If they had my notes, my very thoughts, what would they need me for?

He tried to calm down. Needing his mind to stop whirling, he considered finding a bar and drinking himself into oblivion. But instead he slowed his pace and deliberately slowed his breathing. Somewhat calmer, he changed direction, heading down a random alley.

What he really needed was a way to make notes and then destroy them instantly: a shredder or a fire, or something he could scribble on and erase over and over again without leaving any evidence of his conclusions.

He needed a chalkboard. It was so simple but it was perfect. That would protect both himself and the mission. But unless he broke into a school somewhere, he wasn’t likely to find a chalkboard in the sleepy fishing village of Puerto Azul.

The thought loomed like a giant roadblock. And then he looked up and found himself at the end of the alley, one narrow street from the edge of the sandy beach. With the tide going out, the sand was still smooth and flat and packed hard enough to draw in with ease.

McCarter had found his chalkboard.

CHAPTER 23

Hawker could feel things beginning to move. Not just in the physical sense, as the freighter began to push toward open ocean, but in a more personal sense as well.

Danielle had finally disconnected from Moore and slid the phone back into her bag. She was moving toward him with that purposeful look in her eye; on a mission once again.

“You guys okay?” she asked.

“We’re fine,” Hawker said. “I’m teaching the kid to fly.”

He held his arm out like a wing once again and Yuri copied him.

“I—” she began.

“You don’t even have to say it,” he told her.

“I have to go back,” she said. “McCarter’s still out there and he won’t come in.”

Hawker could not believe what he was hearing. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same guy?”

“Everybody changes,” she said.

Hawker could not imagine McCarter changing that much, but obviously the professor felt strongly about what they were after.

“You’re both OCD on this deal. You realize that, right?”

“I guess,” she said. “Care to hop on the crazy train with us?”

“You want me to come along?”

She looked out to sea for a moment, hesitating as if she didn’t know what she wanted.

“I don’t want to lie to you,” she said. “This mission is as odd as the last one. Maybe stranger. I don’t know where it’s going, but I know McCarter’s in deep.”

“And you feel responsible,” Hawker said.

She nodded. “I owe you a lot, too, though. So no arm-twisting.”

Hawker exhaled. For the first time in a decade he had within his grasp a free pass to a new life: Moore’s money sitting in the numbered Swiss account. He could disappear, become someone else, and leave the darkness of his own world behind. He pictured a beach in St. Tropez, with a cool drink, warm sand, and beautiful women gallivanting about. In the ultimate fantasy, Danielle would join him. The two of them could travel the world on Moore’s tab. Even if they were wasteful, the money would last for years.

But the fantasy would become a guilt-ridden nightmare if McCarter were to stay out and get himself killed or if Danielle were to go after the professor and both of them were to be harmed.

Knowing himself, Hawker could foresee spending the rest of his life and all of Moore’s money seeking to punish Kang or Saravich for what they’d done. Not the kind of outcome he was looking for.

“I think you and the doc are both insane,” he said to her. “This doomsday thing, end-of-the-world prophecy, it’s too far out for me to grasp. I promise you, if mankind’s going down for all the things we’ve done, quick and clean is too light a sentence.”

“I understand,” she said, looking as if she were expecting him to say no.

“But I can’t let you go alone,” he added. “When you found me in Brazil, I promised I’d see you through, right to the end. I thought getting back to Manaus safely was the end, but obviously we were all wrong about that.”

She smiled. And he loved that smile. He loved the fact that she wouldn’t leave McCarter out there on his own, even though she’d almost been killed once trying to protect him.

“I’ll go with you,” he said. “I’ll do what I can to help you find McCarter and to keep you safe. That’s my quest. As far as these stones and everything else, that’s your problem. The way I see it they’re either some huge cosmic joke or some kind of Pandora’s box we should never have messed with in the first place. But since you two are crazy enough to keep pursuing them, then I’ll do what I can to keep you out of trouble.”

“So you’re going to be the voice of reason?” she asked, barely holding back a laugh.

Hawker put a hand on Yuri’s shoulder. “Me and the kid here,” he said. “We’ll keep you guys on the straight and narrow.”

Yuri looked up. He didn’t say anything but his eyes were bright. He seemed to like the attention.

She looked incredulous but pleased. “Sounds like asking the fox to watch the henhouse. But … thank you.”

He saw the gleam in her eye. “Just remember. When this is over, assuming the world hasn’t blown up, I wash my hands of you two. You guys decide to go on another crusade somewhere, then go. I’ll have a beach waiting for me somewhere.”

A crooked smile crossed her face. “You retiring or something?”

“Actually I am,” he said. “I’ve recently discovered the benefits of a 401(k). Not my own exactly, but those of others.”

She looked at him with suspicion but he decided not to explain.

“Hmm …,” she said, playfully. “I guess that makes two of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When this is over,” she said, “assuming the world hasn’t blown up, I’ll be done with the NRI and all of this myself.”

Her voice was higher than usual, as if she were playing. And yet in a way it seemed like a contest: who could quit first or best. And if there was one thing he knew about her, it was that she loved to win.

“Believe it or not,” she said, “I had a normal life for a while. And I liked it.”

He could barely contain the laughter. “Really?” he said, more surprised than ever.

“What? You don’t think I could have a normal life?”

“Baking cookies and running errands?”

“Try lobbying for millions of dollars and thinking about running for Congress someday,” she said sharply.

Her indignation amused him. “First off,” he said, “that’s not a normal life. And second, it’s not that I don’t believe you could have one. I just can’t see you liking it for too long.”

She laughed and shook her head as if she was greatly disappointed in him but her smile faded just a bit more than it should have, and he wondered if what he’d said had rung too close to the truth.

CHAPTER 24

Walking down to the sand, McCarter thought about the way he’d stumbled upon the beach. He and his wife had often traveled by car, and among the joys of those travels were the countless times he’d gotten them lost and she’d eventually gotten them back on track.

He wasn’t sure he could chalk this up to some kind of spiritual intervention, but if there was anyone who knew he wouldn’t stop and ask for directions, it was his wife.

“If that was you,” he said, “thanks.”

The sand near the top of the beach was soft and loose. McCarter stumbled a little as he walked in it. But he made his way past it, down closer to the surf. He stopped just beyond the reach of the waves, where they peaked and exhausted themselves before falling back toward the Gulf of Mexico once again.

The sand there was firm and he was soon drawing lines in it with his staff.

He started with what he knew from the statue that had been stolen out from under them. Its sculptors had been among the earliest Mayan artisans of the area and McCarter had connected them with the tribe that had emigrated here from Brazil. The glyphs on the statue had been confusing to him when he’d viewed them. The vast majority were numbers, a long series of them that made no sense to him at the time.