“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. “Touris
ts!”
“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 girl 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.”
“So 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 stuff?” 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 Yucatan 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.”
“So you’re 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.”
“OK, I get it,” Cassie admitted. “The Mayans aren’t as dire a bunch as I thought. They didn’t predict the end of the world. So where does that leave us with finding the guy who took off with the relic?”
Griffin sighed. “It leaves us with the Aztecs of Mexico.” He paused briefly and then his expression brightened. “Now that I come to think of it, the Aztecs are linked more closely with dragons and Spain than any of the other civilizations of the New World.”
“Why’s that?” Erik asked. “To me, they seem to be just another blood-thirsty overlord tribe.”
“It’s the peculiar way in which fate turned their veneration of Quetzalcoatl into their undoing,” the Scrivener replied.
“Quetzal who?” the Pythia asked.
“Their version of the feathered serpent god, or dragon, was called Quetzalcoatl. According to Aztec myth, he was one of the children of the virgin goddess Coatlicue—the creator of the universe.”
“Hmmm. A virgin goddess giving birth to a god. Now where have we heard that one before?” Erik asked archly.
Griffin resumed his explanation. “Quetzalcoatl was considered a benevolent deity since he taught the people how to write and keep calendars as well as how to cultivate maize. Although the name ‘Quetzalcoatl’ literally means ‘feathered serpent’ in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs,
the god himself is described as a bearded man with white skin. The legend states that Quetzalcoatl was forced into exile by another Aztec deity. He sailed away into the Atlantic but promised one day to return during ‘his year.’ According to the Aztec calendar, this would have been the First Year Of The Reed which occurs every fifty two years. As ill luck would have it, Hernan Cortez arrived in the vicinity of Tenochtitlan during the First Year Of the Reed. He was white, bearded, and came from the eastern sea. The eerie parallel to the prophecy made the Aztec emperor hesitate just long enough for the Spaniards to exploit the situation to their advantage. The rest is overlord history.”
The Basques exchanged a look of bewilderment among themselves.
“You say the American Aztecs worshipped a god who looked European?” Iker asked.
“Not just the Aztecs,” the Scrivener replied. “White gods as bringers of culture appear in many indigenous myths of the Americas. The Incas called this figure Viracocha. The Mayans called him Kukulcan. Even the plains Indians of North America may have had a female counterpart in White Buffalo Woman.”
“But where would they have gotten such ideas?” Ortzi asked.
“Where indeed,” Griffin said cryptically. “There is strong evidence for the presence of visitors to the New World long before Columbus.”
“You mean the Vikings,” Cassie said.
“Much older than the Vikings,” the Scrivener countered. “You haven’t heard about them because it is politically incorrect for mainstream archaeologists to admit that outsiders set foot in the Americas. The conventional belief is that the only people to inhabit the New World were the descendants of Asians who crossed the Bering Strait. In reality, the Americas were a melting pot from the very beginning. There are Caucasian mummies and skeletons strewn all over the landscape of both North and South America.”
“What?” his listeners all asked in unison.
“Where shall I begin? There’s Kennewick Man found in Washington State whose age is estimated at over 9,000 years. In Spirit Cave, Nevada a man and female child were found aged over 10,000 years. Buhl, Idaho contains a 10,000 year-old female skeleton. Ginger-haired mummies have been discovered in pre-Inca graves in Peru. There are even blond-headed Toltecs. The list goes on and on.”
The Dragon's Wing Enigma (The Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series Book 3) Page 18