Chapter 41
McCarter had spent most of the night and all morning focused on the photographs that Danielle had taken in the submerged temple. Some of them were strikingly clear and others less so. They were low-resolution shots, taken in poor light, but with what he already knew, they gave him enough to piece together a larger part of the legend.
He began explaining it to Danielle, but she held him up. “I think Hawker needs to hear this,” she said solemnly.
They exchanged a look and McCarter offered a resigned nod. Danielle had a good point, though it was something he didn’t want to think about. There were reasons Hawker might be more important in the decision-making process than either of them.
So far, however, Hawker had asked for little in the way of information about what they were studying. He understood the basics and he’d pressed them on details related to Kang and the threats they might face, but as for details of legends they were mining, he seemed less than interested. McCarter guessed that would have to change.
Danielle called him over. “We’re making progress,” she said to him. “But you should be part of it.”
A suspicious look flashed over Hawker’s face and it left McCarter feeling like he was back in the classroom or on the lecture circuit.
“Do you remember our time in Brazil?” he asked Hawker.
“Of course,” Hawker said. “Angry natives, mutated animals, people trying to kill us. Great fun. We should do it again sometime.”
The joke put McCarter at ease. “Right,” he said. “Well, if you remember, we went down there looking for Tulan Zuyua. A place we compared to the Mayan Garden of Eden, because in their legends it was the first place that humans gathered and it was also where the different Mayan tribes were given their gods.”
“I remember something like that,” Hawker said.
“The thing is,” McCarter said, “in the story, the Mayan tribes are given their own patron gods. And some of them, including the Quiche people, left Tulan Zuyua carrying the essence and power of these gods in special, glowing stones.”
Hawker clearly understood the significance. “Like the one we just found.”
“And the one we found in Brazil,” Danielle added.
“When Moore and I first spoke, a year and a half ago, we talked about the Mayan culture, the Mayan religion, and the Mayan prophecies. He wanted me to explain the 2012 prophecy and what it meant to the Mayan people and culture as a whole.
“I had to remind him—and myself—that there is no ‘one’ Mayan culture, religion, or specific set of prophecies. Just like there is no ‘one’ Christianity, Islam, or any other religion. There are schisms and divisions and differences of opinions. Just like you have Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, just like you have Shiite and Sunni, there were many different sects of Mayan life, often divided along the lines of the different city-states.”
“And each state has its own interpretation of things,” Danielle added.
“Exactly,” he said. “They worshipped the same gods in general, but each nation had its own take on things. Different philosophies, different rituals.”
He needed to make the point clear because it would color everything he was about to tell them. “Unification of any religion is difficult if not impossible. In Christian faith, we have the church getting together in the fourth century to decide which books would be part of the official canon. The rest become apocryphal. But despite their official ex parte status they still exist and some believers still put faith in them. Other documents that are part of the official body are less accepted than the rest. Martin Luther considered the books of James to be heresy because they required acts—not just faith—as an instrument of salvation. The Eastern Orthodox Church rejects the Book of Revelation for different reasons. So you can see the difficulty in creating uniform religion even when you try. But in the Mayan world, you have no canonical gathering to unify the code. And the cultural and religious differences are widespread.”
“Each to his own,” Hawker said, grasping the concept easily. “Why does that matter to us?”
“Because this concept of 2012 being the end of time, the end of civilization or existence, did not ever gain widespread acceptance anywhere in the Mayan world.”
Hawker looked surprised. “It seems to have gained widespread acceptance now,” he said.
McCarter had to laugh. Indeed it had, mostly because it was interesting, exciting, and mystical in a safe way. Few of the people talking about it believed in the slightest that anything might occur.
“To us it’s a ghost story,” he said. “Good conversation around the campfire. But to them, the Maya of that time, it was not a popular idea. Nor, I might add, one that leads to productively motivating the troops. If all is for naught, then who wants to work? Who wants to build temples or carve idols or glyphs?”
Hawker nodded.
“So it was marginalized,” Danielle said.
“Almost to the point of extinction,” McCarter added.
“But not quite,” Hawker guessed.
“Precisely,” McCarter said. “And that’s where it becomes interesting. What we’ve found is a broken trail of evidence, linking the stones and the prophecy. It seems like this trail was created on purpose, most likely by a group of true believers who were savvy enough to keep themselves from being discovered and stable enough to pass the knowledge on without destroying themselves in an effort to prove their point.”
“Destroying themselves?”
“Doomsday cults rarely last more than a few years,” McCarter said. “Both because it’s hard to attract followers to such an idea—sane followers anyway—and because even when you do attract them, it’s awfully hard to keep them around and interested for any length of time without performing the act of self-destruction.”
“Makes sense,” Hawker said. “I’m guessing you guys haven’t found that anywhere.”
“No,” McCarter said. “But what we have found is this.” He pointed to places on the map that was spread out before him. “On a stone at the monument of Tohil, the oldest structure in the city of Caracol, we find reference to the 2012 prophecy and a group referred to as the Brotherhood Behind the Smoke, this means the hidden brotherhood. From there we tracked them to Ek Balam, city of the Jaguar, where they took the name Brotherhood of the Jaguar. Here we found glyphs that talk of them building temples and structures to protect and house the Sacrifices, which I think is a reference to the stones. That led us up into the mountains to the Island of the Shroud, where they quarried their volcanic ash to use in building the underwater temple.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m with you.”
McCarter nodded his approval. “Now, the ultimate end of this trail is a site referred to as the Mirror. We originally guessed this was another reference to the god of fire, Tohil, since he was often depicted with a mirror in his forehead. The problem is, since the first structure we’ve found nothing of Tohil, as if that particular iconography had been left behind, in exchange for something new.”
“Which was?” Hawker asked.
“Well,” McCarter said, “before we were attacked, we found a monument that seemed to reference the Brotherhood and perhaps their leader. Ahau Balam—the Jaguar King—and the glyphs we found on this king’s monument directed us to the temple beneath the waves. And from the decidedly low-tech photos that Danielle brilliantly took,” McCarter said, “I’ve found the following.”
He looked at his notes.
“‘It is here that the Brotherhood gather, unknown and unseen. Only a few of us now remain. To go on we must find others who will understand. Others must be tested, and once deemed worthy, must let the blood of their hands and lips. And remain until the blood will not flow.’”
He looked up. “From the reliefs carved above the stones it looks like they would paddle out to that temple, which only they knew how to find, and then they would dive down upon it with a new recruit who had passed enough tests to be worthy. This journey into the water would be the ultimate test, to risk swimming to such depths, to swim into the cave and cut their hands and lips as a blood sacrifice.”
“Not to mention the sharks,” Hawker said.
McCarter had to agree; in fact, he thought that was an important factor. “Yes, now imagine them inside the temple, with open wounds, perhaps little food or water. They were trapped there until the wounds had healed; otherwise the sharks would devour them. So while they remained in the temple, they grew weak, entered a trancelike state, and went on a vision quest of sorts. And then they were allowed to place their hands on the stone, the Sacrifice of the Soul.”
“Some kind of initiation,” Hawker said. “I get it. After going through all that trouble, the person feels a part of something. You think that’s how they remained so resolute through the ages?”
“I think that’s part of it,” McCarter said. “But there’s more.” He exchanged glances with Danielle. And she took over the story.
“When we were down there, I was acting oddly,” she said. “Part of it was the oxygen narcosis but there was something else. I snapped at you to stop you from touching the stone.”
“Yeah,” Hawker said. “I was waiting for you to call it ‘the precious.’”
“That’s not too far from the truth,” she said. “One of the things we know from studying the Brazil stone is that a portion of its signal resonates in the frequency of human brain waves. The brain is nothing more than an extremely complex electrochemical processor. Thinking and emoting and deciding are the result of synapses discharging electrical pulses. When I was a med student I watched a brain surgery where minor electrical currents were applied to the patient’s brain. The subject, wide awake, could then not remember certain things, such as his name, or, when shown pictures of a dog, what that animal was called. Stimulation to other sections of the brain caused a rise in emotions: fear in one place, anger in another.”
Hawker’s look went from interest to concern. “What are you telling me?”
“We believe that this final initiation, where the candidates were allowed to hold the stone, was done to program the brains of those deemed worthy.”
McCarter could see Hawker’s mind whirling, making the connection. It took only an instant. The lead effort on this quest had been taken by McCarter, despite all reason to the contrary, despite the fact that he’d almost been killed by the NRI’s treachery, despite the fact that he was not cut out for dealing with men like Kang and Saravich. Even after being shot and losing Danielle he had still refused to give it up.
“You touched the stone in Brazil,” he said.
McCarter nodded.
“Both he and I did,” Danielle said. “But you didn’t. And I didn’t want you to touch this one, either.”
“It affected you?”
“When I was back in New York, I could never sleep through the night,” McCarter said. “I thought it was some type of delayed stress reaction to all that had happened, but as the months wore on the insomnia got worse. I started taking sleeping pills and they worked for a while, until one night in the summer a massive thunderstorm woke me up. I thought I was back in the Amazon for a second. And from that moment on, I could not stop thinking about the stone. When Moore and I finally spoke he mentioned that he, Danielle, and another technician who had handled the stone were all suffering from the same symptoms. Little sleep, obsessive thoughts, a need to do something in regard to the stone.”
“You’re saying this thing programmed you.”
“It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds,” Danielle said. “Lots of things program the human mind in subtle ways. Studies have shown that the sound of a baby crying will affect women’s thought patterns, particularly if it is the voice of their own child. Addictions do a similar thing: drugs and alcohol actually affect brain chemistry and thought patterns to where the brain of the addict has been reprogrammed to be biased toward the drug over all else. Including food, water, and sex.”
McCarter pointed to the map. “The Brotherhood’s continued devotion to the stones and their apocalyptic message, without them creating their own false apocalypse, is pretty much unheard of. We think the stones were designed to instill that type of devotion.”
“Okay, but why?”
Danielle replied. “If you were sending some very important items to people who might not have a clue what they were, wouldn’t you want to wrap them in a package that would get them accepted?”
Hawker’s eyes narrowed. “The stones generate this brain-wave-matching pulse, which creates endorphins or something within the mind of the person touching it. Is that what we’re talking about here?”
McCarter nodded.
“So they love the rock and they’re willing to die for it,” Hawker said.
As McCarter watched Hawker’s face, he noticed a subtle change in his demeanor. A new level of guardedness, a slight clenching in his jaw. To McCarter he seemed more disgusted than pleased by their honesty.
“In Africa,” Hawker told them, “you’ll find whole villages of children, most now in their teens, missing hands or arms or legs. It’s because for a decade or so it was fashionable to use what they called butterfly mines, explosives made to look like toys that would be scattered near the enemy’s towns and villages. The theory being, it’s easier to convince someone to blow themselves up if they think what they’re finding is a prize.”
McCarter looked at Danielle. A similar thought had occurred to them in a discussion months before. It was a possibility.
“And that’s why I wouldn’t let you touch it,” Danielle said. “As strongly as I believe they’re meant to do good, I don’t know how much of it is my own conviction and how much of it has been planted there. I figured one of us should remain uncompromised.”
Hawker seemed to appreciate that. He relaxed a little and then looked over at McCarter. “Have you figured out what all that devotion was designed for? I mean isn’t that the end goal here, to decide what these things are going to do in a few days?”
“Draw your own conclusions,” McCarter said. “The books of Chilam Balam tell of the unfolding darkness. The information on Tortugero Monument Six tells us the god of change will descend from a place we are guessing is referred to as the Black Sun, and he will do something catastrophic. And now this, from the Temple of the Initiation.”
He looked at his notes.
“It is written: ‘At the end of the Katun, the eyes of the sky were made blind and the kings of the land waged war, and kings of the sea did likewise and all the malice of time is released, and the children shall be punished for their sins of their fathers.’
“We think the eyes of the sky are satellites,” McCarter said. “Like the ones that got wiped out in this burst a few days ago.”
“There’s only one real reason to take out a nation’s satellites,” Danielle said. “That’s to blind them. And in such a case, military doctrine leans heavily toward using your WMDs or losing them.”
“So darkness falls and everyone pulls the trigger,” Hawker said.
“If darkness falls,” McCarter said. “Perhaps the stones can prevent it.”
“Prevent it?” Hawker said. “In case you forget, the stones are what caused the satellites to fail in the first place.”
McCarter took a deep breath. Hawker’s logic made sense, but he felt it only made sense given their limited data. Like the man who runs into an elephant’s leg and thinks he’s found a tree.
“I dread to see what would happen if all the world’s satellites were swept from the sky at one time,” McCarter said. “But I can’t imagine that being the purpose here.”
By the look on his face, Hawker was imagining precisely that.
“Whatever the case is, we need more information,” Danielle said. “So what do you have for us?”
McCarter went back to his notes. “Glyphs in your underwater temple give us instructions for how to find the next stone, the master stone if I’m reading them right.”
“Where?”
“At a place called the Temple of the Jaguar, somewhere in the mountains.”
They looked on as he smoothed out the map of southern Mexico. Using a straightedge and beginning at the location of the underwater temple, he drew a line calculated from another series of numbers. It stretched across Mexico and into the highlands of Guatemala.
“We take this angle,” he said, pointing to his line. “It leads to the next stone, the Sacrifice of the Body.”
“Where exactly do we stop?” Danielle asked, examining the line.
McCarter looked down at the map. His course cut across low jungle filled with mangrove swamps and up onto the foothills, traveling across the ridges of the Sierra Madre Occidental before continuing out to the Pacific.
To follow that line they’d have to hike through the jungle and then up and down a series of five- and six-thousand-foot peaks. It would take months.
McCarter scratched his head. “I’m not exactly sure,” he admitted. “The glyphs were written in Mayan form, but they read like someone was telling the artisan a story. It says: ‘The Brotherhood shall follow the path of those who were as gods, but moved like men. Frail and mortal, mere fragments of the gods, attempts at the human kind like the Wooden People of old. There was built the Mirror and the Temple of the Jaguar at the end of the shining path, in the footsteps of the gods.’”
“I’m not trying to be unromantic here,” Danielle said, “but that doesn’t exactly help us.”
“Sorry,” McCarter said.
“So what’s the shining path?” Danielle asked herself aloud. “Could it be the Milky Way? What with the Maya and all their astronomy.”
“I thought about that,” McCarter said. “But the glyphs don’t include a time component, or even a season. And like all stars, those in the Milky Way align lower on the horizon in some seasons and higher in others. You couldn’t use that as a reference unless you specified a month or day or at least the general time of year.”
“What then?” she asked.
He shook his head, but from the corner of his eye he saw Hawker grinning.
“I think I know what it is,” Hawker said. “Or at least I know how we can find it. All we need is—”
The house phone rang, interrupting Hawker. He grabbed it.
McCarter heard the front desk clerk shouting vigorously over the line.
“Get out, se?or! Get out now! They are coming for you!”