Castro Directive (34 page)

"Now move ahead to that time when the skull is being hidden."

Pierce's body jerked on the couch. Simultaneously he sensed he was someplace else, a place that Atlan couldn't comprehend. He was crammed against a wall, baffled, terrified. He was no longer in the mountains, but in a nightmarish place filled with strange four-legged creatures with large heads and bodies covered with hair. The rear part of them was even larger and was partly human and whirled along without legs. The terrible creatures moved rapidly, clattering on the wide stone path, and didn't seem to notice him or the skull he clutched.

None of Atlan's trips through the underworld had taken him to such a terrifying place. He knew he must be in the heartland of Xibalba, the center of the underworld. This was where he would leave the skull. The creatures here would protect it.

He saw a man walking toward him. His face was hairy, but he was dressed like a woman. When he was just a few steps away from him, he swung open a door and disappeared from sight. Atlan followed him into the building and found himself inside a strange room. Along the walls were row after row of odd rectangular wedges. He watched the man pull out one of the wedges and unfold it. There were three other men in the room, all wearing odd clothing, but different from the one with the woman's clothes.

"Where have you gone with the skull?" The voice again. It confused him, and he didn't answer.

He walked to the rear of the room to avoid the men and found a smaller room. Its walls were also covered with wedges. Then he saw something familiar, a burial urn, and knew that was the place for the skull. He lowered it into the urn and let go. The skull was no longer glowing. He knew it was physically here in Xibalba, and immediately he wished himself out of this alien place and back to the mountains. "Where are you now?"

"Waking, feeling groggy. The men are talking; they're excited. They're saying the skull is gone, and arguing about who was awake, watching."

"Okay, you're going to return to the present. Step back into the elevator."

At first he didn't understand, but then Pierce sensed himself apart from the Indian. The elevator door opened, and he stepped inside.

"You're feeling a bit light-headed, but you'll remember everything that happened to you. I'm going to start counting, and when I reach five you can open your eyes anytime you like."

Pierce rubbed his face as Redington finished counting. He saw Elise sitting on the couch next to him, smiling. "How do you feel?"

"A little confused, but otherwise fine."

"What happened?" she asked. "You didn't say anything for a long time."

"God, I was really gone. It was like I was living that guy's life. Wherever I took that skull, it was a long way from his home. It was— You know where I think it was?" He shook his head. "Now it makes sense, but he couldn't figure it out. He was terrified half to death of horses and buggies. He thought they were monsters. It was an alien world to him."

"Where was it?" Elise asked.

"I think it was Scotland. The man he saw was wearing a kilt. He followed him into a bookshop and left the skull in an umbrella stand in the back room. The stand looked like a burial urn. It was the only thing that made any kind of sense to him."

"So you found where the skull was hidden." Redington spoke the words slowly as he considered what Pierce had just said.

Pierce ran a hand through his hair. "I'm afraid that's not going to help us much. I seriously doubt we'd find it in an umbrella stand in Scotland. Hell, it wasn't even the present. It was like Victorian times, or maybe even earlier."

Redington shut off the tape player. "Your experience doesn't seem to lend itself to an easy interpretation.

Unless the Scotsman is John Mahoney."

"That's what I was wondering," Elise said. She gazed off, a distracted took on her face.

"Well, that doesn't get us anywhere," Pierce said. "We know he doesn't have the skull."

After they left Redington's house, Pierce followed Elise's car, sometimes dropping back two or three blocks. He was watching for any indication that they were being followed. He was particularly looking for a dark blue Mercedes, but he kept his eyes on all the cars that were following them.

As he drove, he puzzled over the hypnosis session, trying to make sense of it. He'd definitely accomplished the objective of the session, but what did it mean? What did any of it mean? Why was Andrews so obsessed with the idea that the skulls would give him eternal youth?

He remembered the articles that Tina had packaged for him. He still hadn't read the one on the crystal skull myth, the one that had something to do with the Fountain of Youth myth. The envelope was in the glove compartment, and he promised himself he'd look it over.

Twice, Elise took side routes to see if they would draw a car off the main streets. None followed, but he wasn't convinced they were alone. After all, if Steve had been watching Redington's place, he would have a pretty good idea where Elise was headed.

Finally, when she turned into her driveway, he cruised slowly around the block another time. As he pulled in behind her, Elise was still seated in the car, just as they'd planned it.

Before going inside, they walked around the house together. He took a flashlight from his car and shone it into the shrubs and at the trees. Her hand was inside her purse, clutching a .22-caliber pistol. Unless it was fired at close range, a shot from the gun would probably just piss off the attacker. But it might be enough to give them time to get away.

As he looked around, he realized for the first time how extensive the landscaping was in her backyard. When he mentioned the lush growth, she told him that was Steve's handiwork. He'd spent most of his spare time during their marriage either working out with weights or working in the yard.

When they'd completed their patrol of the yard and were in front of the house again, he asked if she wanted him to take a look inside. She nodded, and her apprehensive look told him that she dreaded even the thought of encountering Steve in the house.

They walked from room to room and as he followed her up the stairs, he couldn't help but notice how gracefully she moved and his eyes lingered on the curve of her buttocks.

The last room they checked was her bedroom. He opened the closet door, turned on the light, looked carefully into the corners. They were alone.

"Thanks, Nick. I appreciate it."

"Don't mention it." He tilted his head down and kissed her lightly on the lips. She drew her head back, smiled, then wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth tightly against his. Once again he felt the snug fit of her body against his, but this time there was no mistaking the intentions. Her thigh pressed against his groin, which grew hard with desire, and her breathing quickened.

She stepped back toward the bed, breaking the kiss, drawing him toward her. His hand slid over the front of her blouse and he fumbled with the buttons. She pulled his shirt from his pants and slid her hands up over his belly and across his bare chest. Clothes dropped away,

Elise pulled back the covers, and they tumbled into bed. Her skin was as soft and cool as the sheets, a world to travel in, to get lost in.

"When we first met in the weird Jack of Clubs bar, were you hoping I'd invite you to my hotel room?" She moved away from him a little, regarded him in the dim light that issued from the closet. Her hands didn't leave him; they stroked and caressed.

"I was pretty sure you didn't have a room, but I was sort of hoping you'd prove me wrong." His breathing quickened as she kept touching him.

"You know what?! was wishing I really had a room."

For a long time, there was only the heat of their fever, the slickness of skin, the tangle of limbs, and the fury of their bodies. Slow, shallow strokes, soft moans, the bite of Elise's nails against his shoulders, her murmurs, the thrust of her hips, her sharp, startled gasps as she came, and a moment later, the explosion of his own breath.

Pierce collapsed next to her, his arm around her waist. He dozed, and came awake when she rolled away and got up. He heard the bathroom door close, and in the distance, the squeal of car tires. He imagined Steve outside the house, watching now, as the bathroom light shined through the window. Steve watching, waiting.

"T
hat does it," Elise said as she walked into the kitchen. "Still no answer. If I don't reach him today, I'm calling Scotland Yard."

"Sounds drastic." Pierce looked up from the article he was reading. "He's probably enjoying himself in a country house somewhere."

Elise refilled her coffee cup and dropped down in the chair next to him. "I hope so."

"When was the last time you talked to him?"

"A couple of weeks ago."

"You ever read this article on the skull myth that Bill wrote?"

"Yeah," she said, with a sigh, her thoughts still on her father.

"Is it true that—"

The phone rang, cutting off Pierce. Elise literally leaped to her feet and answered it. "Oh, hi. Let me go up to my study. I've got my grade book up there."

She set the phone down and glanced at Pierce. "Will you hang it up for me? It's my teaching assistant."

"Sure."

She hurried off, and when Pierce heard her voice, he dropped the phone into its cradle. He turned his attention back to the article, which he'd brought from the car when he picked up the morning paper.

Although Redington had told him about the legend, his article contained considerably more detail, and related it to Ponce de Leon's search for the Fountain of Youth. According to the legend, the twin skulls had been taken in opposite directions from their homeland. The one known as the God of Death eventually fell into the hands of the Mayans, while the God of Life went to "River Land." The twin gods, who were brothers and enemies, would eventually reunite after the "Fountain of Transformation" was found.

Most of the article dealt with an analysis of the symbols within the tale, equating the search for the skulls with man's search for meaning and wisdom, and for resolution of his duality. River Land was symbolic of the flow of history. The fountain was a metaphor for the expansion of human awareness, the rejuvenated man—the famed Fountain of Youth. The reunion of the twin skulls signified the merging of man's dual nature of good and evil, the next evolutionary step.

When he came to a section on the reappearance of the skulls, he read each sentence carefully. Before their reunion, the two gods would traverse the great sea. The Mayan skull, the God of Death, would be found on an island. The River Land skull, the God of Life, would be discovered in the Fountain of Transformation, which was located between the place of wisdom and purification and the place of death and transformation.

Some help that is, he thought.

"So what were you asking me about the article?" Elise walked back into the kitchen and sat down.

"I was just wondering if you agreed with Bill that Ponce de Leon heard a bastardized version of the crystal skull myth when he went in search of the Fountain of Youth." Elise sipped her coffee, shrugged. "That's speculation."

"Why'd he look in Florida?"

"It wasn't that he said he was going to Florida to look for it. He was the first recorded European to discover Florida.

But he may have found the peninsula by following the directions in the myth."

Pierce frowned at the article. "These directions?" He pointed to a paragraph in the article. "Christ, it sounds like directions to heaven."

"Not really. The Mayans ascribed certain properties to the cardinal points. North was considered the direction of wisdom and purification, and west the direction of death and transformation. In other words, when the legend says the skull will be found between those attributes, it was referring to the northwest."

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it."

"It makes sense. Go northwest from the Mayan Empire in the Yucatan and Guatemala and you'll run directly into South Florida."

"It says here that the skull that ended up in this Fountain of Transformation—the God of Life—came from River Land. Where's that?"

Elise rested an elbow on the table and propped her chin with the palm of her hand. "Maybe River Land is Egypt. The river's the Nile."

"Why do you say that?"

"The scroll. If it actually is Plato's missing dialogue, then I think it's possible."

"Plato was Greek."

"Yes, but he spent time in Egypt. He was even initiated into a secret society in a ceremony in the Great Pyramid." Her tone sounded professional; he guessed it was her teaching voice. "Maybe he obtained the skull from Egyptian priests and that's where he heard about Atlantis."

"So how did Plato's skull get to Florida?"

"Good question. Since no one's ever found the Fountain of Youth, we don't know that it did."

"What about the other skull? According to the myth, it was supposed to be found on an island."

"Great Britain's an island," she answered.

"Paul Loften told me that the skull was found in a Mayan ruin in the 1920s."