Ancient Hiss Story (11 page)

K
ate ran all
the way to Jersey’s site, hoping to catch her before she went off to dig. She didn’t know exactly where they were digging, but if Jersey wasn’t at the campsite, she could at least leave a note.

In her haste, she almost forgot about the threat of snakes, barely swishing her stick as she ran. She was so focused on getting to Jersey that she was practically oblivious to the sounds behind her, until she thought she saw trees moving off to the side. Her first thought was that it could be Ed. Maybe he was onto her and trying to head her off before she got to Jersey. The thought only made her run faster, her heart pounding in her chest.

She burst into the clearing of Jersey's camp. It was empty! Then a movement over near the snake cave caught her eye. It was Jersey! Kate sprinted over.

“I’m glad I caught you!” Kate bent at the waist, her hands on her knees, and sucked in a breath.

Jersey’s brow creased. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Kate took a few breaths, her hand pressing against the stitch in her side. “I need to warn you about your assistant.”

Jersey glanced around the empty camp. “Ed?”

“Yes. I don’t think he is what he seems to be.”

“Really?” Jersey looked at her skeptically. “Why do you say that?”

“I saw a picture—“

“Shhh…” Jersey put out her hand to shush Kate, her eyes drifting out to the edge of the campsite. “Did you hear something?”

Kate wondered if it was Ed skulking around the edges of the camp and listening to them. Her hands snuck into her vest pocket, her stomach sinking when she realized she’d run off so fast that she’d forgotten to bring her gun. The only weapon she had was her walking stick. She felt grateful that Gideon had equipped it with a knife and she had the appropriate fencing skills, but it was still no match for a gun.

Luckily, Jersey
did
have a gun and she was holding it in her hand now. Leaves rustled behind them and Jersey motioned for Kate to go to one side of the cave while Jersey covered her with the gun.

“Hold it right there!” Kate whirled around to see Snake Ring and Onion Mole standing at the edge of the forest.

“You!” Kate gasped.

“So, we meet again.” Snake Ring smirked. “This time, you might not get off so easy.”

Kate glanced around in a panic. Jersey had her gun on Onion Mole, but Snake Ring had his gun on Kate. All Kate had was a walking stick. And to make matters worse, she heard a slithering sound near the cave to her left. She slid her eyes to the left, her stomach turning inside out when she saw the unmistakable red and black stripes of a poisonous coral snake. A salty bead of sweat dripped into her eye and she blinked furiously to clear her vision.

“Looks like we’re at a stalemate,” Jersey announced.

Snake Ring jerked his gun in Kate’s direction. “Just hand over your half of the map and I’ll let you go.”

“Map?” Jersey looked from Snake Ring to Kate.

“It’s not really a map, per se,” Kate explained. “It’s just part of a painting. And I don’t have it with me.”

Kate was distracted by the slithering sound behind her. Was the snake getting closer? She angled her walking stick in the direction of the snake, ready to spear it should it venture any closer.

“Then you will take me to it.” Snake Ring glanced at Onion Mole. “Get her!”

Onion Mole lunged toward Kate. At the same time, Kate swung her walking stick back toward the snake. She managed to hook the end of the stick under the snake and then flung it toward Onion Mole.

Onion Mole’s hands flew up to ward off the flying reptile. The snake landed on his shoulder and slithered around his neck.

“Get it off!” Onion Mole twisted around, flailing his arms in an attempt to throw the snake off. He stumbled around, then blundered off blindly into the woods, the snake still curled around him.

Jersey trained her gun on Snake Ring. “Give it up. My partner will be back any minute and you’ll be greatly outnumbered.”

The thought of Ed coming back any minute didn’t make Kate feel any safer, but she kept her mouth shut.

Snake Ring kept his eye on Jersey as he inched his way closer to Kate until he was within an arm’s distance. “You wouldn’t pull the trigger,” he taunted Jersey.

Jersey answered him by clicking off the safety.

Snake Ring faltered and Kate seized the advantage. She pressed the button on the handle of her walking stick and the razor-sharp knife flicked out of the end. At the same time, she swooped it toward Snake Ring, lashing a bloody gash in his thigh.

“Ouch!” He looked down, his gun hand wavering while his free hand flew to the gash.

Jersey took her shot.

Snake Ring fell to the ground, a red stain spreading rapidly in the middle of his chest.

Kate looked at Snake Ring in astonishment.

“Wow. Thanks,” she said, her heart swelling with the warmth of friendship.

“You’re welcome,” Jersey replied so matter-of-factly that Kate got the uneasy impression this wasn’t the first person Jersey had shot. She seemed awfully at ease for someone who had just killed another person.

Kate felt a rush of euphoria, the kind you get when you’ve just escaped being shot by a creepy bad guy. It was especially sweet that she and Jersey had done it together. Girl power.

“Ha! We showed them.” Kate slapped Jersey an enthusiastic high-five.

Jersey walked over to Snake Ring’s body and turned him over with her foot. He had fallen right in front of the opening to the snake cave and Kate stood in between his body and the cave opening.

Jersey looked over the body at Kate. “Who is this guy?”

“He’s one of the bad guys I warned you about,” Kate said.

“And what was this business about a map?” Jersey asked.

Kate decided she’d better come clean. She didn’t want to lie to Jersey, especially since the woman had just saved her life. Max might not like that she had told her about the Aztec tomb or that they might have to share the find, but it was the right thing to do.

Kate was trying to figure out how to break it to Jersey without sounding like a jerk when she noticed a piece of paper sticking out of the pocket of Snake Ring’s cargo pants.

“What’s this?” She bent down and took it out of his pocket. She opened it and her heart skittered with excitement. It was the other half of the map from underneath the painting.

“This is it!” The words slipped out and she realized Jersey would have no idea what they meant.

Click.

“Good, then hand it over.”

“What?” Kate’s brows mashed together. She looked up to see Jersey aiming the gun at her. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll take that map,” Jersey said.

Suddenly Jersey’s kind blue eyes and girl-next-door face turned menacing. Kate clutched the map to her chest. “What do
you
want with this?”

“You’re not very smart, are you?” Jersey asked and then, not waiting for an answer, continued, “You think I’m really here to excavate this Mayan ruin? I saw through you the first time you came to the camp. I know you’re after the tomb of Itizuma and so am I.”

“So this Mayan village dig is just a cover?” Kate asked incredulously.

Jersey laughed. “You got it. Now hand over the map.” She stepped closer until the gun was only inches from Kate’s forehead.

Kate stepped backward, which put her inside the snake cave. The sound of hissing in the dark recesses of the cave chilled her blood and Kate just stood there, frozen like an idiot while Jersey grabbed the map out of her hand.

“Thanks,” Jersey said brightly as she stepped back out of the cave, the sunlight streaming over her blonde hair. Too bad she still had the gun pointed at Kate. Judging by the way she’d just shot Snake Ring, she had no qualms about shooting people and, at this range, she probably wasn’t going to miss.

Behind Kate, the snakes hissed. She opened her mouth to try to talk some sense into Jersey. Maybe she could bargain with her, try to get her to team up with them or talk her way out of it. But no words came out. She was frozen, just like she had been in Stockholm and the steam tunnel.

Jersey folded the map and put it in her pocket. She squared her stance, her feet shoulder-width apart, both hands on the gun as she took aim.

Kate squeezed her eyes shut.

“
Boom!
”

The gun went off, but Kate didn’t feel the piercing bullet tear through her flesh. Instead, she heard a rumble. Her eyes flew open and she saw an avalanche of rocks come down from the top of the mouth of the cave, sealing it off and leaving her in total darkness.

B
eing
shot was preferable to being in a pitch black cave filled with snakes. But Kate hadn’t been shot. She stood still, her heart thudding against her rib cage as her nostrils clogged with the smell of dank, moist dirt and her ears buzzed with the slithering, hissing sounds of the snakes.

How many snakes were in here? She couldn’t tell.

There was one way to find out, though Kate wasn’t convinced she wanted to. She stuck her trembling hand in her vest pocket in search of her phone. There was no cell phone reception, but she carried it with her anyway in case she needed to take pictures, and it just so happened she had a flashlight app on the phone.

She found the phone in her upper left pocket and pulled it out. Her fingers shook so badly she could barely press the button. She managed to find the app and then got her walking stick into snake-stabbing position in front of her before she dared turn it on.

She pressed the button and a stream of light splashed against the end of the cave. Kate whooshed out a breath when she realized it wasn’t loaded with dozens of snakes as she had imagined. She slowly played the light along the sides, floor and top of the small cave. She could see the cave was not natural but rather had been built by humans many years ago—probably by the Mayans or the Aztecs. She didn’t know how many layers of rock had blocked the entrance, but she could see no pinpricks of light coming through.

Should she try to dig her way out?

The light caught movement in the corner and her stomach twisted. Slowly, she aimed her beam at the corner, relief flooding through her when she saw there was only one snake. One
big
snake. It was probably twelve feet long and six inches thick in the middle.

The snake twisted around itself in a coiling mass of scales. Kate felt woozy. It looked at her with its golden, slitted eyes and she almost froze up again. But she couldn’t let herself freeze this time—not if she wanted to get out of there.

But first, she needed to get rid of the snake. She slowly angled her arm back and then in one swift move, she flung the walking stick like a javelin toward the snake.

“
Twanggg
!”

The stick hit its mark, the blade slicing into the side of the furious reptile who coiled around itself, whipping it’s body back and forth in an angry, hissing mass. Kate’s heart stopped as she watched the blade fall out of the snake. It turned an angry gold eye on her, then disappeared through a tiny hole in the wall.

Kate’s knees collapsed and she fell on the floor. She sat on the damp earth for several minutes, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal and contemplating her next move.

She was alone in the cave, which was preferable to being with the snake, but Kate wondered if it would come back or if there would be others. Ed had said the cave was loaded with them and she didn’t really want to stick around to find out. She felt a small spark of pride that she hadn’t frozen on the spot like she had in the past. That knowledge flooded her with bravery and the courage gave her hope that she could find out way out of this.

She retrieved the walking stick. The blade had lodged into the dirt wall of the cave and as she pulled it out, she heard another hissing sound.

Her heart froze.

No, that wasn’t hissing … it was running water. Shining the light on the area from where she’d just pulled the knife, Kate saw that it wasn't solid earth behind there … there was an empty space behind the wall.

Hope bubbled up in Kate’s chest. That empty space could be a passageway that might lead out.

She poked her finger through the hole. The wall was about five inches thick, but it was solid and compact, as hard as cement. Digging a hole with the knife would take forever—she needed something faster. She looked around the cave, but it was empty.

“Damn!” Why couldn’t there be an old shovel or something tossed in here like in the movies. And then it came to her.

She’d put on the clunky jewelry gadgets Gideon had given her earlier that morning so he wouldn’t lecture her on their call and that was going to pay off in spades.

Saying a silent prayer of thanks to her lab rat friend, she tore off the necklace, bracelet and earrings and screwed the pieces together, the smaller pieces at one end graduating to the larger piece to make one big drill bit. Balancing her cell phone light on her lap, she opened the secret compartment in the heel of her boot and took out the motor, then attached it to the end of the drill bit.

Satisfied it was all together tightly, she held her breath and pressed the button. The drill worked perfectly.

It wasn’t as good as a spade, but it would do in a pinch. It would certainly be faster than trying to dig through with the knife. She aimed it at the wall starting at waist height and drilled a series of holes, punching the dirt out in between and praying the wall did not collapse on top of her.

As the opening got larger, she could hear running water and smell the ozone-heavy air. Her heart thudded with excitement and she drilled faster. When the opening was big enough, she crouched down and crab-walked through.

The first thing she did on the other side was scan for snakes. Thankfully, there were none. She was in a long tunnel with a narrow river running down the side. By instinct, she knew that she should follow the water and it would eventually lead out. But how far would she have to go?

Glancing around, she didn’t see any other way. The only other thing she could do was to try to dig out the rocks that had collapsed the mouth of the cave and if she did that, would Jersey be waiting on the other side with a gun?

No, her best bet was to follow this tunnel. She aimed the beam of her cell phone at the ground in front of her and started walking.

K
ate had been walking
for a tense five minutes when the tunnel started getting narrower, the ceiling lower. The river veered off to the right and then disappeared underground. Panic spread in Kate’s chest. What if the tunnel she’d been following just ended here?

But it didn’t. It took a sharp right into a cave-like room. The room smelled like musty old dirt. It had shelves all around and at first, the contents of the room didn’t register.

But when they did, Kate gasped.

The room was full of human bones.

Kate instinctively pulled back from the sides, standing in the middle of the room. The bones were piled up on the shelves that had been cut into the earth at various levels around the sides of the room. Skulls, femurs, spines. It was creepy. But definitely better than snakes.

At the opposite end of the room, Kate realized some of the skulls had been decorated. One was studded in turquoise tiles. One had carvings all over it. Some of those carvings looked familiar.

She went to the skull with the carvings, bending over and aiming her flashlight app at it. Her nerves tingled with excitement when she saw the familiar figure eight snake carving. This snake was very detailed and even had little feathers along its body, similar to the carving Gertie had found. Even more exciting were the winged frogs on either side—the same ones that were on the archway they’d found that morning. And if she wasn’t mistaken, the frogs were marching off in a path that almost looked like a map.

Could this be the map to the tomb?

Kate wasn’t about to pick the skull up and bring it with her. She did the next best thing and snapped a few pictures with her cell phone. When she finished, she looked for the exit, her excitement at finding the skull waning when she realized there was no exit. She’d hit a dead end.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

What was that noise?

Kate leaned closer to the skull. Was the noise coming from the skull?

Clink. Clink.

It was coming from the wall behind the skull, which Kate noticed wasn’t dirt as she’d suspected before but solid stone. Was there another room behind there?

Kate ran her fingers along the wall and found a crack. It was thin, but she could feel cool air coming through it. Fresh air. The room on the other side could be her only way out.

As she pressed on the wall, she realized it wasn’t a crack at all, but the opening in a false wall. She leaned her shoulder against it and it moved slightly. Would it slide open and give her access to the fresh air and possible exit on the other side?

But someone or
something
was on the other side making those clinking noises and all she had for a weapon was her walking stick. Maybe that was enough, though. She pressed the button on the handle and the knife slid out with an almost imperceptible click.

Her muscles tensed while she slowly pushed the wall open just enough for her to squeeze through.

Kate jumped into the room, positioned for battle, the blade held out in front of her as a weapon. “Hands in the air!”

The figure that had been bent over something on the other side of the room spun around. “Kate?”

“Ace?”

“What are you doing here?” He glanced at her walking stick. “Put that thing down.”

Kate’s eyes slid from Ace’s face to where he had been crouched in the corner. It looked like he’d been chiseling away at some kind of rock on one of the walls. She put the stick down. “What are you doing here?” She gestured toward the stone.

“Making good use of my time.” Ace pointed to something behind Kate and she turned around, for the first time realizing that the cave wasn’t in complete darkness. It was lit by sunlight that was coming in from something down at the end of a tunnel.

Hope flooded Kate’s chest. “Is that the way out?”

“I don’t know about that,” Ace said. “It was certainly the way in. But you can’t get out that way. It’s too high up.”

“Too high up?” Kate started at him, confused for a second before realizing what he was talking about. “You mean you fell in a pit?”

“Yep.”

Kate would’ve laughed if she wasn’t trapped in an underground cave with the last person she wanted to be trapped in an underground cave with. Still, she was glad that she wasn’t the only one who had fallen for Jersey and Ed’s covered pit trick.

But that didn’t actually explain why Ace was here in the first place. “What are you doing out here and why are you digging up the cave?” Kate gestured to where he had been chiseling away the stone.

Ace glanced back over his shoulder. “Let’s just say the FBI has a vested interest in Itizuma’s tomb.”

Kate scrunched her face up. “Really? Since when does the FBI care about archaeological finds?”

Ace sighed. “I told you before this is more than just an archaeological find.”

Kate walked over to the stone, surprised to find that it contained the winged frogs similar to those she'd found on the skull. They were leaping away in what looked like a path similar to the one on the skull. She didn’t know how Ace had gotten his information that led him to this part of Mexico, but he might know more than she did about these leaping frogs. Kate realized the frogs could very well be the final piece of the map that she needed to locate the tomb.

Why would Ace be here by himself looking for the tomb? And why had he been in the market earlier when the hookah man had been murdered?

She whirled around to face him. “Are you sure you came with the FBI? Where are your partners?”

Ace’s face crumbled and Kate felt a stab of regret. His cheek ticked as he answered her question. “The FBI is interested in the tomb. Like I said, this goes way beyond any kind of monetary or historical find. But I can’t lie to you. I
did
come out early without my partners.”

“Why?”

Ace sighed. “So that I could find you.” He took a step closer and put his hands on her shoulders, pulling her toward him so close that she had to tilt her head back to look up at his face. “I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”

Ace’s lips slowly made their way toward Kate’s, causing her heart to constrict in a battle of emotions. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to collapse in his arms or push them away and run in the other direction. Running was probably best, but much to her dismay, her traitorous body stayed frozen on the spot, her lips puckering, her eyes closed in anticipation …

“Hey, is someone down there?”

Their lips only millimeters apart, Kate and Ace jerked their heads in the direction of the voice coming from the top of the pit. Kate pushed Ace away and ran for the light.

“Heellooo!” the voice called and Kate recognized it as belonging to Ed.

Ace appeared at her side. “Who’s that?”

“It’s Jersey’s assistant, Ed,” she whispered.

“The archaeologist?” Ace asked. “Can we trust him?”

Kate wondered how much Ace knew about Jersey. Everything had happened so fast in the cave that she hadn’t even had a chance to tell him about her run-in with Snake Ring and Jersey’s betrayal.

Kate didn’t know if they could trust Ed. She’d certainly thought he was not to be trusted before, but that was when she thought he was pulling one over on Jersey. Now that she knew Jersey was the one not to be trusted did that mean that Ed was a good guy?

Either way, the ladder was their only way out. She cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled, “We’re down here!”

Ed’s face appeared over the edge of the pit. “Kate! I heard what happened with Jersey. I’ll lower the ladder. I have something for you.”

Alarm bells went off in Kate’s head. Why was Ed acting friendly all of a sudden? Could it be a trap? She glanced at Ace and could see he was having the same feelings of mistrust. But they needed the ladder and she
was
curious about what Ed had.

“Wait,” Ace said. “I think we need the stone. I think it’s part of a map to the tomb.”

They started back into the cave and Kate whipped out her cell phone. “We don’t need the stone, I'll just take a picture.”

“Good idea.” Ace’s brows pinched together. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Kate tried to hide the smug smile that appeared on her face while she snapped the pictures. “So, what makes you think this is a map anyway?”

“I know a lot more about this than you think,” Ace whispered while they walked back toward the pit opening. “We’ve been researching this back at the bureau and we know there are ancient codes or hieroglyphs that make up this map. It seems to be split up among various items, though, and we don’t have them all.”