Canyon of the Sphinx (45 page)

 “Dr. Trent,” she said.

“Listen up, doctor,” Jensen said
on the other end. “I’ve changed my mind. I will take you for Dr. Murphy. He’s
small game. But I’ve been thinking it over and you’re the big prize here.
Imagine what I could get for you.”

Kathlyn felt ill, but unwavering.
“You haven’t hurt him, have you?”

“No, he’s in one piece,” Jensen
said. “Meet us at that big dig site out in the jungle. Got it?”

“Right now?” Kathlyn said. “It’ll
take at least two hours on foot and that’s in the daytime when there’s some
light. I don’t know about the night.”

“Stop making excuses. Get your
ass there or Dr. Murphy is toast. And if you bring anybody with you, I’ll blow
his brains out right in front of you. Got it?”

Kathlyn sighed. “I got it.”

The phone went dead. Kathlyn shut
it down and ran back inside the cabin.

Marcus was in a deep sleep right
where she’d left him. Mark and Debra Jo were also in various stages of slumber,
spread out over the room. She stood there a moment, remembering Jensen’s words.
If you bring anybody with you, I’ll blow his brains out. She hesitated. What if
Jensen did what she said? But reason won out and she knelt over her husband.

“Marcus,” she whispered, shaking
him. “Honey, wake up.”

He rolled onto his back, his
cobalt blue eyes blinking open. “What’s wrong?”

Kathlyn leaned close to him so as
not to wake the others. “Jensen called again. She wants to meet me at Site B
for a trade. Me for Christopher.”

“Bullshit,” Marcus exploded.
Everyone in the room suddenly woke up, startled and concerned. “No deal,
Kathlyn.”

“But I have a plan.…”

“No,” he swung his feet off the
mattress, standing barefoot on the cold dirt floor. He only wore his jeans, his
magnificent chest exposed to the world. “Where in the hell is Tony? He needs to
hear this.”

“Asleep, I guess,” Kathlyn was
trying to calm him down. “Would you just relax for a minute? We need to think
rationally about this.”

He was shaken and angry, but he
looked into her face and forced himself to calm. Standing up, he towered over
her.

 “You’re right,” he said, more in
control. “But we need to find Tony.”

Within minutes, everyone was
dressed and filtering out into the camp in the dead of night. Tony usually
slept with Otis and the kids in the smaller cabin off to the northwest. It was
the first place they all went. Otis answered the door, half-asleep, informing
them that Tony wasn’t there.

As Otis and Marcus conversed,
Kathlyn caught sight of Larry and Andy, still sleeping on the cold floor. They
were wearing black and white striped pajamas, like prisoners. All that was
needed was a ball and chain on their ankles. In the midst of such horrible
seriousness, she found herself laughing at them. The entire world could be
crumbling around them and the two young Ph.D. candidates, in their last few
months before completing their doctoral program, always managed to put
perspective on things. Between Lawrence of Arabia outfits, pith hats and
mosquito netting, and prisoner pajamas, they always managed to show that life
was an adventure worth living. At this moment, Kathlyn felt like she needed to
be reminded of that.

As Otis and the kids were getting
dressed, Tony strolled up from the black jungle. The others were startled at
the site of him; he was covered in mud and leaves, blending in with his
surroundings. He’d done this kind of thing many times and knew his craft to the
bone. With one look, Marcus and Kathlyn knew what he’d been up to.

“Did you see anything?” Marcus
asked.

Tony nodded casually. “A few
things. One of them was a blond archaeologist in a hotel room.”

They were stunned. “Are you
serious?” Kathlyn grabbed him by the arm. “You found Christopher?”

Tony nodded. There was a chair
just outside the cabin; he sank down into it. Tony didn’t normally show
exhaustion, but he did tonight. It was more relief.

“I’ll give Jensen absolutely no
credit at all,” he said. “She has Dr. Murphy in a hotel room in that small
town. So she kidnaps the guy just to take him a few miles from where he was
abducted? Like we wouldn’t go look for him? She hasn’t got a brain in her
head.”

Kathlyn didn’t know if she felt better
or worse. “Maybe she doesn’t need any brains if she’s got a gun,” she said.
“She keeps threatening to shoot him.”

Tony conceded. “Which is why I
didn’t break in to get him. She had a gun in her hand the entire time I
watched. Never moved it away from him. Had I gone busting in there, it might
have gone off.”

“Did you see anyone else with
her?”

“A few locals, it looked like. I
counted five of them.”

“Just like we thought.”

“Exactly.”

“So what do we do?” They had all
forgotten that Debra Jo was there, standing pale and upset behind Kathlyn. “We
can’t just leave him.”

Kathlyn put her arm around her
friend to comfort her. “Jensen called earlier. She wants to make a trade; me
for Chris. She wants me to meet her at Site B as soon as possible. She also
told me that she’s blow his brains out if I brought anyone with me.”

Marcus didn’t say anything; he
just looked at Tony. The Master Sergeant scratched his head. “I was there when
she called,” he said. “I couldn’t really hear what she said. But that may work
out okay. If I can get her out in the open, I may be able to get a clear shot
at her.”

Kathlyn appeared uncertain.
“You’re going to kill her?”

 “I meant that figuratively. I
won’t kill her unless she turns that gun on me. I can’t help it if it’s in self-defense.”

“So we somehow make a grab for
Chris while pretending to do a hostage exchange?” Marcus said what he thought
Tony was thinking. “I’m not sure I like playing with Kathlyn’s life like that,
or anyone else’s.”

Tony looked at him. “If you’ve
got any better ideas, Dr. Burton, now’s the time.”

He didn’t. Tony hunkered down and
went over his tentative plan with them. Within a half hour, the group of
archaeologists-turned-Special-Ops was heading for Site B.

***

Beneath the three quarters moon,
the landscape of the Yucatan was ghostly and pale. The brilliant greens and
colors that accompanied the daylight hours ceased to exist when night fell,
creating an entirely different world.

 There was enough light to see,
however. The group had picked their way along the trail through the jungle
towards the site without much trouble. Kathlyn had no idea how Jensen was going
to do it without a marked trail, but she had Christopher with her, who knew the
terrain, and locals who also knew the area.

 The closer they drew to the
site, the greater the apprehension. Tony only had two guns, one of which he
kept and the other of which he passed off to Marcus. Otis, Mark and Larry had
come along, leaving Debra Jo and Andy back at base camp. They thought someone
should remain behind should things go bad, and Debra Jo was the easy choice.
She was a sweet girl, highly intelligent, but she didn’t have the courage that
Kathlyn, or Juliana, had. The whole situation had her fairly unbalanced. Andy
stayed with her because she didn’t want to be alone.

No one had bothered to wake Adam
and Kimberly. There was nothing they could have done and Tony didn’t want them
in the way should they insist on going. He was apprehensive enough with the
untrained personnel he had brought along much less the unknown element of
additional civilians. At least he was somewhat confident in the abilities of
Marcus and Kathlyn.

They finally reached the end of
the trail where it opened up down into the site. The sounds of night animals
were heavy in the air, bugs and mammals and other creatures. Tony had everyone
hide in the foliage while he made a sweep of the immediate area. He wished for
the one-hundredth time that he had night vision goggles. He scanned the area as
best he could, but it was a huge site and unless he wanted to prowl every inch
personally, he would just have to use his best judgment. He couldn’t see any
movement, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any.

Marcus was nervous as hell. Tony
had a plan, a seemingly sound one, but it involved leaving his wife vulnerable
and he didn’t like that at all. Kathlyn, on the other hand, was inordinately
cool. In her opinion, she’d been in tougher situations. She just had to keep
her head and hope that everything turned out all right.

Tony returned to Kathlyn and
Marcus after several minutes of recon, emerging from the blackness like a
ghostly phantom.

 “I don’t see anyone yet,” he
hissed. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not out there, waiting. Dr. Trent, I
suggest you get going toward the pyramid. You’re not to let them know we’re
here. Just do what I told you to do. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Marcus said. “What if
Jensen points the gun at Kathlyn?”

“Then Dr. Trent is to hit the
deck,” Tony said steadily. “I’ll need a clear shot.”

Kathlyn nodded shortly. She was
anxious to get this all over with. She looked at her husband for a long moment
and words suddenly failed her. Marcus took her face between his hands and
kissed her, deeply.

“Good luck,” he whispered
hoarsely.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart.”

To say anything more would have
to imply impending doom or danger. They all had to think positively. Marcus and
Tony watched Kathlyn walk to the edge of the path where it dipped down into
Site B. Gradually, she walked further away from them and Tony threw hand signals
to the group so they would know what he wanted without him having to shout a
command.

Move out.

***

Kathlyn knew the group was behind
her, filtering through the bushes and undergrowth that surrounded Site B. She
was confident that nothing would happen to her with Tony and Marcus as her
protection. She began to struggle with nerves as she crossed the unexcavated
portion of the courtyard, but she pushed them aside. She had to get through
this. Everyone’s life depended on it.

The mound that covered the Temple
of Blood was dark and exceedingly foreboding. Kathlyn paused in front of it,
gazing up into the blackness of the mass. Not strangely, she could only imagine
that fateful night those many centuries ago. How frightened the people of this
city must have been, facing battle in front of their great temple and being
sent to their death. Standing here, she could feel it. Hints of pain and fear
crept upon her, but she shrugged them away. She couldn’t allow herself to feel
their horror tonight.

So she waited. By her watch,
nearly forty minutes had passed when she finally heard the crunch of foliage
off to the south. She had managed to calm herself quite well in the past
several minutes, but now she was feeling her anxiety again. Soon, several shadowy
figures came into view. She counted seven on the approach.

Christopher was the first person
she saw. He appeared perfectly sound, not a mark on him. But his expression had
Kathlyn on her guard. Jensen was right behind him, a gun to his back.  The
woman looked completely different, with short red hair. Kathlyn would have
never recognized her on the street.

“Greetings, Dr. Trent,” Jensen
said. “I see you follow directions well.”

Kathlyn didn’t know how to reply
to that. Tony had wanted to get her and Christopher within close proximity of
each other so he could focus on Jensen without worrying about hurting the two
archaeologists. Kathlyn’s objective was to get Christopher away from that gun.

“So here I am,” she said. “Turn
Chris loose and you can have me.”

Jensen looked her up and down,
studying her. It seemed as if there was much she wanted to say. After a moment,
she simply shook her head. “You and I have a lot to talk about,” she said. “You
think this is just so easy.”

“I did what you wanted,”
Kathlyn’s voice was cold. “Now do what you said you were going to do. Turn Dr.
Murphy loose and take me.”

Jensen’s features hardened.
“Don’t give me orders.”

“Then do it!” Kathlyn shouted.

It was a harsh, shockingly loud
command. Even Christopher jumped; he’d never heard Kathlyn raise her voice.
Much to his horror, Kathlyn suddenly flew at Jensen, waving her arms like a
madwoman.

“You talk big with that gun,
don’t you?” she snarled. “I kept my part of the bargain and showed up. Now do
what you said you were going to do. Let him go.”

Jensen, too, was startled as
Kathlyn went on the offensive. She kept the gun leveled at Kathlyn’s chest as
the woman came close.

“Don’t be a hero,” she growled.
“I’ll use this gun. I don’t give a damn.”

“You’re a liar,” Kathlyn’s tone
was pure malice. “You won’t use it on me because you’d lose your bankroll. You
crazy bitch; what in the hell made you think this was ever a good idea? What in
the hell made you think that trying to extort money from me and my family was
the most brilliant scheme of all time? You’re a goddamn loser. You’re trying to
play in the big leagues and you don’t even know the strength of the other
team.”