Revenge of the Maya

by Clay Farrow

  * * * *

  Gilles Wren looked about the lab in frustration. He was undecided about what to do next, until his gaze came to rest on the contents of the geek's pockets, lying on a nearby table. He reached out for the cell phone.

  "That's mine," Brad cried.

  Gilles ignored him as he flipped open the phone and beamed. "Cool. A virtual reality game phone exactly like Jeremiah's."

  Gilles showed the phone to Michael. "Do you know how to use the game console?"

  The kid shook his head.

  Gilles tapped out a number on the keypad.

  "Hello," said the voice at the other end of the line.

  "Jeremiah, it's Gilles. This Ferry guy won't give me the combination to the safe, and it's too heavy to take with us."

  "Is Julie with you?"

  "No. She's downstairs."

  There was pause before Jeremiah said, "Hang up right now."

  The line went dead. Gilles, perplexed by Jeremiah's response, shrugged and continued to admire the phone.

  "The last dolly is loaded and in the lobby," Julie McDonald said, walking into the room. She looked from Gilles to Michael. "What's the matter?"

  Gilles glanced at Julie, then snapped the LCD screen closed and slipped the phone into his pocket. "I'm not sure."

  "Jeremiah couldn't talk," Michael volunteered.

  “You called Jeremiah?” Julie exclaimed.

  "We have to figure another way to get the combination," Gilles said, ignoring the question. He switched the Glock to his other hand and hammered Brad's jaw with a right cross.

  The geek's head snapped to the side. Blood bubbled from his lower lip and began to drip down his jaw.

  "I told you, I don't know it," he shrieked.

  Julie stepped to Gilles' side. "We need to get the combination. That rent-a-cop could be back anytime."

  Gilles raised the Glock and pressed the tip of the barrel to Brad's temple.

  "You know you're not going to pull the trigger," Brad snorted. "Killing me won't open the safe."

  Julie rested a restraining hand on Gilles' arm. "The contents of the safe have to be destroyed."

  "How?" Gilles begged.

  Julie stood on her tiptoes and whispered in his ear.

  Gilles casually lowered the pistol from Brad's head. He let the barrel drift past Brad's lap. Without a word, without a change in his expression, he pulled the trigger. The explosive flash singed Brad's slacks, the gun's kick punched Gilles' hand to his shoulder.

  * * * *

  For an instant there was a painless void. Then Brad's headache vanished as his kneecap erupted. His brain surrendered to the molten fire of a blast furnace. And his tsunami howl washed over the three spectators in a continuous wave. He pitched forward in his chair. Julie and Michael caught him.

  "The combination or your other knee," Gilles threatened.

  Brad barely heard the psycho through the intensifying waves of pain. After a minute and another vicious crack across the face, he managed to choke back his screams to a muffled whimpering. He had gambled and lost. He hoped Ken would understand. There was no choice. This psycho was a killer.

  "25, 14, 95, 42," he gasped and threw back his head.

  He saw Gilles nod to Julie. She darted over to the safe. The gun remained aimed at his good knee, as the girl twirled the dial through the combination sequence. She cranked the handle down. The heavy steel door glided open.

  "Dump everything onto the floor," Gilles ordered.

  As the minutes crept by, Brad's searing agony was replaced by a scalded throbbing. His three captors had moved on to other business and paid him little notice.

  He surveyed the lab with mounting foreboding. The refrigerator where his working samples were kept was open and empty. The samples were now a puddle on the floor in front of the fridge. Wires were strung throughout the lab and into the hall. Each wire terminated in its own silver pencil-like electrode, which was implanted in a four-inch gray cube. And he was willing to bet the cubes weren't modeling clay.

  * * * *

  Gilles Wren looked up as Julie McDonald entered the lab, followed a moment later by Michael.

  "Everybody downstairs," he said. "Wheel the cages into the parking lot. I'll meet you in a few minutes."

  Michael, who was leaning against the doorframe, dutifully jogged down the hall. Julie hung back.

  "Aren't you going with him?" Gilles asked.

  "I'll wait for you."

  "You sure you want to watch?"

  Julie stood her ground as Gilles raised the pistol. The muzzle stopped inches from Brad's temple.

  Brad hunched down in his chair.

  "I think he's trying to make himself invisible," Julie giggled.

  Brad moaned, "Please, no", over and over as he rocked back and forth, his eyes screwed shut.

  Julie stared directly into Gilles' eyes.

  He read the concern on her face. "Do you really want to live in a world run by atheists and degenerates?"

  "I'm not arguing with you. But this is way too personal, too forever."

  Gilles heard the tenderness in her voice and hesitated for a moment, then let the pistol fall to his side.

  She jumped into the air, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Thank you."

  Brad's eyes flew open. He exhaled and looked up at Julie, his eyes glistening. "You'll never know how grateful I am."

  The animal cages were stacked on the dollies near the center of the parking lot. The rusted Grand Marquis sat close to the exit, facing the lab. Brad’s BMW was nowhere to be seen.

  Gilles was in the passenger seat of the Marquis, his finger poised over the detonator aimed at the lab. He gazed at Julie, who was tightly gripping the wheel. She returned his look with a quick, nervous nod.

  "Praise the Lord," Gilles chanted as he depressed the detonator button.

  There was a silence. Then the building seemed to contract before ripping apart. The roof ruptured upward as if the structure was being sucked up by a mid-west twister. The second story walls and windows disintegrated, blowing outwards. Flames followed, raping the adjacent cedar trees of their greenery. The first floor ceiling buckled, the walls caved-in on themselves. Smoke and debris billowed up, hiding the remains of the lab in a gray dust storm.

  The tinted glass façade of the atrium shattered. The explosion hurled the wire cages in every direction, shards of jagged glass slicing into the test animals. The deadly squall continued on, and rolled over the Marquis, violently shaking the vehicle. Glass pellets peppered the sedan. The hood, windshield, and roof scarred. Finally, the thunderous sound of the detonation washed over the car.

  Gilles stared straight ahead, too shocked to react as the seconds ticked by. He looked over at Julie. She clung to the steering wheel and seemed equally stunned.

  As the cloud of dust and debris began to clear, what remained of the lab came into focus - a smoldering mound of twisted rubble.

  Julie began to giggle. Gilles gave her a questioning look.

  "Oops."

  He cracked an ear-to-ear grin, then fell into uncontrolled laughter as sirens began to wail in the background. "Let's go. We have to stop at a gas station. Jeremiah told me to call him when we were done."

  Julie put the Marquis in gear and swung the vehicle around, aiming for the exit.

  "Do you think the geek was telling the truth?" Gilles asked. "That he was working on a formula that was more than 1000 years old?"

  Julie shrugged. "Who knows? I suppose anything is possible."

  6:

  Off the coast of Belize – Sunday

  Dr. Monica Fremont curled her legs up on the passenger seat and watched Hilton Hastings guide the dive boat back to his resort on Cay Caulker. Amanda Alderman, their soon-to-be adopted daughter, would be there waiting for them.

  Physically, she thought, Hilton really hadn't changed much from the eighteen-year-old she'd met twenty-three years earlier. A few character lines at the corner of his eyes. There was also a distinguished touch
of gray at the temples of his longish black hair and maybe five more pounds. Certainly a far cry from the bloated, desk-bound refugee who arrived here from Pittsburgh twelve years ago. But as always, he'd persevered and shed his excess fat within a year.

  She let her mind wander back to the first month of their postgraduate studies, when he had been forced to drop out of university. When he returned to Pittsburgh three years later he had changed. The major difference on the outside was the scar, which ran from the center of his forehead through his right eyebrow to his temple. She felt it added an attractively dangerous aura to the intense, blue-eyed forty-one-year-old. The biggest changes remained hidden inside.

  Prior to his sabbatical, Hilton cruised through life with a devil-may-care attitude. His brain and brawn allowed him to treat the success of any task, from calculus to a barroom brawl, as a foregone conclusion. With his return he was more like Dylan Alderman, Amanda's father, approaching even the most trivial endeavor as a life-or-death struggle.

  A smile crossed her lips thinking of how the trio had first met at the beginning of their freshman year. She had been sixteen and her parents, both professors in the archaeology department, demanded either she live under their roof or in the university dormitory. No hedonistic, off-campus flophouses in the student ghetto.

  She had chosen to share a dorm room with Sandy, a freshman from Erie. It was a choice she regretted almost immediately. Far more studious than her roommate, they were in constant conflict. The school year had been only a few weeks old when the tension boiled over late one night.

  The door crashed against the wall and jolted Monica out of a dead sleep. She struggled into a sitting position as Sandy staggered into the room.

  "Monica, wake up," Sandy sobbed, weaving her way across the room and plunking herself on the edge of Monica's bed.

  "What's the matter, Sandy?" Monica asked as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Once fully awake, she sniffed and recoiled. "You smell like a brewery and we have a history quiz tomorrow."

  "He threw me out."

  "From where?"

  "The townhouse. Tommy's place."

  "Call your boyfriend tomorrow when you're sober. He was probably so drunk he'll have forgotten all about your fight."

  "Not Tommy. It was Dylan, his roommate. "

  "Why did he throw you out?"

  "For making too much noise. Please go talk to him. Dylan, backed up by his buddy, told Tommy he had an hour to pack his bags. Then he grabbed me by the arm, pushed me out the door and locked it. You have to get up and talk to Dylan."

  "It's eleven o'clock! I'm not getting up to plead your case to someone I've never met."

  "Please, Monica, Tommy's got nowhere to go."

  "You should have thought of that before the two of you got drunk."

  "No, you have to talk to Dylan."

  Although Monica had little sympathy for Sandy or her boyfriend, she knew there'd be no peace until she did something. To stop her roommate's nagging she struggled out of bed and shrugged on a sweatshirt and jeans over her PJs. Then she marched out of the dorm armed with the name of Tommy`s roommate and the address of the townhouse.

  Monica walked up the pathway to the townhouse front door and rang the bell. Immediately the door flew open. A young guy stood in the doorway with a beer in one hand and a canvas suitcase with clothes spilling out of it in the other.

  "You don't want in here, baby," he said with a drunken leer. "I'm the party and it's moving out." He threw an arm over Monica's shoulder. "Coming?"

  "Are you Sandy's boyfriend, Tommy?" she asked, shaking off the arm.

  "Yeah, but she's not here and you are."

  She pushed the young man away as she said, "Sandy's in the dorm and is waiting for your call."

  Monica watched as Tommy lurched forward, caught himself and stumbled into the night with his beer and belongings. She took a cautious step across the threshold into the townhouse's living/dining area. The room's furniture consisted of a battered sofa, a wobbly coffee table, bookcases cobbled together with plywood and bricks, and a chipped and scarred dining table with four chairs. Oddly enough, the house appealed to her. It was quiet, unheard of in the dorm. And books were everywhere - in the bookcase, on the sofa, the coffee table and the floor. The dining table was buried in paper and books.

  She stopped. Sitting in an overstuffed easy chair with his feet up on the table was an good looking guy wearing only a pair of shorts. He was watching television and sipping a beer. She couldn't be sure but judged him to be about six two with a thick head of long, black hair, and not an ounce of fat. He was gazing at her with a curious half-smile.

  "Are you Dylan Alderman?" she demanded.

  "No. What can I do for you?"

  "Who are you?"

  "Who wants to know? I live here," he replied. "I'm not the one breaking-in."

  "I didn't break-in, the door was open."

  "Semantics. You're in and uninvited."

  "I was invited in."

  "By whom?"

  "Tommy."

  The Adonis shook his head. "He invited you out."

  "Then, may I come in?"

  "Now that we've established which one of us is the guest, who are you?"

  "Monica."

  "Glad to meet you, Monica. I'm Hilton," he said, rising out of the chair.

  She swallowed hard as he rose to his full height, but wasn't going to be sidetracked. "Where is Dylan Alderman?"

  "He's busy. I suggest you come back early tomorrow. His first class is at eight."

  "I won't take up much of his time, but I need to speak to him now."

  "In that case, upstairs, second door on the left. I'll show you," he said chuckling.

  Monica didn't wait for Hilton. She pivoted and bounded up the stairs.

  Hilton raced after her. "I wouldn't be in such a hurry if I were you. Your welcome might be more than you bargained for."

  At the top of the stairs, Monica darted down the hall and stopped in front of the second door. She knocked and without waiting for a response pushed open the door. The room was in darkness. The hallway's overhead light only cast its murky glow just beyond the threshold. She heard a surprised yelp and it seemed as if bed was moving.

  "Are you Dylan Alderman?" she asked.

  "What the hell is going on, Hilton?" a male voice asked.

  "You have a visitor," Hilton said as he came up behind Monica.

  "Jesus Christ. You know I'm busy," the voice said.

  "Monica, I'd like to meet Dylan Alderman," Hilton said as he reached past her and flipped on the bedroom light.

  Monica shrieked and stumbled back into Hilton, who roared with laughter as he caught the teenager. She stood stark still, gawking.

  A blanket and sheet lay on the floor at the foot of the bed and sprawled on the bed was a very naked Dylan Alderman. Lying beside him was a stunning and equally naked blonde.

  She'd barged in on the couple having sex, but neither appeared embarrassed by their nakedness.

  "For ten bucks you can take a really good look," Dylan said.

  Averting her eyes, she mumbled, "You had no right manhandling Sandy. You could have simply asked her to leave. And where do you expect Tommy to sleep?"

  Dylan sat up in bed and pulled the sheet over himself and the girl. "In the middle of the road, for all I care. They were drunk and noisy and she wouldn't leave when asked. We were studying."

  "Some studying!"

  "Not that it's any of your business, but we've been in bed no more than five minutes. Did you see the dining table? The three of us were studying there the whole evening."

  Monica tried to think of an appropriately sarcastic retort, but hesitated and gazed up at Hilton.

  "It's true," Hilton said, then nudged Monica to one side. "Dylan, rent is due tomorrow and we don't have enough with just the two of us. I hope you can round up another roommate in the next few hours."

  She smiled. Hilton had not only saved her from making even a bigger a fool of herself, but o
ver the course of the next hour, he'd convinced Dylan she would make a good roommate once she climbed off her high horse. She had moved in the next day, but had kept her parents in the dark until she introduced Hilton and Dylan to them. Both had been suitably impressed with the young men and felt Monica would be safe sharing the townhouse with them.

  * * * *

  Hilton glanced at Monica as the outboard skipped across the swells, seeming to bound from one to the next. Every time he looked at her, she took his breath away. And the years hadn't lessened the intensity of his feelings. He often thought the reason he'd never married was because no woman could ever measure up to Monica. It was probably one of the reasons he had bailed from Hastings-Alderman Inc. and fled to Belize. From the moment they'd met in that rundown townhouse, he was in love.

  He shivered when Monica reached out and gave his arm a loving caress. It was as if she knew what he was thinking.

  "Thank you for everything," she murmured.

  He had convinced her to hang on to Screech's dorsal fin and be towed through the water. Maybe Monica was conquering her phobia, because Screech hadn't remained on the surface. The dolphin had repeatedly plunged to the shallow ocean floor and Monica clung to his fin, never letting go. Although a mammal, Screech had the ability to remain submerged for up to eight minutes, but with Monica, he never stayed under for more than thirty seconds. It was as if Screech sensed Monica's fear of the water. One ride was not enough. She had ridden again and again. And when it was time to go, she reluctantly left the side of the dolphin and returned to the boat.

  Now heading home, he marveled at the number of firsts Monica had experienced today. She had been excited by her first encounter with underwater archaeology. Her first contact with Screech had given her an intoxicated glow. She wasn't the only one. This Saturday a dream of his would be fulfilled with their marriage. And shortly after exchanging vows, he and Monica would become parents for the first time with the finalization of Amanda Alderman's adoption. He took comfort in the fact that even at their age, life still held out many possibilities. He was certain there would be numerous opportunities to explore the far side of many more mountains together.