Sean grinned. “I thought I smelled something funny around here.” He stood up and slapped his friend on the back as Joe entered the room.
“It’s probably you three,” he joked loudly. “Y’all look like you haven’t had a shower in days.”
“How’d you get away from the wife?” Sean jeered with a laugh.
“Actually,” Emily interrupted, “we could really use a shower and a good night’s rest. So could we move this along?”
“Hello, Emily,” Joe greeted her. “Nice to see you, too. And, Ms. Villa, it’s nice to meet you.”
Adriana raised an eyebrow and spied the newcomer suspiciously. “How did you know my name?”
“That’s for another time, I suppose. For now, I’ll just tell you that I like to know things, lots of things. But at the moment, you all are lookin’ for answers about these here golden leaves.” He reached down and picked one up, eyeing it with a grin.
Joe collapsed into a chair as if he’d been standing all day. “Tommy, cue up the screen so I can show them what we’ve learned so far.”
Tommy nodded and stepped over to a laptop that had been connected to an overhead projector that hung from the ceiling. The lights went dim and the shades closed to the subtle hum of an electric motor. After a few seconds, the projector came to life and the screen changed to an old man in priestly robes. His face appeared worn with the wrinkles of time and the thick, gray beard matched a thinning patch of hair on his head. There was something wild about the man’s eyes, an intensity and determination that belied his years. He stood with a younger man, dressed in a white button up suit and some dark pants. From the look of the picture quality and the style of the clothes, Sean estimated the photograph to be from the 1970s.
“Have you ever seen this man before?” Joe asked the group.
“Which one?” Sean requested.
“The older one,” Joe refined. “The younger guy is Stan Hall.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
Emily shook her head in agreement while Adriana said nothing.
“That there is Padre Carlos Crespi. He was a missionary to the town of Cuenca in Ecuador until 1982.”
Tommy handed Joe a remote control, which he quickly used to change to the next slide. It was a photo of the old priest with three small children smiling next to him.
“This guy, Crespi, was a saint to the locals in Cuenca. Along with servin’ as a priest at the church of Maria Auxiliadora, he ran an orphanage there and helped the people in any way he could. His life was dedicated to the ministry of true Christian service.”
The next slide caused Sean to perk up in his seat. In it Father Crespi stood awkwardly, holding what appeared to be a metallic sheet. The thin, yellow material had been imprinted with symbols and a language that Sean recognized instantly. Sanskrit.
Joe continued, “The padre had a love for history and archaeology, a fact that most of the villagers knew. So, they started bringing him artifacts, like the one in this picture.”
He changed to the next slide. This one was of a stone sculpture that looked just like it had come from Babylon itself. Another slide flashed onto the screen, one displaying relics that could have come right out of an ancient Egyptian tomb. Still more pictures appeared with objects from Assyria, Sumer, and Israel. Sean sat speechless, wondering how he’d never heard of this mysterious priest before, while Joe finished his presentation with a video showing the padre speaking with the man named Stan Hall they’d seen in the initial photograph.
The priest was speaking in a rush of Spanish, his voice loud and impatient. It was as if he was trying to get Hall to understand something important. Crespi opened a pair of large, wooden doors and led the way into a high-ceiling room with a single light bulb dangling from the top. The old man pulled on a string and the bulb instantly illuminated the room. Shelves that went all the way to the fifteen-foot high ceiling were packed with objects and relics from cultures nowhere remotely close to the location of Cuenca. Pieces of stone, bronze, and gold were scattered on the shelves and overflowed onto the floor. Enormous sheets of copper and gold were rolled up, leaning against the shelves or in the corners. Hall asked the priest where all of the objects came from to which the old man kept saying the same word, “las cuevas.” The caves.
The video stopped running. Joe reached over and turned the lights in the room back on.
“I would love to see that collection.” Sean said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Me too,” Tommy agreed. “Unfortunately, Father Crespi died in 1982.”
Joe nodded. “When he passed away, it was discovered that his vault of ancient artifacts was empty. It had been completely cleaned out. No one is sure where all of the pieces went or who took them.”
“Vanished into thin air,” Tommy added quietly.
Joe went on. “People often asked Father Crespi who had brought him the items in his vault, to which he always responded, ‘the people from the forests.’ Only one man has come forward and claimed to know the location of the items that were taken from the cleric’s vault. Mysteriously, that man was murdered soon after. He was found shot dead in his apartment.”
“So no one has a clue where to look?” Emily asked after remaining silent for the previous few minutes.
“The ‘caves’ the old man was talkin’ about are near a river, though nobody has found them yet. A few people thought they did, but no one has ever produced any evidence. Neil Armstrong was even brought in as an investor and participant in one of the explorations, but all they found were empty caverns and a few skeletons.”
“Neil Armstrong the Astronaut?” Sean seemed impressed.
“Yep,” Joe confirmed then continued on. “In the riddle from the stone we found in Georgia, it mentioned some rivers. We think that the contents of the cleric’s vault in Cuenca are part of the greater collection mentioned on the stone. If that is the case, it would make sense that the rivers they are referring to are not far from his church. Seems like Father Crespi’s collection has been returned to one of the caves there along a nearby river, but there are several within a hundred miles of Cuenca. Of course, a lot of other people have gone looking for it, too.”
Sean eyed his old friend suspiciously. “You think you know where it is, don’t you?”
Mac’s eyes grew narrow as he grinned. “Maybe. See, the problem with that area is that there are lots of caves and lots of rivers. Some of the caves are completely flooded now. So it is anybody’s guess which cave is the right one. Obviously, Armstrong and Hall never found it.”
“What makes you so confident?” Adriana asked cynically.
“Because I know something they didn’t.” He let the moment build up as he eyed them carefully. “I think the old priest left clues at his church that point the way.”
Chapter 39
“Things,” Lindsey began, “have been put back on track.” He peered at Mornay and Carrol. He’d ordered them back to their meeting room late in the afternoon to update them on the fact that he’d effectively cleaned up their mess.
“What do you mean, back on track?” Mornay sounded dubious.
Mornay was such an irritation, Lindsey thought.
“Wyatt and his friends have found the next pieces. It is only a matter of time until they lead us to the second chamber.”
“How long are you going to let them keep going? If you don’t reel them in now, we may lose another treasure like we did with the last chamber.”