Xibalba

CHAPTER 11

Isabella Beltran kept a firm grip on the saddle with her thighs, remaining perfectly erect as the stallion cut around the barrel, executed a three-quarter loop, and charged off again. She held the reins loosely, letting the animal do what it knew how to do, but ready to assert her authority if it needed a reminder. It did not.

Not anymore.

Early on, when she had first acquired him, she had been obliged to exert a much firmer hand, but now he not only knew who was in charge, but knew what he was supposed to do and did it without being goaded.

Animals seemed to learn that lesson so much better than humans.

They rounded the second barrel, but as the stallion started to gallop toward the next, she spotted Hector’s car rolling down the drive. She thought about finishing the practice run; it was what the stallion would expect and she hated to interrupt him since it would only confuse him the next time they rode, but knew that her uncle would not have made a second in-person appearance in as many days if the matter were not important. She tugged on the reins, turning the horse toward the fence at a trot as Hector pulled to a stop on the other side and got out to meet her.

He had been in her thoughts a lot of late, and not just because of the risk of what might be revealed if the cenote became public knowledge. The possibility that el Guia and the curse which clung to it might be real had brought all of Hector’s stories back to the surface, making her question the choices she had made.

She wanted her father, God rest his soul, to be proud of her, but had he wanted her to follow in his own footsteps, or her uncle’s?

“I thought you were going to call me,” she shouted. “Did you decide not to involve the federales?”

Hector looked pensive as he approached the fence. “The archaeologists managed to overpower the men I hired to deal with the situation.”

Isabella reined the horse to a stop, but did not dismount. “Do you need me to arrange an intervention?”

He shook his head. “The damage is done. I have decided to try a different approach. That’s not why I’m here.”

“The other matter? Honduras? Did someone really find el Guia?”

Hector would not meet her gaze. “They’re all gone.”

“Gone?”

“Dead.”

“What do you mean all? Everyone with the fever?”

“Everyone. The village is gone. Torched.”

Isabella stiffened. “You need to get control of your people, uncle.”

“It wasn’t… ” He hesitated. “The order did not come from me. I’m not certain what happened. There may be another player. Or… something else.”

“But you have lost control of the situation,” she snapped. She took a breath. “I’m sorry, Uncle, but you must realize how important it is to get this situation resolved.”

“I do,” he said. “I intend to take care of it personally.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Right now, just a way to get there quickly and discreetly.”

“Done.” That was the simplest thing he could have asked for. The cartel’s transportation network routinely moved both people and cargo — drugs, guns, cash — from Columbia to the Texas border and back again. “I will have Garcia make the arrangements.”

Hector looked her in the eye. “And something else. If something happens to me… ”

Isabella sucked in a breath. “Don’t say that.”

“El Guia must be recovered at any cost. You know this is true. And if I fall, you will have to finish this.”

Isabella stared back at him for several long seconds. “Whatever you need, Tio.”

Maddock hauled the man to his feet, gripping him by his shirtfront. “Hermandad de la Serpiente? Serpent brothers? What the hell does that mean?”

The man quavered in fear, but said nothing coherent.

“Who are these serpent brothers?” Maddock pushed, giving the man a shake. “Are you one of them?”

The man shook his head, but Maddock couldn’t tell if it was an answer or a plea for mercy.

The rest of the group was coming back up the path to join them. Griego looked dismayed, but did not intervene. Bones, however, moved in close, looming above the man. “Motor oil and wooden stakes,” he said with gleeful menace. “I’ll get him talking.”

“They paid me to warn you,” the man gasped. “That’s all I know.”

“Who paid you? Give me a name?”

“Nobody knows their names. They are the old one who guard Ciudad de Sombre.” The admission seemed to restore some of the man’s courage. “They won’t let you find it. They will kill you to protect the secret. I was sent to warn you.”

“The City of Shadow,” Maddock repeated. “You know about it?”

“Si. Everyone knows about it.”

“Starting to seem that way,” Bones muttered.

“Do you know where it is?”

The man shook his head again, emphatically, as if the question both frightened and offended him. “No one knows. The Shadow must remain hidden or the world will die.”

“The mumbo jumbo is strong with this one,” Bones said. “Let me handle this.”

“You’re not going to get anything from him,” Miranda said. “He’s just hired help. Like the guys that tried to rough us up back at the cenote.”

Maddock was inclined to agree. “At least now we know who’s behind it.”

“Serpent Brothers?” Bones was dubious. “Sounds like the name of the world’s worst boy band.”

Maddock relaxed his grip, holding the man at arm’s length. “Tell the Serpent Brothers that if they want us to stop looking, they’re going to have to stop with the threats and vague warnings, and meet with us, face to face. Got it?”

The man just stared back at him, goggle-eyed. Maddock held onto him a moment longer, then let go. The man stumbled back a few steps, then took off running, plunging into the trees and vanishing.

Bones frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “You sure that’s a good idea, Maddock?”

Maddock thought about the man’s dire warning—the Shadow must remain hidden or the world will die—and shook his head uncertainly. “I’m starting to wonder if any of this is a good idea.”

Doug Simpson read the report again, hoping that he had missed something the first time, but the results remained what they were.

The problem wasn’t the data. It was him. He was in over his head.

It had been foolish of him to think that he was up to a job like this, and indeed, when he had applied with the company, fresh out of the biotech program at UC Davis, he had not really expected to land the position. He was better suited to being a lab assistant, not head researcher, but the company was desperate for qualified personnel. The company was flush with cash, but nobody reputable wanted to work for them. There were rumors of unethical, even criminal behavior, but Simpson had ignored them. The scandals were yesterday’s news. The biotech world was fickle that way; today’s hero was tomorrow’s goat, and who could tell what next week would bring?

As far as his own qualifications were concerned… well, hell, research was all trial and error anyway, wasn’t it? He could handle that.

Now people were going to die because he couldn’t pull a miracle out of his ass.

The field team had brought back more than a dozen subjects. A sternly worded memo, straight from the boss’s desk, had directed that they be referred to that way — not victims or patients, but subjects. All were presently in isolation, under Bio-Safety Level IV conditions, each one receiving a different treatment regimen to knock out the as yet unidentified infection that was killing them all.

Disgusted, he pushed away from his computer workstation, and was about to head out for a cigarette when the door to the lab opened and the boss walked in, accompanied by the red-haired Latina who had led the field team. Simpson didn’t know her name; he wasn’t even sure if she actually worked for the company, or had been brought in as an outside contractor.

He jumped to his feet. “Mr. Sca—”

The boss raised his hands, cutting him off. “Doug, you know how I feel about that. My dad was Mister.”

Simpson gave a contrite nod. He was still having trouble getting used to the whole first-name basis policy. It just felt wrong, especially when addressing the head of the company, but the boss was insistent. Just as he insisted that the people in the isolation unit be referred to as subjects.

“Alex,” Simpson amended. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Sir?” Alex shook his head in feigned disgust. “That’s really not much better.” He did not introduce his female companion, but looked past Simpson, staring at the information displayed on the computer monitor. “How goes it?”

Simpson swallowed nervously. “Not good, I’m afraid. None of the therapies we’ve tried have had any effect. I mean, zip. Nada. We’ve lost three already, and two more are in bad shape. The others… ” He shook his head.

“None of the conventional treatments are working?” Alex said, though he didn’t sound at all disappointed. Simpson thought he actually sounded excited about the news. His face must have revealed his shock because Alex went on. “Don’t forget our mission, Doug. We’re innovators. The whole point is to develop a new therapy. It’s good that this thing beats everything else we’ve got. If it didn’t there wouldn’t be any need for something new. And we would all be out of a job.”

It was a rather cynical outlook, but Simpson understood. As terrible as this disease was, its resistance to the usual battery of drug treatments represented a singular opportunity in the highly-competitive biotech industry. The cure would be a silver bullet, effective not just for treating this disease, but potentially dozens more. And they would control the patent for it.

But only if he could find that cure.

“If we can’t find something that works in the next forty-eight hours,” Simpson replied, “we may be out of a job anyway. At least as far as this agent is concerned. The progression is like clockwork, and so far, we’re looking at 100 % mortality, though our sample size is admittedly very small. Aside from the obvious tragedy of that, it’s going to pose a real problem with the research.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re having difficulty culturing the agent outside of a living host. It evidently needs a very specific set of biological, chemical and physical conditions in which to propagate. Which means that when the last of the patients die, we won’t have a way to test any of our therapies.”

“What about lab animals? Rats? Monkeys?”

“The white mice seem to have a natural immunity. We suspect it has something to do with their naturally high metabolism. If that’s the case, we’d be looking at the same limitation with most small animals. We might have better luck with a larger primate — a chimpanzee for instance, but we don’t have any here.”

“Get some. I don’t care what it costs.”

“It’s not just a question of money. There are strict international rules governing the use of primates in research. Transparency is a big deal. We might be able to get a few through… um… unofficial channels, but that’s a very high-risk solution.”

“That sounds like an awful lot of trouble.” Alex frowned and glanced over at the red-haired woman. “Do you think you can locate a few more human subjects?”

Something about the casual way he said it sent a chill down Simpson’s spine.

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” the woman said. “But this is a waste of time. I told you. There is only one way to remove maldición de la sombra.”

Alex smiled broadly, showing lots of teeth. Simpson imagined crocodiles smiling like that just before they chomped on their prey. “So you keep telling me. But I need results sooner, rather than later. You go find your lost… whatever it is. And Doug here will keep pursuing his line of research. Maybe we’ll both get lucky.”

“Maybe it’s already burned itself out,” Simpson said, nervously. “That would be lucky.”

Alex turned to Simpson. “Don’t be such a gloomy Gus, Doug. We didn’t give the world death and disease. That was God’s doing. We’re just turning something bad into an opportunity.” He leaned closer. “You find the cure for this, and we’ll be the gods of a brave new world.”