The Kukulkan Manuscript (39 page)

“No, the FBI is conducting a manhunt for Peter Arnott. All the blame has fallen on him.” He smiled a sigh, but knew things really hadn’t ended. There were too many loose strings. Would
they
still come after him? Would they kill him simply for the trouble he had become? Or would they run, hide for years before taking their revenge…just to be safe? They would get their doctoral credentials, but would they live free enough to use them?

“Porter…did we do the right thing?” she looked up at him with passion in her green eyes.

Porter beamed down at her. “I’ll tell you everything at Bruno’s. Meet me at five?”

She nodded, then reached into her pocket and handed him a small slip of paper as Clusser came up behind him.

As Alred marched down the concrete steps, the FBI agent sagged loudly, “You’re a lucky man, Porter!”

“Why didn’t you say anything about
them
?” Porter said with a bite in his voice.

“The court knows enough,” said Clusser, relaxed. “They’ve learned the FBI is searching and has reason to believe your case was only a fraction of the big game.”

“You let the whole issue skid by!” said Porter.

Clusser put his hand on Porter’s shoulder to steady him. “They will always exist, Porter. You know that. This little case wouldn’t touch them. If I gave the court too much information, it would only announce that one lone LDS man who works for the FBI has spotted
them
. Let me handle this.”

Porter threw his hands up. There was no more he could do about it. “What if the judge learns of our relationship.”

“He will,” Clusser said with a glow with no grin. “That will prove only that I had motivation to find you innocent. That’s not a crime, if the facts are present, and there are plenty.”

Clusser stuck out his right hand. “So long, John Porter, you’re a good man.”

Porter took his hand like a clamp, tears rising under his eyeslids. He hated partings. “Take care of that wife of yours. Easy come, easy go, they say!”

Clusser smiled. “You don’t know anything about the wiser sex.” He eyed Alred, almost around the corner of the office building beside the courthouse and into the parking lot.

“I still have time to learn,” said Porter, ignoring his gaze.

“Not by my standards!” said Clusser. As he strode down the steps in a different direction than Alred went, Porter had the terrible feeling their relationship would remain the same for years to come.

Porter realized he had no way to get home, and it was a long drive. But there was no worry. Porter started for the parking lot after Alred, who wouldn’t get to her car before he caught up. Nevertheless, he pushed his feet at high speed down the courthouse stairs while slipping his hands into his suit pockets.

“John Porter?” said a man with a microphone as Porter moved down the sidewalk, his eyes scanning ahead to make sure Alred’s car wasn’t pulling out of the lot too quickly.

Spinning to see the reporter, the student slammed into the old man selling newspapers.

“Mr. Porter, congratulations on your case! May we ask you a few questions?”

A cameraman appeared with a beautiful Japanese contraption hanging around his neck while his right shoulder was armed with a larger camera with a Channel 12 logo in blue and pink on the side.

Though slightly flattered, Porter asked forgiveness from the newspaper salesman, and looked back to the parking lot around the side of the building. “I’ve gotta get my ride,” said Porter as the news anchor started in with inquiries as to how he’d felt in the courtroom, and whether or not he truly believed the Mormons were right about the end of the world, and when exactly would that finale come, and—Porter really wasn’t listening.

The old man swore at them and moved away.

Porter kept walking as the jabbering reporter stepped in front of him, lowered the microphone as said, “Then one shot! Please, just a picture! Sandy, get over here!!!”

The cameraman came around in front of Porter and put the black machine up to his eye. The inquirer in a flashy yellow shirt stood beside Porter as the camera snapped three times.

“Now just one with the courthouse in the background,” said the professional annoyance as Porter spoke.

“No, I really need to go.”

“Last one, I promise!” he said, waving energetic hands. He stepped beside Sandy and looked at Porter and the background. “This is good!”

Porter sighed and quickly turned to see where they were in relation to the front of the courthouse, which was still somewhat in view around the brick office building. He grinned a fake curve of teeth which Clusser would have been proud of.

The flamboyant newsperson, a little man with the microphone swinging from some kind of hook on his belt now, waved his arms. “No, a little right. Right, Mr. Porter, please, thank you that’s beautiful. Now back, back…Good! Now Sandy!”

Just behind him against the curb, Porter heard a van door roar open on metal wheels as he concentrated on his smile. Four hands grabbed and yanked his body like it was a cloth doll. The world disappeared, and the dark interior of the van grew crowded as Sandy and the reporter jumped in. The door closed while someone struck Porter across the face twice.

When the van started moving, Porter realized he was pinned and not just dazed. His head exploded with a flash of light as they threw him against the side of the empty automobile. His arms bent backward, and he screamed out, struggling against—what—he could not tell. He heard the screech and bellow of duck tape being pulled from the roll. They bound his wrists together as the reporter hit him and said, “Sorry for soiling your suit.”

“You gotta be insane snagging me in front of a Federal courthouse! The whole planet probably saw you!” said Porter, his eyelids fluttering, his hands raised to ward off further attacks. He felt the tape tear at the skin on his forearms, his heart pumping so fast and hard it hurt. They yanked him around, and Porter hit metal again with his chin.

Leaning his face close to Porter’s, the reporter said, “Do you think we would have picked you up right there if others were watching?”

“What about the old man selling newspapers!” said Porter, his eyes only beginning to adjust to the darkness. “And the old lady walking the dog!”

“They are
our
eyes, Mr. Porter,” said a voice from the passenger seat in the front of the vehicle.

Porter whipped his head around. Against the blinding light of the windshield, he could clearly make out a man looking back, a face filled with darkness.

“Peter Arnott!” said Porter.

Arnott turned to the reporter. “Excellent work Mr. Goodwill.”

The assassin leaned again to Porter’s face and whispered. “I’ve never missed an opportunity to kill a mark I’ve been hired to hit. You would’ve been my first loss.”

*  *  *

It felt like a ski mask, but it didn’t matter what it was. Porter fought claustrophobia and couldn’t see a thing. They drove for hours, or so it seemed. No one said a word, and when the car finally stopped, Porter felt Harvey Goodwill grab his shoulder and come close enough to kiss his right ear.

“The cold sensation against the back of your neck is the icy muzzle of a lovely 10 mm Colt Delta Elite handgun,” said Goodwill. “We will escort you into a building, into an elevator, and into a room. You will say nothing, or you will be shot and buried in the cement of some new construction site. I have every reason to kill you for free, Mr. Porter. I fear no one. I suggest…silence.”

They wanted him alive. It was Porter’s only comforting thought. But his heart went into overdrive, and he pictured himself jumping off a building and into the tops of a brittle tree to escape. Stupid. He could have killed himself. But that was passed, and things had grown worse. If he tried to run now, it would definitely be the end.

It hurt when they tore the tape off his wrists. They never removed the ski mask. Would anyone see him, his head covered as he entered the building to which Goodwill alluded? Would they suspect anything nasty? Call in the police? Or would they be as dirty as the men who grabbed him? Porter would never be sure.

Finally, the short trek by foot ended as Goodwill had described.

Porter heard a door close. No one spoke. Goodwill released him. But the room reeked with the sensation of cold eyes and old breath.

“Thank you, Mr. Goodwill,” said an aged voice some ways away. It was a big room, with a ceiling low and soft enough that Porter heard no echo. In fact, as he thought about it, he heard nothing but the tick of a clock on an unseen wall. No cars outside, though when they had left the van he had no doubt he was in the middle of some city. Porter could hear his own heart pumping, and that worried him. He stood still as ancient stone in an Egyptian desert.

“Take off the mask, Mr. Porter.”

The light was bright as Porter pulled the hood from his head. He saw an expensive room with pictures of presidents and other prominent political figures along each wall but the one filled with windows covered by shades. Porter tightened his eyes on numerous faces from the dusty past he’d studied throughout his college career.

Was that Herodotus?

And that one Solon?

Thomas Jefferson?

A long table dominated the room, with high-backed chairs running around it. In each seat sat a man who easily should have been retired. They all looked at him through coarse webs of wrinkles. But they held themselves up with metal skeletons hidden beneath their flesh and atrociously expensive suits.

The one at the far end, whose features were difficult to see, spoke while the others listened. “You’ve failed us, Peter. We have confirmed that the FBI has quite a file on you at present. It’s only a matter of time before they track you down. You’re a liability now.”

“I brought you John Porter,” said Arnott without showing signs of stress. “I brought you the codex.”

“You have brought us, if only slightly, beneath the microscope of the ever searching Federal Bureau of Investigations. We can live with this. We can make up for your mistakes. We’ve returned from worse conditions in the past. But you must pay for your crimes.”

Arnott looked at Porter, and Porter saw all the blood drain from the pseudo-professor’s cheeks. “I still have assets to give.”

“You are a lie, Peter. You are a bad one. Goodwill, please escort him into the next room,” said the old man as the assassin’s black pistol lifted. The tip of the barrel bumped Arnott lightly against his cranium. “We will speak again in a moment.”

Porter watched Goodwill lead Arnott to the door.

Arnott said nothing, but kept his head high, his shoulders level, his eyes as unshaken as possible. But both Arnott and Porter knew he was a dead man.

“There are two kinds of people in this world, Mr. Porter,” said the old man at the end of the lengthy slab of cherry wood. “The successful and the unsuccessful. I’m sure you will agree that the difference between the two is that successful people
do
things they do
not
necessarily enjoy. Yet some things need to happen…for the good of the whole.”

In a moment of silence, Porter felt the old man’s eyes examining him from afar. As his eyes adjusted to the lighting, he realized the room was actually dimly lit from the ceiling. Then the gentleman said slowly, “Tell us the location of KM-
3
. We know you have it, and we understand your motivation behind keeping it.”

“You want it destroyed,” said Porter, not hiding anymore. They recognized the truth as well as he did. But Porter couldn’t understand their motivations.

The old man at the far end of the table lifted his chin. “The rest of the world will thank you.”

“I will never give it to you. You’d better kill me now.”

Everyone smiled. Some even laughed lightly.

“We do not intend to make you a martyr, Mr. Porter. We won’t fuel your passionate religious flame. But there must be a balance in the world. The codex cannot come to light.”

“Like the Dead Sea Scrolls,” said Porter. “Were
you
the ones behind their suppression?”

The old man kept his hands under the table. He didn’t move at all while speaking. “You realize the scrolls of Qumran are trivial compared to KM-3. Their ambiguity among the professionals is an adequate shield protecting the Earth’s population. I do not intend to bribe you either, Mr. Porter, but we are willing to pay a worthy sum to take possession of your precious Mesoamerican codex.”

“So you can do what you will with it?”

“Don’t play hero, Porter. Your life is nothing. No one will notice or even care when you are gone.”

“I matter to you,” said Porter, his lips trembling.

“Two million dollars,” said the old man as others watched for Porter’s expression. “I’ve attempted to explain the value of KM-3. It has nothing to do with religion.”

“Right.”

“The price is negotiable, Mr. Porter. We are prepared to discuss the manuscript’s worth in relation to
your
needs. And I am sure you recognize our resolve to purchase the document. You may choose not to sell. You have your agency. But you also must be aware that we will be obliged to kill you if you decide not to do business with us. What figure do you put on the codex?”

Smelling the freshness of the recently cleaned carpet, Porter imagined himself on a plane to Hawaii. A degree, a vacation, and all the money he would need for the rest of his life…it was all being laid before him. Like the kingdoms of the world placed by Satan before Christ in the first book of the New Testament. Yet this was different. This was what Porter longed for. Peace at last. Every stumbling block had dropped in his path, and all would be taken away instantly if he demanded it. They offered him power, not just money. They put him in a position to request anything. And he had the firm feeling they
would
comply. But could he ever revoke the truth, the testimony he’d given in court, the experiences he’d had, and the knowledge in his heart?

With wet lips, Porter said, “You know others will eventually seek out and find Ulman’s site. Albright’s article was enough to plant that seed of curiosity.”

The old man smiled. “You don’t know how easy it is to hide these things. You see…there has been a most unfortunate occurrence in the Highlands of Guatemala recently. There appears to have been a battle between drug lords in the area.”