political party of Peter Mabus.
Dominique pulls into the grand entrance of the Mayaland Hotel and parks. A farmers’ market has been set up across from the parking lot, allowing the local villagers to sell their wares to tourists.
She scans the tables, counting fewer than a dozen visitors among the vendors. The park’s closing’s hurting everyone. Approaching the first booth, she is immediately swarmed upon by children, all pulling at her skirt in an attempt to lure her to their table.
‘Jade necklace, senorita? Only ten dollars, American.’
‘Come, senorita, we have beautiful rings. Five dollars.’
‘ Senorita, you must buy a silk hammock. We give you a very good price, eh?’
‘Okay, okay, tell you what, I’ll buy from the first person who can tell me where I can find the elder known as Ocela.’
The children back away. ‘Don’t know this person, senorita. Maybe you should go, eh?’
The children abandon Dominique for a Canadian couple and their teenage daughter. ‘Bandanna, senor? Two dollar.’
Captain Magierski stares at his Palm Pilot as if he’s just hit the lottery.
SUBJECT VERIFICATION CONFIRMED. ONE MILLION WILL BE WIRED UPON PROOF OF VAZQUEZ CAPTURE, BALANCE DELIVERED WHEN TEAM ARRIVES THIS EVENING. DISCUSS THIS WITH NO ONE. CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU FOR SERVING YOUR COUNTRY.
Dominique moves from table to table, stopping occasionally to check out an obsidian letter opener or an ornamental jaguar. ‘Excuse me? How much?’
‘Thirty dollars, senorita. For you, twenty-three.’
‘I’m looking for a man named Ocela.’
Eyes avert. ‘No man by that name here, senorita.’
She looks up as an Army jeep enters the Mayaland parking lot, its tires skidding across gravel as it comes to a stop, blocking Dominique’s rental car.
Captain Magierski scans the tables using a finger-size telescopic lens.
Dominique ducks behind a shelf stacked with wool Mexican blankets, her heart racing as she peeks out at the soldier. Something’s wrong, he’s definitely after me. Where the hell are those Homeland Security guys when you need them?
Magierski jumps down from the jeep, striding toward the marketplace.
‘Psst! Over here!’
Dominique turns. A curly-haired Mayan man motions at her from behind a fruit stand.
‘Come quickly!’
‘I know you, don’t I?’
‘Elias Forma, I’m a friend of Mick’s. You were at my home. Quickly-’
Magierski pushes through a throng of children, moving from table to table. ‘The American woman, where is she?’
Elias Forma shrugs. ‘No habla ingles.’
‘Maybe you habla this.’ Magierski raises his M-16, pushing the barrel of the gun into the Mayan’s face. ‘Now where’s the goddam girl?’
Elias says nothing, his dark eyes returning the soldier’s glare as the other Mayans crowd around them, whispering.
Magierski grabs Elias by his shirt collar and drags the vendor out from behind the fruit stand, tossing him to the ground. Cocking his weapon, he fires a circle of bullets around the terrified local. ‘Listen up, Dominique Vazquez, you either come out now or I’ll blow his fucking head off!’
‘Hold it!’ Dominique climbs down from the slanted roof of the fruit stand. She approaches the soldier, her hands out at her sides, her blouse unbuttoned to her navel. ‘All you had to do was ask.’
Magierski’s heart pounds faster as he stares at her tantalizing cleavage.
Dominique winks. ‘I’m into handcuffs. Do you have any?’
‘Definitely.’ He removes the shackles from his belt, snapping them around her offered wrists. ‘Looks like you and me are gonna spend a few hours alone together.’
‘Sounds like fun. Think maybe we can get a room at the hotel? I’m hot, and I want to get out of these sweaty clothes. If you’re good, I’ll let you handcuff me to the bed.’
Magierski smiles. ‘Tell you what, how about if I-’
Whomp! Dominique’s right foot snaps off the ground like a cobra, the tip of her shoe driving high into the man’s groin. As the soldier drops to his knees, the ball of her left foot smashes into Magierski’s face, snapping his head back.
The soldier collapses in a heap.
Elias searches Magierski’s belt for the handcuff keys. He tosses them at Dominique as three Mayan vendors drag the unconscious soldier’s body into the high grass.
A dozen more push the jeep off the side of the road and into a ditch.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Peter Mabus lies back in the dressing room chair, allowing his makeup man to finish dabbing at the dark circles beneath his eyes.
A knock and the dressing room door opens. Joseph Randolph enters, followed by a slight, gray-haired Caucasian in his late sixties. The nerdy-looking man wears wire-rimmed glasses and is dressed in a wool suit and black bow tie.
‘He’s had enough primping.’ Randolph ushers the makeup artist out and shuts the door. ‘Pete, this is Solomon Adashek, the man I was telling you about.’
Mabus sits up, his piggy eyes taking in the visitor. ‘No offense, Joe, but he looks more like my goddam CPA than a hired assassin.’
Solomon Adashek remains expressionless. ‘It only takes the strength of a child to pull a trigger, Mr. Mabus. The key to eradicating one’s target is to get close without arousing suspicion. If you’d prefer to hire a goon, I’ll take my services elsewhere.’
‘No, you’ll do. The girl’s in the Yucatan, I’m sure Joe’s briefed you. I want her and the soldier who found her eliminated without a trace.’
Solomon nods, then leaves the dressing room, quietly closing the door behind him.
‘Creepy little shit, ain’t he?’
‘What’s important is that he’ll get the job done without complications,’ Randolph says. ‘Guy’s former CIA, as cold and unfeeling as a reptile. Spent a lot of time in the Soviet Union as a mole. Returned home after the Cold War ended and wigged out. Torched his mother’s home, killing her and her live-in nurse. Served six years and was released on parole. Bit of a pedophile, but he’s calmed down over the years.’
‘Maybe we ought to send him after Chaney?’
‘One step at a time, my friend. One step at a time.’
Chichen Itza, Yucatan Peninsula 10:17 p.m.
The nocturnal jungle is alive with humidity, and chirps, and the ghosts of the dead. Dense brush cuts Dominique’s ankles and lashes out at her neck. Mosquitoes buzz her ears. A flutter of wings takes the air overhead beneath the canopy of trees.
The heaviness of the woods presses in on her, whispering into her ear. She grips Elias Forma’s hand tighter, afraid she will lose him in the darkness. And yet she feels safer here than she does in the real world, knowing that someone out there wants her dead.
Like it or not, you’re Alice in Wonderland, chasing a rabbit down its hole, and there’s no turning back now.
In time they come to a clearing. Dark-skinned Mayan elders squat around a campfire. Dominique recognizes the H’Menes, the same men who helped her and Mick climb down into the sacred well in Chichen Itza six weeks earlier.
A lifetime ago…
The wise men are descendants of the Sh’Tol brethren, a sacred Mayan society that escaped the wrath of the Spaniards back in the fifteenth century.
