The Mayan Secrets

She turned and walked back toward the crowd of newspeople. Michelle Fauret, a stringer for Paris Match, had agreed to come because of Sarah Allersby’s reputation as a partygoer in Europe. She hurried toward Sarah, calling out, “Sarah! Sarah!” She was holding a small video camera.

Sarah Allersby was reassured. The idea that she was about to become an even bigger celebrity was titillating. She had always liked being the very rich girl, with mysterious holdings in Central America, who would sometimes appear at parties in southern France or the islands of the Mediterranean. She sensed that she was about to go from “interesting” to “fascinating.” She smiled, and said, “What is it, Michelle?”

“They’re saying that you’re a fraud. They say this site is already registered with all the archaeological organizations — that you didn’t find it. Someone else did.”

Sarah was not pleased that while Michelle was saying all this, the red light in the front of her video camera was on. She feigned an amused smile. “That’s silly,” she said. “Why would I do such a thing?”

“Look at this,” said Emil Bausch, the German columnist. He held up an iPad tablet with a photograph of the large pyramid that dominated the plaza. “This is a picture that’s on the website of the Society for American Archaeology. This whole site has already been photographed and charted.”

Jim Hargrove, an American from National Geographic, said, “How could this happen? Don’t you consult any of the organizations in the field?”

“Of course I do.” Sarah hadn’t done it lately. She had been so busy.

“Apparently, not often enough. This set of ruins is on the lists of existing finds.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Sarah Allersby. “Is this some kind of joke? I invited very few reporters here to share in an extremely rare experience. Are you now accusing me of faking something?” She waved her arm in the direction of the ancient buildings around them. “Did I build all this to fool you? These buildings are masterpieces, and the last people here left a thousand years ago.”

“The people here left three weeks ago,” said Justin Fraker. “It’s listed in the British catalogs of discovery too.” He pointed at the image on his satellite phone. “They’ve got a complete description. The map coordinates are identical. And they marked it with a pipe with a red flag that pokes out of the ground below the stairs.”

“Who are these people who supposedly left three weeks ago?” said Sarah Allersby.

“The names listed are Samuel and Remi—”

“Fargo!” she interrupted. “They’re criminals, people who have no qualifications or academic intent whatever. They’re treasure hunters. This is a trick.”

“The find is listed as a joint project with the University of California,” said Van Muckerjee, the New York Times correspondent. “The University of California would seem to have academic qualifications and academic intent.”

“I have no more to say about these people,” she said. “I’ll be leaving here in a half hour. I would advise you all to make your way to the helicopter landing area as soon as possible. The pilots will not be flying anyone out after dark.” She turned and began to walk along the path.

Sarah held her shining blond head high and walked in silence. The chosen group of journalists trotted after her, the photographers racing ahead so they could get a picture of her face with a snarl or a tear. Both sold a lot of papers.

The next afternoon, Sarah Allersby sat in her bedroom and looked at her computer. Posted on YouTube was a video of Sarah Allersby. She looked beautiful and triumphant as she hacked her way through the brush and stepped onto the great plaza of the old city. Then, almost immediately, things changed. The newspeople were already preparing to surround her, saying in several languages that she was a fraud. It didn’t matter whether the viewer could speak all of those languages because the reporters yelling in his language would tell him the simple version of it: “This site has already been discovered by someone else.” “This city is known.” “It’s already registered with the international organizations.” “You’re trying to fool everyone.”

As the accusations were repeated and amplified, Sarah walked quietly away from the mob of angry reporters. The reporters ran after her, then ahead of her, taking her picture and accusing her of worse and worse impostures. It went on and on. As Sarah watched on her computer, it made her want to cry for the poor, tormented woman in the video. Then the video faded out, and she saw the title: “British heiress caught in fraud.” Views: 330,129. As she sat motionless, staring at the picture that was as motionless as she was, the number changed to 339,727. She clicked on the X at the corner of the screen to banish the sight, then stood up and walked away from the computer.

She picked up the telephone and dialed a number she had called only a few times. This time, she was nervous.

“Hello?” It was the voice of a young woman, probably one of the women who kept appearing on Diego San Martin’s arm at parties and charity events, and then being replaced by another, and another.

“Hello.” Sarah’s voice was honeyed, and her Spanish was sure and fluid. “This is Sarah Allersby. Is Señor San Martin available?”

“I’ll see,” the woman said carelessly. She dropped the phone on a hard surface.

Sarah imagined her from her voice. His women were always models or actresses or beauty contest wi

“Sarah.” San Martin’s voice was gruff but friendly.

“Good afternoon, Diego. I wondered if you and I could have a talk tomorrow.”

“Do you want to come here?”

“If you don’t mind coming to my house, I would consider it a favor. Just now I’ve been having some bad publicity. I don’t know who might be waiting to follow me around. I’m keeping myself out of sight for now.”

“All right.”

“Come for lunch at twelve.”

The next day, by eleven-thirty, she was prepared. The table that had been set in Sarah Allersby’s garden was superb. She’d had the servants lay out thick white linen, crystal glasses, and the heaviest antique silver, all part of the Guerrero house furnishings. The china was a subdued Wedgwood, cream white, with a pattern of lavender leaves and a gold rim. It was an eighteenth-century pattern she’d learned was in a warehouse in Mumbai that belonged to her family. She had been fond of rescuing things of that sort when she was a teenager — old china and pottery from shipments passing through India that an ancestor had picked up, old paintings and books from English and French houses the family had bought during times of economic disaster. Many of these things had been moved to company warehouses on the London docks, others left in place while the company leased the homes out for various purposes or converted them to hotels.

The flowers in the vases were from beds not a hundred feet from the table. The old, Spanish-style Guerrero house was the perfect place for private conversations, a two-story brick structure with a courtyard in the center. The tree-shaded court was protected on all sides. No remote sensing device or telephoto lens would be of much use here.

Sarah looked at everything critically and with a cold eye. The food, the setting, the location of the table, even the likely path of the sun, had to be right. Men like Diego San Martin had little tolerance for inconvenience.

At exactly noon, her front-door man, Victor, ushered San Martin through the foyer and the French doors into the courtyard, where Sarah awaited him. He was about fifty-five, but he was vain about his appearance and kept himself in fighting condition. He carried a panama hat with a black band and wore a beige linen suit with a pale yellow shirt and blue tie. He looked cool and sweet, Sarah thought, like an Italian ice. He was followed in by two bodyguards.