“By the way, the currency just collapsed in New York. Completely gone. You couldn’t buy a bus ride from the Miami airport with a million quetzales. The IMF said they won’t lend any more. Can I help you get your dollars out of the country? No, mine are already gone. Yesterday. Yes I’ll see you at the club Alemán. Why not. Squash? Why not? And a good lunch afterwards!” he laughed.

Blanco called his contact at the American embassy and told them he was retiring. They had expected it.

Carlos called Beatrice immediately after getting the news, but she couldn’t be found.

•••

Mahler shot the two men who had found it. Really, he thought as he ejected the round from his shotgun, he’d had no choice. He heard the parrots noisily cawing as they escaped through the jungle canopy, frightened by the shooting. He looked up into the enormity of sunlight and tree limbs; it was a beautiful green lace, with just the tiniest bits of blue showing here and there. A howler monkey chased across the tree tops above him. Tree limbs sagged violently under its weight.

He looked down at the two dead men, and then stepped forward to look at the head of the Red Jaguar. Gloria, the girl from Tres Rios who had fallen in love with him, came running from the campsite. Mahler had bought her jeans and a new shirt. She’d tied her hair back.

He turned, and could see her coming up the hillock towards the temple. He could see the smoke from their cooking fire. He was pleased with how much they had cleared. It had taken weeks, but they’d cleared a lot of jungle. He’d always liked the feeling of uncovering things, ever since he was a child in his parents’ garden and they’d given him a toy shovel and beach bucket.

He watched the girl run toward him. He felt for a shell in his jacket pocket. She was a good girl, and he loved the way she looked naked. And he knew she loved him. He liked Indian women; they were quiet. He’d spent so much time in the bush these last five years, they were the only women he knew anymore. This one running towards him was the prettiest he’d ever had.

He knelt down and wiped his brow. He’d been hacking nearby with a fat machete, caught in a daydream. He was back in Germany, teaching. The students were listening, and he was telling them that he was probably the greatest living expert on Mayan culture anywhere in the world.

Gloria was getting closer. He turned to look at the dead men.

They had yelled something, and he’d dropped his machete and come around to this side of the hill, the temple only partly uncovered. The two Indians he’d hired were standing looking at the jaguar’s red jade face, inside the temple where the jungle had invaded.

For a moment, no one had said a word. The electric light they’d rigged off a portable generator shone on the Jaguar’s partially uncovered face. Even though he believed he’d find it, Mahler had had his moments of doubts. Everyone had. But when they’d found the temple, he was sure the Red Jaguar was close.

“That’s it,” he said in German. He’d run to the men, and all three of them began clawing at the thing with their fingers. He told them in Spanish to be careful, his voice echoing against the stone walls. They worked frantically. In a few minutes they’d uncovered the left ear, then the whole jaw, then the entire face started to show through the vines. It was then, after he was sure it was the Red Jaguar, that Mahler stepped away from the two men, picked up the shotgun, and killed them.

Mahler looked back at the girl, who was standing where he’d stood when he’d first seen it. She said something in her native language. He answered her in Quiché, saying that it was the Jaguar and that the head was much bigger than he’d expected. He said then, in German, that it was at least ten tons. It was twice the size he’d expected. He had no idea how he would move it alone.

“I’ll have to use the horses to pull it out,” he said in English. “That’s the way to do it now. I’ll be alone, and how else can I do it?”

The girl turned to look at him, not understanding what he just said. She read his intent in his eyes. It was suddenly very clear to her that he was going to kill her, too. She instinctively turned and ran down the hillock towards the camp.

Mahler watched her run. He noticed she was barefoot. It didn’t matter, he thought, watching her. She was running towards the river, and he would catch her easily, he told himself. He watched her run in a desperate, almost falling way. She did fall, and when she got up, Mahler calmly trotted out of the temple and down the hillock. The temple entrance loomed behind him, its dark gray stones hit by the rain. He carried the shotgun over his shoulder casually.

He called Russell on his cell phone with the good news on the way back to camp from the river, where he’d caught up with the girl.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Russell raised himself on one elbow and glanced out the tall windows, their glass thick and blurry. It was raining violently. Cars sped through the downpour, their yellow headlights signaling late afternoon.

He turned and took his wristwatch from the nightstand. It was almost six. They’d both fallen asleep. It was the first time, he realized, that they’d felt safe enough to fall asleep together.

He sank back into the pillow. Beatrice was facing him, her face angelic. She had a girl’s face, something about it precious and cherubic, like a nineteenth-century print of an idealized young girl.

He had an important appointment that evening with the IMF country team. Antonio was to accompany him. But he didn’t want to get up. Somehow he felt that this was the last calm that he and Beatrice would know until he took her away.

He pulled up the sheet and looked at the ceiling. Lines in the plaster made odd-shaped countries, turning the ceiling into a map of some lost world. And if she was sick? he wondered. Disturbed. The idea frightened him, but it didn’t change the way he felt about her. After all, wasn’t he mad? He was planning to assassinate the president of the country.

He rolled over and held Beatrice. Her body was warm and delicious. He had no desire to leave her, but knew he had to.

It was he who had suggested, out of the blue, that someone put a bullet in Blanco and get it over with. It was just like the Greek when he’d been a kid. It was the obvious choice. Blanco was a murderous thug who stood in the way of progress. It had just come to him. Was it wrong? Antonio, Rudy Valladolid, everyone had stopped speaking and just stared at him. They could see he wasn’t joking.

“You sound very sure of yourself, young man,” Senator Rudy said after a long silence.

“I am,” he said. “I’m certain it’s what should be done. If you let Blanco appoint Carlos Selva president, it will be a catastrophe. He plans on doing everything the IMF suggests, and you’ll have another Argentina here. Selva would like nothing better than a return to war with the communists. That’s all he knows.” Everyone was looking at him; Russell didn’t know whether it meant that they agreed, or that they were afraid. Then it dawned on him why they were still staring.

“I’ll do it myself, if that’s what you’re asking,” Russell said. “I’m not afraid. It’s what you want, isn’t it? A solution, for God’s sake.”

“You know what that means?” Antonio said.

“You probably wouldn’t survive, boy,” Rudy said. “You must be suicidal.”

He supposed he lay in this very bed as a child. He wondered what his mother would think of what he was going to do. He would assassinate a dictator, and perhaps die in the process. Would she approve? Would she try to stop him? Would she tell him he didn’t have to risk his life? Would his great-grandfather, the great risk taker himself, be proud of him?