Inca Gold

"Improvisation." Pitt laughed softly, bowing to Shannon, Rodgers, and the students who were all applauding with rejuvenated spirits. "Improvisation." Then he added, "Fine piece of flying, Al. None of us would be breathing but for you."

"Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth," said Giordino, turning the nose of the craft toward the west and reducing the throttle settings to conserve fuel.

Pitt pulled the passenger door closed, redogged the latches, untied Shannon's line from around his waist, and returned to the cockpit. "How does our fuel look?"

"Fuel, what fuel?"

Pitt gazed over Giordino's shoulder at the gauges. Both showed flickering red warning lights. He could also see the drawn look of fatigue on his friend's face. "Take a break and let me spell you at the controls."

"I got us this far. I'll take us what little distance we have left before the tanks run dry."

Pitt did not waste his breath in debate. He never ceased to marvel at Giordino's intrepid calm, his glacial fortitude, he could have searched the world and never found another friend like the tough burly Italian. "Okay, you take her in. I'll sit this one out and pray for a tailwind."

A few minutes later they crossed over the shoreline and headed out to sea. A resort with attractive lawns and a large swimming pool encircled a small cove with a white sand beach. The sunbathing tourists looked up at the lowflying helicopter and waved. With nothing better to do, Pitt waved back.

Pitt returned to the cargo cabin and approached Rodgers. "We've got to dump as much weight as possible, except for survival equipment like the life vests and the remaining raft. Everything else goes, excess clothing, tools, hardware, seats, anything that isn't welded or bolted down."

Everyone pitched in and passed whatever objects they could find to Pitt, who heaved them out the passenger door. When the cabin was bare the chopper was lighter by almost 136 kilograms (300 pounds). Before he closed the door again, Pitt looked aft. Thankfully, he didn't see any pursuing aircraft. He was certain the Peruvian pilot had radioed the sighting and his intention to attack, blowing Pitt's Chiclayo smokescreen. But he doubted the Solpemachaco would suspect the loss of their mercenary soldiers and helicopter for at least another ten minutes. And if they belatedly totaled the score, and whistled up a Peruvian Air Force fighter jet to intercept, then it would be too late. Any attack on an unarmed American research ship would stir up serious diplomatic repercussions between the United States government and Peru, a situation the struggling South American nation could ill afford. Pitt was on safe ground in assuming that no local bureaucrat or military officer would risk political disaster regardless of any under-the-table payoff by the Solpemachaco.

Pitt limped back to the cockpit, slid into the copilot's seat, and picked up the radio microphone. He brushed aside all caution as he pressed the transmit button. To hell with any bought-and-paid-for Solpemachaco cronies who were monitoring the airwaves, he thought.

"NUMA calling Deep Fathom. Talk to me, Stucky."

"Come in, NUMA. This is Deep Fathom. What is your position?"

My, what big eyes you have, and how your voice has changed, Grandma."

"Say again, NUMA."

"Not even a credible effort." Pitt laughed. "Rich Little you ain't." He looked over at Giordino. "We've got a comic impersonator on our party line."

"I think you better give him our position," Giordino said with more than a trace of cynicism in his voice.

"Right you are." Pitt nodded. "Deep Fathom, this is NUMA. Our position is just south of the Magic Castle between Jungleland and the Pirates of the Caribbean."

"Please repeat your position," came the voice of the flustered mercenary who had broken in on Pitt's call to Stucky.

"What's this, a radio commercial for Disneyland?" Stucky's familiar voice popped over the speaker.

"Well, well, the genuine article. What took you so long to answer, Stucky?"

I was listening to what my alter ego had to say. You guys landed in Chiclayo yet?"

"We were sidetracked and decided to head home," said Pitt. "Is the skipper handy?"

"He's on the bridge playing Captain Bligh, lashing the crew in an attempt to set a speed record. Another knot and our rivets will start falling out."

"We do not have a visual on you. Do you have us on radar?"

"Affirmative," answered Stucky. "Change your heading to two-seven-two magnetic. That will put us on a converging course."

"Altering course to two-seven-two," Giordino acknowledged.

How far to rendezvous?" Pitt asked Stucky.

"The skipper makes it about sixty kilometers."

"They should be in sight soon." Pitt looked over at Giordino. "What do you think?"

Giordino stared woefully at the fuel gauges, then at the instrument panel clock. The dial read 10:47 A.m. He couldn't believe so much had happened in so little time since he and Pitt had responded to the rescue appeal by the imposter of Doc Miller. He swore it took three years off his life expectancy.

"I'm milking her for every liter of fuel at an airspeed of only forty klicks an hour," he said finally. "A slight tailwind off the shore helps, but I estimate we have only another fifteen or twenty minutes of flight time left. Your guess is as good as mine."

"Let us hope the gauges read on the low side," said Pitt. "Hello, Stucky."

"I'm here."

"You'd better prepare for a water rescue. All predictions point to a wet landing."

"I'll pass the word to the skipper. Alert me when you ditch."

"You'll be the first to know."

"Good luck."

The helicopter droned over the tops of the rolling swells. Pitt and Giordino spoke very little. Their ears were tuned to the sound of the turbines, as if expecting them to abruptly go silent at any moment. They instinctively tensed when the fuel warning alarm whooped through the cockpit.

"So much for the reserves," said Pitt. "Now we're flying on fumes."

He looked down at the deep cobalt blue of the water only 10 meters (33 feet) beneath the belly of the chopper. The sea looked reasonably smooth. He figured wave height from trough to crest was less than a meter. The water looked warm and inviting. A power-off landing did not appear to be too rough, and the old Mi-8 should float for a good sixty seconds if Giordino didn't burst the seams when he dropped her in.

Pitt called Shannon to the cockpit. She appeared in the doorway, looked down at him, and smiled faintly. "Is your ship in sight?"

"Just over the horizon, I should think. But not close enough to reach with the fuel that's left. Tell everybody to prepare for a water landing."

"Then we do have to swim the rest of the way," she said cynically.

"A mere technicality," said Pitt. "Have Rodgers move the life raft close to the passenger door and be ready to heave it in the water as soon as we ditch. And impress upon him the importance of pulling the inflation cord after the raft is safely through the door. I for one do not want to get my feet wet."

Giordino pointed dead ahead. "The Deep Fathom."

Pitt nodded as he squinted at the dark tiny speck on the horizon. He spoke into the radio mike. "We have you on visual, Stucky."

"Come to the party," answered Stucky. "We'll open the bar early just for you."

"Heaven forbid," said Pitt, elaborately sarcastic. "I don't imagine the admiral will take kindly to that suggestion."

Their employer, chief director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, Admiral James Sandecker, had a regulation etched in stone banning all alcoholic spirits from NUMA vessels. A vegetarian and a fitness nut, Sandecker thought he was adding years to the hired help's life span. As with prohibition in the nineteen twenties, men who seldom touched the stuff began smuggling cases of beer on board or buying it in foreign ports.

"Would you prefer a hearty glass of Ovaltine?" retorted Stucky.

"Only if you mix it with carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts--"

"We just lost an engine," announced Giordino conversationally.

Pitt 's eyes darted to the instruments. Across the board, the needles of the gauges monitoring the port turbine were flickering back to their stops. He turned and looked up at Shannon. "Warn everyone that we'll impact the water on the starboard side of the aircraft."

Shannon looked confused. "Why not land vertically?" "If we go in bottom first, the rotor blades settle, strike the water, and shatter on a level with the fuselage. The whirling fragments can easily penetrate the cabin's skin, especially the cockpit, resulting in the loss of our intrepid pilot's head. Coming down on the side throws the shattered blades out and away from us."

"Why the starboard side?"

"I don't have chalk and a blackboard," snapped Pitt in exasperation. "So you'll die happy, it has to do with the directional rotation of the rotor blades and the fact the exit door is on the port side."

Enlightened, Shannon nodded. "Understood."

"Immediately after impact," Pitt continued, "get the students out the door before this thing sinks. Now get to your seat and buckle up." Then he slapped Giordino on the shoulder. "Take her in while you still have power," he said as he snapped on his safety harness.

Giordino needed no coaxing. Before he lost his remaining engine, he pulled back on the collective pitch and pulled back the throttle on his one operating engine. As the helicopter lost its forward motion from a height of 3 meters above the sea, he leaned it gently onto the starboard side. The rotor blades smacked the water and snapped off in a cloud of debris and spray as the craft settled in the restless waves with the awkward poise of a pregnant albatross. The impact came with the jolt of a speeding car hitting a sharp dip in the road. Giordino shut down the one engine and was pleasantly surprised to find the old Mi-8, Hip-C floating drunkenly in the sea as if she belonged there.

"End of the line!" Pitt boomed. "Everyone the hell out!"

The gentle lapping of the waves against the fuselage came as a pleasant contrast to the fading whine of the engines and thump of the rotor blades. The pungent salt air filled the stuffy interior of the compartment when Rodgers slid open the passenger door and dropped the collapsible twenty-person life raft into the water. He was extra careful not to pull the inflation cord too soon and was relieved to hear the hiss of compressed air and see the raft puff out safely beyond the door. In a few moments it was bobbing alongside the helicopter, its mooring line tightly clutched in Rodgers's hand.

"Out you go," Rodgers yelled, herding the young Peruvian archaeology students through the door and into the raft.

Pitt released his safety harness and hurried into the rear cabin. Shannon and Rodgers had the evacuation running smoothly. All but three of the students had climbed into the raft. A quick examination of the aircraft made it clear she couldn't stay afloat for long. The clamshell doors were buckled from the impact just enough to allow water to surge in around the seams. Already the floor of the fuselage was beginning to slant toward the rear, and the waves were sloshing over the sill of the open passenger door.

"We haven't much time," he said, helping Shannon into the raft. Rodgers went next and then he turned to Giordino. "Your turn, Al."

Giordino would have none of it. "Tradition of the sea. All walking wounded go first."

Before Pitt could protest, Giordino shoved him out the door, and then followed as the water swept over his ankles. Breaking out the raft's paddles, they pushed clear of the helicopter as its long tail boom dipped into the waves. Then a large swell surged through the open passenger door and the helicopter slipped backward into the uncaring sea. She disappeared with a faint gurgle and a few ripples, her shattered rotor blades being the last to go, the stumps slowly rotating from the force of the current as if she were descending to the seafloor under her own power. The water surged through her open door and she plunged under the waves to a final landing on the seafloor.

No one spoke. They all seemed saddened to see the helicopter go. It was as if they all suffered a personal loss. Pitt and Giordino were at home on the water. The others, suddenly finding themselves floating on a vast sea, felt an awful sense of emptiness coupled with the dread of helplessness. The latter feeling was particularly enhanced when a shark's fin abruptly broke the water and ominously began circling the raft.

"All your fault," Giordino said to Pitt in mock exasperation. "He's homed in on the scent of blood from your leg wound."

Pitt peered into the transparent water, studying the sleek shape as it passed under the raft, recognizing the horizontal stabilizerlike head with the eyes mounted like aircraft wing lights on the tips. "A hammerhead. No more than two and a half meters long. I shall ignore him."

Shannon gave a shudder and moved closer to Pitt and clutched his arm. "What if he decides to take a bite out of the raft and we sink?"

Pitt shrugged. "Sharks seldom find life rafts appetizing."

"He invited his pals for dinner," said Giordino, pointing to two more fins cutting the water.

Pitt could see the beginnings of panic on the faces of the young students. He nestled into a comfortable position on the bottom of the raft, elevated his feet on the upper float, and closed his eyes. "Nothing like a restful nap under a warm sun on a calm sea. Wake me when the ship arrives."

Shannon stared at him in disbelief. "He must be mad."

Giordino quickly sized up Pitt's scheme and settled in. "That makes two of us."

No one knew quite how to react. Every pair of eyes in the raft swiveled from the seemingly dozing men from NUMA to the circling sharks and back again. The panic slowly subsided to uneasy apprehension while the minutes crawled by as if they were each an hour long.

Other sharks joined the predinner party, but all hearts began filling with newfound hope as the Deep Fathom hove into view, her bows carving the water in a spray of foam. No one on board knew the old workhorse of NUMA's oceanographic fleet could drive so hard. Down in the engine room the chief engineer, August Burley, a powerfully built man with a portly stomach, walked the catwalk between the ship's big diesels, closely observing the needles on the rpm gauges, which were hard in the red, and listening for any signs of metal fatigue from the overstressed engines. On the bridge, Captain Frank Stewart gazed through binoculars at the tiny splash of orange against the blue sea.

"We'll come right up on them at half speed before reversing the engines," he said to the helmsman.

"You don't want to stop and drift up to them, Captain?" asked the blond, ponytailed man at the wheel.

"They're surrounded by a school of sharks," said Stewart. "We can't waste time with caution." He stepped over and spoke into the ship's speaker system. "We'll approach the survivors on the port side. All available hands prepare to bring them aboard."

It was a neat bit of seamanship. Stewart stopped the ship within 2 meters of the life raft with only a slight wash. Several crewmen stared down and waved, leaning far over the railing and bulwark to shout greetings. The boarding ladder had been lowered and a crewman stood on the lower platform with a boat hook. He extended it, the end was grabbed by Giordino, and the raft was pulled in alongside the platform.

The sharks were forgotten and everyone began smiling and laughing with unabashed happiness at having survived death without major injuries at least four times since being taken hostage. Shannon stared up at the towering hull of the research ship, took in the ungainly superstructure and derricks, and turned to Pitt with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes.

"You promised us a four-star hotel and a refreshing bath. Certainly not a rusty old work boat."

Pitt laughed. "A rose by any other name. Any port in a storm. So you share my attractive, but homespun stateroom. As a gentleman, I'll give you the lower berth while I suffer the indignity of the upper."

Shannon looked at him with amusement. "Taking a lot for granted, aren't you?"

As Pitt relaxed and kept a paternal eye on the occupants of the raft, who were climbing the ladder one after the other, he smiled fiendishly at Shannon and murmured, "Okay, we'll keep a low profile. You can have the upper and I'll take the lower."

Jaun Chaco's world had cracked and crumbled to dust around him. The disaster in the Valley of Viracocha was far worse than anything he could have imagined. His brother had been the first to be killed, the artifact smuggling operation was in shambles, and once the American archaeologist, Shannon Kelsey, and the university students told their story to the news media and government security officials, he would be thrown out of the Department of Archaeology in disgrace. Far worse, there was every possibility he would be arrested, tried for selling his nation's historical heritage, and sentenced to a very long jail term.

He was a man wracked with anxiety as he stood beside the motor home in Chachapoya and watched the tilt-rotor aircraft come to a near halt in the air as the twin outboard engines on the end of the wings swiveled from forward flight to vertical. The black, unmarked craft hovered for a few moments before the pilot gently settled the extended landing wheels on the ground.

A heavily bearded man in dirty rumpled shorts and a khaki shirt with an immense bloodstain in its center exited the nine-passenger cabin and stepped to the ground. He looked neither right nor left, the expression on his face set and grim. Without a word of greeting, he walked past Chaco and entered the motor home. Like a chastised collie, Chaco followed him inside.

Cyrus Sarason, the impersonator of Dr. Steven Miller, sat heavily behind Chaco's desk and stared icily. "You've heard?"

Chaco nodded without questioning the bloodstain on Sarason's shirt. He knew the blood represented a fake gunshot wound. "I received a full report from one of my brother's fellow officers."

"Then you know Dr. Kelsey and the university students slipped through our fingers and were rescued by an American oceanographic research ship."

"Yes, I am aware of our failure."

"I'm sorry about your brother," Sarason said without emotion.

"I can't believe he's gone," muttered Chaco, strangely unmoved. "His death doesn't seem possible. The elimination of the archaeologists should have been a simple affair."

"To say your people bungled the job is an understatement," said Sarason. "I warned you those two divers from NUMA were dangerous."

"My brother did not expect organized resistance by an army."

"An army of one man," Sarason said acidly. "I observed the action from a tomb. A lone sniper atop the temple killed the officers and held off two squads of your intrepid mercenaries, while his companion overpowered the pilots and commandeered their helicopter. Your brother paid dearly for his overconfidence and stupidity."

"How could a pair of divers and a juvenile group of archaeologists scourge a highly trained security force?" Chaco asked in bewilderment.

"If we knew the answer to that question, we might learn how they knocked the pursuing helicopter out of the air."

Chaco stared at him. "They can still be stopped."

"Forget it. I'm not about to compound the disaster by destroying a U.S. government ship and all on board. The damage is already done. According to my sources in Lima, full exposure, including Miller's murder, was communicated to President Fujimori's office by Dr. Kelsey soon after she boarded the ship. By this evening, the story will be broadcast all over the country. The Chachapoyan end of our operation is a washout."

"We can still bring the artifacts out of the valley." The recent demise of Chaco's brother had not fully pushed aside his greed.

Sarason nodded. "I'm ahead of you. A team is on its way to remove whatever pieces survived the rocket attack launched by those idiots under your brother's command. It's a miracle we still have something to show for our efforts."

"I believe there is a good possibility a clue to the Drake quipu may still be found in the City of the Dead."

"The Drake quipu." Sarason repeated the words with a faraway look in his eyes. Then he shrugged. "Our organization is already working on another angle for the treasure."

"What of Amaru? Is he still alive?"

"Unfortunately, yes. He'll live the rest of his days as a eunuch."

"Too bad. He was a loyal follower."

Sarason sneered. "Loyal to whoever paid him best. Tupac Amaru is a sociopathic killer of the highest order. When I ordered him to abduct Miller and hold him prisoner until we concluded the operation, he put a bullet in the good doctor's heart and threw him in the damned sinkhole. The man has the mind of a rabid dog."

"He may still prove useful," said Chaco slowly.

"Useful, how?"

"If I know his mind, he'll swear vengeance on those responsible for his newly acquired handicap. It might be wise to unleash him on Dr. Kelsey and the diver called Pitt to prevent them from being used by international customs investigators as informants."

"We'd be skating on thin ice if we turned a crazy man like him loose. But I'll keep your suggestion in mind."

Chaco went on. "What plans do the Solpemachaco have for me? I am finished here. Now that my countrymen will know I have betrayed their trust with regard to our historical treasures, I could spend the rest of my life in one of our filthy prisons."

"A foregone conclusion." Sarason shrugged. "My sources also revealed that the local police have been ordered to pick you up. They should arrive within the hour."

Chaco looked at Sarason for a long moment, then said slowly "I am a scholar and a scientist, not a hardened criminal. There is no telling how much I might reveal during lengthy interrogation, perhaps even torture."

Sarason suppressed a smile at the veiled threat. "You are a valuable asset we cannot afford to lose. Your expertise and knowledge of ancient Andean cultures is second to none. Arrangements are being made for you to take over our collection facilities in Panama. There you will direct the identification, cataloguing, and restoration operations on all artifacts we either purchase from the local huagueros or acquire under the guise of academic archaeological projects throughout South America."

Chaco suddenly looked wolfish. "I'm flattered. Of course I accept. Such an important position must pay well."

"You will receive two percent of the price the artifacts bring at our auction houses in New York and Europe."

Chaco was too far down the rungs of the organizational ladder to be privy to the inner secrets of the Solpemachaco, but he well knew the network, and its profits were vast. "I will need help getting out of the country."

"Not to worry," said Sarason. "You'll accompany me." He nodded out a window at the ominous black aircraft sitting outside the motor home, the big threebladed rotors slowly beating the air at idle. "In that aircraft we can be in Bogota, Colombia, within four hours."

Chaco couldn't believe his luck. One minute he was a step away from disgrace and prison for defrauding his government, the next he was on his way to becoming an extremely wealthy man. The memory of his sibling was rapidly fading, they were only half-brothers and had never been close anyway. While Sarason patiently waited, Chaco quickly gathered some personal items and stuffed them in a suitcase. Then the two men walked out to the aircraft together.

Juan Chaco never lived to see Bogota, Colombia. Farmers tilling a field of sweet potatoes near an isolated village in Ecuador paused to look up in the sky at the strange droning sound of the tilt-rotor as it passed overhead 500 meters (1600 feet) above the ground. Suddenly, in what seemed a horror fantasy, they caught sight of the body of a man dropping away from the aircraft. The farmers could also clearly see that the unfortunate man was alive. He frantically kicked his legs and clawed madly at the air as if he could somehow slow his plunging descent.

Chaco struck the ground in the middle of a small corral occupied by a scrawny cow, missing the startled animal by only 2 meters. The farmers came running from their field and stood around the crushed body that was embedded nearly half a meter into the soil. Simple countryfolk, they did not send a runner to the nearest police station over 60 kilometers (37 miles) to the west. Instead, they reverently lifted the broken remains of the mysterious man who had dropped from the sky and buried him in a small graveyard beside the ruins of an old church, unlamented and unknown, but embellished in myth for generations yet to come.

The top of Shannon's head was wrapped turban style with a towel, her hair still wet after a hot blissful bath in the captain's cabin. She had allowed the Peruvian female students to go first before luxuriating in the steaming water while sipping wine and eating a chicken sandwich thoughtfully provided by Pitt from the ship's galley. Her skin glowed all over and smelled of lavender soap after washing the sweat and grime out of her pores and the jungle mud from under her nails. One of the shorter crewmen, who was close to her size, lent her a pair of coveralls. The only female crew member, a marine geologist, had used most of her wardrobe to reclothe the Peruvian girls. As soon as Shannon was dressed she promptly threw the swimsuit and the dirty blouse in a trash container. They held memories she'd just as soon forget.

After drying and brushing out her hair, she sneaked a bit of Captain Stewart's aftershave lotion. Why is it, she wondered, men never use talcum powder after they shower? She was just tying her long hair in a braid when Pitt knocked on the door. They stood there for a moment staring at each other before breaking into laughter.

"I hardly recognized you," she said, taking in a clean and shaven Pitt wearing a brightly flowered Hawaiian aloha shirt and light tan slacks. He was not what you'd call devilishly good-looking, she thought, but any flaws in his craggy face were more than offset by a masculine magnetism she found hard to resist. He was even more tanned than she was, and his black, wavy hair was a perfect match for the incredibly green eyes.

"We don't exactly look like the same two people," he said with an engaging smile. "How about a tour of the ship before dinner?"

"I'd like that." Then she gave him an appraising look. "I thought I was supposed to bunk down in your cabin. Now I find out the captain has generously offered me his."

Pitt shrugged. "The luck of the draw, I guess."

"You're a fraud, Dirk Pitt. You're not the lecher you make yourself out to be."

"I've always believed intimacy should be drifted into gradually."

She suddenly felt uneasy. It was as though his piercing eyes could read her mind. He seemed to sense there was someone else. She forced a smile and wrapped her arm around his. "Where shall we begin?"

"You're speaking of the tour, of course."

"What else?"

The Deep Fathom was a state-of-the-art scientific work boat, and she looked it. Her official designation was Super-Seismic Vessel. She was primarily designed for deep ocean geophysical research, but she could also undertake a myriad of other subsea activities. Her giant stern and side cranes, with their huge winches, could be adapted to operate every conceivable underwater function, from mining excavation to deep water salvage and manned and unmanned submersible launch and recovery.

The ship's hull was painted in NUMA's traditional turquoise with a white superstructure and azure blue crapes. From bow to stern she stretched the length of a football field, berthing up to thirty-five scientists and twenty crew. Although she didn't look it from the outside, her interior living quarters were as plush as most luxurious passenger liners. Admiral James Sandecker, with rare insight given to few bureaucrats, knew his people could perform more efficiently if treated accordingly, and the Deep Fathom reflected his conviction. Her dining room was fitted out like a fine restaurant and the galley was run by a first-rate chef.

Pitt led Shannon up to the navigation bridge. "Our brain center," he pointed out, sweeping one hand around a vast room filled with digital arrays, computers, and video monitors mounted on a long console that ran the full width of the bridge beneath a massive expanse of windows. "Most everything on the ship is controlled from here, except the operation of deep water equipment. That takes place in compartments containing electronics designed for specialized deep sea projects."

Shannon stared at the gleaming chrome, the colorful images on the monitors, the panoramic view of the sea around the bows. It all seemed as impressive and modern as a futuristic video parlor. "Where is the helm?" she asked.

"The old-fashioned wheel went out with the Queen Mary," answered Pitt. He showed her the console for the ship's automated control, a panel with levers and a remote control unit that could be mounted on the bridge wings. "Navigation is now carried out by computers. The captain can even con the ship by voice command."

"For someone who digs up old potsherds, I had no idea ships were so advanced."

"After lagging as a stepchild for forty years, marine science and technology have finally been recognized by government and private business as the emerging industry of the future."

"You never fully explained what you're doing in the waters off Peru."

"We're probing the seas in search of new drugs," he answered.

"Drugs, as in take two plankton and call me in the morning?"

Pitt smiled and nodded. "It's entirely within the realm of possibility your doctor may someday actually prescribe such a remedy."

"So the hunt for new drugs has gone underwater."

"A necessity. We've already found and processed over ninety percent of all the land organisms that provide sources of medicine to treat diseases. Aspirin and quinine come from the bark of trees. Chemicals contained in everything from snake venom to secretion from frogs to lymph from pigs' glands are used in drug compounds. But marine creatures and the microorganisms that dwell in the depths have been an untapped source, and might well be the hope of curing every affliction, including the common cold, cancer, or AIDS."

"But surely you can't simply go out and bring back a boatload of microbes for processing at a laboratory for distribution to your friendly pharmacy?"

"Not as farfetched as you might think," he said. "Any one of a hundred organisms that live in a drop of water can be cultivated, harvested, and rendered into medicines. Jellyfish, an invertebrate animal called a bryozoan, certain sponges, and several corals are currently being developed into anticancer medicines, anti-inflammatory agents for arthritis pain, and drugs that suppress organ rejection after transplant surgery. The test results on a chemical isolated from kelp look especially encouraging in combating a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis."

"Just where in the ocean are you looking for these wonder drugs?" asked Shannon.

"This expedition is concentrating on a ridge of chimneylike vents where hot magma from within the earth's mantle comes in contact with cold seawater and spews through a series of cracks before spreading across the bottom. You might call it a deep-ocean hot spring. Various minerals are deposited over a wide area-copper, zinc, iron, along with water heavy in hydrogen sulfide. Incredibly, vast colonies of giant clams, mussels, huge tube worms, and bacteria that utilize the sulfur compounds to synthesize sugars live and thrive in this dark and toxic environment. It is this remarkable species of sea life that we're collecting with submersibles for laboratory testing and clinical trials back in the States."

"Are there many scientists working on these miracle cures?"

Pitt shook his head. "Around the world, maybe fifty or sixty. Marine medical research is still in its infancy."

"How long before we see the drugs on the market?"

"The regulatory obstacles are staggering. Doctors won't be prescribing many of these medications for another ten years."

Shannon walked over to an array of monitors that filled an entire panel of one bulkhead. "This looks impressive."

"Our secondary mission is to map the seafloor wherever the ship sails."

"What are the monitors showing?"

"You're looking at the bottom of the sea in a myriad of shapes and images," Pitt explained. "Our long-range, low-resolution side-scan sonar system can record a swath in three-dimensional color up to fifty kilometers wide."

Shannon stared at the incredible display of ravines and mountains thousands of meters below the ship. "I never thought I'd be able to observe the land beneath the sea this clearly. It's like staring out the window of an airliner over the Rocky Mountains."

"With computer enhancement it becomes even sharper."

"Romance of the seven seas," she waxed philosophically. "You're like the early explorers who charted new worlds."

Pitt laughed. "High tech takes away any hint of the romance."

They left the bridge, and he showed her through the ship's laboratory where a team of chemists and marine biologists were fussing over a dozen glass tanks teeming with a hundred different denizens from the deep, studying data from computer monitors, and examining microorganisms under microscopes.

"After retrieval from the bottom," said Pitt, "this is where the first step in the quest for new drugs begins."

"What is your part in all of this?" Shannon asked.

"Al Giordino and I operate the robotic vehicles that probe the seafloor for promising organism sites. When we think we've located a prime location, we go down in a submersible to collect the specimens."

She sighed. "Your field is far more exotic than mine."

Pitt shook his head. "I disagree. Searching into the origins of our ancestors can be pretty exotic in its own right. If we feel no attraction for the past, why do millions of us pay homage to ancient Egypt, Rome, and Athens every year? Why do we wander over the battlefields of Gettysburg and Waterloo or stand on the cliffs and look down on the beaches of Normandy? Because we have to look back into history to see ourselves."

Shannon stood silently. She had expected a certain coldness from a man whom she had watched kill without apparent remorse. She was surprised at the depth of his words, at his easy way of expressing ideas.

He spoke of the sea, of shipwrecks, and of lost treasure. She described the great archaeological mysteries waiting to be solved. There was mutual delight in this exchange, yet there was still an indefinable gap between them. Neither felt strongly attracted to the other.

They had strolled out on deck and were leaning over the railing, watching the white foam thrown from the Deep Fathom's bow slide past the hull and merge with the froth from the wake, when skipper Frank Stewart appeared.

"It's official," he said in his soft Alabama drawl, "we've been ordered to transport the Peruvian young people and Dr. Kelsey to Lima's port city of Callao."

"You were in communication with Admiral Sandecker?" inquired Pitt.

Stewart shook his head. "His director of operations, Rudi Gunn."

"After we set everyone on shore, I assume we sail back on-site and continue with the project?"

"The crew and I do. You and Al have been ordered to return to the sacred well and retrieve Dr. Miller's body."

Pitt looked at Stewart as if he were a psychiatrist contemplating a mental case. "Why us? Why not the Peruvian police?"

Stewart shrugged. "When I protested that the two of you were vital to the specimen collection operation, Gunn said he was flying in your replacements from NUMA's research lab in Key West. That's all he would say."

Pitt swung a hand toward the empty helicopter landing pad. "Did you inform Rudi that Al and I are not exactly popular with the local natives and that we're fresh out of aircraft?"

"No to the former." Stewart grinned. "Yes to the latter. American embassy officials are making arrangements for you to charter a commercial helicopter in Lima."

"This makes about as much sense as ordering a peanut butter sandwich in a French restaurant."

"If you have a complaint, I suggest you take it up with Gunn personally when he meets us on the dock in Callao."

Pitt's eyes narrowed. "Sandecker's right-hand man flies over sixty-five hundred kilometers from Washington to oversee a body recovery? What gives?"

"More than meets the eye, obviously," said Stewart. He turned and looked at Shannon. "Gunn also relayed a message to you from a David Gaskill. He said you'd recall the name."

She seemed to stare at the deck in thought for a moment. "Yes, I remember, he's an undercover agent with the U.S. Customs Service who specializes in the illicit smuggling of antiquities."

Stewart continued, "Gaskill said to tell you he thinks he's traced the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo to a private collector in Chicago."

Shannon's heart fluttered and she gripped the handrail until her knuckles turned ivory.

"Good news?" asked Pitt.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She looked stunned.

Pitt put his arm around her waist to support her. "Are you all right?"

"The Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo," she murmured reverently, "was lost to the world in a daring robbery at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Seville in 1922. There isn't an archaeologist alive who wouldn't sign away his or her pension to study it."

"What exactly makes it so special?" asked Stewart.

"It is considered the most prized artifact to ever come out of South America because of its historic significance," Shannon lectured, as if entranced. "The gold casing covered the mummy of a great Chachapoyan general known as Naymlap, from the toes to the top of the head. The Spanish conquerors discovered Naymlap's tomb in 1547 in a city called Tiapollo high in the mountains. The event was recorded in two early documents but today Tiapollo's precise location is unknown. I've only seen old black-and-white photos of the suit, but you could tell that the intricately hammered metalwork was breathtaking. The iconography, the traditional images, and the designs on the exterior were lavishly sophisticated and formed a pictorial record of a legendary event."

"Picture writing, as in Egyptian hieroglyphics?" asked Pitt.

"Very similar."

"What we might call an illustrated comic strip," added Giordino as he stepped out on deck.

Shannon laughed. "Only without the panels. The panels were never fully deciphered. The obscure references seem to indicate a long journey by boat to a place somewhere beyond the empire of the Aztecs."

"For what purpose?" asked Stewart.

"To hide a vast royal treasure that belonged to Huascar, an Inca king who was captured in battle and murdered by his brother Atahualpa, who was in turn executed by the Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. Huascar possessed a sacred gold chain that was two hundred and fourteen meters long. One report given to the Spaniards by Incas claimed that two hundred men could scarcely lift it."

"Roughly figuring that each man hoisted sixty percent of his weight," mused Giordino, "you're talking over nine thousand kilograms or twenty thousand pounds of gold. Multiply that by twelve troy ounces . . ."

"And you get two hundred and forty thousand ounces," Pitt helped out. Giordino's calculating expression suddenly crumbled into blank astonishment. "Oh my God. On today's gold market that works out to well over a hundred million dollars."

"That can't be right," scoffed Stewart.

"Compute it for yourself," muttered Giordino, still stupefied.

Stewart did, and his face went as blank as Giordino's. "Mother of heaven, he's right."

Shannon nodded. "That's just the price of the gold. As an artifact it is priceless."

"The Spanish never got their hands on it?" Pitt asked Shannon.

"No, along with a vast hoard of other royal wealth, the chain disappeared. You've probably all heard the story of how Huascar's brother Atahualpa tried to buy his freedom from Pizarro and his conquistadors by offering to fill a room that measured seven meters in length by five meters wide with gold. Atahualpa stood on his tiptoes, reached up and drew a line around the room that was almost three meters from the floor, the height to which the gold would top out. Another smaller room nearby was to be filled with silver twice over."

"Has to be a world's record for ransom," mused Stewart.

According to the legend," Shannon continued, "Atahualpa seized massive numbers of golden objects from palaces, religious temples, and public buildings. But the supply was coming up short, so he went after his brother's treasures. Huascar's agents warned him of the situation, and he conspired to have his kingdom's treasures spirited away before Atahualpa and Pizarro could get their hands on them. Guarded by loyal Chachapoyan warriors, commanded by General Naymlap, untold tons of gold and silver objects, along with the chain, were secretly transported by a huge human train to the coast, where they were loaded on board a fleet of reed and balsa rafts that sailed toward an unknown destination far to the north."

"Is there any factual basis to the story?" Pitt asked.

"Between the years 1546 and 1568, a Jesuit historian and translator, Bishop Juan de Avila, recorded many mythical accounts of early Peruvian cultures. While attempting to convert the Chachapoyan people to Christianity, he was told four different stories about a great treasure belonging to the Inca kingdom that their ancestors helped carry across the sea to an island far beyond the land of the Aztecs, where it was buried. Supposedly it is guarded by a winged jaguar until the day the Incas return and retake their kingdom in Peru."

"There must be a hundred coastal islands between here and California," said Stewart.

Shannon followed Pitt's gaze down to the restless sea. "There is, or I should say was, another source of the legend."

"All right," said Pitt, "let's hear it."

"When the Bishop was questioning the Cloud People, as the Chachapoyans were called, one of the tales centered on a jade box containing a detailed chronicle of the voyage."

"An animal skin painted with symbolic pictographs?"

"No, a quipu," Shannon replied softly.

Stewart tilted his head quizzically. "A what?"

"Quipu, an Inca system for working out mathematical problems and for record keeping. Quite ingenious, really. It was a kind of ancient computer using colored strands of string or hemp with knots placed at different intervals. The various color-coded strands signified different things -blue for religion, red for the king, gray for places and cities, green for people, and so forth. A yellow thread could indicate gold while a white one referred to silver. The placement of knots signified numbers, such as the passage of time. In the hands of a quipu-mayoc, a secretary or clerk, the possibilities of creating everything from records of events to warehouse inventories were endless. Unfortunately, most all the quipus, one of the most detailed statistical records of a people's history ever kept, were destroyed during the Spanish conquest and the oppression that followed."

Pitt said, "And this stringed instrument, if you'll forgive the pun, was used to give an account of the voyage, including time, distances, and location?"

"That was the idea," Shannon agreed.

"Any clues as to whatever became of the jade box?"

"One story claims the Spaniards found the box with its quipu and not knowing its value, sent it to Spain. But during shipment aboard a treasure galleon bound for Panama, the box, along with a cargo of precious artifacts and a great treasure of gold and silver, was captured by the English sea hawk, Sir Francis Drake."

Pitt turned and regarded her as he might a classic automobile he'd never seen before. "The Chachapoyan treasure map went to England?"

Shannon gave a helpless shrug. "Drake never mentioned the jade box or its contents when he reached England after his epic voyage around the world. Since then, the map has become known as the Drake quipu, but it was never seen again."

"A hell of a tale," Pitt muttered quietly. His eyes seemed to turn dreamlike as his mind visualized something beyond the horizon. "But the best part is yet to come."

Shannon and Stewart both stared at him. Pitt's gaze turned skyward as a sea gull circled the ship and then winged toward land. There was a look of utter certainty in his eyes as he faced them again, a crooked smile curving his lips, the wavy strands of his ebony hair restless in the breeze.

"Why do you say that?" Shannon asked hesitantly.

"Because I'm going to find the jade box."

"You're putting us on." Stewart laughed.

"Not in the least." The distant expression on Pitt's craggy face had changed to staunch resolve.

For a moment Shannon was stunned. The sudden change from his previous mocking skepticism was totally unexpected. "You sound like you're on the lunatic fringe."

Pitt tilted his head back and laughed heartily. "That's the best part about being crazy. You see things nobody else can see."

St. Julien Perlmutter was a classic gourmand and bon vivant. Excessively fond of fine food and drink, he reveled in sociable tastes, possessing an incredible file of recipes from the renowned chefs of the world and a cellar with more than 4000 bottles of vintage wine. A host with an admirable reputation for throwing gourmet dinners at elegant restaurants, he paid a heavy price. St. Julien Perlmutter weighed in at close to 181 kilograms (400 pounds). Scoffing at physical workouts and diet foods, his fondest wish was to enter the great beyond while savoring a 100-year-old brandy after a sumptuous meal.

Besides eating, his other burning passion was ships and shipwrecks. He had accumulated what was acknowledged by archival experts as the world's most complete collection of literature and records on historic ships. Maritime museums around the world counted the days until overindulgence did him in, so they could pounce like vultures and absorb the collection into their own libraries.

There was a reason Perlmutter always entertained in restaurants instead of at his spacious carriage house in Georgetown outside the nation's capital. A gigantic mass of books was stacked on the floor, on sagging shelves, and in every nook and cranny of his bedroom, the living and dining rooms, and even in the kitchen cabinets. They were piled head-high beside the commode in his bathroom and were scattered like chaff on the king-size waterbed. Archival experts would have required a full year to sort out and catalogue the thousands of books stuffed in the carriage house. But not Perlmutter. He knew precisely where any particular volume was stashed and could pick it out within seconds.

He was dressed in his standard uniform of the day, purple pajamas under a red and gold paisley robe, standing in front of a mirror salvaged from a stateroom on the Lusitania, trimming a magnificent gray beard, when his private line gave off a ring like a ship's bell.

"St. Julien Perlmutter here. State your business in a brief manner."

"Hello, you old derelict."

"Dirk!" he boomed, recognizing the voice, his blue eyes twinkling from a round crimson face. "Where's that recipe for apricot sautéed prawns you promised me?"

"In an envelope on my desk. I forgot to mail it to you before I left the country. My apologies."

"Where are you calling from?"

"A ship off the coast of Peru."

"I'm afraid to ask what you're doing down there."

"A long story."

"Aren't they all?"

"I need a favor."

Perlmutter sighed. "What ship is it this time?"

"The Golden Hind."

"Francis Drake's Golden Hind?"

"The same."

"Sic parvis magna," Perlmutter quoted. "Great things have small beginnings. That was Drake's motto. Did you know that?"

"Somehow it escaped me," Pitt admitted. "Drake captured a Spanish galleon--"

"The Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion,'' " Perlmutter interrupted. "Captained by Juan de Anton, bound for Panama City from Callao de Lima with a cargo of bullion and precious Inca artifacts. As I recall, it was in March of 1578."

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the line. "Why is it when I talk to you, Julien, you always make me feel as if you took away my bicycle?"

"I thought you'd like a bit of knowledge to cheer you up." Perlmutter laughed. "What precisely do you wish to know?"

"When Drake seized the Concepcion, how did he handle the cargo?"

"The event was quite well recorded. He loaded the gold and silver bullion, including a hoard of precious gems and pearls, on board the Golden Hind. The amount was enormous. His ship was dangerously overloaded, so he dumped several tons of the silver into the water by Cano Island off the coast of Ecuador before continuing on his voyage around the world."

"What about the Inca treasures?"

"They were left in the cargo holds of the Concepcion. Drake then put a prize crew on board to sail her back through the Magellan Strait and across the Atlantic to England."

"Did the galleon reach port?"

"No," answered Perlmutter thoughtfully. "It went missing and was presumed lost with all hands."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Pitt, disappointment in his voice. "I had hopes it might have somehow survived."

"Come to think of it," recalled Perlmutter, "a myth did arise concerning the Concepcion's disappearance."

"What was the gist of it?"

"A fanciful story, little more than rumor, said the galleon was caught in a tidal wave that carried it far inland. Never verified or documented, of course."

"Do you have a source for the rumor?"

"Further research will be needed to verify details, but if my memory serves me correctly, the tale came from a mad Englishman the Portuguese reported finding in a village along the Amazon River. Sorry, that's about all I can give you on the spur of the moment."

"I'd be grateful if you dug a little deeper," said Pitt.

"I can give you the dimensions and tonnage of the Concepcion, how much sail she carried, when and where she was built. But a crazy person wandering around a rain forest calls for a source outside my collection."

"If anyone can track down a sea mystery, you can."

"I have an utter lack of willpower when it comes to delving into one of your enigmas, especially after we found old Abe Lincoln on a Confederate ironclad in the middle of the Sahara Desert together."

"I leave it to you, Julien."

"Ironclads in a desert, Noah's Ark on a mountain, Spanish galleons in a jungle. Why don't ships stay on the sea where they belong?"

"That's why you and I are incurable lost shipwreck hunters," said Pitt cheerfully.

"What's your interest in this one?" Perlmutter asked warily.

"A jade box containing a knotted cord that gives directions to an immense Inca treasure."

Perlmutter mulled over Pitt's brief answer for several seconds before he finally said,

"Well, I guess that's as good a reason as any."

Hiram Yaeger looked as if he should have been pushing a shopping cart full of shabby belongings down a back alley. He was attired in a Levi's jacket and pants, his long blond hair tied in a loose ponytail, and his boyish face half-hidden by a scraggly beard. The only shopping cart Yaeger ever pushed, however, was down the delicatessen aisle of a supermarket. A stranger would have been hard-pressed to imagine him living in a fashionable residential area of Maryland with a lovely artist wife and two pretty, smart teenage girls in private school, and driving a top-of-the-line BMW.

Nor would someone who didn't know him guess that he was chief of NUMA's communications and information network. Admiral Sandecker had pirated him away from a Silicon Valley computer corporation to build a vast data library, containing every book, article, or thesis, scientific or historical, fact or theory, ever known to be written about the sea. What St. Julien Perlmutter's archive was to ships, Yaeger's was to oceanography and the growing field of undersea sciences.

He was sitting at his own private terminal in a small side office of the computer data complex that took up the entire tenth floor of the NUMA building when his phone buzzed. Without taking his eyes from a monitor that showed how ocean currents affected the climate around Australia, he picked up the receiver.

"Greetings from the brain trust," he answered casually.

"You wouldn't know gray matter if it splashed on your shoe," came the voice of an old friend.

"Good to hear from you, Mr. Special Projects Director. The office topic of the day says you're enjoying a fun-filled holiday in sunny South America."

"You heard wrong, pal."

"Are you calling from the Deep Fathom?"

"Yes, Al and I are back on board after a little excursion into the jungle."

"What can I do for you?"

"Delve into your data bank and see if you can find any record of a tidal wave that struck the shoreline between Lima, Peru, and Panama City sometime in March of 1578."

Yaeger sighed. "Why don't you also ask me to find the temperature and humidity on the day of creation?"

"Just the general area where the wave struck will do, thank you."

"Any record of such an event would likely be in old weather and maritime records I gleaned from Spanish archives in Seville. Another remote possibility would be the local inhabitants, who might have handed down legends of such an event. The Incas were good at recording social and religious occasions on textiles or pottery."

"Not a good lead," Pitt said doubtfully. "The Inca empire was smashed by the Spanish conquest nearly forty years earlier. Whatever records they made in recalling the news of the day were scattered and lost."

"Most tidal waves that come inland are caused by seafloor movement. Maybe I can piece together known geological events of that era."

"Give it your best try."

"How soon do you need it?"

"Unless the admiral has you on a priority project, drop everything else and go."

"All right," said Yaeger, eager for the challenge. "I'll see what I can come up with."

"Thanks, Hiram. I owe you."

"About a hundred times over."

"And don't mention this to Sandecker," said Pitt.

"I thought it sounded like another one of your shady schemes. Mind telling me what this is all about?"

"I'm looking for a lost Spanish galleon in a jungle."

"But of course, what else?" Yaeger said with routine resignation. He had learned long before never to anticipate Pitt.

"I'm hoping you can find me a ballpark to search."

"As a matter of fact, through clean living and moral thinking, I can already narrow your field of search by a wide margin."

"What do you know that I don't?"

Yaeger smiled to himself. "The lowlands between the west flank of the Andes and the coast of Peru have an average temperature of eighteen degrees Celsius or sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit and an annual rainfall that would hardly fill a shot glass, making it one of the world's coldest and driest low altitude deserts. No jungle for a ship to get lost in there."

"So what's your hot spot?" asked Pitt.

"Ecuador. The coastal region is tropical all the way to Panama."

"A precision display of deductive reasoning. You're okay, Hiram. I don't care what your ex-wives say about you."

A mere trifle. I'll have something for you in twenty-four hours."

"I'll be in touch."

As soon as he put down the phone, Yaeger began assembling his thoughts. He never failed to find the novelty of a shipwreck search stimulating. The areas he planned to investigate were neatly filed in the computer of his mind. During his years with NUMA, he had discovered that Dirk Pitt didn't walk through life like other men. Simply working with Pitt and supplying data information had been one long, intrigue-filled, vicarious adventure, and Yaeger took pride in the fact that he had never fumbled the ball that was passed to him.

As Pitt was making plans to search for a landlocked Spanish galleon, Adolphus Rummel, a noted collector of South American antiquities, stepped out of the elevator into his plush penthouse apartment twenty floors above Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. A short, stringy man with a shaven head and an enormous walrus moustache, Rummel was in his midseventies and looked more like a Sherlock Holmes villain than the owner of six huge auto salvage yards.

Like many of his extremely wealthy peers who compulsively amassed priceless collections of antiquities from the black market with no questions asked, Rummel was unmarried and reclusive. No one was ever allowed to view his pre-Columbian artifacts. Only his accountant and attorney were aware of their existence, but they had no idea of how extensive his inventory was.

In the nineteen fifties German-born Rummel smuggled a cache of Nazi ceremonial objects across the Mexican border. The contraband included presentation daggers and knights-cross medals awarded to Germany's greatest World War II heroes, as well as a number of historic documents signed by Adolf Hitler and his maniacal cronies. Selling his hoard to collectors of Nazi artifacts at premium prices, Rummel took the profits and launched an auto junkyard that he built into a scrap metal empire, netting him nearly 250 million dollars over forty years.

After a business trip to Peru in 1974, he developed an interest in ancient South American art and began buying from dealers, honest or criminal. Source did not matter to him. Corruption was as common as rain in a jungle among the brotherhood of artifact finders and sellers throughout Central and South America. Rummel gave no thought to whether his acquired pieces were legally excavated but sold out the back door, or stolen from a museum. They were for his satisfaction and enjoyment, and his alone.

He walked past the Italian marble walls of his foyer and approached a large mirror with a thick gilded frame covered with naked cherubs entwined around a continuous grapevine. Twisting the head of a cherub in one corner, Rummel sprang the catch that unlatched the mirror, revealing a concealed doorway. Behind the mirror a stairway led down into eight spacious rooms lined with shelves and filled with tables supporting at least thirty glass cases packed with more than two thousand ancient pre-Columbian artifacts. Reverently, as if walking down the aisle of a church toward the altar, he moved about the gallery, cherishing the beauty and craftsmanship of his private hoard. It was a ritual he performed every evening before going to bed, almost as if he were a father looking in on his sleeping children.

Rummel's pilgrimage finally ended at the side of a large glass case that was the centerpiece of the gallery. It held the crowning treasure of his collection. Gleaming under halogen spotlights, the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo lay in splendor, arms and legs outstretched, the mask sparkling with emeralds in the eye sockets. The magnificent brilliance of the artistry never failed to move Rummel.

Knowing full well it had been stolen from the national anthropological museum in Seville, Spain, seventy-six years previously, Rummel did not hesitate to pay one million two hundred thousand dollars in cash when he was approached by a group of men who claimed to be connected to the Mafia but were in reality members of a clandestine underground syndicate that specialized in the theft of precious art objects. Where they had come upon the golden suit, Rummel had no idea. He could only assume they had either stolen it themselves or bought it from the collector who had dealt with the original thieves.

Having had his nightly gratification, Rummel turned off the lights, returned upstairs to the foyer, and closed the mirror. Moving behind a wet bar designed around a two thousand-year-old Roman sarcophagus, he half-filled a small snifter from a bottle of brandy and retired to his bedroom to read before falling asleep.

In another apartment directly level and across the street from Rummel's building, United States Customs Agent David Gaskill sat and peered through a pair of high-powered binoculars mounted on a tripod as the artifacts collector prepared for bed. Another agent might have been bored after nearly a week of stakeout, but not Gaskill. An eighteen-year veteran of the Customs Service, Gaskill looked more like a football coach than a special government agent, a look he cultivated for his work. His gray hair was curly and combed back. An African American, his skin was more doeskin brown than dark coffee, and his eyes were a strange mixture of mahogany and green. His massive bulldog head seemed to grow out of his shoulders on a stunted, tree-trunk neck. A huge mountain of a man, he was once an all-star linebacker for the University of Southern California. He had worked hard to lose his South Carolina drawl and spoke with practiced diction, occasionally being mistaken for a former British citizen from the Bahamas.

Gaskill had been fascinated by pre-Columbian art ever since a field trip to the Yucatan Peninsula during school. When stationed in Washington, D.C., he had handled dozens of investigations involving looted artifacts from the Anasazi and Hohokam cultures of the American Southwest desert. He was working on a case involving the smuggling of carved Mayan stone panels when he received a tip that was passed along to him by Chicago police from a cleaning woman. She had accidentally discovered photographs protruding from a drawer in Rummel's penthouse of what she believed to be a man's body covered in gold. Thinking that someone might have been murdered, she stole a photo and turned it over to the police. A detective who had worked on art fraud cases recognized the golden object as an antiquity and called Gaskill.

Rummel's name had always been high on the Customs Service's list of people who collected ancient art without concern about where it came from, but there was never any evidence of illegal dealings, nor did Gaskill have a clue where Rummel kept his hoard. The special agent, who possessed the expertise of an antiquities scholar, immediately recognized the photo supplied by the cleaning lady as the long-lost Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo.

He set up an immediate round-the-clock surveillance of Rummel's penthouse and had the old man tailed from the time he left the building until he returned. But six days of tight scrutiny had turned up no indication of where Rummel's collection was hidden. The suspect never varied his routine. After leaving for his office at the lower end of Michigan Avenue, where he'd spend four hours, sifting through his investments, it was lunch at a run-down cafe where he always ordered bean soup and a salad. The rest of the afternoon was spent prowling antique stores and art galleries. Then dinner at a quiet German restaurant, after which he would take in a movie or a play. He usually arrived home at eleven-thirty. The routine never varied.

"Doesn't he ever get tired of drinking the same rotgut in bed?" muttered Special Agent Winfried Pottle. "Speaking for myself, I'd prefer the waiting arms of a beautiful woman oozing supple elegance and wearing a little something black and flimsy."

Gaskill pulled back from the binoculars and made a dour face at his second-in-command of the surveillance team. Unlike Gaskill in his Levi's and USC football jacket, Pottle was a slim, handsome man with sharp features and soft red hair, who dressed in three-piece suits complete with pocket watch and chain. "After seeing a few of the women you date, I'd have to say that was wishful thinking."

Pottle nodded at Rummel's penthouse. "At least give me credit for not leading a regimented existence."

"I shudder to think how you'd behave if you had his money."

"If I had invested a king's ransom in stolen Indian art, I doubt if I could do as good a job of hiding it."

"Rummel has to conceal it somewhere," said Gaskill with a slight trace of discouragement. "His reputation as a buyer of hot goods with a colorful history comes from too many sources in the antiquities market not to be genuine. Makes no sense for a man to build a world-class collection of ancient artifacts and then never go near it. I've yet to hear of a collector, whether he goes in for stamps, coins, or baseball cards, who didn't study and fondle them at every opportunity. Wealthy art junkies who pay big bucks for stolen Rembrandts and van Goghs are known to sit all alone in hidden vaults, gazing at them for hours on end. I know some of these guys, who started with nothing, got rich and then lusted to collect objects only they could possess. Many of them abandoned families or gladly suffered divorce because their craving became an obsession. That's why someone as addicted to pre-Columbian art as Rummel could never ignore a hoard that's probably more valuable than any in the finest museums in the world."

"Did you ever consider the possibility that our sources might be wrong or highly exaggerated?" asked Pottle gloomily. "The cleaning lady who claimed she found the photograph of the gold suit is a confirmed alcoholic."

Gaskill slowly shook his head. "Rummel's got it stashed somewhere. I'm convinced."

Pottle stared across at Rummel's apartment as the lights blinked out. "If you're right, and if I were Rummel, I'd take it to bed with me."

"Sure you would-" Gaskill stopped abruptly as Pottle's wit triggered a thought. "Your perverted mind just made a good point."

"It did?" muttered a confused Pottle.

"What rooms do not have windows in the penthouse? The ones we can't observe?"

Pottle looked down at the carpet in thought for a moment. "According to the floor plan, two bathrooms, a pantry, the short hall between the master and guest bedrooms, and the closets."

"We're missing something."

"Missing what? Rummel seldom remembers to draw his curtains. We can watch ninety percent of his movements once he steps off the elevator. No way he could store a ton of art treasures in a couple of bathtubs and a closet."

"True, but where does he spend the thirty or forty minutes from the time he exits the lobby and steps into the elevator until he sets foot in his living room? Certainly not in the foyer."

"Maybe he sits on the john."

"Nobody is that regular." Gaskill stood and walked over to a coffee table and spread out a set of blueprints of Rummel's penthouse obtained from the building's developer. He studied them for what had to be the fiftieth time. "The artifacts have to be in the building."

"We've checked every apartment from the main floor to the roof," said Pottle. "They're all leased by live-in tenants."

"What about the one directly below Rummel?" asked Gaskill.

Pottle thumbed through a sheaf of computer papers. "Sidney Kammer and wife, Candy. He's one of those high-level corporate attorneys who saves his clients from paying a bushel of taxes."

Gaskill looked at Pottle. "When was the last time Kammer and his wife made an appearance?"

Pottle scanned the log they maintained of residents who entered and left the building during the surveillance. "No sign of them. They're no-shows."

"I bet if we checked it out, the Kammers live in a house somewhere in a plush suburb and never set foot in their apartment."

"They could be on vacation."

The voice of agent Beverly Swain broke over Gaskill's portable radio. "I have a large moving van backing into the basement of the building."

"Are you manning the front security desk or checking out the basement?" asked Gaskill.

"Still in the lobby, walking my post in a military manner," Swain answered pertly. A smart little blonde, and a California beach girl before joining Customs, she was the best undercover agent Gaskill had on his team and the only one inside Rummel's building. "If you think I'm bored with watching TV monitors depicting basements, elevators, and hallways, and on my way out the door for a flight to Tahiti, you're half right."

"Save your money," replied Pottle. "Tahiti is nothing but tall palms and exotic beaches. You can get that in Florida."

"Run tape on the front entrance," ordered Gaskill. "Then trot down to the basement and question the movers. Find out if they're moving someone in or out of the building, what apartment, and why they're working at this ungodly hour."

"On my way," Swain answered through a yawn.

"I hope she doesn't meet up with a monster," said Pottle.

"What monster?" asked Gaskill with raised eyebrows.

"You know, in all those stupid horror movies, a woman alone in a house hears a strange noise in the cellar. Then she investigates by going down the stairs without turning on the lights or holding a kitchen knife for protection."

"Typical lousy Hollywood direction." Gaskill shrugged. "Not to worry about Bev. The basement is lit like Las Vegas Boulevard and she's packing a nine-millimeter Colt Combat Commander. Pity the poor monster who comes on to her."

Now that Rummel's penthouse was dark, Gaskill took a few minutes away from the binoculars to knock off half a dozen glazed donuts and down a thermos bottle of cold milk. He was sadly contemplating the empty donut box when Swain reported in.

"The movers are unloading furniture for an apartment on the nineteenth floor. They're ticked off at working so late but are being well paid for overtime. They can't say why the client is in such a rush, only that it must be one of those last-minute corporate transfers."

"Any possibility they're smuggling artifacts into Rummel's place?"

"They opened the door of the van for me. It's packed with art deco style furniture."

"Okay, monitor their movements every few minutes."

Pottle scribbled on a notepad and hung up a wall phone in the kitchen. When he returned to Gaskill's position at the window, he had a cagey grin on his face. "I bow to your intuition. Sidney Kammer's home address is in Lake Forest."

"I'll bet you Kammer's biggest client turns out to be Adolphus Rummel," Gaskill ventured.

"And for the bongo drums and a year's supply of Kitty Litter, tell me who Kammer leases his apartment to."

"Got to be Adolphus Rummel."

Pottle looked pleased with himself. "I think we can safely shout Eureka."

Gaskill stared across the street through an open curtain into Rummel's living room, suddenly knowing his secret. His dark eyes deepened as he spoke. "A hidden stairway leading-from the foyer," he said, carefully choosing his words as if describing a screenplay he was about to write. "Rummel walks off the elevator, opens a hidden door to a stairway and descends to the apartment below his penthouse, where he spends forty-five minutes gloating over his private store of treasures. Then he returns upstairs, pours his brandy, and sleeps the sleep of a satisfied man. Strange, but I can't help envying him."

Pottle had to reach up to pound Gaskill on the shoulder. "Congratulations, Dave. Nothing left now but to obtain a search warrant and conduct a raid on Rummel's penthouse."

Gaskill shook his head. "A warrant, yes. A raid by an army of agents, no. Rummel has powerful friends in Chicago. We can't afford a big commotion that could result in a media barrage of criticism or a nasty lawsuit. Particularly if I've made a bad call. A quiet little search by you and me and Bev Swain will accomplish whatever it takes to ferret out Rummel's artifact collection."

Pottle slipped on a trench coat, a never-ending source of friendly ridicule by fellow agents, and headed for the door. "Judge Aldrich is a light sleeper. I'll roust him out of bed and be back with the paperwork before the sun comes up."

"Make it sooner." Gaskill smiled wryly. "I'm itching with anticipation."

After Pottle left, Gaskill called up Swain. "Give me a status report on the movers."

In the lobby of Rummel's apartment building, Bev Swain sat behind the security desk and stared up at an array of four monitors. She watched as the furniture haulers moved out of camera range. Pressing the buttons on a remote switch, she went from camera to camera, mounted at strategic areas inside the building. She found the movers coming out of the freight elevator on the nineteenth floor.

"So far they've brought up a couch, two upholstered chairs with end tables, and what looks like boxed crates of household goods, dishes, kitchen and bathroom accessories, clothing. You know, stuff like that."

"Do they return anything to the truck?"

"Only empty boxes."

"We think we've figured where Rummel stashes his artifacts. Pottle's gone for a warrant. We'll go in as soon as he returns."

"That's good news," Swain said with a sigh. "I've almost forgotten what the world looks like outside this damn lobby."

Gaskill laughed. "It hasn't improved. Sit tight on your trim little bottom for a few more hours."

"I may take that statement as sexual harassment," said Swain primly.

"Merely words of praise, Agent Swain," Gaskill said wearily, "words of praise."

A beautiful day dawned, crisp and cool, with only a whisper of breeze coming off Lake Michigan. The Farmers' Almanac had predicted an Indian summer for the Great Lakes region. Gaskill hoped so. A warmer than normal fall meant a few extra days of fishing on the Wisconsin lake beside his getaway cabin. He led a lonely private life since his wife of twenty years died from a heart attack brought on by an iron overload disease known as hemochromatosis. His work had become his love, and he used his leisure time comfortably settled in a Boston Whaler outboard boat, planning his investigations and analyzing data as he cast for pike and bass.

As he stood next to Pottle and Swain in the elevator rising to Rummel's penthouse, Gaskill skimmed the wording of the warrant for the third time. The judge had allowed a search of Rummel's penthouse, but not Kammer's apartment on the floor below, because he failed to see just cause. A minor inconvenience. Instead of going directly into what Gaskill was certain were the rooms that held the artifacts, they would have to find a hidden access and come down from the top.

Suddenly he was thinking a strange thought, what if the collector had been sold fakes and forged artworks? Rummel would not be the first greedy collector who had been sold a bill of goods in his unbridled lust to acquire art from any source, legal or not. He swept away the pessimistic thought and basked in a glow of fulfillment. The culmination of long hours of unflagging effort was only minutes away.

Swain had punched in the security code that allowed the elevator to rise beyond the residents' apartments and open directly into Rummel's penthouse. The doors parted and they stepped onto the marble floor of the foyer, unannounced. Out of habit, Gaskill lightly fingered his shoulder-holstered nine-millimeter automatic. Pottle found the button to a speaker box on a credenza and pressed it. A loud buzzer was heard throughout the penthouse.

After a short pause, a voice fogged with sleep answered. "Who's there?"

"Mr. Rummel," said Pottle into the speaker. "Will you please come to the elevator?"

"You'd better leave. I'm calling security."

"Don't bother. We're federal agents. Please comply and we'll explain our presence."

Swain watched the floor lights over the elevator flicker as it automatically descended. "That's why I'd never lease a penthouse," she said in mock seriousness. "Intruders can rig your private elevator easier than stealing a Mercedes-Benz."

Rummel appeared in pajamas, slippers, and an old-fashioned chenille robe. The material of the robe reminded Gaskill of a bedspread he'd slept on as a young boy in his grandmother's house. "My name is David Gaskill. I'm a special agent with the United States Customs Service. I have an authorized federal court warrant to search the premises."

Rummel indifferently slipped on a pair of rimless glasses and began reading the warrant as if it were the morning newspaper. Up close, he looked a good ten years younger than seventy-six. And although he had just come out of bed, he appeared alert and quite meticulous.

Impatient, Gaskill moved around him. "Pardon me."

Rummel peered up. "Look through my rooms all you want. I have nothing to hide."

The wealthy scrap dealer appeared anything but rude and irritable. He seemed to take the intrusion in good grace with a show of cooperation.

Gaskill knew it was nothing but an act. "We're only interested in your foyer."

He had briefed Swain and Pottle on what to search for and they immediately set to work. Every crack and seam was closely examined. But it was the mirror that intrigued Swain. As a woman she was instinctively drawn to it. Gazing into the reflective backing, she found it free of even the tiniest imperfection. The glass was beveled around the edges with etchings of flowers in the corners. Her best guess was that it was eighteenth century. She could not help but wonder about all the other people who had stood in front of it over the past three hundred years and stared at their reflections. Their images were still there. She could sense them.

Next she studied the intricately sculptured frame, crowded with cherubs overlaid in gold. Keenly observant, she noticed the tiny seam on the neck of one cherub. The gilt around the edges looked worn from friction. Swain gently grasped the head and tried to turn it clockwise. It remained stationary. She tried the opposite direction, and the head rotated until it was facing backward. There was a noticeable click, and one side of the mirror came ajar and stopped a few centimeters from the wall.

She peered through the crack down the hidden stairwell and said, "Good call, boss."

Rummel paled as Gaskill silently swung the mirror wide open. He smiled broadly as he was swept by a wave of satisfaction. This was what Gaskill liked best about his job, the game of wits culminating in ultimate triumph over his antagonist.

"Will you please lead the way, Mr. Rummel?"

"The apartment below belongs to my attorney, Sidney Kammer," said Rummel, a shrewd gleam forming in his eyes. "Your warrant only authorizes you to search my penthouse."

Gaskill groped about in his coat pocket for a moment before extracting a small box containing a bass plug, a fishing lure he had purchased the day before. He extended his hand and dropped the box down the stairs. "Forgive my clumsiness. I hope Mr. Kammer doesn't mind if I retrieve my property."

"That's trespassing!" Rummel blurted.

There was no reply. Followed by Pottle, the burly Customs agent was already descending the stairway, pausing only to retrieve his bass plug box. What he saw upon reaching the floor below took his breath away.

Magnificent pre-Columbian artworks filled room after room of the apartment. Glass-enclosed Incan textiles hung from the ceilings. One entire room was devoted solely to ceremonial masks. Another held religious altars and burial urns. Others were filled with ornate headdresses, elaborately painted ceramics, and exotic sculptures. All doors in the apartment had been removed for easier access, the kitchen and bathrooms stripped of their sinks, cupboards and accessories to provide more space for the immense collection. Gaskill and Pottle stood overwhelmed by the spectacular array of antiquities. The quantity went far beyond what they expected.

After the initial amazement faded, Gaskill rushed from room to room, searching for the piece de resistance of the collection. What he found was a shattered, empty glass case in the center of a room. Disillusionment flooded over him.

"Mr. Rummel!" he shouted. "Come here!"

Escorted by Swain, a thoroughly defeated and distraught Rummel shuffled slowly into the exhibition room. He froze in sudden horror as though one of the Inca battle lances on the wall had pierced his stomach. "It's gone!" he gasped. "The Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo is gone."

Gaskill's face went tight and cold. The floor around the empty display case was flanked by a pile of furniture consisting of a couch, end tables, and two chairs. He looked from Pottle to Swain. "The movers," he rasped in a tone barely audible. "They've stolen the suit from right under our noses."

"They left the building over an hour ago," said Swain tonelessly.

Pottle looked dazed. "Too late to mount a search. They've already stashed the suit by now." Then he added, "If it isn't on an airplane flying out of the country."

Gaskill sank into one of the chairs. "To have come so close," he murmured vacantly. "God forbid the suit won't be lost for another seventy-six years."

IN SEARCH OF THE CONCEPCION

October 15, 1998

Callao, Peru

Peru's principal seaport, Callao, was founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1537 and quickly became the main shipping port for the gold and silver plundered from the Inca empire. Appropriately, the port itself was plundered by Francis Drake forty-one years later. Spain's conquest of Peru ended almost at the spot where it had begun. The last of the Spanish forces surrendered to Simon Bolivar at Callao in 1825, and Peru became a sovereign nation for the first time since the fall of the Incas. Now joined with Lima as one sprawling metropolitan area, the combined cities host a population of nearly 6.5 million.

Situated on the west bank of the Andes along the lowlands, Callao and Lima have an annual rainfall of only 41 millimeters (1.5 inches), making the surrounding land area one of the earth's chilliest and driest deserts in the lower latitudes. Winter fog supports thin ground cover and mesquite and little else. The only water, besides excessive humidity, flows down several streams and the Rimac River from the Andes.

After rounding the northern tip of San Lorenzo, the large offshore island that protects Callao's natural maritime shelter, Captain Stewart ordered slow speed as a launch came alongside the Deep Fathom and the harbor pilot jumped onto a boarding ladder and climbed on board. Once the pilot steered the ship safely inside the main channel, Captain Stewart took command of the bridge again and adroitly eased the big research ship to a stop beside the dock of the main passenger terminal. Under his watchful eye the mooring lines were slipped over big, rusty bollards. Then he shut down his automatic control system, rang his chief engineer, and told him that he was through with the engines.

Everyone lining the ship's rail was surprised to see over a thousand people jamming the dock. Along with an armed military security force and a large contingent of police, TV news cameras and press photographers quickly began jockeying for position as the gangway was lowered. Beyond the news media stood a group of smiling government officials, and behind them the happily waving parents of the archaeology students.

"Still no Dixieland band playing `Waiting for the Robert E. Lee,' " Pitt said, feigning a disappointed tone.

"Nothing like a cheering populace to snap one out of depression," said Giordino, gazing at the unexpected reception.

"I never expected so grand a turnout," murmured Shannon in awe. "I can't believe word spread so fast."

Miles Rodgers lifted one of three cameras hung around his neck and began shooting. "Looks to me like half the Peruvian government turned out."

The dock was filled with an air of excitement. Small children were waving Peruvian and American flags. A roar came from the crowd as the archaeology students climbed out on the bridge wing and began waving and shouting as they recognized their parents. Only Stewart looked uneasy.

"My God, I hope they all don't expect to storm aboard my ship."

"Too many boarders to repel." Giordino shrugged. "Better to haul down your flag and plead for mercy."

"I told you my students came from influential families," said Shannon happily.

Unnoticed by the crowd, a small man wearing glasses and carrying a briefcase expertly squeezed through the milling throng and slipped around the cordon of security guards. He bounded up the still-lowering gangway before anyone could stop him and leaped onto the deck with the elated expression of a running back who has just crossed a goal line. He approached Pitt and Giordino and grinned.

"Why is it prudence and discretion are beyond your talents?"

"We try not to fly in the face of public opinion," Pitt said before smiling broadly and embracing the little man. "Good to see you, Rudi."

"Seems we can't get away from you," said Giordino warmly.

Rudi Gunn, the deputy director of NUMA, shook Stewart's hand and was introduced to Shannon and Rodgers. "Will you excuse me if I borrow these two rogues before the welcoming ceremonies?" he asked graciously.

Without waiting for an answer, he stepped through a hatch and walked down an alleyway with ease. Gunn had helped design the Deep Fathom and was very familiar with the ship's deck layout. He stopped before the doorway to the conference room, opened it and entered. He went directly to the head of a long table and fished through his briefcase for a yellow legal pad filled with notations as Pitt and Giordino settled into a pair of leather chairs.

Though Giordino and Gunn were both short, they were as unalike as a gibbon and a bulldog. While Gunn was as slight as a girl, Giordino was a huge walking muscle. They also differed in brain power. Giordino was shrewd and street smart. Gunn was sheer genius. Number one in his class at the Naval Academy, and a former navy commander who could easily have ascended to a top staff job in the Navy Department, he preferred the underwater science of NUMA to the science of warfare. Extremely nearsighted, he peered through heavy hornrimmed glasses, but never missed the slightest movement within two hundred yards.

Pitt was the first to speak. "Why the frenzy to send Al and me back to that rotten sinkhole to retrieve a body?"

"The request came from U.S. Customs. They made an urgent appeal to Admiral Sandecker to borrow his best men."

"And that includes you."

"I could have begged off, claiming my present projects would grind to a stop without my presence. The admiral would not have hesitated to send someone else. But a canary let slip your little unauthorized mission to find a lost galleon in the wilds of Ecuador."

"Hiram Yaeger," Pitt supplied. "I should have remembered you two are as close as Frank and Jesse James."

"I couldn't resist dumping the routine of Washington to mix a little business with adventure, so I volunteered for the dirty job of briefing and joining you on the Customs project."

`You mean you sold Sandecker a bill of goods and skipped town?" said Pitt.

"Mercifully for everyone involved, he doesn't know about the hunt for the galleon. At least not yet."

"He's not an easy man to fool," said Giordino seriously.

Not for very long," added Pitt. "He's probably already on to you."

Gunn waved a hand indifferently. "You two are on safe ground. Better me than some poor fool unfamiliar with your escapades. Anyone else in the NUMA bureaucracy might overestimate your abilities."

Giordino made a surly face. "And we call him a friend?"

"What can NUMA do for Customs that's so special?" asked Pitt.

Gunn spread a sheaf of papers on the table. "The issue is complex but involves the plunder of ancient art."

"Isn't that a little out of our line? Our business is underwater exploration and research."

"Destruction for the purpose of looting underwater archaeological sites is our business," Gunn stated earnestly.

"Where does recovering Dr. Miller's body enter the picture?"

"Only the first step of our cooperation with Customs. The murder of a world-renowned anthropologist is the bedrock of their case. They suspect the killer is a highlevel member of an international looting syndicate, and they need proof for an indictment. They also hope to use the killer as a key to unlock the door leading to the masterminds of the entire theft and smuggling operation. As for the sacred well, Customs and Peruvian authorities believe a vast cache of artifacts was raised from the bottom and has already been shipped to black-market receiving stations around the world. Miller discovered the theft and was terminated to shut him up. They want us, you and Al in particular, to search the floor of the well for evidence."

"And our plan to explore for the lost galleon?"

"Complete the job on the well, and I'll authorize a small budget out of NUMA to fund your search. That's all I can promise."

"And if the admiral shoots you down?" asked Giordino.

Gunn shrugged. "He's my boss as well as yours. I'm an old navy man. I follow orders."

"I'm old air force," Pitt replied. "I question them."

"Worry about it when the time comes," said Giordino. "Let's get the sinkhole probe out of the way."

Pitt took a deep breath and relaxed in his chair. "Might as well do something useful while Yaeger and Perlmutter conduct their research. They should have some solid leads by the time we stumble out of the jungle."

"There is one more request from the Customs agents," said Gunn.

"What the hell else do they have on their want list?" demanded Pitt roughly. "A dive orgy for souvenirs thrown off cruise ships by tourists afraid of Customs inspectors?"

"Nothing so mundane," Gunn explained patiently. "They also insist that you return to the Pueblo de los Muertos."

"They must think artifacts sitting in the rain qualify as underwater stolen goods," Giordino said with acidic humor.

"The Customs people are in dire need of an inventory."

"Of the artifacts in the temple?" Pitt asked incredulously. "Do they expect an indexed catalogue? There must be close to a thousand items stacked inside whatever is left of the temple after the mercenaries finished blowing it all to hell. They need archaeologists to sort through the hoard, not marine engineers."

"The Peruvian Investigative Police have investigated and reported that most of the artifacts were removed from the temple soon after you escaped," explained Gunn. "International Customs agents need descriptions so they can identify the artifacts should they begin to show up at antique auctions, or in private collections, galleries, and museums in affluent first world countries. They hope that a return trip to the scene of the crime will jog your memories."

"Events were moving too fast for a quick tally."

Gunn nodded in understanding. "But certain objects must have stuck in your mind, especially the outstanding pieces. What about you, Al?"

"I was busy prowling the ruins for a radio," said Giordino. "I didn't have time to examine the stuff."

Pitt held his hands to his head and massaged his temples. "I might be able to recall fifteen or twenty items that stood out."

"Can you sketch them?"

"I'm a miserable artist, but I think I can draw reasonably accurate pictures. No need to visit the place again. I can just as well illustrate what I remember while lounging by a swimming pool at a resort hotel."

"Sounds sensible to me," Giordino said cheerfully.

"No," Gunn said, "it's not sensible. Your job goes much deeper. As much as it turns my stomach, you two middle-aged delinquents are Peruvian national heroes. Not only are you in demand with the Customs Service, the State Department wants a piece of you."

Giordino stared at Pitt. "One more manifestation of Giordino's list of laws. Any man who volunteers for a rescue mission becomes a victim."

"What does the State Department have to do with us making a round trip to the temple?" Pitt demanded.

"Since the South American Free Trade Treaty, the petroleum and mining industries have been denationalized. Several American companies are currently completing negotiations to help Peru better exploit its natural resources. The country desperately needs foreign investment, and the money is ready to pour in. The catch is that labor unions and the opposition parties of the legislature are against foreign involvement in their economy. By saving the lives of sons and daughters of the local VIPs, you and Al indirectly influenced a number of votes."

"All right, so we give a speech at the local Elks Club and accept a certificate of merit."

"Fine as far as it goes," said Gunn. "But State Department experts and the Congressional Committee on Latin American Affairs think you both should hang around and make the dirty Yankees look good by helping to halt the looting of Peru's cultural heritage."

"In other words, our esteemed government wants to milk our benevolent image for all it's worth," said Pitt stonily.

"Something along those lines."

"And Sandecker agreed to it."

"Goes without saying," Gunn assured him. "The admiral never misses a chance to stroke Congress if it can lead to more funding for NUMA's future operations."

"Who is going in with us?"

"Dr. Alberto Ortiz from the National Institute of Culture in Chiclayo will supervise the archaeological team. He'll be assisted by Dr. Kelsey."

"Without reliable protection we'll be asking for trouble."

"The Peruvians have assured us they will send in a highly trained security force to control the valley."

"But are they trustworthy? I don't want an encore by an army of rogue mercenaries."

"Nor me," Giordino agreed firmly.

Gunn made a helpless gesture. "I can only pass on what I was told."

"We'll need better equipment than what we took in on our last trip."

"Give me a list and I'll handle the logistics."

Pitt turned to Giordino. "Do you get the distinct impression we've been had?"

"As near as I can tell," said the stocky Italian, "this makes about four hundred and thirty-seven times."

Pitt did not look forward to a repeat dive in the sinkhole. There was a haunted aura about it, something evil in its depths. The yawning cavity gaped in his mind as though it were the mouth of the devil. The imagery was so irrational that he tried to erase it from his mind, but the vision would not go away. It clung like the vague memory of a repugnant nightmare.

Two days later, at about eight in the morning, preparations were completed for the dive to retrieve Doc Miller's body from the sacred well. As Pitt stared down at the surface slime of the sinkhole, all his apprehension evaporated. The loathsome cavity still looked as menacing as when he had first encountered it, but he had survived its deadly surge, climbed its sheer walls. Now that he knew its hidden secrets, it no longer held any threat. The first hurried, planned-on-the-spot rescue was quickly forgotten. This was now a state-of-the-art project.

True to his word, Gunn had chartered two helicopters and scrounged the necessary gear for the job. One whole day was spent ferrying Dr. Kelsey and Miles Rodgers, the dive crew, and their equipment to the site and reestablishing the destroyed camp. Gunn was not known for running sloppy operations. There was no deadline, and he took the time to plan every step with precision. Nothing was left to chance.

A fifty-man contingent from Peru's elite special security unit was already in place when Gunn's first helicopter landed. To the taller North Americans the South American men seemed small in stature. They had an almost gentle look on their faces, but they were a tough lot, hardened by years of fighting Shining Path guerrillas in the heavily forested mountain country and barren coastal deserts. They quickly set up defenses around the camp and sent patrols into the surrounding jungle.

"Wish I was going with you," said Shannon from behind Pitt.

He turned and smiled. "I can't imagine why. Retrieving a human body that's been decomposing in tropically heated soup is not what I call a fun experience."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to sound cold-hearted." There was little expression of sorrow in her eyes. "I had the deepest admiration for Doc. But the archaeologist in me wants desperately to explore the bottom of the sacred pool."

"Don't get your hopes up of finding a treasure in antiquities," Pitt consoled her. "You'd be disappointed. All I saw was an acre of silt with an old Spaniard growing out of it."

"At least allow Miles to dive with you and make a photo record."

"Why the rush?"

"During the recovery, you and Al might disturb the bottom and move artifacts from their original positions."

Pitt gazed at her through disbelieving eyes. "You consider that more important than showing respect for Doc Miller?"

"Doc is dead," she said matter-of-factly. "Archaeology is an exacting science that deals with dead things. Doc taught that better than anyone. The slightest disturbance could alter significant findings."

Pitt began to see a side of Shannon that was all business. "After Al and I bring up Miller's remains, you and your Miles can dive and retrieve artifacts to your heart's content. But mind you don't get sucked into the side cavern again."

"Once is enough," she said with a tight smile. Then her expression turned to one of concern. "Be careful and don't take chances."

Then she kissed him lightly on the cheek, turned and hurried off toward her tent.

Dropping into the water went smoothly, thanks to a small crane and a motorized winch operated under the watchful eye of Rudi Gunn. When Pitt was about a meter above the water, he released the safety catch holding him on the end of the cable running to the winch. The upper, slime-laden level of the water was as tepid as expected but he did not recall it smelling quite so pungent. He floated lazily on his back, waiting for the cable to return topside before lowering Giordino.

Pitt's full face mask was connected to a communications and safety line while Giordino dove free and unencumbered, relying on hand signals from Pitt for instructions. As soon as his diving buddy slid into the muck beside him, Pitt motioned downward, and they rolled forward and dove into the depths of the sinkhole. They stayed close to avoid becoming separated and losing sight of one another in the dismal murk before reaching the incredibly clear water 4 meters (13 feet) below the surface of the pool. The grayish brown of the bottom silt and rocks materialized out of the gloom and came up to meet them. They leveled off at 2 meters (6 feet), and Pitt made a motion to stop all movement. Carefully, so he didn't stir up a cloud of silt, he removed a stainless steel shaft that was attached to a reel of nylon cord and shoved it into a pocket of silt.

"How are you doing?" Gunn's voice came over the earphones inside Pitt's face mask.

"We've reached bottom and are beginning a circular search for the body," Pitt replied as he began unwinding the line.

Pitt obtained bearings from his compass and began sweeping around the shaft that protruded from the silt, enlarging the search pattern while unreeling the line, as if following the path of a pinwheel. He slowly swam above the muck, scanning from side to side with Giordino following slightly to the side and rear of Pitt's fins. In the transparent liquid void they soon spotted the saponified remains of Doc Miller.

In the few days since he had seen the body it had changed for the worse. Tiny pieces were missing from the exposed skin areas. Pitt was at a loss to explain this until he glimpsed a strange brightly speckled fish with luminous scales dart in and begin nibbling one of Doc's eyes. He brushed away the carnivorous fish, the size of a small trout, and wondered how it came to be stranded in a deep pool in the middle of a jungle.

He gave a hand signal to Giordino who removed a rubberized body bag from a pack that was strapped to his chest above his weight belt. A decomposing body cannot be smelled underwater. That's what they say. Perhaps it was in their minds, but the smell of death seemed to flow through their breathing regulators as if their air tanks were contaminated with it. An impossibility, to be sure, but tell that to rescue teams who have seen the horror of long-immersed dead.

They wasted no time in examining the body but moved as fast as their hands would let them, pulling the body bag over the corpse while trying not to stir up a cloud of silt. The silt did not cooperate, billowing up in a dense cloud, cutting off all visibility. They worked blind, carefully zipping up the bag, making sure no flesh protruded from the seam. When the grisly job was completed, Pitt reported to Gunn.

"We have the body contained and are on our way up."

"Acknowledged," Gunn replied. "We will lower a sling with a stretcher."

Pitt grabbed Giordino's arm through the silt cloud, signaling for a mutual ascent. They began raising the remains of Doc Miller to the sunlight. After reaching the surface, they gently eased the body onto the stretcher and secured it with buckled straps. Then Pitt advised Gunn.

"Ready for lift."

As Pitt watched the stretcher rise toward the rim of the sinkhole, he sadly wished he had known the genuine Steve Miller instead of the imposter. The esteemed anthropologist had been murdered without knowing why. No hint was given by the scum that cut his throat. He never knew that his death was an unnecessary act by a sociopathic killer. He was simply a cast-off pawn in the high-stakes game of stolen art and antiquities.

There was nothing more to be done. Their part of the body retrieval operation was finished. Pitt and Giordino could only float and wait for the winch to lower the cable again. Giordino looked over at Pitt expectantly and removed the breathing regulator from his mouth.

We still have plenty of air, he wrote on a communications board. Why not poke around while we're waiting for the next elevator?

To Pitt the suggestion struck a harmonious chord. Unable to remove his head mask and speak, he replied on his own communications board, Stay close to me and grab hold if struck by surge. Then he gestured downward. Giordino nodded and faithfully swam alongside as they jackknifed and kicked once more toward the floor of the sinkhole.

The puzzle in Pitt's mind was the lack of artifacts in the silt. Bones, yes, there was an overabundance. But after probing the sinkhole's floor for half an hour, they found no sign of ancient artifacts. Nothing except the armor on the intact skeleton he had discovered on his first dive, and the dive gear Pitt had cast off before his climb out of the well. Two minutes was all it took to relocate the site. The bony hand was still raised, one finger pointing in the direction where Miller had lain.

Pitt slowly drifted around the armor-encased Spaniard, examining every detail, occasionally glancing up and around the dim reaches of the sinkhole, alert to any disturbance in the silt that signaled the approach of the mysterious surge. He felt his every movement was followed from deep within the empty eye sockets of the skull. The teeth seemed frozen in a mocking grin, taunting and baiting him at the same time. The sunlight from above filtered through the slime and painted the bones a ghostly shade of green.

Giordino floated nearby, observing Pitt with detached curiosity. He had no clue to what captivated his friend. The old bones held little fascination for Giordino. The remains of a five-hundred-year-old Spaniard conjured up nothing in his imagination, except possibly the eruption that would occur when Shannon Kelsey discovered that her precious archaeological site had been disturbed before she could investigate it.

No such thoughts ran through Pitt's mind. He was beginning to sense that the skeleton did not belong here. He rubbed a finger lightly over the breastplate. A thin smudge of rust came away, revealing smooth, unpitted, uncorroded metal beneath. The leather straps that held the armor against the chest were incredibly well preserved. And so were the fasteners that joined the straps. They had the appearance of metal buckles on old shoes that had sat inside a trunk in an attic for one or two generations.

He swam a few meters away from the skeleton and pulled a bone out of the silt, a tibia by the shape of it. He returned and held it against the Spaniard's protruding forearm and hand. The bone from the silt was much rougher and pitted as well as more deeply stained from the minerals in the water. The bony structure of the skeleton was smooth in comparison. Next he studied the teeth, which were in remarkably good condition. Pitt found caps on two molars, not gold but silver. Pitt was no expert on sixteenth-century dentistry, but he knew that Europeans didn't even begin to fill cavities and cap teeth until the late eighteenth century.

"Rudi?"

"I'm listening," answered Gunn.

"Please send down a line. I want to lift something."

"A line with a small weight attached to the end is on the way."

"Try to drop it where you see our bubbles."

"Will do." There was a pause, and then Gunn's voice came back over Pitt's earphones with a slight edge to it. "Your archaeologist lady is raising hell. She says you can't touch anything down there."

"Pretend she's in Moline, Illinois, and drop the line."

Gunn replied nervously. "She's making a terrible scene up here."

Either drop the line or throw her over the edge," Pitt snapped obstinately.

"Stand by."

Moments later a small steel hook attached to a nylon line materialized through the green void and landed in the silt two meters away. Giordino effortlessly swam over, snagged the line with one hand, and returned. Then, with the finesse of a pickpocket delicately lifting a wallet, Pitt very carefully wrapped the loose end of the line around a strap holding the breastplate to the skeleton and cinched it with the hook. He stared at Giordino and made the thumbs-up gesture. Giordino nodded and was mildly surprised when Pitt released the line, allowing it to slacken and leaving the skeleton where it lay.

They took turns being lifted out of the sinkhole. As the crane raised him by his safety line, Pitt looked down and vowed he would never again enter that odious slough. At the rim, Gunn was there to help swing him onto firm ground and remove his full face mask.

"Thank God, you're back," he said. "That madwoman threatened to shoot off my testicles."

Giordino laughed. "She learned that from Pitt. Just be thankful your name isn't Amaru."

"What. . . what was that?"

"Another story," said Pitt, inhaling the humid mountain air and enjoying every second of it.

He was struggling out of his dive suit when Shannon stormed up to him like a wild grizzly who had her cubs stolen. "I warned you not to disturb any artifacts," she said firmly.

Pitt looked at her for a long moment, his green eyes strangely soft and understanding. "There is nothing left to touch," he said finally. "Somebody beat you to it. Any artifacts that were in your sacred pool a month ago are gone. Only the bones of animals and sacrificial victims are left scattered on the bottom."

Her face turned incredulous and the hazel eyes flew very wide. "Are you certain?"

"Would you like proof?"

"We have our own equipment. I'll dive into the pool and see for myself."

"Not necessary," he advised.

She turned and called to Miles Rodgers. "Let's get suited up."

"You begin probing around in the silt and you will surely die," Pitt said, with all the emotion of a professor lecturing to a physics class.

Maybe Shannon wasn't listening to Pitt, but Rodgers was. "I think we had better listen to what Dirk is saying."

"I don't wish to sound nasty, but he lacks the necessary credentials to make a case."

"What if he's right?" Rodgers asked innocently.

"I've waited a long time to explore and survey the bottom of the pool. You and I came within minutes of losing our lives trying to unlock its secrets. I can't believe there isn't a time capsule of valuable antiquities down there."

Pitt took the line leading down into the water and held it loosely in his hand. "Here is the verification. Pull on this line and I guarantee you'll change your mind."

"You attached the other end?" she challenged him. "To what?"

"A set of bones masquerading as a Spanish conquistador."

"You're beyond belief," she said helplessly.

It was a long time since a woman had stared at him like that. "Do you think I'm a head case? Do you think I enjoy this? I damn well don't enjoy spending my time saving your backside. Okay, you want to die and be buried in a thousand bits and pieces, enjoy the trip."

Uncertainty crept into her expression. "You're not making sense."

"Perhaps a little demonstration is in order." Pitt gently pulled in the line until it became taut. Then he gave it a hard jerk.

For a moment nothing happened. Then a rumbling came from the bottom of the well, swelling in volume, sending tremors through the limestone walls. The violence of the explosion was electrifying. The underwater blast came like the eruption of a huge depth charge as a seething column of white froth and green slime burst out of the sinkhole, splattering everyone and everything standing within 20 meters (66 feet) of the edge. The thunder of the explosion rolled over the jungle as the spray fell back into the sinkhole, leaving a heavy mist that swirled into the sky and temporarily blocked out the sun.

Shannon stood half-drenched and stared down into her beloved sacred well as if she couldn't make up her mind whether or not to be sick. Everyone around the edge stood like statues suddenly frozen in shock. Only Pitt looked as though he'd witnessed an everyday event.

Fading incomprehension and the tentative beginnings of understanding appeared in Shannon's eyes. "How in God's name did you know. . ."

"That there was a booby trap?" Pitt finished. "No great deduction. Whoever buried a good forty-five kilograms of high explosive under the skeleton made two major mistakes. One, why clean out every antiquity but the most obvious? And two, the bones couldn't have been more than fifty years old and the armor hasn't rusted enough to have been underwater for four centuries."

"Who would have done such a thing?" asked Rodgers dazedly.

"The same man who murdered Doc Miller," answered Pitt.

"The imposter?"

"More likely Amaru. The man who took Miller's place didn't want to risk exposure and investigation by Peruvian authorities, not before they cleaned out the City of the Dead. The Solperrzachaco had robbed the sacrificial well of its artifacts long before you arrived. That's why the imposter sent out a call for help when you and Shannon vanished in the sinkhole. It was all part of the plot to make your deaths look like an accident. Although he felt reasonably sure that you'd be sucked into the adjoining cavern by the underwater surge before you could fully search the bottom and realize all artifacts had been removed, he hedged his bets by lowering the phony conquistador into position purely as a red herring to blow you to pieces in the event the surge didn't carry you away."

Shannon's eyes took on a saddened and disillusioned look. "Then all antiquities from the sacred well are gone."

"You can take a small measure of cheer in knowing they were removed and not destroyed," said Pitt.

"They'll turn up," said Giordino consolingly. "They can't remain hidden away in some rich guy's collection forever."

"You don't understand the discipline of archaeology," Shannon said dully. "No scholar can study the artifacts, classify or trace them without knowing their exact site of origin. Now we can learn nothing of the people who once lived here and built the city. A vast archive, a time capsule of scientific information, has been irretrievably lost."

"I'm sorry all your hopes and efforts have come to grief," Pitt said sincerely.

"Grief, yes," she said, thoroughly defeated now. "More like a tragedy."

Rudi Gunn walked back from the helicopter that was transporting Miller's body to the morgue in Lima. "Sorry to interrupt," he said to Pitt. "Our job is finished here. I suggest we pack up the helicopter, lift off, and rendezvous with Dr. Ortiz at the City of the Dead."

Pitt nodded and turned to Shannon. "Well, shall we move on to the next disaster your antiquity looters have left us?"

Dr. Alberto Ortiz was a lean, wiry old bird in his early seventies. He stood off to one side of the helicopter landing site dressed in a white duck shirt and matching pants. A long, flowing, white moustache drooped across his face, making him look like a wanted poster for an aging Mexican bandido. If flamboyance was his trademark, it was demonstrated by a wide-brimmed panama hat sporting a colorful band, a pair of expensive designer sandals, and a tall iced drink in one hand. A Hollywood casting director searching for someone to play a beachcomber in a South Seas epic would easily have decided that Dr. Ortiz fit the role to perfection. He was not what the NUMA men had pictured as Peru's most renowned expert on ancient culture.

He came smiling to greet the newcomers, drink in left hand, right extended for shaking. "You're early," he said warmly in almost perfect English. "I didn't expect you for another two or three days."

"Dr. Kelsey's project was cut short unexpectedly," said Pitt, grasping a strong, callused hand.

"Is she with you?" asked Ortiz, peering around Pitt's broad shoulders.

"She'll be here first thing in the morning. Something about using the afternoon to photograph the carvings on an altar stone beside the well." Pitt turned and made the introductions. "I'm Dirk Pitt and this is Rudi Gunn and Al Giordino. We're with the National Underwater and Marine Agency."

"A great pleasure to meet you gentlemen. I'm grateful for the opportunity to thank you in person for saving the lives of our young people."

"Always a joy to play the palace again," said Giordino, looking up at the battle-scarred temple.

Ortiz laughed at the distinct lack of enthusiasm. "I don't imagine you enjoyed your last visit."

"The audience didn't throw roses, that's for sure."

"Where would you like us to set up our tents, Doctor?" Gunn inquired.

"Nothing of the sort," Ortiz said, his teeth flashing beneath the moustache. "My men have cleaned up a tomb that belonged to a rich merchant. Plenty of room, and it's dry during a rain. Not a four-star hotel, of course, but you should find it comfortable."

"I hope the original owner isn't still in residence," Pitt said cautiously.

"No, no, not at all," replied Ortiz, mistakenly taking him seriously. "The looters cleaned out the bones and any remains in their frantic search for artifacts."

"We could bed down in the structure used by the looters for their headquarters," suggested Giordino, angling for more deluxe accommodations.

"Sorry, my staff and I have already claimed it as our base of operations."

Giordino offered Gunn a sour expression. "I told you to call ahead for reservations."

"Come along, gentlemen," said Ortiz cheerfully. "I'll give you a guided tour of the Pueblo de los Muertos on our way to your quarters."

"The inhabitants must have taken a page from the elephants," said Giordino.

Ortiz laughed. "No, no, the Chachapoyas didn't come here to die. This was a sacred burial place that they believed was a way station on their journey to the next life."

"No one lived here?" asked Gunn.

"Only priests and the workers who built the funeral houses. It was off limits to everyone else."

"They must have had a thriving business," Pitt said, staring at the maze of crypts spread throughout the valley and the honeycomb of tombs in the soaring cliffs.

"The Chachapoyan culture was highly stratified but it did not have a royal elite like the Inca," explained Ortiz. "Learned elders and military captains ruled the various cities in the confederation. They and the wealthy traders could afford to erect elaborate mausoleums to rest between lives. The poor were put in adobe, human-shaped funeral statues."

Gunn gave the archaeologist a curious look. "The dead were inserted into statues?"

"Yes, the body of the deceased was placed in a crouched position, knees tucked under the chin. Then a cone of sticks was placed around the body as a cagelike support. Next, wet adobe was plastered around the support, forming a casing around the body. The final step was to sculpt a face and head on top that vaguely resembled the person inside. When the funeral receptacle was dry, the mourners inserted it into a previously dug niche or handy crevice in the face of the cliff."

"The local mortician must have been a popular guy," observed Giordino.

"Until I study the city in greater detail," said Ortiz, "I'd estimate that it was under continual construction and expansion as a cemetery between A.D. 1200 and A.D. 1500 before it was abandoned. Probably sometime after the Spanish conquest."

"Did the Inca bury their dead here after they subdued the Chachapoyas?" asked Gunn.

"Not to any great extent. I've found only a few tombs that indicate later Inca design and architecture."

Ortiz led them along an ancient avenue made from stones worn smooth by the elements. He stepped inside a bottle-shaped funeral monument constructed of flat stones and decorated with rows of diamond-style motifs intermingled with zigzag designs. The workmanship was precise, with refined attention to detail, and the architecture was magnificent. The monument was topped by a narrow, circular dome 10 meters high (33 feet). The entrance was also formed in the shape of a bottle and was a tight fit, allowing only one man to squeeze through at a time. Steps rose from the street to the exterior threshold outside, and then dropped to the floor inside. The interior funeral chamber had a heavy, damp, musty smell that hit like a punch on the nose. Pitt sensed a haunting grandeur and the ghostly presence of the people who performed the final ceremony and closed the crypt for what they thought would be eternity, never envisaging that it would become a shelter for living men not born for another five hundred years.

The stone floor and the burial niches were empty of funerary objects and swept clean. Curious, smiling faces of carved stone, the size of a serving platter, beamed midway around a corbeled ceiling that stepped up and out from the vertical walls. Hammocks had been strung from sculpted snake heads protruding from the lower walls with wide eyes and open, fanged mouths. Ortiz's workers had also spread straw mats on the floor. Even a small mirror hung from a nail driven into a tight seam between the rows of the masonry.

"I judge it was built about 1380," said Ortiz. "A fine example of Chachapoyan architecture. All the comforts of home except a bath. There is, however, a mountain stream about fifty meters to the south. As for your other personal needs, I'm sure you'll make do."

"Thank you, Dr. Ortiz," said Gunn. "You're most considerate."

"Please, it's Alberto," he replied, raising a bushy white eyebrow. "Dinner at eighteen hundred hours at my place." He gave Giordino a benevolent stare. "I believe you know how to find your way about the city."

"I've taken the tour," Giordino acknowledged.

An invigorating bath in the icy water of the stream to wash off the day's sweat, a shave, a change into warmer clothes to ward off the cold of the Andes night air, and the men from NUMA trooped through the City of the Dead toward the Peruvian cultural authority's command post. Ortiz greeted them at the entrance and introduced four of his assistants from the National Institute of Culture in Chiclayo, none of whom spoke English.

"A drink before dinner, gentlemen? I have gin, vodka, scotch, and pisco, a native white brandy."

"You came well prepared," observed Gunn.

Oritz laughed. "Just because we're working in difficult areas of the country does not mean we can't provide a few creature comforts."

"I'll try your local brandy," said Pitt.

Giordino and Gunn were not as adventurous and stuck with scotch on the rocks. After he did the honors, Ortiz gestured for them to sit in old-fashioned canvas lawn chairs.

"How badly were the artifacts damaged during the rocket attack?" asked Pitt, launching the conversation.

"What few objects the looters left behind were badly crushed by falling masonry. Most of it is shattered beyond restoration, I'm afraid."

"You found nothing worth saving?"

"A thorough job." Ortiz shook his head sadly. "Amazing how they worked so fast to excavate the ruins of the temple, remove the salvageable and undamaged antiquities, and escape with a good four tons of the stuff before we could arrive and catch them in the act. What the early Spanish treasure hunters and their sanctimonious missionary padres didn't plunder from the Inca cities and send back to Seville, the damned huagueros have found and sold. They steal antiquities faster than an army of ants can strip a forest."

"Huagueros?" questioned Gunn.

"The local term for robbers of ancient graves," explained Giordino.

Pitt stared at him curiously. "Where did you learn that?"

Giordino shrugged. "You hang around archaeologists, you're bound to pick up a few expressions."

"It is hard to entirely fault the huaqueros," said Ortiz. "The poor farmers of the high country suffer from terrorism, inflation, and corruption that rob them of what little they can take from the earth. The wholesale looting of archaeological sites and the selling of artifacts by these people enable them to purchase a few small comforts to ease their dreadful poverty."

"Then there is the good with the bad," observed Gunn.

"Unfortunately, they leave nothing but a few scraps of bone and broken pottery for scientists like me to study. Entire buildings-temples and palaces-are gutted and demolished for their architectural ornamentation, the carvings sold for outrageously low prices. Nothing is spared. The stones from the walls are taken away and used as cheap building materials. Much of the architectural beauty of these ancient cultures has been destroyed and lost forever."

"I gather it's a family operation," said Pitt.

"Yes, the search for underground tombs has been carried on from one generation to another for hundreds of years. Fathers, brothers, uncles, and cousins all work together. It has become a custom, a tradition. Entire communities band together to dig for ancient treasures."

"Tombs being their primary target," Gunn presumed.

"That is where most of the ancient treasures are hidden. The riches of most ancient empires were buried with their rulers and the wealthy."

"Big believers in you can take it with you," said Giordino.

"From the Neanderthals to the Egyptians to the Incas," Ortiz continued, "they all believed in a continued life in the great beyond. Not reincarnation, mind you. But life as they lived on earth. So they believed in taking their most prized possessions with them into the grave. Many kings and emperors also took along their favorite wives, officials, soldiers, servants, and prized animals as well as treasure. Grave robbing is as old as prostitution."

"A pity U.S. leaders don't follow in their footsteps," said Giordino sardonically. "Just think, when a President dies, he could order that he be buried with the entire Congress and half the bureaucracy."

Pitt laughed. "A ritual most American citizens would applaud."

"Many of my countrymen feel the same about our government," Ortiz agreed.

Gunn asked, "How do they locate the graves?"

"The poorer huaqueros search with picks and shovels and long metal rods to probe for buried tombs. The wellfunded theft and smuggling organizations, on the other hand, use modern, expensive metal detectors and lowlevel radar instruments."

"Have you crossed paths with the Solpemachaco in the past?" asked Pitt.

"At four other historical sites." Ortiz spat on the ground. "I was always too late. They're like a stench with an unknown source. The organization exists, that much is certain. I have seen the tragic results of their pillage. But I have yet to find hard evidence leading to the bastards who make the payoffs to the huaqueros and then smuggle our cultural heritage into an international underground market."

"Your police and security forces can't put a stop to the flow of stolen treasures?" asked Gunn.

"Stopping the huaqueros is like trying to catch mercury in your hands," answered Ortiz. "The profit is too enormous and there are too many of them. As you have found out for yourselves, any number of our military and government officials can be bought."

"You have a tough job, Alberto," Pitt sympathized. "I don't envy you."

"And a thankless one," Ortiz said solemnly. "To the poor hill people, I am the enemy. And the wealthy families avoid me like the plague because they collect thousands of precious artifacts for themselves."

"Sounds as if you're in a no-win situation."

"Quite true. My colleagues from other cultural schools and museums around the country are in a race to discover the great treasure sites, but we always lose to the huaqueros."

"Don't you receive help from your government?" asked Giordino.

"Obtaining funding from the government or private sources for archaeology projects is an uphill battle. A pity, but it seems no one wants to invest in history."

The conversation drifted to other subjects after one of Ortiz's assistants announced that dinner was ready. Two courses consisted of a pungent beef stew accompanied by bowls of locally grown parched corn and beans. The only touches of more refined dining came from an excellent Peruvian red wine and a fruit salad. Dessert consisted of mangos with syrup.

As they gathered around a warm campfire, Pitt asked Ortiz, "Do you think Tupac Amaru and his men have totally stripped the City of the Dead, or are there tombs and buildings that are still undiscovered?"

Ortiz suddenly beamed like a strobe light. "The huaqueros and their Solpemachaco bosses were here only long enough to loot the obvious, the artifacts easily found on the surface. It will take years to conduct a thorough archaeological excavation of the Pueblo de los Muertos. I fervently believe the bulk of the treasures have yet to be found."

Now that Ortiz was in a happy mood, his stomach warmed by numerous glasses of white brandy, Pitt circled around from left field. "Tell me, Alberto, are you an expert on legends dealing with lost Inca treasure after the Spanish came?"

Ortiz lit a long, narrow cigar and puffed until the end turned red and smoke curled into the dank and increasingly cold night air. "I only know of a few. Tales of lost Inca treasure might not be found in abundant lots if my ancestral cultures had made detailed accounts of their everyday existence. But unlike the Mayans and Aztecs of Mexico, the cultures of Peru did not leave behind an abundance of hieroglyphic symbols. They never devised an alphabet or ideographic system of communication. Except for a scattering of designs on buildings, ceramic pots, and textiles, the records of their lives and legends are few."

"I was thinking of the lost treasure of Huascar," said Pitt.

"You've heard of that one?"

"Dr. Kelsey recounted it. She described an immense golden chain that sounded a bit farfetched."

Ortiz nodded. "That part of the legend happens to be true. The great Inca king, Huayna Capac, decreed that a huge gold chain be cast in honor of the birth of his son, Huascar. Many years later, after Huascar succeeded his father as king, he ordered the royal treasure to be smuggled from the Inca capital at Cuzco and hidden to keep it out of the hands of his brother Atahualpa, who later usurped the kingdom after a lengthy civil war. The vast hoard, besides the golden chain, included life-size statues, thrones, sun disks, and every insect and animal known to the Incas, all sculpted in gold and silver and set with precious gems."

"I've never heard of a treasure that grand," said Gunn.

"The Incas had so much gold they couldn't understand why the Spanish were so fanatical for it. The craze became part of the El Dorado fable. The Spanish died by the thousands searching for the treasure. The Germans and the English, who included Sir Walter Raleigh, all scoured the mountains and jungles, but none ever found it."

"As I understand it," said Pitt, "the chain and the other art treasures were eventually transported to a land beyond the Aztecs and buried."

Ortiz nodded. "So the story goes. Whether it was actually taken north by a fleet of ships has never been verified. It was reasonably proven, however, that the hoard was protected by Chachapoyan warriors who formed the royal guard for Inca kings after their confederation was conquered by Huayna Capac in 1480."

"What is the history of the Chachapoyas?" asked Gunn.

"Their name means Cloud People," replied Ortiz. "And their history has yet to be written. Their cities, as you well know from recent experience, are buried in one of the most impenetrable jungles of the world. As of this date, archaeologists have neither the funds nor the means to conduct extensive surveys and excavations on Chachapoyan ruins."

"So they remain an enigma," said Pitt.

"In more ways than one. The Chachapoya people, according to the Incas, were fair-skinned, with blue and green eyes. The women were said to be very beautiful and became highly prized by both the Incas and the Spanish. They were also quite tall. An Italian explorer found a skeleton in a Chachapoyan tomb that was well over two meters."

Pitt was intrigued. "Close to seven feet?"

"Easily," Ortiz answered.

"Any possibility they might have been descendants of early explorers from the Old World, perhaps the Vikings who might have sailed across the Atlantic, up the Amazon, and settled in the Andes?"

"Theories of early transoceanic migration to South America across both the Atlantic and the Pacific have always abounded," answered Ortiz. "The fancy term for pre-Columbian travel to and from other continents is diffusionism. An interesting concept, not well accepted but not entirely ignored either."

"Is there evidence?" asked Giordino.

"Mostly circumstantial. Ancient pottery found in Ecuador that has the same designs as the Ainu culture of northern Japan. The Spanish, as well as Columbus, reported seeing white men sailing large ships off Venezuela. The Portuguese found a tribe in Bolivia whose beards were more magnificent than the Europeans', contrary to the fact that most Indians lacked abundant facial hair. Reports of -livers and fishermen finding Roman or Grecian amphorae in the waters off Brazil come up routinely."

The giant stone heads from the Olmec culture of Mexico show definite features of black Africans," said Pitt, "while any number of carved stone faces throughout the Mesoamerican cultures have Oriental characteristics."

Ortiz nodded in agreement. "The serpent heads that decorate many of the Mayan pyramids and temples are the spitting image of dragon heads carved in Japan and China."

"But is there hands-on proof?" asked Gunn.

"No objects that can be conclusively proven as manufactured in Europe have yet to be found."

"The skeptics have a strong case in the lack of pottery lathes or wheeled vehicles," Gunn added.

"True," agreed Ortiz. "The Mayans did adopt the wheel for children's toys but never for practical use. Not surprising when you consider they had no beasts 'of burden until the Spanish introduced the horse and oxen."

"But you would think they could have found a purpose for the wheel, say for hauling construction materials," Gunn persisted.

"History tells us that the Chinese developed the wheelbarrow six hundred years before it found its way to Europe," Ortiz countered.

Pitt downed the last of his brandy. "It doesn't seem possible an advanced civilization existed in such a remote region without some kind of outside influence."

"The people living in the mountains today, descendants of the Chachapoyas, many of them still fair-skinned with blue and green eyes, speak of a godlike man who appeared among their ancestors from the eastern sea many centuries ago. He taught them building principles, the science of the stars, and the ways of religion."

"He must have forgotten to teach them how to write," quipped Giordino.

"Another nail in the coffin of pre-Columbian contact," said Gunn.

"This holy man had thick white hair and a flowing beard," Ortiz continued. "He was extremely tall, wore a long white robe, and preached goodness and charity toward all. The rest of the story is too close to that of Jesus to be taken literally-- the natives must have introduced events from Christ's life into the ancient story after they were converted to Christianity. He traveled the land, healing the sick, making the blind see again, working all sorts of miracles. He even walked on water. The people raised temples to him and carved his likeness in wood and stone. None of these portraits, I might add, has ever been found. Almost verbatim, the same myth has come down through the ages from the early Mexican cultures in the form of Quetzalcoatl, the ancient god of old Mexico."

"Do you believe any part of the legend?" asked Pitt.

Ortiz shook his head. "Not until I excavate something substantial that I can positively authenticate. We may, however, have some answers quite soon. One of your universities in the United States is currently running DNA tests on Chachapoyan remains removed from tombs. If successful, they will be able to confirm whether the Chachapoyas came from Europe or evolved independently."

"What about Huascar's treasure?" said Pitt, bringing the conversation back on track.

"A discovery that would stun the world," Ortiz answered. "I'd like to think the hoard still exists in some forgotten cave in Mexico." Then he exhaled a cloud of cigar smoke and stared at the evening stars. "The chain would be a fabulous discovery. But for an archaeologist, the great finds would be the huge solid gold sun disk and the royal golden mummies that vanished along with the chain."

"Golden mummies," echoed Gunn. "Did the Incas preserve their dead like the Egyptians?"

"The preservation process was not nearly as complex as that practiced by the Egyptians," explained Ortiz. "But the bodies of the supreme rulers, or Sapa Incas as they were called, were encased in gold and became cult objects in the people's religious practices. The mummies of the dead kings lived in their own palaces, were frequently reclothed with fresh wardrobes, served sumptuous feasts, and maintained harems of the most beautiful women. Chosen as attendants, I might add, not to indulge in necrophilia."

Giordino stared over the shadows of the city. "Sounds like a waste of taxpayers' money."

"A large body of priests supervised the upkeep," Ortiz continued, "acquiring a lucrative interest in keeping the dead kings happy. The mummies were often carried around the country in great splendor, as if they were still heads of state. Needless to say, this absurd love affair with the dead caused a great drain on Inca financial resources, helping immeasurably to topple the empire during the Spanish invasion."

Pitt zipped his leather jacket against the cold and said, "While on board our ship, Dr. Kelsey received a message concerning a stolen suit of gold that was traced to a collector in Chicago."

Ortiz looked thoughtful and nodded. "Yes, the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo. It covered the mummy of a great general called Naymlap who was the right-hand advisor to an early Inca king. Before leaving Lima, I heard that American Customs agents had tracked it down, only to lose it again."

"Lose it?" For some reason Pitt didn't feel vastly surprised.

"The director of our National Cultural Ministry was about to board a plane to the United States to lay claim to the mummy and the body suit when he was informed that your Customs agents were too late. Thieves made off with it while they had the owner under surveillance."

"Dr. Kelsey said that images engraved on the suit depicted the voyage of the fleet that carried the treasure to Mexico."

"Only a few of the images were deciphered. Modern scholars never had a chance to study the suit properly before it was stolen from its case in the museum in Seville."

"It's conceivable," suggested Pitt, "that whoever grabbed the suit this time is on the trail of the golden chain."

"A credible conclusion," Ortiz agreed.

"Then the thieves have an inside track," said Giordino.

"Unless someone else discovers the Drake quipu," Pitt said slowly, "and gets there first."

"Ah yes, the infamous jade box," Ortiz sighed skeptically. "A fanciful tale that has refused to die. So you also know about the legendary rope trick giving directions to the golden chain?"

"You sound dubious," said Pitt.

"No hardcore evidence. All reports are too flimsy to take seriously."

"You could write a thick book about the superstitions and legends that were proven to be true."

"I am a scientist and a pragmatist," said Ortiz. "If such a quipu exists, I would have to hold it in my own hands, and even then I wouldn't be fully convinced of its authenticity."

"Would you think me mad if I told you I was going to hunt for it?" asked Pitt.

"No madder than the thousands of men throughout history who have chased over the horizon after a nebulous dream." Ortiz paused, flicked the ash from his cigar, and then stared heavily at Pitt through somber eyes. "Be forewarned. The one who finds it, if it really exists, will be rewarded with success and then doomed to failure."

Pitt stared back. "Why doomed to failure?"

"An amauta, an educated Inca who could understand the text, and a quipu-mayoc, a clerk who recorded on the device, can't help you."

"What are you telling me?"

"Simply put, Mr. Pitt. The last people who could have read and translated the Drake quipu for you have been dead for over four hundred years."

In a remote, barren part of the southwest desert, a few kilometers east of Douglas, Arizona, and only 75 meters (246 feet) from the border between Mexico and the United States, the hacienda La princesa loomed like a Moorish castle at an oasis. It was named by the original owner, Don Antonio Diaz, in honor of his wife, Sophia Magdalena, who died during childbirth and was entombed in an ornate, baroque crypt that stood enclosed within a high-walled garden. Diaz, a peon who became a miner, struck it rich and took an immense amount of silver out of the nearby Huachuca Mountains.

The huge feudal estate rested on lands that were originally granted to Diaz by General, later President of Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, for helping to finance the despot's campaigns to subdue Texas and later launch a war against the United States. This was a disaster that Santa Ana compounded by selling the Mesilla Valley in southern Arizona to the United States, a transaction known as the Gadsden Purchase. The border shift left Diaz's hacienda in a new country a stone's throw from the old.

The hacienda was passed down through the Diaz family until 1978, when the last surviving member, Maria Estala, sold it to a rich financier shortly before she died at ninety-four. The new owner, Joseph Zolar, made no mystery of the fact that he acquired the hacienda as a retreat for entertaining celebrities, high government officials, and wealthy business leaders on a lavish scale. Zolar's hacienda quickly became known as the San Simeon of Arizona. His high-profile guests were flown or bused to the estate and his parties were dutifully reported in all the gossip columns and photographed for the slick magazines around the country.

An antiquarian and fanatical art collector, Zolar had amassed a vast accumulation of art objects and antiques, both good and bad. But every piece was certified by experts and government agents as having been legally sold from the country of origin and imported with the proper papers. He paid his taxes, his business dealings were aboveboard, and he never allowed his guests to bring drugs into his home. No scandal had ever stained Joseph Zolar.

He stood on a roof terrace amid a forest of potted plants and watched as a private jet touched down on the estate runway that stretched across the desert floor. The jet was painted a golden tan with a bright purple stripe running along its fuselage. Yellow letters on the stripe read Zolar International. He watched as a man casually dressed in a flowered sport shirt and khaki shorts left the aircraft and settled in the seat of a waiting golf cart.

The eyes below Zolar's surgically tightened lids glittered like gray crystal. The pinched, constantly flushed face complemented the thin, receding, brushed-back hair that was as dull red as Mexican saltillo tile. He was somewhere in his late fifties, with a face that was fathomless, a face that had rarely been out of an executive office or a boardroom, a face that was tempered by hard decisions and cold from issuing death warrants when he felt they were required. The body was small but hunched over like a vulture about to take wing. Dressed in a black silk jumpsuit, he wore the indifferent look of a Nazi concentration camp officer who considered death about as interesting as rain.

Zolar waited at the top of the stairs as his guest climbed toward the terrace. They greeted each other warmly and embraced. "Good to see you in one piece, Cyrus."

Sarason grinned. "You don't know how close you came to losing a brother."

"Come along, I've held lunch for you." Zolar led Sarason through the maze of potted plants to a lavishly set table beneath a palapa roof of palm fronds. "I've selected an excellent chardonnay and my chef has prepared a delicious braised pork loin."

"Someday I'm going to pirate him away from you," said Sarason.

"Fat chance." Zolar laughed. "I've spoiled him. He enjoys too many perks to jump ship."

"I envy your lifestyle."

"And I yours. You've never lost your spirit of adventure. Always skirting death and capture by police in some desert or jungle when you could conduct business out of a luxurious corporate office and delegate the dirty work to others."

"A nine-to-five existence was never in my blood," said Sarason. "I find wallowing in dirty dealings an exciting challenge. You should join me sometime."

"No, thank you. I prefer the comforts of civilization."

Sarason noticed a table with what looked like four weathered tree limbs about one meter in length lying across its surface. Intrigued, he walked over and studied them more closely. He recognized them as sun-bleached roots of cottonwood trees that had grown naturally into grotesque human-shaped figures, complete with torsos, arms and legs, and rounded heads. Faces were crudely carved in the heads and painted with childlike features. "New acquisitions?" he asked.

"Very rare religious ceremonial idols belonging to an obscure tribe of Indians," answered Zolar.

"How did you come by them?"

"A pair of illegal artifact hunters found them in an ancient stone dwelling they discovered under the overhang of a cliff."

"Are they authentic?"

"Yes, indeed." Zolar took one of the idols and stood it on its feet. "To the Montolos, who live in the Sonoran Desert near the Colorado River, the idols represent the gods of the sun, moon, earth, and life-giving water. They were carved centuries ago and used in special ceremonies to mark the transition of boys and girls into young adulthood. The rite is full of mysticism and staged every two years. These idols are the very core of the Montolo religion."

"What do you estimate they're worth?"

"Possibly two hundred thousand dollars to the right collector."

"That much?"

Zolar nodded. "Providing the buyer doesn't know about the curse that stalks those who possess them."

Sarason laughed. "There is always a curse."

Zolar shrugged. "Who can say? I do have it on good authority that the two thieves have suffered a run of bad luck. One was killed in an auto accident and the other has contracted some sort of incurable disease."

"And you believe that hokum?"

"I only believe in the finer things of life," said Zolar, taking his brother by the arm. "Come along. Lunch awaits."

After the wine was poured by a serving lady, they clinked glasses and Zolar nodded at Sarason. "So, brother, tell me about Peru."

It always amused Sarason that their father had insisted on his sons and daughters adopting and legalizing different surnames. As the oldest, only Zolar bore the family name. The far-flung international trade empire that the senior Zolar had amassed before he died was divided equally between his five sons and two daughters. Each had become a corporate executive officer of either an art and antique gallery, an auction house, or an import/export firm. The family's seemingly separate operations were in reality one entity, a jointly owned conglomerate secretly known as the Solpemachaco. Unknown and unregistered with any international government financial agencies or stock markets, its managing director was Joseph Zolar in his role as family elder.

"Nothing short of a miracle that I was able to save most of the artifacts and successfully smuggle them out of the country after the blunders committed by our ignorant rabble. Not to mention the intrusion by members of our own government."

"U.S. Customs or drug agents?" asked Zolar.

"Neither. Two engineers from the National Underwater and Marine Agency. They showed up out of nowhere when Juan Chaco sent out a distress call after Dr. Kelsey and her photographer became trapped in the sacred well."

"How did they cause problems?"

Sarason related the entire story from the murder of the true Dr. Miller by Amaru to the escape of Pitt and the others from the Valley of the Viracocha to the death of Juan Chaco. He finished by giving a rough tally of the artifacts he had salvaged from the valley, and how he arranged to have the cache transported to Callao, then smuggled out of Peru in a secret cargo compartment inside an oil tanker owned by a subsidiary of Zolar International. It was one of two such ships used for the express purpose of slipping looted and stolen art in and out of foreign countries while transporting small shipments of crude oil.

Zolar stared into the desert without seeing it. "The Aztec Star. She is scheduled to reach San Francisco in four days."

"That puts her in brother Charles's sphere of activity."

"Yes, Charles has arranged for your shipment to be transported to our distribution center in Galveston where he will see to the restoration of the artifacts." Zolar held his glass up to be refilled. "How is the wine?"

"A classic," answered Sarason, "but a bit dry for my taste."

"Perhaps you'd prefer a sauvignon blanc from Touraine. It has a pleasing fruitiness with a scent of herbs."

"I never acquired your taste for fine wines, brother. I'll settle for a beer."

Zolar did not have to instruct his serving lady. She quietly left them and returned in minutes with an iced glass and a bottle of Coors beer.

"A pity about Chaco," said Zolar. "He was a loyal associate."

"I had no choice. He was running scared after the fiasco in the Valley of Viracocha and made subtle threats to unveil the Solpemachaco. It would not have been wise to allow him to fall into the hands of the Peruvian Investigative Police."

"I trust your decisions, as I always have. But there is still Tupac Amaru. What is his situation?"

"He should have died," replied Sarason. "Yet when I returned to the temple after the attack of our gun-happy mercenaries, I found him buried under a pile of rubble and still breathing. As soon as the artifacts were cleared out and loaded aboard three additional military helicopters, whose flight crews I was forced to buy off at a premium, I paid the local huaqueros to carry him to their village for care. He should be back on his feet in a few days."

"You might have been wise to remove Amaru too."

"I considered it. But he knows nothing that could lead international investigators to our doorstep."

"Would you like another serving of pork?"

"Yes, please."

"Still, I don't like having a mad dog loose around the house."

"Not to worry. Oddly, it was Chaco who gave me the idea of keeping Amaru on the payroll."

"Why, so he can murder little old ladies whenever the mood strikes him?"

"Nothing so ludicrous." Sarason smiled. "The man may well prove to be a valuable asset."

"You mean as a hired killer."

"I prefer to think of him as someone who eliminates obstacles. Let's face it, brother. I can't continue eliminating our enemies by myself without risk of eventual discovery and capture. The family should consider itself fortunate that I am not the only one who has the capacity to kill if necessary. Amaru makes an ideal executioner. He enjoys it."

"Just be sure you keep him on a strong leash when he's out of his cage."

"Not to worry," said Sarason firmly. Then he changed the subject. "Any buyers in mind for our Chachapoyan merchandise?"

"A drug dealer by the name of Pedro Vincente," replied Zolar. "He hungers after anything that's pre-Columbian. He also pays a cash premium since it's a way for him to launder his drug profits."

"And you take the cash and use it to finance our underground art and artifact operations."

"An equitable arrangement for all concerned."

"How soon before you make the sale?"

"I'll set up a meeting with Vincente right after Sister Marta has your shipment cleaned up and ready for display. You should have your share of the profits within ten days."

Sarason nodded and gazed at the bubbles in his beer. "I think you see through me, Joseph. I'm seriously considering retiring from the family business while I'm still healthy."

Zolar looked at him with a shifty grin. "You do and you'll be throwing away two hundred million dollars."

"What are you talking about?"

"Your share of the treasure."

Sarason paused with a forkful of pork in front of his mouth. "What treasure?"

"You're the last of the family to learn what ultimate prize is within our grasp."

"I don't follow you."

"The object that will lead us to Huascar's treasure." Zolar looked at him slyly for a moment, then smiled. "We have the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo."

The fork dropped to the plate as Sarason stared in total incredulity. "You found Naymlap's mummy encased in his suit of gold? It is actually in your hands?"

"Our hands, little brother. One evening, while searching through our father's old business records, I came upon a ledger itemizing his clandestine transactions. It was he who masterminded the mummy's theft from the museum in Spain."

"The old fox, he never said a word."

"He considered it the highlight of his plundering career, but too hot a subject to reveal to his own family."

"How did you track it down?"

"Father recorded the sale to a wealthy Sicilian mafioso. I sent our brother Charles to investigate, not expecting him to learn anything from a trail over seventy years old. Charles found the late mobster's villa and met with the son, who said his father had kept the mummy and its suit hidden away until he died in 1984 at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. The son then sold the mummy on the black market through his relatives in New York. The buyer was a rich junk dealer in Chicago by the name of Rummel."

"I'm surprised the son spoke to Charles. Mafia families are not noted for revealing their involvement with stolen goods."

"He not only spoke," said Zolar, "but received our brother like a long=lost relative and cooperated wholeheartedly by providing the name of the Chicago purchaser."

"I underestimated Charles," Sarason said, finishing off his final morsel of braised pork. "I wasn't aware of his talent for obtaining information."

"A cash payment of three million dollars helped immeasurably."

Sarason frowned. "A bit generous, weren't we? The suit can't be worth more than half that much to a collector with deep pockets who has to keep it hidden."

"Not at all. A cheap investment if the engraved images on the suit lead us to Huascar's golden chain."

"The ultimate prize," Samson repeated his brother's phrase. "No single treasure in world history can match its value."

"Dessert?" Zolar asked. "A slice of chocolate apricot torte?"

"A very small slice and coffee, strong," answered Sarason. "How much extra did it cost to buy the suit from the junk dealer?"

Zolar nodded, and again his serving lady silently complied. "Not a cent. We stole it. As luck would have it, our brother Samuel in New York had sold Rummel most of his collection of illegal pre-Columbian antiquities and knew the location of the concealed gallery that held the suit. He and Charles worked together on the theft."

"I still can't believe it's in our hands."

"A near thing too. Charles and Sam barely smuggled it from Rummel's penthouse before Customs agents stormed the place."

Do you think they were tipped of?"

Zolar shook his head. "Not by anyone on our end. Our brothers got away clean."

"Where did they take it?" asked Sarason.

Zolar smiled, but not with his eyes. "Nowhere. The mummy is still in the building. They rented an apartment six floors below Rummel and hid it there until we can safely move it to Galveston for a proper examination. Both Rummel and the Customs agents think it was already smuggled out of the building by a moving van."

"A nice touch. But what happens now? The images engraved in the gold body casing have to be deciphered. Not a simple exercise."

"I've hired the finest authorities on Inca art to decode and interpret the glyphs. A husband and wife team. He's an anthropologist and she's an archaeologist who excels as a decoding analyst with computers."

"I should have known you'd cover every base," said Sarason, stirring his coffee. "But we'd better hope their version of the text is correct, or we'll be spending a lot of time and money chasing up and down Mexico after ghosts."

Time is on our side," Zolar assured him confidentially. "Who but us could possibly have a clue to the treasure's burial site?"

After a fruitless excursion to the archives of the Library of Congress, where he had hoped to find documentary evidence leading to the Concepcion's ultimate fate, Julien Perlmutter sat in the vast reading room. He closed a copy of the diary kept by Francis Drake and later presented to Queen Elizabeth, describing his epic voyage. The diary, lost for centuries, had only recently been discovered in the dusty basement of the royal archives in England.

He leaned his great bulk back in the chair and sighed. The diary added little to what he already knew. Drake had sent the Concepcion back to England under the command of the Golden Hind's sailing master, Thomas Cuttill. The galleon was never seen again and was presumed lost at sea with all hands.

Beyond that, the only mention of the fate of the Concepcion was unverified. It came from a book Perlmutter could recall reading on the Amazon River, published in 1939 by journalist/explorer Nicholas Bender, who followed the routes of the early explorers in search of El Dorado. Perlmutter called up the book from the library staff and reexamined it. In the Note section there was a she-t reference to a 1594 Portuguese survey expedition that had come upon an Englishman living with a tribe of local inhabitants beside the river. The Englishman claimed that he had served under the English sea dog, Francis Drake, who placed him in command of a Spanish treasure galleon that was swept into a jungle by an immense tidal wave. The Portuguese thought the man quite mad and continued on their mission, leaving him in the village where they found him.

Perlmutter made a note of the publisher. Then he signed the Drake diary and Bender's book back to the library staff and caught a taxi home. He felt discouraged, but it was not the first time he had failed to run down a clue to a historical puzzle from the twenty-five million books and forty million manuscripts in the library. The key to unlocking the mystery of the Concepcion, if there was one, had to be buried somewhere else.

Perlmutter sat in the backseat of the cab and stared out the window at the passing automobiles and buildings without seeing them. He knew from experience that each research project moved at a pace all its own. Some threw out the key answers with a shower of fireworks. Others entangled themselves in an endless maze of dead ends and slowly died without a solution. The Concepcion enigma was different. It appeared as a shadow that eluded his grip. Did Nicholas Bender quote a genuine source, or did he embellish a myth as so many nonfiction authors were prone to do?

The question was still goading his mind when he walked into the clutter that was his office. A ship's clock on the mantel read three thirty-five in the afternoon. Still plenty of time to make calls before most businesses closed. He settled into a handsome leather swivel chair behind his desk and punched in the number for New York City information. The operator gave him the number of Bender's publishing house almost before he finished asking for it. Then Perlmutter poured a snifter of Napoleon brandy and waited for his call to go through. No doubt one more wasted effort, he thought. Bender was probably dead by now and so was his editor.

"Falkner and Massey," answered a female voice heavy with the city's distinct accent.

"I'd like to talk to the editor of Nicholas Bender, please."

Nicholas Bender?"

"He's one of your authors."

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know the name."

"Mr. Bender wrote nonfiction adventure books a long time ago. Perhaps someone who has been on your staff for a number of years might recall him?"

"I'll direct you to Mr. Adams, our senior editor. He's been with the company longer than anyone I know."

"Thank you."

There was a good thirty-second pause, and then a man answered. "Frank Adams here."

"Mr. Adams, my name is St. Julien Perlmutter."

"A pleasure, Mr. Perlmutter. I've heard of you. You're down in Washington, I believe."

"Yes, I live in the capital."

"Keep us in mind should you decide to publish a book on maritime history."

"I've yet to finish any book I started." Perlmutter laughed. "We'll both grow old waiting for a completed manuscript from me."

"At seventy-four, I'm already old," said Adams congenially.

"The very reason I rang you," said Perlmutter. "Do you recall a Nicholas Bender?"

"I do indeed. He was somewhat of a soldier of fortune in his youth. We've published quite a few of the books he wrote describing his travels in the days before globetrotting was discovered by the middle class."

"I'm trying to trace the source of a reference he made in a book called On the Trail of El Dorado."

"That's ancient history. We must have published that book back in the early forties."

"Nineteen thirty-nine to be exact."

"How can I help you?"

"I was hoping Bender might have donated his notes and manuscripts to a university archive. I'd like to study them."

"I really don't know what he did with his material," said Adams. "I'll have to ask him."

"He's still alive?" Perlmutter asked in surprise.

"Oh dear me, yes. I had dinner with him not more than three months ago."

"He must be in his nineties."

"Nicholas is eighty-four. I believe he was just twenty-five when he wrote On the Trail of El Dorado. That was only the second of twenty-six books we published for him. The last was in 1978, a book on hiking in the Yukon."

"Does Mr. Bender still have all his mental faculties?"

"He does indeed. Nicholas is as sharp as an icepick despite his poor health."

"May I have a number where I can reach him?"

"I doubt whether he'll take any calls from strangers. Since his wife died, Nicholas has become somewhat of a recluse. He lives on a small farm in Vermont, sadly waiting to die."

"I don't mean to sound heartless," said Perlmutter. "But it is most urgent that I speak to him."

"Since you're a respected authority on maritime lore and a renowned gourmand, I'm sure he wouldn't mind talking to you. But first, let me pave the way just to play safe. What is your number should he wish to call you direct?"

Perlmutter gave Adams the phone number for the line he used only for close friends. "Thank you, Mr. Adams. If I ever do write a manuscript on shipwrecks, you'll be the first editor to read it."

He hung up, ambled into his kitchen, opened the refrigerator, expertly shucked a dozen Gulf oysters, poured a few drops of Tabasco and sherry vinegar into the open shells, and downed them accompanied by a bottle of Anchor Steam beer. His timing was perfect. He had no sooner polished off the oysters and dropped the empty bottle in a trash compactor when the phone rang.

"Julien Perlmutter here."

"Hello," replied a remarkably deep voice. "This is Nicholas Bender. Frank Adams said you wished to speak to me."

"Yes, sir, thank you. I didn't expect you to call me so soon."

"Always delighted to talk to someone who has read my books," said Bender cheerfully. "Not many of you left."

"The book I found of interest was On the Trail of El Dorado."

"Yes, Yes, I nearly died ten times during that trek through hell."

"You made a reference to a Portuguese survey mission that found a crewman of Sir Francis Drake living among the natives along the Amazon River."

"Thomas Cuttill," Bender replied without the slightest hesitation. "I recall including the event in my book, yes."

"I wonder if you could refer me to the source of your information," said Perlmutter, his hopes rising with Bender's quick recollection.

"If I may ask, Mr. Perlmutter, what exactly is it you are pursuing?"

"I'm researching the history of a Spanish treasure galleon captured by Drake. Most reports put the ship lost at sea on its way back to England. But according to your account of Thomas Cuttill, it was carried into a rain forest on the crest of a tidal wave."

"That's quite true," replied Bender. "I'd have looked for her myself if I had thought there was the slightest chance of finding anything. But the jungle where she disappeared is so thick you'd literally have to stumble and fall on the wreck before you'd see it."

"You're that positive the Portuguese account of finding Cuttill is not just a fabrication or a myth?"

"It is historical fact. There is no doubt about that."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I own the source."

Perlmutter was momentarily confused. "I'm sorry, Mr. Bender. I miss your point."

"The point is, Mr. Perlmutter, I have in my possession the journal of Thomas Cuttill."

"The hell you say?" Perlmutter blurted.

"Indeed," Bender answered triumphantly. "Cuttill gave it to the leader of the Portuguese survey party with the request that it be sent to London. The Portuguese, however, turned it over to the viceroy at Macapa. He included it with dispatches he forwarded to Lisbon, where it passed through any number of hands before ending up in an antique bookstore, where I bought it for the equivalent of thirty-six dollars. That was a lot of money back in 1937, at least to a lad of twenty-three who was wandering the globe on a shoestring."

"The journal must be worth considerably more than thirty-six dollars today."

"I'm sure of it. A dealer once offered me ten thousand for it."

"You turned him down?"

"I've never sold mementos of my journeys so someone else could profit."

"May I fly up to Vermont and read the journal?" asked Perlmutter cautiously.

"I'm afraid not."

Perlmutter paused as he wondered how to persuade Bender to allow him to examine Cuttill's journal. "May I ask why?"

"I'm a sick old man," Bender replied, "whose heart refuses to stop."

"You certainly don't sound ill."

"You should see me. The diseases I picked up during my travels have returned to ravage what's left of my body. I am not a pretty sight, so I rarely entertain visitors. But I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Perlmutter. I'll send you the book as a gift."

"My God, sir, you don't have to--"

"No, no, I insist. Frank Adams told me about your magnificent library on ships. I'd rather someone like you, who can appreciate the journal, possess it rather than a collector who simply puts it on a shelf to impress his friends."

"That's very kind of you," said Perlmutter sincerely. "I'm truly grateful for your kind generosity."

"Take it and enjoy," Bender said graciously. "I assume you'd like to study the journal as soon as possible."

"I don't want to inconvenience you."

"Not at all, I'll send it Federal Express so you'll have it in your hands first thing tomorrow."

"Thank you, Mr. Bender. Thank you very much. I'll treat the journal with every bit of the respect it deserves."

"Good. I hope you find what you're looking for."

"So do I," said Perlmutter, his confidence soaring over the breakthrough. "Believe me, so do I."

At twenty minutes after ten o'clock the next morning, Perlmutter threw open the door before the Federal Express driver could punch the doorbell button. "You must be expecting this, Mr. Perlmutter, " said the young blackhaired man, wearing glasses and a friendly smile.

"Like a child waiting for Santa." Perlmutter laughed, signing for the reinforced envelope.

He hurried into his study, pulling the tab and opening the envelope as he walked. He sat at his desk, slipped on his glasses, and held the journal of Thomas Cuttill in his hands as if it were the Holy Grail. The cover was the skin of some unidentifiable animal and the pages were yellowed parchment in a state of excellent preservation. The ink was brown, probably a concoction Cuttill had managed to brew from the root of some tree. There were no more than twenty pages. The entries were written in the quaint Elizabethan prose of the day. The handwriting seemed labored, with any number of misspellings, indicating a man who was reasonably well educated for the times. The first entry was dated March 1578, but was written much later:

Mine strange historie of the passte sexteen yeares, by Thomas Cuttill, formerly of Devonshire.

It was the account of a shipwrecked sailor, cast away after barely surviving the sea's violent fury, only to endure incredible hardships in a savage land in his unsuccessful attempt to return home. As he read the passages, beginning with Cuttill's departure from England with Drake, Perlmutter noted that it was written in a more honest style than narratives of later centuries, which were littered with sermons, romantic exaggerations, and clichés. Cuttill's persistence, his will to survive, and his ingenuity in overcoming terrible obstacles without once begging for the help of God made a profound impression on Perlmutter. Cuttill was a man he would like to have known.

After finding himself the only survivor on the galleon after the tidal wave carried it far inland, Cuttill chose the unknown horrors of the mountains and jungle rather than capture and torture by the avenging Spanish, who were mad as wasps at the audacious capture of their treasure galleon by the hated Englishman, Drake. All Cuttill knew was that the Atlantic Ocean lay somewhere far to the east. How far, he could not even guess. Reaching the sea, and then somehow finding a friendly ship that might carry him back to England would be nothing short of a miracle. But it was the only path open to him.

On the western slopes of the Andes the Spanish had already created colonies of large estates, now worked by the once-proud Incas, who were enslaved and greatly reduced in numbers by inhumane treatment and infection from measles and smallpox. Cuttill crept through the estates under cover of darkness, stealing food at every opportunity. After two months of traveling a few short kilometers each night to elude the Spanish and remain out of sight of any Indians who might give him away, he crossed over the continental divide of the Andes, through the isolated valleys, and descended into the green hell of the Amazon River Basin.

From that point on, Cuttill's life became even more of a nightmare. He struggled through unending swamps up to his waist, fought his way through forests so thick every meter of growth had to be cut away with his knife. Swarms of insects, snakes, and alligators were a constant peril, the snakes often attacking without warning. He suffered from dysentery and fever but still struggled on, often covering only 100 meters (328 feet) during daylight. After several months, he stumbled into a village of hostile natives, who immediately tied him with ropes and kept him imprisoned as a slave for five years.

Cuttill finally managed to escape by stealing a dugout canoe and paddling down the Amazon River at night under a waning moon. Contracting malaria, he came within an inch of dying, but as he drifted unconscious in his canoe he was found by a tribe of long-haired women who nursed him back to health. It was the same tribe of women the Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana had discovered during his futile search for El Dorado. He named the river Amazonas in honor of the Amazon warriors of Greek legend because the native women could draw a bow with any man.

Cuttill introduced a number of labor-saving devices to the women and the few men who lived with them. He built a potter's wheel and taught them how to make huge intricate bowls and water vessels. He constructed wheelbarrows and waterwheels for irrigation, and showed them how to use pulleys to lift heavy weights. Soon looked upon as a god, Cuttill made an enjoyable life among the tribe. He took three of the most attractive women as wives and quickly produced several children.

His desire to see home again slowly dimmed. A bachelor when he left England, he was sure there would be no relatives or old shipmates left to greet his return. And then there was the possibility that Drake, a stern disciplinarian, would demand punishment for losing the Concepcion.

No longer physically capable of suffering the deprivations and hardships of along journey, Cuttill reluctantly decided to spend the remaining years of his life on the banks of the Amazon. When the Portuguese survey party passed through, he gave them his journal, requesting that it be somehow sent to England and placed in the hands of Francis Drake.

After Perlmutter finished reading the journal, he leaned back in his swivel chair, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Any doubts he might have had in the back of his mind about the authenticity of the journal had quickly evaporated. The writing on the parchment showed strong, bold strokes, hardly the work of a madman who was sick and dying. Cuttill's descriptions did not seem fabricated or embellished. Perlmutter felt certain the experiences and hardships suffered by Francis Drake's sailing master truly occurred, and that the account was honestly set down by someone who lived what he wrote.

Perlmutter went back to the heart of his quest, Cuttill's brief mention of the treasures left on board the Concepcion by Drake. He resettled his glasses on his imposing red nose and turned to the final entry of the narrative:

Me mind is as set as a stout ship before a narth winde. I shalle not retarn to mye homelande. I feare Captaan Drake was maddened for me not bringen the achant tresures and the jaade boxe withe the notted stringe to England soos it cud be preezentid to guude Queen Bess. I left it withe the wraaked ship. I shalle be baryed heer among the peapol who have becume my famly. Writen bye the hande of Thomas Cuttill, sailing mastere of the Golden Hinde this unknown day in the yeare 1594

Perlmutter slowly looked up and stared at a seventeenth-century Spanish painting on his wall, depicting a fleet of Spanish galleons sailing across a sea under the golden orange glow of a setting sun. He had found it in a bazaar in Segovia and took it home for a tenth of its real value. He gently closed the fragile journal, lifted his bulk from the chair and began to pace around the room, hands clasped behind his back.

A crewman of Francis Drake had truly lived and died somewhere along the Amazon River. A Spanish galleon was thrown into a coastal jungle by an immense tidal wave. And a jade box containing a knotted cord did exist at one time. Could it still lie amid the rotting timbers of the galleon, buried deep in a rain forest? A four-hundred-year-old mystery had suddenly surfaced from the shadows of time and revealed an enticing clue. Perlmutter was pleased with his successful investigative effort, but he well knew that confirmation of the myth was merely the first enticing step in a hunt for treasure.

The next trick, and the most perplexing one, was to narrow the theater of search to as small a stage as possible.

Hiram Yaeger adored his big supercomputer as much as he did his wife and children, perhaps more, he could seldom tear himself away from the images he projected on his giant monitor to go home to his family. Computers were his life from the first time he looked at the screen on a monitor and typed out a command. The love affair never cooled. If anything it grew more passionate with the passing years, especially after he constructed a monster unit of his own design for NUMA's vast oceans data center. The incredible display of information-gathering power at his beck and call never ceased to astound him. He caressed the keyboard with his fingers as though it were a living entity, his excitement blossoming whenever bits and pieces of data began coming together to form a solution.

Yaeger was hooked into a vast high-speed computing network with the capacity to transfer enormous amounts of digital data between libraries, newspaper morgues, research laboratories, universities, and historic archives anywhere in the world. The "data superhighway," as it was called, could transmit billions of bits of information in the blink of a cursor. By tapping into the gigabit network, Yaeger began retrieving and assembling enough data to enable him to lay out a search grid with a 60 percent probability factor of containing the four-century-old landlocked galleon.

He was so deeply involved with the search for the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion that he did not notice nor hear Admiral James Sandecker step into his sanctum sanctorum and sit down in a chair behind him.

The founder and first director of NUMA was small in stature but filled with enough testosterone to fuel the offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys. A trim fifty-eight, and a fitness addict, he ran five miles every morning from his apartment to the imposing glass building that housed two of the five thousand engineers, scientists, and other employees that formed NUMA, the undersea counterpart of the space agency NASA. His head was covered by straight flaming red hair, graying at the temples and parted in the middle, while his chin bristled with a magnificent Vandyke beard. Despite his addiction to health and nutrition, he was never without a huge cigar made from tobacco personally selected and rolled for him by the owner of a plantation in Jamaica.

Under his direction NUMA had taken the field of oceanography and made it as popular as space science. His persuasive pleas to Congress for funding, supported by twenty top universities with schools in the marine sciences and a host of large corporations investing in underwater projects, had enabled NUMA to take, great strides in deep sea geology and mining, marine archaeology, biological studies of sea life, and studies of the effects of oceans on the earth's climate. One of his greatest contributions, perhaps, was supporting Hiram Yaeger's huge computer network, the finest and largest archive of ocean sciences in the world.

Sandecker was not universally admired by all of Washington's bureaucracy, but he was respected as a hard driving, dedicated, and honest man, and his relationship with the man in the Oval Office of the White House was warm and friendly.

"Making any progress?" he asked Yaeger.

"Sorry, Admiral." Yaeger spoke without turning around. "I didn't see you come in. I was in the midst of collecting data on the water currents off Ecuador."

"Don't stroke me, Hiram," Sandecker said, with the look of a ferret on a hunt. "I know what you're up to."

"Sir?"

"You're searching for a stretch of coastline where a tidal wave struck in 1578."

"A tidal wave?"

"Yes, you know, a big wall of water that barreled in from the sea and carried a Spanish galleon over a beach and into a jungle." The admiral puffed out a cloud of noxious smoke and went on. "I wasn't aware that I had authorized a treasure hunt on NUMA's time and budget."

Yaeger paused and swiveled around in his chair. "You know?"

"The word is knew. Right from the beginning."

"Do you know what you are, Admiral?"

"A canny old bastard who can read minds," he said with some satisfaction.

"Did your Ouija board also tell you the tidal wave and the galleon are little more than folklore?"

"If anyone can smell fact from fiction, it's our friend Dirk Pitt," Sandecker said inflexibly. "Now what have you dug up?"

Yaeger smiled wanly and answered. "I began by dipping into various Geographic Information Systems to determine a logical site for a ship to remain hidden in a jungle over four centuries somewhere between Lima and Panama City. Thanks to global positioning satellites, we can look at details of Central and South America that were never mapped before. Maps showing tropical rain forests that grow along the coastline were studied first. I quickly dismissed Peru because its coastal regions are deserts with little or no vegetation. That still left over a thousand kilometers of forested shore along northern Ecuador and almost all of Colombia. Again, I was able to eliminate about forty percent of the coastline with geology too steep or unfavorable for a wave with enough mass and momentum to carry a five-hundred-and-seventy-ton ship any distance overland. Then I knocked off another twenty percent for open grassland areas without thick trees or other foliage that could hide the remains of a ship."

"That still leaves Pitt with a search area four hundred kilometers in length."

"Nature can drastically alter the environment in five hundred years," said Yaeger. "By starting with antique maps drawn by the early Spaniards, and examining records of changes that occurred in the geology and landscape, I was able to decrease the length of the search grid another hundred and fifty kilometers."

"How did you compare the modern terrain with the old?"

"With three-dimensional overlays," replied Yaeger. "By either reducing or increasing the scale of the old charts to match the latest satellite maps, and then overlaying one upon the other, any variations of the coastal jungles since the galleon vanished became readily apparent. I found that much of the heavily forested coastal jungles had been cut down over the centuries for farmland."

"Not enough," Sandecker said irritably, "not nearly enough. You'll have to whittle the grid down to no more than twenty kilometers if you want to give Pitt a fighting chance of finding the wreck."

"Bear with me, Admiral," said Yaeger patiently. "The next step was to conduct a search through historical archives for recorded tidal waves that struck the Pacific coastline of South America in the sixteenth century. Fortunately, the occasions were well documented by the Spanish during the conquest. I found four. Two in Chile in 1562 and 1575. Peru suffered them in 1570 and again in 1578, the year Drake captured the galleon."

"Where did the latter strike?" Sandecker asked.

"The only account comes from the log of a Spanish supply ship on its way to Callao. It passed over a `crazy sea' that swept inland toward Bahia de Caraquez in Ecuador. Bahia, of course, means bay."

" `Crazy sea' is a good description of water turmoil above an earthquake on the seafloor. No doubt a seismic wave generated by a movement of the fault that parallels the west coast of the entire South American continent."

"The captain also noted that on the return voyage, a village that sat at the mouth of a river running into the bay had vanished."

"There is no question of the date?"

"Right on the money. The tropical rain forest to the east appears to be impenetrable."

"Okay, we have a ballpark. The next question is, what was the wave length?"

"A tidal wave, or tsunami, can have a length of two hundred kilometers or more," said Yaeger.

Sandecker considered this. "How wide is the Bay of Caraquez?"

Yaeger called up a map on his monitor. "The entrance is narrow, no more than four or five kilometers."

"And you say the captain of the supply ship logged a missing village by a river?"

"Yes, sir, that was his description."

"How does the contour of the bay today differ from that period?"

"The outer bay has changed very little," answered Yaeger, after bringing up a program that depicted the old Spanish charts and the satellite map in different colors as he overlaid them on the screen. "The inner bay has moved about a kilometer toward the sea due to silt buildup from the Chone River."

Sandecker stared at the screen for a long moment, then said slowly, "Can your electronic contraption do a simulation of the tidal wave sweeping the galleon onto shore?"

Yaeger nodded. "Yes, but there are a number of factors to consider."

"Such as?"

"What was the height of the wave and how fast was it traveling."

"It would have to be at least thirty meters high and traveling at better than a hundred and fifty kilometers an hour to carry a five-hundred-and-seventy-ton ship so far into the jungle that she has never been found."

"Okay, let's see what I can do with digital imagery."

Yaeger typed a series of commands on his keyboard and sat back, staring at the monitor for several seconds, examining the image he produced on the screen. Then he used a special function control to fine-tune the graphics until he could generate a realistic and dramatic simulation of a tidal wave crossing an imaginary shoreline. "There you have it," he announced. "Virtual reality configuration."

"Now generate a ship," ordered Sandecker.

Yaeger was not an expert on the construction of sixteenth-century galleons, but he produced a respectable image of one rolling slowly on the waves that was equal to a projector displaying moving graphics at sixty frames per second. The galleon appeared so realistic any unsuspecting soul who walked into the room would have thought they were watching a movie.

"How does it look, Admiral?"

"Hard to believe a machine can create something so lifelike," said Sandecker, visibly impressed.

"You should see the latest computer-generated movies featuring the long-gone old stars with the new. I've watched the video of Arizona Sunset at least a dozen times."

"Who plays the leads?"

"Humphrey Bogart, Lionel Barrymore, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts, and Tom Cruise. It's so real, you'd swear they all acted together on the set."

Sandecker laid his hand on Yaeger's shoulder. "Let's see if you can make a reasonably accurate documentary."

Yaeger did his magic on the computer, and the two men watched, fascinated, as the monitor displayed a sea so blue and distinct it was like looking through a window at the real thing. Then slowly, the water began convulsing into a wave that rolled away from the land, stranding the galleon on the seabed, as dry as if it were a toy boat on the blanket of a boy's bed. Then the computer visualized the wave rushing back toward shore, rising higher and higher, then cresting and engulfing the ship under a rolling mass of froth, sand, and water, hurling it toward land at an incredible speed, until finally the ship stopped and settled as the wave smoothed out and died.

"Five kilometers," murmured Yaeger. "She looks to be approximately five kilometers from the coast."

"No wonder she was lost and forgotten," said Sandecker. "I suggest you contact Pitt and make arrangements to fax your computer's grid coordinates."

Yaeger gave Sandecker a queer look indeed. "Are you authorizing the search, Admiral?"

Sandecker feigned a look of surprise as he rose and walked toward the door. Just before exiting, he turned and grinned impishly. "I can't very well authorize what could turn out to be a wild goose chase, now can I?"

"You think that's what we're looking at, a wild goose chase?"

Sandecker shrugged. "You've done your magic. If the ship truly rests in a jungle and not on the bottom of the sea, then the burden falls on Pitt and Giordino to go in that hell on earth and find her."

Giordino contemplated the dried red stain on the stone floor of the temple. "No sign of Amaru in the rubble," he said with an utter lack of emotion.

"I wonder how far he got?" Miles Rodgers asked no one in particular. He and Shannon had arrived from the sacred well an hour before noon on a helicopter piloted by Giordino.

"His mercenary buddies must have carried him off," Pitt surmised.

"Knowing a sadist like Amaru might still be alive," said Rodgers, "is enough to cause nightmares."

Giordino gave a mechanical shrug. "Even if he survived the rocket attack, he'd have died from loss of blood."

Pitt turned and stared at Shannon, who was directing a team of archaeologists and a small army of workers. They were numbering the shattered blocks of stone from the temple in preparation for a restoration project. She seemed to have discovered something in the debris and was bending down for a closer examination. "A man like Amaru doesn't die easily. I don't think we've heard the last of him."

"A grim prospect," said Rodgers, "made worse by the latest news from Lima."

Pitt raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know we received CNN this deep in the Andes."

"We do now. The helicopter that landed about an hour ago belonged to the Peruvian News Bureau. It brought in a team of television reporters and a mountain of equipment. The City of the Dead has become international news."

"So what did they have to report?" pressed Giordino.

"The military and police have admitted their failure to capture the army renegade mercenaries who flew into the valley to slit our throats and remove the artifacts. Nor have investigators tracked down any of Amaru's grave looters."

Pitt smiled at Rodgers. "Not exactly the sort of report that will look good on their resumes."

"The government tried to save face by handing out a story that the thieves dumped the artifacts over the mountains and are now hiding out in the Amazon forests of Brazil."

"Never happened," said Pitt. "Otherwise why would U.S. Customs insist we provide them with an inventory of the artifacts? They know better. No, the loot is not scattered on a mountaintop. If I read the brains behind the Solpemachaco correctly, they're not the kind to panic and run. Their informants in the military alerted them every step of the way, from the minute an assault force was assembled and launched to capture them. They would have also learned the flight plan of the assault transports, and then plotted a safe route to avoid them. After quickly loading the artifacts, they flew to a prearranged rendezvous at an airstrip or seaport where the stolen riches were either transferred aboard a jetliner or a cargo ship. I doubt whether Peru will ever see its historical treasures again."

"A nice tight scenario," said Rodgers thoughtfully. "But aren't you forgetting the bad guys only had one helicopter after we stole their backup?"

"And we knocked that one into a mountain," added Giordino.

"I think if we knew the full truth, the gang of second-rate killers ordered in by the boss who impersonated Doc Miller was followed later by a couple of heavy-lift helicopter transports, probably the old model Boeing Chinooks that were sold around the world. They can lift almost fifty troops or twenty tons of cargo. Enough mercenaries were left on the ground to stow the artifacts. They made their getaway in plenty of time after our escape and before we alerted the Peruvian government, who took their time in mounting an aerial posse."

Rodgers stared at Pitt with renewed admiration. Only Giordino was not impressed. He knew from long years of experience that Pitt was one of that rare breed who could stand back and analyze events as they occurred, down to the finest details. It was a gift with which few men and women are born. Just as the greatest mathematicians and physicists compute incredibly intricate formulas on a level incomprehensible to people with no head for figures, so Pitt operated on a deductive level incomprehensible to all but a few of the top criminal investigators in the world. Giordino often found it maddening that while he was attempting to explain something to Pitt, the mesmeric green eyes would focus on some unseen object in the distance and he would know that Pitt was concentrating on something.