"Oh God, Kelly?" he called and fought to gain his feet.
The next thing Robby knew, he was being embraced by the most welcome vision he had ever seen.
Kelly kissed him all over his face and hugged him until he had to pull away for air.
"You're alive, I can't believe it!" she cried as she pushed him away and looked him over. The girl holding the torch was Deidre Woodford, Professor Zachary's office assistant, who couldn't help but smile at the reunion.
"The others, how many are with you?"
"We have about twelve in our group," Kelly said as she nervously looked around her. "Come on, we have to get back. We can only be out for twenty minutes at a time."
"What…what are you talking about?" he asked as he was pulled along.
"It will take too long to explain, Robby, but just to let you know, we're the houseguests of the owners of El Dorado."
He was pulled along until they reached a great carved-out chamber and, as they entered the light of several torches, Robby gaped at the spectacle before him.
"Something, isn't it?" Kelly asked as she led him around a large grotto of clear, clean water that filled the center of the huge, once natural cave.
"Look at that!" Robby was gazing up at more than a thousand life-size statues of the beast they had seen and been attacked by. They lined the walls as if they had been arranged to have their stony gaze watch the interior of the enclosure. Situated between each statue was a small opening and in some of these openings firelight flickered. He was looking at over five hundred living quarters that had at one time housed the slaves that worked this mine.
"Come on, we have to get inside before the creature comes back. It's almost lunchtime," Kelly said as she looked at her watch. "Every twelve hours like clockwork. And that big bastard is never late."
"What in the hell are you talking about?" Robby asked as he was led into one of the enclosures. He saw that very old animal skins, along with a strangely woven cloth, covered the mouths of these strange dormlike rooms.
"The thing that attacked us out on the beach?"
"Yeah?"
"It thought we were trying to escape the valley and these mines," Kelly said. She lit another torch. And in that light she could see he wasn't following her. "Robby, that creature is our jailer. It's been trained to keep us right here. To keep us close to our work and to stop any attempt at leaving the mine." She reached down to retrieve something, and thrust it into his right hand. "Here, you must be starving."
He saw that she had given him cooked fish. He crammed it into his mouth, just now realizing how long it had been since he had eaten. The white meat tasted as good as anything he had ever dined on before in the best restaurants. When he finished, he leaned over and kissed Kelly.
* * *
Robby couldn't make out the reasoning behind what she was saying. The dots that were supposed to be connected swirled before his eyes. Then in the torchlight he saw the cave paintings of long ago, rendered by a very primitive culture, possibly the Sincaro Indians. Their whole story was there for him to read and finally get a mental grasp of. As Kelly held the torch out for him to follow, he saw a long and brutal history of slavery and mass murder as depicted by a long-dead hand.
That was when a warning call sounded from outside in the grotto. "It's coming!"
Kelly quickly placed the torch on the floor and stepped on it until it was extinguished. Then she took Robby's hand and pulled him back to the mouth of the small cave. Kelly held her index finger to her lips as he started to ask a question. She gestured out toward the semidarkness of the giant cave.
Then he saw it. The creature was standing right at the water's edge, watching the people inside their small enclosures. The beast grunted three, four, five times. It was enormous. The long arms, muscled and sinewed, hung leisurely at its side, then the waters of the grotto erupted with sound and splashing water as the small amphibious monkeys broke the surface of the large underground lake. Robby watched as they struggled to the rock shoreline and saw that each had its own burden to carry ashore; each had one, two, or three struggling fish in its clawed hands. One by one the monkeys tossed a flopping handful toward the humans who cowered inside, watching. Then the amphibians splashed back into the strange grotto and vanished. The giant beast looked around and then slowly stepped back until it was covered in water and disappeared.
"If I make it out of here alive, I've got the making of one hell of a thesis," Kelly said with a grin. Then she saw the confused look on her fiance's face.
"Don't you understand? It's lunchtime for the slaves. And our guard and his trained staff just brought the food."
He couldn't say anything as his mind raced. These prehistoric creatures had been trained to watch and keep human slaves? But why?
"I can see the questions racing around that Stanford-type brain of yours, so let someone from Cal-Berkeley and real higher education explain it to you. It didn't take that long to figure out. Why would the ancient slave masters of the Sincaro go through the difficulty of training the wildlife here to act as prison guards when they could have just as easily watched over their slaves themselves? The answer is simple. They didn't want to die as their slaves did by the thousands. I'll bet my eventual master's degree that not only were the Sincaro driven to near extinction, but five or six other large tribes throughout El Dorado's history were murdered till not a one survived in this place."
"For what? Gold?" Robby asked incredulously.
Kelly lowered her head, then took Robby by the hand and pulled him out into the enormous cave. Then she turned and called for the gathered survivors to douse their torches. As they did, little by little the cave went dark.
"I don't get—"
"Watch," Kelly said as she turned toward the walls.
As Robby's eyes adjusted to the blackness around him, he saw first the many statues of the creatures start to give off a dim glow. Next, the very walls around them became alive with a green luminescence that grew in intensity. Then, as his jaw fell open in amazement, he discerned long streaks of ore coursing through the rock strata. They glowed as if they had an inner fire.
"No, Robby, they didn't die mining gold, they died digging that out of the earth. And why should the slave owners risk their own lives guarding what could be done by the highly evolved amphibians of this lagoon?"
The giant cave was now awash in the soft glow emanating from the carved stone and the streaks of strange ore that shot through the stone like rivers of green fire. Then Robby suddenly understood. Everything fell into place and he realized what he was looking at. With a shudder, he knew what their fate would be at the same time Kelly voiced it.
"If we don't escape the hospitality of our guards soon, I would say we'll all die a very long and agonizing death."
EVENT GROUP CENTER NELLIS AFB, NEVADA
The twenty-eight department heads had been notified that an Event had been called, and so the Group went into action. At Department 5656, when an official Event is called, it means that something bordering on an important history-altering situation has occurred, one that could affect the lives of people in the present, an event that may have to be passed on to the president, or something that was beyond mere investigation by a group field team.
Pete Golding, in Computer Sciences, was in charge of doing the investigative work in several areas, including the timeline of the Events. Both the Padilla episode and the incursion in 1942 now fell into that category. He had the assistance of Assistant Director Virginia Pollock. The computer section would be running three shifts in an effort to uncover all the facts they could on the legend of the Padilla expedition, and most important, on the cryptic lead Helen had given in her letter regarding the papal medalists and the lost map. Niles had decided to take a silent part in Pete's investigation, working on his own.
Communications would also be diverted to the computer center because they would be using the Group's KH-11 satellite, code-named Boris and Natasha, to sweep the Amazon Basin from Brazil to the
Peruvian Andes. They immediately started with the elimination of anything west of the mountains, for obvious reasons. The technicians, the best recruited specialists from the most advanced corporations in the United States, would be taking high-resolution images of the rain forest and jungles in the basin, and maybe with a little luck they would uncover something that would shorten the search for the tributary that led to the lost valley as described in the legend. But for now, the only descriptions were fictionalized accounts by very obscure and long-dead Italian authors who had claimed to have seen the journal or map — scenarios very unlikely, as the accounts varied wildly in their reporting and descriptions.
The three departments covering religion would be hard at work trying to uncover all they could from the Vatican Archives. The Cray computer system, Europa, would be set loose on the Vatican's formidable cataloging and supposedly secure IBM Red Ice system. The Europa was a system that Cray had built for only four federal agencies, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and covertly, as a favor to former director of Event Group Garrison Lee, Department 5656. The Cray was able to break in, or go through, the backdoor security of any system in the world, including the supposedly impenetrable Red Ice mainframe. Pete Golding called what Europa did "sweet talking." The three religion-based departments would try to sweet talk their way into the Vatican system and find out all they could on the diary, the map, and the reputed gold samples that had always been a rumored part of the story. It was a task that would be more than just a little daunting, being as the Holy Roman Church was the most experienced body in the world for burying secrets.
Heidi Rodriguez and her Zoology Department was joined by the Paleolithic Studies, Archaeology, and Oceanography divisions, to find out all they could on the species of animals that may have existed in the past that were no longer viable, or extinct. Heidi had already committed heresy in her three departments by requesting the assistance of a department no one spoke about in the sciences divisions. The strange group was located on the deepest level of the department, level thirty-one. Some said they were buried so deep by Director Compton just so they couldn't contaminate the labs of the real sciences. But Niles knew, more than anyone, the importance of this department and insisted it had value.
Niles had started the Cryptozoology Department three years ago as a fallback contingent to the extinct animal sciences group and nobody, absolutely nobody other than the director and Heidi, took them seriously. Their desire to find out about the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and werewolves, among other laughable studies, was a running joke in the science levels above them. The department was chaired by a crazy old zoology professor named Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw the III.
The three departments had met for exactly fifteen minutes before an argument broke out between members of the Crypto Department and Paleontology. Will Mendenhall had the complex security duty for the day and tried, along with Heidi Rodriguez, to bring the team back together. But Mendenhall found himself staring at the head of the Crypto Department, entranced by the long, wild, white hair of the man. Finally he was nudged by Heidi.
"Now what is this about?" Mendenhall asked, his eyes still on Ellenshaw.
Everyone started talking at once. Wild gestures and pointing fingers were jabbed by the people surrounding Sergeant Mendenhall.
"One at a time, please!"
"We don't have to stay here and be insulted every two minutes by these people; we're just as valuable to this facility as they are," a young woman with thick glasses said, staring a hole through Professor Keating.
"Just because your science is getting national recognition because of television, doesn't make you a viable scientific resource."
"Dr. Ellenshaw's theory, that a species of vertebrate separated from outside influences and has its own ecosystem, is a viable one!"
"B movie stuff!" Keating shot back.
Mendenhall shook his head. This is going to be a long day, he thought.
* * *
Niles was sitting in the Europa direct contact center. The system was networked throughout the complex, but it was here that a person could interface with the Cray system on a one-on-one basis. According to Pete Golding, interacting with the system directly helped both the technician and the Cray, because it was a binary learning platform that could think light-years ahead of its questioner and actually feel the line of interrogation to reason out a solution on its own.
The director wanted to work alone, separate from the others, for reasons of a personal nature. He had tried earlier to distance himself from Helen's possible plight and allow his people to work without micromanaging them. He wished to continue his own duties, of which there were plenty, but he had soon found that he kept coming back to Helen, her face, how she had looked in the morning those many years ago. He figured being by himself would help him concentrate, especially while conversing with nothing as sentimental as a bunch of new-generation silicon bubble chips.
His first line of questioning was simple. He would start at investigating the lead Helen had given them in the letter regarding papal medalists.
"What have we got so far?" Niles asked as he leaned back in his chair.
From the accounts taken from public records and clandestine facilities, the total sum of papal medalists alive in the year ad 1875, were six hundred seventy-one, said the female auditory system of Europa.
"And that is with the elimination of Spain and Italy as home to these medalists?"
Yes.
Niles was slow to proceed. He knew he was shooting from the hip; after all, all they had to go on were written accounts of rumors that had started as far back as 1534. He surmised along with Pete that since the diary had been delivered to Spain by Father Corinth himself, they could safely eliminate that nation as one of the hiding places for the map or the reputed ore samples. And obviously, since Helen said that these papal medalists were all foreign born, they could also subtract Italy, the home of the Vatican. Now it was simple, that left only the rest of the world as their haystack.
"Access Vatican Network," Niles said.
Access has already been gained by the Computer Sciences Department, P. Golding authorization.
So Pete had already started sifting through the archives. Niles knew he should leave Pete to it, since he knew his way around not only Europa but all the security that had to be in place in the Vatican, which was there to keep someone from doing exactly what they were doing.
"Is there any correlation between San Jeronimo el Real, in Madrid, Spain, in 1874, and papal medalists?" Niles asked, as he was interested in verifying the fact that one of these knights did indeed deliver the diary to Spain, and to a knight there for the diary's safekeeping.
Formulating.
Niles was thinking of eliminating coincidence from his obvious guesswork. Catholic cleric Father Sergio de Batavia, papal medalist, 1861, for actions while serving with the Battalion of St. Patrick's during the time of his service in Ireland, when he was asked to join the Papal Guard in 1862 as a reward for services at Castelfidardo, Ancona. He was awarded the Pro Petri Sede and Ordine di San Gregorio medals ofSaints Peter and Gregory, for bravery. At the time his service to Pope Pius IX was ended, he was given leadership of San Jeronimo el Real in Madrid, Spain.
"I wonder what the odds had been that it was he who was given the diary for safekeeping," Niles said as he thought aloud.
Is the question directed at Europa for answering? the female voice asked.
Niles let out a small laugh. "Not unless you can calculate the odds."
Formulating.
Niles lowered his glasses and stared at the large liquid crystal display. It went dark for a moment, sending the entire room into blackness. He couldn't believe that Europa was going to figure the odds.
The number of papal medal recipients who received orders to Spain in the year ad 1861, according to Vatican archives, was four. The calculated odds are three to one.
"Pretty good, low enough to place a bet on," Niles said. "Question. How many recipients of the
papal order were from the Battalion of St. Patrick's?"
Six received the order of Pro Petri Sede, two the order of Ordine di San Gregorio, and two received both honors.
Niles quickly reread the letter from Helen and made sure of the facts she had mentioned about the trail's leading to the map would be found through research of the medaled knights of the papacy. He refolded the letter and looked back at the screen. Helen had given him a starting point for trying to find something that she had claimed was unrecoverable, but it was the only real lead they had as to her whereabouts.
The last words spoken by Europa were still there, written on the large screen. Niles unzipped his clean suit and let in some air.
He pursed his lips as he thought. The odds were in favor of the map and diary having gone to highly placed men who Pope Pius IX had trusted, which would most likely have entailed the pope's having met them in person. So, papal medalists seemed the appropriate road to search, and that was how Helen had tracked at least the diary, and supposedly the map also. And since they would never have access to the diary, thanks to Farbeaux, they would have to follow the same trail as Helen had. The legend stated that the diary was separated from the gold samples and map by sending them in different directions — the diary to Spain, the map to the New World, and the samples to the Vatican Archives under lock and key. The diary and map had been despatched their separate ways in 1874. He removed his glasses and bit on the ear piece.
"Question," he said. "How many papal medalists were still alive on North and South American continents in 1874?"
Formulating.
Niles knew it was a long shot, but hoped anyway.
According to public records, seventy-five medalists were in the United States, sixteen in Canada, twenty-one in Mexico, and one in Brazil.
"Question. How many served with the Battalion of St. Patrick's and received both papal medals?"
Formulating.
Niles placed his glasses back on and looked at the screen.
Four recipients of both papal medals were also veterans of the Battalion of St. Patrick, Europa answered. One recipient in Canada, one in Mexico, one in Brazil, and one in the United States.
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