Now, Crouch waved a hand inside. “The team’s all here. Would you like to meet them?”
TWO
Alicia followed Crouch through the door, memorizing the layout and judging the security as she went. Crouch laid it out for her quickly, clearly eager to get to the meat of the matter.
“Eight bedrooms upstairs. We’re fully stocked, the grounds are private, and we’re on our own. No maids. No room service. No mail man. If something moves outside,” he nodded back toward the open door where Lex had just arrived, “it really has no place being there.”
“Good. I like to know where I stand.”
“Cook your own food, make your own bed, clean your own dishes. But, having said that, I don’t expect you to be cluttering the place up for too long.”
Alicia eyed him. “Good to hear because, darling, I don’t do dishes. Are you saying that you have a mission in place already?”
Crouch couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “We do.” He laughed. “This change of life has rejuvenated me. I truly feel like a man with a new lease on life, Alicia. This is my dream: chasing down long lost treasures, the dream I’ve nurtured for fifty years.”
“Not Catwoman? Lamborghinis? Chris Evert?”
“Do fifty-year-olds do that?”
“Wow, fifty? You’re old, man,” Lex piped up as he approached. “Where’s the refrigerator?”
Crouch pointed toward the end of the hall and watched the biker creak away. He appeared lost in thought for a moment, but then turned to Alicia. “Shall we?”
Alicia allowed him to lead her through a nearby door, hiding her anger. Lex’s current attitude wouldn’t do. Crouch deserved respect, he’d earned it and he was now their boss. Again Alicia wondered if bringing the biker along hadn’t been a bad, self-absorbed idea. With thoughts and solutions half-formed she entered a vast room populated by leather easy chairs, low coffee tables and fronted by a deep pair of bay windows. Two figures lounged in the chairs.
Crouch pointed. “Alicia Myles, meet the other members of our team. This is Rob Russo, of the Ninth Division, a man I have trained and worked with for twenty years. And Zack Healey, also of the Ninth. I can vouch for both of them.”
Alicia sized the two newcomers up with a soldier’s eyes. Russo was big and craggy, with a face like a windblown escarpment and bone structure that could deflect bullets. He sat in a kind of wary ease, confident in his environment but always alert. He regarded Alicia with blank eyes that could have held suspicion, hatred or amusement — the man was unreadable. Healey on the other hand was almost bursting with excitement, eyes darting from side to side in exuberance and already leaping out of his seat with a hand outstretched.
“Zack. Call me Zack,” he said. “Or Healey,” he added in answer to her impassive gaze. “Whatever works.”
Alicia raised a brow toward Crouch. “Don’t remember you sayin’ we were running a crèche here too.”
Crouch sat down. “Healey’s young but he’s good. Loyal. Vital. Hands-on. Reminds me of myself forty years ago.”
“Reminds me of a puppy,” Alicia said. “And Michael, forty years ago you were ten.”
Crouch just shrugged.
At that moment Laid Back Lex entered the room, nursing a Bud and what appeared to be a fully-loaded ham and pickle sandwich. As all eyes turned to him he made a face. “What? Riding makes me hungry.”
“Everything makes you hungry,” Alicia said before turning her attention back to her new boss. “Is this it? No mad professor? No geography whizz or Internet geek?”
“This is everyone, Myles, though I dare say the door will never be off limits to the right person. I can run any Web traffic from our HQ and all the research gets done in the field. We’re well funded, but it’s not a bottomless pit.”
Alicia took her own seat across from Russo. “So tell me, who exactly is funding this little venture?”
Russo didn’t respond. Crouch shifted a little, a creak of old leather accompanying his movement. “A moderately wealthy man by the name of Rolland Sadler. To cut a long, tragic story necessarily short I assisted him once. Saved his family through the Ninth, against the wishes of the eggheads. Once he heard I’d finally decided to go my own way I could barely stop him doling out the cash. He’s funding us, and he’s on the level.”
“But he’ll want results.” Russo finally spoke up with an eye on Alicia.
She thought she now understood the craggy-faced soldier. “I see. He’ll want to see some kind of return, yes? And Russo thinks he’s big enough to be field captain. Am I right?”
“I follow orders,” Russo said immediately with a little glance toward Crouch.
“Good. Then follow mine. That way, big boy, we won’t have to test the solidity of those magnificent cheekbones of yours.”
“All right.” Crouch stood up at just the right time, averting a confrontation. “This team’s solid. Made up of the very best, hand-picked by me. I run it. I say how it goes. If anyone doesn’t like that they can leave right now.”
No one moved. Alicia held Russo’s gaze.
Crouch nodded. “Good. If we do this right we might even make a name for ourselves. The Gold Team. How do you like that?” He didn’t stop for an answer. “Consequently, it’s vitally important that our first mission is a success. That’s what makes its topic a little unfortunate.”
Now Alicia blinked. “In what way?”
And Zack Healey leaned forward, cheeks flushed with excitement. “We’re heading to Mexico in search of gold. Lost Aztec gold.”
THREE
Alicia settled back in her seat. “Tell me.”
“Well… ” Crouch rubbed the bridge of his nose as if pondering where to begin. “Make yourself comfortable. I guess the story begins with the Spanish conquistador, Cortés, whose expedition in the sixteenth century led directly to the fall of the Aztec empire. Tales tell us that the man was in fact a fairly controversial character, ignoring direct orders to carry out his sea voyages — acts of mutiny in effect — even having to return to Spain on occasion to answer charges. Cortés was once quoted as saying ‘it is more difficult to contend against my own countrymen than it is the Aztecs’. At one point he was even suspected of poisoning the Ponce de Léon.”
Healey joined in. “So with a boss like that you can imagine what his men were like.”
Alicia ignored the young upstart.
Crouch went on, “Well, after he ordered the scuttling of almost his entire fleet in order to minimize any potential retreat, the captain marched toward the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, gathering an even larger army as he went. Natives joined him — warriors of the Nahua in particular. His men massacred thousands even before they reached the great Aztec city. When they arrived, the city’s king, Montezuma, allowed Cortés and his men to enter the island city, perhaps hoping to learn their weaknesses.”
“Enemies closer,” Healey put in.
Crouch nodded. “And despite the locals’ offer of gold and jewels the Spaniards were driven to more frantic acts of greed and plunder. The more gold they saw the more they wanted—”
“Huh,” Russo spat in a deep voice. “Nothing changes.”
“Cortés believed the Aztecs thought him a god, the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, or at least an emissary of his, and perhaps they did. He wrote as much in a letter to the king of Spain. But Cortés remained a harsh ruler. When he learned that several of his soldiers had been slain along the coast by Aztecs he took Montezuma prisoner in his own palace and, without the population’s knowledge, ruled through him.”