He stares at the photograph of the nine-foot circular icon, located at the center point of the Nazca plateau. Within its circular boundaries Mick had found the original Piri Re’is map, sealed within an iridium container. He counts twenty-three lines extending outward from the Nazca figure like a sunburst, the last one, seemingly endless.

Twenty-three dark spots surround the monstrous hole in the seafloor.

“Mick, what is it? Are you okay?” Dominique sets the minisub on autopilot to glance at the monitor. “What are they?”

“I don’t know, but an identical pattern was drawn on the Nazca plateau thousands of years ago.”

Dominique glances at the entry. “It’s not really identical. You’re comparing lines carved in the desert with a bunch of dark holes in the seafloor—”

“Twenty-three holes. Twenty-three lines. You think that’s just a coincidence?”

She pats his cheek. “Take it easy, gifted one. I’ll head for the nearest hole, and we’ll take a closer look.”

The Barnacle slows to hover above a dark burrow, twenty feet across, the orifice spewing a steady profusion of bubbles. Dominique directs one of the sub’s external lights down into its steep gullet. The beacon reveals a vast tunnel, descending through the seafloor at a forty-five-degree angle.

“What do you think?”

Mick stares at the burrow, the familiar feeling of dread growing in his gut. “I don’t know.”

“I say we investigate.”

“You want to enter that hellhole?”

“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? I thought you wanted to resolve the Mayan doomsday prophecy?”

“Not like this. It’s more important that we get to Chichén Itza.”

“Why?” He’s frightened.

“Salvation lies in the Kukulcan pyramid. The only thing waiting down this hole is death.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t toss seven years of college in the toilet and risk being thrown in prison just so you could chase some bullshit Mayan prophecy. We’re here because my family and I need a sense of closure, we need to find out what really happened to Iz and his friends. I’m not blaming you for my father’s death, but since you’re the one who started us on this little adventure, you’re the one who’s going to see it through.”

Dominique pushes down on the wheel, driving the capsule-shaped minisub straight into the heart of the tunnel.

Mick grabs for a ladder rung, holding on as the Barnacle accelerates through the pitch-dark shaft.

A squishing sound echoes within the sub.

Dominique stares out her viewport. “The sound’s coming from the walls of this passage. The internal lining seems to be acting like some kind of giant sponge. Mick, to your left, there’s a sensor marked spectrophotometer—”

“I see it.” He activates the system. “If I’m reading this thing right, the gas being filtered out of this hole is pure oxygen.”