Life Blood Part 34

"_Que pasa_? " he yelled at Villatoro, his voice barely audible over the roar of the engine and the plastering of rain on the fuselage. Then he looked out the windscreen, at the torrent slamming against it, and rubbed at his chin.

"_No se, mi comandante_," the Guatemalan shouted back. I sensed he was hoping to sound efficient and unperturbed. Dupre claimed his pilot had personally checked out the Bell and prepped it. Now, though . . .

"_Mira_. Like I said the lights. On the nav station. Maybe the electrical--"

"How about the backup battery?" Dupre was just barely keeping his cool.

Villatoro scratched his chin. "I'll tell you the truth. The backup is _muerto_. I tested it before we left, but I couldn't find any replacements in Provisiones. I figure, no problem, but now, amigo . . ."

I felt another wave of dismay, right into my churning stomach.

"Well, keep your heading north." Dupre's voice was coming from a place of extreme pain. "And if you sight the Rio Tigre, then _Baalum_ or whatever should be more or less due west, according to what I'm a.s.suming. Just keep your eyes open." He paused. "Problem is, with all this rain, the river's going to be tough to make out."

I redoubled my efforts to peer out the window, searching, my breath coming in bursts. Still nothing. Dear G.o.d, what now?

Finally Dupre headed back, bracing himself against the firewall as he crouched and pa.s.sed through the door into the main cabin. When he settled into the seat across from me, he was glaring at me as though everything was my fault. "You know." He was yelling again. "I'm beginning to think maybe we ought to try to find a clearing and just sit out this c.r.a.p till morning." He leaned over and peered down through the Bell's spattered side windows at the dense tangle of growth below.

After a moment he got up and once more moved the toward the c.o.c.kpit, still with the same troubled look. This time, however, he was beaming as he shouted back.

"There may be a G.o.d after all. I think we just intersected the Rio Tigre. We can bear due west now, along the river. We could be getting close, if it's where I think it is."

I turned and stared down again, barely making out the thread of the stream through the rain. Yes! Maybe there's hope. Still, below us the windblown treetops were a solid ma.s.s of pastel sparkles, a dancing sea of hungry green . . . But then I thought I saw something. Hey! It might even be a clearing. I quickly unbuckled and made my way up to the c.o.c.kpit, hanging on to anything I could grasp.

"Alan, look," I yelled, and pointed off to the side, out

through the rain-obscured windscreen. "I think we just pa.s.sed over something. Back there. See?"

"Where?" He squinted.

"You can still just make it out." I twisted and kept pointing. I was biting my lip, trying to hold together. "There . . . it looks like some kind of clearing. Maybe . . . I don't know, but what if we just set down there and let this storm blow over?"

He ordered Villatoro to bank and go back for a look. A few moments later it was obvious there was an opening in the trees.

"Yeah, let's check it out." He then said something to Villatoro and we started easing toward it, definitely a wide opening. The billowing ocean of trees below us seemed to be parting like the Red Sea as we settled in. There had to be solid ground down there somewhere. Had to be.

"What's . . ." I was pointing. "There, over to the side, it's a kind of hill or something. It's--"

"Where?" Dupre squinted again, his voice starting to crack. Then he focused in. "Yeah, maybe there's something there. Hard to tell what it is, though. But I guess we're about to find out."

He gestured to the lieutenant, barking an order in quick Spanish. While the Bell kept moving lower through the opening, Dupre flicked on the landing lights, and appeared to be muttering a prayer of thanks.

I was staring out, growing ever more puzzled. A "hill" was there, all right. The problem was, it was definitely man-made, topped by a stone building. I could just make it out in the glare of the lights.

"What do you think that is?"

"What do I think?" Dupre studied the scene for a moment longer, and then his face melted into the first smile I'd seen since we left. "I think we are lucky beyond belief. G.o.d help us, we may have found it.

That could be the d.a.m.ned pyramid or whatever's supposed to be up here."

He leaned back. "Yeah, congratulations. Look at that d.a.m.ned thing.

Either this is the place, or we're about to become the archaeologists of the year. Cover of _Time_. The n.o.bel frigging Prize."

At that moment I almost wanted to hug Alan Dupre, but not quite.

Instead I moved farther into the c.o.c.kpit, trying to get a look out the windscreen. By then we had lowered well through the opening in the trees, the helicopter's controls fighting against the blowing rain, and it felt as though we'd begun descending into the ocean's depths in a diving bell, surrounded by thras.h.i.+ng, wind-whipped branches.

Now, though, I was staring at the ghostly rise of the pyramid emerging out of the rain.

"It looks brand new."

"Yeah, the whole place is 'Jungle Disneyland' remember? Except this deal ain't about Mickey Mouse, believe me. There's plenty of Army hanging out around here."

Lieutenant Villatoro took us ever lower, gently guiding the chopper's descent, and now we were only a few feet above the ground. There certainly was no mistaking what was around us, even with the blowing rain. The pyramid loomed over one side of a large plaza, a big paved area that was mostly obscured from the skies since the swaying trees arched over and covered it from aerial view.

"Okay, we're about to touch down." Dupre was clawing at his pocket, yearning for a cigarette. "So if you still want to get out, move over by the door. I'll disengage the main rotor once we're on the ground."

As we settled in, the rotor began to cause surface effect, throwing a spray off the paving stones, which now glistened under the cold beam of the landing lights. And looming above us, off to the right, was a stepped pyramid in the cla.s.sic Mayan style. We all lapsed into silence as the Bell's skids thumped onto the stones. The ex-Army pilot, Villatoro, kept glancing over at the pyramid as though he didn't want to admit even seeing it. Did he know something Alan and I didn't?

This was the moment I'd been bracing for. I was increasingly convinced somebody wanted me to see this place, whatever it was, but now what should I do?

Well, the first thing was to dip my toe in the water, do a quick reconnoiter on the ground. If this really was _Baalum_, Dupre's Maya Disneyland, could it also be part of Alex G.o.ddard's clinic of "miracles," the location Sarah called Ninos del Mundo? If I knew that for sure, then I could start figuring how to find out if she was here--as I suspected--and get her out of his clutches. Maybe the see-no-evil emba.s.sy might even be prodded into helping an American citizen for a change.

"I'm getting out, to look around a little, but not till you turn off the engine. I want to be able to use my ears."

"All right, but don't take all day. This kind of weather, I want to keep it warm." He turned to Villatoro and shouted the order. In the sheets of pounding rain, I figured that no one could have heard us come in. That, at least, was positive.

When the rpm's of the engine had died away, I clicked open the Bell's wide door, slid it back, and looked around. In the glare of the landing lights I realized at once that the stones were old, weathered, and worn, but the grout that sealed them was white and brand new. The plaza was free of moss, clean as the day it was done--which did not appear to be all that long ago. Above me, the pyramid, continuous recessed tiers of glistening stones, towered into the dim skyline of trees.

I stepped out onto the pavement, holding my breath. The plaza was almost football-field in size, reminding me of an Italian piazza.

Around me the rain was lessening slightly, and as my eyes adjusted . .

. my G.o.d. There wasn't just a pyramid here; through the sparkle of raindrops at the edge of the helicopter's lights I could see what looked like a wide cobblestone walkway leading into the dense growth just off the edge of the square, probably toward the south, away from the river, connecting the plaza with distant groups of small, thatch-roofed houses, set in cl.u.s.ters. . . .

Could Alex G.o.ddard's "miracle" clinic be in some collection of primitive huts? It made no sense.

But I decided to try to get a closer look. I'd walked about thirty feet away from the helicopter, across the slippery paving, when I saw a flash of lightning in the southeast, followed by a boom of thunder that echoed over the square.

At least I thought it was thunder. Or maybe the Army was holding heavy artillery practice somewhere nearby. Abruptly the rain turned into a renewed torrent, and the next thing I heard was the helicopter's engine start up again. Then I sensed the main rotor engage, a sudden "whoom, whoom, whoom" quickly spiraling upward in frequency.

Hey! I told him not to--!

When I looked back at the Bell's open door, Dupre was standing there, frantically searching the dark as he heaved out my tan backback and what looked like a rolled-up sleeping bag, both splas.h.i.+ng down onto the rain-soaked paving.

What! For a moment I thought the thunder, or whatever it was, must have completely freaked him. Then what was actually happening hit me with a horrifying impact.

"Alan, wait!"

I started das.h.i.+ng back, but now the main rotor was creating a powerful downdraft, throwing the rain into me like a monsoon. By the time I managed to fight my way through the spray, the rotor was on full power and Alan Dupre and his Bell were already lifting off. I reached up, and just managed to brush one greasy skid as he churned away straight upward into the rainy night.

"You s.h.i.+t!" I yelled up, but my final farewell was lost in the whine of the engine. My G.o.d, I thought, watching him disappear, I've just been abandoned hundreds of miles deep in a Central American rain forest.

Then it all sank in. Whoever had gotten to him was playing a rough game. They didn't want me just to see _Baalum_, they wanted me delivered here. Probably to secure me in the same place Sarah was.

Colonel Ramos, or whoever had frightened Dupre into bringing me, had wanted us both. So what now? Were we both going to be "disappeared"?

Staring around at the pyramid and the empty square, I could feel my heart pounding.