Serpent

'Bingo!' Gamay said. 'What geniuses we have at NUMA.'

Galvanized now, Austin ticked the points off on his fingertips. 'One. We have eight temples dedicated to the temple Venus. Two. The temples are set up in a way, that will help us solve a puzzle having to do with those mysterious boats and their cargo. Three The talking stone tells us how to operate it.'

'I wasn't positive until Dr. Orville called this morning He found the same eight glyphs on the stone. There's a fax of the tablet in your folder. The inscription is composed of three main elements. The glyphs and a condensed rendition of the boat landings are the first and second elements.'

Any idea why the ship is about to be eaten by the big snake?' Zavala asked, looking at the fax.

'That's element number three,' Gamay explained. 'The feathered serpent is the earthly embodiment of Quetzalcoatl Kuloulcan.'

'Ali,' Zavala said. 'That certainly clears things up.'

'Look at it this way' Gamay said. 'The glyphs tell you where. The boat inscription tells you what. The serpent tells you how. Look at the Kukulcan. Tell me what you see.'

'Feathers mostly' Gunn said after a moment.

'No,' Yeager said. 'There's something else. The feathers are confusing. Look at the jaws. It's some sort of grid.'

'Bravo.' Gamay dapped, dearly delighted. 'Our computer guru goes to the head of the class.'

'I don't know why' Yaeger said with a shrug. 'Damned if I know what I'm talking about.'

'Check out the next picture in your folder. This shows one of those eight temples. Pretty typical. Cylindrical, balcony around the top, frieze on the bottom part. Take a close look at those two vertical slit windows. We assumed they were used for some sort of astronomical calculation. We made an educated guess that the windows lined up with Venus at the extremes of its position in the sky. It still didn't make sense until Paul had the idea of looking down on the temples, as if we were in an airplane.'

Picking up the explanation, Paul held up the last sheet in the folder. 'We extended the lines from each window and found that they intersected.'

'I'll be damned,' Yaeger said. 'It's the same grid as in the feathered serpent.'

Gamay nodded. 'I started thinking about it when I noticed the grid reminded me of an amulet I once borrowed from Dr. Chi. The jaws of Kukulcan.'

Gunn said, 'Weren't we talking about Columbus depending on some kind of grid?'

'That's right,' Paul said. 'Orville's theory is that Columbus tried to use this stone but was at a disadvantage to start with. He knew there was treasure but couldn't decipher the glyphs. He had drawings made from the stone to take on the Nina, probably hoping to find someone who would translate for him.'

Austin had been staring at the diagram. 'Back when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, navigators had maps with straight lines called rhumbs on them. Someone sailing from Spain to Hispanola chose the line giving him the most direct route and set a compass course. You'd end up where you were supposed to be, as long as you weren't messed up by current and winds. Columbus may have wrongly thought these lines were rhumbs. The Maya were a lot more sophisticated than he knew. Were you able to work this out on a map?'

 'It didn't make sense at first,' Paul said. 'Venus would have been in a different position in the sky a couple of thousand years ago. We had to do some recomputing. Our guess is that the V-shaped intersection of the jaws, here where you see the boat, is where something is located.'

Austin had another question. 'How long do you think it will take Halcon to figure this out?'

The Trouts exchanged glances. Paul said, 'There have been. reports of Columbus papers and Mayan documents being stolen from various museums. I suspect Mr. Halcon has been trying to piece things together, but we've got the stone, and now we know how to use it.'

'We'd better get moving on this in case Halcon's smarter than we think,' Austin said.

Gunn cleared his throat and squared the edges of his papers. 'With all due respect, Kurt, maybe before we go jumping into the jaws of Kukulcan we had better figure out what all this is about. Starting with Halcon and why he is causing so much trouble.'

'I see your point. Okay I'll start the ball rolling. Here's my theory. Like Columbus, Halcon is after the Phoenician treasure that was removed from Carthage. The key to finding the stuff lies in pre-Columbian evidence. He doesn't want anyone else to step on his turf so he destroys the evidence and those who have found it.'

'I've considered that theory and think it's on the mark,' Gunn said, 'but it's only part of the picture. I asked Yaeger to compile a detailed dossier on Halcon. Tell us about his finances, Hiram.'

Yaeger glanced at a computer printout in front of him. 'Between his family fortune and widespread holdings, he's worth billions, and that's a conservative guess.'

'Thanks, Hiram. That's what bothers me, Kurt. Why would Halcon go through all this trouble of killing people, attacking you on the Andrea Doria and trying to steal the so-called talking stone, just so he can find a treasure, however fabulous? He has more money than any normal person could ever want.'

'You may have answered your own question,' Austin countered. 'You said a normal person. From what Zavala told us about the ball court executions, Halcon sounds like a madman.'

'I've considered that possibility, too. But I think Senor Halcon is a lot more complicated than a bored rich eccentric who takes up treasure hunting for a hobby. Hiram, would you run through the other material you picked up on the gentleman?'

Adjusting his granny glasses, Yaeger said, 'Francisco Halcon was born in Spain of a family that goes back centuries. Halcon, which means 'falcon,' was apparently not the real family name, which I was unable to determine. He went to expensive private schools in Switzerland and attended college in England. Oxford man, Yaeger said with a smirk. 'He became a bullfighter known as El Halcon and didn't do too badly but left the toro business under a cloud of scandal. He was said to have put poison on the tip of his killing sword, so even if he didn't hit the bull's vitals it would die.'

'Hardly seems sporting for an Oxford man,' Austin said in a stage British accent.

'Cambridge maybe, but not Oxford,' Zavala said.

Yaeger shrugged. 'From the bullring he went into one of the family businesses. The Halcons were very thick with the dictator Franco and the Spanish military before and during the war and made a lot of money on armaments. After Franco died and the king returned and restored democracy. Halcon's business activities came under suspicion. Interpol says he was suspected of being tied to a Spanish Murder Inc. He left the country and came to Mexico where a branch of his family that goes back to the Spanish conquest owned a number of businesses. Halcon took over the U.S. operations, used his money and influence to cultivate political connections, and in short time became an American citizen.'

'He's done pretty well from what I saw of the companies under his aegis in San Antonio,' Zavala said.

'The American dream personified,' Gunn added, not attempting to conceal his sarcasm.

'In more ways than one,' said Yaeger. 'His legitimate businesses were just a cover for shady operations on both sides of the border. He's suspected of largescale drug and immigrant smuggling from Mexico.'

'That would mean he is close to the ruling party in Mexico,' Zavala said. 'No big business, legal or illegal, escapes their attention.'

'Fits in with the way the family operated in Spain and the United States,' Austin said. 'Has anyone ever mentioned the Brotherhood?'

'As I say, he was supposedly tied to a Spanish Mafia organization,' Yaeger replied. 'They could be one and the same, although I don't have confirmation.'

'What about that complex I saw outside San Antonio?' Zavala asked. 'What's the story on that?'

'Owned by one of his corporations. Perfectly legal, according to the local licensing authorities. He's considered something of a nut, but a rich nut, so if he wanted to build his own personal theme park, who's to stop him? By the way, the plans for the complex show the ball court as a soccer field.'

'That wasn't like any game of soccer I ever saw,' Zavala said soberly.

'The locals have heard explosions from time to time and report an unusual amount of traffic, but other than that he's a good neighbor who pays his taxes.'

'Hiram has saved the best for last,' Gunn said.

'It took time, because of the front companies and interlocking corporations and foundations, but Halcon Industries has been spreading all over the Southwest and California. Halcon controls banks, real estate, political figures, newspapers, anything that's for sale.'