The Death Relic (4 page)

‘Good to know.’

‘And fruit,’ he said as an afterthought. ‘Only eat fruit if you peel it yourself.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because the fruit is washed with local water. Apples, pears and the like are OK if you remove the skin, but I’d avoid grapes. Those rascals are tough to peel.’

She laughed at the thought.

‘So,’ he said as he called over the waiter, ‘what’ll it be?’

‘Tap water, extra ice. And a side of apple skins, please.’

He burst out laughing, glad she had a sense of humour. ‘I can tell already we’ll get along fine. For me, that’s my biggest concern on any project. Not the academics or the science – those things tend to sort themselves out in the long run – but the personalities of my co-workers. I’ve been on digs where we’ve found
nothing
, yet I couldn’t have been happier because I enjoyed my time in the field. On the other hand, I’ve made some major discoveries that were ruined by the miserable bastards I had to share my tent with.’

Maria ordered a daiquiri as he continued to talk.

‘When you reach a certain age – and mine shall remain a secret until it’s chiselled on my tombstone – you learn there’s more to life than your achievements. If at any point you find yourself not enjoying the journey, you need to find a different path.’

She nodded in agreement. ‘It’s funny you should mention that because I’ve been struggling with that problem in recent months. Don’t get me wrong: I love my work. But there has to be more to life than late nights in the library. There has to be something to balance it out.’

He held up his drink. ‘You mean like daiquiris on a beach in the middle of winter?’

‘That’s a start. But I was thinking something bigger.’

Hamilton smiled and leaned in closer. ‘In that case, this is your lucky day. Because I’ve stumbled across something that will blow your mind.’

Maria glanced across the table, trying to decide if Hamilton was serious. One look at his cocksure smile told her he was.

‘What did you find?’ she demanded.

Hamilton laughed at her bluntness, enjoying the secret knowledge he possessed for as long as he could. To milk the moment a little while longer, he took a slow, pronounced sip of his daiquiri before wiping the corners of his mouth with his napkin. The whole time Maria stared at him with unblinking eyes.

‘So,’ he asked, ‘how was your flight?’

‘My
flight
?’

‘I sprang for a first-class ticket. I hope you were comfortable.’

‘My flight was great.’

‘And your suite?’

‘My
suite
?’

‘Yes, your suite. Does it have a nice view?’

‘My view is great. So are my bed, my bathroom and the minibar. Now quit stalling and tell me what you’ve found!’

‘Boy,’ he teased, ‘you weren’t kidding when you said you were all business. We’ll have to work on that before you have a nervous breakdown.’

Maria laughed, surprised that the two of them were hitting it off so well after such a short time. ‘OK! Be that way. But keep something in mind: you invited me here for my expertise. Over the next few days, I’ll have plenty of opportunities to get even.’

‘That, my dear, is a very good point. Perhaps you’ve waited long enough.’

‘Perhaps I have.’

Hamilton glanced over her shoulder and frowned. ‘Unfortunately, it looks like you’ll have to wait a few more seconds.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘We have company.’

As if on cue, the waiter returned with Maria’s daiquiri, plus a basket of tortilla chips and a dish of
pico de gallo
. Known locally as
salsa fresca
, the uncooked condiment was made from chopped tomatoes, onions and serrano peppers. The aroma was so strong, Maria’s nose and eyes started to run even though it had been placed in the middle of the table.

‘
Santa Maria!
’ she said, coughing. ‘I’m glad I’m sitting upwind from that concoction. The smell alone is giving me heartburn.’

‘I’ll gladly eat your share,’ said Hamilton, who dipped one of the tortilla chips into the salsa before shoving it in his mouth. ‘I’ve been here so long I’ve fallen in love with spicy food. Now I put hot sauce on everything, from eggs in the morning to steaks at night. Believe it or not, I sometimes top off my dinner with jalapeño ice cream. It’s a local favourite.’

Maria scrunched up her face at the thought. In her mind, a meal wasn’t complete unless it ended with something sweet. Preferably something chocolate. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘In Cancún? Less than an hour.’

‘Really? I thought your crew was based here.’

‘Heavens no! Not a lot of research to do in these parts. This is a tourist city, not an historical one.’ Hamilton pointed at all the hotels that lined the beach. ‘Right now, there are approximately seven hundred thousand people living in Cancún, plus tens of thousands of tourists that visit on a daily basis. That being said, do you know what the local population was in 1970?’

She took a wild guess. ‘Fifty thousand.’

He signalled lower. ‘Try again.’

‘Twenty thousand.’

He shook his head. ‘Would you believe,
three
?’

‘Wow! Three thousand is pretty small.’

‘Not three thousand,’ he said, laughing. ‘I’m talking
three
– as in one, two, three.’

The number shocked her. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘I assure you, my dear, I’m completely serious. I can’t tell you how much money I’ve won over the years with that bit of trivia.’

‘Three people? How is that possible?’

He explained. ‘Back then, this entire stretch of land was part of a coconut plantation owned by Don José Gutiérrez. The only full-time residents of Cancún were the three caretakers of the plantation. I jokingly call them the Three Amigos.’

Maria shook her head in amazement. Based on everything she’d seen from the air, she had assumed Cancún had been around for centuries. ‘What happened in 1970?’

‘Well,’ he said as he stuffed another tortilla chip in his mouth, ‘the Mexican government realized how important tourism could be for the local economy, so they financed the first nine hotels in the region and poured money into the infrastructure. Their goal was to build the best resort city in the Caribbean. Amazingly, they pulled it off in less than twenty years.’

‘That is amazing.’

‘Granted, there have been some bumps in the road over the past four decades – most notably Hurricane Gilbert and Hurricane Wilma – but that hasn’t hurt the population growth in the city. It’s practically doubled in size in the last ten years.’

Maria sipped her daiquiri, trying to remember how they had started on the topic. Mentally she traced the line of questioning back to when she had asked about Hamilton’s time in the city. She had assumed he was based locally since they were meeting at the Fiesta Americana, but he said he had been in Cancún for less than an hour.

‘So,’ she asked, ‘where is your team stationed?’

‘Wherever our research takes us. Right now less than a hundred miles from here.’

‘Anywhere in particular?’

‘Yes,’ he said cryptically as he dug through the wicker basket for the perfect-sized chip. ‘But if it’s OK with you, I’d rather focus on your role in things, not mine. I’m sure you must be wondering why we brought you here on such short notice.’

She nodded. ‘The question has crossed my mind.’

‘Any theories?’

‘Plenty. Including some I’d rather not share.’

He laughed at the insinuation. Somehow her statement had been playful and accusatory at the same time. ‘Now you’ve gone and done it. After a comment like that, I’m afraid you have to share.’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘I’m afraid you must. My reputation as a gentleman is at stake!’

She blushed, realizing she had little choice but to explain her remark. ‘OK. But please keep something in mind: I had these thoughts before I knew anything about you, your research, or all the awards you’ve won in the field of anthropology.’

He grinned. ‘If you’re buttering me up, this has got to be good.’

She nodded, then took a sip of her drink for some liquid courage. ‘What can I say? A man I’ve never met calls me out of the blue and offers to fly me halfway around the world and put me up at a five-star resort for the weekend. What do you think I thought?’

‘That I was a dirty old man looking for action.’

‘Actually, I didn’t know you were old during our initial phone call, but I did think you were
dirty
. I didn’t find out about your age until I researched you on the Internet.’

He gasped in mock horror. ‘Wait! Did you just call me
old
?’

She nodded. ‘However, I no longer think you’re dirty.’

‘Well then,’ he toasted, ‘here’s to small victories.’

She clinked his glass and smiled. ‘Trust me, it’s a major victory in my eyes. Normally it takes a very long time to get on my good side. Yet you’ve managed to do it in two days.’

‘That’s the daiquiri talking.’

‘Maybe a little. But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s your passion for history. That’s what convinced me to accept your offer.’

‘My passion?’

She nodded. ‘Like I said, I looked you up on the Internet after you called. I wanted to get a better feel for your personality before I took a job so far from home, so I watched several of your lectures online. Let me tell you, I was impressed. Your passion for history oozed through the screen. No wonder you’ve won so many awards.’

Now it was Hamilton’s turn to blush. ‘Believe me, I don’t do it for awards. I do it for myself. In my opinion, there’s nothing better than making a discovery about the world we live in. It’s the reason I live in a tent eleven months a year, the reason I never settled down or got married. History is my first and only love. It’s the reason I breathe.’

‘Yep. That’s the passion I was talking about.’

He shrugged. ‘I can’t help it. That’s who I am.’

She shook her head. ‘Never apologize for passion. Like I said, it’s the main reason I’m here. I figured, if you’ve discovered something so secretive that you couldn’t tell me about it over the phone, then it was bound to be important.’

‘Trust me, it is.’

She studied his face. ‘How important are we talking?’

The cocksure grin returned to his lips. ‘Very.’

In the last decade, Mexico has passed Colombia as the drug-trafficking centre of the Americas, creating an atmosphere of crime and corruption. Border towns like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez are particularly violent – the 2009 murder rate in Juárez was the highest in the world by more than 25 per cent – but in terms of the sheer number of crimes, it’s hard to beat Mexico City.

With a population of over 21 million and a police force that is undersized and underpaid, no one knows how many crimes actually occur in the capital city as most of them go unreported, a combination of distrust in the local police and a fear of retribution by criminals. The United Nations estimates that nearly 90 per cent of all the cocaine sold in the United States is smuggled through Mexico, which is also the main foreign supplier of marijuana in America. With so much money at stake, it’s cheaper for cartels to bribe the police in the federal district than to lose their products in raids.

Violent crimes are always a concern when drugs are involved, but most drug-related shootings take place in impoverished areas that are recognized as trouble zones. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about kidnappings. In Mexico City, they can happen at any time and in any place. And they happen with disturbing frequency. Last year, more than a thousand occurred in the metropolitan area, but experts believe that less than a quarter of all local kidnappings are reported. Assuming this is true, that’s an average of more than ten kidnappings a day in a single city.

Ten abductions a day. Every day. In one city.

Obviously, kidnappings are big business in this region. Tactics and techniques are practised on the street. Vehicles are painted to resemble taxis or police cars. Foreign phrases are learned, so criminals can make efficient demands from tourists. When the clock is ticking and weapons are involved, communication is vital, especially in the modern world of technology, where bank accounts are just sitting there, waiting to be exploited.

Kidnappings are so frequent in Mexico City that they are classified by type. Locally, the most common form of abduction is known as a flash or express kidnapping. Most of these occur at night, and they usually last only a few hours. Normally, the goal of a flash kidnapping is to make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time, which is why most of these abductions happen between 11 p.m. and 12 a.m. Victims are taken to an
ATM
and forced to withdraw their maximum daily limit, whether that’s 100, 500, or 1,000 dollars. At midnight, bank computers reset their accounts for a new business day, which allows customers to make another maximum withdrawal at the same machine. If criminals time things right, they can double their take in less than five minutes.

Unsurprisingly, banks in Mexico City are well aware of this problem. In order to fight back, many branches have imposed institutional limits on their ATMs, which prevent customers from withdrawing large amounts from their machines, even if customers haven’t reached their cash limits for the day. Of course, all this usually does is prolong the terror of flash-kidnapping victims, who are then forced to spend more time with their kidnappers as they’re driven from bank to bank, slowly but surely accumulating their maximum amount before they are forced to repeat the process again after midnight. Afterwards, victims are usually dropped off, penniless, scared and far from help of any kind. This gives criminals plenty of time to escape.

In recent years, though, a new type of kidnapping has gained popularity in the region. Known as a virtual kidnapping, victims are called in the middle of the night and told a relative or close friend has been abducted. They are kept on the phone for several minutes, thus preventing them from calling the loved one in question to check the veracity of the claim. They are warned that if they hang up or fail to meet the kidnapper’s demands – which are usually for cash or jewellery – the loved one will be harmed or killed. Of course, even if they tried to call the supposed victim for verification, the line would be busy because the kidnapper’s partner would be running the same scam in reverse. For example, an elderly woman might think her daughter has been taken, while at the same time the daughter will think her mother has been abducted. These two are called at the exact same time, yet no one has actually been kidnapped.