Fallen Idols (7 page)

Another flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed a couple of seconds later by a loud clap of thunder. Everybody looked up in dismay. The leader cursed under his breath. “Hurry,” he yelled at his men on the ground.

The bandits began cramming the loose booty into garbage bags. The leader pointed a dirt-encrusted finger at Walt. “Go help your drivers bring the rest of your things up here,” he snapped.

Walt's knees almost buckled. There is a God after all, he thought, as his mind raced. This heaven-sent, albeit unconscious gift from their abductors proved it.

“Right away,” he said, hoping he didn't sound too eager. “My wife will help me,” he called back over his shoulder, as he hustled her away from the others, toward the vans.

Manuel and Ernesto, standing on top of the lead van, were untying the last of the bags that had been secured to the luggage rack on the roof. The ropes were wet and unwieldy. Manuel, cursing to himself, began hacking at them with his knife. Ernesto, perched next to him, was doing the same.

“We'll bring what's left back here!” Walt called up to Manuel, as he and Jocelyn passed his two drivers on their way to the back. He pointed to the rear van.

Manuel, standing on top of the van he had been driving, nodded quickly and continued his cutting.

The large trunk that held the artifacts Walt was bringing back to the states, along with his computer and other critical materials, was in the back of the second van. He swung open the rear door. The trunk was under the few remaining duffel bags that hadn't yet been taken out. He grabbed the bags and tossed them onto the muddy ground.

The trunk was secured with a heavy padlock. It was heavy—he and Jocelyn struggled to pull it out of the van. They dropped it at their feet. Walt started to push it under the vehicle.

Jocelyn grabbed his arm. “We can't leave it here, under the truck,” she exclaimed, panic rising in her voice. “It's too big to hide, they'll find it.”

Walt looked around desperately. The jungle was choked with thick vegetation on either side of the road, less than ten feet from where they were standing. Cautiously, he peered around the corner of the van.

The bandidos were shouting with each other, struggling to get the bags they had filled onto the pack animals. From where he and Jocelyn were standing, they couldn't be seen.

“Take that side,” he whispered, pointing to the far side of the trunk.

They grabbed the big metal box by the handles at either end. Straining under the weight of it, they carried it to the edge of the road and pushed their way about five yards into the dense foliage.

They lowered the trunk to the ground. “They won't find it here,” Walt said. “It's pitch-black, you can't see anything.”

“Don't you think we should go in deeper?” Jocelyn asked fearfully.

“We don't have time. It'll be okay,” he told her, trying to sound reassuring.

He grabbed handfuls of wet leaves and broken tree blanches and did a quick camouflage job on the trunk. Stepping back, he looked at his rush-job handiwork. From the road, it wouldn't be seen.

Another flash of lightning hit close by, followed by a loud roll of thunder. The storm was coming even closer. In a few minutes, it would be upon them.

“Come on,” he said, pulling her back onto the road. “We can't hang back here, they'll send someone looking for us.”

They picked up as many duffel bags as they could and carried them to the pile in front of the lead van, dropping them onto the ground. Walt, his shirt soaked with perspiration and from the wet bags he had carried, looked up at the bandit leader.

“Just a couple more,” he panted. “I'll go get them.”

The leader shook his head impatiently as he peered up at the increasingly threatening sky.
“Répido, répido
,” he yelled at Walt.

Walt raced to the back of the trail van and grabbed the few remaining bags. He brought them forward and dropped them onto the ground. Manuel and Ernesto followed him with the last of the bags from the lead van.

“That's it,” Walt said in a weary voice. He looked at Manuel, who nodded in agreement. “It's all here in front of you.”

The leader had a suspicious expression on his face. “That is all? You are sure?”

“Yes,” Walt nodded. “There's nothing left.” He hesitated—then he decided to go for broke. “Go back and look inside the vans yourself if you don't believe me.”

The leader cursed under his breath. He motioned to one of the men who was sitting on his horse, a few feet behind him, to ride up and join him.

The man he beckoned, who had been watching from the background but not actively participating in the looting, rode forward. Like the others, he was wearing a wide-brimmed hat that rested low over his face, so that Walt couldn't make out his features.

The leader was obviously agitated as he spoke to the other man. The man shook his head in anger as he answered. Then he turned toward Walt and looked up, revealing his face.

Walt stared at him slack-jawed, as if staring at a ghost.

He knew this man. He had worked at the camp, and had been a troublemaker from the get-go. Walt had tried to fire him, but the man had connections with the Minister of Archaeology and Culture—the same official who had informed him that their military escort had been pulled.

Walt clearly recalled seeing the man at La Chimenea the night before; but in the morning, he remembered now, he hadn't. The man must have snuck out in the middle of the night, after everyone had gone to sleep. Maybe while he, Walt, was at the site, with Diane Montrose. The thought chilled him.

The man, hooded eyes unblinking, continued staring at Walt. Then he broke into a gap-toothed smile. It was a smile not of friendship, but of revengeful triumph.

Walt realized, with certainty now, that his instincts had been right: it had been a setup, starting with the broken alternator. His feeling of outrage toward this coward was overwhelmed by that of fear for his life and the lives of his charges.

The turncoat leaned in and said something more to the bandit leader. The leader listened intently. Then he turned and stared at Walt.

“There is a missing box,” he said, his voice harsh with anger. “Where is it?”

Walt couldn't back down now. He had to play his hand to the end. “Like I told you. This is everything.”

The leader motioned to a couple of his men to dismount. “Go look back there and see if there is anything that has been left behind,” he ordered them. He looked up in anxiety at the dark, lowering sky. “Do it quickly.”

Walt glanced over at Manuel. His assistant gave him a quizzical look, then turned away. Don't look anywhere except in the vans, Walt prayed silently. The words were a mantra in his head. Don't look anywhere.

A shout was heard from the near distance. The two-man search party returned. They were straining as they lugged the large, heavy trunk with them. They plopped it down on the ground in front of the leader's horse.

“You withheld this?” the leader asked, as he stared at Walt in anger and disbelief. “Are you stupid, or insane? Did you not believe me when I cautioned you not to hold anything back?”

“I didn't hide that,” Walt protested. “It wasn't in either of the vans. I emptied them out.”

The leader turned to the men who had found the trunk. “Where was it?”

“A few meters off the road,
jefe
,” one of them replied. “Hidden in the jungle.”

Walt threw up his hands. “I don't know anything about that,” he vowed. “I brought up everything that was there. Everything I saw that was there,” he amended.

The leader pointed his rifle at Walt. “I warned you what would happen if you held out on us.” His voice was shaking, he was so enraged.

Gasps rose from the students. Jocelyn put a quivering hand on Walt's arm.

Walt stood his ground. “If you want to shoot me, that's up to you,” he told the leader, trying to keep the fear tremor from his voice. “But I'm not that dumb, for Godsakes. I certainly wouldn't try to hide something that big.” He hoped the lies wouldn't sound as bad to his captor's ears as they did to him.

“You were trying to cheat me,” the leader spat at him, his voice thick with anger. “But you are lucky—I do not have time to kill you now, or I would.” He looked up at the threatening sky. “Give me the key to this,” he ordered Walt.

“I don't have it. You took it. It's in one of your bags.”

The leader cursed. He signaled to one of his men who was standing on the ground. “Shoot the lock off,” he ordered.

The young bandit aimed his rifle at the lock and fired. The explosion rocked the jungle, echoing up past the black trees that stood like sentries. Cries of birds and animals erupted, and flocks of birds took flight into the dark foreboding sky.

“Open it,” the leader said.

The young bandido swung the top open. Handing his rifle and reins to the rider next to him, the leader climbed down off his horse and started pulling things out. Walt watched with a building sense of dread as the bandido chieftain took out his computer and other research instruments and carelessly flung them aside.

He's going to find the artifacts I'm taking out of the country, Walt thought as he watched his personal things being tossed about, and he's going to think they were stolen, just as Jocelyn had predicted. He glanced over at her. She was looking at the ground and shaking her head back and forth with a look of absolute despair on her face. He reached into his pocket for the papers that certified the legality for him to have the artifacts. Let's hope this sonofabitch can read, he prayed. And that he doesn't shoot first and ask questions afterward.

The bandit leader pulled out a package that had been securely bound up in bubble wrap and tape. Pulling the tape off, he unwound the bubble wrap and looked at the object in his hands. It was a fragment of stela on which was enscribed a drawing depicting a battle, which would assist Walt in deciphering the dynamics of the ruling situation at the height of La Chimenea's power in the Maya pantheon. He turned the piece over in his hands, staring at it intently. Then he looked at Walt.

“Why do you have this?” he asked. “Is this not from the site you are working on?”

“Yes, it is,” Walt answered quickly.

“You are stealing from the site?” the leader continued, his voice rising like a volcano about to erupt. “You are stealing our culture?”

Walt shook his head vehemently. “No, no, no, I'm not. Absolutely not.” He reached into his vest pocket. “I have documents explaining that it is legal for me to remove them, for scientific study. They are signed by the Minister of Archaeology and Culture.” He pulled the papers out of his pocket. “Here. Look at them, please.” His hand was shaking as he held the papers out. “You will see I have nothing to hide.”

The leader stared at him, then at the papers in his hand. “Papers mean nothing,” he said. “Anyone can forge papers. It is done all the time.”

“These aren't forgeries,” Walt answered. This was what Jocelyn had so presciently been frightened about.

“They have the government seal. Here, please.” He extended his hand again. “Look at them.”

The leader hesitated—then he walked over to the turncoat who had worked at La Chimenea with Walt, and showed him the fragment. The other looked at it quickly, then shook his head. He handed it back to the leader, and spoke to him in a low, urgent voice.

Walt strained to hear the conversation between the two. The leader listened intently.

“These papers. Let me see them,” he commanded Walt.

“Absolutely.” Walt took the documents out of the envelope he had placed them in. The papers shook in his hands. Holding one up, he told the leader, “Here is the document for that object you have in your hands.” He turned it around so the leader could look at it in the dim light. “You see the seal of the government?” Walt asked. “And look here—see, there's a picture of it. I have documents for all the artifacts I'm taking.”

The leader squinted as he looked at the document in the low light. A flash of lightning momentarily lit up the area, and he turned his look skyward in alarm. The thunder came almost on top of the flash. Any moment now, Walt knew, the rains are going to come, and they're going to come hard.

The leader looked at the papers in Walt's hand again and frowned, as if confused. Carrying the papers, he walked over to the turncoat archaeologist again. They looked at them together. The turncoat shook his head, and pointed at the trunk.

The leader crossed back to the trunk, reached in, and withdrew a second carefully wrapped package. He peeled the bubble wrap from it, and held it up.

The object in his hands was a jade statue, over a foot high. It was trimmed in gold and other precious metals, and was exquisitely carved. He turned it over and over, staring at it.

Walt was paralyzed as he looked at the statue.
Oh shit!,
was all he could think.

“And this,” the leader asked him, fracturing his thoughts. “Do you have papers for this?”

He carefully placed the statue back in the trunk, yanked out another wrapped object, pulled the plastic off. It was another jade figurine, this one of a ruler or a warrior of the elite class. Like the first one, it, too, was beautifully carved.

“And this,” the leader asked. He took some menacing steps toward Walt. “Where are your papers for this?” he demanded.

Walt's mouth had turned to cotton. He swallowed some spit so he could speak. “I … don't have them,” he managed to say.

“Because they are stolen,” the leader said. He stared at Walt with a look of absolute rage.

“No,” Walt protested. “I swear to God. I don't know …”

Before he could get any more words out, the leader turned his back on him. Carefully, he placed the jade figures back into the trunk. Slamming the lid shut, he climbed back onto his horse and took his rifle. “Lash this onto the pack animal,” he commanded his men.

The bandidos on the ground struggled to get the heavy trunk onto one of the pack horses. They tied it to the animal's packsaddle with lengths of rope. It balanced precariously on the horse's back.

The leader looked down at Walt from his perch atop his own horse. “You are lucky that today is not your day in die, because you have given me ample reason to kill you. But I will not, because I am not an animal or a thief, like you.” He looked at Walt's trunk on his packhorse. “What is in here is more important to me than your miserable life.”