are Professor Cahill, a known antiquities thief and potential murderer. Far from sponsoring your expedition, the American embassy will more than likely sponsor your extradition to Guatemala to stand trial. Spare me your theatrics and you may yet walk out of here. I want to know where the temple is located. I’ve been through your computer and GPS and could find no reference to it. I have very little patience. Tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you go.”
It finally dawned on the professor that he wasn’t in the hands of anyone remotely associated with the Guatemalan government, and that his overwhelming fears twenty-four hours ago paled in comparison to his present predicament. For all of his eccentricities, at his core the professor was a very intelligent man. In an instant, he computed that the only thing that would keep him alive was the fact that he alone knew where the temple was located. The minute he gave this up, he would be discarded with as much fanfare as a used condom.
As he began to form a plan, a searing jolt of electricity rocked his body, causing him to lock up in a rictus of pain, screaming out his soul. As rapidly as it came, the pain left.
The disembodied voice spoke again. “I can see you’re thinking of ways to lie to me. Trust me, the longer you sit and think, the more I believe what you say is a lie. You have exactly three seconds to start talking, or I’ll flip this switch and leave it on for an hour.”
The professor gasped for air, sweat running freely over his body, his mind racing. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t know what to say. His heart was palpitating, skipping irregularly.
“Three, two, one…”
“
The professor couldn’t believe how ridiculous this sounded. Why on earth would he do that? It made no sense whatsoever, but if he told them the truth, he would simply be made to retrieve the data from his Hotmail account. It was still in the sent folder. Once he gave that up, and he was sure he wasn’t strong enough not to, he would be dead. He had to buttress the argument, so he began babbling to stem the punishment that was sure to come.
“You know what happened. A man died at the temple. I was not on a sanctioned expedition. The government would arrest me. I had to get rid of the data without losing it. I was afraid of getting arrested. I wanted to keep the location but didn’t want to have any evidence on me. You have to believe me!”
He was met by silence. The disembodied voice circled around behind him. “Professor, that story is so ridiculous it insults my intelligence. I’m a smuggler. I know every single way to get something into the United States. I know there is no FedEx office in Flores. Why on earth would you think I would believe that?”
The professor now believed he would die. The man had freely told him he was a criminal. Obviously, he had no intention of letting him go. In a panic, the professor began to expand on his story, making it more unlikely, grasping at straws.
“I gave it to an American who was leaving yesterday. We had become friends drinking at the bars, and I didn’t want any evidence on me if I was stopped at the airport. He promised to FedEx it as soon as he landed in the United States. You must believe me! I’m telling the truth!”
“All right. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. What was this man’s name?”
“His name? It was… Uhh…”
With that, the pain returned like a lightning bolt. The professor jumped out of the chair, his entire body bowed out in an attempt to get away from the agony, his ankles and wrists holding him in place. He let loose a keening wail, then collapsed back into the chair, his bowels releasing onto the floor.
“Why’d you shut it off?” Miguel asked.
Jake said, “I didn’t. He’s still got megavoltage going through him.”
“Wake him up,” said Miguel.
Jake shut off the juice and felt the professor’s pulse. “We can’t. He’s dead.”
“What the fuck do you mean, dead? We barely got started.”
“Maybe he had a bad heart. We usually do this to men and woman much younger than him. Whatever, it’s irrelevant. He’s stone-cold dead.”
“Shit. What do you suppose the odds are that he was telling the truth?”
Jake grinned. “As a matter of fact, probably pretty good. He didn’t say anything that we can contradict, and people who follow the law usually panic when they realize they might be caught doing something illegal. The story is so damn stupid it just might be true. If you want to continue with this, it wouldn’t hurt to simply check it out.”
“Perhaps. I suppose it’s worth following through. I’ll give our friends in the U.S. a call. They owe me a favor, and this won’t take much effort. In the meantime, I saw that our friends from overseas brought some computer equipment with them. Please go get them. Maybe they can take a look at his computer and find something we missed.”
Jake left the room to go to the guesthouse while Miguel dialed an unlisted number.
“Let me speak to Vincent.” He waited while the phone was handed off. “Yes, it’s your southern helper, and it’s time to repay the favor owed. I’d like you to get a package for me that’s been mailed. It’s coming by FedEx to a woman named Cahill in Charleston, South Carolina. She’s the niece of a professor at the College of Charleston under the same name and may very well be going to the school. You don’t need to be polite to her.”
23
Sayyidd stared at the laptop he had been asked to examine, wanting to shout in triumph. The thumb drive he had found among the belongings next to the computer had come to life, asking if he would like to use something called “cryptmaker” to extract data. He had been right. The computer was hiding a steganography program. He hit “yes” and waited for the work to be accomplished. Three of the twenty JPEG pictures he had cut and pasted from the laptop had dissolved, leaving behind a notepad file welcoming him to the cryptmaker family and giving him a troubleshooting guide. He realized that these were probably the example photos that came with the software package, allowing a new user to play with the software without fear of losing any valuable data.
Two hours earlier, when Jake had asked if either Bakr or Sayyidd could help with a computer problem, he had jumped at the chance. After meeting Miguel’s computer expert, a man introduced only as Jose, he had been led into a room containing a table heaped with clothes, a laptop computer, cell phone, and GPS. While examining the computer, he began to suspect that it held a covert partition used for a steganography program due to the large amount of random digital photos and MP3s. Jose might have been an expert at typical computer problems, but he hadn’t spent a life on the run with the world’s greatest superpower chasing him. While serving as the media chief for his cell in Iraq, Sayyidd had used steganography quite a bit. He knew the signs. He also knew that he had no chance on earth of figuring out the keystrokes for a hidden program. His only hope was a physical key, something missed by Miguel’s men. He had asked Jose for a glass of water to get him out of the room. As soon as he had left, Sayyidd had searched the clothes on the table. To his absolute surprise, he had found a thumb drive missed by the computer expert and had loaded it on the computer.
He was now sure he was only seconds away from finding the temple’s location. One of the pictures on the hard drive would hold the data. He only needed to find the right one.
He was about to go back to the photo files when he heard Jose returning down the hallway. He deleted all of the files from the thumb drive, palmed it in his hand, and backed away from the computer.
Jose handed him the water and said, “You ready to continue?”
Sayyidd shook his head. “Not really. I’ve found nothing in two hours. I can’t do anything more than what you’ve already done. I think this is a waste of time but will continue if you wish.”
Jose said, “I knew this was folly to begin with. Miguel appreciates you trying anyway. You may go.”
Sayyidd hurried back to the guesthouse with the thumb drive. He knew that Bakr would be livid at his theft. If Miguel realized what had taken place, they would both be dead. Sayyidd was counting on nobody knowing the thumb drive existed. He told Bakr of his experiences and what he had found. As expected, Bakr initially flew into a rage at Sayyidd’s risks, but calmed down when told of the manner the thumb drive had been taken and the fact that
