“Cleanup complete,” the voice in Keith’s ear said. “Two returning to base, two to backup location.”
“Give me those things,” Drew commanded, holding out his hand. Keith and Talia surrendered the earwigs. “That wasn’t for your ears.”
“That’s wrong,” Talia said shakily. “The count is one person short.”
“No, it’s not,” Drew said tersely. “Everyone who’s alive is on the move. We transport bodies, but we don’t count them.”
They finished moving to the new base camp location by sunset. Drew never got close enough for Keith to even get a look at his face. By midnight everything was set up. Keith, Talia, Jiggly, Cindee, and David clustered in a group around the pot of stew no one had touched.
“Can you talk about what happened?” David asked Keith.
“Drew didn’t put us under a gag order, if that’s what you mean,” Keith said.
“No, I mean, are you too emotional to give me a straight account?” David asked.
Talia burst into tears, huddling up against Keith. He glared at David but sighed. “I’m not sure what I can tell you.”
“I need to make sense of this,” David said. “Please tell me what happened.”
Keith said. “We got to the cafe after Anne had been grilling Eva about Angel the whole way there …”
“I said a straight account,” David interrupted. “Not colored by your interpretations.”
“Okay. Sorry.” Keith took a deep breath. “Anne asked questions about Angel and Eva didn’t have many answers. We got to the cafe and Anne basically asked Eva to consider backing off on contacting Angel until we were done here in Mexico.”
“You used the word grilling,” David said. “Was Anne pushing to get a reaction out of Eva? Trying to get her defenses up?”
“No, not really,” Keith admitted. “What she was saying made sense to me. But Eva got pretty riled up all the same. Anne said she was endangering us by taking us to meet Angel and recommended Drew get us out of there. That was when Angel showed up. Eva started screaming at him in Spanish.”
“She told him to run,” Talia said, sniffling. “She said the word danger over and over.”
“Okay, so he ran,” David said. “Then what?”
“Anne went after him,” Keith said. “Just walking, but quick. She said we didn’t mean him any harm, and that we just wanted to talk to him.”
“In English?” Cindee asked. “Maybe he didn’t understand.”
“What happened next?” David asked, motioning Cindee to be quiet.
“Angel was headed for an alley,” Keith said, “as far as I could see. But then somebody told me to get Talia behind cover.”
“Somebody?”
“In the earwig.”
“Why were you wearing an earwig?” David asked.
“Anne gave us each one,” Talia said.
“Drew hates those things,” David said. “He has mild tinnitus. They drive him crazy.”
“Anne said Drew told us to wear them,” Keith said. “Before we even left camp.”
“Go on,” David said sharply.
“We didn’t see the shooting,” Keith said, looking at Talia for confirmation.
She shook her head. “Drew and four men surrounded us and got us in the Rover. Two men and Drew drove off with us. We didn’t see anything else.”
“There was somebody who talked through the earwig one more time,” Keith said. “He said, ‘Cleanup complete. Two returning to base, two to backup location.’ Drew saw that we heard that, and he made us give him the earwigs and said we weren’t supposed to have heard that. I guess maybe he forgot Anne gave them to us.”
“That’s wrong. That has to be wrong,” David insisted. “Unless …” He stopped the pacing he had started. “You should all go to bed.” He started out of the circle of firelight.
“Where are you going?” Cindee asked.
“Jiggly, you can get my Luna to our tent safely, right?” David asked. “Be a good cyborg and do that for me?”
“Yes, sir,” Jiggly said, saluting. Keith had never seen his eyes that big.
David’s lips brushed Cindee’s cheek and he was gone.
Keith and Talia dodged three security guards enroute and circled around one right outside their tent flap.
“What do you think’s bothering David?” Talia asked Keith.
“He may have thought Anne was acting outside Drew’s orders,” Keith said. “Remember how they argued?”
“Drew said Anne did her job,” Talia whispered, and then started to sob against his chest again.
“Yeah.” Keith slid them both down onto the bedroll and lay staring up into the darkness.
Keith and Talia dragged themselves toward the campfire area at dawn and found David and Cindee making breakfast. Sophie and Naddy joined them a few moments later and Jiggly arrived, struggling into his outer shirt.
“Buttons,” he grumbled.
“Eva Sanchez will not be returning to the expedition for a day or two,” David informed them. “Keith, set up phone communications with Jiggly and Cindee and get the guardians’ opinions about whether Talia or the baby are truly at risk if she takes over on the throne. Our security tech guys are saying they don’t think there’s any danger, particularly since she’s well past the first trimester.”
“Where is Drew? Is he all right?” Keith asked. He couldn’t forget that expression on Drew’s face when Anne had first sat down with them on the plane. What must he be feeling? How would I feel if Talia pulled her gun on the wrong person?
“Drew is doing damage control back at the village,” David said. “Filing police reports and making sure nothing that happened yesterday traces back to the expedition or any of you. I haven’t actually talked to him this morning, but I’m sure he’s capable of doing what needs to be done. He’ll be back in a couple of days.”
“Will there be a funeral?” Talia asked. “Any funerals? Will we be able to go?”
“There will be no funerals,” David said curtly.
“Did anyone notify Anne’s family?” Sophie asked. “Her employer will need to be told. What airline did she work for?”
“Those things are being taken care of,” David said impatiently. “Anne wasn’t really a flight attendant. She was a contractor for a private international firm beefing up airline security. Drew asked me to remind you that you are here for a specific purpose that has nothing to do with what happened yesterday. He said to forget it and move on.”
The Guardians agreed that Talia should be safe co-ordinating communications from Araña’s throne. Keith asked them about the holographic map. They gave him a second location while he was checking the expedition maps. It was a ball court Naddy and Sophie already had on their list of places to survey. He arranged with David to take the helicopter and Naddy and Jiggly agreed to accompany them. After lunch they took to the air to head for the ball court.
“So where was the third location?” Jiggly asked. “Or did they decide to eliminate that possibility as not relevant too?”
“They told me where it was,” Keith said, “but I think I have to agree with them, that it will at least be awhile before we figure out how to get there.”
“Where is it?” Naddy asked.
“It’s on the moon,” Keith replied.
Chapter Eighty-eight – Play Ball
“How can this be in such good shape after all this time?” Keith marveled as they explored the ball court a week later. All of them carried machetes and had to hack their way through undergrowth to see glimpses of the intricate brickwork.
David had been ferrying relays back and forth in the copter to try to clear brush. In the early morning each day he would bring teams of machete-wielders and in the evening he would ferry them back. Others worked on the slow process of clearing a road.
“Remember that the sites we have been to elsewhere in the world are much older,” Naddy said. “But I would not exactly call all this damage from the creepers and roots good.”
“Pictures Talia showed me of these ball courts – they were all cleared off,” Keith said. “Grass mowed and stuff.”
“By months or years of backbreaking labor on the part of dozens of men with machetes,” David said with a smile as he hacked a wider swath. “We are making progress, but we have only been at it a few days. At least we have a decent landing space for the copter now. Too bad we can’t get a machine in here to go at it.”
“Hey, you have a cyborg!” Jiggly insisted.
“Who has yet to make his arm perform a proper cut twice in a row,” David pointed out. “I’d think you were slacking if I didn’t see all that sweat.”
“It still won’t keep doing the right angle,” Jiggly growled, pulling up his T-shirt to scrub his face. “The machete just gets tangled up, or bounces off the rocks.”
“It just amazes me that there’s so little damage to the brickwork,” Keith said.
“It is so pristine because this is not one of the sites they bring tourists to,” Naddy said, pausing and breathing hard. “Otherwise there would be nothing to find.”
“Right,” Keith admitted, taking a few more whacks. “I just don’t think any of us are very good at this, except maybe David.”
“Wax on, wax off,” David said, laughing and cutting another section of undergrowth.
“Seriously?” Jiggly snorted. “Teach me this, Oh wise sensei.”
“I tried to teach you karate before,” David reminded him. “You kept whining that I hurt you.”
“You dislocated my freakin’ kneecap!” Jiggly snapped.
“No pain, no gain,” David said with an even bigger smile.
Jiggly reached out with his mechanical hand and tore a plant out of the stonework, roots and all. “That works a whole lot better,” he said, sheathing his machete.
“Jiggly! You will destroy the pavement!” Naddy groaned. Jiggly rolled his eyes.
“David, where are you?” Drew’s voice came over David’s satellite phone, scratchy and indistinct. He had been out to the village again with a small team, trying to be sure the cartel was not looking for the expedition or questioning the shooting incident.
David gave him the co-ordinates of the ball court, but he had to repeat it three times before Drew acknowledged.
“What’s wrong, Drew?” David asked. “Your signal is awful. We told everyone at the base camp where we were going.”
“…Not at … base camp.”
“Then the GPS should – where are you?” David demanded. David pulled his phone back and stared at it. “I’m not getting GPS on you. Is there a threat?”
“Red lights … all directions,” Drew said. “… No contact … base camp … no GPS … finished … village … started back … can’t raise anybody …”
“Try your phones and the corundum chips,” David ordered the others.
Keith already had his phone out. “Talia?” he said, holding his corundum pendant close. “Are you guys okay?”
“We’re fine,” Talia replied. Her signal was clear and strong. “Why?”
“Drew’s signal’s getting blocked,” Keith answered. “He’s on his way back to you but something’s wrong. Be careful.”
“Wait a minute ‘til I have someone check around the camp to be sure,” she replied. After a moment she spoke again. “Drew’s team here relayed reports that everything is quiet and normal.”
“Hey, look, it’s one of those cool rubber balls,” Jiggly said, pulling a round gray object about the size of a cantaloupe out of the underbrush. He tossed it back and forth in his hands.
“Do we need to go back and make sure everything’s all right?” David asked.
“Talia says everything’s fine there,” Keith said. “Maybe it’s Drew who’s in trouble. Can we find him with the ‘copter?”
“Drew made me personally responsible for your safety,” David answered. “I can’t risk taking all of you with me, if Drew is in trouble, and you’re safe here,”
“Whoa!” Jiggly stopped tossing the ball back and forth as a rumbling sound froze them all.
“What was that?” David unlimbered the machine gun hanging on a strap over his shoulder. The vibration died out and they relaxed.
“What just happened?” Talia demanded over the phone.
“We heard a rumbling, or, more like felt it,” Keith said. “Why?”
“The balls,” Talia said. “They started moving.”
“Jiggly found a rubber ball, and he was throwing it –”
“No. Not a rubber ball,” Talia said. “There are two of the giant stone balls out there by your ball court. They’ve got hematite in them, and they started to move back and forth.”
Keith stared at Jiggly. “Toss the ball again.”
“What?” Jiggly asked.
“Toss it back and forth in your hands,” he ordered. He put the phone on speaker.
Jiggly obeyed. The rumbling began again.
“They’re moving,” Talia said. “Both of them are moving in sync.”
“No way!” Jiggly shouted with a huge grin on his face. “I am the Ball Master!”
“Talia, are there any of those big stone balls near the road Drew has to take to get back to the camp?” Keith asked.
“There’s one about three miles from the camp,” she replied.
“Take us up in the copter and head toward it,” Keith said to David.
“I told you, I can’t take you into danger,” David said.
“I don’t think there’ll be any danger for us. Bring that, Ball Master,” Keith said to Jiggly, pointing at the rubber ball. “Naddy, you should come too, so David doesn’t leave anybody unguarded.”
“This is a crazy idea,” Jiggly said. “How do you know this ball controls any other balls besides the two at the ball court? And what will you do if it does? Not like rolling a giant stone ball around can do anything but squish the flatfoot’s Jeep.”
“I see Drew’s vehicle,” David reported. “He’s stopped in the middle of the road. Probably afraid he’s being tracked and doesn’t want to bring them to the camp.”
“Is he safe for now?” Keith asked.
“I can’t communicate with him, but they look to be safe,” David replied. “I don’t see anyone around, but individuals hiding in the jungle – We wouldn’t see them.”
“Talia, confirm the co-ordinates of that ball you found,” Keith said, and poked them into his phone. “Transferring them to your GPS, David.”
“Headed there now,” David said, reluctance obvious in his voice. “Okay. It’s right below us.”
“Roll your ball in a straight line – that way,” Keith said to Jiggly, indicating a path across the floor of the copter. Jiggly obeyed.
A curse word escaped David’s mouth and Keith risked a look down. A giant stone ball rolled into view beneath them onto the road. Even over the copter noise they could hear the tearing and crashing in the underbrush as it popped into view.
“Head back toward Drew’s Jeep,” Keith said. David worked the copter controls and Keith gave orders to Jiggly.
“Keith, be careful!” Talia said. “There’s a stone head back there in the jungle. Looks like we missed it before. The eyes are partly covered or damaged but I can see half a dozen people up in the trees around Drew. I think they have guns.”
David shouldered his machine gun. “Everybody get back. This copter is armored, but they can shoot through the windows.”
“Hold your fire, David. Talia, I need to know where those guys are – which trees?”
He listened, pointed, and Jiggly rolled his ball in sync with his movements. The giant ball rumbled off the road and a loud crack signaled the demise of a tree. All of them saw a man fall, screaming, from high in its branches.
“Keep going.” Keith snapped his fingers at Jiggly and moved his other hand. The rubber ball rolled, the giant ball moved, and another tree cracked and fell. David fired into the canopy on the other side of the road. By this time Drew and his men didn’t know which way to look a
nd simply hid inside the Jeep. One sniper got a shot off but it just pinged off the floor of the copter before the ball steamrolled his tree to the ground.
“I don’t see any more men in the vicinity,” Talia reported. “Looks like the others may have retreated.”
“Drew, please tell me you have signal now,” David pleaded.
“What the – just happened?” Drew’s voice demanded. The men climbed out of the jeep below them and stood around the giant ball that had come to rest in the middle of the road behind them.
“We seem to have discovered Araña’s intended use of the balls,” David replied, “thanks to Jiggly the Ball Master, Talia, and Keith.”
GPS and communications are now working normally,” Drew reported. “Thanks, guys. We’ll do a sweep to see if we can find the jamming device they were using and meet you back at the camp.”
“No way we are going back to camp!” Keith exclaimed. “We need to go straight back to that ball court. If this controller ball was there, it means there’s something worth protecting.”
“How many security guys do you have with you?” Drew asked.
“It’s a four-seater copter, Drew, as you can plainly see,” David replied. “Just me and my buddy Uzi.”
“I want to send a team out there to back you up,” Drew insisted.
“We just backed you up!” Jiggly scoffed.
“The road’s a work in progress, Drew,” David said. “I do have some other guys at the ball court, if they’re not too exhausted from chopping brush to hold up a weapon. I promise to report in regularly, but the Ball Master’s right.
“We seem to have pretty good security in place, courtesy of Araña’s Web. This just became a huge priority, both for our own defense and for the expedition. We can see if there are any more controller balls there. Keith may very well be right that the probability of tablets being there just increased significantly.”
“We could make a road by rolling the ball back after us,” Jiggly said. Everyone in the helicopter glared at him.
“Please keep in touch,” Drew finally said.
The Great Thirst Boxed Set Page 54
