Serpent (NUMA Files 1)

"The others can keep an eye on this place. We'll head into Tucson and flop somewhere. Then fly back to Washington in the morning."

"These boys were a lot smarter and more organized than we gave them credit for," Zavala said. "They learned from the bloody nose we gave them on the Nereus."

"Tie score." Austin's eyes gained their glacial coldness. "Let's see who picks up the match point."

The Yucatan, Mexico

20 THE PRESSURE AGAINST GAMAY'S ears told her internal depth gauge she was more than thirty feet under the black water. She swam back and forth like an aquarium fish foraging for food, moving higher with each zigzag traverse. Her hands explored the slimy surface of the unseen wall, touch substituting for sight.

The previous year she had taken up free diving as a change from scuba. She enjoyed the unfettered feeling of diving without cumbersome scuba gear and had built up her lung capacity to more than two minutes.

The limestone face was pitted with ruts, cracks, and small holes. No opening big enough to offer a way out. She surfaced, swam across the pool, and pulled herself up on the edge to rest and catch her breath.

Chi read the disappointment in her face. "Nothing?"

"Mucha nada. Please pardon my Spanish." She wiped the water from her eyes and looked around the cavern. "You said there are some passages off this chamber"

"Yes. I've explored them. They are all dead ends, except for one which is blocked by water."

"Do you have any idea where the waterfilled tunnel leads?"

"My guess is that it is like the others, ending in small basins that fill or not according to the water table. What were you looking for in the pool?"

Gamay pulled her hair back and wrung out a half pint of water. "I hoped to find an opening that might lead to another cave or come out above the water level.

"I'll be right back" She rose and padded to the stairway that led to the cave entrance, quietly climbed the stairs, and disappeared over the top. A few minutes later she returned. "No chance of sneaking up on the guard," she said, chagrin in her voice. "They've blocked up the entrance with boulders. Nothing we couldn't move, but he'd hear us if we tried."

With her hands on her hips, Gamay again inspected their prison, her eyes finally coming to rest on the shaft of light shining through the ceiling hole high above the pool.

Chi followed her gaze. "The ancients dug that hole to lower buckets into the cenote. It saved them going up and down the stairs every time they wanted to whip up a bowl of soup."

"It's offcenter," she noted, and indeed, the opening was close to one wall.

'St. They had no way of knowing when they dug from above where the exact center of the pool was. It didn't make any difference as long as they were able to lower a rope and fill their buckets."

Gamay walked to the water's edge and peered up at the opening. Vegetation had grown around the hole and worked its way into the chamber, cutting b

ack on the light.

"That looks like a vine dangling down."

Chi squinted at the dome-shaped ceiling. "There may be more than one vine. My eyesight isn't what it used to be."

It was Gamay's turn to squint. The professor was hardly ready for a white cane, she decided. Even with perfect vision she could barely see the second vine. She lowered her eyes. Much of the wall was in shadow. No reason to assume that it was any different from the underwater wall she had explored.

"It's hard to tell in the poor light, but from here that wall looks easier than some of the rock faces I've climbed in West Virginia. Too bad we don't have some crampons and a pickax." She laughed. "Heck, I'd even settle for a Swiss army knife."

Chi stared thoughtfully into space for a moment.

"Maybe I have something better than a Swiss army knife."

He reached under his shirt, slipped a leather thong over his head, and handed it to Gamay. In the dim light the pendant dangling from the cord looked vaguely like the head of a bird of prey

Gamay cradled the object in her palm. The green eyes sparkled even in the faint cavern light, and the white beak seemed to glow. "Beautiful. What is it?"

An amulet. Kukulcan the storm god. He was the Mayan equivalent of the Aztec's Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. The head is made of copper with jadite eyes, the beak of quartz. I carry it for good luck and to cut cigars."

The round base fit her hand. She fingered the short blunt beak