A tropical dry forest consisted of thick scrubby trees and bushes, dense plant life, tenacious vines, and sticky leaves. The weather was hot and dry, not moist and wet like a rain forest, with its drenching daily showers.

But even the inhospitable terrain of the forest wouldn’t be their primary obstacle, the way the desert had been in the Superstitions.

Here, man was their greatest danger.

A little tremor went through her as she remembered the feel of the gun barrel pressed against the side of her head. As Gage had said, she could have died that day.

Abby shook the memory away. She was committed. At this stage, nothing could sway her.

Abby went back to work. Gage would also be working, doing everything in his power to acquire the permits necessary for a journey into the tropical forests of the Yucatán.

The work was exhausting, and it was thrilling. Abby couldn’t wait to get on the plane.

* * *

Gage did what he always did when he was heading up a new expedition. He immersed himself in the work that needed to be done, focusing entirely on collecting the necessary information, organizing, and pulling everything together.

It could take up to several months to prepare for a search as extensive as this. With Abby’s help, he figured they could cut it to the bone and be ready in a couple of weeks.

As she had done before, Abby worked on the various maps of the area around the ruins and the abandoned plantation itself—ironically named Hacienda del Oro Verde, House of the Green Gold, a reference to the value of the sisal plants grown there, also known as henequen.

In its heyday, henequen was an extremely valuable fiber used for making twine and rope. Or perhaps the hacienda’s name had a double meaning that hinted at the gold buried underneath.

Gage was involved in planning every aspect of the journey, which included researching the historical aspects of the area, once part of the vast Mayan civilization.

He knew a little about the Yucatán Peninsula, knew it was composed of miles of dense, nearly impenetrable tropical dry forest. There were also miles of shoreline, and the capital, Mérida, the place they would arrive after a stop in Mexico City, was one of the country’s largest cities.

Gage had worked in Mexico before. He knew some of the power players in the Mexican government. A man named Juan Guerra Ortega was an undersecretary at the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, the department that oversaw the protection of the prehistoric, archeological, and anthropological heritage of Mexico.

Ortega, along with several of his colleagues, was interested in what Gage might find during his search of a remote area of the Yucatán—Gage’s description of the expedition.