The Mayan Secrets - Cussler Clive - Страница 29

Strohm didn’t meet Caine’s gaze.

Caine stood, helplessly watching them pack up the codex, his notes, his photographs, and his computer. He turned to the two Mexican officials. “Minister Montez, Senor Juarez,” he said. “Please believe me, this was never a scheme to do anything unethical. The people who found the codex risked their lives to protect it during a time of catastrophe. They alerted the mayor of the nearest village. They called me in and I immediately began consulting with scholars all over the world, including Mexico.”

Montez said, “You should know that neither I nor the Mexican government can countenance what you’ve done here. The steps you and your friends took seem to have left out the only legitimate authority, and the legal owner of the artifacts. Saying that the only way to protect the codex was taking it to the United States is presumptuous and paternalistic.” He stepped past Caine and the others, with his assistant, Senor Juarez, following.

After that, the men from the FBI and customs seemed uncomfortable. They took only a minute to finish packing up and walk off, leaving only Strohm and Caine in the room.

“I’m sorry, David,” said Strohm. “The university had no choice but to cooperate in a situation like this. Of course we’ll do everything possible to vouch for you and support you. We’ll also vouch for the probity of your conduct. But, you know, you might want to consider what Agent Vanderman said.”

“You mean find a criminal lawyer?”

The vice chancellor shrugged. “It’s a lot easier to get a court to decide in your favor on the first try than to get the next court to reverse the first’s decision.”

Outside the building, the officials drove off in a plain coal black Lincoln Town Car. They reached the San Diego Freeway and turned south in the direction of downtown San Diego, but then stayed on the freeway, took the Balboa Park exit, and drove into the vast parking lots of the San Diego Zoo. They went to an area of the largest lot that was far from the pedestrian entrance and where a solitary second black car waited. They pulled up beside it, and both drivers lowered their backseat windows.

From the backseat of the waiting car came a woman’s voice with an educated British accent. “I assume it all went swimmingly?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Special Agent Vanderman. He got out of his car, carrying a large briefcase, got into the backseat of the other car, and sat beside Sarah Allersby. He placed the case on the seat between them, opened it, and showed her the codex, wrapped in clear plastic.

“Did you get everything? All of his photographs, his notes, and so on?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “The administrators fell all over themselves to cooperate, and so when we all trooped in, Caine looked like he’d been poleaxed. He gave us everything without much of an argument. I guess he assumed his bosses had already verified who we were.”

“They may have,” said Sarah. “The names on your identification cards were the names of real officials.” She looked more closely at the briefcase. “Is this everything?”

“No.” He got out and reached into the backseat of the other car, then handed her a computer. “Here’s his laptop. That’s everything.”

“Then it’s time for you four to get moving. Here are your itineraries.” She handed him four printed airline itineraries. “Destroy your fake identification before you reach the airport. You’ll each find a rather pleasing bonus in your special bank accounts tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Aren’t you going to ask how much?”

“No, ma’am. You said we’d be pleased. I have no reason to doubt that, and, if I’m wrong, haggling won’t help.”

She smiled, displaying perfectly straight, professionally whitened teeth. “You’re very wise. Stick with our company and you’ll also be rich.”

“I intend to,” he said. He turned and got into the backseat of the other car and nodded to the driver. The car began to move immediately.

Sarah Allersby watched the other black car drive off, then latched the briefcase and set it on the floor. She couldn’t keep from smiling as her own car moved off more slowly. She wanted to laugh aloud, to get on the phone and tell a few friends how clever she had been. She had just acquired a Mayan codex, an irreplaceable and priceless artifact, for about the cost of a middle-of-the-lot American car. If she included the price of the false identification cards and badges, the plane tickets, and the bonuses, it was, at most, the cost of two cars.

Maybe when she got back to Guatemala City tonight she would get on the secure scrambled phone line to London. Her father would be amused. He didn’t much care about the art or cultures of non-European people — he referred to them as “our brown brothers,” as though he were a colonist out of Kipling — but a good deal on any commodity was what he lived for.

Chapter 14

The cannabis plants grew in rows, planted like corn, with the stalks as tall as a man. There were irrigation hoses between rows with holes in them to soak the roots.

Remi sat on the ground and put on the sneakers that Sam had placed in the waterproof bag for her. Then she took two of the pistols from the bag, handed one to Sam, and stuck the other in the waistband of her shorts and pulled her shirt down over it. She said, “I think I know who those men who attacked us were.”

“Me too,” Sam said. “They must patrol the area to be sure outsiders don’t reach the fields.”

“Let’s see if we can call home,” Remi said. She tried her phone, then Sam’s. “The batteries are dead. We’ll have to walk out of here.”

“If the drug farmers let us,” Sam said. “They’re not going to like us any better than the men at the cenote did.”

They heard the sound of an engine. It was distant at first, but it grew louder. After a moment, they could hear squeaking springs as a stake truck bounced along the dusty road between two fields of crops.

Sam and Remi ran into the forest of tall cannabis stalks and moved away from the sounds. They crouched low and watched. The truck bounced up and coasted to a stop, and a middle-aged man in blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a white shirt got out of the passenger side of the cab. He walked one row into the field and selected a marijuana plant. He looked closely at a bud and tested it. He stepped out toward the truck and nodded, and a dozen men jumped from the back of the truck to the ground. They moved along the rows of plants, harvesting the ripe buds.

The harvest proceeded quickly. Sam and Remi had to stay out of sight. When they were sure it was clear, they ran across a gap to the next field. After they had slipped into that field, they heard another engine sound approaching. This time, it was a tractor towing a wagon containing more men, who jumped down and began to harvest the second field.

For hours, Sam and Remi moved from one field of the huge plantation to another, avoiding the harvesters, their trucks and tractors.

The trucks began to pass them again, moving in the other direction. Sam and Remi made their way down a long row of plants in the middle of the field, walking parallel to the roads and maintaining their distance. They came to a forest of bushes, all seven to ten feet tall. “Interesting,” Remi whispered. “They look a lot like a blackthorn, don’t they?”

“Could be,” said Sam. “All I know about the blackthorn is that it’s what the Irish use to make a shillelagh. Also that it looks like a coca tree. And this is a coca tree.” He picked a leaf. “See? You look for two parallel lines on each side of the rib.”

“How do you know about that?”

Sam shrugged and gave Remi a sly smile.

When they reached the end of the coca grove, they could see a single-file line of about twenty trucks and tractors waiting to pull up to barnlike buildings. Sam and Remi kept to the fields as they moved to the side and around the buildings.