Ruins (23 page)

Then, with a blinding roar, stars exploded in the sky, brilliant white glares like aerial combat. Fireworks shot into the air and burst like a white chrysanthemum.

"Those are phosphorous flares," Mulder said. "Military issue."

Under the glare of the scalding white light, two lumbering all-terrain vehicles smashed through the fallen underbrush and rolled up onto the flagstones of the Xitaclan plaza. Behind the ATVs, dark figures wear-ing camouflage outfits scrambled out of the jungle. They crept low, holding their rifles, snapping abbrevi-ated instructions to each other as they rushed into posi-tion like army ants swarming to a new nest.

"What's going on here?" Scully said, looking both alarmed and perplexed at her partner.

"I guess it's not a good idea for us to run for it."

Scully instantly assessed the weaponry, the soldiers, the vehicles. The hulking all-terrain vehicles rolled to a stop, crunching the weathered flagstones beneath them, smashing upthrust tree roots. The camouflaged com-mandos ran about, intent on their mission — and Mulder realized with surprise that the terse phrases they snapped back and forth at each other were in English, not Spanish.

On first sight he had imagined a Central American guerrilla army, but though he saw no markings on their uniforms or on their vehicles, he knew he had found a different answer.

"Those are Americans," he said. "U.S. military. Some sort of commando operation."

Mulder and Scully sat frozen next to their little camp-fire, hands raised, pistols in nonaggressive positions. The commando squad ran up and surrounded the two, point-ing rifles at them.

"I knew I should have paid that parking ticket," Mulder muttered.

While two of the soldiers aimed rifle barrels directly at their chests, another man crept forward and cautiously removed Mulder and Scully's weapons, holding them at arm's length, as if the small 9-mm pistols were poisonous spiders.

The phosphorous flares had gradually faded out. Several of the camouflaged commandos rigged up bril-liant arc lights, flooding the plaza with a harsh glare.

A slender, dark-skinned man marched up to Mulder and Scully, clearly in command of the operation. He had high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, generous lips, and a pointed chin. His eyes were narrow and as dark as obsid-ian. On his shoulders he wore the maple-leaf-cluster insignia of a major.

"Habla Espanol?" the major demanded. "Que pasa?"

Scully leaned forward. "We speak English," she said. "We are Americans, special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

The commandos stopped and looked at each other. The major stood rigid. "What are you doing here?" he said. "On foreign soil?"

"We could ask you the same question," Mulder said.

"My partner and I are here on a case involving miss-ing U.S. citizens." Scully reached into her pocket. The sol-diers tensed, but she moved slowly enough.

"I'm going for my ID," she said and carefully withdrew her badge and photo identification card.

Mulder looked at her, amazed that even here in the jungle she still kept her ID in her shirt pocket.

"We are legal attaches, LEGATS, to the U.S. Consulate," she said. "Our assignment here in Quintana Roo is to search for a missing archaeological team."

"Major Jakes, over here!" shouted two soldiers who had been exploring the open plaza area. They held back the tarp that had been covering the five bodies beside the feathered serpent stela. "Casualties, sir." The major turned to look, saw the corpses.

Mulder shrugged. "Well, actually we've already found most of the missing team," he said.

Major Jakes gazed around the ruins and the plaza. Seeing no one other than the two agents, he raised his voice to issue orders to his soldiers. "Continue securing the site. This isn't what we expected to find, but we still have our orders. We must complete the mission, destroy this command outpost, and be gone before morning."

"While you're at it, do you suppose you could give us a lift out of here?"

Mulder said. "If you have room in the back seat of one of those ATVs, I mean?"

"If the parameters of the mission allow it," Jakes said, his voice entirely deadpan. He bent over to study Scully's ID. "My men are not here in any official capacity, and we are under orders to respond with full denial."

"We've heard that before," Mulder said.

"We can operate under those conditions," Scully answered more firmly, "if that is the requirement for get-ting us out of here. What is your mission, Major?"

"To destroy this military site," he said matter-of-factly. "Eliminate the source of a strange encrypted trans-mission."

"This is a military site?" Mulder said in astonishment. He spread his hands to indicate the crumbling pyramid, the weathered stelae, the fallen temples.

"These are ancient Maya ruins, abandoned for a thousand years. You can see that with your own eyes. My partner and I have been here searching for days, and we haven't found the slightest evidence of high technology or stored weapons. This place has no military significance whatsoever."

Then, as if specifically to contradict him, a rain of automatic-weapon fire showered from the shadows of the jungle, pelting the commando team.

Xitaclan ruins Wednesday, 12:26 a.m.

As the sharp, high-pitched shots rang out with a sound like a chainsaw, Scully ducked reflexively.

Mulder tackled her, knocking her down beside the meager shelter of their low tents. Her face pressed against the cold flagstones, Scully could see winking flashes of fire as hidden snipers continued the attack.

Major Jakes and his commando squad exploded into motion, their own response as fast as a swarm of angry wasps. "Get to cover, everyone!" Jakes shouted. "Fire at will!"

"Of course, I could be wrong about this place having no military significance," Mulder said, breathing hard, close to Scully's ear. "Are you hurt?"

"No," she said, panting. "Thanks, Mulder." Though Scully could not determine where the shots came from, the American commandos responded with an impressive display of firepower, the quantity of bullets sufficient to make up for their lack of a precise target.

One of the soldiers next to her spun around as if from an invisible force, and he sprawled on the broken flagstones. The young first lieutenant gasped and choked as bright arterial blood spilled from both the entry and exit wound in his rib cage. Scully could see at a glance that the young man had received a mortal injury.

Return gunfire rang out from the jungle snipers. A bright puff of splintered stone blossomed on the lime-stone stela nearest their tent, making a gouge across the feathered serpent carving still smeared with rusty brown splotches from the previous day's blood sacrifice.

The soldiers sprinted back toward the two armored all-terrain vehicles. One man ducked behind the lime-stone stela, another flattened himself behind the low, tarpaulin-covered corpses on the flagstones.

"Who's firing at us?" Scully demanded when she had caught her breath.

The American commando squad continued blasting the trees, but they had only a slim hope of actually strik-ing one of the shadowy enemies. Someone unseen screamed in pain, then renewed gunfire drowned out all other sounds. A lucky shot from the jungle shattered one of the portable arc lights the commandos had erected.

A deep voice bellowed out of the jungle, using no loudspeaker, but with enough strength to penetrate the chaos. His crisp Mexican accent sliced through the night. "American invaders!" the man shouted. "You are ille-gally in the sovereign state of Quintana Roo. Your defi-ance of our laws and our borders is against all international treaties."

As they both remained low to the ground, trying to remain minimal targets, Scully looked over at Mulder. She recognized the voice. "That's the police chief, Carlos Barreio!" Bullets sang low over their heads. "But why is the chief of state police firing at us in the middle of the night? In the middle of the jungle? This isn't a law-enforcement raid."

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "It seems Chief Barreio has gone out for some extracurricular activities."

One of Major Jakes's soldiers launched another garish phosphorous flare into the sky, where it burned white-hot, splashing a glare down upon the field that caused more confusion than illumination.

"Identify yourself!" Major Jakes shouted, crouching beside Mulder and Scully in the illusionary shelter of the tent. "We have superior firepower."

More shots spat from the trees, tearing holes through the fabric of the tent.

Jakes ducked sideways, collapsing on top of Mulder and Scully. A furrow of blood appeared at his shoulder—merely a flesh wound, nothing serious. Major Jakes didn't even seem to notice.

"This is an act of war," Barreio shouted back. "You invaders have brought contraband arms into our land." The gunfire dwindled as the guerrillas' leader spoke, with only a few sharp sounds peppering a flare-lit night. "We have no choice but to protect our culture. We cannot allow military intruders from the United States to walk off with our national treasures."

"But we're not here to steal artifacts," Major Jakes muttered to himself, shaking his head. "We're just here to blow up the pyramid."

Mulder rose to an elbow and looked over at the major. "Well then, if it's all just one big misunderstanding, maybe we can shake hands with him and talk about this?"

Major Jakes didn't appear to hear. "It all makes sense now," he said. "These are freedom fighters, members of the violent revolutionary front in the Yucatan—Liberation Quintana Roo. They want to make their own little country and secede from the Mexican nation, regardless of what the rest of the Yucatan population wants. They don't have many weapons, nor do they have any moral com-punctions."

Mulder looked at him coldly. "Unlike you and your men."

Major Jakes returned the gaze, his expression blank, completely without anger.

"Correct, Agent Mulder."

"Throw down your weapons and surrender!" Barreio continued to bellow. "You will be arrested, charged as illegal aliens, and punished accordingly . . .

unless your country chooses to extradite you."

Major Jakes's nostrils flared. Since this was not an official mission, Scully knew the government would deny its existence and write off the commando squad.

Jakes and his men would be abandoned to whatever kangaroo court or dim torture chambers the guerrilla group chose.

"My men will never surrender," Major Jakes shouted back, and more gunfire rang out. "Not to cowardly snipers, and not to terrorists."

"I always wanted to be in a real Mexican standoff," Mulder said.

Scully knew that the covert American commando 'group might be able to outgun and outfight the Liberation Quintana Roo rebels in a standing battle—but they could not escape or retreat with so many snipers hidden in the jungles. They were trapped at Xitaclan.

The phosphorous flare fizzled and faded out, and the second arc light shattered, plunging the site back into a darkness broken only by occasional gunfire and afterim-ages on Scully's eyes.

"You two will stay next to me," Major Jakes said. "I realize you are both noncombatants—though I'm not sure there's a satisfactory way to resolve this."

"Then could we have our weapons back, sir?" Mulder asked. "Since it's already come down to a fight."

"No, Agent Mulder. I don't believe that would be in your best interests."

Major Jakes turned his night-vision goggles toward the forest.

As she lay on the flagstones, wincing every time bul-lets whined over her head, Scully felt the ground tremble, building to a vigorous vibration, as if even more heavy machinery were rolling toward them—then she realized that this tremor originated from deeper within the earth. Another rumbling came, a quaking, as volcanic pressure built up beneath the limestone crust.

"Scully, hang on," Mulder said. He grabbed her arm, though Major Jakes and his men did not understand what was happening.

The ground bucked and shook as seismic forces writhed beneath them. The gteat pyramid of Xitaclan rattled and trembled. Blocks of loosened stone humbled down the steep steps. From the jungle, some of the snipers wailed in terror, while Jakes's commandos scram-bled about in equal confusion.

The more distant of the plaza's two feathered serpent stelae groaned, then toppled over onto the flagstones. The ancient obelisk crumbled into broken rubble. The trees danced and waved.

Steam blasted from small openings in the plaza flag-stones. Little fumaroles split through the ground, releas-ing tremendous pressure.

"Come on, Scully, let's get out of here!" Mulder shouted, tugging at her arm.

"We can run—use this as a diversion, get to shelter." He stood and staggered away, the ground leaping like a carnival ride beneath his feet.

Scully rose to join him, but Major Jakes stood next to her, blocking the way.

"Not so fast, you two. You're stay-ing here."

Angry shouts rang out from the forest, and Scully could hear trees toppling, uprooted by the tremors. She tried to stare down Major Jakes as he held his weapon at her, and she knew from the expression in his eyes that she couldn't flee. Mulder had already crossed half of the plaza, ducking and weaving, trying to get to the cover of one of the low temple ruins. Mulder turned back to her, an anguished expression on his face. He paused as if he meant to come running back, to surrender to Jakes in order to stay beside her.

"Just go, Mulder!" she said. "Get out of here!"

He took that to heart and put on more speed, dashing toward the cover of the pyramid's lower platform. Gunfire splattered against the uneven flagstones near his heels, bullets ricocheting into the night—she couldn't tell if the shots had come from the guerrillas in the jungle or from Major Jakes's commandos.

The ground lurched with one titanic jolt, and Scully heard a sound like muscles tearing, as if the ground below were giving birth. A giant pillar of steam exploded from behind the Pyramid of Kukulkan, water boiling away and draining into the ground.

She realized the steam explosion came from the cenote—a crack in the earth had split the bottom of the intensely deep well, dumping water into a volcanic cauldron.