Chapter 8

Wednesday

Tim and I started rummaging through the limestone sediment this morning. We used his dive buoys to mark our starting point. Tim also had a rope tied to his right wrist that led to the top of the cliff. That rope had twenty weighted plastic rings attached to it. Each ring was tied to a piece of nylon twine. A numbered collection bag was also attached to each ring. I had ten collection bags without numbers clipped to my weight belt. If we needed more than one bag for a grid square, Tim would use one of mine.

That bag would be clipped to the nylon twine holding the numbered collection bag for that grid so they surfaced together. I was the one to rummage through the sediment. We’d desecrated two Frisbees by cutting them from one edge to the center and then cutting out the center so it fit snugly around my upper arm. Then we duct taped the cut in the Frisbee. Right before starting the dive, Tim used duct tape above and below the Frisbee to hold it in place. Yeah, he laughed at the way I looked. So did I.

Tim stopped me once while he surfaced to retrieve the second set of numbered collection bags. I continued and filled one of the un-numbered bags clipped to my weight belt. He sent that up with an empty numbered bag. We were so engrossed in what we were doing that we were both surprised when Tim’s dive computer warned us that it was time to surface.

We were even more shocked to learn that we’d finished searching the upper layer of more than a quarter of the grid squares.

“That was intense, not being able to see anything once we started,” he exclaimed when we broke the surface. Each time I found something, I had to reach to my right until I touched Tim. He had to find the item by touch and make sure he had a good grip on it. Then he’d tap my hand holding the item with his other hand to let me know to let it go.

“How did you manage to stay on the correct row?” he asked.

“I clipped this to the line marking the lower limit of each row,” I replied, holding up the dog-leash type clip tied to my left wrist. “I had to unclip it and reattach it each time I started a new grid square.”

Aside from knowing that they felt like the same funerary statues that we were recovering from the cliff walls, I had no idea what we’d been sending to the surface. When we reached the top, Erica told us that the sixty-five full and partial grid squares we searched so far had yielded one hundred fifty-eight jade statues, and seven gold ones. While the main part of the lake floor had one hundred sixty-three grid squares, there were fifty-nine partial grid squares along the edges. Many of the ones we searched today had been partial squares, some as narrow as a centimeter or two. Most of those had been empty.

After resting and warming up, we resumed searching the cliff face and finished two complete columns before securing the crates and stopping for dinner.

Dr. Cooper came to meet us as we approached the dining area. “How’d it go today?” he asked.

“We finished searching the upper layer of sediment for just over a quarter of the grids,” Tim replied.

“They retrieved one hundred fifty-eight jade statues and seven gold ones,” Erica whispered after looking around to make sure nobody was nearby.

“Interesting, I guess only the upper echelon of society was allowed to throw their jade statues directly into the lake, and a few people cheated,” he mused thoughtfully.

“The five new guards are here,” he told us. “We’ll put two inside the cave on staggered eight-hour shifts. They won’t be quite so obvious inside. Also, your dredge arrived with them. It came with six, fifty-meter sections of plastic hose. I figured you’d need two sections in the water, and we can run the discharge hoses to that depression about sixty meters from the mouth of the cave. I measured it and it will hold all the water inside the cave and then some, so the water should have plenty of time to percolate into the ground each day. I dumped a hundred gallons of water there the other day and it was gone in five minutes. I realize that it might take longer for the depression to drain after the first day, so we’ll have to play it by ear. Worst case is that we move the discharge hose to another spot.”

“We packed the statues from the lake in a separate crate from the statues from the cliff, even though they appear to be the same,” Raelene told him. “So far, we’ve filled two crates from the cliff and we’re working on a third one. Each crate holds about four hundred statues.”

“And you’ve included all the necessary documentation?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. We included flash drives with all the photos and videos, as well as an electronic copy of our notes and a printed copy. We have a copy for you and for Dr. Gonzalez, too. Plus, Johnny uploaded a copy to his website and emailed a copy to Dr. Parker,” Erica told him.

“Dr. Parker?” Dr. Cooper asked me.

“That way I know there’s a copy safe somewhere. He’ll store it in one of their secure vaults. Several digs now send him a copy of photos, video, and written notes at least once a week, or when they find something big. It assures that their work isn’t accidentally lost, and lets him know if something important is happening,” I explained.

“That’s actually a great idea. I should also set up something at my school and at UNAM so we can send weekly updates to them for safekeeping,” he mused.

He introduced all twelve of us to the new security guys and then specified that at least four of the seven members of the original team had to be there before anyone was allowed into the cave. In addition, aside from him and Dr. Gonzalez, whom they’d already met, nobody else was allowed into the cave unless one of the Doctors accompanied them. The guards took photos of us to use until they got to know us better.

After dinner, our group made more of the paper slips to identify statues from the cliff. Trying to identify individual statues from the lake bottom was a lost cause. They were retrieved in the order that I touched them, and not necessarily in order of their depth in the sediment. Even if we’d had tags for the statues, it would have required a third diver to hold them, to keep track of them, and to attach them to each statue. We didn’t have a third diver.

After dinner, Erica and Raelene joined me in my tent for our usual night of sex and dream sex.

Thursday and Friday

Thursday and Friday went much like Wednesday had. By the end of our dive Friday, we’d cleared almost ninety percent of the grid squares. The work was going faster now that we had gained more experience with our system. Brian and Raul continued to trade off with Tim and me when we worked on the cliffs, taking every other day to work on the ladders once we finished our dive.

Saturday

We finished with the upper layer of the lake bottom early today, but decided not to start dredging. Tim was sure that we could dredge the upper layer of sediment from the entire lake floor in one dive. Since he had experience with underwater dredges, I told him to go for it.

We also had twelve full crates, enough that it required a shipment to the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, or UNAM). That was the school Dr. Gonzalez represented.

Dr. Gonzalez let us know that the truck would be here Sunday afternoon and would leave Monday morning. Twenty-five fully packed crates were far too much for their helicopter to carry. The truck would also bring more empty crates and packing material.

Sunday

Tim finished dredging the top layer of sediment just before our dive computers let us know that our time was up. Fortunately, he’d been thinking ahead and had set up two of the chain ladders so we could climb out of the lake. The water level in the lake was barely a meter deep by the time he finished.

“You’d make a good maid the way you vacuumed the floor of the lake,” I teased him.

“At least I didn’t have to wear Frisbee cuffs,” he teased back.

A big army truck arrived while we were diving, accompanied by twenty-five Mexican soldiers. Tim called it a deuce and a half. Rather than work on the cliff face after diving, we spent some time helping the soldiers load our crates into their big army truck, and then we relaxed.

The local workers brought two crates up from inside the temple. I didn’t envy them the task of carrying the crates up all those steps. It was worse than climbing up and down our ladders on the cliff face.

I was resting in my hammock and found myself in front of the Tribunal. “There will be an attempt by the local drug cartel to hijack the truck when it reaches the airport Tuesday. A GPS transmitter was attached to the truck by one of the Mexican troops,” they warned me.

In the dream, I could see the hidden transmitter. I also knew which two of the troops worked for the cartel.

I quickly warned both Doctors about what I’d learned about the planned attack.

The officer in charge of the troops had a difficult time believing me, even after I drew sketches of the two men working for the cartel.

“How could you know about them?” he demanded. “Both of them are back at the base because they were too sick to accompany us.”

“Maybe they faked being sick because they knew about the attack,” I reminded him.

Then, I led him to my hammock and had him sit on the stool I used when doing many of my sketches. He followed me suspiciously. Lying down, I took his hand. Almost immediately, we were back in front of the Tribunal. It was the first time that I’d ever seen the face of one of the Tribunal members. The officer recognized him immediately.

“Grandfather?” he gasped.

“If you want your men, and your cargo to remain safe, you will listen to this young man. He is gifted and able to receive information from the ancestors. He is an honest man. If he tells you something, accept it, no matter how unbelievable seems,” the grandfather told the officer.

Suddenly, we were awake again. “How did you do that?” he gasped. Despite his brown skin, he was quite pale.

“Like your grandfather told you, I have a gift and am able to communicate with the spirits of people from ancient civilizations if they want us to learn about them. In this case, it appears that they want to protect the ancient artifacts recovered from this site.

“I need more troops, but I’m sure the cartel will have spies among them, too,” he replied.

“Is there a different airport you could use?” I asked.

“Sure, Cancun. I’m surprised that you drive all the way to the airport in Merida,” he replied.

“There’s a campus of UNAM in Merida and they help load and unload,” Dr. Gonzalez explained.

“What about the closed Chichen Itza airport?” I asked, having seen it from the road on the drive to this site.

“That might work. If I set up a roadblock a few kilometers up the road from the airport, they can intercept anyone the cartel tries to send. Besides, it would take the cartel two hours to reach the Chichen Itza airport from Merida once they realize something’s wrong. Your plane should be in Mexico City by then,” the Captain mused.

“I’ll call and have a second plane sent to Chichen Itza. I’ll have them send the original plane to Merida so the cartel will think we’re going there,” Dr. Gonzalez agreed.

“I can show you the hidden tracking device on the truck. You could give it to the driver of any vehicle going towards Merida. Have him throw it out the window as he approaches the city,” I suggested.

“I’d still like to catch all those cartel people,” the Captain said.

Tim spoke up and suggested, “Have snipers and spotters on the rooftops around the air cargo area in Merida. They can disable any cartel vehicles and take down anyone that looks to be in charge. Have them in place before sunrise and have some of your men drive the tracking device to the airport so you know when to spring the trap. Have them arrive in armored personnel carriers with heavy weapons. We can drive and unload the big truck, and then bring it back here from the old Chichen Itza airport.”

I could tell by the Captain’s evil grin that he liked the idea.

After dinner, Dr. Gonzalez told us that the second plane would be here before noon tomorrow so we could unload the supplies they were bringing and then load the artifacts. The Captain had arranged to have three APCs waiting in a warehouse near the UNAM campus in Merida. They’d arrive there tonight.

“It’s getting dangerous around here,” Carlos commented at dinner.

“Just stick with Johnny and you’ll be fine,” Erica replied confidently.

She and Raelene joined me again that night.

Once again, we found ourselves before the Tribunal right after we finished our dream sex. “Your plans to ship the artifacts and to catch the cartel members will both work well. However, the cartel will try a direct assault against the site here in a week or so. We’ll warn you in plenty of time to move everyone to safety and plan a defense of the dig,” they told us.

Monday

We awoke shortly after that. This time, the girls just giggled about having been naked in front of the Tribunal again. The sun was barely above the horizon and the Mexican troops were just waking up as well. Seeing the Captain up and about, I approached him and told him what I’d learned last night. He gave me his cell phone number so I could call him when we had a clearer idea of when the attack would take place.

Before we were ready to leave for the old Chichen Itza airport, Tim had suggested to Dr. Gonzalez that he and I accompany him. He had seen my two HK-33 rifles and had served in our military. He volunteered to guard Dr. Gonzalez and volunteered me, too. Four of the army troops were going with Dr. Gonzalez, too.

The Mexican Army found body armor for us to wear, and I grabbed my atlatl and quiver of darts. I ended up driving with Tim riding shotgun. Fortunately, there were no problems. Tim looked very professional standing guard while the people with us unloaded the supplies that had arrived on the plane and then loaded the crates of artifacts. I probably looked lost, trying to figure out what I was doing there.

Tim asked how I had ended up with two nice weapons, so I explained about the attacks by the guards at the last dig.

I spent the rest of the day washing my laundry (by hand) and then sketching while my clothes hung out to dry. One of the sketches was of the inside of the cave. It showed an elaborate setup of ladders and scaffolding completely covering all sides of the pit. They were constructed from saplings of varying thicknesses, but the scaffolding definitely looked sturdy enough to hold several people on each level. At the time, I only saw six people on the top level, three on the middle level, and nobody on the lower level. There were shorter ladders on each level that were long enough to let people reach anywhere in the section.

There were also several ladders being used by women filling containers with water from the lake. Some carried the heavy jugs up the ladders in something like a partial backpack. Others used a rope to lift the jug from section to section. One woman made the trip down the long ladders to fill the jugs while the others used rope to pull the filled jugs up to each section and lowered the next empty jug.

Tuesday

We heard the army leave early this morning. When I checked my watch, it was just after midnight. I guess they wanted to be in position well before sunrise, which would be just before five o’clock.

When we arose just after six o’clock, the Captain’s car was just leaving. Only the driver was inside. I assumed that he had the tracking device.

I scanned half of the lake bottom with Tim watching me this morning. The water level was back up to three meters. By the time we finished, Carlos let us know that the Captain had called Dr. Gonzalez to let him know that they captured or killed all the cartel gunmen and only two of his troops had minor wounds, a far cry from what would have happened without the advance warning and time to plan.

We finished clearing two more columns of the cliff before calling it a day.

We were surprised when the army troops rolled back into camp just after supper. The Captain had convinced his commanding officer that the cartel was likely to retaliate against the dig site. Evidently, someone here knew they were coming back as the cooks had fixed enough food for them, too.

After supper, the light looked like it was good for another hour. While the others started making more tags for the statues we planned to recover from the cliff, Tim started reviewing the GPR scans from the lower layer of the sediment. I grabbed my atlatl, darts, big spears, and travois. Two of the soldiers were curious about what I was doing and followed me. They made a lot less noise moving through the brush than I did.

The peccaries were still there, although they were about a hundred yards from where they had been previously. After working my way closer, I managed to hit two of them. This time, however, three charged me--and I only had two long spears. I quickly launched another dart at the front runner and was surprised when I hit him in the head.

The other two ended up skewered on the two, two-meter spears. “I guess I need another two-meter spear,” I commented to the two stunned men. Gratefully, they each grabbed a handle of the overloaded travois and dragged it back to camp for me. Marita and Paloma were ecstatic that I’d brought back five peccaries. Marita started skinning and gutting the first one while Paloma ran over to tell the other two cooks. Olivia returned to help Marita while Paloma finished cleaning up after dinner here and Delores did the same where they cooked for the local workers.

“Why didn’t you use your rifle?” One of the soldiers who watched me asked.

“I’m more accurate with the atlatl,” I admitted. “Besides, firing a gun would scare everyone here, especially after today.”

“It looks like there are even more statues in the lower sediment level,” Tim told me when I went to see how he was doing. It was easy to see that, starting about one meter from every edge, the number of statues in each square was impossible to determine. We could make a rough estimate, but many squares looked like they contained more than ten statues.

We warned Dr. Gonzalez about what Tim had found, which meant we’d need more crates soon, as well as another shipment sent. We guessed that it would be before the end of the week.

He let us know that they’d have two more people help us with the cliffs. “Everyone knows about the statues now, so we don’t have to hide it anymore,” he reasoned.

“Is everyone else busy with the crypts?” I asked.

“No, we’re looking for things for some of the interns to do. We’re using three interns and a person from the NGS for each crypt and only processing two crypts at a time.

“Then give us five people instead of two. They can be a third team. Have Erica or Raelene or Carlos work with them and have one of the new people work with our team,” I suggested.

“Do we have enough chain ladders for two more teams?” he asked excitedly.

“Yes, but that’s the last of our chain ladders. If you need one somewhere else, we’ll have to pull a team off the cliff. Have Carlos lead one new team and Erica or Raelene lead the other. That way, we might finish eight columns each day.”