by J
Then he turned his attention to the complicated array of controls, screens, and gauges on the console in front of him. “All this makes sense to you?” he asked Lucky.
“It’s simpler than it looks,” Lucky explained. “This screen shows our position, so you can see we’re approaching Puerto Muerto. There are a lot of reefs along this bit of coast, so we’re sticking to Morley’s route. Here, do you want to take the wheel for a moment?”
Max leaned in to steer the sub. “So how do I dive?”
“I told you, that’s for emergencies only.” Evidently not trusting Max to steer a steady course, Lucky took back the wheel. He pointed at two video screens. “That’s your job. Man the periscope. We’ve got cameras on the mast feeding in pictures from the surface.”
Max tried out the camera controls. “I’ve got a video game like this. Do we have torpedoes?”
Lucky laughed. “No.”
“So what am I looking for?”
“Planes or choppers that might spot us from above. Boats getting too close. Anything suspicious …”
Max zoomed in on a black fin cutting through the water. “Hah! That looks like a shark, but I bet it’s another sub in disguise! We should dive before it sees us!”
Lucky checked the screen. “Look at the curve behind the dorsal. It’s a dolphin.”
As if performing for the camera, the dolphin made a graceful leap.
Max watched it, unconvinced. “It still looks suspicious to me.”
“I promise you, it’s a dolphin. But if you’re worried, we have radar tracking as well.”
“Can other boats track us?”
“We have a few tricks up our sleeves. Our shell is fiberglass, which is harder to detect than metal. And we cool our exhaust before releasing it, so the heat isn’t picked up. The only thing we can’t disguise is the engine noise. The vibrations carry for miles underwater.”
“Who’d hear us down here apart from the fish?” asked Max.
“Never underestimate the San Xavier coast guard,” said Lucky ominously.
“That reminds me of one of Uncle Ted’s stories,” said Max. “He was dragging a crate of booty behind a banana boat one day, and the coast guard homed in on him. He had to cut the crate free and let it sink. But it had a radio-transmitter on it, so he went back another day and found it again.”
“I was with him the day he found it,” replied Lucky.
“In the secret cave? With the shipwrecked galleon?”
Lucky nodded. “I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. It felt as if we were meant to be there. As if something wanted us to find the cave.”
Max continued the story. “And besides Uncle Ted’s crate, you found a hoard of Spanish treasure—including two Jaguar Stones.” Max stared at him for a moment. “I’ve never thought about it this way before, but if the current hadn’t carried you into the cave that day, my dad wouldn’t have gotten his hands on the White Jaguar, and he and Mom wouldn’t have vanished into Xibalba, and I’d still be at home in Boston, and none of this would have happened.”
“Things have a way of happening anyway,” said Lucky. “Mr. Murphy bought this sub with the proceeds of that dive.” He tapped the nearest video screen. “How about less talking and more watching?”
As they passed the mouth of the Monkey River, Max spotted the Gran Hotel de las Americas. It was there he’d first encountered Count Antonio de Landa, the crazy, cape-twirling Spanish aristocrat who was buying a Jaguar Stone in a shady deal with Uncle Ted.
A sharp nudge from Lucky brought him back to the moment. “Radar! Behind us! Ship!”
Max rotated the camera and stared at the screen. At first it showed only a smudge on the horizon, but the smudge quickly grew into the shape of the one vessel they had hoped not to see.
“Coast guard!” Max exclaimed.
“Zoom in! Show me!” Lucky sounded frantic.
Max went to full magnification. His stomach flipped as he made out the silhouette of a gun mounted on the front deck.
“Have they seen us?” he asked Lucky.
“Only one way to find out.” Lucky pushed the throttle forward to maximum and pointed to a narrow peninsula on the GPS screen. “If we can get past that headland, we’ll be clear of the reefs and out in open sea. They’ll never catch us then.”
Max had thought it was loud before, but now the engine noise seemed to be coming from inside his brain.
“What’s up?” yelled Lola, climbing through the hatch.
“Coast guard!” Max screamed back. He jabbed at the camera. “They’re gaining on us.”
Ahead of them, he could see big waves crashing onto the rocks of the headland.
It was going to be close.
Lola looked at the screen. She narrowed her eyes to see better. The coast guard vessel was so close, she could almost make out the faces of the individual sailors on deck.
Then, suddenly, she could see nothing but a flash of light.
The sub lurched in the water.
“They fired at us!” cried Lola in disbelief.
Lucky was flicking switches and pulling levers in a blur of movement. “Looks like you’re getting your wish, Max. We need to dive—and fast!” The engine shut down, the screens went dead, the lights cut out, and the emergency lights came on.
Straightaway, they heard seawater rushing into the ballast tanks to weigh them down.
Just as they started to sink—BOOM!—another shell hit them and the fabric of the sub screeched like it was in pain.
Max and Lucky were hurled forward. Lola lost her grip and fell down the ladder.
Max sat up and rubbed his head. “Are you okay?” he called down to Lola.
“I think so,” she said. “I’ll have a few bruises, though.” She climbed painfully back up. “How about you and Lucky?”
Max peered at Lucky through the gloom. He was slumped over the instrument panel. “Lucky! Are you okay?”
Lucky didn’t answer.
“He’s out cold!” cried Lola. She felt his wrist for a pulse.
All was dark outside the port-holes. The depth gauge spun around. The only sound was the creaking of the hull as the water pressure increased.
“He’s not dead, is he?” Max was panicking at the sight of Lola bending over a lifeless Lucky, both of them illuminated in the faint green glow of the emergency lights.
“He’s concussed,” replied Lola. “He must have hit his head really hard. I think he’ll come around in a moment.”
“Coast guard!” Max screamed. “They’re gaining on us.”
“We need him NOW!” wailed Max.
“There must be a way to stop it,” muttered Lola, inspecting all the switches on the console. “Why don’t they label these things?”
Max watched in despair as the depth gauge spun lower and lower. “Maybe it will stop on its own. Lucky said it goes to a maximum of sixty feet.”
At a depth of sixty-one feet, water started leaking in around the seal of the porthole.
“Lucky! Lucky! Wake up!” yelled Max.
By sixty-five feet, the ocean was streaming in. Max imagined that leaks were springing up all over the vessel. How long before the whole sub filled with water?
Seventy feet!
The walls of the sub made a terrible groaning sound, as if the sea was about to burst through.
At eighty feet, the depth gauge seemed to slow down.
All was dark around them. They were drifting at the mercy of the current.
Max was willing the coast guard to detect them. Far better to be caught red-handed than stuck in this aquatic coffin. How long would the air last? How long would it be before the sub imploded under the water pressure?
But, as it turned out, he had a much bigger problem, and it was right in front of his eyes.
“We’re going to crash!” Lola was pointing, terrified, at the windscreen.
Through the darkness, Max discerned the outline of the sheer wall of rock that stretched from the cliffs above them down
to the seafloor. They were heading straight for it.
“Lucky!” screamed Lola. “Wake up!” She tried again in Mayan: “Ahen! Ahen!” His eyelids fluttered, but his eyes stayed shut.
The rock wall loomed nearer and nearer.
“What do we do?” yelled Max.
“I don’t know!” Lola yelled back at him.
“Cease this confounded racket!” boomed Lord 6-Dog, standing at the top of the ladder in his pajamas. His angry expression faded as he took in the situation:
Lucky slumped in the driver’s seat …
Lola and Max in full-on panic mode …
Water sloshing around on the floor …
A collision about to happen …
… All bathed in the unearthly green emergency lighting that gave the scene a ghoulish quality.
“Ah Pukuh is behind this, I’ll wager,” muttered Lord 6-Dog, squeezing into the already overcrowded cockpit. He peered out of the nearest porthole, as if expecting to see the god of violent and unnatural death swimming past.
“Brace yourselves!” yelled Max as the great black wall of rock filled every windscreen. But the impact never came.
They simply floated into darkness.
“What just happened?” Max hugged himself to see if he still had a body. “Did we vaporize through the rock? Are we dead?”
A school of fluorescent blue fish swam toward them.
“I think we’re in some kind of canyon,” said Lola.
“One that leads to the underworld, I’ll be bound,” growled Lord 6-Dog. “I command thee to stop this vessel!”
“We would if we could,” replied Lola. “But the current is carrying us forward. Only Lucky knows how to get us out of here.”
They all looked hopefully at Lucky.
“I command thee to wake up!” Lord 6-Dog barked at him.
Lucky was still out for the count.
“Maybe we should look for life jackets in case we have to swim for it,” suggested Max.
“Swim?” Lord 6-Dog looked appalled. “Who knows what infernal monsters may await us in these deeps?”
A small squid floated by, glowing pink against the dark water.
Max shuddered, remembering the giant octopus in Venice that had tried to drag him down to Xibalba. “Please wake up,” he begged Lucky. “We need you.”
Lucky opened his eyes blearily. He looked at Lola.
“We were diving to escape the coast guard,” she reminded him. “They fired at us. You got knocked out.”
Max quickly picked up the story. “We don’t know how to stop.… We’re eighty feet deep.… The water’s coming in.”
Lucky tried to focus on the controls. As he snapped on the exterior lights, they saw that they were floating down a narrow tunnel of rock.
“I know this place,” said Lucky.
“Where are we?” asked Max, but Lucky didn’t answer. Every bit of his energy was focused on steering the sub through the narrow space.
As the canyon walls opened up to a sea of black, Lucky relaxed. “It’s just as I remember it,” he said, smiling to himself. Then he looked around at Max and Lola. “Prepare to surface!”
“Surface?” repeated Max in alarm.
“No, Lucky,” protested Lola. “Not yet! What about the coast guard or whoever that was?”
“Not a problem,” said Lucky with a mysterious smile.
Four things happened in quick succession.
The control panels lit up.
The cabin lights came on.
The ballast tanks starting pumping out water.
The sub began to rise.
“It’s getting lighter,” said Lola after a moment.
Surprisingly quickly, they broke through the surface of the water.
Max monitored the video screen and the GPS. “I don’t get it.” He tried to make sense of the picture. “It says we’re inland.”
Lucky leaned over to throw open the door. “It’s an underground lake. But not just any lake.”
Max, Lola, and Lord 6-Dog looked out in astonishment.
“What is this place?” asked Lola.
Back aboard the coast guard ship, the crew of zombies cheered. Their mission had been a success. For once in their lawless zombie lives, they’d followed their orders to the letter; they’d driven the little sub into the ocean depths, for the current to carry it the rest of the way. The two brats and the fleabag monkey would find what they were meant to find. Tzelek would be well pleased. There would be feasting in Xibalba tonight.
CHAPTER NINE
THE SECRET OF THE ESPADA
Max leaned out of the submarine hatch and gasped in awe. The cave looked like a pirate’s treasure chest. Its limestone walls were as white as pearl, and rays of sunlight as bright as gold doubloons played on the emerald water. Flashes of topaz sky were visible through holes high up in the cave roof. Fish glinted like gemstones and were gone. At the far end, a pebble beach sparkled like diamonds.
Then he saw it.
In a corner of the cave, marooned high up on the treacherous rocks by a long-ago tide, was the wreck of a Spanish galleon.
A bell rang in Max’s brain. He turned to Lucky. “Is that … is that … the … Espada?”
Lucky nodded.
“The Espada?” Lola was confused. “That was Antonio de Landa’s yacht.”
“This is the original Espada,” Max explained. “The one that sailed from Spain with the conquistadors. It sank off Puerto Muerto and was never seen again—until Uncle Ted and Lucky found it in a cave. This cave!”
“So, you’ve been here before?” Lola asked Lucky. “You know the way out?”
“I sure do.”
“We’re safe?” Lola breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Lucky. “We should hide down here for a while and give whoever was aboard that coast guard vessel time to lose interest.”
“I still can’t believe they fired on us,” said Lola.
“Maybe they were trying to stop me leaving San Xavier,” suggested Max.
“The real coast guard would never open fire without warning,” said Lucky.
“So, who was it?” asked Lola.
“Who knows?” replied Lucky. “Maybe pirates. I’d report it, but with one passenger who’s on the lam, one whose house has been destroyed by mythical Maya monsters, and one who’s a talking howler monkey, I think I’d just as soon lie low. Will you help me tie up, Lord 6-Dog?” The monkey king looked horrified. “Me? Tie up? I have no nautical skills. I left those to my navy and trading fleets.”
“It was your monkey skills I was interested in.”
When Lucky had explained his plan, Lord 6-Dog took the rope and climbed onto the roof. Then he took a flying leap and landed on a flat shelf of limestone. For extra strength, he looped the rope around his tail before pulling in the sub.
“If Mother could see me now,” he bragged. “I am king of the fiery pool.”
While Lucky tied the rope securely around a jutting rock, Max and Lola went down to the galley for food. “I found some bananas for you after all your hard work,” said Lola to Lord 6-Dog as they set out the picnic on the rock.
Lord 6-Dog didn’t seem to hear. He was staring at the galleon. “That wreck is my doing,” he whispered. “I cursed that ship.” He stood with his head high in his striped pajamas, like a Maya king in his battle finery, reliving that fateful moment. “It was in the eleventh bak’tun. I had been called back by my people to the city you know as Puerto Muerto. They begged me to avenge the deeds of Diego de Landa, most hated of the Spanish invaders and”—he nodded to Lola—“ancestor of that fool, Antonio.”
“The eleventh bak’tun? During the Spanish conquest?” asked Lola. “So you’d been dead for five hundred years by then?”
Lord 6-Dog waved his monkey hand to dismiss such boring details, then regained his heroic stance. “I stood on the dockside in Puerto Muerto and watched that very ship”—he pointed to the Espada—“being loaded with the rich
es of my people. Many of the chests were branded with the crest of Diego de Landa. I was consumed with rage. These invaders had already burned our books and destroyed our families. I vowed they would not have the little that was left. So I appeared to the Spanish sea captain and decreed that his accursed cargo would never leave Maya waters.”
Lord 6-Dog hadn’t really thought that one through, reflected Max. It hadn’t been much help to his people to send all their stuff to the bottom of the ocean. But he saw the sadness on the monkey king’s face and decided not to point this out. Instead, he tried to look on the bright side. “And then it sat safely in this cave until my uncle came along and recovered all the treasure.”
“He bought this sub with the proceeds,” added Lucky.
Lord 6-Dog looked like he might explode. “The cargo was not his to sell.”
“Fair’s fair,” Max blurted out. “If Uncle Ted and Lucky hadn’t found this cave, the treasure would have stayed down here forever.”
Lord 6-Dog curled his hairy fingers into fists. “Why must history always repeat itself? If only the cycle could be broken. Once, I cursed that ship to avenge my people. Now I find it broken on the rocks and the heritage of my people has been plundered again.”
“It was my heritage, too,” said Lola softly. “And my father who plundered it.”
“Thou art descended from the Jaguar Kings. We are kin, thou and I. Thou art Maya.”
Lola stuck up her chin. “Half-Maya. I’m also half-Murphy, which means a quarter Spanish and a quarter Irish.”
Lord 6-Dog glared at her. “Then perchance it is time to take sides.”
Lola glared back at him. “I have taken sides. I’m with the good guys.”
There was a moment of tense silence, then Lucky jumped up. “I need to stretch my legs.” He offered his arm to Lola. “Want to walk?”
Max watched them picking their way over the rocks. “Why did you get so angry at Lola?” he asked Lord 6-Dog.
“I fear she is ashamed of her birthright.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I look at this galleon through her eyes and all I see is the story of our people, wrecked on the rocks of history.”
“But that’s not your fault.”
