Deity (28 page)

Lori
hesitated, confused.
“His partner?”

“Yeah,
but Webb wasn’t around when I came across their site. It was just the one man
working alone.”

“What
was his name?” Lori asked.

“Fireman…Freeman,
maybe…something like that.”

Lori
was stunned. “Do you mean Friedman?” she asked. “Dr. John Friedman?”

“That’s
the one! Friendly fellow, he was.”

Lori
could hardly believe her ears. Dr. Friedman had partnered up with Webb? Why
hadn’t he told anybody? It wasn’t like him to leave others wondering about his
whereabouts.
Dr. Peet had been looking for him, and because
of that, he was now dead.
Or was he really alive hunting for the Talking
Cross with Chac? Why so many secrets?

“There
was nobody with them?” Lori tried to clarify.

Laffy
shrugged.
“Nobody that I saw.”

“No
Mexicans,” Abe cut in.

Laffy
shook his head.

No
Mexicans.
No Zapatistas
.

Tarah
sighed. “That’s a relief,” she muttered under her breath.

Lori
was troubled. So much seemed to have been grossly miscommunicated and errors
were being made based on hasty assumptions. Yet, even as she made such a determination
she realized the irony of the situation. After all, wasn’t the whole reason she
herself was in Mexico was due to the assumption that she could prove Matt’s
fresco was not evidence of Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl’s presence in Yucatan,
therefore increasing the possibility that the Toltec priest was actually buried
in Utah? If she could go through such lengths to validate a working theory
could other colleagues act so vainly? Was that why Dr. Webb and Dr. Friedman
teamed up so secretly? Could that explain Chac and Dr. Peet’s footprints
secretly departing the collapsed cenote?

Or
was she treading along the edge of another hasty assumption herself?

Lori
needed answers, and fast.

“Can
you show us where Dr. Friedman and Dr. Webb are working?” she asked.

Laffy
didn’t even hesitate.
“Of course.”

“Please,”
Abe prodded. “By all means, lead the way.”

Tun

Laffy’s
Polaris 4-wheeler zipped along the nearly concealed vehicle tracks cutting
through a mature stand of grass. Lori bounced in the back seat of Abe’s
4-Runner as they followed him at a close distance. Trees closed in around them
until they were too thick to get the 4-Runner through. That’s where Laffy
stopped.

“Looks
like your friends have left, eh?” Laffy said, stepping away from the Polaris. “I
don’t see their Jeep anywhere.”

“That’s
unfortunate,” Abe said.

“Where
do you suppose they could have gone?” Lori asked. She had hoped to end their
chase there. However, if there was one thing she could be at peace with it was
that the Zapatistas had not kidnapped Dr. Webb after all.

“They
must have finished their work and gone home,” Laffy suggested.

If
that was the case, Lori felt foolish for having come all this way for nothing. She
desperately wished she had her cell phone. Maybe she could reach Dr. Friedman
and find out exactly what was going on. Then again, remembering the satellite
phone in Laffy’s trailer, she doubted her cell would pick up any service out in
the middle of a Mexican jungle.

“Can
you show us what they were working on?” she asked. After all, she’d come this
far. She might as well see what the hubbub was all about.

“Oh sure.
Right this way.”

They
followed Laffy deeper into the forest, stepping through a tangle of limbs and
brush that made Lori wonder how anyone managed to keep their bearings straight.
The trees smothered the mountains and choked the sunlight from the sky. It was
easy to see how ancient ruins could be lost for centuries. It was hard to
imagine why anyone would traverse the area unless they were looking for
something. Then again, looking for ancient ruins was as good a reason as any.

Lori
wasn’t sure just how far they’d gone when they reached the slightest clearing,
an unnatural clearing specific to a stone pillar and some sort of altar behind
it. A pile of cut vegetation lay nearby, barely a few days old, and the earth
around the legs of the altar had been disturbed, excavation-style.

No
doubt this was where Dr. Friedman and Dr. Webb had been working, but the
confusion on Laffy’s face seemed to suggest otherwise.

“This
doesn’t look quite right,” he said as they entered the clearing. His eyes were
trained upon the pillar. “This doesn’t look right at all.”

“What’s
wrong?” Lori asked, stepping toward the pillar.

“This
rock,” Laffy said
,
slapping a hand upon a round ball
of stone perched atop the pillar. “This wasn’t here before.”

“I’m
sure they found the ball somewhere in these trees and put it back where it
belongs,” Tarah reasoned. “Archaeologists are always trying to restore things.”

“No,”
Lori said, allowing her fingers to lightly trace the anthropomorphic handprints
chiseled into the ball’s sides. “I think this ball was found first.”

“How
could you possibly know that?” Tarah asked.

“It’s
been cleaned to preserve the carvings on it. A field brush couldn’t have done
this neat of a job. If this ball had just been found, there’d still be dirt and
soil packed into the crevices.”

“I
don’t know about any of that but I’m quite certain that this pillar has
shrunk,” Laffy said.

“Rocks
don’t exactly shrink,” Abe said.

“I’m
telling you, the top of this pillar reached just below my neck. It’s almost as
if the weight of the round stone pushed it into the ground.”

Abe
snorted. “C’mon. It can’t be that heavy.”

He
stepped up to the pillar and attempted to lift the ball from the top. It didn’t
budge. Laffy joined him, but even the two of them could not lift the stone from
its pillar.

“How
in the devil did they get this rock on top of the pillar?” Abe groaned.

Laffy
looked even more confused. “Volcanic andesite can be dense, but two men should
be able to move a piece this size without much problem.”

“Why
would they put it up there in the first place?” Tarah asked.

“It’s
the Calendar Deity,” Lori said, stepping back to get a fuller view of the
pillar. “In the hieroglyph, the Calendar Deity was holding a ball between his
hands—hands that have been actually carved onto this ball. The legs continue
down the pillar.”

“So
where’s his head?” Tarah asked doubtfully.

“We
supply the head!” Lori stepped behind the pillar, placing her hands over the
handprints. “Essentially, we become the Calendar Deity holding the ball!”

“That’s
a stretch,” Tarah remarked.

“Maybe
not,” Abe said. He touched the ball between Lori’s fingertips. “Is this one of
the glyphs you said accompanied the Calendar Deity?”

Lori
looked. Indeed, a small glyph carved between her fingertips looked very similar
to the third glyph that was directly in front of the Calendar Deity hieroglyph,
directly in front of the ball in his hands.

“Tun,”
Lori recalled. “The third point on the Long Count Calendar is Tun.”

Tarah
glanced blankly at Abe.
“Doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Lori
turned away from the pillar, her mind rolling over the Tun glyph. “The ball is
the Tun piece,” she thought aloud.

“What
is she talking about?” Tarah asked. Abe only shrugged.

“It’s
almost as though someone used the Long Count Calendar points to label certain
artifacts. Maybe the Calendar Deity fresco was used as a guide. The Kin glyph
had been drawn over a gear-shaped piece inserted into the wall. That’s the
first piece. The Tun glyph was drawn right before the ball in the Calendar
Deity’s hands.” She slapped the ball crowning the stone pillar. “And here this
ball is labeled with the same glyph. That makes the ball the Tun piece, or the
third piece.”

“Third piece to what?”
Tarah asked.

Lori
could only shrug. As much as her observations seemed to be making sense, they
were raising more questions—more puzzles.

Abe
rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So what is the second piece?”

Again,
Lori didn’t have an answer. She began calculating numbers. There were twenty
Kins to a Uinal, eighteen Uinals, to a Tun. That didn’t help. Her mind flashed
back to the Calendar Deity drawn on the cavern wall. The Kin glyph had been
located above the Calendar Deity’s head. The Tun directly in front of the ball
in the Calendar Deity’s hands. The Uinal had floated somewhere before the
figure’s face. What could possibly be labeled with the Uinal glyph that might
tie to the Calendar Deity’s face?

“Maybe
it doesn’t matter,” Laffy piped in. “It seems to me that these calendar glyphs
you’re chasing amount to nothing more than a trail of bread crumbs. Sounds like
you found the first crumb. Now you’ve found the third. Who cares if you skipped
the second
crumb.
It seems like you should be more
focused on the trail ahead—the fourth crumb.”

Abe
snapped his fingers. “He’s right. These points must be leading us to the
Talking Cross. Lori even saw a picture of the cross drawn behind the first
clue.”

“So
Dr. Webb and his partner must be on their way toward the fourth clue,” Tarah
added.

“And
once they find that,” Lori said, “it’ll lead them to the fifth and final
position—the cross!”

‘That
is, if the Zapatistas don’t catch them first,” Abe said glumly. “Remember what
the boy on the bike said. A plane has been shot down by the Zapatistas. They
must know someone is in their area looking for the cross.”

“We
must find Matt before the Zapatistas do,” Tarah said. “But where do we go from
here?”

Lori
squared herself with the pillar once again and placed her hands on the ball. She
looked over the top to find herself looking through a slight path of slashed
tree limbs that opened the view of a cleft peak glowing in the western rays of
the dropping sun.

“There,”
she said. “We have to go there.”

“Where
exactly is ‘there’?” Tarah asked, craning for a glimpse of Lori’s point of
view.

“Tacana,”
Laffy answered.

“What’s
so special about Tacana?”

“You
mean other than the fact that it’s the volcano with a heightened presentation
of seismic activity?”

They all hesitated, waiting for Laffy to continue. The
scientist merely stared back at them, his blank gaze shifting from Abe to
Tarah, then on to Lori, as if expecting them to be deterred by his insight.

Abe
didn’t appear impressed, much less dissuaded by a little rumbling beneath the
ground. “We need to get to the top of that volcano.”

“I’m
not so sure the top is where you need to go,” Laffy said.

“You
know where the fourth marker is?” Lori asked.

“I
can’t tell you if it’s a marker or not, but there is another pillar, just like
this one, in a small clearing just below the tree line. I happened to notice it
one day as I was performing an aerial survey of the volcano.”

Tarah
turned a hard gaze in Abe’s direction. “Matt has at least one day’s head
start.”

Abe
nodded, following her train of thought. “If the Zapatistas are in fact
following him, then they are that much closer to the next clue. But I doubt
they know someone with a helicopter.”

Laffy
back pedaled.
“Le Vol De Feu?
I never offered to lend
out my chopper. It’s on loan to me strictly for the use of volcanology and…”

Abe
snapped so fast that Lori scarcely realized what was happening when he moved. Without
warning, the wealthy humanitarian snapped a flashy Sig Sauer pistol and pointed
it directly into Laffy’s face, causing an immediate hush from the Canadian.

Lori
was shocked speechless.

“We need to move fast,” Abe insisted behind his weapon. “I’m
not asking to borrow your helicopter. I’m demanding it.”

“Whoa,
wait a second,” Lori protested. “What are you doing?”

Abe
turned a menacing eye to her. “We have no choice. If the Zapatistas catch Matt
and find the Talking Cross, they will have direct access to God’s power. They’ll
be an unstoppable force taking revenge upon a world they believe has neglected
them.”

“Don’t
be ridiculous,” Lori said. “The cross is nothing more than a relic.”

Abe’s
voice grew
more stern
. “If that’s the case, then why
is it hidden behind a trail of riddles and clues? Why are the Zapatistas looking
for it?”