David Golemon - Legend

"All right, all right, you can explain this little tale later," said Sarah. "Right now, we plan on getting all of you out."

Meanwhile, Virginia gave Helen a quick examination, not liking what she saw. The professor's face was covered in lesions, and there had been massive hair loss. Her fever was so high that Virginia instinctively pulled her hand away after touching her forehead. There were black marks on her face and neck, and it looked almost as if her left eyelid had melted down over her eye.

"Good god, if I didn't know any better, I would say this is—"

"Radiation poisoning," Robby said as he failed miserably to be as brave as he wanted to be in front of the others and resumed crying softly while touching Helen's hand.

"Radiation poisoning?" Sarah asked.

"The mine is full of uranium, enriched uranium, damned close to extremely hot plutonium. God, her fever is out of control," he said as he felt Helen's forehead for himself.

"These others, are they all right?" Virginia asked.

"Yes, scratches and frightened to death mostly. There are these animals that bring us plenty of fish to eat. But it's as if they were keeping us here for a reason," he sobbed. "At least the smaller one seems to keep the other creature away from us."

"Other creature?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, this one's big, has no human characteristics like the smaller one. It hates anything that breathes air, the professor thinks." Kelly looked down at Helen. "She thinks the smaller animal is wild, and lives in the lagoon, while the big one was bred from the creatures that worked the mine, worked at bringing the ore up. She thought they were used to keep the slaves in line. Keep them corralled in here. The damn Inca used both the Sincaro and animals to do what they knew they couldn't — mine the hot uranium."

"There is no such element in the natural world as enriched uranium ore; it's an impossibility in the natural order of elements," Virginia said as she checked Helen's pulse. She closed her eyes and thought a moment, trying desperately to make sense out of this highly unusual moment.

"Okay, I admit the elements and the situation would seem to contradict the natural assumption of improbability," she conceded as she reached out and took a palmful of water and spread it on Helen's forehead. "We have uranium ore, heated to an extreme temperature by the seismic activity of the caldera… and remember, Sarah, we picked up unusually high concentrations of fluorides in the water of the lagoon, obviously released through the clay or other soil in this valley; thus, it is possible to breed that ore into—"

"Weapons-grade plutonium, free for the taking," Sarah finished for her, remembering the light stands in the cave behind her and the graffito on the belly of Supay. "Jesus, everyone who entered this level of the mine is contaminated. If we don't get out of here soon, especially them," she nodded toward Rob and the others, "we're all screwed."

"That's just about what the professor thought," Kelly said, locking eyes with Sarah.

Jack and the others began hurriedly removing supplies from Teacher because she would never see the water again without Jenks here to supervise her much-needed repairs. She was too unsteady on the stone steps to delay in getting the supplies out.

Although they were eager to get moving into El Dorado to look for survivors, Jack and Carl set up some makeshift lighting on the massive dock the Inca had carved out of solid stone. The wonders it revealed were beyond belief. All the Incan gods were represented along the high walls and many columns. The tunnels and shafts were stacked one upon the other in a never-ending spiral heading toward the top of a giant indoor falls that cascaded toward the floor in the center of the great mine, its spray keeping the interior of the mine constantly damp. The pillars that lined each level were carved from solid rock. How many hundreds of years, or possibly thousands this shaft had taken to be excavated boggled their minds.

As they ventured deeper into the vast expanse of the pavilion and beyond the powerful lights and into shadow, they saw crate upon crate of stacked K rations, fuel drums, crated equipment, and other supplies. Each wooden crate was stenciled in black lettering.

"United States Army."

Jack looked at Carl and raised his eyebrows. "Look at this."

Arrayed against the stone outer wall of the main chamber were what looked like graves. Heavy stones were laid layer upon layer, creating a large bulge in the stone floor. There were twenty-three in all. Jutting stone markers protruded from the rocks at the head of each. On each was looped a small chain and on each chain was a single dogtag. Jack raised one and shined a light on it.

"Technical Sergeant Royce H. Peavey."

"Well, I guess that explains who the Kilroy artists were. But what in the hell were they doing here, Jack?"

"This whole damn thing smells to high heaven. But we can't speculate here; we have to get moving." Jack took a last look at a group of Americans that had come pretty far to be left in a horrible place.

"I figure we start at the bottom of the mine first and then work our way up," Carl said as he turned away from the seventy-year-old cache of military supplies and the men they were meant to feed.

"The canals?" Jack asked, as he started following Carl back to the smashed Teacher.

"I figure we can scrape up the scuba gear we need if you're game, ground pounder."

"You're on, Commander Everett, after you."

"You think Sarah is still alive?"

"I do, and I'm betting Jenks and Virginia are also."

Carl glanced back toward the long-lost graves.

"Good thing you have the navy here, Jack; from the looks of it, you army types didn't fare too well around here in the past."

Farbeaux halted the group when he heard voices. He cocked his head to the right and then listened again. Nothing but silence greeted him as he hushed the men behind him. It had been over an hour since he had started the group down a steep slope in the tunnels. Farbeaux had figured the ramp used to be a slide of some sort that had been possibly used for removing slag and other unwanted material from the mine. The ramp, as steep as it was, connected with almost every sublevel as it coursed down through the mine.

Mendez and his men were really starting to grumble as they had passed vein after vein of gold, each deposit larger and wider than the one before it. He knew each of the fools, including Mendez himself, had taken their own samples and pocketed them.

Farbeaux saw their bulging pockets in his night-vision goggles and smiled, then brought out his satchel again to take another reading. The men behind him didn't notice what he was doing because of their avarice. They were intent on picking up as much of the gold ore as possible.

He turned the machine off and then removed his goggles. He shocked the men behind by turning on a broad-beam lamp and shining the light on a very wide and very green-looking vein of ore that ran side by side with another of gold. He turned the miniature Geiger counter back on again, held out a probe, and the machine went crazy. It emitted what sounded like the clicking of a cricket. Farbeaux closed his eyes and then shut off the machine once again. He had found what he had come for deep inside the mine. After years of waiting and receiving the ore samples from his man at the Vatican, the chase and search for the diary of Padilla, suddenly now the lode was here, ready to be torn from the earth and sold to the highest bidder.

"What was that instrument you were just using, senor ?" Mendez asked as he wiped sweat from his brow with a filthy handkerchief.

"This?" Farbeaux held up his satchel. "Well, let's say it's pointing me to the richest find of all, something you wouldn't be interested in. But I will explain shortly; right now, let's find that which excites you my friend, your gold."