“Why us?” Gabriel asked.
“We are not so isolated as you might think—we make a point of gathering news of the outside world. And we thought your foundation would understand what he had discovered and would be able to convey the secret responsibly to the outside world.”
Cierra looked like someone who had finally taken all she could stand. “ ‘We thought’!” she burst out. “ ‘We wanted’! You and ‘Granville’! You speak of General Fargo as if he were still alive!”
“But he is,” Mariella said. “He is my husband.”
Silence descended on the group.
“I knew it,” Gabriel said. “You’re the woman in the picture.”
“Picture?”
“A photograph of your wedding party that your great-great-great nephew—hell, there’d be more greats than that, but you get the idea…a photo he showed us in Villahermosa. You were standing on the steps of your father’s plantation house with the general, and all your family and his men were gathered around you.”
A wistful smile curved Mariella’s lips. “I remember that day so well. It was a good day, a happy day, even though I knew I would be leaving my family forever. I’m glad the photograph has survived for all these years and my family has not forgotten me. It will sound foolish to you, I’m sure,” she continued, “but it feels like it could have been yesterday, or last year. Rather than a century or more.”
Escalante and Tomás wore blank expressions. They had been listening to Mariella’s story, too, and clearly didn’t know what to make of it, but also weren’t inclined to get in between the two women.
Cierra looked back and forth between Gabriel and Mariella and said, “You’re both insane.”
“What’s so insane about it?” Gabriel said. “When people came from Europe to America at the turn of the last century, their lifespans increased, and their children’s even more. Why? Diet, among other reasons. Surely you’re not doubting that there are things you can swallow that make you healthier or live longer—I’m sure you’ve visited a pharmacy or two in your day.”
“Longer, sure. But not centuries.”
“Why not? There’s research going on right now into extending human lifespan—mitochondrial research, telomeric research, and don’t ask me what any of that means because I don’t know, but I do know we’ve funded some of it and Michael’s convinced it’s not quackery. Not all of it anyway.”
“That’s sophisticated genetic engineering,” Cierra said stubbornly, “not drinking water from a well.”
“Sometimes,” Escalante said, clearing his throat first, “the oldest ways turn out to be the best.”
“No. No—I will not accept a fairy tale about people living hundreds of years!”
“All right,” Gabriel said. “You don’t have to. All you have to accept is that other people have accepted it—starting with Mariella here and ending with Esparza out there somewhere in the jungle with his machine guns. Even if it’s all myth and no substance, there are men willing to kill over it. Men who have killed over it. Men who have tried to kill us.”
That silenced Cierra’s objections.
Gabriel turned back to Mariella. “So you’re saying that this Well of Eternity was the great secret beyond the mountains that General Fargo was looking for, the one he thought would help him restore the Confederacy. And I imagine it would have. Face it, if he possessed the secret of eternal youth, he could have gotten the backing of any nation on Earth. And you’re saying he did possess it. So why didn’t he carry out the rest of his plan?”
“It took us months to find the Well. They were not easy months, and they opened his eyes to a great many things. When we got here, he’d begun having second thoughts, and after he’d stayed a while…his plans changed. He no longer wanted to reignite a war. He no longer wanted hatred to divide his homeland.” She smiled. “And as he likes to say, he was selfish. He had found paradise, and he had no desire to leave.”
“Then why send you to New York now?”
“Word had somehow gotten out; rumors were starting to spread once more. We’d had more than one persis tent explorer come close to discovering us—more in the past two years than in the prior twenty. These were people who would have stolen the secret for themselves; people who would have destroyed everything we had built. We could fight off one, two, perhaps more—but eventually would come the one we couldn’t fight, and then what would become of the Well?
“Granville believes that the answer is not more secrecy but, at long last, openness. That the scientists in your employ could have the water analyzed to see if it might be possible to determine what gives it its remarkable powers. If it could be duplicated, then the Hunt Foundation could perhaps administer a program to make the water available to all nations—and could also protect the source, so that our life in Cuchatlán could continue undisturbed. I was to give the sample of the water to your brother for that reason; I brought the flag with me to help convince him of the truth of my story.”
“Michael can be a skeptical little rascal, all right,” Gabriel said with a smile.
“Perhaps he’s simply not as gullible as his brother?” Cierra suggested.
Gabriel didn’t take offense at her tone. She was a scientist, after all. And she hadn’t seen some of the things he had.
Gabriel tugged at his earlobe as he thought about what Mariella had told them. After a moment he said, “Why did Esparza send Podnemovitch and his men to stop you from handing over the water and the flag to Michael? How did he even find out all this in the first place?”
A pained look passed over Mariella’s face. “The people of Cuchatlán were betrayed,” she said. “One of our representatives who went into the outside world to gather news decided to try to make himself rich by selling our secret. He found out that Esparza has fundedresearch into prolonging human life—perhaps you and he have even funded some of the same undertakings. And this man, Hector, thought that Esparza would be a likely buyer. Unfortunately for Hector, he did not know how truly ruthless Esparza is.”
“He told Esparza the whole story?”
Mariella shook her head. “Not at first. He realized that if he told Esparza everything he knew, Esparza would have no reason to keep him alive. Hector only told him enough to pique his interest—and then fled south and hid. Esparza sent one group of men to search for him while another investigated the partial story he had been told.”
“That must’ve been when he and Podnemovitch went to Florida,” Gabriel said.
Mariella continued, “Unfortunately, one of the things Hector had told Esparza was that Granville planned to send me to New York with the water sample and the flag. I reached New York before Esparza’s men could stop me, but Podnemovitch followed my trail and as you know he made it to the Museum in time to intercept me.”
“Podnemovitch didn’t get the water or the flag, but he got you,” Gabriel said. “And he saw the bottle destroyed, the water lost. He must have figured we weren’t likely to make sense of the markings on the flag—but just to be safe, Esparza left Podnemovitch behind to make sure we didn’t interfere with his plans.” Gabriel grinned. “Which shows he doesn’t know me very well. I’m not so easy to kill—and when anyone tries, it makes me curious to find out why.”
Escalante said, “Does trouble always follow you so diligently, amigo?”
Gabriel chuckled. “Not always. Just most of the time.” He turned back to Mariella and asked, “How does Esparza know where he’s going now, if you didn’t tell him? We know he doesn’t have the flag.”