fire.
Buchanan kept coughing.
“The drug temporarily stops your saliva glands from working,” Raymond said, dragging Buchanan from the cabin, dumping him onto the ground. “That makes your throat dry. In fact, your throat’ll feel irritated for quite some time.” Raymond’s tone suggested that he enjoyed the thought of Buchanan’s discomfort.
Holly coughed as well, then groaned as Raymond dragged her from the cabin and dumped her next to Buchanan. Smoke drifted past them.
“Why are you burning so many trees?” Delgado sounded alarmed.
“To make as wide a perimeter as possible. To keep the natives away.”
“But won’t the flames ignite the-?”
“Mr. Drummond knows what he’s doing. Everything’s been calculated.”
Raymond kicked Buchanan’s side.
Buchanan gasped, making himself sound more in pain than he was, thankful that Raymond hadn’t kicked him in the side where he’d been stabbed.
“Get up,” Raymond said. “Our men have better things to do than carry you. I know you can do it. If you don’t, I’ll kick you all the way to the office.”
To prove his point, Raymond kicked Buchanan again, this time harder.
Buchanan struggled to his knees, wavered, and managed to stand. His mind swirled, imitating the smoke that forced him to cough once more.
Holly staggered upright, almost falling, then gaining her balance. She looked at Buchanan in terror. He tried to communicate an expression of reassurance.
It didn’t work. Raymond shoved both of them, nearly knocking them down before their momentum jerked them upright and forward. They were being herded toward a wide log building that was partially obscured by smoke.
But what captured Buchanan’s attention was the welter of activity around him, workmen rushing, bulldozers and trucks laboring past, cranes lifting girders and pipes. Amid the din of machinery, Buchanan thought he heard a shot, and then he saw stone blocks scattered before him, hieroglyphs on them, obviously from ruins. Here and there, he saw the stunted remains of ancient temples. At once, as the smoke cleared temporarily, he had a brief view of a pyramid. But the pyramid wasn’t ancient, and it wasn’t composed of stone blocks.
This one, tall and wide, was built of steel. Buchanan had never seen anything like it. The structure was like a gigantic tripod, its legs splayed, unfamiliar reinforcements linking them. Even though he’d never seen anything like it, he knew intuitively what it was, what it resembled. An oil derrick. Is that what Drummond wants down here? he wondered. But why does the derrick have such an unusual design?
At the smoke-hazed log building, Raymond shoved the door, then thrust Buchanan and Holly through the opening.
Buchanan almost fell into the shadowy, musty interior, his eyes needing time to adjust to the dim, generator-powered overhead light bulbs. He staggered to a halt, straightened, felt Holly stumble next to him, and found himself blinking upward at Alistair Drummond.
6
None of the photographs in the biography and the newspaper stories Buchanan had read communicated how fiercely Drummond dominated a room. Behind thick spectacles, the old man’s eyes were deep in their sockets and radiated an unnerving, penetrating gaze. Even the age in his voice worked to his advantage, powerful despite its brittleness.
“Mr. Buchanan,” Drummond said.
The reference was startling. How did he find out my name? Buchanan thought.
Drummond squinted, then turned his attention to Holly. “Ms. McCoy, I trust that Raymond made you comfortable on the flight. Senor Delgado, I’m pleased that you could join me.”
“The way it was put to me, I didn’t feel I had a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice,” Drummond said. “You can go to jail or become the next president of Mexico. Which would you prefer?”
Raymond had shut the door after they entered. Now it was bumped open, the cacophony of the construction equipment intruding. A woman in dusty jeans and a sweaty work shirt came in holding long tubes of thick paper that Buchanan thought might have been charts.
“Not now, goddamn it,” Drummond said.
The woman looked startled. Smoke drifted behind her as she backed awkwardly from the building and shut the door.
Drummond returned his attention to Delgado. “We’re much further along than I anticipated. By tomorrow morning, we ought to be able to start pumping. When you get back to Mexico City, I want you to make the necessary arrangements. Tell your people that everything’s in place. I don’t want any trouble. The payments have been made. I expect everyone to cooperate.”
“You brought me here to tell me what I already knew?”
“I brought you here to see what you sold your soul for,” Drummond said. “It’s not good to keep a distance from the price of your sins. Otherwise, you might be tempted to forget the bargain you made. To remind you, I want you to see what happens to my two guests.” With a fluid motion amazing for his age, he turned toward Buchanan and Holly. “How much do you know?”
“I found this in their camera bag,” Raymond said. He placed a videotape on a table.
“My, my,” Drummond said.
“I played it at Delgado’s.”
“And?”
“The copy’s a little grainy, but Delgado’s performance is as enthralling as ever. It holds my attention every time,” Raymond said.
“Then you know more than you should,” Drummond told Buchanan and Holly.
“Look, this isn’t any of our business,” Buchanan said.
“You’re right about that.”
“I’m not interested in oil, and I don’t care about whatever you’re doing to punish Delgado,” Buchanan said. “All I’m trying to do is find Juana Mendez.”
Drummond raised his dense white eyebrows. “Well, in that you’re not alone.”
They stared at each other, and Buchanan suddenly realized what must have happened. Juana had agreed to work for Drummond and impersonate Maria Tomez. But after several months, Juana had felt either trapped or threatened, or possibly she’d just been disgusted by Drummond. Whatever her motive, she’d broken her agreement and fled. Along the way, unable to risk a phone call to Buchanan’s superiors, needing to contact Buchanan but without allowing any outsider to understand her message, she’d mailed the cryptic postcard that only Buchanan could decipher. Meanwhile, Drummond’s people had frantically searched for her, staking out her home and her parent’s home and anywhere else they suspected she might go. They had to guarantee her silence. If the truth about Maria Tomez was revealed, Drummond would no longer have control of Delgado. Without Delgado, Drummond wouldn’t have the political means to sustain this project. The oil industry in Mexico had been nationalized back in the thirties. Foreigners weren’t allowed to have the influence in it that Drummond evidently wanted. That this was an archaeological site made the political problem all the more enormous, although from the looks of things, Drummond had solved the archaeological problem simply and obscenely by destroying the ruins. When Delgado became president of Mexico, he could use his power with appropriate politicians. A back-door arrangement could be made with Drummond. For discovering and developing the site, Drummond would secretly be paid the huge profits that foreign oil companies used to earn before the days of nationalization. But that wasn’t all of it, Buchanan sensed. There was something more, a further implication, although he was too preoccupied with saving his life to analyze what it was.
“Do you know where Juana Mendez is?” Drummond asked.
