David Golemon - Legend

"The weapons and my security staff, they are all ready?"

"All in place," Farbeaux answered.

"Very good."

"Shall we go, then," Farbeaux said.

"Yes, please go on, I will meet you upstairs. I must take my Dramamine for the flight down to Peru," Mendez said, the lie flowing easily from his lips.

Farbeaux bowed, catching the lie. He knew his employer never took Dramamine, as the man lived most of his life in one aircraft or the other.

Mendez watched the Frenchman leave and then he picked up the phone.

"Yes, senor ?"

"Has there been any activity at Stanford?" he asked.

"No, jefe , we are monitoring every minute of the day. The phone rings but no one has answered, and no one other than the janitorial service has entered the professor's office."

"If there is in the future, use your own judgment as to the danger they pose, and adjust your reaction accordingly. I do not want interference in any way once we are on the river, is that understood?"

"Yes, senor , it is understood."

"Good," he said and hung up, and then rubbed his hands. Just thinking about El Dorado and its being him that discovers its hidden whereabouts — after all those centuries of men having looked for it, from Alaska to Argentina — was mind-boggling. The drug lords of the past would never have thought such wealth was possible. And that, coupled with the new information that the Frenchman had in his possession about a possible source of new energy in the same mine, was too much to dream for. No, no one could have the vision he had. He was the only man who always had the imagination to dream of higher things. Higher things that demanded he have the most advanced security force and black operations team in private employ in all of South America, not to mention most of the world. Yes, he thought, the adventure he had always craved was now upon him and the mysteries of Padilla would soon be his.

"That's where we are right now. Since I'm the only one not assigned to any research, I'll take Mr. Ryan and head for Virginia to see what we can uncover in the old files. And Everett, I have a job for you also. You are to meet our former Mrs. Farbeaux in San Jose and escort her to Stanford. Once in Palo Alto, you'll gain access into Professor Zachary's office and see what you can uncover; she may have left some clue there."

Carl wanted to protest about being the one to escort Danielle, but held his tongue.

"Yes, sir," he answered instead.

A knock sounded on the conference room door, and a blue-clad lance corporal walked in and gave Niles a note. He unfolded and read it, and then gave the note to Alice.

"More potatoes have been added to the stew," Niles said, looking around the table. "We ran the security footage recovered from the San Pedro shipping company responsible for getting Helen and her team into place. We now know her starting point was Colombia; from there all we can assume is that she went south toward either Brazil or Peru. But we have uncovered something else. It seems she may have had a second source of financing from someone we must assume has accompanied her on her trip."

"Second source?" Jack asked.

"According to the ship's manifest taken from a copy that was filed at their offices, the articles loaded onboard included several that did not belong to Helen and her team, but were in fact signed for by someone not on the original team roster and do not show up in any university records. This man, his name is Kennedy — he and five others were issued two cabins onboard Pacific Voyager ."

"Helen, what did you get yourself into?" Alice murmured, shaking her head.

An hour later, Niles had their lunch brought into the conference room, where they made detailed plans on who and what equipment would be needed for an expedition if the Event Group found the route of Padilla.

"Before we get into what Boris and Natasha has or has not come up with on her latest pass, and before Carl has to leave," Niles said as he looked at his watch, "I want to discuss river transport. I want a secure vessel if at all possible, not a local river traveler. I want something that can be in place in a day, if and when we go. Jack, Commander Everett, any ideas?"

"Best if you ask the swabby," Jack said, looking at Carl.

Carl stopped toying with his plate of potato salad and looked up. "As a matter of fact, I may have just the man that can supply us with something along those lines," he said as he thought. "He's somewhat eccentric, but he's one hell of a designer. Built assault craft for the navy; he was in on the hydro-foil development until it was canceled by the Defense Department. I think the navy hid him away in Louisiana someplace, developing experimental river craft. But mostly they stashed him there to keep him out of trouble."

"As soon as you complete your assignment in Palo Alto, detour on the way home and find out. Anything you can add about this man?" Niles asked as he wrote in his notepad.

"Well, I know he may need a push because, as I said, he's a little strange. But he can be ordered. He's still a master chief petty officer in the navy. They haven't found anyone with enough guts to go down and retire him yet, so he's still building boats. Maybe you can tug on some official strings and get his cooperation," Carl said.

"Good enough, I'll do just that. Leave his name with Ellen outside," Niles responded. "You'd better be off to meet our French lady friend."

"Yes, sir," Carl said as he nodded to those around the table and touched Jack on the shoulder.

As Carl left, Niles absentmindedly pushed the plate with his ham sandwich on it away from him as he pulled the latest satellite imagery toward him.

"Okay, Pete, what in the hell is Boris and Natasha telling us?"

"Well, the KH-11 is on the very range of its ability to see into Peru and Brazil on its current track," Pete answered from his office in the Comp Center. "We would have to retask it to get to the areas we need to look at. But Europa has uncovered some covert stuff from NSA that was taken two weeks before Professor's Zachary's departure from Los Angeles, and that film has just confirmed what we already know. As you see," he used a pointer, tapping the monitor's screen, "the suspected area is mostly unexplored rain forest, and has tree canopies so thick that we can't see anything. Radar imagery," he pointed to a grouping of pictures, "picks up just what we would expect, thousands of miles of winding river, tributaries, and lagoons, not to mention hundreds of waterfalls. You could throw a dart at the images and have just as much luck as to which patch is our target site."

Niles shook his head. He wanted to shove the hard copies of the pictures away and off the far end of the table in frustration, but caught himself. Boris and Natasha was not the answer. He stood up and stretched, and then his eyes caught the still frame of the security video on one of the large screens. He froze. His eyes roamed over the grainy image. Then he moved quickly to his console at the conference table and started tapping keys. The others watched him for a moment as the black-and-white frames started to project in reverse. Then he stopped tapping as the picture caught the twin images of two people to the far right of Helen Zachary and Kennedy. Niles tapped a few more commands and then pushed the button on the intercom. "Pete, are you getting the image on the screen on monitor one-seventeen?"

"Let's see here, yeah, I see it, the dock security footage?"

"Yes, can you have the computer blow that frame up and enhance it? Order the shots to come in tight on those two kids by the ship's rail to the right."

"Yeah, Europa can probably clean up the footage," Pete answered through the speakers around the room.