Jungle of Deceit (16 page)

“
What have you done?” she shouted at Solis.

He came to a stop, annoyed with her delay.

“
Please stop dawdling, Señorita. There are people you need to meet, and my presence is required back upstairs.”

Alex jogged a few steps to catch up with Solis as he turned his back on her again, executing a brisk stride to the mouth of the temple. Temples such as this were supposed to depict a sacred mountain, a place to be revered as a house of the gods, carved painstakingly from limestone. But this deceitful edifice possessed a set of wooden double doors with ornate brass handles−a contemporary touch with nothing divine to it. Alex patted the speckled limestone and was dismayed to learn that the walls were synthetic as well.

Of course it was artificial. Had her biased determination to unearth a temple and discover a lost civilization allow her to consider this real for an irrational moment? This was not real. This was dark. Dark and deceptive magic.

Solis hauled open one of the doors and waved her through. Alex hastily followed and realized she had grown immune to the shock that each portal presented. Inside this temple, she discovered that the exterior was simply a shell and that the core of the structure housed a three-story open atrium lined with wraparound balconies to expose individual floors. On each level, illuminated glass enclosures exhibited masks, ceramics, and wall murals−antiquities in all shapes and sizes.

Displayed on a prominent podium before her was a stone altar, its carved face detailed by the strobe lights aimed at it from three different angles. It was a circular slab that she estimated to weigh over 500 lbs. Curiosity drew her closer. Here there was no security−no barrier to keep her from touching the piece. This altar was not a replica. In fact, she knew of this specific piece, recognizing it as an item recovered from a group of looters attempting to sell it to drug traffickers in Honduras four years ago. It depicted Cancuen's greatest king, Taj Chan Ahk Ah Kalomte playing handball with another king.

What the hell was it doing here
?

“
You stole this,” she asked still tracing the inscriptions with her fingers.

“
No,” Solis stepped up to the bottom of the platform. “Not that one. I cannot take credit for that one. Come on, Señorita, the others are waiting.”

Alex followed, trying not to be distracted by exhibit after exhibit, some with life-sized mannequins depicting ritualistic acts with what she now imagined were authentic weapons. Solis disappeared behind a limestone wall and she was forced to jog to catch up. At the back of this wall, in what she thought was the most ludicrous spectacle yet, were restrooms labeled MEN and WOMEN. How mundane.

But it was an unmarked door beyond these that Solis targeted on. It looked like a janitorial closet. Solis yanked off his key ring, the cascade of metal sounding like wind chimes. He inserted a key and shoved open the door, announcing, “You have a new staff associate.”

What she had guessed to be a custodial closet was actually a studio apartment, with a small living room comprised of a beige upholstered couch and loveseat seated before a widescreen television affixed to the wall. There was a galley kitchen from which the smell of coffee pervaded. The source of that aroma was visible perched on the corner of an L-shaped bar and past it Alex saw an oval dining room table. A man and woman sat across from each other at the table, plates of half-eaten food set before them.

The man rose and peered at her with wary hazel eyes. The eyes were distorted behind the thick lenses of his plastic-framed glasses. He had brown thinning hair with an influx of grey at the temples and a completely grey beard hugging a rounded chin. Alex gasped. The grey was new, but she recognized the man from online photographs. It was Joseph Pastorelli. And when Alex lowered her gaze to the seated woman with long cherry-blond hair also infused with grey, she recognized the petite figure as Gwendolyn Pastorelli, his wife.

“
Mr. Pastorelli?”

Blinking in confusion as if he had been trapped in the dark too long, Joseph Pastorelli’s eyes shifted towards Solis, where they narrowed with distrust. Solis snorted and reached for his cell phone, mumbling. “I told you I would be bringing on a new assistant.”

“
Who are you?” Joseph Pastorelli ignored Solis and addressed her.

“
Alexandra Langley.” Her voice caught.

“
Dr.
Alexandra Langley,” Solis added with sarcasm.

Pastorelli frowned and exchanged a glance with his wife who was seated with one thigh on the edge of the chair, devouring Alex with her eyes as if she represented a grand feast. It was disturbing to feel like a prime cut of steak in a room full of ravenous dogs, but the expression on Gwendolyn Pastorelli’s face was not simply hunger. It was lust. The lust of desperation. The woman before Alex seemed consumed by despair.

Gwendolyn looked back at her husband and nodded.

“
Franklin’s daughter?”

Alex managed not to roll her eyes.
Someday
. Someday she would be able to stand on her own name.

“
Yes.”

Joseph Pastorelli shot a condemning glance at Solis. “You finally blew it,” he cried. “My wife and I, I’m sure our family mounted a search for us. I’m certain my son and my brother would have flown here to start an investigation. But if Franklin Langley’s daughter goes missing, it will not disappear from the news in a matter of days like we probably did.”

Alex thought otherwise. Perhaps for the benefit of the press her father would stage a public plea for her safety, but aside from that, she had not spoken to him in over five years. It was the day she acquired her doctorate in Maya Archeology at the University of California. She had already become an associate doctor in anthropology, but this field was her true inspiration. Regardless, Franklin Langley maintained that it was not a career befitting her. Had he had a son he would have fully supported his rise in academia and heralded his triumphs in the field. But instead, he had Alex, and Franklin Langley thought she should have married and produced him a grandson that could follow in his footsteps. The blatant sexism seemed so archaic to Alex, yet her father had been like this for as long as she could recall−as if he was a member of a charter club that she could not be privy to.

“
You should pray for your loved ones.” Solis’s words were full of menace as he addressed Joseph. “That they don’t try to find you here.”

“
I have to get back,” Solis continued. “They will be here soon. Fill her in on her duties. As I understand it, she knows a hell of a lot more than either of you.”

Solis turned around and left the apartment. The extra click after the door closed alerted Alex that she was locked in−trapped inside a studio apartment deep underground.

She turned as Gwendolyn Pastorelli rose from her chair to stand beside her husband, her hand linking around the crook of his arm.

“
I’m Gwen,” she said with a hesitant smile. “And this is my husband, Joe. Welcome to Xibalba−or as we like to call it…Hell.”

There was no time to waste. Alex needed to get out of here. She launched towards the table, rounding it and pulling back a wooden chair, hastily sitting down. “I’m Alex. Tell me everything.”

Gwen shifted into the kitchen area and asked across the counter, “Do you want something to eat?”

Despite the preposterous nature of the past twenty-four hours, Alex’s stomach responded with a sound like a walrus rolling over. “If you have enough, that would be wonderful.”

“
One thing they do down here is feed us at least.”

“
Tell me.” Alex pleaded.

Joseph Pastorelli sank down into his chair and picked up his coffee mug. “There were others. Other archeologists. Like us they had been plucked from the jungle. Like us, they strayed too close to Solis’s compound. Some did not accept their fate without a fight. Some tried to escape.” He shook his head. “We haven’t seen them since. It’s just been Gwen and I now for almost a year.”

“
You don’t know what happened to them?” She addressed Joseph, and then accepted Gwen’s plate with a quick, “thank you.”

“
No. We asked and demanded our release, but−”

“
After awhile,” Gwen picked up for him, “you get tired of asking. A year takes the fight out of you.”

“
You’re going to get out of here,” Alex tore into the toast, thinking of it as medicine. She needed strength. “We have someone on the inside. Someone in this compound who is going to help us.” She prayed the testimony were true.

“
Seriously?” The first glean of hope sparked behind Joseph Pastorelli’s lenses.

“
Yes,” Alex chewed. “But tell me−tell me what are we doing here? What is this place?”

Gwen sat back down opposite Alex and stared, her eyes embracing the ponytail, the clothes−but Alex was not put out by the appraisal. She recognized it for what it was−the overwhelming need of a woman trapped for a year−wanting to connect with something from the outside, something that had benefitted from natural light. Alex looked around and saw only four white walls, walls with no paintings and no windows−blank testimonies that life ceased to exist down here. Even now she could feel the weight of the earth above as if it were barely contained and could collapse at any moment, turning her into a fossil that would someday be unearthed and exhibited.

“
As best we know,” Joseph explained, “this temple holds a museum crammed full of stolen artifacts. I mean, it is conjecture on our part−we don’t know enough about the pieces themselves to say that for sure, but the clandestine location, the armed guards, the rich clientele−it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to fill in the gaps. Not to mention soliciting curators by yanking them out of the jungle if they
A.
,
venture too close to the compound and
B.,
have the right credentials.”

Reading Alex’s puzzled look, Joseph continued. “We know there have been others who have been caught, others traveling in the company of those that made it down here to Xibalba. In each case these companions were not in the
industry
so to speak. It’s like Solis will pluck the bad apples from the crowd, and the fate of those apples is unknown.” Joseph rubbed at the apex of his nose. “I try to sleep at night imagining that they were released.”

The bread went down Alex’s esophagus like an acid-laced sponge. “Credentials? You’re saying that if you just happened to be working in this jungle−be it as a venturesome tourist or a novice archeologist on a grant,” she held up her palm, “that you don’t have adequate credentials? How would they know? How would they know the names and qualifications of every person that trekked the Petén and stumbled across their compound?”

“
Don’t give Solis too much credit.” Gwen inserted with a glare. “They don’t know until
after
they have you. Joe and I went through a rigorous debriefing, which apparently gave us the proper testimonial to go straight to hell.” She raised her hands in mock triumph. “Yay us.”

Alex felt that wasn’t the case for her. She was
selected
. She was targeted. Her group was coerced by the path of the fire into reaching the front gate.
But why
?

“
I still don’t get it. What do they want with archeologists? You mentioned the word
curator
before. You said they solicit curators.”

Joseph pushed his glasses further up the ridge of his nose. It drew her attention to the pale skin on his high forehead, where tiny blue veins weaved erratic patterns in a chaotic search for nourishment.

“
Maybe, what−” he looked towards his wife for affirmation, “−once a month a group comes down here?”

“
More like bi-monthly,” she corrected.

“
Yeah, I lose track. Well, when this group comes down, it’s a big affair. These people are high-rollers. It’s like a social gathering for the most influential and affluent crew you can think of.” He pushed his plate aside and grabbed his knife, drawing invisible lines in the cloth placemat with the tip of it. “You know when you came in on that limestone sidewalk after getting off the elevator? They set up tables in those gardens.” He drew the tables with indentations in the mat. “The tables are loaded with gourmet cuisine and there are two full-service bars set up. There’s even a goddamn band performing. You feel like you’re on the Titanic. They’re here for a night generally. Sometimes two.”

Joseph sat back and set the knife down, eyeing his coffee mug, and adding, “You know, Gwen, I’m thinking a drink is in order right now.”

Gwen looked at the clock on the barren white wall and Alex followed her glance. The clock was simple, a black circular frame with a white face and black arms and roman numerals. The red second arm ticked with an audible click as Alex noted the time was 11:55am.

“
It’s not even noon.” Gwen sounded aggravated.

“
Does it really matter, Gwendolyn?”

With the exchange of glares, Alex could only conclude that this was a common debate.

Joseph stood up and pulled out a brown bottle of Zacapa rum from a cabinet above the sink. He filled a third of an iced tea glass with the liquid and returned to the table, taking a hearty gulp before resuming his tale.