unshaven faces, the sweaty smell of their camouflage battle-dress uniforms, the anger and resentment in their eyes.
He turned his mind to Sarah Allersby. He imagined her in one of those immaculate white silk blouses she wore and a black skirt and high heels. She would be standing by the heavy wooden desk in the two-hundred- year-old building with the thick wooden beams and the big ceiling fans. She would have her golden hair in a tight ponytail, with every strand in place, so it looked like something rarer than hair. She would be holding one diamond earring in her free hand while she clamped the phone to her ear with the other. She would be bringing every bit of her wealth, influence, and reputation to bear on the problem of freeing him and Ruiz. She would say something ridiculous that the government official she was speaking to would want to believe. Russell and Ruiz were just innocent American employees of hers who had gone to the Estancia Guerrero and gotten lost. She would ensure that there were no unpleasant repercussions following their release by flying them out of the country immediately in her private jet. And she would be very grateful to send them away.
At that moment, Sarah Allersby was in the master bedroom of the big Guerrero house. She was wearing a white silk blouse, a pair of black slacks, and a tailored black jacket. She chose a pair of pearl earrings and a pearl choker because she’d be dealing with British Customs. Anyone whose job it was to assess the value of jewelry at a glance would recognize a strand like this — round, silvery white, sixteen-millimeter natural pearls with exceptional luster. They had been found by divers in the Arabian Sea in the fourteenth century. And, for once, the source of a priceless piece wasn’t the fruit of her father’s ancestors’ looting of India. The pearls had belonged to her mother’s family. Her father had bought the earrings in Paris forty years ago.
British officials were the biggest snobs. Even if her name didn’t spring to their minds, they would recognize her as belonging to the class of people who were not to be harassed with petty rules.
She didn’t pack much this trip. Most of her clothes and belongings were still in the closets and the safe. She took only the few things she could gather quickly — the wide, flat jewelry box with the best pieces, a bundle of money in various currencies, and, sealed in its fitted plastic box, the Mayan codex. They all fit in one suitcase. She locked the suitcase, tipped it up on its wheels, and began to roll it toward the staircase.
Her doorman heard the sound, bounded up the stairs, and took it for her. She wondered — did he know? The case held tens of millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry, artifacts, and just plain money. It was worth more than all his ancestors had earned from Adam and Eve until now. She smiled at her thought. It was much better that servants — even loyal ones — not suspect these little moments of vulnerability. She was sure he would have killed her for much less than he was carrying now.
She got into her car, watched him put her suitcase in the trunk, and close it. She said to her driver, “The airport.”
He drove expertly, maneuvering the black Maybach 62 S through the streets of Guatemala City. He never betrayed any stress and seldom even applied the brakes. The ride was smooth and quiet, the way he knew she liked it. As she watched the city slipping past the windows of the car, she felt a small twinge of heartache. She had succeeded in obtaining the Mayan codex — almost certainly the last undiscovered one in existence. By now, she should have been famous. She should have had a warehouse full of gold and priceless pottery.
She would have to persuade Diego San Martin that she had not been the cause of his lost manpower. She would explain that the problem had begun with the man he had met at lunch. Russell had assured her that it would all be easy and safe. There would be no risk of disappointing Diego San Martin because Russell had everything under control. What could she, a young woman, have done differently? How could she have known Russell was so wrong?
She listened to her own silent rehearsal and pronounced herself satisfied. San Martin was like everyone else. He would vent his wrath on someone, but it would not be Sarah Allersby. She remained a very useful ally that would cost him money and be trouble to lose. San Martin just needed an excuse to do what was obviously in his own interest.
The Maybach arrived at the airport and floated past the terminals along the chain-link fences to the special entrance to the private jet hangars. The guard opened the gate as soon as her car was in sight. Some crazy revolutionary wasn’t going to drive up in a car worth nearly half a million dollars and blow up a plane. Her driver took her to her hangar, and she saw the plane had already been towed out. The pilot, Phil Jameson, was going through his preflight check. The fuel truck was driving off down the line toward its next customer. Sarah Allersby’s steward, Morgan, was visible through the lighted windows, refilling the refrigerator and stocking the bar.
The Maybach stopped, and she said to the driver, “I’ll be away for at least a month. You’ll get thirty days’ pay and then you’ll be called when I need you again.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He popped the trunk, took out her suitcase, and rolled it to the plane. Morgan came to take it for her.
He carried it up the steps, placed it in the closet, closed the door, then placed a strap across the opening so even if the door opened, it couldn’t move. “Can I take your coat?”
“Yes,” she said, and shrugged it off. It took only a few more minutes before the cabin door was closed and the pilot began to taxi out toward the end of the runway.
A few minutes more and the plane turned into the wind, sped along the runway, and lifted into the air. As Sarah looked out the window and down, she saw the little country receding below her, keeping with it all the recent strife and disappointment and the unpleasant little people who had thwarted her efforts. As her plane rose above the puffy layer of white clouds into the dark sky, she felt lighter, cleaner, and without unpleasant encumbrances. She was flying home to London. It would be comforting to visit her father and to shelter in his big, powerful presence. And London was still London. Maybe this trip would be fun.
The truck carrying Russell and Ruiz reached the large, forbidding Pavon prison at the edge of the suburban town of Fraijanes. As they joined the men being herded out of the army trucks, Ruiz said, “I don’t see any lawyers.”
Russell said, “They’ll be here. She wouldn’t let us rot in a place like this.”
The soldiers herded them in through a high gate made of iron bars with razor wire at the top. Ruiz whispered, “I don’t even see any civilian guards. I think this is one of those places where the prisoners run things.”
“Don’t worry,” said Russell. “She’d have to be crazy to abandon us.”
“Let’s hope she’s not,” said Ruiz. “Either way, we’d better get ready to make our own way out.”
It was morning when Sarah Allersby’s plane descended over London and then reached Biggin Hill Airport southeast of the city.
The plane landed smoothly on the suburban airport’s main runway and taxied to the flight line, where its only passenger would disembark. The plane stopped, and the ground crew chocked its wheels and attached the grounding wire to the electrical ground. Then the steps were lowered.
Sarah could breathe in the cool, damp British air that came in through the open hatch. She stood up just as the British Customs men arrived. They collected the customs declaration that Morgan the steward had filled out and initialed for her. She had brought, as always, fifty Cuban cigars for her father that had been miraculously marked down to less than three hundred pounds. The fully stocked bar in the plane was said to be less than two liters.
The head customs man said, “Is that your suitcase, miss?”
“Yes it is,” said Sarah Allersby.
“May I look inside?”
She hesitated, her eyes suddenly unblinking and her lips parted. Usually the customs people didn’t bother looking so closely. She was a person of importance from an ancient family. She wasn’t going to be bringing in explosives or a bag of cocaine. She wasted a tenth of a second wanting to say, “You never asked before.” And she sensed that her instant of hesitation might be enough to doom her.
The head customs man opened her suitcase on the built-in table. He flipped the jewel box open, apparently just confirming that she’d be carrying more jewels than a Spanish treasure ship. He saw the banded stacks of money and set them aside. Of course she’d have money. No matter. But what’s this?
The customs man popped the plastic cover and examined the folded strip of ancient fig bark, caught sight of
