Dustin Thomason - 12.21

THE DIGITAL DISPLAY on the phone told Chel it was just after eight A.M. on December 18. Three days to the end of the Long Count cycle. Three days until Victor and all the rest of them realized they’d murdered Rolando over a fucking calendar.

She would never be able to understand what her mentor had done or forgive herself for letting him back into her life. She’d played every detail over in her head—from the moment she’d showed up at the MJT until Victor left the lab—searching for answers. Trying to find some clue she missed about what he was really capable of.

Slowly, Chel dialed the number she knew best. The cell towers were overwhelmed, but this time, after three rings, she got an answer.

Her mother’s voice came through static. “Chel?”

“Mom, can you hear me?”

“Where are you? Can you come to the church?”

“Are you okay?” Chel asked. “Are you safe?”

“We’re safe. But I’ll be better when you come.”

“Listen, Mom, I can’t talk long. But I wanted to tell you that I’m not in Los Angeles anymore.”

“Where are you going?” Ha’ana asked.

“Kiaqix . From there, we’re going to find the lost city.”

When Ha’ana spoke, her voice sounded resigned. “I never wanted you to take the risks I did, Chel.”

“What do you mean, Mom?… Mom?”

The phone cut out before Ha’ana could respond. Chel tried to get service again, but they’d run through a patch of cloud cover, and she didn’t want to use too much battery. Besides, what else was there to say? Ha’ana was talking again about the risks she’d taken to get them out of Kiaqix. But Chel knew the real courage would have been in staying there.

Stanton descended the stairs. He sensed that she needed distraction.

“You want to tell me what should we expect in Kiaqix?”

Chel said, “Trees hundreds of feet high, with pink flowers and green moss that looks like tinsel. More animals per square mile than the best safari in Africa. Not to mention the sweetest honey you’ve ever tasted.”

“Sounds like Shangri-La.”

Stanton reached out and took her hand. She was surprised but happy when he leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. He tasted like salt. Like ocean air.

Chel never took her eyes off his. But once they pulled back, she reached down and picked up one of the maps. “Shall we get to work?”

BAHÍA TODOS SANTOS was the Pacific inlet that led into Ensenada; Plan A made it there just before noon. Nina steered them toward a thirty-six-foot Hatteras fishing boat floating five miles offshore. Stanton had insisted they couldn’t risk getting any closer, because Mexican authorities were on the lookout for American vessels trying to escape the epidemic.

They hitched up and Nina made introductions . The captain of the other boat, Dominguez, was stocky, and wrinkled from all his time in the sun. Years earlier, Nina had profiled him for a magazine because he was known along the Gold Coast for his ability to find mackerel in the most difficult stretches of ocean. He spoke little English but welcomed the Americans onto his boat with a tight smile.

Once all the gear was transferred and they’d paid him the agreed-upon four thousand dollars in cash, they were ready to go.

Chel called to Nina from Dominguez’s boat. “Thank you. Again.”

“Good luck,” Nina said. She nodded at Stanton, tears welling. “Take care of him.”

Stanton jumped back onto Plan A . A brisk wind blew hard as he rubbed Dogma’s head, then stood and embraced Nina.

“Guess it’s a waste of time to tell you not to do anything stupid,” she said.

“Too late for that. I hope you know…”

Nina cut him off. “Just get your ass home, all right?”

THE TRIP THROUGH the Mexican portion of the California Current passed in a blur, and just after daybreak the following morning, they rounded the Baja peninsula and headed east across the gulf. With their native captain, they had no problem getting past the few coastal patrols near Cabo, and finally they made landfall at Mazatlán. The aroma of fried dough from the mestizo street carts filled the air. Life seemed to be going on as usual here, and if anyone was particularly concerned about VFI, they didn’t show it.

After docking, Dominguez paid off a harbormaster, then told the man they needed a van or SUV. Half an hour later, they had an old silver jeep for twenty-five hundred dollars. With the gear transferred, Dominguez waved goodbye.

At Mazatlán International, men with machine guns manned the entrance. People inside eyed Stanton and Chel warily. This was a major hub, and unlike at the port, the sight of Stanton’s gringo face clearly unnerved some of the travelers here. At the private air terminal, he and Chel got the bad news: All charter planes were booked, ferrying Mexico’s wealthy farther from the epidemic. Complicating matters, they needed a plane large enough to carry the jeep they’d just procured.

After half an hour of fruitless efforts, Chel overheard two diminutive, twenty-something Maya men having a conversation in Ch’orti’, a branch of Mayan spoken in southern Guatemala and northern Honduras. Chel didn’t speak the modern dialect, but it was a close descendant of ancient Mayan, and from the content of the conversation, it sounded like the guy doing most of the talking was some kind of freight pilot.

“ Wachïnim ri’ koj b’e pa kulew ri qatët qamam ,” she told the man, whom even Chel towered over. “ Chakuyu’ chäb’ana jun toq’ob’ chäqe. Chi ri maja’ käk’is uwi’ wa’ wach’olq’ij .”

We go to the land of the ancients now. Please, you must help us. Before we reach the end of the calendar.

Ancient Mayan could be spoken with Chel’s fluency by fewer than a dozen people in the world—all scholars—and the pilot, who introduced himself as Uranam, had probably never heard anyone speaking it outside the few words his own daykeeper knew. But he understood exactly what she was saying.

“How do you know the ancient tongue?” he asked, staring as if she were a ghost.

“I am descended of a royal scribe,” Chel said, her voice commanding. “And he has told me in a dream that if we do not reach El Petén, the fourth race of man will be wiped from the earth.”

Several phone calls later, their new friend had procured a decommissioned U.S. Navy plane in from Guadalajara to take them south.

Two days after leaving L.A., they were headed into the jungle.

THE MAYA HIGHLANDS ARE ANCHORED NORTH TO SOUTH BY A SPINE of volcanoes that have been active for millions of years. Early highlanders worshipped the volcanoes, but their powerful eruptions, which could swallow an entire tribe at once, eventually drove the Maya south to the Land of the Trees—as they called it in Qu’iche— Guatemala .

Four hours into the flight, with the C-2 Greyhound flying at less than two thousand feet, Stanton and Chel looked down at the green canopy that gave the country its name . Uranam, the pilot, was using a radar system to search for the proper coordinates, but from the window all they could see were forested hills in all directions. The colors of the foliage darkened as they circled the perimeter of the area, and Chel worried they might not find Kiaqix before nightfall.

If her assumptions were correct, Kanuataba had to be somewhere between sixty and a hundred miles from her village, at a bearing of 230 to 235 degrees southwest. Volcy had found the city in three days’ walk, so the total range couldn’t be greater than about three hundred square miles. They’d scour every inch.