Decker smiled. “Not bad work, Professor Moore.”
“Why thank you, Captain Decker!” she said.
Riley grinned. “She’s not just a pretty face.”
“Indeed not, gentlemen,” Selena said. “So now I simply push the tiles for grandfather, son and grandson in that precise order and just like that…”
A large puff of dust burst out of the gap at the sides and top of the slab and a deep grinding noise filled the antechamber. Seconds later, the slab had retracted behind the stone wall and given way onto a darker inner chamber. Waving a thick cloud of dust away from her face, Selena turned and gave the team a triumphant smile. “I thank you!”
They rushed inside the chamber. “I’ll thank you later,” Decker said. “For now, can we close this door again?”
“I don’t see why not,” Selena said. “It opened easily enough, but not sure how.”
“I see how,” said Decker, angling a flashlight beam at the wall encasing the slab. “There’s a system of ropes and pullies here. It operates a fairly simple counterweight rig. When you pushed the tiles in the correct order it was a bit like a tumbler lock letting the rope slide down and in turn pulling the door on these rollers. From this side, we can just put our shoulders against the end of it and push it right back over. There’s no way they can get the necessary purchase to open it again from the other side.”
Diana frowned. “That means we’re safe, right?”
“Sure…”
The flashlights carried by the armed men bobbed into sight as they regained their courage and turned the final bend in the tunnel. One of them shouted in Spanish and then their weapons lit up the darkness once again.
Riley and Charlie tucked in behind the stone archway and returned fire as Decker, Acosta and Selena pushed the heavy stone slab along the rollers and closed the doorway back up.
“That was too close for comfort!” Diana said.
“And here they come!” said Selena. “I can hear them outside.”
They heard the men approach the entrance, screaming and shouting in Spanish. Someone was kicking the stone door, another pounding on it with his fists. Then another opened fire on it. They all heard the pointless shots ricochet off into the tunnel behind them.
“Not a chance,” Decker said. “This slab weighs way too much. No way are they shooting through it.”
“Are you sure?” Diana asked. “If they get in, we’re dead.”
“Don’t count on it,” Riley said. “I’m not going down without one hell of a fight.”
“Me neither,” said Charlie.
“The only way they’re getting through that door is if one of them knows how to read Maya script, understands the ancient counting system and can work out the riddle,” Selena said. “Which is highly unlikely, given what a bunch of monkeys they looked like back in the jungle.”
“We can’t be certain though,” Atticus said. “We should press on while we have an advantage.”
And with that, they turned their flashlights into the pitch-black of the main burial chamber and started searching for Montesino’s mysterious doomsday machine.
They didn’t have to look for very long.
11
“Over there!” Atticus said. “On the altar.”
He shone his flashlight on a carved stone slab and walked closer toward it, his heart full of anticipation. Then, his hopes were dashed. The altar was empty and there was no sign of either the priest’s grave or Montesino’s strange device. Carved into the wall behind it, a giant bas-relief of Huracan stood silent sentinel over the chamber.
“Gosh!” Selena said, looking at the carvings on the altar. “This is odd.”
“Just what I was thinking,” said Atticus.
The rest of the crew joined them around the massive stone slab. “What’s odd about it?” Decker asked.
“First, there’s no sign of anything Montesino wrote about. Second, these carvings seem to be describing the infamous snake kings of the Kaanul Dynasty.”
“And this is odd, why?” asked the American.
“Because the Kaanul Dynasty were based quite far north from here, in an area roughly comprised of Mexico’s Campeche state and northern Guatemala, not here in this part of Belize.”
Riley was frowning. “Wait, what the hell was that about snake kings?”
“They weren’t actually snakes, Riley,” Selena said with an eye roll. “Do try and be sensible.”
“Sure, but when someone says snake kings in a place like this, your imagination tends to start whirring.”
She frowned. “Well, just relax. The snake kings were just normal men who idolized snakes. The worship of reptiles and snakes was all too common around the ancient world. No one knows exactly why.”
“So it’s definitely not because humanity was seeded on the Earth millions of years ago by a race of hyper-intelligent interdimensional reptilian overlords who still to this day rule over us?”
“Riley?”
“What?”
She put her hands on her hips and fixed her eyes on him. “We’re back to you having to shut up again, aren’t we?”
“Is that a ‘no’ on the lizard kings, then?”
“It is a solid no on the time-travelling lizard kings or whatever drivel you just spouted. As I just said, and I think both patiently and with great aplomb – many ancient cultures worshipped reptiles and snakes. The tombs at Holmul that I mentioned earlier back in the Jeep also contained a strange pendant devoted to the sun-god which we think offers a clue about these mysterious snake kings.”
“And they’re absolutely not real snakes?” Riley asked with a grin.
“I thought we established you had to be quiet now?”
He made a gesture pretending to zip up his lips and took a step back.
Selena said, “The ruling family who we call the snake kings are called that because they used a very unique snakehead as their dynasty’s emblem.”
“But why did they choose that particular emblem?” Charlie asked.
Riley hissed. “Because they were half-reptilian, mate!”
“Oh, do stop being such a
