Fallen Idols (51 page)
After the artifacts had been replaced, he had confronted Jocelyn's killer. The argument had ended badly—the man had gone against his orders, which he couldn't permit. If his people thought, even for a moment, that he was soft, he would lose control.
He had been forced to kill the man. It was that or lose face with his own people. He had shot him in cold blood, in the same manner that the man had shot Jocelyn. So there had been some rough justice for her murder, even though it was hollow.
The final irony was that until several days later, Che hadn't known that the archaeologist's wife, rather than the archaeologist himself, had been the one to take the fatal bullet.
When the rebel leader was finished telling his story, the sun had fallen low in the sky to the west. Clancy and Tom were exhausted, less from the rigors of their journey into the jungle than from the emotional battering they had just undergone.
“Sometimes it is better not to learn certain things,” Che said somberly, observing their distress. “But you had to find out the truth for yourselves. I can understand that.” He extended a hand to them, not to be shaken, but as a gesture of conciliation. “I am sorry your mother was killed. But if the rape of our national heritage had not happened, she would still be alive.”
W
ill met his brothers at the Los Angeles airport. They had flown all night, with two plane changes and hours of tedium between connections. Although they were exhausted, both physically and emotionally, having hiked out of the jungle nonstop without pausing to rest, driven across the country to the airport, and been in the air or in airports breathing stale, artificial air for another fourteen hours, the two of them immediately piled into Will's rental car and drove to Walt's house.
Clancy and Tom had filled Will in briefly the night before over the phone from Atlanta, their port of reentry into the U.S. Now, as they crawled up the gridlocked I-405 freeway and then turned off onto the surface streets, they related to Will, in detail, what Che, the rebel leader, had told them. And for Will, as it had been for them, hearing what had happened, and why, was a sobering and heartbreaking recitation.
Walt's street was lifeless. No cars moving, no pedestrians walking on the sidewalks: a quiet, upscale street where people mind their own business and keep their dirty secrets to themselves. Will, who was driving, slowed to a stop and parked across the street from their father's house.
The driveway was empty, the garage door closed. There was no sign of life outside the house: no newspapers on the front walk, no sprinklers watering the lawn. They got out of the car and crossed the street.
“What if he isn't home?” Will asked nervously.
“We'll wait,” Tom said flatly. “We're not going home until we confront him.”
They stood in front of the door, looking at each other in nervous anticipation. Almost as if girding to mount a commando raid, Clancy squared his shoulders and rang the doorbell.
A few moments passed. It seemed to them like time was running in slow motion. Then they heard a lock being turned, and the door swung open. Their father blinked against the onslaught of sunlight in his eyes.
“Hello, boys,” he greeted them in a weary voice. “I was expecting you, but not this soon.”
“Why were you expecting us at all?” Clancy asked.
“Manuel called. He told me you'd been down there nosing around. He knew you'd be coming to see me. He wanted to prepare me.” He stood aside. “Come on in.”
The house was dark. The shades were drawn, no lights on. Walt led them into the living room. “You want something to drink, or eat?” he asked. His voice was hoarse, soft, as if rusty from disuse. “There isn't much to offer, I haven't been to the store for a while.”
Clancy shook his head. “Is Diane here?” he asked, looking around.
Walt shook his head. “She's gone,” he said flatly, “Flown the coop.”
“For good?” Clancy asked.
Walt nodded. “It wasn't a question of if with her, but when. She's a survivor, Diane. More than I can say about myself.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Sit down, boys,” he said, slumping onto one of the sofas. “I don't know how much you found out down there. But since you know some of it, you have to know all of it.” He shook his head regretfully. “It would've been a hell of a lot better if you had never opened this Pandora's box. But you have, and none of us can keep burying our heads in the sand about what happened down there anymore.”
He paused. His three sons were sitting opposite him in the dark living room. They were motionless, waiting.
“This is going to take a lot of time, because I don't want to leave anything out,” Walt told them. “Do you want a break before I start?”
“Just tell it, dad,” Clancy said, speaking for all of them. “As long as it takes. That's why we're here.”
“Okay,” Walt said. He paused for a moment. “It was all a ruse, boys, what happened that night. Stealing our valuables, threatening to take hostages. I'm not saying those men wouldn't have done those things, maybe even killed more of us—but those actions were a fake-out to disguise their real purpose, which was to get into my trunk, which their informant had told them contained priceless artifacts that had been stolen from the site, supposedly by me. And they got what they came for. They found the trunk, and the artifacts that were inside.
“But I wasn't the one who stole them. I've done some bad things and some dumb things in my time. I've said it before and I'll say it again—I'm no saint, boys. Which you know. But the one thing I would never do is what they've accused me of: stealing artifacts, in this case from La Chimenea, or from any site. I couldn't—it would violate every core belief I stand for.”
From the moment he first set foot on the newly discovered site, he knew it was an unbelievable find. The government, so friendly and welcoming then, didn't have the resources to develop it themselves, not the way it would have to be done if it were to be recognized as a world-class monument on the level of Copén, Tikal, Chichén Itzé, Palenque. They needed an important archaeologist with access to foundation funds to spearhead the excavation. Walt Gaines was one of a handful of such luminaries who had both the reputation and the connections, and he was the most important one who wasn't currently involved with a project of this magnitude.
He came, he saw, he fell in love. The potential for greatness! And for glory.
He struck a deal with the government: he would raise the money for the beginning phases of the restoration of La Chimenea, and in return he'd be given the exclusive franchise to develop it. He would provide the expertise, select the groups of volunteers, and train them to do the work. And most important, he would make the critical decisions. Except for the regulations of official government and international policy, he would have final say.
It was the score of a lifetime, the one he had been waiting and hoping for his entire career.
The initial funding package didn't take long to put together. This was an extraordinary opportunity for his university, as well as for major institutional nonprofits with deep pockets. In less than a year he had raised enough money to get started.
The first obstacle to be overcome was providing decent access to the site for the substantial amounts of people, equipment, and supplies that would be needed to do the work. The only way in was an arduous three-day trek through the jungle, which is how he had gotten there that first time. He was opposed to putting in an airstrip, as had been done in other remote locations. Too much of the surrounding jungle would have to be clear-cut to make room for even a basic runway. He also was afraid that poachers would use a strip to fly their own planes in and out. And large numbers of volunteers and equipment couldn't be flown in; that would be prohibitively expensive.
A road was the most feasible—really the only—solution. It would be virtually impassable at certain times during the rainy season, but it would do the job, and it would be relatively easy to guard—a few men could throw up a roadblock and deny access in or out.
It took over a year of backbreaking labor to cut the road through the jungle. As soon as it was completed, Walt led the first team of workers into the site. The university had granted him a leave of absence for the spring semester, so he was able to be there for five uninterrupted months.
The work had gone better and faster than he could have hoped for. By the end of the summer they had begun excavating a section of the main temple, as well as parts of other buildings in the Central Plaza. Jocelyn had joined him in June, after she finished her own teaching workload, and had jumped right in. She had assumed the critical responsibility of cataloguing the large quantities of artifacts they discovered—the place was a treasure trove of antiquities.
Shortly before it was time to leave the site and return to the States, they discovered that a small number of artifacts were missing. It was almost certain that looting had occurred, rather than the objects having been misplaced—Jocelyn had been extremely careful in her cataloguing. Only a handful were unaccounted for; but to have lost even a few was upsetting.
Walt was faced with a dilemma: whether or not to inform the government. After discussing the problem with Jocelyn, who was the only person besides him who knew about the thefts, they decided to keep quiet about it.
As he assumed the looting had been the work of
guaqueros
—tomb raiders—Walt rationalized keeping the looting a secret by taking steps to insure it wouldn't happen again. He strengthened the guards at the site to keep the tomb raiders out, leaving Manuel in charge while he was gone. He felt guilty about not telling the authorities about the looting, but he knew that thefts of antiquities are an unfortunate fact of life at the beginning of a newly discovered site's development. And he was resolute that the thievery would be a one-time occurrence. Starting with the next trip to the site, he would sternly warn everyone who was going to work there, before they were permitted to enter the area, that anyone caught stealing anything, even the smallest fragments of a pot, would be turned over to the government for prosecution, without exception.
This was no idle threat. It was common knowledge how the government treated tomb raiders: brutally. With these stringent measures in place, Walt convinced himself he had resolved the issue.
The first unsettling shift in the government's attitude started with a small, ugly incident. His in-country archaeologist (a requirement on all modern excavations), a man he had worked comfortably with before, got sick and had to be replaced. The new native archaeologist (that was a generous description; the man had no academic credentials and barely more experience than most of Walt's students) who was assigned to the site as a representative of the Minister of Archaeology and Culture's office almost immediately got a hair up his scrawny ass, claiming that too many outside volunteers and not enough native ones were working on the excavation. He insisted that Walt bring in more native “volunteers,” who would be paid, of course, from Walt's budget.
Walt resisted; with restraint at first, then with impatient anger. He was already using all the local volunteers who were qualified. He was happy to use native workers, but they had to meet his standards—that was his agreement, he was in charge of selecting who worked on the site. What he didn't tell the local guy was his fear of more tomb-robbing. As he hadn't divulged the prior incident, he couldn't very well come out with that now. And if he brought in more native workers, he'd have to release some of his American volunteers.
He tried to reason with the man, promising he'd look into it the next time, etc., but the other was steadfast. This was his country, he stated with the out-thrust chest of a bantam cock, Walt was a guest, he had to bring in more local workers.
Walt blew. He couldn't help himself, the guy was an asshole, pure and simple. He pulled rank, kicked the local archaeologist off the site, and harshly warned him not to set foot on it again.
A week later he was in the minister's office, being dressed down royally. Of course they were very grateful for what he was doing, but it still was their country, the minister reminded Walt. Professor Gaines had to respect the citizens of the country, particularly the professionals (Walt almost gagged when he heard that title applied to the little prick he'd had the fight with) who the government assigned. Even though he was in charge, he didn't have absolute carte blanche. If Professor Gaines remained obdurate, the minister warned Walt, the government might have to make some basic changes in the management of the dig.
That threat was as subtle as a two-by-four right between the eyes. Walt was being warned that he could be kicked out, or at least have the control taken away from him.
He wanted to tell the minister to shove it up his ass, but he held his tongue. He agreed to employ a few more native workers, and to allow the dismissed local archaeologist to return to work at the site. He and the minister parted company under amicable (on the surface) terms. This was a problem for both of them, and they would solve it jointly, and cooperatively, as they did with everything else. La Chimenea was bigger than either of them, they both agreed on that.
He expressed his anger over a few drinks with Jocelyn, who had accompanied him to the capital. They had used him, he groused. Now that they had his money and expertise, they were threatening to pull the rug out from under him.
With the aid of a few beers and shots of tequila, Jocelyn calmed him down. This was all about machismo. The government needed him as much or more than he needed them. Keep your eye on the big picture, she reminded him.
The new workers started the following week. They weren't as good as his own people, but they were diligent and eager to learn.
A week before he and Jocelyn were ready to go home, something incredible happened that took his mind off that petty problem. One afternoon, when lunch was over and the others were taking a midday siesta, they went off together, ostensibly to cheek on one of the unexplored mounds at the far edge of the site, in an area far removed from where any work was being done. What they really wanted was a few hours to themselves, because they had no privacy in the camp.