Invisible City (17 page)

I nod. “Yeah,” I manage. I want to say,
You? Here? But how?
But I don't think it will come out quite so coherently.

“Okay. First of all, I owe you an apology.”

“Uh-huh,” I say, wondering what he's going to apologize for. The burglary? Using some weird-but-helpful girl to lure me to a cave deep under a Mayan pyramid? Killing my dad?

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“Long story.”

“Short version?”

He shrugs. “I live here. Nearby.”

I watch him closely. He doesn't seem to be joking.

“Right, sure, in a cave? It's, um, nice.”

He ignores that, instead saying, “I have to apologize for deceiving you. Or at least, for economizing with the truth.”

I'm still confused. “Um … Okay?”

“Some weeks ago I became aware that you'd taken up your father's quest to find the Ix Codex.”

“How?”

He stares at me, seems slightly irritated.

“Believe me, you're gonna have more important questions. And you don't have all the time in the world. You've been reported missing already. Every minute you are away, people are looking for you. So we'll stick with the
necessary
, okay, Josh?”

I nod, trembling slightly from the sudden cool. Maybe it's fear. Or maybe it's excitement. I'm awash with adrenaline, tingling from head to toe with anticipation.

Montoyo gives a low whistle. “Hey, kid. You're really scared. Aren't you?”

I shiver, shaking my head. “No. I'm not.”

“Yes.” He nods once, slowly. “You are.”

Something about his tone makes me suddenly suspicious. In a firmer voice, I tell him, “I don't think so.”

“Your sister,” he says softly, “I want you to know—I'm really sorry about her.”

That does it. I launch myself at him, aiming a high capoeira kick straight at his throat, and I scream something at him.

He's definitely taken by surprise. I land a kick somewhere on his head as his tries to duck. He reels slightly. Before he can recover, I aim another kick to his ribs. But somehow he's able to swerve out of the way, spin around, and get behind me. It's all done so fast that I don't see it coming. Next thing I know I'm pinned to the ground and he's on top of me, pressing my face against the cold rock floor of the cave.

“Bravo, Josh.
Qué bárbaro!
But now you're gonna listen to me. All right?”

I give a quick nod, tears of frustration springing to my eyes.

“I didn't kill your sister. You got that? I wasn't in the car chasing you. Okay? The fact that I know what happened under no circumstances makes me guilty of her death. Can we agree on that?”

I nod again and close my eyes. I'm really losing it now.

“And, in case you need to hear this too, I didn't kill your father. Okay?”

He releases me and sits back. I sit up, looking down all the time, ashamed of my tears.

“Grief is nothing to be ashamed of, son. You should cry for your father; you should cry for your sister. What happened to her—and almost happened to you—it's very sad.”

I'm choked with emotion as I mumble, “I couldn't save her.”

“Of course not,” Montoyo says soothingly. “A situation like that, every second counts.”

“I tried,” I tell him, staring straight into his eyes. “I really tried.”

He looks back, deep brown eyes studying mine. “I know.”

I breathe deeply, trying to get myself under control again. Watching me, Montoyo tells me, “I know what happened, because we were following you. Not from the road.” He glances upward. “From the sky.”

“What …?”

Montoyo nods. “Yes. Later, I'll show you. But first, tell me, what did you think of Ixchel?”

“The Pumas-shirt girl?”

Montoyo breaks into a grin. It transforms him entirely. “Yes, the ‘Pumas-shirt girl.'”

“She's got a pretty big chip on her shoulder.”

Montoyo chuckles. “That's true. But did you like her?”

“Why?”

“Hmm. Just wondered. Kind of hoped you'd get along.”

“I wasn't really in the mood for getting along. Neither was she.” I shake my head, annoyed. “Will you please just tell me … what the hell is going on?”

“Okay. That's fair. But we need to get moving. Can we walk and talk?”

We both get to our feet.

“We're going somewhere?”

“Going somewhere? Oh yes. You could even call it the adventure of your life.”

I hesitate. I don't feel afraid anymore, even though maybe I should. I've already thrown out the idea that Montoyo is a psycho, hell-bent on killing me. He's had plenty of opportunity—he could have crushed my skull against the ground only a moment ago. Wherever he learned to fight like that, he's been taught well. I didn't stand a chance.

Even so, I want to see if I'm still free to go.

“What if I say no? Can I go back?”

He seems genuinely taken aback. “Of course. It's your choice, Josh. You can go back to the top, back to your life. Forget this happened. Or you can come with me, and discover what's behind all of this. But you need to know one thing. If you come with me, you'll leave behind everything you thought you knew about the world.”

I stammer slightly, saying, “But my mom … and my friends?”

“You'll see them again. I won't lie to you, it won't be the same. Nothing will be the same. In many ways, your childhood will be over. But then … I imagine after what you've been through today, that's already the case. Isn't it?”

Today? This is about so much more than today. I feel as though everything in the last few weeks has been leading up to this. Maybe longer. Like grandfather, like father, like son—is this where it's all been heading?

There's an unstoppable drive inside me that tells me that it is.

“Okay. Let's do this. I'm in.”

I follow him into a narrowish tunnel, about ten feet high and six feet wide. Hanging from some kind of rail in the ceiling are what I can only describe as something like ski chairlifts. Montoyo gestures toward one of the chairs. He waits for me to sit down, then sits in the second chair. He pulls down on two metal lapels sticking out of the top of the chair, above the shoulders. They extend to reveal two cushioned straps, which he crosses over his chest, then plugs into two slots in the sides
of the seat. He turns expectantly to me, so I do the same. When Montoyo seems satisfied that I'm correctly strapped in, he presses another button in the side of his chair. A small console rises out of a central panel that separates our two chairs. It swings into place over his lap. For a couple of seconds he's preoccupied with a small visual display unit that lights up in the console.

I speak up. “Um … where are we going?”

He doesn't look up from his button punching, but grins.

“To Ek Naab, my friend. To the eternal city of Dark Water.”

I remember the line from the Calakmul letter.

In their Holy City of Ek Naab they wait
.

Ek Naab. It's not just some obscure name in an ancient inscription. It's real. Hidden, secret, and lost—under Becan.

Abruptly, Montoyo stops pressing buttons. The console returns to its position in the central panel.

I ask what he's doing.

“Navigation,” he replies curtly. “This isn't a route for the uninitiated. We don't take kindly to intruders.”

“What happens?”

“Booby traps,” he says with an unpleasant smile. “You don't want to know.”

“You kill people?”

He doesn't answer my openmouthed question. A large button lights up on the central panel. Montoyo presses it. After that all I can hear is my own voice, yelling.

There's a sound like a small explosion of hydraulic pressure. Our chair is catapulted forward. We're yanked back into our seats. We hurtle toward what looks like a solid wall of rock. At the very last minute, the chair plummets, falling into the void. I feel my guts lift up inside me. We fall crazily, in a dizzying
downward spiral, plunged into the darkness like a rocket totally out of control, like a Catherine wheel released from the pin. We pull out of the drop into a steep climb. After that I lose track. The wall of the tunnel speeds past. Every so often I spot openings, turnings. Some we take, some we miss. I understand then what Montoyo said. At this kind of speed only an expert could navigate safely through the tunnels.

Every so often we pass through a wide opening and I catch a glimpse of something. I see a cavern filled with the glow of phosphorescent stones, see our blurred reflection in a pool of mirror water, see a stalagmite as tall as a telephone pole and thick as a redwood, see another chair skim by, the occupants a white fuzz in the distance. We tumble into a tight loop that crushes us into our seats, then shoot out into another hard curve, before beginning a series of steep climbs. Then a sudden deceleration.

As we slow down, I catch my breath. I stare ahead. I can see bright lights. It's like coming out of a tunnel in the London Underground. When we finally stop, that is exactly how it looks to me: like a subway station. Empty, clean, no turnstiles, but basically, somewhere to dock.

There's no one around. This is like nowhere I've ever been. The doorways are arches in the classic Mayan corbelled style. The building material seems to be local limestone, just like above the ground. But there is also metal, wood, and ceramics. The walls are tiled with Spanish-style decorated ceramic tiles,
except the designs are Mayan. The floors are lined with traditional terra-cotta Spanish floor tiles.

Montoyo helps me out of the chair and I step onto the platform. I stare in awe, speechless. Finally, Montoyo seems happy to stop, to let me take a moment.

“This is it, Josh, the place your father was
really
searching for. The centuries-old secret of the ancient Maya. Ek Naab is
alive
.”

I gaze at Montoyo, see raw emotion cloud his eyes.

“You see, our civilization is not so finished after all. Some of us did escape the Spanish, the
conquista
.”

I just gawk. “What … what are you saying? Mayans live down here?
Ancient
Mayans?”

Montoyo nods.

“A living city,” I breathe. “Just like John Lloyd Stephens said …”

Montoyo breaks into a delighted grin. “You've read Stephens,” he murmurs. “I'm so glad.”

“Okay … not actually … not myself. My mom and dad had his books. They told me about it …”

He looks a little bit disappointed. “You should read him—he's really excellent.”

“I can't now,” I comment. “Someone broke into our house and took the Stephens book along with all our computers.”

“Why would someone steal that book?” Montoyo asks with a frown.

I shrug. “I've been asking myself that.”

“Well, Josh, I can confirm that we are the descendents of one particular ancient Maya community.”

“But
you
… I mean … you're Maya?” I can't bring myself to say it, but his face is obviously not pure Maya. He's as Hispanic as most middle-class Mexicans.

As if guessing my thoughts, Montoyo smiles sadly. “I didn't say we were completely exclusive. We'd have become completely inbred long ago, if not for bringing in new blood. A few travelers found their way to us—explorers. My ancestors include men from Spain and Germany. Yours were from Spain. But we can claim
continuity
. The people who lived here were never conquered. We trace a direct line back over two millennia, to the very dawn of Mayan civilization.”

My ancestors?
I guess I should have seen that coming. But the surprises are arriving so thick and fast that I'm not getting time to process properly.

Montoyo helps me out. “Your great-great-great-grandfather was a Spaniard, Isidro Garcia de Vega. He married a woman here. And your grandfather, well, that's a whole other story.”

Then, maddeningly, he begins to walk again.

“Come on, Josh. There's a lot to see. We have to get you back before a search begins in earnest. We have much to do.”

I follow him, jogging to keep up.

“Why
am
I here? And if it wasn't you in the blue Nissan, then who was it?”

“The man chasing you, his name is Simon Madison.
According to his passport, a U.S. citizen, occupation listed as a systems engineer …”

“Never heard of him.”

“Of course,” Montoyo says. “It's probably not his real passport. Most likely he's undercover.”

“With the NRO?”

“It's possible.”

“And you've been watching him?”

“We were watching Camila Pastor. And he was watching her too.”

“Why were you watching Camila?”

“Because she talks to the police—she knows what they know, or at least what they think they know. We have to investigate this from all possible angles, Josh. We must find out what happened to your father.”

I haven't realized until this moment just how badly I've been hoping that Montoyo knows something—anything that might help. But he doesn't. It's a nasty shock, stops me in my tracks.

“You … don't know?”

He gives a deep sigh. “Your father came to Ek Naab—that much you've probably guessed. But shortly after he left we lost track of him. There was a plane crash.”

“Yeah … I know.”

“No, you don't understand. He left here in one of our flying craft. Like the one we followed you in when you ran into the jungle.”

“What …? You mean you weren't in a helicopter?”

“No, my boy. We have something much better than helicopters. As you will see. Your father needed to go on a mission for us, to Veracruz. He used one of our aircraft—which we call ‘Muwan.' Shortly after leaving here, we tracked five other craft in the vicinity. They chased your father. And then—he just disappeared from our radar.”