Deity (16 page)

With
no light and no air, Chac could only grope the turbid water until his lungs
pained him for oxygen. Twice he went down and twice he resurfaced half dizzy,
empty-handed and having gotten nowhere
near
the bottom
of the pool. By then Peet had returned with the rope, secured it around a tree
and left its length dangling into the cenote. Before Chac could object, the man
leaped back into the cenote and together they searched the silty water until
they were too exhausted to search any longer.

“She’s
been down too long,” Chac said as Peet fought for another breath to continue.

“We
can’t stop,” Peet said frantically. “I must have been close to the bottom that
time.”

Chac
grabbed him as he started down again but Peet managed to fight him off.

“Peet!”
he barked as he caught him and pulled him back to the surface again. To his
surprise, Peet swung a fist, just clipping him beneath the chin.

“Get
off!” Peet demanded. “You’re wasting time!”

“There’s
been too much time already,” Chac reasoned, imprisoning Peet’s fist with his
own crushing grip. “She’s been down far too long.”

Peet
fought to free himself again, but this time Chac held firm. Slowly, he could
see the realization slip across the professor’s face.

“At
this point you need to use your energy to save yourself,” Chac reasoned.

Peet
glanced at the rope—their only means of escape. Finally, with a reluctant nod,
Peet swam to the edge of the cenote, grabbed the rope and began the arduous
climb. When he finally reached the top, Chac began scaling the limestone
himself, which was no easy task in a dripping wetsuit.

Peet
waited at the top, squatting and mournfully cradling his head at the edge of
the cenote. Chac felt momentarily weak and breathless, and his arm demanded
serious attention. Exhausted, he rested at the edge of the cenote, tasting the
sweat and limestone that shed from his upper lip. He was too stunned for words.
He could only gaze back down at the becalmed surface of the water, knowing all
too well the terrorizing darkness beneath.

Minutes
passed. It could have been a full half hour. Chac was too numb to determine the
difference. When he finally chanced a glance at Peet, the man had slumped onto
his
backside,
his arms hunkered over his knees, his
right hand swollen past his wrist. The professor was staring out through the
thin stand of trees that lined a view to the ocean. The disorientating swim
through the underground channel had not taken them deeper into the forest as
Chac had expected, but instead brought them back toward the ocean which now delivered
a welcoming breeze that kept the mosquitoes down.

Through
the trees Chac saw what held Peet’s undivided attention. In that moment he knew
Peet’s thoughts, for out past the trees and beyond the beach and the sea, on
the very edge of the horizon, he saw a white wedding cake peacefully drifting
over a Scuba Blue sea. Chac was thinking it himself.

Lori
was gone.

Mayaland

Father
Ruiz solemnly listened to Peet and Chac’s harrowing story. Just minutes ago
he’d watched the haggard men return to the hotel room like two defeated
Philistine warriors. He knew immediately that something was wrong. If Peet’s
swollen wrist and Chac’s crudely bandaged arm wasn’t proof enough, the fact
that they hadn’t bothered to change out of their tattered diving suits was. They
gravely shuffled in, their wetsuits completely dry and peeled down from their
sweat-gleaming torsos.

With
Peet now icing his wrist, Father Ruiz dabbed at the blood caked on Chac’s
scalp, listening as the Mayan described their narrow escape from the collapsed
cavern. Nobody said a word when he finished. They sat in silence, their
thoughts trained on the giant elephant in the room—the absence of the one who
didn’t return.

Perhaps Father Ruiz was expected to utter the first words
of condolences, but he let the silence linger. Time was what these men needed—time
to sort out the trauma, to mourn their friend and to pray.

“It
should have been me,” Peet murmured beneath his breath. “I should be the one
buried on the bottom of that well.”

“Had
Lori not pushed you out of the way you’d both be down there,” Chac reasoned.

Peet
spotted Lori’s necklace on the table near his elbow. He fingered the silver
chain. “It would be easier if it had been me.”

Father
Ruiz recognized the ache in Peet’s eyes. It wasn’t simply an expression of
remorse. There was regret there as well. He had seen it all too often from
people who’d counted on tomorrow, who’d postponed for another day. These were
the people who’d been slapped in the face with unfinished business and for some
that left them vulnerable to guilt.
For others, denial.
For those who learned to live with it, a sense of healing began but for others,
it created a toxic soup of emotional decay.

And
Anthony Peet was definitely stewing.

It
was time to cut in. “Cast your worries upon the Lord and he will sustain you,”
Father Ruiz said but his words sounded hollow and cliché. Or maybe they were
just made awkward with Lori’s clothing and luggage still holding her presence
in the room.

Peet
didn’t seem to hear them at all. His face had gone blank—a man consumed by his
thoughts.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” he said. “Whoever set
that bomb didn’t want anyone to know about that missing Kin piece.”

Chac
looked disturbed, suspicious. “And at the same time, Matt vanishes into thin
air.”

Peet
shook his head. “No. It couldn’t have been Matt. You said yourself that his
diving gear is still in his vehicle.”

“Maybe
somebody kidnapped Matt,” Father Ruiz offered. “Maybe he gave up the location
of the artifact under duress.”

“But
nobody knew about the Kin piece, not even Matt,” Chac argued. “Hell, Matt and I
were the only ones who knew the Calendar Deity even existed.”

“Lori
knew about it,” Peet said. “And so did—”

There
was a long pause. Peet’s face blanched.

“Who?”
Father Ruiz pressed. “Who else knew
about that fresco?”

Peet
lifted his eyes in a semi-horrified state. “John.”

Father
Ruiz was taken aback. “John Friedman?
Your father-in-law?”

Peet
was hesitant, shaking his head as though not quite believing the very idea that
had entered his mind. “Lori said she asked John to show her the fresco, but
John referred her to Matt instead. John had worked with Matt in the past. I
have to assume Matt told him about the Calendar Deity and somehow Lori caught
wind of it.”

Silence
fell between them as they all retreated to their own thoughts. Father Ruiz had
plenty on his mind as he tried to read Chac’s stony face. Four people knew
about that fresco. Two of them were missing and one was now dead. Whether Peet
realized it or not, suspicion suddenly lay with Chac.

And
there’d been something about the Mayan that Father Ruiz distrusted from the
start.

“As
the only remaining archaeologists who are aware of this fresco, I suggest the
two of you be very careful from here on out,” he warned, fixing his gaze fully
on Peet. “There’s something sinister about this whole situation.”

Whether
Peet read between the lines, Father Ruiz could not tell.

“You’re
right, Father,” Peet said, casting a look in Chac’s direction. “Something’s
going on here and I’m afraid John and Matt are somehow caught up in the middle
of it. We could be next.”

Father
Ruiz spotted Peet’s cell phone resting atop the television. He left Chac to
tend to his own wounds and retrieved the phone.

“There
may be even more to this mystery, Profesor,” he said.

Peet
looked at him questioningly.

“There
is another artifact missing besides your fresco piece. Señor Espanoza sent you
a picture of an artifact that has disappeared from the museum.”

Peet
shook his head. “I can’t worry about artifacts right now. I need to find a way
to contact Lori’s family.”

“He
insisted that you see it,” Father Ruiz pressed, turning on the phone’s screen. “They
discovered it missing from the archives just this morning. A security system
check showed a breach in the archives the same night the Effigy of Quetzalcoatl
was stolen. They believe the Effigy was taken to divert attention from the
theft of this artifact.”

Peet
scowled. “That doesn’t make sense. What artifact could possibly be more
valuable than the Effigy but wouldn’t have been missed until now?”

Father
Ruiz turned the phone over to him with the picture on its display. Peet took
one look at it and then glanced back at him, confused.
“A
stone ball?”

“That’s
the picture he sent you.”

Peet
shook his head. “This is ridiculous. The Effigy is worth a fortune while this
rock appears to have little more than archaeological value. The Effigy couldn’t
have been used as a decoy for this.”

That
had been Father Ruiz’s initial assessment as well. From the moment he saw the
picture flash over the phone’s display he thought surely the museum curator was
mistaken. For a moment he considered that perhaps the stone ball had been taken
to distract from the Effigy’s theft, but he immediately saw the problem with
that reasoning. The ball had been stored away in the archives while the Effigy
was on prominent public display. The Effigy was sure to be immediately missed
while the stone ball might not be missed for days - as had been the case.

That
begged the question, why? Why was the invaluable jade and turquoise Effigy left
in the chapel while a plain ball of rock remained missing? What value did the
thief see in the rock that couldn’t be found in the Effigy?

“Did
Espanoza say where the ball originally came from?” Peet asked.

“He
said it was found near the ruins of Izapa.”

“But
what is it?”

“Let
me see that,” Chac said, reaching for the phone. He studied the photograph with
complete familiarity. “It’s a pillar ball,” he said. “It’s hard to gauge from
the picture but it looks considerably smaller than the pillar balls typically
found in Izapa.”

“What
significance do these pillar balls have?” Peet asked, standing to take a second
look over Chac’s shoulder.

“None that I know of.
Nobody knows their
exact purpose. Though I don’t recall any of Izapa’s pillar balls containing
carvings like this one.”

“The
decoration isn’t very elaborate at that,” Father Ruiz observed. “What are
those, wings wrapping around each side of the ball?”

“Fingers,”
Chac said plainly. “It looks to me like two hands are carved on each side of
the ball, like prints left by someone who’d carried it between their hands.”

Peet
stepped away in thought. “Just like the Calendar Deity carrying a ball between
his hands.”

Father
Ruiz was confused. “I fail to see the connection between this ball and my
missing reliquary cross.”

Chac
snapped his head to attention. “A cross was stolen too?”

Father
Ruiz nodded. “About the same time the pillar ball was taken from the museum.”

“Does
any of this make sense to you?” Peet asked as Chac turned away.

“No,”
Chac retracted, already deep in thought. “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

Father
Ruiz studied Chac carefully. Was he holding something back? Father Ruiz
suddenly feared he’d said too much about the reliquary cross in front of the
Mayan. Then again, there was more he himself needed to share.

“There’s
one more thing you should know about that pillar ball.”

Peet
waited. Chac too had turned back around.

“That
stone ball was found in 1995,” Father Ruiz continued. “The archaeologist who
discovered it was Dr. John R. Friedman.”

* * * *

Peet
couldn’t say his thoughts were swimming. Instead, they were stuck, mired down
by the weight of confusion and circumstances that brought him no closer to John
than the missing pillar ball John had discovered in Izapa seventeen years ago. Peet
had started this search for John on a thread of chance and so far it had gotten
him only deeper into mystery. Already he’d lost Lori in a situation that could
have just as easily taken his own life. The blatant danger involved with his
mission was baffling, if not disturbing. Clearly he wasn’t on a simple case of
artifact theft.

Father
Ruiz cleared his throat. “We should find John and Matt before they share Lori’s
fate.”

Peet
shook his head again. There was too much to think about. Too much that had gone
out of control. “I can’t,” he said. “Not with Lori still in the bottom of that
cenote.”

His
stomach turned to the bitter taste of his own words. It was unbearable to think
that his brightest student had drowned, or worse yet, had been crushed by a
falling slab of limestone. His mind had gone numb to such realities, and instead,
focused on the emptiness he felt.