Xibalba

CHAPTER 24

As Kasey set the helicopter down near the gravel runway of the Poptun Airport, Maddock spied a beat-up Toyota Land Cruiser emblazoned with the logo of a regional adventure-tour company. The vehicle would normally have been driven by a guide in the employ of the company, but it seemed wise to keep involvement with the locals to a minimum. Naj Tunich was a tour destination, but the cave itself was off limits to the public. Trying to arrange for permission to explore the cave would have been time-consuming and expensive, not to mention very public, so the best option was sneaking in. Not surprisingly, for the right price the tour company operator had been willing to negotiate a “self-guided tour” option. As long as Kasey and the CIA were picking up the tab, Maddock wasn’t going to complain.

Kasey stayed behind with the helicopter, standing by in the event that Maddock and the others needed a quick extraction. The cave was only about ten miles away — on the map at least — but it still took more than an hour of navigating rugged dirt roads up into the Maya Mountains to reach their destination, which was marked with a blue sign that read “Bienvenido. Sita Arqueologico: Cuevas Naj Tunich.” Because the site was relatively close to a populated area, flying directly there would have attracted unwanted attention, so driving in seemed a prudent decision, especially since their cover as Red Cross aid workers wouldn’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny. The wisdom of this decision was manifest when, as they were making the short hike into the forest to the cave entrance, Maddock heard the distinctive thump of helicopter rotors beating the sky overhead. The jungle canopy blocked his view of the sky, but he paused to listen as the sound grew louder and then gradually diminished as the aircraft passed by and continued on its way.

“That sounded close,” Angel said.

“And big,” Bones added. “Like a Chinook.”

Maddock had been thinking the same thing. Chinook was the NATO designation for the Boeing CH-47 military cargo helicopter. The two former SEALs had taken more than a few rides in the back of Chinook helicopters which were frequently used to ferry troops to and from their mission objective. With a fuselage that looked a little like a city bus under its tandem rotors, the bird had enough room for fifty passengers, and could even transport vehicles if the situation demanded.

“There’s a Guatemalan special forces training facility near Poptun. That’s probably all it is.”

Yet, despite this seeming dismissal, Maddock’s thoughts kept going back to Copán, and the red-haired woman who had somehow arrived there ahead of them. It seemed likely that she was working for Alex Scano, and Tam’s revelation that ScanoGen was operating in Honduras, at least partially explained her presence at the site, but it still seemed a little too coincidental.

The entrance appeared abruptly, rising out of the forest floor with almost no warning, a gaping shadowy fissure in the limestone, a hundred feet high and about five times as wide. Millennia of tropical rain had eroded the stone into freestanding pillars that seemed to erupt from the ground, and the hanging wall above was studded with thousands of dangling stalactites, all of which gave the impression of teeth in the gaping jaws of an enormous leviathan.

This similarity was not lost on any of them.

“The Serpent’s Maw,” Bell murmured.

Bones just shook his head. “Here we go again.”

The helicopter that had passed overhead was not technically a Chinook, but a civilian variant — with the rather prosaic designation of Model 414—one of several leased to ScanoGen Pharmaceuticals for use in their “humanitarian” mission to Honduras. The 414 was a workhorse, with none of the luxury that Alex Scano was accustomed to, but there wasn’t enough room in the executive helicopter for everyone, so just this once, Alex was riding coach. It wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat.

The security contractors were okay, if a bit intense. Carina’s men, with their teeth filed to points and their tattoos gave him the heebie-jeebies, but what was really going to give him nightmares was the way they had tenderized that old Maya dude in the jungle.

Carina had the tattoos as well, though they were mostly covered by her blouse and military-style cargo pants, but at least she hadn’t filed her teeth down. He kind of dug chicks with ink and piercings, but a mouthful of shark teeth would have been a bridge too far.

The rear cargo ramp was down, which not only allowed air to circulate through the cabin, keeping them relatively cool, but also gave the passengers a panoramic view of the landscape as it passed beneath them. For the most part, it had been an unbroken sea of green, but as they approached their destination, Alex noted a patchwork of fields and roads, and then as the helicopter made its approach to the airport, the neighborhoods of Poptun.

As the airstrip came into view, Carina jumped up and ran to open door. She lingered there for only a moment, then ran over to one of the crewmen, shouting something. Alex was content to let her take charge until, without any warning, the helicopter banked and began rapidly moving away from the airfield.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“They’re already here,” Carina replied, her eyes flashing dangerously.

“They who?”

“Maddock’s group. The people traveling with your contact.”

Alex glanced out the open back end of the transport aircraft and saw the smaller helicopter parked at the airport, shrinking into the distance. He knew all about Dane Maddock, the man that helped the treacherous Tam Broderick take down his father, nearly destroying ScanoGen in the process. So far, Dane Maddock’s activities hadn’t posed a real threat to the endeavor. In fact, the treasure hunters helping Charles Bell had unknowingly blazed the trail for ScanoGen, but with the goal in sight, they might prove more of a hindrance.

So?” he asked, returning his gaze to Carina. “All the more reason for us to set down now.”

Carina shook her head. “What was it you said before? We’re going to skip a few steps.”

The mouth of the Naj Tunich cave was a vast open area, mostly flat, except where archaeologists had dug exploratory trenches. Bell explained that, in the heyday of the Maya Empire, thousands of worshippers would have gathered on the floor of the cave while the priests performed rituals on a terrace above them. The excavations supported this hypothesis; the floor was actually composed of artifacts, pottery and other litter, cemented into place by subsequent centuries of mineralized water dripping down from above.

“Some of the local Maya still worship here,” Bell said, pointing to the remnants of a stone fire circle.

“They still worship the old gods?” Maddock said. “I thought the native religions were mostly extinct.”

“The arrival of the Christian conquistadors forced practitioners of the old faith underground,” Bell said with a wry smile. “If you’ll pardon the obvious pun. But those traditions are deeply rooted in their culture.”

At the back of the cathedral-like mouth of the cave, the explorers had to climb a steep retaining wall, built by the Maya to preserve the passage into the deeper reaches of the cave. Maddock and Bones took the lead in order to help Bell up the incline. As Angel scrambled up to join them, Bones used a pry bar to pop the lock on the gate erected by the Guatemalan government.

As they stood there, poised to begin the descent into the confines of the cave, Maddock could feel a breeze on his face, rising out of the cave, as if it were breathing. “This place really is alive,” he mused.

“It was to the Maya,” Bell said, wheezing a little as he struggled to catch his breath after the climb.

If the entrance to the cave was the breathing maw of a living beast, then what lay beyond was the throat — a cramped, hundred-yard long passage, sloping down into the depths. Although there were adequate handholds and steps cut into the limestone, the rock was slick with moisture. Fortunately, previous expeditions had left behind a fixed safety line which Bell clung to as he made his way down.

The initial descent ended at a chilly pool where mineralized water flowing down the far wall had created lobes of glass-like flowstone that glittered in the beams of their lights. The effect was spectacular, but there was little time to stop and appreciate it. The vertical shaft, which Bell believed would lead them to the realm of Xibalba, lay at the end of a long arterial passage, more than two miles beyond.

As they splashed through the pool, Bones shouted over his shoulder, “Hey, Miranda, be sure to keep your phone dry.”

Angel moved closer to Maddock, embracing him in a seemingly spontaneous display of affection, but as she brought her face close to his, she whispered, “Bones is really giving her a hard time about the phone. I can tell when he’s busting chops. This is something else. What’s up?”

Maddock shook his head. “Maybe nothing.”

“Dane. Come on. No secrets between us.”

He glanced over at Miranda who was helping Bell across the pool. “She’s always on that phone. That’s a bad habit for an intelligence officer. Unless it’s something else. ScanoGen got to Copán ahead of us. I gave Miranda the wrong coordinates to the City of Shadow, and nobody bothered us.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“No, it doesn’t. That’s why I’m going to keep right on being careful around her.”

Angel drew back a little, one eyebrow raised accusingly. “I don’t buy it. This is her father’s expedition. Why would she risk it… risk his life? Are you sure this isn’t just because she likes girls?”

“I’m sure.” He was certain of that much, but he wasn’t as certain about his suspicions. All he really had was a lot of assumptions. The near-encounter at Copán might have been a mere coincidence, just like the Chinook fly-by was probably nothing.

In any event, it didn’t matter now. They were well outside the mobile coverage area, and even if Miranda had possessed a satellite phone — which she did not — the signal wouldn’t get through the tons of rock surrounding them.

They continued through passages adorned with Mayan glyphs and paintings that depicted human sacrifices and bloodletting rituals, as well as graphic sexual images. Bones could not resist commenting on one painting that depicted a naked Maya couple embracing in preparation for intercourse. The male figure sported an enormous phallus which was thrusting toward the belly of the female figure. The detail of the stylized image left little to the imagination.

“I’ll bet that guy was a god,” he remarked.

“You’ll like this one, Mr. Bonebrake,” Bell said, pointing to another painting of a squatting man.

“A guy taking a crap?” Bones said, raising a dubious eyebrow.

“Not exactly. This is a depiction of a bloodletting ritual. The Maya believed that there was great power in blood, so when a king wanted the fertility gods to bless him with a child, he would drive a bone needle or a stingray spine through his penis as an offering.”

If Bones was shocked by this, he didn’t let on. Instead, he just grinned. “Hey Maddock, sounds like Kyle Olsen?” Even though he had pitched the question to Maddock, he turned so that he was facing Miranda. “This guy in our platoon had a Prince Albert piercing. When he got drunk, he’d whip it out and put a carabiner through it, then hang heavy stuff from it.”

“That’s hot,” Miranda replied, deadpan but with a wicked gleam in her eye. “You should get one.”

“As much as I love a trip down memory lane,” Maddock said, “we should probably keep moving.”

“Dane,” Angel called out. “Everyone. Look at this.”

She was pointing to another glyph further down the wall and apparently all by itself. The image was more weathered than the explicit sex scene, but was nonetheless instantly recognizable.

It was the same canine figure depicted on the golden guidestone they had found in the cenote in Mexico, except this dog was facing to the side, in profile, with one paw extended as if to point the way, pointing deeper into the cave.

“I guess we’re in the right place,” Maddock said.

They continued down the winding passage, finding more of the guide glyphs wherever the passage branched off in more than one direction. At a few points, the passage narrowed to the point where they were forced to move single file. Bones had to unsling his pack just to scrape through.

A short almost vertical descent dropped them down into a cavern with adjoining passages to the left and right. Directly ahead was a ledge that overlooked a seemingly bottomless abyss. The shaft was not very wide, in fact, it was barely larger than the diameter of a chimney, but was so deep that their lights could not reach the bottom. On the back wall of the shaft was another guide glyph, this one pointing straight down.

“I suspected the guide glyphs were leading us here,” Bell said. “We’re in the section called the Cave of the Underworld. The Naj Tunnel leads out of here and back to a cavern called ‘the Quiet Way.’ But this… ” He gestured to the vertical shaft. “This was the sacrificial well. A cenote of sorts. A passage into the Underworld.”

“A regular highway to Hell,” Bones muttered.

“I suppose if you were at the bottom of it, you’d call it a stairway to Heaven. The Maya thought of caves as both. They believed that at night, the sun descended into a cave in the west, traveled underground and then emerged from another in the east at dawn. As you can imagine, it’s not a place where mortals are exactly welcome. To the best of my knowledge, only one expedition has reached the bottom, and they were only able to spend a few minutes down there.”

“Why?” Angel asked.

“I believe one of their team members was injured, forcing them to hasten their exit. There was also a problem with the air. High carbon dioxide levels, possibly from some decaying organic matter.”

Maddock had anticipated this problem when Bell had first mentioned the five hundred foot deep shaft earlier in the day. In addition to all their other gear, he had brought along a low-tech CO2 detector — a cheap disposable cigarette lighter he’d picked up in Belize City. He took it out and spun the wheel with his thumb, producing a bright yellow flame. “Old caver trick,” he said. “As long as it’s burning yellow, there’s enough oxygen in the air. If the flame burns blue, we might have to turn back.”

Angel leaned out over the shaft and made a face. “You know, we probably shouldn’t have left poor Kasey all by herself at the airport. Is it too late to change my mind about this?”

Maddock just blew her a kiss.

They had brought along two SCUBA rigs and a single bottle of compressed air, just in case it proved necessary to swim through flooded passages. In a pinch, they could buddy breathe, just as they had done in the City of Shadow, but the supply wouldn’t last long enough for a prolonged excursion. If they ran into befouled air, they would probably have to cut their investigations short. Maddock doubted it would be a problem as long as the was air moving up from the depths.

With help from Miranda, who had almost as much rope training as a SEAL, Maddock and Bones rigged up a fixed line — the first of several pitches that would be required to reach the bottom. There was a reason the passage had confounded earlier expeditions. They would be descending about forty-five stories — half the height of the Eiffel Tower — and getting down would be the easy part. They had brought along over a thousand feet of rope, which when combined with the rest of the climbing equipment and the SCUBA gear, represented a lot of weight. Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to pack it any further.

He just hoped Bell’s remark about mortals not being welcome in the Underworld would not prove too prophetic. Descending the shaft might well prove to be the easiest part of the day.