The Kukulkan Manuscript Read Online Free PDF Page A

anyone else joined the excavation, they would be seen as latecomers. Albright could be back in the states sewing a book on the Kalpa site before the summer began.
    Albright recognized that his conscience repeatedly dodged the guilt and compassion he felt for his old friend. Ulman had actually found the site, after all. But Albright didn’t care. If it was one thing that historians agreed on, it was survival of the fittest!
    *  *  *
    March 22
8:07 a.m. EST
    Panting like a lost mutt beaten to the point of exhaustion, Ulman finally made it into Kalpa. He carried the packages under his arm. All night long he’d written the pages he carried. Now it would be a game of strategy and a test of trust.
    Ulman’s wife would receive one package, with instructions. A more trustworthy friend at Stratford would receive the other. He only hoped they did as he asked in the letters.
    Ulman’s heavy body slid down a soaked, muddy slope. He turned his head back to see if anyone followed him. Trees and high brush waved at him in the wind. There was no way to spot a tail if there was one. There was no time to cover tracks anyway. He continued into the shabby village, accidentally ramming into a native so hard he knocked him over.
    “Sorry! Excuse me!” he muttered, without translating, and kept moving. His legs felt weighed down with the previous night’s rain, heavy and dragging in the moss-scented mud. He’d already dropped the packages three times. He had to get one of those peculiar-looking cars headed for the Valley of Guatemala immediately. His parcels needed to be in the mail right away, and he wanted to see to them himself. His own writings would be behind Peterson’s by only a few days. They would reach America, and hopefully his wife would contact the names of the editors in the letter. With a little luck, his article would come out at the same time as Peterson’s, winning for him the credit for the find.
    He needed to make a few more bundles and send them off with the next mail.
    But Peterson couldn’t find out. Men willing to come thousands of miles, paying good money to do so, all to steal another man’s work, might be capable of worse.
    Looking behind him again, expecting to see Peterson’s dry face with tightened muscles smiling at him from a nearby building, Ulman stumbled a little faster.
    The sun was barely rising when Ulman left the dig. Soon, they would find out that he was missing. He figured they would search the camp, then walk around the site for a while trying to locate him.
    Peterson and Albright would put their heads together and decide upon one of two things: either Ulman had gone crazy, run off through the woods, become lost in the cold and died, which was unlikely, or he’d run down to Kalpa. They would ultimately track him through the fresh mud to the village and find out he’d gained passage to the valley. And why would he go to the valley unless he planned on going home—thus abandoning his find, which was an absurd idea—or perhaps he’d taken in his own writings to be mailed, with memories of the screaming discussion the three scholars had had the night before.
    In which case, Ulman might not be welcome back at the site. Peterson and Albright would wonder what he would have sent—what he could have shipped out of the country—that would override Peterson’s work in importance. This might lead them to suppose the possibility that Ulman had sent more than paperwork. Mailing archaeological finds across boarders was illegal, not to mention unethical, when it competed with the work of other archaeologists.
    Of course, this was exactly what Ulman was doing.
    Nevertheless, Ulman had to return to the site. He had to go back, even if the choice could kill him.

C HAPTER F OUR
    March 24
10:55 a.m. PST
    “This can’t be happening.” Kinnard sighed into a cup of bitter coffee before putting it down. He put his muscular hands together, blew through his fingers, and closed his eyes.
    It seemed that