The first turn in the canal almost did them in as the boat slammed hard into the wall and the fifteen souls inside careened around in the large treasure boat. The current was picking up speed as more and more water slammed them from behind. The dam had completely broken free above them, and they now found themselves traveling at breakneck speed toward a dark and unknown death.
As Jack tried to focus as water cascaded over him, he ventured a look up from the front of the boat. The darkness was once again becoming shaded green. The Incan designers had embedded large stones of tritium ore in the walls to illuminate the treasure trail. At least now he could vaguely see the turn in the system that would smash them to splinters. Jack knew they had to try and control their descent somehow.
He addressed the panicked faces. “Look, we have to start shifting weight in this—” The boat careered against another turn and Jack was awash with water as the boat bounced into another canal and slipped down an even steeper causeway. He regained his sitting position and held onto the sides. “Watch me. When I raise my right hand, everyone crowd to the right side and vice versa, or we’re going to wind up hitting a wall at fifty miles an hour.”
He didn’t wait for anyone to nod or comment; he just turned and faced the front. Carl would have to control them in the back.
In the dim light, the major saw another turn coming and this one went left. He held up his left arm and yelled, although over the roar of water no one could hear him: “Shift, now!”
Carl jumped to the left side and pulled Robby along with him. The others upon seeing this repeated the movement; most seemed to fall on the master chief, who again howled.
Jack braced himself as the boat started to slide to the left, too late he saw the weight wasn’t sufficient enough to make the turn. The boat slipped and slid into the curving wall. It hit with such force that he was tossed from the boat. He hung on to its side for dear life as it started to gather momentum once again. Sarah was there in an instant and was joined by Kelly. Together, they helped the major back into the vessel.
“Thanks, I—”
The canal shaft was brilliantly lit up by the flare of gunfire as rounds slammed into the walls around them. Jack looked back and saw Farbeaux had jumped into another boat along with Mendez and one other man. They were traveling light, so they had less weight to control. Another burst of fire nearly caught him before Jack had time to get into the bottom of the boat.
With no control, the boat gathered speed and slammed into the next turn. It struck the wall so hard that it tipped to the right and then spun on its blunt bow. Now they were traveling backward. More bullets were fired and Jack heard one of the students cry out in pain.
He rose and fired his nine-millimeter back toward the onrushing boat. He saw Farbeaux’s eyes widen before the Frenchman slammed himself into the bottom. One of Jack’s rounds caught Mendez in the shoulder, and he saw him spin and collapse below the gunwale. Just as he took aim again, another turn rocked him to the side. This time they all heard the crack of wood as the boat began to split in two. Water started rushing through the gap as it started to come apart.
“We’ve had it, Jack!” Carl called out.
“Everyone grab onto someone and—” It was too late, as he started to speak the boat broke into two pieces and all fifteen people went into the roaring canal.
The water was deep and unlike rapids. Jack knew they could survive if they just paid attention. Another turn was quickly upon them as the water brought them around a corner. A young woman sped by Jack and went under. He quickly reached out and grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her up and back to him, as they both hit the wall and were raised up into the air as it curled around the curve.
Farbeaux held on as his own boat made the curve and came out in the midst of the current-tossed survivors. He watched in horror as the remaining Colombian in the front of his boat took aim at two students struggling to stay afloat to his right. He knew he couldn’t react in time.
“Save your ammunition for those who can fight back, fool!” he shouted.
He could see the man was going to shoot anyway. Farbeaux was furious but was also powerless to stop him as a sudden roar, louder than even the rushing water, sounded in the canal shaft. The man was pulled into the water by a large webbed hand, and then the vessel seemed to hit a submerged object. Farbeaux and Mendez found themselves airborne. They hit the water. Both were close to panic as they realized one of the animals was in the canal with them.
Together seventeen men and women were on a ride none of them could have ever imagined. The canal system was becoming steeper and the turns not as numerous as they traveled down the pyramid that got wider at its base.
Jack tried to rein in as many as he could, yelling for each to hang on to the next, to form a chain that would allow them to travel the current together. Without notice, the water spilled over a small fall and now they were all airborne. Carl held the master chief one moment and then lost him as Jenks’s own weight tore him from his grasp. They hit the water on the next level and all went under. When Carl surfaced he saw the master chief only feet away, grimacing in pain as Virginia splashed toward them. It was that movement that told Carl they had passed into light. As he looked back he saw that the fall of water they had come over had sent them into a tunnel, a tunnel that led them to a place they had been before.
“Look!” cried one of the sputtering students.
They were entering the main chamber. Teacher was there, still smashed on the staircase leading from this very canal.
“I’ll be damned,” Carl said and slapped the slowing current as he watched Jack ahead, already helping students out of the water and onto the stone staircase. “That was one hell of a ride!”
“What did you do to my boat!” the master chief cried out as he floated out of the cave.
The Delta team was complete. It had taken close to twenty minutes to locate them all and another ten to get four Delta and air force personnel down and out of the high trees where they’d landed. At least they had been able to hang onto three coils of rope. They took stock as they reached the lagoon’s south end. The five Zodiacs were just starting out. Altogether, to stop them, the men had at their disposal thirteen nine-millimeter Beretta handguns, two Ingram assault weapons with only one extra thirty-round clip, and one M-14 sniper rifle with no extra ammunition.
“Hope you boys have a plan that calls for throwing rocks when we run out of boom-boom,” the air force colonel said as he knelt beside two injured airmen.
“Even with what we have, it won’t be much against those fifties mounted in those Zodiacs,” the Delta sergeant said.
“Come on, guys, we have to make sure those boats don’t get to the other side,” Ryan said anxiously.
“That’s what we plan on doing, Mr. Ryan, but we only have so much fire-power to accomplish that mission,” Delta Sergeant Melendez said. “Look, I hate to say this, but our opening salvo can’t be kill shots; we have to first slow and then stop the Zodiacs. Punch as many holes in ’em as we can. We’re going to take one hell of a lot of return fire. Discipline, gentlemen, discipline.”
The thirteen men gathered around nodded their understanding.
“Okay, two-man firing teams: my people pair up with the blue birds and I’ll take Ryan. Boats first, assholes second, got it? Wait till my fire, then let all hell break loose.”
The men paired up without comment and started to file into the dense terrain.
As the makeshift rescue force moved out, they failed to see the small Indian who went right to the spot the men had been only moments before. The mud-covered man raised a small whistle to his bone-pierced lips and lightly tooted, imitating one of the many Amazonian birds perfectly. As he did, the jungle started filling with the not-so-lost tribe of Sincaro, and they moved off silently, following the Americans.
Everett swam to the right side of the cave opening. He waved at Jack and the two men made eye contact. The major knew exactly what Carl was up to. Jack shot the lieutenant commander a sloppy salute, then reached out and helped the others pull the master chief from the water and onto the stone steps.
“Look at my boat,” Jenks wailed.
Carl waited. As he did so, he pulled his last clip of ammunition from his rear pocket and ejected the empty from the Berretta. He inserted the new one with no time to spare as the two men came sputtering out of the cave. Farbeaux was first as he tried to hold the heavier Mendez up. The fat man wasn’t trying to assist the Frenchman in the least; he only held his wounded arm. Farbeaux saw Carl immediately and continued on. Carl followed.
Jack was there with the rest of the survivors and even helped Mendez to the steps. As the Colombian collapsed, Jack held out a hand to Farbeaux and the Frenchman took it.
“Major, you amaze me no end. Your calculated risk seemed to have paid off; unfortunately, I’m afraid it was for nothing, unless of course you managed among your other miraculous activities to have disarmed a certain war-head in your mad rush down the feeder canals.”
“Afraid not, Colonel.”
Farbeaux found footing on the steps and collapsed in exhaustion. “A shame,” was all he said as he lay back against the stone beneath the legs of Supay.
Carl held Farbeaux and Mendez at gunpoint. The Colombian had offered the American everything this side of the moon to set him free. But Carl and even Farbeaux laughed at the attempt. They followed Jack and the others up the stone stairway and into the brighter chamber lights they had set up before.
Jack and Virginia found a smooth spot in the floor and lay the grumbling master chief down. He immediately slapped Jack’s hands away. The major stood up, wondering where Sanchez, Danielle, and Ellenshaw were. He didn’t have to wait long. He heard a sound and the professor stumbled out from behind the wall of supplies. Jack reached for his nine-millimeter just as Heidi, her head bandaged and still bleeding, came next, supported by Danielle and Sanchez. Then came a man Jack didn’t know. He was dressed in a wetsuit, the same as himself and Carl. The stranger had a lethal-looking handgun pointed at the head of Heidi Rodriguez.
“You will release Señor Mendez, or this woman will be the first to be blown apart,” the man said menacingly in accented English.
“I would do as he says, Major; he is rather an unsavory character,” Farbeaux said as he advanced and slowly removed Jack’s handgun.
With his good arm, Mendez relieved the lieutenant commander of his weapon and then slammed Carl in the face. The navy man didn’t go down; he just wiped the blood from his nose and mouth, and gave the fat man a strange smile.
The others reacted with cries to the assault on Carl but Jack held up a hand, stopping them from moving. Robby was pulled back by Kelly, who watched the scene with dawning horror.
“Sorry, Major, this dick came out of nowhere,” Sanchez said as he was silenced by a shove in the back.
The man motioned for Carl to get closer to Jack so he could keep them both in his line of sight.
“Why don’t you let Sanchez help Dr. Rodriguez, Danielle, so you can join your partner?” Jack said as Sarah and Carl raised their eyebrows.
Danielle looked at Jack, and then at Carl, knowing it was he who had found her out.
“You three knew?” she asked as she let Heidi’s arm drop. Robby rushed over to help Sanchez as Ellenshaw sat hard on the floor.
Jack looked at his watch and remained silent. Twenty minutes.
“Yes, our boss is just a tad smarter than you gave him credit for. Director Compton never believed your story for one minute, especially after Commander Everett here saw your tan line on the George Washington, which sent Dr. Compton off investigating.”
Danielle closed her eyes, then reached down and fingered the spot on her ring finger. It had once held her wedding ring, whose recent presence had left a clear mark of untanned skin beneath.
Farbeaux laughed. He stepped forward and put his arm around Danielle and brought her close to him.
“I told you they would be hard to fool, my dear.”
She shrugged out of his embrace and looked at Captain Rosolo.
“It took everything I had to convince this maniac not to murder us all,” she said as she took a menacing step toward Rosolo.
Mendez, still holding his arm, stepped forward and aimed the gun he had taken from Carl at the French couple. “Stop or I will shoot you,” said Mendez to Farbeaux. “Now I have two reasons to kill you, señor, for lying to me about the dangerous mineral, and now to find your supposed ex-wife, who seems to still be very much connected to you, very devious.”
Jack was watching Rosolo. The weapon he held was of an obscure Russian make, a Malfutrov fifty-caliber. There was a running joke in American Special Forces that named the weapon the Malfunction for its proclivity to misfire after being dunked in water. As Jack watched, a small drop of water fell from the handgrip where the weapon’s ammunition clip was stored. It was something that gave him hope.
“It is time to leave this place,” Farbeaux said as he turned Danielle toward the stairs. “In case you have forgotten, there’s a rather nasty little device floating around somewhere.”
“I agree, señor. But you will remain here with the Americans.”
Farbeaux turned to look at Mendez. The barrel of the Berretta was pointed right at him.
“Please remove the gun from your belt,” commanded Mendez.
Farbeaux flashed a significant look at Carl, who began to prepare himself.
“My man, Captain Rosolo, will shoot everyone here if you do not comply.” Mendez looked over at the major. “I’m sure he would very much like to complete what he failed to do in Montana.”
Jack half smiled and asked Rosolo, “That was you?”
“Yes, you can be assured the mission would not have failed if I had been on the ground and not in the air,” the thin man said as he took a quick step over to his left. He snatched Sarah away from Jack’s side and placed the gun to her head and fired.
Captain Santos chomped on his cigar as he throttled the Rio Madonna forward. He knew certain places where the shallow draft riverboat could penetrate the rapids, and he steered toward the first. His men were hung onto the gunwales and surveyed the rushing waters out ahead of them as he steered the large boat to the left. He had released the equipment barge back on the river and beached it as he had started his run. He cursed as the bottom came out of nowhere; the Rio Madonna lifted free of the water momentarily and then slammed back down.
The moment to act was upon him and his boat, and it was time to earn his rather bloated financial rewards. He knew he would only have moments to get to the lagoon and stop the people he was being paid to stop.
As he successfully turned away from one of the more hazardous rocks in the rapids, he ventured a hand from the old wheel and felt for the necklace in his shirt. He pressed his fingers around the round object inside just as the Rio Madonna smashed into another hidden rock along her run for the lagoon.
The firing pin clicked and Sarah flinched at the suddenness of her nondeath. Jack reacted first, Carl and Farbeaux next. The latter grabbed the failed weapon at the same time Sarah realized she was still alive and swerved away. Farbeaux dove and at the same time tossed Carl the weapon he had removed from his waistband. He fired and took Mendez in the head. The fat man fell to the floor, right on top of the master chief.
Jack had the gun before Rosolo knew what had happened. The captain took a swing at him with the side of his palm and missed, as the major ducked away, came up a foot to Rosolo’s left, and cuffed him in the side of the head.
Carl extended Farbeaux’s gun toward him and Danielle. The lieutenant commander didn’t bother to look at the struggle between Jack and Rosolo. In his opinion, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Rosolo had made a very serious mistake with Jack: he had tried to kill Sarah.
Rosolo had gone into a jujitsu stance and Jack smiled. The students who didn’t know his capabilities started hollering for Jack as the two men squared off. As Rosolo brought his palms up, Jack did just the opposite; he lowered his arms and circled the captain. As Rosolo lunged, Jack easily sidestepped the open palm and then elbowed Rosolo across the bridge of his nose, shattering the bone and sending an explosive arch of shrapnel made up of cartilage and bone fragments into the captain’s brain, dropping him to the stone floor like a rag doll.
The students were stunned. Everett tilted his head at Farbeaux and Danielle. “Doesn’t pay to piss Jack off, does it?”
Virginia was just standing and watching. Never in her life had she witnessed such a quick death as what she had just seen.
Jack turned and faced everyone. His eyes were mere slits and it took a moment for him to come out of the semitrance he was in. Then all at once his vision cleared and he saw Sarah.
“You all right?” he asked as he broke his self-induced spell and started forward toward the group of students.
Sarah didn’t move at first, she just swallowed and nodded her head, stunned at the sudden change of predicament.
“Come on, people, move, we have to get out of here. Sanchez, get Heidi into the water. Commander Everett, cut those two loose, we don’t have time right now.”
Carl lowered the weapon but was tempted to raise it again and put a bullet in Farbeaux’s brain. But he was stayed by the fact that he didn’t murder.
“Until the next time, Henri,” he said as he left the couple and ran to help get the late Mendez off the master chief.
Farbeaux pulled Danielle roughly, for some reason angry at himself for doing what he was about to do. He thought he must be insane for feeling this way.
“Come, my dear, time to leave.”
“We cannot let them live—they know about us. I could never go home again.”
“That doesn’t matter; their director knows about you anyway and, if I know Compton, he’ll hunt you down for our small deceit. Now, we must get out.”
Danielle was shocked beyond measure as she stumbled along in his hard grip. If she didn’t know any better, she could swear she saw remorse on his face. Or was it guilt?
As Farbeaux approached the spot on the staircase just below the height of the dock where Teacher lay grounded, the rising water had belched up one more surprise. There, floating against her stern where the water was starting to lap, was the aluminum case. The weapon had survived intact its journey down the canal. Farbeaux slid to a stop, losing his footing and dragging Danielle down on top of him.
“What are you doing?” she screamed.
“The weapon.”
She looked and saw the container as the rising water around Teacher bumped it again and again between its twin thrusters.
“We have to get out!” Danielle cried.
Farbeaux quickly made a decision. He reached around and removed his satchel; the strap holding it slid off his shoulder. He opened it and took out the heavy Geiger counter, which he tossed away to smash against the stone steps. He then took the satchel and crossed the strap over Danielle’s head.
“Take it and go. I’ll meet you on the river, by the rapids.” He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. “Now go.”
“What…what are you doing?”
“I can’t live with the fact that I helped kill those young people, I have to help this Collins get rid of the device.” He roughly pushed her away as he stood and ran for the rapidly disappearing Teacher.
Danielle watched him for a moment, then stood and made for the canal and the now-vanishing opening that led out of El Dorado. She took a last look at her husband, adjusted the satchel that contained the plutonium, and then turned and dove into the rushing water.
As Jack helped Sanchez with Heidi, Ellenshaw was the first to see the Frenchman as they breached the top of the dock and staircase.
“Look,” he said, pointing.
Jack saw it immediately: Farbeaux was struggling with a yellow anodized aluminum case that could only be one thing, the nuclear weapon. He was trying to bring it to the vanishing staircase but couldn’t get the momentum he needed to fight the speedy current.
“Professor, take Heidi and make for the opening,” Jack said as he handed Heidi off and ran down the stone steps. He jumped feet first into the current, splashed his way to the Frenchman, and helped get the case to the first step out of the water.
“You wanna steal this, too,” Jack quipped as they collapsed against the case.
“Do you always joke upon the moment of your imminent death, Major?”
Jack didn’t answer, as he was watching everyone dive into the water and start swimming toward the falls. He saw Robby try to help Kelly, and her slap his hands away and dive into the water. Virginia and two of the students had the master chief around the neck and were dogpaddling toward the now-submerged opening. Then he noticed a shadow fall on him.
“You two get the hell out of here,” he said, looking up into the faces of Carl and Sarah.
“Not happening, Jack. I think we’ve been through this before,” Carl said as he reached down and pulled the major up. Then he grimaced and helped Farbeaux also.
Sarah just held up a hand when Jack turned on her. “Save it, Jack, we’re wasting time.”
“The thing is, Lieutenant, I’m all out of ideas,” Jack said as he looked down at the case.
They heard shouts and looked up and toward the canal. Just before the master chief’s head went under the water they heard him.
“Did I hear right?” Farbeaux asked.
Sarah, Carl, and Jack looked at each other and said it at the same time.
“Turtle!”
Delta Sergeant Melendez unscrewed the cylindrical silencer mounted on the barrel of his nine-millimeter. He patted Ryan’s shoulder and winked at him. Then he raised the weapon and took aim on the lead Zodiac that was already twenty feet from shore. The black rubber glimmered with wetness just as the first brightness of morning turned the blackness of the night into an almost even blacker sunrise as it filtered through the canopy at the center of the lagoon.
Just as the sergeant started to squeeze the trigger, screams and shouts filled the night air from the direction of the falls. The lead boat opened up with the heavy thump of its fifty-caliber machine gun, momentarily blinding the men taking aim on shore. Melendez took a deep breath and fired five times in quick succession. The first four bullets found the hard rubber of the first Zodiac, and the fifth struck the man operating the heavy weapon, dropping him into the murky water. Because of the people in the water, Melendez had disobeyed his own orders about boats first, bad guys second.
“Oops, last one missed the fucking boat,” the sergeant said as the other teams opened fire.
Ryan wanted to smile at the remark but didn’t as bullets flew out of the jungle and caught the assault teams in the boats off guard. Several men, more than likely Delta, let fly and hit several of the other machine gunners, dropping them also. One of the heavy-caliber weapons managed to swing around and open fire. It was like hell opened up around the men onshore. They dove to take cover as the large rounds struck trees and plants around them, forcing them down. One airmen and one of the Delta men cried out as large pieces of tree trunk and bark struck them. It wasn’t long before another of the attackers’ fifties found them and started laying waste to their hiding places. Ryan figured it would only be a matter of moments before their protective cover was down to nothing.
The men, each in turn, would stand and fire quickly and then duck. Ryan heard the M-14 sniper weapon open fire with six quick and sure shots, dropping four of the men that were arrogantly standing inside the rear craft. Then another loud burst of two more fifty-calibers strafed the area immediately to their right, and this time there were accompanying screams of pain as some of the deadly projectiles found their mark.
Ryan was following Melendez when he suddenly reached out and grabbed the soldier’s boot.
“Listen,” he said loudly.
As the sergeant stopped and tried to hear over the continuous gun battle, he thought he heard a long blow of a ship’s whistle.
“It’s an engine,” Ryan yelled over the din. He quickly ventured a look up and over some elephant ear plants. “Goddamn, look at that!”
As both men looked on, an ancient-looking river tug came careering down the rapids and then entered the calmer lagoon as if its pilot had done it a hundred times before.
“I think the bad guys just got reinforced,” the sergeant said, as he placed his last clip of nine-millimeter rounds into his automatic.
As Ryan grimaced, looking down at his own handgun with the slide all the way back, indicating it was empty, a bright red flare fired from the boat. His momentary hopes had been dashed by the sergeant. He had hoped it was some navy fellas coming to their rescue.
As the flare hit its apex, over a hundred arrows suddenly arched into the sky with a sound none of the Americans had ever heard before. Then they heard the thumping of large sticks as they pounded against hollow logs, a deep drumming that was absolutely frightening. Then the attackers in the Zodiacs started screaming as the volley of arrows hit them. As Jason Ryan started to stand up, he felt the sharpened end of a stick press against his back as the screams of the dying filled the darkened air around the killing field.
The Sincaro had arrived to take back their Garden of Eden.
As they struggled with the yellow case, trying desperately to get it inside Teacher, the very canal shaft they had come down earlier had filled to the point where it could no longer withstand the pressure. The outer walls lining the cave opening gave way. Ten million gallons of water that could no longer be restrained by mere stone cascaded into the open chamber. The rush smashed into Teacher and sent her sideways, slamming into the dock. Jack, Carl, Sarah, and Farbeaux were almost snatched away, but all held on thanks to a jagged opening they had the container wedged into. Teacher once again began to take on water as she settled hard, awash against the legs of the great statue of Supay.
“Push it in; we have five minutes till detonation,” Jack called out as he doubled his efforts at trying to fit a square peg into a round opening. They were all losing footing as the chamber filled. None could touch the staircase as they and Teacher rose above the dock.
The ancient stone supporting Supay started to crumble from the wash of water. It was Carl who heard the first loud crack and rumble as part of the left leg of the great statue gave way and fell into the swirling water.
“Oh great, come on, come on,” he said as they shoved harder.
“Damn!” Jack shouted as he stopped shoving suddenly and started pulling.
“What are you doing, Major?” Farbeaux cried as he tried to restrain Jack.
The major didn’t answer, and finally pulled the case free. As it hit the water, another loud crack was sounded inside the chamber as the entire left leg of Supay crumbled into the race of water. Teacher was floating on a prayer as her forward spaces took on more and more water. Sarah screamed. The giant statue had started to fall backward toward the canal.
“Oh, this isn’t happening,” Carl called out as he saw what was going to be the result.
The statue hit the water with the force of an exploding fifteen-inch naval gun. Teacher, along with the four people, was pushed farther into the interior of El Dorado. Then Supay did what Carl had hoped it wouldn’t. It plugged the opening to the falls like a cork in a bottle. Once the great stone statue had settled, wedged into the canal, the water started rising at a tremendous rate.
Jack had lost Sarah when Teacher had been picked up by the crashing wave, and Carl was no longer with him and Farbeaux. He could only hope they hadn’t been crushed by the boat’s heavy hull. Instead of worrying about it, he grabbed the case he had hung on to for dear life and snapped open the latches. He opened the container and he saw they had three minutes left. He removed the weapon from the case and not too gently tossed it into the damaged space in Teacher’s engineering compartment.
“Damn, why didn’t I think of taking it out of the case!” said the Frenchman.
Jack didn’t hear the question as he quickly swam into the opening and disappeared. Farbeaux quickly followed.
Outside the hull, Sarah finally surfaced after being pummeled by the wave left in Supay’s wake. She bumped into Carl as he, too, surfaced not two feet from her. They both swam for the stern of Teacher, which had begun to stick up in the air. She was going down by the bow at a fast rate of speed. Carl got to the opening first, and reached up and grabbed on. He tried in vain to pull himself up but the part of the composite hull he was hanging on to gave way and he went back down into the water, narrowly missing Sarah.
“Forget it, her ass is riding too high,” he shouted over the roar of the water. The chamber was filling quickly. “Jack, we’re losing her!” Carl just hoped the major heard him.
Inside Teacher, Jack was not only fighting with the bomb to get it inside the now-dangling Turtle, he was fighting with Teacher herself as gravity started to take effect. The boat now started to go down by the nose.
“Hold the canopy up, Colonel,” Jack shouted.
Farbeaux grabbed the Plexiglas canopy and held it in place as Jack fitted the stainless-steel weapon into the front seat. The major then pulled himself toward the back, reached into the cockpit, and gave a quick prayer that the electrical system hadn’t shorted out. He flipped the switch and was rewarded with the control lights coming on like a Christmas tree. He didn’t hesitate as he reached for the keyboard on the small computer set deep inside the panel. He quickly switched on the autopilot, activated the computer, and tapped in a depth of ten feet, which was what he estimated the cave opening to now be under water by. When he was prompted, he set a speed of forty-five knots, the maximum speed of the small craft. He ignored the computer prompts for oxygen output and other nonessentials. A warning flashed that told him at the speed setting he had selected the maximum amount of dive time was only three minutes. He ignored that, as well, and programmed his course, praying that he had the setting right or the damned thing would come back on them. He closed the canopy and it snapped shut.
“Carl!”
“Yeah,” the lieutenant commander answered from outside.
“This thing’s going to fall free; make sure her nose is pointed in the right direction when she hits the water.”
Jack didn’t wait for an answer as he reached over and hit Turtle’s cradle release. As he did so, the doors beneath it swung open with an explosive sound. When Turtle was released, the men cringed as its angle smashed the small craft into the opening on her way out of Teacher. Jack and Farbeaux sighed with relief as the sub cleared the doors.
“We’d better go, Colonel.”
“I agree,” was all the Frenchman said in answer as he quickly swam for the hole in Teacher’s hull.
Turtle hit the water, almost decapitating Sarah as its high-speed jets started up before it hit the water. Carl braved death by reaching out and pushing Turtle’s nose toward the canal and the spot where the inner cave had been before it had gone under. The water jets pushed against the water and Turtle shot outward toward what looked like a solid rock wall. Then it slowly went beneath the surface.
“Okay, let’s swim for it,” Carl shouted at Sarah just as Jack and Farbeaux surfaced beside them.
As one, they broke for the Supay statue that had totally clogged the opening. They dove deeply. Farbeaux was the first to see the small gap where Supay’s pointed ear lay against the stone opening. There was a gap of about two and a half feet. He just hoped they had the time to squeeze through.
Meanwhile, Turtle hurtled through the cave’s opening. The setting for her depth had been miscalculated; the canopy struck the top of the mouth of the cave and cracked. As water started to seep in, the aroma of electrical ozone and smoke began to fill the unoccupied compartment of Turtle. The sub entered the canal system and started to climb.
Farbeaux surfaced first and looked around for the others. Sarah popped up, and then Carl.
Jack felt himself grabbed from below and pushed upward. He was grateful for the help as he started to rise. When he broke free to the surface of the lagoon he looked over and had to smile as Will Mendenhall came up next to him, sputtering and spitting out water.
“Good to see you, Lieutenant,” Jack said.
“Saw you were a little slow coming up there, Major.”
The new second lieutenant had just reached the level of the lagoon after climbing down from the cliff face, when he saw the others come to the surface but not Jack. He dove in after him.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Just as Jack said the words, a deep rumbling sounded from all directions. High up where the falls originated, a massive waterspout shot straight up into the air and then the side of the cliff face exploded outward. All the survivors still in the water ducked under, in the hope that the tremendous quantity of debris would somehow miss them. Jack stayed afloat as missiles shot in all directions, but he just had to see, to make sure. He felt Farbeaux next to him.
As they watched, the giant Incan pyramid of El Dorado began to collapse from the inside. The falls, mountainside, and cliff face started to fall inward as the thermonuclear weapon melted stone from within. The weakened stone walls dissolved under the massive attack of gamma rays and fell in.
The witnesses to the death of the legendary El Dorado would never forget how the mine died with an ear-shattering bellow, as the entire northern end of the lagoon collapsed in on itself. The bomb took down a pyramid that had been constructed by ancient man to withstand a tremendous force equal to up to ten tons of TNT.
Farbeaux looked at Jack and not a word was uttered. The Frenchman raised his hand in a halfhearted salute, then turned and swam away. The major watched him go, more confused than ever about the Event Group’s most-feared adversary.
“We let him go, Jack.”
Collins turned toward Carl, Mendenhall, and Sarah, who were treading water close by.
“This time, he earned it. We’ll see him again.”
Carl was about to say something when a new sound entered his ears. They turned as one to see a most welcome sight.
It was large and looked like the boat they had seen the day the marines had dropped them off at the tributary, which seemed like years ago now. The men who now lined the rails were beginning to pull the survivors of Teacher and the Zachary expedition from the lagoon. At the bow, a large, heavy-set man in a filthy white shirt, and with a thick five- or six-day growth of beard, stood with a leg propped up on the gunwale. Even from their poor vantage point they could see he was looking straight at them. Jack, Mendenhall, Everett, and Sarah started to swim toward the oncoming boat.
As the boat’s engine chugged to a stop only feet from the four swimmers, the man at the bow smiled and removed his cigar.
“You are in distress, gentlemen, oh, and lady?” he asked, a smile evident on his dark features.
Jack spit out a mouthful of water. “Nah, just …” He stopped. He didn’t feel like joking; he was beat and worried about his people. He remembered this man’s picture from the list of qualified river captains he had originally gazed over, back at the Group complex. He knew what to call him because most of the captains on the list had the same last name. “Captain Santos, isn’t it?”
“Sí, Capitán Ernesto Santos at your service,” he said as he replaced the cigar in his mouth and half bowed toward the four floating Americans.
“Pull us up, Captain, and let’s talk business,” Jack said as he swam the last few feet to the boat and helped the others secure the dangling cargo net.
Farbeaux gingerly pulled himself out of the water and looked back at the spot where the students and event personnel were being rescued.
The Frenchman saw large bubbles as something swam toward shore and then quickly turned away. He watched as the bubbles diminished. Whatever it was turned around and swam back toward the center of the lagoon, then Farbeaux wanted to look no more. He weighed his options as he watched Santos and his men start picking up the Americans. He decided he and Danielle would take their chances in the forest after the rapids.
As he started to turn away, he saw something floating at the lagoon’s edge. He blinked when he recognized what it was. His vision blurred as his heart sank at the sight. He stepped to the water’s edge and pulled out the satchel he had strapped onto Danielle. He turned the weightless bag over. His eyes widened when he saw the claw marks that had shredded the thick material. He touched the edges and saw that the marks had wicked up fresh blood. He slowly let the empty satchel fall from his hands as he went to his knees in the fine sand of the lagoon’s bank.
He stayed that way, kneeling and looking at the water, for many moments, beating himself. His wife had been killed. Why had he helped the Americans? He closed his eyes and then looked at the now-collapsed El Dorado. Then his eyes went to the Rio Madonna as it picked out the last of the survivors. His eyes narrowed as they focused on the last man pulled out. Jack Collins.
At that moment, the mind of Henri Farbeaux snapped as he took in Collins. He no longer blamed himself for his momentary burst of generosity that had cost his dear wife’s life. The person responsible was right there in front of him. Major Jack Collins.
Farbeaux slowly stood and turned toward the jungle. He started walking. Walking and thinking of how he was going to get even with the people who had fooled him into thinking he was human.
Colonel Henri Farbeaux walked into the jungle where he would be as one with the other animals, because that was what he had become in his instantaneous insanity. An animal.
Jack was the last to be manhandled off the cargo net as Captain Santos ordered the Rio Madonna to the opposite shore. Sarah, Carl, and Mendenhall were safe among the others. The students all looked his way in silent thanks; that was as much as their sorrow and fatigue would allow them. They knew it had been the four people before them who had saved everyone from being stranded in the mine just as Helen Zachary and a lot of their friends had been.
The major now located Virginia—and a scowling master chief, sitting by the wheelhouse in silence. Then he reached out to Sarah and half smiled as he took her hand.
“I didn’t exactly get them all out, did I …” he began.
Sarah turned on him and looked him right in the eye. “Don’t even start with that crap, Jack. You did all you could; the result is right before your eyes. Ten kids will see home again because of you.”
Just beyond her, Carl nodded his head, agreeing with Sarah.
Jack, Sarah, Virginia, and Carl stood at the bow and looked at the falls, which had been reduced to only sixty feet from their tumble to the lagoon. Three hundred feet of mountaintop had collapsed in on El Dorado, enough tonnage to keep the plutonium and gold away from the hands of man for many decades.
The lagoon itself was silent again as life sounds returned to the rain forest around them.
“I guess Farbeaux would have made off with enough uranium to guarantee we would all be scared to death for the next fifty years,” Virginia said, as the captain of Rio Madonna gave orders for getting under way.
“No, his plan would have ended right here,” Jack said.
“What do you mean?” she asked, as Santos turned and smiled at the gathered Americans, his cigar freshly lit.
“Our friend here,” said Jack, nodding toward Captain Santos, “would have killed anyone involved with the mine as soon as they returned to his boat. Hell, he may still be planning to kill everyone.”
Sarah didn’t follow this. “What makes you say that?”
“Because it’s his job,” Jack answered, staring at Santos. “Captain, would you mind joining us, please?”
Santos stepped over and removed his cigar from his mouth. “Sí, señor? ”
“Captain, you can knock off the peasant act now and show these ladies your jewelry,” Jack said, smiling.
“Act? No, señor, I am a peasant of the river,” he said as he reached into his shirt and drew out his necklace. He kissed the object on it, as he always did. Then he smiled and held it out so the two women could see his proudest possession.
“A papal medal of the Order of St. Patrick,” Virginia said, astonished.
“Sí, it has been mine for twenty-three years. Starting with my ancestors many years ago; our passion for the pope has continued through my bloodline. It has been our responsibility to ensure that the world shall never benefit from Padilla’s discoveries. To make sure no one ever goes beyond the borders of the river and her surrounding sisters,” he said as he dropped the medal back into his sweat-stained shirt, then he struck a match to his dead cigar. “My pleasure in life has been safeguarding Eden from men and women such as …”
“Us,” Sarah said, comprehending at last.
Santos smiled as his cigar glowed to life. “Sí, señora, people such as you.”
“Captain Santos and his family were listed by Europa as having been awarded the first medals back in 1865, your great-great-grandfather, I believe,” Jack said as he remembered the papal medalist list he had studied after Niles had hit on Keogh’s name in Virginia.
“Sí, this is true. You are surely a man with great knowledge, and I must assume you would not be easily disposed of, señor?”
“No need; we are going to make sure El Dorado remains just a myth, a place where legends go to die,” Jack said, looking the captain straight in the eye.
Santos didn’t say anything, but just nodded and puffed on his cigar. Then he briefly looked toward the collapsed mine that was hidden behind the waterfalls. The waters allowed only wisps of smoke to escape from the devastation inside.
“It must get tiresome out here all alone,” Virginia said.
Santos laughed heartily as the Rio Madonna’s engines came to life and the old boat made for the far shoreline. “Alone? No, I have my loyal crew and all of this,” he said. He looked up into the bridge and gave an up-and-down motion with his fist. The boat’s whistle sounded loudly in the silence of the valley.
Santos laughed as he looked up along the lip of the extinct volcano. Then Jack and the others heard chanting, almost a gentle song as sung by hundreds of people. They looked at the spot Santos was indicating and saw that the edge of the caldera was lined with Sincaro who stood watching the boat as it chugged its way out of the center of the lagoon.
Professor Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III broke away from the other survivors and held a hand to his bandaged head when he saw the ancient people of this lost valley. He began to cry for Professor Keating, who had died before he could see the prehistoric success story now unfolding before them. The Sincaro had taken everything the outside world could throw at them, be they Inca, Spanish, or modern man, and it was they who God allowed the sole ownership of Eden.
“It is a hard life, but my friends up there and not El Dorado is why we have always done this service for our pope. Not gold, not strange minerals.” He turned and looked at the major. “This place is truly Eden, but it does have a few snakes that will protect it at all costs.”
A large group of Sincaro watched from the sandy beach as the Rio Madonna dropped anchor on the eastern shore of the lagoon. Santos hummed the very tune of the Sincaro as he stepped to the gunwale. He gestured for Jack, Carl, Sarah, and Mendenhall to join him.
“I have it in my power to kill all of you. It is within my right to do so,” he slowly explained without one iota of accent to his English. He turned away from the shore and the jungle beyond, to address the Americans, his face a death mask of seriousness. Then he smiled a sad sort of smile, replaced his cigar in the corner of his mouth, and tilted his filthy saucer cap back on his black hair. “But I think you have acted honorably in this place, as others have not. Those that have not are now a part of the legend of the valley, sí ?”
“Yes,” Jack answered as he heard noise coming from the bush.
“Good. Now, I think you may have lost something of yours in the jungle, señor. You may have them back. My friends the Sincaro are quite finished with them.”
As Jack and the others followed his eyes to the shore of the lagoon, the bushes parted and an even larger party of Sincaro came forward, marching in a straight line. Jack smiled when he saw who they had in tow, tied with hands behind his back and strung along like a dog on a leash, but very much unharmed.
“Hey, guys, what’s up?” Jason Ryan asked with his boyish grin. It quickly became a grimace when a small spear was probed into his lower back. The Sincaro chattered something in their own tongue as they herded him and the thirteen survivors from Operation Proteus forward. “Think we could get a lift out of here?” Ryan flinched and looked back at the miniature man pointing the stick behind him.
Half an hour later, after Ryan and the Delta and air force personnel had been pulled aboard and the Rio Madonna began to make its way out of the lagoon, the lone creature breached the surface and stared at the departing boat. Then the beast slowly sank beneath the surface as the small monkey-like creatures came out of the trees and started jabbering and jumping into the water. And so life returned to normal in the Garden of Eden, which returned to serenity in front of a collapsed legendary treasure that would continue to tease the mind of greedy men the world over—the lost mines of El Dorado.