Pedro frowned. “I have a feeling that flying the helicopter low over the trees might help more, but I don’t like to scare the monkeys.”
“There are no monkeys inside the site,” Quint reminded him.
“Sí.And that gives me cold stomach knots.”
Before Angélica could decipher that mash-up of expressions, the mesh tent flap swayed and Dr. Fernel stumbled inside, his boot toe somehow catching on the flat ground. He righted himself, tightening his grip on the laptop computer clutched under his arm. He’d ditched his safari hat, leaving behind a circle imprint on his copper hair, which now had a couple of leaves sticking out of it. His wire-rimmed glasses sat slightly askew on his thin freckled nose, and a thin bloody scratch ran in a diagonal line down his cheek.
“Thank you all for waiting,” he said, setting his computer on the table while somehow managing to knock over Quint’s empty water cup in the process.
“Are you okay?” Daisy asked. “That scratch looks fresh. We should see if Teodoro can put something on it.”
Dr. Fernel waved her off—there was another bloody scratch on his wrist. From the looks of it, he must have tangled with something covered in leaves and thorns on the short journey to the mess tent. “It can wait until morning.”
Quint grabbed his cup and stood, moving behind Angélica. He indicated to his vacant spot. “Have a seat. I can watch over Dr. García’s head.”
Dr. Fernel took the seat offered, banging his shin on one of the table legs in the process. His face pinched in pain for a moment.
“Oh!” Daisy said, sucking air through her teeth. She half stood, reaching toward him. “Are you—”
He held up his hand to stop her. “I’m fine. All good.”
She sat back down, her forehead still lined.
After blowing out a breath, Dr. Fernel opened his computer and typed in his password. “For starters, let me say that this site appears to be unlike most I’ve analyzed over the past couple of years.”
He sounded more nasal this evening. Maybe the allergies he’d complained about before were getting the best of him. There were certainly plenty of different molds and decaying flotsam this deep into the trees. Angélica would check with Teodoro later to see if he had some medication more locally based that might help Dr. Fernel with his sinus struggles.
“Because of the wall?” Pedro asked.
“Well, yes, partly. As Dr. García can tell you,” he paused, glancing toward Juan to show which García he meant. “Walls have been a part of Maya architecture since … well … for as long as we can tell.”
Her dad nodded. “Even El Mirador had a large wall along the northern, eastern, and southern portions of the city.”
“Where is El Mirador again?” Quint asked. “To the north or south of us?”
“It’s a Pre-Classic site to the south of us,” Daisy said, “where many scholars theorize the ancestors of Calakmul once lived.”
Pedro leaned forward to look around Juan at Daisy. “Was the wall as tall as the one here?”
“In some areas,” Juan answered for her. “But the wall here at Site 5 is definitely unique in the height on the inside.”
“Here we are,” Dr. Fernel said, turning the computer toward Angélica. “What do you see first?”
The first thing she saw was that he was sweating—a lot. As if he’d sprinted a mile before coming inside. The poor guy seemed to be having a hell of a time acclimating.
She leaned closer to the screen, resting her chin on her hand as she stared at the updated LIDAR imagery for several seconds. From an overhead view, the previous blobs appeared more defined. Several of what they’d thought might be buildings along each wall now had more squared corners. She focused on the wall, following the line around the screen.
“The wall completely surrounds the site,” she said, glancing across at her father. “Reminds me of some of the defensive measures we’ve seen at other sites.”
If this were a sacred site as her mom had thought, maybe the locals had felt the need to defend it from outsiders.
Or it could have been a hot property that other rulers of the time wanted to seize in a political-religious power grab, so there was a constant need to defend it against outsiders.
Dr. Fernel pointed at the wall opposite the one they’d already scaled. “In the previous image, it was here that the wall appeared to have crumbled some.”
“It looks more solid now,” Quint said from behind her.
“I believe there might be trees close to the wall at that point, possibly even growing on it, causing some irregularity in the data.” Dr. Fernel zoomed in, showing the slight ripples in the otherwise straight lines of the wall. “We will need to ground truth to be sure, of course.”
