“You should try again for help,” said Sam. “The national police in Guatemala City might be more interested in this. As Remi said, we can tell them what we saw.”
“If you could get a message through to Sarah Allersby, the woman who owns the Estancia Guerrero, it might help even more. The doctor and I have hopes that she’s like a lot of absentee landlords. She doesn’t pay much attention, but when she learns what’s been happening on her land, she’ll react.”
Remi sighed. “We can try.”
“You seem doubtful. Why?”
“We met her recently, and I think she might take a letter or a call from us. But our personal impression, and what we’ve heard about her, tells us that she won’t help anyone unless she gets some personal advantage out of it.”
“You think she’s aware of the drug smuggling?”
“We can’t say that,” said Remi. “Just because someone makes a bad impression on us doesn’t mean she’s a criminal. But she struck us as a very spoiled and selfish young woman who didn’t care much about rules.”
“I see,” said Father Gomez. “Well, please try. Having these bandits patrolling the area is a terrible thing. If the drugs disappeared, so would they.”
“We’ll try to talk to her,” said Sam.
“Thank you. We’d better get you to Dr. Huerta. He has patients waiting in the next town.” They got up and strolled down the aisle of the church behind Father Gomez. He opened one of the big doors a couple of inches, then said, “Wait.”
Sam and Remi followed his gaze and saw a small squad of heavily armed policemen had arrived in a personnel carrier. They had stopped Dr. Huerta’s car on the street, and their sergeant was talking to him. He said little and seemed to be annoyed by the intrusion. Finally, he got out of his car, walked across the street with the sergeant, and opened a storefront door, then stepped aside.
The sergeant and two of his men went inside and looked around and then came out. The doctor locked the door again. Then he walked back to the car with the sergeant, who directed him to open the trunk. He opened it, they looked inside, and he closed it. The sergeant nodded to the doctor, and got into the passenger seat of the personnel carrier. His men climbed aboard, and, at his signal, they drove off in the direction of the Estancia Guerrero.
Huerta walked into the church. “That was the same squad of police who came after we wrote to Miss Allersby about what’s happening on her land.”
Father Gomez said, “What did they want with you?”
“Today they’re looking for two people they say are involved in drug smuggling—two strangers, who may be Americans, a man and a woman. They were seen a few miles from here, and when the police raided their camp, they found a large amount of cocaine in their backpacks.”
Sam looked at Remi. “That’s quite a story.”
“I think we’ve got to get you out of here,” said Father Gomez.
“Yes,” said Dr. Huerta. “Come, I’ll take you now.”
Remi said, “We don’t want to endanger you. If they’ll frame us, they’ll frame other people too—maybe you.”
“They’ve given me their message and that will be enough for now. And the sergeant knows even with his friends the drug men, he might be the one who needs a doctor someday. I’m the only one for many miles.”
Remi said, “Father Gomez, we’ll try to let you know how our talk with Sarah Allersby works out.”
“I hope it does. God bless you in your travels.”
They got into the doctor’s car, and he drove them in the direction the trucks had traveled in the night. Almost as soon as the car reached the end of the short main street, the pavement gave way to gravel again. The road wound down and away from the town into a forested valley.
Huerta said, “The town of Santa Maria de los Montañas was a late Mayan settlement. It was built a couple of hundred years after the great cities were abandoned. As you can see, it’s high up, approachable only by one steep road on each side. It was probably a place of refuge after the collapse of the larger society.”
“It must have been a tough place for the Spanish to conquer.”
“They couldn’t do it,” said Dr. Huerta. “The Indians in the area were very warlike. What happened was that Dominican missionaries, friars led by Las Casas, came and converted the Indians peacefully.”
“Bartolomé de Las Casas?” asked Remi.
“Yes,” said Huerta. “He’s a national hero. He founded a mission at Rabinal, pacified the Indians, and baptized them one by one. That’s why this region is called Las Verapaces. It means ‘Lands of True Peace.’”
Sam noticed the doctor’s expression as he drove on. “Is something wrong?”
Dr. Huerta shook his head. “I’m sorry, I was thinking sad thoughts about Las Casas. His dream of a Guatemala where the Mayans had equal rights never came true, even now. The Mayan people have suffered a very long time. And during civil wars in any country, the ones who suffer most are the poorest.”
Remi said, “Is that why you practice medicine way up here?”
He shrugged. “Logic would dictate that I work with the people who need me the most. Whenever I want to leave, I think of that.”
“What’s that up ahead?” said Remi. “It looks like one of the marijuana trucks.”
“Get your heads down,” said Dr. Huerta. “I’ll try to get rid of them.”
Sam and Remi ducked down in the backseat. Sam lay on his side on the floor, Remi lay on the seat and covered him and herself with the blanket Dr. Huerta had on the seat so it looked as though she were sick and the only passenger.
Dr. Huerta drove ahead. The truck was stopped in the middle of the road, and the driver and the guard were out of the cab, waving Huerta’s approaching car to a stop. “It looks like they have engine trouble. They want me to stop,” Dr. Huerta said to Sam and Remi.
“You don’t have much choice,” said Sam. “Do it.”
Dr. Huerta stopped behind the truck, and the driver walked up to his window. He addressed the doctor in Spanish, and the doctor replied, waving his arm in the direction of Remi lying on the backseat. The man quickly stepped back two steps from the car and gestured to the doctor to keep going. Dr. Huerta drove on.
Remi had been listening. “What is parótidas?” she asked.
“It’s a common viral illness. In English, it’s called mumps. I told him you had a case at its most contagious stage. In adult males, it can cause impotence.”
Remi laughed. “Very quick thinking.” She pulled the blanket aside so Sam could sit up beside her.
An hour later, Dr. Huerta dropped them off in a larger village, and soon they were sitting in the back of a bus heading down toward the city of Cobán. From Cobán to Guatemala City was another hundred thirty-three miles, a five-hour trip.
When they reached Guatemala City, they checked into the Real InterContinental Hotel in the center of the Zona Viva, the tenth zone, where the best restaurants and nightlife can be found. When Sam and Remi were up in their room and could plug in their telephones to replenish their charges, Sam called the Guatemala City branch of an American bank where he had an account and arranged to rent a safe-deposit box.
He and Remi walked the three blocks to the bank, rented the box, and placed the gold and jade artifacts they’d found in the underground river in it, where they would be safe.
They walked back to their hotel, stopping in fashionable shops along the way to buy new clothes and a pair of suitcases, and then they called Selma.
“Where have you two been?” she asked. “We’ve been trying to call you for two days.”
“Our phone batteries ran down when we took them for a swim,” said Remi. She gave Selma the name of their hotel, their room number, and a brief version of how they had come to be there. She ended with, “And how is everything at home?”
“Bad,” said Selma. “I’m almo
st afraid to tell you.”
“I’m going to put you on speaker so Sam can hear too,” said Remi.
“All right,” said Selma. “Someone arranged to have four men come to the university and impersonate FBI and U.S. Customs agents and two Mexican cultural officials. They showed credentials, and the university administrators looked up the names to verify these people existed. So—”
“Did they get the codex?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry. I hope you won’t blame David Caine. The university’s lawyers said the codex had to be turned over to legitimate Mexican officials, so the academic vice chancellor led these men right to the archival room where David had the codex under a magnifier. We found out that the administrators even had the campus police standing by in case David had to be restrained.”
“We’re not blaming David,” Sam said. “See if you can find out where Sarah Allersby was at the time. The fact that we had a prowler right after she and her lawyers tried to buy the codex makes her my favorite suspect.”
“Her private plane took off from Los Angeles late the night after the theft,” Selma said. “She had been scheduled to fly out the evening after she came to the house, but a new flight plan was filed the night she actually left.”
“Where was she headed?” asked Sam.
“The flight plan was for Guatemala City.”
“So she’s here?” Remi said. “She brought the codex here?”
“It would seem so,” said Selma. “That’s an advantage of a private plane. You don’t have to hide what you steal in your luggage.”
GUATEMALA CITY
For over two hundred years, Sarah Allersby’s mansion in Guatemala City had been the home of the wealthy Guerrero family. It was a Spanish palace, built with a massive set of stone steps, a carved façade, and high double doors in front. The wings of the two-story house continued all the way around to enclose a large courtyard.
When Sam and Remi knocked, a tall, muscular man in his mid-thirties with the face and build of a boxer, and who might have been the butler but was probably the chief of security, opened the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Fargo?”
“Yes,” said Sam.
“You’re expected. Please come in.” He stepped back to let them pass and then looked up and down the street as he shut the door. “Miss Allersby will see you in the library.” Dominating the foyer were a pair of eight-foot-high stone slabs with carvings of particularly fierce-looking Mayan deities that seemed to be guarding the house. He led the Fargos past them to a doorway off the foyer that had a high, ornately carved stone lintel that Remi judged was from a Mayan building. Inside was the sort of library that could be found in English country houses, if they were old enough and the owners were rich enough. The man waited until Sam and Remi were seated on a large, old-fashioned leather couch and went out.
The room was designed to convey long tenure and social standing. There was an antique globe, about four feet in diameter, on a stand. Antique lecterns along the side of the room held large, open books—one an old Spanish dictionary and the other a hand-tinted, seventeenth-century atlas. The walls were lined with tall bookshelves that held thousands of leather-bound books. Hung along the inner wall, above the bookcases of nineteenth-century works, were portraits of Spanish ladies, with mantillas over their hair and in lace gowns, and Spanish gentlemen in black coats. It occurred to Remi that this room was not Sarah Allersby’s doing. She had simply got the Guerrero house and occupied it. Remi verified the impression by looking at the nearest shelf of books, which had Spanish titles embossed on their spines in gold.
At the far end of the room, a glass case displayed beaten gold and carved jade ornaments from the costume of a classic period Mayan dignitary, a selection of fanciful Mayan clay pots shaped like frogs, dogs, and birds, and eight figurines of cast gold.
They heard the pock-pock of high heels striking the polished stone floor as Sarah Allersby crossed the foyer. She entered the room at a fast walk, smiling. “Why, it really is Sam and Remi Fargo. I think I can honestly say that I never expected to see either of you again, and certainly not in Guatemala.” She wore a black skirt from a suit but without the jacket, black shoes, and a white silk blouse with a ruffle at the neck, an outfit that conveyed the impression that she had been occupied with business in another part of the house. She looked at her watch as though starting a timer and then back at them.
Sam and Remi stood. “Hello, Miss Allersby.”
Sarah Allersby stood where she was, making no attempt to shake hands.
“Enjoying your stay in our country?”
“Since we met you in San Diego, we’ve been exploring in Alta Verapaz,” said Remi. “I suppose the codex raised our consciousness of Mayan country and we decided to take a closer look.”
“How adventurous of you. It must be wonderful to be able to drop everything and go off to satisfy your curiosity on a whim. I envy you.”
“It comes with retirement,” said Sam. “You should take more time away from acquiring things.”
“Not just yet,” said Sarah. “I’m still in the building phase. So you came down here and the first one you decided to visit was me. I’m flattered.”
“Yes,” said Sam. “The reason we’re here is that our trek took us close to an estate that you own—the Estancia Guerrero.”
“How interesting.” Her expression was guarded, alert but emotionless.
“The reason we had to pass that way was that a contingent of heavily armed men were chasing us. They opened fire as soon as they saw us, so we had to run and we took a shortcut through your property. What we saw when we crossed your land was a very large marijuana plantation with about a hundred workers, harvesting the crop, drying, packing, and shipping.”
“What a wild day you had,” she said. “How, pray tell, did you escape from all these armed men?”
“Don’t you think what you should be asking is what are all these criminals doing on my ranch?” said Remi.
Sarah Allersby smiled indulgently. “Think about the Everglades National Park in your country. It’s about one-point-five million acres. The Estancia Guerrero is more than twice that size. It’s just one of several tracts that I own in different regions of Guatemala. There’s no way to keep everyone off that land. Parts of it are unreachable except on foot. The peasant people have been in and out of there for thousands of years, no doubt plenty of them up to no good. I do employ a few men in the district to prevent commercial logging of rare woods, poaching of endangered species, the looting of archaeological sites. But armed combat with drug gangs is the government’s job, not mine.”
Sam said, “We thought we’d let you know about the illegal activity going on inside your property.”
Sarah Allersby leaned forward, an unconscious posture that made her look like a cat about to spring. “You sound as though you have doubts.”
Remi shrugged. “All I can be sure of is that you’re informed now.” She offered her hand to Sarah, who took it. “Thank you for giving us a few minutes of your time.” They stepped through the door to the foyer, and Sarah emerged behind them.
“It’s not likely to happen again,” she said. As she walked across the old tiles in the other direction, she added, “I just assumed you were here to say something amusing about my Mayan codex.”
Remi stopped and turned. “Your Mayan codex?”
Sarah Allersby laughed. “Did I say that? How silly of me.” She kept walking. As she disappeared through another doorway, the front door opened behind the Fargos. The servant who had let them in appeared. Now he was accompanied by two other men in suits. They held the heavy door open so the Fargos’ exit would not be delayed.
As soon as they were outside, Remi said, “Well, that wasn’t very satisfying.”
“Let’s try another way to get some action,” Sam said.
Sam and Remi walked down the steps and out to the street. They t
urned to the right and walked another hundred yards, and then Sam stopped and waved down a taxi. “Avenida Reforma. The embassy of the United States.”
At the embassy, the receptionist behind the desk asked them to wait while she tried to get a member of the staff to speak with them. Five minutes later, a woman appeared from a door beyond the desk and walked up to them. “I’m Amy Costa, State Department. Come to my office.” When they were inside, she said, “How can I help you today?”
Sam and Remi told her the story of what had happened on and near the Estancia Guerrero. They told her about the men who had tracked and attacked them, the vast plantation of marijuana plants and coca trees, the truck convoys. They described the doctor and the priest who had asked them to submit their pleas to Sarah Allersby and her response. And, finally, Sam told her about the Mayan codex.
“If the codex is in her possession, or is found to have ever been in her possession, then she got it by having men impersonate federal officials at the University of California in San Diego and steal it.”
Amy Costa wrote a report as she listened, only interrupting to ask for dates or approximate location data that had been recorded on their phones. When they had finished their story, she said, “We will be passing this information on to the Guatemalan government. But don’t be too impatient about results.”
“Why not?” asked Remi.
“The government has been doing a valiant job of trying to control the drug traffickers and growers, who are also destroying the forests, particularly in the Petén region, to make giant cattle ranches. But the drug gangs have them outnumbered and outgunned. In the past couple of years, the police have taken back about three hundred thousand acres from the drug lords, but that’s a tiny fraction of the total.”
“What about Sarah Allersby?”