Sam shrugged. “If I were to guess, I’d say that you probably served them tea yesterday. I don’t mean Sarah Allersby came back with a crowbar. I mean that she just may have read us wrong—thought that if someone showed us that it’s dangerous to have a valuable artifact around, then we’d jump at her offer.”

“One more thing,” said Selma. “Dave Caine left a message on the house phone last night. He wants to meet with you this morning about your next little trip.”

Two hours later, they were in the climate-controlled room with David Caine. They stood around the worktable, comparing the map in the codex with a topographic map on a computer screen. Caine placed a small arrow pointing to a spot in the jungle. “This site meets our criteria. It’s not included in any inventory of known Mayan sites. It isn’t large enough to be a major city. It has the advantage of being in an area of the Guatemalan highlands that’s sparsely populated and remote.”

“What do you think it is?” asked Remi.

“The glyphs say it’s a sacred pool. I believe it’s a cenote—a hole in the underlying limestone bedrock caused by the action of water.”

“Like a sinkhole?”

“Exactly. Water was an extremely precious commodity to the Mayans, and it became more so in the late classic period. You would think water would be plentiful on the floor of a jungle, but it isn’t. And after the Mayans had cut and burned miles of trees to clear fields for agriculture, the climate got hotter and drier. During the late period, many cities depended heavily on cenotes as a water source. We’ve even found man-made cisterns they dug and plastered at El Mirador that were imitation cenotes, with artificial streams leading to them for catching water.”

Sam said, “You want us to look for a pool of water?”

“Cenotes were more than that. They were doorways to the underworld. Chac, the god of rain and weather, lived down there, among other places. You have to understand that these were people who believed that what they did kept the universe operating correctly. If you wanted rain, you would throw sacrifices into a cenote where the gods would get them.”

“And this is the best site?”

“There are new cities on this map. Either they’re imaginary or lost, we don’t know which. But you can’t go down there with a huge crew and try to excavate or even map a city without months of preparation. And if you did, it would compromise the site and expose it to looters. A cenote can be hidden or overgrown, but it’s something you can verify without attracting too much attention. There. I’ve just given you all the reasons why it’s a good choice.”

Remi said, “I sense there are reasons why it’s not.”