Sam and Remi moved cautiously inside the forest, venturing closer to the edge. Suddenly Remi raised her eyes and pointed. At the right side of the large open area of low weeds and grasses, a high wooded hill that had been only partially visible looked different from this angle. From this side, Sam and Remi could see a stone stairway, straight and uninterrupted, running from the ground to the apex. The partial excavation of the steep hill revealed that what had seemed to be natural irregularities were layers of the pyramid. They were flat, with trees and brush growing on them, but in places the roots had dislodged stones from the structure and collapsed a corner from one level to the level below, making the profile more like a hill than a building.
This was unquestionably the step pyramid that had been depicted on the codex map and had appeared in the aerial photograph. A crew of about a hundred workmen were attacking the structure with axes, picks, mattocks, shovels, and buckets to clear the pyramid of about a thousand years of accumulated leaves, humus, dirt, and living plants. They moved quickly and swung hard, more like a demolition crew than archaeologists. They hacked away at the debris covering the pyramid. Other workers were cutting and burning brush in different parts of the complex. Their labor was baring stone structures in all directions. Sam reached to Remi’s hand, took her phone, and began to take pictures.
Remi whispered, “If David Caine could see the way this place is being pounded and abused, it would kill him.” After a minute, she noticed a platoon of armed men moving single file out of the jungle, on the far side of the complex. There were about twenty of them, all carrying rifles on slings. There were a few other armed men stationed on the upper levels of the buildings. A couple of them waved to the men just arriving.
Sam was busy taking photographs with Remi’s phone. He reviewed the shots, then sent them to Selma. He put away the phone and tapped Remi on the shoulder. They stayed low and slowly edged away from the cleared area. When they could, they stood and walked back up the game trail until they judged they were out of earshot. Sam pressed a number on Remi’s phone and then the call button.
“Policía federales.”
“Hello. This is Sam Fargo.”
“And this is Commander Rueda,” said the voice. “I’ve been keeping this line clear for your call.”
“Thank you, Commander. We’re at the coordinates we gave you before we left home. As the Mayan codex indicated, what’s her
e is a large city with a temple complex. We’ve been watching a crew of around a hundred men clearing away dirt and vegetation as fast as they can. There are also armed guards. A little while ago, a helicopter landed with what looks like a film crew.”
“Are they doing anything criminal?”
“They’re uncovering the buildings with picks, mattocks, and shovels without much regard to the damage they do to what’s beneath. But I’d say that the main problem so far is the one we’ve told you about. The only way that Sarah Allersby could have found this place is if she has the stolen Mayan codex from the University of California, San Diego.”
“If I send a squad of men to that location, will they find anything to charge her with?”
“I think they’ll find notes that indicate where she learned the location, or even a photocopy of the codex page, which would prove it’s been in her possession,” Sam said. “Either way, maybe police can get the workers to excavate properly and not destroy what they’re uncovering.”
“All right. I’ll send a helicopter with soldiers to check on the excavation. That’s all I can promise.”
“That’s good enough for me. Thank you.” He handed Remi her phone.
Remi called Selma. “Hi, Selma. We’ve been to the site. Have you seen the pictures? You can tell David it’s as big as he thought. Sam just called the cops to come and take a look at the terrible job they’re doing on this dig. We’re hoping they’ll also find evidence that she used the map in the codex.”
“Don’t let the police forget that it could be in a computer or her phone, or it could be disguised as something else.”
“Don’t worry. It’s a fishing expedition, and we know fish don’t all look the same.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. We’re on our way back to the site.”
Sam and Remi moved up the trail again to the clearing. As they crouched in the brush, looking at what must have been the great plaza of the ancient Mayan city, they heard the distant chop of another helicopter. This one came from the south like the other, but its engine sounded different. The helicopter came straight in over the jungle, hovered above the center of the plaza, and then came down not far from the first helicopter.
The four-man camera crew that had been loitering under the sun awning snatched up their equipment and trotted to the helicopter, where the rotors were just slowing down, and began to film. Among them were a soundman, carrying a microphone on a long pole, a cinematographer with a video camera on his shoulder, a lighting man with battery-operated lights and a white umbrella on a tripod, and a fourth man with a large pack who paid out a length of insulated cord that led to a box under the awning.
The helicopter’s engine stopped, and a door on the side opened. The first one out was Sarah Allersby’s security guard, who looked like a cage fighter. He was broad and muscular, wore olive drab pants and a khaki shirt, and carried a small weapon on a sling that looked like a machine pistol. He stood by with the open door at his back while the main occupant of the helicopter stepped down.
Sarah Allersby’s golden blond hair was tied straight back in a ponytail that shone on the back of her handmade, light blue cotton work shirt. She wore a pair of slacks of tropical khaki, but they were tailor-fitted. She wore tie boots designed like combat boots but made of a soft brown, polished leather. Her costume looked perfect for an adventure but would not have stood up to a strenuous hour in this jungle.
As Sarah Allersby stepped away from the helicopter, the cameraman and his assistant sidestepped along beside her, recording her arrival as if she were General MacArthur stepping off the landing craft onto the beach at Leyte. As she walked, men in jungle gear, who had been waiting for her, approached and spoke to her with exaggerated respect, bowing, and then joined her entourage as she advanced, pointing out parts of the pyramid that towered above them.
The group walked all the way to the bottom of the great stairway and climbed a few steps upward. The cameraman said something, and Sarah Allersby stopped. She conferred with the man. Then they all walked back to the helicopter.
Once again, the crew filmed Sarah Allersby, swinging her legs and hopping out of the helicopter, then chatting knowledgeably with the overseers of her excavation crew, as she walked with heroic determination to the foot of the pyramid. The cameraman stopped the action, talked to Sarah Allersby, played back some of the tape for her, and pointed out various aspects of it. They all returned to the helicopter, and the drama was repeated once more.
After the first scene, in which she took symbolic ownership of the pyramid, had been perfected, there were a few other scenes. Sarah Allersby sat at a table under the awning. She and her supposed colleagues had a large paper, unfolded and spread on the table, with stones from the nearby temple holding down the corners. She pointed at various spots on the map, or diagram, as though she were explaining her plan of attack to a group of lieutenants.
Sam and Remi could not hear what was being said, and they assumed it was beyond their Spanish comprehension, but they watched, fascinated, as Sarah Allersby documented her discovery of the ancient Mayan city.
The filming took a couple of hours. Between takes, a woman Sam and Remi had assumed to be an archaeologist when she’d followed Sarah Allersby from her helicopter, would open a large black chest and redo Sarah Allersby’s makeup and hair. At one point, the two of them entered a tent and returned a half hour later. Sarah had changed into a different outfit, a pair of designer jeans and a silk blouse. The cameraman filmed her pretending to excavate a shallow hole that had been dug before she arrived and divided into squares with strings on stakes. There were close-ups of her using a brush to clean dirt off a set of obsidian tools that had been planted in the hole for her to find.