Sam coughed and looked up. “Remi? Could you toss down some flashlights?”
Sam felt something scuttle across his leg and shivered involuntarily, the snake warnings suddenly not so funny. Above, he heard footsteps and then Remi called out.
“Look out below!”
Three aluminum flashlights landed on the mound of dirt between the men. Remi’s voice echoed off the walls of whatever space they were in. “Well? What’s down there?”
Sam switched on his light and shined it around where he was lying, the air still thick with dust. Seconds went by. “We’re in another tunnel,” he finally said.
Sam waited for her response, and Antonio and Lazlo flicked their beams on as well. The tunnel was eight to ten feet wide and stretched into the gloom.
“Hang on, then. I’m coming down,” Remi said. The end of a rope dropped next to Sam and Remi’s slim form descended, accompanied by more loose dirt from the hole.
Sam flashed his light across Remi’s torso. “Nice of you to drop in. What did you tie the rope to?”
“Our mummy friend’s platform. Maribela’s staying up there in case we need help—doesn’t seem like a good idea for all of us to be down here without a sure way to get back up, does it?”
“Maribela?” Antonio called.
“Yes?”
“Can you get the soldiers to bring one of the ladders down? A tall one?”
Sam shook his head. “No. I don’t want anyone but us to know about this yet.”
Antonio nodded and winced from pain in his neck and then looked up at the opening. “Sam’s right. Can you bring the tall aluminum ladder here? It doesn’t weigh much. And some more lights, if possible. But no soldiers. Just you.”
“All right,” she said. Her footsteps echoed down the upper passageway, leaving them with the sound of their breathing and nothing more. Remi’s light played over the walls of the tunnel, and she pointed to their right.
“Do you see that?”
“Yes. Looks like an antechamber of some kind,” Sam said.
“Look at the carvings. They’re Toltec. The same as the ones in the crypt. But these are more exotically detailed.” Remi moved down the tunnel to the stone walls of the larger area. A massive stone frame around the passageway threshold displayed the distinctive pictographs of the crypt above—but carved with considerably greater detail and obvious care. “Here we have the same funeral procession. Same pyramid, but the moon isn’t obstructed by any cloud. And Quetzalcoatl . . . Look! He’s depicted here differently than in any of the others. Here he’s got long hair and a beard.”
“Promising,” Sam said.
She eyed the passageway. “The builders certainly took their time on this, given the length of the tunnel and the detail of these carvings.”
“I wonder what’s down the other way?” Sam asked, looking over his shoulder to where Lazlo had wandered.
“Only one way to know,” Remi replied, and returned to the cave-in spot. She stopped a dozen yards farther along, where Lazlo stood with his flashlight beam playing over a mass of dirt and rocks where the
tunnel ended.
Lazlo eyed the ruined passage. “Looks like the builders collapsed the tunnel after they were done. They really didn’t want anyone making their way in here, did they?”
Sam studied the debris. “There’s no indentation above. So this was deliberate. They caved it in or filled it and then smoothed out the terrain above so there would be no trace of the entrance.”
They were startled by the clatter of the ladder being lowered by Maribela. Antonio wedged the base into the dirt below and tested it for stability before giving her the go-ahead to descend. She came down using one hand, the other carrying the more powerful battery-powered LED work light they’d used in the crypt above.
The lamp’s harsh white glow illuminated the tunnel like an approaching train, and the siblings quickly joined Sam and Remi in the antechamber. Maribela took it in without comment. Lazlo pushed by them and moved slowly into the chasm. Remi motioned to them and led the way deeper into the subterranean passage, which extended considerably farther, bisecting the tunnel above before turning under the pyramid.
“Hold on. Everybody stop,” Sam said as they neared another bend. The group froze and Remi edged closer to him.
Lazlo looked around, unsure of what to do. “What is it?”
“There. That section of the floor,” he said, pointing to a depression. “I’ve seen that sort of thing before. It’s a booby trap. The Toltecs used reeds or something similar to create a false floor over a pit and then put dirt on top of the matting. Over the centuries, gravity has exerted its pull, but . . .”