Legend egt-2 Page 5

  "I'm afraid you may have stumbled upon something God has seen fit to hide in an inaccessible place for a reason, and, from what I saw in that case, Professor, you would be wise beyond your young years to leave this alone."

  "If I may ask, why are you willing to assist me?"

  He turned toward her again, his face a scowl. "I have read the diary, from cover to cover, many times." He saw her expression. "Does it surprise you that I would naturally be curious as to the old legends? But it is not only mere curiosity that guides me, but the fact that there are other things in that jungle besides your mysterious animal I must know about firsthand. You will be my messenger, because certain decisions will have to be made about this mysterious world you are going to, and you will assist me in acquiring the information I need to make those decisions. That is the deal, and for that reason alone is why I will help you."

  She started to respond but the archbishop had already opened the thick oaken door and was gone.

  * * *

  The Preciados Hotel Madrid had luxurious nineteenth-century room decor and twenty-first-century avant-garde public areas. At ten o'clock in the evening, those public areas were crowded with tourists and businesspeople enjoying a warm summer night.

  In her room for the past hour after returning from her appointment with Archbishop Santiago, Helen Zachary sat on the edge of the large bed, deep in thought. She looked over at her suitcase that was packed and ready to go. Only moments before, she had moved up her flight to New York and was now booked to leave at three in the morning. Inside her carefully packed suitcase, tucked between some innocuous pages of her notebook, were photocopies of the two pages she had been permitted to see of the diary of Captain Hernando Padilla. She had actually started to shake when the old diary had been placed in her hands by the archbishop. The book had felt warm to her touch. It was as if the weight of the days described within its pages fell directly onto her shoulders. Without reading the tale that was written by a once strong hand, Helen knew the journal told details of wonder and horror. When she opened the diary, the archbishop had removed it easily from her grasp to turn to the agreed-upon pages that described the route one needed to take to find the lagoon and falls that were hidden in a small valley. He didn't trust her enough to allow her to even accidentally read anything other than those two pages.

  As she sat there and calculated how long it would be before she could start organizing the million and one things she would have to coordinate to launch the expedition, a knock sounded at her door. She was startled out of her thoughts.

  "Yes?" she called.

  There was no answer through the thick door. Helen stepped up and asked again as she leaned close to use the peephole. "Yes?"

  "It is Madrid, Dr. Zachary, not Tehran," a voice answered through the door. "It is quite safe to open your door here."

  She swallowed when she finally recognized the voice. She moved quickly to undo the chain and unlock the door. Standing there, dressed casually, was a tall man in a black suit, white shirt, and scarlet-colored tie. His blond hair was combed straight back and he was smiling.

  "Dr. St. Claire, how in the world did you know what hotel I was in?" She opened the door wider to allow him in.

  "Professor, your expense account and credit cards have been issued by our mutual friend in Bogota. Believe me when I say it wasn't at all difficult to locate you." He stepped easily into the room and immediately noticed the suitcase.

  "You caught me off guard. I didn't even have time to call you with the wonderful news."

  "So your mission to Madrid has been fruitful?" he asked with undisguised excitement.

  "Yes, the archbishop relented and allowed me to copy the route from the diary."

  "I must know, Helen, what was it like, grasping the diary, something that has been so elusive to us?"

  "Oh, Henri, it was indescribable, it was like holding on to history itself."

  The tall man smiled and grasped her hands. "I knew it would be. Tell me, did you have to show him the fossil?"

  Helen Zachary momentarily closed her eyes and then smiled and opened them. "Yes, he was shocked, but he also knew something of marine life. You were right about that; how did you know?"

  "Always know what it is that will move those to your side of the game board." He let go of her hands and looked in a deliberate manner around the room. "Why, it looks as if you are packed; according to my information, you aren't due to leave here until tomorrow."

  "Yes, I thought I would get an earlier flight back home as soon as possible. I don't want to waste any time at all in getting things started. If we hurry we can miss the rainy season in Brazil," she lied.

  He turned and fixed her with his blue eyes. He smiled broadly, showing his teeth, but Helen saw that the smile never reached his eyes.

  "Good news, then; you can return to the States with me. Banco de Juarez International Economica has a private jet refueling even as we speak. We can fly straight to California without the need for a layover in New York."

  Helen was taken aback for a moment, then she quickly recovered and tried to look pleased. "That's wonderful, the sooner the better. Do you think there will be any problems with the initial financing for the expedition, now that we know where we are going?"

  "Not at all considering what we are after. Joaquin Delacruz Mendez and his banking concern have never once denied me financing on a project." He looked pointedly at her suitcase. "Helen, are you forgetting something?"

  She turned away and removed her coat from the closet. "I don't believe so."

  "The copies, you silly goose; may I see them?"

  She took a deep breath and started to recite the lines she had memorized just in case she was asked this very question before she returned to home soil.

  "I know I'm just being paranoid, but to be on the safe side I sent the copies to myself by registered mail along with the fossil, Henri. I didn't want any Customs problems with either the copies or the artifact." She walked over to her suitcase, in which she had carefully placed the notebook.

  "Prudent, but didn't I explain before you left that Customs in New York would have been taken care of?" His left eyebrow rose with the question.

  "It completely slipped my mind." She lifted her suitcase and then cringed inwardly when Henri took it for her.

  "Well, too late to worry about that now; by the time I return from Bogota the copies will have arrived, and then we can examine them together and chart our route." He moved to the door and opened it, her suitcase firmly in hand. He allowed her to exit the room, then closed the door and followed. His eyes never left the back of Helen Zachary's head as they walked down the richly appointed hallway. He sensed deceit in her but held his tongue.

  "What an adventure we have ahead of us, Henri," she said as she felt his eyes on her back.

  "Yes, yes we do, my dear professor, a grand adventure," said the man known to Helen as Henri St. Claire. His real name was Colonel Henri Farbeaux and he maintained his false smile as he carried her bag behind her. An international thief of antiquities, Colonel Farbeaux was wanted by the police agencies and governments of many nations around the world. And they all knew the man could be a coldblooded adversary. But for the moment he was content to be known as just Helen Zachary's silent partner.

  2

  PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA THREE WEEKS LATER

  Helen's offices on the Stanford University campus were dark save for the small sanctuary she called home when she wasn't in the field. The rooms could barely be called an office at all. The outer classroom was taken up with equipment and seating for her students, along with numerous exhibits from her time outside of the university. Her personal space was cluttered with a small lab table, and by maps of every conceivable size that were pinned to every inch of wall space. They all showed regions in South America that were affectionately known as the edge of the world to her many students. A few of them had handwritten legends stating Here there be Dragons, as a joke aimed at her cryptozoology leanings. Henri St. Cla
ire stood looking over Helen's shoulder at the map laid out on her desk, showing the route she had painstakingly planned.

  "So we will enter the basin from the Brazilian side and not follow Padilla's original route? I would think that you would follow the Spaniard's trail precisely to make sure nothing is bypassed."

  "Normally I would, but his original trek was through the Andes and many hundreds of miles of rainforest that we can now avoid by going through Brazil rather than Peru. The mixture of jungle and forest is so thick that even space-based photography is unable to penetrate it, and I really don't relish the thought of boating through that, do you?" She pointed to several color images taken from the U.S. Geological Survey photos. "We know the tributary is there, we have the proof now. Entering the valley and the lagoon from the east is possible; just because we can't see it, doesn't mean its not there. Besides, getting permission from the Peruvian government to cross their territory has proven in the past to be impossible. Now, as long as we are straightforward, Brazil offers up assistance freely, with only the proviso that their government is represented on the expedition to make sure nothing untoward takes place."

  "That is also a concern not only of mine, but also of our financial backer, Mr. Mendez. We take security very seriously, Helen; after all, he is not exactly using just his own funds for this venture, but the Banco de Juarez also. Strangers should not be allowed to come."

  "Unavoidable, I'm afraid." She made a show of examining the handwritten route as laid down by Hernando Padilla. "Brazil has had an inordinate amount of antiquities leaving their country. They insist on having a Customs official in attendance on the expedition and, believe me, they will tolerate no change in their policy." She laid the magnifying glass down and looked Henri in the eye.

  He smiled. "Then that is the way it shall be. So that brings the number of team members to forty-six students, professors, and guides."

  Farbeaux looked down once again at the copies of the diary pages that he had methodically examined for himself upon his return from Colombia. He agreed the route Helen proposed was indeed the best one, according to the description laid down by the Spanish captain.

  "Very well, Professor Zachary, I approve of the route you have chosen and will relay that approval to Mr. Mendez upon my return to Bogota for the final payment of the expeditionary funding. Helen, you have done marvelously. All the research, the trail going cold time after time, but your tenacity and your beliefs finally paid off."

  "Thank you. If I didn't have the free hand you gave me it wouldn't have been so smooth." She handed him a glass of champagne. "To a new, or should I say, an old life form we hope to bring to the light of day," she toasted.

  "To history," he countered, "and lost things," hoisting his glass.

  He sat the glass down, carefully avoiding torching the new maps that Helen had worked so hard on. He rolled up the copy she had made so he could deliver it to Bogota and their financier.

  "So I will see you next in five weeks in Los Angeles."

  "Helen, this is one boat ride I wouldn't miss for the world," he said as he tapped the rolled-up map against her shoulder.

  * * *

  Helen watched as Henri climbed into his rented car and drove away. She laughed softly as she turned and walked back into her small office. She sat at the small lab table she used as a desk and looked down at the map they had just studied together. She used her right index finger to lightly trace the flow of the Amazon River she had depicted. Then she used both hands to wad up the copy of the map and toss it into the waste can in the corner. She did the same with the copy of the Padilla diary pages. It had taken her a full three days to plan the misleading route she had given to St. Claire, and another two days of actually drawing it and creating the falsified diary pages. But she knew it had been worth it, as the good Professor St. Claire had taken to heart her grand forgery and fake route.

  After she had tossed the forgery into the trash, Helen poured herself another glass of champagne and walked with it to one of her filing cabinets that crowded the office. She sat the glass on top, unlocked the second drawer, and removed a folded chart and a small file folder. She took the chart, the file, and her glass to her table and sat down. She unfolded the real map and then removed from the file the copies she had actually made of the diaries.

  Helen smiled and took a sip from her glass. Then she took her cell phone from her pocket and started pushing numbers she had memorized. She had never actually programmed them into her phone, for security reasons.

  "This is Robert."

  "Is everything ready in San Pedro?" Helen sipped from her glass again.

  "We're loading the largest of the equipment now, deck space will be kinda tight, but we'll manage; we should be finished in a few hours."

  "How about the replacement grad student, the one you found at Berkeley, did she show up?"

  There was only a moment's hesitation, then her assistant Robby answered, "Yes, ma'am, she arrived an hour ago and is already situated. I think you'll be more than satisfied with her. She's one of the brightest in her field; she knows animals."

  "Good. Look, I'll be down in about three hours, I'm flying into LAX. My attorney should be arriving there about the same time my flight is landing, so please make sure he's shown to the ship's company office and tell him I'll be there soon, okay?"

  "You got it, Doc. So how did your final meeting with the money man go?"

  "It went better than expected. He gave us the second check and left for Bogota to pick up the third part of our financing. It's just too bad we didn't need that part. But it will keep him away and out of our hair until we sail. Have our new benefactors arrived yet?"

  "Yeah, they're here, all six of them, that Dr. Kennedy guy and five others. What do you want us to do with all of Henri St. Claire's geological stuff, the magnetometers and other mining equipment?"

  She took a large swallow of champagne and smiled as it went down. "Leave it on the dock with a note saying, 'Liar, liar, pants on fire.' "

  "You got it, Doc, see you in a few."

  Helen closed her cell phone and stopped smiling. She hated screwing over someone like Henri St. Claire, but he never should have misrepresented himself as someone who was in this for the sole reason of discovering one of the mysteries of the ages. He was in this for greed, his own and that of the gangster who called himself a banker.

  "There would be no hunting for the mythical El Dorado on this trip, Dr. St. Claire. Where we're going, you cannot follow," she said to herself as she placed the real map and Padilla pages in her briefcase, stood, and made her way out into the evening.

  THE WHITE HOUSE, WEST WING

  The national security advisor sat behind his desk facing his computer monitor that was presently split into four separate pictures. In the far left corner was General Stanton Alford, commanding general of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On the right top was Rear Admiral Elliott Pierce, U.S. Naval Intelligence; directly below him was the frowning countenance of General Warren Peterson, U.S. Army Intelligence; and to the left of him, U.S. Air Force Intelligence chief General Stan Killkernan. They were there to discuss a file the CIA, and before them the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, had kept under wraps since the days before World War II. The gathered intelligence officers weren't taking the new development well.

  "If the Joint Chiefs or the president even get an inkling of what we've done it will be all our asses in a sling, and it all starts with you, Mr. Ambrose. The last I heard, the president wasn't too fond of his generals around here. I believe the title of the book we opened to the world these past few days is called treason. Not only have we supplied an outlawed material to a foreign nation, but now we are stealing actual weapons for use on the soil of a friendly country. This whole plan is spiraling out of control," General Peterson said as he glared into the camera on his end at the Pentagon.

  "We have no choice but to send the weapon and team down to South America as a precaution. What if the old site is rediscovered?
The prewar material could only be traced back to us if a link is found from the old incursion, something that leads to the storage facility where the material was stored. But other than that, the only way it can be linked to us is if one of you loses his nerve. Gentlemen, if that professor brings that area of Brazil out into the light of day, the whole damned mess becomes public," the national security advisor said angrily.

  "I agree," said Stanton Alford. "After all, we may not even have a site that has to be destroyed. I don't believe this Professor Zachary will ever find it. Hell, we don't even know where it is. We only have the material, not the location where it was found. The Corps of Engineers was the only department to document the 1942 incursion, and that report was buried in National Archives files. And since the old material is in Iraq and no longer in this country, it's untraceable back to us unless this one engineer report from the war years is discovered in the National Archives files, and we'll have that file tagged and monitored."

  "What about Zachary's source? We're not even sure how she got her information."

  Alford was tiring of the debate. "The only other mention of the mine is in rumor and innuendo and a possible diary that's over five centuries old. My department had control of the army samples for seventy years. It was never turned over to the regulatory commission nor was it ever classified as a weapon by the old War Department. So, I say we err on the side of caution and send our team in with the expedition. As I said, that crazy woman probably won't find a damned thing. She's using five-hundred-year-old data from a conquistador, for Christ's sake! It's like finding one needle in five thousand haystacks. She could have only come across the description of the location in the National Archives' database. The diary theory is ridiculous."

  "And if the site is found? You say the answer is to possibly eliminate the entire Zachary expedition with your fail-safe alternative, with a nuke and some SEALs? It's fucking murder!" General Peterson exclaimed angrily.

  "My men won't let it get that far. I've worked with this particular strike team before and they're very good. No American citizens will be harmed. I can guarantee that," Rear Admiral Pierce said confidently. "Besides, what if this mine is still in existence, we could never allow a third-world nation to have access to Pandora's box, now can we? We set the tactical weapon inside the mine and bring it down. Problem solved."