Aaron Elkins: Curses!

The codex had already been recovered. The watch had still been there, and all it would take to find out if there was an incriminating 4:12 on it would be to go and turn it over. That was what he'd been trying to tell Marmolejo, and apparently he'd succeeded.

That still left plenty of questions, but his brain was aching with the effort of thinking. Julie was right. They could talk about it later.

He turned his face blindly toward her. “Been a long night?” he asked, enunciating carefully.

"Not too bad. Abe kept me company until a couple of hours ago, but I finally made him go get some sleep.” She squeezed his hand gently. “How do you feel?"

"Pretty good, actually. But my eyes don't seem-"

"Dr. Plumm said they might be paralyzed for a while, but not to worry about it. They'll be okay. Is everything else all right?"

"I think so. I'm just a little weak. And a little surprised to be alive.” The words were coming more easily now.

"You can thank Dr. Plumm for that. He keeps a few vials of coral-snake antivenin on hand, just for times like this. Not that there are ever times like this, except when you're around. He really loaded you up with it. Had to get refills by air from Valladolid. You're also brimming with other intravenously administered goodies. You know, we very nearly had to helicopter you to the hospital in Merida for the iron lung. Dr. Plumm says you're a very lucky young man. I quote him."

"It was a coral snake that bit me? How did he know?"

"From the chew marks, I suppose."

"I thought poisonous snakes always left two fang marks."

"Nope, not Elapidae. They chew on you."

"Elapidae?"

"That's the family. Coral snakes are in the family Elapidae."

"Oh.” He could feel a gauze bandage on his left hand. “Did he have to incise the fang marks, squeeze the blood out?"

"No, there's no point in doing that after the first thirty minutes. Anyway, it doesn't do any good with Micrurus."

"Micrurus?"

"That's the genus."

"Micrurus," he said again, more languidly. “You sure know the damnedest things."

It was very comfortable there, with his eyes closed and Julie holding his hand. He was relaxed and content, almost asleep. Those intravenous goodies, no doubt.

"Funny about the eyes,” he mused. “Why would only the oculomotor nerve be affected, and nothing else? No, wait a minute, the abducens must be screwed up too, because I'm not getting horizontal movement of the eyeball, which must mean involvement of the rectus lateralis. So…"

She laughed deep in her throat and lay her head on his chest. “I think I can stop worrying now,” she said, still laughing. “You're back to normal."

The low chuckling turned to slow, shuddering sobs against his chest. Her hands tightened along his sides. “Oh, Gideon, Gideon, I was so-thank God you're-"

"There, there,” he said drowsily, and lifted his hand to stroke her hair. “Everything's all right now."

And it was. He heard his own breathing become deep and regular, felt his hand slide flaccidly from her head, and seemed to observe himself descending back into the chasm, slowly this time, and peacefully, to a black and dreamless sleep.

The next two days passed in a gauzy haze, mostly quite pleasant. Abe was in and out, cheerful and comforting. A jolly and sanguine Plumm seemed to pop in every five minutes to paint Gideon's hand with gaudy green or purple tinctures, or to administer one of his arcane tests; prothrombin time, partial thromboplastin time, fibrinogen titer. Marmolejo, almost equally jolly, came twice-three times?-to talk about police matters. And always there was Julie, quiet when he wanted quiet, talkative and reassuring when that was what he needed.

On the third day, Plumm told him he was fit to travel, and a week's rest at home was probably his best way to ensure his being able to start the next quarter's courses on time. In any case, Plumm told him firmly, there was to be no thought of continuing work on the dig. Gideon's feeble protests, strictly pro forma, were brushed aside by Abe; Gideon was going home. Doctor's orders. No ifs, ands, or buts. The skeleton in the Priest's House could wait. When Gideon returned later to testify at Leo's trial, he could finish working on it if he felt up to it.

And so, five days after being bitten by a testy Micrurus fulvius in a Mayan ruin in the Yucatecan jungle, Gideon was on the green-and-white ferry Yakima as it made its silent, stately way across a misty, blessedly cool Puget Sound. The flight from Merida to Seattle, even with its airplane changes in Houston and Denver, had been mostly dozed away while Julie read, but the sight of the pearly green islands of the Sound had brought him to life, and they had begun to talk about Tlaloc again as the ferry edged out from the Edmonds dock.

"Isn't it funny?” Julie said, watching the creosote-stained pilings slip by, “We all thought the codex was at the bottom of things, but it was the watch. Just that stupid watch."

"Right,” Gideon said. “Leo knew the codex was a lost cause, what with that all-out campaign by the committee. But the watch-that was important; that could tie him to Howard's murder."

"Well, I still don't understand why he took the chance of waiting so long to do something about it. Why didn't he try to get it years ago when there wasn't any digging going on?"

"But he wasn't taking much of a chance. When the Institute shut Tlaloc down, they really shut it down. ‘For all time,’ they said, which suited Leo just fine. And even if it reopened in fifty years, what could anyone make of the watch by then? The trouble was, they changed their minds in just five years."

"So he came back to try to find it before Abe got to it. That's why he was digging under the temple at night?"

"Uh-huh, but I think that was pretty halfhearted. He knew his watch had come off while he was fighting with Howard, and he'd have liked to have it back to be on the safe side. But it wasn't anything to panic over. He figured there wasn't any way to connect it with him."

"Until you showed up yammering about his watch stopping at 4:12."

Gideon glanced back at her from the window he'd been looking through. His eye muscles were still stiff, and he had to swivel his head to do it. He thought it gave him a certain dignity. “There is,” he said, “no need to be unkind."

She laughed. “How would a bowl of Washington State clam chowder strike you?"

"As if I've died and gone to heaven,” he said earnestly and began to get up.

Julie stood first and leveled a finger at him. “Stay. I'll go get some. I'll bring some hot chocolate to have afterwards, too. Dr. Plumm said hot liquids are good for you."

"Great.” Gideon settled back at the window, feeling luxuriously convalescent and pampered. All he needed was a lap robe. Outside, a string of cormorants scudded along three inches above the water on some urgent avian mission, their black, snaky necks stretched out ahead of them and their wings flapping frantically to keep pace with the ferry. Above and to the north, a lone bald eagle wheeled slowly over the Sound, wings outspread, against swollen clouds.

Julie was right, of course. If not for that conversation about the watch, Leo might have continued to poke along, trying to get in a little more digging of his own, but not overly concerned. There was time, after all; the codex, the body, and the watch were all still well below the surface of the rubble. As Leo very well knew, having so selflessly volunteered to supervise the stairwell excavation.

But once he learned that Ard and Gideon were aware of the watch, he had to act more decisively. And so the threatening note had come within a few hours of that conversation, and the Chichen Itza attack had followed the next night. And when Ard announced that he was leaving Yucatan, Leo had to get rid of him immediately. He couldn't chance Ard's finding out-perhaps when he was back in the United States, out of reach-that a watch stopped at 4:12 had been found near a body lying in the stairwell. Even Stan Ard had been capable of putting two and two together from data like that. Poor Ard.