He put his arms around her and kissed her. “It’s kind of nice to be alone.”
“It is,” she said. “But if we don’t get this place photographed, we’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“Let’s get it done.” Each of them opened a day pack, took out a pistol, stuck it in the bellyband they both wore under their shirts, and then took out a digital camera.
They worked systematically, taking shots from each side of the pyramid, so that in all four directions they photographed a quarter of the surrounding city complex, which looked like an arrangement of steep hills covered by trees. They went into the house-sized temple atop the pyramid and took photographs of its walls, floor, and ceiling. The temple had two rooms plastered with stucco and then painted with murals that were in fairly good shape. They depicted a procession of Mayan people bringing bowls and plates to a hideous figure who must have been a god.
They slowly descended the pyramid, taking photographs of it, of the steps, of the monumental buildings in every direction. Much of the time, each of them included the other person in the photograph to establish scale and to prove that they had been there.
When they reached the ground level, they walked a quarter of a mile in each of the four directions from the pyramid, still photographing everything they could see. At the end of the afternoon, they returned to the foot of the pyramid and stopped on the east side. Sam took a foot-length section of PVC pipe, capped and sealed on both ends, from his pack. Inside were rolled papers, printed statements in English and Spanish. They said that Remi and Sam Fargo had been at this GPS position on this date to explore and map these Mayan ruins. There were also telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and street addresses for contacting the Society for American Archaeology, the World Archaeological Congress, and the Society for Historical Archaeology, all of which had been notified of the discovery, as had the Guatemalan government. Sam dug a hole and buried the pipe in front of the eastern steps and then marked the spot with a small red plastic flag, like the ones that gas companies use to mark gas lines.
“So much for that,” said Remi. “I feel a little like the old-time explorers who used to plant flags on other people’s property and say they owned it.”
“Let’s just settle on the idea that we were here and registered it with the people who are qualified to study it and learn more about it,” he said. “That’s enough for me.”
“And this is our fifth city,” Remi said. “Four major cities in ten days.”
“We must be the world’s greatest tourists.”
Remi looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Let’s climb up on our perch and get a phone connection with Selma’s computer so we can send her our photographs.”
As they moved up the enormous work of earth and stone, they could see trees nearly as tall on all sides. At the top, Remi turned on her satellite phone, connected it to her camera, and sent her cache of photographs to Selma’s computer in San Diego. They had arranged at their first site that Selma would save all of the material and then forward it to David Caine at the university. He, in turn, would notify all of the international organizations that another previously unknown Mayan city had been found, partially mapped, and photographed.
When Remi had transferred her photographs, she took Sam’s camera and transferred his. She looked at her watch again, and said, “It’s almost five. Didn’t Tim say he was coming at five?”
“Yes.” Sam took his satellite phone and called Tim Carmichael. He heard the sound of ringing for a minute, then hung up. “He’s not answering.”
“He’s probably flying, and he can’t hear the phone with the earphones on.”
They waited about ten more minutes, listening for the sound of a helicopter, and then Remi said, “Nothing.”
Sam called again, then hung up. He called the office of Cormorant 1 Air Charter in Belize and put on the speaker so Remi could hear.
“Cormorant, Art Bowen.”
“Mr. Bowen, we haven’t met. This is Sam Fargo. Tim Carmichael took us to a spot in the highlands of Guatemala. He was supposed to pick us up at five, but he hasn’t. He’s not answering his satellite phone. I wondered if you could please get him on the radio and check to be sure he’s all right.”
“I’ll try,” said Bowen. “Hold on.”
Bowen went away from the phone for a minute. More time passed, and Sam and Remi could hear low voices in the background. B
owen might have been on the radio or he might have been talking to someone in his office. After a few more minutes, he was back. “He’s not answering his radio either,” said Bowen. “We’re going to send another helicopter out there and see what’s up. Can you give me your exact position?”
“Hold on.” Sam handed the phone to Remi, who had their notes in her day pack. She read the coordinates to Bowen, then repeated them. She gave him her satellite phone number and Sam’s. “Tim was going to wait for us about five miles due west of our current position, on a flat space that looked as though it had been recently burned.”
“And can you be seen from the air?”
“We’re standing on top of a Mayan pyramid. Tim lowered us on a rescue cable, and he was going to pick us up the same way.”
“I’m going to come get you myself. But I don’t have a chopper here with that kind of equipment on it right now. Is there a place I can land and get you?”
“We’ll have to walk to the place where Tim landed. Everywhere else in any direction seems to be covered with vegetation.”
“If that’s the only option, okay. But do it carefully. Don’t count on the idea that anybody you meet out there is okay. There are a lot of criminals in the wild country, where the police and the army can’t find them. I’m bringing two men with me and we’ll be armed.”
“Thanks for the warning. We’ll do our best not to make contact with anybody. We’re heading for the landing site right now.”
“We’ll probably get there about the same time. See you there.”