What caught Sam’s eye was Sarah Allersby in handcuffs, being escorted by Commander Rueda to one of the two big military helicopters.

Remi stood, waiting for Sam, at the field. She ran to meet him. “Where are they?”

“One of them rolled over to where the other one was and chewed through his leather shoelace. They got away.”

“I’ll bet it was Ruiz,” Remi said. “He has beautiful teeth.”

“The sergeant says they’ll never get anywhere on foot. On the other hand, I keep remembering that lots of people in this part of the world don’t have shoes. What’s going on?”

“Rueda said that Sarah had photocopies of the four pages of the codex that made up the map in her suitcase, with this site marked. She also had aerial photos of the same four sites we picked out, and a few more. It’s not the codex, but it’s proof that she at least had the original codex long enough to photograph it.”

“She’s under arrest?”

Remi nodded. “She’s on her way to be booked in Guatemala City for possession of stolen property and for damaging this site. I think Rueda wants to arrange something public, to discourage the other people who do this kind of thing.”

“If we want a ride to civilization, we’d better go retrieve our backpacks,” said Sam.

“I did that while you were gone,” she whispered. “I also went back to retrieve our pistols in the woods. I broke them down and put the pieces in the packs. I’ve already put them aboard.”

“Good thinking. Thanks.” Sam looked around him as the soldiers climbed into the helicopters. A half dozen of them remained near the pyramid, setting up a camp of their own, to guard the site. “We’d better get seats in the chopper before they run out of room.”

Remi climbed in, and Sam followed. There were seats of crisscross nylon netting along both walls. They selected a pair, strapped themselves in, and a minute later the engine growled to life and then lifted the big chopper into the air.

Jerry Ruiz looked up at the sky. First one, then another, then the last two helicopters soared overhead. He judged that they were moving southward toward Guatemala City.

“It’s safe to head back to the pyramid now,” Russell said. “Two of those were definitely the big troop carriers.”

“Okay. Let’s go,” said Ruiz. “Keep your eyes open to see where Fargo threw our boots.”