it.â
âSo if not Montoyo,â I ponder, âthen what about the CIA?â Camila gives me a strange look. âWhy do you say that?â
I reply, âItâs Ollieâs theory.â
âSomeone who could trace e-mails and Web searches,â Ollie says loftily. âSomeone who could organize a burglary. Someone interested in extraterrestial encounters with the Maya. And the alien secrets they might have shared.â
Camila stands up, clearly troubled. âThereâs been something really weird about Andresâs death, right from the beginning.â
âThe UFO incident?â I ask.
Camila gives a wry smile. âYeah. To be honest, we all wondered. But then my girlfriend, the one who works in the police station, she brought me a photo she took. In the plane wreckage, they found something attached to the flight controlsâa small machine. My friend never saw anything like it before. Then, she told me, some gringos came. They had badgesâCIA, FBI, something like thatâbut she didnât see which kind. And they took it away, the little machine. None of the police ever mentioned it again. It was deleted from a list of exhibits recovered from the crash.â
âA machine attached to the flight controls â¦,â I murmur. âSomething that could have made Dadâs plane crash?â
Camila completes my thought: âBy remote control. No need for a pilot to jump out of the plane midflight. Just put the dead body in the plane and send it up. Then crash itâand youâve got a perfect accidental death. If everything goes to plan, you donât even need to frame someone for murder. So, that only happens as an afterthought. When they inconveniently find the missing head of a strangled pilot. And thatâs when they start looking around for a victim to pin with their dumb story.
âThese U.S. agents,â she says, âthey killed Andres. Itâs as clear as a bell. And the reason is in this Mayan inscription.â
Camila leans back in her chair, takes a sip of tea. She picks up and stares at my half of the Calakmul letter for a few moments, concentrating. Then quite suddenly she stands up straight.
âOh my God! I canât believe I didnât see this right away!â
We stare at her, expectant. When Camila looks at me again, her expression has gone from one of wonder to anxiety.
âThereâs one thing these peopleâwhoever they areâcannot know. Something Andres only told to me. Something that tells us
exactly where Andres went before he disappeared
.â
BLOG ENTRY: CHECHAN NAAB
When we met Camila Pastorâmy half sisterâI wanted to know everything: when Dad had first made contact with her, how he found her, what theyâd done, where theyâd been together, how many times sheâd seen him, why heâd ignored her for so long, why he didnât tell us. That last one more than anything.
But once Iâd seen the letter Dad left for her, and her half of the Mayan manuscript, the whole codex mystery dominated our minds again.
How weird was it that weâd both become obsessed with finding out what really happened to Dad and why?
Well, according to Camila, not at all. When I brought the subject up, she seemed nonchalant. âOf course. Every day I sent you mental messages, willing you to decipher the inscription, to get interested, to come over.â
âYou didnât even know I had the other half of the manuscript!â
âI knew someone had it. I sent my telepathic message to him,â she countered, grinning. âAnd it worked!â
It sounds odd when I write it down. But in Mexico, people really talk that way.
Camila thought our half was the important part. âAndres didnât realize it, but he told me where he was going. That last day. He was all excited, because he said heâd worked out something really important. Heâd worked out the real Mayan name
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