CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

September 28, 12:00 P.M.

Argentina

DIEGO PAID THE farmer six times what the old motorbike was probably worth, but at least it was transportation that put them back on the road. Marjorie sat behind him with her backpack on and her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. She rested her cheek against his shoulder and tried to force the images of the hysterical mothers out of her mind. She didn’t understand the words they wailed, but she shared their pain.

Marjorie couldn’t shake the guilt over their deaths, even though Ahmed and his partner rigged the Jeep with explosives, and the locals had been in the process of stealing the vehicle when the bomb detonated. If she and Diego hadn’t stopped in the village for the night, or if she had thought to remove the keys from the ignition, the two young men would still be alive.

She nearly lost her balance as Diego veered off the paved road. He drove behind an abandoned shack and killed the motor.

“This looks like a good place to take a break,” he said as he pulled his duffle out of the wire basket mounted on the front of the bike.

Marjorie watched in silence as Diego fished the canteen out of his bag and handed it to her. She took the water and drank heartily before handing it back, her mind still replaying the tragedy.

“The young men’s deaths are not your fault.” Diego placed his hand under her chin and tilted her head up, forcing her to look into his sympathetic eyes.

Marjorie jerked around to avoid his gaze. She didn’t want him to see how close she was to losing control. Despite the fact that the men were trying to steal their vehicle, she doubted they planned to do more than take the Jeep for a joy ride. With the small village located so far from any substantial city, selling stolen goods likely required more resources than available. The villagers were probably just looking for a little fun, and now they were dead.

She took a few steps away from Diego, but he followed her. He grabbed her arm and forced her to turn to face him. Pulling her to him, he wrapped his arms around her and stroked her hair until she could no longer hold back the tears. Marjorie sobbed as quietly as possible for several minutes before she was able to check her emotions. Placing her palm against Diego’s muscular chest, she pushed away and threw her shoulders back.

“I wasn’t going to cry. I’m not weak, and you’re not forcing me to return home. I’m seeing this through,” she hissed.

“I am not sending you anywhere. You continue to amaze me. Always trust yourself, Marjorie, because you possess a gift. If you had not seen something out of the ordinary and obeyed your instincts, you would be dead, making me very sad,” he said as he smiled down into her eyes while wiping a tear from her cheek with his thumb.

“I always hated those shoes.”

“But I paid a great deal of money for these. They are constructed of high quality Italian leather,” Diego replied with confusion etched on his face.

“Not yours—those are quite nice. I was talking about Ahmed’s. The little divots the soles made in the sand all over our work area in Egypt reminded me of spider traps, and they drove me crazy.”

“But at least the familiar indentations saved your life, so I must say I like his shoes very much.”

“Well, I still hate them.”

“Let’s go. I believe we are only a few hours away from Salta. Hopefully we will easily locate Miguel de San Martin, and he can point us in the right direction.”

Marjorie was more than happy to end the conversation and get back on the road. With the purr of the motor bike’s small engine, and her arms wrapped tightly around Diego, she was able to push the horrible events out of her mind. She had to believe they could stay alive and find the next relic before Ahmed and his accomplices killed anyone else, or destroyed any more historic treasures.

For several hours, they hummed down the narrow road, encountering little traffic. The scenery was spectacular in a desolate, alien kind of way. The stark yet peaceful landscape gave Marjorie plenty of time to put everything back into perspective and focus on the severity of their mission. As sad as she was at the death of the local men, she was relieved to be alive and more determined than ever to see Ahmed and his accomplices brought to justice.

As they approached the outskirts of Salta, anxiety welled up inside Marjorie. She assumed the men in the Land Rover were already in the city, which terrified her. With a population of nearly half a million, Ahmed and his cohort would have no problem moving about the city in their expensive vehicle without drawing attention, as they had in the rural villages. But, at least they didn’t know she and Diego survived the explosion, or the make of their current mode of transportation.

They wove in and out of heavy traffic, blending in well with the hundreds of others riding double on similar beat-up motorbikes laden with their possessions. Marjorie was thankful the chaotic trip passed quickly as Diego eased the bike off the street and into the police department lot. He had worked with the Salta authorities many times in the past and felt confident he could count on them for assistance. They needed to report the incident at the village as soon as possible.

Once inside the station, Marjorie was escorted to a vacant office to wait while Diego met with Hernando, an officer he had known for many years. She set up her equipment and logged into the Internet. After the last major breakthrough in discovering one of the Smithsonian relics had originally been located on Easter Island, and that the British Museum crystal had been found in Guinea, Africa, most of Marjorie’s colleagues spent all of their free time pouring over data, trying to solve the riddle of where the remaining known relics originated from.

First, she opened the message forwarded from Diego’s office. The note stated that Cash’s team received a tip on a relic on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Marjorie plotted a red dot in the closest proximity she could, not knowing exactly where in the vast area the crystal might be located, if at all. She thanked Diego’s assistant, relayed their position, and clicked on the next message.

The second one, from a colleague at the museum, made her giggle as she read the enthusiastic curator’s explanation of how many people had worked until midnight the night before on a lead a staff member uncovered the previous evening. They weren’t one hundred percent positive, but they believed another one of the Smithsonian heads traced back to Necochea, Argentina. Marjorie made a dot on the map and gasped.

She dashed down the hall in the direction she had seen Diego disappear, peering into rooms until she spotted him talking to Hernando.

“Sorry to interrupt, Diego, but I think I have stumbled onto something.”

Diego excused himself and followed her back to the office where she had been working. Closing the door, she unfolded the map and showed him the two new dots and the line that passed through the Navajo Reservation and Necochea, Argentina.

“The head we’re looking for must to be along this line. I hope Miguel de San Martin can help narrow the search grid down further, but I’d bet money the relic is hidden somewhere on this path. Of course, once moved from the original location, which is likely, the artifact could be anywhere.”

Marjorie watched Diego study the map for several moments. She had discovered something else even more exciting, but hoped he would interpret the data in the same way, confirming the developing pattern.

“Well?” she finally asked, unable to tolerate his silence no longer. “Do you see it?”

“If we are thinking along a similar track, all roads eventually lead to Cusco, Peru.”

“Exactly. I’m not sure what it means, but when we draw lines through the locations of each crystal’s origin, the first two sets intersect in Cusco. If we have uncovered a pattern, finding the rest will be a little easier. When I extend the points along the Asháninka village and the place in Mexico where Cash and Diane lost one, I would guess another relic will be located along this line, somewhere south of Cusco. And again, take a ruler through Bimini and Cusco, and you have a track to start another search, or at least the original locations of some of the museum artifacts were probably found along one of these axes.”

She watched him patiently as he processed the new information. His brow furrowed in concentration, and he absently rubbed his chin. After several interminable minutes, he looked up and their eyes locked.

“I must say I am impressed by how you are quickly piecing together a puzzle that has remained unsolved for thousands of years. Looking at the map, it is obvious you have stumbled on to something.”

“I’m thinking the Mayan ancestors intentionally hid the sacred relics in a pattern so the artifacts could be located again one day, when humanity developed enough to recognize the clues. The distribution must be along some sort of ley lines—you know, hypothetical alignments of points of geographic interest believed to possess special mystical energy—or perhaps there is some type of astronomical alignment.”

“Take a look at this,” Diego said as he nudged her to the side and pecked at the computer’s keyboard.

Marjorie gasped as Diego pulled up an aerial photograph of the Nasca lines in Peru. A number of different depictions of objects resembling a hummingbird, spider, dog, fish, and a variety of geometric shapes appeared on the screen, but the image of long, straight lines radiating out from a mound nearly mirrored what she had created by connecting the dots of each crystal’s original location on a world map.

“These renderings are believed to have been created by the Nasca Indians and are thought to have had something to do with religious pilgrimages, astronomical alignments, or maybe even with the ancient people’s irrigation system. No one knows for sure, but as a rule, the Nasca lines radiate out from some landscape feature like a hill. The ones you drew,” he said, while tapping the flattened map, “extend from somewhere in or near Cusco, and the expanse is simply mind-boggling.”

Marjorie loved a good mystery, which was one of the reasons why she chose archeology as a profession. Her heartbeat increased as she stared at the computer screen and the map. They were close to some answer, but a few pieces remained elusive. Why were the relics hidden in such a complex pattern by ancient people? Why, now, would someone be willing to kill for the artifacts, and what were those killers planning to do once they retrieved all thirteen?

“Let’s go find a hotel and get some food and rest. It has been a long and sad day. I checked in with Miguel, and he will meet us first thing in the morning at the Museo de Alta Montaña,” Diego said, interrupting her thoughts.

Marjorie nodded and excused herself to go freshen up, while Diego took a digital photo of the map and emailed the image to his office. He called his assistant and confirmed that Interpol had intercepted no chatter concerning the stolen artifacts, and none of the crystals had shown up on the antiquities black-market, not that he had expected them to surface so soon after the thefts. Obviously, whoever sought the relics had much bigger plans than merely selling them to the highest bidder.

When Marjorie re-entered the room, Diego couldn’t help but stare. Her face radiated from the excitement, and her fine, short blonde hair bounced as she hurried around, packing up their equipment and chattering about her new theory. He hated to dampen her enthusiasm, but as her mind focused on the mystery, his continued to hone in on all the killing and devastation surrounding the crystals.

“Do not forget, we must proceed with extreme caution. Hernando put out an APB on Ahmed and his friend, and the Salta authorities are on the lookout for the black Land Rover. They had already heard about the explosion at the village, and as the closest large municipality, they are responsible for investigating. Hernando wasn’t pleased to learn we were the cause, but he appreciated the information I provided on what happened. Knowing who the culprits are, and what they are currently driving, will speed the process of locating them.”

“I’m sorry. For a second, I allowed the horror to slip from my mind. Focusing on something positive provided a much needed respite,” she said as Ahmed’s face forced its way back into the forefront of her thoughts.

“No, I am sorry you have to witness such evil and destruction, but I will not ask you to leave.”

“Thank you,” she replied as she stood on tiptoe and briefly placed her lips to his. “Now, let’s get some food. I’m starving.”