“It’s why I love archaeology,” Selena said. “Who knows what we would find, if we could dive down and search?”
Riley leaned in close and lowered his voice. “Not Pepe’s personality, that’s for sure.”
“Stop it!”
“That baby’s MIA.”
Over their heads, a brightly colored parrot squawked and screeched and flapped its way out of a tree. Another followed, then dozens more flew up into the bright blue sky. The water lapped at the shore, breaking on the mangroves to their west, and they all heard the familiar cry of a troop of howler monkeys coming from deep inside the rainforest behind them.
“This place could be paradise,” Selena said.
“A paradise with crocodiles.” Riley handed the binoculars to her. “And that ain’t much of a paradise, if you ask me.”
“Gosh,” she gasped. The crocodile was swimming halfway between the shore where they were gathered and the ruins out in the lake. “You don’t get those on Bond Street.”
“No, you get a different kind of predator there,” he said. “Still, he looks hungry.”
She laughed. “How the hell can you tell that?”
“Just something about his eyes.”
“I found something!” Acosta called out. “A small cave in the side of the Flower Mountain foothill. It must be Xibalba!”
“Cool,” Riley said. “We found hell. Excellent. Wait till I tell my mum – she’ll be stoked.”
“It’s not hell,” Selena said. “Do try and grow up.”
The rest of the crew walked over to them, weary but eyes full of anticipation. Charlie wiped the sweat beading on his forehead with his arm. “Sure feels like hell.”
They turned their backs on the lake and walked over to Acosta. The Mexican academic had already disappeared inside the cave. By the time they reached the entrance, he stepped back out with a frown on his face.
“I’m sorry, but it looks like someone else has already beaten us to it…”
Decker took a step forward and saw a hole inside the cave. He reached for his flashlight but when he got to the edge of the abyss, he noticed a glowstick already nestling down in the dirt. Its soft green glow lit the bottom of the shaft and revealed another slightly larger cave.
“Must be the guys who shot us down,” he said, pushing his hat up a little. “Damn.”
18
The Snake King fought hard to control his temper. They had been down inside the cave system for an hour already and still they had not found the Stormbringer. Worse, he knew they had company in the jungle. Last night, they had shot down the Avalon and tried to crash it, but its crew had survived an emergency landing on the lake. They had shot back at his men, so he knew they were alive and kicking. Now, they could be anywhere. If they met again, they would have to be killed.
He heard one of Tarántula’s men calling up from a dark abyss and turned to see the younger Mercado brother leaning on the handle of a pickaxe. He looked irritated and tired.
“What did he just say?” the Snake King said.
Tarántula looked at Carlos then back to Miguel.
“Qué?”
“It’s another slab!”
“Another of the slabs?” Tarántula said.
Novarro and Diablo also stopped their work and faced the boss. They were standing on a large slab of carved rock blocking further access into the cave system.
“Yes, it’s another stone slab,” Miguel called up. “But big, much bigger than the other one we found earlier.”
“How big?” the Snake King said, his frustration rising.
“Hard to say, but judging from the thickness, I’d say maybe fifty square feet.”
“Which means we’re not getting through it with these.” Novarro gave his pickaxe a contemptuous kick with his boot. “Not in a million years.”
Diablo spat a wad of chewing tobacco on the edge of the slab and sniffed. “This is wasting our time.”
“Then break out the explosives,” the Snake King said. “I want this slab out of the way now and no delays! This is the only entrance into Xibalba that we know of. Clearly someone a very long time ago made the decision to stop anyone getting down inside this cave system. This tells me we’re in the right place. The Stormbringer is here, I can sense it. Now, blow it open!”
“Boss.”
Miguel scrambled up out of the hole, walked over to their gear and pulled out a bag packed with C4 explosives. Glancing at his older brother, he closed the pack and marched back over to the gorge with the bag slung over his shoulder.
As he climbed down and positioned the C4, the Snake King almost felt dizzy. So, the old friar had been right all along! His memoirs weren’t just the deranged ramblings of an old fool whose mind had been warped by too much tropical heat. It was all true! Right here, right now, he was about to discover what he had spent half his life searching for.
The terrifying powers of the ancient Maya god, Huracan. All those years of searching had been worth it. All his blood, toil and sweat was about to reap terrible and unimaginable dividends.
Miguel wiped some sweat away from his forehead. “We’re nearly there, boss!”
The Snake King and Tarántula gave each other an anxious look as the men finished carefully placing the plastic explosives in strategic locations around the more exposed sections of the stone slab.
Watching the work come to a finish, the Snake King shook his head in astonishment. “Good God! They buried it under hundreds of thousands of kilos of sandstone. Think of how much it must have terrified them! More than the wrath of God himself!”
Carlos and Miguel caught each other’s eye. The two close brothers already knew what the other was thinking. They didn’t have to say anything. Tarántula saw the look on his men’s faces but
