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  “I’m very sorry,” Sam said, “but we can’t sell what we don’t own. The codex has to go to the Mexican government. I believe there’s information in it that might be used by grave robbers, pot hunters, and thieves to locate and destroy important sites before archaeologists could ever hope to reach them. We’re not rejecting your offer, we’re rejecting all offers.”

  Sarah Allersby stood and looked at her watch. “We’ve got to be going, I’m afraid.” She sighed. “I made you such a large offer because I didn’t want to wait years to buy it from some Mexican institution at auction. But if waiting is necessary, I can do that. At some point, rationality sets in, and bureaucrats realize that a whole new library is better than one old book. Thank you for the tea.”

  She turned and in a moment she was out the door. Her lawyers had to hurry to get out and down the sidewalk in time to open the car door for her.

  Remi said, “I have a feeling about her.”

  “So do I.”

  Zoltán stared out the window at the limousine and growled.

  Sam and Remi walked back to the climate-controlled room, put on surgical gloves again, took the pot and the codex and carried them out. They went through the secret door in the bookcase, down the stairs to the lower level of the new firing range. Sam opened the gun cabinet, put the codex on a shelf with the pot, closed the safe, and spun the dial of the lock.

  They went back upstairs, and Remi said to Selma, “Are all the new security systems up and running yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. But don’t sleep here tonight. Arm all the systems and go to your apartment. We’re going to have a break-in tonight.”

  It was only quarter to eleven, so Sam and Remi drove to the campus of the University of California, San Diego. They found a parking structure not far from the Anthropology Department, then walked there.

  As they approached David Caine’s office, they saw the door open and a male student leave his office, looking down at a paper and frowning. Caine said to the student, “Just get the bibliography and notes in shape before you hand it in.” Then he saw the Fargos. “Sam! Remi! What’s up?” He beckoned them into his office and shut the door, then moved piles of books off chairs for them. “I thought we were going to meet at your house.”

  Sam said, “We had a visit about an hour ago from a woman named Sarah Allersby.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “You know her?” asked Remi.

  “Only by reputation.”

  Sam said, “She’s apparently been fed information by at least one of the colleagues you spoke with. She offered us seven million dollars for the codex. She knew what was in it.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I only spoke with people I thought I could trust. I never took into account the sort of temptation a person like that can offer.”

  “What do you know about her?” asked Remi.

  “More than I want to. She’s one of a whole class of people who have been filling gigantic houses in Europe and North America with pilfered artifacts for over a hundred years. They used to travel to undeveloped countries in the nineteenth century and take what they wanted. In the twentieth century, they paid galleries huge prices for objects that grave robbers dug up. By buying some, they created a market for more. They couldn’t be bothered to wonder what some object really was, where it came from, or how it was obtained. As things stand today, if I were in a hurry to find the most sacred objects in existence, I wouldn’t dig for them and I wouldn’t search in museums. I’d look in the homes of people in Europe and America whose families have been wealthy for the last hundred or so years.”

  “Is that the Allersbys?” asked Remi.

  “They’re among the worst,” Caine said. “They’ve been at it since the British arrived in India. It wasn’t even frowned upon until about thirty years ago. Even now, if an object left its country of origin before the United Nations treaty signed in the 1970s, you can do anything you want with it — keep it, sell it, or put it in your garden as a birdbath. That loophole exists because rich people like the Allersbys exerted influence on their countries’ governments.”

  “Sarah seemed pretty comfortable with the idea that we’d smuggled the codex out of Mexico for sale,” said Remi.

  He shook his head. “It’s ironic. I’ve heard the British tabloids spend a lot of ink on her bad behavior in the Greek islands and the French Riviera. But what she does in Guatemala is worse and it’s serious.”

  “Why?”

  “Guatemala had a civil war between 1960 and 1996. Two hundred thousand people died in that war. A lot of the old Spanish landowning families sold out and moved to Europe. The ones who bought those huge stretches of land were mostly foreigners. One of them was Sarah Allersby’s father. He bought a gigantic place called the Estancia Guerrero from the last heir, who had been living high in Paris and gambling in Monaco. When Sarah turned twenty-one, her father settled a lot of property on her — buildings in several European capitals, businesses, and the Estancia Guerrero.”

  “It sounds pretty routine for rich families,” said Remi.

  “Well, suddenly this twenty-one-year-old girl just out of school in England became one of the most important people in Guatemala. Some people predicted that she would be a progressive force, someone who would stand up for the poor Mayan peasants. The opposite happened. She visited her holdings in Guatemala and liked the place so much she moved there. That is, she liked Guatemala just the way it was. She became part of the new oligarchy, the foreigners who own about eighty percent of the land, and an even higher proportion of everything else. They exploit the peasants as much as the old Spanish landowners they replaced.”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  “It was to everyone except the peasants, who can’t be surprised anymore: Meet the new boss — just like the old boss. She’s got a great hunger for Mayan artifacts but no love at all for the living Mayan people who work in her fields and her businesses for practically nothing.”

  “Well,” said Sam. “Obviously, we’re not selling her anything. Where do you think we should go from here?”

  “We should do something about my colleagues. I need to know who is honest and who isn’t. I’d like to tell each of the people I’ve told about the codex a different lie about what’s in the rest of it and see which lie Sarah Allersby acts on.”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” said Remi. “When we asked about her sources, she wouldn’t answer. I’m sure she’ll be expecting us to try to find out.”

  “What we’ve got to do is try to pursue two paths at once,” Caine said.

  “What are the two paths?” Sam asked.

  “The codex has to be examined, transcribed, and translated. We have to know what it says.”

  “That’s hard to argue with,” said Remi.

  “The other line of inquiry is a bit trickier. At some point, we’ve got to find out whether the codex is fiction or a description of the world as it was in those days. The only way to do it is to go down to Central America and verify that what it says is true and accurate.”

  “You mean to visit one of the sites it describes?” asked Sam.

  “I’m afraid so,” Caine said. “I had been hoping to lead a scientific expedition to one of the sites that is mentioned only in this codex. But we’re two weeks into the spring quarter, with nine more weeks to go. I can’t leave my classes now. And it takes time to get a big expedition together. With Sarah Allersby involved, time is scarce. The longer we wait, the more difficult she’ll make it. She’s capable of getting people set up to follow any expedition we organize, getting us arrested, doing anything to get us to sell the codex or make sure we can’t have access to it.”

  “We’ll be the expedition,” Remi said. “Sam and me.”

  “What?” said Sam. “I thought you didn’t want to travel for a while.”

  “You heard him, Sam. There are two things that have to be done. Neither of us knows how to read the eight hundred sixty-one glyphs in the Mayan wri
ting system, and we don’t know the underlying language. What’s it called?”

  “Ch’olan,” said Caine.

  “Right,” she said. “Ch’olan. How’s your Ch’olan?”

  “I see what you mean,” Sam said. “Dave, see if you can find a site that fits the criteria — mentioned only in this codex, never explored, and small enough that we don’t need a big group that will attract attention. I’d like to slip in there, find it, and get out.”

  Chapter 9

  LA JOLLA

  Early the next morning, Sam, Remi, and Zoltán arrived at the house above Goldfish Point before the electricians and carpenters, who were still working on the fourth floor. As they started up the walk, Selma opened the front door and came out to meet them. She put her hands on her hips. “The police just left.”

  Remi said, “So we had visitors last night?”

  “Yes,” said Selma. “The burglars tried the front doors but couldn’t get them to budge. Banging on them and trying to jimmy the latches caused the steel shutters on the first and second floors to come down automatically. The silent alarm from the outdoor surveillance cameras and motion sensors had already alerted the police. The cameras got only the images of two figures dressed in black with ski masks.”

  “Were you hoping to see their best work?” Remi asked.

  “No,” Sam said. “But I’m wondering if they might not have suspected in advance that this place wasn’t going to be easy.”

  “Oh?” said Selma. “That implies that they’d been here before.”

  Sam shrugged. “If I were to guess, I’d say that you probably served them tea yesterday. I don’t mean Sarah Allersby came back with a crowbar. I mean that she just may have read us wrong — thought that if someone showed us that it’s dangerous to have a valuable artifact around, then we’d jump at her offer.”

  “One more thing,” said Selma. “Dave Caine left a message on the house phone last night. He wants to meet with you this morning about your next little trip.”

  Two hours later, they were in the climate-controlled room with David Caine. They stood around the worktable, comparing the map in the codex with a topographic map on a computer screen. Caine placed a small arrow pointing to a spot in the jungle. “This site meets our criteria. It’s not included in any inventory of known Mayan sites. It isn’t large enough to be a major city. It has the advantage of being in an area of the Guatemalan highlands that’s sparsely populated and remote.”

  “What do you think it is?” asked Remi.

  “The glyphs say it’s a sacred pool. I believe it’s a cenote — a hole in the underlying limestone bedrock caused by the action of water.”

  “Like a sinkhole?”

  “Exactly. Water was an extremely precious commodity to the Mayans, and it became more so in the late classic period. You would think water would be plentiful on the floor of a jungle, but it isn’t. And after the Mayans had cut and burned miles of trees to clear fields for agriculture, the climate got hotter and drier. During the late period, many cities depended heavily on cenotes as a water source. We’ve even found man-made cisterns they dug and plastered at El Mirador that were imitation cenotes, with artificial streams leading to them for catching water.”

  Sam said, “You want us to look for a pool of water?”

  “Cenotes were more than that. They were doorways to the underworld. Chac, the god of rain and weather, lived down there, among other places. You have to understand that these were people who believed that what they did kept the universe operating correctly. If you wanted rain, you would throw sacrifices into a cenote where the gods would get them.”

  “And this is the best site?”

  “There are new cities on this map. Either they’re imaginary or lost, we don’t know which. But you can’t go down there with a huge crew and try to excavate or even map a city without months of preparation. And if you did, it would compromise the site and expose it to looters. A cenote can be hidden or overgrown, but it’s something you can verify without attracting too much attention. There. I’ve just given you all the reasons why it’s a good choice.”

  Remi said, “I sense there are reasons why it’s not.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s near a vast piece of land owned by a foreign landlord. It’s called the Estancia Guerrero.”

  “Sarah Allersby?” said Remi.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s an unfortunate coincidence. But anywhere in Guatemala, we would be on or near one of these big estates. They occupy hundreds of square miles, much of it uncultivated.”

  “Maybe not so unfortunate,” said Sam. “While she’s trying to get her hands on the codex, she won’t be on her land, causing trouble for us.”

  “I doubt that she spends much time on the land, in any case. She leads a very active social, political, and business life in Guatemala City.”

  “Sounds good,” said Sam. “While we’re gone and you’re working on the codex, we’ll keep in touch. Selma and her assistants, Pete and Wendy, are ready to offer you as much help as you’d like. Selma you already know. Pete and Wendy are young, but both have plenty of history and archaeology experience.”

  Caine looked down at the codex on the table. “Selma told me about the burglary.”

  “It hardly deserves that name,” Sam said.

  “I’m wondering if it’s safe to keep the codex here while you’re out of the country.”

  “Do you have any better ideas?” asked Remi.

  “I was wondering if you’d let me look into the possibility of keeping the codex on campus.”

  “Normally, there wouldn’t be a problem with keeping it at our house,” said Remi. “But there’s still remodeling going on upstairs, with workmen coming and going all day, and now Sarah Allersby and her amateur burglars know where the codex is…” She paused. “Would the university be safer?”

  “University campuses are full of valuable things — supercomputers, famous works of art, experimental devices of every kind,” said Caine. “Besides, the university has a few things you don’t — like a police force.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” said Sam. “Look into the possibility of locking it up on campus. If you find it’s practical, we’ll do it. If not, we can rent a joint safe-deposit box in a bank and you can work there.”

  “Good,” said Caine. “I’ll talk to my dean and let you know. When can you leave for Guatemala?”

  “Tomorrow,” said Sam. “We’d like to get there, verify the site, and get back here.”

  “If you do, then maybe we can begin to organize a large team to find one of the big cities on the map this summer. I’d like you to consider joining that team. There’s nobody I’d rather have with me.”

  “We’ll consider it,” said Remi, “after we finish our scouting mission.”

  Sam and Remi spent the rest of the day preparing for their trip to Guatemala. They packed, arranged to have the proper scuba gear and wet suits waiting for them, and planned each step of the journey. In the midst of their preparations, Selma came in. “I’ve got the licenses you asked for.”

  “What licenses?” asked Remi.

  “For carrying concealed firearms in Guatemala. These are copies, but the originals will be waiting at your hotel in Guatemala City. It’s concealed carry only, by the way. Wearing a gun openly is frowned upon. I guess after their civil war, it’s intimidating.”

  “Thanks, Selma,” said Remi.

  “I’ve also transferred GPS maps of the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala to your satellite phones. You should memorize the coordinates of the site because I didn’t want to program that in. I did include the numbers of the U.S. Embassy and consulate in Guatemala City and the local police. There has been a lot of crime in the area recently and sometimes Americans look like good people to kidnap for ransom.”

  “We’ll be careful,” said Remi.

  “Please do. Don’t take offense, but you two even look rich. I’m glad to see you’re packing the clothes you wore doing relief work
in Mexico. Keep your equipment invisible.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” said Sam.

  “One more thing,” Selma said. “Dave Caine says the university has assigned him a good place to work on the codex. There’s a real, full-scale safe in the library’s archival department and a spare room beside it, where he can work. When he’s done each day, he can lock the codex in the safe again.”

  “That should do fine,” Sam said.

  Remi said, “Now it’s our turn to tell you to be careful.”

  “That’s right,” said Sam. “If either of you is watched or followed, don’t go to the university. Drive to the police station.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Have a successful trip. Call frequently, and come back soon. I promise, Zoltán will think he’s on vacation.”

  In twelve hours, Sam and Remi were on a flight heading toward Guatemala City.

  Chapter 10

  GUATEMALA CITY

  Sam and Remi disembarked in Guatemala City and went through customs. They were about to leave the airline terminal when Remi’s satellite phone rang. She answered, and said, “Hi, Selma. You must have tracked our plane.”

  “Of course. We’ve found something amazing and I thought you should know.”

  “What is it?”

  “Do you remember a sort of lump inside the cover of the codex?”

  “I do,” Remi said. “It’s sort of a rectangle shape. I figured it was a patch.”

  “It’s a sheet of parchment, folded, and then placed under the outer layer and covered with the fig-bark fabric. David and I removed it two hours ago. It’s a letter, written in black ink, in Spanish. It says, ‘To all of my countrymen, blessings. This book and other books of the Mayan people concern their history and their observations about the natural world. They have nothing to do with the devil. They must be preserved as a way to understand our charges, the Mayan people.’”