Ancient Hiss Story (9 page)

T
he market was
the same as it had been when Kate had visited it two days before—the colorful fabrics, the smell of roasting meat and the lush fruits and vegetables. But she didn’t have time to stop and look at any of it. She was on a mission. It was already late afternoon and she didn’t want to be driving back to the campsite in the dark, so she hurried down the narrow aisles of the market looking for the indigo and white stall.

She cut down a side alley and the stall came into view. As she walked toward the hut, the curtain fluttered closed. She saw the hookah clatter to the ground and the man’s feet stuck out under the curtain—toes up.

Kate’s heart lurched. She ran to the stall, shoving the curtain aside, her gaze falling on the hookah man at her feet. In the back of the stall she was vaguely aware of a tall, blond man running out. Was it Snake Ring? The figure had looked familiar, but she couldn’t tell for sure—he’d run out too fast.

Her brain whirred with indecision. She wanted to chase the tall blond, but the man at her feet needed her more. She turned her attention to the hookah man, who looked up at her with dying, blue eyes. She bent down to help him, her heart galloping in her chest.

How badly was he hurt? The spreading red stain on his chest seemed to indicate it was pretty bad and Kate found herself at a loss as to what to do.

He grabbed her wrist with a shaky hand. Kate’s heart jerked when she noticed a tattoo on the underside of his wrist—a snake in a figure eight with its tail in its mouth—very similar to the icon Kate had found.

“Please … Please … ” The man stuttered.

Kate grappled for her phone. “I’ll call the police emergency.”

“Too late.” He let out a bubbling cough. “Stay away from that tomb. What is inside should never be revealed.”

“What
is
inside?” Kate stared into his eyes, watching the light slowly fade. His mouth opened but all that came out was a wheezing sound and then his eyes went dark, his head lolled to one side.

He was dead.

“Damn!” Anger surged through Kate. She didn’t know much about the man, but he’d been killed in cold blood. That made her mad. Judging by his last words, Kate knew his death was directly related to the tomb she was looking for. She had to find out why, and only one person could tell her that—the killer. Before she knew what she was doing, she was on her feet and running out the back of the tent in the direction the blond man had taken.

She skidded to a stop in the main aisle, looking around for the man. Luckily, he was tall and she recognized his head casually walking around several aisles over.

“Hey, you! Wait!” The man whipped his head around. It
was
Snake Ring! Kate took off after him, dodging around a cart of oranges and pushing a woman out of her way.

Snake Ring broke into a run. He pushed the produce stand over. Limes, oranges and grapefruit spilled out, bouncing and rolling across the street.

“Hey!” The vendor raised his fist at Snake Ring’s back, but Snake Ring didn’t slow down. He took a right and Kate put her head down and ran as fast as she could to catch up.

She turned down the same aisle but there was no sign of him.

“Shoot!” She paused, looking right and left. “Where the heck did he—”

A hand came out of a black curtain and clamped itself around her mouth, cutting off her words and dragging her inside a dark stall.

K
ate twisted
and thrashed to free herself from the strong arms that trapped her against a muscular torso. She tried to bite the hand, but it was clamped too tightly over her mouth. She stomped her heel on the assailant’s foot.

“Ouch!”

The voice sounded familiar. Kate paused trying to place it.

“Stop struggling, for crying out loud. I’m on your side.”

No. It couldn’t be.

Kate reared back and jammed her elbow into her captor’s stomach with all her might.

“Oomph!”

He let go and doubled over in pain. Kate turned to look at him, her suspicions confirmed. Her assailant was none other than her former partner, FBI agent Ace Mason.

Kate felt like kicking him where it counted, but she held herself back. “What are you doing attacking me?”

“I wasn’t attacking you. I was saving you from getting into an altercation with Burgess Maxon.”

“Who?”

“The man you were chasing. Burgess Maxon. He works for Markovic.”

“I thought that was him. What is he doing here? And more importantly, what are
you
doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?” Ace’s gray eyes drilled into hers. She’d forgotten how disquieting those eyes could be. How it felt like they were looking right into your soul, making some sort of deep connection. She ripped her eyes away.

“I don’t have to tell you what I’m doing here,” she said.

“No, you don’t, because I already know what you’re doing here. I was just giving you a chance to tell me on your own.” Ace pulled the edge of the curtain back slightly and peered out into the marketplace.

“What are you looking for? Is someone after you?” Kate asked.

“No, but someone might be after you.”

“Why would someone be after me?”

Ace sighed and let the curtain drop. He stepped closer to her, which had the annoying effect of making her heartbeat kick up a notch. She hated that, so she took a step backwards.

“Listen, Kate, I know you don’t want to hear this, but things could get pretty dangerous here.”

“You mean because Markovic wants to find the same tomb as the
Ritzholdt Museum
?”

“There is a lot more to this than just finding a tomb,” Ace said.

No kidding, Kate thought. Since when was the FBI interested in Aztec tombs? Never. Just the mere presence of Ace Mason indicated something more was going on. Not to mention the violent death of the hookah man. But what,
exactly,
was going on?

“Clearly,” she said. “And what exactly is this about?”

“I wish I could tell you. But I really can’t.”

Ace’s comment made Kate’s blood boil over. It was just like him to go by the book. The information was probably on a ‘need to know’ basis and he figured she didn’t
need to know,
even though clearly there was something going on here that could endanger her.

She narrowed her eyes. “You know what, Ace Mason? I don’t need you here saving me from the bad guys. You obviously don’t trust me enough to tell me what’s going on and I can take care of myself.”

She spun around to leave. Ace grabbed her arm, spinning her back to face him. He pulled her close.

“Kate, I’m serious. This is bigger than you think. And dangerous. I’m giving you this one warning to stop looking for the tomb and go home before something bad happens.”

Kate jerked her arm away. “In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t work for the FBI and I don’t have to take orders from you anymore!”

She shoved the curtain open and stomped off into the marketplace, her blood simmering as she headed toward the Jeep.

How dare Ace try to warn her off!

If he thought she was going to meekly pack up and go home on his warning, he had another thing coming. If anything, it just made her more determined than ever to find that tomb and see what the heck was inside it that was worth killing for.

“
Y
ou wouldn’t believe
what happened in the market!” Kate slammed the door of the Jeep, causing everyone at the campsite to look at her with startled eyes.

Vic's brows rose a notch. “Did you find out about Gideon’s warning?”

“Not really.” Kate fisted her hands on her hips. “The hookah man was dead. I think the killer was one of Markovic’s guys. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part was that I ran into Ace Mason and he tried to warn me off from finding the tomb.”

Vic's brows rose another notch. “Why would the FBI be interested in the tomb?”

“You tell me,” Kate said. “It’s probably just Ace Mason trying to wield his power.”

Carlotta leveled a look at her. “You don’t really think that, do you? If Ace is warning you off, I think there’s something to it. Maybe you need to put your personal feelings aside and look at this objectively.”

Kate sank down in one of the chairs, feeling deflated. Her mother was right. Her anger at Ace went beyond his warning on this project. She didn’t want to be so pig-headed about him that she put everyone in danger, but she still wasn’t going to quit looking for the tomb.

“I guess you’re right. But what could there possibly be in an ancient tomb that the FBI thinks is dangerous?” Kate asked.

“That’s what we need to find out,” Gertie said. “Did you say that your contact there was dead?”

Kate nodded. “I saw the killer go out the back and chased him. That’s when Ace intercepted me. He said the killer was one of Markovic’s guys and I thought I recognized him as being the guy who was in the museum when we stole back the painting. And he’s also one of the guys who was at Estelle’s.”

Sal frowned. “That’s not a good sign. That must mean that Markovic is on your trail and that the hookah man had some interesting information. He probably told him we were camped out here.”

Kate felt a pang of sadness at the thought of the hookah man. When she’d stormed by his stall after talking to Ace, she’d seen the police there. They had been looking around inside the stall, the medical examiner examining the body. She knew there was nothing she could have done for the man but she still felt kind of like a heel for taking off and leaving him there, even though he was already dead. Thankfully, no one had seen her or she’d probably have the police out looking for her as a person of interest.

“Well, thankfully that guy didn’t know exactly where we camped. He just gave us vague directions,” Carlotta said.

“Yeah, but Markovic has the other half of that painting which might lead him to a more specific location than our half of the painting. Our half got us to this camp here, but the Aztec artifacts we’re finding are quite a ways away from here,” Bennie pointed out.

Kate heard a whirring noise behind her and looked over to see Sal working a white, frothy drink in what looked like some sort of makeshift blender.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Sal looked up sheepishly. “I finally found a good use for that little motor gizmo Gideon put in the heels of our boots.” Sal tipped the glass toward her and took a sip. “This is a pina colada. Bottoms up.”

Kate remembered she had a motor gizmo in her boot, too, along with the other gadgets Gideon had given her. She’d barely paid attention when he’d showed them to her in the lab. She thought about the necklace, earrings and bracelet that snapped together to form a digging tool. Maybe she should wear those, just in case. With Markovic’s guys on their tail, you never knew what might come in handy and Gideon had already lectured her about not wearing them—'you never know when those might get you out of trouble,' he'd said.

Kate’s thoughts turned to practical matters. “So what do you guys think we should do?”

“Well, I don’t know about you people, but I’ve never been afraid of a little danger,” Gertie scoffed.

Sal scrunched up his face. “Me, either.”

Benny choked out a laugh. “We’ve dealt with people much worse than Markovic in our day.”

“And we’ve all outsmarted the FBI,” Carlotta added, eliciting a laugh from the entire group.

“So, you all agree that we should continue looking for the tomb, then?” Kate asked.

“Yes,” Vic said. The others nodded their heads. “Maybe we should even move camp up near where we found that snake symbol.”

“That’s a good idea. I plugged everything into the GPS and I have a little map here.” Gertie motioned for them to look over her shoulder at the tablet she held in her hand.

From Gertie’s map, Kate could see their current camp in relation to where they’d found the feathered snake icon and the obelisk from earlier that morning. Even closer to the area where they’d been earlier was another spot that Gertie had marked.

“What’s that?” Kate pointed to the other mark.

“Oh, that?” Gertie said. “My tracker put in the coordinates from everywhere we’ve been. “That site right there is where we were last night. It’s the site of Jersey’s camp.”

T
hey decided
to move camp the next day as it was too late at night to move by the time they’d assessed all their information. Kate spent a restless night, half expecting to be awakened with an alert that the bad guys were coming. But she was not awakened in the middle of the night and the next morning they pulled up stakes and moved north, closer to the Aztec site.

They found a fairly open area near a stream where they decided to camp out. From there, it was a short walk to where Kate had found the marker. They needed to do a wider search of the area and the camp was centrally located.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence that Jersey’s dig is near here?” Carlotta asked as she turned on the propane grill to make coffee after they had set up the tents.

Kate pressed her lips together. “I’m not sure. It’s possible the Aztecs built their village utilizing some of the structures of the Mayans. I’ve not heard of that before, but I’m no expert and I guess anything is possible.”

“But what does that mean to our project?” Gertie asked. “Do we have to share with Jersey?”

Kate shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind sharing with Jersey, but her assistant Ed is another matter. He seemed downright hostile to me when we were there the other night.”

“You mean when you tried to sneak into that cave that you weren’t supposed to go in?” Carlotta’s lips quirked in a smile.

Kate dipped her head. “Yeah. I guess I kind of had it coming, but he could’ve been nicer about it.

“Anyway, from what I can tell, our job is just to find the tomb,” Carlotta said. “Then Max will have to get the appropriate permissions and send a team out to excavate it. So, I imagine he’ll be the one who has to deal with Jersey if there are any disputes about the area.”

Kate nodded. “Right. It’s not really anything we need to worry about. We just need to
find
the darn tomb.” Now that so many people were after it, Kate’s desire to be the one to find it had ratcheted up tenfold.

“Maybe we should at least warn her about Markovic’s guys, though,” Carlotta suggested.

Kate’s top teeth worried her bottom lip. “That’s a good idea. Those guys are real bad-asses, and if they stumble across her dig and think she’s onto the Aztec tomb, they’d have no qualms about hurting her.” Kate shuddered, remembering the sting of the poison dart in her neck.

“But how do we warn her without tipping her off that we’re not just here looking for ancient water reservoirs?” Benny asked.

“We could just say that we’d gotten word about some violent poachers in the area,” Vic suggested. “They already know those kinds of people are around, otherwise they wouldn’t have dug those pits like the one you guys fell into.”

“Yeah.” Sal rubbed his elbow. “I still have some pain in my elbow from that fall. I say Jersey can take care of herself. No warning needed.”

Kate wrestled with her conscience. On the one hand, she didn’t want Jersey to suspect that they were onto anything more important than looking for evidence of an old Mayan water system. That was certainly nothing that poachers or bad guys would be interested in. On the other hand, she had developed a fondness for Jersey. She felt like they had bonded the other night and she hated the thought of Snake Ring shooting her with the poison dart … or worse.

Not to mention that she felt like she should probably take another look at Jersey’s artifacts. If the Aztec site was so close to the Mayan site, there may be some correlation. Jersey might have stumbled across something that could help Kate.

“I don’t want to let on what our real project is,” Kate said. “But, it would be the neighborly thing to do to warn her that we know somebody nasty is in the area. I think we should take a trip over there to give her the warning and see if we can find out anything more about the connection between her Mayan village and our Aztec tomb.”