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Susan sighed, waving a hand in front of her. Mosquitoes buzzed nearby but did not settle, thanks to the repellant she had brought down from Washington. But they still annoyed her. She glanced at the elite Navy unit, deployed in pairs around the site. Two stood by the foot of the pyramid, partly hidden by the underbrush. Another pair guarded the area near Cameron, glancing at the intricate bas-relief carving on a large pillar that stood by itself in front of the temple across the cenote. The ornate pillar marked the main entrance to the site from the jungle, through a cavelike path carved out of the jungle but covered by a layer of moss to hide it from outsiders. A third pair patrolled the palace to her right, a single-story structure built like the temple but on a lower platform, without any steps, and protected by a roof comb, a simple lattice of limestone and stucco laced with the vines dropping from the canopy overhead. Lobo sat by himself on the stone courtyard by the tree line fiddling with the knobs of his satellite communications gear.

Everyone had settled into their roles. Susan returned to her work, interfacing an electromagnetic sensor to her IBM ThinkPad laptop through one of two PCMCIA slots on the side of the system. She planned to use this instrument to measure the electromagnetic activity in the area during the next event, eight hours from now. A large electromagnetic field had been detected by an Air Force satellite cruising over the region during a previous event, prompting Susan to bring along additional hardware in the hope of picking up new clues.

Last night's event, which Troy Reid and the rest of the high-tech team in Washington had monitored by releasing the Scent-Sniffer programs, had pointed to the exact spot where they were now. Susan had learned this and much more during the Internet chat she'd had with her superior using the SEALs' portable satellite link. Reid had E-mailed her a copy of last night's virus, which she'd compared to the copies from the previous nights, noticing the ongoing trend of the 260 bytes of undecipherable binary code always changing from day to day, while the rest did not.

Susan used the sleeve of her T-shirt to wipe the perspiration off her forehead. Like Cameron, she also wore shorts and a plain white T-shirt—a lot more comfortable clothing than the fatigues Lobo had forced them to wear on their way in. She couldn't understand how the SEALs wore so much gear in this humidity, but none of them seemed to mind. In fact, none of them said much at all, except for Lobo, who would come by periodically to see if they needed any assistance.

The computer engineer used her second PCMCIA slot to connect a temperature and humidity meter. She had already installed the software drivers for each of the two probes in her ThinkPad. Two windows on her screen displayed the current status of the external sensors. Ambient temperature measured 29°C, or around 84°F. Humidity read at eighty-nine percent. Based on the way she was sweating, Susan did not question the readings. EM activity read at less than 0.01 decibels (dBs) across her selected frequency spectrum, ranging from 1 megahertz (MHz) to 1 gigahertz (GHz). The information was displayed on a bar graph with frequency on the horizontal axis in increments of 100 MHz, and EM noise level on the vertical axis in increments of 1 dB. Electromagnetism existed everywhere electrical current flowed through a conductor, from lightning and power lines to electric toys. Classic EM specifications in the computer industry, controlled by strict FCC regulations, provided commercial limits for computer-generated electromagnetic interference at specific frequencies, up to a gigahertz, to keep the electronic noise generated by a home computer from interfering with other household items, like wireless phones, pagers, remote control units, and even pacemakers.

In the middle of the jungle, her systems told her all was calm.

“Not a creature was stirring,” she mumbled.

“Not even a mouse.”

Susan turned around, startled to see a grinning Cameron Slater. Perspiration had formed an inverted triangle on his T-shirt at sternum level, visible through the open vest. The soaked fabric clung to Cameron's upper chest, outlining his pectorals. Susan founds herself staring, then looking away.

“You seem to be in a cheery mood,” she said.

“This place is amazing. So much like the Maya, but in some ways very un-Maya.”

She shut off her system and stood. “Un-Maya? How so?”

“The
tumbaga,
for—” he began, but stopped, momentarily glancing at Susan's chest, only he didn't look away but actually pointed while whispering, “You might want to cover those.”

Susan glanced down and noticed that, like Cameron, her T-shirt was also wet with perspiration and sticking to her chest, clearly outlining her breasts through the thin and soaked fabric. She blushed, immediately crossing her arms to cover her protruding nipples.

Cameron removed his vest and put it over her shoulders. “Don't want to send a bunch of Navy boys the wrong message.” He winked.

Susan smiled, embarrassed.

“Keep it,” he said while helping her with the buttons. “I've got another one in my backpack.”

“Thanks.” The vest felt comfortable, letting air through but providing an additional layer to conceal her bosom.

“The
tumbaga,
” he repeated.

She recovered her composure, narrowing her eyes. “Excuse me?”

“
Tumbaga
artwork is very un-Maya. Unlike the Aztecs or the Inca, the Maya had little interest in gold, preferring to work with the hard and challenging jade. Yet, there's plenty of both here. Enough
tumbaga
to make me feel that I was at an Incan site in Peru, but then plenty of jade work classic of the Maya. One of the stelae has turquoise inlaid with the
tumbaga,
which is more Incan than Mayan. Very strange. Anyway. I think I've found the entrance to the temple.”

“You did! Where?”

“I'll show you.”

She followed him to one of the corbel vaults, which separated the steps from the temple's terrace, almost a hundred feet long by around thirty wide. Slabs of limestone formed the floor of this covered terrace, as well as the walls of the main building. Sunlight shone onto the porch through the opening between columns. The wall opposite the corbel vaults had no apparent openings that could provide access to the interior. Cameron pointed at one of the vertical slabs that formed the front wall. It was slightly different from the other because it had a row of holes drilled along its two long sides, from the floor to the ceiling.

“Looks like finger grips,” he said, sticking his fingers in the holes.

“Should we get Lobo's men to help us try to move it?”

He rubbed his chin, frowning. “Maybe later. I still have to do a little more homework before deciding how to proceed. This place is full of warnings.”

“Warnings?”

He nodded and walked off the terrace, climbing down the steps, stopping halfway, sitting down. Susan sat next to him. He pointed at a series of glyphs in a row, which he read from left to right. “These, as far as I can tell, appear to be warnings of some sort to respect the sanctity of the place, which is also quite strange because the Maya used glyphs mostly to record historical events, the movement of the stars, specific dynasty affairs, and also as a powerful propaganda tool.”

“What kind of warning?”

“Can't tell. Deciphering Mayan glyphs has been a real challenge because we're missing too many codices. We usually can only decipher around sixty to eighty percent of them. But today, with so many new glyphs, I'm barely scratching fifty percent.”

“What are codices?”

“Codices are the Mayan equivalent of our modern books. They were made of either deer hide or bleached fig-tree paper. After the trained scribes completed one, it would be covered with a film of plaster and folded like an accordion, a process that would have preserved them to this day. Unfortunately, the Spanish destroyed most of the codices during the sixteenth century. One Franciscan missionary by the name of Diego de Landa was personally responsible for burning the majority of the Mayan codices. Only three codices survived those terrible days, saved by Spaniards who took them home as souvenirs. They are named after the cities in Europe where they eventually surfaced. The Dresden Codex, the Madrid Codex, and the Paris Codex. A fourth codex, the Grolier Codex, was found in a cave in Chiapas, Mexico, and exhibited at the Grolier Club in New York in the early seventies. So, due to the narrow minds of the Spanish invaders, the modern archaeologist is left with only a fraction of the information required to solve the many mysteries left behind by the Maya. That's why I can't understand the exact meaning of this warning, which is the case with most of our work. The lack of enough background information—contained in those lost codices—leaves the field open to a lot of opinions, theories, interpretations. These warnings, for example, could be nothing but ancient bluffs of the Mayan priests to scare off enemies. Or they could be quite real and to be taken seriously. But I can't tell which. Either way, a warning in glyphs is just another unusual finding in a most unusual place. There's also the question of the land keepers. Where are they?”

Susan glanced about her. Dense jungle looked down upon the site from all angles. “Good question. Is it possible that they only come here for their rituals but actually live elsewhere?”

He nodded. “That's my current guess, actually. They probably live within walking distance. It's possible that they might even have a post nearby that watches the place closely.”

“In case of intruders?”

He nodded. “That's a big part of the reason why I'm unwilling to touch anything. The Mayan civilization made incredible achievements in mathematics, astronomy, and architecture, but they were also superb warriors, and quite ruthless with their enemies, oftentimes using them as human offerings to their gods. They liked to break their backs at the sacrificial altar before pulling out their beating hearts.”

“We covered that yesterday, thank you.”

He put a hand on hers and gave it a soft lingering pressure. She didn't mind the contact. “Just trying to make my point for not wanting to desecrate this place. Don't want to tick them off.”

“What about the SEALs? They should be able to protect us, right?” Susan also thought of her gun, shoved in her shorts by her spine.

He shrugged. “They sure look mean and lean with their weapons and uniforms, but I'm not sure how they would stand up to an attack by the Maya. Like I said, they are phenomenal warriors and this is their home turf. I doubt Lobo and his men would last very long.”

Susan suddenly didn't feel all that secure, even as she felt the cold steel of her PPK.

They sat by the steps and shared a canteen of purified water. Cameron told her about his past. The son of the U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, he'd grown up in this country until the age of sixteen, when his father retired from the government and settled in San Diego, California. By then the young Cameron Slater had become an amateur archaeologist, having spent much of his free time going on field trips to nearby Mayan sites.

“So I went to UCLA and got my bachelor's and also my master's in archaeology, but with a specialization in pre-Columbian cultures. Eventually I got my doctorate from Stanford and began teaching, while going on more field trips, writing papers, attending conferences, and essentially living and breathing my work. Before I knew it I was moving from college to college, following research grants, teaching some, also writing a few textbooks along the way, but spending a lot of time on field trips. That's why I left my post at Georgia Tech and headed to Georgetown. A couple of fat research grants.”

“Are your parents still living in San Diego?”

He shook his head while glancing at his mountain boots. “Dad passed away almost ten years ago. He was only sixty-three.” He paused. “Cancer. Mom mourned herself to death. She died a year later, even though she had been in perfect physical shape at the time of Dad's death. They had been married almost forty years.”

Susan nodded, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I'm sorry.”

He inched his shoulders up and down. “I've never seen two people so close in my life. I truly believe they were soul mates. She simply couldn't go on living without him. It was like a part of her had really died. She lost the will to live and died in her sleep one night. Natural causes, they said—if you call mourning a natural cause. But let's not get all depressed here,” he added cheerfully. “Let's talk about you. I'm sure your story's not quite as gloomy.”

Susan almost laughed, settling for a sigh. “I wish.” In a way she wanted to tell him how much she could relate to the pain that his mother had gone through. “My parents are still alive, though I don't see them as often as I would like to, especially after … well, my husband and daughter were killed in an auto accident two years ago.”

Cameron put an arm around her shoulders. “I'm so sorry, Susan. I didn't know. Metcalf never mentioned it when he called the night that you came by my place.”

She nodded. “It's not the kind of thing that I want advertised. In fact, aside from my parents, Metcalf, and Reid, not too many people know. Jonathan Metcalf helped me get back on my feet after the accident. He put me in contact with Reid at the FBI when I expressed a desire to do something else.”

“Susan, I'm
really
sorry. I'm also very impressed that you have been able to bounce back the way you have. I can only imagine how terrible you must have felt.”

“I have my moments,” she said, getting up. “Anyway. I'd better get back to my gear.”

He also stood. “I hope I didn't offend you. I—”

“I don't think you're capable of offending me, Cameron Slater. And thanks for this.” She gave him a brief smile while pointing at the vest. Then she walked away.

3

Covered with a cape of moss, Antonio Strokk removed his headphones and glanced at his sister, also cloaked with moss, lying next to him behind the thick underbrush tangled with the trunks of the stately ceibas and mahoganies encircling the impressive site. The former Russian Spetsnaz operative had deployed his troops around the area efficiently, just as he had been taught many years before. His team covered every SEAL in the area. At his command the two dozen seasoned warriors would fire their silenced weapons and eliminate the threat before they knew what had hit them. The trip wires the Americans had left behind to warn them of intruders would have tricked most of the operative community, but Antonio Strokk and his team had seen too much action to fall for them.