“Because Leroy wouldn’t tell him?” Faye was taken aback.
“Leroy didn’t know and didn’t care. He’s apparently got a scheme of his own planned and didn’t want Bowdeen messing it up for him.”
Faye knit her brows in puzzlement. “How very strange. What can it all mean?”
Maddie hunched forward in her seat and clasped her hands. “These guys are ex-army. They’re tough as nails and not the sort to jump at shadows. Still, from what I hear Bowdeen was twitching like a bug on a hotplate over what’s going on at the compound.”
“And we have no way of knowing what that is,” Faye concluded, finally understanding Maddie’s concern.
“Exactly,” the operations director straightened up. “We need a spy inside.”
“We need a what?” Faye wasn’t sure she’d heard her right.
“We need to get one of our own inside the compound,” Maddie replied eagerly.
“What an appalling idea,” the memory guardian objected. “It would be certain death for whoever we sent in there.”
“Not if it was the right person,” Maddie countered.
“And who do you propose to send on this suicide mission?”
Maddie shrugged carelessly. “I don’t have anybody specific in mind, and it’s not like we can set this up overnight. It’s a deep cover operation that could take months to orchestrate. Of course, the agent who goes in would have to volunteer. I’m not going to appoint anybody.”
“That’s some small relief,” the old woman said though inwardly she felt nothing but foreboding.
The operations director seemed to realize she was on thin ice. She laughed breezily. “Don’t look so worried. I’m just spit balling now. I don’t even know if this plan will stick.”
“You will keep me posted if anything adheres to the wall, won’t you?” Faye asked drily.
“Absolutely,” Maddie reassured her. Sensing the need to change the subject before Faye could nix the idea entirely, she added, “Now let’s go check on your little patient.”
She took the old woman by the elbow and helped her to her feet.
“I really do think I could use some sleep,” Faye commented wearily. After Maddie’s worrisome scheme, she believed one night’s worth wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Chapter 32 – Bee Line
Ortzi, Iker, and the Arkana team sat around the large trestle table in the basseri kitchen discussing their next move. It had been an eventful day. The sun was just beginning to drop below the peaks. Although it was much too early for the traditional dinner time, the etxekoandre insisted on feeding them a hearty snack. It started with a green salad topped with seafood. The main dish consisted of deep fried cod simmered in a sauce of onions, garlic, and red peppers. It was called “bacalao,” and everyone asked for seconds.
While they ate, Ochanda moved silently around the table pouring cider.
“Eskerrik asko,” Iker murmured when she filled his glass.
Cassie inferred that the expression meant “thank you.” She tried the phrase when Ochanda got around to her glass.
The etxekoandre beamed back at her. “Ez horregatik.”
Cassie took a sip and regarded Iker pensively. “I know I’m tired, but you must be exhausted.”
“Why would you think that?” the sentinel asked in a puzzled tone.
She shrugged. “I mean you’d have to be—guarding that cave day in and day out for years on end. You must not have much of a social life.”
Iker smiled. “That is an amusing idea, but I do not guard the cave alone. I have many assistants, and we take turns.”
“So, you’re like the chief sentinel?”
“Yes, you might call me that. The task used to be much simpler centuries ago. Not so many people would climb the mountain, and most of them were known to us. But now.” He rolled his eyes expressively. “Tourists!”
“Guess we were lucky that you were on duty when we arrived,” the pythia observed. “After all, you’d be the guy with all the answers.”
“It was not luck,” the sentinel said softly. “Durango is not a very big town. Word travels when tourists are planning to hike the mountains—especially when the group includes a young woman with grey eyes. I wanted to take the watch.”
“Then why didn’t we see you on our way up?” Cassie persisted. “We started right after dawn. Did you camp out there overnight?”
“There are many different routes to the summit coming from all sides of the mountain. It is not always possible for one hiking party to see another.”
“Maybe we should spend some time talking about what happens next instead of what just went down,” Erik suggested pointedly.
Griffin sighed. “I’m afraid we’re still at an impasse unless...” he trailed off, thinking.
The others waited in silence for him to continue.
“Unless we approach the problem from another direction. Perhaps when the lost sentinel said he would keep true to the dragon’s wing, he wasn’t speaking literally.”
“No argument there, Grif. Dragons don’t literally exist,” Erik remarked.
At first, the scrivener didn’t reply. He sat tapping his chin in contemplation. “Dragons appear in the mythology of widely divergent cultures which is an enigma in itself. Why would the same mythical creature feature so prominently in the legends of Asia, Africa, India, and Europe?”
“There is a dragon in some of our stories too,” Ortzi said. “We call him Herensuge.”
“Which only proves how ancient a figure the dragon is,” Griffin replied. “But I’m wandering away from the point. To the best of my knowledge, there is only one dragon which appears in the mythology of the Americas. It is a feathered or plumed serpent and is one of the most important deities in all three of the major pre-Columbian civilizations. The Inca, the Maya, and the Aztec each revere some version of this new world dragon.”
“Then what are you saying?” Cassie asked. “That this lost sentinel might have hidden the artifact with one of the groups that worshipped dragons?”
“Possibly,” the scrivener replied. “Spain conquered all three of those cultures. By 1610, the means to travel to colonies in the Americas would have been readily available to anyone here.”
“I don’t know,” Erik said skeptically. “Why would the lost sentinel take
