“I’ll take those.” The guardian gestured toward Grant’s rifles, then hooked his hand around the straps, encouraging Grant to ease out of them.
“Thanks. Makes it easier.” All friends here, oh, yeah. Down to three pistols and a couple of knives.
“Need you to leave the pistol, too. Dante’s got a touchy friend down there. We don’t want any accidental discharge.”
A small pile of firearms occupied a blanket spread near the tree roots, reassuring Grant it wasn’t just him being asked to leave his weapons. Besides, Gooney still had two.
The guardian deposited Grant’s rifles and pistol with due reverence. “That’s all?”
Grant patted down his pockets, just in case. Everybody unarmed but them: their chances just went up.
The giant tree reached into the earth with a few dozen thrusting roots. Grant shifted his grip, pushing his captive’s head down so it didn’t jar on the roots overhead. A big flashlight occupied the junction of rock and root, providing a skewed slash of light they followed beneath roosting bats into a dank chamber oppressively silent compared with the active jungle outside.
Intact Maya murals surrounded them from the dirt-strewn pavement floor up the walls to the ceiling painted with gods and glyphs. Magnificent. A man with a rifle stood in one corner of the room, smoking a cigarette. His smoke coiled in the room like incense. Gooney and Grant defiled the last church they entered with the blood of the abductors, would this place fare any different? Not, alas, if they had anything to say about it.
Ahead, a narrow, sloping passage opened beneath a set of heavy jaws and bulging eyes. More stairs, this time slick, damp steps leading into the earth below the temple, fifty or sixty feet, easy. Feeble light shone from below. Not bright enough to be the fires of Hell, not yet. Voices echoed strangely down there, along with shuffling, the shifting of unseen things and the excitement of discovery.
Twin desires burned within, desires very far from heroic. One, simply to see the tomb in all its splendor, to be among the few who ever set foot in such a place without a doctoral degree or a university grant, given access to a realm of history even the PhD’s and grad students could barely dream of. Two, to grab Gooney’s shoulder and get the both of them out of there as fast as they could move and shoot. He knew a death trap when he saw one. It was a tomb, an entrance from which you were meant to never return. Guns or no guns, they were walking into a kill zone, and the change in Gooney’s breathing signaled that he knew it, too. Three paths, the cup claimed, all leading to this one place: a subterranean chamber already filled with demons.
A silhouette with a mane of hair appeared at the bottom of the staircase. “Zorro! Where’s Ramon?”
“Didn’t you find him at Eleiua’s place? He’s the one led me there. Jesu Cristo, that’s some staircase.”
“Get down here, come on. Raxha’s so excited to meet you.”
Another push, and Gooney moved toward the stairs. He shook off Grant’s hand, making a brief show of resistance. Grant shoved him to his knees. Safer to go down on his ass with his arms “bound” as they were. “Move it,” Grant snapped.
Getting his feet out in front of him, Gooney started down the stairs, a dark, tight place. For a moment, he glanced back, his eye a flash of white in the fading beam of the light behind them. His teeth clenched on the gag between them.
Squatting low, Grant followed right after, fingertips brushing the walls. He popped out a small, tactical flashlight and shone it before him. Before them both. Gooney crept awkwardly forward, keeping one shoulder to the wall. One foot shot out from under him, and he let out a stifled cry as he started to fall. At his back, Gooney’s fingers dug into his arms, preventing the instinctive movement to save himself.
Grant thrust out his hand, grabbing Gooney by the armpit, his own arm jerked by the sudden arrest as he leaned back, trying to absorb it.
At the bottom of the stairs, Dante snorted. “Let him fall — the fuck cares what happens to this piece of crap?”
With a shrug, Grant let go. “I’d hate for him to break his neck before Raxha gets her chance. I know what he did at the monastery.”
Dante’s laughter echoed, high and nasty.
The grab had been enough to arrest Gooney’s plunge. Gooney got his feet back under him and started moving again, a semi-controlled slide, a little too fast for Grant’s liking, probably for his, too.
Speeding his own descent, Grant hustled after. Don’t get too far from his captive, his comrade.
Too late. Dante snatched Gooney’s arm, dragging him sidelong from the stairs and slamming him headfirst into the opposite wall. Gooney’s knees buckled even as he struggled to stand. How bad was he hit? A smear of blood marked the murals, another sacrifice.
Taking charge, Dante hauled Gooney around the corner. Grant eased from the stairs and stalked after them. Flashlight away. He’d need both hands.
They emerged into a low chamber. The tomb. Dante’s hair brushed the ceiling. Gooney would’ve jarred his head if he could stand all the way, but Dante wasn’t stopping. Dante wore a holstered pistol, so apparently he was trusted not to set off his own jumpy friend.
In a chamber twice as large as the temple above, a carved frieze ran around the top and another around the floor, a broad shelf stacked with offerings: painted vessels filled with the remnants of ancient foods, clay idols of gods and royalty, tiny model pyramids. Jade pectoral decorations, and a delicate cloak of feathers that still gleamed with iridescence. The princess herself lay at one end on a raised platform. Shreds of skin wrapped the old bones, leaving her skull visible beneath a mask of jade. Ropes of jade beads draped her hips and legs. Ornaments of silver winked beneath the tarnish of centuries, but her chest lay conspicuously bare, the likely source of Eleiua’s pendant. Decades of work for archaeologists and a wealth of knowledge about the Maya world lay on view around them, interrupted by a ragged opening to another chamber, this one full of shelved bricks and canisters of heroin, cocaine, and more. A few jugs gone dry, a few plates of moldering remains littered the doorway.
Grant passed from the serene repose bought by the blood of thousand-year-dead victims, to the resting place of millions of dollars worth of deaths to come. Hope to God his and Gooney’s lives weren’t among them.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
* * *
Raxha drank in the space as if it were her cathedral. Grave goods spilled through the rough-hewn entrance from the tomb into the treasure chamber. About the size of a basketball half-court, the high vault of her father’s secret stash had seen some damage from the intervening years, but remained sound. Wooden beams supported the walls and ceiling, pressing back against the porous rock of the chamber carved out of the mountain’s heart. A smaller chamber opened low to one side, with the rough mouth and walls showing the cave structure her father had expanded to create his own space. The echo of water lapped at that side, an underground channel that opened onto a gravel mound decked with the bones of sacrifice. Fortunately, the main chamber sloped down that way, giving plenty of space for water to rise, filling the lower cave even, without affecting the stash. Cords ran around the room to packets at the intersections of the beams, and from there to an alcove fitted with a table and lanterns. Chica lay on the table, tail lashing and ears back, unhappy with this place, staring across the stash toward a crude door as if she recognized it to be the Jaguar Path. Wood on the inside, and camoflaged from the outside, that door blocked the best route between Raxha’s new-found merchandise and the hungry American market. Two men wrestled with the old latches, rusty from disuse and moisture.
Six of her men worked to catalog what they had, and to sort the spoiled from the best. Two others examined what she thought of as the command center, the panel connected to old light bulbs, a covered generator, and those cables making their circuit. All of their flashlights tucked into various notches to illuminate the scene until they could get the generator going, or the door open to shed more light.
Dante greeted their prisone
r with all due ceremony, smashing the man’s head against the wall like a goblet after a victory toast.
Raxha replaced the bundle she’d been examining and turned as Dante presented the American. Blood seeped down the man’s face. In the dim light, he looked dazed, those sharp green eyes she recalled a little unfocused and bloodshot besides. Bruises marked his face, and blood marked the shoulder of his shirt where he’d been grazed by a shot at the cemetery. He swayed on his feet, breathing heavily. Not so tough now, was he? And he found her in her glory, with her men around her, more on the way, and her father’s legacy near at hand.
Behind them Zorro walked tall, hand itching toward his empty holster, his dark-eyed stare sweeping the room, then landing on her, and he let the hand relax. He inclined his head toward her, a recognition of her place. Raxha looked him over, Dante might be lucky she hadn’t met Zorro first. Except that Dante was her kind of crazy. This guy looked a little too composed.
“What happened at the monastery? And how’d you get here?”
“After Juan took your prisoners into the church, I asked Ramon for a tour, to get a sense for how your outfit operates. Talked to Raul and Paolo, the radio man — didn’t catch his name. I saw you were controlling the leak, too, that woman. Smart move.” A faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes, a level of professional respect and deference.
Dante shoved the prisoner to his knees in the center of the chamber, and Raxha prowled a small circle around him as Zorro spoke. She didn’t recognize his accent, but she recognized his attitude. The restrained arrogance of total control.
“Ramon took me out back, viewing the perimeter. Your people had things well in hand. No reason to worry. Seemed like a good time to report in, so I asked for privacy, and walked a little further into the trees. Not so far I got lost, but I asked him to stay there, in case —” he lifted one shoulder to a shrug, his smile this time quirking a bit, admitting himself a city man, sent to a country job. “I gave some news to my superiors — all good, I assure you.” He tipped his hand. “Just rang off with them when I heard shots.”
“And Ramon?” She folded her arms. Had the boy run off like the coward she thought he was?
“Started shouting for me, to call me back. By the time we got to the wall, the place was littered with bodies, and we saw this truck go off, driving hard. Ramon recognized the driver. He didn’t think you’d want to be distracted from … whatever you needed to do. So we went after it. At least we could get you some information. That house is a fortress.” A shake of his head. “Ramon and I split up, looking for a way past the fence and the dogs, but night was falling, and I didn’t find him again. He’s probably dead.”
Raxha palmed the kneeling man’s skull, tipping his head back to gaze into his eyes. “Carlos, David. Bring the table down. Those spoiled bricks — pile them around it. It will do as an altar.” Let the man’s blood honor the dead whose spirits guarded this place just for her. Lexi’s father tensed under her hand. She swept the machete back into her grip, lining up the long blade under the man’s jaw.
“What about the cat?” Carlos said, and Dante gave a whistle. Chica rose, stretching all the way forward on her massive shoulders, then all the way back, paws extended, before she sauntered over to meet him in the corner near the cocaine. He stroked her head, feeding her another treat as she settled again.
“So how did you get him?” Raxha looked up, and Zorro’s eyes flicked back to her. He’d been tracking the men she sent on her errand. Suspicious, or just alert?
“The place got excited around 3, 4 am? I got in over the fence at the back and took advantage of the chaos, looking for my chance. When the copter came in, I had to do something or let the bastard get away. I went after it. He was shooting at me out the door, but I got hold of the skid and lined up a shot on the girl. I told the pilot to go low or she died. We fought, and we fell.” Then he grinned, sharp and hard. “I landed on top. I heard trucks over here, and voices. Figured it was a work sight of some kind. I planned to steal a truck and look for you. Instead, I found you here. Brought you a gift.”
A long overdue birthday present for Hernan’s princess. She tugged the man to his feet, pushing him toward the repositioned table. “Dante — give a hand.”
Stepped up, Dante palmed something. “Let’s make him more agreeable.” He slapped the tranquilizer dart against the American’s neck.
Zorro jolted, as if he’d absorbed the impact himself, and Lexi’s father jerked against their hands, shaking off the dart, but the prick of blood showed he’d gotten a dose. Twisting in their grasp, his eyes flared in brief horror, then slid shut, like jade ornaments buried by time. Raxha guided his fall as he dropped like timber onto the altar.
CHAPTER FIFTY
* * *
Gooney’s eyes caught Grant for an instant as the ground dropped from underneath them, like the trapdoor that plunges a hanged man to his death.
The big guy swayed. His legs wobbled, and his eyes rolled back into his head. Raxha kept a hand on his arm, steering as the prisoner dropped like a stone onto the altar she’d been preparing just for him. Arms trapped under him, his back arched. His head bounced from the old wood, then lolled back to expose his throat.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Eight hostiles in the chamber. Two more in the temple, at least one outside, and his partner went from deadly to deadweight. They came in here with a plan: scope the hostiles, locate the exits, take their moment and make their move, each of them taking down one of the principals to stop the cartel. Their joint mission was to stop the cartel and wreck the stash. The next goal would be to get out alive, alongside Grant’s private quest to keep Gooney’s heart where it belonged. Four objectives in total.
All Grant needed to do was take down a minimum of ten combatants, armed with only a knife, and get up those stairs or out the sealed antique door with Gooney’s slumped body draped over his shoulder. Shit.
Grant allowed his surprise, bending it to his will. “That was quick. Tranquilizer?”
Raxha’s brow furrowed. “I don’t want him out when I go for his heart, Dante — what’s the point of that if he can’t feel it happening?”
Shifting awkwardly, Dante rubbed the back of his neck, for all the world like a boyfriend regretting his choice of roses. “He weighs more than Chica, and for her it’s like fifteen minutes. It’s alright, Princessa. We’ll get the trucks over and do some load out. You don’t want blood on all this, anyway, do you?”
Fifteen minutes, max. Gooney must outweigh the cat by forty or fifty pounds, and he’d knocked loose the dart, so he might not have taken a full dose. Grant had to stall for fifteen goddamn minutes, then hope Gooney could at least move under his own power, if not shoot his share of the bad guys. He could BS the cartel killers for fifteen minutes, as long as nothing else went wrong.
Grant cocked his head, sweeping the stash with his gaze. “We don’t mind things getting rough, but it’s best not to spoil the stock. This should get you on the map, for sure.”
“Get me my z?” Leaving Gooney sprawled on the tabletop, Raxha strolled closer to Grant so they could peruse her new-found wealth together.
“No doubt you’ve earned it. What are your plans? How big an area you think you can command?” He took a few steps along the perimeter, taking up a canister, examining it, and replacing it. Working toward the table, and the guns at Gooney’s ankles.
“The Mendozas ate up a lot of my father’s territory. I’d like to take it back.”
“You want me to bind him? Get him ready?” Dante appeared at Raxha’s other side, and she cast him a look. Dante’s wide-set eyes and lean face focused on Grant — an expression not unlike the jaguar he apparently controlled.
Another place, another time, Grant would’ve laughed. Dante was jealous. This stranger shows up out of nowhere, dangling a return to cartel graces, the exact prize his “princess” desired, then bringing her the tribute she demanded like the bloody icing on the cake. In Dante’s eyes, Grant must be a most unwelcome suitor. Mayb
e he should’ve managed his own appearance a little more carefully, a little less charm and deference. A little more Gooney.
Grant stepped back from them. “Let me take care of it. I interrupted, and you’ve got all this to manage.”
“Bah. I need you both. Rodrigo, tie him down.”
What were the odds? Dante and Raxha, side by side. With a gun, he’d take them down easy. With his knife, pick one — and the other took him, or the men did. Grant’s muscles tensed like the start of a sprint, and he eased himself to marathon. The window of opportunity for the second objective closed as Rodrigo approached Gooney’s position. No way out of this one, but he could still puncture their plans. Gooney came into this knowing he might pay for victory with his life. Not the bargain Grant would’ve made. If he’d fought his friend harder, would Gooney have surrendered and headed for home, to reconcile with the daughter he’d been missing, to return to the sheriff he loved, to carry on with his whole belligerent, brilliant, exasperating life.
Two paces away to the near end of the table. Turn fast, drop down. Grant could have a gun, maybe nail the principals. If he missed Raxha, did he aim for Gooney, granting him the mercy his enemy never would? Maybe he’d get lucky, and Gooney would never wake up to know their failure.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
* * *
What kind of bombs?” Lexi’s mother wanted to know, according to Malcolm’s hurried interpretation. Lexi wanted to strangle her with her bare hands. Probably her father’s blood taking charge.
“Could be C4 or dynamite,” Eleiua hurried with them back toward the helicopter as Malcolm tried to keep up with the conversation. “Hernan made sure … destroy the stash … raid or rival …”
Malcolm looked exhausted, his signs lagging further behind the women’s conversation. Maybe when this was over, he could get an actual vacation, somewhere comfortable and safe.
The Maya Bust Page 22
