Lost Empire (45 page)

“Three hundred yards across and two hundred feet off the water.”

“It’s not big enough to be an island.”

“An islet, then. Either way, it’s what you’ve been looking for.”

“Why is the center concave?”

“It’s called a caldera. You’re looking at an extinct volcano,” replied Sam. “You still don’t see it, do you?”

“See what?”

“Remi?”

With a nod of approval from Rivera, Remi leaned over his shoulder and looked out the window.

Sam said, “Squint. Think ‘big hollowed-out flower.’”

A beaming smile spread across Remi’s face. “Sam, you found it.”

“We’ll soon find out. Do you see it yet, Rivera?”

“No.”

“You’re familiar with the traditional illustration depicting Chicomoztoc? Imagine that illustration viewed from above. Now imagine the points of the island rounded and more pronounced.”

After a few moments Rivera murmured, “I see it. Amazing. Amazing! Take us down!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, damn it, take us down!”

“Whatever you say.”

Passing through two hundred feet, Sam banked the Ikarus one last time, following the bay’s western shoreline until the plane’s nose was again pointed north. Thirty seconds later, the pontoons kissed the surface; the Ikarus’s fuselage shivered and the windows rattled. Sam kept a slightly nose-up attitude, bumping over the surface as his speed bled off.

He watched the needle drop to sixty knots, then fifty. When it slid past forty knots, he said, “Remi, how many sleeping bags do we have?”

She leaned forward in her seat, picked up the pile of bags, and placed them in her lap. “I’ve got three.”

“And I’ve got one,” Sam replied, pointing to the bag stuffed between his seat and the passenger seat. “Rivera, how many do you have?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Sam’s eyes flicked to the dashboard. The needle hit thirty-five knots. He turned toward the man in the passenger seat. “How about you?”

The man opened his mouth to reply but the words never came out. In one fluid motion, Sam dropped his right hand diagonally down, punched the man’s seat-belt release, then grabbed the sleeping bag, brought it to his chest, and shoved the stick forward.

The Ikarus nosed over and slammed into the water.

HAVING NEVER INTENTIONALLY CRASH-LANDED BEFORE, SAM had a plan that was a combination of gut instinct and a fair grasp of physics. Traveling at thirty knots—roughly thirty-four miles per hour—the Ikarus had enough kinetic energy to throw everyone inside violently forward against their seat belts but not enough to throw the seaplane into a nose-over-tail tumble.

The impact was also enough to rip the passenger seat and the seat behind it free of the mounts that Sam had preloosened before leaving the airstrip.

Rivera’s man in the passenger seat, already unbelted, was driven headfirst into the windshield, snapping his neck and killing him. Rivera, still belted in, flew forward and slammed into the back of the passenger seat, while Sam, clutching the sleeping bag in front of his face and chest, smashed into the dashboard. In the backseat Remi’s impact was cushioned by two sleeping bags. She was the first to regain consciousness after the impact.

 

 

SHE RELEASED HER BELT and heaved herself forward between the seats. She grabbed Sam by the shoulders and eased him backward. Water was gushing into the cabin through the hole left in the windshield by Rivera’s man. Already nose down in the water, the Ikarus began tipping forward under the weight of its engine, lifting the tail from the water.

“Sam!” Remi shouted. “Sam!”

His eyes snapped open. He blinked a few times, looked around. “Did it work?” he asked.

“We’re both alive. I’d call that a success.”

“What about Rivera?”

Remi looked at Rivera, who lay slumped forward, bent at the waist.

“Unconscious or dead. I don’t know and I don’t care. We need to think about leaving, Sam.”

“How about right now?”

“Great!”

Sam braced his feet against the dashboard, fighting gravity, then punched the button to release his seat belt. He tried his door. It didn’t budge. He tried again. “My door’s jammed. Try Rivera’s door.”

“He’s blocking it.”

Sam pressed with his legs and arched his back, sliding his upper body into the backseat. “Get his belt.” Remi hit the release. Rivera slid forward into Sam’s outstretched hands. He let gravity do the rest, and Rivera tumbled headfirst onto the remains of the passenger seat and his dead friend.

Remi crawled across the seat and grabbed the door handle. “Are you ready?”

“Whenever you are.”

“Deep breath!”

 

 

SHE MUSCLED THE DOOR OPEN. A column of water surged into the cabin. They let the cabin fill up, then Remi shoved off and swam out. Sam was halfway out the door when he stopped and turned back. He kicked into the front seat and started probing the floorboard with his hands. Under the dead man’s left boot Sam found what he was looking for: the semiautomatic pistol the man had been holding. He tucked it into his belt.

He made his way back out and kicked for the surface. He broke into the air beside Remi. Ten feet to their right the plane’s tail was jutting straight out of the water.

“It’s not going down,” Remi said.

“Probably a pocket of air in the tail. I’m going back down to see what I can salvage. My plan didn’t include that part. I’ll meet you on the beach.”

Sam took in a lungful of air, flipped over, and dove. His outstretched hand found the leading edge of the wing, and he pulled himself across the fuselage, then down into the doorway.

He stopped.

Rivera was gone. Sam looked into the tail section, saw nothing, and checked the front seat again. He saw movement out of the corner of his right eye and turned his head. A shadow rushed toward his face. He felt something hard strike his forehead. Pain flashed behind his eyes, and everything went dark.

 

 

“SAM!” HE HEARD DISTANTLY. The voice faded, then returned. “Sam!”

He felt hands on his face. He knew that touch: Remi. He forced his eyes open. She was leaning over him, her auburn hair dripping onto his face. She smiled. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Very funny. None. I’m okay. Help me sit up.”

“Just stay there. You’ve got a nasty gash on your forehead.”

“Rivera . . . Where is—”

“I’m here, Mr. Fargo.”

Sam tilted his head backward. An upside-down Rivera was sitting ten feet up the black-sand beach. “Damn,” Sam muttered. “I’ll give you this much, Rivera, you’re one tough bastard.”

Sam forced himself up onto his elbows, then sat upright with Remi’s help. He turned around. Rivera was in tough shape; his nose was broken, one of his eyes swollen shut, and his lower lip was split. The gun in his right hand was held in a rock-steady grip, however.

Rivera said, “And you’re too clever for your own good. As soon as you’re feeling better I’m going to kill you and your wife.”

“I may have tried to kill you, but I didn’t lie about this place. I could still be wrong, but I don’t think so.”

“Fine. I’ll kill you both, then find the entrance myself. The island isn’t that big.”

“It doesn’t look big now, but once you get into that jungle it’ll suddenly get a lot bigger. It would take you months to find it.”

“And how long for you?”

Sam checked his watch. “Eight hours from the time we get into the caldera.”

“Why that number?”

“Just a guess.”

“Are you stalling for time?”

“That’s part of it. Also, we want to find Chicomoztoc as much as you do. Maybe more. We’ve just got a different motive than you do.”

“I’ll give you four hours.”

Rivera stood up.

Remi helped Sam to his feet. He leaned on her as though dizzy. “Headache,” he said loudly, then whispered in Remi’s ear: “I had a gun.”

She smiled. “You did. I have it now.”

“Waistband?”

“Yes.”

“If you get a chance, shoot him.”

“Gladly.”

“I’ll try to distract him.”

 

 

HAVING TOUGHENED THEMSELVES over the past few weeks, first on Madagascar, then on Pulau Legundi, Sam and Remi found the hike up the island’s forested slope relatively easy. Rivera, however, was struggling. His broken nose forced him to breathe through his mouth, and he was now limping. Still, his years as a soldier were shining through. He kept pace with them, keeping ten feet between them and his gun.

At last they reached the top. Below them, the caldera’s slopes dropped a hundred feet to the valley floor. The bowl shape, having acted as a rain funnel for centuries, had caused the trees and vegetation to grow faster than their cousins on the exterior.

“What now?” asked Rivera.

Sam turned around in a circle, orienting himself. “My compass was in the plane, so I have to estimate this . . .” Sam walked to the right, picking his way through the trees for another fifty feet, then stopped. “It should be right about here.”

“Here?”

“Below us.”

“Explain.”

“Right after which you shoot us. No thank you.”

Rivera’s mouth tightened in a thin line. His eyes never leaving Sam’s, Rivera shifted his gun slightly right and pulled the trigger. The bullet punched through Remi’s left leg. She screamed and collapsed. Rivera shifted the gun back onto Sam, stopping him in midstep.

“Let me help her,” Sam said.

Rivera glanced at Remi. His eyes narrowed. He limped over to where she was lying, crouched down, and picked up the pistol that had fallen from Remi’s waistband. Rivera stepped back. “You can help her now.”

Sam rushed to her side. She gripped his hand hard, her eyes squeezed shut against the pain. Sam patted his pockets, came up with a bandanna, and pressed it against the wound.

Rivera said, “Do I have your full attention now?”

“Yes, damn it.”

“The bullet hit her in the quadriceps muscle. She won’t bleed to death, and, providing she doesn’t stay out here more than a couple days, there’s not much chance of infection. Between these two guns I’ve got thirty more rounds. Start cooperating or I’ll keep shooting.”

THEY MADE THEIR WAY DOWN TO THE VALLEY FLOOR, SAM IN THE lead with Remi cradled in his arms and Rivera trailing behind. They found a small clearing in the approximate center of the bowl, and Sam laid Remi down. Rivera sat down on a fallen log at the edge of the clearing. His gun never wavering from Sam’s chest, Rivera lifted his shirt up; on the left side of his abdomen was a black softball-sized bruise.

“That looks painful,” Sam said.

“It’s just a bruise.”

Sam knelt beside Remi. He lifted the bandanna on her thigh. The bleeding had slowing to a trickle. He whispered, “Rivera’s bleeding internally.”

Through clenched teeth Remi asked, “How bad?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Stall until he keels over dead.”

“I’ll try.”

“Stop your whispering!” Rivera barked. “Move away from her.” Sam complied. “Tell me your theory about the entrance.”

Sam hesitated.

Rivera pointed the gun at Remi.

“It’s based on the illustrations,” Sam said. “Chicomoztoc is always a cavern with seven smaller caves around it . . . like a flower. The cavern is beneath a mountain. The drawings vary, but the big details are the same—including the location of the entrance.”

“At the bottom,” Rivera said.

“Right. But if I’m right and this is the place, it means the exterior shape of the island was as important to them as the interior.”

“How could they have gotten an overhead view of it?”

“They didn’t. They sailed around it and mapped it. As small as this island is, it would have been easy to do it accurately.”

“Go on.”

“If you’re looking at the illustration face on as a two-dimensional image, the entrance to Chicomoztoc is down. If you look at it from overhead—and they oriented themselves on the four cardinal directions like most cultures do—then the entrance lies to the south.”

Rivera considered this, then nodded slowly. “Good. Now go find it. You’ve got four hours. If you don’t find it by then, I’ll kill you both.”

 

 

RIVERA MADE THE GROUND RULES clear: Sam would search for the entrance while he, Rivera, guarded Remi. Rivera would call Sam’s name at random intervals. If Sam didn’t answer within ten seconds, Rivera would shoot Remi again.

 

 

AS HE AND REMI HAD DONE on Pulau Legundi, Sam made do with what was at hand: a sturdy six-foot-long stick and patience. Facing what he thought was due south, he started up the caldera’s slope, prodding ahead of him with the stick.

The first pass to the top took him twenty minutes. On the rim he sidestepped to the right and started back down the slope. He felt ridiculous. Though his method was sound and still used in certain cases, the gravity of where he was, what he searching for, and the clock that was ticking on Remi’s life blended together, giving him a nagging sense of helplessness.

The afternoon wore on. In twenty-minute intervals he hiked up the slope, then down the slope. Up, down, repeating until he’d made six passes, then eight, then ten.

Shortly before five o’clock, with the sun dropping toward the western horizon, he was picking his way through a particularly dense cluster of trees when he stopped to catch his breath.

Initially, the sound was just a faint hiss. Sam held his breath and strained to pin down the location. It seemed to be all around him.

“Fargo!” Rivera hollered.

“Here!” Sam called back.

“You have thirty more minutes.”