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  CRYSTAL SKULL

  By Rob MacGregor

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2012 / Rob MacGregor

  Copy-edited by: Rob MacGregor

  Cover design by: David Dodd

  Cover image courtesy of: Rafal Chalgasiewicz per the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Rob MacGregor is an Edgar-winning author, who has been on the New York Times bestseller list. He is the author of nineteen novels, thirteen non-fiction self-help books. He writes both adult and young adult mysteries, adventure, and science fiction/ fantasy. He's best known for his seven Indiana Jones novels. He and his wife, Trish, maintain a blog on synchronicity and have written two non-fiction books on the topic. In his spare time, Rob teaches yoga and meditation, and he's an off-road mountain biker and windsurfer.

  Book List

  Adult Novels

  TIME CATCHER

  ROMANCING THE RAVEN

  INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

  THE PERIL AT DELPHI

  THE DANCE OF THE GIANTS

  THE SEVEN VEILS

  THE GENESIS DELUGE

  THE UNICORN'S LEGACY

  THE INTERIOR WORLD

  PETER BENCHLEY'S AMAZON: GHOST TRIBE

  JUST/IN TIME with Billy Dee Williams

  PSI/NET with Billy Dee Williams

  Young Adult Novels

  PROPHECY ROCK

  HAWK MOON

  DOUBLE HEART

  www.robmacgregor.net

  www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets

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  CRYSTAL SKULL

  To my parents: Don and lone MacGregor

  Zeus, the god of gods, who rules according to law, and is able to see into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a woeful plight, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they might be chastened and improve, collected all the gods into their most holy habitation, which being placed in the centre of the world, beholds all created things. And when he had called them together, he spake as follows . .

  Plato's Critias survives suspended at that point.

  Chapter 1

  Miami Beach – August, 1987

  Collins Avenue was a street fair of purposeful chaos. A sweat-stained Bible thumper condemned anyone who heard him. Four men in orange robes and shaved heads stood, with prayer beads threaded through their fingers and a stack of Return to the Godhead magazines piled at their sandaled feet, and chanted the "Hare Krishna" in front of a dreary, X-rated movie house. A solitary; tottering old man with a flowing beard followed by a pair of elderly ladies in pancake makeup ambled by. On the corner, two slender men in matching leather pants entered Wolfies as several tourists in shorts hurried across the street toward the ocean.

  Typical day on Miami Beach, Nicholas Pierce thought as he emerged from the cultural hodgepodge. He crossed Twenty-first, and strolled toward a building set back from the street on an expansive lawn. He was a tall, lanky man at the cusp of youth and middle age. His hooded hazel eyes gave him a drowsy look, and there was something undeniably vulnerable about his face, as though he registered the world about him as some aspect of a dream, and himself as the dreamer, half-awake.

  He moved on up the walk and entered a wide foyer with beige pocked walls made of coquina. A rush of cool air swept over him, drying the film of sweat on his brow. He ran a hand through his unruly hair, smoothing down the dark brown strands, then tugged self-consciously at the lapel of his jacket and adjusted his tie.

  Jesus, he hated wearing suits in the Florida heat. He'd almost dispensed with the convention, but at the last moment he'd remembered the prim tone of Paul Loften's voice and the man's position. Reluctantly he'd tied the noose and donned his jacket, his coat of credibility.

  He spotted a long-haired kid in a uniform behind a desk and walked over to him. He was no doubt a security guard, but he reminded Pierce of a theater usher.

  "I've got an appointment to see Mr. Loften."

  The guard looked up, asked his name. He told him, and the kid lifted his phone and tapped a button.

  Pierce looked around as he waited and saw several people filing into a room to his right. He noticed a man in a baggy-looking dark suit with slicked-back hair falling over his collar. He was staring in Pierce's direction.

  "Mr. Loften will be with you in a few minutes," the guard said in a soft voice. "You're welcome to take a look at our new Mayan exhibit. It's a preview showing. It doesn't officially open until this evening."

  Pierce gazed over toward the exhibit. "I guess I can enrich myself."

  The guard handed him a booklet that looked like a theater program. On the front of it were a drawing of a feathered serpent and, below it, the title, "The Blood of Kings: A New Interpretation of Mayan Art." He glanced over it, folded it in half, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

  He walked into the exhibition room and glanced around at the displays of ancient clay pots and urns, and small figurines of Mayans with high cheekbones and prominent hooked noses. The stuff didn't do much for him. It seemed remote, out of place. Looking at it here was like listening to music from another culture that sounded great in the country of origin, played by native musicians. But take a record home and it sounded different. That ineffable link with the home turf, the culture, the local color and context was missing.

  The exhibition extended into a second room, separated by glass walls. In it stood a series of upright slabs of stone, all of them eight or nine feet high. As he meandered over to the entrance, he saw the baggy-suited man staring his way through the glass wall. There was an obsessive cast to his eyes. Like the guy was an artist. Or a maniac. And a jagged scar sliced across his lantern jaw. As Pierce passed through the entrance, the man moved away.

  Pierce focused his attention on the stones. They were covered on the front with a stucco-like substance, and carved with Mayan glyphs and figures wearing robes, ornate jewelry, and impossibly complex headdresses. It seemed that the artist had wanted to make use of every bit of space available on the stone, and consequently the figures literally floated, one above the other. Pierce noticed a plumed serpent across the top of one of them. He stepped closer, examining the creature. He reached out, and just as his fingertips brushed over the wings, someone spoke from behind him.

  "We've saved our prize piece for tonight."

  Pierce pulled back his hand, straightened, and turned to see a handsome middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard and short gray hair receding from his forehead.

  The man smiled, offered a hand. "I'm Paul Loften. I bet you're Nicholas Pierce."

  "Glad to meet you."

  Loften's grip was firm, and there was a jocular look in his pale blue eyes that suggested an eccentric edge. Nothing prim here. He wore a pair of black jeans, a billowy white shirt, and a string tie with an abalone clasp.

  Loften nodded toward the stone slab. "You know, it took some real detective work to solve the puzzle of these glyphs."

  Pierce looked at the vertical row of squares with rounded corners and hash
marks and odd designs inside. "Yeah, I bet."

  "Would you like me to show you around?"

  "That's okay, I don't want to waste your time. But what's the prize piece you mentioned?"

  Loften grinned, patted him on the back. "You asked the right question. Follow me."

  Pierce trailed the museum director down a hallway to a door marked by Loften's name and title. He slowly surveyed the room. The walls were painted black; they matched the carpet. Behind Loften's desk, black wallpaper studded with the Milky Way swept up the wall and across the ceiling. "Interesting office."

  "Thanks. I like to redecorate every couple of years. This time I decided on something gelid and soothing." He smiled mischievously. "I guess I took it to an extreme, but I find it very tranquil. My escape from the heat and the chaos."

  He should've been a planetarium director, Pierce thought.

  Loften gestured for Pierce to sit, then walked over to the Milky Way wall. He pulled open a panel; inside was a wall safe. He twisted the dial back and forth several times, turned the handle, and opened the door. He took out a cylindrical box, shaped like a hatbox, and brought it over to his desk. "Here it is. I think you'll find this intriguing."

  Loften removed the top and carefully lifted out a transparent skull. He laid it on the desk. "Our prize piece. A hand-carved crystal skull."

  Pierce pulled a pair of drug store reading glasses from his jacket pocket, put them on, and leaned forward. The skull looked luminescent. Diamond-shaped eyes stared impassively at him from deep within their sockets. Two rows of perfect, crystal teeth seemed to grin and grimace at the same time.

  "Its history is a bit murky," Loften continued. "Supposedly, it was discovered at a Mayan site in Honduras in 1927."

  "I'm sure it'll be a big hit." Pierce sat back in his chair, threaded his fingers together, and gazed past the skull at Loften. "So, what can I do for you?"

  "I want you to find something for me. A lost artifact."

  "I'm not exactly a lost-and-found service. Was the thing stolen?"

  "Not exactly. It was hidden some time ago. Probably in South Florida."

  "What is it?"

  "You're looking at it. It's a twin to this crystal skull." He looked at the skull again. "Why was it hidden? Who hid it?"

  "All I can tell you right now is that I have reason to believe that a man named William Redington is also searching for it. He lives in Coral Gables."

  Loften opened his desk drawer and pulled out a thick envelope. "I'd like you to watch him. I want to know where he goes, and who he sees."

  He dropped the envelope onto the edge of the desk in front of Pierce. "There's enough to cover you for a week at three hundred fifty dollars a day—the fee you mentioned."

  "Are you hiring me, or is the museum?"

  "Good question. Actually, I'm acting at the request of one of the museum's major contributors."

  Pierce rifled through the bills, then stuffed it into his coat pocket. "What else can you tell me about Redington?"

  "He's a pro—"

  Loften stopped in midsentence as the door opened. He looked up, and his eyes widened. Pierce turned, glimpsed a man in dark clothes rushing toward him, a hand raised like a club, lips drawn away from his teeth. A jagged scar sliced across the man's jaw.

  Pierce started to raise his arm to block the attack, but it was too late. The hand slammed down and something hard crashed against the side of his head. He slumped in his chair; the light in the room darkened. As he spiraled into the blackness, the crack of gunfire followed him down.

  Chapter 2

  The street in front of the museum was jammed with cop cars and a crowd of onlookers as the body was wheeled out on a stretcher. A white sheet covered it, and only a pair of deck shoes with well-worn soles protruded from one end. He won't need a new pair, Pierce thought morbidly as the body was eased into the back of an ambulance.

  "Okay, let's go over it one more time, Mr. Pierce."

  He turned to the burly black man, who had been questioning him for the last half hour, and adjusted the ice pack at his temple. "My head's pounding. I hope we can make this fast."

  The detective tapped his notebook. His bulk filled an extra large Guayabera shirt—the Latin American substitute for a coat and tie. His clothes were rumpled; he looked like he was coming off a twelve-hour shift. "I'm just double checking. You can leave in a couple of minutes."

  Pierce's thumb ran nervously back and forth across the raised letters on a business card that read: LIEUTENANT MORRIS CARVER, HOMICIDE DIVISION, METRO-DADE POLICE.

  He was about fifty, and his short-cropped hair was thinning on top. His eyes were large, deep-set, and almost black, much darker than his skin. Penetrating, skeptical eyes, Pierce thought.

  "Okay, Loften called you about a job. You go in the office. He takes the skull out of the safe, and a couple of minutes later, the white guy with greased-back hair and a scar on his jaw bursts in, knocks you on the head, kills Loften, and takes the skull."

  "Right."

  "Good timing by the bad guy, don't you think?"

  "Yeah, good timing."

  Carver lowered his notebook and gave him an exasperated look. "Pierce, no offense, but you don't feel like a detective to me. If I saw you on the street, I'd say, 'That guy looks like a college prof masquerading as a used-car salesman.'"

  Pierce looked down at his brown polyester slacks, at the lime green sport jacket that was draped over his arm. He'd bought the outfit a couple of years ago when he was hired by a man who wanted him to look as much like a police detective as possible while inquiring about his missing daughter. He loosened his tie a notch. "I'm dressed like a typical detective."

  A furrow formed on the burly detective's forehead. He turned and scanned the lawn. "Hey, Neil," he barked. "Come over here a minute."

  A man with reddish-blond hair and an athletic builds who'd been standing a few yards away talking to the security guard, raised his head and ambled over. He wore a stylish sport jacket—an Italian design, or a credible knockoff of one. To Pierce, he looked like a Hollywood actor playing a slick detective.

  "Mr. Pierce here seems to have some stereotypes about how cops dress. I just wanted him to know that all of us aren't slobs."

  The man grinned, extended a hand. "Neil Bellinger, Mo's partner. How you feeling?" The man's features were boyish. His skin was fair and lightly freckled.

  His blow-dried hair was photo material for the window of a hairstylist. Spray held every strand in place. He pumped Pierce's hand and leaned forward. "Don't let him get to you." His soft voice was a comforting purr. "You're a P.I., but I gather you're not an ex-cop."

  "Ex-travel agent."

  "Really." He nodded, considering the career change. "I suppose anything's possible."

  Pierce's head throbbed, and the ice in the compress was melting like ice cream on the beach. "Are we finished? I'd like to go home now if you guys don't mind."

  "Don't blame you." Bellinger glanced at Carver. "Let's go, Mo. Let the man escape this heat and get some rest."

  He turned away, but Carver remained a moment. "You want a ride?"

  Pierce shook his head. "I've got my car around the corner."

  Carver took a step closer. His dark eyes bore in on him as a trickle of water from the compress ran down Pierce's neck. "You know, I've been a detective now for twenty-two years. I've learned that you sense things about a person as much as you pay attention to what he actually says."

  "I suppose so."

  "What I sense about you, Pierce, is that you're hiding something."

  "I don't know what else to tell you."

  Carver stepped back, regarded him a moment longer. His barrel chest heaved as he sighed and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "You better hope that this Redington has some answers."

  Pierce watched the detective walk away. He dropped Carver's card in his shirt pocket and slung his coat over his shoulder. He felt the bulge of the cash-stuffed envelope that was in the inside pocket of
the coat. Carver was right about him; the cop had savvy.

  He lifted the compress from his head, tightened the fabric around it, squeezed out the excess water. He put it back into place and slipped under the yellow crime-scene ribbon. Most of the crowd and police cars had dispersed.

  The Bible thumper and Hare Krishnas were nowhere in sight as he reached Twenty-first and Collins. They'd been replaced by a pair of Moonies hawking roses at the stoplight. Two hookers—one white, one black—eyed him as he neared his car. "Need some directions, sorehead?" one of them called out as he passed. "I'm a tourist guide."

  "What time you got?" the other one asked.

  Pierce kept walking. "Time to get high," a man's voice hissed from a doorway. "Crack, Jack?"

  He glanced at a pair of red pants and kept walking. Fucked-up people. Fucked-up day. He spotted a decorative addition to the window of his eight-year-old Saab. He snapped the parking ticket from under the windshield wiper, and patted the fender with his free hand. "Nice going, Swedie."

  He drove the dozen blocks to his apartment holding the towel and ice with one hand to his head. As usual, all the parking spaces on the street in front of the apartment building were taken. He slowly circled the block, watching for an opening between the line of cars. He thought he found one, but as he pulled even with it saw a motorcycle filled half the space.

  "Shit." He drove ahead as water seeped over his chest. Disgusted, he flung the sopping towel to the floor, then slammed on his brakes as a car pulled out from the curb. He immediately claimed the spot.

  The building was a flashy Art Deco prize with racing stripes stretching around its curved corners, porthole windows, and a checkerboard front. He climbed the steps to his second-floor apartment. Inside, the place was less than a prize. The pipes rattled. The electrical system was archaic. His one-bedroom abode had a living room, a tiny dining area, and a standing-room-only kitchen so small that the refrigerator door hit the counter on the opposite wall if it was opened too far. As he entered the apartment, the late afternoon sunshine filtered through the two porthole windows that looked out onto palm trees at the side of the building. Between the portholes was a wall of photos displayed in plastic box frames. Some were of foreign destinations Pierce had visited over the years, others were studies of Miami Beach's Art Deco facade. At the moment, all of them shone with dust.