The Mayan Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

yesterday,” he explained. “Today we do. Are you up for it?” As he finished, Vogel reached inside his jacket, grabbed an envelope filledwith cash and tossed it to Remo, who snatched it out of the air.
    Opening it and guessing at the proceeds, Remo looked disappointed. “For kidnapping someone? For killing them? You need more than this.”
    “She’s going to book another charter,” Vogel said, ignoring Remo’s complaints. “We know who it’s with. She’ll need to inspect the boat just like last time. You can do it then. Easy work. That should cover the cost.”
    Remo leaned back against the wall. “No,” he said. “I don’t think it will.”
    He rapped his knuckles against the window and two men, both larger than Remo or Vogel, appeared in the doorway. One rested a shotgun on his shoulder; the other held a machete in one hand and displayed a pistol tucked in his belt.
    Vogel’s eyes went back to Remo, who had produced a black 9mm from his own belt, racking the slide once to load it. He held it toward the ground but the intention was obvious.
    With a smug grin Remo put his foot on the overturned bucket and leaned forward. “I think it’s time to renegotiate, no?”
    Vogel’s stare went from one man to the next and then finally back to Remo. He broke into his own smile, which seemed to crack his wooden face. “No.”
    At that instant the bucket was blasted out from beneath Remo’s foot by a rifle shot. He fell forward, regained his balance and looked up in a panic. Bright red dots were dancing around him, zeroing in on his chest and the torsos of the other two men. The man with the shotgun ducked back into the building but the otherfroze. Remo did likewise, straining to look past Vogel for the source of those laser sights, afraid to move.
    “
Isso bom
,” he said, holding up his hands. “It’s cool. It’s cool.”
    Locals
, Vogel thought.
Sometimes they needed to be reminded who they were
. “Good,” he said finally. “Good to know we are all in agreement.”

CHAPTER 4
     
    FOR PROFESSOR MICHAEL McCARTER the day had begun fifteen hours earlier in the darkness of a cold New York winter morning. From there he’d crossed two continents and an ocean, traveling in everything from a blue Super-Shuttle with a dysfunctional heater to a first-class seat on a shiny new Boeing. He’d changed planes three times, consumed several helpings of what the airlines euphemistically called food and traveled nearly nine thousand miles in all. Now, only minutes from his destination, he’d finally begun to wonder if it was all a terrible mistake.
    McCarter sat in the rear section of Hawker’s helicopter on a narrow strip of tan canvas that passed for a seat. Above his head, the engine whined in a furious pitch while the rotors bludgeoned the air with a sound that shook his body like the thumping from a pair of massive bass speakers. Tropical air poured in through the gaping cargo door across from him, while beyond it dark green shapes, which he assumed to be trees, flicked by in sudden, violent blurs. Inside the cabin, everything rattled and jostled and vibrated on its own particularfrequency, no doubt contributing to the ominous hairline cracks he saw near many of the joints and rivets.
    “What the hell am I doing here?” he said aloud.
    For fifteen years, Michael McCarter had been the senior professor of archaeology at a prestigious university in New York City. An African American in his late fifties, McCarter stood tall and distinguished, with a touch of gray at his temples and wire-rimmed glasses on his face. Early in his career he’d published extensively; more recently he’d become a media favorite, appearing on several PBS specials and as a star speaker at various conferences and symposiums, something his deep, resonant voice lent itself to perfectly.
    The NRI had been after him for the better part of six months. He’d politely turned them down twice and had ignored all the letters and e-mails that