The Time of The Cat 37

CHICHEN ITZA

We were overjoyed to see Jefferson at our feet. We had no idea where he’d been or what he’d been doing, but the fact that he’d somehow managed to get out of the cave and find us seemed like a miracle. After a brief, but intense greeting, I picked him up, while Liz went into the restroom

and set out the “Closed for Cleaning” signs. She shooed out the two women who were lagging behind their group and eventually waved at me to come in.

We entered the janitor’s closet to find that it was considerably larger than I would have thought. There was a desk in there with some papers on it, in addition to the expected cleaning supplies. The transporter door was at the rear of the room and we hustled towards it.

As I walked by the desk I happened to look down and saw Pug squiggles mixed with human writing on some of the papers. That was curious enough that I stopped to look more carefully. It was a good thing that I did.

“Here, take the cat, please,” I told Liz as I picked the papers up.

She took him and walked on back to the transporter door, “Hurry up! We don’t have all day,” she commented over her shoulder.

Why these papers were left there in plain view, I didn’t know, but they contained some additional information that seemed to go with what we’d previously discovered about the EMP plan. These papers had enough incriminating information to hang a number of well-known political appointees.

I scanned over them and it became apparent that the Pugs had bought several highly placed politicians who were now aiding and abetting the enemy. I sorted out the papers that seemed to be related and shoved them in my pocket with the map.

“Hey! What are you doing in here?” The speaker was a man dressed as a Park Ranger. He looked scruffy. He was either trying to grow a beard or hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and the look didn’t make him any more attractive. Liz was summoning the transporter and I was distracted by the papers on the desk when he burst in. I turned towards him to see that he had a nine-millimeter service pistol pointed directly at my middle. I raised my hands slowly.

“Look. We’re with the FBI,” I thought I’d try to bluff my way through this.

“I don’t care,” he snapped. “You’ve found stuff you shouldn’t know about and the Masters are going to have to decide what to do with you.”

Another one! I really was developing a lot of antipathy for collaborators.

As I was mentally preparing to take action, Liz dropped Jefferson, who yowled. The Ranger looked at the cat in surprise and failed to react as Liz drew and shot in one smooth motion. The splinter struck his gun hand and acted instantly, causing him to drop the gun as he started the spasming phase that preceded the toxin-caused death.

I dropped my hands and said, “Let’s get out of here, there might be more coming!”

We jumped into the open transporter. Jefferson, evidently deciding that he didn’t want to be left behind again, dashed between our feet to the rear of the transporter box. Liz hit one of the buttons and we went elsewhere.

As usual for our luck, when there were two choices, indistinctly labeled on the map, and we had to make a quick choice, we ended up somewhere that we didn’t intend.

“Oh, crap! Not another cave!” was the first thing that Liz said.

“No, it’s some kind of man-made structure. See the joints in the walls,” I pointed.

“Yeah, there’s some light coming in over there, too,” she responded.

“But, where are we?” I pulled out the map, dropping the recently purloined papers on the floor in the process. Liz helped me pick them up and I stuffed them inside my shirt to keep them out of the way. We both looked at the map with the help of my laser in flashlight mode.

“We had a choice at Carlsbad to go to Estes Park – Damn! We blew it again! Let me see, or to – ” I paused.

“To the Yucatan! We’re in Mexico!” she interrupted. Then she added, helpfully, “I pressed the left button at the Visitor’s Center. Let’s mark that on the map, so we’ll remember that the right button goes to Estes.”

That was a great idea and she started to mark the map accordingly, but before she got that done, I turned and took her in my arms and kissed her.

“What was that for? Not that I’m complaining,” she murmured while snuggling closer.

“I thought I’d better take the opportunity while we’re in a more peaceful location and also it’s because you’re a clever girl! I hadn’t thought of marking the map,” I told her.

We held onto one another for a few seconds longer, and then she sighed and said, “It looks like we’re in some kind of ruins.”

I picked up the map from where it had dropped on the floor.

“Looks like we’re about ninety miles from Merida,” I said after I’d had a minute to study it. I concluded, “I’ll bet that we must be in the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.”