The Codex by Douglas Preston Read Free Book Online Page A

story.”
    “Names?”
    “Barnaby and Fenton.”
    Hauser made a note. A light on the phone blinked once, and Hauser picked up the receiver. He listened for a long time, spoke softly and rapidly, made a call, another, and then another. Philip felt annoyed that Hauser was doing other business in front of him, wasting his time.
    Hauser hung up. “Any wives or girlfriends in the picture?”
    “Five ex-wives: four living, one deceased. No girlfriends to speak of.”
    A faint curl stretched Hauser’s upper lip. “Max was always one with the ladies.”
    Again the silence stretched on. Hauser seemed to be thinking. Then, to Philip’s annoyance, he made another call, speaking in low tones. Finally he set down the phone.
    “Well now, Philip, what do you know about me?”
    “Only that you were my father’s partner in exploration, that you both knocked around Central America for a couple of years. And that you two had a falling-out.”
    “That’s right. We spent almost two years in Central America together, looking for Mayan tombs to excavate. This was back in the early sixties when it was more or less legal. We found a few things, but it was only after I left that Max made his big strike and became rich. I went on to Vietnam.”
    “And the falling-out? Father never talked about it.”
    There was a faint pause. “Max never talked about it?”
    “No.”
    “I can hardly remember it now. You know how it is when two people are thrown together for a long stretch of time, they get on each other’s nerves.” Hauser laid his cigar down in a cut crystal ashtray. The ashtray was as big as a dinner plate and probably weighed twenty pounds. Philip wondered if he had made a mistake coming here. Hauser seemed like a lightweight.
    The phone blinked again, and Hauser picked it up. This was the last straw; Philip rose. “I’ll come back when you’re less busy,” he said curtly.
    Hauser wagged a gold-ringed finger at Philip to wait, listened for a minute, and then hung up. “So tell me, Philip: What’s so special about Honduras?”
    “Honduras? What’s that got to do with anything?”
    “Because that’s where Max went.”
    Philip stared at him. “So you were in on it!”
    Hauser smiled. “Not at all. That was the substance of the phone call I just received. Almost four weeks ago today his pilot flew him and a planeload of cargo to a city in Honduras called San Pedro Sula. From there he took a military helicopter to a place called Brus Lagoon. And then he vanished.”
    “You found all this out just now?”
    Hauser generated a new and mighty cloud of smoke. “I’m a PI.”
    “And not a bad one, it seems.”
    Hauser emitted another meditative cloud. “As soon as I talk to the pilot, I’ll know a lot more. Like what kind of cargo the plane was carrying and how much it weighed. Your father didn’t make any effort to cover his tracks going down to Honduras. Did you know he and I were there together? I’m not surprised that’s where he went. It’s a big country with the most inaccessible interior in the world—thick jungle, uninhabited, mountainous, cut by deep gorges, and sealed off by the Mosquito Coast. That’s where I expect he went—into the interior.”
    “It’s plausible.”
    Hauser added after a moment: “I’m taking the case.
    Philip felt irritated. He didn’t recall having offered Hauser the job yet. But the guy had already demonstrated his competence, and since he now knew the story, he would probably do. “We haven’t talked about a fee.”
    “I’ll need a retainer. I expect the expenses in this case are going to run high. Anytime you do business in a shitcan Third World country you have to pay off every Tomás, Rico, and Orlando.”
    “I had in mind a fee based on contingency,” Philip said quickly. “If we recover the collection, you get, say, a small percentage. I also should mention that I plan to divide it with my brothers: That’s only fair.”
    “Contingency fees are for car-crash