Mayan Moon [ONC2024]

Chapter 12

A bead of sweat ran down the neck of one of the six captives sitting on the back of the Guardia Nacional pickup, their hands and feet secured by zip ties. All had heads bowed, defeat etched into their slumped shoulders.

Claire passed them and entered the house where she had hoped to find Roger. Commander Adkins and Fiscal González led the way.

The harsh, acrid smell from the aftermath of an explosion hung in the air.

A heavy metal door lay tattered from the efforts of the security forces to enter the domicile. Like a macabre connect-the-dots puzzle, the cinder block perimeter fence was riddled with bullet holes.

Inside, the house was strewn with debris, and all its contents were searched for clues. Claire was led through the home to the master bedroom's bathroom. Broken furniture and tattered doors marked the way.

"This is how they escaped," Armando reported in heavily accented English.

She squatted, inspecting the three-foot hole underneath the bathtub. A metal ladder leading down was lost in the darkness of the cavity.

"You followed the tunnel?" Claire asked, frustrated.

"The tunnel leads to a house three blocks away. It's also being searched but was empty when we arrived." The distant sound of commotion from the street punctuated Armando's brief report.

Claire's frustration grew; each word from Armando felt like pulling teeth.

"What about this place? Any clues?" Claire's sharp gaze demanded more, her impatience thinly veiled.

"There is very little as far as documents. Mostly garbage from the people staying here."

"And the people?" she said, sighing, resigning herself to the useless exercise.

The muffled scream of a person disrupted their conversation.

"We will question them," González smiled.

"I need to know where they were being taken. I need to know who's behind this. There's a sizeable reward for the information!" she reminded, dangling the carrot of incentive.

"Esta tarde hablaré con el presidente. Espero me tenga respuestas rapidas, Fiscal González," she asserted in perfect Spanish, hinting at the pressure she could leverage.

"UIF traced this property through some shell companies to a research institute in Chiapas," he quickly answered.

"You should have given us that information when we arrived," Commander Adkins interjected.

González nodded, somewhat taken aback by their intensity. "The property traces back to a research institute in Chiapas—Fundación Yaxche. Established in 1971 by Dr. Elena Márquez and Flavio Catzín," he disclosed, handing her a tablet displaying a faded certificate.

Roger's grandfather?

A second image showed a young woman flanked by two men in what looked like a groundbreaking ceremony.

A surge of shock washed over her. The tablet slipped out of her hands. She went pale and almost lost her balance. Her thoughts raced. Information in the files that hadn't made sense became clear. Deep apprehension gripped her heart. Oh, God. How am I going to fix this?

The man on the right looked exactly like Roger, but that wasn't what had shocked her. The man on the left was a young Chester Williams—her grandfather. What had Gramps done to Roger's family?