Which they had. So here he was, driving 15.2 miles down this dirt road to his first rendezvous with Kirby Galway.
It was better for it to end this way, really. Witcher and Feldspan, apart from their rather nauseatingly blatant homosexuality, were merely merchants, the exact kind of money-grubbing art-denying dealers who had given the import of precious antiquities such a bad name, so it was just as well they wouldn’t be getting their greedy little hands on any of the treasures from Galway’s temple. As for Galway himself, the man was merely a thug, wasn’t he, personally beneath contempt but useful as a tool in rescuing these treasures from the ignorance of the Central Americans and the venality of the likes of Witcher and Feldspan, so he could turn them over to selfless, dedicated, intelligent, learned, honest, unimpeachable scientists like himself.
He was the only truly decent character in the whole story, and he knew it.
And, as happened far too rarely in real life, this time the decent character was going to win. The meeting with Kirby Galway would happen in just the next few minutes, and whatever Kirby Galway was bringing to give to Witcher and Feldspan he could dam well just give to Whitman Lemuel instead.
“I deserve it,” Lemuel muttered, as he drove.
The next section of barbed wire fence beyond the red ribbon had fallen in, making access easy, so Lemuel was already out on the weedy spongy field when the airplane first appeared. It circled overhead, he waved, and down it came, landing at the opposite end of the field and roaring over to come to a stop just near where Lemuel was standing.
The door opened in its side as Lemuel came around the wing, and there was Kirby Galway clambering out, seeming in an awful hurry. In fact, the engines still ran, propellers spinning, plane all atremble to be off.
Galway looked at him in surprise. (There was someone else in the plane.) “Where’s Witcher and Feldspan?” he shouted, above the engine noise.
For some reason, Lemuel gestured behind himself, saying, “They went—”
“Still in the car? Okay, this is for them.”
“No, they—”
Galway turned back and wrestled with something in the seat behind the pilot’s, the other person helping. Lemuel stared, bewildered, and some sort of bale of hay came free at last, dropping out of the doorway, bouncing off the wing, landing on the ground at Lemuel’s feet. “What—”
“Sorry you’re getting it, too,” Galway told him, grinning, not looking sorry at all. “Tell your pals in the car, I know all about Trend.”
“Oh, my God. What have you—”
“Anonymous call to the DEA,” Kirby told him, with nasty satisfaction.
“The what? What’s that?”
“Drug Enforcement Administration,” Kirby said, and climbed back up into the pilot’s seat. “Sorry you’re here,” he called. “You should watch the company you keep.”
Which was when Lemuel recognized the second person in the plane, and it was Valerie Greene. “YOU!” he cried.
She nodded and smiled, with a little wave.
“Every time I see you something terrible happens!” Lemuel shrieked, pointing at the girl. Kirby pulled his door shut and the plane moved away. “This is the third time!” Lemuel screamed, following after, shaking his fist. “You’re a jinx!”
The plane picked up speed, leaving him. Lemuel stopped, suddenly panting for some reason. And now that the engine roar was receding, the plane was way over there lifting into the air, Lemuel could hear another sound, behind him, far in the distance.
Sirens.
Getting closer.
He turned and looked back toward the rental car parked on the little narrow dirt road, and his eye fell on the bale Kirby had pulled from the plane.
“That isn’t hay,” he said aloud.
Third time lucky.
26
Sailing Directions (En Route) for the Caribbean Sea
Valerie sewed with tiny stitches. Perched naked tailor-fashion on a beach blanket bearing a picture of Mickey Mouse surfing — seated mostly on his smile — she was up from the beach just far enough to be in the dappled shade of the coconut palms. Behind her, just visible through the ring-necked trunks of the trees, was the island’s only enclosed structure, a low house of unpainted concrete block with a slanted metal roof, flanked by the television satellite dish on the left and the electricity-generating windmill on the right. In front, the calm blue Caribbean folded itself time and time again on the beige sand.
Deceptively calm. The unnamed wee island on which Valerie sat and sewed the hem of a full white cotton skirt lay deep within the perimeter of a well-known nautical hazard, the Banco Chinchorro, about 16 miles off the Yucatan coast of Mexico, due west of Chetumal Bay. At latitude 18 degrees, 23 minutes north and longitude 87 degrees, 27 minutes west, and existing mostly just below the surface of the sea, the four-mile-wide area of Banco Chinchorro is described in the United States Government publication Sailing Directions (En Route) for the Caribbean Sea, which Valerie had looked at shortly after arrival here, as “a dangerous steep-to shoal” with “numerous rocky heads and sand banks. The stranded wrecks which lie along the E side of the shoal were reported conspicuous both visually and by radar.” This navigators’ guide finishes its description with a “Caution. — In the vicinity of Banco Chinchorro there is usually a very strong current that sets toward its entire E side.”
Commercial shipping and pleasure craft alike steer well around Banco Chinchorro. And yet, on a few of its tiny islets, the beach is wide and clean, the sea is blue and gentle and nearly transparent, the air is warm and soft with a delicious easterly breeze. If you’d like to be alone with your sweetheart, there are few better spots on Earth than this.
Apart from Valerie herself, and the small house with its dish and windmill, the only other sign of human incursion on this island was Cynthia’s wheelmarks on the hardpacked sand, off to Valerie’s right. The first few times Kirby had flown down to San Pedro on the Belizean island of Ambergris Caye, 45 miles to the south, to pick up supplies or to be sure Innocent’s check had been deposited into their account (the bank branch in San Pedro is open three mornings a week), Valerie had flown with him, telling herself she needed the change, the opportunity to shop in the hotel boutique, walk around among other people, but in fact she didn’t need any of that at all. The truth was — and she soon realized this — the truth was, if she left the island with Kirby every time he was going somewhere, it meant she was afraid he wouldn’t come back, he’d strand her here. And that meant she didn’t trust him.
And if she didn’t trust him, what was she doing with him?
True, this life was a jolly and an easy one, particularly after all the running around just before they came here, but even more particularly after the total earnestness of her entire life prior to Belize. Thinking of that earlier self, of her earnest minister father and her earnest teacher brother, thinking of her own earnestness in pursuit of the dry joys of archaeology, she found it hard to believe she had spent so much time not being silly.