Deliverance meets American Treasure when a trip into the Mexican desert becomes an epic journey for survival as four friends risk everything to recover an ancient treasure and end up fighting the cartel for their lives.

SYNOPSIS:

Title: The Price of Gold

By: Ray Hoese rdhoese@gmail.com

Four friends stumbled on ancient gold in the Mexican desert back when they were in their early 20s, when a sand storm moved sand dunes and revealed the gold to them. It took them two years to get back, and by then another sand storm had hidden any trace.

Now in their late 30s, and driven by financial struggles, they go back, armed with technology to hopefully find this treasure just south of the New Mexico border. They know they are entering a completely different Mexico from 20 years earlier -- a much more dangerous place due to the Cartel, immigrant smugglers, the Border Patrol, DEA and others.

Ely, a community college history professor, has a daughter in a college he cannot afford; Jim, a salesman, has recently been laid off; his Navy buddy, Arnie, is an ex-Navy SEAL who now runs security for a large corporation and is mostly bored; and Mark, an engineer who is getting pudgy, is the brains of the bunch.

Jim’s wife Sam (Samantha) ends up taking Jim’s place when he is killed by a drunk driver. Strong and athletic, she is also a nurse, making her an ideal team member.

To remain stealthy, they must go on foot and only work at night. A drone with a metal detector makes it easier to do a comprehensive search and they do find the gold, but they also take on a pregnant immigrant woman and an eight-year-old girl. The pregnant woman dies during childbirth and the group must leave the gold to get the newborn baby back to civilization before it dies.

After returning to the states, they decide that only two of the group members (Ely and Arnie) will return to site of the gold in a mad dash on dirt bikes customized to hold four bars each. (One bar is worth half a million dollars.) The other two (Mark and Sam) will keep watch with the drone, ready to take the men and the bikes back home to Las Cruces.

Ely and Arnie get to the site to find that American cavers (spelunkers) they met earlier -- and the Cartel -- are now digging up the buried treasure.

Arnie and Ely watch from afar, and see that as soon as the gold is secured, the Cartel begins to execute the cavers. Arnie and Ely open fire, giving them time to help the cavers escape in a jeep full of gold.

The Cartel members soon return with friends and chase the group into a canyon. The cavers die in the shootout and Arnie and Ely are barely able to escape on their dirt bikes. They soon run out of water and gas in the desert, 60 miles from the US border.

Sam and Mark, receive one location signal from the men. Fearing the worst, they begin driving into Mexico toward the last known location.

Ely and Arnie are out of water and exhausted. They are each dragging four bars of gold behind them in makeshift sleds. The Cartel spots the men at the same time as Mark and Sam spy them with the drone. Unable to get to them directly, Sam gets on a mountain bike with a rifle to try and beat the cartel to her two friends.

Both Arnie and Ely, both wounded, are saved by Sam's quick-thinking and sharp-shooting. Mark arrives in the pickup as two more cartel jeeps attack. Our group is ultimately saved by another sand storm that allows them to drive back to the border in the "brown out" using their GPS.