The rain was warm and clean on the two women as they slipped out of the hut. It helped wash the blood of the dead guard off Alita’s hands, and she was glad, for she fancied she could smell it.
“Which way do we go?” Connie asked.
Alita pointed with the dead guard’s sword. “Over there is the hut where they took Hooker and Buzz.”
As they looked, a young Mayan girl came out of the hut carrying a bowl of viscous liquid. She threw the liquid off into the darkness, letting it slap the wet ground. Two guards followed the girl out of the hut. The guards were carrying knives. They wiped the blades on the grass and returned the knives to their belts. One of the guards said something, and they both laughed.
“Oh, Jesus, they haven’t — ” Connie began.
“Quiet!” Alita ordered. “No, they are still standing outside the door. If they had killed the men, there would be no need for guards.”
Connie shivered, although the rain was warm.
“Come this way,” Alita said, and pulled her back toward the wall that surrounded the city.
As they passed the rear of the hut where they had been held, Connie stumbled over the body of the young guard. Between his legs lay a pile of his intestines in a dark pool of blood.
“Oh, God,” Connie said, “did you — ”
“Of course I did,” Alita snapped. “What did you think, he died of old age? Come on.”
They crept along the inner perimeter of the wall toward the back of the hut where Alita had seen Hooker and Kaplan taken.
When they came to the spot immediately behind the hut, they crouched in the darkness, listening. There was only the sound of the rain and the night cries of the jungle outside the wall of the city.
Alita tapped Connie on the shoulder and pointed to the hut. Together they ran across the open area of scrub grass between it and the wall of the city. They knelt there beside the upright stakes bound with henequen that walled the rear of the hut. Alita pressed her ear against the stakes and clearly heard the voices of the men inside.
“Well, shit, Hooker, why didn’t you stay in Veracruz?”
“Good question.”
“I could have lived on coconuts and turtle eggs and been happy for the rest of my life, however long that might have been. But no, you had to come barreling down to Quintana Roo like some half-assed knight on a rescue mission.”
“As the drunk said when they asked him why he shoved his fist through the plate-glass window, ‘It seemed like the thing to do at the time.’”
“Tell me something, Hooker.”
“Yeah?”
“Why are we babbling like this?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m trying to keep from thinking.”
“Yeah.”
On the other side of the stake wall, Alita whispered, “It sounds like only the two of them inside.”
“What do we do?” Connie whispered back.
“The guards are still out in front. We’ll have to cut through this wall.”
Connie nodded. She began using the dead guard’s knife to saw through the cord that held the upright stakes together. Suddenly, Alita seized her hand.
“Wait! Someone else has come in.”
Both women pressed their ears to the wall and listened. There was a shuffling of feet, and the voice of Holchacán spoke.
“Comfortable, gentlemen?”
“Fuck you,” said Buzz.
“I can understand your pique, of course, but you must see that there is no other way.”
“So you’re going to chop into our heads, you butcher bastard.”
“Save it, Buzz,” Hooker said. “You’re just giving him a chance to gloat.”
“Oh, come now, Hooker. I have no intention of gloating. I came to say good-by. I will regret losing someone with whom I can converse in English.”
“Tough on you,” Buzz muttered.
“You will, however, make excellent specimens for, well, let’s call it brain alteration.”
“Let’s call it murder,” Buzz said. “We saw what you did to that little guy tonight.”
“I was using an experimental technique with that one, since he was worthless, anyway. With you I will stick to the tried and true methods.”
“We’ve seen the results of those methods,” Hooker said. “Why don’t we knock off the game playing and get on with it.”
“That is one wish I can grant you,” said the Mayan chief. “I will send someone in with a potion that will spare you most of the pain of the operation. Until then, I leave you a last few minutes to yourselves.”
From where they were kneeling out behind the hut, Connie and Alita could hear the shuffle of feet again as Holchacán and his personal attendants left.
“Now,” said Alita.
Connie began once again working with the knife between the wall stakes.
“Stand away,” Alita said.
Connie looked at her.
Alita raised the heavy sword over her head. “The knife is too small. Let me do it.”
Connie moved to the side, and Alita swung the sword straight down, slicing through the cord, cleanly separating the wooden stakes.
Inside the hut, Buzz said, “What the hell was that?”
Hooker craned his head around to look at the rear wall and said, “Shh!”
One of the guards standing out in front of the hut pulled aside the animal hide that covered the doorway and looked in. Hooker shuffled his feet around as much as he could manage on the dirt floor to cover the noise from the back of the hut.
The guard grunted something in the Mayan language.
“For Chrissake,” Hooker said, “can’t you put some cushions in here?”
The guard stared at him for a moment in confusion, then snorted and withdrew. Hooker and Buzz both twisted around as far as they could to look toward the back wall.
Outside, Alita used the sword to pry the stakes apart. She and Connie looked in.
“It’s us,” Alita whispered. “Are you okay?”
“So far,” Hooker said. “How the hell did you get here?”
“Long story.” She pulled the stakes to one side while Connie pulled to the other, forming an opening big enough for them to crawl through.
When the women were inside, Connie whispered, “Jesus, you’re bald!”
“No kidding,” Hooker whispered back. “Cut the damn ropes. And try not to rouse the goons outside.”
Connie began to work on the many turns of cord binding Hooker to the upright pole. Alita did the same for Buzz, though her work was more difficult with the clumsy sword.
Before either of the men was cut free, the sound of a voice outside froze the four people in the hut. It was the Mayan language that none of them understood, but they recognized the high-pitched voice of Zoaltl, the high priest, as he spoke to the guards.
Connie left off slicing at Hooker’s cords and moved away from the pole. She flattened herself at the side of the doorway. Behind the pole where Kaplan was tied, Alita tugged at the sword, but it had become wedged in the wood, and she could not pull it out.
The flap of hide across the doorway of the hut was pulled aside, and the high priest entered. He wore his usual elaborate headdress and a new robe that had no ugly blood spots like the one he had worn earlier. He also wore an expression of self-satisfaction that changed instantly to an almost comic look of shock when he saw Alita struggling to pull the sword from where it was sunk into the wooden pole.
The high priest turned back toward the doorway. He opened his mouth and drew in a breath to summon the guards when Connie stepped out from beside the doorway and stabbed him. The knife blade scraped on a rib, then slipped cleanly through muscle and lung tissue and into Zoaltl’s heart.
The high priest coughed once and turned completely around. He took two faltering steps back into the hut, then began to crumple. Hooker ripped free of the remaining cords and staggered to his feet in time to catch the falling man. He clamped a silencing hand over the high priest’s mouth, but it was unnecessary, as all that came out was a glob of blood.
“Nice going,” he whispered to Connie.
She stood swaying back and forth. Her complexion had gone greenish. The knife, wet with Zoaltl’s blood, was still clutched in her hand.
Hooker freed one of his hands to take her by the shoulder. He shook her gently. “Come on, snap out of it. We’ve got to move fast.”
Connie nodded without seeming to hear him.
Alita finally succeeded in pulling the sword out of the wooden pole and used it to cut the rest of Buzz’s cords. He struggled to his feet and gave her a thumbs-up sign.
Still holding the dead high priest erect, Hooker reached down and removed the knife from his belt. As he did so, the flap of hide across the doorway was jerked aside and the two guards looked in. Their jaws dropped in unison.
Instantly, Hooker clapped a hand over the high priest’s face and pulled his head back while bracing the limp body against his own to make it appear that Zoaltl still stood. He brought the dagger to the dead man’s throat and made vicious sawing motions for the benefit of the guards. Their eyes filled with fear and indecision.
“Put them on their knees, Buzz,” Hooker said.
Kaplan pulled the two guards the rest of the way into the hut and forced them down into kneeling positions. Hooker kept turning to keep the front of the high priest’s body toward them so they would not see the bright splotch of blood on the back of his robe where Connie’s knife had gone in.
“What are you going to do?” Connie asked.
Hooker looked at her quickly. Her eyes were feverish and a little wild.
He said, “I’ll stay here and tie them up. You three make for the wall. I’ll catch up with you.”
“You want me to handle this?” Buzz said.
“No. I can move faster than you. Get going.”
Hooker kept his grip on the dead Zoaltl and the knife while the two women, then Buzz, crawled out through the gap in the rear wall of the hut. The kneeling guards stole a glance at each other. Hooker knew they were getting ready to make a move now that they had him outnumbered.
• • •
Minutes later, waiting out by the stone wall, Buzz and the women saw Hooker work his way through the gap in the back of the hut and run toward them in a crouch. His feet slapped on the muddy grass.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s go over.”
“What did you do to them?” Connie asked. “Those men?”
“Tied them up. Come on; move.”
“No, you didn’t. There wasn’t time. You killed them, didn’t you?”
“I took care of them. That’s all you have to know. Now will you get the hell over that wall, or do we leave you here?”
Connie stared at him for a moment, then shuddered and turned away.
Hooker and Buzz made a step with their hands and hoisted Connie up and over the wall. Alita went next, then Buzz.
Hooker took a last look around to be sure no alarm had been raised, then gripped the top of the wall and pulled himself up and over. He dropped onto the soft earth on the far side where the others waited.
“Everybody okay?”
There were mumbles of assent. Then Alita stumbled and fell against him for a moment. Hooker’s hand came away wet.
“What’s this?” he said. “Blood?”
“It is a night for blood,” Alita said. “I used our guard’s sword on him.”
Connie said, “Look, I’m sorry, Hooker. I acted like a dope for a minute there.”
“You acted just great when it counted,” Hooker said. “Later, we can all go to confession. Buzz, do you think you can find the way back to the plane wreck? You said there was a river near there and a raft you were building.”
Kaplan looked up into the rainy night sky. “No stars to help, but I’ve always had a pretty good feeling for directions.”
“Well, let’s go, buddy, it won’t be long before they find the mess we left back there, and then we’re going to have some people chasing us.”
Buzz sniffed at the air and pointed off into the darkness. “This way,” he said, adding too softly for anyone to hear, “I think.”
The four wet, hurting people stumbled off into the jungle.