The Kukulkan Manuscript (3 page)

“I won’t read this to you, Mr. Porter,” she said, being kind. “But I will paraphrase it.”

She turned the book around and flopped it down on her desk with the pages facing him. As she tapped twice the page titled, “The Duration of Your Stay,” she said, “As students working on their Ph.D’s often need more time than other students, they are encouraged to relax and do their best at Stratford. This is a school of pride, Mr. Porter. I assume that is why you came here to finish your studies on the Near East. However, Stratford wants her students to graduate. Do you see how many years are allotted for doctoral candidates.”

He looked through the mess of letters and found the answer at the bottom of the page. Mrs. Welch watched his heart sink into his stomach as he answered in a soft voice, “Seven years.”

She sat again in her high-backed chair, confident that his silent cockiness had been squelched for good. “Seven years, Mr. Porter.” She waited a minute to let the poison seep deeper into his body, closer to his heart. “May I assume that you understand your problem now?”

He read the page in the book as he nodded and thought to himself, sins of omission have always been my worst problem.

“Mr. Porter?” she called his name as if they hadn’t been talking for the past ten minutes.

Porter continued bobbing his head and looked up. The fire in his eyes had turned to a struggling smoke, and the corners of his lips remained flat. His eyebrows relaxed with innocence and vulnerability. She had the knife and was about to stab him dead. Of course, he already knew how the wound would feel.

She went on. “You do not seem to have had any difficulties in your classes, but to our knowledge, your dissertation has yet to be completed. The last day for all papers and presentations is…May 21.”

He continued to nod, and his eyes lowered to the desk.

“You have the remainder of this semester to finish it,” she said, dropping the fluff, “then your seven year stay will be up, and the conditions of your final agreement paper, which you signed, will go into effect. Do you have any questions?”

“Yes,” his gray eyes fluttered. “Do I have the opportunity to apply for an extension?”

“That’s taxes and loans, Mr. Porter. I believe the contract is clear.” No emotion escaped her eyes, but she obviously enjoyed this. It was her ball-game now.

Slowly, he continued to nod, looking at her desk. “I have two months?”

She leaned forward. “Mr. Porter, if you do not complete your dissertation and present it by the twenty-first of May, you will not earn your Ph.D.”

March 21
5:51 p.m. EST

Slamming the book down, Ulman shouted, “This is
my
find!!!” his throat trembling.

Something was burning. A sharp scent of black smoke thickened the air. Maybe the chimney had been obstructed.

Peterson smiled, pulling the long muscles in his face into view, his eyes thinning. “Of course it’s
your
discovery,” Peterson said in a voice as calm as sand dunes but as dry as papyrus. “
You
found it, and no one’s going to take it away from you.”

Ulman didn’t look convinced. His eyes continued to bulge from his red face, and his lips puffed moisture. “You can’t come here and act as if you’re running things!” He waved his hands around.

Peterson remained unconcerned and unbothered by the professor’s hysteria. Native Indians pushed past him, speaking Spanish faster than he ever could. The work would progress no matter what Ulman was thinking. Over a table covered with quick notes and ruddy maps drawn with bleeding pens, Professor Albright stood with two other assistant locals dressed in brightly patterned outfits, who did their best to ignore the high-strung English conversation. Numerous tables filled the room, each piled with materials relevant to the study. Rain bombarded the outer walls of the small building, and Ulman seemed strangely determined to be louder than the thunder.

“This is my site, and I didn’t invite you!”

“You wrote Dr. Albright. He called me.” Peterson walked around the table, stretched forth his bassoon-length arms, and put an aging hand on Ulman’s shoulder. “My friend,” he said in the British accent he never lost despite his time in the states. “You have no need to worry. We are only here to assist you in this magnificent work. It isn’t every day that science has such a wonderful opportunity to look through the doors of hidden history!”

Ulman’s red cheeks filled with air which then seeped from his pierced lips. He stormed over to Albright, while Peterson watched him closely.

Alexander Peterson didn’t mind Ulman’s excitement, nor did he criticize the man for his quick defense. It was very understandable that Ulman would rather work alone on the project, but there was no way he could uncover the city on his own. Actually, Ulman had not really invited Albright in his memo, but merely said,
“Oh, Dennis! You really must see what I have found! It changes everything we thought we knew about Mesoamerican archaeology!”
Ulman’s caffeine-fired enthusiasm had become his undoing.

Nor did Peterson and Albright actually intend to steal the discovery of the century from their colleague. Dennis Albright taught as a professor of Mesoamerican studies at Ohio State University, and had been looking for a reason to get away. What better excuse was there than word of a new dig in Central America.

Peterson technically was already on sabbatical. Carving out his new book,
Dispelling the Myths of the History of the Ancient Yucatan
, had grown tedious and dry after a few months. In his slow voice, Albright had read him Dr. Ulman’s memo, and Peterson’s head filled with new ideas for his literary creation.

Together, they offered their assistance to Dr. Ulman—in person. Having procured funds from Ohio University, the two professors rented a run-down building up the hill on the far outskirts of Kalpa, Guatemala, hired some local help, and magnified Ulman’s study ten times. The find was located a stone’s throw away from the small Indian village from which they obtained the help.

It shouldn’t have been raining, for the rainy season had ended. Peterson listened as the water smashed against the roof. He had learned that Highland Guatemala, especially at Kalpa’s elevation of 7,000 feet, was cool year-round, but dry and otherwise bearable during the winter season. The surrounding Cuchumatanes rose above the ground, tall and beautiful. The mountains would be so much better looking without the cumulonimbi, Peterson thought, those giant clouds creating darkness in the day and growling like ancient gods through the night. Peterson couldn’t figure out why it was pouring so much. Rains usually came and went between May and November. He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were messing with something protected by a higher influence. And he wasn’t thinking about the mountains.

Years of experience in the Bible Belt had taught Peterson to decide one way or another concerning religion. While he never bashed on the faiths surrounding him at the time, he had made the scientific decision that God didn’t exist. But ever since he’d set his resolve, the subconscious fear that something
might
exist beyond his temporal vision had fueled his fear of the dark, his dread of solitude, his anxiety when contemplating the unknown and the illogical.

He knew that the finds here would turn some religious heads.

Maybe there was no divine connection to the showers. Peterson shook his head and laughed at himself for thinking like a superstitious native. The smile didn’t stay.

“I’ll call in the law!” he heard Ulman say.

Peterson allowed himself a short laugh. “Dr. Ulman, we are not a threat to your work here.”

Ulman spun around and licked his lips. “No?! You’ve been here four days and you’ve already sold an article on the place.”

“No—”

“I saw you typing it in the room there!” Ulman shrieked accusingly. “I saw you mail the stupid envelope!”

“I am writing a book!” Peterson said. “I’ve been working on it for months now.”

“You carried your great scholarly opus to an archaeological dig?”

“There’s no digging going on here,” said Dr. Albright.

Ulman swung around and pointed a stubby finger. “Ah! Didn’t I say you were in this together? You want everything I’ve found! And I trusted you!”

“Calm down, Dr. Ulman,” Peterson said as the rain beat harder on the roof. “Do you honestly think I’ve written about this site already?”

Ulman’s voice dropped in pitch, then slowly rose, as he turned on Peterson. His hands shook violently, and his eyes filled with tears. “Tell me you didn’t. Tell me you wrote your mother. Go ahead! Tell me she lives in an office suite in New York or works for the
Archaeological Journal
!”

“You’ve been poking around my materials,” Peterson said, his eyebrows bending down.

But Ulman’s voice rose to a hysterical scream, and he started stalking toward the skinny professor while Peterson backed just as quickly away. “
Your
materials?!? The mail only comes up from Guatemala City once every two weeks! You asked me about that specifically two days ago! Tell me why! I’ve kept my eyes on you two thieves! Go ahead! Tell me, Dr. Peterson, that you haven’t already informed the world about my discovery!!!”

Peterson ran into the wall behind him, imitating a freshly hammered doornail. Ulman pushed his face so close that his stale cheese breath was distinct from the rotten smell of the wooden building. But instead of attacking as Peterson expected, Dr. Ulman slid by him, passing through the portal to Peterson’s right and out into the rain.

Sighing, Peterson looked around him. The entire room had grown still. Every eye waited on him until he grinned and looked at the ground. “Dr. Ulman doesn’t seem to understand the eclectic nature of our business.”

Albright sagged as well. They both knew Peterson’s words were lies. But that wouldn’t change the future.

*  *  *

Ulman felt the rage fighting inside him like a million baby spiders struggling to push out of their giant egg sack. The rain was cold, and his hot skin turned the liquid to steam. He was going back to his hut near the site, and he’d walk the whole way even though it was dark. He’d been traveling by foot among the black mountains long before these fly-infested robbers had come to take his glory. He insisted that he didn’t need their help.

He knew the truth. They both wanted to share in his find. Or to twist it into something that it wasn’t, to protect old reputations.

Ulman wanted the honor of addressing his worldwide colleagues with the information from
his
site personally. He ached to see their faces. He longed to watch their jaws go limp, their fingers tremble, their eyes wander. They would be lost! Years of work would be overturned! He wanted to witness their shock and dismay himself. He would be the new king and Hitler of scholarship, both admired and hated. His finds would put his picture in every archaeological magazine, his name on each professional journal, and his voice in numerous television documentaries throughout the planet. At last, the relatively neglected history of Mesoamerica would become important enough for universities and private parties to fund, just as people had once paid for more and more and more research in Egyptian studies!

He scowled as he rammed his way through the door of his leaking shack.

The chill of the refrigerator room surrounded him, but at least the rain was off his head. A dusty scent of soaked cardboard momentarily choked him, but he wouldn’t go back to the main operations building. Not for a while at least. He shook dramatically in the dark, then searched for his lantern.

Peterson and Albright were two fine scholars. Dr. Peterson had studied primarily in Europe, but moved to America to teach. The old man with mint breath saw his knowledge as exceptional when around the other aging professors of the United States. The way Peterson walked and talked reverberated this feeling, but his colleagues put up with him, for his publications gave the university in which he taught the prestige all schools coveted. Nevertheless, he’d danced his way from one academic institution to another, beginning in Louisiana and then curving northward. Peterson knew that no one had a shot at a faculty position before he did, so he skipped from one complex to the next without worrying that one day the simple Americans around him might discover his disloyalty and pride and no longer welcome him in any institution of higher learning. Peterson’s only other positive attribute was his reputation as a good family man. He’d been married for almost thirty years and had four children to speak of, all of whom had attended Harvard.

Albright was a much nicer fellow from Los Angeles, and Ulman really couldn’t see how he fit into this dastardly duo. Having grown up as an overweight bookworm, Albright had personified scholarship before entering college. Reading and memorizing what he read gave him a reputation that put him in the news—something Ulman never experienced.

It wasn’t that Ulman wanted to be on television, but didn’t all scholars dream of the limelight from time to time? Every worthwhile professor had found himself at his desk, circling the name of some notable historian. Ulman had written hundreds of papers, citing other historians who were always closer to the facts under his mental microscope. Just once, Ulman thought it would be nice to know that
he
was the one being cited!

This Mesoamerican find would be Ulman’s key to the highest heaven. He had been so sure of it! And he still was.

His shoes squeaked with wet leather as he moved to his wooden chest. He set the lamp down and grappled with the lock.

Peterson and Albright may want their fingers in the pie, Ulman thought to himself, but they don’t know about
this
dessert!

He opened the box and looked inside.

Within an hour, Ulman was writing his own article. It was all done by hand, and he had no publisher lined up, but that was irrelevant. He may have lost the site, but he still had enough to make him famous…first!

*  *  *

Dr. Albright looked at the papers strewn across the table before him.