Thomas Hoover - Life blood

When I reached the base and shined my light up the steps, I saw they were steeper than I'd thought, but they also looked to be part of some meticulous restoration and brand-new, probably safe to climb. And there at the top was a stone hut, complete with what appeared to be a roof. Good. If there hadn't been anything taller than it around I think I might have just climbed a tree.

On the way up I began trying to digest what the place really was. The pyramid was "fake"… or was it? A hundred years ago the eccentric Brit archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans whimsically "reconstructed" the Palace of Minos on Crete with his own money, and it's still a tourist highlight. So why couldn't somebody do the same with a reclaimed Mayan pyramid in Central America? Still, this was different, had the feel of being somebody's crazed obsession.

As I topped the steps, I realized the building that crowned the pyramid was also a "restoration" like everything else, including a decorated wooden lintel above the door that looked to be newly lacquered. Bizarre.

I moved through the door and unloaded my gear, then extracted my water bottle, now half-empty, for a pull. Finally I unrolled Alan Dupre's sleeping bag on the (dry) stone floor, removed and spread out my wet clothes, peed off the edge, then took a new pair of underpants, jeans, and shirt out of my backpack, donned them, and uneasily crawled in. I was shivering-whether from the soaking rain or from fright, I didn't know-and my teeth were trying to chatter. Was I hidden away enough to be safe? I didn't know. All I did know was, I was in something deeper than I'd ever been in my life, and I had no idea how I was going to get out. And I was both scared to death and angry as hell.

Sarah was here, though, I was certain. Like a sixth sense, I could feel her presence, out there somewhere in the rain. For a moment I was tempted to just plunge into the storm looking for her, but a split second's reflection told me that was the stupidest thing I could do. Instead, I should try and get some rest, till the storm cleared, and keep periodic watch on the plaza in case somebody showed up. Then, the minute there was light, I'd hit the ground and go find her.

I suppose nothing ever happens the way you plan. My mind was racing and my nerves were in the red, but I was so exhausted from the teeth-rattling trip in the Bell I couldn't really stay alert very long. In spite of myself, I eventually drifted off into a dreamless doze, a victim of the narcotic song of wind in the giant Cebia trees and the insistent drumming of forest rain on the roof.

I awoke as a sliver of sun flashed through the stone doorway of the room and forest birds erupted around me in celebration. As I pulled myself up and moved over to the opening, a quick tropical glare burned into my face. My God, the dawn was electric; it was the purest blue I'd ever seen, a swath of artist's cobalt. An azure radiance from the sky glistened off the rain forest leaves around me. Had I dreamed the stormy, haunted world of the night before?

When I looked down, everywhere below me was a bank of dense, pastel mist. Was the plaza really there or had I imagined it? I felt like the top of the pyramid was floating on a cloud.

"Babylon." That was what Sarah had called this place. Ancient and mysterious. I took a breath of the morning air and wondered what would draw her back here. Was Baalum the ultimate escape from her other life? Even so… why would she want to return after somebody had tried to murder her? What was waiting down there in the fog?

Turning back, I noticed that the room's inside walls were embossed with rows and rows of classic Mayan glyphs, like little cartoon faces, all molded in newly set plaster. To my groggy sight they seemed playful, harmless little caricatures, though next to them were raised bas-reliefs of warriors in battle dress. It was both sublimely austere and eerie, even creepy.

I knelt down and rolled my sleeping bag, trying to clear my head. Then I stuffed my still-moist clothes into my backpack and thought about the river, the Rio Tigre, down somewhere at the back of the pyramid. And I felt my pulse rate edging up. The first thing I wanted to do was see it in the light of day. It had been Sarah's way out, the only thing I knew for sure she'd touched.

Get going and do it.

I headed through the rear door and down the back steps. When I reached the ground, the dense forest closed in around me, but I was certain the river lay dead ahead, through the tangle of trees. As I moved down a path that grew ever steeper, the canopy up above thickened, arching over me till it blotted out the pure blue of the sky. And the air was filled with nature sounds-birdcalls, trills, songs, and clacks, all mingled with the hum and buzz of insects. Then suddenly, from somewhere up in the canopy, a pack of screeching spider monkeys began flinging rotten mangos down in my direction. I also thought I heard the asthmatic, territorial roar of a giant howler monkey, the lord of the upper jungle. And what about snakes? I kept an eye on the vines and tendrils alongside the path, expecting any moment to stumble across a deadly fer-de-lance, a little red-and-black operator whose poison heads straight for your nervous system.

On the other hand, the birds, the forest birds, were everywhere, scarlet macaws and keel-billed toucans and darting flocks of Amazon parrots, brilliant and iridescent, their sweeping tails a psychedelic rainbow of green, yellow, red. Then the next thing I knew, the path I was on abruptly opened onto a mossy expanse of pea-soup green, surely the Rio Tigre, and…

My God, those dark-brown bumps scattered everywhere… they're the eyes and snouts of… yes, crocodiles, lurking there in wait, hoping I'm dumb enough to wade in. Forget what Alan Dupre said. This is definitely not "Disneyland."

Then I glanced upstream and caught sight of a string of mahogany dugout canoes tied along the shore. They were huge, about fifteen feet long and three feet wide, and clearly designed to be crocodile-resistant. They…

Wait a minute. Lou said Sarah was found in a dugout canoe that had drifted all the way down the Rio Tigre to where it joins the Usumacinta. One more clue she might have been here. Maybe I was closing in. Yes!

I glared back at the crocodiles' unblinking reptile eyes and tried to get my mind around the fact Sarah could have stood right where I was standing, or been set adrift from here in a coma, to float downstream. Seeing that vision, I felt unbidden tears trailing down my cheeks. And the questions I had kept piling up. Was this the location of Alex Goddard's "miracle" clinic? Why was Baalum such a high-security secret? What was the connection between this place and Sarah's ravaged mind and body? I wanted to know all of it, and by God I would.

This was the farthest I'd ever been from "civilization," though I was trying not to let that fact sink in too deeply. The water was green and full of small aquatic creations, but I managed to find a reasonably un-mossy spot and-still keeping an eye on the leering crocodiles-splashed my face. It felt good, even if it was filthy…

Okay, I'd seen enough of the river. I raised up and stretched. Time to go.

My hopes at war with my nerves, I turned my back on the scummy, fetid Rio Tigre and headed back up the jungle trail toward the plaza.

When I got there, I was struck all over again by the vision of the pyramid. Something like it might have been here originally, but in any case it had been completely redone, with newly cut yellowish stones and white lime plaster, an exotic castle nestled in the green lap of the rain forest, rising above the square like a haunting presence. It must have been well over a hundred feet high, a stone wedding cake with a dozen steep tiers between the ground and the platform at the top, which also was square and roughly fifteen feet on the side.