Xibalba

CHAPTER 8

As Bones and Maddock secured the four attackers with zip-ties and heavy tape, Miranda and Angel tended to Charles Bell. He had a one-inch gash in his right temple, courtesy of a savage pistol-whipping administered by the thug with the big gun. The blow had knocked him out cold, but he roused easily and reported none of the worrisome symptoms that would indicate a concussion. The wound was shallow but bloody. Fortunately, Angel knew a thing or two about wound care. She cleaned the laceration with bottled water and closed it with butterfly sutures from the first aid kit they had packed in.

Miranda glanced over at the row of captives, and pointed to one of them. “This is the guy that was running away when you showed up.”

“His buddies made it here awfully fast,” Maddock remarked.

Although they were only about ten miles from the coastal resort city of Tulum, the cenote was in a remote corner of the archaeological preserve, accessible only by primitive Jeep trails and a two-mile cross-country hike.

“What are we supposed to do with them?” Miranda asked.

Bones fixed one of the men — the one that had earlier menaced Angel and was presumably their leader — and nodded his head toward the cenote. “I say we just make ‘em disappear.”

Maddock knew that his friend wasn’t seriously proposing cold-blooded murder, but their captives didn’t know that. The local man went pale and shouted something into the strip of tape that covered his mouth.

“Not a bad idea,” Maddock said, playing along, “but first, we should find out what they’re doing here and who they’re working for.”

“What makes you think they’re working for anyone?” Miranda countered. “Maybe they’re just banditos.”

“Banditos,” Bones echoed, savoring the word. He reached out and yanked the tape away, unleashing a stream of curses from the captive, all in Spanish.

Bones glanced over at Angel. “You must have hit him pretty hard. He completely forgot how to habla Ingles.”

He pressed the tape back into place, then drew his knife and held the blade close to the writhing man’s eye. “Now, let’s try again, bandito. I’m going to take the tape off, and then you’re going to tell us what you’re doing here and who you’re working for. Comprende?”

The man glowered at him for a moment, but then nodded.

Bones ripped the tape away again, eliciting another curse, but then the man spoke in English. “It’s like she said.” He nodded at Miranda. “We are bandits. We saw them diving for treasure in the cenote. The treasure belongs to us, not some gringos.”

“How did you find us out here?” Miranda asked.

Maddock shot her a warning glance, hoping she would get the message. Let Bones handle this.

“Two gringos driving out in the forest? It wasn’t hard to find you.”

As the man spoke, Bones kept the knife in his view, testing the edge of the exposed blade with his thumb. Now he lowered the knife and picked up the big revolver the man had dropped. “This is a nice gun,” he said.

He wasn’t wrong. It was a Smith & Wesson Model 686, an L-Frame revolver with a six-inch barrel, chambered for .357 Magnum ammunition. It was a hefty gun, too, though in Bones’ massive hands, it didn’t look quite so intimidating.

“I think I’ll keep it,” Bones continued. “You don’t mind, do you?”

The man said nothing.

“But what I can’t figure is how a piece of crap hoodlum like you managed to get his hands on a piece like this. Makes me think you’re more than just a… ” He grinned. “Bandito. So, let’s try again. Who are you working for?”

The man set his jaw, pursing his lips together to signal that he was done talking.

Bones regarded him for a few more seconds, then let his gaze drift to the other men. “All right, I didn’t want to have to do this, but it looks like you’re not giving me a choice. Maddock, I’m gonna need a quart of motor oil and four sticks about seven inches long. You know, twice the length of your….”

“Yeah, we get it,” Maddock said quickly, cutting him off. He rose and headed over to where they had stacked their gear, pretending to look for the items.

“What are you going to do with those?” Miranda asked, feigning innocent curiosity. She knew exactly what Bones was doing, and didn’t seem the least bit appalled by it.

Something about that bothered Maddock. He thought about how she had fearlessly and efficiently taken down one of their assailants, and decided there was more to Miranda Bell than was apparent at first glance.

“It's a trick I learned in the service,” Bones replied with gleeful anticipation. “Guaranteed to make a man talk… unless he dies first. It's pretty ugly. The motor oil is the most important part. See, there’s no way to get that stick in without it.”

“In where?”

Before Bones could answer, another of the captives began squirming and shouting into his gag.

“Hold up, Maddock,” Bones called out. “Let’s hear what this joker has to say.”

He gagged the first man again, then ripped the tape off the second man’s mouth. “Okay, amigo. Start talking.”

“They hire us to follow them,” the man said, nodding at Bell and his daughter. His English was broken but passable. “Give us guns and money. Said to follow them. Ten thousand pesos if we take whatever they find.”

“Who hired you? Cartel?”

The man shook his head. “No. Two men. I don’t see them before. Rich guys. They try to hide it, but I see their fancy haircuts and girly fingernails.”

“Mexicans? Gringos?”

“They don’t sound like gringos, but… ” The man shrugged. “They say just the old man and the girl. Didn’t know they have company.”

“Yeah, we like to screw up the best-laid plans of dirtbags and dipshits. You guys are the latter, in case you were wondering.”

Maddock knelt next to Bones. “Come on, you’ve got to know more than that. How did these guys know to come to you?”

The man shook his head, helplessly. “I swear. I don’t know.”

“Anyone else coming? Got some friends waiting out there in the woods?”

The man shook his head.

Bones looked at Miranda. “What do you think? He telling the truth?”

Miranda considered the question with exaggerated gravity. “I don’t know. Seems like there’s only one way to really know for sure. Stick and motor oil.”

“Please,” the captive begged. Tears were streaming from his eyes and there was a faint smell of fresh urine in the air.

Bones silenced him with the tape strip then rose to his full height. “That’s all he knows. Typical lightweight. No stamina. I say we strip ‘em naked and stake ‘em out.” He winked at Miranda. “That’s an old Cherokee trick.”

“I don’t think we’ll need to go that far,” Maddock said, no longer completely sure that his friend was still joking. “We’ve got their guns, and their phones and keys, too. It’ll take ‘em a while to get free, and they aren’t going to be able to come after us or call for help. I’m more worried about the guys that hired them.”

“Wait!” Angel called out. She strode forward until she was standing right in front of the man who had earlier held her at gunpoint. She regarded him coldly for a moment, then with the swiftness and fury of a rattlesnake strike, lashed out with a low kick. The man’s head snapped back, and he crumpled, unconscious. Angel turned to Maddock. “Sorry, just needed to get that out of my system.”

Maddock grinned at her, then turned to Bell. “Someone's clearly after you. Any idea who it is?”

Bell shook his head, but his eyes were darting back and forth uncertainly. “Nobody knew we were coming here.”

Maddock felt certain that Bell knew more than he was saying, but decided not to press the issue. “I’ve got an idea how we might be able to figure it out, but first we need to figure out what’s so important about that disk.” He glanced over at Bones. “Speaking of which… where is it?”

Miranda cringed a little. “I had to cut it loose.”

“Good thing, too,” Bones put in. “That was quick thinking.”

Maddock knew his old friend well enough to recognize the compliment for what it was. Bones was doing what he always did, compulsively angling for a romantic liaison with a beautiful woman he’d only just met. At some point, he would even convince himself that it was true love, that she was “the one.” It was a familiar pattern, except Maddock got the distinct feeling Miranda Bell would prove immune to Bones’ charms. And that would drive the big Cherokee crazy.

“All right,” Maddock said. “First we recover that disk. Then we figure out why it’s so important. Maybe then we’ll know why somebody thinks it’s worth killing for.”