"Hace falta tener cojones!""Hijo de tu chingada madre!"More and more light was creeping through the slatted windows. A glance at my watch showed the time to be six sharp, but the embassy was no longer an option."Listen," Steve said coming back on, "there's some rain due for tonight, but he says he thinks we can try. He claims there's a clearing about a quarter of a mile down a gravel road that goes south. With the rain as cover, maybe we can put down just after dark. Think you can find a way to get Sarah and meet us?""I'm not even sure she can walk, at least not far, but we'll be there." I was flashing on her back in the square, proclaiming her happiness. Would I have to drag her out, carry her on my back? Well, I would. "There's some kind of 'ceremony' on for tomorrow morning. The Army's going to be here in double strength because of it, but maybe it'll make for some confusion that'll help. Still, she's—""Damn, this is going to be big-time dicey.""Honey, let me tell you as much as I can about the layout of this place. Just in case."Which I did. The main problem was, I didn't know exactly where Sarah was."Is there anybody there who could help you?" he asked when I'd finished."I'm not hopeful." I paused. "Listen, can you get your hands on a gun or guns?""What are you . . . Don't even think about it! That's the best way to guarantee we all get killed. I'm not taking on the Guatemalan Armed Forces. And you're not either. We've got to keep this very low-tech. The dark and the rain, that's what we use. They don't shoot back."At that moment I wanted nothing more than to shoot Alex Goddard. I'd have done it if I'd had the chance. Happily. But I knew Steve was right."Okay, look, what time?""We'll try to set down about, say—"There was a crackle as the yellow diodes on the phone erupted in a high-pitched whistle, cutting the connection.No! My God, had somebody been listening in?So when exactly was he coming? Around dark? That would probably be about eight o'clock. Or maybe nine . . .I was closing the phone case when I heard a sound from outside, as though someone had passed the door, then come back to listen.All right. Get going.I gathered the printouts, then headed back through the laboratory, where I took a long, last look at the petri dishes being incubated. Should I just dump them now? But then he'd know for sure that I knew.The time would come, and soon.As I eased myself back into the fake-stone OR and closed the door, the dawn outside was steeped in forest sounds, clacks and whistles and chirps. That was good, because I needed some stray noise to mask what I was going to do next. Take control.Chapter Twenty-fiveIbegan by feeling along the fake-stone walls to find where the crevices were, the doors that enclosed the medical instruments. Somewhere, I was sure, there was a cabinet that held a complete set of surgical equipment.When I found the first crevice, I gave the wall on either side a push and, sure enough, the panel was spring-loaded. Good. The side on the right of the crevice popped open to reveal the microscope Goddard had used. But nothing else was there.I moved on down the wall testing for cabinets, trying to remember what Marcelina had done when Alex Goddard told her to prep the Mayan woman. One after another the panels snapped open till . . . yes, this was the one I wanted. Hallelujah.The third drawer held the scalpels. I took out the largest I could find, heavy and steel, then wedged it into the metal sliding mechanism and snapped off the tip. Perfect.I felt like I was holding the key to my escape as I carefully reclosed all the panels. Since there were no windows in the OR room, I slipped back through the lab—it had now become a haunted place of monstrous obscenity to me—and checked out the office.It was still deserted, but now the hazy light of early day was mingling with the sounds of nature seeping through the slatted window. As I walked over to it, the cool, moist morning air once again felt like freedom. How long did I have before the clinic started stirring?I'd originally planned to try to unscrew some of the slats, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The strips of wood were held in with crude, rusty clamps, and one by one I began prying them out with the blunted scalpel. I figured five slats should give me enough space to squeeze through, and I'd already removed three when I heard a frustrated voice in Spanish just down the hail. Uh-oh."Tengo que mear que mis dientes flotan!" It was followed by the sound of boots headed toward the office.I ducked down behind a desk, holding my breath, but then the footsteps marched past, headed for the front door of the clinic. That was when I finally processed what he'd said: "I've got to piss so bad my teeth are floating."So where was he headed?Moments later I knew. I heard the noise of someone kicking their way through the underbrush till they were right next to the window, followed by the sound of a zipper.My God, I thought, he's right here. Will he spot the missing slats?I bit my lip as I listened to a member of the Guatemalan Armed Forces vigorously urinate upon the north wall of Alex Goddard's clinic. Well, I told myself, that's probably what they think of him. I'd like to do the same.Then came a confirming re-zip, after which the sound of slashing boots faded back into the distance. If he'd noticed the window I'd just burgled, it hadn't alerted his curiosity. Moments later I heard his heavy footsteps returning up the hall.Jesus, two minutes more and I'd have been out there.I was trembling, but I managed to finish prying out the last two slats. I then pushed all five out onto the ground, hoping the clatter would be lost in forest music, and climbed through after them, trying to be as quiet as I could. I ended up going out headfirst and collapsing onto the ground in an unceremonious crumple. Thirty seconds later, though, the slats were wedged roughly back into place, and I'd discarded the broken scalpel in the jungle underbrush. Yes!Now the cool air of freedom was all around me. My first small step.How long before Alex Goddard discovers I'm missing? Will I have time to find Sarah, bring her to her senses, and hide her from him? A lot would depend on what kind of physical and mental shape she was in.As I passed around the parking lot, gray clouds were thickening overhead and I noticed that half a dozen new olive-green Jeeps were parked there. The Army was arriving in force, getting ready for God knows what. I took one look at them and felt my breath start coming in bursts. Steve, we're going to need our own kind of miracle. How are we going to get out of here?I skirted the edges of the lot and reached the trail leading down into the village. And I was trying to quell my pulse. What was down there? With the dense rain forest arching over me, I felt as though I was entering a domain of Maya dreamtime where the past lived again, only with a sinister twist.The air in the dark groves was thick with the buzzing of insects, harbingers of the coming rainstorm, but before long I caught a glimmer of daylight ahead. Soon I emerged into a wide arbor that, after another hundred feet, opened onto the central plaza and the pyramid. Now . . .It was daylight, but it also was . . . The sight took my breath away. What was going on?A milling horde of men was gathered in the square, and resinous torches were flaming on each of the pyramid's tiers of steps. A lot of drinking from clay jugs was getting under way, and the men were in the process of painting their faces, stripes of black and white, with dark circles around their eyes. Some also were applying rows of red-and-green-colored seeds to their cheeks with white glue. The bizarreness of the scene rippled through me like the shards of a dysfunctional dream. Jesus!Alex Goddard had said the ceremony got "frenzied," and now I was beginning to realize. . . . What were they getting ready to do? Had I been wrong in thinking the classical Maya never got around to ripping out hearts? Did that explain the half-dozen young Army privates loitering there at the far side, rifles slung over their shoulders?I melted back into the trees and studied the geometry of the plaza, reconsidering my situation. I needed to find some way to get around it and onto the cobblestone pathway at the far side, which led into the village. Finally I decided I could skirt the periphery if I was careful not to advertise my presence. Dawn had come and gone and the quick light of tropical day was arriving, but everybody appeared to be preoccupied with their nightmarish preparations.Thank God it worked. I weaved in and among the trees and in five minutes I'd reached the central pathway, now deserted. Still barely letting myself breathe, I turned back and gazed up at the pyramid. I had no idea what was next, but I decided it would be my signpost, to help me keep my bearings as I moved through the confusing, tree-shrouded huts ofBaalum. Except for the men in the square, the village now seemed deserted, though a pack of brown dogs, curious and annoying, had spotted me and now circled around to sniff. Don't bark, damn it.That was when I saw Marcelina, in her white shift, striding through the crowd of drinking men like an alpha lioness parting a posturing pride. My God. My heart stopped for a moment. Does Alex Goddard already know I've fled and has he sent her to lure me back?No way. I clenched my fists and kicked at the surly, long- tailed mutts, still circling and nuzzling.As she came closer, I saw she was smiling and carrying a brown wicker basket. What. . ."I've brought you something," she announced as she walked up, her dark eyes oddly kind. "You must be starving by now.""How did you know I was down here?" Looking at her earnest Mayan face, I suddenly wondered if she could have any idea what Alex Goddard had done to Sarah, and to me?"You were gone from your room," she declared, settling the basket onto the walkway and beginning to open it. "Where else would you be?" When I looked, I saw it had a sealed container of yogurt, a banana, and two eggs, presumably hard-boiled—traditional "safe" food for gringos in Third World places. "I'd been planning to bring you down today," she went on. "They all want to meet you."Was she coming to look after me? The more I examined her, the more I began to suspect something else was going on. Would she help me get Sarah out and away from Alex Goddard?"I want to find Sarah," I said. Why not start out with the truth? "Does he . . . Dr. Goddard know I'm here?""He's not here now," she said, her eyes shifting down. "He left for Guatemala City early this morning. I think to meet with the Army. On business. . . ."Yes. His big Humvee hadn't been in the clinic's parking lot when I went by. Why hadn't I noticed that? For the first time I felt the odds were tipping. Now was going to be the perfect time to get Sarah. Yes. Yes. Yes."If you want to see her, I can take you," Marcelina offered, replacing the lid on the basket.Yes, perfect. I wanted to hug her."Then let's go right now" And while I was at it, I was determined to get through to this woman somehow, to enlist her help.As we headed down the central walkway of the village, we passed the rows of compounds where I'd seen the women that first morning. None was in evidence now, and the gardens were empty, as though the entire settlement had been evacuated. It felt very strange.And what about those bizarre proceedings now under way in the square? Was that going to interfere with getting Sarah out?"Marcelina." I pointed back toward the milling plaza. "What's that all about? The drinking and the—?""It's begun," she answered, both simple and vague. "They're getting ready."I didn't like the way she said it. Her tone seemed to imply I was involved somehow."Ready for—?""The ceremony. They like to drink a tree-bark liquor we callbalche. It's very strong and rancid." She smiled and touched me. "Take my advice and avoid it.""I plan to." Why did she think I'd even be offered it?As we hurried along, two women abruptly appeared on a porch, bowed, and greeted us. Marcelina waved back, then went over and spoke earnestly with them for a moment. Finally she turned and motioned for me."They've invited you in."Something about the easy way it all just "happened" felt as though they'd been expecting me. Had Marcelina's trip down to the village been part of a setup, wittingly or unwittingly?"I told them we could only stay for a minute," she went on. I sensed she was reluctant, but felt we had no choice.The last thing I wanted to do was this."Marcelina, can't you tell them we'll come back later?""It's . . . it's important." She was beckoning for me. "Please."Well, I thought, this could give me the time I need, the personal moment, to get through to her. Even after I locate Sarah, spiriting her out isn't going to be simple. I've got to make Marcelina understand what's really going on, then get her to help us.As we headed through the yard, the women smiled, then politely led us under the thatch overhang and into the hut. They both were short and Maya-sturdy, with white shifts and broad faces, and they exuded a confident intensity in their bearing, a powerful sense of self-knowledge. I tried a phrase in Spanish, but they just stared at me as though they'd never heard the language. Then I remembered my first attempt to ask about Sarah. The women hadn't understood me then either. Or had they?The room they ushered us into had no windows, but there was cool, shadowy morning light filtering through the upright wooden slats of the walls, laying dim stripes across the earthen floor. A cooking fire smoldered in a central hearth, and from the smoke-blackened roof beams dangled dried gourds, bundles of tobacco, netted bags of onions and squash, and several leaf-wrapped blocks of salt. The room smelled of ancient smoke, sweet and pungent.They immediately produced a calabash bowl with a gray liquid inside, pronouncing the wordatoleas they urged it on me, smiling expectantly."It's our special drink," Marcelina explained. She seemed to be wary, watching me closely as they handed it over. "It's how we welcome an honored guest."I wasn't sure how politic I ought to be. Third World food . . ."Marcelina," I said, taking the bowl and trying to smile. "I'm not really—""You must have a little," she whispered back. "It would be very rude. . . ."Well, I thought, just a taste. I tried it and realized it was a dense gruel of cornmeal and honey-water, like a lukewarm gluey porridge, though with a bitter after-jolt. But I choked it down and tried to look pleased. Marcelina urged me to have more—I took another small sip—and then they produced corn dumplings wrapped in large leaves, together with a pile of fiery chiles and a bowl of squash, corn, and beans, all mixed together.After one bite, though, Marcelina reached out and—her eyes downcast—whisked the bowls away, passing them back to the women. She said something to them, then turned to me."Eating too much would be as rude as not eating at all."That was a cultural norm I didn't remember, and I suspected she'd just changed her mind about the wisdom of my eating local food.I smiled at the women and used some of my so-so Spanish to offer them thanks."Muchas gracias." I nodded toward the bowls. "Esta es muy delicioso."They beamed as though they understood me. Who could say? But they'd been intensely interested in watching me eat, even more than Marcelina.Work on her. Now."Marcelina." I turned to her, only vaguely noticing she hadn't had a bite. "Do you understand why Dr. Goddard moved me down to the operating room yesterday? There in the clinic? What did he tell you?""He said it was for special tests." Her voice was gentle through the gloom. "You were very . . . sleepy. You must have been very, very tired. But he told me something in your blood work was unusual, so he had me bring you down for a pelvic exam. I gave you a sedative"—she was pointing at the Band-Aid still on my arm—"the way we always do. But then he said you were fine.""Do you realize he did things to my body I didn't agree to?" I studied her trusting Mayan face and tried to get a sense of how much she knew about what was going on. That was when I first became sure of an increasing disquiet in her eyes, as she kept glancing away. Why was she so uncomfortable talking about Alex Goddard? "And I think he did some of those same things to Sarah.""Dr. Goddard tried to help her in many ways when she was here before." Marcelina's tone had become odd and distant. "Now he wants to help you too."Yes, there was definitely something uneasy in her eyes."Before he came here," she went on, trying to look at me, "Baalumwas just a poor, simple village. Many children died of diseases. So I left and went to Guatemala City to study. To become a public-health nurse. Then after he came here, I moved back to help him with his clinic, the children."She was trying to make a case for him, and I noticed she'd avoided the actual question."NowBaalumhas become a special place," she said finally. "A place of miracles. And if a woman from outside comes, she can be part of that. When Sara was here before, I started teaching her to speak our language, and the others did too. She truly wanted to be part of his miracles. Sometimes we don't understand how they happen, but he has great medical powers."One thing's for sure, I thought. He's got plenty of power over the people here, including you. The whole place has been brainwashed. I looked her over and realized she'd just gone on mental autopilot. She wants to be loyal to him, and she can't let herself believe there's something rotten in the "special" paradise ofBaalum."Listen," I said, getting up, "I need to go see Sarah right now. Her father's been in the hospital, and he's not well. I spoke with him yesterday, and he's very worried about her. I know Dr. Goddard is treating her, but it's better if I just take her home immediately."More and more I was beginning to suspect this detour for the two women had been a diversion, an attempt to stall. Marcelina had set it up. Maybe she wanted to tell me something, and she didn't have the nerve to do it point-blank."Families are very important," she said, sounding sincere. "We'll go now." She spoke to the women briefly, an animated benediction that seemed to leave her even more disturbed. As we headed out and on down the path, I again wondered what was really happening.When we reached the end of the long "street," the arched arbors still above us, she stopped in front of an odd stone building unlike any of the others and pointed."This is where she likes to be," she said quietly. "Except for the pyramid, it's the most sacred place in Baalum."The doorway was a stone arch about five feet high and pointed at the top like a tiny Gothic cathedral."What . . . is this?" I felt as though I was about to enter something from the Temple of Doom."It was once the royal bath," she explained. "In ancient times heated rocks were brought in, with spring water from a sacredcenote."We walked through the portal and entered a room whose roof was a stone latticework that let the gray daylight just filter through. The space was vast, with carved and colored glyphs all around the walls, while the air was filled with clouds of incense from pots along the floor. It felt like a smoky pagan church.At the far end was a large stone platform, and in the dappled, hazy light I could see it was embossed along its sides with carved and painted classical scenes and glyphs, glistening little red and green and blue pictures of faces and figures.My eyes finally started adjusting to the shadows, and I realized the platform had been fitted with a covering across the top, a jaguar skin over bundled straw, and a tiny form was lying on it, wearing a white shift. . . .Dear God."Morgy, I've been so hoping you'd come," Sarah said, rising up and holding out her hands. Then she slid her feet around onto the rough stone floor and managed to steady herself. Her shift was wrinkled now, but she still was wearing the brown slippers and the braided leather waist-cinch. She appeared sleepy, though her eyes were sparkling and she seemed to have more strength than she'd had when I first saw her out in the square. I looked at her and weighed the chances she could walk. Possibly. But I'd carry her if I had to."Sar, honey, we're going home now," I said, finally finding my voice.She didn't respond at first, just turned to caress the decorated sides of the platform. "I've been wanting to show you this, Morgy. It tells my story." Her voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way off, as though through a dense haze."Please, we don't have time for stories." Was she hearing me at all? "Let's just—""See," she went on, ignoring me as she pointed down, "that's the Cosmic Monster, that one there with maize sprouting out of his forehead. And that man next to him with a flint knife is my father, letting blood from his penis. He's the king. And that one there is me, Lady Jaguar. He gave my name to this place." She paused to reverently touch the carved stone. "Look, I've just stuck a stingray spine through my tongue and put my blood in thecopalcenser there.""Sar, please—""Here, see it?" She was pointing to a section at the very end. "That's the two-headed Vision Serpent up above me. He's the god Kukulkan . . . or something. I've made him come to me by giving him my blood. I'm—""Sar, what in heaven's name is going on with you?" I grabbed her and in spite of myself, shook her. Jesus! The whole scene left me in shock. She was sinking back deeper into her fantasy world. Was she taking the drug again, I wondered and fantasizing she was some dead Mayan princess? Please, God no.That was when I saw Marcelina walk over to a shelf along the wall and lift down another clay-pot incense burner, along with a small white brick. What—?"Oh, yes!" Sarah exclaimed moving quickly over to her. "Let's do it for Morgy."Marcelina nodded warily and handed her the white brick, then turned to me. "She likes to do incense. It always calms her. This iscopal, what the shamans use."I watched while Sarah shakily began crumbling pieces of the sticky substance into the pot. My God I thought, she's truly, truly lost it. Next she inserted dry tinder and began trying to knock sparks into it with a piece of hard black jade and a flint. But she was too weak, and finally Marcelina had to take the flint and do it for her. Then, as the gray smoke started billowing out, Marcelina began a long chant, shrill and strangely melodic. I felt a chill creep down my back. When she finished she turned her dark eyes on me sadly, waiting."What were you saying?" I asked finally, sensing she wanted me to."I was singing from the Popol Vuh." Then she translated.Holy earth, giver of life,Help us in our struggle againstThe God of the House of Darkness.Wait a minute. What's she saying?"Who's the God of the House of Darkness?" Could she be talking about Alex Goddard?"I didn't want to do it," she blurted out, reaching out to me, her eyes even sadder. "But he said you're the new special one. We had to."What the hell was she talking about? Had to what? Did it have something to do with my "visit" to the women in the hut?"Please stay here with us," she pleaded as she took my hand. "Don't go."Stay? Don't even think about it. I had Sarah halfway to freedom. While the Army was still getting its act together, we could lose ourselves someplace in the forest where nobody would find us, and when Steve got here tonight . . ."Sar, come on, it's time." I pulled away from Marcelina and slipped my arm around her. "Nothing here is what you think it is.""Are we leaving?" she asked, her eyes blank."Yes, honey, we're leaving. This very minute."The dense forest was all about us, and I'd just carry her into it if I had to. In the coming storm, nobody was going to find . . .That's when I noticed I was beginning to have gastric rumblings. Damn. Never, ever eat "native" food, no matter what the social pressure. That damned "visit" . . .When I turned to ask Marcelina if she would help me get Sarah outside, I noticed she'd been joined by the two women, both still in their white shifts, who'd just fed me the sicklysweetatole. And more women were behind them, all staring at me, expectant, as though wondering what I would do.Maybe it was my imagination, or the dizziness that was abruptly growing around me, but it also seemed they'd painted their faces with streaks of white, designs like the men in the square were putting on."She's going to be all right," Marcelina was saying. "But we have to get you back now. You'll need your strength."I needed it then. My stomach had really begun to gyrate, and my vision had started growing colored. I noticed I was sweating, even though the day was cooling down. Actually, I felt as though I was about to pass out. What had those women fed me?It was finally dawning on me that Marcelina's fearfulness back in the hut had nothing to do with betraying Alex Goddard. It was because she knew she was betraying me.Well, damn her, I'm not going to let Alex Goddard win, no matter what."Marcelina, please help me. I've got to get Sarah out of here. Now. I don't know what poison drug he's giving her, but he's driving her insane.""We'll take care of her," she said. But I could barely make out the words. They echoed bouncing around in my head."I'm really getting dizzy." I glanced over again at the women standing by the door. "Please tell me what they—?""The elixir," she said. "For tomorrow at sunup. That's when you'll see his real power."I'd begun experiencing white spots before my eyes—and for some reason I had a vision of the Army Jeeps parked up the hill. I didn't know how the two were connected but in my jumbled thoughts they seemed to be.Just get Sarah and get out into the air. Walk, don't think, and you can do it. . . .I pulled her next to me and struggled toward the door, the women studying us, unmoving."Morgy, I've missed you so much," Sarah was saying, slipping her arms around my neck to help herself walk. "I'm . . . I'm ready to go home.""I've missed you too." I think my heart was bursting as I urged her on through the stone portico. At last. Had something clicked that freed her from Alex Goddard? Maybe her mind was finally becoming her own.When we got outside, the skies were growing ever more foreboding, storm clouds looming. Steve had been right about the coming rain, but now it seemed the perfect cover for us to just get out. I took a deep breath of the misty air and forced myself to start helping Sarah up the cobblestone path."Sar, you can walk, I know you can. Be strong. For both of us. I'm . . ."I felt myself sinking slowly to the cold stones of the walkway, the hard abrasion against my knees, Sarah tumbling forward as I pulled her down on top of me, Marcelina's arms around me trying to hold me up. It was the last real sensation I would remember.Chapter Twenty-sixSarah was hovering around me, a sylphlike presence, as I watched myself drift up the steps of the pyramid there in the square, my senses waxing and waning like the waves on a distant ocean shore. There seemed to be rain, or fog, or smoke, but it had a luminous, purple cast one moment, a Day-Glo orange the next. In fact, all the colors were swirling and changing, shimmering from hue to hue. A pack of howler monkeys was cavorting up and down the steps on my left, like circus Harlequins in electric red-and-blue suits, doing pratfalls and huffing as they flew through the air and tumbled one over another.Sarah was floating silently beside me, but where was Steve? Had he come? Were we escaping?No. I sensed his face drifting across my sight like a cartoon cloud before dissolving into nothingness. He wasn't here. I was having the eeriest dream I'd ever had.When I reached the stone-paved platform at the pinnacle, I felt Alex Goddard clasp my arm and turn me around to face the plaza below."They are waiting," he said, pointing toward the hazy square.I looked down, and at first I couldn't see anything except rain and smoke, but then slowly a crowd materialized. The scattering of men I'd seen earlier had become an undulating sea of upturned faces painted with stripes and swirling circles of blue and white and red, a torch-lit garden of brilliant blossoms. They all were looking up at us, at Sarah and me.Next he held out a mirror whose reflecting surface was a polished silver metal."Behold yourself, Morgan. As befits a royal one, a special one, your nose has been built up with clay and pierced with lustrous blue feathers and a giant topaz. Your front teeth have been filed to a point and inlaid with jewels, your royal skull has been shaped back and flattened."I gazed into the mirror and gasped. I was monstrous, a Halloween harpy.Then he moved over to a waist-high censer stationed there on the edge of the platform and began adding balls of sticky whitecopalresin, together with bark and grasses, which he ignited by the quick friction of a fire stick spun by a bow.Finally he turned to me and held out his hands. "Now we will make a miracle, the miracle ofBaalum."Heavy smoke from the censer was pouring out into the rainy sky as we started a stiffpas de deux, the strains of a clay flute drifting around us. Was it the "ceremony"? Was I dreaming it?As the incense billowed, our Maya dreamtime dance became ever more intense, and then a faint form began to writhe up out of the haze between us, an undulating serpent the deep color of jade. As Alex Goddard wrapped his arms around it, it began to form into two dark heads, then pirouette above us. Finally, as the two-headed specter opened its mouths and gazed down on the platform, Sarah stepped toward it and held out her arms."Sar, no!"I screamed to her to get back, but as I did, the . . . thing reached down and swallowed her in flames. It was the Vision-Serpent come to receive her."Sarah . . .""Can you get up now?" said a voice, cutting through the haze that enveloped my consciousness. At first I thought it was more of the dream, but then someone was touching me and I opened my eyes to see Marcelina standing beside the bed I was in, dressed in white and holding a candle. For a moment I thought I was still atop the rainy pyramid but then I felt the moistness of the sheets and realized the storm Id been dreaming of was being blown in through the slats of the windows. I was shivering."Marcelina, where's Sarah?" The nightmare had seemed so real, and now I was hallucinating, having flashes of colors I didn't want to see. "I just had the most horrible dream. I was on the pyramid and there was smoke, rain and some kind of ghastly—""It's the elixir. From the toad. It makes you dream dreams of the Old Ones." She took my hand. "She's resting now. He gave her something to calm her."More drugs, I thought angrily.Then I caught the "he." Alex Goddard must be back. Everything had gone wrong."I've got to get her and—""Not now," Marcelina went on, helping me up. "Come. I want to show you the true miracle ofBaalum. Now is the time you should know."The upstairs hallway was dimly illuminated by rows of lights along the floor as she led me forward. There also was total silence, except for the occasional whimper of a baby in one of the rooms. Where was she taking me?When she stopped in front of the third door from the end of the hall, I tried to get my mental bearings. I was still hallucinating; in control of only half my mind to the point where I wasn't sure I could find my hand in front of my face. But then she tapped on the door and when she heard a voice inside, something in the Kekchi dialect, she gently pushed it open.When we moved inside, the room was dark and there was no sound, except a gasp from the bed when the woman realized I was a gringo. The dim slant of illumination from the doorway revealed a small night lamp just above the head of her bed, and Marcelina reached for it.As the light came on, a pale glow filling the room, I noticed the woman was staring at me, her eyes wide and frightened."She's afraid you've come for her child," Marcelina whispered, pointing toward the bassinet. "She knows we have to give him back."The woman was pure Maya, a powerful visage straight off that upright stele in the square. I walked over and took her hand, hoping to calm her fears. Then I lifted her hand to my cheek and realized my face was moist with tears. I held it there for a long moment, till the alarm in her eyes diminished.Her newborn infant was sleeping quietly in a crib right next to her, on the opposite side from the table. When I looked closely at him, I finally understood everything.I laid her hand back onto the bed and walked around. While the woman watched, I pulled away the stripped red and green coverlet and lifted out her groggy little boy, tender and vulnerable.He made a baby's protest as I cradled him, then began sleepily probing my left breast, making me feel sad I had no milk."It's okay," I whispered, first to him and then to his mother. "Esta bien.""Tz'ac Tzotz," the woman said, pointing at him. I could feel her deep, maternal love."His name?" I asked in English, before I thought.When Marcelina translated, the woman smiled and nodded.Then the blond-haired Tz'ac Tzotz started to sniffle, so I kissed him gently, turned, and took the woman's hand again. There was nothing else I could do.Tz'ac Tzotz was Sarah incarnate. This was no hallucination. He had her special blue eyes and her steep cheeks, her high brow. I was holding her child."They are sent from Kukulkan," Marcelina was saying, "the white god of the plumed serpent. Then there's the ceremony on the pyramid and they go back."The woman was staring at me, seemingly awestruck. Then she pointed at Tz'ac Tzotz and at me, saying something to Marcelina. Finally the woman bowed her head to me with great reverence."She says he looks so much like you," Marcelina explained. "You are surely the special one. The new bride."I was still speechless, but then I noticed the baby had a little silver jaguar amulet tied around his wrist with a silken string, and on the back—as on Kevin's and Rachel's—were rows of lines and dots.It finally dawned on me. They were digits, written in the archaic Maya script. What could they be, maybe his birthday? No, I realized, that was far too simplistic. This was the original bar code; it was hisBaalum"serial number."For a long moment it felt as if time had stopped. Sarah, and now me—we'd been lured here to provide the life force for Mayan surrogate mothers. This whole elaborate recreation wasn't about rainforest drugs and research into fertility; it was just a cover to use the bodies of these intensely believing Native Americans. Alex Goddard had perpetrated the greatest systematic exploitation of another race since slavery. The difference was, he'd found a way to get them to give themselves willingly.Baalumwas definitely a place of miracles. There could scarcely be another isolated spot on earth where he could find this many sincere, trusting people with powerful beliefs he could prostitute. And all of it hidden deep in an ancient rainforest.But I had to be sure. I turned around, leaving Marcelina to watch in confusion, and marched out into the hall and into the next room. The Maya mother there cried out in shock as I unceremoniously strode over to her crib and checked.Her baby was the same. Sarah stamped all over him. My God.When I went back, Marcelina was still trying to calm Tz'ac Tzotz's mother with her bedside manner.As I stood looking at them, the extent of what was going on finally settled in. All those new babies at Quetzal Manor, even Kevin and Rachel—they all looked alike because they all were from the same woman. The one who was here before Sarah. And now hers were ready.I was going to be next. The new "bride." Those fresh petri dishes down in the lab . . . My God, why didn't I destroy them when I had the chance?So whose sperm would he use? Of course. It would be from the man Alan Dupre was going to deliver to him."Marcelina, don't you realize what's happening?" I wanted to pound some sense into her. They didn't have to let him do this to them."I know that with miracles must come sadness," she said, reaching to touch Tz'ac Tzotz's tiny brow. "We all understand that.""It's not a miracle. It's science, don't you realize?Ciencia. He's using you.""We know he does many things that are magic. He makes powerful medicines from the plants we bring him, and when women want to bear a child—""No, Marcelina." I felt my heart go out to her, and to all the others. "It's black magic. It's all a lie."The first thing to do was go down to the laboratory and dump every last one of my petri dishes into the sink, ova and all. Destroy the nest, then call Steve and warn him. . . .I glanced at my watch. NO! The time was 4:58 A.M. He was coming at nine o'clock last night. . . .I was standing there in horror, unnatural colors flitting across my vision, when I heard . . ."It's almost morning."I jumped as Alex Goddard walked into the room, dressed in white, hair falling around his shoulders. He took Tz'ac Tzotz from his crib, checked the number on his amulet, and then absently put him back. Next he examined me, his eyes brimming with concern."How're you feeling?" He placed his hand on my brow. When I looked around for Marcelina, I realized she'd vanished."Where's Steve?" I felt the bottom dropping out of my world, my whole body trembling. "If you've harmed so much as a hair on his head, I'll—""He's here," he said quietly."I want to see him." Dear God, what had I done? I wanted to die."He's been given something to help him rest. Are you sure you want to disturb him?""I told you I want to see him." I could barely get out the words. "Now.""If you insist. He's just downstairs."We slowly walked down the marble steps, my mind flooding with more and more hallucinations. When we reached the first floor, he opened the door of a room adjacent to his office. I realized the window slats were open, sending a rush of moist air across my face. Then he motioned me forward and clicked on the bedside light.Steve was there on the bed, comatose. I walked over and lifted his upper torso, then cradled his head in my arms. Baby, I love you. Please forgive me. Please.His eyes were firmly shut and he didn't stir in the slightest. He was in a deathlike stupor, and there were large bruises on his face and a bandage across his nose. Then his bed shift fell open and I noticed another bandage on his groin."You've already done it!" I whirled back, ready to kill the bastard."As I said, he was injected with a mild sedative." He had walked over and started taking Steve's pulse. "Given the . . . condition he was in, I decided to go with the simplest procedure possible. After he was brought in, I made a small incision in thevas deferensand extracted a substantial quantity of motile sperm." He was turning down the lights. "Don't worry. I've performed the procedure before. The last was a Swedish tourist who was in a car accident up by Lake Atitlan and then lay in a coma in Guatemala City for weeks on end."I listened to him, my mind racing. I'd thought Kevin and Rachel looked Nordic, big and blond. That Swede must have been their father."Those ova of mine you took, the way you stole Sarah's, and all the other women you've brought here—you don't use them for research.""I have ample leftover embryonic material here for that." He started helping me onto the bed next to Steve. Now his face was undulating through my vision, as though I were seeing it in a wavy mirror. "Please understand, it's very expensive to run a laboratory up here. But the good I'm doing—"
"Hace falta tener cojones!"
"Hijo de tu chingada madre!"
More and more light was creeping through the slatted windows. A glance at my watch showed the time to be six sharp, but the embassy was no longer an option.
"Listen," Steve said coming back on, "there's some rain due for tonight, but he says he thinks we can try. He claims there's a clearing about a quarter of a mile down a gravel road that goes south. With the rain as cover, maybe we can put down just after dark. Think you can find a way to get Sarah and meet us?"
"I'm not even sure she can walk, at least not far, but we'll be there." I was flashing on her back in the square, proclaiming her happiness. Would I have to drag her out, carry her on my back? Well, I would. "There's some kind of 'ceremony' on for tomorrow morning. The Army's going to be here in double strength because of it, but maybe it'll make for some confusion that'll help. Still, she's—"
"Damn, this is going to be big-time dicey."
"Honey, let me tell you as much as I can about the layout of this place. Just in case."
Which I did. The main problem was, I didn't know exactly where Sarah was.
"Is there anybody there who could help you?" he asked when I'd finished.
"I'm not hopeful." I paused. "Listen, can you get your hands on a gun or guns?"
"What are you . . . Don't even think about it! That's the best way to guarantee we all get killed. I'm not taking on the Guatemalan Armed Forces. And you're not either. We've got to keep this very low-tech. The dark and the rain, that's what we use. They don't shoot back."
At that moment I wanted nothing more than to shoot Alex Goddard. I'd have done it if I'd had the chance. Happily. But I knew Steve was right.
"Okay, look, what time?"
"We'll try to set down about, say—"
There was a crackle as the yellow diodes on the phone erupted in a high-pitched whistle, cutting the connection.
No! My God, had somebody been listening in?
So when exactly was he coming? Around dark? That would probably be about eight o'clock. Or maybe nine . . .
I was closing the phone case when I heard a sound from outside, as though someone had passed the door, then come back to listen.
All right. Get going.
I gathered the printouts, then headed back through the laboratory, where I took a long, last look at the petri dishes being incubated. Should I just dump them now? But then he'd know for sure that I knew.
The time would come, and soon.
As I eased myself back into the fake-stone OR and closed the door, the dawn outside was steeped in forest sounds, clacks and whistles and chirps. That was good, because I needed some stray noise to mask what I was going to do next. Take control.
Ibegan by feeling along the fake-stone walls to find where the crevices were, the doors that enclosed the medical instruments. Somewhere, I was sure, there was a cabinet that held a complete set of surgical equipment.
When I found the first crevice, I gave the wall on either side a push and, sure enough, the panel was spring-loaded. Good. The side on the right of the crevice popped open to reveal the microscope Goddard had used. But nothing else was there.
I moved on down the wall testing for cabinets, trying to remember what Marcelina had done when Alex Goddard told her to prep the Mayan woman. One after another the panels snapped open till . . . yes, this was the one I wanted. Hallelujah.
The third drawer held the scalpels. I took out the largest I could find, heavy and steel, then wedged it into the metal sliding mechanism and snapped off the tip. Perfect.
I felt like I was holding the key to my escape as I carefully reclosed all the panels. Since there were no windows in the OR room, I slipped back through the lab—it had now become a haunted place of monstrous obscenity to me—and checked out the office.
It was still deserted, but now the hazy light of early day was mingling with the sounds of nature seeping through the slatted window. As I walked over to it, the cool, moist morning air once again felt like freedom. How long did I have before the clinic started stirring?
I'd originally planned to try to unscrew some of the slats, but that turned out to be unnecessary. The strips of wood were held in with crude, rusty clamps, and one by one I began prying them out with the blunted scalpel. I figured five slats should give me enough space to squeeze through, and I'd already removed three when I heard a frustrated voice in Spanish just down the hail. Uh-oh.
"Tengo que mear que mis dientes flotan!" It was followed by the sound of boots headed toward the office.
I ducked down behind a desk, holding my breath, but then the footsteps marched past, headed for the front door of the clinic. That was when I finally processed what he'd said: "I've got to piss so bad my teeth are floating."
So where was he headed?
Moments later I knew. I heard the noise of someone kicking their way through the underbrush till they were right next to the window, followed by the sound of a zipper.
My God, I thought, he's right here. Will he spot the missing slats?
I bit my lip as I listened to a member of the Guatemalan Armed Forces vigorously urinate upon the north wall of Alex Goddard's clinic. Well, I told myself, that's probably what they think of him. I'd like to do the same.
Then came a confirming re-zip, after which the sound of slashing boots faded back into the distance. If he'd noticed the window I'd just burgled, it hadn't alerted his curiosity. Moments later I heard his heavy footsteps returning up the hall.
Jesus, two minutes more and I'd have been out there.
I was trembling, but I managed to finish prying out the last two slats. I then pushed all five out onto the ground, hoping the clatter would be lost in forest music, and climbed through after them, trying to be as quiet as I could. I ended up going out headfirst and collapsing onto the ground in an unceremonious crumple. Thirty seconds later, though, the slats were wedged roughly back into place, and I'd discarded the broken scalpel in the jungle underbrush. Yes!
Now the cool air of freedom was all around me. My first small step.
How long before Alex Goddard discovers I'm missing? Will I have time to find Sarah, bring her to her senses, and hide her from him? A lot would depend on what kind of physical and mental shape she was in.
As I passed around the parking lot, gray clouds were thickening overhead and I noticed that half a dozen new olive-green Jeeps were parked there. The Army was arriving in force, getting ready for God knows what. I took one look at them and felt my breath start coming in bursts. Steve, we're going to need our own kind of miracle. How are we going to get out of here?
I skirted the edges of the lot and reached the trail leading down into the village. And I was trying to quell my pulse. What was down there? With the dense rain forest arching over me, I felt as though I was entering a domain of Maya dreamtime where the past lived again, only with a sinister twist.
The air in the dark groves was thick with the buzzing of insects, harbingers of the coming rainstorm, but before long I caught a glimmer of daylight ahead. Soon I emerged into a wide arbor that, after another hundred feet, opened onto the central plaza and the pyramid. Now . . .
It was daylight, but it also was . . . The sight took my breath away. What was going on?
A milling horde of men was gathered in the square, and resinous torches were flaming on each of the pyramid's tiers of steps. A lot of drinking from clay jugs was getting under way, and the men were in the process of painting their faces, stripes of black and white, with dark circles around their eyes. Some also were applying rows of red-and-green-colored seeds to their cheeks with white glue. The bizarreness of the scene rippled through me like the shards of a dysfunctional dream. Jesus!
Alex Goddard had said the ceremony got "frenzied," and now I was beginning to realize. . . . What were they getting ready to do? Had I been wrong in thinking the classical Maya never got around to ripping out hearts? Did that explain the half-dozen young Army privates loitering there at the far side, rifles slung over their shoulders?
I melted back into the trees and studied the geometry of the plaza, reconsidering my situation. I needed to find some way to get around it and onto the cobblestone pathway at the far side, which led into the village. Finally I decided I could skirt the periphery if I was careful not to advertise my presence. Dawn had come and gone and the quick light of tropical day was arriving, but everybody appeared to be preoccupied with their nightmarish preparations.
Thank God it worked. I weaved in and among the trees and in five minutes I'd reached the central pathway, now deserted. Still barely letting myself breathe, I turned back and gazed up at the pyramid. I had no idea what was next, but I decided it would be my signpost, to help me keep my bearings as I moved through the confusing, tree-shrouded huts ofBaalum. Except for the men in the square, the village now seemed deserted, though a pack of brown dogs, curious and annoying, had spotted me and now circled around to sniff. Don't bark, damn it.
That was when I saw Marcelina, in her white shift, striding through the crowd of drinking men like an alpha lioness parting a posturing pride. My God. My heart stopped for a moment. Does Alex Goddard already know I've fled and has he sent her to lure me back?
No way. I clenched my fists and kicked at the surly, long- tailed mutts, still circling and nuzzling.
As she came closer, I saw she was smiling and carrying a brown wicker basket. What. . .
"I've brought you something," she announced as she walked up, her dark eyes oddly kind. "You must be starving by now."
"How did you know I was down here?" Looking at her earnest Mayan face, I suddenly wondered if she could have any idea what Alex Goddard had done to Sarah, and to me?
"You were gone from your room," she declared, settling the basket onto the walkway and beginning to open it. "Where else would you be?" When I looked, I saw it had a sealed container of yogurt, a banana, and two eggs, presumably hard-boiled—traditional "safe" food for gringos in Third World places. "I'd been planning to bring you down today," she went on. "They all want to meet you."
Was she coming to look after me? The more I examined her, the more I began to suspect something else was going on. Would she help me get Sarah out and away from Alex Goddard?
"I want to find Sarah," I said. Why not start out with the truth? "Does he . . . Dr. Goddard know I'm here?"
"He's not here now," she said, her eyes shifting down. "He left for Guatemala City early this morning. I think to meet with the Army. On business. . . ."
Yes. His big Humvee hadn't been in the clinic's parking lot when I went by. Why hadn't I noticed that? For the first time I felt the odds were tipping. Now was going to be the perfect time to get Sarah. Yes. Yes. Yes.
"If you want to see her, I can take you," Marcelina offered, replacing the lid on the basket.
Yes, perfect. I wanted to hug her.
"Then let's go right now" And while I was at it, I was determined to get through to this woman somehow, to enlist her help.
As we headed down the central walkway of the village, we passed the rows of compounds where I'd seen the women that first morning. None was in evidence now, and the gardens were empty, as though the entire settlement had been evacuated. It felt very strange.
And what about those bizarre proceedings now under way in the square? Was that going to interfere with getting Sarah out?
"Marcelina." I pointed back toward the milling plaza. "What's that all about? The drinking and the—?"
"It's begun," she answered, both simple and vague. "They're getting ready."
I didn't like the way she said it. Her tone seemed to imply I was involved somehow.
"Ready for—?"
"The ceremony. They like to drink a tree-bark liquor we callbalche. It's very strong and rancid." She smiled and touched me. "Take my advice and avoid it."
"I plan to." Why did she think I'd even be offered it?
As we hurried along, two women abruptly appeared on a porch, bowed, and greeted us. Marcelina waved back, then went over and spoke earnestly with them for a moment. Finally she turned and motioned for me.
"They've invited you in."
Something about the easy way it all just "happened" felt as though they'd been expecting me. Had Marcelina's trip down to the village been part of a setup, wittingly or unwittingly?
"I told them we could only stay for a minute," she went on. I sensed she was reluctant, but felt we had no choice.
The last thing I wanted to do was this.
"Marcelina, can't you tell them we'll come back later?"
"It's . . . it's important." She was beckoning for me. "Please."
Well, I thought, this could give me the time I need, the personal moment, to get through to her. Even after I locate Sarah, spiriting her out isn't going to be simple. I've got to make Marcelina understand what's really going on, then get her to help us.
As we headed through the yard, the women smiled, then politely led us under the thatch overhang and into the hut. They both were short and Maya-sturdy, with white shifts and broad faces, and they exuded a confident intensity in their bearing, a powerful sense of self-knowledge. I tried a phrase in Spanish, but they just stared at me as though they'd never heard the language. Then I remembered my first attempt to ask about Sarah. The women hadn't understood me then either. Or had they?
The room they ushered us into had no windows, but there was cool, shadowy morning light filtering through the upright wooden slats of the walls, laying dim stripes across the earthen floor. A cooking fire smoldered in a central hearth, and from the smoke-blackened roof beams dangled dried gourds, bundles of tobacco, netted bags of onions and squash, and several leaf-wrapped blocks of salt. The room smelled of ancient smoke, sweet and pungent.
They immediately produced a calabash bowl with a gray liquid inside, pronouncing the wordatoleas they urged it on me, smiling expectantly.
"It's our special drink," Marcelina explained. She seemed to be wary, watching me closely as they handed it over. "It's how we welcome an honored guest."
I wasn't sure how politic I ought to be. Third World food . . .
"Marcelina," I said, taking the bowl and trying to smile. "I'm not really—"
"You must have a little," she whispered back. "It would be very rude. . . ."
Well, I thought, just a taste. I tried it and realized it was a dense gruel of cornmeal and honey-water, like a lukewarm gluey porridge, though with a bitter after-jolt. But I choked it down and tried to look pleased. Marcelina urged me to have more—I took another small sip—and then they produced corn dumplings wrapped in large leaves, together with a pile of fiery chiles and a bowl of squash, corn, and beans, all mixed together.
After one bite, though, Marcelina reached out and—her eyes downcast—whisked the bowls away, passing them back to the women. She said something to them, then turned to me.
"Eating too much would be as rude as not eating at all."
That was a cultural norm I didn't remember, and I suspected she'd just changed her mind about the wisdom of my eating local food.
I smiled at the women and used some of my so-so Spanish to offer them thanks.
"Muchas gracias." I nodded toward the bowls. "Esta es muy delicioso."
They beamed as though they understood me. Who could say? But they'd been intensely interested in watching me eat, even more than Marcelina.
Work on her. Now.
"Marcelina." I turned to her, only vaguely noticing she hadn't had a bite. "Do you understand why Dr. Goddard moved me down to the operating room yesterday? There in the clinic? What did he tell you?"
"He said it was for special tests." Her voice was gentle through the gloom. "You were very . . . sleepy. You must have been very, very tired. But he told me something in your blood work was unusual, so he had me bring you down for a pelvic exam. I gave you a sedative"—she was pointing at the Band-Aid still on my arm—"the way we always do. But then he said you were fine."
"Do you realize he did things to my body I didn't agree to?" I studied her trusting Mayan face and tried to get a sense of how much she knew about what was going on. That was when I first became sure of an increasing disquiet in her eyes, as she kept glancing away. Why was she so uncomfortable talking about Alex Goddard? "And I think he did some of those same things to Sarah."
"Dr. Goddard tried to help her in many ways when she was here before." Marcelina's tone had become odd and distant. "Now he wants to help you too."
Yes, there was definitely something uneasy in her eyes.
"Before he came here," she went on, trying to look at me, "Baalumwas just a poor, simple village. Many children died of diseases. So I left and went to Guatemala City to study. To become a public-health nurse. Then after he came here, I moved back to help him with his clinic, the children."
She was trying to make a case for him, and I noticed she'd avoided the actual question.
"NowBaalumhas become a special place," she said finally. "A place of miracles. And if a woman from outside comes, she can be part of that. When Sara was here before, I started teaching her to speak our language, and the others did too. She truly wanted to be part of his miracles. Sometimes we don't understand how they happen, but he has great medical powers."
One thing's for sure, I thought. He's got plenty of power over the people here, including you. The whole place has been brainwashed. I looked her over and realized she'd just gone on mental autopilot. She wants to be loyal to him, and she can't let herself believe there's something rotten in the "special" paradise ofBaalum.
"Listen," I said, getting up, "I need to go see Sarah right now. Her father's been in the hospital, and he's not well. I spoke with him yesterday, and he's very worried about her. I know Dr. Goddard is treating her, but it's better if I just take her home immediately."
More and more I was beginning to suspect this detour for the two women had been a diversion, an attempt to stall. Marcelina had set it up. Maybe she wanted to tell me something, and she didn't have the nerve to do it point-blank.
"Families are very important," she said, sounding sincere. "We'll go now." She spoke to the women briefly, an animated benediction that seemed to leave her even more disturbed. As we headed out and on down the path, I again wondered what was really happening.
When we reached the end of the long "street," the arched arbors still above us, she stopped in front of an odd stone building unlike any of the others and pointed.
"This is where she likes to be," she said quietly. "Except for the pyramid, it's the most sacred place in Baalum."
The doorway was a stone arch about five feet high and pointed at the top like a tiny Gothic cathedral.
"What . . . is this?" I felt as though I was about to enter something from the Temple of Doom.
"It was once the royal bath," she explained. "In ancient times heated rocks were brought in, with spring water from a sacredcenote."
We walked through the portal and entered a room whose roof was a stone latticework that let the gray daylight just filter through. The space was vast, with carved and colored glyphs all around the walls, while the air was filled with clouds of incense from pots along the floor. It felt like a smoky pagan church.
At the far end was a large stone platform, and in the dappled, hazy light I could see it was embossed along its sides with carved and painted classical scenes and glyphs, glistening little red and green and blue pictures of faces and figures.
My eyes finally started adjusting to the shadows, and I realized the platform had been fitted with a covering across the top, a jaguar skin over bundled straw, and a tiny form was lying on it, wearing a white shift. . . .
Dear God.
"Morgy, I've been so hoping you'd come," Sarah said, rising up and holding out her hands. Then she slid her feet around onto the rough stone floor and managed to steady herself. Her shift was wrinkled now, but she still was wearing the brown slippers and the braided leather waist-cinch. She appeared sleepy, though her eyes were sparkling and she seemed to have more strength than she'd had when I first saw her out in the square. I looked at her and weighed the chances she could walk. Possibly. But I'd carry her if I had to.
"Sar, honey, we're going home now," I said, finally finding my voice.
She didn't respond at first, just turned to caress the decorated sides of the platform. "I've been wanting to show you this, Morgy. It tells my story." Her voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way off, as though through a dense haze.
"Please, we don't have time for stories." Was she hearing me at all? "Let's just—"
"See," she went on, ignoring me as she pointed down, "that's the Cosmic Monster, that one there with maize sprouting out of his forehead. And that man next to him with a flint knife is my father, letting blood from his penis. He's the king. And that one there is me, Lady Jaguar. He gave my name to this place." She paused to reverently touch the carved stone. "Look, I've just stuck a stingray spine through my tongue and put my blood in thecopalcenser there."
"Sar, please—"
"Here, see it?" She was pointing to a section at the very end. "That's the two-headed Vision Serpent up above me. He's the god Kukulkan . . . or something. I've made him come to me by giving him my blood. I'm—"
"Sar, what in heaven's name is going on with you?" I grabbed her and in spite of myself, shook her. Jesus! The whole scene left me in shock. She was sinking back deeper into her fantasy world. Was she taking the drug again, I wondered and fantasizing she was some dead Mayan princess? Please, God no.
That was when I saw Marcelina walk over to a shelf along the wall and lift down another clay-pot incense burner, along with a small white brick. What—?
"Oh, yes!" Sarah exclaimed moving quickly over to her. "Let's do it for Morgy."
Marcelina nodded warily and handed her the white brick, then turned to me. "She likes to do incense. It always calms her. This iscopal, what the shamans use."
I watched while Sarah shakily began crumbling pieces of the sticky substance into the pot. My God I thought, she's truly, truly lost it. Next she inserted dry tinder and began trying to knock sparks into it with a piece of hard black jade and a flint. But she was too weak, and finally Marcelina had to take the flint and do it for her. Then, as the gray smoke started billowing out, Marcelina began a long chant, shrill and strangely melodic. I felt a chill creep down my back. When she finished she turned her dark eyes on me sadly, waiting.
"What were you saying?" I asked finally, sensing she wanted me to.
"I was singing from the Popol Vuh." Then she translated.
Holy earth, giver of life,
Help us in our struggle against
The God of the House of Darkness.
Wait a minute. What's she saying?
"Who's the God of the House of Darkness?" Could she be talking about Alex Goddard?
"I didn't want to do it," she blurted out, reaching out to me, her eyes even sadder. "But he said you're the new special one. We had to."
What the hell was she talking about? Had to what? Did it have something to do with my "visit" to the women in the hut?
"Please stay here with us," she pleaded as she took my hand. "Don't go."
Stay? Don't even think about it. I had Sarah halfway to freedom. While the Army was still getting its act together, we could lose ourselves someplace in the forest where nobody would find us, and when Steve got here tonight . . .
"Sar, come on, it's time." I pulled away from Marcelina and slipped my arm around her. "Nothing here is what you think it is."
"Are we leaving?" she asked, her eyes blank.
"Yes, honey, we're leaving. This very minute."
The dense forest was all about us, and I'd just carry her into it if I had to. In the coming storm, nobody was going to find . . .
That's when I noticed I was beginning to have gastric rumblings. Damn. Never, ever eat "native" food, no matter what the social pressure. That damned "visit" . . .
When I turned to ask Marcelina if she would help me get Sarah outside, I noticed she'd been joined by the two women, both still in their white shifts, who'd just fed me the sickly
sweetatole. And more women were behind them, all staring at me, expectant, as though wondering what I would do.
Maybe it was my imagination, or the dizziness that was abruptly growing around me, but it also seemed they'd painted their faces with streaks of white, designs like the men in the square were putting on.
"She's going to be all right," Marcelina was saying. "But we have to get you back now. You'll need your strength."
I needed it then. My stomach had really begun to gyrate, and my vision had started growing colored. I noticed I was sweating, even though the day was cooling down. Actually, I felt as though I was about to pass out. What had those women fed me?
It was finally dawning on me that Marcelina's fearfulness back in the hut had nothing to do with betraying Alex Goddard. It was because she knew she was betraying me.
Well, damn her, I'm not going to let Alex Goddard win, no matter what.
"Marcelina, please help me. I've got to get Sarah out of here. Now. I don't know what poison drug he's giving her, but he's driving her insane."
"We'll take care of her," she said. But I could barely make out the words. They echoed bouncing around in my head.
"I'm really getting dizzy." I glanced over again at the women standing by the door. "Please tell me what they—?"
"The elixir," she said. "For tomorrow at sunup. That's when you'll see his real power."
I'd begun experiencing white spots before my eyes—and for some reason I had a vision of the Army Jeeps parked up the hill. I didn't know how the two were connected but in my jumbled thoughts they seemed to be.
Just get Sarah and get out into the air. Walk, don't think, and you can do it. . . .
I pulled her next to me and struggled toward the door, the women studying us, unmoving.
"Morgy, I've missed you so much," Sarah was saying, slipping her arms around my neck to help herself walk. "I'm . . . I'm ready to go home."
"I've missed you too." I think my heart was bursting as I urged her on through the stone portico. At last. Had something clicked that freed her from Alex Goddard? Maybe her mind was finally becoming her own.
When we got outside, the skies were growing ever more foreboding, storm clouds looming. Steve had been right about the coming rain, but now it seemed the perfect cover for us to just get out. I took a deep breath of the misty air and forced myself to start helping Sarah up the cobblestone path.
"Sar, you can walk, I know you can. Be strong. For both of us. I'm . . ."
I felt myself sinking slowly to the cold stones of the walkway, the hard abrasion against my knees, Sarah tumbling forward as I pulled her down on top of me, Marcelina's arms around me trying to hold me up. It was the last real sensation I would remember.
Sarah was hovering around me, a sylphlike presence, as I watched myself drift up the steps of the pyramid there in the square, my senses waxing and waning like the waves on a distant ocean shore. There seemed to be rain, or fog, or smoke, but it had a luminous, purple cast one moment, a Day-Glo orange the next. In fact, all the colors were swirling and changing, shimmering from hue to hue. A pack of howler monkeys was cavorting up and down the steps on my left, like circus Harlequins in electric red-and-blue suits, doing pratfalls and huffing as they flew through the air and tumbled one over another.
Sarah was floating silently beside me, but where was Steve? Had he come? Were we escaping?
No. I sensed his face drifting across my sight like a cartoon cloud before dissolving into nothingness. He wasn't here. I was having the eeriest dream I'd ever had.
When I reached the stone-paved platform at the pinnacle, I felt Alex Goddard clasp my arm and turn me around to face the plaza below.
"They are waiting," he said, pointing toward the hazy square.
I looked down, and at first I couldn't see anything except rain and smoke, but then slowly a crowd materialized. The scattering of men I'd seen earlier had become an undulating sea of upturned faces painted with stripes and swirling circles of blue and white and red, a torch-lit garden of brilliant blossoms. They all were looking up at us, at Sarah and me.
Next he held out a mirror whose reflecting surface was a polished silver metal.
"Behold yourself, Morgan. As befits a royal one, a special one, your nose has been built up with clay and pierced with lustrous blue feathers and a giant topaz. Your front teeth have been filed to a point and inlaid with jewels, your royal skull has been shaped back and flattened."
I gazed into the mirror and gasped. I was monstrous, a Halloween harpy.
Then he moved over to a waist-high censer stationed there on the edge of the platform and began adding balls of sticky whitecopalresin, together with bark and grasses, which he ignited by the quick friction of a fire stick spun by a bow.
Finally he turned to me and held out his hands. "Now we will make a miracle, the miracle ofBaalum."
Heavy smoke from the censer was pouring out into the rainy sky as we started a stiffpas de deux, the strains of a clay flute drifting around us. Was it the "ceremony"? Was I dreaming it?
As the incense billowed, our Maya dreamtime dance became ever more intense, and then a faint form began to writhe up out of the haze between us, an undulating serpent the deep color of jade. As Alex Goddard wrapped his arms around it, it began to form into two dark heads, then pirouette above us. Finally, as the two-headed specter opened its mouths and gazed down on the platform, Sarah stepped toward it and held out her arms.
"Sar, no!"
I screamed to her to get back, but as I did, the . . . thing reached down and swallowed her in flames. It was the Vision-Serpent come to receive her.
"Sarah . . ."
"Can you get up now?" said a voice, cutting through the haze that enveloped my consciousness. At first I thought it was more of the dream, but then someone was touching me and I opened my eyes to see Marcelina standing beside the bed I was in, dressed in white and holding a candle. For a moment I thought I was still atop the rainy pyramid but then I felt the moistness of the sheets and realized the storm Id been dreaming of was being blown in through the slats of the windows. I was shivering.
"Marcelina, where's Sarah?" The nightmare had seemed so real, and now I was hallucinating, having flashes of colors I didn't want to see. "I just had the most horrible dream. I was on the pyramid and there was smoke, rain and some kind of ghastly—"
"It's the elixir. From the toad. It makes you dream dreams of the Old Ones." She took my hand. "She's resting now. He gave her something to calm her."
More drugs, I thought angrily.
Then I caught the "he." Alex Goddard must be back. Everything had gone wrong.
"I've got to get her and—"
"Not now," Marcelina went on, helping me up. "Come. I want to show you the true miracle ofBaalum. Now is the time you should know."
The upstairs hallway was dimly illuminated by rows of lights along the floor as she led me forward. There also was total silence, except for the occasional whimper of a baby in one of the rooms. Where was she taking me?
When she stopped in front of the third door from the end of the hall, I tried to get my mental bearings. I was still hallucinating; in control of only half my mind to the point where I wasn't sure I could find my hand in front of my face. But then she tapped on the door and when she heard a voice inside, something in the Kekchi dialect, she gently pushed it open.
When we moved inside, the room was dark and there was no sound, except a gasp from the bed when the woman realized I was a gringo. The dim slant of illumination from the doorway revealed a small night lamp just above the head of her bed, and Marcelina reached for it.
As the light came on, a pale glow filling the room, I noticed the woman was staring at me, her eyes wide and frightened.
"She's afraid you've come for her child," Marcelina whispered, pointing toward the bassinet. "She knows we have to give him back."
The woman was pure Maya, a powerful visage straight off that upright stele in the square. I walked over and took her hand, hoping to calm her fears. Then I lifted her hand to my cheek and realized my face was moist with tears. I held it there for a long moment, till the alarm in her eyes diminished.
Her newborn infant was sleeping quietly in a crib right next to her, on the opposite side from the table. When I looked closely at him, I finally understood everything.
I laid her hand back onto the bed and walked around. While the woman watched, I pulled away the stripped red and green coverlet and lifted out her groggy little boy, tender and vulnerable.
He made a baby's protest as I cradled him, then began sleepily probing my left breast, making me feel sad I had no milk.
"It's okay," I whispered, first to him and then to his mother. "Esta bien."
"Tz'ac Tzotz," the woman said, pointing at him. I could feel her deep, maternal love.
"His name?" I asked in English, before I thought.
When Marcelina translated, the woman smiled and nodded.
Then the blond-haired Tz'ac Tzotz started to sniffle, so I kissed him gently, turned, and took the woman's hand again. There was nothing else I could do.
Tz'ac Tzotz was Sarah incarnate. This was no hallucination. He had her special blue eyes and her steep cheeks, her high brow. I was holding her child.
"They are sent from Kukulkan," Marcelina was saying, "the white god of the plumed serpent. Then there's the ceremony on the pyramid and they go back."
The woman was staring at me, seemingly awestruck. Then she pointed at Tz'ac Tzotz and at me, saying something to Marcelina. Finally the woman bowed her head to me with great reverence.
"She says he looks so much like you," Marcelina explained. "You are surely the special one. The new bride."
I was still speechless, but then I noticed the baby had a little silver jaguar amulet tied around his wrist with a silken string, and on the back—as on Kevin's and Rachel's—were rows of lines and dots.
It finally dawned on me. They were digits, written in the archaic Maya script. What could they be, maybe his birthday? No, I realized, that was far too simplistic. This was the original bar code; it was hisBaalum"serial number."
For a long moment it felt as if time had stopped. Sarah, and now me—we'd been lured here to provide the life force for Mayan surrogate mothers. This whole elaborate recreation wasn't about rainforest drugs and research into fertility; it was just a cover to use the bodies of these intensely believing Native Americans. Alex Goddard had perpetrated the greatest systematic exploitation of another race since slavery. The difference was, he'd found a way to get them to give themselves willingly.
Baalumwas definitely a place of miracles. There could scarcely be another isolated spot on earth where he could find this many sincere, trusting people with powerful beliefs he could prostitute. And all of it hidden deep in an ancient rainforest.
But I had to be sure. I turned around, leaving Marcelina to watch in confusion, and marched out into the hall and into the next room. The Maya mother there cried out in shock as I unceremoniously strode over to her crib and checked.
Her baby was the same. Sarah stamped all over him. My God.
When I went back, Marcelina was still trying to calm Tz'ac Tzotz's mother with her bedside manner.
As I stood looking at them, the extent of what was going on finally settled in. All those new babies at Quetzal Manor, even Kevin and Rachel—they all looked alike because they all were from the same woman. The one who was here before Sarah. And now hers were ready.
I was going to be next. The new "bride." Those fresh petri dishes down in the lab . . . My God, why didn't I destroy them when I had the chance?
So whose sperm would he use? Of course. It would be from the man Alan Dupre was going to deliver to him.
"Marcelina, don't you realize what's happening?" I wanted to pound some sense into her. They didn't have to let him do this to them.
"I know that with miracles must come sadness," she said, reaching to touch Tz'ac Tzotz's tiny brow. "We all understand that."
"It's not a miracle. It's science, don't you realize?Ciencia. He's using you."
"We know he does many things that are magic. He makes powerful medicines from the plants we bring him, and when women want to bear a child—"
"No, Marcelina." I felt my heart go out to her, and to all the others. "It's black magic. It's all a lie."
The first thing to do was go down to the laboratory and dump every last one of my petri dishes into the sink, ova and all. Destroy the nest, then call Steve and warn him. . . .
I glanced at my watch. NO! The time was 4:58 A.M. He was coming at nine o'clock last night. . . .
I was standing there in horror, unnatural colors flitting across my vision, when I heard . . .
"It's almost morning."
I jumped as Alex Goddard walked into the room, dressed in white, hair falling around his shoulders. He took Tz'ac Tzotz from his crib, checked the number on his amulet, and then absently put him back. Next he examined me, his eyes brimming with concern.
"How're you feeling?" He placed his hand on my brow. When I looked around for Marcelina, I realized she'd vanished.
"Where's Steve?" I felt the bottom dropping out of my world, my whole body trembling. "If you've harmed so much as a hair on his head, I'll—"
"He's here," he said quietly.
"I want to see him." Dear God, what had I done? I wanted to die.
"He's been given something to help him rest. Are you sure you want to disturb him?"
"I told you I want to see him." I could barely get out the words. "Now."
"If you insist. He's just downstairs."
We slowly walked down the marble steps, my mind flooding with more and more hallucinations. When we reached the first floor, he opened the door of a room adjacent to his office. I realized the window slats were open, sending a rush of moist air across my face. Then he motioned me forward and clicked on the bedside light.
Steve was there on the bed, comatose. I walked over and lifted his upper torso, then cradled his head in my arms. Baby, I love you. Please forgive me. Please.
His eyes were firmly shut and he didn't stir in the slightest. He was in a deathlike stupor, and there were large bruises on his face and a bandage across his nose. Then his bed shift fell open and I noticed another bandage on his groin.
"You've already done it!" I whirled back, ready to kill the bastard.
"As I said, he was injected with a mild sedative." He had walked over and started taking Steve's pulse. "Given the . . . condition he was in, I decided to go with the simplest procedure possible. After he was brought in, I made a small incision in thevas deferensand extracted a substantial quantity of motile sperm." He was turning down the lights. "Don't worry. I've performed the procedure before. The last was a Swedish tourist who was in a car accident up by Lake Atitlan and then lay in a coma in Guatemala City for weeks on end."
I listened to him, my mind racing. I'd thought Kevin and Rachel looked Nordic, big and blond. That Swede must have been their father.
"Those ova of mine you took, the way you stole Sarah's, and all the other women you've brought here—you don't use them for research."
"I have ample leftover embryonic material here for that." He started helping me onto the bed next to Steve. Now his face was undulating through my vision, as though I were seeing it in a wavy mirror. "Please understand, it's very expensive to run a laboratory up here. But the good I'm doing—"