handheld computer over dinner. We probably would all be getting on the plane about now, flying back to San Diego if I hadn’t heard that.”
“Why?”
“Why don’t you turn around get down on your knees? Now,” he says.
I do it.
“That’s it. Now put your hands out in front of you on the ground and lie down. Spread your arms and your legs and don’t move. That’s good.”
Adam steps forward, presses the muzzle of the pistol into the small of my back, and starts patting me down.
“Hell, I couldn’t be sure what was in Nick’s little computer. And you kept keeping secrets from me.”
He feels along my side, the small of my back, then the other side. “God knows what other little morsels you know that I don’t. It wouldn’t do to get us all home and have the police suddenly find some piece left behind by Nick that sends their magnetic dial pointing in my direction.”
He feels up and down both legs and then steps back. “You can get up now.”
I get to my feet.
“Tell me, is that the thing over there? This Mejicano Rosen. I saw you put the package behind the rocks and break the branch. I was going to follow you, and then I heard you coming back.”
“Why don’t you look?”
“I don’t think so. You’re a little too anxious. What is it, tear gas? Something to stun whoever opens it? Don’t tell me Pablo Ibarra actually had the stuff?”
“Actually no.”
“I’m dying to know. What is it? I don’t mean the package. I mean this Rosen thing?”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t have the foggiest.”
“Then why did you write the note telling me to bring it?”
“I had to have some reason to get you here. I mean it would have looked a little funny if I’d sent a note from the brothers just telling you to come here and pick up Mr. Tolt. But I have to say curiosity is killing me. Why don’t we walk while we talk,” he says. “It’s not far. Besides it puts a little more distance between us and anybody you might have brought along. You did bring someone along?”
I don’t answer him. We start down the path, Adam behind me with the pistol six or seven feet, judging by the sound of his voice.
“So this Rosen thing. Something Nick wanted?”
“It looks that way.”
“What?”
“An ancient text of the Mayan language.”
He laughs. “You have to be kidding. Nick? What was he going to do with it, sell it?”
“Actually he was going to trade it.”
“For what?”
“For a height variance on a piece of real estate he owned.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Yeah and I’m afraid you don’t have that much time.”
We walk for several minutes until we come to a clearing in the jungle dominated by a huge mound of stone, a pyramid eroded on the edges by time and weather. Facing us is a steep set of stairs rising all the way to the top, capped by what appears to be a small stone structure.
“I hope you brought your climbing shoes. Go on.”
We cross the clearing and I start up the steps. They are steep and there is nothing small about them. Most have a rise of two feet or more and a narrow tread, with nothing to hang onto except the steps above.
Leaning forward, we climb hand over hand. I have my hands on the stairs two or three above where my feet are. Adam manages to keep his gun hand free, with the muzzle pointed at me. For someone in his sixties, he has amazing dexterity.
The humidity off the jungle floor is beginning to heat up as the sun rises. It is light now, and as we climb I can see the top of the jungle canopy laid out like a green blanket all around us with mauve-colored peaks jutting through it in several places, the remnants of Mayan architecture stripped of their jungle cover.
“So what’s it going to be, a shot to the back of the head like Julio, or will it be an accident this time?”
“I thought we could decide that when we get to the top.”
“That’s a little dicey, isn’t it? When they find my body, either with a bullet in it or at the bottom, and you up at the top, the Mexican authorities may be asking you some pointed questions.”
“Of course they will. And I’ll have all the answers. How the Ibarra brothers held me hostage, without food and water. You like my costume? How they beat me, trying to find out about this Rosen thing. The fact that I knew nothing about it. After they shot you, or you went off the edge depending on how you want to do it, seeing as I’m flexible, the brothers, or more likely their hired guns, panicked and left me up there. It’s a harrowing story,” he says. “Of course, blindfolded I wasn’t able to see a thing. I’ve taken the liberty. The blindfold’s in my pocket, along with a little duct tape for my hands and feet. I don’t even have to tie any knots, just rub a little dirt into the tape and twist my wrists a bit like I’ve been struggling to get free. I think that should satisfy them.”
Adam’s got it all figured.
“Did you know it’s the highest Mayan pyramid on the Yucatan Peninsula?”
“I’m honored.”
“Actually if you look over there.” He gestures with the pistol. “Just off the stairs to your right, it’s more of a cliff.”
“I can see that.”
“I thought that would be a good place for us. They call this the Nohoch Mul. The big mound. According to the book, it’s a hundred and thirty-six feet high. Twelve stories. One hundred and twenty steps.”
“Maybe we could start over and I could count them.”
“I don’t think so. Just keep going.”
Tolt constantly maintains his distance, always two or three large stone steps below me, just out of kicking distance.
“I assume you brought help? Let me guess, Herman?”
I nod.
He laughs. “That man is an absolute pain in the ass. Always smiling through that damn chipped tooth. Though I have to admit he did give me the idea for disarming Julio.”
“Herman’s pretty upset about that.”
“Yeah I suppose they were pretty close.”
“Why did you have to kill him?”
“I had to have something to demonstrate the violence of these people, their desperation in dealing with you.”
“Shooting up the hotel pool wasn’t enough?”
“Well, they weren’t just going to snatch me and leave my bodyguards, were they?”
“What did you do with the rest of Julio’s people?”
“I made an executive decision. I called Julio that morning, before you and Harry got up, and told him that I wanted him to go up to the condo and to stay there until I came up. When I left the pool later in the morning to make my urgent phone call, I grabbed his man in the lobby and we both took a cab up to the condo. I’d already trashed my room before I came down. At the condo, I told Julio to send the rest of his men back to Mexico City, that we wouldn’t be needing them. Of course, he was happy to comply. He figured the job was over.”
He stops for a second, wipes his brow with the bottom of his shirt. “It’s getting warm. Anyway they packed their bags and ten minutes later Julio’s people were gone. I told Julio to take me back to the hotel. He got in the front seat. I got in the back, and I asked him for his gun.”
“Just like that?”
“No. I told him I didn’t want any more gunplay of the kind that Herman had engaged in the day before when
