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Illari gave Roth a pleading look. She apparently hadn’t told Estrada about her other activities. Roth could understand why. Her involvement in the Mexica—a group that wanted to turn back the clock on history and reinstate old borders, which was how he had contacted her originally—could jeopardize her position at the university. He’d seen some YouTube videos she’d posted where she’d narrated the ancient history of the Mexica and how they’d fared under the conquistadors. She hadn’t shown her face in the video, but he recognized her voice. Not to mention Roth had been paying her to help him translate things. Although it wasn’t illegal for a student to take on freelance work, it would certainly be frowned upon for her to not report both that and her affiliation in a special interest group to her academic advisor.
“Let’s all calm down,” Monica said, coming up to Dr. Estrada. “There’s an investigation underway, and we need your help. No one is in trouble. Let’s just try to sort this out, okay?”
Dr. Estrada nodded to Monica and then sat back down, but it was obvious he was still alarmed.
Roth glanced over at the twins. Jordan was showing them a video on his phone. He didn’t like that they’d been thrown into the deep end of the adult world, but at least Jordan was helping them find things from their old life—their childhood—to cling to.
“Illari,” he said coaxingly.
“You promised,” she whispered. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
“I didn’t know you were working at UC San Diego,” Roth said. “At the lab. But this is a big deal. We’re trying to stop something bad from happening. The prophecy you translated for me. We have to stop it.”
“What prophecy?” Dr. Estrada said, flinching. “Illari, what’s he talking about?”
She clenched her eyes shut and winced. “We can’t stop it. We shouldn’t stop it.”
“Are we talking about the doomsday prophecy?” Dr. Estrada asked, bewildered. “It’s a myth. The Maya calendar didn’t end in 2012. It just started a new long cycle.”
“I know,” Roth said, facing him. “Look, I get that this is going to sound strange. But in 2012, a death cult run by the Calakmul family down in the Yucatán started up human sacrifices again. Cutting out hearts—the whole nine yards. My family was caught up in the death game the year before last. We had to fight for our lives at a temple in the middle of the jungle. The temple we need your help finding.”
Dr. Estrada gaped. “You’re . . . serious?”
Monica nodded. “Yes. He is serious. Members of our own government are involved in this conspiracy. The servers at the Qualcomm Institute were hacked by an ex-NSA programmer. We’re meeting here because members of the FBI are compromised, and we don’t know who yet. The president’s life may be in danger. That’s why we need to know, Illari, if you have a backup of the data.”
“I do,” she said, clutching the laptop even tighter.
Monica smiled with relief. “Is it on your computer?”
Illari wiped a tear from her cheek. “No. I wouldn’t have enough hard-drive space to hold it.”
Why was she holding on to the computer so tightly, then? Roth wondered if she had compromising things on that laptop. Things she was afraid would get out.
“Where is the backup?” he asked.
Illari looked miserable. Her lip quivered. “On an Anasazi account,” she said.
Roth didn’t know what that meant.
“Anasazi?” Monica asked. “As in Anasazi Web Services?”
“Yes.”
That made more sense.
“You’re sharing the data with Anasazi?” Dr. Estrada asked.
“So I could do my own research,” Illari said, shoulders hunching. “Not just yours.”
Roth related to the situation better than others might have. Grad students were at the mercy of their advisors. They had to be loyal. Had to promote their advisor’s reputations above their own. One act of disloyalty could potentially wreck a grad student’s future if their advisor was so inclined. And this wasn’t just any act of disloyalty. It was huge. Roth had never wanted to be a full professor. That part of academia was something he hated, not unlike the politics that drove Carter.
“Let’s try working together on this,” Monica suggested. “Illari, can you show how you access the AWS servers? And Dr. Estrada, can you pinpoint where you went?”
Illari shook her head. “I can’t do it.”
“If you have access to the data,” Dr. Estrada said tightly, “we have to know.”
Roth saw the conflict on her face. “Dr. Estrada, do you know about the Mexica Movement?” he asked gently. He was aware that he’d promised not to seek her out after their business was complete, and he hadn’t, but here she was, and here he was, and he couldn’t keep this to himself. The whole world might depend on it.