’t it? I thought you couldn’t speak English.”

  The small Maya shuffled around Mark until he was facing him, sliding the rifle along his neck. Now Manuel stepped back and pointed it at Mark’s heart. “It is often best to pretend ignorance. But I see you aren’t exactly the doctor Jorge thought you were. Instead of helping people, you kill them.”

  Mark felt the internal demons claw at him again, but he held the man’s gaze. “I had to. Jorge was about to do something that wouldn’t help your people at all. Instead it would have made them look guilty of a heinous crime. I didn’t want to kill him. I thought of him as a friend.”

  “Friend?” Manuel laughed mirthlessly. “Your people and my people can never be friends. Only if you walk in another man’s shoes can you truly understand him and be his friend. Jorge knew that. That’s why he gave you a chance. But you failed. Now, hand over the dish. I know what’s in it. The curse of Serpent City and the cure for the world’s evil.”

  Mark’s grip on the dish tightened. He’d wrestled with his own heart to stop this beast from escaping. He’d trampled on Ka
t’s hope. He’d killed a friend. How could he just hand it over? His one chance would be to toss it back into the sinkhole and hope the seal would hold. That, of course, would seal his fate, but when, during this entire nightmare journey, did he really think he was going to survive? Maybe just moments ago, but those moments were gone.

  Mark’s grip grew slippery on the container. Manuel’s eyes narrowed. His finger twitched on the trigger of the gun. Mark swung back his arm and flung the dish into the cenote. He waited for the crack of the rifle.

  There was a crack, and it came from Manuel’s direction, but it wasn’t the sharp report of a gun. More like a thunk. Mark whirled back in time to see the man collapse, unconscious. Pete stood there panting, the heavy rebreather in his hands.

  Mark blinked and stared at the lanky microbiologist. Pete’s eyes were fired with adrenaline as he cast aside the tank. “Now I’d like an apology for that sucker punch.”

  Mark felt the tension leave his shoulders. The thudding of his heart slowly subsided. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he walked over to Pete and hugged him.

  “Hey,” said Pete, pulling out of his embrace. “A simple apology would suffice.”

  Mark grinned, but a thought occurred to him. “There are still two others . . .”

  “No need to worry. A big guy and a little one, down by the stadium with a couple of burros? I took them out too. Never knew what hit ’em.”

  “You’re amazing, Pete,” said Mark.

  “Not really,” said Pete. “Just trying to do my part. I knew there were some shady characters in this part of the world. That’s why I brought a gun.” He scanned the ground until his eyes came to rest on the pistol where Mark had discarded it.

  Mark leaned over and retrieved the weapon, handing it to him. “Sorry. Kat took this, and I guess I needed it.”

  Pete’s eyes widened a bit, but he said nothing and tucked the pistol into his belt at the back. “So, you got rid of the bugs, did you?” He was looking anxiously at Jorge’s pack.

  “One Petri dish is in the sinkhole,” said Mark. “I still don’t trust the organism not to escape. At some point we’ll have to come back and neutralize it with Kat’s stock of the other kind. We can take care of the rest in Jorge’s pack now. Which reminds me, Kat was going back to find you— ”

  His chest constricted. Kat! What if she’d run across the other revolutionaries before Pete took care of them? He heaved a sigh when she thrust through the thicket behind Pete.

  “What the hell is going on?” she asked, eyeing the new body on the ground. “Can’t you stay out of trouble for one minute while I’m gone?”

  Mark rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You’re my trouble, darling.”

  In that moment, though, all the fear and pain, the heartache and horror of the past few days slipped away. It really was over. They could bundle Megan up on one of the burros and escape this entrance to hell once and for all. Maybe Jorge was right. Whether by a scientific phenomenon or some mystical magical force, this city really was cursed.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Megan shifted in the hospital bed, the pain present but duller now, more tolerable. Every day the nurse came to do a little debridement of her burned skin, and every day there was healing and scarring. She’d also had numerous visits from a psychiatrist and from Kat and Mark. The healing of her mind had begun.

  Maybe it had started back in the cave, with Ray. How she missed the effervescent French Canadian. It seemed so unfair. The only bad card he’d been dealt in life was loving someone that he couldn’t have. Yet he was the only one who hadn’t escaped the cave. But she knew now that it wasn’t her fault. She’d come to terms with that, at least.

  And she’d come to terms with letting go of the archaeological treasure they’d found. Her Howard Carter moment. Kat had asked her on one of her last visits whether she wanted to expose Serpent City, claim it as her discovery, and lead a team of archaeologists to uncover and explore the ruins. After all, it was Site Q, and she would be known the world over for this discovery. Megan couldn’t help but notice the apprehension in Kat’s eyes. But Kat needn’t have worried.

  “I don’t need to be notable anymore,” Megan said. “Nor do I need to bury myself in the past. What I need is Ray.”

  Kat leaned forward and kissed a tiny unblemished spot on Megan’s forehead. “You’ll find someone just as good for you,” she assured.

  And maybe she was right. Miracles did happen. Megan didn’t even flinch when people touched her now, even the orderlies. She really was healing. Maybe there would be another chance for love one day. After all, wasn’t anything possible once you’d defeated the Lords of Death?

  Mark sat back and gazed out over the jagged peaks and myriad valleys, the smoking volcanoes and the arid plateaus. The workmen were taking a hiatus from their sawing and hammering, from churning cement and making the miracle rise from the ground. After three months it was nearly completed—the first state-of-the-art hospital in the Chiapas highlands. Not only would it have all the latest medicines and equipment, it would also have the first working nanotechnology OR in the world. Of course he would have to hire a few other physicians to supplement his own work, and Kat would need help in the lab as she explored the treasure trove of Mayan jungle cures and her own amazing microbes. But hey, since she’d left NASA she was all his. At least for now.

  The treatment seemed to be working, too. He’d needed a minimally sterile environment—a clinic in Villahermosa filled the bill—to start Kat on her series of treatments. The sub had been injected and bacterially propelled to the site of her tumor, and then more bacteria had been released to begin the process of angiogenesis and the emulsification of tumor cells. Who had ever dreamed that bacteria could be so useful? Although some were better left where they lay.

  Kat was responding to the treatment. With the last ultrasound, it appeared that the tumor had shrunk. It wasn’t a guarantee that she would recover fully, and he knew enough not to assume that the treatment would succeed, but at least there was hope. That was all medicine could ever offer, and he’d finally come to accept that.

  “Doctor,” said a squeaky voice near the ground. A tug on his pant leg ensured his complete attention. It was little Annemarie, Jorge’s niece, a malnourished, hollow-eyed seven-year-old. “Thank you for the food and the hospital.”

  He smiled. “Don’t thank me.”

  “But Mama said—”

  “I couldn’t pay for all of this alone, sweetheart,” he said. “There’s a man called Pete. He works for this big company that makes medicine for the sick. They found a new medicine and this crazy, wonderful man has convinced his company to build your hospital and send you food. If you want, I can thank him for you.”

  Mark remembered Kat’s look of shock when Pete had told them the news, but he hadn’t been surprised. Even after everything that had happened, and maybe because of it, he still had faith in humanity.

  Annemarie nodded, her big eyes searching Mark’s face. “But you are the one helping us. Staying here and being our doctor. No one else would.”

  “You don’t have to thank me for that, either,” said Mark. “That was your uncle’s doing.”

  She frowned. “Tío Jorge?”

  “Sí,” said Mark.

  She scrunched up her face. “But Tío Jorge is dead. He is not helping us. You are.”

  Mark knelt down and smoothed her straggly hair from her face. “People may tell you different things about Tío Jorge. He was a good man. He was a bad man. He was loco. Some people may say he was the worst kind of evil. But let me tell you about your uncle. He cared more for you than anyone on earth. He cared enough to bring the wrath of God down upon himself. And even if I live to be a very old man, I will never have that much love in my heart.”

  Annemarie tilted her head and wrinkled her tiny forehead. She was too young to understand. But that was okay. She would eventually. Mark stood up and surveyed the phoenix rising from the ashes. With luck and hard work,
this seemingly insignificant change would spread like a disease. In a roundabout and twisted fashion, Jorge had accomplished what he’d set out to do.

  Pete sat back in his padded leather chair, his hands laced behind his head. He couldn’t hold back an expansive smile. Amazingly, he’d convinced the company to come through for the Mayan poor, to give back some of the riches it had plucked from the jungle. The copious samples of unique nanobacteria had been enough to convince them, including the incredible cave raft microbe that was already revealing its curative powers. However, he’d had to promise Kat and Mark that he wouldn’t disclose the location of the miracle bug if they let him keep the sample. He was hoping he could grow it in the lab and wouldn’t need to return underground to collect additional samples. So far the nanobacteria had shown remarkable capacity for exponential growth, and he didn’t have to worry about collecting more. That was good. There was no need to break his promise.

  He couldn’t believe the response he’d received from co-workers and even politicians, who congratulated him on his unselfish gifts to the less fortunate. He’d become a hero of sorts. This kind of attention was not at all what he was accustomed to. The pats on the back and the flurry of cameras in his face were exhilarating. They were almost enough.

  But he wasn’t rich and that disturbed him.

  He gazed at the glass eye of the microscope on his desk. Then he unlocked the drawer on the right side and pulled it open. A sloppy array of data and a jumble of Petri dishes and sample jars crammed the recess. His hand slunk to the back, to a hidden panel that he now removed. His smile grew until the corners of his lips moved halfway to his ears.

  Such trusting souls, Kat and Mark. So confident in the golden quality of the human heart. Putting the entire balance of life on earth into the hands of someone they had misjudged so completely. Of course, like most human beings, they were still trapped. They’d always be left fumbling in the dark and remain trapped. Nothing but the cave had ever trapped him, and nothing ever would. Throughout the deadly trek and ultimately the imprisonment in the cavern, they’d never seen through his façade. Didn’t they realize that he was just like the deadly bug? A dazzling enticement of light hid the delicious ruthlessness beneath. Nature was ultimately cruel.