“Nobody like Ron. People like him run their own fieldwork. But this, she was promising, was something special. She’s hiring experienced guides, Guatemalan workers who have been trained on archaeological digs in the past, cooks, drivers, and so on. You can be sure there won’t be anybody who could put up resistance to whatever she wants to do or question her methods or how she treats structures and artifacts. It’s her show.”

“I guess this is the downside of finding the codex,” said Sam. “Even if she hadn’t stolen it, before long everything would have become public.”

“It didn’t have to be this way,” said Caine. “What we’ve done is hand the worst person in the field of Mayan history a virtual monopoly of the biggest finds over the next twenty-five years. Because of her personal fortune, she can be in the field while legitimate scholars are still writing grant proposals. We’ve also given her enough of a head start to loot at least four great Mayan cities and innumerable other sites. We’ll probably never know how much she quietly sells off in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. and never becomes part of the historial record.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Remi said. “We’ve got to stop her.”

Sam put his arm around her shoulders. “Wait a minute,” he said. He spoke to Caine as well as to Remi. “When we were in Guatemala, we barely got out with our lives. I’ve seldom been so glad to get out of anywhere. When we ducked into that cenote, I thought we were going to die. If that unlikely way out hadn’t been there, we would be dead.”

“I know that,” she said. “I’d try to forget, but I know I can’t. But bringing home that pot with the codex inside brought with it some responsibility. You heard David. Between our finding that codex and the university administration handing it over to impostors, we’ve given a whole field of study over to one nasty, spoiled, lying, thieving woman.”

David Caine said, “This is really my responsibility. I’ve been planning my expedition for summer, but I’m afraid summer is going to be too late to head her off entirely. I think once I’m on the scene with a group of reputable colleagues, I can prevent the worst excesses. She’s trying to buy a name for herself as an archaeologist. If eight or ten well-known archaeologists are present, she can hardly dismantle features or loot the tombs.”