by Clay Farrow
Ken roared in shock and released the girl. With his free hand, he lashed out at the young man. Rick parried Ken's punch as if it was a pesky insect and gave the hand clutching the vial a violent twist. Ken shrieked and let go of the tiny flask. It dropped into Rick's open palm. Then he tossed Ken to one side, sending him sprawling onto the patio. Looking directly into Ken's eyes, he dropped the vial on the table and clenched his fist. All heard the glass shatter as he crushed the ampule.
Monica silently stared at the blood oozing from Rick's hand. The confrontation was over in the blink of an eye. Liz seemed paralyzed and Diego was just starting to rise from his chair once again.
Ken lay still for a moment, then stumbled to his feet. "Do you realize what you've done, you jumbo-sized imbecile? Do you have any idea what you've cost me?"
Amanda ran to Rick's side and examined his bleeding hand.
"Don't!" Ken bellowed, pulling Amanda away from Rick and jerking the revolver from his waistband. He pressed the muzzle to Rick’s temple.
Monica was surprised that Rick showed no sign of fear. It seemed as if he wasn't aware he had gun held to his head. As if the act of saving Amanda had given him an inner peace.
“Don’t you dare hurt her, Dr. Byers,” Rick said calmly.
"I'll do whatever I want to her."
Rick shook his head. "No, you won't. I'm not going to slink away like some dog with its tail between its legs.
"The Fremont bitch wouldn't have let those animals do the kid, you moron. The Nobel prize was mine until you had to play the hero."
Liz whipped around. "So Monica was right. This is all about your ego?"
Ken continued. "No one would hold it against me if I put an end to your miserable existence. The world would be a better place with one less fool."
Rick gazed at Amanda. "Please forgive me. I'm so sorry."
"Forget about her and worry about me," Ken screamed as his finger curled around the trigger. His hand shook uncontrollably. The veins in his forearm stood out. There was a sharp bang. The slug slammed into Rick's temple and burst through the back of his skull. The young man toppled over, his eyes vacant.
The echo of the gunshot faded into a deathly quiet, only to be broken by Amanda's high-pitched scream. Monica saw that the girl's keening jolted Liz out of her stupor. She rushed Ken. Seizing the pistol, she wrestled the gun from his grasp and backed away.
Lieutenant Diego ran to Liz while the soldiers aimed their rifles at her. She kept the revolver leveled on Ken.
"Sorry, Señorita Dennison," the lieutenant said, gently removing the pistol from her hand.
Monica felt Ken's eyes rip into her.
"Now do you believe I'm serious?" Without taking his eyes off of her, he held out his hand. "Give me the pistol, Diego."
"No, Señor," he said in a firm voice. "No more until Colonel Rodriguez arrives. We will lock up the women until then."
"Her, too," Ken growled, nodding in Liz`s direction.
Diego pointed the three women toward the grand reception area and the stairs leading to the second floor of the house.
Monica looked back as they entered the hacienda. Ken was standing over Rick, watching his blood seep onto the patio stones.
28:
Graveyard, Santa Elena Prison – Wednesday
Hilton Hastings had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. He felt dizzy and there was a ringing in his ears. Although his head throbbed and every inch of his body felt like it had been beaten to a pulp, he was alive. The ribs Fidel had worked on back at the prison hadn't been helped in the fall, but he didn't think anything had been broken.
He yearned to close his eyes and sleep the sleep of the dead. In the last thirty-six hours, he had only a few fitful hours of shut-eye in his cell and that was after twenty-four hours of craziness that should have been a hallucination rather than reality. He was worn out but couldn't afford to slow down.
He'd been lucky. When the grave collapsed, the two prisoners he had been lying on had absorbed most of the impact and cushioned his fall. They had also broken free of their wafer thin body bags.
Hilton was lying face down, bathed in a rectangular pool of hazy moonlight. Rolling onto his back with great care, he looked up. The ceiling of this place was about twenty-five feet above him. Gazing about, he realized he was in a large chamber, a man-made chamber.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the flashlight, then listened for sounds of movement from the graveyard. Hearing none, he flicked on the light. As the beam swept over the four walls, he let out a low whistle. His aches and pains instantly vanished.
From the end of their freshman year to the start of grad school, Monica, Dylan, and he had spent each summer working for Monica's father at his archeological dig at Altun Ha. During that time, he discovered he had a keen eye for dating artifacts, nothing approaching the skill or insight of Monica or her father, but a talented amateur. What he saw before him took his breath away.
He had fallen into a tomb. And not just any run-of-the-mill burial chamber. Whoever had been entombed here was royalty – a powerful king. As he played the light around the crypt, he guessed the mausoleum had remained undisturbed for more than a thousand years. The four walls had been rendered with white plaster and served as the canvas for the brightly painted murals that filled the chamber. They reminded him of those at the Mayan city of Bonampak in southern Mexico. Like those masterpieces, these chronicled the king's reign, depicting scenes of battles as well as the torture and sacrifice of prisoners. Unlike Bonampak, where the frescos hadn't completely escaped the ravages of time, these murals with their vivid rainbow of colors could have been painted yesterday.
He rolled off his cushion of corpses and onto his feet. In the center of the room was a raised platform of stone blocks. Laid out on the slab were the skeletal remains of the king. The skull was covered by an intricately carved jade death mask. Jade figurines, his weapons, his wooden shield as well as ceramic plates and vessels ringed the edge of the platform.
As much as he would have liked to spend time admiring these works of art and rest his battered body, his reprieve was over. He assumed there was a timetable related to Monica's and Amanda's well-being. Zero hour was likely sooner rather than later.
He looked up at the opening he had plunged through. The open grave was close to the center of the chamber, and he estimated the ceiling height and the depth of the grave put his escape forty feet out of reach. The grave wasn't going to be his resurrection. In scanning the flashlight over the murals for one last look, he noticed two openings and picked his way to the closest.
Arriving at the cavity, Hilton discovered a narrow tunnel constructed of stone blocks with a steep staircase leading upward. This must have been a pyramid that had been reclaimed by the jungle during the Classic Maya Collapse in the ninth century. He wondered why it had never been discovered being so close to the prison.
The six-foot high walls were capped by a three-inch ledge. The roof, also of stone, looked like a pair of inverted staircases that came together at the peak. He shone the light up to find the exit, but the pitch-black gloom diffused the beam after fifteen short feet. He momentarily thought about trying the niche on the far side of the tomb but decided a passageway constructed by humans had to lead somewhere. After climbing twenty-five steps there was still no end in sight. A sound behind him made him turn and shine the flashlight down the stairs.
"Son-of-a-bitch!" he gasped.
He panicked and blindly scurried up the rough hewn stairs. His breathing was labored, his body in a cold sweat. He aimed the shaft of light down the staircase. His greatest hope was that his eyes had been lying to him. But no, there it was, a freak of nature - all eleven to twelve slimy feet of it. He'd never heard of anything close to this size, the largest he'd read about was a little over eight feet long. It had to have been sleeping in a deep crevice in the wall or he'd have been a dead man. Fear seized him. He felt he was going to be sick. The serpent raised its head a foot into the air, prepared
to strike. Hilton's legs turned to jelly. He hated snakes.
There was no mistaking those diamond scales of varying shades of brown. It was a Fer-de-Lance, the main cause of snakebite throughout Central America and responsible for more fatalities than any other reptile in the Americas. He knew immediately the viper was a female because of its size. Females were normally larger than males, their heads up to three times the size of the males – this one had to be at least four times the size of any male. It was the length and circumference of a Boa Constrictor. Hilton had encountered these reptiles before and knew the snakes used body heat or movement to target their attacks. They had a reputation for aggressiveness and could strike from a coiled or uncoiled position. In a chance encounter with these fast-moving, agile and cunning vipers, the wisest solution was to run.
Hilton decided it was time to do exactly that. He scrambled to his feet and charged up the stairway, continuously glancing over his shoulder on the lookout for his attacker. The beads of perspiration on his forehead were cold as ice. He counted twenty steps before he stopped and pointed the flashlight down the stairs again. The vision from hell slithered into view, its advance slow and steady. He stormed up uncounted steps until he slammed into a granite barricade spanning the staircase. There was no escape. Placing his back to the barrier, he attempted to shoulder the obstruction aside. It wouldn't budge. He tried again and again, but to no avail.
The snake's ascent had to be blocked, but how? The penknife wasn't much good against a monster that could strike from a far greater distance than four inches. As for the sailmaker's needle and the twine, it was doubtful a sewing lesson would be a viable distraction. He was left with the length of half-inch rope, a package of cigarettes, and a packet of matches.
He snatched the rope, the cigarettes, the matches, and the flashlight. A wild idea occurred to him. He slid down several steps, emptying the package of smokes into the palm of his hand. Tilting the flashlight so it was on an angle pointing down the staircase, he lit three cigarettes, coughing as he did so. Carefully, he placed them on the next step down. He repeated the routine until all thirteen cigarettes glowed. Spreading the half inch rope across the width of the stair, close to the edge, he tucked the smokes under the improvised anchor. The last cigarette was in place as the Fer-de-Lance poked its head into the light. The burning cigarettes were evenly spaced across the width of the narrow staircase and jutted out three inches past the edge of the step, hopefully blocking the snake's advance with a wall of glowing heat.
Hilton pocketed his book of matches, grabbed the flashlight, and raced up the stairs, out of the viper's kill zone. The serpent raised its head to the smoldering blockade. It jerked back, scorched by a glowing cigarette, then tried to brush past another with the same result.
He figured he had bought himself an extra ten minutes. He wasn't going to break through the stone blockade and looked down at his defenses, which were fast going up in smoke. He knew he'd better come up with a plan in a hurry. Out of options and desperate, he hopped up onto the three-inch ledge capping the wall on either side of the stairs. He climbed onto the outcropping not a minute too soon. The first cigarette dwindled to ash. The others quickly followed and the snake made up for lost time in its relentless advance.
Hilton glanced down and realized he had forgotten the flashlight. The beam washed down the steps, beckoning the serpent. It stopped directly beneath him. He didn't move a muscle. The reptile lifted its head two feet into the air, swaying back and forth, sensing his body heat. Then, the adder struck.
As the head exploded up, all Hilton saw was the open mouth and fangs. Those one-inch fangs pointing up, super-charged with venom and aimed at his crotch. He held his breath. The mouth closed. The head fell back. Not even close, which surprised him. The abnormal size of the snake must have prevented it from fully extending its body.
The three-inch outcropping he was standing on extended into the darkness, down to the royal tomb. His unrestrained laughter echoed down the stairs and through the cave. He was walking out of here. Looking back at the abandoned flashlight, he watched the viper`s head sway back and forth, probably trying to locate him.
The descent took longer than he'd hoped. He was helped on the first leg by the fading flashlight beam. Once in total darkness though, his feet became his eyes and inches took minutes. But he didn't dare drop to the steps until he was well away from the Fer-de-Lance. As he neared the burial chamber the growing moonlight allowed for greater speed. Dropping into the tomb, he went to the burial platform and picked up the king's flint hatchet and wooden shield.
Hilton raised the hatchet, but hesitated. If Monica was at his side would he dare do what he was about to do? An instant of reflection led to a resounding 'yes.' He hacked the shield into long, two-inch wide strips which he tied together in a bundle with some of his twine. As he made his way toward the second opening, Hilton tore off his shirt and wrapped it around one end of his improvised torch.
He tentatively peeked through the doorway. It was the entrance to a cave system. The Maya believed death was the beginning of a journey to the afterlife which was a subterranean world of water. The path to the afterlife led through the Underworld where the dead faced many obstacles before reaching their final destination. Hilton suspected the doorway to the cave was to ease the king's way into the Underworld.
He started into the cave, and the moonlight quickly petered out. He struck a match and touched it to the shirt-wrapped kindling. His torch gave him plenty of light to press ahead. The high-ceiling cavern shrank into a tunnel. He hadn't walked more than one hundred feet when his path was blocked. The tunnel had been sealed tight by a cave-in. Most of the rubble looked to be the size of a basketball or smaller.
Securing the torch with a few large stones, Hilton scrambled up the rocky embankment, close to the roof. Putting his shoulder to a protruding boulder, he rammed one side, then the other. Finally the rock broke free and rolled down the slope to the floor of the cave, taking gravel and a cloud of dust with it. He tried another and another. Dislodging the boulders became easier, and the amount of falling rubble increased. Was this a little too easy?
He heard a trickling sound and bolted up, his heart pounding. As he fled the confines of the tunnel, an inner voice commanded him to look over his shoulder. Flames from the torch leapt into the air and enabled him to watch the rubble explode. The cave-in was cast aside by a roaring wall of white water that began to fill the tunnel. He'd unleashed Lake Petén Itzá on himself. The nightmare of waterlogged lungs spurred him toward the doorway of the tomb, knowing full well his never-give-up effort was doomed.
29:
Santa Elena Prison Farm – Wednesday
Alberto Guerra stepped out of the administration building into the prison laneway and nodded with satisfaction. Jeremiah Gantry paced back and forth under the bright floodlights at the prison entrance. The airport driver deposited the last of his four large suitcases next to the gate, then climbed behind the wheel. As the taxi sped away, it almost clipped the Lincoln Navigator parked in front of the prison.
Alberto started toward Jeremiah.
"Jerry," he boomed, a broad smile on his face. "I was worried you wouldn't be on the plane after talking to the lawyer my office rounded up for you. How was the flight?"
"Economy isn't my idea of comfort. Your secretary could have at least booked business class," he replied, dodging around the guard rolling open the front gate.
"It was all Justine could get on such short notice."
Jeremiah walked toward the senator, his hand extended.
Alberto brushed the outstretched hand aside and wrapped the new arrival in a bear hug. He knew Jerry was embarrassed by this expression of intimacy, but he enjoyed the discomfort it caused. It was just a game he played, but it kept Jerry off balance and under his thumb.
Jeremiah wiggled out of the embrace and demanded, "Where are Byers and the Fremont woman?"
Alberto's brow furrowed. "How did you know about those two?"
"I have my sources. I just hope you had the sense to keep them apart."
"As a matter of fact, they're at my cousin's ranch. I had to call in a lot of markers to get them together." His jovial expression turned somber. The cheery note in his voice disappeared. "I'm fond of you, Jerry, but Byers is business. I know how you feel about him, but I don't want any trouble between the two of you. I won't tolerate any meddling in my affairs."
Jeremiah's jaw dropped. "Are you aware of the Fremont woman's discovery?"
Alberto smiled broadly. "Certainly, it was Byers who told me about it. He approached me for help in contacting her."
"You don't understand," Jeremiah growled. "What do you think her concoction does?"
Before Alberto could reply, Miguel Rodriguez clapped him on the shoulder. "Is this the young man you've told me so much about, Alberto?"
The senator introduced Miguel to Jeremiah.
As soon as there was a lull in the conversation, Jeremiah whispered to Alberto, "We have to talk. It's urgent."
"If it's about Byers, forget it," Alberto said. His scowl became brighter when he nodded toward Jeremiah's luggage. "I see you took the lawyer's advice and packed for the possibility of an extended stay. Let's hope it doesn't … ."
A shriek halted the conversation. The three men turned to see what the commotion was about. At the far end of the lane, a young girl was struggling with a one of the guards at the entrance to the prison compound.
"Give back my money," the girl screamed. She managed to free an arm and swung at the soldier.
"Damn," Miguel muttered, marching toward the commotion.
Alberto and Jeremiah hurried after him.
"Theresa, what's the problem?" Miguel demanded.
"They take half my money for tonight," Theresa said.
Alberto thought the girl pretty, but very young, no more than fifteen or sixteen.
