"Well, keep your heading north." Dupre's voice was coming from a place
of extreme pain. "And if you sight the Rio Tigre, then _Baalum_ or
whatever should be more or less due west, according to what I'm
assuming. Just keep your eyes open." He paused. "Problem is, with all
this rain, the river's going to be tough to make out."
I redoubled my efforts to peer out the window, searching, my breath
coming in bursts. Still nothing. Dear God, what now?
Finally Dupre headed back, bracing himself against the firewall as he
crouched and passed through the door into the main cabin. When he
settled into the seat across from me, he was glaring at me as though
everything was my fault. "You know." He was yelling again. "I'm
beginning to think maybe we ought to try to find a clearing and just
sit out this crap till morning." He leaned over and peered down through
the Bell's spattered side windows at the dense tangle of growth below.
After a moment he got up and once more moved the toward the cockpit,
still with the same troubled look. This time, however, he was beaming
as he shouted back.
"There may be a God after all. I think we just intersected the Rio
Tigre. We can bear due west now, along the river. We could be getting
close, if it's where I think it is."
I turned and stared down again, barely making out the thread of the
stream through the rain. Yes! Maybe there's hope. Still, below us the
windblown treetops were a solid mass of pastel sparkles, a dancing sea
of hungry green . . . But then I thought I saw something. Hey! It might
even be a clearing. I quickly unbuckled and made my way up to the
cockpit, hanging on to anything I could grasp.
"Alan, look," I yelled, and pointed off to the side, out
through the rain-obscured windscreen. "I think we just passed over
something. Back there. See?"
"Where?" He squinted.
"You can still just make it out." I twisted and kept pointing. I was
biting my lip, trying to hold together. "There . . . it looks like some
kind of clearing. Maybe . . . I don't know, but what if we just set
down there and let this storm blow over?"
He ordered Villatoro to bank and go back for a look. A few moments
later it was obvious there was an opening in the trees.
"Yeah, let's check it out." He then said something to Villatoro and we
started easing toward it, definitely a wide opening. The billowing
ocean of trees below us seemed to be parting like the Red Sea as we
settled in. There had to be solid ground down there somewhere. Had to
be.
"What's . . ." I was pointing. "There, over to the side, it's a kind of
hill or something. It's--"
"Where?" Dupre squinted again, his voice starting to crack. Then he
focused in. "Yeah, maybe there's something there. Hard to tell what it
is, though. But I guess we're about to find out."
He gestured to the lieutenant, barking an order in quick Spanish. While
the Bell kept moving lower through the opening, Dupre flicked on the
landing lights, and appeared to be muttering a prayer of thanks.
I was staring out, growing ever more puzzled. A "hill" was there, all
right. The problem was, it was definitely man-made, topped by a stone
building. I could just make it out in the glare of the lights.
"What do you think that is?"
"What do I think?" Dupre studied the scene for a moment longer, and
then his face melted into the first smile I'd seen since we left. "I
think we are lucky beyond belief. God help us, we may have found it.
That could be the damned pyramid or whatever's supposed to be up here."
He leaned back. "Yeah, congratulations. Look at that damned thing.
Either this is the place, or we're about to become the archaeologists
of the year. Cover of _Time_. The Nobel frigging Prize."
At that moment I almost wanted to hug Alan Dupre, but not quite.
Instead I moved farther into the cockpit, trying to get a look out the
windscreen. By then we had lowered well through the opening in the
trees, the helicopter's controls fighting against the blowing rain, and
it felt as though we'd begun descending into the ocean's depths in a
diving bell, surrounded by thrashing, wind-whipped branches.
Now, though, I was staring at the ghostly rise of the pyramid emerging
out of the rain.
"It looks brand new."
"Yeah, the whole place is 'Jungle Disneyland' remember? Except this
deal ain't about Mickey Mouse, believe me. There's plenty of Army
hanging out around here."
Lieutenant Villatoro took us ever lower, gently guiding the chopper's
descent, and now we were only a few feet above the ground. There
certainly was no mistaking what was around us, even with the blowing
rain. The pyramid loomed over one side of a large plaza, a big paved
area that was mostly obscured from the skies since the swaying trees
arched over and covered it from aerial view.
"Okay, we're about to touch down." Dupre was clawing at his pocket,
yearning for a cigarette. "So if you still want to get out, move over
by the door. I'll disengage the main rotor once we're on the ground."
As we settled in, the rotor began to cause surface effect, throwing a
spray off the paving stones, which now glistened under the cold beam of
the landing lights. And looming above us, off to the right, was a
stepped pyramid in the classic Mayan style. We all lapsed into silence
as the Bell's skids thumped onto the stones. The ex-Army pilot,
Villatoro, kept glancing over at the pyramid as though he didn't want
to admit even seeing it. Did he know something Alan and I didn't?
This was the moment I'd been bracing for. I was increasingly convinced
somebody wanted me to see this place, whatever it was, but now what
should I do?
Well, the first thing was to dip my toe in the water, do a quick
reconnoiter on the ground. If this really was _Baalum_, Dupre's Maya
Disneyland, could it also be part of Alex Goddard's clinic of
"miracles," the location Sarah called Ninos del Mundo? If I knew that
for sure, then I could start figuring how to find out if she was
here--as I suspected--and get her out of his clutches. Maybe the
see-no-evil embassy might even be prodded into helping an American
citizen for a change.
"I'm getting out, to look around a little, but not till you turn off
the engine. I want to be able to use my ears."
"All right, but don't take all day. This kind of weather, I want to
keep it warm." He turned to Villatoro and shouted the order. In the
sheets of pounding rain, I figured that no one could have heard us come
in. That, at least, was positive.
When the rpm's of the engine had died away, I clicked open the Bell's
wide door, slid it back, and looked around. In the glare of the landing
lights I realized at once that the stones were old, weathered, and
worn, but the grout that sealed them was white and brand new. The plaza
was free of moss, clean as the day it was done--which did not appear to
be all that long ago. Above me, the pyramid, continuous recessed tiers
of glistening stones, towered into the dim skyline of trees.
I stepped out onto the pavement, holding my breath. The plaza was
almost football-field in size, reminding me of an Italian piazza.
Around me the rain was lessening slightly, and as my eyes adjusted . .
. my God. There wasn't just a pyramid here; through the sparkle of
raindrops at the edge of the helicopter's lights I could see what
looked like a wide cobblestone walkway leading into the dense growth
just off the edge of the square, probably toward the south, away from
the river, connecting the plaza with distant groups of small,
thatch-roofed houses, set in clusters. . . .
Could Alex Goddard's "miracle" clinic be in some collection of
primitive huts? It made no sense.
But I decided to try to get a closer look. I'd walked about thirty feet
away from the helicopter, across the slippery paving, when I saw a
flash of lightning in the southeast, followed by a boom of thunder that
echoed over the square.
At least I thought it was thunder. Or maybe the Army was holding heavy
artillery practice somewhere nearby. Abruptly the rain turned into a
renewed torrent, and the next thing I heard was the helicopter's engine
start up again. Then I sensed the main rotor engage, a sudden "whoom,
whoom, whoom" quickly spiraling upward in frequency.
Hey! I told him not to--!
When I looked back at the Bell's open door, Dupre was standing there,
frantically searching the dark as he heaved out my tan backback and
what looked like a rolled-up sleeping bag, both splashing down onto the
rain-soaked paving.
What! For a moment I thought the thunder, or whatever it was, must have
completely freaked him. Then what was actually happening hit me with a
horrifying impact.
"Alan, wait!"
I started dashing back, but now the main rotor was creating a powerful
downdraft, throwing the rain into me like a monsoon. By the time I
managed to fight my way through the spray, the rotor was on full power
and Alan Dupre and his Bell were already lifting off. I reached up, and
just managed to brush one greasy skid as he churned away straight
upward into the rainy night.
"You shit!" I yelled up, but my final farewell was lost in the whine of
the engine. My God, I thought, watching him disappear, I've just been
abandoned hundreds of miles deep in a Central American rain forest.
Then it all sank in. Whoever had gotten to him was playing a rough
game. They didn't want me just to see _Baalum_, they wanted me
delivered here. Probably to secure me in the same place Sarah was.
Colonel Ramos, or whoever had frightened Dupre into bringing me, had
wanted us both. So what now? Were we both going to be "disappeared"?
Staring around at the pyramid and the empty square, I could feel my
heart pounding.
Then I tripped over the rolled sleeping bag and sank to my knees there
in the middle of the rain-swept plaza, soaked to the skin and so angry
I was actually trembling. Up above me, Alan Dupre, king of two-timers,
had switched off his landing lights, and a few moments later the hum of
the Bell was swallowed by the night sounds of the forest--the
high-pitched din of crickets, the piercing call of night birds, the
basso groan of frogs celebrating the storm.
And something else, an eerie sense of the unnatural. I can't explain
it. Even the night songs of the birds felt ominous, the primeval forest
reasserting its will. It was haunting, like nature's mockery of my
desolation. I pounded the sleeping bag and felt . . . shit, how did I
let this happen?
Get a grip. I finally stood up and looked around. Maybe when God wants
to do you up right, She gives you what you want. You used Alan Dupre
just like you intended: He got you here. But there's more to the plan
of whoever's holding his puppet strings. So the thing now is, don't let
yourself be manipulated any more. Get off your soggy butt and start
taking control of the situation. . . .
That was when I sighted a white form at the south, forested edge of the
plaza. What! I ducked down, sure it was somebody lurking there, waiting
to try to beat me to death as they had Sarah. Did Ramos intend to just
murder me immediately?
But there was no getting away. If I could see them, they surely could
see me. And where would I escape to anyway?
I dug my yellow plastic flashlight out of my backpack and my hand
shaking, flicked it on. The beam, however, was just swallowed up in the
rain. All right. I strapped on the pack and taking a deep breath, threw
the rolled sleeping bag over my shoulder and headed across the slippery
paving toward the white, which now glistened in the periodic sheets of
distant lightning.
Meet them straight on. Try and bluff.
When I got closer, though, I realized what I was seeing was actually
just the skin of a jaguar, bleached white, the head still on, fearsome
teeth bared which had been hung beside the paved pathway. Thank God.
But then, playing my light over it, I thought, Bad sign. My first
encounter at _Baalum_ is with a spooky, dead cat. It felt like a
chilling omen of . . . I wasn't sure what.
I studied it a moment longer with my flashlight, shivering, then turned
and headed quickly across the plaza toward the pyramid now barely
visible in the rain. If there were jaguars, or God knows what else,
around I figured I'd be safer up at the top.
When I reached the base and shined my light up the steps, I saw they
were steeper than I'd thought, but they also looked to be part of some
meticulous restoration and brand-new, probably safe to climb. And there
at the top was a stone hut, complete with what appeared to be a roof.
Good. If there hadn't been anything taller than it around I think I
might have just climbed a tree.
On the way up I began trying to digest what the place really was. The
pyramid was "fake". . . or was it? A hundred years ago the eccentric
Brit archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans whimsically "reconstructed" the
Palace of Minos on Crete with his own money, and it's still a tourist
highlight. So why couldn't somebody do the same with a reclaimed Mayan
pyramid in Central America? Still, this was different, had the feel of
being somebody's crazed obsession.
As I topped the steps, I realized the building that crowned the pyramid
was also a "restoration" like everything else, including a decorated
wooden lintel above the door that looked to be newly lacquered. Bizarre.
I moved through the door and unloaded my gear, then extracted my water
bottle, now half-empty, for a pull. Finally I unrolled Alan Dupre's
sleeping bag on the (dry) stone floor, removed and spread out my wet
clothes, peed off the edge, then took a new pair of underpants, jeans,
and shirt out of my backpack, donned them, and uneasily crawled in. I
was shivering--whether from the soaking rain or from fright, I didn't
know--and my teeth were trying to chatter. Was I hidden away enough to
be safe? I didn't know. All I did know was, I was in something deeper
than I'd ever been in my life, and I had no idea how I was going to get
out. And I was both scared to death and angry as hell.
Sarah was here, though, I was certain. Like a sixth sense, I could feel
her presence, out there somewhere in the rain. For a moment I was
tempted to just plunge into the storm looking for her, but a split
second's reflection told me that was the stupidest thing I could do.
Instead, I should try and get some rest, till the storm cleared, and
keep periodic watch on the plaza in case somebody showed up. Then, the
minute there was light, I'd hit the ground and go find her.
I suppose nothing ever happens the way you plan. My mind was racing and
my nerves were in the red, but I was so exhausted from the
teeth-rattling trip in the Bell I couldn't really stay alert very long.
In spite of myself, I eventually drifted off into a dreamless doze, a
victim of the narcotic song of wind in the giant Cebia trees and the
insistent drumming of forest rain on the roof.