One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [77]
“Why would Machete lie to me? He was about to kill me. There was no reason to lie. Why did the Arabs quit as soon as they got the MP3 player?”
“They didn’t quit because they wanted to, they quit because I was about to rip their heads off. As for Machete, he may believe what your uncle told him, but we have no idea what yarns your uncle was spinning. He lied about the FedEx package for starters, he may have lied about some mythical protection simply to keep Machete from going after the temple. Don’t build this up into some giant terrorist conspiracy. Our first priority is to get back to the U.S.”
“I’m not saying they’re terrorists, but those guys are up to no good. Staying as guests of Machete is proof enough of that. Just think about it some, okay? All I want to do is tell someone. My uncle spent his entire life looking for that temple, only to get murdered when he succeeded. I don’t want a couple of thieves to steal what he found. It’s not fair. If I’m wrong, we only look like kooks, but if I’m right, we might be preventing something bad from happening.”
“Stop. I know you want your uncle’s death to mean something— trust me, I’ve been there—but sometimes bad shit just happens. He got killed by a sick fuck, and we dealt with that. End of story. Let it go.”
She jerked like I had slapped her. “That’s not it. That’s not what I think. Nobody but my uncle believed the temple even existed. Now he’s found it, and it’s probably full of archaeological treasures. People have been trying to determine what happened to the Mayans forever. I’ve had to study about it with two different professors who both had different theories. That temple may hold the truth. It would be priceless, but now that history’s going to be lost to a couple of grave-robbers who’ll destroy the find for some paltry money. I can’t let that happen. All I’m asking is that we consider how we could get the information to the right people.”
I really didn’t give a shit about the Mayans, but a part of me did identify with her determination.
“All right, I’ll mull it over. In the meantime, let’s go get you some normal clothes, get our passports stamped, and get on a ferry. We can’t do anything on the run anyway.”
Two hours later we were on the first ferry headed to Belize and safety. Once under way, I felt a huge weight leave my shoulders. I didn’t want to scare Jennifer, but I had felt we were in very real danger every minute we were in Guatemala. Now that there was nothing to stop us from entering Belize, I felt our chances of survival had gone from about 60 percent to almost 100 percent. I relaxed for the first time in over thirty-six hours, enjoying the sun and balmy weather.
My mind began to drift, thinking about what Jennifer had said earlier in the morning. I still thought the entire WMD scenario was crazy, but I had to admit that the Arabs’ attempt to rob me inside Guatemala City, and the fact that they only took the MP3 player, was a coincidence that didn’t stand the light of day. Coupled with the passports and Quran, I began to think Jennifer was onto something. She simply thought someone was going to rob her uncle of what he had dedicated his life to find, but maybe there was something more.
I hadn’t said anything to Jennifer about what she had seen inside Miguel’s compound, not wanting to build up the conspiracy theory, but the items in the box at the back of the room had all of the hallmarks of terrorist equipment. The 3M respirators were used to protect first responders against inhaled threats, but could be used just as easily to protect terrorists from harming themselves while constructing nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. The garage door opener was benign on the surface, but I had seen it used plenty of times as a triggering device for improvised explosive devices. Put together with everything else, I began to think that Jennifer’s instincts might be right. There was no way that the two guys who ambushed me were on the way to finding a thousand-year-old WMD, but