'Halstead, by God!' exclaimed Pat. 'Let me tell you something. You can pass along a hell of a lot of information in a simple handshake. Bear that in mind, Jemmy.'
With that cryptic remark he left, and I began to go over all the things I knew about Halstead. But it was ridiculous to' suppose he had anything to do with Gatt. Ridiculous!
III
Harry Rider was a very busy man during the next few days He flew Rudetsky and a couple of his men to Camp Three at Uaxuanoc, dropped them and came back for equipment Rudetsky and his team hewed a bigger landing area out of the forest, and then the big cargo-carrying helicopter could go in and things really got moving. It was like a well-planned military operation exploiting a beach-head.
It would have been a big disappointment all round if this wasn't the site of Uaxuanoc, but Fallon showed no worry. He urged Rudetsky on to greater efforts and complacent!} watched the helicopters fly to and fro. The cost of keeping a big helicopter in the air is something fantastic and, although I knew Fallon could afford it, I couldn't help but point it out Fallon drew his pipe from his mouth and laughed. 'Damn it, you're an accountant,' he said. 'Use your brains. It would cost a lot more if I didn't use those choppers. I have to pay a lot of highly skilled men a lot of money to clear that site for preliminary investigation, and I'm damned if I'm going to pay them for hacking their way through the forest to get to the site. It's cheaper this way.'
And so it was from a. cost-effectiveness point of view, as I found out when I did a brief analysis. Fallon wasn't wasting his money on that score, although some people might think that the excavation of a long-dead city was a waste of money in the first place.
Four more archeologists arrived -- young men chock-full' of enthusiasm. For three of them this was their first experience of a big dig and they fairly worshipped at the feet of Fallon although I noticed they all tended to walk stiff-legged around Halstead. If his notoriety had spread down to the lower ranks of the profession then he was indeed in a bad way. I'm surprised Katherine didn't see it. although she probably put it down to the general effect of his prickly character on other people. But what a hell of a thing to have to live with!
Ten days after Fallon had made the big decision we went up to Camp Three and, circling over the cenote, I looked down upon a transformed scene quite different from what I had seen when dangling on the end of that cable. There was. a little village down there -- the huts were laid out in neat lines and there was a landing area to one side with hangars for the aircraft. All this had been chopped out of dense forest, in just over a week; Rudetsky was evidently something of a slave driver.
We landed and, as the rotor flapped into silence, I heard the howl of power saws from near by as the assault on the forest went on. And it was hot -- hotter even than Camp Two; the sun, unshielded by the cover of trees, hammered the clearing with a brazen glare. Perspiration sprang out all over my body and by the time we had reached the shelter of a hut I was dripping.
Fallon wasted no time. This is not a very comfortable place,' he said. 'So we might as well get on with the job as quickly as we can. Our immediate aim is to find out what we have here in broad detail. The finer points will have to wait for the years to come. I don't intend to excavate any particular buildings at this time. Our work now is to delimit the area, to identify structures and to clear the ground for our successors.'
Halstead stirred and I could see he wasn't happy about that, but he said nothing.
'.Joe Rudetsky has been here for nearly two weeks,' said Fallon. 'What have you found, Joe?'
'I found eight more of those pillars with carvings,' said Rudetsky. 'I did like you said -- I just cleared around them and didn't go monkeying about.' He stood up and went to the map on the wall. Most of it was blank but an area around the cenote had been inked in. 'Here they are,' he said. 'I marked them all.'
'I'll have a look at them,' said Fallon. 'Gentlemen, Mr. Rudetsky is not an archeologist, but he is a skilled surveyor and he will be our cartographer.' He waved his hand. 'As the work goes on I hope this map will become filled in and cease to be terra incognita. Now, let's get on with it.'
He set up five teams, each headed by an archeologist who would direct the work, and to each team he gave an area. He had had the Vivero map from the mirror redrawn and used it as a rough guide. Then he turned to me. 'You will be an exception, Jemmy,' he said. 'I know we aren't going for detailed exploration at this time, but I think the cenote might provide some interesting finds. The cenote is yours.' He grinned. 'I think you're very lucky to be able to splash about in cool water all day while the rest of us sweat in the heat.'
