David Golemon - Legend

"That won't be necessary, Doctor," Helen said, irritated by the possible delay. She was nervous and didn't trust Henri St. Claire at all. It felt as if he might drive onto the dock at any moment and catch them before they could make their way out to sea. "Your pharmaceutical company picked up the remaining portion of the bill for this trip, but please don't assume that gives you the right to circumvent my authority." She turned and strode away.

"I would never think of it," he said to her retreating form. "We value this opportunity to examine the fauna of this new and unexplored area of the basin for the chance at—" He trailed off, giving up his rehearsed speech when she didn't slow down. His eyes remained on Helen as she started down the gangplank toward the ship's offices.

Helen entered the office and removed her coat while her eyes adjusted to the brightness of the interior. She finally saw the man sitting in the corner with one of his long legs crossed over the other.

"I honestly thought you were going to keep me waiting all night long in this smelly place," he said as he stood.

"I imagine you've been in worse places." She greeted him with a hug.

"As a matter of record, my dear, your father and I shipped out of this very harbor a million years ago bound for that paradise we know as Korea." He released her and looked her over. "You, young lady, look exhausted."

"Goes with the territory." She patted him on the chest and then sat on the edge of a desk that occupied the center of the office.

"So, you finally got the grant you always wanted for this mysterious field trip. Are you excited?"

"I will be if we ever get out of here," she answered as she looked at her father's oldest friend and family attorney. She was sorry for having to lie to him about where the money came from. She managed to force the guilty thought from her mind. "I've got a secret mission for you, Stan."

"Ooh, sounds mysterious," he said jokingly.

"You don't know the half of it," she said, thinking, If he only knew . "You're the only one I can trust to do what I ask, and not ask a bunch of silly questions."

"At my age, I've learned to only ask pertinent questions, never silly ones. What do you want me to do?"

Helen stood and walked to the door. She bent down and retrieved the aluminum case that contained the fossil. She held out the case to the attorney.

"If for some reason I don't make it back by September first, or call you by that date on the satellite phone, I need you to take this sample to Las Vegas and give it to a friend."

Stan took the case and looked at his friend's daughter.

"You're kidding, right?"

Helen reached into her pocket and placed an envelope of the top of the container.

"The address is in here, along with my friend's name. There's also a brief on the expedition. My friend has the resources to know how to track me, so for security reasons and your safety, I didn't leave him directions on how to find me. Stanley, will you do this for me?"

He didn't say anything at first, as he made his way to the desk and placed the container on it. Then, "What have you gotten yourself into, Helen? Just where in the hell are you going and why do you need to leave me with such a cryptic list of instructions?"

She smiled and once again patted him on the left lapel. "You worry too much; it's just a competitive type thing, the race for the prize."

"And what prize is that?"

"A big one, Stanley." She rose on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. "It's dangerous only because the place is so remote. I have fifty people coming with me, so I'm not in this alone. Will you do this for me?"

He was about to respond when the ship's horn sounded and drowned out his answer. He grimaced. When the horn stopped blaring there was a quick rapping at the office door and Kimberly Denning, a third-year student, poked her head through.

"Captain said he has to get this tide or you can forget about sailing until morning," Kimberly said, then vanished.

Helen grabbed her coat and put it on. "Wish me luck?" she asked Stan.

"I do. I just wish I knew what it was you were up to."

She smiled and turned for the door, raising her hand in good-bye. "All I'll tell you is that, when I get back, no one will look at the world the same way again."

The door opened and Helen was gone. Stan took the white business envelope from the top of the container as he made his way to the window. Helen turned when she reached the top of the gangplank and waved at him, and he held the envelope up and waved back. Her students were lining the rails and waving at family who were in the parking lot. To Helen's right, standing away from her and her students, was a group of men who were watching from the railing. They weren't waving, just leaning against the steel gunwale as the ship's crew cast off her thick rope lines. Stan watched as the ship drifted away from the pier with her horn sounding. There was an explosion at her stern when the engines began turning her screws and the Pacific Voyager started making for the open sea.

Stan turned from the window and looked down at the envelope he held in his hand. He squinted and moved to stand by the desk lamp. Helen's womanly scrawl was written across the white paper in flowing lines. Stan looked up through the window at the receding lights of the blue-painted Pacific Voyager and then back at the name and address on the envelope. He read it aloud to himself: "Dr. Niles Compton, c/o the Gold City Pawnshop, 2120 Desert Palm Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada.

"A pawnshop?" he said wonderingly.

He placed the envelope in his overcoat and looked out the window again, now taking in the few family members and friends of Helen's students as they started their cars and moved out of the small parking lot. Then Stan, for no reason that he knew of, got goose bumps down his arms as the vehicles departed. He didn't believe in premonitions or any of the other strange sciences that occupied the newspapers these days, yet had a distinct feeling that he would indeed deliver this envelope to that pawnshop in Las Vegas. And that the families that had watched their loved ones sail into the night would never again see them alive.

Stan picked up the aluminum container and made for the door. He allowed himself one last look out into the harbor, but the ship's running lights had vanished into the dark Pacific waters.

Army Second Lieutenant Sarah McIntire held the porous lava rock in her hand for all to see. Then she winked at Vincent Fallon, professor of Asian Studies from UC-Riverside, and gave a quick nod of her head.

"So this area of the cave had been excavated before?" he asked.

Lieutenant Commander Carl Everett stood and watched the reaction of the others. He was on detached service from the U.S. Navy, serving in his sixth year in the highly secretive Department 5656, known to a very distinct few in the United States government as the Event Group. The tightly controlled Group was established officially during the Teddy Roosevelt era with historical arms that reached all the way back to Abraham Lincoln.

Carl watched Sarah McIntire closely. She was the only other member of the Group on station. They had infiltrated the university dig three weeks earlier and he was hoping this mission was a wild-goose chase. But according to Sarah, who was a damned good geologist, it seemed very likely that the research that had been done by Dr. Fallon was accurate. Meaning they might have a biological disaster on their hands, and that meant the mission to infiltrate the archeological dig might have just risen in the danger level by a hundred percent.