A clearing full of large sturdy blue tents sat just inside the jungle, buffeted by the elements. Rainwater, diverted by tarps, flowed away as small streams that had already eroded the topsoil. Muffled conversations could be heard as the science team took cover from the storm. A large tent, this one built on top of a wooden platform four feet off the ground, lay at the center of the site. Given its size and the effort taken to protect it from flooding, Queen pegged it for the site’s laboratory and headed for it. If Jon Hudson, the archaeologist behind the excavation, was anything like the scientists they’d collaborated with in the past, he’d be hard at work despite the inclement weather.

The wooden steps creaked under the weight of Queen, Bishop, and Knight as they entered the tent, but the man inside showed no reaction to their approach. He sat with his back to the door, hunched over a worktable. He suddenly reached out his hand, snapped twice, and pointed. “Get me a clean brush, will you?”

Queen saw the brush in question, picked it up, and handed it to the man. He immediately went back to work, brushing dust from a shattered Mayan relief.

“Thank you,” he said. “It’s nice to see not everyone is hiding away because of a little storm.”

“You’re welcome,” Queen said.

The man stopped working at the sound of Queen’s voice. He turned around and with widening eyes looked Queen up and down. Dressed as a tourist in cargo shorts, green poncho, and blue bandanna, much of her finer qualities were disguised. But that didn’t seem to matter as the man beamed at her. When he saw Bishop and Knight all signs of pleasant surprise faded. Whether she was available or not he would never know. The two men with her were too intimidating to even risk asking the question.

“Tourists?” he asked.

“Of a sort,” Queen answered.

“Are you Jon Hudson?” Knight asked, reaching under his poncho.

Fear crept into Hudson’s eyes. “You’re not looters?”

Knight removed his hand from under his poncho. He held a photo of Richard Ridley. “Hardly,” he said. “We’re looking for a friend.”

Hudson took the offered photo and looked at it. He showed no reaction, so little reaction in fact, that it was clear he did recognize Ridley. “A lot of people come and go here. Tourists, interns, too many faces to remember. And I spend most of my days looking at faces carved into stone. Speaking of which, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I really do have a lot of work to do and thanks to the weather, no one brave enough to help out.”

Queen flashed a phony grin. “We’ll let you get back to it, then. If the weather improves, would it be possible to get another look at the site? A tour perhaps?”