Death and Deception Read online

  I felt pretty good about that bit. It sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Sometimes Mercury pulls through.

  The group stayed silent for too long after I’d stopped talking. They were suspicious. Still bent at the waist, Hidalgo turned to find Rafael Tum in the crowd.

  When their eyes connected, Rafael shrugged and said, “Mas o menos.” More or less.

  Hidalgo rose to his full regal posture and looked down his nose at me. He pointed a finger at the boat depicted in the center of the carving. “And what does it say here?”

  “That says they commit the Poison Stone to Neptune.”

  The group laughed. Hidalgo approached me with a scowl.

  His voice rose and his face turned red. “The mythical Poison Stone was a chant, a god, a curse, a gift depending on which of the oral traditions you believe. They say the man who possessed it walked a tightrope over rivers of blood, chambers of knives, and burning coals in the cenotes of hell chased by Kisim, the skeletal god of death. Those who carried the Poison Stone carelessly toppled kings and destroyed whole cities, scattering their populations. He who carried it wisely destroyed only himself, going mad and throwing himself into Xibalba, the realm of death. They warned the Spanish not to touch the Poison Stone. The Conquistadors took it and shipped it back to Spain, only to lose it at sea. And you expect us to believe you found it? And this is it?”

  Hidalgo pointed at the alabaster box.

  “Well. Yeah. Kinda. I thought you’d be interested.”

  “You are a liar! A fraud!” He stuck his finger in my chest while his people jeered. “You carved this yourself. The Mayan glyphs are faked. A child could see through your deception. This is nothing but a forgery. There were no Roman artifacts in the Mayan world. Get out of here and take that abomination with you!”

  CHAPTER 4

  We left Hidalgo and hiked the path of shame until we couldn’t hear their taunts anymore. About three miles.

  Along the way, I shouted at Mercury, I should’ve known you were making it up the minute I heard ‘Neptune.’ Rome had gone all-in on Christianity by the 380s. Why did I ever listen to you?

  Mercury said, Chill homeboy. I got a little carried away is all. Caught up in the moment, y’know? Don’t that ever happen to you?

  I said, If you’re a god, how come you didn’t know Hidalgo was setting me up? There was no writing on that little boat. Now, I gotta lug a hundred pounds of rock all the way to the Mayan ruins at Tikal. And then I don’t know what I’m going to do with the damn thing. Thanks for nothing.

  Mercury said, Why you blaming me, yo? I told you not to mess with that thing. Leave it at the bottom of the ocean, I said. And what do you do? Haul it up and show it off like you got yourself a new toy. Why would you listen to god? Why—

  When he goes on a rant, I tune him out. Everybody wants to yin, but nobody wants to let me yang back. Or whatever.

  I figured Guatemala was our best route home. According to my Sabel Satellite phone, we’d crossed the border into Guatemala half an hour earlier. We made camp on the edge of a small clearing.

  Tikal was another forty miles south. There weren’t any trails. We would head out cross-country in the morning. With a little luck and some perseverance, we could make it there in a long hiking day. Jenny ran 10Ks; she could probably do that in twelve hours. Whatever the case, we were twenty-four hours from civilization and a flight home. I’d dump the rock at the nearest tourist shop. Maybe I could get twenty bucks.

  I set up the tent while Jenny stirred a pot of beans on the campfire.

  “You wanted adventure,” I said to Jenny. “Did you figure on public humiliation?”

  I joined her on a log by the fire. She nuzzled my shoulder and purred. “We’re literally in the middle of nowhere and some rando chick recognized the Hero of Paris. I’m happy.” She patted my chest. “She was talking about my hero of Paris.”

  Her positive vibe gave me a warm feeling. I hugged her. Having a woman’s admiration was a whole new world for me. Before Jenny, women had always asked things like, What’s wrong with you?

  I said, “You don’t mind that she was hitting on me?”

  “Cherry? Hitting on you?” She laughed. “Are you one of those guys who thinks any time a girl smiles at you it’s because she wants you?”

  “Whaaat? You mean, it’s not?” I hugged her. She wrapped her arms around me. “Then why are you smiling at me right now?”

  She laughed again. “Well, truth be told, I was thinking about, you know, yin and yang, order and chaos, trains and tunnels.”

  We heard a whistle. Melodic. Like someone whistling a tune.

  I rose and moved toward the edge of the clearing. Beyond our circle of light, the jungle was black as a cave.

  “Someone there?” I called out.

  “It is I, Rafael Tum,” the professor’s voice answered.

  He came through the trees and approached the light. He looked concerned. Jenny stood behind me, using my shoulder as a shield before recognizing him and stepping out.

  “So what brings you out here in the dark?” I asked.

  “Hidalgo is a self-important fool,” he said and dropped to the ground cross-legged with the ease of a child. “You, Jacob, are far worse.”

  His dis felt harsher than the ridicule Hidalgo unleashed back at the dig.

  “You walked all this way to tell me it’s a fake?” I asked. Jenny and I went back to the log and sat, never taking our suspicious gaze off Rafael. I still had trouble hearing an Englishman and seeing a Mayan. “I’ve heard. You can go home now. That’s where I’m going come sunrise.”

  “You are worse than a fool,” he said, “because you know the artifact is real and yet you parade it around like a child with a prize toy.”

  “Hang on. I don’t know anything about it. The Cubans told us it was fake, but they weren’t specialists. We brought it here to the expert and he confirmed it’s fake. So, it’s a fake. We’re done. Going home.”

  “Hidalgo.” Rafael scoffed. “A walking doctoral thesis on ignorance. Why did you bring this up from the bottom of the ocean when you know it causes death and destruction?”

  “Hey, that’s not fair.” Jenny doesn’t like other people attacking her man. “We don’t know anything about it.”

  “Oh?” Rafael cocked his head. “In 525 AD a monk created the Anno Domini, AD, system for numbering years from the birth of Christ onward. Before that—for example, in 408 AD—Rome numbered years based on emperors. At that time, they numbered years from the beginning of Emperor Diocletian’s reign. The date carved on the box reads January 14th—of the year 124.” Rafael pointed at me. “Yet your betrothed, a soldier with no formal education in Roman history, converted that obscure number with ease. How?”

  Jenny snapped her gaze to me.

  I kept my eyes on Rafael and said, “Maybe I looked it up on the internet.”

  “You accurately translated a good deal of the Roman inscription. Not just for Hidalgo but in your Instagram comments. The Romans typically used little text and let the artwork speak the rest. How did you interpret Roman symbolism from the internet?”

  Well he had me there. I sure as Orcus wasn’t going to tell him how my immortal companion gave me the inside scoop on all things Roman. That was always a conversation stopper. Not that I cared about the conversation stopping, but I hadn’t worked up the nerve to tell Jenny about the winged messenger of the Roman gods. Only a handful of people—those who’d witnessed heroic deeds that could only have been accomplished with divine intervention—knew about him. Jenny had seen some of my miracles, but I didn’t want to spook her. OK, so, I had chickened out. But I was getting there.

  I said to the nosy professor, “It’s a hobby of mine.”

  He nodded just like my grandfather did when I lied to him.

  How come old folks never challenge you, they just give you that knowing glance that makes you feel three inches tall?

  “What was all that mystical gobbledygook Hidalgo was saying?”
I asked. Jenny squeezed my hand to let me know she was on my side.

  “He was trying to scare you with the myths about that box.”

  “Didn’t work,” I said and poked the fire with a stick. “I don’t believe in myths.”

  “Nonetheless, you would be wise to remain vigilant.” Rafael smiled at me. “The power—and therefore the danger—of a myth lies with those who believe.”

  “Danger, huh?” I scoffed. “So, who are you?”

  “I am a linguist. My specialty is dead languages. I found my calling when I went to boarding school at Eton. My undergraduate degree is from Oxford, my masters from Barcelona, and my PhD from Harvard. I’m familiar with Latin because sixteenth century priests and conquistadors often wrote home in Latin. But my specialty lies in the many dialects of my people, the Maya.”

  We were impressed. He gloated in the firelight for a moment.

  Eton and Oxford explained why he spoke English with a frozen jaw, like the Brits.

  Jenny ladled out our stew, and again offered Rafael a portion. He turned it down. We began eating.

  “I must tell you, Ms. Jenkins,” Rafael said while we ate, “you cut a regal figure behind the controls of that beautiful submarine. You must be fast friends with Pia Sabel for her to loan it to you.”

  “They grew up together,” I said to cut off any further discussion of our young billionaire friend. “She threw an engagement party for us on her yacht and there was a six-person submarine onboard. We played around with it and lucked into finding the San Andrés, that’s all.”

  His eyebrows shot up. My casual description of using half a billion dollars’ worth of aquatic toys impressed most people. He was impressed. He didn’t need to know she had been pulling out all the stops to keep me from leaving her company. We’d had a falling out over ethics. Hers. I’d left and hung out my shingle as a security specialist. Then she announced my engagement party. I wasn’t too proud—or too stupid—to turn down a couple weeks splashing around the Caribbean on her four-hundred-foot dinghy before starting my self-imposed vow of poverty. A man needs to be flexible when opportunities arise.

  “How fortunate for you,” Rafael said. “And yet how unfortunate.”

  “Unfortunate?” I didn’t like his attitude. Jenny squeezed my hand again, this time to calm me. “Danger. Responsibility. You came here to tell us something, so just spit it out. What do you want? Is it the Poison Stone? Wait, you called it the Freedom Stone. Whatever. It’s yours.”

  “Absolutely not.” He held up both hands refusing the gift. “I refuse to touch it. In addition to my profession, I am a member of an ancient order called the Keepers. We monitor myths and watch for corresponding events in our era.”

  “Are you going to tell us it’s a magic stone and we’re cursed or something?” Jenny asked with a hint of sneer.

  “Thousands of years ago, people found a rock.” He gave Jenny a patient smile. “Anyone who touched it ended up sick. The ancients labeled that rock evil and stayed clear. Today we call it uranium. Not so long ago, people fashioned the atomic bomb from it. The ancients were not wrong about the evil. Although that raises the question: is uranium magic?”

  “Magic until science figures it out,” she said. “So, is this thing good or evil?”

  “Marie Curie used radium to cure cancer. She died of exposure to it. Is radium good or evil?”

  “OK.” Jenny’s head bobbed with reluctant agreement. “Depends on how it’s used.”

  We both dove into our camp stew to contemplate his concept and to avoid his critical gaze. He watched us as if expecting us to have an epiphany of some sort. Apparently, we weren’t Oxford-smart. We didn’t get it. I glanced over at Mercury for divine help. He gave me a finger wave and laughed. I mopped up my stew with bread and finished it.

  “You believe in myths,” Rafael said to me. “You do not flinch when you encounter the inexplicable. You do not question. You believe.”

  Mercury stood behind the professor with his arms outstretched. He’s talking about me, brutha. Can ya feel it? He senses my divine presence. He knows you’re the chosen one.

  I said, Oh yeah? If he senses you, talk to him. Ask him to stand up.

  Rafael Tum rose from cross-legged to standing without using his hands. He paced the fire circle.

  Mercury swept his hands around in a big arc before pointing at Rafael like an assistant drawing attention to the magician’s big trick. Standing, homie.

  I said, Not because you asked.

  “How do you figure that about Jacob and myths?” Jenny asked.

  “Jacob posted many pictures on Instagram along with a highly educated and detailed analysis of the Roman portion. He did that because he believed in something.”

  I didn’t want to get into any mythological weeds right then, so I changed the subject. “What was that about danger and myth-believers?”

  “There are people who believe the ancient myths. People who will do anything to attain and keep power, to protect their position. No doubt they’ve seen your posts by now. They will stop at nothing to take the Stone from you.”

  “They can have it,” I said. “I’m out.”

  “And if their purpose is to fashion it into the equivalent of an atomic bomb?” the old professor mused. “Your responsibility is to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

  Jenny and I shared a curious glance.

  Rafael went on. “Would you give it to people if you knew they planned something evil?”

  “OK, I’ll hide it,” I said.

  He frowned and glanced between Jenny and me. “And let them torture the location out of you or your loved ones?”

  “We’ll give it to the good guys,” Jenny offered.

  “How do you know who they—”

  A panicked voice came to us through the jungle.

  The professor and I raced to the edge of the clearing, beyond the firelight.

  “Rafael! Rafael!” Cherry’s rattled and breathless voice came to us before we could see her. “They came. Like you said. There must be forty of them.”

  Out of breath, she staggered to the fire, a backpack on her shoulders and another in her hand. We guided her to the circle and took her packs.

  “Just as you feared.” She gulped the water Jenny offered and tried to catch her breath. “Armed men. Swarthy. They had that green tattoo you described. Knights of Mithras.” She struggled to catch her breath. “They rounded up Hidalgo’s team at gunpoint.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Half an hour later, we’d broken camp. Rafael insisted it would be best to flee the invaders. It crossed my mind that Rafael could be leading us into an ambush, although it didn’t seem likely since neither he nor his assistant were armed. Jenny could handle them easily.

  Using advanced techniques to cover his trail, Rafael led the women deeper into the uncharted rain forest. Since Jenny had a Sabel Satellite phone like mine, I could catch up with them later using GPS. I went back to Hidalgo’s dig site with my only weapon, a Glock 18C. I had to see about this army of Knights Cherry had described. She didn’t seem like the type to make up a story, but civilians often succumb to their vivid imagination when threatened. No one wants to be the coward who ran.

  My Sabel Visor gave me an advantage over any potential enemy. Night vision with a thermal overlay allowed me to identify humans better in the dark than daylight. Sabel gear is the best in the world. As I neared the edge of the site, I realized that someday soon I’d have to surrender all my Sabel toys—the Glock, the satellite phone, the visor, even the Sabel Darts. Painful thoughts.

  I came across the first of Cherry’s Knights standing guard a quarter mile from the dig. He was alert, well-trained, and carried an AK-15, the latest Kalashnikov rifle. On his wrist was the tattoo Cherry mentioned, the roundel of the Turkmenistan military’s elite units, a white crescent moon with five stars inside a green circle with a red border. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t see me. He lacked any kind of night vision. Which told me these guys were
daylight operators. Being an expert in night operations, I had a small advantage. I kept a significant distance and moved past the sentry without incident. I made my way through the trees to the tents circling the plaza.

  Floodlights had been set up at one end, creating long, dark shadows behind bright subjects. A squad of men carrying AK-15 rifles and wearing black camp shirts and shorts set off on patrol to my left. If they made a standard sweep of their contained area, I had ten minutes. If they were smart and doubled back to confuse a potential enemy, I had two. I analyzed how they worked. They were professionals displaying a level of discipline rarely seen outside the US Army’s special ops units. I doubled down on being careful.

  Moving to the back of the largest tent, I peered in through a vent. It was an office of sorts. The tent had been tossed over. Chairs and tables and maps and shards of pottery lay strewn about. I crossed through a slice of light between tents to the next one over and checked it. A bunkhouse of sorts. Also trashed with pillows and tangles of sheets on the floor. People had been hauled out after bedtime.

  Rounding the edge of the bunkhouse, I could see the plaza and a group gathered there. The grad students and volunteers were on their knees, their hands bound with tight zip ties, mouths gagged with socks. They were lined up in three rows of five. I had a view between the rows. They faced the harsh lights. Beneath the lamps stood a stocky, bald guy—the head honcho. He slapped a collapsible baton against his open palm while he talked to someone. I couldn’t make out the words.

  Near me, the guy who’d backed up Carlotta with a rifle on our arrival struggled against his zip ties. A guard in black quickly approached him and smacked a baton hard across the guy’s back. He barked in pain through his gag.

  Two men patrolling the plaza with AK-15s headed toward me. Their eyes, unaccustomed to the dark, hadn’t spotted me yet.