CHAPTER NINE MARKET SQUARE RESIDENCES WASHINGTON, DC

MARKET SQUARE RESIDENCES

WASHINGTON, DC

January 9

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Dr. Estrada bellowed. He rose from the stuffed seat and spread his arms. “Do you know Illari, Mr. Roth?”

“I do,” he said, not taking his eyes off the young woman. “I’m beginning to wonder if you know her.”

Illari gave Roth a pleading look. She apparently hadn’t told Estrada about her other activities. Roth could understand why. Her involvement in the Mexica—a group that wanted to turn back the clock on history and reinstate old borders, which was how he had contacted her originally—could jeopardize her position at the university. He’d seen some YouTube videos she’d posted where she’d narrated the ancient history of the Mexica and how they’d fared under the conquistadors. She hadn’t shown her face in the video, but he recognized her voice. Not to mention Roth had been paying her to help him translate things. Although it wasn’t illegal for a student to take on freelance work, it would certainly be frowned upon for her to not report both that and her affiliation in a special interest group to her academic advisor.

“Let’s all calm down,” Monica said, coming up to Dr. Estrada. “There’s an investigation underway, and we need your help. No one is in trouble. Let’s just try to sort this out, okay?”

Dr. Estrada nodded to Monica and then sat back down, but it was obvious he was still alarmed.

Roth glanced over at the twins. Jordan was showing them a video on his phone. He didn’t like that they’d been thrown into the deep end of the adult world, but at least Jordan was helping them find things from their old life—their childhood—to cling to.

“Illari,” he said coaxingly.

“You promised,” she whispered. Tears trickled down her cheeks.

“I didn’t know you were working at UC San Diego,” Roth said. “At the lab. But this is a big deal. We’re trying to stop something bad from happening. The prophecy you translated for me. We have to stop it.”

“What prophecy?” Dr. Estrada said, flinching. “Illari, what’s he talking about?”

She clenched her eyes shut and winced. “We can’t stop it. We shouldn’t stop it.”

“Are we talking about the doomsday prophecy?” Dr. Estrada asked, bewildered. “It’s a myth. The Maya calendar didn’t end in 2012. It just started a new long cycle.”

“I know,” Roth said, facing him. “Look, I get that this is going to sound strange. But in 2012, a death cult run by the Calakmul family down in the Yucatán started up human sacrifices again. Cutting out hearts—the whole nine yards. My family was caught up in the death game the year before last. We had to fight for our lives at a temple in the middle of the jungle. The temple we need your help finding.”

Dr. Estrada gaped. “You’re ... serious?”

Monica nodded. “Yes. He is serious. Members of our own government are involved in this conspiracy. The servers at the Qualcomm Institute were hacked by an ex-NSA programmer. We’re meeting here because members of the FBI are compromised, and we don’t know who yet. The president’s life may be in danger. That’s why we need to know, Illari, if you have a backup of the data.”

“I do,” she said, clutching the laptop even tighter.

Monica smiled with relief. “Is it on your computer?”

Illari wiped a tear from her cheek. “No. I wouldn’t have enough hard-drive space to hold it.”

Why was she holding on to the computer so tightly, then? Roth wondered if she had compromising things on that laptop. Things she was afraid would get out.

“Where is the backup?” he asked.

Illari looked miserable. Her lip quivered. “On an Anasazi account,” she said.

Roth didn’t know what that meant.

“Anasazi?” Monica asked. “As in Anasazi Web Services?”

“Yes.”

That made more sense.

“You’re sharing the data with Anasazi?” Dr. Estrada asked.

“So I could do my own research,” Illari said, shoulders hunching. “Not just yours.”

Roth related to the situation better than others might have. Grad students were at the mercy of their advisors. They had to be loyal. Had to promote their advisor’s reputations above their own. One act of disloyalty could potentially wreck a grad student’s future if their advisor was so inclined. And this wasn’t just any act of disloyalty. It was huge. Roth had never wanted to be a full professor. That part of academia was something he hated, not unlike the politics that drove Carter.

“Let’s try working together on this,” Monica suggested. “Illari, can you show how you access the AWS servers? And Dr. Estrada, can you pinpoint where you went?”

Illari shook her head. “I can’t do it.”

“If you have access to the data,” Dr. Estrada said tightly, “we have to know.”

Roth saw the conflict on her face. “Dr. Estrada, do you know about the Mexica Movement?” he asked gently. He was aware that he’d promised not to seek her out after their business was complete, and he hadn’t, but here she was, and here he was, and he couldn’t keep this to himself. The whole world might depend on it.

“Of course I do,” Dr. Estrada snapped. Then he paused and looked at Illari with growing horror.

“That’s how I found her,” Roth said. “I needed someone who could translate the ancient languages. She’s really good, as you already know.”

“You’re part of that fringe group?” he asked her, grimacing.

“I’m lost,” Monica said. “Someone please explain this to me.”

It was Lund who offered it. “They want to ‘liberate’ the Western hemisphere from colonizers.”

“Isn’t that what Jacob Calakmul wants?” Monica said.

Lund shook his head. “Nonviolently. Through the democratic processes. They basically want to found a new nation. There’s a name for it, but I can’t remember what it’s called.”

“Cemanahuac,” Dr. Estrada said. “That’s the word the Aztec used to describe their world, their empire, before Cortés. And you’re part of that movement, Illari? I can’t believe it.”

“Why not?” she shot back angrily, brushing more tears away. “You, of all people, have seen the evidence of what was stolen from us. Your own people. There were millions living in Cemanahuac. Millions. And nearly all of them died.” She trembled with emotion. “More than the Holocaust in World War II. More than the Russians under Stalin. Probably more than twenty million.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Dr. Estrada said. “Smallpox didn’t kill that many.”

“It wasn’t just smallpox,” Illari continued. “I’m talking about the cocoliztli, the fevers. The fevers that have started up again. I told you about the pandemic. It’s all over the dark web. People didn’t care about how many died then. They just wanted the land and the gold. But they’re going to care now when the virus hits them. No immunity.”

“How can it be the same virus?” Dr. Estrada said. “There would be evidence.”

“There is a virus spreading around the world right now,” Monica said calmly. “The CDC and WHO are studying it. But they need time.”

“Why should I help you?” Illari said. “No one helped my people. We didn’t cause this plague. It’s coming from Calakmul. But if it rids this continent of the usurpers—”

“We’re talking about over three hundred million people!” Dr. Estrada exploded.

Guilt flashed across her face, chased by defiance and something Roth couldn’t interpret. “Jacob Calakmul is wrong,” she finally said. “The prophecy isn’t even about him.”

“Do you know who else it might be about?” Roth asked. “The prophecy specifically names Jacob, but you don’t believe it’s about him.”

“No,” Illari said, wiping sweat from her face. “And it makes sense that it’s not. Why would Kukulkán make a prophecy about his brother’s followers? I think it’s about Kukulkán’s return.”

“What are you talking about?” Dr. Estrada said, his brow furrowed.

“A prophecy from the Dresden Codex,” Roth said.

“Show him what was on the blank pages,” Illari said. “Show him.”

Roth pulled out his burner phone and went to the photo gallery. He quickly scrolled to the pictures he’d taken at the SLUB in Dresden, then turned the screen and handed the phone to Estrada.

The professor gazed at it, brow wrinkled in confusion, and started to peruse the glyphs. “Kukulkán, foreigners, repent, house of Jacob, jaguars. Flocks of sheep. Torn to pieces.”

“Show him the translation,” Illari said.

“A few pictures later,” Roth suggested.

Dr. Estrada swiped until he saw Illari’s handwritten translation. Lund walked to the door, lifting his phone to his ear to make a call, and stepped outside into the corridor.

Dr. Estrada read it out loud. “The god Huracán hath commanded that I, the god Kukulkán, should give unto you this land for your inheritance. I say unto you, that if the aliens ... or foreigners ... do not repent after the intercession which they shall receive, after they have scattered my people—then shall ye, who are a remnant of the house of Jacob, go forth among them and shall be in the midst of them who shall be numerous; and shall be among them as jaguars among the beasts of the forest, and as a young jaguar among flocks of sheep, who, if he goes through both treads down and tears in pieces. And none can deliver them.”

“And it’s a fair translation?” Monica asked the professor.

“If it’s Illari’s, of course it’s fair,” he said with a hint of resentment. “She’s my best grad student.”

A flush rose to Illari’s cheeks from her mentor’s praise.

“Illari,” Roth said gently, “I know you want the land back, but I always believed you meant to accomplish it peacefully. You weren’t a fan of Huracán. You believed in Kukulkán. My ancestors ... my family ... came from Germany. We endured the Holocaust. My family in particular came from Karlsruhe. I have relatives who were killed at the concentration camp at Dachau. I can’t undo their suffering, but nor would I create new concentration camps for the descendants of the men and women who made them suffer. Repeating the evil that was done to them wouldn’t bring them justice. So when I learned what Jacob Calakmul was going to do, I knew I couldn’t sleep without at least trying to stop him. Even if the prophecy isn’t about him, he believes it is.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” Illari said. “Kukulkán wouldn’t waste a prophecy on his enemy. It’s a warning, don’t you see? The K’iche’ word used for ‘repent,’ the glyph k’ex k’u’x. It means ‘to change your mind, to change your actions.’ To change the way you breathe. It’s a warning that great destruction will come if we don’t change. That sounds like Kukulkán. Not a revenge prophecy.”

“Do we know how this virus spreads?” Roth asked Monica. “Is it like Ebola?”

Monica shook her head. “Not blood-borne. From what little we know, it’s a pathogen that spreads through the respiratory system. Settles in the lungs.”

Roth blinked. “Change our breath.”

Illari looked surprised too. “These are the end times.”

“Would Kukulkán want everyone to die without being given a chance to change?” Roth pressed.

Illari screwed up her nose and looked down. “No. No, he wouldn’t.”

“Please,” Roth said to her. “Calakmul took my daughter. My wife. We’re trying to get them back. They’re in the jungle. We need your help.”

Illari sighed, then glanced at her professor.

“I think we should help them,” he said. He turned and faced the others. “I’ve kept secrets too. When I went to the Yucatán over a year ago, something bizarre happened to me. A storm rolled in out of nowhere. We saw a man standing on top of the pyramid we found. He’d summoned the storm, I think. The one that nearly killed us. I’ve seen tropical storms down there. But nothing like this. It was more violent, more unnatural. There is something about that place that is very, very dangerous. There are secrets there.” He shifted and turned to Illari. “If you could help find it, think what it could mean to the world.”

Roth felt Lucas’s hand grab his. He looked down at his son and realized that the twins and Jordan had come closer. They’d been listening.

“I want my sister back,” Lucas said, his chin trembling as he stared at Illari.

“Me too,” Brillante said huskily.

Illari closed her eyes and then sat down at the table and pulled out her laptop. Opened it. Roth felt a surge of relief and squeezed Lucas’s hand. The screen flickered on, and with the fastest fingers he’d ever seen, she began typing.

“Need Wi-Fi,” she said briskly.

Roth was used to making his phone a hotspot, so he took his device back from Dr. Estrada, quickly enabled it, then shared the password with Illari. She logged in through a browser using a VPN, which would hide her trail. In quick succession, she logged into her AWS account and brought up some screen and data files. Dr. Estrada stood behind her shoulder, staring at the screen in disbelief.

“I’ve mirrored the Qualcomm interface,” Illari said. “You drive.” She got up out of the chair and backed away, giving him room.

“How did you afford to do this?” Estrada asked as he sat in the chair.

“With some help from a donor,” she replied sheepishly.

Roth nearly smiled because he had a feeling he was that donor.

Dr. Estrada quickly browsed the data fields that popped up. On the screen was a high-resolution map of the Yucatán Peninsula. There was so much data it was just a blob, but the coastline had been superimposed. Roth recognized it as the east coast of Belize. Data bubbles popped open, and Estrada dived into the feed, zooming across the jungle. Little red and blue icons appeared the closer they got.

Estrada typed some commands. “We started at Xmakabatún,” he said aloud. The screen showed the name and some ruins. “Then we went north. The Mexican border is somewhere here,” he said, pointing at the screen. “The data doesn’t care about borders. Now let’s peel the jungle away.” He tapped on the keyboard mouse, and suddenly the vegetation was stripped away from the screen, revealing hundreds if not thousands of square shapes. “These are all indigenous. Built by the Maya thousands of years ago. This whole peninsula was heavily occupied. There’s some research suggesting the peak of the Classic period was 200 to 500 AD. Some say it might have been as late as 900 AD. There was a big war. A genocide probably. The Postclassic period lasted until the Spanish conquest, so another five hundred years, give or take.” He hummed, still zooming across the landscape.

“There!” he said exultantly, pointing. “That’s the pyramid I saw! I only got a look at that structure and the courtyard at the base. But see how large this compound is underneath the canopy? It’s probably larger than Tikal, which was one of the major kingdoms during the Postclassic period. Larger! See? This is in Mexican territory. This is what I saw.”

He clicked on the location and then pulled down a menu. “The coordinates are 18°51”37.5”N 89°31”04.5”W. Precise GPS coordinates. This is it. This is it!”

Illari was smiling as she looked over at Roth and the boys.

“You did it,” Monica gasped. “That’s the exact location of the ruins?”

The door swung open, and Lund came in, his eyes wide.

Roth felt his stomach drop. More bad news.

“Steve?” Monica asked worriedly.

“Yes,” Lund said as he approached. “Yes, of course you can talk to him. The twins are here too.”

“Who is it?” Roth demanded.

“It’s your daughter. It’s Suki.”