The Death Relic (34 page)

‘We just got a financial report on Hamilton. One of the items was a credit card statement, which lists a recent purchase at a gas station in Piste.’

‘That’s great! He probably filled up there before he drove to Cancún.’

Payne shook his head. ‘Somehow I doubt it.’

‘You doubt it? Why do you say that?’

He stared at her. ‘The purchase happened last night.’

Chichén Itzá, Mexico

(111 miles southwest of Cancún)

Thick vegetation lined both sides of the road. It blocked their view of the countryside as they drove toward Chichén Itzá. Despite being nearly three hours long, the trip was uneventful. Except for an occasional tour bus, the only other sign of civilization was a constant stream of toll booths that seemed to pop up every other mile. By the time they reached Piste, a rural town by the famous archaeological site, Jones had counted more toll booths than exits.

During their journey, the four of them discussed the significance of Hamilton’s credit card activity. Ulster assured the group that his personal credit card purchases were commonly ‘off’ by a few days when he travelled abroad. This was particularly common in developing countries like Mexico, where technology lagged behind. Eventually, his bank in Switzerland would straighten out the transaction dates, but sometimes that wouldn’t occur for a week or two after he had received his statement.

Payne and Jones were familiar with the time lag, but they still thought it was worth the drive. With little else to go on, they wanted to investigate the possibility that the purchase had been made by a member of Hamilton’s team. According to Ulster, Hamilton often worked with unpaid interns on his research trips, so it stood to reason that he might have given them access to his credit card in order to buy supplies for their campsite. If so, they hoped to track down his research team somewhere near the Mayan site and get information about Hamilton.

To do so, they had to start at the beginning.

The place where the purchase had been made the night before.

Much to their surprise, the petrol station was fairly modern – at least compared to the rest of the area, which seemed to be a few decades behind the times. There was a hospital, a fruit market and a few restaurants near the main road, but there were also packs of feral dogs that roamed the dusty alleyways. Houses, for the most part, were hidden from view, tucked behind a thick wall of vegetation that looked remarkably similar to the jungle they’d been staring at for miles. It was the main reason so many Mayan sites were still being discovered today.

They were hidden in the jungle.

Jones pulled up next to the pump and took a few minutes to top up the SUV’s tank. Out here in the middle of nowhere, petrol stations were few and far between. No sense taking any chances. Meanwhile, Payne headed into the station with Maria, who would serve as his interpreter in case the clerk couldn’t speak English. A bell mounted above the door announced their arrival with a loud jingle. Payne walked to the front counter and waited for the owner, who’d been stocking shelves in the back of the store.

Wearing a white apron with a green trim, the grey-haired man shuffled forward. He had a nametag that read, ‘Eduardo’. He greeted them with a friendly wave. ‘
Hola
.’

‘
Hola
,’ Maria said. ‘
¿Hablas Inglés?
’

Eduardo nodded and smiled. ‘Yes.’

Maria glanced at Payne. ‘He said “yes”.’

‘Thanks, honey. I figured that one out. Now go wait in the car.’

She wandered off. ‘No thanks. I think I’ll shop instead.’

‘Great. Go do that.’

Eduardo said nothing. He just kept smiling.

Payne focused on him. ‘Sir, I was hoping you could help us out.’

‘Do you need directions? I am bad with directions. All the signs are written in Spanish.’

Payne laughed. ‘That’s pretty funny. How many times have you used that line?’

Eduardo frowned. ‘Funny? What is funny about my problem? I cannot read Spanish. I can only read Mayan. And you make jokes?’

‘Oh, man, I am
so
sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I thought …’

Eduardo kept a straight face for a few seconds. Then he burst out laughing. ‘Now that is funny! You should see your face. It is red like tomato. You thought I only read Mayan.’

Payne stammered. ‘Well, how should I know?’

‘How? Look around the store! Everything is written in Spanish.’

Payne groaned. ‘OK, I guess you’re right. Now I feel like an idiot.’

Eduardo kept laughing. ‘Do not feel dumb. I trick people all the time. This job is boring without jokes. I hope you are not mad.’

‘Mad? Not at all. In fact, I’m glad you tricked me.’

‘Really? Why is that?’

‘Now you owe me.’

Eduardo shrugged. ‘Maybe. What you need?’

‘Were you working last night?’

‘
Sí
. That means “yes”.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘If you knew I was working, why did you ask?’

Payne rolled his eyes. This guy joked more than Jones. He needed to put a stop to the levity or this would take all day. ‘On Friday night, a friend of ours was kidnapped in Cancún. We’ve been waiting for a ransom call ever since.’

Eduardo blushed. Now he was the one who felt like an idiot. ‘I am sorry for your loss. Mexico is dangerous place.’

‘Last night, someone used his credit card at your store. We were hoping you could remember what the person looked like. It might give us our best lead to date.’

‘I am sorry. I cannot help.’

‘Why not?’

‘I did not see anyone.’

Payne nodded in understanding. He pulled out an American twenty-dollar bill and placed it on the counter. He wasn’t sure what the going rate for a shakedown was in Mexico, but he figured this would be a good place to start. ‘Does this help your memory?’

Eduardo tucked the money into his pocket. ‘Nothing wrong with my memory. I remember just fine. I was working in the back office all night. That is why I see no one.’

Payne growled but didn’t ask for the money back. ‘Who was working out front?’

‘My son.’

‘Is he around?’

‘No. But even if he was, he would remember nothing.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He drinks on the job.’

‘You let him drink at work?’

Eduardo shrugged. ‘He works for free, so I let him drink.’

‘Wonderful.’

‘It is good system. It has been working for years.’

Payne took a deep breath. This was going nowhere fast. ‘Maria! Time to go. He can’t help us out. We’ll have to look around the site.’

‘Hold up,’ she shouted from the back. ‘I’m getting supplies.’

Eduardo smiled. ‘She is getting supplies.’

‘Yeah, I heard. Thanks.’

He kept smiling. ‘While you wait, you look at tape?’

‘Tape? What tape?’

He pointed at the security camera. It was barely visible above the counter. ‘Tape of customers. We keep tape for twenty-four hours.’

‘You have a security tape? From last night?’

He nodded. ‘Like I say, Mexico is
dangerous
place. Tourists cannot be trusted. They are worse than conquistadores. They come in here and steal my Twinkies right off the shelves. Do you know what we call Twinkies in Mexico? Submarinos.’

Payne ignored the Spanish lesson. ‘Where’s the monitor?’

Eduardo signalled for him to follow. ‘Come. It is in my office. I show you.’

Five minutes later, Eduardo was rewinding the tape for Payne and Maria. Unlike the digital set-up at the Fiesta Americana, this system was basic – one angle, no panning or zooming – but it was much better than a drunk witness. If the credit card statement was accurate, Payne knew the purchase had been made at 9.32 p.m. on Saturday night. They decided to start at 10 p.m. and work their way back from there, just in case the time stamp was off.

‘What should we look for?’ she asked.

Payne shrugged. ‘You’d know better than I would.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Weren’t you an unpaid intern in college?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah. I guess I was.’

‘And what did your fellow classmates look like?’

‘I don’t know. I guess they looked like me.’

‘Great. Then we’ll look for hot Italian women.’

She laughed at the description. ‘You think I’m hot?’

‘Maria, this is
Mexico
. It’s, like, two hundred degrees outside.
Everyone
is hot.’

She taunted him softly. ‘You think I’m hot.’

‘Shut up,’ he whispered back. ‘I didn’t say that.’

Eduardo looked at them. ‘Are you two married?’

‘What?’ they blurted in unison. ‘No!’

‘That is too bad. You have much potential. You argue like married couple.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ Payne said.

‘My son is married. He does not like it.
That
is why he drinks at work.’

‘What about you?’ she asked.

Eduardo sighed. ‘I
used
to be married. I did not like it, either. That is why I let him.’

Payne nodded. ‘Now it makes perfect sense.’

Just then, a female customer flashed across the screen. Since the tape was still rewinding, everything she did was fast and in reverse. Eduardo tapped the ‘play’ button, but by the time he hit it, she had backed out of the door. ‘Should I go forward?’

Payne shook his head. ‘Just play it from here. We want to see her face.’

The camera, mounted high above the cash register, offered a clear view of the front counter but didn’t show much of the store. If Eduardo was trying to catch the Twinkie thief, he was going about it the wrong way. As the customer roamed the aisles, all they could see was her waist and a pair of jeans. Everything else was obscured because of the angle of the lens.

‘I can’t see anything,’ Maria complained.

Payne reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. ‘That’s OK. The person we’re looking for used a credit card. We’ll see her when she comes to the counter.’

The customer kept moving, up and down the rows.

‘What are you doing with that?’

‘I want to take her picture. That way we can show it around.’

She nodded. ‘Good thinking.’

After nearly a minute, the customer walked towards the camera. She had a bottle of water in one hand and a box of cereal in the other. She placed both items on the counter, then pointed outside, as if to say she also wanted to pay for a tank of gas. Unfortunately, her face was hidden by a floppy hat. The kind someone would wear if she were going to be in the sun all day.

‘Look up!’ Payne screamed at the tape. ‘Look at the camera!’

Maria shouted, too. ‘Look up!’

A moment later, they got their wish. The customer took off her hat, wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm, then glanced directly into the lens. She looked at the camera for several seconds, giving them a chance to memorize the freckles on her face and her distinctive red hair, then she punctuated her stare with a sly smile.

Payne snapped a photo of her. ‘Gotcha.’

In reality, it was the other way around.

Named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World – taking its place alongside such monuments as the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China – Chichén Itzá is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in the northern centre of the Yucatán Peninsula. Built and rebuilt by the Maya civilization over a span of nearly a thousand years, the ancient city is one of the most popular destinations in Mexico.

After parking near the entrance, the foursome hiked towards the site, where they hoped to find the mysterious redhead who had used Hamilton’s credit card the night before. To aid their effort, Payne forwarded her photo to each of their cell phones, allowing them to search more efficiently. They flashed Tiffany’s picture to everyone they passed on the dirt path that led to the ruins, but to no avail. Despite the thick vegetation that blocked their view, they sensed something significant was looming just around the corner. And they were right. After a slight bend to the northeast, the trail opened into a large courtyard of dirt and grass.

In the centre was a pyramid known as El Castillo.

All of them stopped and stared in awe.

Originally known as the Temple of Kukulkan, the stone pyramid stands almost 100 feet in height, with a square base that is nearly twice as long. Built by the Maya sometime between 1000 and 1200 AD, the pyramid honoured Kukulkan – a feathered serpent deity that resembled the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl – and served as a solar calendar. Each of the structure’s four stairways contains ninety-one steps. When counting the top platform as another step, the pyramid has 365 steps, one for each day of the year. Even more amazingly, the pyramid is positioned at such a precise angle that a solar phenomenon occurs here in the spring and fall.

Cackling with delight, Ulster urged them to follow as he danced towards the north side of the pyramid. They weren’t sure why he was so excited, but they couldn’t wait to see. He called to them over his shoulder. ‘Tell me, are any of you familiar with the plumed serpent that attacks this pyramid twice a year?’

Jones joked, ‘That still happens? I thought Godzilla killed that thing years ago.’

Ulster laughed. ‘I’ll take that as a “no”.’

‘Yep. That’s definitely a “no”.’

‘Wonderful! That means I get to tell you everything!’

Payne groaned softly. They weren’t there for a history lesson. They were there for the redhead. ‘We don’t have time for
everything
. You have to keep this short.’

‘Of course, my boy, of course! No problem at all. I’ll give you the twenty-minute version instead of the two-hour lecture.’

‘Petr, I’m serious!’

Ulster laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I’m just teasing. I promise I’ll keep this short.’

He led them to the bottom of a staircase that bisected the northern face of the pyramid. Stone balustrades, each ending in the carved head of a serpent, bordered the stairs on the left and the right. With his knees firmly against a restraining rope that surrounded the pyramid, Ulster reached out and tried to touch one of the serpent’s head, which jutted out from the pyramid. He wanted to feel the stone on his fingertips. Sadly, his round body and short arms prevented it.