The Codex

12

The car hummed northward through the San Juan Basin Desert toward the Utah border, along a vast and lonely highway between endless prairies of sagebrush and chamisa. Shiprock towered in the distance, a dark thrust of stone into blue sky. Tom, driving, felt a great relief that it was over. He had done what he promised, he had helped Sally find out where his father had gone. What she did next was up to her. She could either wait until his brothers came out of the jungle with the Codex — provided they found the tomb — or she could try to catch up to them herself. He, at least, was now out of it. He could get back to his life of peace and simplicity in the desert.

He cast a surreptitious glance at her sitting in the passenger seat. She had been silent for the past hour. She hadn’t said what her plans were, and Tom wasn’t sure he wanted to know. All he wanted to do was get back to his horses, to the routine of the clinic, to his cool adobe house shaded by cottonwoods. He had worked hard at creating the undemanding life he wanted, and he was more determined than ever not to let his father and his crazy schemes overturn it. Let his brothers have the adventure and, if they wanted, let them even keep the inheritance. He had nothing to prove. After Sarah, he wasn’t about to jump into deep water again.

“So he went to Honduras,” Sally said. “You still have no idea, no guess, as to where?”

“I’ve told you all I know, Sally. Forty years ago he spent some time in Honduras with his old partner, Marcus Hauser, looking for tombs and picking bananas to earn money. They got swindled, so I heard, buying a fake treasure map of some kind, and they spent a few months tramping through the jungle and nearly died. They had some kind of falling-out, and that was that.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t find anything?”

“That’s what he always said. The mountains of southern Honduras were uninhabited.”

She nodded, her eyes looking ahead at the empty desert.

“So what are you going to do?” Tom finally asked.

“I’m going to Honduras.”

“All by yourself?”

“Why not?”

Tom said nothing. What she did was her business.

“Did your father ever get in trouble for looting tombs?”

“The FBI investigated him on and off over the years. Nothing stuck. Father was too smart. I remember once when the agents raided our house and seized some jade figurines my father had just brought back from Mexico. I was ten at the time, and it scared the hell out of me, the agents pounding on the door before dawn. But they couldn’t prove anything and had to return all the stuff.”

Sally shook her head. “People like your father are a menace to archaeology.”

“I’m not sure I see a big difference between what my father did and what archaeologists do.”

“There’s a big difference,” said Sally. “Looters wreck a site. They remove things from their context. A dear friend of Professor Clyve was beaten in Mexico while trying to stop some local villagers from looting a temple.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but you can’t blame starving people for trying to feed their children — and taking exception to some norteamericano coming down and telling them what to do.”

Sally set her lip, and Tom could see she was angry. The car hummed along the shimmering asphalt. Tom cranked up the A/C. He would be glad when this was over. He didn’t need a complication like Sally Colorado in his life.

Sally shook her heavy gold hair back from her head, unleashing a faint scent of perfume and shampoo. “There’s something still bothering me. I just can’t get it out of my head.”

“What’s that?”

“Barnaby and Fenton. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that right after they investigate your father’s so-called robbery they come up dead? There’s something about the timing of their ‘accident’ that I don’t like.”

Tom shook his head. “Sally, it’s just one of those coincidences.”

“It doesn’t feel right to me.”

“I know the Ski Basin Road, Sally. Nun’s Corner is a hellacious curve. They aren’t the first ones to get killed there.”

“What were they doing on the Ski Basin Road? Ski season’s over.”

Tom sighed. “If you’re so worried, why don’t you call that policeman, Hernandez, and find out?”

“I will.” Sally slipped her cell phone out of her bag and dialed. Tom listened while she was transferred half a dozen times, from one slack receptionist to the next, until she finally reached Hernandez.

“This is Sally Colorado,” she said. “You remember us?”

Pause.

“I wanted to ask you a question about Barnaby and Fenton’s death.”

Another pause.

“Why did they go up there to the ski basin?”

A very long wait. Tom found himself trying to listen, although he felt it was a waste of time.

“Yes, it was tragic,” Sally said. “And where were they about to go on this fishing trip?”

A final silence.

“Thanks.”

Sally slowly shut the phone and looked at Tom. Tom felt a knot in his stomach; her face had gone pale.

“They went up to the ski basin to check on a report of vandalism. Turned out to be phony. Their brakes failed on the way down. They tried to slow themselves down by banking off the guard rails, but the road was just too steep. When they reached Nun’s Corner they were going close to ninety.”

“Jesus.”

“There wasn’t much left of the car after the four-hundred-foot drop and explosion. No foul play is suspected. It was especially tragic, coming as it did the day before Barnaby and Fenton were about to go on the tarpon-fishing trip of a lifetime.”

Tom swallowed and asked the question he didn’t want to ask. “Where?”

“Honduras. A place called Laguna de Brus.”

Tom slowed, checked his rearview mirror, and with a screech of tires, manipulating both the brakes and the gas, pulled a one-eighty.

“Are you crazy? What are you doing?”

“Going to the nearest airport.”

“Why?”

“Because someone who would kill police officers could sure as hell kill my two brothers.”

“You think someone found out about the hidden inheritance?”

“Absolutely.” He accelerated toward the vanishing point on the horizon. “Looks like we’re going to Honduras. Together.”