Serpent (66 page)

"Everything looks fine," he said, lowering the binoculars. He squinted toward the middle of the lake. "Something about that island bothers me."

Zavala leaned over Austin's shoulder and pulled his baseball cap lower over his forehead to shield his eyes against the sun sparkle. "It looks perfectly okay to me."

"That's the problem. The placement is too perfect. If you drew lines shore-to-shore from north to south and east to west, that island would be at the intersection, like a target in the crosshairs of a rifle scope. Exact center."

Zavala restarted the engine and gave the propeller enough power to pull them along at a couple of knots. Then he cut throttle and let the plane drift closer to the island. They threw an anchor over the side and estimated from the length of the tethering line that the lake was more than one hundred feet deep. They inflated a rubber raft, climbed into it from the plane's pontoons, and paddled the short distance to the island, pulling the raft up onto the grasscovered mud. Austin estimated the island at about thirty feet across. It looked like the misshapen shell of a giant turtle, rising quickly from the water to a roundish summit about fifteen feet high. Undeterred by the thick growth of ferns and succulents, Zavala climbed up the slope. Near the top he let out a yell and stepped back as if recoiling from an invisible punch.

Austin's body tensed and his hand went to the pistol at his hip. "What's wrong?" he shouted. His first thought was that Joe had stumbled onto a nest of adders,

Zavala's peals of laughter startled a flock of white birds into the air like confetti blown in the wind.

"The island is occupied, Kurt. Come up and I'll introduce you to the landlord."

Austin quickly climbed the small hill and peered at the toothy skeleton jaw grinning behind the bushes, He pushed the leaves aside to reveal a grotesque stone head about twice life size, carved into the lintel over a squared-off opening. The opening was set into the side of a block-shaped structure that was buried in loose soil almost to the top of its flat, crenelated roof and decorated with a border of skulls similar to but smaller than the one they first saw. Using a sheath knife, Austin dug away at the dirt and enlarged the opening so Zavala could get his head and shoulders in.

Zavala flashed a light around inside. "I think I can squeeze in." He wriggled through the opening feet first.

Austin heard a loud sneeze, then Zavala saying, "Bring a Dust Buster with you." Austin worked to enlarge the opening, then he followed Zavala inside.

He looked around. "Not exactly the Hilton." His words echoed.

The box-like space was the size of a two-car garage. The walls were thick enough to repel a direct hit from a cannon. Austin's head almost touched the low roof. The plastered walls were plain except for dark blotches that covered most of their surface and four floor-to-ceiling portals like the one they had just come through. The doorways were clogged by rootbound earth that was as hard as cement.

"Dunno, Kurt. It's got a lot to offer. Water view. Simple decor."

"This is what the real estate guys call a handyman's special." .

"Comes with a cellar, too." Zavala flashed his light into a comer.

Austin knelt to inspect a massive flagstone in the floor. It was perforated by several holes along the edge. Using their knives, they pried it open and slid the flagstone aside to reveal a stairway spiraling down. Since Zavala had been first into the building, Austin volunteered to investigate. He descended the short curving flight of stairs to a passageway that went a few yards before it was blocked by a huge slab. Austin played the beam of his flashlight over the slab.

"You'd better get down here," he said quietly.

Sensing the seriousness in Austin's tone, Zavala quickly joined him. Lying on the floor in front of the slab was a pile of bones. Unlike the death'shead sculpture they had seen earlier, the six skulls they counted were once covered with flesh. Zavala picked up a skull and held it at arm's length like Hamlet contemplating the remains of Yorick.

"Sacrificial victims. From the looks of that hole in the skull, they were put but of their misery so they didn't have to starve to death."

"The executioners were all heart," Austin said, examining the slab for a seam. "The only way to get around this thing is with a jackhammer or dynamite."

Austin had seen enough. They climbed back to the upper chamber where Austin noticed several bleached white fragments on the floor. He picked one up only to have it crumble to powder in his hand.

"Freshwater shellfish," he said. "This place was underwater at one time."

Zavala brushed the dirty walls with his fingers. "You could be right. This looks like dried pond scum."

They climbed back into the fresh air and explored the perimeter of the structure. It was built onto a stone platform that had become the catchall for material floating in the lake. Seeds, probably brought in by birds, had sprouted, and their roots kept the dirt from blowing away Looking straight down into the water at the edge of the island, it was possible to see a stone terrace. Austin kicked off his boots and slipped into the water, swam out a few strokes, and dove.

"This thing is like the tip of an iceberg," he said when he resurfaced. "It was probably a temple on top of a very big pyramid. Can't tell how far it goes."

"Told you we should have brought a submarine," Zavala replied as he gave Austin a hand back onto dry land. "So if what we think is true, and that building is a temple, we're at ground zero. The jaws."

All we have to do is figure out how to get into the gullet."

"Lovely thought. We could try blowing that slab blocking the way"

"Yeah, we could do that, and it might even work But it's not exactly a surgical approach. Our archaeologist friends would never speak to us again. Let's think about it while we look around."

They got back in the plane and taxied to the end of the lake, where they went ashore and made their way inland. The forest was in semidarkness except for the mottled sunlight filtering through the tree canopy. The trees discouraged undergrowth, making for an easy hike on a carpet of leaves. Austin followed a babble of water to its source and stopped where the river they had seen from the air was flanked by stone foundations. The river bed between the foundations was filled with earth and vegetation, but several streams flowed from the substantial reservoir that had built up behind the crude dam and around the old barricade toward the lake. The main course of the river turned abruptly just before it hit the foundations and angled off into the forest. Austin followed the rushing waters away from the reservoir and stopped again at a similar pair of foundations.

"Just as I thought," he said.

Zavala was impressed. "How'd you know these things would be here?"

"Would you believe it if I said I was a dam genius?"

Zavala winced. "Of course I would. Now tell me how you really knew."

Austin picked up a branch, threw it into the river, and watched it disappear from sight in the fastmoving bubble and foam. "You remember how this river looks from the air? I think you said it had more wiggles than a belly dancer. Just before it comes into the lake, it angles off in a perfectly straight line. My first impression was that the section was too straight to be natural. Like. that temple in the center of the lake. Nothing in nature is absolutely perfect. Maybe it was a canal, I thought. You know the Chesapeake and Ohio historical park north above Washington?"

"One of my favorite places for a cheap first date," Zavala said with a smile built of fond memories. "Muy romantico. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Think about that temple. Sometimes it's underwater. Sometimes it isn't."

Austin could almost hear. the gears whirring as Zavala's brilliant mechanical mind processed the information. He slapped his forehead. "Of course. The locks."

Austin cleared a bare spot on the ground and picked up a short stick. He handed it to Zavala. "Be my guest, Professor Z."

Zavala drew a line in the dirt. "This is the Potomac River. You can't move boats up and down, the river because of the rapids and falls, so you cut a canal around the white water. Here." He tapped the ground. "You build a system of gates and sluices to control the water level in the canal one section at a time. Let's see if I'm right." He drew an oval representing the lake. "In its normal state the river comes in here at the top,, fills the flood plain to create the lake, then flows out the bottom, keeps going until it comes to the sea."

"Good so far, Professor."

At some point unknown engineers put a dam here." Zavala drew a line across the top of the lake. "This blocks the water into the lake, but it's got to go somewhere or else it ends up sweeping around the gate." He drew a straight line away from the lake. "You cut this canal, and the water is diverted away from the lake to another riverbed." He looked up, triumph in his dark eyes. Now you can drain the lake."

"And build the temple. Here." Austin drew an X in the dirt with the tip of his boot.

Zavala picked up the narrative. After you lay the last stone of the pyramid, you close the canal sluice, open the lake gate. The lake refills in no time and hides the temple. Ergo . . ."

"Ergo, ipso facto, and voila! Only problem is, the sluice gate is made of moving parts. In time the gate deteriorates with no public works department to maintain it. What's left of the Mayan civilization is being crushed into dust by the Spaniards. That curve is a natural catch-all for anything floating down the river. Junk builds up in front of the lake gate like a dike, the canal sluice rots open, and the river is diverted away from the lake again. The lake is fed by a few streams, but eventually the water level drops, exposing the top of the temple. Which becomes overgrown with vegetation."

"So if we wait long enough," Zavala said, "the lake will eventually drop to where the temple is completely exposed again. Unless the water pressure from that reservoir busts through the old dam and raises the lake level."

Austin pondered Zavala's statement and nodded. "I'll tell you the rest of my theory on the way back."

As they walked through the forest Zavala got his revenge. "You've got to admit that's a damn nice piece of engineering."

It was Austin's turn to ignore the pun. "I agree. It allowed them to drain the lake again if they wanted to. That leaves open the possibility that they might want to reenter the temple. The entryway on top could be a blind. Like one of the false entrances they built into the Egyptian pyramids to fool grave robbers. I wouldn't be surprised if that's why they put the skeletons there, just for stage props."

"Some stage. Some props," Zavala said.

"Let's call in an air drop when we get back to the plane."

Minutes later, from the plane, Zavala radioed their wish list to the Nereus. He raised a quizzical eyebrow over one of the items Austin requested but asked no questions.

While they waited they had something to eat, then lounged in the shade until the radio crackled with a message. "Coming in, boys. ETA ten minutes."

Exactly on time a turquoise helicopter with NUMA lettering on the side came in low over the lake, hovered near the plane, and dropped a large box wrapped in heavy plastic and buoyed by airfilled floats. The helicopter crew watched the men below snag the delivery, then waved goodbye and clattered off the way they'd come. ,

Inside the box were two sets of scuba gear and several cartons. Austin loaded the boxes in the raft and paddled back to the upper end of the lake while Zavala moved the plane .to an indentation in the shoreline. Zavala knew better than to ask Austin what he had planned. Kurt would tell him when he needed to know.

Zavala covered the plane with a fishing net and was weaving branches into it when Austin showed up in the raft to help him finish the job. The cartons were gone. Satisfied their plane was well hidden, they piled their scuba gear into the raft and set off for the island, where they swept away traces of their previous visit. The raft was deflated and sunk in shallow water with rocks piled on top to hold it under. The water was warm, so they wore only lightweight black Lycra skins rather than the thicker neoprene wetsuits.