“When am I not? But you look like you could use some freshening-up.”
“You haven’t looked in a mirror lately, either, have you?”
They said their good-byes to Antonio and Maribela and, having checked out of the motel that morning, took a taxi to the St. Regis in Mexico City, first dropping Lazlo off at the clinic. They agreed to regroup the following morning and drive out to the site together, once they were rested and fortified, the hard work now done.
Teotihuacan was deadly still at three a.m. The towering pyramids were almost invisible against the deepening vault of the night sky, the ancient city’s wide boulevard an inky strip devoid of life. A sliver of moon peeked through the patchwork of clouds, giving barely enough light for the soldiers guarding the newly discovered crypt to see one another’s faces. A hardened sergeant roamed the temple perimeter, ensuring that his dozen men were alert and vigilant. Although they were only twenty-five miles from the hum of Mexico City, this was another world, the glimmer of lights from the nearby town of San Martín de las Pirámides as unlike the capital’s neon brilliance as water and wine.
A corporal stood near the barricade that had been erected to make the excavation area more manageable, telling a joke in a low tone to one of his men. He stiffened when he saw the sergeant approach and fell silent—their commander was known as a hard case, a career soldier who’d spent fifteen years in the service stationed all over Mexico during the upheaval of the drug wars. He took this dull guard duty dead seriously, whereas his men, most of whom were barely old enough to shave, viewed it as yet another in a long string of boring postings that seemed random and pointless.
The sergeant opened his mouth to speak, a look of reproach on his face, when his cap blew off along with half his skull. The corporal took a second to register what had happened—the final second in his short life as a tiny red dot danced over his sternum and then two rounds slammed into his chest. The private he’d been telling his story to was swinging his weapon up to fire at the invisible assailants when a slug tore through his throat and he collapsed in a heap, his dying breath gurgling as he shuddered, his rifle now lying uselessly by his feet.
From the surrounding field, eight men clad in black moved toward the site, their passage stealthy and practiced. Three more soldiers succumbed to the puffs of the sound-suppressed 9mm pistols, their subsonic ammo making them as quiet as air guns, and then a cry went up from one of the remaining soldiers when he spotted the huddled body of one of his squad near the edge of the field. The leader of the attacking group murmured into his earbud and all eight of the black-clad figures opened fire on the remaining soldiers, making short work of them.
The battle was over before it began; the soldiers had been mown down without getting off a shot. The leader of the intruders rose from his crouched position and moved through the carnage, stopping occasionally to fire into one of the moaning wounded. When he was sure the area was secure, he fished a cell phone from his black windbreaker pocket and pushed one of the speed dial buttons.
Two minutes later, three large vehicles approached—SUVs running with their lights off. The lead truck pulled to the edge of the site and all four doors opened. Guerrero stepped out and waited for Reginald, who was only a moment behind him.
“It’s done. But we should hurry. I have no idea if they have to radio in to the base on a regular schedule or what their protocol is,” Guerrero said, eyeing the corpses, his expression calm—the sight of dead Mexican soldiers an everyday part of his business.
Reginald nodded. “Have the men bring the holdalls. We’ll want the gold, of course, but also any icons or ceramics. There’s a thriving market for those if you have the right contacts.”
“Which, of course, you do.” Guerrero grinned, and a stray moonbeam glinted off a gold-capped incisor, lending him a demonic cast in the gloom.
“Rather makes me the ideal partner, doesn’t it? This could be worth a fortune.”
“Then let’s go see what we got, eh? Lead the way,” the cartel chief said.
Reginald picked his way around the bodies to the ramp that had been excavated for easier access to the tomb. Inside, he flicked on his portable lamp, as did Guerrero, and soon the other men had joined them. Four remained above to ensure their looting wasn’t interrupted. Reginald entered the crypt and knelt by one of the three mounds. He carefully lifted a gold figure and hefted it with a grunt and then wrapped it carefully in a towel before sliding it into his bag.
“There isn’t as much as I’d hoped, but this alone weighs at least two kilos. No question this will be a profitable night. Let’s take everything—this will hardly fill four or five bags, so there’ll be more than enough room. But remember what I said: careful with everything and don’t just throw things into the bags. Wrap each item completely. We’ll take inventory once we’re well away from here.”
The men went to work. One dug out the priceless artifacts and his partners wrapped and stowed the goods. The vault was cleared out within twenty minutes. Reginald stared at the mummy before glancing at his watch.
“That’s it. Our business here is concluded,” he said, taking a last sweep of the crypt to ensure he hadn’t missed anything. Satisfied, he joined Guerrero, who extended a hand in an offer to carry Reginald’s bag.
“What do you think?” Guerrero asked as he took the heavy sack’s handles from Reginald.
“No way to tell at this point, but I’d guess millions. How many is really determined by the market and how long we need to let the inventory cool down before offering it to a few discriminating collectors.”
“Why don’t we just melt the gold and convert into cash immediately?”
Reginald shook his head as if appalled by the notion. “Good heavens no, old boy. The value in those icons is in their history, not the weight of the gold. They’re likely worth a thousand times more than the raw value of the metal.”
Guerrero gave Reginald a skeptical look. “Remember the deal: fifty-fifty. No tricks or there isn’t a corner of the planet remote enough to hide in.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Reginald said, doing his best to sound every bit the honest upper-crust Brit to this pretentious savage. Of course, no matter what the trove brought, he would ensure that at least seventy percent stuck to Janus and him. The cartel thug would have no way of knowing the actual terms of each sale, and, if necessary, Reginald was confident that he could do side deals for secret payments over and above what was wired to his account.
He couldn’t wait to see Janus’s expression when he appeared with the treasure. While his older sibling slept, Reginald had taken the initiative and made them a small fortune. It had occurred to him to cut Janus out altogether, but the truth was that he needed his brother’s expertise to value each piece, as well as needing his network. Perhaps in another five years he would know all the players, but for now Janus ruled that roost whether it rankled Reginald’s pride or not.
With any luck, they would be safely back in Mexico City by the time roadblocks barred the surrounding roads and vehicles were searched in a manhunt that would be too little, too late.
Reginald could only imagine how the Fargos would react when they discovered their thunder had been stolen, that their big find would be remembered as an unmitigated disaster.
A wolf’s grin flashed across his face as he envisioned their expressions.
Payback time.
Lazlo was waiting in the clinic lobby when Sam and Remi’s taxi pulled up outside the imposing building the next morning. He practically ran from the doorway when Sam got out of the car and waved and within minutes the three of them were comfortably ensconced in a booth at a nearby restaurant.