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  Wherever and however Blaylock had found the maleo, its surprisingly pristine condition, and the Shenandoah’s unique fate had combined to leave behind even more compelling evidence: microscopic traces of Indonesian-specific pigments that suggested the statuette had once been painted-perhaps to better represent the maleo bird itself.

  IN THE DAYS following their return home, a number of minor secrets that had been nagging Sam, Remi, and the others slowly sorted themselves out: Blaylock’s journal, whose eccentricities continued to reveal themselves in dribs and drabs, had solved the bell mystery when Pete found two pages stuck together. In Blaylock’s own words he dramatically described being attacked by pirates while the Shenandoah was at anchor off Chumbe Island, two days before she departed for the Sunda Strait. Lest the bell, “Ophelia’s heart,” fall into the wrong hands, Blaylock jettisoned it overboard after removing a memento, the clapper, intending to reunite the two upon his return to Bagamoyo. In the same attack Blaylock lost his artillery sword, a short Gladius-style weapon, the same one Sylvie Radford found while snorkeling a hundred twenty-seven years later.

  Blaylock’s beloved journal and walking staff, both of which were rarely beyond his arm’s reach, he’d left behind with one of his concubines the day before the Shenandoah departed for Indonesia; they eventually found their way to Morton and the Blaylock Museum and Curiosity Shop. Sam and Remi couldn’t help but wonder whether the enigmatic Winston Blaylock had somehow known he wouldn’t be coming home.

  IN THE END, President Quauhtli Garza’s paranoia sealed his fate. Good soldier that he was, Rivera had left no trail that could incriminate his boss, so Sam and Remi devised a disinformation plot that capitalized on the fact that Rivera’s body remained missing. They were surprised when their scheme bore such spectacular fruit.

  Armed with their suspicions about the tourists Rivera murdered in Zanzibar and the evidence supporting their theory about the true origin of the Aztecs, they used Rube Haywood’s connections to start a leak that quickly became a torrent: Itzli Rivera was alive and rather than face extradition to Tanzania, he was talking to the authorities, who had details about not only the murders but also Garza’s attempt to hide the truth about his Quetzalcoatl statuette and the Mexica Tenochca’s power-grabbing ruse. Within hours of the story hitting American cable news channels, Mexican networks were running it nonstop. Within days, Mexican opposition parties and legislators were demanding an investigation, and hundreds of thousands of protesters had taken to the streets in Mexico City, surrounding government buildings and grinding the city to a near halt.

  Having spent nearly a decade safeguarding a secret that had the power to both glorify and destroy him, Quauhtli Garza now realized all was lost. In the space of weeks, all of it was gone, torn asunder by a pair of treasure hunters, no less.

  Americans-imperialists, just like Cortes and his hordes. It was unjust. History repeating itself. How had the Fargos managed it? And so quickly?Curse them, and curse Rivera for that matter, the traitorous bastard, Garza thought.

  He would not suffer the same fate as his forefathers. He was alone, but his destiny was still in his hands.

  ON THE FIFTH DAY after the story broke, Garza, now trapped in his office by mobs chanting “Show yourself!” and “Garza must go!,” dismissed his security detail and staff and stared out the window at what had been, just hours before, his adoring public-now treacherous conquistadors returned to tear down what he’d built.

  At sunset, a sunken-eyed Garza left his office, marched to the roof of his building overlooking Templo Mayor, took a final look at his city and what could have been, and unceremoniously leapt into the air.Surrounded by thousands of stunned onlookers, his shattered corpse lay atop the jagged steps of the pyramid, the last remnant of the lost Aztec Empire.

  SELMA’S STRIDENT VOICE came over the loudspeaker above Remi’s chaise: “I’m ready whenever you are.”

  Remi replied, “On our way.”

  They found Selma in the workroom, standing at the end of the table. “I just finished plugging in the last of the data: a similar scenario run by the U.S. Geological Survey a few years ago,” Selma announced. She’d collected information from dozens of other geological organizations and universities from around the world in addition to the USGS.“Have you seen it?” Sam asked.

  “And ruin your fun? Not a chance.”

  One of the more troublesome questions that remained unanswered-or at least not answered to their satisfaction-was why, after traveling twelve thousand miles across the globe, had the Proto-Aztecs chosen Lake Texcoco as their ultimate home? Legend claimed they had been guided there by an eagle perched atop a cactus with a snake in its mouth, but Professor Dydell’s MDI-Migrational Displacement Iconography-theory suggested that image had begun as a maleo perched atop a durian tree.“Go ahead, Selma.”

  Selma pointed the remote at the LCD, and a moment later a Google Earth-like overhead image of Chicomoztoc Island appeared. The camera zoomed out to encompass the nearby isles and the bay itself.Selma pressed another button.

  Slowly at first, then gaining more speed, the image began to morph as a time line at the margin counted backward in ten-year increments. Sea levels rose and fell; coastlines retreated and expanded; jungles thinned and thickened. A column of smoke drifted across the bay, followed by a second.“Hold,” Sam called, and Selma paused the animation. “Volcanoes?” Remi nodded. “Looks like it.”

  Selma hit Play again. Water levels rapidly rose and retreated. And then land began moving.

  “There it goes,” Remi murmured.

  “Can you slow it down, Selma?” asked Sam

  Selma touched a button on the remote.

  The screen’s time line read 782 A.D. The animation slowed to one-year-per-second increments. Sam and Remi watched, transfixed, as the horns of the bay gradually began rising from the sea and crawling toward each other as all the islands in the bay except Chicomoztoc disappeared beneath the surface. By the time the time line reached the year 419 A.D., the bay had become landlocked. All that remained was a lone island, shaped like the flower-shaped cave in the Chicomoztoc illustration, in the middle of what had morphed into a lake.“No wonder that otherwise marshy piece of land in the middle of Lake Texcoco looked so appealing to them,” Remi said. “They were coming home.”

  SAM AND REMI thanked Selma and returned to the solarium.

  “Which one do you want to do first?” Sam asked.

  “Which what?”

  “Which excavation: the outrigger on Madagascar, Chicomoztoc Island, or the Shenandoah? Once we make the announcement, I suspect it won’t take long for expeditions to begin forming. I’d like to think we’ll have our first pick.”Remi thought about it a moment, then shrugged. “You?”

  Sam smiled. “Each one has its appeal.” He dug into his pocket and came up with a quarter. He made a fist and placed the coin on top of his thumbnail. “Two tosses. We go with the winner?”Remi nodded.

  Sam Fargo flipped the coin and it twirled skyward.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: fbd-e133b2-eb63-024f-fdaa-a09e-98e2-7bde26

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 03.01.2012

  Created using: calibre 0.8.32, Fiction Book Designer software

  Document authors :

  Clive Cussler

  Source URLs :

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