The Mayan Secrets

“That’s it,” said Sam. “Let’s find a place to land.”

Carmichael widened the circles, spiraling outward from the ruins. After a few minutes, he said, “I don’t see anything that looks like clear ground.”

“No,” Remi said. “It’s all thickly forested.”

Carmichael went farther out until he found a spot that was empty of trees. It was a patch of jungle that had burned to the ground. Carmichael said, “Finally. That’ll have to do.”

“It looks like there must have been a fire,” said Sam. “Everything’s charred.”

“Yeah,” said Carmichael. “Way out here, it was probably a lightning strike the last time it rained. I’m afraid you’ll have a long walk to the ruins, though.”

“I have an idea,” Remi said. “Is that rescue gear working?” She pointed at the side door in the bay, where there was an electric winch and a cable with a harness.

“Sure,” Carmichael said.

“Can you operate the winch while you’re flying?”

“I’ve got a second set of controls right here. I can set down here, rig you up, and lower you over the site, if you’re up to it. But I have to warn you, that’s a scary ride.”

Remi said, “I know, but we don’t mind.”

Carmichael looked at Sam for a reaction. Sam said, “We can rig ourselves up. Do you think you can set us down on the upper part of that gray stone? It seems to be the top of a building.”

“There’s not much wind today. I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”

“Remi, want me to go first?” asked Sam.

“Nope,” she said. “Help me get rigged.”

Sam and Remi unbuckled their seat belts, climbed over the seats to the back, and then got Remi into the harness. “Okay, Tim, let’s see where we can lower her.” They flew in lower and hovered over the spot where they had seen the gray limestone structure jutting through the treetops. “Ready?” asked Carmichael.

Sam opened the side door. Remi sat on the edge with her legs dangling out, waved good-bye to Sam, and slid out the door, the rotor wash blowing her ponytail around wildly. “Now,” said Sam. The winch lowered Remi as Sam watched her progress. “Lower, lower, lower. Hold there, Tim. Just hover.” Remi reached the gray stone surface, then freed herself of the rescue gear. “She’s removing the harness. Okay, she’s clear. Raise the cable.”

When the empty harness came up, Sam slipped into it and picked up his and Remi’s day packs by the straps. He sat on the floor of the open doorway. “Okay, Tim, come back for us at five.”

“I’ll be here.”

Sam slid out and watched the top of the pyramid coming closer and closer as the winch lowered him to its top tier. There was a small temple on top, and he had to use his feet to keep from swinging into it, but then he was on the platform and the cable went slack. He slipped it off, then waved to Tim to raise it.

Tim’s helicopter rose straight up, and he activated the winch to bring the harness up as he flew off to the west toward the burned clearing. Sam and Remi began to look through their packs. Remi said, “Pretty quiet all of a sudden, isn’t it?”

He put his arms around her and kissed her. “It’s kind of nice to be alone.”

“It is,” she said. “But if we don’t get this place photographed, we’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“Let’s get it done.” Each of them opened a day pack, took out a pistol, stuck it in the bellyband they both wore under their shirts, and then took out a digital camera.

They worked systematically, taking shots from each side of the pyramid, so that in all four directions they photographed a quarter of the surrounding city complex, which looked like an arrangement of steep hills covered by trees. They went into the house-sized temple atop the pyramid and took photographs of its walls, floor, and ceiling. The temple had two rooms plastered with stucco and then painted with murals that were in fairly good shape. They depicted a procession of Mayan people bringing bowls and plates to a hideous figure who must have been a god.

They slowly descended the pyramid, taking photographs of it, of the steps, of the monumental buildings in every direction. Much of the time, each of them included the other person in the photograph to establish scale and to prove that they had been there.

When they reached the ground level, they walked a quarter of a mile in each of the four directions from the pyramid, still photographing everything they could see. At the end of the afternoon, they returned to the foot of the pyramid and stopped on the east side. Sam took a foot-length section of PVC pipe, capped and sealed on both ends, from his pack. Inside were rolled papers, printed statements in English and Spanish. They said that Remi and Sam Fargo had been at this GPS position on this date to explore and map these Mayan ruins. There were also telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, and street addresses for contacting the Society for American Archaeology, the World Archaeological Congress, and the Society for Historical Archaeology, all of which had been notified of the discovery, as had the Guatemalan government. Sam dug a hole and buried the pipe in front of the eastern steps and then marked the spot with a small red plastic flag, like the ones that gas companies use to mark gas lines.

“So much for that,” said Remi. “I feel a little like the old-time explorers who used to plant flags on other people’s property and say they owned it.”

“Let’s just settle on the idea that we were here and registered it with the people who are qualified to study it and learn more about it,” he said. “That’s enough for me.”

“And this is our fifth city,” Remi said. “Four major cities in ten days.”

“We must be the world’s greatest tourists.”

Remi looked at her watch. “It’s after four. Let’s climb up on our perch and get a phone co

As they moved up the enormous work of earth and stone, they could see trees nearly as tall on all sides. At the top, Remi turned on her satellite phone, co

When Remi had transferred her photographs, she took Sam’s camera and transferred his. She looked at her watch again, and said, “It’s almost five. Didn’t Tim say he was coming at five?”

“Yes.” Sam took his satellite phone and called Tim Carmichael. He heard the sound of ringing for a minute, then hung up. “He’s not answering.”

“He’s probably flying, and he can’t hear the phone with the earphones on.”

They waited about ten more minutes, listening for the sound of a helicopter, and then Remi said, “Nothing.”

Sam called again, then hung up. He called the office of Cormorant 1 Air Charter in Belize and put on the speaker so Remi could hear.

“Cormorant, Art Bowen.”

“Mr. Bowen, we haven’t met. This is Sam Fargo. Tim Carmichael took us to a spot in the highlands of Guatemala. He was supposed to pick us up at five, but he hasn’t. He’s not answering his satellite phone. I wondered if you could please get him on the radio and check to be sure he’s all right.”

“I’ll try,” said Bowen. “Hold on.”

Bowen went away from the phone for a minute. More time passed, and Sam and Remi could hear low voices in the background. Bowen might have been on the radio or he might have been talking to someone in his office. After a few more minutes, he was back. “He’s not answering his radio either,” said Bowen. “We’re going to send another helicopter out there and see what’s up. Can you give me your exact position?”

“Hold on.” Sam handed the phone to Remi, who had their notes in her day pack. She read the coordinates to Bowen, then repeated them. She gave him her satellite phone number and Sam’s. “Tim was going to wait for us about five miles due west of our current position, on a flat space that looked as though it had been recently burned.”