“My ancestor said he would carry the treasure to the new world.”
“The new world!” Griffin exclaimed in shock. “Good grief, man. By 1610, the Spanish had already invaded both North and South America. We can’t simply comb through two continents. Surely you have something more helpful to offer than that.”
“There is more to the message,” Iker replied calmly. “My ancestor also said he would keep true to the dragon’s wing.”
Griffin stared at Iker in blank exasperation. “You’ll forgive me when I say that we don’t find that additional bit of information remotely helpful.”
Iker gave him an unaccountable smile. “Maybe not today, but you will.”
“Why would you think that?” the pythia asked, mirroring Griffin’s feelings of hopelessness.
“Because you are meant to find it,” the sentinel replied. “The old woman knew you would come here. And so you have. Time did not stop you and distance did not stop you. You found your way here all the same. You will find the treasure too. It is a matter of destiny.”
Chapter 31 – Aye, Spy
Faye had just emerged from Hannah’s sick room when she saw her second-in-command bearing down on her.
“Good goddess, Faye!” Maddie exclaimed. “You look like hell! When was the last time you got any sleep?”
The old woman put a cautionary finger to her lips. “Shhh. You’ll wake her. Let’s go out to the waiting room where we can talk.”
The two women walked down the corridor and seated themselves on one of the couches in the reception area. A single nurse was stationed at the front desk, immersed in paperwork. She took no notice of the pair.
“I can’t believe you brought her here!” Maddie hissed in a low voice. “To the infirmary right inside the vault? “
“She was unconscious when she arrived, and for her own benefit, she will be sedated when she leaves. Hannah won’t have any notion of the location where she’s been,” Faye replied serenely.
“But what if she starts asking questions while she’s here?”
“That seems unlikely since she’s never been inside a hospital before and has no basis for comparison. Given the circumstances, I was far more concerned about the questions which might have been raised by the emergency room staff at my local hospital if I had taken her there instead.”
“I suppose.” Maddie backed down. Her eyes swept the reception area and focused on a cart against the wall which held a coffeemaker. Its contents appeared to have been brewed several hours earlier. “I need caffeine. Can I get you some?” she offered.
Faye sighed wearily. ‘Yes, I believe that might help perk me up.”
Maddie trudged over to the cart and returned with two small paper cups. “I can already tell this stuff isn’t going to be any good,” she said apologetically.
“It will serve the purpose nonetheless,” the old woman answered philosophically as she took a sip.
The nurse rose from behind the reception desk. She said, “I have to check on a few patients. Do you have any questions for me before I go?”
“No, dear. We have everything well in hand for the time being.” Faye smiled.
Once she had disappeared down the corridor, the two women resumed their conversation.
“How’s she doing?” The operations director tilted her head in the direction of Hannah’s room.
“I believe she’ll be fine physically.”
“Physically?” Maddie asked cautiously.
“Yes,” Faye paused. “We had a brief conversation when she woke up. It led me to conclude that she’ll be dealing with the emotional effects for some time to come.”
“Poor kid,” Maddie said sympathetically. “What an ordeal.” She eyed her superior. “For her and for you.”
The old woman waved her hand airily. “I’ve lived through much worse than this, though I do confess I could use a good night’s sleep.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Maddie volunteered. “I thought I could keep an eye on things while you went home for some shut eye.”
The memory guardian studied her companion for a few seconds. “I’d happily leave her in your care if only I could be sure you won’t frighten the child half to death. I don’t think she’s quite recovered from her last interaction with you.”
Maddie grinned. “I’ll be on my best behavior around her. No swearing, smoking, or spitting. I promise.” She held up three fingers in the scouts’ salute.
“Well, I suppose.” Faye relented. She struggled to her feet, but Maddie laid a restraining hand on her arm.
“Before we go in to see her, there are a few other things I wanted to cover with you.”
“About our team in Spain?”
The operations director frowned. “Not so much about them. Last I heard, they were climbing some mountain where they thought they might find the relic. If they do, that will put them way ahead of the game.”
“Is it Daniel then?” Faye prompted, sitting back down.
Maddie shook her head. “Nope, I know where he is and what he’s doing. Stewing on Malta, trying to decipher the riddle. That’s not what concerns me.”
“Then what does concern you?” Faye asked gently.
Maddie blew out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been having one of our people tail Leroy Hunt. Ever since Metcalf gave him the assignment of finding Hannah, I thought it would be a good idea to keep close tabs on him.”
“That’s an excellent plan.” The memory guardian nodded approvingly.
“Yeah, except when the intel I’m getting is way more disturbing than what I expected to hear.” Maddie fidgeted in her jacket pocket for her pack of cigarettes.
Faye glanced pointedly toward a No Smoking sign on the wall.
“Dammit!” Maddie swore softly. “Sorry, Faye, but I could really use a smoke.” She impatiently jammed the pack back into her pocket.
“So, you came across some upsetting news?” Faye jogged the conversation along.
“Yeah, right.” Maddie shook off her distraction. “It turns out Leroy met up with an old army buddy of his named Orvis Bowdeen. Our agent tailed them to a bar in the city. Turns out this Bowdeen character is also doing some work for the Nephilim.” Maddie made air quotes around the word “work.”
Faye raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Indeed. What kind of work.”
“The kind that makes me plenty nervous,” Maddie shot back. “Metcalf hired him to give weapons training to some of his boys.”
“That doesn’t seem particularly alarming to me,” Faye demurred. “After all, Hannah told us as much a few weeks ago.”
“Wait,” Maddie commanded. “There’s more. Bowdeen is now supposed to tighten their electronic security systems.”
“Also not surprising given Hannah’s disappearance,” Faye rejoined. “It’s only natural that Metcalf would increase surveillance to prevent such an event from occurring again.”
“Hold on,” Maddie raised a cautionary hand. “I’m not finished yet. Bowdeen is also supposed to tighten security and train fighting units at all the compounds around the world.”
Faye finally began to feel some anxiety over Maddie’s unwelcome news. “It sounds as if they’re preparing for war,” the old woman murmured.
“And that’s not the worst of it,” the operations director continued. “Bowdeen was freaking out about something he called ‘the diviner’s grand plan.’”
“The what?”
“That’s what he called it. He wanted Leroy to tell him what the big picture was and they almost got into a fight because of it.”
“Because Leroy wouldn’t tell him?” Faye was taken aback.
“Leroy didn’t know and didn’t care. He’s apparently got a scheme of his own planned and didn’t want Bowdeen messing it up for him.”
Faye knit her brows in puzzlement. “How very strange. What can it all mean?”
Maddie hunched forward in her seat and clasped her hands. “These guys are ex-army. They�
�re tough as nails and not the sort to jump at shadows. Still, from what I hear Bowdeen was twitching like a bug on a hotplate over what’s going on at the compound.”
“And we have no way of knowing what that is,” Faye concluded, finally understanding Maddie’s concern.
“Exactly,” the operations director straightened up. “We need a spy inside.”
“We need a what?” Faye wasn’t sure she’d heard her right.
“We need to get one of our own inside the compound,” Maddie replied eagerly.
“What an appalling idea,” the memory guardian objected. “It would be certain death for whoever we sent in there.”
“Not if it was the right person,” Maddie countered.
“And who do you propose to send on this suicide mission?”
Maddie shrugged carelessly. “I don’t have anybody specific in mind, and it’s not like we can set this up overnight. It’s a deep cover operation that could take months to orchestrate. Of course, the agent who goes in would have to volunteer. I’m not going to appoint anybody.”
“That’s some small relief,” the old woman said though inwardly she felt nothing but foreboding.
The operations director seemed to realize she was on thin ice. She laughed breezily. “Don’t look so worried. I’m just spit balling now. I don’t even know if this plan will stick.”
“You will keep me posted if anything adheres to the wall, won’t you?” Faye asked drily.
“Absolutely,” Maddie reassured her. Sensing the need to change the subject before Faye could nix the idea entirely, she added, “Now let’s go check on your little patient.”
She took the old woman by the elbow and helped her to her feet.
“I really do think I could use some sleep,” Faye commented wearily. After Maddie’s worrisome scheme, she believed one night’s worth wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Chapter 32 – Bee Line
Ortzi, Iker, and the Arkana team sat around the large trestle table in the basseri kitchen discussing their next move. It had been an eventful day. The sun was just beginning to drop below the peaks. Although it was much too early for the traditional dinner time, the etxekoandre insisted on feeding them a hearty snack. It started with a green salad topped with seafood. The main dish consisted of deep fried cod simmered in a sauce of onions, garlic, and red peppers. It was called “bacalao,” and everyone asked for seconds.
While they ate, Ochanda moved silently around the table pouring cider.
“Eskerrik asko,” Iker murmured when she filled his glass.
Cassie inferred that the expression meant “thank you.” She tried the phrase when Ochanda got around to her glass.
The etxekoandre beamed back at her. “Ez horregatik.”
Cassie took a sip and regarded Iker pensively. “I know I’m tired, but you must be exhausted.”
“Why would you think that?” the sentinel asked in a puzzled tone.
She shrugged. “I mean you’d have to be—guarding that cave day in and day out for years on end. You must not have much of a social life.”
Iker smiled. “That is an amusing idea, but I do not guard the cave alone. I have many assistants, and we take turns.”
“So, you’re like the chief sentinel?”
“Yes, you might call me that. The task used to be much simpler centuries ago. Not so many people would climb the mountain, and most of them were known to us. But now.” He rolled his eyes expressively. “Tourists!”
“Guess we were lucky that you were on duty when we arrived,” the pythia observed. “After all, you’d be the guy with all the answers.”
“It was not luck,” the sentinel said softly. “Durango is not a very big town. Word travels when tourists are planning to hike the mountains—especially when the group includes a young woman with grey eyes. I wanted to take the watch.”
“Then why didn’t we see you on our way up?” Cassie persisted. “We started right after dawn. Did you camp out there overnight?”
“There are many different routes to the summit coming from all sides of the mountain. It is not always possible for one hiking party to see another.”
“Maybe we should spend some time talking about what happens next instead of what just went down,” Erik suggested pointedly.
Griffin sighed. “I’m afraid we’re still at an impasse unless...” he trailed off, thinking.
The others waited in silence for him to continue.
“Unless we approach the problem from another direction. Perhaps when the lost sentinel said he would keep true to the dragon’s wing, he wasn’t speaking literally.”
“No argument there, Grif. Dragons don’t literally exist,” Erik remarked.
At first, the scrivener didn’t reply. He sat tapping his chin in contemplation. “Dragons appear in the mythology of widely divergent cultures which is an enigma in itself. Why would the same mythical creature feature so prominently in the legends of Asia, Africa, India, and Europe?”
“There is a dragon in some of our stories too,” Ortzi said. “We call him Herensuge.”
“Which only proves how ancient a figure the dragon is,” Griffin replied. “But I’m wandering away from the point. To the best of my knowledge, there is only one dragon which appears in the mythology of the Americas. It is a feathered or plumed serpent and is one of the most important deities in all three of the major pre-Columbian civilizations. The Inca, the Maya, and the Aztec each revere some version of this new world dragon.”
“Then what are you saying?” Cassie asked. “That this lost sentinel might have hidden the artifact with one of the groups that worshipped dragons?”
“Possibly,” the scrivener replied. “Spain conquered all three of those cultures. By 1610, the means to travel to colonies in the Americas would have been readily available to anyone here.”
“I don’t know,” Erik said skeptically. “Why would the lost sentinel take a relic right into a nest of overlord types?”
‘I’m not suggesting he would have marched to the heart of Mexico City and asked the governor to keep an eye on the artifact,” Griffin countered. “It’s far more likely that he would have sought out a ruin in the general vicinity which the Spanish had no interest in exploiting.”
Although the three Basques at the table listened avidly to the conversation, they offered no remark.
“It kind of makes sense to me,” Cassie said encouragingly. “Where would he have been likely to go?”
Griffin continued. “Let’s approach this systematically, shall we? Beginning in the south and working our way north, the first landing point might have been with the Inca of Peru. Francisco Pizarro and a handful of conquistadors massacred a large number of natives and took the Incan emperor hostage at Cajamarca in the northern highlands. Not far from Cajamarca is the oldest known city in the Americas—Caral. It is estimated to have been populated around 2500 BCE.”
“By Incas?” Cassie asked.
“No,” Griffin replied. “By an unknown civilization and a highly advanced one at that. The city contained pyramids, amphitheaters, and temples. The culture was in all probability matristic. Like Catal Huyuk in Turkey, Caral had no fortifications, no weaponry, nor any mutilated bodies indicative of career warfare. Instead, it possessed a complex architecture and a record-keeping system which may have been learned by the Inca. Yes, I think that Caral would have been the most likely spot in Peru where our lost sentinel may have gone.”
“How do you know all this?” Cassie asked. “It’s one thing when you read up on places we’re going to visit, but you’re just talking off the top of your head now.”
The scrivener laughed self-consciously. “It’s because I’ve catalogued so many finds in the vault from those regions that I know the history of the area quite well.”
“You mentioned the Maya and the Aztecs too,” Erik prompted.
“Right you are. If our elusive sentinel opted to go farther north, he might have landed in the Yuc
atan among the Maya. They too were conquered by Spain.” Griffin frowned. “I don’t believe the Yucatan would have presented quite as good a hiding place, however. The Spanish never completely subdued the Maya. Rebellions broke out constantly during the colonial period which would have made it a highly unstable place to conceal an artifact.”
“Not to mention the Mayans were the people who predicted the end of the world,” the pythia observed. “They must have been a scary bunch to deal with.”
“What?” Griffiin peered at her.
“You know. December 21, 2012. All that business about the end of the world.”
“That is a highly inaccurate interpretation of the 2012 winter solstice. The Maya did not predict the end of the world. They were merely projecting the end of a 5,125-year cycle of their calendar—the end of an era, as it were.” Griffin glanced significantly around the table at all the faces. “From an esoteric standpoint, all of you should take a keen interest in this particular cycle because it correlates quite well with the rise and fall of overlord rule of the planet.”
“Are you saying that the Mayans predicted that 2012 would spell the end of warmonger societies?” Cassie’s voice held a note of doubt.
“It’s not quite as simple as turning on a light switch after which we’re magically transformed into an egalitarian society of kinder, gentler people,” Griffin retorted. “It’s a gradual process which begins with a rare astronomical event that occurs on the winter solstice of 2012. The sun aligns with the center of the Milky Way. To the Mayans, this dark rift at the heart of our galaxy symbolizes the female power of creation. They saw this astronomical conjunction as the turning point when the stewardship of the earth would gradually return to the hands of the grandmothers.”
Glancing wryly at his aunt, Ortzi chuckled. “Among the Euskaldunak, the world has always been in the hands of the grandmothers.”
The scrivener nodded. “That’s because your culture predates the 5,125-year cycle during which the world swung out of balance and overlords dominated much of the globe. The Mayan prophecy, if one believes such things, foretells an end to that state of affairs, beginning with the 2012 winter solstice.”
The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set Page 70
