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Carlos’s lifeless eyes stared uncomprehendingly into the eternity of the night sky. It would be many hours before a coroner’s van appeared to scoop up his remains, escorted by several trucks with heavily armed police to ensure that nobody shot the technicians as they went about their work. It would take two more days to make an identification, a typical occurrence in one of the most populous cities in the world—par for the course for a police force that was woefully underbudgeted and understaffed and had to make do with antiquated equipment already old at the turn of the new century.
TEOTIHUACAN, MEXICO
The two security men Antonio had depl
oyed to guard the tomb took a break from their monotony and moved far away from the trench as an SUV eased to a stop near it. They’d been well compensated to make themselves scarce for thirty minutes and to see and hear nothing and they had gladly complied, each pocketing a month’s pay for a paltry half hour of disinterest.
Janus Benedict exited the passenger side and walked to the edge of the excavation, joined by Reginald. The driver remained in the vehicle with the engine running.
“This is it? Doesn’t look like much,” Reginald said, annoyed to be awake at four a.m. to waste his time in some armpit well away from the refined comfort of his five-star Mexico City hotel.
“Looks like for once the Fargos came up empty. Which I’m thrilled about. But also a little intrigued by.” Janus sighed. “I suppose even the best of us comes up short every now and again. Bound to happen.”
“Then what are we doing here?”
Janus peered down into the trench again and then shook his head and returned to the car. “Since I flew halfway across the bloody globe, I thought I’d see it for myself.”
“Looks like a hole in the ground to me.”
Janus glared at his brother. “Nothing slips by you, does it?” he snarled as he climbed back into the passenger seat.
Reginald muttered an oath when the door shut, angry at his brother’s barb but knowing better than to confront him. Nerves were close to the surface, with the temple having been found, and he didn’t want to risk an outburst from his jet-lagged sibling.
The tires crunched on gravel as the big vehicle backed away, and when the security guards returned fifteen minutes later, the site was calm and empty, which would be their report the following morning, now only a few hours away.
What is it?” Sam asked as they took a taxi from their motel to the site.
“I don’t know. Something just doesn’t feel right. I can’t believe that that was it. It just feels so . . . I don’t know, so incomplete.”
“Of course it’s disheartening, but at least we solved the riddle of the manuscript and located the chamber,” Lazlo said.
“That’s what’s bugging me. I’m not convinced we did. We found a chamber; but the question is, did we find the chamber?”
Sam turned to her. “What are you saying?”
“Isn’t it possible that we got something wrong?”
“We found it. Right where we thought it would be.”
“Not where we thought it would be—where Antonio and his sister were convinced it would be. But what if they are wrong?”
“And we just happened to find a crypt by accident?”
“They’ve been finding new tunnels and chambers around those pyramids for years. Nobody dug that area up before, I’ll bet. We excavated a huge stretch of the base. The odds of finding something aren’t as high as you’d think. And what did we actually find? A looted tomb. That’s all we know. Did you see a lot of images on the walls that would lead you to believe that it was the final resting place of a ruler revered as a god?”
“Well, actually, now that you mention it, it was rather simple. But still . . .”
“If you were going to construct a hidden tomb that was legendary for its riches and contained the remains of the most important ruler your civilization had ever known, would you consider that a fitting final resting place?”
Lazlo nodded from his position in the front seat. “She has a point.”
Sam studied her face. “Is that what’s got you jittery? That it’s so . . . unimpressive?”
“I think it’s that, and that I’ve never been a hundred percent convinced that their assurances were right. I’ve had my doubts since they first told us. Don’t ask me why. Call it intuition. But some part of my brain was going, No, that’s not right. I don’t know what I saw that led me in a different direction, but whatever it was, I did, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”
Sam’s face grew serious. “Wait. What did you just say?”
“Didn’t you hear me?”