12.21

“Stay where you are,” Shetter commanded.

“Take what you want and go,” Stanton said. “But let me help him.” He started to inch over, and, when Shetter didn’t stop him, he moved faster. Shetter kept the gun trained on the three of them.

Chel pressed down on Rolando’s wound. The blood continued to gush. She whispered to him. Trying to keep him conscious.

Victor stood frozen behind Shetter. Silent.

“Get the plates,” Shetter commanded his men.

It took them less than a minute to load up the codex plates and get them out of the room. The two silent men left first, then Shetter.

He turned at the door. “Coming, Daykeeper?” He was confident enough in the answer that he didn’t stay to find out.

Victor stood there, watching Stanton hold pressure on Rolando’s wound with one hand and deliver chest compressions with the other.

Chel held Rolando’s head in her lap. She’d streaked blood from his wound into his hair, and she tried not to stare at the pool spreading beneath them.

“Chel…” Victor finally said. “I didn’t know he had a gun. I’m so sorry. I—”

“You did this, Victor. You did this. Get out!”

He turned to leave the room. At the doorway he stopped to whisper back to her, “In Lak’ech.” Then he was gone.

A minute later, from her place on the floor with Rolando, Chel saw a flash of the truck’s headlights playing against the lab windows as it vanished into the night.

She knew she would never see Victor or the codex again. And those would be the last words he ever spoke to her.

I am you, and you are me.

THIRTY

THROUGH CLOUDS OF ASH FROM THE WILDFIRES IN THE SANTA MONICA Mountains, a trio of F-15s in formation roared, leaving contrails in the gray night sky.

Two hours after Victor quietly escorted Shetter and his men past Getty security, Chel stared out the car window in silence. The Pacific Coast Highway looked like a run-down used-car lot—hundreds of vehicles wrecked or out of gas and abandoned, barely allowing a path through.

There’d been nothing she or Stanton could do to save Rolando. They were all covered in blood by the time Stanton had given up trying to revive him. Chel cradled Rolando’s head for nearly twenty minutes, saying a Qu’iche prayer for safe delivery to the overworld into his ear.

She and Stanton still hadn’t spoken a word about what had happened. But they both knew what they had to do.

Stanton pulled his Audi off the highway toward Santa Monica State Beach. The sand was empty. Only a single vehicle sat in the parking lot: He’d called Davies and arranged to meet him here.

Stanton was surprised when he saw another man step out of the car with his partner. “What’s up, Doc?” Monster said.

“I was worried about you, man,” Stanton said. “Where’d you go?”

“Cops kicked us out of the Show, so the little Electric Lady and I found ourselves a hideout in the tunnel beneath the Santa Monica Pier. You have no idea how useful a woman who can make her own light is down there.”

If Chel was surprised to encounter Venice’s finest example of a human freak, she didn’t show it. She remained silent, her mind still back at the Getty.

“How’d you two find each other?” Stanton asked as they started unloading equipment from Davies’s vehicle.

“I knocked on your door in Venice,” Monster said. “No one answered, so I let myself in. Brother, your place looks like one fucked-up science experiment, all those mice in there. When you didn’t come back, thought I’d call over to your lab and see if you were all right.”

“Good thing it was me who picked up the phone,” Davies said, “and not one of Cavanagh’s lackeys. She’s monitoring everything we do at the Prion Center. I couldn’t get a glass slide from there without getting caught. Much less a microscope.”

Stanton looked at Monster. “So you got all this from my place?”

“Electra helped me. She’s still there taking care of those mice.”

“You two should stay there for now. Until it’s safe.”

“Don’t know when that’ll be. But we’ll take you up on the offer.”

“You really think you can find these ruins without the book?” Davies asked.

“We have the digital copy, the translation, and a map,” Chel said. They were the first words she’d spoken.

“I’d tell you you’ve gone mad, but you already know that,” Davies told Stanton.

“You got a better idea?” Stanton asked. “Radio says they crossed the five-thousand mark in New York.”

They transferred the biohazard suits, testing tools, a battery-powered microscope, and other equipment needed for a mobile lab into Stanton’s Audi. Finally Davies pulled the last bag from the trunk. “Twenty-three thousand in cash,” he said. “Everyone in the lab got whatever they could. And this.” He opened the bag wider, revealing the gun from Stanton’s safe at the bottom.

“Thank you,” Stanton told the men. “Both of you.”

“How you gonna get out, Doc?” Monster asked. “They just sent in another fifty thousand troops to patrol the border. They’ve got men at every mile, and you’ll never find a private plane or a chopper now.”

Stanton glanced out over the Pacific.

* * *

THE CAMPUS OF Pepperdine University came into view at the stretch of coastline just south of Kanan Beach. Stanton took a hard left onto a long dirt road and followed it until there was nowhere else to go. It took half a dozen trips by foot up and down the rocky embankment to get all the gear onto the beach. Then they waited. This was one of the most uneven sea terrains in Malibu, making it dangerous for anyone sailing at night, unless they knew every outcropping. And they could only assume the coast guard was still patrolling parts of it.

Finally they saw the beam of a flashlight a few hundred yards out. Minutes later Nina approached the shore in a small dinghy. Her hair was wild, and salt caked her skin.

“You made it,” Stanton said as she beached the boat.

They hugged in the darkness and Nina said, “Lucky for you, I’ve been hiding from harbormasters my whole life.”

Even under the circumstances, it was strange for Stanton to be in the company of both these women. “Chel, this is Nina.”

But the two of them seemed immediately at ease around each other. “Thank you for this,” Chel said.

Nina smiled. “Couldn’t pass up the chance to have my ex-husband be forever in my debt.”

They loaded the equipment onto the dinghy and headed off to Plan A, anchored about two hundred yards out. As they climbed onto the big boat, Stanton heard a comforting chuff. He bent down and hugged Dogma’s soft, wet coat close to his chest.

Their destination was Ensenada, Mexico, two hundred forty miles south. Nina had contacted the captain of a larger boat, who’d agreed to meet them in a secluded part of the resort town. From there they’d travel past the Baja peninsula, where they’d have a better chance of chartering a plane to Guatemala. The McGray had a top speed of forty-two knots, which put the trip to Ensenada at about eight hours with refueling.

In the bight that took them to the North Pacific Gyre, Stanton searched the horizon for the coast guard. On her way in, Nina had deciphered the patrol pattern through the bay and navigated several miles out for the safest passage. The only chatter on the radio was from a few others trying to get away, speaking in code.