The Mayan Priest (20 page)

‘Go!’ he screamed in a voice that she dared not disobey.

Gillian frowned but went to leap, turning just in time to notice Adam fly towards Georgio and push him out through the adjacent open door. Adam entwined his arms with Georgio’s and locked his feet around his legs, grabbing hold of the rope Georgio had been holding and wrapping it around their waists.

Pushing away from the doomed helicopter, Adam pulled the chute with less than 150 feet to spare. Gillian had just over 200 feet before the helicopter slammed into the jungle floor.

The resultant blast sent shock waves, flames and debris into both the chutes as Adam and Georgio’s white fabric collapsed in on itself and sank into the trees.

Gillian had no idea if they had survived, but she was forced to turn her attention to her own predicament. Her green parachute suffered three small holes and a large tear from a spray of metal shards. Fortunately, some of the air in the upper bowl of the fabric remained and this slowed her free-fall, allowing her to descend into the canopy like a deflated balloon.

Luck was on her side and the trees surrounding Gillian sported large limbs and broad leaves, decreasing the potential hazards to her and the parachute. Eventually Gillian was jerked to an abrupt halt ten feet from the ground.

A quick scan of her situation revealed she was unhurt with the exception of a few cuts to her hands, arms and face. She viewed the ground below and noted that the jungle floor was covered in leaves, moss and the odd stone. If she could free herself, there was every possibility of landing without injury. Gillian judged the situation carefully and began to untie the parachute. On releasing the last cinch, she closed her eyes and fell.

The impact was not as hard as she had expected, but every muscle and bone still ached and for the first time since this whole thing had started, she wished she could just give up. She was tired, sore and depressed, but the drive to find Adam and Georgio overwhelmed her and she painfully climbed to her feet.

She knew that her friends had come down on the opposite side of the helicopter, so the logical marker to locating them was to find the site of the helicopter crash. That task was not difficult with the stench of burning fuel and a distinct smoky haze filtering through the trees.

Gillian stumbled along the rough ground, coughing loudly as copious amounts of smoke necessitated the need to cover her mouth and nose. The flames had increased and she had started to find debris. Gillian was closing in, but she decided to veer slightly to the right in an attempt to avoid the immediate vicinity of the crash.

The going was difficult as unwieldy undergrowth hampered her progress, making the task that much more stressful, and then there was the nagging fear at the back of her mind. Snakes and spiders. Jungles were full of very large ones!

A good twenty minutes had passed since the crash and Gillian knew that she must be nearing the area her friends had come down in. She began calling their names, but there was no response.

Gillian sat dejectedly in the dirt with her head between her hands. It was starting to look hopeless when she felt an object hit the back of her skull.

‘Ouch,’ Gillian moaned but responded by looking upward. At first nothing was visible, but the glimpses of white in amongst the green foliage was a dead giveaway! Adam and Georgio were stuck high in the trees.

In a moment of relief and badly timed humour, Gillian laughed at their impossible predicament. How on earth was she going to get them down, considering they were more than ten feet high! Logic told her there were only two options. Either she scaled the tree and threw them a rope or she placed something on the ground that would cushion their fall. Her first option would prove to be an impossible task unless she was a monkey, so her mind turned to finding enough padding to protect them on impact. Leaves would not do it, but she did recall an inflatable raft Georgio had stored in the helicopter.

She prayed it was not burnt.

‘I’ll be back!’ Gillian yelled as she scurried in the direction of the flames.

Adam and Georgio had come down much closer to the crash site than she had, leaving her in awe that they had survived at all. It really was a miracle!

The Iroquois was unrecognisable. A mass of smouldering ruins lay in place of the trusty machine and it took Gillian a few minutes to determine which was the front and back. The rear of the machine lay a short distance from the main cabin and the rotors had sliced through the nearby trees like a knife. They rested around sixty feet in the direction Gillian had fallen. The surrounding trees had begun to lose permanence and the ones immediately surrounding the helicopter had developed an inward lean, pointing towards an imminent instability. The possibility of a collapse was high, so Gillian had to think quickly. The raft was kept under the seat she had been sitting on and despite the pressure of the impact, the main cabin could still be identified.

Covering her face and mouth, Gillian jumped the burning debris and raced towards the wreckage. It was very hot and she could feel her face and hair burn as she approached. The shell lay in amongst a great deal of rubbish and did not allow access from her direction.

Gillian looked about. If she moved to the far side, she could possibly shadow the machine and make it around the front.

Gillian ignored the extreme temperature, leaping the debris until she reached the mangled cabin door. It was so hot that she could barely concentrate on the task at hand, but she collected her senses and located the fire retardant bag. It was intact with the silver material, designed for space travel, doing the job it had been manufactured for. It was also reasonably heavy, but Gillian was able to drag it out and lift it onto her shoulders, bringing about images of a pack animal. Despite her situation, she smiled and carefully picked the path she had entered through and struggled back to Adam and Georgio.

The raft was self-inflatable and upon the release of the tag, it blew up like a balloon. Clearly understanding her intention and noting that there was no other option, Georgio jumped first. He landed spread-eagled and face down. Adam was more ungainly, landing on his side, but nevertheless they both made it safely.

‘You two scared me,’ Gillian retorted in a pretense of anger but hugged both of them in relief.

Adam looked as white as a ghost, but Georgio smiled as if he had taken it all in his stride. ‘Your father would be proud of you, young lady,’ he said, rubbing Gillian’s mottled hair fondly.

Adam grinned and pecked Gillian on the cheek. ‘Geez, Mate. That beats my last theme park ride by a mile. Thanks for saving our arses,’ he added.

‘All right, that’s enough niceties. Just before we crashed, my bearing showed us as being half a mile south of Tikal,’ and with that he withdrew a tiny compass from his pocket.

‘Always prepared,’ Georgio continued as Gillian and Adam grinned at each other in amusement and fell in line.

Georgio made a cracking pace and despite her love of fitness, Gillian struggled to keep up with the man twenty-five years her senior. She wondered how he did it.

‘If we are less than a mile from Tikal, why didn’t your men come to our rescue?’ asked Gillian as the revered pyramids of Tikal became visible over the treetops.

Georgio cleared his voice before he spoke. ‘I don’t know and quite frankly, it’s got me worried,’ the tension in his voice evidence that he was concerned.

They made good time, but with the setting sun, it became increasingly hard to see where they were going and there was also a noted quietness about Georgio. The nervousness he radiated made both her and Adam uneasy almost to the point that they had totally stopped talking to one another.

Various outer ruins of Tikal became obvious as they crept through the long forgotten buildings, stopping suddenly when Georgio put his hand up. He held finger to his mouth in a gesture of silence and motioned for them to drop to the ground.

They complied immediately and not a moment too soon as a man wearing army fatigues and carrying a large combat rifle approached their position. Gillian first thought that it was one of her Dad’s men but the frown and angered look on Georgio’s face confirmed that was not the case.

Georgio shook his head in fury and motioned to them to form a huddle. ‘It appears my suspicions have been confirmed and that the group who shot down our helicopter have taken control of Tikal,’ and with that he pointed through a small opening towards a troop of ten people no more than one hundred feet away.

‘Shit. Now what?’ asked Adam.

‘Don’t know, my friend, but without the use of a vehicle and time for Gillian to read the next part of the manuscript, we are screwed.’

‘I know,’ said Gillian excitedly. ‘When Richard set up his last dig here, he used an old cave only minutes from the site to store emergency supplies and provide shelter to sleep. The area is reasonably well-protected and quite probably undiscovered.’

‘Lead the way,’ Georgio insisted as Gillian moved to the front and picked her way through the jungle to the approaching hillside.

The cave was located with the mouth facing away from the ruins. It had been discovered by Julia who had been looking for a private spot to wee when she accidentally slipped backwards into the opening. The cave had been empty, but the paintings on the walls depicted a number of ‘coming of age’ ceremonies which was most likely its original primary purpose. In normal circumstances, Gillian would have been fascinated, but today she barely noticed the elaborately coloured works as she pushed aside the low-lying bushes and located a small lantern on a crate inside the opening.

Gillian was about to flick the battery operated unit when Georgio stopped her. ‘Not yet. Wait until we’re safely inside.’

In the dull light they could determine that the cavern was approximately a hundred feet long and thirty feet at its breadth. It narrowed where the roof met the walls, but along the centre, anyone could walk around unimpeded and without having to duck.

A large amount of supplies lay near the entrance, blocking any shadow their small light would make, so it was without fear that they flicked the switch and the room came alive.

‘Wow!’ exclaimed Adam as they viewed the spacious surroundings and quickly located a number of camping mats and a crate of packaged food.

Gillian sank to the ground in relief, savouring the respite from standing on her aching legs and eagerly tucking into the can of cold ravioli and long-life chocolate milk. At the moment the food was as well received as a Sunday night roast.

‘That was great!’ exclaimed Adam and he rubbed his stomach in delight. ‘All I need now is a nap.’

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ chuckled Georgio. ‘No rest for the wicked. As much as I would love to sleep, we have only twenty-eight hours at best to save the archaeologists, and the cover of night will allow us to find an escape vehicle. In the meantime, Gillian can read the next diary.’

‘Yes, although, I’ve yet to open the box and determine if our assumption about the book was correct. What if there is no next edition?’

‘Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Let’s have a look,’ said Adam eagerly.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The second box was identical to the first, right down to the line that circumnavigated the outer casing. Gillian opened it swiftly and with great enthusiasm. Once again there were two inner boxes and an inscription on the inside lid of the second box. It read: ‘If the gods allow it, it is my hope to hold the one who looks so much like me’.

Gillian sighed. ‘I’d love to know who he was referring to,’ she muttered as she lifted out the third box and quickly realised that it could not be opened with the same circlet they had used previously. This one had a small keypad that required the pressing of the digits in the pre-allocated order for the lock to be released.

Gillian threw up her hands in dismay. ‘I have no bloody idea.’

‘You didn’t expect this to be easy, Gillian, not after all we’ve been through,’ said Adam as he peered closely at the box.

‘Come on … think about it. Up to now, Kinix has left us a trail to follow. There is no reason why this would be any different, so it’s most likely he has left the clue to this puzzle in the last box.’

Gillian nodded sheepishly, noting Adam’s common sense approach.

‘Didn’t the first box have the hieroglyphs spelling “Way B’alam” surrounding the hollow in the centre?’ noted Georgio.

‘You’re right! I’d forgotten about that. This one has nothing except for six dotted lines, so perhaps what is missing here is related,’ muttered Gillian as she thoughtfully munched on her fingernails.

Adam slapped her hands in jest. ‘That’s a bad habit.’

Gillian scowled at him “Way B’alam” means “Spirit of the Jaguar”, so you would presume this has something to do with a jaguar.’

‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was an ancient version of hangman,’ said Georgio in jest as Gillian looked at him in amazement.

‘Bloody hell, Georgio. I reckon you’re onto something. If Kinix has translated this to Latin like the rest of his script, then we are looking for a word that relates to a jaguar with no more than six letters. In Mayan, Jaguar is pronounced “Ba-h-lam”, so it’s my guess they are the six letters we need.’

‘Isn’t that a little too easy?’ suggested Adam in confusion.

‘It is for us because English stems from Latin, and Bahlum is written as it sounds. We forget that Kinix was the only Mayan who could read and write in Medieval Latin. Other than Kinix, no one else would have been able to translate the word Bahlum to jaguar.’

‘Except for the person he learnt it from,’ added Adam.

Gillian contemplated Adam’s words for a moment. ‘That’s true. I wonder who the teacher was.’

‘Wonder later, Gillian. Punch the letters into the keypad,’ ordered Georgio dispassionately as she nodded and pressed in the letters ‘b-a-h-l-a-m’ one at a time.

They were rewarded with a click and the separation of both halves of the lid. Inside was another perfectly preserved manuscript and a small gold scarab beetle. Gillian lifted the scarab beetle out and studied it with curiosity ‘This is not something I expected to see.’