The Girl in the Mayan Tomb Read online

  The Girl in the Mayan Tomb

  A Dan Kotler Thriller

  Kevin Tumlinson

  Contents

  What to do when you spot a typo

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Keep the Adventure Going!

  Stuff At The End Of The Book

  Here’s how to help me reach more readers

  About the Author

  Also by Kevin Tumlinson

  The Change Log

  What to do when you spot a typo

  They happen. That's why I built the Typo Reporter.

  If you find a typo or other problem with this book, you can report it here:

  * * *

  https://www.kevintumlinson.com/typos

  * * *

  As a special thank-you, you can opt to be included in the Change Log for this book! If I use your suggestion, and you agree to be included, your name will go into a special section in the book, so future readers can appreciate you as much as I do!

  * * *

  Happy reading,

  Kevin Tumlinson

  Very Grateful Author

  Prologue

  Xi’paal ‘ek Kaah, Central America

  Dr. John Graham was more than a little perturbed by being the first European descendent to set foot in Xi'paal ‘ek Kaah.

  Oh, the discovery was incredible, to be sure. His name would certainly go in the history books, and everything he discovered here, doubtless, would be sensational to the world at large. Not since the days of John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood had there been such international buzz about the discovery of a Mayan city. But Graham knew that the buzz wasn't so much about the discovery, as it was about the discoverer—a thirteen-year-old boy named Henry Eagan, from Rhode Island.

  Graham mopped sweat from his brow with a soiled handkerchief. He swatted at yet another mosquito, grateful that he'd been inoculated against malaria but wishing he'd remembered to attach the mosquito netting to his hat before setting out this morning.

  He pulled his sweat-soaked shirt away from his skin, flapping it to produce a small breeze and get at least a tiny bit of relief from the oppressive humidity that threatened to drown him on dry land. And he rubbed at his bandaged forearm, where earlier he had fallen and sliced it against a clump of razor sharp pampas grass. All the while, he thought of little Henry Eagan, nearly four thousand miles away, who had discovered all of this and set this entire expedition in motion using an iPad and Google Earth.

  The little snot.

  Graham chastised himself. There was no sense in being annoyed with the boy, for God's sake. This city would still be here, covered in jungle growth, going undiscovered for perhaps another thousand years, if not for Henry. Graham only had the funding to come here and do this work, because Henry's story had been such a media sensation.

  Still …

  Graham stood aside as four men came through, carrying recently felled branches and trunks, clearing trees and vines from the entrance to a promising structure. It appeared to be a temple—one of the ovoid pyramids similar to those discovered in other Mayan sites, with sets of stairs formed by immensely heavy blocks of stone—stone that had to have been ported here from elsewhere, somewhere immensely far from here. There were no quarry sites nearby, nowhere to find this much stone just naturally lying around. In short, the mere presence of these massive stones, in all their bulk and girth, carved as they were to such exacting precision, should have been impossible.

  It was part of the mystery of this place. How had the early Mayans managed to build it at all, particularly with the jungle as a barrier to travel? Not to mention the jungle's tendency to fill in any space that was open to the sun and the sky, continuously threatening to consume the place and bury it forever?

  These were mysteries that the archeological community had yet to solve, even after hundreds of years of study and research. With all that, they had barely scratched the surface of who the Mayans were, and where they'd come from. This city, itself, was proof that all of their knowledge about this great and ancient race was barely enough to provide a decent start.

  But here they were. And thanks to the wonders of modern technology, Graham and his team were about to enter a structure that hadn't seen human life in perhaps a thousand years. Regardless of how it was discovered, the accomplishment was remarkable. History was being made, right here and right now.

  The stairs that Graham was now facing led to tiered landings above, and he stared up into the rise of the temple. It was hard to make out most of the details of the place, even with a lot of the overgrowth cleared. This ancient structure had been firmly and resolutely reclaimed by the jungle, after humanity had left it, and it wouldn't be given up easily.

  Graham opened his canteen and took a long sip of water. He had conserved, as they moved through the jungle to get here, but now that they'd made camp there was plenty of water. They'd ported in large containers of it, which was absolutely necessary in most cases. But they'd gotten lucky, too. On their trek to Xi'paal ‘ek Kaah, they had stumbled across a nearby cenote—a natural sinkhole in the local limestone bedrock, which had become a cistern of sorts. It gave them access to fresh groundwater, and it was so clean and pure, they could drink it without boiling it, if they wished. A mercy, here in the rainforest, where nearly everything was trying to kill you.

  Still, they filtered it thoroughly before drinking, anyway. The last thing anyone wanted was a stray bacterium making their lives miserable, hundreds of miles from the nearest pharmacy. Or toilet.

  Xi'paal ‘ek Kaah. “Star Boy City.” Or, better translated “Boy Star City,” which made it sound like a boy-band retrospective.

  It still galled Graham even to say the name of the place, but he again forced himself to be reasonable. It was named as an homage to Henry Eagan, the boy discoverer, and for the method by which he had found this place. Using star maps and maps of the known Mayan ruins, gathered from various internet sites, and comparing those to satellite imagery freely available online, Henry had discovered an anomaly in the region. He lined up all the known Mayan cities and temples, and decided to test the “Orion correlation theory.” This was a hotly contested idea, stating that some ancient sites, such as the three pyramids of the Giza plateau, were actually aligned with the three stars in the belt of Orion. It was an intriguing hypothesis, implying not only that these ancient civilizations had a deep knowledge of astronomy, but they also, bizarrely, had a common interest in the constellation of Orion.

  Mainstream archaeologists tended to doubt the premise, for numerous reasons. The first was the simple fact that in order for the three pyramids in Giza to line up with those belt stars, one would have to rotate the map of the site, reorienting it so that their relative position to the stars matched, but throwing everything else into t
he wrong position.

  Still, the theory remained popular and, Graham had to admit, there did seem to be some weight to it. He wasn't ready to discount it entirely, at least. And in fact, Henry Eagan's discovery cast the theory in new light.

  Because, as Henry had determined, the site at Xi'paal ‘ek Kaah did, in fact, align with certain astronomical phenomenon. And in fact, within the site, there were three structures that aligned with the stars in Orion's belt, though that hadn't been confirmed until very recently.

  Henry had found this site, however, because he'd determined that there was a correlation between several ancient Mayan sites and the alignment of certain stars and constellations beyond Orion. He was able to line up numerous Mayan cities with star maps, which seemed to confirm the theory. But that was when he discovered a problem.

  There was a city missing.

  Henry had used common tools and apps to predict where that final temple would be, overlaying star maps with Google Earth, noting the known structures and then zooming in to inspect the region where the remaining city should have been seated. He'd done this as a complete amateur, but had apparently become obsessed with the idea of lost cities and ancient cultures, as well as the disciplines and techniques used by those who researched and studied these cultures. Essentially, he began to replicate the disciplined approach to research that a graduate student might have applied.

  He put a child's imagination to work alongside all of the information and resources and data made freely available online, and had determined that within a very specific jungle region of Central America, there should be a city—but all he could see was jungle canopy.

  He then used Google Maps to zoom in on that region, to study it.

  There was something there.

  A shape in the tree growth emerged as Henry zoomed in close. It looked too perfect to be anything but manmade, and that had been very exciting to both Henry and to his father, who encouraged his son to document his find, and to take it public.

  Henry put together quite a presentation, then, and made his big announcement on YouTube, of all places. He used screen captures to show the site, zoomed in, outlined the structure he believed he was seeing, and overlaid star maps to show the correlation he was trying to prove. He was so thorough and so professional in his approach, it couldn't help but get attention.

  The video almost immediately went viral. Within 48 hours of uploading his evidence and speculation, it had been shared by over 20 million viewers. It had been picked up by other YouTube vloggers by that point, many of whom shared their own opinions and speculations about the site, including their doubts and misgivings, if they had any. Some dismissed the satellite imagery, saying the rectangular shape could just be a digital artifact or one of Google Earth's famous rendering glitches. Others weren't so sure. They saw how well Henry had lined up various Mayan sites with known cosmic points of interest, even going as far as to use online resources to illustrate celestial alignments from thousands of years earlier. Many were convinced.

  It wasn't long before the mainstream media picked up the story, and started reporting on the find. It was too cool to ignore, really. A thirteen-year-old boy, discovering a lost city in the jungle, while sitting comfortably in his bedroom, thousands of miles away. Without certification, they immediately hailed him as a genius, lauding him for his brilliance in outpacing modern science, using public domain tools that were available to everyone. How could it not be a sensational story?

  Thanks to all of the media attention, academia became involved. Universities and research centers clamored to be the first to bring Henry to their facilities, to encourage photo ops with Henry getting tours while looking through microscopes, holding ancient Mayan artifacts in his hands, and palling around with seasoned archaeologists and researchers.

  Graham had met Henry at one of these events, and had managed to get in on several of the prominent photos. He'd given Henry a tour of his own offices, in fact, and the two of them had bonded over a shared interest in both archaeology and astronomy.

  When Graham wrote up a proposal to go in search of this place, to use LIDAR technology to digitally peel back the undergrowth and see if something really was there, he'd gotten approval and grants with almost no opposition. This was, after all, one of the biggest media frenzies concerning an archeological site since that whole Viking affair in Pueblo, Colorado. Dr. Coelho, and that damned Dr. Kotler, had stirred up quite an appetite for this sort of thing. The public was hungry for more, and Graham's underwriters knew when to seize an opportunity.

  Here he was, then, covered in sweat and grime, probably already hosting some foul, undiscovered bacteria or viral infection, but thankfully staring into the ruins of a lost city. Who really cared how it was discovered? It was Dr. John Graham who would be the first to bring this place and all the secrets it held to the light of day. He may not have been the one to find it in the first place, but he would be the first human to step into its secret depths in well over a thousand years. That was something. There was honor in that.

  “Dr. Graham!” one of his assistants shouted. “We've found something you'll want to see!”

  Graham again mopped his brow, and hurried toward the site where two of his assistants were pulling away twisted vines and brushing dirt from a large, rectangular stone. It was inset into a small alcove, one of several they'd encountered just inside the ruins of the temple itself. This one was in an area far less accessible from the outside, however. They were well within the temple now, and the foliage had thinned, though it still wound through here in living pillars and rails, searching for light or water or anything else it needed.

  The vines were dry and brittle in this part of the temple, but still difficult to remove. It was like sawing through tree branches. His work was made shorter by chainsaws, but since fuel was a limited resource the men had been using hand saws for most of the work. Progress had been somewhat slow.

  This area of the ruins had only been accessible because of a collapse in the outer wall. It had appeared to be a passage, which turned out to be true, but Graham hadn't yet figured out what function it played. Until this very moment.

  He recognized some of the markings carved into the walls here, and in the stone itself, and he felt his pulse come to speed.

  The stone that had the attention of his assistants was an ornately carved rectangle, with precise edges, so straight and perfect that they fit almost invisibly within the rectangular alcove. The seams were so tight, in fact, it would be difficult to wedge a sheet of paper into them.

  It was an intriguing mystery. No one knew how the Mayans—a people supposedly bereft of technology even as basic as the wheel—had managed to quarry and move immense stones from miles away. Even more of a mystery, however, was how they had managed such precise and intricate ornate stone carving, often with no sign of tool marks, and with apparently no hardened metal tools available to them.

  This stone represented another piece in a growing puzzle about the Mayan culture.

  It also marked the site of a tomb.

  Graham felt his heart quicken further. His breathing increased as well. His excitement was mounting.

  This was where the men were separated from the star boys, he knew. No iPad or satellite or LIDAR array could have detected this very spot, nor what might be found beyond this stone slab. It took feet on the ground, sweat and grime caked over one's body, and a will and determination to bring long-buried secrets to light.

  Before him was a door to a whole new world, and it would be Dr. John Graham who discovered it first.

  “There will be a trigger,” Graham said to them, his breathing already heavy. “A release that opens this.”

  “It's a door?” asked Charlene Voss, the younger of his two assistants.

  “Oh yes,” Graham said, smiling. “And beyond it, we may find a treasure more valuable than any found in recent history.”

  “Gold?” asked Derek Simmons. Derek had always been a bit too eager to be a treasure hunter, in Graham
's estimate, but he was smart and diligent, and his work was exemplary.

  “No, not gold,” Graham said, shaking his head and smiling. “If I'm right, we may find actual human remains on the other side of this door!”

  Both assistants picked up on his excitement, and mirrored it, though they may not have considered finding dead humans to be all that fascinating.

  Graham, however, knew that finding preserved remains, these days, was rare. Particularly in the highly humid climate of Central America.

  Beyond natural decay and degradation, however, the rarity of either remains or artifacts was a common problem thanks to the Conquistadors, and to that most invasive of cultural standbys—religion.

  Starting in the 1700s, many Mayan tombs were desecrated by either the Spanish or by “explorers,” mostly treasure hunters, in the centuries that followed. Guerrilla fighters, in particular, were a problem—using ancient ruins as a base of operations, hidden from the reach of authorities. They would loot the ruins for anything of value, and often damage artifacts and structures through careless use.

  There were guerrillas and bandits all through this region, in fact. Which was why Graham had brought along a sizable security contingent. That red-headed and mustachioed security chief that the University had hired, along with his gaggle of ex-military guns for hire, had been a necessary nuisance during this expedition. Graham was glad to have them, though, for the safety of himself and his people, even if he wasn't always pleased with their manners. They had been a great help in bringing provisions, including the large water tanks and other supplies. And they had pitched in to help clear the site, though in truth they did this to provide a camp and to secure the area. The needs of Graham's team and those of the security contingent overlapped in helpful ways.