Xibalba

CHAPTER 5

Isabella Beltran looked up from the computer screen as the door to her office opened. She felt an immediate surge of anger. Her orders were explicit and not open to interpretation; when she was working, she was not to be disturbed for any reason. When she saw the face of the man who had dared to breach the sanctity of her workspace, her anger quieted to something more like irritation.

“What do you want, tio?”

Hector Canul strode forward until he was standing right in front of her desk, and stared down at her with his customary supercilious contempt. “We have a problem, Isabella.”

“I told you before. Your problems are not my problems.”

“This time, they are. An American archaeologist has found Cenote el Guia.”

“So?”

She immediately regretted her dismissive tone. Canul was the brother of her deceased father though the two men could not have been more unalike. Hector had the dark skin and broad flat features common to Mexico’s indigenous population, while Raul — and Isabella, herself — favored the Spanish blood in their mixed ancestry. Hector had immersed himself in his ethnic Maya heritage, while Isabella’s father had opted to carve out a place for himself in one of Mexico’s new dominant empires, the Gulf Cartel.

It was rare for the descendant of indigenous people to achieve any sort of stature within the drug cartels. The narcos typically saw the rural natives as a labor force to be enslaved but never respected, but Raul, perhaps because of his ambiguous physical appearance, had defied those expectations, rising through the ranks of the organization and even marrying the daughter of a senior cartel lieutenant. Yet, despite their differences, Raul had always been deferential to his brother’s religious and cultural beliefs, even permitting Hector to train Isabella in the traditions of their people.

After Raul’s death, Isabella mother had married Jesus Beltran, the number two man in the Gulf Cartel, but while Isabella had been obliged to take her step-father’s name, she felt compelled to honor the choices her real father had made. And even though she had achieved a stature in the organization that her father never dared aspire to, not only supplanting her step-father, but taking control of the cartel’s operations on the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, Uncle Hector was always welcome in her house.

“This isn’t the first time someone has stumbled upon it,” Isabella went on. “Why don’t you just do what you usually do?”

“I sent two men,” Canul said. “They failed.”

“Send two more. Send five.”

“It is not enough. There are more of them now. They have already dived on the cenote. It is only a matter of time before they find the bodies. They will contact the authorities, and that will be a problem for both of us.”

Isabella frowned. Hector was not wrong. Unlike her late step-father and his predecessors, she favored good business practices over cruelty and violence, but sometimes it was necessary to deal harshly with enemies and turncoats in her own ranks. Disappearing them — not simply killing them, but making them vanish off the face of the earth — was one of the most effective ways to assert dominance and keep the wolves at bay. The uncharted cenote, known only to her uncle and a few others who followed the old ways, was the perfect place to make that happen, but if those bodies were found, everything she had built, everything she had fought for, would be undone. “What do you want me to do?”

“I can deal will the archaeologists, but the federales will investigate their disappearance. The search must not lead them to Cenote el Guia.”

“I will take care of the federales.”

Hector bowed his head. “Thank you.”

Isabella expected her uncle to leave, but he remained where he was. “Is there something else?”

The man was silent for a long time as if weighing the importance of the matter. “It is probably just a coincidence.”

“Say what you have to say, tio.”

“There are reports… rumors, really. Of a strange affliction. A fever that causes delirium and hemorrhaging.”

“I have not heard these rumors.”

“Not here. It is happening in northern Honduras, not far from the ruins of Copán.” Hector paused a moment, then added. “It may be that el Giua has been found.”

Isabella drew in a sharp breath. She had never really believed her uncle’s stories, but the location was right, as were the symptoms he had described.

“The fever is spreading,” Hector went on. “The villagers have begun calling it El Cadejo Negro. The Devil’s black dog.” He shrugged. “That may be just another coincidence.”

“You don’t believe that,” Isabella said. She narrowed her eyes at him. “If someone has found el Guia, we must act quickly.”

Hector, inexplicably, smiled.

“What?” Isabella asked. “You disagree?”

“Not at all. It pleases me that you said, ‘We.’”

Maria drove only as far as the main highway, where she could get a signal on her mobile phone, and placed a call to the Ministry of Health.

Her boss at the ministry had responded exactly as she expected him to — moving from disbelief to denial to helplessness. Yes, he would declare a medical emergency, and have army troops enforce the quarantine, but there was little he could do for the afflicted. The government could barely afford to pay doctors like Maria the pittance they currently received; there certainly wasn’t the money, resources or manpower available to combat an infectious disease outbreak. He would have to enlist resources from outside the poor Central American nation, and to do that, he would have to make his case directly to the president.

He spoke rapidly, repeating himself several times. Maria could tell he was trying to avoid the subject of her own health, and the likelihood that she had also been exposed to the pathogen. Truth be told, she was too, but there was cause for hope. She had not had direct contact with any of the infected — well, except for the old woman, and that had only been in passing.

Was skin to skin contact a vector? She had no idea.

Honduras had its share of tropical diseases — most mosquito-borne, like malaria and Zika — but this was something else. The first step toward battling it would be to get more information about how it was spreading, and the only way to do that was to return to the hot zone.

She cut short the call and turned the Land Cruiser around, heading back up the mountain road. As she neared the village, she encountered a man walking down the road toward her.

First, they wander.

She stopped in the middle of the road, fifty feet from the man. As he shambled closer, she donned a pair of gloves and a mask, and got out to meet him.

“Curandera!” the man called out, as if greeting an old friend.

“Buenos tardes, señor. What are you doing out here?”

The man’s forehead creased in an uncertain frown. “I… ” He shook his head as if unable to think of a reason. “I was looking for you. There is a sickness in the village.”

Maria could tell he was grasping for an excuse to explain his behavior, and made a mental note of the symptom. A high fever could explain erratic behavior, but the man did not appear to be in the grip of delirium. His eyes were red as if irritated by some allergen, but otherwise he appeared to be in decent health. It was as if his body had decided to take him for a walk, and now his brain was trying to come up with a rationale for the compulsion.

But what kind of disease made people want to go for a walk?

“Yes,” she said. “I know. That’s why I am here. Will you take me to the village and show me where the sick people are?”

The man looked hesitant. “I really should… ” He frowned again.

“Please. I just want to help.”

He took another step as if the urge to keep moving was irresistible.

Maria decided to change tactics. “Tell me about El Cadejo.”

The man stopped again. “The dog?”

“Did you see it? Did Diego show you?”

“No. He hid it somewhere. Only a few men saw it. All dead now. I helped bury them.”

She had held out hope that all of the infected might have received exposure from some toxin on the artifact Diego had discovered, but if the dog-shaped bowl was gone, it meant the affliction was being transmitted from person to person.

She needed to know more about how the disease progressed. “How long ago did they die? When did you bury them?”

“Diego died three days ago.” He took another step. “I should go. I need to—” He broke off with a strangled sound and then was gripped by a coughing fit. The paroxysm lasted only a few seconds, but when the man straightened again, there was blood on his lips.

Three days, Maria thought. Was that how long it took for an exposed person to begin exhibiting the first symptom — compulsive movement — with bloody phlegm following almost immediately thereafter? She needed to know more.

The man immediately resumed walking and Maria made no further effort to dissuade him. It would take him hours to reach the highway, if he did not collapse along the way. By that time, the army would have the road blocked to enforce the quarantine. She got back in the Land Cruiser and continued to the village. She found the house with the four patients who were showing advanced-stage symptoms, and began gathering as much data about them and the progression of the disease as she could. She took blood samples, even though there was no way to test them, and started IV fluid infusions for all but the sickest man — the one who was swollen like a bloated corpse and closest to death. More fluids weren’t going to help him. When she palpated his organs, they felt mushy, as if partially liquefied. His breathing was erratic with long breathless episodes of apnea, followed by rapid, labored inhalations.

She doubted he could survive until nightfall.

After a while, more patients were brought in, all of them feverish and coughing blood, some babbling incoherently. At first, Maria ignored their ravings, but then she realized that all of them kept repeating the same phrases, or at least making the same incomprehensible sounds.

On an impulse, she took a closer look at the symbols scribbled on the floor by the other patients. They weren’t identical, but the similarities were nonetheless astonishing. They also looked familiar, though she couldn’t say where she had seen them before. As she attempted to sketch a rough facsimile of the symbols, it occurred to her that she was now doing the same thing as the infected.

The sickest man let out a long, rattling exhalation that seemed to go on forever, like a balloon deflating completely. His head lolled to the side and dark blood dribbled from his mouth and nose. Maria knew he was dead. She crossed herself, and then rose to check his vitals just to be sure but before she could, the woman standing guard on the porch called out to her.

“Curandera, someone is coming.”

For a moment, Maria thought the woman meant more infected patients were being brought in, but then she heard the noise of helicopter rotors beating the air.

She ventured outside and saw, not one but several large dual rotor helicopters approaching from the south. Four of them had what appeared to be military-style Humvees dangling beneath them.

Evidently the president had not wasted any time mobilizing the army.

Within just a few minutes, the first of the helicopters — one that was not carrying a slung vehicle — settled on the road. Even before it was down, a squad of men — presumably soldiers — wearing full environment suits and carrying assault rifles jumped from a lowered cargo ramp in the rear of the aircraft. The helicopter took off quickly, making room for the next aircraft to perform a similar touch-and-go landing.

The Humvees came next. The vehicles were painted black, like the helicopters, with no markings. Maria watched, dumbfounded, as hazmat-suited soldiers climbed into the Humvees and drove off down the mountain road in both directions. When the road was clear, the helicopters began setting down, one in front of another, like a line of school buses. Their rotors continued to spin, hot exhaust pouring from their turbines. The rest of the soldiers, too many for Maria to count, fanned out through the village in small groups. One of the groups seemed to be heading straight for her.

She stepped forward to identify herself, but the soldiers brandished their rifles at her and she froze. A suited figure stepped out of the group, but it was only when the person was standing right in front of her that Maria saw it was a woman — a light-skinned woman with red hair.

“Are you in charge?” the woman asked. She spoke Spanish, but her accent marked her as from somewhere outside Honduras.

“I don’t know if I’m in charge,” Maria said, “but I am a doctor with the Ministry of Health. I called for the quarantine.”

Behind the Perspex face shield, the woman’s expression was unreadable. She nodded to the house behind Maria. “Are there infected inside?”

“Yes. One just died. Three more are in an advanced stage. The others are less advanced but still critical.”

The woman turned away without acknowledging Maria, and addressed the soldiers. “We’ve got multiple subjects in here. Secure them for transport.”

Maria gasped in surprise when she heard the woman speak in English. “Are you from the American CDC?” she asked haltingly in the same language.

“Something like that,” the woman turned away as the soldiers pushed past Maria, moving into the house.

Further down the road, the soldiers were rounding up groups of villagers by the roadside even though they did not appear to be showing any signs of infection. Maria knew she ought to feel relieved by the swift and overwhelming response, but instead she was frightened, and not just because of the strange disease.

After a few minutes, a pair of soldiers emerged from the house, carrying one of the late-stage infected patients on a litter between them. The woman in the hazmat suit stopped them and after a quick assessment, signaled for them to continue. The soldiers took the patient to the helicopter and disappeared inside. One by one, the rest of the infected were brought out on litters, along with the body of the recently deceased man.

Maria approached the woman again. “Where are you taking them?”

The woman held up a hand to silence her, and Maria realized she was speaking to someone using a telephone or radio headset. Maria couldn’t hear either side of the exchange, but after the last of the patients was transferred to the waiting helicopter, the woman called out to one of the soldiers. “We've got what we need. Clean it up.”