The Death Relic (46 page)

‘Yes.’

‘When?’ she demanded.

Boyd glanced at his watch. ‘About twenty hours ago.’

Jones joined the conversation. ‘Then what in the hell are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be rolling around in piles of gold?’

‘I wish I could,’ Boyd admitted. ‘Unfortunately, it’s not that simple for a man in my position. If I were to stake a claim in this treasure, the first thing I would be required to do is notify the
CIA
of my involvement. From that moment on, the Agency would take an active interest in the acquisition process – the thought of which is something I dread. Although I’m a company man, the last place I want a treasure of this magnitude to end up is in some bunker in Langley, Virginia. Instead, I want it to be studied by scholars from around the globe, academics who are searching for answers to the mysteries of the Aztec and the Maya. I want this treasure to be displayed at the Ulster Archives.’

Ulster nearly fell off his chair. ‘Are you serious?’

Boyd nodded. ‘Quite.’

‘But, wait, you want me to, I mean, you’re giving me …
really
?’

‘Yes, really. That is, if you’re willing to accept the terms of my proposal.’

Ulster leaned forward. ‘I’m listening.’

‘First of all, I want Terrence to be listed as the co-leader of the team that discovered this treasure. Without his insight into the Maya and his connections in the Yucatán, I would still be searching.’

Ulster nodded. ‘Done.’

‘Secondly, I want Maria to be listed as the other co-leader. Instead of me, she will be given credit for my half of the discovery.’

Maria baulked at the idea. ‘No way! Not a chance! I didn’t
do
anything to find this treasure. There’s no way in hell I want my name associated with it.’

Boyd stared at her. ‘Don’t worry, my dear, your job is yet to come.’

‘My job? What job is that?’

‘A moment ago, I mentioned that Terrence and I had located the Mercado treasure. In reality, we have discovered the
location
of the treasure, not the treasure itself. The hoard itself still needs to be claimed. To do so, one final piece of the puzzle still needs to be solved – a piece that happens to fall into your area of expertise: Christianity.’

‘How so?’

‘It seems that Mercado knew of the so-called “death relic”. He even mentions it by name in his diary, and describes the impact it had on the Maya and the Aztec. To keep their treasury from being invaded, he writes that the location was protected by the death relic itself.’

Maria returned his stare. ‘So you need me to figure out what the death relic is? If I remember correctly, Christianity happens to be your area of expertise as well. Of course, it’s been so long since we’ve talked, I might be mistaken.’

He smiled, trying to ease her anger. ‘No, my dear, you are correct: it
is
my area of expertise. However, as I outlined in my proposal, I cannot afford to be a part of this claim. Therefore, I will not be joining you on the next leg of this mission. When you make the discovery – and I know you will – I will be at a meeting in Washington DC, with plenty of witnesses.’

‘Why me? Why not someone else?’ she demanded.

‘Because I trust you,’ he said sincerely. ‘In my world, that’s the highest compliment I can give. Not love, not admiration, but trust. And the truth is that I trust you implicitly. I trust you to solve the puzzle, I trust you to honour our agreement and I trust you to hand the treasure over to the Archives. Of all the people I’ve ever met, I trust you the most.’

‘Me?’ she said, surprised.

He nodded. ‘In addition, I also trust your friends.’

‘My friends?’

He pointed at Payne and Jones. ‘I’m confident that David and Jonathon will get you to where you need to go. That is if you gentlemen are willing to accompany her.’

Jones glanced at Maria. ‘Of course.’

Payne shrugged. ‘Got nothing better to do.’

Boyd smiled. ‘Wonderful. Then it’s time for me to bid you adieu.’

‘You’re leaving?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, my dear, it is
you
that is leaving. There’s a plane outside. It’s fuelled and ready to take you to where you need to go.’

‘Which is where?’ Payne wondered.

Boyd grinned as he answered. ‘Cholula.’

Boyd had proved to be a master strategist during the past few days, but one thing he had failed to take into account was Payne’s physical stature. Used to the spacious legroom of a military cargo plane or the first-class accommodation in his company jet, Payne felt like a sardine in the fixed-wing aircraft that flew them from Mérida to Cholula. Forced to sit next to Maria, who was half his size and the only one able to squeeze into his cramped row, conversation was limited for the first hour. Maria passed the time by reading a file that Boyd had assembled on the history of the Great Pyramid of Cholula, while Payne stared out the window at the Gulf of Mexico below.

To get from the northern end of the Yucatán to their destination in central Mexico, they flew over water for most of the trip. In many ways it helped Payne understand why Marcos de Mercado had used a ship to move the Maya treasure westwards in 1574. Not only did he shave several weeks off the travel time by charting a sea route, he also avoided hundreds of thousands of natives who might have intercepted the fortune in the desert or the mountains.

Maria closed the file and tried to stretch. It was tough to do in the limited space.

Payne smiled at her attempt. ‘Sorry.’

‘For what?’

‘For taking up half the plane.’

She laughed. ‘Now that you mention it, things
are
kind of tight. Remind me to complain to the flight attendant the next time she comes by.’

‘When you do, tell her I’m still waiting for my drink.’

She licked her lips at the thought. ‘Actually, I could go for a drink right about now. A pitcher of margaritas would definitely take the edge off.’

‘A whole pitcher?’ Payne said, surprised. ‘In my experience, if a woman drinks a whole pitcher of margaritas, she usually takes off a lot more than her edge.’

She laughed at the joke. ‘In your experience, huh? Out of curiosity, how many times has that happened to you?’

Payne flashed a devilish grin as he pretended to count the answer on his fingers. When he reached double digits, she grabbed his hands to make him stop.

‘Forget it. I don’t want to know.’

‘Good. Because I don’t want to say.’

Boyd knew the building in Mérida had to be ‘cleaned’ before he left Mexico. To accomplish the task, he hauled a 5-gallon can of gasoline from his
SUV
to the makeshift classroom, then splashed the accelerant on the walls, the furniture and the floor. By the time the fire department arrived to put out the blaze, every shred of forensic evidence would be reduced to ash and he would be on his way to America.

Tiffany, however, had other ideas.

She had wanted to confront Boyd about the photos ever since Chichén Itzá, but had decided to wait until Payne and Jones were out of the equation. Now that they were gone, it was time to make her move. She raised her weapon and entered the classroom while Boyd worked with his back to the door. She called his name to get his attention.

Boyd turned and saw the gun. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting some answers.’

‘Answers? To what?’

‘Stop talking. I’m asking the questions here.’

He placed the empty can on the floor. ‘As you wish.’

‘Why did you do it? Why did you sell me out?’

‘Sell you out? I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I would
never
—’

‘Cut the bullshit! I know damn well you sent my picture and location to Angel. And don’t even try to deny it. I saw the email on his phone.’

The corners of his lips curled into a smile. ‘Ah, that explains your hostility. You found out about the email. I was wondering what you were referring to. Now your reaction makes perfect sense. I, too, would be upset if the same thing had happened to me.’

After a while, Maria’s conversation with Payne shifted to the mission at hand. Payne knew very little about the city of Cholula and needed to be briefed for the journey ahead. Instead of reading Boyd’s report, which was several pages long and looked less exciting than a history textbook, he decided to question Maria. According to Boyd, her knowledge would be the key to everything once they arrived at the site. Payne didn’t know whether or not that was true. He sensed that perhaps Boyd had presented the challenge that way to make her more receptive to the credit she would receive, but he wouldn’t know for sure until they solved the mystery.

Perhaps her knowledge
was
the key to finding the treasure.

They would find out soon enough.

He pointed at the file in her lap. ‘What can you tell me about the site?’

She opened the folder and handed him a picture of a large orange-yellow church that had been built on top of a lush, green hill. ‘This is Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. In English, that means Church of Our Lady of Remedies.’

Payne stared at the picture. ‘That’s a beautiful church.’

She nodded in agreement. ‘Does anything about it stand out?’

‘Tough to tell,’ he admitted as he tried to make out the details of the dome and spires, which could barely be seen in the photograph. ‘Do you have something closer?’

‘I do, but the feature I’m referring to is quite visible in this photo.’

Payne shrugged. ‘Sorry. Nothing stands out.’

‘Look at the hill.’

‘The hill?’ He glanced at the ground underneath the church. Trees and grass covered the terrain, as if it was any other hill in the rolling landscape of central Mexico. ‘What about it?’

‘It
isn’t
a hill. It’s actually a pyramid.’

‘Why did you do it?’ Tiffany repeated.

‘Not for money,’ Boyd assured her. ‘Technically speaking, I didn’t sell you out. I’m not the type of man who would sell information to scum like Angel Ramirez.’

‘No, you’re just the type of man who would stab someone in the back!’

He shook his head. ‘There’s a big difference between stabbing someone in the back and punishing someone for her mistakes. And you made
several
mistakes during this operation – the type of mistakes that have consequences.’

‘Mistakes? What mistakes? I acquired the medallion and millions of dollars for your front company. What else is there?’

He laughed at the absurdity of her statement. ‘What else is there? How about anonymity? I told you from the beginning that anonymity was crucial to this operation, yet you allowed Angel to see your face at Zócalo. Within twelve hours of the ransom drop, a sketch of your face was sent to every criminal and border guard in Mexico. The entire country is looking for you.’

‘Bullshit! I wore a gas mask at the plaza.’

‘What plaza is that? Because the Zócalo I remember is no longer there. All that remains is a giant hole and scorched stone. The damage is so bad that the Federales are treating it as a terrorist attack. As far as they’re concerned, you’re public enemy number one.’

Tiffany had seen pictures of the aftermath. The damage was more severe than she had anticipated. ‘That’s not my fault. My expert misjudged the explosives.’

‘But you hired the expert. Therefore, the fault lies with you.’

‘And you hired me, so ultimately you’re to blame.’

He smiled. ‘This isn’t about blame. This is about containment. As long as you’re alive, you’re a threat to everyone who participated in this operation. We can’t risk you talking to the Mexican authorities. That would make things, um, complicated.’

‘So you sent Angel to do something you couldn’t. You coward.’

‘No, my dear, you have it all wrong. I put Angel on your scent so you could punish the man who revealed your identity. If you had killed him in Mexico City like you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be in our current predicament.’

‘There you go blaming me again.’

He shook his head. ‘I told you, this
isn’t
about blame. This is about containment.’

Maria’s last comment confused Payne. ‘You mean the hill is
shaped
like a pyramid.’

‘No,’ she countered. ‘It
is
a pyramid – an ancient stone pyramid. In fact, it’s the largest pyramid, by volume, in the world. Its size is estimated at nearly four and a half million cubic metres. That’s nearly twice the size of the pyramid at Giza.’

He looked at the photograph again and tried to picture what she was saying. If not for her description, he never would have guessed that there was anything under the grass but dirt. It looked completely natural to him. ‘How tall is the hill?’

She corrected him. ‘The
pyramid
is two hundred and seventeen feet tall. Its base is nearly fifteen hundred feet on each side.’

‘Holy crap! That’s the length of five football fields.’

She knew little about football. ‘If you say so.’

He pointed at the grass. ‘Is this common?’

‘Is what common?’

‘The grass. I know some pyramids were swallowed up by the jungle and forgotten for centuries, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen one swallowed by a lawn.’

She smiled at the comment. ‘Actually, the pyramid wasn’t swallowed. It was hidden by the locals. According to legend, they were so convinced the Spaniards would destroy it – as they did to the great monuments in Tenochtitlan – that they covered it with soil and seed. By the time the conquistadors arrived in Cholula, the pyramid looked like a hill.’

‘That’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard.’

‘The locals did such a remarkable job of concealment that the pyramid was eventually forgotten. It remained undisturbed for over three hundred years until a construction crew rediscovered it in the late nineteenth century. Since 1931, archaeologists have dug over five miles of tunnels through the heart of the pyramid. They’ve found altars, floors, walls, and human remains dating back to the ninth century, but no significant treasure.’

He glanced at her. ‘Is that good or bad?’

‘Neither,’ she said, ‘because we’ll be focusing on the church, not the pyramid.’