Serpent (69 page)

"You're talking bloodshed and chaos."

"My goals exactly! What can the U.S. do, free Albuquerque and Phoenix by nuking them? Conduct street-to-street fighting in the boulevards of San Diego? They will know a political settlement follows every armed conflict, and I will provide the way out. The governors I have elected will sue for peace and suggest that the U.S. turn to one of its citizens of Spanish heritage to act as mediator. I will negotiate de facto secession from the Union."

"There's no guarantee your scheme will succeed, in which case hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed for nothing."

"They will have served their purpose as a means to an end."

"Many of those people will be Latinos," Zavala said.

"What of it?" Halcon snarled. "My conquistador ancestors used warring Indian factions as their allies to defeat the Aztec empire, then made them slaves. I will offer those who survive the opportunity to relive the greatness of the past as I restore the glories of two great civilizations, the Indian and the Spanish."

"Glories like the ball court and the Inquisition?" Austin said.

And more you haven't even dreamed of, Mr. Austin. Much more." His tone was ominous. "I tire of this game," he said impatiently. "What of this great secret? I wouldn't blame you for lying to me, but it won't save you."

"I'm not lying. It's in the other chamber."

Halcon exchanged glances with Guzman. "No tricks. Guzman has a hair trigger. Lead the way."

Austin went up the stairs first, with Zavala following, then Guzman and Halcon, until they came to the edge of the burial pit.

"You came in this way?" Halcon said, looking in vain for an entryway

"I was lying about that, but not this."
 

The figure in the sarcophagus had engaged Halcon's attention.

"Who is it?" Halcon said.

"If I may?"

Guzman's cold eyes followed every move as Austin reached into the stone coffin and removed the shiny object from the bony hands of the mummy. He handed it to Halcon, who examined it, frowning with puzzlement.

"I don't understand," he said with suspicion.

"Consider this," Austin said. "You're the Maya, sitting on a pile of treasure for hundreds of years waiting for the men who brought it to you to return and reclaim it. One day a white man from the east shows up on your doorstep and says he wants his gold. He dies before you can accommodate him. You wonder if he embodies the Venus god, the feathered serpent Kukulcan, but you're not sure. So you hedge your bets, bury him with his treasure, and draw a map in stone in a way that only the Venus god will be able to understand. Those rolls of parchment he's holding are drawings of the inscription on the stone. But if that isn't enough to convince you, then tell me what a Christian cross is doing in a Mayan temple.".

"It can't be!" Halcon said with disbelief.

"Don Halcon, meet the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Christopher Columbus."

Halcon stared at the mummy a moment, then laughed without mirth and tossed the cross back into the sarcophagus. "Keep it, you poor fool."

While all eyes were on the coffin Austin squeezed the pouch around his neck. Seconds later came a distant boom, then several others.

"What's that?" Halcon said, looking about him.

Guzman moved to the stairway and listened. "It sounds like thunder."

While the henchman's attention was diverted, Austin reached down to the floor and in a single quick motion picked up one of the sharp spear points he and Zavala had unsuccessfully used to pry the lid off the coffin. He wrapped his brawny arm around Halcon's slender neck and jabbed the sharp spike deep into the skin.

Guzman's gun swung around.

"Back off or this goes into his jugular!" Austin warned. He pushed the spear in further. Blood trickled down Halcon's neck.

Barely able to speak with his throat crushed, Halcon hissed, "Do as he says."

"Put that gun back in your holster," Austin commanded. He knew Guzman would never give up his gun entirely, that he'd try for a head shot or plug Zavala first.

Guzman smiled, a hint of admiration in the curve of his thin lips, and slid the gun back into its case. Then Austin ordered Halcon to drop his weapon.

With Zavala staying close, Austin backed out of the chamber and dragged his human shield down the stairs into the main chamber. Guzman followed at a deliberate pace as they stepped over and around the rubble and stopped under the light streaming in from the ceiling hole.

Halcon had recovered from his surprise. "Looks like a Mexican standoff," he said, his voice choked but defiant.

A brief shower of water splashed down on them from above. Everyone looked up except Austin.

"That's not rain, in case you're wondering. Those booms you heard a few minutes ago were explosives. I used a remote detonator to blow up the dam that blocks water into the lake. Millions of gallons are pouring in."

"I don't believe you," Halcon snarled.

"Perhaps you should, Don Halcon," said Guzman. "It seems Mr. Austin was not lying about the detonator."

"You could never have foreseen events," Halcon said.

"That's right. My original plan was to blow the dam after we left to make it tougher for you to find the temple. This way at least we'll all die together."

They were suddenly drenched by another deluge from above, only stronger this time.

"My guess is that's only the first ripple from the explosion. The reservoir would have burst by now. More will follow. It won't take much to breach that hole you blew in the temple. I have no idea how long before this chamber fills, but I wouldn't stay around too long if I were you."

Guzman looked toward the ladder and seemed to lose some of his steely composure. "We must leave."

"Not without that treasure."

"Doesn't make any difference to me," Austin said. "Like. you said, we're dead men."

Water poured down again, but instead of a brief burst, it continued to flow in a torrent.

"Don Halcon . . ." There was alarm in Guzman's voice.

"He's bluffing, you fool," Halcon replied with disgust.

"The treasure is of use to no one if he's right," Guzman said.

Halcon's eyes filled with hate. "You've always been nothing but a homicidal cretin from the day my father hired you," he said with contempt. "You can't see the glory!"

A hard smile crossed Guzman's lips.

Water was pouring in like a river now, directly on top of them so that it was hard to see each other, sloshing onto their feet, yet nobody moved.

"Quite a dilemma, isn't it, Guzman," Austin taunted, raising his voice to be heard. "Loyalty to your crazed boss and the Brotherhood, or death by drowning. I sincerely hope you resolve your family spat, but you'll have to settle it without me. That's the cue, Joe!"

Zavala ran toward the well at the far end of the chamber and dove in. Austin dropped the spear point, grabbed Halcon's butt, and with a powerful bum's rush threw him at Guzman, who'd been momentarily distracted by Zavala's sprint. They went down in a tangle, but even as he fell Guzman was pulling out the pistol. Austin dashed for the well. Guzman was up and got off a shot, but Austin was a poor target in the dim light, and the bullet missed. Austin dove into the well.

Guzman cursed and went after Austin. Buffeted by the flood swirling around his ankles and knees, he had taken only a few steps when he realized it would be suicide to stay in the chamber. This conclusion was reinforced when he turned and saw that Halcon had deserted him and was heading for the ladder. Halcon's dreams of glory had finally given way to his instincts for self-preservation. He slogged his way against the rising tide until he was under the ceiling hole where the water roared down in a miniature Niagara. Blinded by the force of the cascade, he groped for the ladder, but his hand slipped. He clenched his teeth with determination and tried again. This time he got a grip on a rung.

As he began to climb a hand grabbed him by the ankle and pulled him down. Guzman wrapped his arms around Halcon's knees and used the full weight of his body to pull him back into the chamber. Halcon held on with one hand and with the other pulled his pistol, which he had retrieved, from its holster and swung it with all the strength he could muster in his awkward position. The gun barrel struck flesh and bone, but Guzman desperately held on. Halcon raised the pistol again and brought it down twice more on Guzman's head with the desired effect.

Guzman's grip loosened. He lost his footing and was swept back into the chamber where his body came to rest against a pile of boat wreckage. Even then he wasn't through. He was on his knees, struggling to get to his feet, when a ship's beam as long as a man slammed into his face. Borne by the current, the timber had the effect of a battering ram. A fiery pain screamed in his brain. Dazed and blinded in one eye, arms flailing uselessly, he gasped for air, only to suck in lungfuls of foul water. His frantic movements eventually slowed and became more feeble, and the current drove him deep into the dark chamber.

Halcon was having his own problems. He had climbed only a few yards up the ladder when a wave surged over the lip of the gap in the ceiling and pummeled him like a giant wet fist until he was no longer able to hold on. More water poured in and knocked him off the ladder. Recognizing that escape by this route was impossible, he fought his way to the stairs leading to the burial chamber. With the water lapping at his heels, he crawled on hands and knees up the stairway

Zavala had been treading water when Austin dove into the pool. As Guzman's bullet whistled overhead, they surface dove and swam down into the shaft, buddy-breathing off one tank. Minutes later they emerged from the jaws of Kukulcan. They checked their compass and swam for open water, using every muscle in their legs to get beyond the current produced by the flooding temple. They surfaced near the cove that hid the plane. Within minutes they had cleared the branches away and started the engine and were skimming across the water for a takeoff. As soon as the plane gained altitude, Zavala banked it around the lake in a big circle.

The island that had built up around the temple was gone. In its place was a black hole. Lake water swirled down the hole like a bathtub drain and tugged at the mooring line of a seaplane that must have been Halcon's.

They had seen enough. They swooped in low over the lake for one last look at the vortex. Zavala couldn't resist temptation. He leaned out the window and shouted, "Goodbye, Columbus."

Then they headed back to the Nereus.

49 THE STUBBY-MASTED SAILB0AT WITH the single oversized gaff-rigged sail cruised over the deep blue waters of Chesapeake Bay, pushed along from directly behind by a steady fifteen-knot breeze from the southwest. Austin lounged in the large open cockpit with one arm on the raised rail, the other on an oversized tiller. His eyes scanned the boat traffic, looking for prey.

His hunt was interrupted, not unpleasantly, by Nina, who emerged from the cuddy with two clinking glasses in her hands. "Purser's rum and juice," she said.

She was dressed in a NUMA Tshirt and highcut white shorts that emphasized her long legs and buttery complexion. Austin was not oblivious to her charms, but he was intent on his task. He murmured his thanks and kept his eyes glued on the sea.

"Aha, my pretty," he said like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. He picked up a pair of binoculars and focused on a graceful sloop with a white fiberglass hull, about twenty-five feet long. Like Austin, it was loafing along, main-sail and jib set wingtowing with the wind behind.

Austin sipped his drink, set it in a glass holder, then moved the tiller so that the catboat came up parallel to the sloop. He waved at the two young men in the other boat's cockpit, jerked his thumb like a hitchhiker, then veered off into a broad reach with the wind on his side.