Serpent nf-1 Read online

  "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.

  "Is there a village nearby where they could have gone?" Trout asked.

  "There is a town, si, but the people there would have seen Dr. Chi in his big blue car. Nada."

  Trout examined to maps on to wall. One appeared to be missing. He went over to the table and began looking at the papers on top. It took only a moment to find the map and match the pinholes to those on to wall. Chi could have taken this down to show Gamay. On the other hand, it may have been on the table for weeks. He showed to map to Morales.

  "Do you know where this is?"

  The police sergeant examined to map and said, "Down south more into Campeche. About a hundred miles. Maybe more."

  "What's out there?"

  "Nothing. Woods. It's outside to biosphere reserve. No one goes there."

  Trout tapped the map. Somebody went there. My guess is it's Dr. Chi. The chopper can get us there in an hour or less."

  "I'm sorry, senor. By the time we walk back to the helicopter it will be dark."

  Morales was right. They were lucky to find their way out of the woods. By the time they returned to the chopper it was pitch black. Trout hated the thought of Gamay having to spend another night wherever she was. As' the helicopter lifted above the trees he tried to console himself with other possibilities. That Chi and Gamay had fetched up somewhere. Maybe they were sitting down to a quiet dinner. Less appealing scenarios intruded. An accident. That didn't figure. Gamay was simply not accident-prone. She was too savvy, too sure-footed.

  Trout knew tat even to most sure-footed person makes a mistake at least once in his or her life. He hoped it wasn't Gamay's turn.

  25 SERGEANT MORALES FOUND TROUT A room in a small hotel near the airport. Trout lay on his bed for hours staring at the ceiling fan, wondering what Gamay was doing, before he finally slipped into a few fitful hours of sleep. He awoke at twilight and took a shower that was all the more refreshing because there was no hot water. He was pacing the tarmac when the pilot and sergeant arrived as the sky turned peach pink in the east.

  The chopper followed Chi's map in a straight line at its maximum cruising speed, flying at an altit
ude of fifteen hundred feet. The forest stretched out below like a rough napped green carpet. Arriving at the area indicated on Chi's map, the pilot slowed the aircraft and dropped it almost to treetop level. The JetRanger admirably fulfilled the purpose of its original design as an army observation helicopter. Trout, who was sitting in the front, noticed a textural difference in the greenery and asked the pilot to circle. Morales picked out the barely distinct edges of the rectangular plain. After a couple more passes for the pilot to acquaint himself with the lay of the land, the JetRanger landed at rough center.

  It took Paul less than thirty seconds to decide he didn't like this godforsaken place. Not one damned bit! It went beyond the remoteness and the weird mounds and the darkness of the encroaching forest even in daylight. Something sinister lurked here. As a boy he used to feel the same prickly scalp uneasiness when he walked past the deserted house of a sailor who ate his crewmates while becalmed in the Sargasso Sea.

  Maybe Gamay had never been here, he thought, looking around at the desolate spot. All he had was Dr. Chi's map and the supposition that this was their destination. He could be spinning his wheels while Gamay desperately needed his help elsewhere. No. He clenched his jaw. This was definitely the place. He could feel it in his bones the way his fisherman father sensed a storm brewing.

  The police officer suggested that they fan out in three directions, keeping each other in view as much as possible, walk to the edge of the woods, then return to the chopper. A half hour later they straggled back. Morales was about to speak but paused as his eversearching policeman's eye. picked out evidence of an earlier visit.

  Squatting for a better look, Morales said, "See where the grass is broken. Here, and here again." He angled his head. "There, when the light is just right, footprints."

  Thinking he would never want Morales on his trail, Trout followed the sergeant's example and saw the faint shadows that had caught the police officer's attention. The sergeant instructed the pilot to stay with the helicopter and got no argument. The early morning sun was already hinting at the blast furnace it would be in the hours to come. They set out with Morales taking the lead and had gone only a short distance when they saw a mound that had been cleared so the stone blocks on one side were visible.

  At the base of the structure was a reddish patch. In his eagerness for a better look Trout ignored the sergeant's admonishment to stay behind. He dashed past the sergeant to the mound and picked up Gamay's worn maroon L. L. Bean day pack, the same one he had given her as a Christmas gift two years before. With mounting excitement he rummaged inside and found her camera and sketch pads, some plastic lunch bags, empty soda cans, and a bottle of water. Nearby was another pack made of tan canvas. Trout held both packs high over his head for the benefit of Morales, who was walking briskly to catch up.

  "This pack belongs to my wife," the NUMA scientist said triumphantly. "The other has Dr. Chi's name on the tag."

  Morales inspected the professor's bag. His face was clouded. "This is not good."

  "What do you wean, not good? This shows they've been here."

  "You misunderstand, Senor Trout," Morales said with a quick glance around. "I found a campfire where there were signs of many chicleros." " Noting Trout's blank expression, he explained, "They are bad men who steal antiquities for sale."

  "What's that got to do with my wife and the professor?"

  "The coals were warm. And near the river signs of many men. I also find these." He opened his palm to display three spent bullet cartridges.

  Trout put a shell to his nose. The bullet had been fired recently.

  "Where did you find them?"

  Trout's eyes followed the police officer's pointing finger, then looked back to where he had found the rucksacks as if he could draw a line connecting the two points. That's when he noticed the strange carvings on the wall of the structure. He stepped closer and inspected the boats and other figures on the bared stone. His guess was that Gamay and the professor had lunch, then came back to these carvings. Gamay definitely would have been intrigued by the strange etchings, but something must have distracted them.

  He turned back to Morales. "You think my wife and the professor ran into these chicleros?"

  "Si," Morales said with a shrug. "It is possible. Why else would they leave their sacks?"

  "I was thinking the same thing. Sergeant, would you please show me where you found these shells?"

  "Come this way" Morales said with a nod. "Be careful where you walk. There are holes all over the field."

  They slowly made their way across the plain. There were far more of the mysterious mounds than Trout first assumed. If each one had a stone structure under it, this must have been a goodsized settlement at one time.

  "Here," Morales said. And over there."

  Trout saw copper gleaming in the grass and picked up a couple more shells, a combination of pistol and rifle casings. The grass was trampled all around them. His big hand squeezed the hollow copper cylinders as if he would crush them.

  "Now can I see the campfire and the river?"

  They examined the campsite and found empty tequila bottles and many cigarette stubs. More shells were found in the woods. At the river's edge Trout looked in vain for tracks indicating Gamay's running shoes, but the mud was too messed up. He saw marks indicating boats had been drawn up on shore, as well as more shell casings. This place must have resembled a shooting gallery! But Trout was hopeful. The casings indicated that someone with rifles and pistols had chased somebody to the river. That was the bad news. The fact that guns were still blazing from the riverside indicated Gamay and the professor could have made their escape.

  Trout suggested that they get into the air and follow the river through the woods. Morales agreed. They walked briskly away from the river and were about halfway back to the chopper when they heard a disembodied groan. They froze, exchanging glances. Morales drew his pistol. They listened, hearing only the drone of insects.

  The groan repeated off to the right. With Morales covering him, Trout moved cautiously toward the apparent source. The sound seemed to be coming from practically underfoot. Trout looked down. Partially hidden by the long grass was a black hole. He knelt at the edge but couldn't see anything in the darkness.

  Feeling somewhat foolish at talking into the ground, he said "Who's there?"

  Another groan. Followed by a stream of Spanish in a weak voice.

  Morales, who had come over to kneel by Trout's side, listened a moment. "It's a man. He says he fell down the hole."

  "What's he doing way out here?"

  Morales relayed the question, then the answer. "He said he was out walking."

  "This is a pretty remote place to be taking a nature stroll," Trout said. "Let's get him out."

  Trout went back to the chopper and found a nylon rope in ,the emergency kit. He dropped a knotted loop into the hole, then he, the pilot, and Morales hauled on their end of the rope. First the head, then the shoulders of a pitiful-looking creature appeared in the opening. The man's scraggly beard and long greasy hair were covered with a gray dust, and the whiteness of his illfitting clothes was a distant memory. He sat on the ground, alternately rubbing his arms, legs, and head. His nose was bruised.

  The police officer gave him a water bottle. He noisily gurgled the water, slopping half of it onto his chin. Refreshed by the water, the man showed yellow teeth in a cocky grin and tipped the canteen for another guzzle. His sleeve fell as he raised his arm.

  Trout kicked the canteen like a punter and sent it flying into the grass. His big hand shot out and gripped the man's hairy wrist. Even Morales was shocked by the unexpected move.

  "Senor Trout!"

  "This is my wife's watch." Trout slid the expansion band Swatch off.

  "You're sure?"

  "I gave it to her." Anger flashed in the normally calm eyes. "Ask him where he got it."

  Morales asked the question in Spanish and relayed the answer.

  "He says he bought it."
r />   Trout was through playing games. "Tell him that if he doesn't talk we'll throw him back in the hole and leave."

  The grin vanished. The threat of being tossed back into the ground unleashed a torrent of Spanish.

  . Morales listened, nodding. "He's crazy. Name is Ruiz. Keeps talking about the devil woman and the dwarf who made the

  earth swallow him:"

  "Devil woman?"

  "Si. He says she broke his nose."

  "What happened to this woman?"

  "He doesn't know. He was down in the hole.. He heard a lot of shooting. Then quiet. He says his friends abandoned him. I ask if these amigos are chicleros. He says no." Morales grinned without mirth. "He's a stinking liar."

  "Tell him we're going to take him up in the helicopter and throw him out if he doesn't tell the truth."

  The man looked at the granitehard expression on the face of the giant gringo and decided he wasn't joking.

  "No!" he said. "I talk. I talk."

  "You understand English."

  Poco," the man said, holding his thumb and finger slightly apart.

  In halting English, using Spanish when words escaped him, Ruiz admitted he was with a gang of chicleros who came here to steal antiquities. They found the woman and the little old man and locked them in the ground where there was no way they could escape. But they burrowed out of the earth somehow and threw him into the hole. The other chicleros gave chase. They never came back to look for him. He didn't know what happened to the man and woman.

  Trout pondered the report briefly.

  "Okay, get him in the chopper."

  Morales handcuffed the man gingerly, trying not to touch him, then used the toe of his shoe to persuade Ruiz to stand. They stuffed him into the rear bench seat, and Morales got in beside him. The man exuded a stench so vile the pilot complained. Morales laughed and said if it got too bad they'd throw Ruiz over the side. Ruiz didn't think it was funny, and his eyes grew wide in fear as the helicopter lifted off the ground. He wouldn't be giving them any trouble. They circled the site a couple of times, then picked up the gleam of the river. It was barely visible through the trees, but with three sets of eyes they were able to trace its course.