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“Might help if you weren’t holding it upside down.”
“Come on, my Spanish isn’t that bad.”
“If you say so. Just let me order or you’ll wind up with a hard-boiled pig snout or something.”
“Bacon makes everything better.”
“So we don’t fire Kendra?”
Sam shook his head. “And no pig snout.”
“Phooey.”
Sam and Remi spent a long day at the Institute scrutinizing the relic collection for anything that might be a clue as to which pyramids showed the greatest promise. Dusk was approaching when they were surprised by Maribela’s arrival. Remi was by Sam’s computer, pointing at a photograph of a temple, and realized too late that the manuscript was still up on her screen on the opposite side of the lab table. Before she could switch the image to something more innocuous, Maribela was staring at the scan with bewildered shock.
“You got it! You’re amazing. I thought we’d never see it again,” she exclaimed as Remi hurried back to her station. Remi threw Sam a resigned look and then turned to Maribela.
“Yes. Sometimes we get lucky. The Cubans have been most forthcoming. Perhaps it’s all in the approach . . .”
“I recognized the document immediately. But it’s still gibberish. That could take years to decode.”
“Actually, we’ve already decrypted it,” Remi said, her tone only slightly arch.
“Really! That’s . . . unbelievable. You really are miracle workers. What does it say? Anything interesting?”
“We were just discussing it. Basically, it’s an account by a Spanish priest or educated nobleman that tells the story of Quetzalcoatl’s hidden tomb and of the treasure associated with it.”
Maribela seemed taken aback. “I’ve seen the other mentions of the legend, but this was written specifically to relay information about it?”
“In a manner of speaking. The problem is that it’s typical of the era and very vague. If there is a tomb, it’s buried beneath a holy pyramid. That’s the best we’ve been able to figure out.”
Sam moved from his position over to where the two women stood. “We were going to ask you and Antonio to look over the text and help us narrow it down. That is, if it won’t interfere with your current project . . .”
“But of course! I can speak for my brother. We’d be honored to look at it and offer our thoughts. He’s up in his office. I’ll go get him.”
Maribela hurried from the room and Remi sat down in her chair and glared at the monitor. “That was sloppy of me.”
“We weren’t getting anywhere. Maybe this isn’t the worst thing that could happen.”
“Then why does it feel so wrong?”
“We’re territorial animals. And fiercely competitive. It’s natural to resist sharing ‘our’ discovery.”
“It’s not a discovery yet. It’s only a manuscript. Which may or may not amount to anything.”
“Which is why there’s probably no harm. Besides, Maribela and Antonio would likely be working the dig, anyway, assuming there’s anything to it.” Sam shrugged. “Frankly, if there is a tomb and it’s buried beneath a pyramid, we’d need to get the government’s permission to excavate in a historic site. It’s not like we can just take a backhoe to their national treasures.”
Maribela returned with Antonio and they huddled around Remi’s monitor. Sam couldn’t help but notice that even after a day in the field, Maribela looked like she’d just stepped off the runway in Milan. Remi glanced at him as though able to read his thoughts as she brought up the decoded text on the screen.
They spent the next two hours going over it with the siblings.
“It’s been a long day,” Sam announced as he stood and stretched, glancing at his watch. “Shall we resume this tomorrow?”
“Absolutely. Would you have any problem if we took a copy of both the manuscript file and the decryption so we can study it at home?” Antonio asked, holding up a flash drive on his key ring.
Remi no
dded. “Sure. Just treat it as confidential, please. This could be an extremely important find, if we can figure out which pyramid it is.”