Serpent

"Steps are over here," Gamay said, towing him behind her. She helped him to the top of the well.

Looking around, Chi said, "My guess is that the inhabitants of the city used this well as an emergency supply when the cenote and the river dried up after the rainy season." Chi got down on his knees and peered into the well. "When the water was high they could simply dip into it with their vessels. When the level dropped completely out of their reach they carved the steps. Like that coffee commercial. Good to the last drop."

He stood and traced the track in the floor. "The marks of many feet," he said in wonder.

Gamay was as interested in ancient civilizations as Chi, but the lighter flame was growing smaller and dimmer. When she pointed this out to the professor he picked up several pieces of charred bark from the floor and wove them into a serviceable torch that cast off smoky flames.

"Castor oil plant," he explained. Back on his dry land element, he took the lead. "Well, Dorothy, shall we follow the yellow brick road?" he said with an airy wave of the torch.

Glancing back to make sure Gamay was behind him, Chi ducked through the opening in the wall and into a rough tunnel. Chi's head comfortably cleared the low soot-encrusted ceiling, but Gamay had to bend over as she ascended the crooked and steeply pitched passageway. After only a few minutes the tunnel ended abruptly at the bottom of a narrow shaft. Gamay could stand again.

A crude ladder led up the shaft. Chi tested the rungs, pronounced the ladder rickety but safe, and climbed to the top of the shaft, where he knelt at the rim and held the torch as a beacon for Gamay.

The ladder miraculously held, and Gamay joined him at the opening of another passageway. This one led to a cavern about twice the size of the cave with the well in it. And like that chamber, there was only one way out. The tunnel was about a yard wide and slightly more than that tall. They navigated the twists and turns of the gradually ascending passageway on their hands and knees. The enclosed space would have been hot and stifling even without the smoke and heat from the torch, and at times Gamay found it hard to breathe. It was difficult to tell length and direction, but she guessed that the tunnel ran for about sixty feet, doubling back on itself at one point.

She had been crawling with her head down, glancing upward from time to time to make sure she didn't get too close to Chi although that was unlikely. He scuttled through the tunnels like a mole rat. The torchlight vanished unexpectedly, and she bumped into the professor's legs. She stood to see what the holdup was.

"Wait," Chi said, and put his arm back for emphasis.

He seemed frozen in place. In the torch's light Gamay quickly saw why The tunnel had ended at a ledge overlooking a yawning chasm. Three logs had been laid across the abyss. The early engineers who built the span had reinforced it with cross supports and thoughtfully attached a pole for a railing on one side.

"I'll go first," Chi said. Gingerly he put his weight on a log, and when it held he pressed forward. A quick few steps, and he was across.

"It's . not exactly the Golden Gate," he said apologetically, "but it seems to be fine."

The word seems hung in the air and overshadowed the rest of the reassuring sentence. Gamay balefully eyed the crude span. She really didn't have any choice. Reassuring herself that she only weighed thirty-five pounds more than the professor, she tripped across the bridge like a highwire walker. It was steadier than she anticipated, and the rough logs didn't roll. Still she was glad when she reached Chi's outstretched hand and put her foot back on solid rock.

"Well done," he said, guiding her to another shaft leading upward. Gamay almost panicked when she didn't see a ladder, but Chi pointed out the steps worn into the wet and slippery rock. They were barely big enough for her toes and-fingers, and she had to use every bit of rock-climbing muscle and skill. The infrastructure around here was made for slightly built Mayans, not tall Anglos, she grumbled to herself.

At the top of the shaft was another low tunnel. Gamay's throat felt like the Sahara desert on a hot day. Her climbing, swimming, and crawling exertions were catching up with her. Her eyes stung from cinders, and her knees were raw from crawling. At one point she and the professor had to squeeze through broken rock. Gamay might have stopped for good had it not been for an exultant shout from the professor.

"Dr. Gamay, we're out!"

Seconds later they stood in a chamber so large the light from the torch wasn't bright enough to illuminate the high ceiling. She rubbed the soot from her eyes. Were those columns? She borrowed the torch only to laugh softly when the light fell not on columns but on huge stalactites. The cavern was irregularly circular. Passages branched off from the chamber. One opening was semicircular in shape and twice as tall as a man. In contrast to the rough opening they had just come through, the portals were smooth and even, the surface of the floor unexpectedly flat.

"You could drive a car through this!" Gamay exclaimed.

"There are legends of underground highways that ran between villages. I always thought they were simply exaggerations, that some of the locals had seen natural tunnels and mistaken them for artificial ones. But this . . ."

They were brought to a halt where a section of fallen roof blocked the way, and turned back to the main chamber, stopping first to explore a side passage. They entered a miniature plaza whose rectangular tiled floor was surrounded by real columns, not stalactites. The vaulted ceiling was smoothed and plastered, as was the wall, which was adorned with murals of red figures in profile.

"Incredible," Gamay said. "Is this some sort of underground temple?"

Chi walked along the walls squinting at the figures whose paint seemed as fresh as if it had been applied the day before.

"The figures are Mayan, but, then again, they are not," the professor whispered.

Pictured was a procession of profiled figures carrying goods on shoulders and heads. Vases, baskets of bread, gold containers, odd shapes that could have been ingots.

"The boats again." Gamay pointed out merchant ships and war vessels similar to those carved into the walls of the structure Chi showed her earlier.

A whole story unfolded as they walked along the walls. Ships coming in. Unloading. The goods being taken off in procession. Even a painting of a man holding a list, obviously a teller. Soldiers standing guard. It was an ancient documentary of some great event or events.

Their attention turned to the center of the room and a large round stone pedestal supported by four heavy columnar legs. On the table was a cut box of purplish crystal-specked stone, similar in appearance to the temple structures on the summits of Mayan pyramids.

Gamay bent low and looked through the square opening in the side of the box.

"There's something inside," she said. She reached in with trembling fingers, lifted out the object, and set it on the mirrored surface of the table. Chi had found more castor branches to replenish the torch, and it burned brighter than ever.

The device, for that is surely what it was, consisted of a boxy wood housing inset with a metal wheel which in turn was strengthened with cross braces. Within the wheel was a large gear that apparently rotated around a central axle, and meshed with its teeth were several smaller gears.

"What is it?" Gamay said.

A machine of sorts."

"It looks like . . . no, it can't be."

"Don't keep me in the dark, Dr. Gamay"

"Well, it resembles something I've seen before, an artifact taken off an ancient shipwreck, made of bronze as this appears to be but terribly corroded. It was thought to be an astrolabe, a navigational device to determine the attitude of the sun and stars. Someone did a gamma radiograph. They found gear ratios that related to astronomical and calendar data. It was far more complex than a simple astrolabe. There were thirty gears, all enmeshed, even a differential gear. It was basically a computer."

"A computer. Where did you see it?"

She paused. At the National Museum in Athens."

Chi stared at the machine. "Impossible."

"Professor, could you give me a little more light here, where these scratchings are?"

Chi brought the torch so dose the flames almost singed Gamay's hair, but she didn't care.

"I don't know much about Mayan writing, but this isn't it."

It was Chi's turn to examine the inscription. "Impossible," he repeated, but with less conviction.

Gamay looked around the chamber. "This whole thing, this cloistered basilica, your underground freeway. They're all impossible, too."

"We must get this analyzed as soon as we can."

"I'm with you on that one. There's a slight problem."

"Oh yes," Chi said, remembering where they were. "But I think we're almost out of the caves."

Gamay nodded. "I felt the fresh air, too."

Chi tied the front of his shirt into a makeshift sack to carry the artifact, and they headed back to explore the main chamber: An enormous wooden ladder almost perpendicular in its steepness soared into the darkness above. The ladder was made of bark-covered saplings, logs really, about as thick as a Mayan's thigh and approximately twelve feet wide. The saplings were lashed to tree trunks that were braced horizontally at right angles against the face of the rods Running up the center of the ladder was a partition that acted as a hand railing.

The ladder was an impressive engineering feat, but time had taken its toll. Some of the round steps had slipped and hung at angles. In places supports had snapped, and the ladder sagged. The wood seemed sturdy enough to Gamay The fact that the steps and bras were lashed together with vines bothered her. In her sorry experience vines dried, cracked, and broke. Her confidence was not inspired when the bottom step detached itself from the ladder as she put her weight on it.

Chi craned his neck toward the invisible summit of the ladder.

"We'll have to approach this scientifically," he said, examining the construction. "This whole thing could fall at any moment. The support up the middle may give it some stability. It would be something to hang on to. Maybe you should go fast. If it holds for you, there should be no problem with me."

Gamay appreciated Chi's gesture, although she didn't agree with it.

"Your chivalry may be misplaced, Dr. Chi. Your dances of making it to the top are better than mine. If I go first and the ladder breaks, you'll never get out of here."

"On the other hand, the ladder could break under my weight, and we'd both be out of hick."

Stubborn Mayan. "Okay. I promise to go on a diet later."

Gamay stepped carefully over the bottom rung to the second sapling and gradually put her weight on it. The rung held. Reaching up for higher rungs so as to spread her weight, she began to climb. She purposely avoided looking at the vines, fearing that they might part from the pressure of her glance.

About six rungs up she stopped. "The air is coming down the ladder," she said brightly. "Once we're at the top we should be home free."

She took another step. The ties snapped on one side, and the end of the sapling came free to hang at a slight angle. Gamay froze, afraid to breathe. Nothing else fell. As slowly and deliberately as a tree sloth she resumed her climb. The ties held until she got midway, where the ladder sagged, putting further stress on the suspension. Another log snapped free and dangled off to one side. One horizontal support came completely loose and crashed to the cave floor. She was sure the ladder was about to collapse. Yet it stayed intact. When the swaying stopped she resumed her climb.

She could have been on the ladder fifteen minutes or fifteen hours. It was hard to tell. But she made steady progress without mishap until she was only a few rungs from the top. Good God, she thought, looking down. The ladder must be almost ninety feet high. She had left the light from Chi's torch behind long ago. From where she was perched it looked like a distant star.

Gamay reached up and to her great relief felt stone instead of tree bark. Even more carefully than before, not wanting to kick a log free, she slithered over the rim to safety. She lay on her back and offered thanks to the Mayan ladder builders, then rolled over on her stomach and called softly down to Chi.

The torch waved back and forth and went out. Chi was on his way up and would need both hands free. She didn't really think he'd have any problem until she heard the noise.

Calunk Then clunkityclunk.

In her mind's eye she could see the thick loglike saplings break loose and tumble to the bottom of the ladder. She expected that would be the end of it, but then she began to hear more dull dunks. A terrifying sound, because it indicated that the incident hadn't ended with one log. A chain reaction was under way If she had weakened the vines with her weight it would require only a slight pressure to snap the supports and send the rungs crashing to the floor More thumps and dunks echoed in the darkness. The noise grew louder. It was evident from the racket that, rung by rung, the ladder was collapsing.

She lit the cigarette lighter and held it over the edge. Maybe the tiny flame would show Chi how close he was to the top. That is, if he weren't buried under a massive log pile.

Chi's voice called out Hard to tell against the racket how far away.

"Your hand!"

She reached over the rim and shouted encouragement

Something brushed her fingers. She had no idea he was that close.

"Grab hold!" she yelled.

Again she felt a touch, forgers clawing, fording her slim wrist and locking on, her hand doing the same with his wrist: She rolled over, using the leverage provided by her body, pulling Chi up to where he could grab the edge with his free hand. Something was wring.

"Wait"

Wait far what?

Chi was fumbling. Finally, after agonizing moments when she thought she was going to lose him, Chi gripped her forearm with both hands and got first one leg, then the other, onto. solid rock A. choking cloud of dust rose from the cave. It cleared several minutes later, and they peered over the precipice. Nothing was visible in the inky pit.

"The ladder collapsed below me when I was about halfway up," Chi said. "I was fine as long as I kept ahead of the falling logs, but they started to catch. up. It was like climbing a down escalator!"

"Why did you tell me to wait?"

He patted the front of his shirt. "The knot was coming loose. I was afraid I'd lose the artifact." Chi looked with wonder over the edge. "They don't make ladders the way they used to."

Gamay broke into a gale of laughter. "No, I guess they don't."

Cooled by a stream of fresh air they dusted themselves off and followed the apparent source of the breeze, which got stronger as they headed along a well-beaten path through a large winding tunnel. The buzz of insects grew louder. They climbed a short flight of stairs and stepped through a narrow opening into the damp, warm night.

Gamay drew air deep into her lungs and let it out, expelling the dirt and dust. The moonlight cast the old city plaza with its strange slumbering mounds in a pewter light. With Chi leading they set off to work their way toward the path that would take them to where they left the HumVee. Weeks seemed to have gone by since they had arrived here.

The pair moved cautiously from mound to mound. They were near the edge of the woods when they saw what looked like a convention of fireflies. Only these pinpoints were not blinking on and off. They were steady, fanning out across the old city plaza. Gamay and Chi realized simultaneously that their escape had been discovered. And that the threesome who had imprisoned them had been joined by others. They began to run.

A gravelly voice growled in Spanish, and a blinding light flashed in their eyes. Then they heard a nasty laugh that told Gamay she had been reunited with her old friend Yellow Teeth. He sounded highly pleased with himself. He ran the beam slowly down the front of Gamay's body, letting it linger on selected spots, before bringing it back to the leveled barrels of the professor's shotgun, which he held at waist level. Then he yelled in Spanish to attract the attention of his confederates. There was a shouted answer, and beams of light began to move their way.

Gamay couldn't believe it! After all they'd gone through, crawling through the ground like moles, only to be caught within seconds like game panicked by a line of beaters. She was ready simply to walk up to the bastard and twist the gun out of his hands. Chi must have sensed her impetuous mood.

"Do as he says. Don't worry."

Chi stepped off to one side and went along a path. Yellow Teeth barked a command. The professor ignored him and kept walking at a slow, steady pace. Yellow Teeth hesitated. This wasn't supposed to happen. People were supposed to jump to his order when he waved a gun around. With a quick glance at Gamay to make sure she was sufficiently cowed to remain where she was, he started after Chi, yelling in Spanish. Chi stopped, but not before he stepped off the path into the grass, where he got down on his knees in a begging position, arms held high in the air.

This was more like it. Weakness was like fresh blood to a hungry animal. With a snarl, Yellow Teeth lunged through the grass, bringing the gun up so he could crush Chi's skull with the butt. Then he vanished. The flashlight sailed into the air, describing a long arc before it landed in the grass. There was a yelp of surprise, a loud thud, silence.

Chi retrieved the flashlight and directed the beam straight down. When Gamay approached he warned, "Be careful. There's another hole just to your right."

Yellow Teeth had fallen through a circular hole and now lay at the bottom of a domeshaped chamber with white plaster walls.

"Cisterns," Chi said. "You saw how hard it was to get a drink around here. The city people used to store their water in these things. I've marked them wherever I can. I guess he didn't see this." He fingered a thin orange ribbon tied to a bush.

Are you going to just leave him?"

Chi looked off to where the fireflies were getting closes

"We don't have much choice. You don't really care, do you?"

Gamay thought about the long hard climb from the wrote.

"I wouldn't mind getting my watch back But to be perfectly honest, no, I don't give a damn. See how he likes being stuck in a gopher hole."

"We'll have to go toward the river. It's the only way"

They sprinted for the woods.

They'd been spotted. Gunfire shattered the night.

They ran faster.

Arlington Virginia

21 JOSE "JOE" ZAVALA LIVED IN A SMALL building that once housed a district library in Arlington, outside Washington. His living quarters on the main floor were decorated in a Southwest flair with much of the furniture built by his father. He liked the decor for its color and warmth, but it was a reminder of how far he had come from his humble origins.

His mother and father, born and raised in Morales, Mexico, waded across the Rio Grande west of El Paso in the late sixties. His mother was seven months pregnant, and Josh was born and grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where his, parents settled, his father being a carpenter who built furnitureThe lure of the sea called him from his desert and mountain home. Having graduated from the New York Maritime College as an engineer, Zavala possessed a mechanical mind that bordered on brilliance, and he was recruited right out of college by Admiral Sandecker.

Austin had suggested regrouping at Zavala's place to get away from the overpowering presence of NUMA headquarters and the demands of its. director. He had experienced the unpleasant task of calling Sandecker the night before to report, the sting's failure. Sandecker advised him to get a good night's sleep and return to Washington as soon as possible. Austin and the others conked out for a few hours in a motel near the airport and were on, an early flight that had them back in Washington before noon the next day. Nina, who still had a consulting firm to run, hopped onto a shuttle back to Boston. Austin stopped at his house for a shower and change of clothes and checked in with his office. His secretary said she had a packet of information. Austin asked her to send it by courier to Zavala's house.

Trout was late for the meeting, which was unlike him. While he waited for Paul, Austin sat at a heavy wood dining table and read the file that had come over from NUMA. Zavala emerged from the basement where he'd been tinkering with machinery. Austin handed him a black-and-white photo from the folder. "This came from the FBI."

"Pretty girl," Zavala said. The young blond woman in the photo was not a classic beauty but attractive in a Midwestern corn-fed way, with large innocent eyes and the winning smile she displayed at the Arizona digs.

"Mrs. Wingate?"

Austin nodded. "Mrs. Wingate as she looked forty years ago." He took the picture back. "Her name was Crystal Day. They thought she might become another Dons Day She had a measure of film success back in the fifties and sixties. Reached her pinnacle doing a clinch scene in a Rock Hudson movie. She might have made it big time if it hadn't been for her expensive alcohol and drug habits and her bad taste in men. The last few years she's been doing bit parts on obscure TV shows, but even those were few and far between."

"What a tragic loss," Zavala said with a shake of his head. "How'd she end up dead in a shower?"

"Her agent says he thought of Crystal when he got a call, supposedly from an independent film company that was looking for a middle-aged woman for a small role. Immediate opening with big money. My guess is that whoever hired Crystal knew she was desperate and would jump at the chance to do the part, even when she found out it wasn't what she expected and she wouldn't be playing before the cameras."

"She was good enough to fool us," Zavala said

"Yeah, and so was her 'husband,' Mr Wingate from Spokane."

"The mysterious scar-faced man with the disappearing beard. Has anything turned up on him?"

"He must have worn his gloves to bed," Austin replied with a frown. "The lab boys even checked the handle of the shovel he was using for fingerprints. Nothing."

"Smart move having a mole on the project;" Zavala said with unveiled admiration. "It certainly took the stinger out of our sting."

Look at it as a learning experience," Austin said, his voice gaining an edge. "We've learned not to underestimate these guys. We know they're well organized." He tapped the photo with his finger. And that they don't like loose ends."

"We've also confirmed the Time-Quest connection. They assign a couple of volunteers to the project, then kidnap them while they send in ringers. Time-Quest comes out clean. Pretty clever"

"Diabolically so. What do you make of Wingate's friendly wave just before the shed blew up and the offhand comment the guards told me he made?"

" 'Nice try'? You have to admit he had a sense of humor for a murderer."

"You don't see me laughing. He was rubbing it in when he didn't have to. Why?"

"He just felt like rubbing it in?"

"Maybe." Austin scratched his chin in thought. "I think it was partly just plain arrogance. He was telling us he knows who we are and that he is part of something so big he can treat us as a joke."

"Bigger than NUMA?"

"I wish I knew, Joe." Austin replaced the publicity photo in the folder "I wish I knew."

Any idea where we go next?"

"No more stings. Lucky I was recuperating when that scheme as dreamed up. We'll keep looking into the hovercraft link and the murder."

"Not exactly a well-lit highway we're following," Zavala said. "What if I flew down to San Antonio and checked out Time-Quest personally?"

"Might be worth a looksee. I'd be interested in Time-Quest's financial backing.

A soft knock came at the door. Trout entered, ducking his head under the jamb. He had a serious look on his face, but this was standard with Trout.

"Sorry I'm late, guys. I've been talking to the Nereus about Gamay."

Clearly worried about his wife, Trout had called NUMA frequently as they flew across the country, to see if Gamay had checked in.

"Any word?" Austin asked.

Trout settled his lanky form into a chair and shook his head. "They confirmed that she got a ride to shore from the ship. That she rented a Jeep. That she left word she was going to meet Professor Chi, the museum anthropologist she's been eager to. see. And that she'd be back that evening."

"Did she and this Dr. Chi ever get together?"

Trout shifted uneasily. "I don't know. The folks down there are still trying to get a hold of Chi. Seems he spends a lot of time out in the field, so they said. not to worry. But it's not like Gamay to stay out of touch."

"What do you want to do, Paul?"

"I know you need me here," Trout said apologetically, "but I'd like to get back to the Yucatan for a few days to check things out. It's tough trying to follow Gamay's track based on second or thirdhand accounts."

Austin nodded. "Joe's heading down to Texas for a look at Time-Quest. I'll be in Washington working up a report on the Arizona fiasco. Why don't you take forty-eight hours to see what you can learn? If you need more time I'll 'smooth things with Sandecker."

"Thanks, Kurt," Trout said, brightening. "I've lined up a flight that will get me down there early tonight. I've got a couple of hours before then I can spare for the team"

Any ideas lurking behind that broad intellectual forehead?"

Trout wrinkled his brow "The one thing we've solidly established is that the trigger in all of these incidents is the discovery of pre-Columbian artifacts."

"Yes, that's a given," replied Austin, "but we don't know why."

Zavala murmured, "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

Austin, who'd been deep in thought, looked up with a bemused expression. "What did you say?"

"The first line of a poem from grade school. You probably had to learn the same rhyme."

"I did, and I don't remember the rest of it any better than you do."

"I wasn't trying to get an A in poetry," Zavala said. "I was thinking. Maybe pre-Columbian isn't the key. Maybe it's Columbus.'

"Good point," Trout said.

"It is?"'Zavala replied. Even he wasn't so sure.

"Paul is right," Austin said. "You can't have pre-Columbian without Columbus."

Zavala grinned. "In fourteen hundred and ninetytwo . . ."

"Exactly. That dumb rhyme pretty much sums up what most of us know about Columbus. The date he sailed and the fact we get a three-day weekend in October because of him. But what do we really know about old Chris? Especially as it might apply to these murderous attacks."

Trout's analytical brain was at work "I think I see where you're headed. We know there's an indirect link between Columbus and these incidents. Ergo . . ."

"Keep on ergoing," Zavala encouraged.

"Ergo the question: Is there a direct link?"

They exchanged glances.

"Perlmutter," they uttered in unison.

Austin grabbed the phone and punched out a number. In a spacious Georgetown carriage house the private line gave off a ring like a ship's bell. The receiver was plucked from its cradle by a plump hand belonging to a man who was not quite as wide as a barn door. He wore plummy purple pajamas under a red and gold paisley robe. He sat in a chair reading one of the thousands of books that seemed to fill every cubic inch of every room.

"St. Julien Perlmutter here," he said through a magnificent gray beard. "State your business in a brief manner."

"Christopher Columbus," Austin said. "Is that brief enough for you?"

"My God, is that you, Kurt? I heard you've been fighting pirates off the Barbary Coast."

"Just a humble government servant doing my job. Somebody has to keep the seas safe for American shipping."

"Live and learn, my friend. I was unaware: that the U.S. Navy had been disbanded in favor of NUMA."

"We've decided to give them another chance to shape up. As you know, pirates aren't NUMA's usual business."

"Ah, yes. So you're interested in the Admiral of the Ocean Sea? You know, it's a wonder he ever made it west of the Canary Islands."

"Bad navigation?"

"Heavens, no. Dead reckoning was adequate for the task at hand. It would have been hard for him to have missed two continents connected by an isthmus even though that's what happened. I'm talking about the crew's food. Did you know that the basic ration was a pound a day of hard biscuit, salt meat, salt fish, and olive oil? Beans and chickpeas, of course, with almonds and raisins for dessert," he said with horror in his voice. "The only bright spot was the availability of fresh fish."

Austin sensed Perlmutter was drifting off onto a dissertation on fine food and wines, his burning passion for which was equaled only by his interest in ships and shipwrecks. Perlmutter was the classic gourmand and bon vivant. Weighing in at nearly four hundred pounds, his corpulent figure was a familiar and awe-inspiring sight at the most elegant restaurants, where he often hosted sumptuous dinners.

"Don't forget the weevils that developed in their food," Austin said, trying to move Perlmutter away from his favorite subject.

"I can't imagine what weevils would be like. I've tried locusts and grubs in Africa. Good sources of protein, I'm told, but if I want something that tastes like chicken, I'll eat chicken. You'll have to tell me precisely what you want to know. Why are you so curious about Columbus, if I may ask?"

Perlmutter listened quietly, his encyclopedic mind absorbing every detail, as Austin summarized the story, from the Moroccan murders to the blunted sting.

"I think I see what you need. You want to know why Columbus would inspire anyone to kill. It wouldn't be the first time Columbus excited tempers. He was an incredible survivor. He was wrong about discovering America, yet that is what he is famous for. To his dying day he claimed to have discovered China. He never acknowledged the existence of an entire continent. He started the slave trade in the Americas and brought the terrible glories of the Spanish Inquisition to the New World. He was obsessed with gold. He was either a saint or a scoundrel, depending on your point of view."

"That was then. I'm talking about now Why would somebody murder to prevent his discoveries from being discredited? All I need is one link."

"His voyages have produced tons of written material and millions of pages. What has been written about the old boy could fill an entire library."

"I'm aware of that, which is why I called. You're the only one I know who could brush away the dross."

"Flattery will get you nowhere . . ."

"I'll repay your work with dinner at a restaurant of your choice."

. . . But food will. How could any man resist twin seductions of his ego and appetite? I'll start digging right after I have lunch.".

22 PERLMUTTER CHEWED OVER AUSTIN'S request along with succulent breast of duck stuffed with grapes on focaccia, left over from 'dinner the night before, complemented with a rare Marcassin Chardonnay. Austin would rue the day Perlmutter tempted him with food. There was a new French restaurant in Alexandria he was dying to try. A bit pricey perhaps, but a deal was a deal. His blue eyes danced merrily in his ruddy round face in anticipation. Austin would get his money's worth: Perlmutter knew without turning a page that an ocean of literature had been written on the subject of Christopher Columbus. Too vast to simply jump in and start swimming. He would need a guide, and there was none better he could think of.

After tidying up from lunch he pawed through his card file and dialed an overseas number.

"Buena dies," came a deep voice on the other end.

"Good morning, Juan."

Ah Julien! What a pleasant surprise. All goes well with you?"

"Very well. And you, my old friend?"

"Older than the last time. we talked," the Spaniard said with a chuckle, "but let us discuss more agreeable subjects. I trust you called to inform me that you have tried my recipe for cordonices emhoja de parra."

"The quail in grape leaves was superb. As you advised I stuffed each quail with a fresh fig instead of the thyme and lemon zest. The results were spectacular. I also used mesquite wood in the grill."

Perlmutter had met Juan Ortega in Madrid at a convocation of rare book collectors. They discovered that in addition to an obsession with antique volumes, they shared a gourmand's fondness for fine dining. They tried to get together at least once a year to indulge their gustatory yearnings and traded recipes in between.

"Mesquite! A stroke of genius. I should expect nothing less. I'm glad the recipe pleased you. No doubt you have something for me to try." Perlmutter could almost hear Ortega licking his lips.

"Yes, in a moment. But there is another reason for my call. I must request the use of your skills not as a master chef but as Juan Ortega, the greatest living authority on Christopher Columbus."

"You are too kind, my friend," Ortega ducked. "I am only one of many historians who have written books on the subject."

"But you're the only scholar who is astute enough to help me with a most unusual problem. The ghost of Senor Columbus seems to be at the center of some rather odd goings on. Allow me to explain." Perlmutter outlined the highlights of the situation as Austin had given it to him.

A strange story," Ortega said at the end of the recitation. "Especially in view of a recent incident. Several weeks ago we had a crime here in Seville that had to do with Columbus. A theft of Columbus papers from the Biblioteca Columbina in the great cathedral of Seville. A coincidence perhaps?"

"Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. What was stolen?

"A letter pertaining to the fifth voyage of Columbus. It was written to his patrons, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The king, really, the queen having died by then."

A shame to lose such a valuable document."

"Not really. Columbus did not take a fifth voyage."

"Of course, I should have remembered. But I don't understand this letter."

A hearty laugh issued over the phone from three thousand miles away. A forgery, amigo. A fraud. How do you say it? The papers were phony"

How do you know it was a forgery? From the handwriting?" "Oh no, the handwriting is quite good. So authentic an expert could not tell the difference."

"Then how do you know the writing was forged?"

"Simple. Columbus died May 20, 1506. The log is dated after that date." .

Perlmutter paused for a moment, thinking. "Could there have been a mistake about the date of his death?"

"The house on Calle de Cristobal Colon, where he expired, has been preserved. There is controversy about when he is buried, however. His remains are said to lie in Seville or Santo Domingo or Havana. At least eight different funeral urns supposedly contain his ashes." Omega sighed heavily. "When you are dealing with this man, you swim in murky waters."

"I remember in your book Discoverer or Demon? you said no one is even certain where he was born."

"Yes, that is correct. We don't know for sure whether he was Spanish or Italian. He said he was born in Genoa, but Columbus was not known for his honesty. Some even contend that he came from the Greek island of Chios. The official version says he was an Italian weaver's apprentice. Ethers maintain this was not so, that he was actually a Spanish mariner named Colon. We know he married the daughter of a Portuguese aristocrat and need in royal circles, which world have been a difficult feat for the mere son of a weaver. There are no authentic portraits: A true man of mystery. Which is the way he preferred it. He did everything he could to obscure his identification."

"That has always puzzled me."

"Those were turbulent times, Julien. Wars. Intrigue. The Inquisition. Maybe he was on the wrong side of a royal controversy. He may have served a country at war with Spain or one that would be taken over by Spain. There were reasons of heredity as well, evidence he was born the bastard son of a Spanish prince. Hence Cristobol Colon, the name he was known by later in life."

"Truly fascinating, Juan. We must discuss it over glasses of sangria when next we meet. But I'm interested in knowing more about this stolen document."

"You know of the monk Las Casas?"

"Yes, he transcribed parts of the original Columbus log."

"Cornet. Columbus presented the log of his first voyage to his patron Queen Isabella. In turn she commissioned an exact replication which she gave to Columbus. Upon the admiral's death, this Barcelona copy, as it was called, was inherited by his son Diego along with charts, books, and manuscripts. These in turn went to Fernando, who was the illegitimate child of Columbus by his mistress. He reminds me very much of you, Julien."

"It's not the first time I've been called a bastard, nor will it be the last."

"I did not mean to sully your birthright, my friend. I meant that he was an archivist and a scholar, a lover of books who assembled one of the finest libraries in Europe. When he died in 1539 his possessions, books, and Columbus papers went to Luis, the son of Diego. His mother removed Most of Fernando's possessions to a monastery here in Seville. When she died in 1544 it was a tragedy for the world."

"Why is that, Juan?"

"She had managed for twenty three years to keep the collection from her son Luis. Now he had everything. It was a disaster.

He rifled the collection for papers he could sell to support his debauched lifestyle. The Barcelona copy disappeared and was lost forever, probably sold to the highest bidder."

"It would fetch quite a price now if it were to turn up, I would imagine." ,

"Indeed, but perhaps not in our lifetime. Fortunately before it disappeared it was seen by a friend of the' family, the Dominican friar named Las Casas who produced a handwritten abstract of the log. He was very protective of Columbus, omitting anything that embarrassed him, but overall it is a good synopsis."

"I'm not sure what this has to do with the stolen document."

"Patience, my friend. This document of the so called fifth voyage was also said to have been transcribed by Las Casas. Again it is an abstract, excerpting portions of a longlost log."

"You've seen it?"

"Oh yes, it was considered a curiosity. I even went so far as to compare it to the original Las Casas manuscript which is in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid. It is an excellent forgery. Except for the content, I would be ninety-nine percent certain it was written by Las Casas."

"Do you remember the subject matter?"

"Unforgettable. 'It read like one of the fantastic stories of long lost cities that were so popular in Spain in the fifteen hundreds. Columbus had sailed his fourth and final voyage in 1502. It followed a series of disasters, disappointments, and a nervous breakdown. The royals considered him a crank by then but thought he might stumble onto something useful. He was still convinced he had found Asia, that he would discover vast resources of gold and this voyage would restore his tarnished reputation."

And did .it?"

"The opposite! His fourth voyage was a disgraceful failure. He lost four ships and was marooned on Jamaica suffering from malaria and arthritis. Yet the account that was stolen says he went back to Spain, secretly outfitted a ship with his own money, and returned to the New World to make that final search for the incredible treasure in gold he had heard about from his very first voyage."

"This log, does it say what happened?"

"The forger, used a very clever literary device to keep the reader guessing. At a certain point the narration is taken over by a crewman. Then this narrative ends abruptly We are never told whether the ship succeeds in its mission. Or if it returned to Spain at all."

"Of course, the. ship could have been lost and the log found by other voyagers."

"Yes, so you see what a lovely tale of the imagination it is."

"What if it isn't a madeup story, Juan?"

Again the deep laughter. "What makes you say that?"

"A number of things. Why would somebody make such an excellent forgery?"

A simple explanation. To use an analogy from your country, if you were to sell someone the Brooklyn Bridge, it would be to your advantage to have a deed with many official seals and signatures on it."

A persuasive argument, Juan. But if I found an idiot stupid enough to give me money for that which I clearly did not own, I could sign the deed in my own hand and walk away with the cash. Forging official signatures would be unnecessary work."

"This document would be submitted to far more scrutiny than your mythical bridge deal."

"Exactly my point. The document is superbly done, as you say. As a comparison, if you knew the bridge belonged to Brooklyn, no amount of official paperwork would persuade you it was for sale. Similarly you wouldn't have to be an expert to know the document was a fraud if you knew it was dated after Columbus's death."

Another possibility presents itself," Ortega said. "That the hand of Las Cases actually transcribed this document, but the monk did so knowing it was a forgery."

"Why would Las Casas go through all that tedious labor knowing it was a fake? You said Las Casas was very protective of Columbus's ravings. Would someone of that mindset want to give further circulation to a document that conveys the last words of Columbus as the ravings of a wild man?"

"Perhaps Las Casas never meant for anyone to see it. But Luis sold the log to bribe his way out of prison or into the bedroom of one of his women."

"Maybe," Perlmutter replied, "but there is something else. The fact that somebody went through a bit of trouble to steal it."

As I said, it is a curiosity"

"Enough of a curiosity to risk arrest and imprisonment?"

"I see your point, Julien. I am at a loss to offer an explanation. If I only had the original log which Las Casas copied from. But alas."

Another Columbus mystery, then?"

"Yes, we must leave it at that" There was a pause. "You can judge for yourself when I send it to you."

"Pardon?"

"The document. I have made a copy and an English translation hoping to present it at a conference. You see, I, too, am fascinated by the odd and bizarre."

"Perhaps there was more to it than that, Juan. Perhaps you have your doubts as to its spuriousness."

"Perhaps, my friend. As I said, it is an extremely good forgery. I still have your fax number. You shall have it this day."

"I'd appreciate that. And in return, and for your magnificent quail recipe, I would like to share with you a shrimp gumbo that a chef in New Orleans passed on to me with the warning that he would split me open and stuff me like a lobster if I shared it with anyone. We must be discreet; my very life is at stake."

"You are a true friend, Julien. Danger will only enhance its delectability. But if you meet such an untimely demise I shall be sure to toast. you with a heavenly bon appetit."

Bon appetit to you, mi amigo."

23 THE FAX MACHINE HUMMED, AND THE first pages of neatly typewritten paper began to come through. As promised, Ortega sent along copies of the original written in neat Castilian Spanish. Perlmutter cleared a space on his desk to accommodate the paperwork. Fortifying himself with a cup of cappuccino, he began to read the words that may or may not have been written by Christopher Columbus and transcribed by Las Casas.

23 May, in the year of our Lord 1506

Most exalted, excellent and powerful prince King of the Spains and of the islands of the Ocean Sea, our Sovereign. High Noble Lord.

I sail to the Indies once again, perhaps never to return, for I am mortal, old and weakened by illness, and the way is hard

and fraught with dangers. I make this voyage without the permission and blessing of Your Highness, but at my own expense, having used my meager fortune to fit out a single vessel the Nina, which I know to be suitable to the undertaking fire it has served me well on many occasions since my first voyage.

I go not in my capacity as High Admiral of all the Ocean Sea, but as on my first expedition, as a humble sailor, a Captain who sailed from Spain to the Indies, to find new lands, and gold fire Castile, by which the Sovereign may undertake the conquest of the Holy Land, which has always been my intention.

But my story must begin four years before this. My Sovereign is well acquainted with the trials of my last voyage, in the year 1502, when, having freed me from chains; and forgiven me for my errors, by your clemency and consolation you and my Queen again granted great favors and ennobled me, sending me forward with four ships. How on this High Voyage our fleet survived a terrible storm and found new lands which I claimed, with the help of God, in the name of the Sovereigns, even though I had fallen ill, often seeming at death's door, commanding the ship from a small cabin I had built on deck.

This was the most unhappy and disappointing of all my voyages. We did not find the strait to the west that we were looking for, the natives greeted us, not with friendliness as before, but with arrows and spears. All was against us, the biscuits maggoty, the weather and wind fearsome, until at last our sinking ships came upon a safe harbor where we were marooned for a year and five days in a place I never expected to leave alive, until that joyful day we were rescued. Then the worst ocean crossing of my life.

But more than any storms, or disease, or the depredations of the natives, was my knowledge that for all my attempt to serve Their Majesties with as much love and diligence as I might have used to win the Gates of Paradise and more, I have failed in matters that were beyond my knowledge and strength. While I charted new lands, I lost four ships and found little gold or other treasure. Even worse, my Queen, who being mortal, left her realm free from heresy and wickedness, to be well received by the Eternal Creator.

I knew of only one way to remedy my sadness and to please my most Serene Prince, and that is to find the goal which had eluded me on my earlier voyages. For in my long stay on that most unhappy of islands, I learned that which I had long sought was within my grasp. I was provided with the key that would open the door to a treasure in gold so fabulous as to make all that has come before, which is of no little consequence, appear as coins for a beggar, and grant for Castile, the Sovereign and your

successors, the greatness you deserve, for all time.

I have been well provided for by the gold from my voyages and my share of the revenue, from Hispanola, and had much to be thankful for, my eldest son Diego employed as a Royal Bodyguard, young Fernando as a page. But still I was saddened by my failure. The security of hearth is not for a sailor, and I resolved to go to sea once more, perhaps for a final time, to fulfilll my promise to Your Highnesses, and my obligations as High Admiral.

Thus in this month I made out my will; confirming Diego as my heir, and using my own monks, in secret, outfitted the ship

Nina, hiring a small crew of fifteen loyal men, left by night, sailing as in my first and Greatest Voyage of 1492, out of Palos, altering course after dark to the Canary Islands, to the SW and south by west.

Perlmutter paused for a sip of coffee. Interesting. The narrator knew Columbus favored the Nina of all his ships. It was well known that Columbus was beset by frustration at his failure to find his way to China. At one point he was brought home in chains, charged with mismanagement as viceroy of Hispanola, only to be forgiven by the king, and especially. his patron the queen, and outfitted for his fourth, fateful trip, inaptly named the "High Voyage." It would have been totally in keeping with Columbus, who in fact had suffered for his hubris, to try to redeem himself. And for his obsession with finding gold to be the engine that drove him. Only one problem, as Don Ortega pointed out. Columbus started the letter three days after he supposedly died. Oh well. Perlmutter read on. While the document was written as a personal letter Columbus the mariner couldn't help making it a log of his voyage, with observations of wind, direction, and weather conditions. The trip across the Atlantic was a picture-postcard repeat of his first voyage. He picked up the northeast tradewind that begins near Madeira, making the crossing with day following pleasant day, pushed try gentle breezes, favored by luck. As on his first crossing, the winds were "very gentle, as in April in Seville."

An interesting difference. Perlmutter knew from his reading that on his first trip, Columbus navigated by dead reckoning. In other words he kept tabs of his compass direction and speed and marked his daily, position on the chart. The ship's speed was measured with a sand glass known as a "Dutchman's log. The pilot threw a woodchip in the water and counted a rhyme to time its passing. ,

On his first voyage Columbus didn't need pinpoint navigation because he was. mainly concerned with maintaining a westerly heading. He relied on his compass and his long experience at sea and didn't trust an early sextant like device called a quadrant. Therefore it was of interest to Perlmutter that in several entries Columbus not only noted the miles traveled but made frequent celestial observations as well.

May 25, 1506

Took fix on north star; maintaining southwest direction . . . . .

May 30, 1506

Stayed on course SW , as calculated by quadrant . . . .

It was almost as if Columbus wanted to be precise because he knew his exact destination. Not as on his first trip, when he thought from earlier charts that he would run into the huge land mass of China or India, and a few degrees of latitude either way wouldn't make a difference.

More evidence that Columbus was apparently following a predetermined course was his frequent reference to the ship's torleta.

I steered to the WSW more or less, steering first one way and then the other, for the winds are contrary, but still making sixty six miles and sailing according to the torleta of the ancients.

Perlmutter put the document aside and, with unerring accuracy, navigating by his own kind of dead reckoning, made his way to a wall shelf crammed with books and plucked out a volume on medieval navigation. He knew that torleta referred to torleta del marteloio, "the table of the bell," the plotting board used to mark each day's position. The bell was rung as the hourglass was turned. The torleta went back to the thirteenth century and was actually an analog computer used to solve trigonomic problems. It was made in the form of a grid and kept by the pilot, who drew a line between the start and the end of each day's travel. The pilot factored in his observations of wind and current and leeway and basically took an educated guess.

Perlmutter puzzled over the expression "torleta of the ancients." Maybe it was a loose translation, meaning that the plotting board was an old one, which would fit if it were the original on the Nina.

He went on with his reading. Columbus had made a smooth Atlantic crossing. By June 26, he was south of Hispanola, one day to become the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic with its capital at the settlement of Santo Domingo, which Columbus founded. Perlmutter again saw the problem Ortega had with the document. Columbus was supposedly cruising the Caribbean at a time he had been dead for more than a month. Perlmutter grinned with pleasure. He wasn't going to let a small technicality spoil his enjoyment of this wonderful yarn just as things were getting interesting.

He unrolled a map of the Caribbean next to the letter to trace the ship's course. The Nina threaded Hispanola and Cuba and sailed toward Jamaica, where Columbus had been stranded with his crew on his previous voyage. The log jumped back to a description of that unhappy time.

My ship headed south and west, bypassing Santo Domingo with a good northeast wind in our sails, for three days. It was on the island here four years before that the people told me of the plan called Cigure and its abundance of gold when the women wear pearls and coral, and the houses are tiled in precious metal. The natives told me then that the ships of these people are large and the inhabitants of this land wear rich clothing and art used to a good living. That then are gold nuggets as big and plentiful as beans.

Here was proof that the Lord uses the tiniest of creatures to carry out His will because it was in this strange land, on my previous crossing, farther than any has gone before that the ships of my High Voyage came apart from the depredations of the toredo, the shipworm. We were marooned for more than a year. But it was during my confinement on this island prison that the veil was lifted from my understanding and I saw a clear path to the riches that I have sought for Castile all these years.

Diego Mendez, the brother of one of my captains, set offf in a canoe to seek help in Hispanola, five hundred miles away. In his

absence the Indians he had befriended changed in their hearts and refused to trade for provisions as agreed. I feared this seas

God's retribution, his punishment for my part in the deaths of the five, for although I did not raise a hand I gave them up to the Brothers.

I got down an my knees and prayed for forgiveness and vowed to make many pilgrimages to the Holy Land and give up all that I found in His cause. He heard my prayer, and made me to remember that from my copy of Regiomantanus that there should be an eclipse of the moon. I told the Indians and their chief that my God seas displeased with them and would make the moon die. When the moon disappeared in shadow the Indians were much afraid and restored our provisions so I should make it live again. The chief said he was grateful arid would make sun to please my God by showing me the way to gold. He took me to the east end of the island. Here in a temple as fine as any palace in Europe he showed me a "talking stone,' carved with figures, which he said showed else way to a great treasure.

Perlmutter had read in Ortega's book about the eclipse episode. It showed how resourceful Columbus could be. But what was this equally odd tale of a talking stone?

The narrator had similar questions.

For many weeks I puzzled over the meaning of this strange stone. I perceived it to be a map of the coast I discovered, but the

other writings and marks would not yield their secrets Once backin Spain I took it to learned men who said it was a navigational

device but knew not the strange writing. Then it came to me as a simple sailor. That this was a torleta used by the ancients to find their way. The stone being unwieldy, I had charts made of its markings and set as I said above on my ,fifth voyage, vowing to

find some who could understand the strange writing.

That explained the references to the torleta of the ancients. It was apparently a stone tablet, a large and heavy one from the description, carved in a way to indicate it had been used for navigation. Since Columbus couldn't use the stone without explanation, it must not have been a map in the conventional sense. The letter returned to the fifth voyage account.

August 10

We continued westerly, favored by good winds as before. And now at last we are anchored off a shore more distant than any

man has gone. The native people we have talked to have said that there is more gold nearby than we can ever imagine. l think

I am close to the treasure of King Solomon. I am not wel having been made ill and weak once more by the heat and disease, but feel the gold to be near and ask your Majesty that when I return with these mountains of gold and precious levels I be allowed to make a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. I will write no more until I have the gold in my possession . . .

The next entry was dated two days later. The script was written in a firmer hand.

The Admiral is gone! When the crew arose at dawn we found that a small boat had disappeared and that the Admiral's cabin is empty. Gone too are his maps. I have sent ashore a party to search for him, and they found the boat, but they were driven back to the ship by group of natives who showered then with arrows. Alas I fear the Admiral is dead, killed by these ungodly savages! We shall wait safely offshore, but unless we see a sign that he lives, we must soon weigh anchor and will sail to Hispanola to seek help. God bless the Admiral of the Ocean Sea.

Signed this day by Alonso Mendez, apprentice pilot.

Perlmutter tapped his plump chin in thought. Columbus was clearly delirious in his last hours. Solomon's gold indeed! He wondered off what shore the Nina was anchored. He consulted the map again. Sailing westerly from Jamaica would have put him into Central America. Anywhere from Mexico's Yucatan peninsula down to Belize or Honduras if he were a few degrees off. When he had more time he would go over the daily observations and see if he could plot an exact course to its end.

Columbus took his maps and charts with him, but what became of the stone? Perlmutter shook his head, amused at how he had let himself be pulled into the story. He was acting as if the document he had just finished reading were real when it might be no more historically meaningful than a challenging crossword puzzle.

But what if the document were the real thing?

What relevance might it have to the modernday melodrama Austin had told him about, with blackclad bands of assassins dashing about killing innocent archeologists? What was that odd reference to the "death of the five"? Columbus apparently felt so guilty about his involvement in this . incident that he thought his marooning was divine punishment. Perlmutter decided to go through the letter again in case there was something he missed. Then he would start digging into his own library.

But first a snack was in order.

Cancun, Mexico

24 THE MOOD ABOARD THE CANCUM flight had been one of joyful expectation since the plane took off from Washington shortly after the meeting at Zavala's place. As the pilot made his runway approach vacation-bound travelers craned their necks to peer down at the luxury beachfront resort hotels lining the clear blue-green water, and the atmosphere ratcheted up to one of unbridled excitement. With his conservative gray suit and flamboyant bow tie, and the way his head towered over the seats, Paul Trout would have stuck out from the happy crowd even without the gravity of his expression. His nose was buried in a map of the Yucatan peninsula, his thoughts on Gamay, and only when he felt the plane bank did he break his concentration to see where they were.

Within minutes the plane was on the ground. Trout broke off from the stream of passengers flowing toward the waiting hotel shuttle buses and headed for the counter of a small charter airline. Minutes later he was buckling into the seat next to the pilot of a twin-engined Beechcraft Baron. He was the only passenger, the other seats in the four-passenger aircraft having been converted to cargo space.

As the Beechcraft lifted into the sky Trout silently thanked the travel experts at NUMA who had done an incredible job patching together his trip, finding an empty seat on the commercial flight on short notice and hitching him up almost immediately with the charter: The smaller plane was making a run to Campeche to pick up a party of Texas oil technicians who were meeting their wives and girlfriends in Cancun.

The trip should take about an hour, said the pilot, a talkative Mexican in his thirties who had a good command of English and a firsthand knowledge of the best bars to meet tourist women in Cancun. Before long his voice merged with the drone of the engines. Trout's worry about Gamay had kept him awake during the overnight stay in Tucson. He closed his eyes, to be awakened at one point when the pilot said they were passing over Chichen Itza. Trout looked down as the pilot pointed out tire great four-sided pyramid temple and the ball court.

About halfway to Ciudad del Carmen," the pilot said. Trout nodded. Mesmerized by the flat green landscape stretching out to the horizon, he closed his eyes again until the pilot nudged him awake. "There's your ship."

The sleek blue-hulled Nereus lying at anchor among. the other oil tankers and fishing boats in the harbor was a welcome sight. Trout found it hard to believe he had left the ship. and Gamay> , only a few days before. He wished now that he had prevailed upon her to come back to Washington. She would never have agreed, he admitted to himself; she was intent on meeting Dr: Chi.

Before leaving Washington 'Bout had called the Mexican anthropological museum and talked to Dr: Chi's secretary. She checked the professor's calendar and confirmed he was planning to meet Gamay The professor spent much of his time "out in the field" and called in for messages when he happened to be near a phone, but he had no set schedule. If he were to be found anywhere, she said, it would be at his lab.

As the pilot waited for permission to land, Trout asked him to radio ahead and notify those handling his next ride that he was coming in. He didn't want to waste a minute cooling his heels in an airport lounge. As soon as the Beechcraft taxied to a stop, Trout bolted from the cabin with his one bag, flinging an adios" and a "gracias" over his shoulder in New England Spanish.

A stocky man in a police uniform and reflective sunglasses was waiting in the airport lobby.

"Dr. Trout," he said with a toothy smile. "My name is Sergeant Morales. I am with the Mexican federal police. The fed I've been asked to act as your guide."

Trout had called in a marker with the Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA owed NUMA for some past favors and was happy to oblige when Trout asked to set up a contact with the Mexican national police.

"Nice to meet you," Trout said, glancing at his watch. "I'm ready if you are."

It is getting late," the policeman said. "I wondered if you would rather go tomorrow."

Trout's answer was softspoken, but there was no mistaking the determination in the serious brown eyes. "With all due respect, Sergeant, I took great pains to get here in a hurry so I could start searching for my wife as soon as I arrived."

"Of course, Senor Trout," the policeman said, nodding in understanding. "I assure you, this is not a case of manana. Simply common sense. I, too, wish to locate your wife. However, it will be dark before long."

"How much light do we have?"

"One, two hours, maybe."

"Finest kind, Cap," Trout said, answering in fisherman's slang. "We can cover a lot in two hours."

Morales saw there was no use trying to put off the tall American.

Bueno, Dr. Trout. The helicopter is this way."

The Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter was warming up, its rotor and tail blades turning slowly, as Trout eased into the three-passenger backseat and Morales slid in next to the pilot. Seconds later the turbo motor kicked into action and the runners lifted off the tarmac. The helicopter leaped into the air and climbed in two minutes to an altitude of more than three thousand feet. They swung out over the water and headed inland from the coast, following the railroad tracks that snaked into the interior.

Morales gave the pilot directions, frequently consulting from a folded-up map.. They left the railroad track and picked up a narrow highway running more or less eastwest. The chopper kept its altitude, cruising at a speed of 125 miles per hour until they were well into the interior. The dense woods were broken here and there by a village or occasional town. There were few paved roads. Occasionally they passed over a Mayan ruin. But for the most part the landscape was the same unbroken flatness Trout had noted on the way from Cancun.

The aircraft swung onto a more southerly course. Morales was a competent and sharp-eyed guide, recognizing landmarks and relaying the information to the pilot. Trout anxiously watched the sun lowering in the sky.

"How far?" Trout said with unveiled impatience.

Morales held up five fingers. He jabbed a point on the map for the benefit of the pilot. "Aqui!"

The pilot nodded so slightly Trout wasn't sure he heard Morales until the chopper cut speed and described a wide circle that transformed into an evertightening spiral.

Morales pressed against the plexiglass and pointed down. Trout caught a glimpse of a clearing and a crude structure before both quickly passed out of view. The chopper came around again, hovered, and began to descend. Their target was directly under them, and Trout couldn't see where they were landing. As the treetops grew closer, the chopper seemed to hang for a second. The pilot suddenly gunned the motor, and they darted off to one side like a startled dragonfly

The pilot and Morales had a quick conversation in Spanish.

"What's wrong?" Trout strained to see into the forest.

"No room. He's afraid hell catch the rotors in the trees."

Trout sat back in his seat and crossed his arms, puffing his cheeks out in frustration. The chopper moved out until it was above a lonely stretch of arrow-straight road, then dropped down and landed lightly in a grassy patch at the edge of the blacktop. As the whirling rotors fluttered to a stop, Trout and Morales got out. Nearby a track led into the woods.

"This goes to Professor Chi's house. We must walk"

Trout strode off with the shorter man valiantly trying to keep up without losing his dignity. As they moved into the thick woods Trout noticed that there were deep tracks, made fairly recently by heavy tires set wide apart. Morales said he had called the local policia and requested that they ask around. Several locals remembered seeing Chi on a bus. He'd been picked up from hunting and dropped off by the side of the road near where he lived. They remembered a Jeep waiting for him. That fit, Trout thought. Gamay had used a Jeep to drive in from the coast.

"Do you know Dr. Chi?" he asked Morales as they walked.

"Si, senor. I have met him. Sometimes the museum asks me to carry a message to him. He is muy pacifico. A gentleman. Always wants to cook tortillas for me."

The canopy of trees was becoming as dark as a subway tunnel. Trout squinted through the branches, trying to catch a glimpse of the sun. He wondered if they would have any problem finding their way out. Maybe Morales was right, they should have waited until morning when they'd have more light.

"Why does Professor Chi have his lab way out here?" Trout asked. "Wouldn't it be more convenient if he had it in a town or village?"

"I ask the doctor the same thing," Morales said with a grin. "He says he was born in this place. 'My roots are here,' he tells me. You understand what he means?"

Trout understood Chi's attachment to his native soil very well. His own family went back more than two hundred years on Cape Cod, spawning several generations of families all tied to the sea, through service as lighthouse keepers, surfmen in the Lifesaving Service, or fishermen. The low slung silvershingled Trout homestead was nearly two centuries old, but it had been kept up through the years and looked as if it could have been built yesterday. His was a salty ancestry he wore with pride, met he realized his ties to the past were nothing compared to the Maya, who had inhabited the same country' for many centuries before the Spaniards arrived.

They trudged along for about twenty minutes until the forest thinned out into a clearing. The square concrete block building seemed to jump out of the woods, but it was more a case of Trout simply not expecting such a substantial looking structure in this remote location.

"The professor's laboratory," Morales said. He went over and knocked on the door. No answer. "We come back here after we check the house," Morales suggested.

The thatched-roof but was similar to those Trout had seen dotting the Yucatan from the air. Trout was more interested in the Jeep parked next to the simple structure. He hurried over and searched the vehicle. Tucked in the sun visor was the diagram indicating how to get to Chi's property and a bottle of bug, repellent. He ran his hands over the steering wheel and dashboard and smelled the faint, scent of the body lotion Gamay used.

They searched the house, which took about five minutes because of the sparseness of the furnishings. Trout stood in the center of the dirt floor and looked around, hoping to find a due he had missed on his first round.

"Well, we know from the Jeep that she made it this far."

"I have an idea," Morales said. Trout followed him past the lab , building to another simple but. "This is the professor's garage. Look. His vehicle is gone."

"Those would have been the tracks we saw on the way in. What does he drive?"

"A big car," Morales said. "Like a Jeep, only like this." He held his hands wide.

"A HumVee?"

"Si," he said with a bright smile. "HumVee. Like the U.S. military uses." .

So it was likely they went somewhere in the Hummer. But where?

"Maybe there's a note in the lab," Trout said.

The cinderblock building was pleasantly cooler than outside even without the airconditioning on. The door was unlocked and they easily gained entrance. Trout took in the hightech equipment and shook his head in wonder much as his wife had done the day before. Morales stood nearby at respectful attention, almost as if he were afraid of being caught in forbidden precincts. Except for the general clutter, noting appeared to have been disturbed.

Paul went over to the sink. There were two glasses in the drying rack.

"Looks they they could have had a drink."

Morales checked to waste basket and found two cans of Seven-Up. Further reconstructing events, Trout surmised that Gamay had been waiting for to professor at to highway, they came in here, drank some soda, then took off. He checked to refrigerator and found to two dead partridges. The binds had yet to be cleaned and gutted. Chi must have planned to return in a short time from wherever he went.

"Is there a village nearby where they could have gone?" Trout asked.

"There is a town, si, but the people there would have seen Dr. Chi in his big blue car. Nada."

Trout examined to maps on to wall. One appeared to be missing. He went over to the table and began looking at the papers on top. It took only a moment to find the map and match the pinholes to those on to wall. Chi could have taken this down to show Gamay. On the other hand, it may have been on the table for weeks. He showed to map to Morales.

"Do you know where this is?"

The police sergeant examined to map and said, "Down south more into Campeche. About a hundred miles. Maybe more."

"What's out there?"

"Nothing. Woods. It's outside to biosphere reserve. No one goes there."

Trout tapped the map. Somebody went there. My guess is it's Dr. Chi. The chopper can get us there in an hour or less."

"I'm sorry, senor. By the time we walk back to the helicopter it will be dark."

Morales was right. They were lucky to find their way out of the woods. By the time they returned to the chopper it was pitch black. Trout hated the thought of Gamay having to spend another night wherever she was. As' the helicopter lifted above the trees he tried to console himself with other possibilities. That Chi and Gamay had fetched up somewhere. Maybe they were sitting down to a quiet dinner. Less appealing scenarios intruded. An accident. That didn't figure. Gamay was simply not accident-prone. She was too savvy, too sure-footed.

Trout knew tat even to most sure-footed person makes a mistake at least once in his or her life. He hoped it wasn't Gamay's turn.

25 SERGEANT MORALES FOUND TROUT A room in a small hotel near the airport. Trout lay on his bed for hours staring at the ceiling fan, wondering what Gamay was doing, before he finally slipped into a few fitful hours of sleep. He awoke at twilight and took a shower that was all the more refreshing because there was no hot water. He was pacing the tarmac when the pilot and sergeant arrived as the sky turned peach pink in the east.

The chopper followed Chi's map in a straight line at its maximum cruising speed, flying at an altitude of fifteen hundred feet. The forest stretched out below like a rough napped green carpet. Arriving at the area indicated on Chi's map, the pilot slowed the aircraft and dropped it almost to treetop level. The JetRanger admirably fulfilled the purpose of its original design as an army observation helicopter. Trout, who was sitting in the front, noticed a textural difference in the greenery and asked the pilot to circle. Morales picked out the barely distinct edges of the rectangular plain. After a couple more passes for the pilot to acquaint himself with the lay of the land, the JetRanger landed at rough center.

It took Paul less than thirty seconds to decide he didn't like this godforsaken place. Not one damned bit! It went beyond the remoteness and the weird mounds and the darkness of the encroaching forest even in daylight. Something sinister lurked here. As a boy he used to feel the same prickly scalp uneasiness when he walked past the deserted house of a sailor who ate his crewmates while becalmed in the Sargasso Sea.

Maybe Gamay had never been here, he thought, looking around at the desolate spot. All he had was Dr. Chi's map and the supposition that this was their destination. He could be spinning his wheels while Gamay desperately needed his help elsewhere. No. He clenched his jaw. This was definitely the place. He could feel it in his bones the way his fisherman father sensed a storm brewing.

The police officer suggested that they fan out in three directions, keeping each other in view as much as possible, walk to the edge of the woods, then return to the chopper. A half hour later they straggled back. Morales was about to speak but paused as his eversearching policeman's eye. picked out evidence of an earlier visit.

Squatting for a better look, Morales said, "See where the grass is broken. Here, and here again." He angled his head. "There, when the light is just right, footprints."

Thinking he would never want Morales on his trail, Trout followed the sergeant's example and saw the faint shadows that had caught the police officer's attention. The sergeant instructed the pilot to stay with the helicopter and got no argument. The early morning sun was already hinting at the blast furnace it would be in the hours to come. They set out with Morales taking the lead and had gone only a short distance when they saw a mound that had been cleared so the stone blocks on one side were visible.

At the base of the structure was a reddish patch. In his eagerness for a better look Trout ignored the sergeant's admonishment to stay behind. He dashed past the sergeant to the mound and picked up Gamay's worn maroon L. L. Bean day pack, the same one he had given her as a Christmas gift two years before. With mounting excitement he rummaged inside and found her camera and sketch pads, some plastic lunch bags, empty soda cans, and a bottle of water. Nearby was another pack made of tan canvas. Trout held both packs high over his head for the benefit of Morales, who was walking briskly to catch up.

"This pack belongs to my wife," the NUMA scientist said triumphantly. "The other has Dr. Chi's name on the tag."

Morales inspected the professor's bag. His face was clouded. "This is not good."

"What do you wean, not good? This shows they've been here."

"You misunderstand, Senor Trout," Morales said with a quick glance around. "I found a campfire where there were signs of many chicleros." " Noting Trout's blank expression, he explained, "They are bad men who steal antiquities for sale."

"What's that got to do with my wife and the professor?"

"The coals were warm. And near the river signs of many men. I also find these." He opened his palm to display three spent bullet cartridges.

Trout put a shell to his nose. The bullet had been fired recently.

"Where did you find them?"

Trout's eyes followed the police officer's pointing finger, then looked back to where he had found the rucksacks as if he could draw a line connecting the two points. That's when he noticed the strange carvings on the wall of the structure. He stepped closer and inspected the boats and other figures on the bared stone. His guess was that Gamay and the professor had lunch, then came back to these carvings. Gamay definitely would have been intrigued by the strange etchings, but something must have distracted them.

He turned back to Morales. "You think my wife and the professor ran into these chicleros?"

"Si," Morales said with a shrug. "It is possible. Why else would they leave their sacks?"

"I was thinking the same thing. Sergeant, would you please show me where you found these shells?"

"Come this way" Morales said with a nod. "Be careful where you walk. There are holes all over the field."

They slowly made their way across the plain. There were far more of the mysterious mounds than Trout first assumed. If each one had a stone structure under it, this must have been a goodsized settlement at one time.

"Here," Morales said. And over there."

Trout saw copper gleaming in the grass and picked up a couple more shells, a combination of pistol and rifle casings. The grass was trampled all around them. His big hand squeezed the hollow copper cylinders as if he would crush them.

"Now can I see the campfire and the river?"

They examined the campsite and found empty tequila bottles and many cigarette stubs. More shells were found in the woods. At the river's edge Trout looked in vain for tracks indicating Gamay's running shoes, but the mud was too messed up. He saw marks indicating boats had been drawn up on shore, as well as more shell casings. This place must have resembled a shooting gallery! But Trout was hopeful. The casings indicated that someone with rifles and pistols had chased somebody to the river. That was the bad news. The fact that guns were still blazing from the riverside indicated Gamay and the professor could have made their escape.

Trout suggested that they get into the air and follow the river through the woods. Morales agreed. They walked briskly away from the river and were about halfway back to the chopper when they heard a disembodied groan. They froze, exchanging glances. Morales drew his pistol. They listened, hearing only the drone of insects.

The groan repeated off to the right. With Morales covering him, Trout moved cautiously toward the apparent source. The sound seemed to be coming from practically underfoot. Trout looked down. Partially hidden by the long grass was a black hole. He knelt at the edge but couldn't see anything in the darkness.

Feeling somewhat foolish at talking into the ground, he said "Who's there?"

Another groan. Followed by a stream of Spanish in a weak voice.

Morales, who had come over to kneel by Trout's side, listened a moment. "It's a man. He says he fell down the hole."

"What's he doing way out here?"

Morales relayed the question, then the answer. "He said he was out walking."

"This is a pretty remote place to be taking a nature stroll," Trout said. "Let's get him out."

Trout went back to the chopper and found a nylon rope in ,the emergency kit. He dropped a knotted loop into the hole, then he, the pilot, and Morales hauled on their end of the rope. First the head, then the shoulders of a pitiful-looking creature appeared in the opening. The man's scraggly beard and long greasy hair were covered with a gray dust, and the whiteness of his illfitting clothes was a distant memory. He sat on the ground, alternately rubbing his arms, legs, and head. His nose was bruised.

The police officer gave him a water bottle. He noisily gurgled the water, slopping half of it onto his chin. Refreshed by the water, the man showed yellow teeth in a cocky grin and tipped the canteen for another guzzle. His sleeve fell as he raised his arm.

Trout kicked the canteen like a punter and sent it flying into the grass. His big hand shot out and gripped the man's hairy wrist. Even Morales was shocked by the unexpected move.

"Senor Trout!"

"This is my wife's watch." Trout slid the expansion band Swatch off.

"You're sure?"

"I gave it to her." Anger flashed in the normally calm eyes. "Ask him where he got it."

Morales asked the question in Spanish and relayed the answer.

"He says he bought it."

Trout was through playing games. "Tell him that if he doesn't talk we'll throw him back in the hole and leave."

The grin vanished. The threat of being tossed back into the ground unleashed a torrent of Spanish.

. Morales listened, nodding. "He's crazy. Name is Ruiz. Keeps talking about the devil woman and the dwarf who made the

earth swallow him:"

"Devil woman?"

"Si. He says she broke his nose."

"What happened to this woman?"

"He doesn't know. He was down in the hole.. He heard a lot of shooting. Then quiet. He says his friends abandoned him. I ask if these amigos are chicleros. He says no." Morales grinned without mirth. "He's a stinking liar."

"Tell him we're going to take him up in the helicopter and throw him out if he doesn't tell the truth."

The man looked at the granitehard expression on the face of the giant gringo and decided he wasn't joking.

"No!" he said. "I talk. I talk."

"You understand English."

Poco," the man said, holding his thumb and finger slightly apart.

In halting English, using Spanish when words escaped him, Ruiz admitted he was with a gang of chicleros who came here to steal antiquities. They found the woman and the little old man and locked them in the ground where there was no way they could escape. But they burrowed out of the earth somehow and threw him into the hole. The other chicleros gave chase. They never came back to look for him. He didn't know what happened to the man and woman.

Trout pondered the report briefly.

"Okay, get him in the chopper."

Morales handcuffed the man gingerly, trying not to touch him, then used the toe of his shoe to persuade Ruiz to stand. They stuffed him into the rear bench seat, and Morales got in beside him. The man exuded a stench so vile the pilot complained. Morales laughed and said if it got too bad they'd throw Ruiz over the side. Ruiz didn't think it was funny, and his eyes grew wide in fear as the helicopter lifted off the ground. He wouldn't be giving them any trouble. They circled the site a couple of times, then picked up the gleam of the river. It was barely visible through the trees, but with three sets of eyes they were able to trace its course.

Trout couldn't wait to tell Gamay her new sobriquet. Devil woman. He hoped that she was still alive to hear it.

26 THE BUZZ OF THE ANCIENT OUTBOARD motor was so loud Gamay didn't hear the helicopter until it was practically overhead. Even then it was Chi's upturned face that alerted her to the arrival of company. She jammed the tiller over and aimed the pram toward the shore, bumping into a grassy bank under a protective canopy of overhanging branches. From the air the boat would be almost impossible to see through. the thick greenery. Gamay took out extra insurance and nudged the pram into a huge fern bush. She didn't want the early morning sunlight reflecting off the aluminum hull.

An instant later the air overhead was filled with the slashing of rotors. Flashes of a shiny red-and-white fuselage came through openings in the dense foliage as the helicopter skimmed the treetops. It never dawned on Gamay that within hours of learning she was missing her husband would return to the Yucatan, commandeer a helicopter, and now be hovering a few hundred feet above her head. Since arriving in this place she'd had her hair almost pulled out by the roots, been threatened with rape, been stuffed into a cave to die, crawled through dark and practically airless tunnels, and been used for target practice. There was no reason to believe the people who had treated her so badly had not brought in air support to increase her misery. She breathed a sigh of relief as the sound of the helicopter receded in the distance, and moments later they headed out into the river again.

After disposing of Yellow Teeth, Gamay and Chi had bolted for the woods, dodging the bullets that whizzed around them, and scrambled down the slope to the river. Finding three battered aluminum prams lined up side by side on shore, they shoved two boats adrift, then piled into the third, got the outboard motor going, and made a dash for safety.

Traveling an entire day without incident, they spent a quiet night pulled over to the side of the river and got an early start the next morning. The helicopter made Gamay realize their smooth escape and peaceful passage had lulled them into a false sense of security. Now they kept a sharp eye on the sky, and Gamay steered dose to the river's edge. There was no further sign of the helicopter, but the propeller tangled in vegetation, and she had to angle the boat into shore to clear the blades of weeds. The job should have meant no more than a minute or two of delay. When Gamay went to restart the motor it played hard to get. She couldn't figure it. The antique fifteen-horse-power Mercury didn't look like much with its sandblasted engine housing. Yet it worked fine before they turned it off. She was trying to figure out what the problem was when they heard voices in Spanish coming from upriver.

Nothing on the face of the earth is more frustrating than a cranky outboard motor, Gamay thought, especially when the recalcitrant hunk of metal is all that stands between you and disaster. Gamay braced her foot against the transom. Hoping to placate the malevolent spirit inhabiting the machine, she smiled prettily, whispered "Please," and pulled the starter cord with all her might.

The motor responded with a soggy poppop, an asthmatic gasp, a wet sigh, then silence broken by Gamay's cry of pain as she fell back and scraped her knuckles on the hard metal seat. She unleashed a stream of blasphemies that turned the air blue as she called down the furies on dumb, stubborn machines everywhere. Professor Chi was in the bow, clutching an. overhanging branch so the pram would not drift out of control with the lazy current while Gamay fussed and fumed over the outboard. Sweat dripped off her chin. With her mouth set in a square of anger, snakelike tendrils of dark red hair framing her features, she could have modeled for an ancient Greek sculpture of Medusa. What's worse, she knew how gorgonish she looked. Primping would have to wait.

Their crude attempt to sabotage their pursuers had apparently failed. They couldn't have known that setting the boats adrift wasn't enough, that one pram would catch on a mot, that the other would drift back to shore. Now the first of those boats was coming around a bend, emerging from the morning mists, followed seconds later by the second. There were four men in each boat, including the two she had dubbed Poncho and Elvis. Poncho was leading the assault, standing in the bow of the lead boat brandishing a handgun. It was clear from his excited shouts that he had caught sight of the quarry.

The boats were drawing nearer. She willed her eyes back to the motor and discovered the choke had been pushed in. She pulled out the plastic knob and yanked the cord again. The motor stuttered then caught when she adjusted the throttle slightly. They pushed off into the river, aiming for the middle where it was deepest, although it was also where they'd be most vulnerable. She looked back again. The boat in the lead was breaking away from the other. Maybe it had more horsepower or possibly its motor could be running smoother. It began to inch closer in an agonizing slow-motion pursuit. Before long it would be close enough for the riflemen kneeling in the bow to pick them off.

Smoked puffed from a gun muzzle. Pancho had feed off a couple of quick shots more for show than effect. Either his aim was off or they were out of range, because the bullets never came near. Then she lost sight of their pursuers around a bend. It was only a matter of time, minutes really, before they would be literally dead in the water.

Hack!

Gamay whipped around at the unexpected noise. Chi had found his trusty machete in the bottom of the pram. He was using it to cut down a large branch from the, bowers arching low overhead. Another silvery blur of steel. Another branch fell into the river. Chi swung his machete like a madman. More branches fell in a great tangle to either side of the boat, then drifted together in a floating dam of interlocking branches. The improvised floating breastworks fetched up on a midriver sandbar.

The helmsman on the lead boat didn't see the intertwined boughs until it was too late. The pram came around the curve at full tilt. He tried to turn aside. Instead the boat slammed sideways into the blockage. A chiclero leaned out to push off and discovered Newton was right when he said every action had a reaction. His body was stretched between the boat and the branches. He splashed into the water. There were loud shouts and confusion as the second boat slammed into the first. A gun went off sending a wild shot into the forest. Startled birds darkened the sky in a chittering, chattering cloud.

"Yes!" Gamay yelped triumphantly. "Nice move, Professor."

From the nascent smile on the Mayan's otherwise poker face, it was clear that he was pleased with both the effect of his labors and the praise. "I knew my Harvard education would come in handy one day," he said modestly.

Gamay grinned and swung the tiller to avoid the shoaling along the sides of the river, but she was far from sanguine. It occurred to her after her momentary elation that she had absolutely no idea where they were going. Or whether they had enough gas to get them there. She checked the tank. Half full. Or half empty if she were thinking like a pessimist. Which might be the more prudent frame of mind in their precarious situation.

After a hurried conference, they decided to go flat out for a time to put as much distance as possible between the pram and their pursuers. Then they would rely on river drift.

"Not to put too fine a point on our predicament, Professor; but do you have any idea where this river goes?"

The professor shook his head. "This stream isn't even on the map. My guess is that we're headed south. Simply because, as you pointed out, there are few rivers in the north."

"They say that when you're lost, following a river will eventually bring you to civilization," Gamay said without conviction.

"I've heard that. Also that moss grows on the north side of trees. It's been my experience that moss grows all around a tree. You must have been a Girl Scout."

"I always had more fun playing with boys. Brownie was as far as I got. The only woodcraft I recall is how to cut a stick to toast marshmallows over an open fire."

"You never know when something like that will come in handy. Actually I'm not too eager to encounter civilization. Especially if it comes in the form of more chicleros."

"Is that a possibility?"

"The ones who are chasing us arrived after we were put in the cave. This means they came from not very far away possibly a base camp."

"Or they could have been on their way upriver when we ran into their buddies."

"Either way I think it's best that we prepare for the worst, that we will be caught between two unfriendly groups."

Gamay's eyes lifted to the patches of blue sky that were beginning to show through holes in the vegetation. "Do you think that helicopter was working with this gang?"

"Possibly, although in my experience these thieves are very much lowtech. It doesn't take sophisticated equipment to dig up antiquities and transport them through the forest. As you saw from the ease by which we escaped the helicopter, the simpler the better."

"We had nature on our side before. We're coming more into the open and might want to think about what to do if it comes back." Gamay switched the motor off. "We'll drift for a while. Maybe we can think up a plan if we don't have this thing buzzing in our ears."

The boat ride was almost idyllic with the outboard silent. There were flashes of bright feathers in the impenetrable greenery that d them in. The high bankings on either side of the river showed that it was an old waterway that had cut its way through the limestone over a long period. As if mindful of its advanced years it snaked through the woods at a slow but steady pace, varying in width, the water bright billiard table green where the sun struck it, dark and spinachy in the shadows. It didn't take long for nature to lose its charm once Gamay's stomach started to rumble. She realized they hadn't eaten since the day before and remarked wistfully that it was too bad they hadn't made more Spam sandwiches. Chi said he would see what he could do. He had her pull over to the banking and whacked away at a bent' bush with his machete. The berries were tart but filling. The river was covered with a green algae. Once the scum was brushed away the. water was dear and refreshing.

Their idyll was ended by the whine of approaching outboard motors.

The boats reappeared a couple of hundred yards behind them. Again, one was in the lead. Gamay started the motor and gave it full speed.

They were on a straight, comparatively wide stretch of river that allowed for no dance at trickery. The chase boat inched forward, and the distance between them slowly decreased. It would be only minutes before they were in easy rifle range. The boats grew closer together cutting the distance by a third, then half. Gamay was puzzled. The chicleros had not raised their weapons. They looked like a bunch of guys on a river cruise.

Chi called out, Dr: Gamay!'

Gamay turned and saw the professor in the bow, staring straight ahead. She heard a low rumble in the distance.

"What is it?" she said.

"Rapids!"

The boat was beginning to pick up speed even though she hadn't touched the throttle. The air was cooler than before and damp with haze. Within moments the rumble changed to a roar, and through the mists hanging over the river she saw white foam and the sharp points of black shiny rocks. She thought of the boat's flat bottom and had a vague image of a can opener ripping through thin aluminum. The river had narrowed, and the tons of water squeezing into this natural funnel spout had essentially transformed a lazy stream into a raging sluiceway.

She looked back. The boats had stopped and were circling in the river. Their pursuers obviously knew about the rapids. That's why they hadn't shot at them. Why waste ammunition?

"We'll never make it past those rocks," Gamay yelled over the earsplitting thunder of rushing water. "I'm going to steer for land.. Well have to make a run for it in the forest."

She pushed the tiller over, and the pram angled toward the shore. Thirty feet from the riverbank the motor coughed and conked out. Gamay tried to start it again, but with no success. She quickly twisted off the gas tank top. All that was left was vapors.

Professor Chi had grabbed a single oar and was trying to scull the boat. The current was too strong and jerked the oar from his hand. The boat's pace accelerated, and it began to spin around. Gamay watched helplessly as the pram was carried like a woodchip toward the toothlike rocks and the boiling white water.

It was Trout's idea to go back along the river. Moments before, the helicopter pilot had tapped the fuel gauge and the dial of his wristwatch, sign language saying they were running low and had to head back.

Trout's thoroughness as a scientist came from working as a youngster with his Uncle Henry, a skilled craftsman who built wooden boats for the local fishermen long after plastic hulls came into style. "Measure twice, cut once," Henry would say between puffs on his overripe pipe. In other words, doublecheck everything you do. Even years later Trout couldn't start a complicated computer task without hearing his uncle's voice whispering in his ear.

It was a natural reaction to suggest, through Morales, that they go back along the river, slowly this time, in case they had missed something on their first pass. They flew at less than one hundred fifty feet, cruising at a moderate speed; dipping lower when the river opened up. The JetRanger was highly maneuverable, having been designed as a light observation helicopter, and in its military incarnation saw duty as the Kiowa. Before long they came up on the rapids he had seen on the way out.

Trout looked down at the stretch of white water, then, beyond it to the calm river just above the cataract, where he saw a curious sight. Two small boats lay close together back from the rapids, apparently sitting there while a third drifted downstream. Someone in the bow was paddling furiously, but the strong current drew the third boat on a path toward the rapids. Trout spotted the flash of dark red in the boat's stern.

There was no mistaking that hair, especially with the sun glinting off it in rusty highlights. There was also no doubt in his mind of what was about to happen. Within seconds the helpless boat would pick up speed and be sucked into the toothy maw and ground to pieces.

Trout yelled at Morales, "Tell the pilot to push them back with the helicopter's downdraft!"

Morales had been watching the unfolding disaster with fascination. Now he tried to relay Trout's statement to the pilot. The translation was beyond his grasp of English. He shot off a few words in Spanish, then shrugged in frustration. Trout pounded the pilot's shoulder. He pointed emphatically at the helpless boat, then twirled his forefinger in a circle and made a shoving gesture. To Trout's surprise the pilot caught on right away to his crude sign language message. He nodded vigorously, nosed the chopper into a glide, and cut speed to a walk until they had positioned themselves between the drifting boat and the crest of the rapids where the river narrowed. The hovering copter descended until the downdraft from the rotors whipped the surface like a giant electric egg beater and created a frothy dishshaped depression.

Waves rippled out in great concentric cirdes. The first undulation hit the pram, slowed its speed; then stopped it completely and began to deflect the light boat toward the shore above the

rapids. The long whirling rotor was ill fitted for a surgical operation. Waves produced by the powerful air blast rocked the pram and threatened to capsize it. Trout, who'd been leaning out the window, could see what was happening. He yelled at the pilot and jabbed his thumb upward.

The helicopter began to rise.

Too late. A wave caught the boat and flipped it over. The craft's occupants disappeared beneath the surface. Trout waited for their heads to appear. But he was distracted by a. sharp rapping noise and a shout from the pilot. He turned to see a spider's web of shatter lines in the windshield, which had been clear when he last looked. At the center of the lacy pattern was a hole. They were being shot at! A bullet must have passed right between them and hit the bulkhead inches above the head of Rutz, who was staring bugeyed. The chiclero began to shout in rapidfire Spanish despite the warnings of Morales to shut his mouth. Morales stopped wasting his breath, leaned over, and crashed his fist into the man's jaw, knocking him unconscious. Then the Mexican policeman drew his pistol and fired away at the boats.

Another sharp rap came against the fuselage, as if somebody were banging the metal skin with a ballpeen hammer. Trout was torn with indecision. He wanted to wait and see what happened to Gamay, but he knew the chopper was a sitting duck. The pilot took matters into his own hands. Cursing angrily in Spanish, he set his jaw and pushed the throttle ahead. The helicopter surged forward and homed in on the other boats like a cruise missile. Trout could see the men below frozen in disbelief until they were blasted out of the boats by the powerful rotor thrust. The down draft tossed the empty prams as if they were balsa woodchips. At the last second the pilot pulled the JetRanger, up in a sharp climb, then banked it around for a second sortie. The maneuver was unnecessary. The overturned boats were sinking. Heads bobbed in the water as the men struggled fruitlessly against the current that was drawing them into the rapids.

Gamay's boat had already started its passage through the foamy hell, and a dill went up Trout's spine as he thought of what could have happened. He was still worried about Gamay There was no sign of her or the other figure, whom he assumed was Professor Chi. The pilot made a couple of quick circles, then pointed to his fuel gauge again. Trout nodded. There was no place to put the chopper down. He reluctantly gave the pilot thumbs up, and they headed away from the river.

Trout was busy formulating plans in his mind and didn't notice how long they were airborne before he heard the engine cough. The chopper lost speed for an instant, then seemed to regain it, only to have the engine cough again. The pilot fiddled with his instruments, then put his finger on the fuel gauge. Empty. He leaned forward, scanning the unbroken jungle for a place to put. down. The engine gagged like a cholera victim. The hacking stopped, then came a sputter, followed by the frightening sound of silence as the engine stopped completely and they began to drop out of the sky like a hailstone.

27 "DON'T MOVE, DR. GAMAY." CHI'S voice, soft yet insistent, penetrated the gauzelike fog. Gamay slowly rifted her gluey eyelids. She had the odd feeling that she was swimming in a quivering sea of green JellO. The gelatinous blobs became more sharply defined, the blurs resolving into leaves and blades of grass. Senses clicked slowly into place. After sight came taste, a bitterness in. her mouth. Then touch, reaching up to the damp stickiness of her scalp, encountering a wet pulpiness as if her brain were exposed. Her hand jerked back in reflex.

Fingers dug into her shoulder. "Don't move again or you'll die. Old Yellow Beard is watching us."

Chi's voice was calm but tense. Her arm froze in midair. She was lying on her left side, Chi behind her, out of sight but close enough so she could feel his breath in her ear.

"1 don't see anyone," she said. Her tongue felt thick.

"Directly in front of you about fifteen feet. Quite beautiful in a deadly way. Remember to be still."

Hardly daring to blink, Gamay scanned the grass, letting her eyes come to rest on a discolored dump that materialized into a pattern of blackedged triangles set against olive gray that marked the slender coils of an extremely long snake. The arrow-shaped head with the yellowish chin and throat was elevated. She was close enough to see the vertical eye pupils, the heat sensing loreal pits that looked liked extra nostrils, even the long black tongue flicking in and out.

"What is it?" she said, scientific curiosity overriding her fear.

"Barba amarilla. A big one from the looks of it. What some people call ferdelance. "

Ferdclance! Gamay knew enough about snakes to realize she was face-to\face with a killer. Goosebumps rose on her skin. She felt extremely exposed.

"What should we do?" she whispered, watching the flat head moving back and forth as if in time to unheard music.

"Don't panic. It should move soon to get out of the direct sunlight, probably into that patch of shade. If it comes this way, stay where you are and I'll distract it."

Gamay was leaning on her elbow, a position that had grown uncomfortably painful, and she wondered how long she could remain that way. She wanted the snake to move, but on the other hand, she didn't want it heading in her direction.

The snake made up its mind a few minutes later and began to uncoil to its full length. As Chi said, it was a big one, as long as a man was tall. It slithered silently through the grass to the shade cast by a small tree and took up residence next to Chi's faithful machete, which was leaning against the trunk.

"You can move now. It's sleeping. Sit up slowly." She turned to see Chi on his knees. He put down the. boulder he was clutching.

"How long was it there?"

About a half hour before you woke up. Usually snakes will retreat if you give them a chance, but you can never tell with Yellow Beard, especially if you disturb its sleep. It can be quite aggressive. He can have my machete if he wants it. How do you feel?"

"Okay, except that someone's been using my head as a football. What's this mush where my hair used to be?"

"I made a poultice of medicinal leaves. The pharmacy was closed."

"How long have we been here?" she said, rubbing the arm she'd been leaning on to get the circulation back

A few hours. You slept off and an. The bitter taste you have in your mouth is a motbased restorative. You got a nasty bump on a rock when the boat went over."

Vague memories of white roaring water came flooding back. "The rapids! Why aren't we dead?"

Chi pointed to the sky. "You don't remember?"

The helicopter. The fragments of memories were jumbled like a boxful of jigsaw puzzle parts. She and the professor were in the pram out of gas. The strong current was pulling them toward the rocks. Then the roar of the deadly water was drowned out by a clatter. The red-and-white chopper they had sighted earlier circled above the river.

Gamay remembered thinking that they were dead, with the armed chicleros behind them, the boiling rapids ahead, and the helicopter above... Then the aircraft swooped down like a Valkyrie and hovered just off the water between the pram and the rapids. Downdraft from the spinning rotors chewed up the river in a big circle and created waves that kicked the pram out of the current and sent it in toward shore. But the blast from the chopper . dangerously rocked the light aluminum craft. With the grassy shoreline only a few yards away the pram pitched over.

Gamay was catapulted out of the boat like a projectile from a siege machine. Then bang! Her head hit something hard. Her vision went squirrely, and her teeth dunked together. A bolt of white lightning. Then blissful darkness.

"The helicopter saved us," she said.

Apparently so. You would have been fine if you hadn't tried to split a rock with your head. It was only a glancing blow, but enough to knock you out. I dragged you onto shore, then through the bushes to this place. I gathered the roots and leaves to make the poultice. You slept fitfully through the night and may have had some strange dreams. The tonic I gave you is something of a hallucinogen."

Gamay recalled an odd dream. Paul was high above her, calling out her name, the words appearing in a cartoon dialogue balloon, before he disappeared into a vapory cloud.

"Thanks for everything," Gamay said, wondering how the diminutive middle-aged professor managed to haul her from the water and into the forest. "What about the men who were after us?"

The professor shook his head. "I didn't pay much attention to them with all the confusion. I had my hands full getting us to safety. I think I heard some shots. But it's been quiet ever since. Maybe they think we're dead."

"What do we do now?"

"I was pondering the same question when our scaly friend arrived. It depends on how long his nap is. I'd like to retrieve my machete. In this country it could mean the difference between life and death. You rest for a while. If Yellow Beard doesn't wake up we'll discuss another plan. I came across a path, probably what the chicleros used to get around the rapids, that we can explore later. In the meantime, we might want to move farther away in case he's grumpy when he awakens."

That was fine with Gamay With Chi's help she stood. Her legs were shaky, and she felt like a newborn foal. She looked around and saw that they were in a small, sun-dappled clearing protected by trees and bushes. They moved to the far side of the clearing, where Chi removed her poultice and pronounced her bumps and bruises practically gone. He said he would pluck some berries to fill their stomachs while they waited for the snake to finish his power nap. Still tired, Gamay lay back on the grass and shut her eyes. She came awake a moment later. A branch had snapped. Chi would never be so noisy.

She sat up and looked around. The professor stood at the edge of the clearing with a berry-laden branch in his hand. Behind him was the chiclero leader Gamay had named Pancho. He was a far cry from the figure who'd ordered them imprisoned in a cave. The slicked-down hair looked like an osprey nest, and his white clothes were dirty and torn. His big pale belly showed through the rips and tears. The sneering smile was gone, too, replaced by a mask of rage. The pistol in his hand was the same one he'd waved around on their first encounter, though, and it was pointed at the back of the professor's head.

The man put down the pack he'd been carrying and snarled at Chi in Spanish. The professor moved next to Gamay. They stood there side by side. The gun barrel shifted from Chi to Gamay, then back again.

"He wants me to tell you that he is going to kill us to avenge his men," Chi said. "First me, then he will have his way with you on my body."

"What is it with these guys?" Gamay snapped. "No offense, Professor, but a lot of your countrymen seem to have their brains between their legs."

The start of a smile started on Pancho's face. Gamay gave the big man a coquettish grin, as if the proposition appealed to her maybe she could buy time for the professor and get close enough to this goon to do serious damage to his libido. Chi was a jump ahead of her. He turned his head slightly, stared at the machete against the tree, and leaned his body forward slightly as if he were going to make a dash for it. Gamay knew Chi well enough to see the movement was uncharacteristically clumsy, as if he wanted to catch Pancho's attention.

The ploy worked. Pancho followed Chi's gaze to the long knife leaning against the tree, and his mouth widened into its toothy smile. Still keeping his eyes and gun on the professor, he sidestepped across the clearing and leaned over to pick up the machete.

The ground exploded in a blur of black triangles.

Alerted by the heavy footfall, the snake was in striking position when the man reached for the machete. It sank its long fangs into his neck then struck swiftly again, emptying the rest of its venom sac into his arm.

The gun barrel came around, and the stricken man shot the snake several times, turning it into a bloody red-and-green mass. Then he touched the twin puncture wounds next to his carotid artery. His face turned bone-white; his eyes widened in horror, and his mouth opened in a silent scream. Be stated, terrified, at Chi and Gamay, then staggered into the bushes.

Chi stepped forward, careful to avoid the fangs that mere biting at the air in the snake's death throes, and followed the chicleros trail. Moments later Gamay heard another shot. When Chi reappeared, the gun in his hand was smoking. He saw the expression of revulsion on her face. Tucking the pistol into his pants, he came over and took Gamay's hand. The stony cast to his features had disappeared, and his eyes had that kind, grandfatherly expression.

"The chiclero killed himself," he explained patiently. "He knew death from the barba's bite is very painful. The venom destroys the red blood cells and breaks down vessels. There is bleeding from the mouth and throat, painful swelling, vomiting, and spasms as the body goes into shock. Even with the neck bite, it could have been an hour or two. Remember, before you feel too sorry for him, he wanted us to die in the cave and later in the river."

Gamay shook her head numbly. Chi was right. The chiclero's death was unfortunate but of his own doing. What an extraordinary man the professor was! How the Spaniards ever conquered the Maya was a mystery to her. Her survival reflexes kicked into gear. "We should move," she said, glancing around. "There may be others who heard the shots."

Chi picked up his machete and the dead man's pack. "The river is our only chance. Even if we knew where we were, it would be risky to try a trek over land." He glanced at the bloodied body of the snake. As you saw, there are creatures in the forest far more deadly than chicleros."

"You lead, I'll follow," Gamay agreed with no argument. They set off through the thick forest, Chi maneuvering with his internal compass until they came to a path about a yard wide that was so beaten down that the white limestone was exposed.

"This is the portage trail I told you about."

"Won't we risk running into someone if we use it?"

"I'm not so sure. Remember what the big man said about avenging his men? I'll play scout. Stay back, and if I signal, get off the trail as quickly as you can."

They set off through the forest, the trail running roughly parallel to the river which sparkled through the trees. Gamay walked behind the professor. Their progress was uneventful. The only sign of life other than the raucous calls of the birds was a tree sloth that looked down with lazy eyes from an overhanging bough.

Chi stopped, signaled her with a wave to come forward, then disappeared around a curve in the trail. When she caught up the professor was standing on a small sandy beach. Three prams identical to the one they had lost were drawn up under a sapling and palm leaf structure that would have kept them hidden from anyone on the river or in the air. In contrast to her last view of the river at its angriest, the surface was back to its calm brownish-green self.

"It looks as if they kept boats on both sides of the rapids," Chi observed. "They could carry the goods along the path around the rough water."

Gamay was only half listening. She had walked back from the river. to examine the cold coals of a campfire and noticed a platform built up on stilts. A flat-roofed structure like a child's tree house had been constructed on the platform. She opened the door, which was latched but not locked, and peered inside: She saw several gasoline tanks and a large metal cooler. She pushed back the lid.

"Professor Chi," she called out. "I've found something important."

Chi came trotting over, and when he saw the blue can she was holding, the widest grin she had ever seen crossed his face.

"Spam," he whispered reverently.

There was more than Spam in the cooler chest. There were canned vegetables and juices, bottled water, and tortillas sealed in plastic boxes. Sardines and canned corned beef for variety. The primitive shed had flashlights and tools. The waterproof matches were a real treat, as was a portable camp stove. Soap, too. Each taking a different section of riverside, they washed their bodies and clothes, which dried quickly in the hot sun.

After their bath and a refreshing meal of improvised hash and eggs, Chi explored the area while Gamay consolidated their food and supplies. It was eerily quiet, but they decided not to stay long. They loaded the boat and sabotaged the others, sinking them under rocks then hiding the outboards in the woods after testing to see which motor ran best. Then they got in the boat and pushed out into the river, keeping the motor at low speed, above a quiet idle, using just enough power to stay ahead of the current. .

They had gone only less than a mile when the river made a sharp dogleg to the right. Caught in a pocket where the riverbed curved, along with weeds and driftwood, were two overturned aluminum prams whose hulls were dented and ripped open. Scattered among them were the stinking bodies of men, bloating in the broiling sun.

Chi muttered a prayer in Spanish.

"My guess is, that this is where we would be if we'd gone through the rapids," Gamay said, putting her hand over her nose.

"They were nowhere near the rapids when we last saw them."

"That's what I thought," she said with a shake of her head. "Something must have happened while we were dealing with an overturned pram."

Conrad's Heart of Darkness came to her, the scene where Kurtz, the civilized man turned savage, whispers on his deathbed, "The horror . . . the horror. . ."

With Kurtz's words echoing in her head, Gamay pointed the pram down river and hiked up the throttle. Gamay wanted to put miles between them and this place of death before night fell, even though she had no idea whether new horrors lay ahead.

Washington DC

28 WHEN PERLMUTTER CALLED AND asked if they could get together for brunch instead of dinner, Austin was pleased on two counts. The portly archivist's willingness to settle for a mere lunch at Kinkead's, a popular Washington dining spot on Pennsylvania Avenue, meant Perlmutter's research had hit pay dirt. And a lunch bill would take a smaller bite out of Austin's wallet than a six-course dinner. Or so Austin thought until Perlmutter selected a 1982 Bordeaux and began picking items off the menu as if he were ordering dim sum in a Chinese restaurant.

"I wouldn't want you to think you're taking advantage of me by only having to buy lunch rather than dinner," Perlmutter said, explaining his extravagance.

"Of course not," Austin replied, wondering how he would sneak the bill for Perlmutter's binge past the keen-eyed NUMA expense account auditors. He breathed an inward sigh of relief when Perlmutter put the menu aside.

"Very good. Well, after we chatted on the phone I called my friend Juan Ortega in Seville. Don Ortega is one of the leading experts on Columbus, and. since you seemed in something of a hung I thought he might provide a shortcut through the mass of information available."

"I appreciate that, Julien. I've read Ortega's books and found them insightful. Was he of help?"

"Yes and no," Perlmutter said. "He answered some questions and raised others." Perlmutter handed Austin the documents Ortega had faxed from Spain. "Read these at your leisure. In the interests of time I'll recap my conversation with Don Ortega and summarize what you'll find herein."

Perlmutter crystallized his findings, stopping only to nibble now and then at a roll.

A fifth voyage of discovery," Austin mused. "That would certainly shake up the historians and call for an update of the history books. What's your professional opinion? Was the letter a fraud?"

Perlmutter cocked his head in thought, laying a forefinger along his fleshy cheek. "I read it several times, and I still can't give you a definitive answer, Kurt. If it is a forgery, it is a damned clever one. I compared it to other, authenticated Columbus documents and Las Casas writings. The style, the syntax, the penmanship are consistent:"

And as you pointed out, why would. anybody go through the trouble to steal a phony document?"

"Why indeed?"

The waiter brought the wine to their table. Perlmutter held the glass to the light, swished its contents around, inhaled the bouquet, and finally took a sip. He closed his eyes. "Superb, as I knew it would be," he said with a beatific smile. "Truly a legendary year."

Austin tried the wine. "I'll have to agree with you, Julien." He put the glass aside and said, "You mentioned a reference in the letter about Columbus being contrite over the 'death of the five.' What do you make of that?"

The blue eyes danced with excitement. "I'm surprised you didn't catch that right away. I dug through my library and came across a strange story from.a source named Garcilaso de la Vega. It may shed light. He claimed that seven years before Columbus set sail on his historic first voyage, a Spanish ship was caught in a storm off the Canaries and came ashore on a Caribbean island. Of the seventeen-man crew, five survived. They repaired the ship and returned to Spain. Columbus heard of their adventure and invited them to his house, where they were entertained lavishly. As the festivities wore on they naturally poured out the details of their travails."

"Not surprising. Sailors like to swap sea stories even without a few glasses of vino to loosen their tongues."

Perlmutter leaned his great bulk forward. "It was much more than a friendly gam. This was undoubtedly a well-planned intelligence-gathering operation. Those simple sailors had no idea they possessed knowledge of incalculable value. Columbus was trying to organize an expedition and find the funding for it. Here were eyewitness accounts and navigational information that could open the door to vast riches. The crew could provide him with details of current, wind direction, compass readings, latitude, the number of days they sailed. Maybe they had seen the natives wearing gold ornaments. Think of what that meant. Their experience not only proved one could sail to China or India, which is what Columbus thought he'd be doing. It showed how to get there and back! Columbus intended to claim new lands for Spain. He was convinced he'd find gold and at the very least meet the Great Khan and open up a lucrative monopoly trade for spices and other valuable goods. He was well aware of Marco Polo's fame and fortune and figured he could do much better."

"No different from the industrial espionage that goes on today," Austin commented. "Instead of bribes, listening devices, and prostitutes to gather information on corporate . rivals, Columbus pumped his sources with food and drink."

"He may have pumped them with more than food and drink."

Austin raised an eyebrow.

All five men died after dinner," Perlmutter said.

"Overindulgence?"

"I've been at a few meals that nearly killed me, but de la Vega had his own ideas. He implied that the men had been poisoned. He couldn't come right out and say so. Columbus had powerful connections. Consider this, however. It is a historical fact that Columbus had a map of the Indies on his first voyage." He took a sip of wine and paused for dramatic effect. "Is it possible his map was based on what he learned from those unfortunate sailors?"

"Possible. But from what the letter says, Columbus disavowed their deaths."

"Correct. He blamed it on this so-called brotherhood. Los Hermanos. "

"Didn't Columbus have a brother?"

"Yes, his name was Bartolome. But Columbus used the word in the plural. Brothers."

"Okay, suppose you're right. Let's give. Chris the benefit of the doubt. He invites these guys to his house to see what information he can get out of them. Los Hermanos take the extra precaution of seeing that they will tell nobody else what they've seen. Columbus may be a hustler but he's no killer. The incident haunts him..

"A plausible scenario."

"Do you have any idea what this brotherhood was, Julien?"

"Not a clue. I'll return to my books after lunch. Speaking of which . . . ah, the Thai fish soup." Perlmutter had spotted the first of many dishes making its way to their table.

"While you're doing that I'll ask Yaeger to see if he has anything on them in his computer files."

"Splendid," Perlmutter said. "Now I have a question. You have a practical rather than a historical knowledge of the sea, as I do. What are your thoughts on this talking stone Columbus mentioned, this torleta of the ancients that was described in the letter?"

"Early navigational techniques have always fascinated me," Austin said. "I consider their development to be a huge intellectual leap for mankind. Our ancestors had to bring abstract concepts such as time, space, and distance to bear on the problem of getting from one place to another. I love the idea of punching a button and having a signal bounced off a satellite tell me exactly where I'm standing anywhere on the globe. But I think we rely too much on electronic gadgets. They can break And we're less inclined to understand the natural order of things; the movement of the stars and sun, the vagaries of the sea."

"Well, then, let's put those electronic gadgets aside," Perlmutter said. "Stand in the shoes of Columbus. How would you go about using your torleta?"

Austin thought about the question for a moment. "Let's back up to his earlier voyage. I'm stranded on an island where I'm directed to some kind of stone or tablet with strange inscriptions. The locals tell me it's the key to a great treasure. I take it back to Spain, but nobody can figure out what it is. Only that it is very old. I look at it from a mariner's point of view. The markings are similar in some respects to the kind of plotting board I've used all my sailing life. It's too hefty to haul around, so I do the next best thing. I have charts made based on the inscriptions and set sail. Only problem is, I haven't got it quite right. There's a gap in my knowledge."

"What sort of gap, Kurt?"

Austin pondered the question. "It's hard to know without an idea of what the torleta actually looks like, but I'll describe a hypothetical situation. Suppose I'm a sailor from Columbus's time and somebody gives me a NOAA chart. The geographical depictions would help me get around, but the lines with the long-range navigation coordinates wouldn't make sense to me. I'd know nothing of electronic signals sent out by shore stations or receivers that could translate the signals into pinpoint. locations. Once I was on the water out of sight of land, I'd have to go back to traditional methods."

"A most lucid analysis. So what you're saying is that once Columbus was at sea, he found that the torleta of the ancients was only of limited assistance."

"That's my guess. Ortega's books say Columbus didn't have much faith in the navigational instruments of his day, or maybe he simply wasn't competent in their use. He was a dead reckoning sailor of the old school. It served him fine on his first voyage.

He knew he needed to be precise on this final trip, so he hired someone who could use navigational instruments."

"Interesting, in view of the last passage in the letter, which is written by the Nina's assistant pilot."

"There you go," Austin said. "It's no different from hiring a specialist to do a job today. Now it's my turn to bat a question back to you. What do you suppose happened to the stone?"

"I called Don Ortega again and asked him to chase it down. His guess is that it was part of the estate Luis Columbus squandered to raise money to support his degenerate lifestyle. Ortega will contact museums and universities in Spain, and if he's not successful he will expand his circle of inquiry to surrounding countries.".

Austin was thinking about Columbus the sailor, how he went back to the Nina, the doughty little vessel that had served him so well on previous journeys. Maybe a modern-day Nina could help carry them to a solution of the mystery.

"The tablet originated on this side of the Atlantic," Austin observed. "After brunch I'll call my archaeologist friend Dr. Kirov and ask if she has ever heard about an artifact like it." He chuckled. "Odd, isn't it? We're looking for clues to contemporary murders in events that possibly happened centuries ago."

"Not so unusual. In my experience the past and present are often the same. Wars. Famine. Tidal waves. Revolutions. Plague. Genocide. These happen over and over again. Only the faces change. But enough of such morbid considerations. Let us turn to happier pursuits," Perlmutter said, beaming. "I see another course is on its way"

San Antonio, Texas

29 WHILE AUSTIN ENJOYED HIS EXPENSIVE gourmet lunch, Joe Zavala was sixteen hundred miles away munching a honey-glazed doughnut at a coffee shop on the Paseo del Rio, or Riverwalk, the picturesque tourist district on the banks of the San

Antonio River. Zavala checked his.watch, gulped down the last of his coffee, and head away from the river to the business district, where he entered the lobby of a tall office building.

After wrapping up the strategy session, Zavala had packed an overnight bag and flown to Texas, hitching a ride on an Air Force flight to Lackland Air Base. From the base he caught a taxi to a downtown hotel. Yaeger could do wonders with his computer babies, but even he admitted Time-Quest was a tough nut to crack. Sometimes a human eye and brain, with their capacity to sense and analyze nuance, were far more efficient than even the most sophisticated machine.

Zavala looked up Time-Quest on the lengthy directory of occupants. Moments later. he stepped from the elevator into a spacious lobby whose walls were covered with oversized sepia photographs of the archaeological wonders of the world. Directly in front of a picture of the Great Pyramid was a black enamel and steel desk that seemed out of time and place in contrast to the pictorial antiquities. Even more so was the brunette in her late twenties who sat behind the desk.

Zavala introduced himself, handing the receptionist a business card printed that morning at Kinko's.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Zavala the travel writer," she said. "You called yesterday." She consulted her daybook, punched a button on her phone, and murmured a message. "Ms. Harper will see you in a moment. You're very lucky to get an appointment on such short notice. It would have been impossible if she hadn't had an unexpected cancellation."

"I really appreciate this. As I explained, I would have called earlier, but this was a last\minute thing. I'm out here doing a piece on San Antonio night life and thought I could double it up with another travel piece."

She gave him a friendly smile. "Stop by after you talk to Ms. Harper and I may be able to suggest some hot spots."

The receptionist was young and darkly attractive, and Zavala would have been surprised if she didn't know the city's fun places.

"Thank you very much," he said in his most charming manner. "That would be a great help."

The public affairs director of Time-Quest was a handsome and smartly dressed woman in her forties. Phyllis Harper emerged from a corridor and shook Zavala's hand. with a firm grip. Then she guided him along thickly carpeted corridors to an office with big windows that offered a panoramic view of .the sprawling city and its centerpiece Tower of the Americas. They sat informally on either side of a coffee table.

"Thank you very much for your interest in TimeQuest, Mr: Zavala. I must apologize for only being able to give you a few minutes. Melody probably told you that I had a brief appointment slotted."

"Yes, she did. I appreciate the fact that you were able to give me any time at all. You must be very busy."

"I've got fifteen minutes before my meeting with the executive director." She rolled her eyes. "He's a stickler for promptness. In the interests of brevity, perhaps I can simply rattle on for ten minutes and allow five minutes if you have any questions. The press kit on the organization is quite informative."

From his jacket pocket Zavala extracted a Sony minitape recorder he bought at a discount outlet and a notepad picked up that morning in a drugstore.

"Fair enough. Rattle away."

She gave him a dazzling smile that reminded him how a mature woman with class could often be so much sexier than a young unformed beauty like Melody, the receptionist.

"Time-Quest is a nonprofit corporation. We have a number of goals. We wish to promote an understanding of the present and prepare for the future by studying the past. We are educative, in that we support learning about our world, particularly through our in-school programs for the young and our field work. We give the ordinary person a chance at an unusual vacation adventure. Many of our volunteers are retired people, so for them we are the fulfillment of life's dream."

She paused for breath and went on. "In addition we support many archaeological, cultural, and anthropological expeditions. We are known to be a soft touch," she said with her pleasant smile. "Universities are always calling us for support. Usually we are glad to give it. We use money paid by our volunteers, so many of these expeditions are self-sustaining. We provide experts or help pay for them. We have sponsored expeditions to every corner of the globe. In return we ask mainly that we be informed of special discoveries before anyone else. Most people consider it a small demand for what they get. Any questions?"

"How did the organization start?" .

She pointed to the ceiling above her head.

"We are a nonprofit subsidiary of the company that occupies the six floors immediately above us."

"Which is . . . ?"

"Halcon Industries."

Halcon. The Spanish word for "falcon" or "bird of prey." He shook his head. "Don't know it."

"It's an umbrella corporation with many divisions. We're one of them. Most of its revenue comes from a diversified portfolio

that includes mining, mainly, but also shipping, livestock, oil, and. mohair."

"That certainly is diversified. Is the company publicly traded?"

"No. It is wholly owned by Mr. Halcon."

"Quite a leap from digging mines to digging in old tombs," Zavala said.

"It is rather an odd juxtaposition, but not really when you think of it. The Ford Foundation has funded esoteric projects that have nothing to do with manufacturing cars.. Mr. Halcon is an amateur archaeologist from what I'm told. He would have liked to have been a scholar, but he was much better as an industrialist."

He nodded. "Halcon sounds like an interesting person. Would there ever be a chance of interviewing him, perhaps if I gave you advance notice?"

"You'd have a better chance of interviewing Henry Ford." The dazzling smile again. "I don't mean to be flip, but Mr. Halcon is a very private man."

"I understand."

She looked at her watch. "I'm afraid I have to go." She slid a thick folder across the desk "This is our press kit. Give it a read, and if you have any more questions, please call me. I'd be glad to put you in touch with volunteers who could give you a firsthand account of their experience."

"That would be very helpful. Maybe I could sign up for an expedition myself. They're not dangerous, are they?"

She gave him an odd look "We pride ourselves on Time-Quest's safety record. Even in the remotest locations safety is our most important consideration. You remember, I said many retired people participate in our program." She paused. "Those are the expeditions we organize. The ones we support with partial funding are on their own. But overall our record is very good You're safer on one of our adventures than you are crossing the street in San Antonio."

"I'll remember that," Zavala said, wondering if Ms. Harper were truly aware of all that went on in her organization.

"There's a calendar of events for the upcoming year in that kit. If something interests you, let me know, and I'll see what can be arranged."

She ushered him back to the lobby, shook hands, and disappeared down a corridor.

Melody smiled. "How was your interview?"

"Short and sweet." He looked after the retreating figure. "She reminds me of that old television commercial where the guy talked like a machine gun."

Melody cocked her head coquettishly. "Well, there are always the night spots."

"Thanks for the reminder. I'm looking for the really out-of-theway places where the younger, inside group goes. If you don't have other plans, maybe I can buy you lunch and we can talk about the night life in this town."

"There's a great restaurant not far from here. Eclectic and very popular. I could meet you there around noon:"

Zavala scribbled the directions and took the elevator down to the lobby He went over to the directory again and listed the subdivisions of Halcon Industries in his notebook There were eight in all. Mainly concentrated around mining and shipping, as the PR director had explained. He took the elevator up past Time-Quest and stepped out into a big lobby with a receptionist and mural-sized wall pictures of ore carriers. Halcon Shipping. He told the receptionist he must have the wrong floor and got back in the elevator.

He repeated his routine at every other company under the Halcon aegis. The offices were all pretty much the same, except for the murals. The receptionists were all young and attractive. He pressed the button for the very highest office in the Halcon tier, but the elevator sped right by it. When he got out he was in the hushed precincts of a law firm.

"Excuse me," he asked the secretary, who was plain and efficient looking. "I just pressed the button for the floor below and ended up here."

"That happens all the time. The suites below us are for Halcon executives. You need a special code to make the elevator go there."

"Well, if I ever need legal advice, I'll know where to come."

He returned to the lobby, hoping he hadn't stirred the suspicions of security staff in his on-a-gain, off-again elevator rides. After the destruction of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, it would not be wise to be seen casing an office building. He went down to ground level, caught a cab, then another to make sure he wasn't being followed, and hung around a bookstore until it was time to meet Melody.

The restaurant was called the Bomb Shelter, and it was decorated with a 1950s theme. They sat at a booth made with seats from a 1957 DeSoto convertible. Melody was a Texas girl, born and bred in Fort Worth, and had been with Time-Quest about a year.

Over lunch, Zavala said, "Ms. Harper was telling me about the big guy Mr. Halcon. Have you ever met him?"

"Not in person, but I see him every day. I stay at the office an extra hour after everybody else leaves so I can do some studying. I'm taking law courses." She smiled. "I don't intend to be a receptionist forever. Mr. Halcon stays late, too, and we leave the same time. He comes down in his private elevator, and a limo picks him up."

She'd heard Halcon lived outside the city, but beyond that Melody didn't know much about him.

"What does he look like?" Zavala said.

"Dark, thin, rich. Handsome in a creepy sort of way" She laughed. "Maybe it's just the light down there in the garage."

Melody was intelligent and witty, and Zavala felt like a cad when he took her number to set up a tour of night spots. He made a note to smooth things out with a call when he got back to Washington. After lunch he found a library and used the Internet to read about Halcon Industries holdings. His findings pretty much conformed to the brief description Ms. Harper had given him. Then he went to an auto rental place where he rented an ordinary-looking mid-sized car and picked up a tourist brochure on the Alamos. Might as well absorb some Texas history while he waited for his rendezvous with the mysterious Mr. Halcon.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

30 NINA KIROV SMILED AS SHE PLACED the telephone in its cradle, thinking how interesting her life had become since she had met Kurt Austin. When the platinum-haired man with the linebacker's physique and remarkable eyes wasn't plucking her from the Moroccan sea or running sting operations in Arizona, he was, popping up with the strangest requests. Like this one. See what she could find out about an artifact, probably made of stone, perhaps removed by Columbus from Jamaica on one of his expeditions, which may have had a navigational function and might still be in Spain.

Wait'll Doc hears this, she thought as she dialed the phone. Doc was Dr. J. Linus Orville, a Harvard professor with more letters behind his name than a can of alphabet soup. Orville made his lair behind the ivy-covered walls at Harvard's Peabody Museum. He had gained international repute as an ethnologist specializing in Meso-american culture. Among Cambridge academics he was recognized for his brilliance and his reputation as something of a nutty professor

Zooming around Harvard Square, on a chopped antique Harley Davidson was not something done by most tenured professors. A few years earlier he gained more widespread notoriety by hypnotizing UFO abductees and announcing publicly that he believed they had been kidnapped by aliens. His telephone number had gone into the card file of every freak beat newspaper reporter in the city Whenever reporters needed a quick quip on any subject in the universe, particularly the weird, they could rely on good old Doc the Harvard professor.

He carefully kept his more esoteric interests separated from his academic specialty. You would never find him claiming that Aztec temples were built by refugees from the lost continents of Atlantis and Mu. The hierarchy at Harvard would tolerate his oddities, every university has its resident fruitcakebut in his own field Doc's credentials had to remain without blemish. Some who had noticed that the gleam in Orville's eye was one not of madness but of intense amusement suggested Doc's eccentricities were well calculated so that he would meet women and be invited to all the right parties.

Doc had forsaken his UFO phase by the time Nina met him at one such gathering. Orville spied her across the room, brushed aside the attractive female grad student he was entertaining, and made a beeline in Nina's direction. She had never met him before but recognized his mop of long red hair, the style referred to by his students as "retro Einstein." Within minutes he was going on about his latest passion: past lives.

Nina listened attentively, then asked, "Why has everyone who has lived a past life been a king or a queen or other royal figure when most people were probably flea-infested farmers trying to scratch a life out of the mud?"

"Aha," he said. eyes practically g with glee." A dangerous woman. A thinker The answer is very simple. These people choose whose body they will inhabit in their new life. What do you think of that?"

"I think it's a lot of hooey, and I think I need a refill on my wine. Would you be so kind? I prefer red."

"Charmed," he said, and set off to the bar like an obedient puppy, returning with a full glass and a plateful of shrimp and caviar.

"Let's not talk about past lives," he said. "I only do that to meet fascinating women."

"You do?' Nina said, with genuine shock at his frankness.

And to get invited to parties. It works. Here I am, and here you are."

"I'm disappointed. Everyone told me you were pixilated."

"I don't even know how to spell that," he said with a sigh. "You know, we are such a dull gray stuffy bunch, we professors. We take ourselves far too seriously, harrumphing about as if we were truly wise men and not just overeducated nerds. What's wrong with being a little colorful to make oneself stand out from the crowd? There's the added advantage of being shunned by those stodgy old fussbudgets."

"The UFO abductees. That was all a sham?"

"Heavens no. I truly believe they believe they were kidnapped. Some of my colleagues do, too; they're just jealous because they weren't. But let's talk about you. I've heard good things about your work."

And talk they did. Behind the nutty professor's mad facade lurked an interesting and interested person. They did not become romantically involved, as he would have liked. Even better, they were friends and colleagues who respected. each other.

Orville," came the voice on the phone. Doc never said hello.

"Hi, Doc. It's Nina" He hated what he called banalities, so she cut right to the chase. "I need your help with an odd request."

"Odd is my middle name. What can I do for you?"

Nina relayed Austin's query.

"You know, that sounds vaguely familiar."

"You're not joking, Doc."

"Nononono. It was something in my Fortean file." Orville considered himself a modern day version of Charles Fort, the nineteenth-century journalist who collected stories about odd happenings such as red snow, unexplained lights, or frogs falling from the sky.

"Why does that not surprise me?" Nina said.

"I'm always reorganizing the file. You never can tell when someone will call arid ask a crazy question." He hung up; Orville was not known for saying goodbye, either.

Nina shrugged and went back to her work. Before long the fax hummed and a single sheet slid out. At the top was a handscrawled note: Ask and ye shall receive. Love, Doc. It was a copy of a newspaper clip from the Boston Globe dated March 1956:

MYSTERY ITALIAN ARTIFACT ON ITS WAY TO AMERICA

Genoa, Italy (AP)A mysterious stone tablet unearthed in a dusty museum basement may soon yield its ancient secrets.

The massive inscribed stela, carved with lifesized figures and strange writing, was discovered in the Museo Archeologico. Florence, in March of this year.

Preparations are being made to ship it to the United States where it will be examined by experts.

The museum was planning an exhibition entitled "Treasures from the Basement." to bring to light items from its collection that had languished in storage for decades.

The stone artifact is in the shape of a rectangular slab, giving rise to speculation that it might have been part of a wall. It is more than six feet tall, four feet wide, and a foot thick.

What have puzzled scholars who have seen it and stirred up controversy in the scientific community are the carvings on one side.

Some maintain that the figures and writing are without a doubt of Central American, probably Mayan, origin.

"This is not a great mystery," says Dr. Stephano Gallo, head curator at the museum. "Even if it is Mayan it could have been brought back from the Americas during the Spanish Conquest."

Why they transported the stone across the ocean is another question. "The Spanish were primarily interested in gold and slaves, not archaeology. So someone must have seen some value in this artifact to go to the trouble of moving it. It is not like some miniature statue a soldier of Cortez might have picked up as a souvenir."

Efforts to learn where the artifact came from have met with limited success. The museum catalog indicates that the slab was donated by trustees for the Alberti estate. The Alberti family can trace its maternal lineage to the Spanish court during the time of Ferdinand and Isabella.

A spokesman for the estate says the family has no information available, unlike other items in the collection. The Alberti family was originally from Genoa and purchased many Christopher Columbus papers and memorabilia from Luis Columbus, grandson of the explorer.

Historians who have scoured records of the four Columbus voyages can find no mention of the artifact.

The stone will soon be on an ocean voyage of its own. It will be shipped to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., for study by Central American experts. This time it will be traveling in style aboard the luxury Italian liner Andrea Doria.

Because of its size and weight, it will be shipped in an armored truck that is carrying other valuable items to America.

The article was illustrated with a photo of the slab taken at a distance to include the whole tablet in the frame. An unidentified man stood awkwardly next to the artifact, where he was dwarfed by its mass. The photographer must have grabbed the nearest body to pose beside the object and give it scale. The newspaper was printed back in the days of letterpress, and the. photo reproduction wasn't very sharp. Nina could make out faint symbols, glyphs, and figures carved into the stone's surface. She examined the picture using a magnifying glass. No use. The enlarged dot reproduction was even fuzzier than the original.

She called Doc.

"Well, what do you think?" he said.

"The important thing is what you think. You're the expert in this area."

"Well, you're right, of course." Orville's modesty could be underwhelming. "It's tough without ,seeing the actual thing, but it looks to me to be similar to the Dresden Codex, one of the few Mayan books that the Spanish didn't burn. I'm thinking about the calendar pages, cycles of the planet Venus, and so on. Venus was very important to the postclassic Maya. The planet represented Kukulcan, the lightskinned bearded god the Toltecs called Quetzalcoatl. The Feathered Serpent. The. Maya plotted the travels of Venus practically to the second. Beyond that it's difficult to say without seeing the real thing."

"Nothing else?"

"Not unless I come across a good picture or artistic rendition."

"What about Professor Gallo's comment, about this thing being no great mystery?"

"Oh, he's absolutely right. The fact that a Mayan artifact may have been found in Italy is not a big deal. No more than the fact that you can walk into the British Museum in London and find the Elgin marbles from the Parthenon. The important part of the equation is provenance, as you know. Not just where the artifact was found but how it got there."

"What about the Columbus letter I told you about? It mentions an object similar to this. How does that tie in with the mention of the Alberti family's Columbus collection?"

"You cannot jump to conclusions on the basis of an old newspaper article. You also told me there are doubts as to the authenticity of this letter. Even if the letter were the real McCoy, we'd need more proof that the objects were one and the same. Tantalizing thought, though. It was entirely possible for Columbus to have shipped it home without anyone knowing. He was known as a devious man. Some believe he falsified his mileage readings on his first voyage so the crew wouldn't know how far they were from land. It would have been in character for Columbus to hide something. Unfortunately we have to remember we're scientists, not writers of popular semifictional archaeological claptrap."

Orville was entirely right. It would be unprofessional to jump to conclusions.

"The Italian professor made a good point," Nina pointed out. "The Spanish were interested in plunder, not science."

"True. Cortez was certainly no Napoleon, who brought along the scientists who discovered the Rosetta Stone."

Interesting. She, too, had been thinking about the Rosetta Stone, the pivotal discovery that provided, with the same message in Greek and Egyptian, the key to translating hieroglyphics. "I'd give almost anything to see this thing in the flesh."

"Hmm. I wish I could take you up on your inviting offer. Alas, our artifact is not easily obtainable."

"Of course. How dumb of me. The Andrea Doria. It was in a collision with another ship."

"Correct. The Stockholm. As a result of that unfortunate incident our artifact lies more than two hundred feet underwater, at the bottom of the Atlantic. We can only hope that the fishes appreciate it. Too bad. Perhaps it could prove the existence of Atlantis, something to make for some catchy headlines.Nutty professor strikes again and that sort of thing."

"I'm sure you'll find something equally controversial," Nina said warmly. "Thanks for your help, Doc.*

"I was glad to hear from you. You've been away a lot. How about lunch this week?"

Nina asked him to call in the morning after she had a chance to check her calendar. As soon as she hung up she dialed the number of the Boston Herald and asked for an extension in the newsroom. A female voice answered: "K. T Pritchard."

"Hi, Kay Tee. This is your friendly archaeologist calling for a favor. Do you have a minute?"

"I've always got time for you, Dr. Kirov. You're in luck. I just wrapped up a story, but as long as I look as if I'm working no one will bug me with a new assignment. What can I do for you?"

Pritchard had used Nina as a background source on a prize-winning series she wrote when Boston's patrician Museum of Fine Arts unknowingly bought a stolen Etruscan vase. She was always anxious to pay the favor back. Nina told the reporter she was looking for any mention of an archaeological artifact being transported from Italy on the Andrea Doria.

"I'll check out the morgue and call you back"

The phone rang about an hour later. It was Pritchard.

"That was fast," Nina said with amazement.

"Stuff's all on microfilm, so it scans pretty quickly. There were tons of pieces written on the Andrea Doria at the time of the accident itself. Then more on the inquiry, but I skipped that. The ship carried piles of valuable cargo. She was apparently a floating art museum. No mention of anything like you described. So I flipped to the anniversary editions. You know how papers like to memorialize disasters so they can write about them ad nauseam on slow news days. I found an article on the thirtieth anniversary. It was about heroes and cowards. Some of the crew bailed while the others should have been given medals. Anyhow, there was an interview with one of them. A waiter. Didn't you tell me this thing was being transported in an armored truck?"

"That's right. According to the Associated Press article."

"Hmm. Well, anyhow, this waiter said he saw an armored truck being robbed as the ship was going down."

"A robbery!"

"That's right. A group of armed men. The truck was in the hold of the ship."

"That's incredible! What else did he say?"

"Nothing. The story just slipped out as he was telling the reporter how he went into the hold of the ship looking for a car jack to free one of the victims. I called the guy who interviewed him. Charlie Flynn. A real war horse. He's retired now. He tried to pry more info from the guy Thought he could make this the lead. The untold story. Sinking ship. Masked men. Drama below decks and that sort of thing. But he said the guy dammed up. Wouldn't talk about it. Changed the subject. Got very upset. Asked Charlie not to use this in the story."

"He went ahead and did it anyhow?"

"That's the way it was in the old days. What you said got in the paper. Not like today with libel lawyers breathing down your neck. It was buried, though, way down at the' bottom of the story. Copy editor probably thought it was too thin on the facts to use up in the lead but interesting enough as a tidbit. Charlie talked to a few Daria survivors to see if he could get the story through another source. Nobody had ever heard anything about it."

"What was the crewman's name?"

"I'll fax you the clip, but hold on. Here it is. He was Italian. His name was Angelo Donatelli."

"Do you have an address for him?"

"He was living in New York at the time. Charlie says he ran a fancy restaurant there. That's all he knew about the guy. Say Dr. Kirov, is there a story here?"

"I'm not sure, Kay Tee. You'll be the first to know if there is."

"That's all I ask. Call me anytime."

After she hung up Nina stared off into space for a few minutes, trying to connect a massive stone artifact from the time of Columbus with a disaster at sea, an armed robbery, and a Moroccan massacre. It was no use. It would be easier linking Sumerian cuneiform with Minoan Linear B writing. She gave up and called Kurt Austin.

Washington, DC

31 ANGELO DONATELLI WAS SUPRISINGLY easy to trace. Austin simply looked up his name on the Internet and found fifteen references; including a Business Week article that described the rags-to-riches rise from lowly cocktail lounge waiter to owner of one of New York's most fashionable restaurants. The picture of Donatelli conferring with his head chef showed a silver-haired and middle-aged man who looked more like a distinguished European diplomat than a restaurateur.

Austin called directory assistance in Manhattan, and a minute later he was talking to the restaurant's friendly assistant

"Mr. Donatelli is not in today," she said.

"When is the best time to get him?"

"He's due back from Nantucket tomorrow. You can try calling here after three PM."

Nantucket. Austin knew the island off the Massachusetts coast well, having stopped there several times while sailing to Maine. He tried to get a Nantucket phone number for Donatelli. It was unlisted. A few minutes later he was talking to a Lieutenant Coffin at the Nantucket Police Department. Austin identified himself as being with NUMA and said he wanted to get in touch with Angelo Donatelli. He was banking on the fact that small-town police know everything and everybody in their community.

The police officer confirmed that Donatelli had a summer home on the island, but he was wary. "What's the National Underwater and Marine Agency want with Mr. Donatelli?"

"We're pulling together some historic stuff on collisions at sea. Mr. Donatelli was aboard the Andrea Doria when it was hit."

"I've heard that. Met him a couple of times. Nice guy."

. "I've tried calling him, but his number is unlisted."

"Yeah, most of the people out where he lives kinda like it that way. They built those big houses so they can have their privacy."

"I may try to get a flight to the island later today and take my chances on hooking up with him."

"Tell you what. When you get on island drop by the police station on Water Street and ask for me. I can show you where he lives on a map."

Good cop, Austin thought. He wasn't about to dispense information on one of the island's well-to-do property owners without checking Austin out in person.

Austin never dreamed Nina would track down a lead so quickly.

With Zavala in Texas and Trout in the Yucatan, maybe Austin could squeeze in a quick interview with Donatelli. He used his government clout to get a seat with a small commuter airline that ran regular shuttles between Washington and Nantucket. A couple of hours later he was on a puddle-jumper flying northeast.

The flight gave him time to look over the file Yaeger had dropped on his desk as Austin was leaving his NUMA office. Austin had asked the computer whiz to scour, his electronic marvels for information on the Brotherhood, the sixteenth century secret society he and Perlmutter had discussed over lunch. And to run down any links Los Hermanos might have had to Christopher Columbus. Austin glanced out the window at the ocean sparkling far below, then opened the file and read Yaeger's note:

Hi, Kurt.

I think I've got it! I've been wading through secret societies up to my eyeballs, but the Columbus angle narrowed it down. I followed up one of those stray facts that go floating across your monitor screen from obscure sources. A one-sentence footnote that Columbus was said to be associated with an outfit called the Brotherhood of the Holy Sword of Truth. (They liked long titles back then.) Can't confirm if he was a member. Probably not.

The Brotherhood was formed in the 1400s during the Spanish Inquisition by an archdeacon named Hernando Perez, head of a powerful monastery known for its extreme beliefs. Heavily into self-flagellation and hair shirts. Perez was slightly to the right of Torquemada, who was the head honcho of the Inquisition. Perez picked the most fanatical of his followers from his monastery. The brothers made up the trusted core of his outfit.

Perez was mad as a hatter, unswerving in his convictions, quite happy to use violence and murder to achieve his ends. He declared absolution for his guys no matter how much blood they shed for his cause, which was to wipe out heretics. And get rich doing it, by the way. They split loot plundered from their victims with the Inquisition. The Brotherhood worked behind the scenes, identifying the unfaithful so they could be fed into the Inquisitions murder machine. Sometimes it sent out its own hit squads. Or for a price it might see that you were spared. As long as they could bleed you of money.

Heresy covered a lot of ground. Which brings in another angle. Back then you could be burned at the stake for saying Columbus discovered America! The Scriptures never said anything about the American Continents. It messes with the whole idea of Adam and Eve. So when Columbus claimed that he reached India or China, the powers that be backed him up.

The real reasons were political, though. Church and state were the same thing. When somebody questioned church dogma it threatened the throne. Once doubts set in about the church's teachings on geography the hoi polloi might start asking why they were starving and the bishops and kings were all well fed, and before long the mobs would be marching on the palace.

Millions were at stake as well. Spain wanted the riches o' the New World to herself If other countries could prove Columbus wasn't the first to discover India, rivals of Spain like Portugal might claim the new lands and riches. Gold meant new warships and raising armies, so we're really falling about European domination. That's why the Inquisition, which was the terror instrument of the Spanish state, made it heresy, punishable by burning, to believe there was a continent with separate civilizations and that they had contact with the Old World before Columbus.

To show you how dangerous the idea was, Amerigo Vespucci was sent on a secret mission by the king to check out the Columbus discoveries. When Vespucci demonstrated Columbus had not discovered a short route to India, that he'd found a new continent and may not have been the first to go there, he was called a heretic and warned to recant. By making this a capital crime, the Spanish were admitting tacitly that there had indeed been prior contact. Torquemada was a sly old devil. He said that even if the Indians had received a visitor from the west whom they named Quetzalcoatl, the stranger must have been white and Spanish. That meant Spain had dibs on the new lands even before Columbus was born.

I verified that five sailors died after eating at Columbus's house. Can't prove the Brotherhood had anything to do with it. Could have been food poisoning. I couldn't find anything on the Brotherhood after the 1600s. Maybe they went out of business with the Inquisition. Source material enclosed. Hope this helps.

The rest of the file contained source documents. Austin read through the pile of papers and decided the computer genius had done a good job encapsulating his findings. The account of the Brotherhood was fascinating particularly in its mission to suppress knowledge of contact between the New and the Old Worlds. One problem. The Brotherhood went out of business more than three hundred years ago.

The pilot's voice announced that the plane was passing near Martha's Vineyard. Nantucket's porkchop shape was visible to the east of the Vineyard. An ocean fog nibbled at the windswept moors and long white strands that edged the island. It was easy to see why the island attracted the peg-legged Captain Ahab and real-life Quaker whaling captains and ship owners who made their fortunes in the whaling trade. Nantucket had at its doorstep a saltwater highway that would take its whaling vessels to all the seven seas on voyages that often lasted years.

Austin rented a car at Tom Nevers Airport and drove into town, past stately brick houses built with riches made from whale oil, the car bumping over the wide main street that was paved with cobblestones once used for ballast in the old sailing ships, then along Water Street bordering the harbor until he came to the police and fire station.

Lieutenant Coffin was a tall stringbean of a man with high cheekbones and a prominent bony nose that had seen too much sun. His mouth dropped open in surprise when Austin identified himself.

"You got here in a hurry," he said, sizing up the husky man with the prematurely white hair. "You NUMA guys have private jets?"

"Some of us do.. I lucked out in catching a flight. It was a good excuse to get out of Washington."

"Can't blame you for that. The island's awfully pretty this time of year. You're missing the crowds, too." The hazel eyes narrowed. "Just so you'll know, I called NUMA back after I talked to you."

"Can't blame you for that."

Coffin smiled. "Seems like you're on the up-and-up. We're pretty easygoing, but we can't be too careful. Nantucket's got a lot of rich folks who own big houses and pay major taxes. Don't see a burglar asking the police where the house is he plans to rob, but you never know. Good thing you called. People out there kinda look after each other. They'd give you directions to the other side of the island. I'll show you how to get to his house," He slid a tourist map across the counter. "Take the Polpis Road till you get to a sand driveway with a ship on the mailbox" Coffin drew the route with a yellow marker.

Austin thanked the police officer and followed his directions out of town to a narrow winding mad that ran through scrub pine forest and past farms and cranberry bogs. At the mailbox, which was surmounted by a metal rendering of a black-and-white ocean liner; Austin turned onto the sand road and drove through stunted forest that turned into rolling headland. The strong smell of the sea was carried on the ropy tendrils of fog he had seen from the air.

The big house loomed suddenly from the fog. It looked deserted. No vehicles outside, no lights in the windows even though darkness was falling. Austin left the car in the horseshoe-shaped crushed shell driveway, followed a walkway bordered by an expansive and wellmanicured lawn to the wide open porch, and rang the front doorbell. Chimes echoed inside. No answer. Maybe the restaurant manager had it wrong. Or perhaps Donatelli changed his plans and went back to New York earlier than expected.

Austin frowned. This could be a time-wasting wild goose chase. He'd known from the start that he was grasping at a straw, .trying to connect a robbery at sea decades before with the killings of archaeologists. He wondered if he could catch a flight back to DC. Oh, hell. He'd get home just as fast if he stayed the night and flew out first thing in the morning. With his decision made, Austin decided to explore the grounds. He left the veranda and walked around the house.

Nantucket had become afflicted with a plague of "trophy houses," so big they looked like small hotels, built by wealthy people who saw square footage as a way of one-upping their neighbors. Donatelli's place was large, and the builder had managed to incorporate Italianate architectural features in with the more traditional silver-gray shingles and white trim, but it was all done in good taste.

Behind the house was a fairsized vegetable garden and a children's swing and slide set. Austin followed the sound of the breaking surf across a wide lawn to the edge of a sandy cliff and stood for a moment at the top of a weatherbeaten stairway that led down to the beach. The beach was obscured and ocean sound muffled by the fog, but he could hear distant rollers slapping against the shore. He turned and looked back at the house. In the fog and waning light he could barely see the place.

Figuring he had done all he could, Austin returned to the car and wrote a note that included his telephone number, asking Donatelli to call him as soon as possible. He trudged back to the front door. Low-tech communication, but it might work. He would follow it up with a phone call when he got back to his office.

He climbed onto the broad porch and tucked the rolled-up note under the ornate door knocker, thinking the brass weight would keep the paper ..from blowing away. He realized he had more important things than the wind to worry about. Hard cold metal pressed against the back of his neck Then came the unmistakable click of a very large gun being cocked. Until then there had been no sound, not even a footfall.

"Hands up," a harsh voice said. "Don't turn around." The man spoke with an accent.

Austin slowly lifted his hands. "Mr. Donatelli?"

"Don't talk," the man said, emphasizing his order with a hard jab to the neck A practiced hand frisked Austin, deftly slipping his wallet out of his pocket. Satisfied Austin carried no weapon, the man ordered him to climb the outside stairs leading from the porch to a second story deck that wrapped around three sides of the house. The fog had closed in with a vengeance, and in the dimming light Austin would not have seen the figure leaning against a railing if his attention had not been caught by the orange glow of a cigarette and the smell of strong tobacco.

"Sit," said the man with the gun. Austin did as he was told, plunking into a deck chair that was damp with moisture. Keeping his gun leveled at Austin, the man spoke in Italian to the smoker. They conferred for a minute.

The figure in the fog spoke. "Who are you?"

"My name is Kurt Austin, and I'm with the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

Pause. "You're consistent, anyhow. That's the same story you gave lieutenant Coffin." The voice had an accent, but it wasn't as thick as that of the gun carrier.

"You talked to Coffin?"

"Of course. The police try to keep their summer residents happy Especially those who are big contributors to their equipment fund. I've requested that he let me know if anyone ever asks for me. He even offered to come out here with you. I told him I could handle the situation by myself."

"Then you are Mr. Donatelli."

1 ask the questions." Another sharp jab in the spine. "Who are you really?"

"My wallet has identification."

"Identification can be forged."

Donatelli was going to be a tough sell. "Lieutenant Coffin called NUMA and verified that I am who I said I am."

"I have no doubt you are who you claim. It's what you really are that interests me."

Austin's patience was eroding. "Make believe I don't understand what you're talking about, Mr. Donatelli."

"Why would a big government agency like NUMA want to tally to me? I run a restaurant in New York. The only thing I have to do with the ocean is the seafood I buy from Fulton Fish Market."

Reasonable question. "You were on the Andrea Doria. "

"Lieutenant Coffin said you mentioned the Doria. That's old news, isn't it?"

"We were hoping you might have some information bearing on a case we're working on."

"Tell me about this case, Mr. Austin. You may put your hands down, but remember that my cousin Antonio is from Sicily, and, like most Sicilians, he trusts nobody. He is quite good with the lupara especially at close range."

Lupara was the sawed-off shotgun that used to be the choice of the Sicilian Mafia before they went to automatic weapons and car bombs. An antique but still deadly.

"Before I start," Austin said evenly, "I'd appreciate it if you told Cousin Tony that if he doesn't stop sticking me in the neck, his lupara is going to end up where the sun don't shine."

Austin had no way to carry out his threat, but it had been a long day and he was tired of getting jabbed. Donatelli translated for the gunman. Antonio stepped away and stood off to one side, the gun still leveled at Austin. A slit that could have been a mouth opened into what might have been a smile.

A cigarette lighter flared in the darkness, showing Donatelli's deep-set eyes. "Now, tell us your story, Mr. Austin."

So he did. "The whole thing started in Morocco," Austin began From there he worked his way to the present, explaining how the trail had led to Donatelli. "One of our researchers came access your name in a newspaper article. When I read that you had seen an armored truck robbery on the ship, I wanted to talk to you."

Donatelli was silent for a moment, then he spoke in Italian to his cousin. The stocky figure who'd been standing next to Austin moved silently through the sliders, and a second later a light came on inside the house.

"Let us go inside and be comfortable, Mr. Austin. It's damp out here. Bad for the bones. I must apologize. I thought you were one of them. They would never bother to concoct such a fantastic story, so it must be true."

Austin stepped inside. Donatelli gestured to a plush chair next to the large fireplace, eased into an opposite chair, and clicked a remote control. A gas fire huffed on in the hearth. The heat penetrating the glass screen felt good.. Austin was covered with moisture that had nothing to do with the dew point.

His eyes rose to the mantel and rested on a minutely detailed scale model of the Andrea Doria. The model was only part of the collection of memorabilia, photos, and paintings, even a flotation device, that was sprinkled around the spacious living room. All having to do with the Doria.

Donatelli was studying him. The flickering light from the fireplace bathed the still handsome features of a man in his sixties. The thick head of wavy hair, combed straight back, was grayer than it appeared in the business magazine photo. In general Donatelli had aged well. He was still trim, and in the expensive-looking pale blue running suit and New Balance running shoes he looked as if he worked at keeping fit.

Cousin Antonio was the exact opposite. He was short and squat, with a shaved head and watchful eyes set in a face that looked as if it had been used for a punching bag. The nose was broken, the ears cauliflowered and the sallow skin covered with a lacework of scars. He was dressed in a black shirt and black slacks. He had reappeared carrying a tray with two brandy glasses and Austin's wallet on it. The waiter image was diminished somehow by the shotgun strapped onto his shoulder.

"Grappa," Donatelli said. "It will burn the dampness from our bones."

Austin tucked the billfold back into his pocket and tried the liquor. The Italian firewater seared Austin's throat. It felt good

Donatelli took a sip and said, "How did you find me here, Mr. Austin? I left strict instructions with my office not to tell anyone where I was."

"They said at the restaurant that you were on the island."

The older man smiled. "So much for my security measures." Donatelli took another sip and stared silently into the fire. After a minute he affixed Austin with, his penetrating eyes. "It wasn't a robbery," he said flatly.

"Did the newspaper get it wrong?"

"I called it that for convenience. In a robbery the thieves take something. These thieves took nothing except lives." With a sharp memory for detail and touches of humor, Donatelli related the events of that memorable night in 1956. Even after all these years his voice trembled during his description of the shifting of the dying ship as he made his way deeper in the flooded darkness. He told about the murder of the armored truck guards, his flight, and his eventual rescue. "You said the truck carried a stone," he mused "Why would people kill over a stone, Mr. Austin?"

"Maybe it's not just any stone."

He shook his head, uncomprehending.

"Mr. Donatelli, you said earlier that you thought I was one of 'them.' What did you mean?"

The restaurateur considered his words carefully. "In all the years since the ship went down I have said nothing about what happened. The newspaper article was a slip of the tongue. I have known in my heart there was a reason for keeping this secret. After the article appeared someone called and warned me never to say anything about that incident again. A man with a voice likee ice. He knew everything about me and my family. My wife's hairdresser. The names of my children and grandchildren. Where they lived. He said if I ever mentioned that night to anyone, I would be killed. But first I would see my family destroyed." He stared into the fire. "I come from Sicily. I believed him. I gave no more interviews. I asked Antonio to come and live with me. He was in, ah, difficulties with the authorities in his home and was glad to relocate."

From the battered looks of Tony's face and the ease with which he handled his weapon, Austin had a good idea of what Tony's difficulties might have been, but he didn't pursue the matter.

"I assume the man who called didn't tell you his name. Or who he was speaking for."

"Yes and no. That's right. No name. But he indicated that he was not acting alone, that he had many brothers."

"Brothers. Could he have said 'Brotherhood'?"

"Yes. I think that's what he said. You've heard of them?"

"There was an organization called the Brotherhood of the Holy Sword of Truth. They worked with the Spanish Inquisition. But that was hundreds of years ago."

"The Mafia had its start hundreds of years ago," Donatelli replied with an amused glance at his cousin. "Why is this different?"

"The Mafia's continued existence is pretty well established by its continuing activities."

"Yes, that is true, but even though people in the Old Country knew there was such a thing and that the Black Hand had moved with the immigrants to America, the police here never knew about La Cosa Nostra until they found somebody, by accident, who would break the code of muerto. Silence or death."

"You are saying that an organization might go on operating in secret for centuries?"

Donatelli spread his hands. "The Mafia had murders, extortion, robbery. Yet the FBI director, Hoover, swore there was no such thing as La Cosa Nostra."

As he pondered Donatelli's words, thinking he had a good point, Austin surveyed the room.

"You've come a long way since your waiter days," he said, taking in the luxurious wood paneling and brass fittings.

"I had help. After the wreck I decided I never wanted to set foot on a boat again." He chuckled. "There is nothing like the unholy terror of being caught in the hold of a sinking ship to take the romance out of the sea. The woman I tried to help unfortunately died of her injuries. When I went to the funeral her husband thanked me again and said he wanted to do something in return. I said it was my dream to have a small restaurant. He gave me some money for a place in New York on the condition that I take business and English courses which he would also pay for. I named the restaurant Myra, after Mr. Carey's wife. I have opened six more restaurants in large cities across the country. They've made me a millionaire and allowed me to live like this. I married a wonderful woman. She gave me four sons and a daughter, all in the business, and many, marry grandchildren." He sipped the last of his grappa and put the glass down on a table. "I built this paradise here for my family, but also I think because it is near to where the ship went down. On foggy nights like this it brings back memories. You see, Mr. Austin, the accident was bad for many people, like Mr. Carry. But it changed my life for the better:"

"Why are you telling me this now? You could have just sent me on my way."

"My wife died last year.' After I survived the Andrea Doria I thought I would live forever: I saw in her death a reminder that I am mortal like all men. I am not a religious man, but I began to think more about making things right. Those men who were killed in the ship's hold. Maybe the others you told me of, They need somebody to speak for them." His jaw hardened. "I will be the spokesman for the dead." Donatelli looked at the wall clock. "It is getting late, Mr. Austin. Do you have a place to stay?"

"I thought I'd get a room at a bed-and-breakfast."

"Not necessary. You will have your bed here tonight as my guest, and breakfast tomorrow. For dinner I will prepare a special pasta. Tomatoes and zucchini fresh from the garden."

An invitation like that would be impossible to refuse."

"Good." He poured them more grappa and hoisted his glass high. "Then when we have eaten and drunk our wine, we will find a way to show these people what it means to mess with a Sicilian."

San Antonio, Texas

32 AS A MEXICAN AMERICAN, ZAVALA had mixed feelings about Texas's holiest shrine. He admired the courage of the Alamo's defenders, men like Buck Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett, whose names were listed on the cenotaph on Alamo Plaza. At the same time he felt sorry for the 1,550 Mexican troops who died in the siege under the inept command of Santa Anna. The Texans lost 183 men. The Mexicans lost Texas.

He wandered around the chapel that was all that was left of the once-sprawling fort, checked out the museum, and used up the nest of the afternoon watching people at a coffee bar. By six-thirty he was parking his rented car in the garage below the Time-Quest building. He located the parking area marked off for Halcon Industries. Nothing was reserved for the CEO. Zavala's guess was that everybody in the company was well aware the space was forbidden territory and Halcon didn't want to advertise himself.

Zavala parked as near to the Halcon spaces as he could, then walked past two elevators, the public one and another door marked Private, and took up a post nearby in the shadows behind a thick concrete pillar. At five past seven Melody exited the main elevator and walked to her car. Zavala again felt a twinge of regret at not being able to go on a date with the lovely woman, but he had to put those thoughts aside. He wanted a clear head for his first meeting with Senor Halcon.

Zavala's vigil in the underground garage was about to pay off. Shortly after Melody left, a black Lincoln limousine quietly pulled up in front of the elevator door marked Private. Almost on cue the elevator door opened and a man stepped out.

Zavala brought his Nikon to his eye and focused on the tall dark man who exited the elevator and walked with an easy grace to the waiting vehicle. Halcon. He snapped off several shots before Halcon got into the limo, then focused on the driver who was holding the door open for him. The man was wearing a dark suit, and, his white hair was cut military short. He was tall and broad-shouldered, his physique muscularly athletic even though he could have been in his sixties at least. Zavala got off a single shot before the white-haired man swept the garage with his eyes as if he had heard the quiet whirr of the motor drive. Zavala melted into the shadows and didn't dare breathe until the car door slammed and the limo moved off.

In the fleeting second he had framed the white-haired man in the viewfinder Zavala had frozen his likeness on his retinas. He leaned against the cold concrete, still not believing the evidence of his eyes. He had just seen the same' man in Arizona. He was sure of it, despite the clean.shaven face and the tailored suit. Only then the man with Halcon was wearing work clothes and had long hair and a thick white beard. He had a wife, since deceased. And he went by the name of George Wingate.

Quickly regaining his composure, Zavala dashed for his rental car. He followed the limo onto the street, keeping one or two cars between him and his objective. They headed out of the city on the expressway in a northwest direction. In time the suburbs and shopping malls thinned out. The flat terrain gave way to rolling hills and more forested areas.

Zavala pushed the rental car just to stay in sight of the limo, which flew along well above the speed limit once they were beyond the more heavily congested neighborhoods. They traveled for about an hour, leaving the main highway around dusk to follow a sparsely populated two-lane road. Zavala stayed far back. Before long he saw the flash of brake lights, and the limo disappeared. Zavala slowed until his headlights caught a small plastic reflector nailed to a tree, marking an unpaved road. He kept going to create the illusion he was bound elsewhere, then after a few hundred yards he did a quick U-turn and came back to the reflector.

He switched the car's headlights off as a test and found that he was able to follow the dirt road as long as he kept speed down to a fast walk. He wondered what a big shot like Halcon was doing in the sticks. Maybe he had a hunting lodge. The thick woods quickly enveloped him. Where the trees opened up he could see low craggy hills on either side. He saw no lights ahead, but this didn't surprise him because the road twisted and turned. Not wanting to run into an unpleasant surprise, Zavala stopped every few minutes, got out of the car, and walked ahead, like the point on an infantry patrol; to watch and listen.

On one stop he saw a light ahead. Cautiously he walked toward the glow until he could see that it was a lone spotlight on the gate of a high wiremesh fence. He pulled the car off the road and made his way toward the fence under the cover of the woods, stopping at the edge of a swath cleared from the perimeter. The fence was about twice the height of a man and topped by coils of razor wire. A white sign with black lettering was attached to the gate warning trespassers to Keep Out. Guard Dogs Trained to Attack. His instincts had served him, well. Above the sign was a small box which could serve no other purpose than as a security camera.

The fence was too high to climb, and he had no protection against the wire, or the dogs, but his guess was that the barricade was attached to an alarm. Remembering a low hill a short distance back, he returned to his car and headed away from the fence in reverse so the backup lights wouldn't be seen, then pulled off the road into the bushes. He made his way toward the hill then up its side, no easy task because he had nothing to light his way. He tripped and had to back out of briars a few times but made it to the copse at the hilltop without mishap. He selected a clean-!imbed tree and climbed to the highest branch that would support his weight.

The elevation gave him a view over the top of the fence. Except for the lone floodlight on the gate, the area was not illuminated. His eyes had become used to the darkness, and soon several shapes began to materialize. He realized he was looking at a vast complex of buildings, some rectangular, others cylindrical, all dominated by a massive pyramid with a flat top. The structures were built of a whitish stone and seemed to glow in the faint light of the moon.

Some hunting lodge, he muttered. This was crazy! An ancient city in the wilds of the Texas countryside. He tried to call Austin but his cell phone failed to pick up a signal. After several minutes during which he squinted into the darkness in a vain attempt to make out details, he decided he had seen all he was going to see. He was about to climb down the tree when a light flicked on and he saw a strange sight. He got a new grip on the branch and watched, fascinated, as a remarkable scene began to unfold.

33 RAUL GONZALEZ SHIVERED IN THE darkness and waited for the bullet to smash into his spine, wishing it would happen before he froze to death in the cool night air. Again he cursed that American woman. By thwarting his Moroccan assignment, she was responsible for him being in this place. His angry ruminations were cut short. A spotlight blinked on, and Gonzalez saw before him a fantastic creature, part human, part beast.

From the neck down the figure was a bronzeskinned man of muscular physique. Around his waist was a loincloth of rich green, yellow, and vermilion. The hard growths on either hip proved to be, on closer look, leather padding. The face was hidden behind a mask created in a madman's nightmare. The jade-colored snout was long and scaly, the eyes hungry-looking, and the grinning mouth full of jagged, razorsharp teeth. Long quetzal plumes streamed from the back of the head. The monster stood as still as a statue, brawny arms folded across a broad hairless chest.

"Madre mia." The pitiful whimper came from off to Gonzalez's left.

"Silencio," Gonzalez growled at the hydrofoil captain.

They'd been ordered to remain silent or be shot. Gonzalez wasn't about to be killed because a sniveling coward couldn't keep his mouth shut. The man standing quietly on his right was more to his liking. Lean and snake-like in his movements, an assassin like himself. At another time Gonzalez would have talked shop with the man about the murderous skills he learned as a skinny sore-plagued orphan in the squalid alleys of Buenos Aires, where he'd dodged death squads hired by local businessmen. The businessmen considered the street boys as vermin. Gonzalez was barely a teenager when he approached the shopkeepers and offered to infiltrate the packs he knew so well and quietly dispatch his sleeping peers with knife or garrote. As he grew older he obtained bigger jobs. Competitors. Politicians. Unfaithful spouses. All sent to an early grave. Gun. Knife. Torture. Gonzalez earned a reputation for delivering exactly what his employer wanted.

Blink.

A second circle of light revealed another muscular figure with a different mask, the snarling mouth and blood-red tongue of a jaguar.

Gonzalez again swore under his breath. Standing in the cold while some idiot puts on a costume pageant! It wasn't fair. All because he'd botched a few jobs. Business had been going to younger killers when the Brotherhood's emissary approached him. He didn't know the group even existed, but they knew everything about him. They wanted him for special assignments, and the aging hit man signed on eagerly. The money was good. The work wasn't difficult. Just like his street days. Wait for a call. Infiltrate and kill. Easy assignments. Like the one in Morocco.

Morocco. He wished he'd never heard the name.

A simple job, said the caller from Madrid. Unarmed, unsuspecting scientists. Infiltrate the expedition. Set up the ambush. Roust the victims from their beds, slaughter them like sheep, and quickly bury the bodies without a trace. If it hadn't been for that bitch with the Russian name! Jesus Mary, he'd had sweet plans for her. He would study that slim body hungrily watching as she sat in front of her tent combing hair the color of golden wheat in the afternoon sun. When they talked she was politely rude. Brushing hits off as if he were an ant crawling up one of those slender legs. He was going to enjoy making her beg for her life with the only thing she could offer, that gorgeous body.

But she hadn't been sleeping when he burst into her tent, and when he and the others gave chase she ran like the wind. Three times the Brotherhood had her in its grasp only to fail in its attempts to bring her down. The hovercraft failed to drown her. The hit squad sent to finish the job on the NUMA ship was either shot or incinerated, its only survivor the lone commando by his side.

The order to come to Texas wasn't a total surprise. Gonzalez assumed he'd get a sharp reprimand; have his pay docked, and be reassigned. Instead men with machine pistols had herded him with the others. After dark they were escorted out into the night and told to stand at attention. Warned they would be shot if they made a move or uttered a peep. So they had waited, listening to the howl of coyotes in the desert night air. Until now.

Blink A third figure stood in relief. He wore the death's head with its staring empty eyes and dead grin.

A voice came out of the night, amplified by loudspeakers. "Greetings, my brothers," it said in aristocratic Castilian Spanish.

"Greetings, Lord Halcon," echoed the murmured response from unseen voices.

"We know why we are here. Three of our number were given tasks to further our noble cause, and they have failed us." The voice paused. "The punishment for failure is death."

Here comes the bullet, Gonzalez thought. Oh, hell, it's been a good life. He braced himself for the hail of lead that must soon come smashing into his body, hoping that it would be quick. His feet hurt from the unaccustomed standing. He was surprised by a round object that flew out of the darkness and hit the ground with a bounce. Gonzalez thought the black-and-white sphere was a soccer ball until it rolled to a stop about midway between the two facing lines of men and he saw that its markings were images of skulls.

The voice again. "You will be given a chance to win your lives. The ball game will determine whether you live or die."

The spotlights blinked off. The three figures vanished. But only for a moment. A battery of bright lights came on, and Gonzalez saw that he and the others were standing between two parallel stone walls. The three costumed men had removed. their masks and stood at the far end of. the alley. Halfway down from the top of each wall was a ring carved with the face of what looked like a macaw. In the semidarkness on top of the wall he sensed people moving, hundreds from the sound of their voices.

"The ball represents fate," boomed the loudspeaker. "The court is the cosmos. The alligator, the jaguar, and the death's head symbolize the lords of the underworld, your opponents. The rules are as they have been for two thousand years. The lords will use their feet. You may use your hands and feet. Your goal will be to move the ball to the other end of the playing field. If any team moves the ball through a ring, that side wins. The losers will be vanquished."