The Eye of Heaven

11

Sam, check this out,” Remi called, the morning’s second cup of coffee cooling on her desk beside her oversize monitor.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

“Quetzalcoatl.”

“The feathered serpent god of the Aztecs?”

“Also called Votan by the Mayans.”

“And?”

“He’s described as being white, with red hair … and cross-eyed,” Remi said.

“Cross-eyed?”

“Yes. More interestingly, in the Viking sagas that were compiled in the fourteenth century, a Viking explorer named Ari Marson, who was a redhead and was cross-eyed, disappeared around A.D. 980 on his way to Greenland. According to the saga, he was worshipped as a god in a new land ten days’ sail from Vinland.”

“Vinland, eh? And where might that be?”

“According to different accounts, anywhere from Baffin Island to the northeast part of the U.S.”

Sam did a quick calculation. “That would put his landing spot south of the U.S. Which could mean Mexico.”

“Possibly. Some accounts speculate it might have been Cuba. And there are also stories of Quetzalcoatl coming from the east to the Mexican mainland — from Cuba.”

“Interesting. What’s that?” Sam asked, pointing at another image on the screen.

“It’s an image of Quetzalcoatl as a white man with a beard.”

“But I thought that the worship of Quetzalcoatl was far older than the tenth century.”

“It was,” Remi agreed, “but there was a great deal of confusion when the Spanish arrived. They got a lot wrong, and that was complicated by the religious climate in Europe. So they simply changed things they didn’t like.”

“And the victors get to write the history books.”

“Exactly — and as far as the dates in the sagas go, those are considered unreliable, too. In other words, 980 could have been 1080 and simply been changed during one telling in its oral tradition — or whoever drafted the written account could have remembered it wrong.”

Sam nodded. “But back to Vikings on the East Coast. Do I not recall a Viking coin being found in Maine back in the fifties?”

“I saw that, too. There’s still some debate about whether it’s a hoax or not.”

“There’s always debate. That’s what makes this so much fun. Cutting through all the opinions and guesswork and discovering the truth.”

Remi leaned back. “If we take this at face value, then it’s possible that Quetzalcoatl was, in fact, a Viking.”

“In some accounts, he came from the east in longships with shields on the sides. And among the many forms of knowledge he brought was the use of metal — specifically, iron — which the Vikings were expert at. Maybe we should be focusing on this Quetzalcoatl fellow.”

Remi nodded. “I’m way ahead of you. But this gets even more confusing. A famous ruler of the Toltecs in the eleventh century was either believed to be a reincarnation of Quetzalcoatl or was deified as a god. Again, that’s largely speculative, because the Aztecs eradicated most of the Toltec records. But this ruler, Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl, ruled the Toltec capital of Tollan, which is now called Tula, in central Mexico. He was credited with bringing all sorts of knowledge to the Toltecs, including growing corn and working with metal, and improving their masonry skills by quantum leaps. And he’s referred to in some accounts as being a white man with a beard who favored long robes and animal skins.”

“My head’s starting to hurt.”

“I know. It’s like trying to grab a greased eel.”

“Still, that’s positive as a starting point.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m thinking we pull up everything we can on this ruler Quetzalcoatl and drill down from there,” Sam said, returning to his desk.

“That’s as good a plan as any. I’ll get the crew on it.”

The next three days were spent digging deeper into the legends surrounding the enigmatic leader of the Toltecs. His reign became the dominant force in central Mexico. The few codices that purported to tell the story of the Mesoamerican civilizations were of limited help and seemed to contradict one another in more than a few places. But eventually a few threads gelled into a common theme. Around A.D. 1000, a ruler had emerged who transformed Toltec society. He introduced amazing leaps in technology, and was often described as resembling a white man, although other accounts had him native-born.

At ten o’clock in the evening, after another long stint of poring over the data, Sam’s pulse quickened as he read an obscure tome that chronicled a legend associated with Quetzalcoatl. He was buried with a treasure unlike any ever seen, with all manner of jade and gold artifacts. The crowning item, a magnificent jewel, was considered as much of a legend as that of El Dorado, the city of gold: the Eye of Heaven, a flawless emerald offered from the Toltecs as tribute to the powerful ruler, rumored to be the size of a man’s heart and possessed of magical properties.

The account was long on hyperbole but short on detail, and chronicled numerous hunts by the Spanish to locate the tomb, all of which ended in failure. Over time, the excitement had faded and the rumor was discounted as one of many that the conquering Europeans had concocted in a bid to secure investors for exploration.

But one thing stood out for Sam: the detailed description of Quetzalcoatl. In this account, he was an old man who died of natural causes, his heavy red beard laced with gray, and he was laid out in a jade-and-gold casket and entombed in a holy place that would forever remain secret.

To an accomplished treasure hunter, the mention of a hidden tomb with undreamed-of riches was like waving a red cape in front of a snorting bull. Sam shut off his monitors for the evening and made his way back upstairs, where Remi had retired an hour earlier. He felt a familiar buzz of anticipation — one that had rarely led him wrong in the past.

He told Remi about his discovery as they sat sipping snifters of Rémy Martin XO cognac by the open doors, the ocean dark other than for the twinkle of distant lights from the occasional vessel working its way north from San Diego Harbor. By the time Sam finished telling her about Quetzalcoatl’s lost tomb, Remi was also excited.

Three hundred yards offshore, near one of the vast kelp beds that hugged the shore, a twenty-eight-foot fishing boat was anchored. Anyone scrutinizing it would have seen two men with their rods in the water doing some night fishing. A more careful study might have noted a directional microphone pointed at the open door of a home on the bluff, and noted a third man in the lower cabin, sitting with headphones on, listening to every word being spoken inside the Fargos’ bedroom.

But there was nobody to notice the men on the boat. The discussion was being recorded and would later be analyzed, along with countless others, and then forwarded to the client. The operatives were seasoned surveillance professionals, well versed in eavesdropping and corporate espionage.