Brazil Prologue March 19th, Brasilia, Brazil, The man walked-up to the entrance of the capital building of Brazil. He stopped at the security gates and waited for a security guard to walk over. The guard whispered, "I was able to get the security systems off for the 15 minutes, so hurry up." "I only need five." the man said. Then he walked into the capital and into the kitchen where he ripped his clothes to uncover the clothes that the waiters ware at the capital. Then he opened his briefcase and took out several machine guns. He stuck two of them in his shirt then two men walked in and he gave them each a machine gun. Then the three men barged out of the kitchen, and into the dinning room where the President and Vice-President and several other government officials of Brazil. The three men took out their machine guns and started shooting everyone in the room. Then one of the men walked over to the President who was hiding under the table and took out a revolver and shot her in the head.
Brazil March 31, 2011, The 30 year old Pete Sands heard a knock on the door of his two story Minneapolis house and got up from his couch and opened the door and said, “I don't want whatever your selling, nor do I want to fill out your stupid survey, or read your packet that will make me feel obligated to donate money to your charity.” Then he slammed the door shut. Then Pete turned around and opened the door again and said, “Hi, I thought you were selling something, but then I realized you don't have a clipboard.” “You must be Mr. Sands.” the man said shaking Pete's hand. “Yes, and you are?” Pete asked. “I am General Carlos of the Argentinean Military.” Carlos said. “Argentina, kinda far away from home.” Pete said as he motioned for Carlos to come in. Carlos sat down on Pete's couch and said, “Yes I guess it is, the reason that I'm here is because a few days ago six men stormed into the Brazilian Capital and assassinated the President and Vice President and set-up a puppet dictatorship. They are planning to silently take over South America, much like they did with Brazil, we believe they will start with either Paraguay or Argentina. If the US or other European Governments interfere, we believe they will take military action. But Brazil doesn't have a strong military, and they don't have the money to set-up a quick nuclear weapons program so they have come-up with a plan.” “I suspect you're here to ask if I want to help stop their crazy plan to jump-start a nuclear weapons program?” Pete said. Carlos laugh and said, “That is exactly why I'm here.” “So, what's their crazy plan?” “There is a legend that in the sixteenth century Roberio Dias, inherited a mine in South America from his father, he called it the Muribeca Silver Mines. Well Dias wanted a title of nobility so he went to see Dom Pedro the second, King of Brazil to make a deal that if Pedro gave him the title “Marquis of the Mines” he would give him all his fabulous riches from the mines. Well Pedro refused and ordered Dias to tell him the location of the mines. Dias however did not comply and he was imprisoned and eventually died after buying himself to freedom. Sadly he was the only one that knew the location of the mines and once he died the location of the mines was lost forever and they have never been discovered. So the Brazilians want to find Muribeca Mines and mine them. Then they would use the money to quickly set-up a nuclear weapons program.” Carlos explained. “So, you want me to find the mines before they do.” Pete said. “Yes.”
“I have a few questions; one, why did you pick me to find the mines not someone experienced in trekking through the jungle; two, am I getting paid?” Pete asked. “I picked you because your highly intelligent, you notice everything that goes on around you and you make sense of it all quickly, and you are a swift but careful decision maker. And yes you will be paid one-hundred thousand dollars. And I also want your two partners Paige and Ian to come with?” “Well I need a new car because mine fell off a cliff, so I'm in.” Pete said. “Good, meet me at the main entrance of the airport at one p.m tomorrow.” “I'll be there.” ** Pete walked into the climbing center in Minneapolis and walked-up to a lady and asked, “Hey, Gabby, is Paige here.” “Oh, hi Pete, yeah she's on the climbing wall around the corner.” Gabby answered then Pete walked around the corner and looked-up at Paige as she just reached the top of the wall. ** “Paige, Pete is perfect for you why don't you date him?” Paige's friend said as Paige hung on the top of the wall. “Well about three years ago he proposed to a women they were a perfect match but she ended up getting shot by a drunk in South Africa, and I just don't think he's ever gotten over it.” Paige explained. “Well looks like he's waiting for you.” Paige's friend said pointing at Pete below them. Paige wiped the sweat off her forehead and looked down at Pete and smiled. Then she let go of the wall and gracefully bounded down the wall to Pete. ** Pete Sands had met Paige Welles, when he had joined the State Department in peace keeping missions. Then he had gotten several promotions and became a Foreign Service Specialist, and Paige became his partner. Then after about one year of working together Ian Cape joined them as both of their partners. “I suspected you would be here.” Pete said. “So watchya doing here?” Paige asked. “Well I a General from Argentina just came to my house and said that Brazil was just taken over by a dictator and he want you me and Ian to help him find a Silver mine before the dictator does. He'll pay us $100,000 each. We leave tomorrow.” Pete explained. “I think I could use $100,000.” Paige smiled. ** “Hello?” Pete heard Ian voice come through his cell phone. “Ian, if you want $100,000 dollars, read your email in like fifteen minutes for more information and meet me at the airport tomorrow at one pm.” Pete said into his cell phone and then turned it off. ** Pete, Ian, and Paige walked into a small room with a table in the middle and several people arguing and then a few other staring down at the map of the Amazon. Carlos looked- up at them and smiled and then yelled, "Shut-up." The room became quite and Carlos continued, "How do you like Argentina?" "It's okay, but I've only been here for two hours." Pete said. "Everyone, this is Pete, Ian, and Paige. They will be joining the expedition." Carlos introduced. There was a wave of hellos, hola's through-out the room. "This is Dr. Kruger, he is from England and he will be our geologist." Carlos said as he motioned towards a forty year old English man. "And this is Sergeant Garcìa and Colonel Salvador, who will also be joining us." Pete couldn't put his finger on it but he could tell that Colonel Salvador was different then the others in the room, in a good way. Carlos introduced some other people in the room that weren't going to be coming along on the exploration. Then Carlos announced pointing a stick at a map on the wall, "You all
know why we are all here, to save Brazil and the rest of South America. We have very little information on where the mines location may be, but we believe it is in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil, the heart of the Amazon and the most remote. So what we will do is start at the south-eastern part of the Mato Grosso and head north until we reach the Amazon River. Then we will head south through the middle section of the region, then we will go north on the western side. Are there any questions." Ian raised his hand and said, "What if we don't find it?" "We will." Carlos said. "For some reason I don't like his confidence." Paige whispered to Pete and Ian. ** The jeep bounced as it drove down the rocky dirt road. Pete looked out at the jungle on the sides of the road and said to Carlos, "My question is, when do we stop the car and get out and start trekking through the jungle?" "Carlos laughed and answered, "Right here." The jeep came to a stop, Pete got out of the jeep and breathed in the hot, humid jungle air. Then two more jeeps stopped next to Pete and people started getting out and grabbing boxes, bags, rope, water jugs, plastic bins, every kind of gun imaginable, and thousands of other things. Pete went to the trunk of his jeep and took out his backpack and several other bags and put them on his back and then grabbed a machete. Then Carlos shouted at them, "Come on, we don't got all day." Everyone started to follow Carlos the jungle. "Wait, you mean were just going to start walking through the jungle." Ian asked with a slight tone of urgency in his voice. Pete turned around and said, "Pretty much." The expedition consisted of twelve people, Pete, Ian, Paige, Carlos, Salvador, Garcìa, Kruger and several other farmers who Carlos had hired to come along. The twelve of them trekked through miles of jungle, which equaled about five hundred bug bites, fifty cuts, scrapes, and bruises, and which all took eight hours. Then Garcìa stopped and announced, "There's only two hours left of sun light, we should set-up camp here so we aren't hiking through the jungle at night." "He's right, three to a tent, the lady gets her own." Salvador said. Pete ended-up sleeping with Ian and Salvador. Pete sat down on a rock and opened a can of sardines and grabbed a fork, then Ian leaned his head over and said. "Why do you get the sardines that are skinless and boneless?" "Because I bought them, myself." Pete said. ** Pete was sleeping peacefully until he woke-up to yelling. Pete sat-up and looked around the tent and saw it wasn't morning yet. he woke Ian and Salvador up. The three went outside to see bins and boxes open and on there sides with there contents all over the ground. Garcìa ran over to them and said, It's the Brazilians, they raided our camp luckly they didn't steal or destroy much, but they kidnapped Paige." "How long ago did this happen?" Pete urged. "Just a few minutes ago." Garcìa said. Pete looked around on the ground until he spotted hoof prints in the mud going out of the camp. Pete started running in the direction of the hoof prints, eventually his run turned into a sprint through the dark jungle. He sprinted through the dense forest until he saw a flashlight and shining on a horse in a clearing. Pete knelt down beside a bush and watched and listened. Pete saw a tall man, who seemed to be the head of the group, move to the side. Revealing Paige, she was bound to a tree and a piece of canvas was tied around her mouth. Then he stood up as everyone went to the opposite side of a campfire. Then Pete sprinted towards the campfire and just before he was about to run into it he dropped to the ground and skidded into it. His feet hit the glowing embers which flew into the group of people. They all jumped back and several, who got embers into their eyes ran behind a tent but the other three pulled out their guns and started shooting at Pete. Pete jumped-up and ran behind the horse and lit a match and held it up to the horse's eye. The freaked-out and started
running around but got caught by her chain. but while in the process knocking down all three people. Pete got out his pocket knife and cut Paige loose. Pete and Paige started to run back into the jungle. ** The next morning Pete woke-up and ate his breakfast and cleaned-up the campsite. When Carlos came out of his tent and said, "Okay everyone the Brazilians are onto us but that means they haven't found the mines yet. That also means they expect us to either abandon the mission or go back and start over with more supplies and people. But were going to do the opposite were going to work harder, hike faster, and find the mines before them. So hurry-up get the camp packed-up and lets go." ** The twelve of them hiked through the harsh tropical rain forest. When they all reached a clearing and decided to take a break. Pete leaned back and drank some of his water. Then he lost his balance and fell over a log, his water bottle rolled behind a bush several feet away. Pete got up and walked over to pick up his water bottle. He was about to stand when something caught his eye. He knelt down and pushed away the plants and pulled a old moldy brown canvas bag. he emptied the contents out and the only thing that was in the bag was a old leather journal bound together with string. Pete untied the string and carefully opened the fragile journal. The front half of the book was useless to read because the writing was smeared and faded. The other half was different, it was still hard to read but it was readable. Pete turned to the first page he could read and read it to himself. ** August 4th, 1924, Today all hope seemed to be lost on my search for the mysterious Muribeca mines. The rest of my group have begged me to abandon the mission, for there is very little food for us or the animals left. Half of us have maggots crawling under our skin, and the other half has Malaria. We started out with twenty people including myself, we are now down to seven. I tried to convince my group to stay loyal and complete the mission. For I have found new evidence where the mines are at, and we aren't that far away. They didn't listen and tried to convince me to come back with them. I refused and they left me siting in the jungle all alone. But they may have given up but not me, for I will complete the mission or at least die trying. Sir Henry Oliver Owen,
Pete turned the page and found a map of the Mato Grosso region and then at the top of the map there was a small river that flows into the Amazon River with a circle around it with the title: Location of M. Mines. Pete closed the book and ran over to his group and showed them what he had found. Then Carlos had decided to change course to where Owen's had wrote in his notebook. After another four hours and another million bug bites. They decided to set-up camp. ** Pete woke-up the next morning and yawned and looked around the tent and noticed Salvador was gone. Pete got out of his tent and looked around the camp. The camp seemed unusually quite. Then it dawned on Pete, all the tents were there just like last night. The ashes of the fire they had last night were still there, but nothing else was. All the bins of extra food, water, and supplies were gone. Pete ran around unzipping every tent and looked inside and nobody was there. ** "Why would they just abandon us?" Ian asked pacing around he barren camp. "Because, they were the Brazilians." Pete said.
"What do you mean they are the Brazilians?" Paige asked. "They had us come along on the expedition to find the mines for them. since they knew we were smarter than they were, so they let us do all the work. Once I found Owens journal they didn't need us any more because it had the location of the mines. Don't ask me why they didn't just shoot us." Pete explained. "Well what are we suppose to do?" Paige asked. "We follow them to the mines, and live off the land." Pete said. "We don't have the journal." Ian said. "Yes we do, up here." Pete smiled and pointed his finger to his head. ** Most people would either die or go mad within two days in the jungle with no shelter, food, and clean water. For the jungle is the most mysterious of places, it is lush, full of life. Plants, animals, and rivers everywhere. But in reality it's one of the most deadly places on earth. There is practically no food to find, water is infected by deadly bacteria and Piranhas. There are maggots that live under your skin, flesh eating insects, and thousands of other things. But some how Pete Sands and his companions had survived three days, living only off of the jungle. Which even in the modern world, it's one of the most amazing feats ever. "Were getting close, very close." Pete gasped. "How do you know?" Paige asked. "The smoke." Pete said pointing to rising smoke above the trees about a mile away. "What do we do?" Ian mumbled. "We wait until night and go to the camp." Pete said. ** Pete, Ian, and Paige waited until night fall before they entered the camp. The camp was huge, it had a helicopter, over ten tents, thousands of boxes, bins, bags, etc. Pete walked into one of the bigger canvas tents. inside was a table and some chairs. Pete walked over to the table and flipped through the papers, then at the bottom of a pile of papers he found Owen's journal. Pete stuffed the journal into his pocket. Then Pete turned around to see Carlos standing in front of him with a revolver at his head. ** Pete, Ian, and Page were tied tightly onto chairs and set next to the camp fire. When Carlos came over and said, "You know, I've very underestimated you. Luckly though you didn't figure out my plan until we didn't need you anymore. You were suppose to die in the jungle, but I guess we should have shot you right away. But we won't make that same mistake again. That's why I'm going to shoot you right away." "Considering you're going to kill us, that probably means you found the mines." Pete stalled. "Yes, and it has enough silver in it that we'll get more money off of it then drilling for oil. And Pete I know your just trying to stall, but I'm still going to shoot your brains out in the next thirty seconds." Carlos answered smugly. "One more thing before you shoot us, I'm not trying to stall, I'm simply curious." Pete stalled. "Shut up." Carlos took out his revolver and pointed it at Paige's head. Paige closed her eyes and turned her head the other way, expecting the deadly piece of Lead to smash into her brain any second. Then two gun shots went off. It took Paige a few moments until she realized she hadn't been shot. Then she looked the other way to see Carlos on the ground grabbing his hip, and gritting his teeth. And a few feet away Salvador stood still with a revolver pointing down at Carlos. "Salvador, you're a traitor." Carlos sneered at Salvador. "No, you're the traitor." Salvador answered. Carlos gasped and passed out. Salvador ran over to Pete, Ian and Paige and cut them loose and urged, "We have to go now." The four of them ran into the jungle, just as GarcĂŹa and Kruger ran out of a tent to see what happened.
** Pete, Ian, Paige, and Salvador ran through the jungle until they were about a mile from the camp. Then they stopped for the night, knowing that they wouldn't look for them at night in the jungle. Pete was first to speak-up, "Salvador do you know where the mines are at?" "Yes, why?" Salvador answered. "We need to destroy the mines, or at least make it really hard to get tot." Pete said. "How do you expect to destroy it?" Ian asked. "It depends on what kind of mine it is. If it's a quarry it will be a lot harder, unless it's like a canyon. If it's a underground mine with tunnels, all we'd have to is put some dynamite in a weak spot and blow it up." Pete replied. "It's a quarry, but it's like a canyon, the side walls are about 30-40 feet high and about 20-30 feet apart. Most of the silver is at the bottom ten feet of the sides of the quarry." Salvador explained. "Well if we can find some dynamite, we can collapse the sides so they will fall inward burying the silver under thousands of tons of rock." Pete explained. "There's a shed full of dynamite and some fuses by the quarry." Salvador said. "We blow it up in the morning." Pete said. ** There was a small rain shower that fell down onto the lush jungle. It was still dark when Pete and his companions woke-up and started trekking to the mysterious Muribeca Mines. The mine was like Salvador said, it was like a canyon. On one side of the quarry there was a shed full of dynamite and other supplies, next to that there were several jeeps, a helicopter, and a few trucks. The Pete and Salvador went to the shed and got the dynamite while Ian and Paige watched out for the Brazilians. Then Pete and Salvador worked on setting-up the explosives. About three hours later they had it all setup, set to go off in twenty minutes. The four were standing on top of the sides of the quarry when two jeeps rolled into the quarry, Then five men jumped out and pointed machine guns at them. Then two people went to the back of the jeep and got out a wheel-chair and lifted Carlos out of the jeep and set him in the wheel chair and gave him a megaphone. "Hey Carlos, how you doing?" Pete yelled down into the quarry. "Well I have two bullets in my hip, so how do you think I am?" Carlos snarled back at Pete. "Well if you got enough Morphine, you should be in La La Land dancing with unicorns. You should also say goodbye to your plan of taking over South America. And your life if you keep standing there. The mine is going to blow-up and collapse on it's self, and your standing right in the middle of it." Pete shouted back. "Your a bad lier Pete, if you were going to blow-up it you wouldn't be standing there." Carlos replied. "Maybe, I have a button." Pete said. "We didn't bring a button, we only brought demolition explosives, that go off in twenty minutes." Carlos answered. Pete and Carlos kept arguing for the next 19 minutes. When finally Pete looked at his watch and started counting down from 60. Once he got to 30 he stopped and said, "You've got 30 seconds, it's your choice, you want to live or die." Then Pete dived into Paige, Ian, and Salvador and pushed them down a hill and behind a tree and covered them with his body just as the explosion went off. The sides of the quarry collapsed and buried everyone and everything under thousand of rocks. Several boulders slammed into Pete's side with bone crushing velocity. Once the dust start to settle Pete fell against a boulder and gasped, "I really need a new job." Then he passed-out. ** Pete eyes fluttered open, he looked around the dark tent, Pete sat-up in his cot and winced as a sharp pain went through his ribs and his left leg. Pete slowly stood-up and reached over to a pair of make shift crutches, assuming that he broke his leg. Pete painfully limped out of his tent and walked over to a camp fire where Ian, Paige and, Salvador were sitting on chairs. Paige looked over and said, "You're
awake, you broke a leg and maybe cracked a rib. Everyone is dead, they totally got crushed by the rocks. Except for five people who stayed at camp, but they left in the last surviving helicopter. And a man who's entire lower half of his body was gone and Salvador shot him in the head to but him out his misery. On the bright side we still have a satellite phone, we didn't call anyone yet. So you can call who ever you want. The phone is over there." Pete started limping towards the large phone. Then Ian yelled out, "Whatever you do don't call the American Embassy, because they won't do a freaking thing." "You must think I'm really stupid, don't you." Pete said sarcastically. Pete picked-up the phone and called his cousin Scott who was in the Navy, stationed off the coast of Chile. "Hello, Scott." Pete said into the phone. "Pete, what a surprise, how are you doing?" Scott said through the phone. "Other than the fact that I'm in the middle of the God forsaken Amazon, and I have a broken leg, a cracked rib, about a thousand bug bites, 500 bruises, cuts, gashes, and scrapes, and feel like I've lost a quart of blood. I'm fine. But it's okay because I'm so high on Morphine you could rip my leg off and I wouldn't feel a single thing." Pete said into the phone. "Why..." Scott started to say but was cut-off by Pete, who said, "I'll tell you later just get a stupid helicopter out here to rescue us before we all die or go mad and start eating each other." "Well..." Scott got cut-off by Pete again who said, "Were in the northern Mato Grasso region of Brazil, around 58 degrees South and 12 degrees west, If we see you will figure-out some way to signal you. Just get here in the next 12 hours, or sooner." Pete said. "Okay, I'll get a helicopter looking for you as soon as possible." Scott replied. ** Around nine hours later, just as the sun was starting to rise. Pete heard the sound of a helicopter. Pete limped as fast as possible out of the tent and looked outside to see a helicopter shining a spotlight down on the jungle. Eventually it came over the small clearing of trees the camp was at. Pete started waving one of the crutches around until the helicopter started to descend. Paige, Ian, and Salvador ran out of there tents. And ran to the helicopter Pete was already climbing into. Once they were all in the helicopter, the helicopter lifted off the ground starting it's long flight back to it's ship. ** Pete Sands stood leaning on his crutches on top of a large white hotel overlooking the capital building of Brazil, in Brasilia. The US Navy, Ian, Paige, and Salvador were to find and overthrow the dictator, Josè Gennaro, and the rest of the newly formed Brazilian government. After that they were to arrest them. Having a broken leg and a cracked rib, Pete's job was to watch the capital building from the outside. Pete looked through his binoculars at the ten people seven of which were highly trained Navy Seals pretending to be tourists. Then Pete heard Ian talking to him through the microphone in his ear. "Were waiting for your word." "Go ahead, and Ian, you really need a hair cut." Pete said into the microphone. Pete leaned on his crutches peering through the binoculars to see what was happening. He saw the ten fake tourists start walking over to a door into the capital building. Then Pete lost sight of them but a few minutes later he heard several screams, gun shots, and the sound of police sirens. A couple minutes later Salvador said into the microphone, "We've caught everyone but Josè, they say they don't know were he is and wouldn't say if they did know. One of the main generals says that the army won't back down until everyone in the military is dead or Josè dies or surrenders." "Gotcha." Pete said having no idea what Salvador just said, being more focused on the man in the bullet proof vest climbing into a black SUV. Pete started walking as fast as he could down the stairs to
his rental car. Then after getting nowhere fast he dropped his crutches and ran painfully down the stairs. Pete climbed into his car and pressed down the gas pedal and started following the black SUV. Finally once Pete and the SUV got to a road where there was two huge concrete walls on both sides of the road it slowed down to Pete's speed, came beside his car and rammed him against the concrete wall. All of Pete's windows in his car shattered. Then the black car sped up into a large tunnel, Pete sped up and came beside it. He took out his revolver and started shooting at the window. The bullets hit the window with a crack but barely made a dent. Bullet proof glass, it's the dictator's car. Pete thought to himself. Then a window rolled down a tiny bit and a nozzle of a machine gun came out. and started shooting at Pete. Pete ducked, then he reached his hand out the window and grabbed the nozzle of the machine gun and pulled as hard as he could. The gun came out of the open window and Pete started shoot hundreds of bullets into the windows of the car. The bullet proof glass windows shattered. The black car rammed Pete against the side of the tunnel a couple times until his airbags came out. Pete growled and tore the puffed up air bags out of the dashboard and through them out the window. Then there was a large crack and scrap and Pete looked out the window to see he blew a tire. The other car rammed him against the wall again. Pete's car couldn't take much more of it. Pete took out his revolver and shot at a pipe that ran along the top of the tunnel. The pipe bursted spraying high powered water into the driver seat of the large SUV. The car swerved and braked. The large car skidded and spun in a circle until it hit the side of the tunnel. Several cars slammed into the black car. Then a huge fire erupted. Pete barely touched his car's door before it fell off of the car. Pete climbed out and took out a single bullet and put in his revolver and aimed it at Josè who was running from the wreckage, and shot him in the back. Josè yelped and fell to the ground. Then the pain started to come back to Pete as the Adrenaline went away, then he gasped and passed-out. **
Epilogue It was a foggy morning in Brasilia, Brazil when then new president of Brazil was inaugurated. And the memorial for Sir Henry Oliver Owens, and those killed when the Brazilian government was overthrown. The new president, Colonel Juan Salvador, walked over and up to a microphone and started his speech. Pete was sitting in a wheel chair next to Salvador along with Ian, Paige, and his cousin Scott. As he told their incredible story of saving South America. Note: The legend of Muribeca Mines is real, sadly the location of Muribeca Mines died along with Roberio Dias. For many will search, none will find, except for the one that believes- Unknown,