[Excerpt]

Sleepy Stuart and cowboy-rich Indiantown, Florida provide the setting for a tale of intrigue and deception that challenges human comprehension.

Government mind-control experiments from the 1960’s up to the present are intertwined with the history of a 2500 year-old Mayan king’s death mask. Carved from a solid block of jadeite the mask follows the line of succession of ancient Mayan priests. Mack McCray becomes involved in the bizarre tale after witnessing the arrest of a Guatemalan migrant laborer in an Indiantown bar and the subsequent disappearance of the mask.

Pods of dying dolphins and whales wash up on Florida’s coastal beaches with increasing frequency each year. Marine biologists claim that infestations of ear mites, or the loss of their inherent navigational abilities, cause the animals to ground themselves in shallow water out of fear of drowning. Mack sees through this almost believable cover story after a chance meeting with a French marine mammal research scientist on an airplane flight to West Palm Beach. The Frenchman was on his way to investigate the stranding of a pod of toothed dolphins on Jensen Beach a few miles north of Stuart. The Frenchman reveals that top-secret United States Navy tests of an experimental high-power, extremely low frequency sonar system severely damages the ears and navigational systems of unfortunate whales and dolphins that are caught in it’s powerful beam. Mack learns that the Navy is also testing a powerful acoustic weapon that cripples the crewmembers of enemy submarines from many miles away.

Tina, the rabid West Palm Beach state attorney, becomes involved with the cause of an illegal female Guatemalan girl who was sold as indentured servant to an Indiantown bar owner by a Mexican coyote in exchange for her travel costs. Tina feels sorry for the girl and goes out of her way to see that she is treated properly. However, a big surprise awaits Tina!

The plot comes to a vicious head when radical Guatemalan migrant workers kidnap the bar owner in the dead of night and threaten to sacrifice him on an altar of wooden pallets to avenge the loss of the sacred mask. Mack faces down a Mayan priest over the ownership of the mask.