PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA THREE WEEKS LATER
Helen’s offices on the Stanford University campus were dark save for the small sanctuary she called home when she wasn’t in the field. The rooms could barely be called an office at all. The outer classroom was taken up with equipment and seating for her students, along with numerous exhibits from her time outside of the university. Her personal space was cluttered with a small lab table, and by maps of every conceivable size that were pinned to every inch of wall space. They all showed regions in South America that were affectionately known as the edge of the world to her many students. A few of them had handwritten legends stating Here there be Dragons, as a joke aimed at her cryptozoology leanings. Henri St. Claire stood looking over Helen’s shoulder at the map laid out on her desk, showing the route she had painstakingly planned.
“So we will enter the basin from the Brazilian side and not follow Padilla’s original route? I would think that you would follow the Spaniard’s trail precisely to make sure nothing is bypassed.”
“Normally I would, but his original trek was through the Andes and many hundreds of miles of rainforest that we can now avoid by going through Brazil rather than Peru. The mixture of jungle and forest is so thick that even space-based photography is unable to penetrate it, and I really don’t relish the thought of boating through that, do you?” She pointed to several color images taken from the U.S. Geological Survey photos. “We know the tributary is there, we have the proof now. Entering the valley and the lagoon from the east is possible; just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean its not there. Besides, getting permission from the Peruvian government to cross their territory has proven in the past to be impossible. Now, as long as we are straightforward, Brazil offers up assistance freely, with only the proviso that their government is represented on the expedition to make sure nothing untoward takes place.”
“That is also a concern not only of mine, but also of our financial backer, Mr. Mendez. We take security very seriously, Helen; after all, he is not exactly using just his own funds for this venture, but the Banco de Juarez also. Strangers should not be allowed to come.”
“Unavoidable, I’m afraid.” She made a show of examining the handwritten route as laid down by Hernando Padilla. “Brazil has had an inordinate amount of antiquities leaving their country. They insist on having a Customs official in attendance on the expedition and, believe me, they will tolerate no change in their policy.” She laid the magnifying glass down and looked Henri in the eye.
He smiled. “Then that is the way it shall be. So that brings the number of team members to forty-six students, professors, and guides.”
Farbeaux looked down once again at the copies of the diary pages that he had methodically examined for himself upon his return from Colombia. He agreed the route Helen proposed was indeed the best one, according to the description laid down by the Spanish captain.
“Very well, Professor Zachary, I approve of the route you have chosen and will relay that approval to Mr. Mendez upon my return to Bogotá for the final payment of the expeditionary funding. Helen, you have done marvelously. All the research, the trail going cold time after time, but your tenacity and your beliefs finally paid off.”
“Thank you. If I didn’t have the free hand you gave me it wouldn’t have been so smooth.” She handed him a glass of champagne. “To a new, or should I say, an old life form we hope to bring to the light of day,” she toasted.
“To history,” he countered, “and lost things,” hoisting his glass.
He sat the glass down, carefully avoiding torching the new maps that Helen had worked so hard on. He rolled up the copy she had made so he could deliver it to Bogotá and their financier.
“So I will see you next in five weeks in Los Angeles.”
“Helen, this is one boat ride I wouldn’t miss for the world,” he said as he tapped the rolled-up map against her shoulder.
Helen watched as Henri climbed into his rented car and drove away. She laughed softly as she turned and walked back into her small office. She sat at the small lab table she used as a desk and looked down at the map they had just studied together. She used her right index finger to lightly trace the flow of the Amazon River she had depicted. Then she used both hands to wad up the copy of the map and toss it into the waste can in the corner. She did the same with the copy of the Padilla diary pages. It had taken her a full three days to plan the misleading route she had given to St. Claire, and another two days of actually drawing it and creating the falsified diary pages. But she knew it had been worth it, as the good Professor St. Claire had taken to heart her grand forgery and fake route.
After she had tossed the forgery into the trash, Helen poured herself another glass of champagne and walked with it to one of her filing cabinets that crowded the office. She sat the glass on top, unlocked the second drawer, and removed a folded chart and a small file folder. She took the chart, the file, and her glass to her table and sat down. She unfolded the real map and then removed from the file the copies she had actually made of the diaries.
Helen smiled and took a sip from her glass. Then she took her cell phone from her pocket and started pushing numbers she had memorized. She had never actually programmed them into her phone, for security reasons.
“This is Robert.”
“Is everything ready in San Pedro?” Helen sipped from her glass again.
“We’re loading the largest of the equipment now, deck space will be kinda tight, but we’ll manage; we should be finished in a few hours.”
“How about the replacement grad student, the one you found at Berkeley, did she show up?”
There was only a moment’s hesitation, then her assistant Robby answered, “Yes, ma’am, she arrived an hour ago and is already situated. I think you’ll be more than satisfied with her. She’s one of the brightest in her field; she knows animals.”
“Good. Look, I’ll be down in about three hours, I’m flying into LAX. My attorney should be arriving there about the same time my flight is landing, so please make sure he’s shown to the ship’s company office and tell him I’ll be there soon, okay?”
“You got it, Doc. So how did your final meeting with the money man go?”
“It went better than expected. He gave us the second check and left for Bogotá to pick up the third part of our financing. It’s just too bad we didn’t need that part. But it will keep him away and out of our hair until we sail. Have our new benefactors arrived yet?”
“Yeah, they’re here, all six of them, that Dr. Kennedy guy and five others. What do you want us to do with all of Henri St. Claire’s geological stuff, the magnetometers and other mining equipment?”
She took a large swallow of champagne and smiled as it went down. “Leave it on the dock with a note saying, ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’ ”
“You got it, Doc, see you in a few.”
Helen closed her cell phone and stopped smiling. She hated screwing over someone like Henri St. Claire, but he never should have misrepresented himself as someone who was in this for the sole reason of discovering one of the mysteries of the ages. He was in this for greed, his own and that of the gangster who called himself a banker.
“There would be no hunting for the mythical El Dorado on this trip, Dr. St. Claire. Where we’re going, you cannot follow,” she said to herself as she placed the real map and Padilla pages in her briefcase, stood, and made her way out into the evening.