Serpent (37 page)

But first a snack was in order.

Cancun, Mexico

24 THE MOOD ABOARD THE CANCUM flight had been one of joyful expectation since the plane took off from Washington shortly after the meeting at Zavala's place. As the pilot made his runway approach vacation-bound travelers craned their necks to peer down at the luxury beachfront resort hotels lining the clear blue-green water, and the atmosphere ratcheted up to one of unbridled excitement. With his conservative gray suit and flamboyant bow tie, and the way his head towered over the seats, Paul Trout would have stuck out from the happy crowd even without the gravity of his expression. His nose was buried in a map of the Yucatan peninsula, his thoughts on Gamay, and only when he felt the plane bank did he break his concentration to see where they were.

Within minutes the plane was on the ground. Trout broke off from the stream of passengers flowing toward the waiting hotel shuttle buses and headed for the counter of a small charter airline. Minutes later he was buckling into the seat next to the pilot of a twin-engined Beechcraft Baron. He was the only passenger, the other seats in the four-passenger aircraft having been converted to cargo space.

As the Beechcraft lifted into the sky Trout silently thanked the travel experts at NUMA who had done an incredible job patching together his trip, finding an empty seat on the commercial flight on short notice and hitching him up almost immediately with the charter: The smaller plane was making a run to Campeche to pick up a party of Texas oil technicians who were meeting their wives and girlfriends in Cancun.

The trip should take about an hour, said the pilot, a talkative Mexican in his thirties who had a good command of English and a firsthand knowledge of the best bars to meet tourist women in Cancun. Before long his voice merged with the drone of the engines. Trout's worry about Gamay had kept him awake during the overnight stay in Tucson. He closed his eyes, to be awakened at one point when the pilot said they were passing over Chichen Itza. Trout looked down as the pilot pointed out tire great four-sided pyramid temple and the ball court.

About halfway to Ciudad del Carmen," the pilot said. Trout nodded. Mesmerized by the flat green landscape stretching out to the horizon, he closed his eyes again until the pilot nudged him awake. "There's your ship."

The sleek blue-hulled Nereus lying at anchor among. the other oil tankers and fishing boats in the harbor was a welcome sight. Trout found it hard to believe he had left the ship. and Gamay> , only a few days before. He wished now that he had prevailed upon her to come back to Washington. She would never have agreed, he admitted to himself; she was intent on meeting Dr: Chi.

Before leaving Washington 'Bout had called the Mexican anthropological museum and talked to Dr: Chi's secretary. She checked the professor's calendar and confirmed he was planning to meet Gamay The professor spent much of his time "out in the field" and called in for messages when he happened to be near a phone, but he had no set schedule. If he were to be found anywhere, she said, it would be at his lab.

As the pilot waited for permission to land, Trout asked him to radio ahead and notify those handling his next ride that he was coming in. He didn't want to waste a minute cooling his heels in an airport lounge. As soon as the Beechcraft taxied to a stop, Trout bolted from the cabin with his one bag, flinging an adios" and a "gracias" over his shoulder in New England Spanish.

A stocky man in a police uniform and reflective sunglasses was waiting in the airport lobby.

"Dr. Trout," he said with a toothy smile. "My name is Sergeant Morales. I am with the Mexican federal police. The fed I've been asked to act as your guide."

Trout had called in a marker with the Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA owed NUMA for some past favors and was happy to oblige when Trout asked to set up a contact with the Mexican national police.

"Nice to meet you," Trout said, glancing at his watch. "I'm ready if you are."

It is getting late," the policeman said. "I wondered if you would rather go tomorrow."

Trout's answer was softspoken, but there was no mistaking the determination in the serious brown eyes. "With all due respect, Sergeant, I took great pains to get here in a hurry so I could start searching for my wife as soon as I arrived."

"Of course, Senor Trout," the policeman said, nodding in understanding. "I assure you, this is not a case of manana. Simply common sense. I, too, wish to locate your wife. However, it will be dark before long."

"How much light do we have?"

"One, two hours, maybe."

"Finest kind, Cap," Trout said, answering in fisherman's slang. "We can cover a lot in two hours."

Morales saw there was no use trying to put off the tall American.

Bueno, Dr. Trout. The helicopter is this way."

The Bell 206 JetRanger helicopter was warming up, its rotor and tail blades turning slowly, as Trout eased into the three-passenger backseat and Morales slid in next to the pilot. Seconds later the turbo motor kicked into action and the runners lifted off the tarmac. The helicopter leaped into the air and climbed in two minutes to an altitude of more than three thousand feet. They swung out over the water and headed inland from the coast, following the railroad tracks that snaked into the interior.

Morales gave the pilot directions, frequently consulting from a folded-up map.. They left the railroad track and picked up a narrow highway running more or less eastwest. The chopper kept its altitude, cruising at a speed of 125 miles per hour until they were well into the interior. The dense woods were broken here and there by a village or occasional town. There were few paved roads. Occasionally they passed over a Mayan ruin. But for the most part the landscape was the same unbroken flatness Trout had noted on the way from Cancun.

The aircraft swung onto a more southerly course. Morales was a competent and sharp-eyed guide, recognizing landmarks and relaying the information to the pilot. Trout anxiously watched the sun lowering in the sky.

"How far?" Trout said with unveiled impatience.

Morales held up five fingers. He jabbed a point on the map for the benefit of the pilot. "Aqui!"

The pilot nodded so slightly Trout wasn't sure he heard Morales until the chopper cut speed and described a wide circle that transformed into an evertightening spiral.

Morales pressed against the plexiglass and pointed down. Trout caught a glimpse of a clearing and a crude structure before both quickly passed out of view. The chopper came around again, hovered, and began to descend. Their target was directly under them, and Trout couldn't see where they were landing. As the treetops grew closer, the chopper seemed to hang for a second. The pilot suddenly gunned the motor, and they darted off to one side like a startled dragonfly

The pilot and Morales had a quick conversation in Spanish.

"What's wrong?" Trout strained to see into the forest.

"No room. He's afraid hell catch the rotors in the trees."

Trout sat back in his seat and crossed his arms, puffing his cheeks out in frustration. The chopper moved out until it was above a lonely stretch of arrow-straight road, then dropped down and landed lightly in a grassy patch at the edge of the blacktop. As the whirling rotors fluttered to a stop, Trout and Morales got out. Nearby a track led into the woods.

"This goes to Professor Chi's house. We must walk"

Trout strode off with the shorter man valiantly trying to keep up without losing his dignity. As they moved into the thick woods Trout noticed that there were deep tracks, made fairly recently by heavy tires set wide apart. Morales said he had called the local policia and requested that they ask around. Several locals remembered seeing Chi on
 
a bus. He'd been picked up from hunting and dropped off by the side of the road near where he lived. They remembered a Jeep waiting for him. That fit, Trout thought. Gamay had used a Jeep to drive in from the coast.

"Do you know Dr. Chi?" he asked Morales as they walked.

"Si, senor. I have met him. Sometimes the museum asks me to carry a message to him. He is muy pacifico. A gentleman. Always wants to cook tortillas for me."

The canopy of trees was becoming as dark as a subway tunnel. Trout squinted through the branches, trying to catch a glimpse of the sun. He wondered if they would have any problem finding their way out. Maybe Morales was right, they should have waited until morning when they'd have more light.

"Why does Professor Chi have his lab way out here?" Trout asked. "Wouldn't it be more convenient if he had it in a town or village?"

"I ask the doctor the same thing," Morales said with a grin. "He says he was born in this place. 'My roots are here,' he tells me. You understand what he means?"

Trout understood Chi's attachment to his native soil very well. His own family went back more than two hundred years on Cape Cod, spawning several generations of families all tied to the sea, through service as lighthouse keepers, surfmen in the Lifesaving Service, or fishermen. The low slung silvershingled Trout homestead was nearly two centuries old, but it had been kept up through the years and looked as if it could have been built yesterday. His was a salty ancestry he wore with pride, met he realized his ties to the past were nothing compared to the Maya, who had inhabited the same country' for many centuries before the Spaniards arrived.

They trudged along for about twenty minutes until the forest thinned out into a clearing. The square concrete block building seemed to jump out of the woods, but it was more a case of Trout simply not expecting such a substantial looking structure in this remote location.

"The professor's laboratory," Morales said. He went over and knocked on the door. No answer. "We come back here after we check the house," Morales suggested.

The thatched-roof but was similar to those Trout had seen dotting the Yucatan from the air. Trout was more interested in the Jeep parked next to the simple structure. He hurried over and searched the vehicle. Tucked in the sun visor was the diagram indicating how to get to Chi's property and a bottle of bug, repellent. He ran his hands over the steering wheel and dashboard and smelled the faint, scent of the body lotion Gamay used.

They searched the house, which took about five minutes because of the sparseness of the furnishings. Trout stood in the center of the dirt floor and looked around, hoping to find a due he had missed on his first round.

"Well, we know from the Jeep that she made it this far."

"I have an idea," Morales said. Trout followed him past the lab , building to another simple but. "This is the professor's garage. Look. His vehicle is gone."

"Those would have been the tracks we saw on the way in. What does he drive?"

"A big car," Morales said. "Like a Jeep, only like this." He held his hands wide.

"A HumVee?"

"Si," he said with a bright smile. "HumVee. Like the U.S. military uses." .

So it was likely they went somewhere in the Hummer. But where?

"Maybe there's a note in the lab," Trout said.

The cinderblock building was pleasantly cooler than outside even without the airconditioning on. The door was unlocked and they easily gained entrance. Trout took in the hightech equipment and shook his head in wonder much as his wife had done the day before. Morales stood nearby at respectful attention, almost as if he were afraid of being caught in forbidden precincts. Except for the general clutter, noting appeared to have been disturbed.

Paul went over to the sink. There were two glasses in the drying rack.

"Looks they they could have had a drink."

Morales checked to waste basket and found two cans of Seven-Up. Further reconstructing events, Trout surmised that Gamay had been waiting for to professor at to highway, they came in here, drank some soda, then took off. He checked to refrigerator and found to two dead partridges. The binds had yet to be cleaned and gutted. Chi must have planned to return in a short time from wherever he went.