by David Wood
A faint shuffling noise warned that someone was coming through, and indeed a few seconds later, Stone emerged from the dugout tunnel. Avery came next, almost jittery with excitement at the prospect of exploring the old mine and finding the mysterious treasure that, to all appearances, lay concealed somewhere within. She brushed past the two men and headed deeper into the mine, almost to the limit of the cone of illumination cast by Sievers’ single miniature flashlight.
Several minutes passed before Kasey finally came through. After straightening up and brushing the dirt off, she scowled at the others as if daring them to make a joke about claustrophobia. Sievers knew exactly how she felt.
“Hold old do you think this place is?” Avery asked as she ran a hand along one of the support beams. Little puffs of wood dust rose from her fingertips like smoke.
Sievers winced. “That’s probably not a good idea. And to answer your question… Old. A couple hundred years, maybe.”
Avery drew her hand back but did not appear to be the least bit apprehensive about venturing deeper into the excavation.
Sievers had explored a few caverns in his lifetime, as well as crumbling ruins in Afghanistan and Iraq. The mineshaft was nothing like those. It reminded him more of a crawlspace beneath a house—cramped and miserable. He could not imagine what life had been like for the miners, toiling forward a few inches at a time, dragging out rocks by the bucket full for months on end, just to procure a few ounces of silver or gold. The ceiling was low, barely high enough to allow him to walk upright, and the air was thick with the smell of damp earth and mildew.
The shaft was not perfectly straight but meandered left and right, probably following the course of the ore vein. After about a hundred feet, it opened up into a larger chamber, with upright support pillars and some rickety-looking scaffolding positioned along one wall. As they entered, a low, groaning noise filled the air and a stream of dirt began to trickle from the ceiling right in front of them.
“Officially not liking it here,” Kasey whispered.
Sievers swept the area quickly with his light, locating two more tunnels that led off in different directions, then scanned the area below the scaffold platform. The area was strewn with heaps of loose rock and litter from random cave-ins, along with broken tools and scraps of wood, detritus not worth packing up to the surface. Then the light fell upon something that he did not expect, and he froze in shock and horror.
“Is that…?”
It was. Resting at the base of the wall and staring back at them was the unmistakable outline of a human skull.
Avery hurried forward, as if finding skulls in dank abandoned holes in the ground was the most natural thing in the world for her, and knelt beside the skeleton to which it was still attached. Sievers and the others approached also, but with slightly less enthusiasm. Stone seemed distracted, peering into the darkness of the adjoining tunnels and sniffing the air experimentally.
As Sievers overcame his initial surprise, he saw the remains with more clarity. The skull, yellowed with age, was not completely intact. Several of the front teeth were missing, and there was an irregular hole, about the size of a quarter-dollar coin, in the top of the cranium. The skeleton was dressed in dark clothes, possibly a suit, though the garment was so ragged from the passage of time and rodent predations that it was impossible to say with any certainty. The object clutched in one bony hand, however, while covered in a scale of rust, was instantly recognizable.
“That’s a gun,” Avery said, confirming his observation. She knelt over the skeleton, this time taking care to touch nothing, and studied the tableau like a crime scene investigator. “I think he…”
She trailed off, unwilling to formalize the observation, but Sievers had already put the clues together. The missing teeth, the top of the skull missing, the gun in hand; the man had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A suicide.
Her visual inspection complete, Avery now reached out, gently tugging something out from under the skeleton’s left arm. It was, Sievers saw, an old-fashioned valise bag. The boiled leather had been gnawed at the corners, but was otherwise intact, as were, presumably, its contents, though when Avery tried to loosen the buckle holding it closed, the strap snapped off in her hands. She shrugged and then with only a little more caution, pried the case open. “Bring the light over here.”
Sievers approached and shone his light down into the interior of the valise. There was a glint of metal reflecting in the deepest recesses, but what immediately caught his attention was a folded sheet of parchment positioned intentionally so that anyone opening the bag would immediately encounter it. Avery picked up the paper and carefully unfolded it.
The page was covered with meticulously precise lines of flowing script. The writing looked like a long continuous line, mostly flat but for little peaks to indicate individual letters. “What is that? Arabic?”
Avery laughed. “Seriously? It’s cursive. This is how people used to write before text messages.”
“You can read that?”
“In my line of work, you have to be able to read old handwritten letters.” She continued reading silently for several seconds. When she got to the end, she let out a gasp. “I’ll be damned.”
CHAPTER 22
June 24, 1916
Dear ?
How strange? I cannot think of a single person to be the recipient of these, my final words. It was a mistake to have dared live as long as I have—a mistake which I will forthwith correct.
I do not know why I have persisted so long. Perhaps if I were the misanthrope so many believe me to be, I would have retired from this struggle long ago. Alas, I believe I have lingered this long, long enough to see my sons buried, and all my friendships turn to dust, in the futile hope that my admittedly pessimistic appraisements might be proven false.
Enough about that. Of all the words I have written, I care the least about these, but there are a few matters to which I must attend before I end the journey.
It has been a month since I visited the young cavalryman near Rubio. (If you are the man I think you are, then it is you who reads this now). I shall say now what I did not have the time or inclination to say then.
Three years ago, when I made known my intention to travel south and observe the war in Mexico, I was approached by none other than the president himself, and asked to conduct secret negotiations with Villa and Carranza, the generals of the Revolution. I fulfilled my duty in good faith. The generals, particularly that brute Villa, did not, which left me in a quandary. Should I complete my mission and return to Washington with the signed agreement? Would it make any difference at all? I believe it certainly would not to a man like Villa—All he knows is how to shed blood.
This is the problem that has occupied my thoughts in the months that have followed, and now, at the end of my journey, the answer yet eludes me. Perhaps you who read this will be more decisive than I.
So there. It is done. I have finished my last duty, and now I must depart for another unknown destination. Farewell.
Sincerely Yours,
Ambrose Bierce
“Ambrose Bierce,” Avery repeated the name after finishing the letter, but could tell from the blank looks she received that no one recognized it. “The writer, Ambrose Bierce. ‘Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’?”
“That kind of rings a bell,” said Sievers, hesitantly.
“Ambrose Bierce wrote ghost stories in the late nineteenth century. Owl Creek Bridge was probably his most famous. It’s a short story about…well, I don’t want to spoil it for you, but let’s just say it’s Twilight Zone stuff. Which is sort of weird when you consider that his disappearance is one of the world’s great unsolved mysteries.”
“Until now,” Stone pointed out. “Is he our ‘Devil’?”
Avery nodded. “Bierce got his start working at a newspaper as a printer’s apprentice. The unofficial title for the job was ‘printer’s devil.’ He was also a satirist. One of his most famous works was a collection
of satirical definitions that he called ‘the Devil’s Dictionary.’ He was kind of a cantankerous old guy. I think he liked that nickname.”
Another ominous groan filled the chamber, but this time even Kasey seemed to barely notice.
“Back in 1913,” Avery went on, “Bierce traveled to Mexico to observe the revolution. Or at least that’s what everyone believes. It sounds like he was actually some kind of secret peace envoy for President Wilson. He sent a few letters from Mexico, then just vanished. Everyone assumed that he was killed by Villa’s men. He was very critical of the revolution. He agreed with their cause but felt that the fighters were little more than bandits and murders.”
“But he was actually hiding out here the whole time,” Stone said.
“In 1916, Villa’s forces escalated and started carrying out attacks across the border. President Wilson retaliated by sending General Pershing’s Punitive Expedition—”
“Which Patton was part of,” Sievers put in.
“Which Patton was part of,” Avery confirmed. “It sounds like Bierce felt some kind of connection to Patton. I’ll have to do some research on that. So he comes out of hiding, travels down to meet with Patton and gives him…what exactly?”
“The Devil’s Gift,” Stone muttered. “Bierce didn’t actually give Patton anything, but he did tell him about it. The agreement he negotiated. The secret mission for President Wilson. That’s what this was all about.”
“Why would the president choose this Bierce guy?” asked Sievers. “I mean, you said he wrote ghost stories.”
“He was also a journalist, a war reporter, and a veteran of the Civil War. He had very strong political opinions and wasn’t afraid to publish them. And he had close ties to the newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst. He would have made an ideal envoy because of his celebrity status.”
“So he tells Patton about his mission and the deal he made with the revolutionaries,” Stone said. “Tells him about this place. Then he comes back here and… finishes things. Patton, for whatever reason, decides not to tell anyone about it. Thirty years later, he realizes that he can use it to become president, but before he can do that, he gets killed.”
Avery nodded again. “And now the Dominion is after it.”
“And the Russians,” Kasey added. “So what exactly is it?”
Avery laid the letter aside, delved into the valise, and took out a formal-looking presentation portfolio of black or possibly navy blue dyed leather, embossed with the seal of the United States. She opened it and scanned the document contained within. Unlike Bierce’s low profile script, the writing on the parchment in the portfolio was elegant and easy to read, the work of a professional calligrapher. “It’s a treaty,” she announced “‘A Treaty between the United States of America and the sovereign States of Northern Mexico.’”
“A treaty?” said Sievers. “We weren’t at war with Mexico in 1913.”
“It’s not a peace treaty,” Avery explained, as she began skimming the document. “It’s a…Oh!”
She lowered the portfolio slowly, as if its contents were some volatile chemical compound. In a way, that wasn’t far from the truth. “This is going to blow your mind.”
“Then speak up miss,” said a new voice from the mouth of the chamber. Avery was abruptly plunged into darkness as Sievers swung his light toward the source. Its beam illuminated the faces of three strangers.
No, not quite strangers. Avery recognized one of them from the Library of Congress, one of the men who had tried to abduct her. All three held pistols and looked ready to use them.
“Go on,” said the man in the center of the group. “We’ve come all this way. I want to know if it’s everything we’ve heard it is.”
CHAPTER 23
El Paso, Texas
Although he had not formally placed them under arrest, Director Waller made it abundantly clear that Tam and Greg would not be going anywhere for some time. At one point, early on, he had threatened to place them in the general population—where most of the illegals rounded up by the border patrol were kept awaiting deportation—but Tam knew this was a bluff. Waller wanted them where he could keep an eye on them, because as irritated as the Customs officer was, he also knew that a dark storm was brewing to the south, and he was sea-wise enough to know that it would eventually blow his way. His “guests” were part of it, and even though he was not happy about what they had done, he knew that there was probably a very good reason for it. So, instead of consigning them to an overcrowded holding facility, Waller put them in a conference room, under constant supervision, and there they stayed, in a sort of administrative limbo. Waller had not even let them make a phone call.
Yet, somehow, a phone call had been made. Shortly after three in the afternoon, the door to the conference room opened and an innocuous looking man—Caucasian, mid-forties, average height and build, brown hair parted on the right and combed down flat, wearing a tasteful, but inexpensive gray suit—entered the room.
Tam recognized him instantly and jumped to her feet, ignoring the throb of pain that shot through her bruised extremities. “Sir.”
“Sit down, Tam.” The man turned and closed the door firmly behind him, then strode to the table where she and Greg had been sitting. He did not sit down, but instead placed his hands on the back of a chair, as if in need of support. He stared at Tam for several long seconds before speaking again. “Christ Almighty. What a mess.”
Tam said nothing. She was not exactly intimidated; there were few people on earth who could manage that, but the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, answerable only to the agency’s director and the president himself, was her boss, and right now, she needed to be in his good graces.
“I’ve burned up a lot of chits to get you out of this mess,” he went on. “First that business with Stone, and now…For God’s sake, you invaded Mexico. Please, tell me this is worth what I’ve paid for it.”
That was the cue Tam had been waiting for. “You know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
The director heaved a sigh. “You were right about the Dominion before. That cuts you a lot of slack. But you’re going to have to sell it.”
“There’s a local businessman named Roger Lavelle. He’s Dominion. Version 2.0.”
“What does that mean?”
“More interested in ruling the world than burning it down,” Tam explained. “He’s a predator, not an ideologue.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Lavelle is working to destabilize the Mexican government so he can install his puppet, a guy named Esperanza.”
An irritated frown crossed the director’s bland visage. “Destabilizing Mexico isn’t exactly a tall order. That’s like deciding to make the ocean wet. And I’m not sure that ranks up there with the Norfolk attacks as an act of terrorism.”
“There’s more to it, but we’re still digging. That’s why I need to get back out there.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because Lavelle tried to kill us when we got too close to Esperanza,” muttered Greg.
Tam nodded. “And he’s working with the Russians. With Oleg Samsonov.”
That got the director’s attention. “Are you sure? Samsonov?”
“I was as close to him in Vienna as I am to you now.” It was an exaggeration, but only a tiny one. “Samsonov and the Dominion are working together, so whatever this is, it’s a lot bigger than internal Mexican politics.”
The director tapped his fingers on the back of the chair, then pulled it away from the table and sat down. “We’ve been monitoring troop movements in the Crimea. The Russians are fortifying their positions and it looks like they’re prepping to push their invasion even deeper into Ukraine.”
“Saber rattling?”
“It would be stupid for them to take it any further, but they’re desperate. Their economy is sinking like the Titanic. They’ve got a surplus of oil that they can’t afford to sell because prices are at rock bottom. A war to take back thei
r empire is probably looking pretty good right now, but there’s just one thing standing in their way.”
“NATO.”
The director nodded. “And specifically us. We wouldn’t need to even put boots on the ground. The Russian oligarchs have invested heavily in American banks because the dollar is a lot stronger than the ruble. It’s dirty money—mob money—and we know where it is. They know that if they try anything, we’ll freeze and seize.”
“Why haven’t we already done that?”
“It’s the new balance of terror. If we took their money, they’d have nothing left to lose, and things could get really ugly. And there’s the fact that sometimes it’s better to deal with the devil you know. If the oligarchy goes down, the men who replace them would probably be even worse.”
Tam considered this. Was Destiny somehow designed to distract attention from what was happening in Eastern Europe? If so, it would have to be something more than just fomenting political instability in Mexico. She decided to let the director reach his own conclusions about that. “Samsonov met with Lavelle’s men in Vienna. They have the ball now. If we can shut Lavelle down, we can stop whatever it is the Russians want to accomplish. You need to let me get back out there.”
The director stared at the table, evidently weighing her request. “The State Department has made it clear that they don’t want us interfering in Mexico’s troubles. Our government’s policy is to offer whatever aid is requested but to let things play out. We can’t afford to be seen as empire-building.”
The comment reminded Tam of what Samsonov had said to her outside the Hofburg. The sun is setting on the American Empire. “This isn’t just about Mexico,” she said, choosing her words carefully, knowing that she couldn’t back them up. “The Russians are targeting us. America. Whatever they are up to, it’s meant to hurt us.”
The director did not meet her gaze but after a few seconds, reached inside his suit jacket and took something from the inner pocket. It was a phone. Tam’s phone. Waller’s men had taken it from her, along with her Makarov. He placed it on the table and slid it toward her. “I’m going to trust that you know what you’re doing. If you let me down…”
