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Strokk regarded the detailed mask, feeling its weight. “This is at least five pounds. Just the gold alone is worth a small fortune, but add the historical value and offer it to the right buyer … who knows, perhaps a few hundred thousand … maybe more.”

“Consider this our bonus,” she said, waving at a couple dozen precious objects scattered around her. “For having to sleep with the bugs.”

“That may be the only payment we get if those scientists don't get a breakthrough soon. Time is against us. Our employer needs to learn how to break the virus.”

Celina frowned. “If we fail, we must return our advance payment.”

“This may also affect our future contracts.”

“Then you also better hope that those imbeciles catch the rats who got away. The man we shot was Asian, probably meaning that another country has also figured out the location of this place, especially judging from the gear we captured.”

Strokk remembered Celina's explanation of the six-inch telescope plus a microwave receiver and other assorted electronics that could be used to monitor electromagnetic noise, just like the American scientists.

Glancing up the steps, Strokk recognized Petroff's bulky figure under one of the triangular arches leading into the temple's terrace. The mercenary kept his weapon pointed at the unseen scientists, probably dusting off more ancient glyphs in search of clues.

He exhaled. Celina was right. Right now they had the situation under control from the American point of view. Washington felt that the operation was proceeding as normal. But the runaways from the second party were a wild card. If they managed to get away, Strokk had a feeling that this place would soon be crawling with new rats.

4

Sitting on the stone terrace facing a wall of glyphs surrounding larger carvings, Susan Garnett handed Cameron an assortment of brushes and fine picks as he attempted to interpret the ancient reliefs.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered, even though Petroff, twenty feet away, did not speak a word of English.

“Bide our time,” he said reassuringly. “We're safe as long as they need us, so we must continue to make them feel that we are making progress in our investigation.”

“But that means giving our work to the enemy, to the other side … whoever that is.”

“That's going to be an interesting balancing act,” the archaeologist replied. “Give them enough to keep them happy, but not too much to provide them with a true lead over our side. Meanwhile, we look for the chance to escape. You still have that gun with you, right?”

She nodded. “Escape? Where?”

“Out there. In the jungle.”

“But … we're at least fifty miles away from the closest town. How are we going to…” She let her words trail off when she remembered his tales from previous research trips. “I forgot. We would live off the land, right?”

“The jungle will protect us, once we get there. But first we need to find a way to escape, and that's when your gun may come in handy.”

“But there's so many of them, and that animal over there won't let us out of his sight.”

Cameron nodded, touching the side of his face. “And it's not just the sheer quantity of brutes. The bastards sure know how to fight.”

“That was very stupid of you,” she said in the admonishing tone of a mother scolding her son.

He shrugged, using a small brush to get the dirt off the fine crevices of the carving of a woman who not only had the elongated shape and brows typical of Mayan nobility and high priests, but also sported exaggerated jaws and cheekbones, reminding Susan of body builders on steroids.

“I couldn't help myself. Guess I've always been on the reckless side of life,” he commented, switching to a fine pick, which he used to dislodge ancient dirt and grime from the monsterlike face, thoroughly cleaning it. “There,” he added. “Susan Garnett, meet Lady Zac-Kuk, mother of the legendary Pacal Votan.”

Susan elbowed him for changing the subject, but went along with the conversation anyway. “Pacal Votan? Didn't you mention something about him before? He ruled Palenque, right?”

Cameron Slater, the professor, nodded approvingly. “Very good. Palenque is in Chiapas, Mexico, roughly two hundred miles away. What else do you remember?”

“Wasn't his body the one found at the Temple of…”

“The Inscriptions.”

“Right.”

“Pacal is considered by many to be perhaps the greatest Mayan chief of all times. His death marked the end of the Classic Period. In other words, things went downhill after him.”

“Tell me about his mother,” said Susan, staring at the stone relief.

“Lady Zac-Kuk, a Palenque princess, married her consort, Kan-Bahlum-Mo, also royalty, but not from Palenque, so he couldn't rule. Their first son was Pacal, born in
A.D.
603. When Lady Zac-Kuk's father died, she ruled Palenque until Pacal was twelve years old, at which time he became the new ruler. She coached him for some time, publicly showing her support for him to keep other relatives from trying to gain control of Palenque. She ran a very tight ship and was able to outmaneuver many ploys to kill her and her young child. Pacal grew as savvy as his mother, ruling until his death in
A.D.
683. Based on paintings and carvings, his mother is believed to have suffered from an overactive pituitary gland, resulting in the grotesque deformation of her facial bones. For the Maya, however, that was seen as celestial, godlike, probably helping her keep control of the government until Pacal became of age.”

“So … why is Pacal's mother depicted here, so far from Palenque?”

“Excellent question. But not only that,” he said, “for the glyph of Pacal is just about everywhere in this place, almost as if it were an extension of Palenque itself.”

“Do you know why that is?”

The college professor shrugged, noncommittal. “Chiefdoms,” he began, his voice turning official, “like Palenque and Tikal, for example, were erected during the Classic Period, as well as in many other sites in the Chiapas and Petén lowlands. Following Pacal's death and the beginning of the post-Classic Period, those cities were abandoned and new cities were erected in the northern Yucatán Peninsula, like Uxmal, Copán, and Chickén Itzá. Now, this site is between Palenque and Tikal, both Classic Period city-states. One would think that perhaps some of the inhabitants of Palenque, following the decline of that city, may have moved north, toward the Yucatán. Some may have stopped here and erected this site in memory of their great chief and his mother. However, I've also found signs of post-Classic work here, like that feathery serpent.”

Susan looked to their right, almost at knee level, where the limestone had been carved to give the appearance of mosaics, over which a serpent with feathers was poised crawling toward the ceiling.

“Feathery serpents are later additions to the Mayan mosaic design. They were first sculpted in Uxmal, a post-Classic city-state. You mentioned one of the priests in your dreamlike experience the other night had one tattooed, right?”

She nodded, impressed with his recollection. “Why did the people of Uxmal, hundreds of years after Palenque, opt to build this place?”

“Another conflicting finding in a most intriguing place. In the past two days I have gathered enough information to keep archaeologists busy debating suppositions for generations.”

“What do you think?”

“During the Classic Period, there were long-standing Mayan alliances between chiefdoms, like Palenque and Tikal. But after the death of Pacal, this trade between city-states began to decline, sparking interstate conflicts. During the post-Classic Period this conflict evolved into full-fledged warfare between the new chiefdoms in the Yucatán. Why would the warring people of Uxmal, five hundred years later, venerate such relatively ancient rulers like Pacal Votan, whose contributions were not in the development of war but of science and the arts? It would be like Benito Mussolini building a large shrine in memory of Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci.”

In the half-light of the terrace, Susan regarded him with an admiration that stemmed not from his knowledge or his ability to apply it to figure out this puzzle, but because of the unpretentious, almost humble way in which he talked, stating the facts as he knew them, and letting his audience decide for themselves.

“We obviously still have more homework ahead of us,” she offered. “Now, why don't you let me take another look at that bruise.”

Reluctantly, almost like a child embarrassed at a black eye he'd received at school, Cameron turned his head sideways to her. The purple blotch covered most of his left temple. Impulsively, she kissed it, startling him.

“What was
that
for?”

She shrugged, grinning. “I couldn't help myself. Guess I've always been on the reckless side of life, especially as of lately.”

“I can't imagine you being reckless.”

“You have
no
idea.”

Cameron put a hand to her face, offering comfort in the ruggedness of his touch, his callused hands reflecting the life that Susan Garnett found so intriguing. She put a hand over his, gently pressing it against her cheek while closing her eyes, imagining him in faraway places, alone, living off the land, surviving on nature, becoming one with the jungle, searching for mystic sites, digging, unearthing, discovering, living by his rules. The images awakened dormant feelings in Susan Garnett.

A grunt from Petroff made Cameron withdraw his hand. The large Ukrainian grinned while making a swinging motion with the stock of his weapon at head level.

Cameron ignored it, standing. “Let's go over there next,” he said, pointing to the wall next to the slab blocking the entrance to the temple. Hundreds of mosaics, each about eight inches square and sporting a different Mayan number, had been carved on the limestone wall. “I've been meaning to try to study the number sequence. Since I first saw it.”

The mosaics started at floor level and extended halfway up the eighteen-foot-high wall. Susan recognized numbers from one to nineteen. She also noticed mosaics containing the oblong shape representing zero with one or more dots over it. In some cases there was one or more lines topped with a few dots over the oblong symbol. “What numbers are those?”

“Beyond nineteen, the Maya used the symbol of zero at the bottom, plus dots above it to represent each additional sequence of twenty numbers. Remember, their system is vigesimal. Two dots over zero means two times twenty, or forty. Three dots means sixty, and so on.” He pointed at one symbol that had zero at the bottom, then one dot, then two horizontal lines, and finally two additional dots. “That's thirty-two. Twenty is depicted by the zero topped by a single dot. Then we have two horizontal lines, each representing five, plus two dots at the top.”

“Twenty, plus ten, plus two. I see,” she said, pointing to another mosaic with a zero topped by three dots and a single line. “That would be sixty-five, right? Three dots times twenty, plus five for the line.”

“I'd offer you a teaching assistant job but I'm afraid my students would stop paying attention to my lectures if you're up on the podium with me.”

She shook her head, studying the array of Mayan numbers. “They don't seem to be following any particular sequence. Besides, in which order are you supposed to read them?”

“Mayan glyphs are normally read left to right and top to bottom.”

“Oh, like our language.”

“Right, but that's for glyphs. These are numbers, so they may be arranged differently.”

They stepped back and studied the array of what appeared to be twenty mosaics horizontally and thirteen vertically.

“Looks like the middle row is all the same number, twenty,” Susan observed. “As well as the two center columns, dividing the matrix into four quadrants.”

“Good eye. The Maya loved symmetry.”

“Any significance there?” she asked.

“The four quadrants could represent the four magnetic headings, north, south, east, and west. The number four also represents the number of primary wave functions of the Maya's form-giving principles of energy: attraction, radiation, transmission, and receptivity. Four is also the number of times that thirteen needs to be multiplied to get fifty-two, the number of years of Pacal Votan's galactic rule, from
A.D.
631 to
A.D.
683. There's all kinds of other possibilities,” Cameron added.

Susan regarded him for a moment. Something didn't quite add up. “Hold on,” she said. “You mentioned earlier that Pacal Votan was born in
A.D.
603 and began to rule when he was twelve, right?”

He nodded.

“That would mean that he became Palenque's ruler in
A.D.
615, not
A.D.
631. He should had ruled for sixty-eight years, not fifty-two.”

Cameron's grin told Susan that the renegade professor was about to disclose another one of his controversial theories.

“Pacal Votan was indeed born in
A.D.
603,” he began. “He became ruler of Palenque when he was twelve, under the close supervision of his mother, Lady Zac-Kuk. But something wonderful happened in
A.D.
631, when he was only twenty-eight. That is the year when Pacal, for reasons not yet understood, achieved synchronization with the galactic core. He declared himself a serpent, a possessor of knowledge. He devoted most of his remaining fifty-two years of life to the development of ideas and mathematics, to charting the cosmos, to erecting the Temple of the Inscriptions, which is itself fifty-two feet high in commemoration of his rebirth. But more on Pacal later. Do you see any other numerical patterns?”

She nodded. “There's different types of decreasing and increasing sequences. The number thirteen is at each corner of the array, marking the starting point for the decreasing sequences moving horizontally as well as vertically. Then it looks like there are some sporadic numbers of various sizes sprinkled around. There might be a pattern in there, but I'm going to have to translate them into decimals in order to make some sense of them. You mentioned that the Maya were skilled mathematicians, right?”