David Golemon - Legacy

“That was pretty quick,” Will stated, peeling his Hawaiian-style print shirt from the small of his back. The heat wave that had struck the foot of the Andes had surprised them when they exited the executive jet.

“Uh, yeah,” Ryan answered and then handed Will a brochure from Quito Express Car Rentals. The large picture on the front showed a shiny new Lexus SUV. The flyer folded out into three large panels of makes and models. “The choice was pretty simple.” Ryan moved his feet uneasily as he looked at the colonel and captain out of the corner of his eye. They stood with their sunglasses on, stoically waiting for any sort of punch line Ryan might add to his statement. They didn’t have to wait long.

Mendenhall was the only one to jump when a large bang sounded in the underground roadway that fronted the large and shining terminal. The backfire was soon followed by the squeal of an alternator belt as their rental pulled to the curb. Jack turned and looked at Ryan, who stood and stared straight ahead.

“I see your taste in cars is right in line with your taste in women, Mr. Ryan.”

Everett just stood and looked from the 1986 Yugo to the brochure Will was comparing to the actual rental. The car was white and looked as if a giant tiger had raked large, sharp claws across its side and hood. The rental manager hopped out. With a gold tooth showing, he smiled and handed Jack the keys. Collins looked at the set of keys and saw the remote door lock. Out of curiosity he pushed a button on the key fob. Mendenhall jumped again as the horn blared and the emergency lights started blinking. Jack pushed it again and the horn stopped, the lights went dead, and they all heard the audible click as the doors locked. Jack lowered his head and handed the keys to Ryan.

“Hey, guys, this was the only thing they had,” Ryan said, objecting to the looks he was getting from everyone as Mendenhall pushed the color brochure into his chest.

“Come on, Ryan,” Everett said, opening the car door and holding the front seat forward for Jack. “Maybe we can find a used llama dealer on the way.”

Ryan looked at Mendenhall, who was just shaking his head.

“Next time, you get the car.”

An hour later, with Ryan driving and fighting the maladjusted wheel alignment along with the burning clutch, they reached the foot of the Andes. The paved roads that Ecuador boasted of in their vacation travel guide, which Will was trying to read in the passenger front seat, failed to mention that the roads had been repaved sometime in the early sixties, right around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. They hadn’t seen repair since.

“Turn right on the next road you see, Lieutenant,” Everett said, as he held the Global Positioning monitor. “Then another quick right and stop. That will put us at a safe distance from the first guard shack and place us behind the main road where the roving security patrols travel. We should be able to get a good bird’s-eye view from there.”

Ryan fought the steering as they approached the dirt road on the right side of the paved highway. With brakes squealing and the alternator belt in danger of piercing their eardrums, the Yugo made the turn.

“Jack, why don’t we have a geologist with us? I mean even if we came across this mineral, we wouldn’t know it from a granite countertop.”

“I asked Niles if we could have one of Sarah’s people, but he said they had all been assigned other duties.”

Ryan made the other quick right ordered by Everett and for the first time they saw the high cyclone fence surrounding the excavation site. Ryan slammed on the brakes and then shut down the engine as fast as he could before the alternator belt told everyone from there to South Miami they were in the neighborhood. Ryan opened the car’s door accompanied by loud cracks and squeaks and then stepped out to allow the colonel to squeeze out of the backseat. As Jack stretched his taxed legs, he saw the barbed wire that topped the high fence. Then he saw something coursing through the steel chain link.

“For a patch of dirt, someone sure doesn’t want visitors, do they?” Mendenhall said. He removed his dark glasses and looked at the wire that led to conductors, then to the power pole nearby. He read the warning signs posted every forty feet along the electrified fence.

“Serious enough that someone’s going to run up one hell of an electric bill,” Ryan said, as he read the sign out loud. “Fifty thousand volts worth of persuasion.”

Jack watched the interior of the old excavation and saw that the ground was bare. It was flat and with not one single bush, flower, or weed. He turned and reached into the car. He brought out a pair of binoculars and sighted the glasses on the silverish-looking Quonset huts that lined the sides of the fence. Then he turned and scanned two of the posted guards in their towers. They were carrying something else the satellite pictures hadn’t shown them-AK-47 assault rifles.

“Jack, I’m not getting the best feeling here,” Everett said, reaching behind him and making sure the nine-millimeter he carried in the waistband of his jeans was still in place.

“Definitely overkill for a large sandbox,” Jack said as he watched two more guards exit the largest of the six Quonset huts. “I figure they have the facilities for over a hundred men. Complete with a self-contained mess hall, and God knows what else. Will, get the parabolic mike out and let’s see if we can eavesdrop on one of these good ol’ boys and see what nationality they are, because they sure as hell aren’t Ecuadorian.” Jack handed the glasses over to Everett.

As Carl zoomed in on the first set of guards he saw that one had blond hair and the other red. He turned the glass 100 degrees to the right and saw a second set of security men as they waved at the first and then said something he couldn’t hear.

Mendenhall placed a set of headphones on his ears and pointed a short, very slim black microphone down into the compound. He adjusted the sensitivity when the words the guards were saying almost shattered his hearing. He then turned the set to external application and the words came out clear so the others could hear.

As they listened, they heard the first set discussing the horrid lunch they had just finished and that the second set of guards had that to look forward to.

“American,” Jack said. “At least the one on the left, maybe from Georgia, I’m not sure.”

“Yeah,” said Everett, as he eyed the guards. “The blond-haired gentleman may be from the south too-south Berlin. What we have here, Colonel, is a multinational security concern, heavily armed and looking like they mean business. There is no way we get in there.” Everett turned on Jack with a smile. “Unless you’re feeling brazen today.”

Jack took the glasses and scanned the interior again. “I am indeed feeling brazen, Mr. Everett,” he said, and turned the glasses on the large main gate and the guard shack beside it. “Shall we pay them a visit?” He reached into the back of his shirt and pulled out his own nine-millimeter. He handed it to Ryan as he continued to look at the gate. Everett followed suit with his own weapon and Mendenhall accepted it, shaking his head.

“Why don’t we give you a lift in something more comfortable than your rental car?”

Jack and Everett turned at the sound of the voice. A small man in tan work clothes and five others in immaculately pressed gray uniforms stood just on the other side of their Yugo. They had very lethal-looking AK-47s leveled at the four of them.

“Hi,” Jack said.

“Hello,” the small man said in German-accented English. “I predict you are going to tell me that you are four American tourists lost in the foothills of the Andes?” The small man gestured about the wilderness area and then came forward, as did his men.