Ruins (28 page)

Mulder reached up for the first handhold and climbed cautiously, finding the ascent somewhat less ter-rifying than the downward climb. This way he could look up and see his goal, rather than slipping and working his way down to the unknown depths of a bottomless pit.

Wiry like a wildcat, Cassandra found tiny outcrop-pings that even Mulder didn't dare try. They picked their way around the circumference, ascending at an angle, completely encircling the sacrificial well until they reached the right height to grasp the ragged ends of the dangling ropes.

From deep below, volcanic vapors continued to gur-gle and belch and gasp.

Mulder knew that the eruption had not yet peaked, but had merely paused to gain its second wind.

His shoe slipped, and he dropped, grabbing for a hold. Cassandra reached out, her hand as fast as a rat-tlesnake strike, as she grasped Mulder's wrist. His other hand maintained its grip on the rope. "Thanks," he said.

"Any time," she answered. "Just make sure you do the same for me."

Once he regained his footing, they climbed the last few meters up to the edge of the cenote, the flat limestone rim where drugged sacrificial victims had once been hurled down into the deep well that would swallow them up for thousands of years.

Silently deciding to keep themselves low, Mulder and Cassandra raised their heads up, peeping over the edge to where they could see the Pyramid of Kukulkan silhou-etted in the firelight.

Half of its side had sloughed down. Mortar explo-sions had gouged great craters into the carefully crafted hieroglyphic stairs. Mulder saw other people running in the plaza, dim forms scurrying for cover.

Both of the carved feathered serpent stelae had top-pled over, and only one of the tents remained upright. Mulder could see cautious figures scrambling about in camouflaged uniforms; one wore a different outfit. Scully.

Before he could haul himself over the ledge, though, a renewed outcry came from the jungle, shouts in the gut-tural Maya language. A loud crackle of gunfire came in a staccato burst as the regrouped guerrillas charged out of the cover of the trees. The revolutionaries fired at the sur-viving members of the military team, who responded in kind.

Gunshots grew into a deafening hail of sound in the sky. Two more phosphorous flares soared into the night, overwhelming the light of the moon.

Mulder held on, and watched, thinking of the relative peace inside the derelict spacecraft.

Xitaclan ruins Wednesday, 3:26 a.m.

Scully covered her ears as the mortar launcher fired another projectile toward the half-Demolished ziggurat. She cringed, and the other soldiers ducked away, also covering their ears.

The mortar struck the base of the great pyramid, dead on target. With the explosion, fire and smoke and shrapnel blossomed outward, hurling chunks of broken rock in all directions. After the impact, cracks appeared along the steep ceremonial stairsteps—steps she had climbed only days before to get a panoramic view of the surrounding jungle.

The pounding had continued for nearly an hour, but the ancient structure withstood the most vigorous bar-rage from Major Jakes. So far.

Scully had repeatedly argued with Jakes, insisting that he cease the destruction, that he and his troops stop pummeling the archaeological treasure. But foremost in her mind was an engulfing dread about where Mulder might be. She didn't know where he had run—but no matter what, she knew Mulder would be in the thick of things.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" she screamed, her voice muffled in her ringing ears. "There may be people inside that pyramid!"

"Regrettable casualties," the major answered.

"Don't you care?" she said, grabbing his sleeve like a persistent child ...

and feeling as helpless. "Can't you see what you're doing?"

Jakes turned his emotionless gaze down, staring at her. The weird light splashed colors across his dark skin. "No, Agent Scully—I don't care. I am not allowed to care. That's too dangerous."

"Is that what you tell yourself, just to keep ignoring your ill-advised actions? Can't you think about the conse-quences?"

He didn't move. "My mind is my tool, capable of accomplishing seemingly impossible missions—but only because I never allow myself to deviate from orders. Too much thinking creates confusion, double-talk, doubts.

"I have been through hell numerous times, Agent Scully. The maps called it Bosnia, or Iraq, or Somalia— but it was hell." Now his eyes flared with embers of emo-tion. "And if I ever let my conscience get too heavy, then I would either be insane or dead by now."

Scully swallowed, and the major turned back to face his remaining men.

After repeated direct hits from the mortars, the ancient pyramid looked ready to collapse. Heavy blocks jarred loose from where they had rested for centuries, tumbled down, smashing the intricate carvings and glyphs. The pil-lars of the apex temple platform had all fallen over, the feathered serpent statues blasted to dust. An avalanche began along the eastern face of the ziggurat, roaring down the steep stairs and adding to the nighttime din.

"We've almost got it," Major Jakes said. "A few more direct hits, then our mission will be accomplished. Gather the casualties. We can fall back."

"No! We can't leave Mulder!" Scully shouted. "We have to find him. He's an American citizen, Major Jakes. Your actions have put him into the middle of an illegal military action—and I hold you personally responsible for his safety."

Jakes looked at her again with his placid dark eyes. "Agent Scully, I am not even here. My team is not here. Our mission does not exist. We are not officially responsi-ble for you or anyone else."

Then a bullet took him high in the left shoulder, spin-ning him around and hurling him into Scully, knocking them both to the ground. He grunted, but did not cry out in pain.

"The snipers are coming back," one of the comman-dos yelled.

The other soldiers scrambled away from the mortar launcher as a renewed shower of gunfire came from the jungle. The guerrillas howled their challenges.

The commandos took shelter, ducking beside the all-terrain vehicles and the mortar launcher. They leveled their automatic weapons and shot at will, targeting on the bright spitfire that came from the shadows, the surg-ing forces of the Liberation Quintana Roo guerrillas who charged out of the trees.

Major Jakes heaved himself off of Scully with a barely restrained hiss of pain. He stood up and squeezed his shoulder. Blood welled up in his uniform.

He looked down at her, and she saw the splatters of blood staining her own jacket.

"I apologize for bleeding on you," he said, then offered her a hand up.

The commando closest to the mortar launcher fell backward without an outcry, his head suddenly splashed with bright red.

"Another down," Major Jakes said. He looked at his own bleeding shoulder. "My team is dwindling with every moment."

"Then we've got to get out of here," Scully said, clamping her teeth tightly together. "Find Mulder and go."

"The mission is not yet accomplished," Major Jakes said.

The guerrillas, bolder now, came out of the trees, fir-ing. Major Jakes's commandos shot back, though their defense seemed to be crumbling. One of the soldiers launched a grenade into a knot of Liberation Quintana Roo fighters.

It exploded right in their midst. Broken bodies flew, arms and legs akimbo, hurled into trees that also burst into flames from the backwash of the exploding grenade.

The viciousness of the response caused the guerrillas' surge to falter. Major Jakes grabbed Scully's arm. "Come on, I want to get you back to your tent.

You'll take shelter there, so I can concentrate on our defenses."

"I'm not going back to my tent," Scully said. "I need to be out here, looking for my partner."

"No, you don't," Jakes retorted. "You'll follow my orders. Period."

"That tent isn't going to offer me any protection whatsoever."

"It'll offer enough," Jakes said. "The attackers won't be able to see you. You won't be a specific target. That's the best I can do."

"I didn't ask you to—"

"Yes, you did," Major Jakes said. "You said I was personally responsible for your safety. Therefore I want you away, where I don't have to worry about you—and where I don't have to listen to your constant insubordi-nation."

With his good arm he wrestled her into the flap open-ing of the tent. She struggled and turned around, shout-ing at the top of her lungs, "Mulder!"

"He can't help you, wherever he is," Major Jakes said. "I'm trying to protect you, ma'am."

She glared at him. "I need for him to know where I am."

"Just get inside the tent, ma'am."

She bristled. "Don't call me ma'am."

"Don't force me to be rude."

Defeated and helpless in the middle of a war zone, Scully crawled into the dim confines of the tent, huddling among the blankets. Major Jakes dropped the tent flaps back down.

Scully felt as if she were inside a cloth tomb. The sounds outside were muffled. Moonlight filtered through the heavy canvas, intermixed with staccato bursts of light from flares, gunfire, another mortar launch, and distant explosions.

She listened to the deafening, chaotic sounds of the assault and knelt on her blanket. She rapidly lifted up her pillow, checking that no scorpions had snuggled under the rolled-up cloth.

More gunfire rang out. Scully heard a gasp from Major Jakes and a thump.

Outside she saw silhouettes, shadowy figures—then a bullet tore through the tent, missing her head by inches. Another small circular hole ripped through the fabric, singed around the edges.

She ducked down, flattening herself to the ground, and listened as the fighting continued outside.

Xitaclan battleground Wednesday, 4:06 a.m.

Mulder helped Cassandra over the limestone lip of the sacrificial well, then stretched out, relieved just to be on solid ground again. Exhausted, he tried to decide which direction to run that would have the least likelihood of getting both of them killed.

Mulder felt sick in the pit of his stomach as he watched the destruction of the pyramid continue. The artifacts buried in the derelict ship would answer the questions archaeologists had wondered about for nearly a century. But every blast pummeled and crushed the evidence of extraterrestrial influence on the Maya culture. Now the answers were reduced to rubble and debris.

He and Cassandra sprinted for cover every chance they could, stealing around the perimeter of the ziggurat. He intended to reach the base camp in the plaza. Despite its dangerous openness, the plaza was the most likely place for him to find Scully. That was his first order of business . . . that and preventing them from getting killed.

Another mortar sailed high and dropped like a wrecking ball onto the top platform where ancient priests had performed their bloody sacrifices. The pillars that supported the delicate Temple of the Feathered Serpent had already crumbled and collapsed, slumping down into a mound of debris.

Rubbing her eyes, Cassandra watched in dismay, her face seething with anger.

"First my team, then my father—and now this ... this desecration." She snarled and then stood tall, balling her fist and shouting into the night. "You can't do this!"

As if to defy her, another explosive detonated. The Shockwave blasted debris from one of the stair step ter-races directly above them, causing a rain of broken blocks.

"Look out!" Mulder said and dove toward Cassandra, but the shattered rubble dropped down on her like the proverbial ton of bricks. A jagged chunk of stone emblazoned with a partial Maya glyph clipped her across the top of the head.

With a thin gasp of pain, she collapsed, bleeding from her scalp, a scarlet stain ooz-ing into her mussed cinnamon hair.

Mulder bent over her, cradling the young woman's head in his lap as a few remaining chunks of shrapnel pattered around him. Miraculously, he himself suf-fered only a large bruise on one shoulder blade and a nasty cut in his right leg.

The side of the great pyramid seemed to sag as rubble and stone blocks sloughed toward the base.

"Cassandra," Mulder said, pushing his face close to hers. "Cassandra, can you hear me?" Her skin had a grayish color, and sweat broke out on her forehead.

The young woman groaned and sat up, blinking and stunned. She shook her head and then winced. "Bulls-eye," she croaked, pressing a hand against her temple.

"Ouch."

Mulder gingerly felt around on her scalp, probing the seriousness of the gash.

Though she bled profusely, it seemed to be a shallow wound. His main concern was that she had suffered a concussion or fractured skull.

"We can't stay here, Cassandra," he said. "We've got to find some kind of shelter, or we'll have a lot more to worry about in a few minutes."

He looked around, trying to focus in the uncertain strobe-light of flares against the enveloping darkness. "If we can find my partner Scully, she'll be able to give you emergency medical attention."

He scanned the plaza, watched the scurrying figures, the smattering of gunfire like deadly fireflies blossoming into the night. Ahead, in the open plaza, he saw a tall fig-ure hustling a woman's petite form—obviously Scully— toward the tent. The two seemed to be arguing, and then the man pushed her inside, dropped the flap, and stood up to stand guard beside the tent.

Was the man protecting her ... or holding her pris-oner? Mulder couldn't tell if he was one of the American commandos or one of Carlos Barreio's guerrilla freedom fighters.

"Come with me, Cassandra," Mulder said, draping her arm over his shoulder and helping her to her feet. She groaned, and her eyes blinked, unfocused, her pupils dilated in their muddy-green irises. The blood continued to flow down her face.

"Hey, I can walk," she said, but her voice came out with a quaver, like a child trying to impress her father with her bravado. Mulder loosened his hold, but Cassandra began to slide toward the ground like over-cooked pasta.

"Maybe I'll just help you out after all," he said, plac-ing his arm around her for support. The two of them stagger-walked toward the plaza. Mulder kept his eyes toward the indistinct figure standing next to Scully's tent.