Sam nodded and kept panning his headlamp along the cross braces to a point where they merged with an elongated heap of partially rotten wood, this one a few feet longer than the “telephone pole,” and four to five times its diameter.“Sam, that’s a canoe.”

He nodded. “A big one. At least thirty feet long.” Together, they sidestepped around the craft to the other side, where they found a corresponding cross brace/outrigger setup. The body of the canoe was five feet wide, and four feet tall from keel to gunwale, with a tapered bow and jutting bowsprit and a squared-off stern. At midships, rising eight feet from the hull, was what looked like a shattered mast; the upper part, about ten feet long, lay on the ground, its end propped up on the gunwale. Ahead of the mast the hull was topped by a shallow, double-pitch roof.“Sam, step back,” Remi whispered.

He followed her back a few paces. She pointed at the ground beneath the vessel. What they’d taken for simply a high point in the floor was in fact a two-foot-high platform constructed of carefully placed stones.“This is an altar,” he said.

AFTER A QUICK CHECK on their anti-croc flare, which had burned down to the halfway mark, they got busy examining the outrigger, Remi taking in situ pictures for scale and design before moving in for close-ups. Using the tip of his Swiss Army knife, Sam took trace samples of the wood and the bindings.“Everything’s coated in some kind of resin,” he told Remi, sniffing the material. “It’s thick. At least an inch.”

“That would explain its remarkable condition,” she replied.

Sam stepped over the starboard side outrigger, walked to the gunwale, and peered inside the craft. Lying around the base of the mast was a mound of what he could only describe as decomposed canvas. Mottled brown and gray, the material had partially congealed into a gelatinous mass.“Remi, you need to see this.”

She joined him at the gunwale. “Big sail,” she said and began taking pictures.

Sam unsheathed his machete and, with Remi hanging on to his belt lest he fall in, leaned forward and gingerly slid the blade into the pile. “It’s like onion skin,” he muttered. He lifted free a tattered section of the material. Remi was ready with an empty Ziploc bag. As he slid the sample inside, it broke into three sections. Remi sealed the bag and walked back to her pack to deposit it with the other samples.

Sam stepped around to the stern. Jutting from the transom was a bulbous wooden object, like a gnarled football leaning forward on a kickoff tee. Like almost everything else about the outrigger, it took Sam several seconds and several tilts of his head before he realized what he was seeing. Remi came up behind him.“Our mystery bird,” she said.

Sam nodded. “From the Orizaga Codex and Blaylock’s journal.”

“What did he call it? The ‘great green jeweled bird,’” Remi mused. “Though I don’t think this is what he was talking about.”

She took a dozen pictures of the carving with her digital camera.

“Let’s check the bowsprit,” said Sam. “When it comes to boats, these kinds of things often come in pairs.”

They walked to the bow. As Sam had guessed, the bowsprit also bore a carving, this one in better condition than its counterpart. In fact, the bowsprit itself was the sculpture: a serpent, its mouth agape, feathered plumes streaming backward from its head.“Sam, do you know what this resembles?” Remi asked.

“No. Should I?”

“Probably not, I suppose. It’s less elaborate and stylized, but it’s the near spitting image of Quetzalcoatl, the Great Plumed Serpent God of the Aztecs.”

“CRAZY LIKE A FOX,” Sam muttered after a few seconds. “Pardon?”

“Blaylock. Crazy like a fox. Clearly, he hid the Moreau map and the codex together in his walking staff for good reason. He was obsessed with something all right, but it was about more than the Shenandoah or the El Majidi.”

“Maybe it started out with them,” Remi agreed, “but somewhere along the line he must have found something, or learned something, that changed his focus. The question is, how did whoever brought this canoe here get it in the cave?”“Unless there’s another entrance beyond croco-ville down there, they must have dismantled it, brought it in through the waterfall, then reassembled it.”

“That’s a lot of work. We’re two miles from the beach, and it weighs a couple thousand pounds.”

“Sailors tend to get attached to their vessel, especially if it’s seen them through rough seas and a long voyage. We might know more once we get these samples tested, but if we’re buying into Blaylock’s odyssey this could be an Aztec boat. Which would make it what? At least six hundred years old?”

“We’re talking about rewriting history, Sam. There are no accounts of the Aztecs traveling beyond Mexico’s coastal regions, let alone across the Pacific and around the Cape of Good Hope.”“We’re thinking at cross-purposes, my dear.”

“How so?”

“You’re thinking west to east and the sixteenth century. I’m thinking east to west and much earlier than that.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Remi, you said it yourself: Historians aren’t entirely sure where the Aztecs originated. What if we’re standing in front of a Proto-Aztec migration ship?”

MADAGASCAR, INDIAN OCEAN

REMI WAS ABOUT TO OPEN HER MOUTH TO REPLY WHEN THE crack of a gunshot echoed through the cave. To their left they heard something plunk into a stalagmite. They doused their headlamps and dropped to the ground. Perfectly still, barely breathing, they waited for more shots. None came. At the mouth of the right-hand tunnel the flare was sputtering, almost consumed. Red light flickered over the wall.“Do you see anything?” Remi whispered.

“I think it came from outside. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Sam got to his feet. Hunched over, he dashed to a mineral column, stopped to look and listen, then moved on, zigzagging from cover to cover until he was pressed flat against the wall beside the entrance. He drew the Webley and ducked into the entrance.Crack!

A bullet struck the floor beside him and ricocheted off into the cavern. Hurrying now, he ran out into the grotto, then sidestepped left until he reached the spot where they’d entered. He fell to his belly and crawled between a pair of boulders until his head slipped beneath the cascade. Eyes squinted against the torrent, he peered ahead until the lagoon came into view.

Six men, all armed with assault rifles, stood on the beach. They were dressed in torn jeans, ratty T-shirts, and combat boots. To a man, each wore a white bandanna with red-dyed corners tied around his forearm. Two of them knelt beside Sam and Remi’s packs, sorting the contents into piles. Sam scanned the lagoon area and surrounding trees but saw no sign of the Kid.

One of the men-the leader, Sam assumed, based on his mannerisms and the semiautomatic pistol he wore on his belt-barked something to the others, then pointed toward the waterfall. The five subordinates began picking their way around the lagoon.Sam back-crawled, holstered the Webley, and hurried back into the cavern. He found Remi where he’d left her. He said, “Six men, all armed-the rebels the Kid mentioned.”

“Did you see him?”

“No, I think he got away.”

“Good.”

“They’re coming in to investigate. We’ve got a minute, maybe two.” “How many?”

“Five.”

“Bad odds for a gunfight. I’d suggest we go down the other tunnel and look for an exit, but I’m not in the mood to be devoured.”

Sam grinned. “I’m sure our visitors will share your sentiment. You look for a better hiding spot, and I’ll go stir up some trouble. Be back in a flash.”

Sam dashed across the cavern, hopped the creek, then started down the right-hand tunnel. After snatching the flare from the sand he dashed down the ramp to the water’s edge, stopped, and clicked on his headlamp. Twenty feet away he saw a jumble of scaly tails, clawed feet, and fanged snouts. He counted at least three crocodiles. They hissed and thrashed as the light panned over them.“Sorry about the intrusion,” Sam murmured.