“A family member?” I asked, nodding to the painting.
“Yes,” Mendez replied with pride, “my father, Alejandro Mendez. He inherited this estate from his father and started the vineyards. I have carried on the family business and tradition.”
We spent over an hour admiring the library and its contents and also discussing his family’s history, which was extensive, and learning about their place in the historical development of this region. There was no mention of the Brotherhood, which did not surprise me.
I finally said, “Senor Mendez, we do thank you for this lovely evening, but we must take our leave. We have many preparations to make for our upcoming expedition.”
“I am sorry that you have to leave, but I understand; it has been delightful having you visit. Do come again.”
As we left the library and he was escorting us down the hall, I turned, and as offhandedly as I could, said, “By any chance, have you heard of a group called the Brotherhood?”
It caught him completely off-guard as he almost stumbled before replying.
“Why do you ask?” he replied after regaining his composure.
“Oh, no particular reason—we have heard some rumors and what I would consider old wives’ tales about a strange group that protected the golden library from discovery. You know how people talk about things that go bump in the night,” I said with a chuckle. “With the history of your family in the area, I thought you might have heard something or be able to shed some light on those stories.”
We had reached the front doors and stopped for a moment. His nervousness had increased, and I thought I saw a trickle of sweat appearing on his brow.
“Well, now that you mention it, I do recall hearing stories as I was growing up about something like that, but attributed it to, as you say, old wive’s tales.”
I nodded, “I’m sure you’re right. I know how these kinds of stories get fabricated and take on a life of their own over time. But it did make me wonder if there was any truth to it, and could these men who seem to be interested in us be involved in some way?”
Now, the old Mendez was back. “I hardly believe that would be the case, but as I said, I will look into it and let you know what I find out.”
The front doors opened, and the Mercedes limo was sitting out front. I turned, thanked him again for the evening and his offer of help, as did the others, and walked to the car. The drive to the hotel was filled with conversation, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the wonderful evening, the beauty of the Mendez estate, and our gracious host. No one could see our conspiratorial grins as we spoke.
Chapter Nine
Arriving at the hotel, we stopped in the bar for a quick nightcap. Sitting there, we agreed that we had accomplished our mission for the evening, and Mendez seemed to fall for our little ruse. If he turned out to be as predictable as we thought, he would involve his men in some way with the mercs from Rome, which is exactly what we wanted. Now, we stay vigilant and go about business as usual—whatever that might entail.
The next morning after breakfast, we went back to our rooms and started the final prep of personal gear. The boxes had arrived from Fitz with our new batch of MREs to augment the local foodstuffs we were taking with us. There were some additional medical supplies to add to our kit, spare batteries, and a small, quick-charge solar panel with adapters for all our electronic devices. As a bonus, he sent us a dozen of his newly developed mini remote-controlled trail cams, like hunters and animal researchers use to spot and record animals in the wild. But these were way cooler, HD real-time picture transmission and recording w/sound, six-month battery life, and the size of a box of paperclips. They would transmit to all our mobile devices with a 75-mile transmission range and could be turned on/off remotely or set for motion sensing activation. Another surprise was a small drone with an HD camera and all the bells and whistles you could ask for, including his newly developed generation of LIDAR sensing. Physically, it was the size of a laptop computer, no more than 15 inches square, and had ten hours of flight and recording time. All controllable from the new Toughbook laptop he included and our tablets’ touch screen controls, and rechargeable with our new solar charger. Fitz’s team had been working on new battery technology for some time, and the battery-powered devices were his latest creations. He and his Acme Inc. had really come through for us, and unlike Wile E. Coyote’s provider, all our stuff worked.
By the time we had gotten everything packed and loaded, the rear storage area of the Beast was full, and we had started strapping bundles on the roof rack. I got a call from Uncle Harold early that afternoon saying he had Dimitri’s package and we could come by the bar and pick it up. He would be there in an hour. I let the team know, and an hour later, Dimitri and I rolled up to the bar. It was four o’clock on a Monday afternoon, so there wasn’t much of a crowd around. He and Rita were sitting at his usual table, and I thought I recognized some of the faces around the bar from our last visit; Uncle Harold’s boys, I thought. We walked up to his table, and he slid a medium-sized canvas duffel bag across the floor to Dimitri and said, “Here you go, as ordered.”
Dimitri said, “Everything?”
“Yep, everything, hope you don’t need it, but…” he let the sentence trail off.
I stood there, not sure of what was transpiring, but knowing Dimitri as I did, I knew it was important, so I just kept quiet.
Dimitri nodded, and without opening the bag, picked it up and turned for the door. I
