Overhead Remo could feel the vibrations of a hundred feet. The Olmec, he figured, preparing to attack Yaxbenhaltun in force. They had the lasers now. It would not take long to destroy the city.
A chuckle began deep in Quintanodan's throat and grew until it resonated through the dank cave. Then, spitting out a command to the guards, he was gone.
Snapping to attention, the guards kicked Remo and Lizzie to their feet. Lizzie stumbled, moaning.
"It's so cold," she said.
"They're moving us."
"For what, a firing squad?" she said, her unclothed body beautiful in the torchlight.
It wasn't the end, Remo knew. If worse came to worst, he would attack the guards and then fight his way through the other soldiers. But the powerful scent of the white flowers around his neck had weakened him— not enough to stop him, but perhaps enough to throw off his timing to the point where a stray beam from one of the lasers could get to Lizzie and fry her. He would have to get himself free of the flowers before he could work effectively.
But Lizzie didn't know that. To her, the guards were taking them on their last journey. And she was still holding up, bad jokes and all. She was tough, Remo had to give her that.
One of the guards picked up Lizzie's clothes and thrust them roughly at her. She clung to them with her bound hands. "What's that noise up there?" she asked.
"Soldiers, I think. Now that the Olmec have the lasers, they're probably going to attack everything in sight."
"Oh, wonderful," Lizzie said. "There goes history. The twentieth century will never have heard of the great Mayan civilization."
"Maybe it'll be the great Olmec civilization."
Lizzie sniffed. "These animals? They couldn't care less about astronomy or mathematics or engineering. This land will be like the aftermath of the Roman Empire— how it became after it was conquered by savage hill tribes. All of the learning, all of the Maya's work will be lost. Everything Cooligan did will be gone forever."
The guards stopped them in front of a rounded entranceway and shoved them inside, sealing the way behind them with a rock.
"Even cavemen had prisons, I guess," Remo said. Inside the entranceway stood a huge stone demon with eyes of jade.
"Puch," Lizzie said. "God of the dead. How appropriate."
"Don't knock it," Remo said, bending low at the waist. "Getting locked up here is the luckiest thing that's happened to us yet."
"What are you talking about?"
The garland of flowers fell from around his neck to the floor. Raising his bound hands, he snatched Lizzie's necklace and tore it off as well, kicking both strings of the white flowers into a corner. "I was hoping they'd leave us alone," Remo said. "Give me a couple of minutes."
He retreated into the shadows of the stone vault. Away from the weakening fragrance of the flowers, he could at last breathe deeply. The musty air of the vault filled him with new strength, charging his muscles like electricity.
A small line of light lay on the floor. He looked up. Moonlight. It was coming from a crack in the overhead rock. Good, Remo thought. I can use that.
A few feet away lay, inexplicably, a bed of coal smoothed into a square. "Whatever that is, I can use it, too," he muttered.
The ropes strained against his wrists. Breathing rhythmically, concentrating, Remo clenched his hands into fists, rotating them slowly. As he did, the fibers of the ropes snapped, one by one, unraveling in front of his eyes.
At the same time he tensed the muscles in his calves so that the ropes over his ankles frayed and broke. With a pop, both ropes fell away from him at precisely the same moment, landing on the stone floor like discarded snakeskins.
"How'd you do that?" Lizzie asked incredulously.
"Never mind." Effortlessly he snapped the ropes around Lizzie's wrists and legs. "Get dressed."
His strength was back. Escaping would be no problem, not with a half-inch-wide crack in the rock. He explored the fissure with his fingers.
He could break through the rock easily, but it would make a lot of noise, alerting the Olmec warriors. He didn't want a fight now, with Lizzie around. Also, the Olmec didn't fight to the last man. Even the small group of warriors sent for the surprise attack on Yaxbenhaltun had retreated when they were getting beaten. As soon as Remo started fighting, he knew, the priest in charge of the Olmec would send as many of his men off to Yaxbenhaltun, willing to sacrifice a few soldiers in order to keep Remo away from the people who needed him to defend them.
No, the escape would have to be silent. Lizzie would have to be taken back to safety. Then Remo would return with Chiun to dispose of the Olmec— all of them— in their own camp.
He ran his fingernails over the crack in the rock, familiarizing his hands with the natural curve of the break. The rock would have to be cleaved according to its fault in order to break it silently.
Feeling the weakened area of stone, he set up a vibration in his hands. Slowly, with a sound that only Remo could hear, a sound like metal on a chalkboard, his fingernails cut through the rock, forming a circle. When the work was finished, he raised the stone disc above him like a manhole cover and moved it.
A stream of moonlight flooded into the cave. Lizzie stood, awestruck, watching him.
"Come on," Remo whispered, motioning her toward the exit he had carved out of the rock. "We don't have much—"
The words froze in his mouth. Something was behind Lizzie, illuminated now by the moonlight, something low and long and immobile and ghastly.
He spoke softly. "Liz, I'm going to ask you a favor, okay?"
She nodded.
"Just listen to what I tell you. You can't make any noise now, not for any reason. The Olmec aren't far away. They can't see us, but they'll come running if you scream. So whatever happens, keep your mouth shut. Got it?"
She started to tremble. "There's something behind me, isn't there?" she whispered.
"Nothing that'll hurt you."
She turned slowly. Her eyes widened for a moment, then closed tightly, trying to block out the sight. Her hands flew, shaking, to her face.
On a low stone slab lay the body of a man dressed in an astronaut's protective clothing. On his shoulder was an American flag. His helmet was missing. All that remained of his face was an exposed skull. In the center of his forehead was a sharp, ragged hole.
Remo climbed down to look at the body. As Lizzie watched, he unzipped the plastic closure on the front of the man's protective coveralls. Inside, on the shirt covering the skeleton, was a plastic tag with "Col. K. Cooligan" inscribed on it.
They had found the final resting place of the white god Kukulcan.
?Chapter Fourteen
Lizzie stood rooted in her tracks, trembling, her hands covering her face. "Get going," Remo said, grabbing her by both shoulders and propelling her toward the exit he had made. She climbed out of the hole and scrambled blindly toward the dark forest behind the Olmec's cave dwellings.
"Where are you going?" Remo whispered.
"The trees," she said, bewildered. "That's how we came, isn't it?"
"The trees?" Of course. The Olmec had taken Lizzie through the forest, bypassing the Forbidden Fields, with their strange evil blossoms. They could make it through the jungle tangle, following the sound of the river, as far as the marsh. Then they would walk toward Bocatan, the volcano, to Yaxbenhaltun.
"Good girl," Remo said. "I mean—"
"That's okay," Lizzie answered, clasping his hand as they entered the black jungle. "Names don't matter. You came back to get me. That makes two times that you've saved my life. Thanks, Remo. You deserve an apology from me."
He laughed. "I never thought I'd hear that."
"It's the truth, and the truth ought to be spoken. While there's still time."