The Mayan Shard Caper

John Keshishian is an academic surgeon, now semiretired. He has been a professor of surgery, chief of his division, and chief of his medical staff. His idea for this story came from a combination of observations at various Mayan ruin sites deep in Guatemala's jungles and the discovery of the mysterious Mojarra stone, which became an object of controversy. At the request of Dr. George Stuart, he made a rubbing of that stone in the museum in Jalapa, Mexico. A rendition of that rubbing appears in Stuart's report of the Mojarra stone in a publication of Stuart's Research Center. The possibility arose to the author that there might have been a separate branch of the Maya which, like a branch of Homo, fizzled out. Add to this a background of forgery, murder, some odd sexual activity, and finally the quiet intercession of the CIA and a retired Ambassador, and it all makes for interesting reading.