They were all excessively polite the next morning. Connie was up early, ready to go as promised. Heinemann maintained an attitude of cool cordiality. Hooker was all business. After a breakfast of huevos rancheros, ham, and tortillas, the three of them went outside to where Heinemann had left Gonzales’s pickup truck.
The morning air was hot and soggy, and their spirits sagged during the short drive to the airfield. Hooker was intensely aware of the heat of Connie’s thigh next to his as they sat three abreast in the cramped cab. He found it hard to keep his mind on business.
At the field, Heinemann had a short conversation with Gonzales. He returned frowning.
“The weather report is not good. There is heavy rain to the west and the south of us. We will almost certainly fly into it.”
“What will that mean as far as our search goes?” Connie asked.
“It will cut our visibility to practically zero,” Heinemann said.
“We have the location of the wreckage marked on the map,” Connie said.
“What we have is an approximate location set down from memory by frightened people on a map that was none too good to begin with.”
“What do you think we ought to do?” Her question was addressed to both men.
“If it were up to me, I’d call it off,” Hooker said. “But you’re the one paying for the show, so you ought to make the decision.”
She turned to Heinemann. The German silently nodded his agreement with Hooker.
“What are chances the weather will improve in the next few days?”
“It is impossible to say,” the pilot told her. “Weather forecasting is uncertain at best in this part of the world. Tomorrow may be a beautiful day, or it may rain for a month.”
Connie chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “Then I say let’s go. It looks bad, but at least it isn’t raining right now. I’d hate to give up after coming this far.”
“You’re the boss,” Heinemann said.
He climbed into the cabin of the Stinson and, with Hooker cranking the propeller, started the powerful Wright radial engine. When they were all aboard and the engine temperature was at the proper level, Heinemann taxied the plane to the end of the strip and turned to head into the breeze coming off the Gulf.
The plane lunged forward and bounced over the stubble as Heinemann shoved the throttle ahead. The tail lifted; they bounced one last time and were airborne. Heinemann circled the field and dipped a wing to Gonzales, who stood below waving happily. They headed east into heavy clouds.
As they flew inland, the strip of tropical coast below them gave way to flat, scrubby land. The only relief from the dull landscape was an occasional Indian village. They were never more than a dozen huts clustered around a crude windmill that marked the communal well. Connie was the first to point out a dark strip on the horizon. It grew as they approached until it resembled a swelling sea of green.
“Welcome to Quintana Roo,” said Heinemann.
“It’s … beautiful, in a way,” Connie said.
“I think you will see more than enough of it,” Heinemann said. “We have seventy-five miles of this from here to the coast of the Caribbean.” He throttled down to just above stalling speed and leveled off at three-thousand feet. “We might as well start looking.”
While Heinemann gave his attention to the map and the instruments, Hooker scanned the forbidding mass of green below them. He looked around to see if Connie was getting the same discouraging message he was. At that moment, they hit the rain.
It was as though someone had turned a firehose on the Stinson from directly in front. Heinemann switched on the automobile-type windshield wipers, but they were of little use against the slashing rain.
The plane was bumped and jostled by puffs of wind. Raindrops rattled against the aluminum skin like handfuls of thrown gravel. Heinemann’s attention was given over completely to keeping the Stinson aloft, while Hooker and Connie peered down into the swirling mist below them.
After fifteen minutes of battling the storm, Connie said, “All right, I made the wrong decision. There’s no chance of seeing anything in this. Let’s go back.”
As Heinemann climbed and banked the plane back around toward Campeche, Hooker realized how tense his muscles had grown in the past quarter of an hour. With a conscious effort, he relaxed little by little.
The storm had preceded them to Campeche, and the wheels of the Stinson threw up sheets of muddy water as Heinemann brought them in for a landing. They made sure the plane was secure, then drove back to the hotel in gloomy silence. The rain spattered in on them through gaps around the doors of the pickup.
They had dinner at the Azteca, where the bartender proudly served up what he called “steaks.” They were tough, overdone chunks of beef that Hooker said must have been sliced from some wild cow too old to run.
Conversation at the table was minimal as the rain continued to pound against the windows. Outside, the tropical plants thrashed around like tormented souls. After one glass of brandy, Heinemann excused himself, saying he wanted to go up and study the charts.
“He thinks we want to be alone,” Connie said when Heinemann had gone.
“Yeah. For a German, he’s very romantic.”
Connie took a deep breath. “Let’s get something straight, Hooker. Last night was good for me. Better than good. We had some laughs together; we went to bed. I needed it, and I appreciate it. I just want you to know that it doesn’t commit you to anything. Our relationship is no different than it was before. Okay?”
The speech was delivered rapidly and a little too brightly, as though she had rehearsed it in her head.
“I wasn’t doing you a favor, lady,” Hooker said slowly. “In case you didn’t notice, I sort of enjoyed it myself.”
“Well, I’m relieved to hear that.” She laughed a little, then sobered as the rain slashed the windows with renewed fury. “It’s hopeless, isn’t it. Finding Nolan’s plane, I mean.”
“In this weather, I don’t think we could find the Empire State Building. Not if King Kong was standing on top waving at us.”
“We gave it a try, anyway.”
“Sure.”
“If it’s this bad tomorrow, let’s call it quits.”
“Is that what you want?”
“It’s the only sensible thing to do. Klaus said this weather could go on for months. I’ll go out of my mind a lot sooner than that. If it looks bad again tomorrow, we’ll head back to Veracruz. Naturally, you’ll collect your full fee.”
“Fair enough,” Hooker said.
They walked upstairs together, and Hooker left Connie at her door.
Heinemann looked up from the book he was reading when Hooker entered their room, but he said nothing.
“Connie wants to call it off if the weather’s still bad tomorrow,” Hooker said.
“I think that is a wise decision.”
“Amen.” Hooker stretched out full length on his bed, hands clasped behind his head. “For once in my life, I can enjoy listening to it rain.”
Right after midnight, it stopped. The following day dawned clear and beautiful, with a fresh wind blowing in from the north.
Hooker rolled over in bed and looked out at the bright blue sky.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
For flying that day, Heinemann wore dark tinted glasses against the brilliance of the sun. Connie and Hooker had to shade their eyes with their hands as they scanned the brilliant green of the Quintana Roo jungle. It seemed to have grown even thicker overnight, as though nourished by the rain.
With the map propped beside him, Heinemann took a course from the western edge of the jungle east toward Ascensión Bay on the Caribbean coast.
“This should take us over the spot marked on the map by the missionaries. Whether or not there is anything down there is another matter.”
“Let’s hope there is,” Connie said. “I don’t want to spend a lot of time flying over it.”
Amen to that, Hooker thought. That day’s bright sunlight only revealed how thick was the rain forest below them. He could see nothing but the thick green tops of the trees.
They reached the east coast of Quintana Roo without spotting anything in the jungle below that was not growing there. Heinemann swung the plane north and circled over the spectacular ruins that were the ancient Mayan city of Tulum. Clear evidence remained of some forty stone buildings and a wall that had bordered the city on three sides. On the fourth side, fifty-foot cliffs dropped away to the sea.
“It was the largest city of the Mayan civilization,” Heinemann said. “The sight of it from the sea so impressed the Spaniards that they never did land in Quintana Roo.”
“What happened to it?” Connie asked.
“Like all other Mayan cities, it was abandoned by its people for reasons we do not know. Plague, perhaps. War. Or if you believe the old legends, something even worse.”
Heinemann brought the Stinson around, and they began their sweep back in the other direction. They were well into the auxiliary fuel tank when Hooker saw a flash in the jungle well off to their right.
“What’s that?” He leaned forward, pointing at the section of jungle where he’d seen it. The flare of light came again.
“Something there is reflecting the sun.” Heinemann checked the map. “It is about ten miles north of the spot marked on the map.”
“Nothing that grows in the jungle reflects light that way,” Hooker said. “Let’s take a look.”
Following the flash, which repeated at irregular intervals, Heinemann steered the plane to the north of their course. He dropped down as close as he dared to the tops of the tall mahogany trees.
As they flew over the spot where the flashes came from, all three of them saw it — a curved piece of metal that looked like burnished aluminum. It was wedged in the topmost branches of a tree. As they passed overhead, the reflecting surface shifted, dazzling them for a moment.
“What the hell is it?” Hooker said.
“I can’t be sure,” Heinemann said, “but it just might be part of an engine cowling.”
“Nolan’s plane?” Connie said.
“There is no way of knowing. It seems most unlikely that a piece of wreckage would remain balanced on a treetop in the jungle for more than a year.”
“It moved,” Hooker said. “What made it do that?”
“The wind,” Heinemann suggested. “Or some animal in the tree. I would not get our hopes up.”
The plane circled, and the piece of aluminum shifted again.
“Our fuel is running low,” Heinemann said.
“Is there any way we can mark the spot so we can find it from the ground?” Connie asked.
Heinemann showed a thin smile. “Do you mean like dropping a smoke bomb or something? I am afraid you have seen too much cinema.”
“Can’t we work it with the map and a compass if we calculate the distance?” Hooker asked.
“It is possible, but I cannot recommend it. Things will look much different down there on the ground than they do from three thousand feet.”
“Nobody said it was going to be easy.” Hooker turned around in the seat. “It’s up to you, Connie. Do we go in?”
“We go in,” she said without hesitation. “The sooner the better.”
“I’ll need tomorrow to work out the details,” Hooker said. “If all goes well, we can leave the next day.”
Connie looked back across the green sea of jungle toward the spot where they had seen the reflector. “Do you think anybody’s alive down there?”
“I wouldn’t want to guess,” Hooker said, “but I think it’s worth going in to find out.”
Heinemann shook his head sadly, like a healthy man in the presence of the hopelessly ill. He pointed the nose of the Stinson toward Campeche and gunned the throttle.