Holding the Stone of Kings

Abby slipped through the metal detector. Wearing black slacks and a colorful woven Guatemalan huipil blouse, she nodded politely at the man holding the tray with her small purse as she retrieved it. Her partner Ryan followed, picking up his phone and keys, and the two of them sauntered into the MUNAG, the Museo National de Arte Guatemalteca. Free, located on the Antigua central park in the immense old yellow building of the Capitanes Generales from the Spanish colonial era, a few other guests entered behind them.  

They meandered through an exhibit on the old mint, turned down the headphones, and passed a group of schoolchildren listening to a guide.

Beginning with modern art, Abby’s eyes twinkled at the gold painted McDonald’s cup.

“Look,” she said to Ryan, her dark eyes shining, “I think that cup has possibilities!”

He bent to look, glints of blond in his dark hair flashing to match the gold. “Charming,” he agreed. “A lot of traffic, though. Too difficult with so many people coming through.”

The next room contained a large twisting sculpture made of turtle shells which Abby thought a creative combination of old and new. She could envision herself dressed as a Mayan princess, holding a turtle shell and dancing while she struck it with a mallet. She tapped one of the shells.

The explanation of the stylized mermaid drawing used as the museum logo drew their attention, and Abby stretched out her arms, tossed her dark hair to the side, and jauntily tilted her derriere to match the image. Ryan laughed appreciatively.

They walked up stairs, through striking paintings from Guatemalans who had studied abroad in the 1940s and brought an international style to the country. Abby pointed out several smaller sculptures with no cases around them, abstracted figures of couples. “I had noticed those when I came through before, too,” agreed Ryan. “But very difficult to make a reproduction.”

“These are great, too,” she suggested as they peered at old manuscripts of the declaration of independence and the national anthem inside glass cases.

Ryan objected, “A limited market and one we don’t know.”

The flow of the museum took them out to a second story balcony that overlooked the city’s central park. A uniformed guard stood there and smiled at them. Abby suggested they take a selfie with the jacaranda trees and the cathedral as the background, and Abby flung out her arms and grinned for Ryan’s camera phone.

On the top floor they walked quickly through the colonial era sculptures and immense paintings of scripture or saints taken from church altars. In the dark room, lights flashed on life-sized Saint Bartholomew being skinned alive as a rather horrible object of devotion while an eerie disembodied voice narrated. Abby exited quickly.

They then reached what genuinely interested them—the pre-Columbian art of the ancient Maya. Small clay figures of seemingly pregnant women drew Abby close to the glass case on a wooden cabinet. “I really like these.”

“Maybe someday,” agreed Ryan. “You could distract people in the colonial exhibit while I picked the lock.”

Once they reached a set of rooms on the upper level of the courtyard featuring more Mayan exhibits, Ryan motioned to the next door, saying, “Here.” Abby nodded and went inside, while he stood outside reading large cardboard panels with maps and explanations of historical periods. 

Abby reached into the money belt under her bright huipil and pulled out a carved jade figure of a jaguar. The deep green figures matched perfectly. She opened the unlocked cabinet, and stretched to slip her hand into the glass case from a gap in the wooden case beneath it, holding the figure she had brought. She made the substitution and put the original carving into her money belt. She quickly locked the cabinet. As she stepped outside her eyes locked with Ryan’s and they nodded.

Several other guests came closer to enter the room where she had been. Heart pounding, she followed Ryan into the next exhibit. Afterwards, they went down the stairs to the MUNAG store.

“I want one of those mugs with the museum logo as a memento,” suggested Abby, and Ryan bought it. They walked out into the shade of the immense trees of central park, and Ryan started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Way too easy,” he said. “Far enough off in the museum that I had time to pick the lock yesterday.”

Back at their hotel room, Abby held the figure admiringly. 

“It’s such a deep green, such vivid carving, and so ancient! I feel like I’m holding time in my hands. Do you think it was made for a king?”

“Probably. The label said 250 AD so we can see if archaeologists know the kings reigning at that period. It could give the piece additional pizzazz.”

“I’ve seen jade pieces from white to black with shades of lavender, blue and light to dark green, but I do love this color. It would be amazing if we could sell a piece of imperial green jade—an awesome necklace or something.”

“It would make our fortune,” Ryan grinned, “and we could retire.”

“As millionaires,” agreed Abby. She reluctantly slipped the jaguar into a hidden compartment in her carryon bag.

At supper at the hotel restaurant, Abby relaxed. Tonight they would meet one of their partners to purchase painted pots and carved stones, all Mayan antiquities which they would then transfer to large bags of coffee at a warehouse where the trucker would take them to a barge and put them in a container headed north. Their business had thrived for several years with buyers in the US and Europe happy to take what they sold, and the smuggling trail worked smoothly.

She would take this more valuable piece of jade on the airplane two days from now. If caught at customs she would simply say she had bought it in the market and hope for the best, making a pretense of naiveté over carrying an original. Ancient Mayan carvers had a high skill level which modern collectors valued.

As they ate she glanced at two men sitting at another table. One had the pronounced beak of ancient Mayan noses. The other almost looked like a bodyguard. She wondered who they were and why they had come to Antigua. As they finished dessert, a group of musicians began playing the marimba and the man with the notable nose seemed delighted though his companion winced from time to time listening to mallets striking wood. After a performance by masked and brightly dressed dancers, Abby accepted the pull out on to the dance floor and enjoyed the moment.

Back in their room, Abby took the jade jaguar out of its hiding place to hold it once more.

 Ryan asked, “Did you notice those two men at the table across from us?”

“I did.”

“I think I’ve seen them but can’t remember where.”

“You’ve definitely seen the one man’s profile in a lot of our artwork.”

“Maybe.”

Abby reluctantly hid the jaguar once more as they prepared to leave. At nine pm they walked toward the edge of town where they’d arranged to meet their partner, decide on pieces, and exchange money. As they entered a house and found the shadowy form of their middleman, Ryan and Abby felt the usual thrill of living on the edge, enthusiasm for the coming financial windfall, and pride in their skill. 

As she lifted a stone carving of an ancient face, Abby exclaimed, “This whole country is a museum.”

The consultation took an hour and the most outstanding pieces looked lucrative. After agreeing on the price, their friend, who preferred to be known only by his first name, “Jorge”, walked them to the door. He had been invaluable in finding someone to carve the jade reproduction after Ryan had taken note of it a few months earlier.

Outside, the man Abby had thought looked like a bodyguard loitered across the street.

“Baldo Bongana!” exclaimed Ryan.

“The same,” the man agreed.

“I thought I recognized you. I’ve seen your picture in the paper. You work with Obsidiano Coy, right? What brings you to Antigua?”

“You and Abby, of course.”

Abby had never met this man. Startled to hear her name, her heart thumped loudly in dread. 

Baldo signaled to someone a half a block away, “I think we’ll go back inside with you,” he suggested.

Ryan stared at Abby as though trying to decide whether to run. But he shrugged and knocked. Two men with Baldo flashed badges—an undercover Guatemalan policeman and an ICE agent specializing in antiquities anti-trafficking—and they gathered around the door. As Jorge opened, he looked alarmed at the three unfamiliar figures who pressed inside. He had started packing pieces into the coffee bags, but many remained on the corridor. 

Ryan’s protests that they had innocently looked at these things, supposing them to be reproductions, rang hollow. Abby’s assertion they had bought nothing fell flat when Baldo showed them his phone which traced a financial transaction far beyond a reasonable sum for reproductions.

“We’ll take you into custody,” said the Guatemalan officer, “Though, as foreigners, you’ll be out on bail to await trial. You,” he said nodding to Jorge, “will be in administrative custody.”

Abby had always known they could be caught, but this felt disastrous. At least her jade jaguar remained, and perhaps she could still leave the country. After some paperwork, Baldo drove them back to the hotel. In theory they weren’t to leave the country, but Abby had another passport she planned to use first thing in the morning, and Ryan would do the same.

When they entered the courtyard heading to their room, the man with the Mayan nose sat in a chair by their door.

“Obsidiano,” acknowledged Ryan. “Why are you here?”

“The museum in San Francisco asked me to look into your movements.”

“Oh.”

“We’ll make sure there’s enough evidence for five to ten years jail time here.”

Abby felt on the verge of tears but smiled saucily at him.

“You have nothing on me,” she said.

“You do realize there’s a difference between jadite and nephrite, don’t you?” 

“Of course. But they’re both jade,” she responded.

“After you left the museum we had them take the jaguar for testing to verify it’s the softer nephrite. A good copy, but not the original.”

Ryan stared. “Did you make sure that figure was readily accessible? Bait?”

“Of course,” said Obsidiano tranquilly.

“I have a warrant to search your room,” Baldo added.

It took him only ten minutes to find the jade jaguar while Abby slumped hopelessly in a chair on the corridor. Her life of crime, started as a lark when she met Ryan five years ago at the Tikal ruins, had come to an abrupt and terrifying end.  She looked at the friend who had given her so many thrills and wondered if she could pin all the blame on him. She could say she didn’t know anything and he must have slipped the piece into her luggage. They would both need good lawyers, but she’d cooperate to get the least jail time possible. 

Her dad would pay anything necessary to make this go away. Conveniently, she had sold him a piece and he would not want to be implicated. Ryan looked at her speculatively as though guessing her thoughts. He had no family to back him. Probably best not to visit him in jail. She looked away.