David Golemon - Legend

"You got it, Doc. So how did your final meeting with the money man go?"

"It went better than expected. He gave us the second check and left for Bogota to pick up the third part of our financing. It's just too bad we didn't need that part. But it will keep him away and out of our hair until we sail. Have our new benefactors arrived yet?"

"Yeah, they're here, all six of them, that Dr. Kennedy guy and five others. What do you want us to do with all of Henri St. Claire's geological stuff, the magnetometers and other mining equipment?"

She took a large swallow of champagne and smiled as it went down. "Leave it on the dock with a note saying, 'Liar, liar, pants on fire.' "

"You got it, Doc, see you in a few."

Helen closed her cell phone and stopped smiling. She hated screwing over someone like Henri St. Claire, but he never should have misrepresented himself as someone who was in this for the sole reason of discovering one of the mysteries of the ages. He was in this for greed, his own and that of the gangster who called himself a banker.

"There would be no hunting for the mythical El Dorado on this trip, Dr. St. Claire. Where we're going, you cannot follow," she said to herself as she placed the real map and Padilla pages in her briefcase, stood, and made her way out into the evening.

The national security advisor sat behind his desk facing his computer monitor that was presently split into four separate pictures. In the far left corner was General Stanton Alford, commanding general of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On the right top was Rear Admiral Elliott Pierce, U.S. Naval Intelligence; directly below him was the frowning countenance of General Warren Peterson, U.S. Army Intelligence; and to the left of him, U.S. Air Force Intelligence chief General Stan Killkernan. They were there to discuss a file the CIA, and before them the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, had kept under wraps since the days before World War II. The gathered intelligence officers weren't taking the new development well.

"If the Joint Chiefs or the president even get an inkling of what we've done it will be all our asses in a sling, and it all starts with you, Mr. Ambrose. The last I heard, the president wasn't too fond of his generals around here. I believe the title of the book we opened to the world these past few days is called treason . Not only have we supplied an outlawed material to a foreign nation, but now we are stealing actual weapons for use on the soil of a friendly country. This whole plan is spiraling out of control," General Peterson said as he glared into the camera on his end at the Pentagon.

"We have no choice but to send the weapon and team down to South America as a precaution. What if the old site is rediscovered? The prewar material could only be traced back to us if a link is found from the old incursion, something that leads to the storage facility where the material was stored. But other than that, the only way it can be linked to us is if one of you loses his nerve. Gentlemen, if that professor brings that area of Brazil out into the light of day, the whole damned mess becomes public," the national security advisor said angrily.

"I agree," said Stanton Alford. "After all, we may not even have a site that has to be destroyed. I don't believe this Professor Zachary will ever find it. Hell, we don't even know where it is. We only have the material, not the location where it was found. The Corps of Engineers was the only department to document the 1942 incursion, and that report was buried in National Archives files. And since the old material is in Iraq and no longer in this country, it's untraceable back to us unless this one engineer report from the war years is discovered in the National Archives files, and we'll have that file tagged and monitored."

"What about Zachary's source? We're not even sure how she got her information."

Alford was tiring of the debate. "The only other mention of the mine is in rumor and innuendo and a possible diary that's over five centuries old. My department had control of the army samples for seventy years. It was never turned over to the regulatory commission nor was it ever classified as a weapon by the old War Department. So, I say we err on the side of caution and send our team in with the expedition. As I said, that crazy woman probably won't find a damned thing. She's using five-hundred-year-old data from a conquistador, for Christ's sake! It's like finding one needle in five thousand haystacks. She could have only come across the description of the location in the National Archives' database. The diary theory is ridiculous."

"And if the site is found? You say the answer is to possibly eliminate the entire Zachary expedition with your fail-safe alternative, with a nuke and some SEALs? It's fucking murder!" General Peterson exclaimed angrily.

"My men won't let it get that far. I've worked with this particular strike team before and they're very good. No American citizens will be harmed. I can guarantee that," Rear Admiral Pierce said confidently. "Besides, what if this mine is still in existence, we could never allow a third-world nation to have access to Pandora's box, now can we? We set the tactical weapon inside the mine and bring it down. Problem solved."

"There are too goddamn many variables, Elliott, sneaking a team in there right under the noses of the Joint Chiefs and the president. I'm not even going to mention how Brazil would react to an intrusion like that. And this tactical weapon you're sending? I don't want to think about what security procedures have been violated for that little bit of skullduggery. This is fucking madness and I didn't sign on to kill American citizens!"

"General Peterson, it's already been decided. We unanimously agreed, you included, that the location of the Padilla site cannot become public knowledge, ever. As for the material — if it's discovered in Iraq, only by a long shot can it be traced back here to our doorstep, because it was neither refined nor mined here. The only way for it to come to light is if some reference is found to it. Yes, this lady professor in her maddening zeal to find the Padilla site discovered one link, but it was a fluke. The only other reference to the area is in the old Padilla legends that the scientific community scoffs at and doesn't take at all seriously. The location of the site and what exactly was mined and brought out of there are buried deep in the memories of the survivors of the initial incursion in the forties, if any are even alive today. Now, you went along with the deployment of the material the same as we did, and the aggression was stopped."

"As I said, we've gotten in over our heads here, we need—"

"You'll have your position in the government after the next election, just as I will. The mission is a 'go.' And that particular weapon you are so concerned about, if it is to be used at all, was entered into the naval inventory as inactive and destroyed, so no one will miss it. Anyway, I doubt very much anyone has to be eliminated. Now, that's all, just go about your business, and let Rear Admiral Pierce and myself handle the fine print. Good day, gentlemen."

Ambrose didn't wait for another concern to be voiced that would lead to splintering; it was always best to commit right away so there would be no going back.

The thin-framed national security advisor turned away from his desk and shook his head as he again picked up the morning intelligence report on the border activity between Iran and Iraq. He smiled as he saw the sentence in italics: As of 0345 this morning eastern daylight time, satellite imagery has verified the total withdrawal ofall Iranian combat divisions from the adjoining border with Iraq.