Sam and Remi sat down in the airport bar. Sam said to Remi, “You know what I’d like? To drink something that’s ice-cold. It’s been a while.” He ordered two bottles of beer, and called Selma.
“Hello, you two,” she said.
“Hi, Selma,” said Sam. “We’re back in Tapachula, at the airport, and it’s time for us to go somewhere else. Can you find us a resort on the Pacific Coast that hasn’t been affected by the earthquake?”
“I’ll do my best. Keep your phone where you can reach it.”
Before they had finished their beer, Sam’s satellite phone rang. “Selma?”
“The very same. You have tickets waiting for an Aeromexico flight to Huatulco in forty-five minutes. It’s close but not damaged at all. Your hotel is Las Brisas, which is a very good one on the beach, and your room has a balcony overlooking the ocean. I’ve rented a car for you and you pick it up at the airport.”
“Thanks, Selma.”
In Huatulco, Sam and Remi signed for the car and drove to the Las Brisas Hotel. They went to the pool to soak and lie on long deck chairs, drinking margaritas. After about an hour, Remi turned to Sam, lifted her sunglasses, and said, “If you were to invite me to a great dinner at seven o’clock tonight, I would try to find time in my busy schedule to accept.”
They bought new clothes in the shops at the hotel and went to the restaurant at seven. Sam ordered pheasant in almond red sauce and Remi had seafood posole with snapper, cod, and shrimp. They selected an Argentine Malbec and a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc to go with them. They had Mexican tres leches cake and polvorónes de Caulle, a local type of cinnamon cookies, for dessert.
After dinner, they walked on the beach and then went to the bar on the patio to sip a Cabo Uno Lowland Extra Añejo tequila that had mellow undertones of vanilla. Remi said, “Thanks, Sam. I like it when I can tell you remember I’m a girl and not your old army buddy.”
“Not a likely mistake unless I get hit on the head.” He sipped the aromatic, powerful tequila. “This is a nice change for both of us. Living in a tent and spending your days burying sewer pipes is only fun for so long.”
They finished their tequila, and Remi stood, stepped behind Sam’s chair, put her hands on his shoulders, and leaned down to kiss his head, letting her auburn hair fall to both sides of him like a silky curtain for a second, then straightened. “Shall we?” she said.
They walked, holding hands, to the entrance and went up in the elevator. Sam opened the door of their room but suddenly put his arm out to keep Remi from entering. He turned on the light and stepped in. The room had been ran
sacked. His pack and Remi’s had been poured out on top of the bed. The closet doors were open, and the extra pillows and blankets had been swept off the shelf to the floor. Sam said, “Luckily, we didn’t use the room safe. What’s missing from the packs?”
Remi pushed some of her clothing aside, opened a zippered compartment in the pack, then stepped back and looked around the room. “Not a thing. I don’t bring fancy jewelry on boat trips, and our only expensive gear is the satellite phones and dive watches. We had them with us.”
“I’m not missing anything either.”
“Please tell me you still have the receipt from the parking attendant,” she said. “The pot is in the trunk of the car.”
“Here’s the receipt.” He held it up so she could see it.
“Let’s check anyway.”
They took the elevator to the parking garage, found their rental car, and opened the trunk. There was the pot and Remi’s computer, wrapped in their jackets, and the airtight packages of seeds and husks with the wooden vessels the Mayan had used.
“Everything is here,” Remi said.
“Whoever it was apparently didn’t see the car or didn’t connect it with us or couldn’t get to it.”
“What do you think is going on?”
“I don’t think it was a regular hotel room robbery. I think somebody recognized us from the newspaper article, or the viral Internet version, and figured we had something valuable from the shrine.”
“The pot?” she asked.
“It might be valuable, and it’s the only thing in our possession, but they couldn’t know that, whoever they are.”
“Then the thing to do is get out of here,” she said. “We need to make sure these people don’t follow us.”
Sam said, “We’ll check out right now and move to another hotel.”
“Where?”
“On the other side of the country.”