Temple of the Jaguar (11 page)

“
Hurry, Nick!”
Marie shouted back to me.

I looked up toward the place where she and Ishi waited, just outside the tunnel’s entrance, as stinging sweat poured into my eyes. The stars and the light from a late night moon illuminated the sky behind them.

“
I’m try-trying,” I gasped, and then decided to save my breath, and instead concentrate on reaching the exit.

I almost made it to where they waited before the final collapse hit, as the ancient volcano sought to reclaim much of the lava cone it had first created many eons ago. As it was, I at least had the good sense to thrust Ishi’s bag of goodies out through the tunnel’s mouth before the floor below me finally gave way.

“
Oh, shit!”

“
Nick, hang on!”

As the floor disappeared into a soup of earth and molten rock several hundred feet below me, I grabbed onto the root of a large tree growing just outside the tunnel. I didn’t know if I could hang on long enough or if the root would hold without breaking off. Much too quickly, my tired hands started to slide down.

If it had been just one of my companions fighting to save me, I doubt I’d be telling this story now. But the combination of Ishi and Marie’s desperate pulls on my arms and shirt proved enough to lift me out of the hole.

The fresh air alone was enough to revive my senses, although it was laced with the same rotten sulfuric stench we had dealt with for the past couple of hours. When I was able to stand again, the view before me seemed even more surreal than what we’d already experienced. Below us sat the expanding maw of a churning lake of fire that was already several acres wide. It seemed to be receding back into the earth. I watched as rocks, trees and other debris were quickly absorbed. A spectacular and deadly sight, it stirred something inside me. Especially when I looked over at the two beautiful faces that regarded me with soiled but serene expressions.

Gratitude. I felt grateful for life, true friendship, and the possibility of love. I was truly thankful to still be alive.

Chapter Seventeen

“
How much can you give me for the both of them?”

Juan Esteban eyed me curiously as I asked the question. Rather than answer right away, he held the intricately carved gold earrings up to his jeweler’s glass once more.

“
Do you want the money today?”

“
Yes.”

“
And, will you take a check?”

“
No,
hombre
,” I said, chuckling. “Just like always, it’s cash-ola only. Preferably in American dollars.”

“
You sound like a man who is desperate to leave Honduras...no?”

Now Juan chuckled.

“
I might be back in a few months,” I said. “And, if and when I do, you’ll be the first artifacts dealer I visit.”

“
Careful, Nick...you make me feel not so clean when you describe me like that.” He chuckled again, turning in his chair as he reached for a bigger magnifier to work with. “I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars today...in your American cash. That’s a fair price.”

“
Really?” I snickered, and I could tell as he looked up sharply from his viewer that he expected another Nick-barb was on its way. “Nah, I’m not here to give you hell, man. You’ve done well by me over the years. But the least you could do is offer me half of the eighty Gs street value these items have.”

“
I did offer you half...it’s twenty thousand a piece,” he said, smiling I’m sure in response to the subtle look of surprise written upon my face. “You’re about to walk out of here with forty Gs, my friend. Forty Gs is enough to get lost for six months.”

“
Or longer, if one knows how to spend it right...and where to spend it.”

“
So, we have a deal?” he asked.

“
Absolutely.”

He reached over the counter and we shook hands. It was the longest handshake that Juan and I had ever shared in the six years I had known him. The mistiness in his eyes confirmed that he thought the same thing as me. This would likely be the last time we would ever do business like this, and even more likely, we would never see each other again.

* * *

“
How did it go?” asked Marie, once I locked my seatbelt in the passenger seat of her rented Jeep.

Ishi sat in the back seat, sporting the new outfit he had splurged on at a local clothing shop. Of course, Marie was as beautiful as ever, dressed in a low cut blouse and slim fitting jeans, along with.... Oh sweet Jesus, why do women wear high heels with jeans? Yeah, she looked amazing, but I’m a practical sort of guy who has a hard time wrapping my mind around the style-over-practicality concept.

“
Well,” I said, “we certainly have got enough cash to get us to our next destination.”

“
Forty grand?” she asked.

“
Yep, forty grand.”

Ishi popped his head over my headrest and said, “And you are sure the gold will be safe until we return?”

I chuckled at my friend’s persistence. This was the hundredth time or so that he’d brought up the subject of our gold since we survived our latest misadventure. Marie had stored almost all of it in a safe deposit box in Tegucigalpa’s most prestigious industrial bank. The gold was indeed safest there. Although we missed out on the vast fortune all of us had hoped for, when added to my collection of artifacts that were also now locked safely away, none of us would have to worry about anything for many years to come.

“
What have I already told you, broheim?” I asked.

Ishi shook his head while smiling sheepishly, and relaxed in his seat. Meanwhile, Marie put the Jeep in gear, chuckling to herself as she pulled us back onto the road.

“
I’m gonna miss this place,” I said softly.

“
Hmm, me too, Nick,” Ishi echoed from the back seat.

“
I think you’ll both love it in the Maldives,” said Marie. “We should be at the airport in about twenty minutes, and then we’ll be on our way within the hour. I think you’ll both especially like exploring the island we’ll be staying on. Beautiful beaches, crystal-clear lagoons, and a certain cave that is rumored to be home to pirate gold. Indian Ocean pirate gold.”

“
No shit? So, that’s why we’re going there?”

I must admit, my tone brightened up considerably. And, here I thought I’d have to tolerate the month or two of ‘sightseeing’ while planning my own excursion to Egypt to finish what Mario Thomas and I had set out to do when both of us made a pact as freshmen at UCLA sixteen years ago.

“
Nick...I’ve grown to really like you, and I look forward to spending quality time doing the things that normal people do,” said Marie. “But you will totally drive me insane if you turn into some sort of social puppy dog. You are an archaeologist. Well sort of. But, no matter where life takes us together, you’ll always be you, and I would never dream of changing that. So let’s see if we can dip in and out of each other’s preferred worlds and keep the fire going.”

“
Fair enough,” I said, nodding thoughtfully. Nothing like a gal who has her claws in a guy’s heart, but not in his freedom to be who he is. “This just might work.”

“
Enough, already!” said Ishi, shaking his head. I think, perhaps, in disgust.

“
Aye, matey,” I said, in my finest pirate brogue, while shooting a smug smile toward him and a wink to the lady who was forging a hole in the steel wall that protects my heart. “Now let’s hear what Marie has to say about this here buried treasure and some Indian Ocean pirate lore.”

Sounds like fun. Stay tuned...the three of us might have another adventure to share someday.

Until then, you might avoid looking for a certain lost city of gold deep in the Honduran jungles. I’d hate to someday read about some unsuspecting traveler falling headfirst into a previously unknown burning lake of fire.

Cheers,

Nick

The End

Nick Caine returns in:

Treasure of the Deep

Coming soon!

~~~~~

Available now:

Plague of Coins

The Judas Chronicles #1

by Aiden James

(read on to sample)

Chapter One

This looks promising....

It was late one evening, and I stood in the bowels of the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research. The staff had gone home for the night, and I was alone. Surrounded by lab equipment, computers, and stacks of dusty old books, this room could only be described as creepy.
Damned
creepy.

Then again, many would describe me as damned creepy, too. And maybe a little shady—at least if I ever get caught rummaging around in the basement. As a Smithsonian archivist, most of what I spend my days reviewing is upstairs or in other locales managed by the National Museum of History. Really, I rarely venture outside of the Anthropological Archives’ scope of responsibility. Just like a good, dependable archivist should be doing.

Oh, it isn’t so terrible, all cynicism aside. In my current vocation, I’ve been privileged to view some of the most ‘secret’ collections of field notes, photographs, and correspondence from the more significant scientific expeditions covering the past two centuries. Hell, that’s why the job appealed to me in the first place. My son, Dr. Alistair Wolfgang Barrow, the noted historian and professor at Georgetown, is the one who brought it to my attention. Yes, he’s the very same historian noted for his treatments concerning the Middle East and its volatile tensions. Tensions fueled by millennia of history and bad blood that will take decades if not centuries to cure, despite the latest diplomatic progress.

But I digress.

Upon the near-obsolete video screen, a collection of articles and photographs spanning nearly eighty years scrolled before my eyes. All of this information centered around one small village in Iran. Al-haroun is the name of the place.

I paused to sip my coffee while rubbing my eyes. Not so much from being tired as the damned viewer’s fuzziness. I’m spoiled by my MAC.

Yes, very promising...could be home to one small, priceless piece of silver....

I get a feel for things, you see. It’s something I’ve gotten better with over time. Call it honed experience, or perhaps it’s the mastery that comes with practice and carefully aged wisdom and acute perception.

Okay...I can almost hear the indignant silent questions out there. ‘And who in the hell are
you
, hot shot?’ That’s what
I’d
be wondering right about now, after re-reading the first two pages of my story.

Fair enough. My name is William. William J. Barrow, though I’m sure you already determined my last name from my son. I like the name William, actually better than any other moniker I’ve gone by since the Crusades ended. It makes it a lot easier for me to fit in without engendering questions about
who
I am or
where
I come from. I like it much better than any of the Apostle names like Peter, Paul, and Matthew. Although, pretending to be Bartholomew nearly two thousand years ago was a lot of fun.