CHAPTER FIFTY

Ricardo and Kelly both left Oaxaca City on December 29—Kelly early in the morning and Ricardo two hours later, at ten. The flight into Cabo San Lucas was through Mexico City, but the layover was short, and Ricardo landed on the tip of the Baja Peninsula just after two in the afternoon. He slipped into one of the many cabs lining the road in front of the modest two-story airport and sat back for the ride along the stretch of highway commonly known as the corridor. Traffic was light on the twenty-two-mile strip, and he was in Cabo San Lucas by three-thirty. He paid the driver and exited at Puerto Paraiso, the ultra-modern three-story shopping mall adjacent to the marina.

Ricardo checked Carlos Valendez’s address. 417 Matamoros Street. He glanced quickly at a sheet of paper with directions written in pencil while on the plane. He didn’t look like a tourist, dressed in faded jeans and a casual plaid shirt, and the last thing he needed was to stand on a street corner studying a map like one of the countless gringos off the cruise ships. He stuffed the directions back in his pocket and hiked up the neighboring street.

The odor of tacos and refried beans lingered in the hot air as he passed strings of restaurants filled with tourists. Small shops selling silver and tacky ceramic iguanas lined the narrow roads. He found Matamoros and headed northwest toward the higher numbers. In the three hundreds, he slowed and began to saunter up the slight incline. He crossed a side street, concentrating now on the numbers. Four-seventeen was about halfway up the block and only two doors from a hole-in-the-wall bar catering more to locals than tourists. He settled into a chair near the open window and picked up a newspaper. When the bartender looked his way he ordered a Corona.

Now it was time to wait. To wait and hope Carlos Valendez, the man Edward Brand had relied on to let the scuba divers know he was on his way, was home. He nursed the Corona and read the paper. There were worse ways to pass the time.

Taylor stopped by the goldsmith’s shop at four o’clock. He had promised the work would be finished and ready to be moved before sunset. She took a cab directly from the bank where she had used Kelly’s debit card to withdraw the necessary four thousand dollars to pay for the service. The shop was a dingy space, with no windows save the one fronting onto the street, which was so caked with dirt and grime that the illumination from the sun reminded her more of moonlight. She set the package containing the money on the desk as the goldsmith, a wizened old man well into his seventies, carted the masks and other artifacts to the front of the shop. He spoke no English, and Taylor no Spanish, but communicating wasn’t hard. He counted the money, and she checked the quality of his work. Both were fine. She carried the items out the front door in a large box and set them in the trunk of the cab. Ten minutes later, she was safely back in her hotel. After she had stashed the items in her room, she went in search of Adolfo. He was in his room and answered the door on the first knock. He smiled and waved her in.

“Did you bring your identification with you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied in English. He wasn’t fluent, but they could easily communicate. “This is it.” He produced a single card with his picture in one corner and an official-looking stamp in the other. Beneath that was his name and title, in Spanish.

Taylor scrutinized it closely. The quality was outstanding. She didn’t read or speak the language, but she got the drift. Adolfo was a high-ranking government official. One who needed his palm greased before the treasure could be released from the cave. Adolfo had brought the identification with him from Mexico City, where a skilled craftsman had worked magic with the forged document. And Edward Brand would be looking at the ID in poor light. It was fine.

“Tomorrow we will go to Monte Alban,” she said. “In the morning.”

“Yes. It is good. The morning. I will be ready.”

“Good,” she said. “See you tomorrow. Eight o’clock.”

Taylor returned to her room. It was quiet now that Kelly and Ricardo were both gone. She could have dinner with Adolfo, but that would drag because of his limited English and right now what she needed was time to herself. Time to rest. Time to prepare.

Edward Brand. The man would be in Oaxaca City soon. And then it would begin.

Kelly arrived at Dulles at nine-eighteen on Friday night. The flight leg from Mexico City to Dallas was smooth, and he had slept for a portion. He felt somewhat rested and despite the late hour, he decided to stop at home and pick up his car, then head for Crypto-City. It was just after eleven when he swiped his ID badge through the card reader and drove up the winding roadway to the main building in the vast NSA complex. He cleared the required security checks and unlocked his office. He powered up his computer and took a few minutes to sift through his e-mails before getting started.

He was looking for legitimacy more than anything else. Brent Hawkins had to believe what he found about Monte Alban to be true. The story could not be outrageous, nor could it be without teeth. It had to draw his attention, then hook him. Once he was hooked, Hawkins had to relay the false information to Edward Brand and sell the man on it. Kelly needed to create all this inside one of the most carefully guarded computer systems in the world. Treacherous was a mild word for what he was attempting.

He started inside the NSA mainframe, where his user ID allowed him free rein of most files. He scanned the computer’s hard drive for information on Monte Alban. There were numerous entries, most dealing with the positioning of the ruins and a few attempts to find embedded codes inside the pattern the Zapotec tribes had used to construct their temples. Typical NSA—always trying to find a hidden code. There were a few notes about the treasure that had been removed from Tumba 7. It was truly amazing. Hundreds of priceless Zapotec and Mixtec artifacts, most formed from gold and some encrusted with precious and semi-precious stones. The references to Tumba 7 were good, as it would reinforce the possibility of another large discovery.

Midnight rolled by, then one o’clock. At half past the hour he shut down the computer and headed home. He had stumbled on one possible angle. A cross-link to the CIA computers had a report of a covert operative who had been killed recently in Bolivia. The agency was being very tight-lipped about the details, but getting Brent Hawkins to draw a line between the dead agent and Monte Alban might be the way to go. He wanted to think about it, formulate some sort of plan in his mind before he went any further. That, and he was tired. Very tired.

The drive home was easy, the roads almost devoid of other cars. It gave him time to think. Taylor was the key to keeping everything moving. She was the hub. Whatever story he concocted and input into the computers had to be relayed through her to Ricardo, who needed that information before he got too tight with Carlos Valendez. Timing was crucial, and they were cutting it close. If they wanted to have Edward Brand at the ruins just after January 1, everything had to move with absolute precision.

Tomorrow. He would find some way to tie the death of the CIA agent to Monte Alban, create the file and download it to the CIA mainframe. Then he’d call Taylor.

Timing. It was all in the timing.