The Eye of Heaven Read online

  Guerrero’s eyes narrowed. “I told you the price for arranging this.”

  Reginald saw the danger and instantly backtracked. “Of course. Which we’ll be happy to discount from your organization’s next order. I meant additional money—more of a performance bonus.”

  Guerrero laughed again and slapped the tabletop. “Ha! You’re a funny man. Much more than your brother, eh? But you talk the same way. A performance bonus!”

  The two bodyguards, uncertain what had amused their boss, grinned, but didn’t dare go as far as laughing. Guerrero was notorious for mercurial mood swings. If he imagined an insult from a subordinate, it could be a death sentence. And his volatility wasn’t improved by his prodigious cocaine and methamphetamine intake, making him as dangerous as an armed grenade.

  Guerrero nodded slowly and Reginald ventured a wan smile, choking back the tremor of unease that the cartel killer’s gaze induced. “Good show, then. I’d say wait until the end of the week, then do what you like with his body.”

  “No problemo, jefe,” Guerrero said, his tone now neutral.

  “Quite.”

  Reginald paused by the door and one of the gunmen pulled it open for him. As he walked back to the SUV that Guerrero had thoughtfully provided for his use, he weighed strategies for keeping his latest scheme from his older brother, who would be livid if he found out about the kidnapping. Janus was too conservative, Reginald thought, and sometimes it was best to adapt to a situation on the ground as it developed. If things had gone as planned, the permit they’d applied for would have made it through the system while the Fargos’ application languished, and they’d have been able to supervise the dig themselves.

  As long as Guerrero didn’t speak to Janus about it, he saw no downside. And his brother wouldn’t have any appetite for discussions with the homicidal sociopath who ran the Mexico City Los Zetas. Reginald would bring his brother a price for approval that included the discount he’d promised and assure him that was the best he could do—after trimming off a few thousand quid for his own bank account, of course. Janus was family, but he treated Reginald like a petulant child, as he had most of his life, and the resentment ran deep.

  He stepped outside of the darkened warehouse. He slid his sunglasses on and waited for his eyes to adjust to the bright light as he studied his slightly swollen knuckles. With a glance at his white gold Patek Philippe World Timer, he approached the Lincoln, humming a song that the mariachis had played the evening before while he was entertaining the sixteen-year-old dancer Guerrero had arranged for.

  It looked like it was going to be a beautiful afternoon.

  Antonio and Maribela entered the Fargos’ work area two days later, beaming like they’d gotten raises.

  “The permit. It’s done. We can start whenever we want,” Maribela announced, waggling a single sheet of paper in the air.

  “That’s wonderful, Maribela,” Remi said. “Will you be working with us on this?” she asked, her doubts about Maribela lingering.

  “Of course. It’s too important a potential find to entrust to anyone else.”

  “But what about your new one? The crypts?”

  “That will be months, possibly years, of painstaking effort. We’ve got one of our trusted associates heading up the team. So we’re all yours,” Maribela said with a good-natured toss of her incredible hair.

  Remi fingered the gold scarab dangling from her neck and offered a wan smile, which Antonio returned. “That’s a beautiful necklace. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it,” he said, eyeing the pendant.

  “Thank you. It’s my lucky talisman. From Spain,” she said lightly.

  Sam cleared his throat, not delighted with Antonio’s admiration of Remi’s bauble. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’ll arrange to have some money wired immediately. We’ll need to make a list of equipment and personnel we’ll want. If the wire goes out today, we should be able to source whatever we need tomorrow and be at the site by the following day.”

  “That’s great,” Remi said. “It feels like we’ve been waiting months. I know it’s only been ten days, but still . . .”

  Antonio nodded. “Yes. I just wish Carlos were here. He would have made an exception to his schedule to participate in a dig of this magnitude.”

  “Has there been any news?” Sam asked, choosing his words carefully.

  “No. Nothing. It’s taking too long. His wife’s out of her mind with worry. As you can imagine.”

  “Is that kind of delay unusual?” Remi asked.

  “Yes. Most criminals want their money as quickly as possible,” Maribela said. “Waiting does them no good and increases their risk. So it’s most unusual.”

  A tense silence hung between them, and then Antonio rubbed his hands together. “No point in dwelling on what we can’t affect. Better to focus on what we can, eh?”

  “Indeed,” Sam said, staring at his iPhone’s screen. “I’ll make the call on the money. I still have the account information Carlos gave me.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it.”

  The remainder of the afternoon was spent making lists and outlining the best approach to the dig. They were eager to excavate but had to proceed cautiously to ensure they didn’t damage any artifacts.

  Two days later, they’d slipped out of the Four Seasons, taking a side entrance, before ducking into a waiting car driven by one of Ferrer’s people. They’d checked into El Oasis, a motel six blocks from the ancient city. While the accommodations were primitive, the air conditioner and shower worked, if grudgingly, which was more than they’d expected. Now they were standing beneath a tarp that provided welcome shade. The rear of the Temple of Quetzalcoatl pyramid loomed before them.

  Lazlo had joined them on his first outing from the clinic and seemed relieved to be out of the controlled environment, obviously preferring being in the field. The late-afternoon sun beat down on them as workers dug along a forty-foot section of the pyramid’s base. The laborers earned their meager pay, working ten hours and moving a surprising amount of soil.

  The foreman was about to wrap it up when one of the men, his yellow T-shirt soaked through with sweat, called out. Everyone rushed to where he was standing, in a deep trench a full story below ground level. Remi held her breath for a few moments when she saw what he’d hit with his shovel—the unmistakable shape of a man-made stone surface.

  “This is it,” she said in a whisper.

  Sam moved to the crude wooden ladder that stood nearby. All five of them lowered themselves into the trench and Antonio barked an order. The man carefully scraped more dirt away, and he was quickly joined by two more laborers.

  An hour later, a ten-foot section of what was clearly the arched roof of a chamber stood revealed, the workers now leaning on their shovels, panting from exertion.

  “It will be night soon. We can continue tomorrow,” Maribela said, but Remi shook her head.

  “No, the men can go. They’ve earned their rest. But we’ve come this far, and I know I won’t be able to sleep if we don’t at least try to find a way in.”

  Sam nodded. “We can handle it without the workers. We’ve got some small experience with this kind of thing,” he pointed out.

  “Very well,” Antonio said. He had a quiet discussion with the foreman, who stood like a supplicant, straw hat in his hand. The crew scrambled up the ladder, taking their shovels with them. Sam studied the stone surface and then raised his gaze to the darkening sky.

  “Can we get a few of those work lights turned on?” Lazlo asked.

  “Of course,” Maribela said. She quickly ascended the rungs to ground level and spoke with the foreman, who was talking to the security guards.

  Sam called up from the excavation, “Oh, and we’ll need flashlights, pry bars, and rope.”

  Ten minutes later, they were feeling along the mortar seams of the large stone bricks that formed the structure’s roof, looking for a way to work one loose. Antonio called out from his position at the edge a
nd they moved to where he stood, looking down.

  “Think you can get one of the bars in that?” he asked, pointing to a gap in the joint—a crack running around the stone where time had degraded the mortar.

  Remi slipped her bar into it. “Sam? Try to get yours in, too.”

  Sam joined her, but the fissure was too tight. He began scraping the mortar with the sharp edge of his tool, and in a half hour the stone was loose enough to shift. Lazlo joined them, and Antonio got his crowbar into the crack as well, and between the four of them they worked the stone from its setting, leaving a two-foot gap, the darkness below inky and damp. Remi directed her flashlight beam into the cavity, which swallowed the light like viscous mud. She squinted, trying to make anything out.

  “Get the rope. I’ll drop down inside and look around.”

  Sam shook his head. “No. I’ll go.”

  “You think you can fit through that? It’ll be tight.”

  “I work out.”

  “Lately, by lifting tequila and enchiladas. But if you think you can make it . . .” Remi teased as Antonio uncoiled the nylon cord.

  Antonio handed Sam one end. “There might be snakes. Many in this region are quite poisonous, as are the scorpions and spiders. We might want to wait until morning. I can get a fiber-optic scope from my associate in the tunnel dig, and perhaps one of his robots to explore the chamber.”

  Sam grinned. “And lose out on all the glory? No chance. I live for this kind of thing.”

  “But the snakes . . .” Maribela cautioned.

  “I eat ’em for breakfast.”

  “Hopefully, none of them have the same idea about you, old boy,” Lazlo said.

  Remi rolled her eyes as Sam wound the rope twice around his waist. “Tie this to something up top that will support my weight—one of the vehicle bumpers would work. I’ll lower myself until I’m inside. Then I’ll let out rope. Slowly. If I’m screaming in pain, that would be a good signal to pull me up and get some antivenom ready.”

  “We don’t have any antivenom,” Antonio said.

  “No plan’s perfect. But the ‘If I’m screaming . . . pull me up’ part’s still a good one.”

  Remi took his hand. “Be careful, Tarzan.”

  “I’d do the jungle call, but it might scare the snakes.”

  “And horrify the bystanders. As well as your wife,” Lazlo said.

  Antonio carried the rope up to ground level and returned a few minutes later. “You’re secure.”

  “‘All right,’ as Evel Knievel used to say, ‘here goes nothing.’”

  “Five bucks says he never said that,” Remi countered.

  “Under his breath.”

  Sam sat at the edge of the hole and dropped his legs in; then, with a final tug of the rope, he leaned his weight against the side and slid his lower body into the abyss. He fed out line slowly, disappearing beneath their feet. Remi moved to the edge and shined her flashlight beam down at him.

  “Any snakes?” she asked, watching her beam and his play across the stone floor.

  “Nope. No lawyers, either.”

  “Sounds safer than out here.”

  His feet touched down. He slowly swept the interior of the chamber and then played out more line as he moved cautiously to a stone entryway.

  Above him stood Antonio, his leg twitching with nervous energy, and Sam could just make out the heads of the two security guards peering down the hole. The sky was now almost black, with the occasional twinkle of stars glimmering overhead.

  Maribela paced from one end of the trench to the other, chewing at a fingernail, while Remi swept her beam into the far reaches of their discovery from above.

  A minute later, the rope tightened again, and Sam called from below. “Pull me up.”

  Antonio called out to one of the guards, who hurried off to start the truck and back it up, raising Sam in the process. The rope went taut, and then Sam appeared, his hair dusty and a spiderweb stuck to his face. Antonio yelled and the truck stopped. Sam hoisted himself the rest of the way and untied the rope from around his waist.

  “Well?” Remi asked expectantly.

  “Not good news. Looks like grave robbers got here a long time ago. As in centuries. Many centuries. You can see where the entry rocks were knocked in. That would have been before the surrounding terrain had covered it, so we’re talking pre-Columbian. Maybe even a thousand years ago. Even the skeletons are gone.” He shook his head. “Whatever this is, if it was the hidden tomb, it wasn’t that well hidden. There’s no treasure. Nothing. Just a couple of small empty rooms and a few carvings—nothing more.”

  Remi’s shoulders sagged, as did Lazlo’s. “Not even any snakes?” she asked.

  “Nary a one.”

  She brushed his shirt as he swept the spiderweb aside. “So a big letdown, huh?”

  “Only if you were expecting something besides a hole in the ground.”

  “Much ado about nothing, then . . .” Lazlo said. “Ah, well, it happens, I suppose.”

  Sam peered into the opening. “Although we still might learn something. But if you’re asking whether it was worth missing dinner over, the answer’s no.”

  Remi smiled at him. “My big, brave explorer. I bet you worked up quite an appetite down there, didn’t you?”

  “And thirst. Don’t forget drinks.”

  Lazlo snorted and then covered it with a well-timed cough.

  She turned to Antonio. “Are there any good places to eat in town? We can post a security guard here and explore the chamber in the morning.”

  “Yes, there are several very good traditional Mexican restaurants.” He gave them the names of two of the most popular as they filed up the ladder, disappointment evident in everyone’s demeanor.

  “How about we get you cleaned up and fed and then we can commiserate over a few margaritas about what went so horribly wrong?” Remi suggested to Sam. She turned to where Antonio was helping Maribela from the ladder. “Antonio, Maribela, you’re welcome to join us. You too, Lazlo.”

  Antonio exchanged glances with his sister. “No thank you, we still have to drive back to Mexico City. But we’ll see you back here tomorrow morning. Say, nine o’clock?”

  Sam shrugged. “Sure. There’s no hurry now. We found what there is to be found.”

  “I’ve learned to never turn down the offer of a meal, if you don’t mind my sober company,” Lazlo said.

  “There’s nothing we’d like better,” Sam replied.

  MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

  A dark brown sedan rolled slowly down the deserted street in the Cerro de Xaltepec barrio of Mexico City, near the base of Sierra de Santa Catarina mountain, one of the worst neighborhoods in Mexico. Violence, drug trafficking, and human slavery were an everyday occurrence, as were murders that the police rarely spent time investigating. The philosophy was that if you were in that area, you were either looking for trouble or were a predator and probably deserved what you got. Pools of stinking water ringed the intersection where the sedan eased up by a gray cinder-block home with a corrugated-metal roof, the entire structure covered with graffiti, no lights on inside nor on the street.

  The back door of the slow-moving sedan flew open and a form tumbled onto the filthy pavement. The door closed with a thunk and the driver sped up, traveling two blocks before he turned right onto a larger road and illuminated his headlights.

  Carlos’s lifeless eyes stared uncomprehendingly into the eternity of the night sky. It would be many hours before a coroner’s van appeared to scoop up his remains, escorted by several trucks with heavily armed police to ensure that nobody shot the technicians as they went about their work. It would take two more days to make an identification, a typical occurrence in one of the most populous cities in the world—par for the course for a police force that was woefully underbudgeted and understaffed and had to make do with antiquated equipment already old at the turn of the new century.

  TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO

  The two security men Antonio had depl
oyed to guard the tomb took a break from their monotony and moved far away from the trench as an SUV eased to a stop near it. They’d been well compensated to make themselves scarce for thirty minutes and to see and hear nothing and they had gladly complied, each pocketing a month’s pay for a paltry half hour of disinterest.

  Janus Benedict exited the passenger side and walked to the edge of the excavation, joined by Reginald. The driver remained in the vehicle with the engine running.

  “This is it? Doesn’t look like much,” Reginald said, annoyed to be awake at four a.m. to waste his time in some armpit well away from the refined comfort of his five-star Mexico City hotel.

  “Looks like for once the Fargos came up empty. Which I’m thrilled about. But also a little intrigued by.” Janus sighed. “I suppose even the best of us comes up short every now and again. Bound to happen.”

  “Then what are we doing here?”

  Janus peered down into the trench again and then shook his head and returned to the car. “Since I flew halfway across the bloody globe, I thought I’d see it for myself.”

  “Looks like a hole in the ground to me.”

  Janus glared at his brother. “Nothing slips by you, does it?” he snarled as he climbed back into the passenger seat.

  Reginald muttered an oath when the door shut, angry at his brother’s barb but knowing better than to confront him. Nerves were close to the surface, with the temple having been found, and he didn’t want to risk an outburst from his jet-lagged sibling.

  The tires crunched on gravel as the big vehicle backed away, and when the security guards returned fifteen minutes later, the site was calm and empty, which would be their report the following morning, now only a few hours away.

  What is it?” Sam asked as they took a taxi from their motel to the site.

  “I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right. I can’t believe that that was it. It just feels so . . . I don’t know, so incomplete.”