place.
“Sure,” he said, shrugging. “What
ever
you say.”
He strode out. Miller watched him go, then turned to Aguilar, who met her eyes, held them for a moment, and then nodded fractionally in approval.
Chapter Twelve
Deborah spent half the day on the phone, which meant standing on top of the cell phone tower instead of being in the tomb. Adelita ran updates from Bowerdale, who was documenting the find. The slight girl could scale the tower in half the time Deborah could, swinging up and down with fearless childish grace on her long, brown limbs.
“Careful, Adelita,” said Deborah periodically. “It’s a long way down.”
“I saw the jewels,” said the girl in Spanish, unable to stifle a secret smile. “Beautiful. Red, but not dark. Like—” She searched for words. “
Sangre y lagrimas
.”
Blood and tears.
The girl flashed her brilliant grin, pleased with the phrase, and scurried down the ladder.
Deborah called Powel, she called Valladolid, and she called various labs in Mexico and the US talking timetable andresources, experts, equipment, and, of course, money. The find changed everything, not least who would be coming down for the dig proper. If she didn’t have the right team on site, the university affiliates would start weaning her off the project, and if there was the faintest hint of incompetence, the Mexican government would shut them down.
So she forced herself to leave the site, and spent the rest of the morning instead in front of a laptop screen at the Valladolid lab, scanning CVs for specialists who might be prepared to drop what they were doing and get down here within the next forty-eight hours. Steve Powel was doing what he could to funnel names to her, but it wasn’t easy, given their decision to keep the contents of the find quiet. She caught herself having phone conversations that began, “I have to ask you to keep what I’m going to say confidential, and if you don’t think you can do that, I’m going to hang up.” It made her feel absurd, like a secret agent in a sixties spy movie.
The weakest link in their team was in Maya osteology—bones—and she didn’t know where to start. Eventually she gave up and sidled over to Aguilar, who was laying dustless paper on three long tables ready for the first of the tomb artifacts. He looked harried. They all did. They hadn’t intended to start analytical work for another ten days, and had expected no more than soil samples, maybe a few seeds or potsherds.
“You need to tell Bowerdale to wait,” said Aguilar. “I need more people. The artifacts are best left on site.”
“The heat might affect them,” said Deborah. “The tomb has been cool for centuries. Now it’s open and heating up fast, and after the flooding, there’s a lot of humidity. I’d rather get everythingcrated up and brought down here to a climate-controlled environment, even if we can’t start the analysis yet.”
“We’re rushing,” he said. “This is how mistakes get made. I should be on site documenting and cataloging there. You let those kids move stuff and things are going to get missed or damaged.”
“The
kids
, if you mean the undergraduates, are on their way to the airport,” she said. “The big storm meant they got an early start to their week off.”
“So we have no labor?”
“Other than the two graduate students and whoever Eustachio hires from the village, no,” said Deborah.
Aguilar swore.
“The upside is that the undergrads never even saw the tomb,” said Deborah. “There are rumors, of course, but they don’t really know anything so they won’t be able to tell anyone what we have till we’re ready to talk.”
“I need to be up there, at the site,” he insisted.
“Give me a half hour and we’ll go up together,” she said.
He frowned and laid down a set of calipers.
“What else needs doing here?” he said.
“I have to hire an osteologist. Today. Can you give me some names?”
“Not really my
“Sure,” he said, shrugging. “What
ever
you say.”
He strode out. Miller watched him go, then turned to Aguilar, who met her eyes, held them for a moment, and then nodded fractionally in approval.
Chapter Twelve
Deborah spent half the day on the phone, which meant standing on top of the cell phone tower instead of being in the tomb. Adelita ran updates from Bowerdale, who was documenting the find. The slight girl could scale the tower in half the time Deborah could, swinging up and down with fearless childish grace on her long, brown limbs.
“Careful, Adelita,” said Deborah periodically. “It’s a long way down.”
“I saw the jewels,” said the girl in Spanish, unable to stifle a secret smile. “Beautiful. Red, but not dark. Like—” She searched for words. “
Sangre y lagrimas
.”
Blood and tears.
The girl flashed her brilliant grin, pleased with the phrase, and scurried down the ladder.
Deborah called Powel, she called Valladolid, and she called various labs in Mexico and the US talking timetable andresources, experts, equipment, and, of course, money. The find changed everything, not least who would be coming down for the dig proper. If she didn’t have the right team on site, the university affiliates would start weaning her off the project, and if there was the faintest hint of incompetence, the Mexican government would shut them down.
So she forced herself to leave the site, and spent the rest of the morning instead in front of a laptop screen at the Valladolid lab, scanning CVs for specialists who might be prepared to drop what they were doing and get down here within the next forty-eight hours. Steve Powel was doing what he could to funnel names to her, but it wasn’t easy, given their decision to keep the contents of the find quiet. She caught herself having phone conversations that began, “I have to ask you to keep what I’m going to say confidential, and if you don’t think you can do that, I’m going to hang up.” It made her feel absurd, like a secret agent in a sixties spy movie.
The weakest link in their team was in Maya osteology—bones—and she didn’t know where to start. Eventually she gave up and sidled over to Aguilar, who was laying dustless paper on three long tables ready for the first of the tomb artifacts. He looked harried. They all did. They hadn’t intended to start analytical work for another ten days, and had expected no more than soil samples, maybe a few seeds or potsherds.
“You need to tell Bowerdale to wait,” said Aguilar. “I need more people. The artifacts are best left on site.”
“The heat might affect them,” said Deborah. “The tomb has been cool for centuries. Now it’s open and heating up fast, and after the flooding, there’s a lot of humidity. I’d rather get everythingcrated up and brought down here to a climate-controlled environment, even if we can’t start the analysis yet.”
“We’re rushing,” he said. “This is how mistakes get made. I should be on site documenting and cataloging there. You let those kids move stuff and things are going to get missed or damaged.”
“The
kids
, if you mean the undergraduates, are on their way to the airport,” she said. “The big storm meant they got an early start to their week off.”
“So we have no labor?”
“Other than the two graduate students and whoever Eustachio hires from the village, no,” said Deborah.
Aguilar swore.
“The upside is that the undergrads never even saw the tomb,” said Deborah. “There are rumors, of course, but they don’t really know anything so they won’t be able to tell anyone what we have till we’re ready to talk.”
“I need to be up there, at the site,” he insisted.
“Give me a half hour and we’ll go up together,” she said.
He frowned and laid down a set of calipers.
“What else needs doing here?” he said.
“I have to hire an osteologist. Today. Can you give me some names?”
“Not really my
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