The Mayan Apocalypse (4 page)

Drumming her fingers on the table, she resisted the urge to look in the drawers and galley. Instead, she retrieved her BlackBerry and checked the signal strength. Three bars were good enough. She activated the Internet browser and did a search for “Andrew Morgan.”

“Nuts.” The name was so common that Google returned over fifteen million hits. Most of those would only be vaguely related to
the name. On the bulkhead that separated the cabin from the cockpit, there was a logo woven into the cloth covering:
Morgan Natural Energy
. She entered, “Andrew Morgan Morgan Natural Energy.” A few seconds later, she had several good hits.

Using journalistic skills honed since her college days, she scanned the sites. She learned he wasn't yet forty and had been CEO for the last seven years following the death of his father. A business evaluation site gave the company five stars for leadership, innovation, and service.

On a whim, Lisa clicked on “Images.” Scores of photos appeared, too many to scan on her phone's small screen. She did see photos of him in a tuxedo at a fund-raiser for some charity. She also saw images of him in what appeared to be foreign locations.

She reached for her computer, hoping her wireless service would be fast enough for another quick Internet search. Before she could unzip the bag her host reappeared.

“Look out the window.” He stepped in the craft.

“What?”

“The window. Look out it.”

“At what?”

“Oh, for the love of…Just look.” Morgan pointed at the window by her head.

Lisa turned and scanned as much of the airport as the window allowed.

Morgan sat in the seat at the opposite side of the table and stared out the window.

“What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“The airplane.”

Lisa snapped her head around. “You don't mean it! There's an aircraft at the airport? How could that happen?” She followed the words with a chuckle.

“Cute. I thought reporters were supposed be observant. The Bombardier.”

“The more you talk, the more confused I become.”

He chortled. “The other business jet. The one taxiing on the
tarmac. Look at the tail section. That's the tall metal thing sticking out of the back of the plane.”

“That much I know.” She studied the sleek craft. “What about it?”

“The logo. It doesn't look familiar to you?”

“Should it?”

Morgan sighed for effect. “The snake. The feathers.”

Lisa didn't know what to say.

“Robert Quetzal was wearing a lapel pin just like that.”

Lisa furrowed her brow. “How could you see something as small as a lapel pin? Oh, the projection screen.” Her attention had been divided by Quetzal's speech, the crowd, her notepad, and her recorder. She hadn't looked at anything beyond the man's appearance. “That's his jet?”

“That'd be my guess.”

“I suppose if I said, ‘Follow that plane,' you'd get right on it.”

“Sure. As long as he's going to San Antonio.”

“Mr. Morgan?”

Lisa looked forward to the open door. A man in dark pants and a white shirt with a captain's chevrons on the shoulders' epaulets stepped into the cabin. A younger man with only three gold stripes on his shoulders followed and then slipped into the cockpit.

“Yes, Steve.”

“We're ready, sir. With your permission, we'll see if we can get this thing to fly.”

Morgan rose and walked forward.

Lisa sneaked a look at her cell phone, toggled over to the search results, and was about to sign off when she saw a link that caught her eye. It was listed under “News.” She followed the link, which took her to an archived article for an Oklahoma newspaper: O
ILMAN'S
F
AMILY
D
IES IN
P
LANE
C
RASH
.

Fifteen minutes later, the jet took to the air.

A
s the jet flew east, Morgan moved across the cabin and took a seat next to one of the port windows. Below, the desert was painted in ever-changing hues of brown. He knew he couldn't see the area where it happened. It was too many miles away and behind them. Colorado was to their north, the red-painted Utah.

“Is that where it happened?” Lisa's voice was soft and measured, just loud enough to be heard over the engine noise.

Morgan tore his eyes away and looked at his guest. “Where what happened?”

She didn't answer his question. “Do you know who Horatio G. Spafford was?”

“No. Should I?”

She shrugged. “He was a successful lawyer in the late 1800s. He lived what some considered a charmed life. He had fame and more money than he knew what to do with. He was also a man of faith and very involved in the evangelistic movement led by Dwight Moody and others.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

She shifted in her chair. “They lost a son to scarlet fever. The boy was only four. Not long after that, the family lost much of its wealth in the great Chicago fire. Still, they remained faithful, and Spafford continued helping in evangelistic work. His wife, Anna, however, still struggled with their losses. They decided to take a cruise to Europe, but a business emergency kept Spafford home. He sent his wife and other children on ahead.”

“There's a point to this.” Morgan didn't like where this was headed.

“The ship his family was on was rammed and sunk in three miles of water in less than twelve minutes. Out of three hundred and seven passengers, only eighty-one survived. Anna Spafford was one of them. They found her floating unconscious in the water. Later she would describe being towed under by the sinking ship. The current, filled with debris, pulled one of her children from her arms. A young man had rescued two of the girls, but they were too weak to hold on to the planks he used as a life preserver. They slipped beneath the surface. When she reached shore, she sent a telegram to her husband telling him she was the lone survivor.”

“Lisa—”

She held up a hand. He could see tears in her eyes. “Survivors watched Anna closely. They thought she might take her own life. Who could blame her? Lost one child to disease and three more by drowning.”

“You think I'm suicidal? You don't know me well enough to—”

“She heard a soft voice: ‘You were saved for a purpose.' That voice got her through.” She inhaled deeply before continuing. “Horatio Spafford sailed for Europe to be with his wife. The captain of his ship called him to the bridge and told him that they were passing over the spot where his wife's ship went down. That night, he wrote the words that became one of the best-known hymns in Christendom: ‘It Is Well with My Soul.' Have you ever heard it?”

“I grew up in the Bible Belt. Of course I've heard it.” He looked away. “I take it you're one of the faithful.”

“I'm a Christian, yes. I write for an online Christian newspaper.”

“I should have known.”

“Shall I step out of the plane?”

That made Morgan smile. “That might tarnish my image as a gentleman. How do you know so much about Spafford?”

“I wrote a feature article about him while working for my college paper.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “So how did you find out?”

She held up her cell phone.

“You're not supposed to have that on.”

“I turned it off before we got to the runway.”

He reclined his seat and stared at the ceiling. “So you told me that story so I can feel better about my dead family?”

“Feel better? Is that possible? I've never lost someone that close.”

“Yet you're going to tell me that you understand and that life will get better.”

“Not at all.” Her words carried a touch of heat.

“Then why the story?”

“Never mind. Sorry I brought it up.”

Morgan glanced at her. She had turned her face back to the window but not before he saw it redden.

“My son was one of you.”

“A woman?”

“Again, cute. No, he was a Christian. Got involved in a local Baptist church. I think it was all the youth activities that drew him in. You know, people his age. Girls his age.”

“It couldn't be that he was searching for the truth?”

Morgan's temper rose. “I guess I'll never know.”

“It's time.” Bob Newton wished he had more data, but the radio relay between the monitors on the volcano and his equipment in San Pedro was still incapacitated. “We can't wait any longer.”

“Are you sure?” Profirio Galicia asked.

As if answering his question, a deep rumble rocked the community building. “As sure as I can be without hard information.”

“What about the others?” Profirio referred to the team that had gone up El Popo three hours before.

“They radioed that they were on their way back down. They couldn't fix the relay board. They said the mountain is becoming
more active. CO
₂
and SO
₂
levels are lower, which means El Popo is not degassing properly, and the number of tremors has increased substantially. The time has come. We can't take any chances.”

“But last time—”

“But last time the volcano didn't erupt. I know, Profirio, but what if it had? I'd rather go down in history for being too early than being too late.”

“I'll inform the mayor.”

“Don't inform him. You tell him in no uncertain terms to clear this town out and to do it now. He needs to deliver the same message to the other communities. I'll notify the Mexican Civil Protection Agency, although they've been monitoring things from Cuernavaca. They probably already know.”

Profirio nodded. “I understand.” He ran from the room.

Newton wondered if Profirio really understood. Popocatépetl had been active over the last few years and there was clear evidence about two previous major eruptions in 400
B.C.
and
A.D.
822. Entire towns had disappeared. Over the last few years, the volcano had made a lot of noise but had done very little damage. It would vent from time to time, throwing gray ash and fiery projectiles high into the air, which would later rain down on the earth. Quarter-inch bits of debris called
clasts
had fallen as far as seven miles away. Ash had been propelled 27,000 feet in the air. And those events were mere belches compared to what a volcano like El Popo could do.

Bob Newton stepped from the building and into the street, leaving the door behind him open so that he could hear the radio. He turned to face the mountain. A thick column of smoky ash rose into the sky. But it wasn't the sight of a pillar of smoke that made Newton uneasy—it was what he couldn't see.

El Popo wasn't the biggest volcano in the world, nor was it the most dangerous, but it was dangerous enough. Thirty million people lived within fifty miles of the peak, including those who resided in Mexico City. A significant eruption would impact them all. The worst hit would be the smaller towns near the foot of the mountain.
These would be choked with ash and bombarded by burning projectiles. There would be mudslides, avalanches, and—depending on how El Popo blew—possible lava flows.

It would be the realization of Dante's Hell.

Newton stared at the mountain. Where were his people?

“Tell me you think I'm brilliant.” Robert Sanchez, known to his followers as Robert Quetzal, sat in one of the white leather seats in the Bombardier's passenger compartment. The seat was reclined, and its padded leg support extended in front of him. In the seat next to him rested his expensive suit coat, neatly folded. The sound of the aircraft filled his ears with white noise and was close to lulling him to sleep.

“I always think you're brilliant.” Charles Balfour sounded slightly miffed. Quetzal heard the man tapping the keyboard of a laptop computer.

“You don't say it enough. We creative types are an insecure bunch.”

“So I've noticed.” More keyboarding.

“Must you always work? Or are you playing a video game?”

“Yes. No. I wouldn't know how to play a video game.”

Quetzal imagined the man's matchstick fingers doing their disco dance on plastic keys.

“Maybe you should learn. It would give you a relaxing diversion.”

“First-person shooter games are relaxing?”

“You could start off with solitaire or checkers.”

Balfour snickered. “I have an IQ over a hundred and eighty, and I'm an expert in several fields. I don't think checkers would do anything for me. I enjoy what I do. I don't need diversion, especially now. The 2012 clock is ticking. I'm not going to spend those seconds pushing digital cards around on a computer screen.”

“Then what are you pushing around?” Quetzal turned his head and expended the energy to open his eyes. The thin man sat hunched
over a table, face close to the screen, sharp shoulders threatening to pierce the thin shoulder pads of his coat. “You could at least take your coat off and act like you're comfortable. This is the most luxurious jet you'll ever be in.”

“You sure about that? If I have my way, we both will have a fleet of these.”

“Dream big, friend. Dream big.” He waited a moment. “You never answered my question.”

“I'm digging up more research on the meteorite strike in Arizona. I can't believe our luck to have that hit while we were in Roswell. I've already sent a directive to the PR firm. We need to make hay off this.”

Quetzal snickered. “Make hay. I haven't heard that for a long time.”

Balfour sighed. “Reports from the general media state the thing destroyed a mechanic's shop.” He turned the screen of the tablet PC so Quetzal could see.

“Guy won't be using that building anytime soon.”

“He won't need to. Recovered meteorites are as valuable as gold. The Peekskill meteor of 1992 hit a parked car. That car has traveled the world raking in big bucks. The H6 meteor was about the size of a bowling ball.”

“I bet it did a job on the car.”

Balfour grunted. “You could say that. Blew through the trunk. Other large meteors have brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars. The owner of the car shop won't need to get his hands dirty for a long time.”

“Too bad it was so small.” Quetzal brought his seat upright.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Look, I haven't studied like you have, but judging by those pictures, the crater it left must be pretty small.”

Balfour nodded. “The early reports say the rock ripped through the roof and knocked down a couple of walls. It also fractured the foundation.”

“See what I mean? Interesting as that is, it's not a life-ending event. It will be forgotten in a few days.”

“Let's let PR find the right way to spin this. We pay them barrels of money to do that.”

“You can only spin things so far, Chuck. People, especially Americans, have very short attention spans. If something new isn't shoved in their face from time to time, they go on to other things.”