Saving Annie Grace

By Bruce Weiss

Annie Grace and her two young student interns travel to a remote area of the Andes to work at an archeological dig site. Annie’s hope is that the team can discover the ‘Andean-Inca’ Rosetta Stone so the ancient Inca language can finally be interpreted and explained. The work looks promising until they are kidnapped and transported to one of the largest coca growing plantations in the Andes. As prisoners, they become a pawn between a drug lord ready to harvest, and the US government with plans to destroy the fields before they can be harvested.

This is a compelling novel where human lives and an entire empire are at stake. Annie and her young women are doomed unless they can be saved by someone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685621537

Bruce Weiss

Bruce Weiss has published 10 novels, a text book, and short stories. Historical fiction is the genre with surprising and unanticipated twists and turns. Undergraduate degree from BU, graduate degree at Wesleyan, 20 years teaching social studies at the high school level, 3 years after retirement teaching in Cuzco Peru. Married to Ivy, father of daughter Sasha who did not fall far from the tree, and granddaughter Harper, a world class equestrian at Skidmore. My email address is [e-mail]

Book preview

About the Author

Bruce Weiss is the author of the novels The Collection, The Missing Piece of the Puzzle, Byrd’s Eye View, San Cristobal, Emil’s List and Fortune. He was also a member of the Key West Author’s Co-op. In addition, he has written a high school textbook on the history of Connecticut. He lives in Essex, CT, with his wife, IVY. He’s an alumnus of Boston University and did graduate work at Wesleyan University.

Dedication

For Harper Sanford.

Copyright Information ©

Bruce Weiss 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Weiss, Bruce

Saving Annie Grace

ISBN 9781685621520 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781685621537 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022915085

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Washington DC, the Oval Office, 2009

"No matter what we try, the damn drugs keep getting across our border killing Americans, devastating families and driving the world mad. If this were an enemy invasion, we wouldn’t be sitting around lamenting but putting up a damn good fight. While campaigning, I promised the American people I’d put a stop to the flow of lethal addictive drugs crossing our border, and now’s the time to do something about that.

"I’m glad to see my cabinet here on time this morning because as I said yesterday, the door will be locked after the appointed time. If lateness happens again and people are late for no particular reason, I’ll begin finding your replacements.

"I pledged to keep illegal drugs from destroying our cities and towns and right now it’s the centerpiece of this administration. We’ve already spent more money than all our wars combined fighting drugs, mostly wasted and totally ineffective. We haven’t seen real results so I’m ordering you back to your offices to find out where all that money’s gone and come up with new solutions. Can anyone in this room suggest we’re really making a dent in the illegal trade? I promised no boots on the ground campaigning but emphasized I would use whatever means necessary to stem and stop the flow of drugs into America.

The only agenda this morning is my gloves are off. In the coming days I’m ordering you to come up with workable plans, the reason I brought you into this administration.

President Ellsworth Pratt, sixty-five years old, known for his grandstanding and smugness declared there would be a no-nonsense approach to the problem of drugs. Everything else could wait, he insisted.

"For your information, this is what I’ve come up with so far so hear me out with an open mind. I’ve decided to a take rxather drastic but effective approach to put an end to the drug trade. You’re going to act as my advance people, getting out into the public explaining why this nation is engaged in a legitimate war.

"I’ve examined every measure taken by past administrations and obviously we’re still getting our asses kicked. No one’s created a workable response so I want one on my desk pronto. I expect a workable plan that can eradicate every poppy field and coca plant on this planet. We’ve known where they are for a long time so it’s no secret. Our satellites continue to monitor these areas and despite great efforts to hide plantations, we’ve managed to find most of them. We know where they are and starting very soon, they’ll be fair targets, no matter where they exist.

Studying all options, there’s one that’s attracted my attention no one considered before. I’m debating using low level nuclear bombs on those lands, making coca growing soil glow so nothing can ever be grown there again. I think a number of peasant farmers working those fields will undoubtedly be harmed and killed, but that’s a small price to pay to save American lives. Now I realize the small people involved in the actual cultivation are merely cogs in an international murder business and I expect casualties. The point is to kill this problem at the source. Most of you know I lost a son to drugs, vowing not to let his death be forgotten. Comments?

Mr. President, Secretary of State Nevins replied, it would be a sad and tragic day for civilization if we used nuclear weapons to destroy areas we don’t care for on this planet. We’d be letting the genie out of the bottle the world has so carefully avoided since 1945, not to mention we’d be subject to international condemnation. Dropping a single bomb would encourage other nations to use those terrible weapons on people and lands they have issues with. I support eradicating coca growing lands as much as you but this is not the answer. I suggest we explore other possible solutions that might have the same effect.

Don’t waste my time, Warren, unless you’ve got some solutions up your sleeve. I’m not interested in idle words. I don’t know about your politics but the people of this nation expect action.

Mr. President, some years ago the Johnson administration spent billions of dollars fighting a war on drugs, sadly with little to no effect. Other administrations attempted different strategies including the infamous saying of a certain First Lady, just say no. I’d like to also add there must be other ways to fight drugs more effectively and less drastically that possibly starting a nuclear war.

Okay, Secretary Nevins. How can we lay waste to millions of acres of coca plants without using nuclear devices? Non-nuclear devices are not an option.

"If I recall, sir, you were a naval officer just out of the Academy serving on patrol boats in Viet Nam, so you probably remember President Johnson ordering the jungles and forest lands of Viet Nam cleared. Doing that, he claimed, would expose the enemy always well hidden. The solution was a biological agent by the generic name Agent Orange. Was it effective? By all accounts it was at the time but many issues remain fifty years later, kept under tight wraps, I might add. It made the air war in Viet Nam much more effective and that’s a fact no one can deny. What pilots couldn’t see before was suddenly a clear picture of the enemy, courtesy of the fields and forests gone. I’m not advocating bringing Agent Orange back however because I believe there might be newer biological agents with fewer side effects to humans. We learned the harsh lesson the substance also affected humans; men, women and children, many Americans too.

Sir, if a newly developed herbicide could be developed and sprayed from the air by unmanned drones, it would in all probability destroy coca plants most effectively. Would you allow me a few moments to tell my fellow secretaries about Agent Orange, most too young to know that facet of the war?

The president looked at his watch, waving his hand to speed things up.

Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide used by U.S. military forces during the Viet Nam War. Its purpose, to eliminate forest cover and crops used by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. It was named Operation Ranch Hand and years after the end of the war, the US revealed it sprayed more than twenty million gallons of this and various other herbicides between 1961–1971 on that tiny nation, doing the job according to generals on the ground. Both Johnson and Nixon administrations like you once considered using small tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the overgrowth in Viet Nam so the thinking is not a new idea. If we bombed coca plantations with a newer type of biologic, it would hopefully keep nuclear weapons off the table.

Pausing, the president nodded his head slowly.

Why aren’t the rest of you either jumping on board or are you merely abandoning ship like hungry rats? If we go that way, we’ll need a biological weapon that’s invisible and unable to be traced back to us. That’s all I want to say right now except if any of this comes back to the Oval Office, you’ll wish you’d never accepted my appointments. I’ll consider your vision, Warren.

Wait Mr. President. There’re other inherent risks to chemical or biological attacks, Secretary Owens injected. I too served in Viet Nam and later on various Congressional committees investigating the use of Agent Orange. In closed meetings still kept secret it was revealed this and other toxins were later discovered to contain the deadly chemical dioxin, something commonly found in many different herbicides at the time. We have hard scientific proof uncovered decades later it’s still causing serious health issues including cancer, birth defects, and severe psychological and neurological problems to people who lived through it. It’s not known by the public but nearly a half million people were killed or maimed because of exposure to this agent, including American soldiers. If there was a biological agent solely affecting flora, I believe we could use it to destroy coca plants. Agent Orange left behind insurmountable health problems and I’d hate to repeat that tragedy. As an aside, many nations believed it constituted a violation of international law. I suggest we hold serious conversations with our scientists if this plan is to be considered. Perhaps it’s possible to develop something similar without the lethal effects on humans, if that’s the way we decide to go.

That’s all for now, gentlemen, so let’s find a way to do this. Not a word about this discussion to anyone and I mean anyone. We’ll take it up again in our next daily cabinet meeting so we are adjourned unless there’s something else.

Secretary Moss, the only female in the president’s cabinet raised her hand.

This isn’t a classroom so just say what’s on your mind.

Sir, have you identified which countries you’re thinking of targeting?

There was no answer.

Part One

Chapter One

The caller sounded a bit confused, definitely stressed, Mac sensed, begging for a few minutes of his time. Once you hear why I’m calling, you’ll understand my urgency. I know you’ve helped hundreds of people through your investigative journalism and to be honest, I never thought I’d need you but I desperately do now.

As an investigative journalist for nearly forty years, Mac heard words to that effect more times than he could remember. A few led to extraordinary and rewarding accomplishments resulting in great columns, garnering much adulation. Others would have him chasing aliens from outer space, something that came with the territory for a nationally syndicated reporter. Looking out his twenty-seventh-floor window, Mac eyed the snow coming down harder and faster, dreading the walk back to his apartment blocks away. Getting a cab would require a miracle, he understood.

Mr. McCarthy, my name is Sam Grace, living in the city same as you. I’ve followed your newspaper articles for a good many years so I know what you can do with the power of your pen. I didn’t know who to turn to until I read a recent story about reuniting kidnapped children with their parents so would it be possible to meet with you face to face? I could certainly use your help.

Why don’t you tell me in a few words what’s going on and why you think I could help.

I’m not really sure where to start but here it goes. It involves my granddaughter and two young college students she’s working with who’ve suddenly disappeared working at an archeological dig site in eastern Peru. She and her students are Americans, working for a group called the South American Explorers Union. Their dig site is located about fifty miles south of Lima in an isolated area of Peru near the Andes.

Spell your name for me and a number where I can reach you if we get disconnected. Storms like this sometimes disrupt phone service.

My name is Sam Grace and if we can meet near your office this afternoon, I promise I won’t waste your time. Mr. McCarthy, I’m desperate and very frightened. My granddaughter is all I’ve got.

What exactly do you mean disappeared? If they’re in some remote location, why would you believe there’s a problem?

Mr. McCarthy I’d gladly pay you for your time…

I don’t accept payments for my work Mr. Grace. Why don’t you call back in a few days if you still believe they’re missing and I’ll arrange a time to hear your story. If you’ve looked outside, it’s treacherous right now, not the best day to be wandering the streets.

The phone line went dead without getting a call back number. Given the nature of the snow called the storm of the century, the best option he thought was to put the call out of his mind and concentrate on getting home. Forecasters told listeners to stay indoors, a blizzard for the record books.

Chapter Two

September, South West A

and M University, New Mexico

The university’s school year began with a few noticeable changes. Dr. Annie Grace was glad to be back in the classroom, spending summer hours working out each a day, feeling trim and mentally fit for another teaching year. She’d soon welcome nearly a hundred beleaguered freshmen to her introduction to the sciences, specifically the field of archeology. It would be the largest class she’d ever lectured because new school policy required all incoming freshmen in business and engineering colleges to receive a science credit. The choices were daunting to most but archeology seemed an easy A. She would tease and tempt her students with a special offer hoping to get their attention day one.

Watching the freshmen walk in with their bewildered looks, she expected nothing less When the rear doors closed, she introduced herself and the special teaser. After describing the course, she explained what she was most excited about.

Two of you will be given an extraordinary opportunity second semester to travel to a dig site in the Andes Mountains of South America with me, specifically Peru. We’ll be in the field for two months and I’d welcome any request to join me.

When new students entered the large lecture hall, she’d invariably think about her first day as a freshman at Southwestern-Pacific University in New Mexico. She’d fallen in love with the idea of discovering hidden relics in the earth, some providing great rewards, especially when doing serious searches. She’d watched the movie Indiana Jones untold times as a teenager, sold on becoming the female Indiana.

"Our work will take place in a remote and isolated region in the Peruvian Andean Highlands, once part of the mighty Inca Empire. My special interests and insights are the Latin American Andes and to my good fortune I’ve received enough grant money this year to take two students with me, gratis. You’ll hear more about that opportunity in a few weeks but first some important information about my course and expectations.

"My name as I said is Dr. Annie Grace and it’s my pleasure to introduce you to the world of archeology. This unique field has lovingly guided humankind to a better understanding of where we came from and how we got here. You’ll learn about human history and prehistory, predominantly through the excavation of various sites and the analysis of the artifacts and physical remains revealed.

"By definition, archeology is one of the main tenets of human history, particularly since it allows us to learn about the cultures of historic and prehistoric people. I see some of you yawning already so let me pose this question. Why is that important?

"It’s important because these discoveries have consistently proven the past is often the best way to predict the future. The work is accomplished by discovery and the analysis of remains, objects, structures and writings. It’s enabled us to understand ancient people’s daily lives, what they believed and valued and how that brought us to our time in human history today.

"Archeology is a science examining material remains such as tools, pottery, jewelry, weapons, bones and much more. Unfortunately the popular image of archeology seems to be treasure hunters or dusty old professors commanding armies of laborers excavating lost civilizations in strange and exotic lands. It is not Indiana Jones as I once thought, nor is it grave robbing. Archeological work allows humankind to reconstruct extinct cultures from the material remains found. Some of you are thinking, I’m going to be the CEO of a global corporation one day or the chief design engineer for rockets taking humans to Mars. Why do I need this? You’ll have the answer to that engaging question before this course is over in December. I promise you.

"Historic archaeology studies the past left behind when written records are discovered. Most cultures in the old world had some type of written language, many regretfully still undecipherable. Prehistoric archeology does not have a written history so it’s more difficult to understand. Archeologists might never be able to explain all artifacts to a great degree but there are instances when new evidence sheds light, turning for example a strange lump of etched rock into the Rosetta Stone.

That leads to your first assignment due next Monday when we meet again. From that unique discovery, how has it changed the course of human development or not?

Four undergraduate years at Southwestern Pacific University of the Sciences were followed by three intense years at the National University of San Marcos in Lima Peru, one of the world’s oldest founded in 1551. Upon graduation, she decided to remain in the Andes, believing there were many unexplored areas waiting for discovery.

Fluent in Spanish and the Inca oral language Quechua was an advantage. She could hold court with professionals and peasants being very independent.

"The only known written language of the Inca empire which stretched from modern Colombia to Argentina was a system of knots tied into ropes attached to a long cord. I was privileged to work with a few surviving the Spanish conquest. The system of knots is still a mystery today because there is no Andean Rosetta Stone to help us, and I hope to find it with two of you next January. I believe something unique will be discovered one day, unlocking one of human kind’s most intriguing mysteries. That is what a few of you will be searching for.

"The system of quipu or knot tying is unique because it can’t be compared to any other writing systems in the world. We’ll spend time this semester discussing what we’ve learned from people like Hiram Bingham, who rediscovered of the lost city of Machu Picchu. This course will also examine archeological sites in places such as Troy in ancient Asia Minor and indeed many areas in our own country.

"If you’re inquisitive and not afraid of tedious work or getting your hands dirty, and if you have an innate curiosity, perhaps at the end of the semester you’ll join me in the search for an Andean Rosetta Stone in the Sacred Valleys of the Andes.

In a few months, I’ll ask for written requests stating why you’d want to work alongside me at a remote dig site. Be warned. The work is backbreaking, tedious and might yield zero results in the end but let me emphasize there is a certain moment just as you wake each day in a field tent when you have a knowing feeling deep inside that shouts, I think today will be the day when a remarkable hidden discovery will be found.

Chapter Three

Mid-October

It was the right time to ask her students to apply for the position of field intern, engaging in actual field archeology. It had been eight years since she’d left the Andes and she couldn’t wait to get back. Regrettably it had become too dangerous to live and work in Peru where she truly believed a new Rosetta Stone could be uncovered.

When she’d completed her university work, a reign of terror created by a group known as the Shining Path brought death and destruction mostly to Peru. The group formed in 1979, their calling card, We will open a shining path to revolution here.

The group formed in the high Andes creating revolution, carrying out a long military offensive relying on the increasing number of conscripted peasants. Ruthless violence ran rife. With a cadre large in number including peasants, young intellectuals and students, the group carried out a campaign of bombings, assassinations and terrorist acts, many in urban areas. More than twenty years of guerilla war ensued leading to an estimated 70,000 deaths. The election of 1990 spelled the end of Shining Path’s power in the Andes, something Grace prayed for so she might return to work again.

There was sporadic resurgence over the years she understood, splinter groups continuing to carry out attacks, trying to unsettle a peace that finally came. The last remnants of Shining Path’s guerilla movement were still active she knew, mostly where coca plantations existed. She would clearly avoid those dangerous areas when returning to field work. Was it safe enough to bring along two students? She’d convinced herself she would be cautious and watchful.

To her delight, fourteen students responded to the questionnaire she’d prepared, asking for background history and aspirations. Most importantly she wanted to know why anyone would want to work in a foreign land under harsh conditions; on a treasure hunt that might not reveal any substance for hard work. Ten responses came from males, four from