Black Rain

She exhaled in frustration. “You’re torturing me, Professor. Just give me an answer. Can we get there or not?”

Susan laughed. “This is what he does,” she said. “We call it McCarter Syndrome. It’s like the Socratic Method, only worse. He can take three lectures to answer one question, and by that time you’ve forgotten what you asked.”

McCarter smiled and obliged. “Sorry,” he said. “Old school tradition. The thing is, we’ve been looking for dates on the ruin to place it in the time line with the other Mayan sites. We could only do that if we found one of their Long Count dates.”

The Long Count was the Mayan supercalendar, a cycle of interlocking names and numbers that gave each day a multipart name and number in a sequence that would not be repeated for over five thousand years. A date in that format could be matched to an exact Gregorian calendar date: day, month and year. It would also allow them to place the ruin exactly where it belonged in the time line and to prove beyond all doubt if the sight predated other Mayan structures.

“Only, we haven’t found any of those,” McCarter said. “But there is another glyph connected with the date glyph on the slab, and this other marking indicates a special occurrence happening on the date. It calls this date the day of the yellow sun. But they’re not using yellow to describe the color; rather, it corresponds to a direction. In the Mayan scheme, each cardinal direction has a color: red for east, black for west, white for north and yellow for south. The day of the yellow sun means the day of the southernmost sun: the Solstice; down here, it’s the longest day of the year. So whatever year it actually was, 8 Imix, 14 Mak occurred on December 21 or December 22.”

Danielle was beaming; finally she had something to grasp. “So we just need a little astronomy work to tell us where the sun would settle on that date.”

“I suppose we’ll need it for accuracy,” he said. “But as luck would have it, it’s only January and we’re so close to the Solstice that I can point us in the rough direction.” He extended his arm toward the western horizon, his palm flat and vertical like a blade. The line of sight ran down his arm and over his thumb to indicate the course. “Right about there,” he said. “Just south of where the sun went down.”

As she looked in that direction, Danielle could feel her heart racing. She had to believe they would find what they were looking for there. It made sense in every way. A large population center would be more important than an outlying relic. Items of stature would be brought there, or kept there: gold, silver, jewels and possibly crystals like the ones Blackjack Martin had found. One step closer, she thought. “We leave at first light.”

“We should do some cleanup and weather-proofing here first,” McCarter said. “It’s only right.”

“Twenty-four hours,” she granted. “No more.”

He nodded and she turned to Hawker, who seemed less enthused. In fact, he seemed disappointed. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “Aren’t you impressed?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “This is incredible. It’s just … I wanted to hear the rest of the story. What happened to Zipacna? I mean, it couldn’t end like that. Surely someone paid Zipacna back for what he did, right?”

Danielle laughed. “Revenge?”

“Justice,” Hawker said, smiling.

Susan spoke up. “Actually, someone did take care of Zipacna. The same demi-gods who destroyed Seven Macaw.”

“How?” Hawker asked.

This time McCarter replied. “They used a crab to bait him, luring him into a cave. Once he was inside they trapped him underneath it. Sealing him there for all eternity, beneath a mountain of stone.”

CHAPTER 18

While the rest of the team packed up and readied themselves for the journey across land, Danielle sat on the deck of the Ocana, using the satlink to report their progress.

To her great joy, Gibbs was unavailable and she’d been connected with the only other person cleared for communication with her: Arnold Moore.

She explained their discovery to him and made a request. “I want to send the rest of the team home. I’ll go on with Verhoven’s group, but we need to get the civilians out of here.”

“Professor McCarter and Ms. Briggs?”

“Yes,” she said. “Along with the porters and Devers and Polaski,” she said, reminding him that they were part of Research Division, not Operations, and didn’t really belong out in the field on an operation of this magnitude.

“Why now?” Moore asked. “Has something happened?”

“I don’t think we need them anymore,” she said. “And yes, there was a small incident the other night with a pair of natives,” she said, referring to the incursion that had led Hawker and Verhoven into the pit.

“Anyone hurt?”

“No,” she said. “But I have a bad feeling that it won’t be the last we see of them. Besides, we have our trail now. We can follow it and get assistance remotely if we need it for translation or interpretation.”