The Twisted Cross (20 page)

He had to shake himself out of this unrealistic haze every once and a while -

a touch of his hand to the breast pocket

of his flight suit usually did the trick. The critical - almost desperate -

nature of the task at hand would always come flooding back to him whenever he felt the folded bulge of the American flag he always kept over his heart.

As for the photo of Dominique wrapped inside it -he hadn't dared to look at it in days . . .

Hunter's first stop was the coastal town of Cancun, a former high-priced vacation spot located on the northeastern tip of the Yucatan peninsula.

Mexico had been a mystery to the democratic forces in North America since the imposition of the New Order. Intelligence from the country was always very sketchy at best -and if border activity with Texas was any indication, then most people believed that the entire country was now populated with murderers, rapists, white slavers, drug lords and thieves.

But Hunter knew it was neither wise nor fair to make such generalizations. The major border towns between the old State of Texas and Mexico had always been magnets for shady characters on both sides. By the same token, the southern half of Mexico -that territory beyond Mexico City -had always been quite different from the northern half.

It was almost as if Time had stopped in the Yucatan and in the other nearby Central American countries of Belize and Guatemala as well. But less settled didn't always mean less civilized and Hunter knew that these lands in the Yucatan and close by were once inhabited by some of the most civilized people on Earth . . .

Nearly two thousand years before, while the rest of the world was still counting on its fingers and toes, the Mayans were breezing through all kinds of advanced mathematics. While the rest of "civilization" was living in glorified animal stables, the Mayans were building incredibly complex city states -complete with elaborate pyramids and temples, causeways, marketplaces, sports stadiums and housing for tens of thousands.

The Mayans knew of astronomy - that the Earth circled the sun and not the other way around. They had calendars and were able to conceive of the notion of years that had passed and years that were yet to be. They devised an incredibly complex and sophisticated writing system. They knew enough about their environment to institute workable soil and water management systems.

They created networks of trade routes. They built canals. They had organized health care for their citizens, built schools, hospitals, even billboards.

But all this couldn't prevent their downfall -or a better term for it was their disappearance. Despite years of study and / many theories - ranging from invasions to natural disasters-no one quite knew just what had happened to the Mayans and why their great culture suddenly collapsed. There was even a theory that they had been visited by beings from outer space - ancient astronauts who brought them all for a ride they never returned from.

Whatever the reason, the Mayan civilization simply vanished, leaving behind just hints of their magnificence and one hell of a mystery.

That seemed to be the normal state of affairs for the Yucatan . . .

Hunter wasn't too surprised to find Cancun deserted.

He landed the Kingfisher easily enough in a manmade bay, next to a huge, abandoned luxury hotel, that was shaped, ironically enough, like a Mayan pyramid. He spent three hours wandering around the hotel and the surrounding resort area, some of it still showing signs of damage caused by a whopper of a hurricane called Gilbert years before. He was intrigued by the good condition of everything-beds in the hotel were made, there was liquor in bars and food in the ice chests, though long ago frozen over. There was even electricity in some parts of the modern pyramid, though he couldn't imagine where the power was being generated from.

All this struck him as being very odd. Just like the Ma-175 Mayans many centuries before, it looked as if the people who had inhabited this pyramid had simply vanished too . . .

He spent the night in a swanky suite located at the very top of the hotel. The next morning he lucked out when he found a holding tank full of non-contaminated fuel which was compatible with the Kingfisher's engine. He topped off his tanks, "borrowed" two bottles of Scotch from the hotel bar and took off, heading south to a place called Coba.

Colonel Krupp had found it nearly impossible to sleep the hot and humid night before.

He would have liked to believe the insomnia was due to the excitement of finally reaching Uxmaluna, the most important of the Mayan sites.

But he knew this was not the case.

Not entirely, anyway. True, tossing and turning on his sweaty bedclothes, his cabin hot and filled with mosquitoes, he found he couldn't stop thinking about the place. Even an educated yet jaded mind like his couldn't deny the magnificence of the Mayan ruins was almost overwhelming. As the original second-in-command of the Recovery Operation, Krupp had spent three months in hiding on Bermuda rereading many of his old textbooks on the Yucatan and the various sites his unit would plunder. It had seemed like such a waste of time then, especially under the shady circumstances that had he and the other staff officers going to Bermuda in the first place. But now that he was in charge, he was glad he had taken the clandestine refresher course.

To the uninformed observer, Uxmaluna simply looked like a square-mile clearing in the middle of the dense jungle-a clearing that contained 12 massive earthen mounds, most wearing a cover of small trees and scrub bushes.

If it weren't for their square-to-square pattern, one might have dismissed the mounds as a natural part of the rugged terrain. In reality, a meticulously-planned city lay hidden beneath the dozen hills.

Built near a massive outcrop of limestone - the material of its construction -

Uxmaluna was once the home to tens of thousands of people, maybe as many as 100,000. On the surrounding land that was now covered with nearly impenetrable jungle, these people grew beans, chili peppers, squash and early corn. For water, they built drains and manmade reservoirs, some of which were layered with lime on the bottom -a primitive, but effective means of water purification.

The buildings and pyramids themselves - several partially uncovered by a pre-war expedition - were constructed of limestone covered with stucco. A reddish pigment called ferric oxide was washed over the stucco to hold off erosion. Around the structures were open plazas and concourses with many platforms and causeways built throughout - all this no doubt needed to handle the huge crowds of people who lived, worked, did business and worshipped in the city.

All in all the place was a tremendous architectural feat, one that would be difficult to duplicate even in pre-war times. And now it was inhabited only by the jungle animals, the insects, the birds and the ghosts of those who once lived here. Even to the unimaginative Krupp there came a feeling that in walking amongst the ruins, one was treading on hallowed ground.

But it was what lay beneath these buildings, in the deep mud-lined caves, that brought Krupp and his small army to the place. Perhaps the Mayan leaders had been clairvoyant; maybe they knew that some day strangers would arrive and lust after their gold. Assuming that it was their gold. Whatever the case, the Mayans decided to hide the bullion - and they hid it so well that it stayed concealed despite the flood of expeditions of legitimate explorers, archaeologists and grave robbers. It was only with the advent of Deep Zone Archaeology were the secret treasures found at sites like this.

Krupp had spent a long time lying in bed that night thinking about the gold that almost definitely lay hidden nearby. It excited him, no small feat. In the dead of night, sweating bullets and still wide awake, he tried to convince himself that perhaps he too was catching a bit of the gold fever, and that it had contributed to his sleeplessness.

But try as he might, he couldn't fool himself. He knew the real reason he hadn't fallen asleep. It was because of the woman . . .

He had wrestled with the idea of ordering her back to his truck and finally forcing himself on her. Drinking too much the time before had been an incredible blunder on his part. His virility, whatever of that he might have, had been quickly sapped by the bad brandy. He knew that even if by some miracle the woman had been willing, he would not have been able to perform. /

What was worse, he was certain she knew this, and in her own way, was laughing at him behind his back, too.

So he had begged for sleep. But when it finally came, in the guise of a fitful slumber, things just got worse. He dreamed he saw Heinke, his missing commander, standing on the edge of the Uxmaluna clearing, beckoning him to join him in the woods . . .

Once again he was up and awake like a shot. He was trembling and having difficulty catching his breath. What was happening to him? It was as if something very evil was haunting his brain cells and would not let go.

Four aspirins and a glass of the vile brandy was what it took to settle him back down.

"Foolish men dream foolish dreams," he whispered, afraid to close his eyes again.

Krupp was by himself, sweating and hacking his way through the dense jungle.

Five sentries posted to watch this southern rim of the encampment were missing, unaccounted for in the rugged blood-red piece of terrain that seemed miles away from the blasted-out corridor leading out of Uxmaluna.

It was unbearably hot. The more Krupp chopped away at the vegetation, the more it surrounded him. He was covered with hordes of gigantic, blood-sucking mosquitoes. They were biting him all over his face and wrists. They were flying down his backside, up his pant legs and even up his nostrils.

Suddenly his second-in-command was standing beside him, holding a radio.

"They've found them, sir," the man told Krupp. "Not far from here . . ."

Krupp wondered why the junior officer was not sweating or covered with mosquitoes. "They were lost?" he asked.

"They're dead, sir," the man answered, his voice showing absolutely no sign of emotion.

The next thing he knew, Krupp had reached the spot from where others in the search party had called. He found six of his soldiers sitting passively by a small stream. Two of them were naked. Occasionally one man would reach down and splash water into his face, as someone just getting out of bed might do.

"Where are they?" Krupp asked the soldiers.

One man looked up at him and smiled. He opened his mouth, but did not speak.

Another simply pointed to a clearing on the other side of the narrow stream.

Krupp splashed into the stream which suddenly seemed too deep for its width.

The water was moving too fast and he felt as if it were sucking him down.

Several times he almost lost his footing, terror gripping him because he knew if he fell, he might not be able to get back up again.

Finally he blundered out of the water and into the clearing. Suddenly he felt something sticking to his boot. He looked down and realized that he had nearly stepped right into the open chest of one of the dead men.

They were all there. Five of them. Decapitated, disemboweled, hacked to pieces like the jungle vines. Most were missing arms and legs. Each man had had the heart torn right out of his chest. The soil beneath the bodies was already turning black with the release of blood and other body fluids.

, Krupp couldn't move. He wanted to shut his eyes but they refused. He stared at the severed head of one of the

f

soldiers and realized that he had spoken to the man just the night before. A look of unspeakable horror was frozen on this soldier's face. His eyes were wide open, his mouth agape in shock. Already the insects were feasting on his flesh

Then the man's eyes turned and looked right up at him "Why did you bring us here, Colonel?" the decapitated

man asked him.

Krupp woke up screaming . . .

Hunter was 15 miles out from Coba when one of his minicomputers started buzzing.

He twisted around in the Kingfisher's cockpit and pushed a series of buttons on a panel just above the noisy computer. Turning back, he looked down at a miniature TV screen that was bolted next to his right foot.

"Damn . . ." he cursed under his breath as he saw a green blip pop onto the screen.

The computer had issued a correct warning: Someone down there had a SAM.

He quickly rechecked his position. He was at 4800 feet, cruising into a brisk headwind at 160 mph. He had just turned inland twenty minutes before, overflying a city named Puerto Morelos after having followed the coast down from Cancun. Once he had spotted a place called Playa Carmen off to his south, he determined that the ancient Mayan site of Coba was a little more than a dozen miles away to his southwest.

His computer started buzzing once again, this time with a higher, shriller tone. This meant the Kingfisher would soon be within striking distance of the SAM.

He immediately put the seaplane into a dive, cranking up his small Electronic Counter-Measures package and arming all his weapons in the process. Just because there was a SAM in the area, it didn't mean that the person with his finger on the trigger wanted to shoot it at him. Still, he couldn't take any chances . . .

Once he was down to a safer 1500 feet, he switched on his radio and pushed the frequency scan button. There was an immediate crackle of static as the radio started to run through the frequency range, seeking the nearest, strongest signal. It found one a few seconds later.

"West wall is about to go!" Hunter heard through the garble of static and atmospheric interference. "We need men ... on the west wall!" "Mortar teams

... to the battery!" he heard a different voice cry out. "Hurry! . . . they're breaking through!"

Hunter reached down and pushed the radio's signal amplifier to maximum, at the same time straining his ears to make some sense out of the confusion and static. Not only was the signal garbled, it also sounded like there was one hell of a firefight going on wherever the broadcast was originating from.