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steadfast young Indian who felt compelled to do everything Aguilar told him. Pepe sat protectively beside the precious object packed in its crate as if he were a common criminal under arrest in the back of Barreio's police cruiser.
    While Aguilar and Pepe might have deserved to be arrested under the national system of laws, they both knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Police Chief Barreio would never take them into custody. He had too much to lose.
    The cruiser pulled to a stop outside the ornate, imposing wrought-iron gates that closed the access way through a stone wall. Barreio rolled down his window, grunting as he turned the door crank. He waved at the heavily armed private guard, who recognized him immediately.
    Aguilar stared out the windshield, gazing apprecia-tively at the thick wall that surrounded Xavier Salida's huge fortress. Slabs of stone covered with ornate glyphs, Maya writing and sculptures, designs of jaguars and feath-ered serpents, images of priests wearing quetzal-feather headdresses and loincloths studded with beaten gold plates. Some of the carved panels were genuine, uprooted from forgotten and overgrown ruins out in the jungle. Others were clever forgeries Aguilar had commissioned.
    Xavier Salida never knew the difference. The drug lord was a self-deluded, if powerful, fool.
    "Tiene una ciia, Senor Barreio?" the guard said in rapid Spanish. Do you have an appointment?
    Carlos Barreio frowned. A heavy mustache rode on his upper lip like luggage, and his dark hair was slicked back under his police cap. His hair was thinning, reced-ing with a pronounced widow's peak, but the bill of his official cap covered those details.
    "I shouldn't need an appointment," Barreio boomed. "Excellency Salida has told me I'm always welcome in his home."
    Aguilar leaned across to the driver's side, eager to divert an annoying and time-wasting confrontation. "We have another one of the ancient treasures Excellency Salida so fervently desires," he said out the window. "You know how much he enjoys them—but this item is even more precious than most."
    He tossed a meaningful glance to the back seat, where the crate remained covered, hiding its contents. Whip-thin Pepe Candelaria slid a protective arm over its top.
    "What is it?" the guard asked.
    "It is for Excellency Salida's eyes only. He would be very upset if his guards were to get a look at the mer-chandise before he has a chance to assess its value." Aguilar tugged on his floppy ocelot-skin hat and flashed a hopeful smile.

    The guard fidgeted, shifted his rifle from one shoul-der to the other, and finally opened the wrought-iron gate, swinging the barricade inward so Barreio could drive the police cruiser through.
    The police chief parked the car in the broad, flag-stoned turnabout inside the walled courtyard. Dogs barked and howled from their kennels: Salida kept half a dozen purebred Dobermans, which he used for intimida-tion whenever necessary. Imported peacocks strutted around the grounds, clustering near the cool mist of a fountain that splashed into the hazy air.
    Aguilar turned to look at both the driver and the pas-senger in the back seat.
    "This is a complex deal, so let me do the talking. When we meet with Salida, I'll handle the negotiations. Since this object is rare and unusual, we have no way of determining its true value."
    "Just get the most you can," Barreio growled. "Weapons cost money, and Liberation Quintana Roo needs them."
    "Yes, yes, your precious revolutionaries." Aguilar smoothed down the front of his khaki vest and then adjusted his spotted hat, making certain that his long dark hair was still in its neat ponytail that hung beneath the ocelot skin.
    Then he looked up at the broad expanse of Salida's whitewashed adobe villa.
    It had taken a great deal of effort to smuggle Xitaclan artifacts from under the watchful eyes of the American archaeology team—but now that had all been taken care of. The foreigners would cause no further problems.