The Last Talisman

By Alvin Bojar

Agents from the CIA and DEA are assigned to work with the Argentinian military and police to discover the source of drugs pouring into the states through Buenos Aires. They are totally baffled by their inability to discover where the traffickers are obtaining their highly sophisticated products, and more importantly how they are able to transport them into Buenos Aires, consistently avoiding the elaborate network of surveillance and detection systems that have been set in place. A mole is suspected, or worse, a double agent.When a body, entombed within a black plastic bag, is discovered floating down the Paran? River headed into B.A. with a very unusual talisman hanging around its neck, an alarm is ignited, as it is the third victim found under identical circumstances over the past 18 months. Everyone is puzzled and extremely edgy. Is this some sort of message, or is it meant as a warning? And if so, about what and from whom?Jill Richards, a beautiful American anthropologist working towards her PhD, has an appointment with Dr. Brauned, Director of the Buenos Aires Museum of Natural History, and shows him an object she recently received under her granduncle's will. He had been a Professor at Yale and had discovered it a half century ago in an underwater cemetery in northern Argentina. Strangely, it is identical to the talisman just removed from the waterlogged corpse, but is totally unfamiliar to the Director. Believing it to be a sacred funeral offering, her granduncle had attributed it to a legendary tribe of "Ranas Indios," or Frog Indians. However, this hypothesis was highly controversial, and he found himself ridiculed and widely discredited by fellow academicians, who claimed it was published for personal notoriety and that the Ranas Indios never existed. Convinced their rejection of his findings was due to jealousy, Jill is determined to prove the theory's validity, which will serve both to redeem his reputation, as well as form the basis for her doctoral thesis. Despite his negativity, the Director Brauned takes note of her adamant determination and suggests that if she insists upon continuing, she start her quest at Rio Rosa, a village at the foot of the Iber? Swamp, bordering Brazil, and gives her the name of a guide to hire, who is familiar with the area.While provisioning her expedition in the village, Jill is unexpectedly joined by a member of the museum staff from B.A., who was sent by the Director to advise and protect her in her quest and possibly take credit for any discoveries she might make. This unrequested addition to her search brings with it the potential of conflict and jealousy with her guide, which gradually evolves as they move deeper into the endless swamp. A series of bizarre incidents confronts the three of them and Jill senses they are entering a world much stranger and more ominous than that described by her granduncle.What Jill ultimately discovers is of infinitely greater importance than an ancient underwater cemetery. She inadvertently uncovers the elusive source of the drug traffic that has overwhelmed the Argentinian authorities and also learns how the smugglers have managed to evade detection over the years, both of which revelations put her life in imminent peril. What Jill does not realize is that she unknowingly is unravelling a plot, an ingenious scheme financed by Wall Street interests, to develop a new life form and create a secret enclave in central Brazil, which will be controlled by figures from Germany's past, when Juan Peron provided thousands of Nazis with passports to Argentina at the end of World War II in return for large payments of cash, gold and valuables. Included within this group was a demented and sadistic scientific genius, who developed a new life form, which has explosive potential for the financial markets in the U.S., but also has the capability of threatening the political viability of Brazil and the economic stability of all the Americas.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1484817281
• ISBN13: 9781484817285
• Release Date: April 2014
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 326 Pages
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"