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  Legend

  ( Event Group Thriller - 2 )

  David L. Golemon

  A river of no return. A treasure to die for… The Event Group is comprised of the nation’s most brilliant men and women in the fields of science, philosophy, and the military. Led by Major Jack Collins, their job is to find the truth behind the world’s greatest unsolved myths. And this time, Collins and his crew will dare to uncover a terrifying secret — about the long-vanished tribe of the Incas — that’s buried deep within the Amazon Basin. Some secrets go to the grave. Others become Legend The last expedition into the depths and darkness of the Amazon claimed the lives of a female professor and her team. Now the Event Group, using cutting-edge technology exclusively designed by the U.S. military, will travel to the ends of the earth — from Brazil to the Little Bighorn to the Arlington National Cemetery — to bring new meaning to an ancient disaster…or bury the legend forever…or die trying.

  David L. Golemon

  Legend

  For my family — Steve, Scott, and Ric.

  The few become fewer.

  For my aunts and mother, the four sisters of the Apocalypse, living large at the time of the Depression and conquering at the time of war. The world has become a lesser place in your absence.

  For Katie Anne, Brandon Lynn, Shaune David, and Cindy Michelle — my children.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to take time out to thank my editor, Pete Wolverton; without Pete and his guidance, all would be lost. Also to Katie at Thomas Dunne, forever answering the mundane questions of the unenlightened.

  Finally, to the United States Navy, consistently setting the standard among the American armed forces for professionalism and foresight. To the blue ocean and brown water navy, without whose cooperation this book would not have been possible.

  PROLOGUE

  FRANCISCO PIZARRO

  A quest for the riches of the earth brought them to the waters of legend and the greed of man came and destroyed the way of innocence, and the ancient one rose from the depths to consume them.

  — FATHER ESCOBAR CORINTH, CATHOLIC PRIEST TO THE FRANCISCO PIZARRO EXPEDITION

  AMAZONIAN RIVER BASIN SUMMER

  AD 1534, 56 DAYS OUT OF PERU

  The Spaniards let loose a volley of musket fire into the endless green of the jungle, not knowing if their lead shot struck anything more vital than fern or moss. Even before the acrid smoke was cleared by the slight breeze that reached the floor of the small valley, the soldiers had turned and continued their flight, four and five men at a time, while a like number reloaded and covered their retreat. The captain ventured a look back to make sure all of his soldiers had safely vacated their positions, then he quickly followed to catch up with them.

  The deeper they fled into the surrounding jungle, the denser it became, effectively choking off their escape route with natural tangle-foot of vines and small trees. Above them, the sun was slowly being smothered by the trees that seemed to grow together, creating a false roof that offered no sanctity of protection. The river offered the only clear avenue of escape.

  The captain had but two choices: stay here and stand their ground against arrow and dart while taking and losing more lives, or go into the river, where they would be more exposed yet could make better time than they would while also fighting the thickening growth around them.

  "Into the water, men. Why do you delay? We must follow the river, it's our only route!"

  "Look, my captain," Lieutenant Torrez said, pointing skyward.

  When Captain Hernando Padilla looked up, his eyes widened at the monstrous sight. Towering above the Spaniards two sixty-foot-tall stone carvings rose above the giant trees on either side of the river. The expedition had never seen the like of them. The carvings were manlike in stature, only the heads were not that of any men or any of the Incan gods the soldiers had seen thus far. The lips were thick, and the deep etchings in the rocks depicted scales where flesh should have been. The heads of both giant figures stared down upon the intruders with the large eyes of a fish. They were ancient stone deities, guardians of the vegetation-choked waters of the darkened river beyond. Vines entered and exited the cracked and age-worn stone like snakes emerging from holes.

  "They are only stone imaginings of heathen people," Padilla shouted. "Get these men into the water, Lieutenant, now."

  Just as he had uttered the orders to advance, an arrow glanced off his armor from behind and ricocheted into the air. The captain almost lost his balance as he bent over, cursed, and then quickly recovered. Small darts started to strike the spit of sand and moving water around the Spaniards. The Indians were upon them once again, not only shooting their primitive arrows, but launching from long blow guns small darts tipped with the poison of exotic frogs — the very same devices the soldiers had seen the native peoples use frighteningly well during their time with the tribe. They knew it would be a slow death if even one dart pierced their exposed flesh. The men needed no more coaxing or threats. As the huge stone edifices watched on either side, they splashed into the swirling water and made their way into the shadows of the canyon.

  * * *

  The Spaniards traveled between massive trees that cut off the sky. They marched most of the late afternoon, enduring sporadic attacks from Sincaro emerging from the thick undergrowth beneath the trees. Then the Indians vanished just as abruptly into the jungle. It had been close to an hour's time since the last ambush, but the Spaniards were still expecting the next attack at any moment. As they progressed, the sky ahead of them was slowly being shut out by the jungle and towering trees from both sides of the river. They heard with ever-increasing volume the more pleasurable sounds of animal life, as a semblance of normalcy returned to their surroundings after their headlong flight. Until this point they had noticed no sound of life other than their own shouts and curses during the assaults they had endured the last few hours.

  Finally they fought their way past the raging rapids that had appeared suddenly. The violence of the waters had terrified the men, who were lucky to spy a small wedge of beach along which to pass.

  The captain called a halt and rested his worn body against the trunk of a large tree. The nightmare visions of the murder of so many innocents churned over and over in his mind, threatening to drive him mad. He lowered his head with shame at what they had done. The orders for the excursion into these unknown lands to the east had been given to him personally by Pizarro. The words of that order now echoed through his memory: The Indians are not to be thought of as allies. They must be subdued with forthright action and intimidation until such a time as the source of the gold is obtained. If this course of action cannot be maintained, assistance shall be called for immediately. The location of El Dorado is paramount above all other considerations.

  But Padilla had found the Indians to be gracious and kindly toward the visiting strangers. So he had changed his tactics and tried to gain the advantage in his own manner, ignoring the orders of the madman in the east.

  Padilla angrily removed his helmet and harshly rubbed the sweat from his face. The heavy iron soon slipped from his slick fingers and fell to the green jungle floor. The Spaniard ignored it as he instead looked skyward, trying desperately to penetrate the deep canopy of green for just a small glimpse of the blessed sun. But it was as hidden, removed from the world as he knew the grace of God would be forever removed from his soul.

  For three months they had endured the hellishness of the Peruvian mountains and Brazilian jungle, only to find they were alone in the most godforsaken area the expedition had ever known. Only the good nature of his men, grateful to be away from the slave master Pizarro, had kept his small company in line. Then one evening they had come upon a most wondrous valley, full of exotic flowers, t
all leaf-laden trees, and the blessed sun. It was here they had found the Sincaro; the dwarf Indians that inhabited the beautiful valley. The small people met them with trepidation at first. Against orders, Padilla had eventually gained their trust through trading and the honest goodwill of his men. They treated the Sincaro with respect and gentleness, and the small men and women of the village slowly welcomed the tall strangers as friends.

  These prehistoric tribesmen were a hardy people and, according to their stories and legends, had been so since they had been enslaved by the empire to the west. They had gained their freedom thanks to the river gods who had dealt their Inca taskmasters a savage blow a hundred years before, which had finally freed the small people. When asked how their river gods had achieved this, the elder of the village would answer only that the Inca had gained the secret knowledge of the Sincaro through murder and slavery, and had even tried to chain their deities and turn them on the Sincaro in the Incan pursuit of earthly riches. The river gods would not become the slaves of men, and they revolted. Then the Inca were no more. The old man would smile at that point when he saw the skeptical looks of the Spaniards. The Inca had never returned to the valley, and now it was the captain who would have to gain the trust of these strange and vibrant people to learn the secret that had brought and then driven the Inca from these lands.

  The short-lived harmony between Spaniard and Indian lasted for exactly twenty days: Good days that they used to their advantage, learning the Sincaro way and their simple lifestyle. Long days of nurturing the trust he sought, and in return Padilla's men helped these industrious people learn the strange ways of their taller visitors. The soldiers amazed them with the strange black powder that made their cooking fires jump toward the heavens in a shower of smoke and sparks.

  There had been smaller things, to be sure: The screaming enjoyment of young and old alike when they had been shown small mirrors. Letting the Sincaro touch and be awestruck by their armor, which the primitives thought was some sort of magical skin. The Spaniards had been patient as the children tugged and pulled on their beards and laughed as the men playfully tickled them in return. Padilla and his soldiers were also happy to share their own rations of pork and rice, and eat the strange but delicious meals the Sincaro painstakingly placed before them. It had been during one of these evening meals that the Spanish learned the Sincaro had never ventured out of the valley. Even their enslavement had been here, which indicated to the captain that what the soldiers sought was indeed close by.

  A time of trust had presented itself just as Padilla had said it would. Ever so slowly, the Indians of the Sincaro village began to take the Spaniards into their confidence and soon began bringing forth small trinkets of gold they had so cautiously and painstakingly hidden during the early days of their encounter. The gold not only started to appear as small bracelets, idols, and necklaces but loose, in leather sacks around their necks that brimmed with dust from the Amazonian tributary. It had been hard to hold his men in check once they had seen that. Padilla only succeeded in doing so by promising them the El Dorado that Pizarro had rightly guessed to be hidden in this green-canopied country, despite the Incan denial. If they bided their time, these friendly people would probably share the location of the source of their gold with them without much prodding and, even more important to Padilla, without bloodshed.

  Captain Padilla suspected the trouble would come from dreams of avarice, but instead it came from a man he should have been watching all along. Joaquin Suarez, a brute of a man who had worn out his welcome with the main company of conquistadors in Peru because of blackish and boorish behavior, had been attached to the expedition by Father Corinth himself, after Suarez's unholy rape and murder of an Indian child near the new Spanish town of Esposisia. The priest had sent him as far from Pizarro as he could, knowing that the big man would have been executed on the spot if word of his crime had reached the generalissimo's ears. The captain mused often how one could murder entire villages, even kidnap and kill the reigning monarch, but the single killing of a child was worth a death sentence, because nothing spawned revolt more than the deliberate murder of innocence. So the accused Suarez, a distant cousin of Father Escobar Corinth, was sent away with the only expedition to venture out this year, to keep him out of Pizarro's sight.

  During those many days of travel into these forsaken parts of the world, Suarez had grumbled about how he had been treated shabbily over the murder of the Incan child; after all, he thought to himself, It wasn't as if she had been a child of God. But he obeyed the orders given to him. He was silent and brooding most of the time, even treading lightly among the other men of the expedition, who looked upon the large soldier as a pariah. Suarez remained well behaved even after the gold started to appear. But now Padilla rebuked himself for not remembering the brute's black heart.

  Last night Suarez had taken Spanish wine with a tribal leader, against express orders to not give anything fermented to the Indians. The men could accept the strange beer that the Sincaro brewed, but the soldiers were to offer the Indians nothing of an alcoholic nature from their own stores.

  After an hour of drinking, Suarez had managed to get the elder drunk. But even then it was as if the old man knew exactly the giant Spaniard's intentions, and refused to say anything about where the Sincaro mined the gold. Suarez, having been driven mad by the refusal of the elder to talk, had finally tortured him for what he knew.

  Hours later, when the other tribesmen found the torn and battered body of their much-beloved leader, they viciously attacked the sleeping soldiers without warning. The raid was so fierce that the Spaniards' defense had been hurried and, in the end, futile. Padilla and his men fought back with a loss of sixteen of his best soldiers and most of their firearms. Among the casualties was Pizarro's own nephew, Dadriell. The Sincaro had lost at least forty or more, mostly women and, God forgive them all, children.

  Now the survivors of his once proud and now cursed expedition were holed up in a large green basin that was fed water by a very deep tributary of the Amazon, at least ten leagues from the site of last night's massacre. This great lagoon, which for all practical description was like a small lake, lay before them. They had waded along the shore of the tributary, following the treacherous rapids to gain entrance into this hidden Eden that had trees so tall they stretched and bent over the dark waters.

  This was a setting Captain Padilla had never thought to see in his lifetime. It was too beautiful, somewhere one would not wish to conclude a massacre if the small people chose to attack them here. It truly was a place God had sculpted when last upon this earth. Tree branches hung out over the water and soft grasses grew all the way to the slow-flowing lagoon. The walls of what had to be an ancient and extinct volcano rose on three sides, actually leaning out over the lagoon, creating three natural shelves.

  Flowers of every variety bloomed and nourished honeybees that gently moved from species to species, never noticing or caring about the sudden invasion by the Spaniards. The strange flowers that grew with only small dapples of sunlight were large and the most fragrant Padilla had ever smelled.

  The ancient volcanic bowl was not only fed by the Amazon tributary but also by a mammoth waterfall that fell from high above on the far end of the lagoon. But that was not the outstanding feature of the small valley. There, flanking either side of the tumbling waters of the falls, were pillars. They were at least 120 feet high, carved from the surrounding rock, and supported an arch that vanished into the white waterfall of the river above. Vines coursed through the cracked and weather-worn pillars; in several places they had separated the stone completely, making the columns look as if they would fall at any moment.

  Now here he stood, trying to decide if he should make their last stand or continue the insanity of running deeper into the green hell beyond the lagoon. The men knew there might be something here because of those giant pillars, but they had lost all interest in riches and just wanted familiar sights. Even to return to Pizarro was preferable to
this madness.

  Maybe the villagers would take the decision out of his hands and just leave them be. The captain would then personally report to the fool Pizarro that the expedition had been for naught, that nothing but death awaited any man in the distant valleys of the Amazon.

  While Padilla wrote his thoughts down into his personal diary, the map he had made of their travels fell from the back pages where he had placed it. As he bent over to retrieve it, he hesitated momentarily, as he was suddenly tempted to leave it to rot on the ground. Then he considered his men, picked it up, and placed it back into his journal.

  His thoughts of leaving the map so no one could follow were broken by the harsh laughter of the very man who had caused so much horror in the last twelve hours. Such a display of pleasure after the spilling of so much blood seemed wrong. The captain looked over at his men. Joaquin Suarez was kneeling by the water, his hair freshly wet after washing the blood from himself and his armor. The soldiers around him looked on and shook their heads. Everyone knew now that this man was a danger to them all, because of his recklessness.

  Padilla reached down and retrieved his helmet, and that was when he caught a glimpse of a strange visitor to their makeshift rest area. Huge eyes were there for the briefest of moments before whatever it was scurried off through the thick foliage, using the jungle for cover as it slid silently into the waters of the lagoon. Captain Padilla looked around to see if his men had seen what he had, but they were busy washing and lying on the thickly carpeted grass; some of the more experienced soldiers were even knelt in prayer. He once again peered into the thick undergrowth for some sign that the little creature had been there at all, but saw not a trace. He quickly came to the conclusion that it had been nothing but a trick of his overtaxed mind and the darkened jungle floor. Suddenly there was a rustling of bushes behind him, and his hand went to his sword.