Legend: An Event Group Thriller

by David L. Golemon

  “There is no such element in the natural world as enriched uranium ore; it’s an impossibility in the natural order of elements,” Virginia said as she checked Helen’s pulse. She closed her eyes and thought a moment, trying desperately to make sense out of this highly unusual moment.

  “Okay, I admit the elements and the situation would seem to contradict the natural assumption of improbability,” she conceded as she reached out and took a palmful of water and spread it on Helen’s forehead. “We have uranium ore, heated to an extreme temperature by the seismic activity of the caldera … and remember, Sarah, we picked up unusually high concentrations of fluorides in the water of the lagoon, obviously released through the clay or other soil in this valley; thus, it is possible to breed that ore into—”

  “Weapons-grade plutonium, free for the taking,” Sarah finished for her, remembering the light stands in the cave behind her and the graffito on the belly of Supay. “Jesus, everyone who entered this level of the mine is contaminated. If we don’t get out of here soon, especially them,” she nodded toward Rob and the others, “we’re all screwed.”

  “That’s just about what the professor thought,” Kelly said, locking eyes with Sarah.

  Jack and the others began hurriedly removing supplies from Teacher because she would never see the water again without Jenks here to supervise her much-needed repairs. She was too unsteady on the stone steps to delay in getting the supplies out.

  Although they were eager to get moving into El Dorado to look for survivors, Jack and Carl set up some makeshift lighting on the massive dock the Inca had carved out of solid stone. The wonders it revealed were beyond belief. All the Incan gods were represented along the high walls and many columns. The tunnels and shafts were stacked one upon the other in a never-ending spiral heading toward the top of a giant indoor falls that cascaded toward the floor in the center of the great mine, its spray keeping the interior of the mine constantly damp. The pillars that lined each level were carved from solid rock. How many hundreds of years, or possibly thousands this shaft had taken to be excavated boggled their minds.

  As they ventured deeper into the vast expanse of the pavilion and beyond the powerful lights and into shadow, they saw crate upon crate of stacked K rations, fuel drums, crated equipment, and other supplies. Each wooden crate was stenciled in black lettering.

  “United States Army.”

  Jack looked at Carl and raised his eyebrows. “Look at this.”

  Arrayed against the stone outer wall of the main chamber were what looked like graves. Heavy stones were laid layer upon layer, creating a large bulge in the stone floor. There were twenty-three in all. Jutting stone markers protruded from the rocks at the head of each. On each was looped a small chain and on each chain was a single dogtag. Jack raised one and shined a light on it.

  “Technical Sergeant Royce H. Peavey.”

  “Well, I guess that explains who the Kilroy artists were. But what in the hell were they doing here, Jack?”

  “This whole damn thing smells to high heaven. But we can’t speculate here; we have to get moving.” Jack took a last look at a group of Americans that had come pretty far to be left in a horrible place.

  “I figure we start at the bottom of the mine first and then work our way up,” Carl said as he turned away from the seventy-year-old cache of military supplies and the men they were meant to feed.

  “The canals?” Jack asked, as he started following Carl back to the smashed Teacher.

  “I figure we can scrape up the scuba gear we need if you’re game, ground pounder.”

  “You’re on, Commander Everett, after you.”

  “You think Sarah is still alive?”

  “I do, and I’m betting Jenks and Virginia are also.”

  Carl glanced back toward the long-lost graves.

  “Good thing you have the navy here, Jack; from the looks of it, you army types didn’t fare too well around here in the past.”

  Farbeaux halted the group when he heard voices. He cocked his head to the right and then listened again. Nothing but silence greeted him as he hushed the men behind him. It had been over an hour since he had started the group down a steep slope in the tunnels. Farbeaux had figured the ramp used to be a slide of some sort that had been possibly used for removing slag and other unwanted material from the mine. The ramp, as steep as it was, connected with almost every sublevel as it coursed down through the mine.

  Mendez and his men were really starting to grumble as they had passed vein after vein of gold, each deposit larger and wider than the one before it. He knew each of the fools, including Mendez himself, had taken their own samples and pocketed them.

  Farbeaux saw their bulging pockets in his night-vision goggles and smiled, then brought out his satchel again to take another reading. The men behind him didn’t notice what he was doing because of their avarice. They were intent on picking up as much of the gold ore as possible.

  He turned the machine off and then removed his goggles. He shocked the men behind by turning on a broad-beam lamp and shining the light on a very wide and very green-looking vein of ore that ran side by side with another of gold. He turned the miniature Geiger counter back on again, held out a probe, and the machine went crazy. It emitted what sounded like the clicking of a cricket. Farbeaux closed his eyes and then shut off the machine once again. He had found what he had come for deep inside the mine. After years of waiting and receiving the ore samples from his man at the Vatican, the chase and search for the diary of Padilla, suddenly now the lode was here, ready to be torn from the earth and sold to the highest bidder.

  “What was that instrument you were just using, señor?” Mendez asked as he wiped sweat from his brow with a filthy handkerchief.

  “This?” Farbeaux held up his satchel. “Well, let’s say it’s pointing me to the richest find of all, something you wouldn’t be interested in. But I will explain shortly; right now, let’s find that which excites you my friend, your gold.”

  “But we have found enough gold to last a lifetime just on this winding ramp you discovered. Why even proceed further?”

  “My friend, you can stuff your pockets until the very weight crushes your bones, or you can follow me into the lowest reaches and find it already mined, smelted, and possibly even stacked for you, ready to be shipped out. But I leave it to you—take what you have now and wait months while you try to get more equipment in here to mine the gold and possibly watch the Brazilian government take it before you have a chance to steal it, or you can follow me and find it all ready to take out. My way, you will at least have what you can ship out now. Not what you can stuff in your pockets.” He looked again at the meandering ramp, then faced Mendez again. “Which looks quite ridiculous, by the way.”

  Mendez didn’t know how to react to the mild rebuke. He was beginning to hate the Frenchman. Farbeaux’s attitude since entering the mine had changed; it was as if he had received what he had sought and now treated his benefactor with disdain. As he emptied his pockets of the gold he had collected, Mendez watched Farbeaux continue down the steep refuse ramp. He would see to it that the man learned respect for him, as had many who had crossed him did in the past.

  Farbeaux found the exit he wanted from the refuse ramp. The reading of his counter was almost pegged in the red. The ore was strongest down a wide hall that was marked by two columns, indicating an entryway into a broad corridor. The twin columns had the same carvings of the strange creatures that had marked those at the tributary’s entrance, but these gods were depicted in a squatting posture, as their massive arms and legs held up the top of the stone frame that guarded the entrance into the actual passageway used to remove the gold and other ores from the lowest levels.

  The group continued down into the great shaft past the ancient trail as laid down by the Sincaro as they labored among whip lashes to bring the Inca their treasure. The canal running the length of the shaft had obviously been used to carry small boats attached by ropes, and used as an ancient co
nveying system. The men even found remnants of the small boats in areas of the excavation from shaft to shaft, very ingenious for the ancient time and efficient in their way.

  One room just inside the stone entry that had been dug into the side of the shaft smelled of danger. Farbeaux shined his light inside and saw that the room held a small deposit of white sacks. One sack had disintegrated over the years and had fallen to the stone floor and broken open. The gold dust was unmistakable in the light as it gleamed and sparkled. He looked around the room and saw what appeared to be a fulcrum release. He also noticed small holes that lined the doorway which were currently dripping water. It was extremely hot in there. He once again shined the light on the lever, a small handle that jutted from the wall just inside the room, within arm’s length of the doorway.

  “Have your men stay clear of this room,” he said, turning to face Mendez.

  “I see what’s in there, señor. This is exactly the find we are here to exploit,” the Colombian challenged the Frenchman. “Jesús, Hucha, proceed inside and retrieve one of those bags for me,” he ordered.

  Farbeaux stepped aside. “You have been warned, señor.”

  Two men in the center of the long line stepped up to the doorway. Jesús stepped though tentatively and while Farbeaux watched, silently his left foot hit the false floor directly in front of the doorway as his companion followed him through. The stone at his foot slid down only a half an inch, barely perceptible even to Farbeaux who knew what to look for. The rectangle of stone settling into the floor triggered a small bronze pipe inside the thick tile. Small stone caps burst free from the doorway and several other spots inside the carved-out room with a loud pop, making everyone in the tunnel outside flinch at the gunshot-type reports. Jesús and Hucha were suddenly caught in a steaming-hot shower of water that must have run straight up through the magma chamber buried deeply inside the pyramid. They instantly fell to the stone floor, screaming and writhing. They rolled, but everywhere they tried to escape the roaring, searing steam, it found them from the many ancient nozzles inside. Farbeaux finally reached inside as his point was made about following his orders, and pulled down on the fulcrum release. The steam dwindled almost immediately to nothing.

  “You knew the room was booby-trapped?” Mendez said accusingly.

  “Yes, that was why I said for no one to enter.”

  Jesús and Hucha were dead. One of the bodies didn’t seem to believe it, as yet it rolled over on its back, leaving the man’s face sticking to the floor. Their boots were melted off, and in several areas bone protruded from clothing.

  “You have gone too far, you should have said something!”

  “I did, I said ‘do not enter this room.’ ” The Frenchman looked down the line of Mendez’s men. “Please do as instructed and you will not end up like your compatriots. There are many pitfalls here that can and will kill you in many horrible ways.” Farbeaux glanced into the room at the now red and fleshless bodies; only their clothing had survived the liquid inferno that had engulfed them. “I believe seeing is the best teacher we can have. You have seen, now follow instructions,” he said coldly as he turned and continued down the trail.

  The Colombians didn’t say a word because they could all still smell the boiled skin.

  Mendez watched as Farbeaux stopped and studied the deep canal for a moment. He was very weary of the imperious way this man was acting within the mine. He was doubly worried because Rosolo had not caught up with them. He waved his men forward, not taking his eyes from the Frenchman.

  Jack followed the more experienced Carl into the canal and out through the falls, looking around wildly for any sign of the animal that took Sarah. They followed the wall for almost sixty feet, started looking for a way in. They knew Sarah had detected several openings using the diving bell’s sonar track. Jack almost ran straight into Carl when he stopped suddenly. There, just a few feet ahead in the black water, Carl’s light was illuminating the creature. It was holding station in the lagoon by swirling its webbed hands in the water and lightly kicking with its feet. The dark eyes studied them for a moment and then it suddenly turned and sped off toward the wall. Jack grabbed Carl and pointed to where the beast had vanished into a small opening in the rock. They started kicking with their fins and made for the spot the animal had vanished into.

  Unbeknownst to them both, another set of eyes had watched the creature and the officers as they made for the lower opening of the mine.

  Captain Rosolo, having survived the attack by the very beast he had watched a moment before, turned and kicked in the opposite direction. Since the twin explosions of his limpet mines, he had taken his time to study the underwater layout of the lagoon. Now that he was finishing, he had become aware of company in the water and had watched as two of the Americans entered the lagoon from the falls.

  Now he swam for the opening of El Dorado. He figured it was time to take out an insurance policy against both the American group and the Frenchman, which he would deliver with extreme delight.

  Helen Zachary awakened and tried to open her eyes, but they were sealed shut with infection; additionally, her left eye was seared closed because of the extreme nature of the ore she had handled.

  Jenks was having his leg tended to by three of the young women from the expedition who were happy just to be doing anything at all. The master chief kept smiling and reassuring the girls that others were there and undoubtedly looking for them, even through the horrible pain as they tried clumsily to set his leg. Every once in a while he would take a deep breath against the excruciating waves their touch produced, and then he would look up and wink at Virginia, who was proud of the way he tried to reassure all of them in the cave.

  “That man, Kennedy,” Robby babbled and cried, “he came here because someone wanted him to make sure nothing like that ore was brought out of here. But it was he who took samples. It was Kennedy’s people that set off the dark one, the creature that lives in the pyramid; it attacked his team and then us when we tried to help. I don’t know why, but that thing acted as though it was here to stop anything from leaving this mine. I mean the ore; it wasn’t concerned with gold, just that damned ore. And then it was Professor Zachary who discovered why. She was actually communicating, well, in a rudimentary way with the smaller one, the one that’s hidden us since the other went berserk.”

  “Why … not, we’re … related.”

  Sarah and Virginia saw Helen was trying to sit up.

  “Oh, don’t do that, Helen, don’t move, you’re very sick,” Virginia said, placing her hand on Helen’s chest and easing her back down.

  “Virginia?” she whispered. “Do …you and … still …hate me?”

  “Stop that, no one at Group—” She caught herself before she said it. “No one ever hated you, Helen, no one.”

  A tear slowly trickled from Helen’s right eye and forced its way down her swollen cheek. “Niles,” she whispered.

  “Dear, it was Niles who sent us,” Virginia whispered in her ear.

  A sad smile came to Helen’s features as she lost consciousness.

  “What did she mean when she said the creature and us are related?” asked Sarah.

  Robby placed a wet cloth on Helen’s forehead and then sat back and explained. “Before the dark beast sank the boat and barge out of anger over those guys’ taking ore samples, Dr. Zachary ran a complete DNA sequencing on both of the creatures. There was not one difference between them, or us.”

  “That’s impossible. From what I saw, that thing is an amphibian,” Virginia challenged.

  Robby shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what you believe; those animals were once us. The doc said it chose to go back to the water, whereas we chose to stay on land.”

  “You say she communicated with it?” Sarah asked.

  “According to a wall diary of sorts, painted by the Sincaro, which the beast and its kind saved once upon a time from a bleak future, the darker species and its kind used to be slaves alongside the Indians. And they wer
e the only creatures, human or otherwise, who could mine the uranium without becoming sick. The smaller ones, the doc figured, were wild, never tamed by the Inca, that’s why they have more tolerance for us than the dark one. The doc said the animals had a natural resistance but not a complete immunity to the ore. It had something to do with total immersion therapy, a natural way to fight radiation sickness. Since the creatures mined the ore underwater, they didn’t die as rapidly as us land walkers.”

  “But what did the Inca need or even want the ore for?” Virginia asked.

  “The doc said they used it to heat their giant smelting pots. She says they discovered it was more efficient than trying to use the natural volcanic aspects of the mine. No telling how many people were killed during their reign over this area. Pizarro might have had the right idea; who’s to say who screwed who?” he said bitterly. “The Sincaro weren’t sad their masters were conquered; I bet those creatures have been a sight happier also.”

  “How many are there?” Sarah asked, actually concerned.

  “Kelly, you were there when the professor transcribed her notes. What did she say about the number of animals?”

  Kelly was haggard like the rest but she gave a smile that told Sarah she had a lot of courage. “She said that the animals are a long-lived species, but Helen thinks these two may be the last of their kind. The wild one, the green and gold creature, is very protective of all things in this valley. It saved us from starving to death.”

  “But what—”

  “Any further questions can be asked out here,” a deep, French-accented voice said from the cave opening, cutting off the question Virginia was about to ask. “So please, come out quickly, as my associate has stupidly pulled the pin on a hand grenade and is quite prepared to throw it in among you,” Farbeaux said as he stared at the stupidity of the move by Mendez.

  They all stood with the exception of the injured professor and Jenks, who could only look around in frustration for a weapon.

  “These guys aren’t with you?” Robby asked as he started to follow the rest from the enclosure.