Clive Cussler - Serpent

"Buenos dias, senor, senora," said a new voice.

Two more men had come around the other side of the mound. The closer one had a barrel-shaped body and short arms and legs. A high Elvisstyle black pompadour of thick hair surmounted a face that looked as if it could have come off a Mayan carving. He had slanted eyes, a wide blunt nose, and cruel lips like two pieces of liver. The muzzle of his aged hunting rifle was pointed in their direction.

The third stranger stood behind Elvis. He was bigger than the other two put together. He was clean, and his white pants and shirt looked freshly laundered. His long dark sideburns were as neatly trimmed as was his thick mustache. His belly was round, but the thick arms and legs were muscular: He loosely held an M16 and carried a holstered pistol on the wide belt that supported his large gut.

Smiling pleasantly, he spoke to Chi in Spanish. The professor's eyes went to the M16, then he slowly lowered the machete and let it fall to the ground. Next he slipped the shotgun off his shoulder. He put it down next to the machete. Without warning Yellow Teeth stepped forward and struck Chi across the face.

The professor weighed about a hundred pounds, and the blow practically lifted him off the ground and sent him sprawling into the grass. Instinctively Gamay stepped in between the stricken professor and his assailant to ward off the kick she expected would follow: Yellow Teeth froze, staring at her with surprise. Instead of cowering, she skewered him with a warning glance, then turned and bent to help the professor to his feet. She was reaching for his arm when her head was jerked backward as if her hair were caught in a wringer, and for a second she thought her scalp was being ripped off.

She fought for her balance only to be jerked back again. Yellow Teeth had his fingers wrapped in her long hair. He pulled her close to him, so close that when he laughed she practically gagged at his fetid oniony breath. But her whitehot anger drowned out the pain. She relaxed slightly to gain slack and make him think she was no longer resisting. Her head was at an angle, and from the corner of her eye she glimpsed his sandal. Her sneakered foot came down on his instep, and she put her whole weight of one hundred thirtyfive pounds into her heel, which she gyrated as if she were grinding out a lighted cigarette butt.

He let out a swinish grunt and loosened his grip. Gamay could see the blur of his face out of the corner of her eye. Her elbow swung back in a short hard arc and caught his nose and cheekbone with a satisfying crunch of cartilage. He yelled shrilly, and she was free. She whirled around, disappointed that he was still standing. He was holding his nose, but anger diffused his pain, too, and he started for her, dirty fingers aimed at her throat. He was a miserable excuse for a human being, but Gamay knew she would still be no match for his weight and male strength. When he grabbed her she would feint a knee to his groin, a streetfighter move he might expect, then she'd drive her knuckles into his eye sockets and see how he liked that. She tensed as he came at her.,

"Basta!"

.The big man who looked like Pancho Villa had yelled. His mouth was still smiling, but his eyes glittered with anger.

Yellow Teeth stepped back. He rubbed his face where a bruise was forming against the unhealthy skin. He backed off and grabbed at his crotch. The message was dear.

"I got something to give you, too," he said in English.

He retreated when Gamay took a quick step toward him, setting his companions off into gales of dirty laughter.

Pancho Villa was intrigued by the fearless reaction of this slender woman. He moved forward. "Who are you?" he said, his eyes boring into hers.

"I'm Dr. Gamay Trout. This is my guide," she said quickly, helping Chi off the ground. Chi's knowing expression told her that he understood he might face a bleak future if these men knew his identity He adopted a groveling servile attitude.

The big man dismissed Chi with a contemptuous glance and concentrated his attention fully on Gamay. "Whatcha doin' here?"

"I'm an American scientist. I heard about the old buildings and came out to see what they were. I got this man to take me here."

He studied her for a moment. "What did you find?"

Gamay shrugged and looked around. "Not much. We just got here. We saw some carvings over there, that's all. I don't think there's much to see."

Pancho Villa laughed and said, "You didn't know where to look. I show you."

He rattled off an order in Spanish. Yellow Teeth nudged Gamay with the shotgun but backed away when she gave him a fierce look. Instead he concentrated his anger on Dr. Chi, knowing she didn't like it. They trekked to the far side of the plain to where the ground was scarred by a dozen or so trenches. Most were empty except for one filled with pottery.

At Pancho's order Elvis retrieved two pots from the trench and stuck first one, then the other, under her nose.

"This whatcha looking for?" the big man said.

She heard a sharp intake of breath from Chi and hoped the others didn't notice.

Taking one pot in her hands, she examined the figures drawn in black lines on the creamcolored surfaces. The scene seemed to represent a historic or legendary event. The ceramics were examples of the Codex-style pottery Dr. Chi had mentioned earlier. She handed the pot back.

"Very nice."

"Very nice," Pancho Villa echoed. "Very nice. Haha. Very nice."

After a short and vocal conference the looters marched their captives for a few more minutes. Pancho Villa led the way. Elvis and Yellow Teeth rode shotgun behind them. They headed toward a grassy mound that was partially exposed to show the stones beneath the vegetation. Pancho walked through a corbeled arch and seemed to disappear. Gamay saw that the building housed a large orifice in the ground. They descended a flight of irregular roughcut steps into the semidarkness to a dank underground chamber with a lofty roof.

The big man said a few words to Chi. Then they were left alone.

"Are you all right?" Gamay asked the professor, her voice echoing.

He rubbed the side of his face, which was still reddish where he'd been hit.

"I will live, but I can't say the same for the animal who struck me. And you?"

Rubbing her scalp where it hurt, Gamay said, "I needed a perm anyhow"

For the first time a wide grin broke his stony expression.

"Thank you. I might have been dead if it weren't for your intervention."

"Maybe," Gamay said. Remembering the upraised machete she guessed the professor would have cut Yellow Teeth down to size. She looked back toward the stairs they had come down. "What did the big man say?"

"He says he wont bother tying us up: There is only one way out. He will have someone at the entrance, and if we try to get away he will kill us."

"He couldn't have been more direct than that."

"It's my fault," Chi said glumly "I should not have brought you here. I never dreamed looters had found this place."

"From the looks of that pottery they've been hard at work."

"The artifacts in that ditch are worth hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars. The big man is the boss. The other two are just hired men. Pigs." He paused. "It was well that you didn't say who I was."

"I didn't know how far your fame had spread, but I didn't want to take any chances they knew who you were." She looked up at the high roof, which was barely visible in the light coming through the entrance. "Where are we?"

"It's a cenote. A well where the people who lived here came for their water. I found it on my second trip. Come, I'll show you."

They went in for about a hundred feet. The darkness deepened then lightened as they came to a large pool of water. The light streamed from an opening in the rocky roof she estimated was about sixty feet high. On the far side of the basin was a steep wall that went up to the ghostly glow of the ceiling.