Donald Westlake - High Adventure

... the temple?

Valerie gazed about herself, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, bewildered. This was no temple. This was merely an arid brown hill, covered with a stubble of dead brush and dying stunted trees.

Could this ever have been a temple? Unlike the Egyptian pyramids, which had been actual buildings filled with rooms and spaces, the Mayan temples had been mere stone skins veneered onto existing hills, so, in the few short days after she’d first seen this place, could Galway possibly have stripped it completely, every stone and every stela, every corbel arch, every wall, every terrace and stair?

No.

Having done that one impossibility, could Galway then have gone on to remove every trace of what he’d done, every mark and indentation, every touch of the ancient Mayan builders’ hands?

Again, no.

Impossible. In fact, absurd.

“But...” Valerie said aloud, and continued to stare this way and that in total befuddlement. She had seen the temple, with her own eyes. She had stood down there, and looked up here, and had gazed upon an undoubted temple. Exactly where the computers had said it would be. Exactly where she had known it would be. And Kirby Galway had been so upset at her finding his secret temple that he’d gone absolutely berserk, threatening her with a machete, hopping up and down, throwing his hat on the—

Movement down by the plane attracted her attention. Kirby Galway himself had climbed out and was talking and gesticulating with Tommy Watson and Luz Coco and Rosita while the other villagers stood around watching, wondering as much as Valerie what was going on. But now a second person was clambering awkwardly out of the plane, making his way to the ground with the help of several Indians. Valerie’s breath caught. It was Innocent St. Michael!

She stared, forgetting the mystery of the temple. The ringleader himself, here. Ducking low, she watched through the fronds of dead foliage as the talk went on down there, Tommy and Luz now explaining some sort of situation to the other Indians, Kirby explaining, even Innocent St. Michael explaining. People started to point at Valerie.

Well, not at Valerie, but certainly uphill. Toward the village, it must be, because the whole group, still talking and explaining, set out en masse, moving in this direction.

What should she do? Crouched on her hilltop, watching the Indians and the villains climb the slope, she wondered what would be best. Hide in one of the huts, or stay away from the village until after Galway and St. Michael had gone?

They were getting closer, their voices rising toward her. Clear on the afternoon air came the sound of Kirby Galway’s voice. Unmistakably she heard him pronounce one word:

“Sheena.”

Betrayed! By whom? It didn’t matter. But now Valerie understood why Galway and St. Michael were here; they had come to finish the job their minions had started, there could be no doubt about that. Like the startled deer she was, Valerie rose and ran.

Downhill, fleet as the wind. Hoping Rosita wasn’t her betrayer, hoping none of the Indians she had come to like and admire in the last nine days had done this terrible thing, Valerie scrambled down the back side of the non-temple. Nervously missing her footing here and there, she hurried on, fright bringing bile to her throat.

The huts were ahead. There was no help now, not even from the villagers, who were somehow or other in Kirby Galway’s thrall. Every man’s hand, it seemed, was turned against Valerie Greene, yes, and every woman’s too, and probably most of the children.

The village was deserted. There was no place to hide, no sense trying to stay. The prospect of wandering in the wilderness once more was daunting, but not as daunting as the inexorable approach of Kirby Galway and Innocent St. Michael. She had to run for it; that’s all she could do.

Rosita had been making tortillas outside her hut, now cooling on a flat stone. Grabbing them up — who knew when she’d find food again — Valerie tucked them inside her repaired blouse, leaped the little stream, and plunged into the woods.

Innocent sat on a flat stone, catching his breath. All about him, the Indians were in fevered motion, running in and out of huts, splashing through the stream, yelling at one another, slapping their children, kicking their dogs. Kirby Galway paced back and forth like a pirate captain on his bridge, shouting orders, barking commands, pointing this way and that, and being mostly ignored. The two men and one woman in the village who spoke English stood in the middle of it all arguing at the tops of their voices, though not in English, so it didn’t help.

Long before the finish, Innocent knew how it would end. The question was, when it happened would he believe it?

On the other hand, what was there at all to believe about this day? Himself, to begin with, he found utterly incredible. He had committed — or had attempted to commit — physical violence. He, Innocent St. Michael, a man who had always prided himself on his subtlety, a man who let his brains do his fighting and let his money hire what physical labor had to be done. He had committed — or had attempted to commit — a major felony, and not for personal profit . He had committed — or had attempted to commit — a crime of passion ! Him! Innocent St. Michael! Passion !

Attempted; attempted; attempted; hadn’t even done the job right. Ten times he had fired at Kirby Galway and ten times he had missed. Well, nine and a half. One little scratch on the shoulder that Kirby carried on about as though he’d been crippled for life, before finally calming down and swearing all over again that he had absolutely, positively not killed Valerie Greene.

There were reasons at least to believe that last part, which Kirby had elucidated for him in several repetitive shouted sentences. First, if he had murdered Valerie Greene and Innocent had found him out, there was absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t now go ahead and murder Innocent as well. Second, even if he’d had time to plot a murder with Innocent’s driver, the fellow was still Innocent’s driver and Kirby would have been crazy to trust him with such a dangerous request. And third, Kirby now believed that Valerie Greene wasn’t dead after all but was living in an Indian village under the name Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.

So hither they had come, hope and skepticism fighting in Innocent’s breast, to be surrounded by bright-eyed curious villagers, to be assured that yes, Sheena was living with them, she was right over the hill there — Kirby’s hill, Innocent had noted, wondering if it meant anything — and on to the village they had come, for the onset of pandemonium. Once the running and shouting and general disarray started Innocent had merely sat down on a flat stone outside one of the huts to catch his breath, knowing how it would end and wondering if he would believe it when it happened.

Which at last it did. The village had grown quieter, and here was Kirby standing spraddle-legged before him, the very icon of frustrated generalship. “She’s gone,” he said.

Innocent looked up at him; he had mostly regained his breath by now. “The question is,” he said, “do I believe it?”

Kirby looked exasperated to the point of violence. “And just when, goddam it,” he said, “was I supposed to have set up this one?”

“Your gun-toting pal Manny,” Innocent suggested. “He has a radio there at that house. He got on it as soon as we took off, he called here—”

“There’s no radio here,” Kirby said, and waved his arms extravagantly. “Search the goddam place yourself, Innocent. We never put a radio in because we didn’t want to attract attention.”