Panama Pursuit Read online

  “Well,” Ben began, “the four most famous skulls are the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, the Smithsonian Skull, the British Museum Skull, and the Paris Museum Skull.”

  “And they’re all crystal skulls?” Eric asked.

  “Yeah,” said Ben.

  “You said ‘most famous,’ ” Rachel said. “Does that mean there are even more skulls out there?”

  “Oh, sure. There are at least another dozen in collections around the world.” Ben thought for a moment. “There’s the Komo Skull, the Howard Skull, the Tiger Lily Skull, the Quazi-Minta Skull, and... and... Well, believe me, there are a bunch of them out there.”

  “Whoa!” Eric said. “That’s a lot of skulls.”

  We watched as the water finished flooding and raising our boat. The gates of the first lock opened and the captain moved the Balboa into the second lock, where the water would lift us another two metres.

  “But why are a couple of broken skulls in Panama so important that someone would want to steal them?” Anna asked, getting back to Eric’s original question. “Especially if there are so many other crystal skulls around?”

  “Because they’re all fake,” Ben said. “None of them are ancient.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “What about the ones that you said are in museums? Those must be ancient.”

  Ben grinned. “Nope. They’re as phony as an armadillo with antlers. And that’s why crystal skulls are so amazing. Pretty much everyone now knows that crystal skulls aren’t very old, but they look soooo cool they’re kept on display in museums anyway. And they’re even identified as fakes. Imagine that—a museum proudly displaying a hoax!”

  Rachel, Eric, and I exchanged glances. The three of us knew all about making good fake artifacts, because it wasn’t that long ago that we created our own ancient Egyptian tablet.

  Ben’s fascination with the skulls was contagious, and we continued firing questions at him.

  “How do the museums know their skulls aren’t ancient?” Rachel asked.

  “No one knew for sure how old the skulls were until recently. Some people claimed the skulls were Incan or Mayan, some said they were ten thousand years old, and a few even insisted they were left here by aliens.”

  “Cool,” Eric said.

  “It wasn’t until a few years ago,” Ben went on, “that scientists had the technology to test the skulls to see how they were made and how ancient they really are. And guess what?”

  “What?” I said.

  “What?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes?” Anna said.

  “Enough with the suspense,” Eric said. “Tell us already.”

  “Sorry,” Ben said with laugh. “Well, they discovered that the skulls were probably made in Germany in the 1800s using some kind of rotary grinding tool. Ancient cultures didn’t have rotary grinding tools, so the skulls had to be fakes.”

  “The 1800s sounds kind of old to me,” Eric said.

  Ben nodded. “But it’s not when you consider most of the skulls were discovered during the 1800s.”

  “I get it,” I said. “So they were actually freshly made when people claimed to have found them.”

  “Exactly,” Ben said.

  “How do you know all this?” Rachel asked.

  Ben chuckled. “Because my dad was an engineer on the team that tested the skulls. And he told me everything.”

  Anna quickly processed Ben’s information. “So if the crystal skulls found here in Panama are tested and proven to be authentic, they would be the first real skulls ever found.”

  “Ever!” Ben repeated. “It will be one of the greatest discoveries of the twenty-first century, and it will knock the socks off archaeologists around the world.”

  “And if we could help recover those missing skulls,” Eric said, “we’d be part of history too.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “Plus, it’s possible there are still other skulls buried at the site.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense. If those broken skulls weren’t totally finished, there might be unbroken, finished skulls out there somewhere.”

  “After we help clear Uncle Rudi,” Anna said, “maybe we can look for them.”

  I never really thought too much about what we might find at the dig site until now. To be honest, I had been more excited about the trip to Panama than I was about digging around in the mud. But that was because I never imagined we might find a crystal skull. Sure, it would have been cool to unearth some pottery fragments and other stuff like that. But a crystal skull?!

  When the Balboa left the second set of locks at Miraflores, Captain Pescada hit the throttle, powering us north into the channel. Our tour boat was small and light, and thirty minutes later we were lifted by the Pedro Miguel Locks.

  Over the next hour we passed many slow-moving barges, container ships, and oil tankers. There was no shortage of tug boats either. They flitted around like helpful bugs, always ready to assist larger ships with a quick nudge or tow. It was pretty neat to be cruising through a dense jungle on the most famous man-made river in the world.

  “Hey!” Eric cried. “A cruise ship.” He ran to the front of the boat with Ben and me hot on his heels. Anna and Rachel stayed at our table.

  The Balboa pulled up behind the medium-sized passenger ship and waited patiently to pass her.

  Eric read the name on the stern out loud: MS Alexander Pushkin.

  “Sounds Russian,” Ben said.

  “It is,” a new voice said.

  We turned our heads and found Captain Pescada standing behind us. He was smoking the stump of a cigar and grinning. “Don’t worry, gentlemen,” he said, with a thick Spanish accent, “the Balboa will not crash into the poet ship. Elvis is quite capable.”

  I looked over the captain’s shoulder and saw Elvis behind the controls in the wheelhouse. I didn’t want to say anything, but Elvis actually looked more capable and more professional than Captain Pescada. I mean, sure, the captain was wearing some sort of official shirt, but it was covered with so much grease and dirt, it looked like he’d been sleeping on the engine room floor. The shirt was open down to his thick waist, where the last two buttons struggled to keep the thin fabric together.

  “How do you know there are poets on that ship?” Ben asked.

  Captain Pescada choked on his cigar and laughed. “No, no, no.” Blue smoke pulsed from his mouth like the smokestack of an old train. “The Pushkin is one of five cruise ships the Russians built in the 1960s. Each ship was named after a Russian writer. Alexander Pushkin was a poet, you understand?”

  We nodded and waited for him to leave. But he didn’t. It was as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know where to start. Meanwhile, Elvis took the Balboa alongside the cruise ship and slowly passed her. We waved back at dozens of passengers who were leaning on the railings of the decks that towered above us.

  “How much longer until we get to Lake Gatun—to the camp?” I finally asked, trying to break an awkward silence.

  “Two hours and ten minutes.”

  “Excellent,” Ben said. “I can’t wait to get there.”

  “You boys,” Captain Pescada began. Then he paused and glanced around his boat. He saw Bruno and the two other leaders looking at him, so he smiled awkwardly and waved his soggy cigar. Lowering his voice, he started again. “You boys will be staying at the camp for the whole week?”

  I nodded.

  “As far as we know,” Eric said.

  “You may be tempted to wander from the camp,” Captain Pescada said, “for some excitement, or fun, or adventure... But I would not.”

  “Huh?” Eric said.

  “I would not,” the captain repeated.

  “You would not?” I said.

  “No.” The captain took a final pull on his cigar and flicked it into the canal. �
�The Chocoan are not very friendly.”

  The three of us looked at each other. What the heck was he babbling about?

  “What are they?” Ben asked. “Some kind of animal?”

  Captain Pescada squinted at Ben, like Ben was pulling his leg. “No. The Chocoan live around Lake Gatun. They have been there for thousands of years and they are very protective of their territory—especially the jungle near your camp.”

  “All right,” Ben said slowly.

  “That’s good to know,” Eric added, “I guess.”

  “Um, yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”

  He probably didn’t think he was getting through to us, because he felt the urge to repeat his warning. “You will be safe at the camp with the other archaeologists, but do not wander into the forest—no matter what you see. The Chocoan are... well, they are different.”

  After the captain left us to resume control of the Balboa, we casually wandered back to the girls to tell them what he had said.

  “That’s really weird,” Rachel said when we finished our story.

  Anna nodded. “Yes, why should he be so concerned about us leaving the dig site?”

  “Maybe there’s something away from the dig site,” I said, “that he doesn’t want us to see.”

  “Yes,” Eric said. “Something like the stolen skulls.”

  “Do you think he heard us talking about them?” Rachel asked. “Or about Rudi?”

  “Could be,” Ben said. “But the skull find isn’t a secret. I saw it posted on the web... remember?”

  “You know, we may also be letting our imaginations run away from us,” Rachel suggested.

  Eric disagreed. “No. I think we found our first suspect, and I think we need to keep an eye on the captain.”

  “He is one of the few people who have access to the camp,” I said. “And it would be easy enough for him to swipe stuff from the dig site and move it up and down the canal. As a Panama Canal boat captain, he has the perfect cover to be an artifact smuggler.”

  “Keeping an eye on him and his boat should not be a problem,” Anna said, “but what of his warning?”

  “Let’s just hope that we have no reason to leave the camp,” Rachel said.

  Eric and Ben nodded, and I quickly copied them. But as I studied their faces, I couldn’t help wonder if they were thinking what I was thinking. If we had to go into the jungle to help Rudi, we would. I sure hoped we wouldn’t have to, though.

  •

  “There it is!” Eric cried. His arm shot out and pointed at the shore.

  “Yes,” Bruno said. “That is the dig, Camp Gatun.” He had joined us again and explained that the tall guy had been one of his advisers when he was working on his PhD. “What a small world it is,” he said at least three times.

  The Balboa’s engines throttled down and the captain moved us toward land. He let the camp know of our arrival with three short blasts of his horn. And his arrival estimate was bang on, by the way. It took us exactly two hours and ten minutes to get to Camp Gatun from the point where we passed the MS Alexander Pushkin.

  Our tiny boat suddenly came alive with activity. The change in the Balboa’s rhythmic engine noise, followed by the sudden boom of the boat horn, immediately woke Ben’s sleepy teammates. They sat up, rubbed their eyes, and looked around for their chaperones. Elvis, meanwhile, was at the bow, ready to throw his rope to a local boy who raced down to the dock to meet us.

  The dock began at the end of a trail that looked like it had been hastily carved into the jungle. There were no other boats tied to the dock, but I saw four canoes dragged high up on the muddy shore. Through the thick trees that lined the shore, I caught glimpses of Camp Gatun—tents, canopies, and other signs of life.

  “They will be cutting back three hundred metres of forest to broaden the canal,” Bruno explained as we waited for the Balboa to ease alongside the dock. “And then they will remove one hundred metres of shoreline.”

  “I can see why,” Rachel said. “This looks like a tricky spot on the canal to navigate.”

  Just then, another container ship made the final turn on Lake Gatun, before entering the canal again. Two tugboats stirred up the water violently as they tried to help it round the corner. Finally, the tiny tugs had the ship lined up so that it could continue into the canal under its own power.

  “When all this land has been removed,” Bruno pointed at the jungle that was now Camp Gatun, “and the earth has been dredged, Panamax ships and supertankers will be able to easily use the canal.”

  “But they can’t do any more digging or dredging until the archaeologists are satisfied,” Rachel said, “right?”

  “Correct. The contractors and the Canal Authority want work to continue as soon as possible, but they know it would be terrible to destroy a potentially important archaeological site without investigating it first.” Bruno frowned at the dozens of orange bulldozers and excavators parked up on a ridge a kilometre away. “You will have to work fast to find out what happened to those skulls.”

  The captain cut the power all the way back, and the Balboa drifted toward the dock. When we were five metres away, Elvis heaved his rope at the boy on the makeshift wharf. The dock attendant caught the rope and began gathering it up as we floated toward him. When the boat squeezed against the tires that served as bumpers, Elvis casually stepped onto the dock and secured us to posts.

  “Hello!” a female voice bellowed a few minutes later. “Welcome to Panama.”

  We had just finished offloading our gear and piling it on the dock. I looked up to find the source of the voice. It was a dark-haired lady in her fifties.

  “And welcome to Camp Gatun,” she said with a Spanish accent.

  We all stopped what we were doing. Some of us mumbled “Hi” or “Thanks.”

  “My name is Sofia and I am the director of the Panamanian Heritage Department.” She paused as if waiting for someone to accuse her of lying. No one challenged her so she continued. “I am also the site supervisor here at Camp Gatun. If you need anything or have any concerns during your stay, please let me know.”

  We all nodded.

  “I will show you where you will be staying, and then we will begin with a camp orientation tour.”

  That sounded reasonable, so we all nodded again.

  Sofia asked our names as she waited for us to hoist up our backpacks and gear. When we looked ready, she led the twelve of us to the camp. I realized, from my burning leg muscles, that the camp area was way up on the side of a gently sloping hill. When Sofia stopped so we could catch our breath, I turned to look back at the waterway. Lake Gatun and its many islands spread out to the north as far as the horizon, while the man-made section of the canal—that was the Gaillard Cut—sliced south through the jungle toward the Pedro Miguel Locks.

  “Check it out,” Eric said, pointing at the canal. “Here comes the Pushkin.”

  A kilometre away, I saw the upper decks of the cruise ship gliding behind the rolling hills of the rain forest. “Cool,” I said. “It looks like a jungle ghost ship.”

  Sofia was intercepted by two men who seemed to want to have a lengthy conversation about something. I had no idea what that something might be because they were speaking Spanish, but it gave us more time to inspect the area and watch the ship traffic. Eric and Ben took off their backpacks, quickly fished out their binoculars, and began tracking the Pushkin’s course. Rachel and Anna were ahead of us, talking quietly.

  “Take a look,” Ben said, passing me his powerful field glasses.

  I watched the cruise ship for a few seconds and then looked to see if the Balboa was sticking around or heading back to Panama City. I grinned. The captain was sleeping in a folding lawn chair while Elvis and the dock attendant unloaded camp supplies. What a guy! A flash of sunlight beyond the Balboa—on the far shore—suddenly c
aught my eye. I tried to focus on the spot but lost it. Oh, well. It was probably nothing.

  I took my time and again swept the shoreline on the other side of the canal with the binoculars. Jungle, jungle, and more jungle. Thick, green, dark, and dangerous—not very inviting at all. No houses, no people, and no reason for us to go there. Thank goodness.

  Wait! I saw the flash of sunlight again.

  Nothing reflects like ground glass. I was sure I’d read that somewhere. And I was sure that the lenses of binoculars were made of finely ground glass. Was someone spying on us? Whatever I saw was starting to make me curious.

  I continued to scan the shore carefully for any sign of life. Nothing but jungle. A dugout canoe was dragged up on the mud between two giant trees, but there was no one in it. I heard Sofia say “Gracias” to the men, and our group started moving again, leaving Eric, Ben, and me alone. We would have to keep walking soon or risk being left behind.

  “Hey, Eric,” I said. “Check out the shore on the other side of the lake.”

  Eric swung his binoculars around. “What am I looking for?”

  “Do you see the canoe?”

  “Yup,” Eric said. “What about it?”

  “You see something shiny?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “I was sure I saw—”

  “Hold it!” Eric cut me off. “See the big tree, the one beyond the canoe?”

  I found the canoe again and carefully lifted the binoculars until I saw the giant tree.

  “Do you see him?” Eric asked impatiently.

  “Wait... Yeah, I do.” There was a young man crouched behind the thick tree with his own set of binoculars.

  “What the heck is he looking at?” Eric wondered out loud.

  “Lemme see,” Ben asked.

  “OKAY, YOU GUYS!” Rachel shouted. “TIME TO GO!”

  We ignored Rachel. Eric gave Ben his binoculars. Following Eric’s instructions, he quickly found the guy we were watching.

  “It looks like he’s watching the Balboa,” Ben said.