Inca Gold

While Rodgers was pondering Pitt's reconstruction of events, trying to find a flaw, the big man from NUMA turned his attention to Shannon.

She was on her hands and knees on the temple floor with a soft-bristled paintbrush, gently clearing away dust and tiny bits of rubble from a burial garment. The textile was woven from wool and adorned with multicolored embroidery in the design of a laughing monkey with hideous, grinning teeth and coiled snakes for arms and legs.

"What the well-dressed Chachapoyan wore?" he asked.

"No, it's Inca." Shannon did not turn and look up at him but remained absorbed in her work.

"They did beautiful work," Pitt observed.

"The Inca and their ancestors were the finest dyers and weavers in the world. Their fabric weaving techniques are too complicated and time-consuming to be copied today. They are still unrivaled in interlocking tapestry construction. The finest tapestry weavers of Renaissance Europe used eighty-five threads per inch. The early Peruvians used up to five hundred threads per inch. Small wonder the Spanish mistakenly thought the finer Inca textiles were silk."

"Maybe this isn't a good time for pursuing the arts, but I thought you'd like to know that AI and I have finished sketching the artifacts we caught sight of before the roof fell in."

"Give them to Dr. Ortiz. He's most interested in what was stolen."

Then lost in her project, she turned back to the excavation.

An hour later, Gunn found Pitt standing beside Ortiz, who was directing several workers in scraping vegetation from a large sculpture of what appeared to be a winged jaguar with a serpent's head. The menacing jaws were spread wide, revealing a set of frightening curved fangs. The massive body and wings were sculpted into the doorway of a huge burial house. The only entrance was the gaping mouth, which was large enough for a man to crawl into. From the feet to the tip of the raised wings, the stone beast stood over 6 meters high (20 feet).

"Not something you'd want to meet some night in a dark alley," said Gunn.

Dr. Ortiz turned and waved a greeting. "The largest Chachapoyan sculpture yet found. I judge it dates somewhere between A.D. 1200 and I300."

"Does it have a name?" asked Pitt.

"Demonio del Muertos," answered Ortiz. "The demon of the dead, a Chachapoyan god who was the focus of a protective rite connected with the cult of the underworld. Part jaguar, part condor, part snake, he sank his fangs into whoever disturbed the dead and then dragged them into the black depths of the earth."

"He wasn't exactly pretty," said Gunn.

"The demon wasn't meant to be. Effigies ranged in size from one like this to those no larger than a human hand, depending on the deceased's wealth and status. I imagine we'll find them in almost every tomb and grave in the valley."

"Wasn't the god of the ancient Mexicans some kind of serpent?" asked Gunn.

"Yes, Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent who was the most important deity of Mesoamerica, beginning with the Olmecs in 900 B. C. and ending with the Aztecs during the Spanish conquest. The Inca also had sculptures of serpents, but no direct connection has yet been made."

Ortiz turned away as a laborer motioned for him to examine a small figurine he had excavated next to the sculpture. Gunn took Pitt by the arm and led him over to a low stone wall where they sat down.

"A courier from the U.S. Embassy flew in from Lima on the last supply copter," he said, removing a folder from his briefcase, "and dropped off a packet that was faxed from Washington."

"From Yaeger?" Pitt asked anxiously.

"Both Yaeger and your friend Perlmutter."

"Did they strike pay dirt?"

"Read for yourself," said Gunn. "Julien Perlmutter found an account by a survivor of the galleon being swept into the jungle by a tidal wave."

"So far so good."

"It gets better. The account mentions a jade box containing knotted cords. Apparently the box still rests in the rotting timbers of the galleon."

Pitt's eyes lit up like beacons. "The Drake quipu."

"It appears the myth has substance," Gunn said with a broad smile.

"And Yaeger?" Pitt asked as he began sifting through the papers.

"His computer analyzed the existing data and came up with grid coordinates that put the galleon within a ten-square-kilometer ballpark."

"Far smaller than I expected."

"I'd say our prospects of finding the galleon and the jade box just improved by a good fifty percent."

"Make that thirty percent," said Pitt, holding up a sheet from Perlmutter giving the known data on the construction, fittings, and cargo of the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion. "Except for four anchors that were probably carried away during the impact of the tidal wave, the magnetic signature of any iron on board would be too faint to be detected by a magnetometer more than a stone's throw away."

"An EG&G Geometrics G-8136 could pick up a small iron mass from a fair distance."

"You're reading my thoughts. Frank Stewart has a unit on board the Deep Fathom."

"We'll need a helicopter to tow the sensor over the top of the rain forest," said Gunn.

"That's your department," Pitt said to him. "Who do you know in Ecuador?"

Gunn thought a moment, and then his lips creased in a grin. "It just so happens the managing director of the Corporacion Estatal Petrolera Ecuatoriana, the state oil company, is indebted to NUMA for steering his company onto significant deposits of natural gas in the Gulf of Guayaquil."

Then they owe us big, enough to lend us a bird."

"You could safely say that, yes."

"How much time will you need to put the bite on them?"

Gunn held up his wrist and peered through his glasses at the dial of his trusty old Timex. "Give me twenty minutes to call and make a deal. Afterward, I'll inform Stewart that we'll drop in and pick up the magnetometer. Then I'll contact Yaeger and reconfirm his data."

Pitt stared blankly at him. "Washington isn't exactly around the corner. Are you making conference calls with smoke signals or mirrors?"

Gunn reached into his pocket and held up what looked like a small, portable telephone. "The Iridium, built by Motorola. Digital, wireless, you can call anywhere in the world with it."

"I'm familiar with the system," Pitt acknowledged. "Works off a satellite enhancement network. Where did you steal a unit?"

Gunn glanced furtively around the ruins. "Bite your tongue. This is merely a temporary appropriation from the Peruvian television crew."

Pitt gazed fondly at his little bespectacled friend with deep admiration and wonder. It was a rare event when shy Gunn slipped out of his academic shell to perform a sneaky deed. "You're okay, Rudi, I don't care what the celebrity gossip columns say about you."

In terms of artifacts and treasures, the looters had barely scratched the surface in the City of the Dead. They had concentrated on the royal tombs near the temple, but thanks to Pitt's intrusion, they did not have time to do extensive excavation on most of the surrounding tombs. Many of them contained the remains of high officials of the Chachapoya confederation. Ortiz and his team of archaeologists also found what appeared to be untouched burial houses of eight noblemen. Ortiz was overjoyed when he discovered the royal coffins were in pristine condition and had never been opened.

"We will need ten years, maybe twenty, to conduct a full excavation of the valley," said Ortiz during the customary after-dinner conversation. "No discovery in the Americas can touch this one for the sheer number of antiquities. We have to go slow. Not even the seed of a flower or one bead of a necklace can be overlooked. We must miss nothing, because we have an unparalleled opportunity to gain a new understanding of the Chachapoyan culture."

"You have your work cut out for you," said Pitt. "I only hope none of the Chachapoya treasures are stolen during shipment to your national museum."

"Any loss between here and Lima is the least of my worries," replied Ortiz. "Almost as many artifacts are stolen from our museums as from the original tombs."

"Don't you have tight security to protect your country's valuable objects?" asked Rodgers.

"Of course, but professional art thieves are very shrewd. They often switch a genuine artifact with a skillfully done forgery. Months, sometimes years, can go by before the crime is discovered."

"Only three weeks ago," said Shannon, "the National Heritage Museum in Guatemala reported the theft of pre-Columbian Mayan art objects with an estimated value of eight million dollars. The thieves were dressed as guards and carried off the treasures during viewing hours as if they were simply moving them from one wing to another. No one thought to question them."

"My favorite," said Ortiz without smiling, "was the theft of forty-five twelfth-century Shang dynasty drinking vessels from a museum in Bejjing. The thieves carefully disassembled the glass cases and rearranged the remaining pieces to create the illusion that nothing was missing. Three months passed before the curator noticed the pieces were missing and realized they'd been stolen."

Gunn held up his glasses and checked for smudges. "I had no idea art theft was such a widespread crime."

Ortiz nodded. "In Peru, major art and antiquity collections are stolen as often as banks are robbed. What is even more tragic is that the thieves are getting bolder. They have no hesitation in kidnapping a collector for ransom. The ransom is, of course, his art objects. In many cases, they simply murder a collector before looting his house."

"You were lucky only a fraction of the art treasures were plundered from the City of the Dead before the looters were stopped," said Pitt.

"Lucky indeed. But tragically the choice items have already made their way out of the country."

"A wonder the city wasn't discovered by the huaqueros long before now," said Shannon, deliberately avoiding any eye contact with Pitt.

"Pueblo de los Muertos sits in this isolated valley ninety kilometers from the nearest village," replied Ortiz. "Traveling in here is a major ordeal, especially by foot. The native population had no reason to struggle seven or eight days through a jungle to search for something they thought existed only in legends from their dim past. When Hiram Bingham discovered Machu Picchu on a mountaintop the local inhabitants had never ventured there. And though it would not deter a hardened huaquero, descendants of the Chachapoya still believe that all ruins across the mountains in the great forests to the east are protected by a demon god like the one we found this afternoon. They're deathly afraid to go near them."

Shannon nodded. "Many still swear that anyone who finds and enters the City of the Dead will be turned to stone."

"Ah yes," Giordino murmured, "the old `cursed be you who disturb my bones' routine."

"Since none of us feels any stiffening of the joints," said Ortiz jovially, "I must assume the evil spirits that frequent the ruins have lost their spell."

"Too bad it didn't work against Amaru and his looters," said Pitt.

Rodgers moved behind Shannon and placed a possessive hand on the nape of her neck. "I understand you're all bidding us good-bye in the morning."

Shannon looked surprised and made no attempt to remove Rodgers's hand. "Is that true?" she said, looking at Pitt. "You're leaving?"

Gunn answered before Pitt. "Yes, we're flying back to our ship before heading north into Ecuador."

"You're not going to search in Equador for the galleon we discussed on the Deep Fathom?" Shannon asked.

"Can you think of a better place?"

"Why Ecuador?" she persisted.

"Al enjoys the climate," Pitt said, clapping Giordino on the back.

Giordino nodded. "I hear the girls are pretty and wild with lust."

Shannon stared at Pitt with a look of interest. "And you?"

"Me?" Pitt murmured innocently. "I'm going for the fishing."

"You sure can pick 'em," said FBI Chief of Interstate Stolen Art Francis Ragsdale, as he eased into the vinyl seat of a booth in a nineteen-fifties-style chrome diner. He studied the selections on the coin-operated music unit that was wired to a Wurlitzer jukebox. "Stan Kenton, Charlie Barnett, Stan Getz. Who ever heard of these guys?"

"Only people who appreciate good music," Gaskill replied sourly to the younger man. He settled his bulk, which filled two-thirds of the seat on his side of the booth.

Ragsdale shrugged. "Before my time." To him, at thirty-four, the great musicians of an earlier era were only vague names mentioned occasionally by his parents. "Come here often?"

Gaskill nodded. "The food really sticks to your ribs."

"Hardly an epicurean recommendation." Clean-shaven, with black wavy hair and a reasonably well-exercised body, Ragsdale had the handsome face, pleasant gray eyes, and bland expression of a soap opera actor automatically reacting to his counterpart's dialogue. A good investigator, he took his job seriously, maintaining the image of the bureau by dressing in a dark business suit that gave him the appearance of a successful Wall Street broker. With a professional eye for detail, he examined the linoleum floor, the round stools at the counter, the period napkin holders and art deco salt and pepper shakers that were parked beside a bottle of Heinz ketchup and a jar of French's mustard. His expression reflected urbane distaste. He would unquestionably have preferred a more trendy restaurant in midtown Chicago.

"Quaint place. Hermetically sealed within the Twilight Zone."

"Atmosphere is half the enjoyment," said Gaskill resignedly.

"Why is it when I pay, we eat in a class establishment, but when it's your turn we wind up in a geriatric beanery?"

"It's knowing I always get a good table."

"What about the food?"

Gaskill smiled. "Best place I know to eat good chicken."

Ragsdale gave him a look just shy of nausea and ignored the menu, mimeographed entrees between sheets of plastic. "I'll throw caution to the winds and risk botulism with a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee."

"Congratulations on solving the Fairchild Museum theft in Scarsdale. I hear you recovered twenty missing Sung dynasty jade carvings."

"Twenty-two. I've got to admit I passed over the least obvious suspect until I drew blanks on all the probables. The seventy-two-year-old director of security. Who would have figured him? He worked at the museum for close to thirty-two years. A record as clean as a surgeon's scrubbed hands. The curator refused to believe it until the old guy broke down and confessed. He had removed the carved figurines one at a time over a period of four years, returning after closing hours, shutting down the alarm system, picking the locks on the cases and lowering the carvings into the bushes beside the building from a bathroom window. He replaced the stolen carvings in the cases with less valuable pieces stored in a basement vault. The catalogue labels were also altered. He even managed to reset the raised stands in their exact positions without leaving telltale dust-free spots on the floor of the cases. Museum officials were more than impressed with his display technique."

The waitress, the archetype of all those who wait on counters and tables in small-town cafes or truck stop restaurants, pencil in funny little cap, jaws furiously grinding gum, and surgical stockings hiding varicose veins, came over, pencil stub poised above a small green pad.

"Dare I ask what your soup of the day is?" inquired Ragsdale loftily.

"Curried lentil with ham and apple."

Ragsdale did a double take. "Did I hear you correctly?"

"Want me to repeat it?"

"No, no, the curried lentil soup will be fine."

The waitress wagged her pencil at Gaskill. "I know what you want." She yelled their orders to an unseen chef in the kitchen in a voice mixed with ground glass and river gravel.

"After thirty-two years," asked Gaskill, continuing the conversation, "what triggered the museum's security chief to go on a burglary binge?"

"A passion for exotic art," answered Ragsdale. "The old guy loved to touch and fondle the figurines when no one was around, but then a new curator made him take a cut in pay as an austerity measure just when he expected a raise. This made him mad and triggered his desire to possess the jade from the exhibits. It seemed from the first the theft could only have been pulled off by a first-rate team of professionals or someone from the inside. I narrowed it down to the senior security director and obtained a warrant to search his house. It was all there on his fireplace mantel, every missing piece, as if they were bowling trophies." '

"Working on a new case?" asked Gaskill.

"Just had one laid in my lap."

"Another museum theft?"

Ragsdale shook his head. "Private collection. The owner went to Europe for nine months. When he returned home, his walls were bare. Eight watercolors by Diego Rivera, the Mexican painter and muralist."

"I've seen the murals he did for the Detroit Institute of Art."

"Insurance company adjusters are foaming at the mouth. It seems the watercolors were insured for forty million dollars."

"We may have to exchange notes on this one."

Ragsdale looked at him. "You think Customs might be interested?"

"A thin possibility we have a connecting case."

"Always glad to have a helping hand."

"I saw photos of what may be your Rivera watercolors in an old box of Stolen Art Bulletins my sister cleaned out of an old house she bought. I'll know when I compare them with your list. If there is a connection, four of your watercolors were reported missing from the University of Mexico in 1923. If they were smuggled into the United States, that makes it a Customs case."

"That's ancient history."

"Not for stolen art," Gaskill corrected him. "Eight months later, six Renoirs and four Gauguins vanished from the Louvre in Paris during an exhibition."

"I gather you're alluding to that old master art thief, what was his name?"

"The Specter," replied Gaskill.

"Our illustrious predecessors in the Justice Department never caught him, did they?"

"Never even made an I. D."

"You think he had a hand in the original theft of the Riveras?"

"Why not? The Specter was to art theft what Raffles was to diamond thefts. And just as melodramatic. He pulled off at least ten of the greatest art heists in history. A vain guy, he always left his trademark behind."

"I seem to recall reading about a white glove," said Ragsdale.

"That was Raffles. The Specter left a small calendar at the scene of his crimes, with the date of his next theft circled."

"Give the man credit. He was a cocky bastard."

A large, oval plate of what looked like chicken on a bed of rice arrived. Gaskill was also served an appetizing salad on the side. Ragsdale somberly examined the contents of his bowl and looked up at the waitress.

"I don't suppose this greasy spoon serves anything but beer in cans."

The grizzled waitress looked down at him and smiled like an old prostitute. "Honey, we got beer in bottles and we got wine. What'll it be?"

"A bottle of your best burgundy."

"I'll check with the wine steward." She winked through one heavily mascaraed eye before waddling back to the kitchen.

"I forgot to mention the friendly service." Gaskill smiled.

Ragsdale warily dipped a spoon into his soup, suspicion lining his face. He slowly sipped the contents of his spoon as if judging a wine tasting. Then he looked across the booth with widening eyes. "Good heavens. Sherry and pearl onions, garlic cloves, rosemary, and three different kinds of mushrooms. This is delicious." He peered at Gaskill's plate. "What did you order, chicken?"

Gaskill tilted his plate so Ragsdale could see it. "You're close. The house specialty. Broiled marinated quail on a bed of bulgur with currants, scallions, puree of roasted carrots, and leeks with ginger."

Ragsdale looked as if his wife had presented him with triplets. "You conned me."

Gaskill appeared hurt. "I thought you wanted a good place to eat."

"This is fantastic. But where are the crowds? They should be lined up outside."

"The owner and chef, who by the way used to be at the Ritz in London, closes his kitchen on Mondays."

"But why did he open just for us?" Ragsdale asked in awe.

"I recovered his collection of medieval cooking utensils after they were stolen from his former house in England and smuggled into Miami."

The waitress returned and thrust a bottle in front of Ragsdale's face so he could read the label. "Here you go, honey, Chateau Chantilly 1878. You got good taste, but are you man enough to pay eight thousand bucks for the bottle?"

Ragsdale stared at the dusty bottle and faded label and went absolutely numb with surprise. "No, no, a good California cabernet will be fine," he choked out.

"Tell you what, honey. How about a nice medium weight Bordeaux, a 1988 vintage. Say around thirty bucks."

Ragsdale nodded in dumb assent. "I don't believe this."

"I think what really appeals to me about the place," said Gaskill, pausing to savor a bit of quail, "is its incongruity. Who would ever expect to find gourmet food and wine like this in a diner?"

"It's a world apart all right."

"To get back to our conversation," said Gaskill, daintily removing a bone from the quail with his massive hands. "I almost laid my hands on another of the Specter's acquisitions."

"Yes, I heard about your blown stakeout," Ragsdale muttered, having a difficult time bringing his mind back on track. "A Peruvian mummy covered in gold, wasn't it?"

"The Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo."

"Where did you go wrong?"

"Bad timing more than anything. While we were keeping an eye on the owner's penthouse, a gang of thieves acting as furniture movers snatched the mummy from an apartment on a lower floor where it was hidden along with a huge cache of other art and artifacts, all with shady histories."

"This soup is outstanding," Ragsdale said, trying to get the waitress's attention. "I'd better take another look at the menu and order an entree. Have you made up a catalogue yet?"

"End of the week. I suspect there may be between thirty and forty items on your FBI wish list of stolen art in my suspect's underground collection."

The waitress wandered over with the wine and Ragsdale ordered seared salmon with sweet corn, shiitake mushrooms, and spinach. "Good choice, honey," she drawled as she opened the bottle.

Ragsdale shook his head in wonderment before turning his attention back to Gaskill. "What's the name of the collector who squirreled away the hot art?"

"His name is Adolphus Rummel, a wealthy scrap dealer out of Chicago. His name ring a bell?"

"No, but then I've never met a big-time underground buyer and collector who held open house. Any chance Rummel will talk?"

"No way," said Gaskill regretfully. "He's already hired Jacob Morganthaler and is suing to get his confiscated art objects back."

"Jury-rig Jake," Ragsdale said disgustedly. "Friend and champion of indicted black market art dealers and collectors."

"With his acquittal record, we should consider ourselves lucky he doesn't defend murderers and drug dealers."

"Any leads on who stole the golden body suit?"

"None. A clean job. If I didn't know better, I'd say the Specter did it."

Not unless he came back from the dead. He'd have to be well over ninety years old."

Gaskill held up his glass, and Ragsdale poured the wine. "Suppose he had a son, or established a dynasty who carried on the family tradition?"

"That's a thought. Except that no calendars with circled dates have been left at art robberies for over fifty years."

"They could have branched out into smuggling and forgeries and dropped the cornball theatrics. Today's professionals know that modern investigative technology could easily comb enough evidence out of those hokey calendars to put a collar on them."

"Maybe." Ragsdale paused as the waitress brought his salmon. He sniffed the aroma and gazed in delight at the presentation. "I hope it tastes as good as it looks."

"Guaranteed, honey," the old waitress cackled, "or your money back."

Ragsdale drained his wine and poured another glass. "I can hear your mind clicking from here. Where are you headed?"

"Whoever committed the robbery didn't do it to gain a higher price from another black market collector," Gaskill replied. "I did some research on the golden body suit encasing the mummy. Reportedly, it was covered with engraved hieroglyphs, illustrating a long voyage by a fleet of Inca ships carrying a vast treasure, including a huge golden chain. I believe the thieves took it so they can trace a path to the mother lode."

"Does the suit tell what happened to the treasure?"

"Legend says it was buried on an island of an inland sea. How's your salmon?"

"The best I've ever eaten," said Ragsdale happily. "And believe you me, that's a compliment. So where do you go from here?"

"The engravings on the suit have to be translated. The Inca did not have a method of writing or illustrating events like the Mayans, but photographs of the suit taken before its earlier theft from Spain show definite indications of a pictorial graphic system. The thieves will need the services of an expert to decode these glyphs. Interpretation of ancient pictographs is not exactly an overcrowded field."

"So you're going to chase down whoever gets the job?"

"Hardly a major effort. There are only five leading specialists. Two of them are a husband and wife team by the name of Moore. They're considered the best in the field."

"You've done your homework."

Gaskill shrugged. "The greed of the thieves is the only lead I've got."

"If you require the services of the bureau," Ragsdale said, "you have only to call me."

"I appreciate that, Francis, thank you."

"There's one other thing."

"Yes?"

"Can you introduce me to the chef? I'd like an inside track on a table for Saturday night."

After a short layover at the Lima airport to pick up the EG&G magnetometer that was flown in from the Deep Fathom by a U.S. Embassy helicopter, Pitt, Giordino, and Gunn boarded a commercial flight to Quito, the capital of Ecuador. It was after two o'clock in the morning when they landed in the middle of a thunderstorm. As soon as they stepped through the gate they were met by a representative of the state oil company, who was acting on behalf of the managing director Gunn had negotiated with for a helicopter. He quickly herded them into a limousine that drove to the opposite side of the field, followed by a small van carrying their luggage and electronic equipment. The two-vehicle convoy stopped in front of a fully serviced McDonnell Douglas Explorer helicopter. As they exited the limo, Rudi Gunn turned to express his appreciation, but the oil company official had rolled up the window and ordered the driver to move on.

"Makes one want to lead a clean life," Giordino muttered at the efficiency of it all.

"They owed us bigger than I thought," said Pitt, ignoring the downpour and staring blissfully at the big, red, twin-engined helicopter with no tail rotor.

"Is it a good aircraft?" asked Gunn naively.

"Only the finest rotorcraft in the sky today," replied Pitt. "Stable, reliable, and smooth as oil on water. Costs about two point seven-five million. We couldn't have asked for a better machine to conduct a search and survey project from the air."

"How far to the Bay of Caraquez?"

"About two hundred and ten kilometers. We can make it in less than an hour with this machine."

"I hope you don't plan to fly over strange terrain in the dark during a tropical storm," Gunn said uneasily, holding a newspaper over his head as a shield against the rain.

Pitt shook his head. "No, we'll wait for first light."

Giordino nodded toward the helicopter. "If I know only one thing, it's not to take a shower with my clothes on. I recommend we throw our baggage and electronic gear on board and get a few hours sleep before dawn."

"That's the best idea I've heard all day," Pitt agreed heartily.

Once their equipment was stowed, Giordino and Gunn reclined the backrests of two passenger seats and fell asleep within minutes. Pitt sat in the pilot's seat under a small lamp and studied the data accumulated by Perlmutter and Yaeger. He was too excited to be tired, certainly not on the eve of a shipwreck search. Most men turn from Jekyll to Hyde whenever the thought of a treasure hunt floods their brain. But Pitt's stimulant was not greed but the challenge of entering the unknown to pursue a trail laid down by adventurous men like him, who lived and died in another era, men who left a mystery for later generations to unravel.

What kind of men walked the decks of sixteenth-century ships, he wondered. Besides the lure of adventure and the remote prospect of riches, what possessed them to sail on voyages sometimes lasting three or more years on ships not much larger than a modest suburban, two-story house? Out of sight of land for months at a time, their teeth falling out from the ravages of scurvy, the crews were decimated by malnutrition and disease. Many were the voyages completed by only ship's officers, who had survived on more abundant rations than the common seamen. Of the eighty-eight men on board the Golden Hind when Drake battled through the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific, only fifty-six were left when he entered Plymouth Harbor.

Pitt turned his attention to the Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion. Perlmutter had included illustrations and cutaway plans of atypical Spanish treasure galleon that sailed the seas during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Pitt's primary interest was in the amount of iron that was on board for the magnetometer to detect. Perlmutter was certain the two cannon she reportedly carried were bronze and would not register on an instrument that measures the intensity of the magnetic field produced by an iron mass.

The galleon carried four anchors. Their shanks, arms, and flukes were cast from iron, but their stocks were wood and they were secured to hemp lines, not chains. If she had been riding on two anchors, the force of the wave, suddenly striking the ship and hurling it ashore, would have probably snapped the lines. That left a small chance her two spare anchors might have survived intact and still be somewhere in the wreckage.

He totaled up the rest of the iron that might have been on board. The fittings, ship's hardware, the big gudgeons and pintles that held the rudder and allowed it to turn. The trusses (iron brackets that helped support the yards or spars), any shackles or grappling irons. The cook's kettle, carpenter's tools, maybe a keg of nails, small firearms, swords, and pikes. Shot for the cannon.

It was an exercise in the dark. Pitt was hardly an authority on sixteenth-century sailing ships. He could only rely on Perlmutter's best guess as to the total iron mass on board the Concepcion. The best estimate ran between one and three tons. Enough, Pitt fervently hoped, for the magnetometer to detect the galleon's anomaly from 50 to 75 meters in the air.

Anything less, and they'd stand about as much chance of locating the galleon as they would of finding a floating bottle with a message in the middle of the South Pacific.

It was about five in the morning, with a light blue sky turning orange over the mountains to the east, as Pitt swung the McDonnell Douglas Explorer helicopter over the waters of the Bay of Caraquez. Fishing boats were leaving the bay and heading out to sea for the day's catch. The crewmen paused as they readied their nets, looked up at the low-flying aircraft and waved. Pitt waved back as the shadow of the Explorer flickered over the little fishing fleet and darted toward the coastline. The dark, radiant blue of deep water soon altered to a turquoise green streaked by long lines of breaking surf that materialized as the seafloor rose to meet the sandy beach.

The long arms of the bay circled and stopped short of each other at the entrance to the Chone River. Giordino, who was sitting in the copilot's seat, pointed down to the right at a small town with tiny streets and colorfully painted boats drawn up on the beach. The town was surrounded by numerous farms no larger than three or four acres, with little whitewashed adobe houses next to corrals holding goats and a few cows. Pitt followed the river upstream for two kilometers where it foamed white with rapids. Then suddenly the dense rain forest rose like an impenetrable wall and stretched eastward as far as they could see. Except for the river, no opening beneath the trees could be seen.

"We're approaching the lower half of our grid," Pitt said over his shoulder to Gunn, who was hunched over the proton magnetometer.

"Circle around for a couple of minutes while I set up the system," Gunn replied. "Al, can you drop the tow bird for me?"

"As you wish." Giordino nodded, moving from his seat to the rear of the cabin.

Pitt said, "I'll head toward the starting point for our first run and hang around until you're ready."

Giordino lifted the sensor. It was shaped like an air-to-air missile. He lowered it through a floor hatch of the helicopter. Then he unreeled the sensor on its umbilical cable. "Tow bird out about thirty meters," he announced.

"I'm picking up interference from the helicopter," said Gunn. "Give me another twenty meters."

Giordino complied. "How's that?"

"Good. Now hold on while I set the digital and analog recorders."

"What about the camera and data acquisition systems?"

"Them too."

"No need to hurry," said Pitt. "I'm still programming my grid lane data into the satellite navigation computer."

"First time with a Geometrics G-8136?" Giordino asked Gunn.

Gunn nodded. "I've used the model G-801 for marine and ocean survey, but this is my introduction to the aerial unit."

"Dirk and I used a G-8136 to locate a Chinese airliner that crashed off Japan last year. Worked like a woman of virtue-sensitive, reliable, never drifted, and required no calibration adjustments. Obviously, my ideal for a mate."

Gunn looked at him strangely. "You have odd taste when it comes to women."

"He has this thing for robots," Pitt joked.

"Say no more," Giordino said pretentiously. "Say no more."

"I'm told this model is good for accurate data on small anomalies," said Gunn, suddenly serious. "If she won't lead us to the Concepcion, nothing will."

Giordino returned to the copilot's seat, settled in and stared down at the unbroken carpet of green no more than 200 meters (656 feet) below. There wasn't a piece of ground showing anywhere. "I don't think I'd like to spend my holidays here."

"Not many people do," said Pitt. "According to Julien Perlmutter, a check of local historical archives came up with the rumor that the local farmers shun the area. Julien said Cuttill's journal mentioned that mummies of long dead Inca were torn from graveyards by the tidal wave before being swept into the jungle. The natives are highly superstitious, and they believe the spirits of their ancestors still drift through the jungle in search of their original graves."

"You can run your first lane," declared Gunn. "All systems are up and tuned."

"How far from the coast are we going to start mowing the lawn?" Giordino asked, referring to the seventy-five meter wide grid lanes they planned to cover.

"We'll begin at the three-kilometer mark and run parallel to the shore," answered Pitt, "running lanes north and south as we work inland."

"Length of lanes?" inquired Gunn, peering at the stylus marking the graph paper and the numbers blinking on his digital readout window.

"Two kilometers at a speed of twenty knots."

"We can run much faster," said Gunn. "The mag system has a very fast cycle rate. It can easily read an anomaly at a hundred knots."

"We'll take it nice and slow," Pitt said firmly. "If we don't fly directly over the target, any magnetic field we hope to find won't make much of an impression on your gamma readings."

"And if we don't pick up an anomaly, we increase the perimeters of the grid."

"Right. We'll conduct a textbook search. We've done it more times than I care to count." Then Pitt glanced over at Giordino. "Al, you mind our altitude while I concentrate on our lane coordinates."

Giordino nodded. "I'll keep the tow bird as low as I can without losing it in the branches of a tree."

The sun was up now and the sky was clear of all but a few small, wispy clouds. Pitt took a final look at the instruments and then nodded. "Okay, guys, let's find ourselves a shipwreck."

Back and forth over the thick jungle they flew, the air-conditioning system keeping the hot, humid atmosphere outside the aircraft's aluminum skin. The day wore on and by noon they had achieved nothing. The magnetometer failed to register so much as a tick. To someone who had never searched for an unseen object, it might have seemed discouraging, but Pitt, Giordino, and Gunn took it in stride. They had all known shipwreck or lost aircraft hunts that had lasted as long as six weeks without the slightest sign of success.

Pitt was also a stickler for the game plan. He knew from experience that impatience and deviation from the computed search lanes usually spelled disaster for a project. Rather than begin in the middle of the grid and work out, he preferred to start at the outer edge and work in. Too often a target was discovered where it was not supposed to be. He also found it expedient to eliminate the open, dry areas so no time was wasted rerunning the search lanes.

"How much have we covered?" asked Gunn for the first time since the search began.

"Two kilometers into the grid," Pitt answered. "We're only now coming into Yaeger's prime target area."

"Then we're about to run parallel lines five kilometers from the 1578 shoreline."

"Yes, the distance the wave carried the galleon, as indicated by Yaeger's computer program."

"Three hours of fuel left," said Giordino, tapping the two fuel gauges. He showed no sign of fatigue or boredom, if anything he seemed to be enjoying himself.

Pitt pulled a board with a chart clipped to it from a side pocket of his seat and studied it no more than five seconds. "The port city of Manta is only fifty-five klicks away. They have a good-sized airport where we can refuel."

"Speaking of refueling," said Gunn, "I'm starved." Since he was the only one with free hands, he passed around sandwiches and coffee, thoughtfully provided by the oil company's helicopter service crew.

"Weird tasting cheese," muttered Giordino, examining the inside of his sandwich with a cynical eye.

Gunn grinned. "Beggars can't be choosers."

Two hours and fifteen minutes later they had traveled the twenty-eight lanes it took to cover kilometers five and six. They definitely had a problem now as they were beyond Yaeger's estimated target site. None of them believed a tidal wave could carry a 570-ton ship more than 5 kilometers (3 miles) over land from the sea. Certainly not a wave with a crest less than 30 meters (98 feet) high. Their confidence ebbed as they worked farther out of the prime search area.

"Beginning the first lane of the seven-kilometer mark," announced Pitt.

"Too far, way too far," Giordino muttered.

"I agree," said Gunn. "We either missed her, or she lies off the north and south perimeters of our grid. No sense in wasting time in this area."

"We'll finish kilometer seven," Pitt said, his eyes locked on the navigational instrument displaying his coordinates.

Gunn and Giordino knew better than to debate the matter. They were well aware that when Pitt's mind was set there was no moving him. He stubbornly felt the possibility of finding the old Spanish ship was promising despite the density of the jungle growth and the passage of four centuries. Giordino vigilantly kept the helicopter just high enough for the sensor to skim the tops of the trees while Gunn stared at the recording paper and digital readings. They were beginning to feel they had not been dealt a lucky hand and steeled themselves for a long and arduous search.

Fortunately, the weather held in their favor. The sky remained clear with an occasional cloud drifting far above them, and the wind stayed steady from the west at only five knots. The monotony was as unchanging as the weather. The forest below unfurled as though it were a continuous sea of algae. No human lived down there. Sunless days without end. The constant damp, warm climate caused the flowers to bloom, the leaves to fall, and the fruits to grow and ripen all through the year. Rare was the spot where sun reached through the branches of the trees and plants to touch the ground.

"Mark it!" Gunn burst abruptly.

Pitt responded by copying the navigation coordinates. "Do you have a target?"

"I recorded a slight bump on my instruments. Nothing big, but definitely an anomaly."

"Shall we turn back?" asked Giordino.

Pitt shook his head. "Let's finish the lane and see if we pick up a stronger reading on the next heading."

No one spoke as they completed the lane, made a complete 180-degree turn and headed back on a reverse course 75 meters (246 feet) farther to the east. Pitt and Giordino could not resist stealing a glance downward at the rain forest, hoping to spot a sign of the wreck, but knowing it was next to impossible to see through the thick foliage. It was a wilderness truly terrible in its monotonous beauty.

"Coming opposite the mark," Pitt alerted them. "Now passing."

The sensor, trailing on an arc behind the helicopter lagged slightly before crossing the site of Gunn's anomaly reading. "Here she comes!" he said excitedly. "Looking good. The numbers are climbing. Come on, sweetheart, give with the big gamma readings."

Pitt and Giordino leaned out their windows and stared down, but saw only a dense canopy of tall trees rising in tiered galleries. It required no imagination to see the rain forest was a forbidding and dangerous place. It looked quiet and deadly. They could only guess at what perils lurked in the menacing shadows.

"We have a hard target," said Gunn. "Not a solid mass, but scattered readings, the kind of display I would expect from bits and pieces of iron dispersed around a wrecked ship."

Pitt wore a big smile as he reached over and lightly punched Giordino on the shoulder. "Never a doubt."

Giordino grinned back. "That was one hell of a wave to have carried the ship seven kilometers inland."

"She must have crested close to fifty meters," Pitt calculated.

"Can you bring us around on an east/west course so we can bisect the anomaly?" asked Gunn.

"At your command." Pitt banked the Explorer around to the west in a tight turn that lightened Gunn's stomach. After flying half a kilometer, he sideslipped and set his coordinates to pass over the target from the new direction. This time the readings showed a slight increase and held for a longer duration.

"I think we passed over her from bow to stern," said. Gunn. "This must be the place."

"This must be the place," Giordino repeated happily.

Pitt hovered as Gunn gave bearing commands while they probed for the highest readings from the magnetometer, which would show the Explorer was directly over the wreck site. "Bring her twenty meters to starboard. Now thirty meters astern. Too far. Ten meters ahead. Hold it. That's it. We can drop a rock on her."

Giordino pulled the ring on a small canister and casually tossed it out his side window. It fell through the leaves and disappeared. A few seconds later a cloud of orange smoke began to rise above the trees. "X marks the spot," he said happily. "I can't say I look forward to the hike."

Pitt looked at him. "Who said anything about walking seven kilometers through that botanical nightmare?"

Giordino gave him a quizzical stare in return. "How else do you expect to reach the wreck?"

"This marvel of aircraft technology has a winch. You can lower me through the trees."

Giordino peered at the thick mantle of the rain forest. "You'd get hung up in the trees. We'd never be able to hoist you out again."

"Not to worry. I checked the tool locker beneath the floor before we left Quito. Someone thoughtfully provided a machete. I can hang from a harness and hack my way down and up again."

"Won't work," said Giordino with a trace of concern in his voice. "We don't have enough fuel to hang around while you play Jungle Jim and still reach the airport in Manta."

"I don't expect you to wait at the curb. Once I'm on the ground, you head for Manta. After you refuel, you come back and pick me up."

"You might have to wander around before you find the wreck. No way you can be spotted from the air. How will we know exactly where to lower the harness?"

"I'll take a couple of smoke canisters with me and set them off when I hear you return."

The expression in Giordino's eyes was anything but cheerful. "I don't suppose I can talk you out of this craziness."

"No, I don't suppose you can."

Ten minutes later Pitt was secure in a safety harness connected to a cable leading to a winch mounted on the roof of the helicopter's cabin. While Giordino hovered the craft just above the top of the trees, Gunn operated the controls to the winch.

"Don't forget to bring back a bottle of champagne so we can celebrate," Pitt shouted as he stepped through the open door of the ship and hung suspended.

"We should be back in two hours," Gunn yelled back over the sound of the rotors and the engine exhaust. He pushed the descent button and Pitt dropped below the skids of the helicopter and soon disappeared into the dense vegetation as if he had jumped into a green ocean.

As he hung supported by his safety harness, machete gripped in his right hand, a portable radio in his left, Pitt felt almost as if he were once again dropping into the green slime of the sacrificial well. He could not tell for certain how high he was above the ground, but he estimated the distance from the roof of the forest to its floor to be at least 50 meters (164 feet).

Seen from the air, the rain forest looked like a chaotic mass of struggling plant growth. The trunks of the taller trees were crowded with dense layers of shorter growth, each seeking its share of sunlight. The twigs and leaves nearest the sun danced under the downdraft provided by the helicopter's rotor, giving them the appearance of a restless, undulating ocean.

Pitt held an arm over his eyes as he slowly descended through the first tier of the green canopy, narrowly brushing past the limbs of a high mahogany tree that was sprouting clusters of small white flowers. He used his feet to spring without difficulty out of the way of the thicker branches. A draft of rising steam, caused by the sun's heat, wafted up from the still unseen ground. After the air-conditioned cabin of the helicopter, it didn't take long for sweat to flow from every pore. As he frantically pushed aside a branch that was rising between his legs, he frightened a pair of spider monkeys that leapt chattering around to the other side of the tree.

"You say something?" asked Gunn over the radio.

"I flushed a pair of monkeys during their siesta," Pitt replied.

"Do you want me to slow you down?"

"No, this is fine. I've passed through the first layer of trees. Now it looks like I'm coming down through what I'd guess is laurel."

"Yell if you want me to move you around," said Giordino over the cockpit radio.

"Maintain your position," Pitt directed. "Shifting around might snag the descent cable and leave me hanging up here till I'm an old man."

Pitt entered a thicker maze of branches and quickly managed to cut a tunnel with his machete without having to order Gunn to reduce his rate of descent. He was invading a world seldom seen, a world filled with beauty and danger. Immense climbing plants, desperate for light, crawled straight up the taller trees, some clutching their hosts with tendrils and hooks while others twined upward toward the light like corkscrews. Moss draped the trees in great sheets, reminding him of cobwebs in a crypt from a horror movie. But there was beauty too. Vast garlands of orchids circled their way toward the sky as if they were strings of lights on a Christmas tree.

"Can you see the ground?" asked Gunn.

"Not yet. I still have to move through a small tree that looks like some sort of palm with wild peaches growing on it. After that, I have to dodge a snarl of hanging vines."

"I believe they're called lianas."

"Botany wasn't one of my better subjects."

"You could grab one and play Tarzan," said Gunn, injecting some humor into a potentially dangerous situation.

"Only if I saw Jane--"

Gunn tensed at Pitt's sudden pause. "What is it? Are you okay?"

When Pitt answered, his voice was barely louder than a whisper. "I almost grabbed what I took to be a thick vine. But it was a snake the size of a drainpipe with a mouth like an alligator."

"What color?"

"Black with yellowish brown spots."

"A boa constrictor," explained Gunn. "He might give you a big hug, but he's not poisonous. Pet him on the head for me."

"Like hell," Pitt snorted. "If he so much as looks cross-eyed at me, he meets Madame LaFarge.

"Who?"

"My machete."

"What else do you see?"

"Several magnificent butterflies, a number of insects that look like they belong on an alien planet, and a parrot too shy to ask for a cracker. You wouldn't believe the size of the flowers growing out of nooks in the trees. There are violets the size of my head."

Conversation dropped off as Pitt chopped his way through a low tree with dense branches. He was sweating like a prizefighter in the last round of a championship match, and his clothes were soaked through from the heavy moisture clinging to the leaves of the trees. As he raised the machete, his arm brushed a vine armored with thorns that shredded his shirt sleeve and sliced his forearm as neatly as claws on a cat. Luckily, the cuts were not deep or painful, and he disregarded them.

"Stop the winch," he said as he felt firm ground beneath his feet. "I'm down."

"Any sign of the galleon?" Gunn asked anxiously.

Pitt did not immediately answer. He tucked the machete under his arm and turned a complete circle, unclipping the safety harness as he surveyed his surroundings. It was like being at the bottom of a leafy ocean. There was scarcely any light, and what little was available had the same eerie quality a diver would experience at 60 meters (196 feet) beneath the surface of the sea. The dense vegetation blotted out most of the color spectrum from the little sunlight that reached him, leaving only green and blue mixed with gray.

He was pleasantly surprised to find the rain forest was not impassable at ground level. Except for a soft carpet of decomposing leaves and twigs, the floor beneath the canopy of trees was comparatively free of growth, with none of the heaps of moldering vegetation he had expected. Now that he was standing in the sunless depths he could easily understand why plant life that grew close to the ground was scarce.

"I see nothing that resembles the hull of a ship," he said. "No ribs, no beams, no keel."

"A bust," said Gunn, the disillusionment coming through in his voice. "The mag must have read a natural iron deposit."

"No," Pitt replied, striving to keep his voice calm, "I can't say that."

"What are you telling us?"

"Only that the fungi, insects, and bacteria that call this place home have made a meal out of every organic component of the ship. Not too surprising when you figure that they had four hundred years to devour it down to the keel."

Gunn went silent, not quite comprehending. Then it struck him like a lightning bolt.

"Oh, my God!" he yelped. "We found it. You're actually standing on the wreck of the galleon."

"Dead center."

"You say all sign of the hull is gone?" Giordino cut in.

"All that remains is covered by moss and humus, but I think I can make out some ceramic pots, a few scattered cannon shot, one anchor, and a small pile of ballast stones. The site reads like an old campsite with trees growing through the middle of it."

"Shall we hang around?" asked Giordino.

"No, get your tails to Manta and refuel. I'll poke around for the jade box until you get back."

"Can we drop you anything?"

"I shouldn't need anything but the machete."

"You still have the smoke canisters?" Giordino asked.

"Two of them clipped to my belt."

"Set one off soon as you hear us return."

"Never fear," Pitt said blithely. "I'm not about to try walking out of here."

"See you in two hours," said Gunn, his spirits brimming.

"Try to be on time."

In a different circumstance, at a different time, Pitt might have experienced a fit of depression as the sound of the McDonnell Douglas Explorer died away, leaving behind the heavy atmosphere of the rain forest. But he was energized at knowing that somewhere within a short distance of where he was standing, buried in the ancient pile of debris, was the key to a vast treasure. He did not throw himself into a frenzy of wild digging. Instead, he slowly walked through the scattered remains of the Concepcion and studied her final position and configuration He could almost trace the original outline by the shape of the broken mounds of debris.

The shaft and one fluke of an anchor that protruded from the humus beneath the more recently fallen leaves indicated the location of the bow. He did not think that sailing master Thomas Cuttill would store the jade box in the cargo hold. The fact that Drake intended it as a gift to the queen suggested that he kept it near him, probably in the great cabin in the stern occupied by the captain of the ship.

As Pitt walked through the debris field, clearing away small areas with the machete, he found relics of the crew but no bones. Most of them had been swept off the ship by the tidal wave. He spied pairs of moldy leather shoes, hardened bone handles on knives whose blades had rusted away, ceramic eating bowls, and a still blackened iron cooking pot. Dread grew inside him as he realized the meagerness of the debris. He began to fear the wreck might have already been found and looted. He removed a plastic packet from inside his shirt, opened one end and pulled out the illustrations and cutaway plans of a standard treasure galleon Perlmutter had faxed. Using the plans as a guide, he carefully measured off his steps until he estimated he was in the area of the hold where the valuable cargo would have been stored.

Pitt went to work clearing what he thought was a heavy layer of compost. It proved to be only 10 centimeters (4 inches) thick. He had only to brush away the decomposing leaves with his hands to reveal several beautifully carved stone heads and full figures of various sizes. He guessed they were religious animal gods. A sigh of relief escaped his lips at discovering that the wreck of the galleon was untouched.

Scraping away a length of rotting vine that had fallen from the trees far above, he discovered twelve more carvings, three that were life-size. In the ghostly light their green coating of mold made them look like corpses arising from the grave. A clutter of clay pots and effigies had not fared as well after the damp of four centuries. Those that were relatively intact crumbled when touched. Of the textiles that had been part of the original treasure trove, all had rotted into a few swatches of black mold.

Pitt eagerly dug deeper, ignoring torn fingernails and the slime that smeared his hands. He found a cache of jade, elegantly ornate and painstakingly carved. There were so many pieces he soon lost count. They were mingled with mosaics made of mother-of-pearl and turquoise. Pitt paused and wiped the sweat from his face with his forearm. This bonanza was bound to open a can of worms, he reflected. He could already envision the legal battles and diplomatic machinations that would occur between Ecuadorian archaeologists and government officials, who would claim the artifacts belonged to them by right of possession, and their counterparts in Peru, who would claim the trove as their original property. Whatever the legal entanglements, the one certainty was that none of the masterworks of Inca art would end up on a shelf in Pitt's home.

He glanced at his watch. Over an hour had passed since he dropped through the trees. He left the mass of jumbled antiquities and continued moving toward what had once been the captain's cabin on the stern of the galleon. He was swinging the blade of the machete back and forth to sweep the dead vegetation away from a debris mound when the blade suddenly clanged on a solid metal object. Kicking the leaves to the side he found that he had stumbled on one of the ship's two cannons. The bronze barrel had long since been coated by a thick green patina and the muzzle was filled with compost accumulated through the centuries.

Pitt could no longer tell where his perspiration left of and the humid moisture from the forest began. It was like working in a steam bath, with the added annoyance of tiny gnatlike insects that swarmed around his unprotected head and face. Fallen vines wrapped around his ankles, and twice he slipped on the wet plant growth and fell. A layer of clay soil and decayed leaves adhered to his body, giving him the look of some swamp creature from a haunted bog. The steamy atmosphere was slowly sapping his strength, and he fought back an overwhelming urge to lie down on a soft pile of leaves and take a nap, an urge that abruptly vanished at the repulsive sight of a bushmaster slithering across a nearby heap of ballast stones. The largest poisonous snake in the Americas, 3 meters (10 feet) long, pink and tan with dark diamond shaped blotches, the notorious pit viper was extremely lethal. Pitt gave it a wide berth and kept a wary eye for its relatives.

He knew he was in the right area when he uncovered the big pintles and gudgeons, now badly rusted, that once held and pivoted the rudder. His foot accidentally kicked something buried in the ground, an unidentifiable circular band of ornate iron. When he bent down for a closer inspection he saw shards of glass. He checked Perlmutter's illustrations and recognized the object as the stern running light. The rudder fittings and the lamp told him that he was standing over what had been the captain's cabin. Now his search for the jade box began in earnest.

In forty minutes of searching on his hands and knees, he found an inkwell, two goblets, and the remains of several oil lamps. Without stopping to rest, he carefully brushed away a small heap of leaves and found himself looking into a green eye that stared back through the dank humus. He wiped his wet hands on his pants, took a bandanna from his pocket, and lightly cleaned the features around the eye. A human face became visible, one that had been artistically carved with great care from a solid piece of jade. Pitt held his breath.

Keeping his enthusiasm in check, he painstakingly dug four small trenches around the unblinking face, deep enough to see that it was the lid to a box about the size of a twelve-volt car battery. When the box was totally uncovered, he lifted it from the moist soil where it had rested since 1578 and set it between his legs.

Pitt sat in wondrous awe for the better part of ten minutes, afraid to pry off the lid and find nothing but damp rot inside. With great trepidation he took a small Swiss army knife from one pocket, swung out the thinnest blade and began to jimmy the lid. The box was so tightly sealed he had to constantly shift the knife blade around the box, prying each side a fraction of a millimeter before moving on to the next. Twice he paused to wipe away the sweat that trickled into his eyes. Finally, the lid popped free. Then, irreverently, he clenched the face by the nose, lifted the lid and peeked inside.

The interior of the box was lined with cedar and contained what looked to him to be a folded mass of multicolored knotted string. Several of the strands had faded but they were intact and their colors could still be distinguished. Pitt couldn't believe the remarkable state of preservation, until he closely studied the antiquity and realized it was made, not from cotton or wool, but twisted coils of tinted metal.

"That's it!" he shouted, startling a tree full of macaws, who winged into the depths of the rain forest amid a chorus of shrieking chatter. "The Drake quipu."

Clutching the box with the tenacity of an Ebenezer Scrooge refusing to donate to a Christmas charity, Pitt found a reasonably dry fallen tree to sit on. He stared into the jade face and wondered if the quipu's secret could somehow be unriddled. According to Dr. Ortiz, the last person who might have read the knotted strands had died four hundred years ago. He fervently hoped that Yaeger's state-of-the-art computer could cut through time and solve the mystery.

He was still sitting there amid the ghosts of the English and Spanish seamen, oblivious to a swarm of biting insects, the stabbing pain from his gashed arm, and the clammy dampness, when the returning helicopter came within earshot from somewhere in the shrouded sky.

A small van, marked with the name of a well known express package company, drove up a ramp and stopped at the shipping and receiving door of a sizable one-story concrete building. The structure covered one city block of a huge warehouse complex near Galveston, Texas. There was no company sign on the roof or walls. The only evidence that it was occupied came from a small brass plaque beside the door that read Logan Storage Company. It was just after six o'clock in the evening. Too late for employees to be working on the job but still early enough not to arouse the suspicion of the patrolling security guards.

Without exiting the van, the driver punched in a code on a remote control box that deactivated the security alarm and raised the big door. As it rose to the ceiling, it revealed the interior of a vast storehouse filled to the roof support girders with seemingly endless racks packed with furniture and ordinary household goods. There was no hint of life anywhere on the spacious concrete floor. Now assured that all employees had left for home, the driver moved the van inside and waited for the door to close. Then he drove onto a platform scale large enough to hold an eighteen-wheel truck and trailer.

He stepped from the vehicle and walked over to a small instrument panel on a pedestal and pressed a code into a switch labeled Engage Weigh-in. The platform vibrated and then began to sink beneath the floor, revealing itself to be a huge freight elevator. After it settled onto the basement floor, the driver eased the van into a large tunnel while behind him the elevator automatically returned to the upper storage floor.

The tunnel stretched for nearly a full kilometer before ending deep beneath the main floor of another huge warehouse. Here in a vast subterranean complex the Zolar family conducted their criminal operations, while operating as a legitimate business on the main floor.

On the honest business level, regular employees entered a glass entrance to administration offices that ran along one entire wall of the building. The rest of the spacious floor housed thousands of valuable paintings, sculptures, and a great variety of antiques. All had impeccably bona fide origins and were legally purchased and sold on the open market. A separate department at the rear housed the preservation department, where a small team of master craftsmen worked to restore damaged art and ancient artifacts to their original splendor. None of the employees of Zolar International or Logan Storage Company, even those with twenty years of service or more, remotely suspected the great clandestine operation that took place beneath their feet.

The driver exited the tunnel and entered an enormous sprawling secret sub-basement whose interior floor space was even larger than the main surface level 20 meters (66 feet) above. About two-thirds of the area was devoted to the accumulation, storage, and eventual sale of stolen and smuggled artworks. The remaining third was set aside for the Zolar family's thriving artifact forgery and fabrication program. This subterranean level was known only to the immediate members of the Zolar family, a few loyal copartners in the operation, and the original construction crew, who were brought in from Russia and then returned when the subterranean rooms were completed, so no outsiders could reveal the facility's existence.

The driver slipped from behind the steering wheel, walked around to the rear of the van and pulled a long metal cylinder from inside that was attached to a cart whose wheels automatically unfolded once it was pulled free, like an ambulance gurney. When all four wheels were extended, he rolled the cart and cylinder across the huge basement toward a closed room.

As he pushed, the van driver stared at his reflection in the polished metal of the cylinder. He was of average height with a well-rounded stomach. He looked heavier than his actual weight because of a tight-fitting pair of white coveralls. His medium brown hair was clipped short in a military crew cut, and his cheeks and chin were closely shaven. He found it amusing that his shamrock green eyes took on a silver tint from the aluminum container. Now deceptively dreamy, they could turn as hard as flint when he was angry or tense. A police detective, good at providing accurate descriptions, would have described Charles Zolar, legal name Charles Oxley, as a con man who did not look like a con man.

His brothers, Joseph Zolar and Cyrus Sarason, opened the door and stepped from the room to affectionately embrace him.

"Congratulations," said Sarason, "a remarkable triumph of subterfuge."

Zolar nodded. "Our father couldn't have planned a smoother theft. You've done the family proud."

"Praise indeed," Oxley said, smiling. "You don't know how happy I am to finally deliver the mummy to a safe place."

"Are you certain no one saw you remove it from Rummel's building or followed you across the country?" asked Sarason.

Oxley stared at him. "You insult my capabilities, brother. I took all the required precautions and drove to Galveston during daylight business hours over secondary roads. I was especially careful not to break any traffic laws. Trust me when I say I wasn't followed."

"Pay no heed to Cyrus," said Zolar, smiling. "He tends to be paranoid when it comes to covering our tracks."

"We've come too far to make a mistake now," Sarason said in a low voice.

Oxley peered behind his brothers into the reaches of the vast storage room. "Are the glyph experts here?"

Sarason nodded. "A professor of anthropology from Harvard, who has made pre-Columbian ideographic symbols his life's work, and his wife, who handles the computer end of their decoding program. Henry and Micki Moore."

Do they know where they are?"

Zolar shook his head. "They've been wearing blindfolds and listening to cassette players ever since our agents picked them up in a limo at their condo in Boston. After they were airborne in a chartered jet, the pilot was instructed to circle around for two hours before flying to Galveston. They were brought here from the airport in a soundproof delivery truck. It's safe to say they haven't seen or heard a thing."

"So for all they know, they're in a research laboratory somewhere in California or Oregon?"

"That's the impression laid on them during the flight," replied Sarason.

"They must have asked questions?"

"At first," answered Zolar. "But when our agents informed them they would receive two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash for decoding an artifact, the Moores promised their full cooperation. They also promised to keep their lips sealed."

"And you trust them?" Oxley asked dubiously.

Sarason smiled malevolently. "Of course not."

Oxley didn't have to read minds to know that Henry and Micki Moore would soon be names on a tombstone. "No sense in wasting more time, brothers," he said. "Where do you want General Naymlap's mummy?"

Sarason gestured `toward one section of the underground facility. "We've partitioned a special room. I'll show you the way while brother Joseph escorts our experts." He hesitated, pulled three black ski masks from his coat pocket and flipped one to Oxley. "Put that on, we don't want them to see our faces."

"Why bother? They won't live to identify us."

"To intimidate them."

"A little extreme, but I guess you have a point."

While Zolar guided the Moores to the enclosed room, Oxley and Sarason carefully removed the golden mummy from the container and laid it on a table covered with several layers of velvet padding. The room had been furnished with a small kitchen, beds, and a bathroom. A large desk was set with note and sketch pads and several magnifying glasses with varied degrees of magnification. There was also a computer terminal with a laser printer loaded with the proper software. An array of overhead spotlights was positioned to accent the images engraved on the golden body suit.

When the Moores entered the room, their headsets and blindfolds were removed.

"I trust you were not too uncomfortable," said Zolar courteously.

The Moores blinked under the bright lights and rubbed their eyes. Henry Moore looked and acted the role of an Ivy League professor. He was aging gracefully with a slim body, a full head of shaggy gray hair, and the complexion of a teenage boy. Dressed in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves, he wore his school tie knotted under the collar of a dark green cotton shirt. As an added touch he sported a small white carnation in his lapel.

Micki Moore was a good fifteen years younger than her husband. Like him, she had a slender figure, almost as thin as the seventies era fashion model she had once been. Her skin was on the dark side and the high, rounded cheekbones suggested American Indian genes somewhere in her ancestry. She was a good-looking woman, beautifully poised, with an elegance and regal bearing that made her stand out at university cocktail and dinner parties. Her gray eyes focused and then darted from one masked brother to another before coming to rest on the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo.

"A truly magnificent piece of work," she said softly. "You never fully described what it was you wanted my husband and me to decipher."

"We apologize for the melodramatic precautions," Zolar said sincerely. "But as you can see, this Inca artifact is priceless, and until it is fully examined by experts such as you, we do not wish word of its existence to reach certain people who might attempt to steal it."

Henry Moore ignored the brothers and rushed to the table. He took a pair of reading glasses from a case in his breast pocket, slid them over his nose and peered closely at the glyphs on one arm of the suit. "Remarkable detail," he said admiringly. "Except for textiles and a few pieces of pottery, this is the most extensive display of iconography I've ever seen produced on any object from the Late Horizon era."

"Do you see any problem in deciphering the images?" asked Zolar.

"It will be a labor of love," said Moore, without taking his eyes from the golden suit. "But Rome wasn't built in a day. It will be a slow process."

Sarason was impatient. "We need answers as soon as possible."

"You can't rush me," Moore said indignantly. "Not if you want an accurate version of what the images tell us."

"He's right," said Oxley. "We can't afford faulty data."

"The Moores are being well paid for their efforts," Sarason said sternly. "Misinterpretations will cancel all payment."

Anger rising, Moore snapped, "Misinterpretations indeed! You're lucky my wife and I accepted your proposal. One look at what's on the table, and we're aware of the reasons behind your juvenile hocus-pocus games. Running around with masks over your faces as if you were holding up a bank. Total and utter nonsense."

"What are you saying?" Sarason demanded.

"Any historian worth his salt knows the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo was stolen from Spain in the nineteen twenties and never recovered."

"How do you know this isn't another one that was recently discovered?"

Moore pointed to the first image of a panel that traveled from the left shoulder to the hand. "The symbol of a great warrior, a Chachapoyan general known as Naymlap who served the great Inca ruler Huascar. Legend claims he stood as high as any modern star basketball player and had blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Judging from the size of the golden suit and my knowledge of its history, there is no doubt that this is Naymlap's mummy."

Sarason moved close to the anthropologist. "You and your wife just do your job, no mistakes, no more lectures."

Zolar quickly stepped in to defuse what was rapidly developing into a nasty confrontation. "Please excuse my associate, Dr. Moore. I apologize for his rude behavior, but I think you understand that we're all a little excited about finding the golden suit. You're quite right. This is Naymlap's mummy."

"How did you come by it?" asked Moore.

"I can't say, but I will promise you that it is going back to Spain as soon as it has been fully studied by experts such as you and your wife."

A canny smile curled Moore's lips. "Very scrupulous of you, whatever your name is, to send it back to its rightful owners. But not before my wife and I decode the instructions leading to Huascar's treasure."

Oxley muttered something unintelligible under his breath as Sarason stepped toward Moore. But Zolar stretched out an arm and held him back. "You see through our masquerade."

"I do."

"Shall I assume you wish to make a counterproposal, Dr. Moore?"

Moore glanced at his wife. She looked strangely withdrawn. Then he turned to Zolar. "If our expertise leads you to the treasure, I don't think a twenty percent share is out of line."

The brothers stared at one another for several moments, considering. Oxley and Zolar couldn't see Sarason's face behind the ski mask but they could see their brother's eyes blaze with fury.

Zolar nodded. "Considering the potential for incredible riches, I do believe Dr. Moore is being quite generous."

"I agree," said Oxley. "All things considered, the good professor's offer is not exorbitant." He held out his hand. "You and Mrs. Moore have a deal. If we find the treasure, your share is twenty percent."

Moore shook hands. He turned to his wife and smiled as if blissfully unaware of their death sentence. "Well, my dear, shall we get to work?"

THE DEMON OF DEATH

October 22, 1998

Washington, D.C.

She was waiting at the curb outside the terminal, her windblown cinnamon hair glistening under the morning sun, when Pitt walked out of the baggage area of Dulles airport. Congresswoman Loren Smith lifted the sunglasses that hid her incredible violet eyes, rose from behind the wheel, and perched on top of the car seat. She waved, her hands covered with supple leather driving gloves.

A tall woman with an exquisitely proportioned Sharon Stone body, she was wearing red leather pants and jacket over a black turtleneck sweater. Everyone within twenty meters, male and female, openly stared at her as she sat on top of the bright, fire engine red, 1953 Allard J2X sports car. She and the car were both classic works of stylish elegance, and they made a perfect match.

She threw Pitt a seductive look and said, "Hi, sailor, need a ride?"

He set his bag and a large metal case containing the jade box on the sidewalk, leaned over the low-slung body of the Allard and gave Loren a hard, quick kiss on the mouth. "You stole one of my cars."

"That's the thanks I get for playing hooky from a committee hearing to meet you at the airport?"

Pitt stared down at the Spartan vehicle that had won eight of the nine sports car races it had entered forty-five years earlier. There was not enough room for the two of them and his baggage in the small seating area, and the car had no trunk. "Where am I supposed to put my bags?"

She reached down on the passenger's seat and handed him a pair of bungee cords. "I came prepared. You can tie down your baggage on the trunk rack."

Pitt shook his head in wonderment. Loren was as bright and perceptive as they come. A five-term congresswoman from the state of Colorado, she was respected by her colleagues for her grasp of difficult issues and her uncanny gift for coming up with solid solutions. Vivacious and outgoing in the halls of Congress, Loren was a private woman, seldom showing up at dinner parties and political functions, preferring to stay close to her townhouse in Alexandria, studying her aides' recommendations on bills coming up for a vote and responding to her constituents' mail. Her only social interest outside her work was her sporadic affair with Pitt.

"Where's A1 and Rudi?" she asked, a look of tender concern in her eyes at seeing his unshaven face, haggard from exhaustion.

"On the next flight. They had a little business to clear up and return some equipment we borrowed."

After cinching his bags on a chrome rack mounted on the rear deck of the Allard, he opened the tiny passenger door, slid his long legs under the low dashboard and stretched them out to the firewall. "Dare I trust you to drive me home?"

Loren threw him a wily smile, nodded politely to the airport policeman who was motioning her to move on, shifted the Allard's three-speed gearbox into first gear, and mashed down the accelerator. The big Cadillac V-8 engine responded with a mighty roar, and the car leaped forward, rear tires screeching and smoking on the asphalt pavement. Pitt shrugged helplessly at the policeman as they whipped past him, furiously groping for the buckle of his seat belt.

"This is hardly conduct becoming a representative of the people," he yelled above the thunder of the exhaust.

"Who's to know?" She laughed. "The car is registered in your name."

Several times during the wild ride over the open highway from Dulles to the city, Loren swept the tachometer needle into the red. Pitt took a fatalistic view. If he was going to die at the hands of this madwoman, there was little else he could do but sit back and enjoy the ride. In reality, he had complete confidence in her driving skills. They had both driven the Allard in vintage sports car races, he in the men's events, she in the women's. He relaxed, zipped up his windbreaker and breathed in the brisk fall air that rushed over and around the little twin windscreens mounted on the cowling.

Loren slipped the Allard through the traffic with the ease of quicksilver running downhill through a maze. She soon pulled up in front of the old metal aircraft hangar, on the far end of Washington's international airport, that Pitt called home.

The structure had been built during the late nineteen thirties as a maintenance facility for early commercial airliners. In 1980, it was condemned and scheduled for demolition, but Pitt took pity on the deserted and forlorn structure and purchased it. Then he talked the local heritage preservation committee into having it placed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. Afterward, except for remodeling the former upstairs offices into an apartment, he restored the hangar to its original condition.

Pitt never felt the urge to invest his savings and a substantial inheritance from his grandfather into stocks, bonds, and real estate. Instead, he chose antique and classic automobiles, and souvenirs large and small collected during his global adventures as special projects director for NUMA.

The ground floor of the old hangar was filled with nearly thirty old cars, from a 1932 Stutz towncar and French Avions Voisin sedan to a huge 1951 Daimler convertible, the youngest car in the collection. An early Ford Trimotor aircraft sat in one corner, its corrugated aluminum wing sheltering a World War II Messerschmitt ME 262 jet fighter. Along the far wall, an early Pullman railroad car, with Manhattan Limited lettered on the sides, rested on a short length of steel track. But perhaps the strangest item was an old Victorian claw-footed bathtub with an outboard motor clamped to the back. The bathtub, like the other collectibles inside the hangar, had its own unique story.

Loren stopped beside a small receiver mounted on a post. Pitt whistled the first few bars of "Yankee Doodle" and sound recognition software electronically shut down the security system and opened a big drive-through door. Loren eased the Allard inside and turned off the ignition.

"There you are," she announced proudly. "Home in one piece."

"With a new speed record from Dulles to Washington that will stand for decades," he said dryly.

"Don't be such an old grunt. You're lucky I picked you up."

"Why are you so good to me?" he asked affectionately.

"Considering all the abuse you heap on me, I really don't know."

"Abuse? Show me your black-and-blue marks."

"As a matter of fact--" Loren slipped down her leather pants to reveal a large bruise on one thigh.

"Don't look at me," he said, knowing full well he wasn't the culprit.

"It's your fault."

"I'll have you know I haven't socked a girl since Gretchen Snodgrass smeared paste on my chair in kindergarten."

"I got this from a collision with a bumper on one of your old relics."

Pitt laughed. "You should be more careful."

"Come upstairs," she ordered, wiggling her pants back up. "I've planned a gourmet brunch in honor of your homecoming."

Pitt undid the cords to his baggage and dutifully followed Loren upstairs, enjoying the fluid movement of the tightly bound package inside the leather pants. True to her word, she had laid out a lavish setting on the formal table in his dining room. Pitt was starved and his anticipation was heightened by the appetizing aromas drifting from the kitchen.

"How long?" he asked.

"Just time enough for you to get out of your grimy duds and shower," she answered.

He needed no further encouragement. He quickly stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower, reclining on the tile floor with his feet propped on one wall as steaming hot water splashed on the opposite side. He almost drifted off to sleep, but roused himself after ten minutes and soaped up before rinsing off. After shaving and drying his hair, he slipped into a silk paisley robe Loren had given him for Christmas.

When he entered the kitchen, she came over and gave him a long kiss. "Ummm, you smell good, you shaved."

He saw that the metal case containing the jade box had been opened. "And you've been snooping."

"As a congresswoman I have certain inalienable rights," she said, handing him a glass of champagne. "A beautiful work of art. What is it?"

"It," he answered, "is a pre-Columbian antiquity that contains the directions to hidden riches worth so much money it would take you and your buddies in Congress all of two days to spend it."

She looked at him suspiciously. "You must be joking. That would be over a billion dollars."

"I never joke about lost treasure."

She turned and retrieved two dishes of huevos rancheros with chorizo and refried beans heavy on the salsa from the oven and placed them on the table. "Tell me about it while we eat."

Between mouthfuls, as he ravenously attacked Loren's Mexican brunch, Pitt began with his arrival at the sacrificial well and told her what happened up to his discovery of the jade box and the quipu in the Ecuadorian rain forest. He rounded out his narrative with the myths, the precious few facts, and finished with broad speculation.

Loren listened without interrupting until Pitt finished, then said, "Northern Mexico, you think?"

"Only a guess until the quipu is deciphered."

"How is that possible if, as you say, the knowledge about the knots died with the last Inca?"

"I'm banking on Hiram Yaeger's computer to come up with the key."

"A wild shot in the dark at best," she said, sipping her champagne.

"Our only prospect, but a damned good one." Pitt rose, pulled open the dining room curtains and gazed at an airliner that was lifting off the end of a runway, then sat down again. "Time is our real problem. The thieves who stole the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo before Customs agents could seize it have a head start."

"Won't they be delayed too?" asked Loren.

"Because they have to translate the images on the suit? A good authority on Inca textile designs and ideographic symbols on pottery should be able to interpret the images on the suit."

Loren came around the table and sat in Pitt's lap. "So it's developing into a race for the treasure."

Pitt slipped his arms around her waist and gave her a tight squeeze. "Things seem to be shaping up that way."

"Just be careful," she said, running her hands under his robe. "I have a feeling your competitors are not nice people."

Early the next morning, a half hour ahead of the morning traffic rush, Pitt dropped Loren off at her townhouse and drove to the NUMA headquarters building. Not about to risk damage to the Allard by the crazy drivers of the nation's capital, he drove an aging but pristine 1984 Jeep Grand Wagoneer that he had modified by installing a Rodeck 500-horsepower V-8 engine taken from a hot rod wrecked at a national drag race meet. The driver of a Ferrari or Lamborghini who might have stopped beside him at a red light would never suspect that Pitt could blow their doors off from zero to a hundred miles an hour before their superior gear ratios and wind dynamics gave them the edge.

He slipped the Jeep into his parking space beneath the tall, green-glassed tower that housed NUMA's offices and took the elevator up to Yaeger's computer floor, the carrying handle of the metal case containing the jade box gripped tightly in his right hand. When he stepped into a private conference room he found Admiral Sandecker, Giordino, and Gunn already waiting for him. He set the case on the floor and shook hands.

"I apologize for being late."

"You're not late." Admiral James Sandecker spoke in a sharp tone that could slice a frozen pork roast. "We're all early. In suspense and full of anticipation about the map, or whatever you call it."

"Quipu," explained Pitt patiently. "An Inca recording device."

"I'm told the thing is supposed to lead to a great treasure. Is that true?"

"I wasn't aware of your interest," Pitt said, with the hint of a smile.

"When you take matters into your own hands on agency time and money, all behind my back I might add, I'm giving heavy thought to placing an advertisement in the help wanted section for a new projects director."

"Purely an oversight, sir," said Pitt, exercising considerable willpower to keep a straight face. "I had every intention of sending you a full report."

"If I believed that," Sandecker snorted, "I'd buy stock in a buggy whip factory."

A knock came on the door and a bald-headed, cadaverous man with a great scraggly Wyatt Earp moustache stepped into the room. He was wearing a crisp, white lab coat. Sandecker acknowledged him with a slight nod and turned to the others.

"I believe you all know Dr. Bill Straight," he said.

Pitt extended his hand. "Of course. Bill heads up the marine artifact preservation department. We've worked on several projects together."

"My staff is still buried under the two truckloads of antiquities from the Byzantine cargo vessel you and Al found imbedded in the ice on Greenland a few years ago. 11

"All I remember about that project," said Giordino, "is that I didn't thaw out for three months."

"Why don't you show us what you've got?" said Sandecker, unable to suppress his impatience.

"Yes, by all means," said Yaeger, polishing one lens of his granny spectacles. "Let's have a look at it."

Pitt opened the case, gently removed the jade box, and placed it on the conference table. Giordino and Gunn had already seen it during the flight from the rain forest to Quito, and they stood back while Sandecker, Yaeger, and Straight moved in for a close look.

"Masterfully carved," said Sandecker, admiring the intricate features of the face on the lid.

"A most distinctive design," observed Straight. "The serene expression, the soft look of the eyes definitely have an Asian quality about them. Almost a direct association with statuary art from the Cahola dynasty of southern India.

"Now that you mention it," said Yaeger, "the face does have a remarkable resemblance to most sculptures of Buddha."

"How is it possible for two unrelated cultures to carve similar likenesses from the same type of stone?" asked Sandecker.

"Pre-Columbian contact by a transpacific crossing?" speculated Pitt.

Straight shook his head. "Until someone discovers an ancient artifact in this hemisphere that is absolutely proven to have come from either Asia or Europe, all similarities have to be classed as sheer coincidence. No more."

"Likewise, no early Mayan or Andean art has ever shown up in excavations of ancient cities around the Mediterranean or the Far East," said Gunn.

Straight lightly ran his fingertips over the green jade. "Still, this face presents an enigma. Unlike the Maya and the ancient Chinese, the Inca did not prize jade. They preferred gold to adorn their kings and gods, living or dead, believing it represented the sun that gave fertility to the soil and warmth to all life."

"Let's open it and get to that thing inside," ordered Sandecker.

Straight nodded at Pitt. "I'll let you do the honors."

Without a word, Pitt inserted a thin metal shaft under the lid of the box and carefully pried it open.

There it was. The quipu, lying as it had in the cedar lined box for centuries. They stared curiously at it for almost a minute, wondering if its riddle could be solved.

Straight zipped open a small leather pouch. Neatly arrayed inside was a set of tools, several different-sized tweezers, small calipers, and a row of what looked like the picks that dentists use for cleaning teeth. He pulled on a pair of soft white gloves and selected a pair of tweezers and one of the picks. Then he reached in the box and began probing the quipu, delicately testing the strands to see if they could be separated without breaking.

As if he were a surgeon lecturing to a group of interns over a cadaver, he began explaining the examination process. "Not as brittle nor as fragile as I expected. The quipu is made from different metals, mostly copper, some silver, one or two gold. Looks like they were hand formed into wire and then wound into tiny coil-like cables, some thicker than others, with varied numbers of strands and colors. The cables still retain a measure of tensile strength and a surprising degree of resilience. There appear to be a total of thirty-one cables of various lengths, each with a series of incredibly small knots spaced at irregular intervals. Most of the cables are individually tinted, but a few are identical in color. The longer cables are linked to subordinates that act as modifying clauses, similar to the diagram of a sentence in an English class. This is definitely a sophisticated message that cries out to be unraveled."

"Amen," muttered Giordino.

Straight paused and turned to the admiral. "With your permission, sir, I will remove the quipu from its resting place."

"What you're saying is that I'm responsible in the event you break the damn thing," Sandecker scowled.

"Well, sir. . ."

"Go ahead, man, get with it. I can't stand around here all day staring at some smelly old relic."

"Nothing like the aroma of rotting mulch to put one on edge," said Pitt drolly.

Sandecker fixed him with a sour stare. "We can dispense with the humor."

"The sooner we unsnarl this thing," said Yaeger anxiously, "the sooner I can create a decoding program."

Straight flexed his gloved fingers like a piano player about to assault Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody Number Two. Then he took a deep breath and slowly reached into the box. He slipped a curved probe very carefully under several cables of the quipu and gently raised them a fraction of a centimeter. "Score one for our side," he sighed thankfully. "After lying in the box for centuries, the coils have not fused together or stuck to the wood. They pull free quite effortlessly."

"They appear to have survived the ravages of time extremely well," observed Pitt.

After examining the quipu from every angle, Straight then slipped two large tweezers under it from opposite sides. He hesitated as if bolstering his confidence, then began raising the guipu from its resting place. No one spoke, all held their breath until Straight laid the multicolored cables on a sheet of glass. Setting aside the tweezers in favor of the dental picks, he meticulously unfolded the cables one by one until they were all spread flat like a fan.

"There it is, gentlemen," he sighed with relief. "Now we have to soak the strands in a very mild cleaning solution to remove stains and corrosion. This process will then be followed by a chemical preservation procedure in our lab."

"How long before you can return it to Yaeger for study?" asked Sandecker.

Straight shrugged. "Six months, maybe a year."

"You've got two hours," said Sandecker without batting an eye.

"Impossible. The metal coils lasted as long as they did because they were sealed in a box that was almost airtight. Now that they're fully exposed to air they'll quickly begin to disintegrate."

"Certainly not the ones spun from gold," said Pitt.

"No, gold is practically indestructible, but we don't know the exact mineral content of the other tinted coils. The copper, for instance, may have an alloy that crumbles from oxidation. Without careful preservation techniques they might decay, causing the colors to fade to the point of becoming unreadable."

"Determining the color key is vital to deciphering the quipu, " Gunn added.

The mood in the room had suddenly turned sour. Only Yaeger seemed immune. He wore a canny smile on his face as he gazed at Straight.

"Give me thirty minutes for my scanning equipment to measure the distances between the knots and fully record the configuration, and you can keep the thing in your lab until you're old and gray."

"That's all the time you'll need?" Sandecker asked incredulously.

"My computers can generate three-dimensional digital images, enhanced to reveal the strands as vividly as they were when created four hundred years ago."

"Ah, but it soothes the savage beast," Giordino waxed poetically, "to live in a modern world."

Yaeger's scan of the Drake quipu took closer to an hour and a half, but when he was finished the graphics made it look better than when it was brand new. Four hours later he made his first breakthrough in deciphering its message. "Incredible how something so simple can be so complex," he said, gazing at the vividly colored simulation of the cables that fanned out across a large monitor.

"Sort of like an abacus," said Giordino, straddling a chair in Yaeger's computer sanctuary and leaning over the backrest. Only he and Pitt had remained with Yaeger. Straight had returned to his lab with the quipu while Sandecker and Gunn went off to a Senate committee hearing on a new underwater mining project.

"Far more complicated." Pitt was leaning over Yaeger's shoulder, studying the image on the monitor. "The abacus is basically a mathematical device. The quipu, on the other hand, is a much more subtle instrument. Each color, coil thickness, placement and type of knot, and the tufted ends, all have significance. Fortunately, the Inca numerical system used a base of ten just like ours."

"Go to the head of the class." Yaeger nodded. "This one, besides numerically recording quantities and distances, also recorded a historical event. I'm still groping around in the dark, but, for example. . ." He paused to type in a series of instructions on his keyboard. Three of the quipu's coils appeared to detach themselves from the main collar and were enlarged across the screen. "My analysis proves pretty conclusively that the brown, blue, and yellow coils indicate the passage of time over distance. The numerous smaller orange knots that are evenly spaced on all three coils symbolize the sun or the length of a day."

"What brought you to that conclusion?"

"The key was the occasional interspacing of large white knots."

"Between the orange ones?"

"Right. The computer and I discovered that they coincide perfectly with phases of the moon. As soon as I can calculate astronomical moon cycles during the fifteen hundreds, I can zero in on approximate dates."

"Good thinking," said Pitt with mounting optimism. "You're onto something."

"The next step is to determine what each cable was designed to illustrate. As it turns out, the Incas were also masters of simplicity. According to the computer's analysis, the green coil represents land and the blue one the sea. The yellow remains inconclusive."

"So how do you read it?" asked Giordino.

Yaeger punched two keys and sat back. "Twenty-four days of travel over land. Eighty-six by sea. Twelve days in the yellow, whatever that stands for."

"The time spent at their destination," Pitt ventured.

Yaeger nodded in agreement. "That figures. The yellow coil might denote a barren land."

"Or a desert," said Giordino.

"Or a desert," Pitt repeated. "A good bet if we're looking at the coast of northern Mexico."

"On the opposite side of the quipu," Yaeger continued, "we find cables matching the same blue and green colors, but with a different number of knots. This suggests, to the computer, the time spent on the return trip. Judging by the additions and shorter spacing between knots, I'd say they had a difficult and stormy voyage home."

"It doesn't look to me as if you're groping in the dark," said Pitt. "I'd say you have a pretty good grasp of it."

Yaeger smiled. "Flattery is always gratefully accepted. I only hope I don't fall into the trap of inventing too much of the analysis as I go."

The prospect did not sit well with Pitt. "No fiction, Hiram. Keep it straight."

"I understand. You want a healthy baby with ten fingers and ten toes."

"Preferably one holding a sign that says `dig here,' " Pitt said in a cold, flat voice that almost curled Yaeger's hair, "or we'll find ourselves staring down a dry hole."

High on the funnel-shaped peak of a solitary mountain that rises like a graveyard monument in the middle of a sandy desert there is an immense stone demon.

It has stood there, legs tensed as if ready to spring, since prehistoric times, its claws dug into the massive basalt rock from which it was carved. In the desert tapestry at its feet ghosts of the ancients mingle with the ghosts from the present. Vultures soar over it, jackrabbits leap between its legs, lizards scurry over its giant paws.

From its pedestal on the summit, the beast's snakelike eyes command a panoramic vista of sand dunes, rocky hills and mountains, and the shimmering Colorado River that divides into streams across its silted delta before merging with the Sea of Cortez.

Exposed to the elements on the top of the mountain, which is said to be mystic and enchanted, much of the intricate detail of the sculpture has been worn away. The body appears to be that of a jaguar or a huge cat with wings and a serpent's head. One wing still protrudes above a shoulder, but the other has long since fallen on the hard, rocky surface beside the beast and shattered. Vandals have also taken their toll, chipping away the teeth from the gaping jaws and digging their names and initials on the flanks and chest.

Weighing several tons and standing as high as a bull elephant, the winged jaguar with the serpent's head is one of only four known sculptures produced by unknown cultures before the appearance of the Spanish missionaries in the early fifteen hundreds. The other three are static crouching lions in a national park in New Mexico that were far more primitive in their workmanship.

Archaeologists who had scaled the steep cliffs were mystified as to its past, They had no way of guessing its age or who carved the beast from one enormous outcropping of rock. The style and design were far different from any known artifacts of the prehistoric cultures of the American Southwest. Many theories were created, and many opinions offered, but the enigma of the sculpture's significance remained shrouded in its past.

It was said that the ancient people feared the awesome stone beast, believing it to be a guardian of the underworld, but present-day elders of the Cahuilla, Quechan, and Montolo tribes that live in the area cannot recall any significant religious traditions or detailed rituals that pertain to the sculpture. No oral history had been passed down, so they simply created their own myth on the ashes of a forgotten past. They invented a supernatural monster that all dead people must pass on their journey to the great beyond. If they led bad lives, the stone beast came to life. It snatched them in its mouth, chewed them with its fangs, and spat them out as maimed and disfigured ghosts doomed to walk the earth forever as malignant spirits. Only those good of heart and mind were allowed to proceed unmolested into the afterworld.

Many of the living made the difficult climb up the sharp walls of the mountain to lay gifts of hand-modeled clay dolls, and ancient seashells etched with the figures of animals, at the feet of the sculpture as tribute, a bribe to ease the way when their time came. Bereaved family members often stood on the desert floor far below the menacing sculpture and sent an emissary to the top while they prayed for the beast to grant their loved one safe passage.

Billy Yuma had no fear of the stone demon as he sat in his pickup truck under the shadow of the mountain and gazed up at the forbidding sculpture far above him. He was hopeful his parents and his friends who had died had been allowed to freely pass the guardian of the dead. They were good people who had harmed no one. But it was his brother, the black sheep of the family, who beat his wife and children and died an alcoholic, that Billy feared had become an evil ghost.

Like most Native Americans of the desert, Billy lived in the constant presence of the hideously deformed spirits who wandered aimlessly and did malicious things. He knew his brother's spirit could rise at any moment and throw dirt on him or tear his clothes, even haunt his dreams with horrible visions of the restless dead. But Billy's greatest worry was that his brother might bring illness or injury to his wife and children.

He had seen his brother three times. Once as a whirlwind that left behind a trail of choking dust, next as a wavering light spinning around a mesquite, and finally as a shaft of lightning that struck his truck. These were ominous signs. Billy and his tribe's medicine man had huddled around an open fire to discuss a way to combat his brother's ghost. If not stopped, the apparition could pose an eternal threat to Billy's family and his future descendants.

Everything was tried, and nothing worked. The tribe's old shaman prescribed eating a mixture of cactus buds and herbs as a measure of protection while fasting for ten days alone in the desert. A cure that failed miserably. Near-starvation induced Billy to see his brother's apparition on a regular basis and hear eerie wails during the lonely nights. Powerful rituals such as ceremonial chanting were tried, but nothing appeased the brother's evil spirit, and his manifestations became more violent.

Billy was not the only one of his tribe with problems. Ever since the tribe's most sacred and secret religious objects were found missing from their hiding place in an isolated ruin belonging to their ancestors, whole villages had suffered ill fortune. Poor crops, contagious sickness among the children, unseasonably hot and dry weather. Fights broke out when men became drunk, and some were killed. But by far the worst calamity was the sudden increase of ghost sickness. People who had never before seen or heard an evil spirit began describing haunted visitations. Ghosts of early Montolos suddenly appeared during their dreams, often materializing in broad daylight. Almost everyone, including young children, claimed to have seen supernatural phantoms.

The theft of the wooden idols that represented the sun, moon, earth, and water shattered the Montolos' religious society. The anguish of not having their presence during the initiation ceremony for entering adulthood devastated the tribe's young sons and daughters. Without the carved deities the centuries-old rituals could not be performed, leaving the young ones in adolescent limbo. Without the sacred religious objects, all worship ceased. To them it was the same as if the world's Christians, Muslims, and Jews woke up one morning and suddenly found that the entire city of Jerusalem had been torn from the earth and carried into deep space. To non-Indians it was a simple case of theft, but to a Montolo it amounted to blasphemy that bordered on atrocity.

Around fires in the underground ceremonial structures, the old religion's priests whispered of how they could hear the mournful pleading of the idols on nocturnal winds, pleading to be returned to the safety of their hiding place.

Billy Yuma was desperate. The medicine man had given him instructions while reading the embers of a dying fire. To send his brother's ghost back to the underworld and save his family from further disaster, Billy had to find the lost idols and return them to their sacred hiding place in the ancient ruins of his ancestors. In a desperate attempt to end the hauntings and avoid more ill fortune he decided to fight evil with evil. He resolved to climb the mountain, confront the demon, and pray for its help in returning the precious idols.

He was no longer a young man, and the ascent would be perilous without the equipment used by modern rock climbers. But he had set himself to the task and was not about to back down. Too many of his people were counting on him.

About a third of the way up the south wall his heart hammered against his ribs and his lungs ached from the grueling, effort. He could have stopped to rest and catch his breath, but he pushed on, determined to reach the peak without pause. He turned and gazed down only once, checking his Ford pickup truck parked at the base of the mountain. It looked like a toy he could reach down and snatch up with one hand. He looked back at the cliff face. It was changing colors under the setting sun, from amber to tile red.

Billy regretted not starting out earlier in the day, but he had chores to complete, and the sun was high when he drove to the mountain and began his ascent. Now the orange ball was creeping below the ridge of the Sierra de Juarez mountains to the west. The climb was more difficult than he had imagined and was taking far longer. He tilted his head, shaded his eyes against the brightness of the sky, and squinted up toward the cone top of the mountain. He still had 85 meters (278 feet) to go, and full darkness was only a half hour away. The prospect of spending the night with the great stone beast filled him with foreboding, but it would have been suicidal to attempt the descent in the dark.

Billy was a small man of fifty-five. But a life spent ranching in the harsh climate of the Sonora Desert had made him as hard and tough as an old cast-iron frying pan. Perhaps his joints were not as flexible as they were the day he won a bronco riding contest in Tucson, nor did he move with the agility of the boy who was once the fastest cross-country runner in the tribe, nor did he have the stamina, but he was still as tough as an aging mountain goat.

The whites of his eyes were yellowed and the rims reddened from ignoring the onslaught of the desert sun all his life and never wearing sunglasses. He had a round brown face with a strong jaw, straggly gray eyebrows, and thick black hair-the kind of face that seemed expressionless but revealed deep character and an insight into nature rarely understood by anyone who was not a Native American.

A shadow and a cold breeze suddenly passed over him. He shuddered from the unexpected chill. Was it a spirit? Where did they come from, he wondered. Could it be his brother was trying to make him, fall to the rocks far below? Maybe the great stone beast knew he was approaching and was issuing a warning. Beset with foreboding, Billy kept on climbing, teeth clenched, staring only at the vertical rock before his eyes.

Fortunately, others who went before him had chiseled foot- and handholds on the steeper face of the wall near the summit. He could see they were very old by the rounded smoothness of their edges. Within 50 meters (164 feet) of his goal, he entered a rock chimney that had split away from the wall, leaving a trail of loose and shattered stone inside a wide crack that slanted a little more gently and made the climb a fraction less tiring.

At last, just as his muscles were tightening and he was losing all feeling in his legs, the rock wall gave way to an easy incline, and he crawled onto the open surface of the peak. He rose to his feet as the final light of day faded, breathing deeply, inhaling the cool, pure air of the desert He rubbed his hands on the legs of his pants to remove the dirt and grit and stared at the shadow of the demon looming in the growing darkness. Though it was carved from the rock of the mountain, Billy swore that it glowed. He was tired and sore, but strangely he felt no fear of the time-worn effigy, despite the tales about how the restless spirits who were denied entry into the afterworld walked the haunted mountain.

He saw no sign of fearsome creatures lurking in the dark. Except for the jaguar with the serpent's head, the mountain was empty. Billy spoke out.

"I have come."

There was no answer. The only sounds came from the wind and the beat from the wings of a hawk. No eerie cries from the tormented souls of the underworld.

"I have climbed the enchanted mountain to pray to you," he said.

Still no sign or reply, but a chill went up his spine as he felt a presence. He heard voices speaking in a strange tongue. None of the words were familiar. Then he saw shadowy figures take shape.

The people were visible but transparent. They appeared to be moving about the mesa, taking no notice d Billy, walking around and through him as if it were he who did not exist. Their clothes were unfamiliar, not the brief cotton loincloths or rabbit-skin cloaks of his ancestors. These people were dressed as gods. Golden helmets adorned with brilliantly colored birds' feathers covered most of the phantoms' heads, while those who went bareheaded wore their hair in strange distinctive fashions. Their bodies were clothed with textiles Billy had never seen. The knotted mantles that draped over their shoulders and the tunics worn underneath were decorated with incredibly ornate and beautiful designs.

After a long minute the strange people seemed to dissolve and their voices ceased. Billy stood as still and silent as the rock beneath his feet. Who were these strange people who paraded before his eyes? Was this an open door to the spirit world, he wondered.

He moved closer to the stone monster, reached out a trembling hand and touched its flank. The ancient rock felt disturbingly hotter than it should have been from the day's heat. Then, incredibly, an eye seemed to pop open on the serpent's face, an eye with an unearthly light behind it.

Terror stirred through Billy's mind, but he was determined not to flinch. Later, he would be accused of an overactive imagination. But he swore a thousand times before his own death many years later that he had seen the demon stare at him from a sparkling eye. He summoned up his courage, dropped to his knees and spread out his hands. Then he began to pray. He prayed to the stone effigy through most of the night before falling into a trancelike sleep. `

In the morning, as the sun rose and painted the clouds with a burst of gold, Billy Yuma awoke and looked around. He found himself lying across the front seat of his Ford pickup truck on the floor of the desert, far below the silent beast of the mountain that stared sightlessly across the dry waste.

Joseph Zolar stood at the head of the golden suit, watching Henry and Micki Moore huddle over the computer and laser printer. After four days of round-the-clock study, they had reduced the images from symbols to descriptive words and concise phrases.

There was a fascination about the way they snatched up the sheets as they rolled out onto the printer's tray, excitedly analyzing their conclusions as a wall clock ticked off the remaining minutes of their lives. They went about their business as if the men behind the ski masks did not exist.

Henry labored in focused dedication. His world existed in just one narrow hall of academia. Like most university professors of anthropology and archaeology, he labored for prestige, because financial wealth eluded him. He had pieced together potsherds and had written a prodigious number of books that few read and even fewer paid good money to own. Published with small print runs, all his works ended up gathering dust in the basements of college libraries. Ironically, the fame and the honors that he foresaw would be heaped upon him as the interpreter, and perhaps discoverer, of Huascar's treasure meant more to him than mere monetary returns.

At first the Zolars found Micki Moore sexually appealing. But soon her indifference toward them became imitating. It was obvious that she loved her husband and had little interest in anyone else. They lived and worked together in a world of their own making.

Joseph Zolar would suffer little remorse over their termination. He had dealt with disgusting and despicable sellers and collectors over the years, and hardened criminals as well, but these two people were an enigma to him. He no longer cared what form of execution his brothers had in mind for them. All that mattered now was that the Moores come up with concise and accurate directions to Huascar's golden chain.

Wearing the ski masks had been a waste of time, but they kept them on during the entire time they were in the Moores' presence. It was obvious the Moores did not intimidate easily.

Zolar looked at Henry Moore and attempted a smile. It wasn't very successful. "Have you finished decoding the symbols?" he asked hopefully.

Moore winked foxlike at his wife and gave her a smug grin before turning to Zolar. "We are finished. The story we have deciphered is one of great drama and human endurance. Our unraveling of the images and successful translation greatly expands the current knowledge of the Chachapoyas. And it will rewrite every text ever written on the Inca."

"So much for modesty," said Samson sarcastically.

"Do you know precisely where the treasure is buried?" Charles Oxley asked.

Henry Moore shrugged. "I can't say precisely."

Sarason moved forward, tight-lipped and angry. "I'd like to ask if our illustrious code breakers have the slightest idea in hell what they're doing?"

"What do you want?" Moore stated coldly. "An arrow that points to X marks the spot?"

"Yes, dammit, that's exactly what we want!"

Zolar smiled condescendingly. "Let's get down to the hard facts, Dr. Moore. What can you tell us?"

"You'll be happy to learn," Micki Moore answered for her husband, "that, incredible as it sounds, the golden chain is only a small part of the treasure's stockpile. The inventory my husband and I have deciphered records at least another forty or more tons of ceremonial ornaments and vessels, headdresses, breastplates, necklaces, and solid gold and silver objects that each took ten men to carry. There were also massive bundles of sacred textiles, at least twenty golden-cased mummies, and over fifty ceramic pots filled with precious gems. If given more time we can give you a complete breakdown."

Zolar, Sarason, and Oxley stared at Micki, their eyes unblinking through the masks, their expressions of insatiable greed well hidden. For several moments there wasn't a sound except their breathing and the whir of the printer. Even for men used to dealing in million-dollar sums, the extent of Huascar's golden wealth went far beyond their wildest imaginings.

"You paint a glowing picture," said Zolar finally. "But do the symbols on the mummy's case tell us where the treasure is buried?"

"It's not buried in the strict sense of the word," said Henry Moore.

He stared at Zolar, waiting for him to react to his statement. Zolar stood there impassively.

"According to the narrative engraved on the suit," Moore explained, "the hoard was secreted in a cavern on a river--"

Sarason's eyes flashed with sudden disappointment. "Any cavern by a well-traveled river would have been discovered long before now, and the treasure removed."

Oxley shook his head. "It's not likely a golden chain that took two hundred men to lift could have vanished a second time."

"Nor an inventory as vast as the Moores describe," added Zolar. "As an acknowledged expert on Inca antiquities I'd be aware of any artifacts identified as belonging to Huascar that have made their way onto the market. No one who discovered such a cache could keep it secret."

"Maybe we've placed too much trust in the good doctor and his wife," said Sarason. "How do we know they're not leading us down the garden path?"

"Who are you to talk about trust?" Moore said quietly. "You lock my wife and me inside this concrete dungeon without windows for four days, and you don't trust us? You people must enjoy childish games."

"You have no grounds for complaint," Oxley told him. "You and Mrs. Moore are being paid extremely well."

Moore gave Oxley an impassive look. "As I was about to say, after the Incas and their Chachapoyan guards deposited Huascar's vast store of treasure in the cavern, they covered the entrance to a long passageway that led to it. Then they blended the soil and rocks to make it look natural and planted native plants over the area to make certain the passage to the cavern was never found again.

"Is there a description of the terrain around the entrance to the cavern?" Zolar asked.

"Only that it is on a rounded peak of a steep-sided island in an inland sea."

"Wait a moment," snapped Oxley. "You said the cavern was near a river."

Moore shook his head. "If you had listened, you'd have heard me say, the cavern was on a river."

Sarason stared angrily at Moore. "What ridiculous myth are you handing us? A cavern on a river on an island in an inland sea? Took a wrong turn in your translation, didn't you, Doc?"

"There is no mistake," said Moore firmly. "Our analysis is correct."

"The use of the word river could be purely symbolic," suggested Micki Moore.

"So could the island," Sarason retorted.

"Perhaps you'd get a better perspective if you heard our entire interpretation," offered Henry Moore.

"Please spare us the details," said Zolar. "We're already familiar with how Huascar smuggled his kingdom's treasury from under the collective noses of his brother Atahualpa and Francisco Pizarro. Our only interest is the direction General Naymlap sailed the treasure fleet and the exact location where he hid the hoard."

The Moores exchanged glances. Micki gave Henry an affirmative nod, and he turned to Zolar. "A11 right, since we're partners." He paused to scan a page rolled out by the printer. "The pictographs on the suit tell us that the treasure was carried to a coastal port and loaded on a great number of ships. The voyage north lasted a total of eighty-six days. The final twelve days were spent sailing across an inland sea until they came to a small island with high, steep walls that rose out of the water like a great stone temple. There, the Incas beached their ships, unloaded the treasure and carried it down a passageway to a cavern deep inside the island. At this point, however you interpret it, the glyphs claim the gold hoard was stashed beside the banks of a river."

Oxley unrolled a map of the Western Hemisphere and traced the sea route from Peru past Central America and along the Pacific coast of Mexico. "The inland sea must be the Gulf of California."

"Better known as the Sea of Cortez," added Moore.

Sarason also studied the map. "I agree. From the tip of Baja to Peru it's all open water."

"What about islands?" asked Zolar.

"At least two dozen, maybe more," replied Oxley.

"It would take years to search them all."

Sarason picked up and read the final page of the Moores' translation of the glyphs. Then he stared coldly at Henry Moore. "You're holding out, my friend. The images on the golden suit have to give exact guidelines to finding the treasure. No map worth the paper it's printed on stops short of pinning down the final step-by-step instructions."

Zolar carefully examined Moore's expression. "Is this true, Doctor, that you and your wife have not provided us with a full solution to the riddle?"

"Micki and I have decoded all there is to decode. There is no more."

"You're lying," said Zolar evenly.

"Of course he's lying," Sarason snapped. "Any moron can see that he and his wife have held back the vital clues."

"Not a sound course, Doctor. You and Mrs. Moon would be wise to abide by our agreement."

Moore shrugged. "I'm not such a fool as you think," he said. "The fact that you still refuse to identify your selves tells me the three of you don't have the slightest intention of carrying out our bargain. What guarantee do I have that you'll hold up your end? Nobody, not even our friends and relatives, knows where we were taken. Bringing us here wearing blindfolds and holding us virtual prisoners is nothing less than abduction. What were you going to do once the full instructions for finding Huascar's treasure were in your hands? Blindfold us again and fly us home? I don't think so. My guess is Micki and I were going to quietly disappear and become a folder in a missing persons file. You tell me, am I wrong?"

If Moore wasn't such an intelligent man, Zolar would have laughed. But the anthropologist had seen through their plan and called their hand. "All right, Doctor, what will it take for you to release the data?"

"Fifty percent of the trove when we find it."

That pushed Sarason over the edge. "The bastard, he's holding us up." He walked over to Moore, lifted him off his feet and slammed him against the wall. "So much for your demands," he shouted. "We're not taking any more of your crap. Tell us what we want to know or I'll beat it out of you. And believe you me, I'd take great joy in seeing you bleed."

Micki Moore stood there, as calm as if she was standing over a stove in a kitchen. Her uncanny coolness did not seem logical to Zolar. Any other wife would have demonstrated fear at a violent threat toward her husband.

Incredibly, Moore smiled. "Do it! Break my legs, kill me. And you'll never find Huascar's golden chain in a thousand years."

"He's right, you know," said Zolar, quietly gazing at Micki.

"When I'm finished with him, he won't be fit for dog food," Sarason said as he pulled back his fist.

"Hold on!" Oxley's voice stopped him. "For efficiency's sake, better that you take your wrath out on Mrs. Moore. No man enjoys watching his wife ravished."

Slowly, Sarason let Moore down and turned to Micki, his face taking on the expression of a pillaging Hun. "Persuading Mrs. Moore to cooperate will be a pleasure."

"You're wasting your time," said Moore. "I did not allow my wife to work on the final translation with me. She has no idea of the key to the treasure's location."

"The hell you say?"

"He's telling the truth," Micki said, unruffled. "Henry wouldn't allow me to see the end results."

"We're still left with a winning hand," said Sarason coldly.

"Understood," said Oxley. "You work over Mrs. Moore as proposed until he cooperates,"

"Either way, we get answers."

Zolar stared at Moore. "Well, Doctor, it's your call."

Moore looked at them in cold calculation. "Do with her what you will. It won't make any difference."

A strange silence came over the Zolar brothers. Sarason, the grittiest of them all, stood open-mouthed, disbelieving. What sort of man could calmly, without the slightest hint of shame or fear, toss his wife to the wolves?

"You can stand by while your wife is beaten and raped and murdered, and not say one word to stop it?" Zolar asked, studying Moore's reaction.

Moore's expression remained unchanged. "Barbaric stupidity will gain you nothing."

"He's bluffing." Moore needed an acid bath after the look Sarason gave him. "He'll crumble as soon as he hears her scream."

Zolar shook his head. "I don't think so."

"I agree," said Oxley. "We've underestimated his monumental greed and his ruthless mania for becoming a big star in the academic world. Am I right, Doctor?"

Moore was unmoved by their contempt. Then he said, "Fifty percent of something beats a hundred percent of nothing, gentlemen."

Zolar glanced at his brothers. Oxley gave a barely perceptible nod. Sarason clenched his fists so tightly they went ivory-he turned away but the expression on his face gave every indication of wanting to tear Moore's lungs out.

"I think we can avoid further threats and settle this is an orderly manner," said Zolar. "Before we can agree to your increased demands, I must have your complete assurance you can guide us to the treasure."

"I have deciphered the description of the landmark that leads to the entrance of the cavern," said Moore, speaking slowly and distinctly. "There is no probability of error. I know the dimensions and its shape. I can recognize it from the air."

His confident assertion was met with silence. Zolar walked over to the golden mummy and looked down at the glyphs etched in the gold covering. "Thirty percent. You'll have to make do with that."

"Forty or nothing." Moore said resolutely.

"Do you want it in writing?"

"Would it stand up in a court of law?"

"Probably not."

"Then we'll just have to take each other at our word." Moore turned to his wife. "Sorry, my dear, I hope you didn't find this too upsetting. But you must understand. Some things are more important than marriage vows."

What a strange woman, Zolar thought. She should have looked frightened and humiliated, but she showed no indication of it. "It's settled then," he said. "Since we're now working partners, I see no need to continue wearing our ski masks." He pulled it over his head and ran his hands through his hair. "Everyone try to get a good night's sleep. You will all fly to Guaymas, Mexico, on our company jet first thing in the morning."

"Why Guaymas?" asked Micki Moore.

"Two reasons. It's centrally located in the Gulf, and a good friend and client has an open invitation for my use of his hacienda just north of the port. The estate has a private airstrip, which makes it an ideal headquarters for conducting the search."

"Aren't you coming?" asked Oxley.

"I'll meet you in two days. I have a business meeting in Wichita, Kansas."

Zolar turned to Sarason, leery that his brother might launch another rampage against Moore. But he need not have worried.

Samson's face had a ghoulish grin. His brothers could not see inside his mind, see that he was happily imagining what Tupac Amaru would do to Henry Moore after the treasure was discovered.

"Brunhilda has gone as far as she can go," said Yaeger, referring to his beloved computer terminal. "Together, we've painstakingly pieced together about ninety percent of the stringed codes. But there are a few permutations we haven't figured out--"

"Permutations?" muttered Pitt, sitting across from Yaeger in the conference room.

"The different arrangements in lineal order and color of the quipu's coiled wire cables."

Pitt shrugged and looked around the room. Four other men were there-- Admiral Sandecker, Al Giordino, Rudi Gunn, and Hiram Yaeger. Everyone's attention was focused on Yaeger, who looked like a coyote who had bayed nonstop all night at a full moon.

"I really must work on my vocabulary," Pitt murmured. He slouched into a comfortable position and stared at the computer genius who stood behind a podium under a large wall screen.

"As I was about to explain," Yaeger continued, "a few of the knots and coils are indecipherable. After applying the most sophisticated and advanced information and data analysis techniques known to man, the best I can offer is a rough account of the story."

"Even a mastermind like you?" asked Gunn, smiling.

"Even Einstein. Unless he'd unearthed an Inca Rosetta Stone or a sixteenth-century how-to book on the art of creating your very own quipu, he'd have worked in a vacuum too."

"If you're going to tell us the show ends with no grand climax," said Giordino, "I'm going to lunch."

"Drake's quipu is a complex representation of numerical data," Yaeger pushed on, undaunted by Giordino's sarcasm, "but it's not strong on blow-by-blow descriptions of events. You can't narrate visual action and drama with strategically placed knots on a few coils of colored wire. The quipu can only offer sketchy accounts of the people who walked on and off this particular stage of history."

"You've made your point," said Sandecker, waving one of his bulbous cigars. "Now why don't you tell us what you sifted from the maze?"

Yaeger nodded and lowered the conference room lights. He switched on a slide projector that threw an early Spanish map of the coast of North and South America on the wall screen. He picked up a metal pointer that telescoped like an automobile radio aerial and casually aimed it in the general direction of the map.

"Without a long-winded history lesson, I'll just say that after Huascar, the legitimate heir to the Inca throne, was defeated and overthrown by his bastard half-brother, Atahualpa, in 1533, he ordered his kingdom's treasury and other royal riches to be hidden high in the Andes. A wise move, as it turned out. During his imprisonment, Huascar suffered great humiliation and grief. All his friends and kinsmen were executed, and his wives and children were hanged. Then to add insult to injury, the Spanish picked that particular moment to invade the Inca empire. In a situation similar to Cortez in Mexico, Francisco Pizarro's timing couldn't have been more perfect. With the Inca armies divided by factions and decimated by civil war, the disorder played right into his hands. After Pizarro's small force of soldiers and adventurers slaughtered a few thousand of Atahualpa's imperial retainers and bureaucrats in the square at the ancient city of Caxanarca, he won the Inca empire on a technical foul."

"Strange that the Inca simply didn't attack and overwhelm the Spanish," said Gunn. "They must have outnumbered Pizarro's troops by a hundred to one.

"Closer to a thousand to one," said Yaeger. "But again, as with Cortez and the Aztecs, the sight of fierce bearded men wearing iron clothes no arrow or rock could penetrate, riding ironclad horses, previously unknown to the Incas, while slashing with swords and shooting matchlock guns and cannons, was too much for them. Thoroughly demoralized, Atahualpa's generals failed to take the initiative by ordering determined mass attacks."

"What of Huascar's armies?" asked Pitt. "Surely they were still in the field."

"Yes, but they were leaderless." Yaeger nodded. "History can only look back on a what-if situation. What if the two Inca kings had buried the hatchet and merged their two armies in a do-or-die campaign to rid the empire of the dreaded foreigners? An interesting hypothesis. With the defeat of the Spanish, God only knows where the political boundaries and governments of South America might be today."

"They'd certainly be speaking a language other than Spanish," commented Giordino.

"Where was Huascar during Atahualpa's confrontation with Pizarro?" asked Sandecker, finally lighting his cigar.

Imprisoned in Cuzco, the capital city of the empire, twelve hundred kilometers south of Caxanarca."

Without looking up from the notations he was making on a legal pad, Pitt asked, "What happened next?"

"To buy his liberty, Atahualpa contracted with Pizarro to cram a room with gold as high as he could reach," answered Yaeger. "A room, I might add, slightly larger than this one."

"Did he fulfill the contract?"

"He did. But Atahualpa was afraid that Huascar might offer Pizarro more gold, silver, and gems than he could. So he ordered that his brother be put to death, which was carried out by drowning, but not before Huascar ordered the royal treasures to be hidden."

Sandecker stared at Yaeger through a cloud of blue smoke. "With the king dead, who carried out his wish?"

"A general called Naymlap," replied Yaeger. He paused and used the pointer to trace a red line on the map that ran from the Andes down to the coast. "He was not of royal Inca blood, but rather a Chachapoyan warrior who rose through the ranks to become Huascar's most trusted advisor. It was Naymlap who organized the movement of the treasury down from the mountains to the seashore, where he had assembled a fleet of fifty-five ships. Then, according to the quipu, after a journey of twenty-four days, it took another eighteen days just to load the immense treasure on board."

"I had no idea the Incas were seafaring people," said Gunn.

"So were the Mayans, and like the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans before them, the Incas were coastal sailors. They were not afraid of open water, but they wisely beached their boats on moonless nights and during stormy weather. They navigated by the sun and stars and sailed with prevailing winds and currents up and down the shoreline, conducting trade with the Mesoamericans in Panama and perhaps beyond. An Inca legend tells of an early king who heard a tale about an island rich in gold and intelligent people, that lay far out beyond the horizon of the sea. With loot and slaves in mind, he built and rigged a fleet of ships, and then sailed off with a company of his soldiers acting as marines to what is thought to be the Galapagos Islands. Nine months later he returned with scores of black prisoners and much gold."

"The Galapagos?" wondered Pitt.

"As good a guess as any."

"Do we have any records of their ship construction?" Sandecker queried.

"Bartholomew Ruiz, Pizarro's pilot, saw large rafts equipped with masts and great square cotton sails. Other Spanish seamen reported sailing past rafts with hulls of balsa wood, bamboo and reed, carrying sixty people and forty or more large crates of trade goods. Besides sails, the rafts were also propelled by teams of paddlers. Designs found on pre-Columbian clay pottery show twodecker boats sporting raised stem and sternposts with carved serpent heads similar to the dragons gracing Viking longships."

"So there is no doubt they could have transported tons of gold and silver long distances across the sea?"

"No doubt at all, Admiral." Yaeger tapped the pointer on another line that traced the voyage of Naymlap's treasure fleet. "From point of departure, north to their destination, the voyage took eighty-six days. No short cruise for primitive ships."

"Any chance they might have headed south?" asked Giordino.

Yaeger shook his head. "My computer discovered that one coil of knots represented the four basic points of direction, with the knot for north at the top and the knot for south at the bottom. East and west were represented by subordinate strands."

"And their final landfall?" Pitt prodded.

"The tricky part. Never having the opportunity to clock a balsa raft under sail over a measured nautical mile, estimating the fleet's speed through water was strictly guesswork. I won't go into it now, you can read my full report later. But Brunhilda, in calculating the length of the voyage, did a masterful job of projecting the currents and wind during 1533."

Pitt put his hands behind his head and leaned his chair back on two legs. "Let me guess. They came ashore somewhere in the upper reaches of the Sea of Cortez, also known as the Gulf of California, a vast cleft of water separating the Mexican mainland from Baja California."

"On an island as you and I already discussed," Yaeger added. "It took the crews of the ships twelve days to stash the treasure in a cave, a large one according to the dimensions recorded on the quipu. An opening, which I translated as being a tunnel, runs from the highest point of the island down to the treasure cave."

"You can conclude all this from a series of knots?" asked Sandecker, incredulous.

Yaeger nodded. "And much more. A crimson strand represented Huascar, a black knot the day of his execution at the order of Atahualpa, whose attached strand was purple. General Naymlap's is a dark turquoise. Brunhilda and I can also give you a complete tally of the hoard. Believe me when I say the bulk sum is far and away more than what has been salvaged from sunken treasure ships during the last hundred years."

Sandecker looked skeptical. "I hope you're including the Atocha, the Edinburgh, and the Central America in that claim."

"And many more." Yaeger smiled confidently.

Gunn looked puzzled. "An island, you say, somewhere in the Sea of Cortez?"

"So where exactly is the treasure?" said Giordino, cutting to the heart of the lecture.

"Besides in a cavern on an island in the Sea of Cortez," summed up Sandecker.

"Sung to the tune of `My Darlin' Clementine,' " Pitt jested.

"Looks to me," Giordino sighed, "like we've got a hell of a lot of islands to consider. The Gulf is loaded with them."

"We don't have to concern ourselves with any island below the twenty-eighth parallel." Yaeger circled a section of the map with his pointer. "As Dirk guessed, I figure Naymlap's fleet sailed into the Gulf's upper reaches."

Giordino was ever the pragmatist. "You still haven't told us where to dig."

"On an island that rises out of the water like a pinnacle, or as Brunhilda's translation of the quipu suggests, the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco." Yaeger threw on an enlarged slide of the sea between Baja California and the mainland of Mexico on the screen. "A factor that narrows the search zone considerably."

Pitt leaned forward, studying the chart on the screen. "The central islands of Angel de la Guarda and Tiburon stretch between forty and sixty kilometers. They each have several prominent pinnaclelike peaks. You'll have to cut it even closer, Hiram."

"Any chance Brunhilda missed something?" asked Gunn.

"Or drew the wrong meaning from the knots?" said Giordino, casually pulling one of Sandecker's specially made cigars from his breast pocket and igniting the end.

The admiral glared, but said nothing. He had long ago given up trying to figure out how Giordino got them, certainly not from his private stock. Sandecker kept a tight inventory of his humidor.

"I admit to a knowledge gap," Yaeger conceded. "As I said earlier, the computer and I decoded ninety percent of the quipu's coils and knots. The other ten percent defies clear meaning. Two coils threw us off the mark. One made a vague reference to what Brunhilda interpreted as some kind of god or demon carved from stone. The second made no geological sense. Something about a river running through the treasure cave."

Gunn tapped his ballpoint pen on the table. "I've never heard of a river running under an island."

"I haven't either," agreed Yaeger. "That's why I hesitated to mention it."

"Must be seepage from the water in the Gulf," said Pitt.

Gunn nodded. "The only logical answer."

Pitt looked up at Yaeger. "You couldn't find any reference to landmarks?"

"Sorry, I struck out. For a while there I entertained hopes the demon god might hold a key to the location of the cave," answered Yaeger. "The knots on that particular coil seemed to signify a measurement of distance. I have the impression it indicates a number of paces inside a tunnel leading from the demon to the cave. But the copper strands had deteriorated, and Brunhilda couldn't reconstruct a coherent meaning."

"What sort of demon?" asked Sandecker.

"I don't have the slightest idea."

"A signpost leading to the treasure maybe?" mused Gunn.

"Or a sinister deity to scare off thieves," suggested Pitt.

Sandecker rapped his cigar on the lip of a glass cup, knocking off along ash. "A sound theory if the elements and vandals haven't taken their toll over four hundred years, leaving a sculpture that can't be distinguished from an ordinary rock."

"To sum up," said Pitt, "we're searching for a steep outcropping of rock or pinnacle on an island in the Sea of Cortez with a stone carving of a demon on top of it."

"A generalization," Yaeger said, sitting down at the table. "But that pretty well summarizes what I could glean out of the quipu."

Gunn removed his glasses, held them up to the light and checked for smudges. "Any hope at all that Bill Straight can restore the deteriorated coils?"

"I'll ask him to begin work on them," answered Yaeger.

"He'll be diligently laboring over them within the hour," Sandecker assured him.

"If Straight's conservation experts can reconstruct enough of the knots and strands for Brunhilda to analyze, I think I can promise to add enough data to put you within spitting distance of the tunnel leading to the treasure cave."

"You'd better," Pitt advised, "because I have ambitions in life other thin going around Mexico digging empty holes."

Gunn turned toward Sandecker. "Well, what do you say, Admiral? Is it a go?"

The feisty little chief of NUMA stared at the map on the screen. Finally, he sighed and muttered, "I want a proposal detailing the search project and its cost when I walk in my office tomorrow morning. Consider yourselves on paid vacation for the next three weeks. And not a word outside this room. If the news media get wind that NUMA is conducting a treasure hunt, I'll catch all kinds of hell from Congress."

"And if we find Huascar's treasure?" asked Pitt.

"Then we'll all be impoverished heroes."

Yaeger missed the point. "Impoverished?"

"What the admiral is implying," said Pitt, "is that the finders will not be the keepers."

Sandecker nodded. "Cry a river, gentlemen, but if you are successful in finding the hoard, every troy ounce of it will probably be turned over to the government of Peru."

Pitt and Giordino exchanged knowing grins, each reading the other's mind, but it was Giordino who spoke first.

"I'm beginning to think there is a lesson somewhere in all this."

Sandecker looked at him uneasily. "What lesson is that?"

Giordino studied his cigar as he answered. "The treasure would probably be better off if we left it where it is."

Gaskill lay stretched out in bed, a cold cup of coffee and a dish with a half-eaten bologna sandwich beside him on the bed stand. The blanket warming his huge bulk was strewn with typewritten pages. He raised the cup and sipped the coffee before reading the next page of a book-length manuscript. The title was The Thief Who Was Never Caught. It was a nonfiction account of the search for the Specter, written by a retired Scotland Yard inspector by the name of Nathan Pembroke. The inspector spent nearly five decades digging through international police archives, tracking down every lead, regardless of its reliability, in his relentless hunt.

Pembroke, hearing of Gaskill's interest in the elusive art thief from the nineteen twenties and thirties, sent him the yellowed, dog-eared pages of the manuscript he had painstakingly compiled, one that had been rejected by over thirty editors in as many years. Gaskill could not put it down. He was totally absorbed in the masterful investigative work by Pembroke, who was now in his late eighties. The Englishman had been the lead investigator on the Specter's last known heist, which took place in London in 1939. The stolen art consisted of a Joshua Reynolds, a pair of Constables, and three Turners. Like all the other brilliantly executed thefts by the Specter, the case was never solved and none of the art was recovered. Pembroke, stubbornly insisting there was no such thing as a perfect crime, became obsessed with discovering the Specter's identity.

For half a century his obsession never dimmed, and he refused to give up the chase. Only a few months before his health failed, and he was forced to enter a nursing home, did he make a breakthrough that enabled him to write the end to his superbly narrated account.

A great pity, Gaskill thought, that no editor thought it worth publishing. He could think of at least ten famous art thefts that might have been solved if The Thief Who Was Never Caught had been printed and distributed.

Gaskill finished the last page an hour before dawn. He lay back on his pillow staring at the ceiling, fitting the pieces into neat little slots, until the sun's rays crept above the windowsill of his bedroom in the town of Cicero just outside Chicago. Suddenly, he felt as if a logjam had broken free and was rushing into open water.

Gaskill smiled like a man who held a winning lottery ticket as he reached for the phone. He dialed a number from memory and fluffed the pillows so he could sit up while waiting for an answer.

A very sleepy voice croaked, "Francis Ragsdale here."

"Gaskill."

"Jesus, Dave. Why so early?"

"Who's that?" came the slurred voice of Ragsdale's wife over the receiver.

"Dave Gaskill."

"Doesn't he know it's Sunday?"

"Sorry to wake you," said Gaskill, "but I have good news that couldn't wait."

"All right," Ragsdale mumbled through a yawn. "Let's hear it."

"I can tell you the name of the Specter."

"Who?"

"Our favorite art thief."

Ragsdale came fully awake. "The Specter? You made an I.D.?"

"Not me. A retired inspector from Scotland Yard."

"A limey made him?"

"He spent a lifetime writing an entire book on the Specter. Some of it's conjecture but he's compiled some pretty convincing evidence."

"What does he have?"

Gaskill cleared his throat for effect. "The name of the greatest art thief in history was Mansfield Zolar."

"Say again?"

"Mansfield Zolar. Mean anything to you?"

"You're running me around the park."

"Swear on my badge."

"I'm afraid to ask--"

"Don't bother," Gaskill interrupted. "I know what you're thinking. He was the father."

"Good lord, Zolar International. This is like finding the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle that fell on matching carpet. The Zolars, or whatever cockamamie names they call themselves. It all begins to fit."

"Like bread crumbs to the front door."

"You were right during lunch the other day. The Specter did sire a dynasty of rotten apples who carried on the tradition."

"We've had Zolar International under surveillance on at least four occasions that I can recall, but it always came up clean. I never guessed a connection to the legendary Specter."

"Same with the bureau," said Ragsdale. "We've always suspected they were behind just about every seven figure art and artifact theft that goes down, but we've been unable to find enough evidence to indict any one of them."

"You have my sympathy. No evidence of stolen goods, no search warrant or arrest."

"Little short of a miracle how an underground business as vast as the Zolars' can operate on such a widespread scale and never leave a clue."

"They don't make mistakes," said Gaskill.

"Have you tried to get an undercover agent inside?" asked Ragsdale.

"Twice. They were wise almost immediately. If I wasn't certain my people are solid, I'd have sworn they were tipped off."

"We've never been able to penetrate them either. And the collectors who buy the hot art are just as tight-lipped and cautious."

"And yet we both know the Zolars launder stolen artifacts like drug dealers launder money."

Ragsdale was silent for a few moments. Finally he said, "I think it's about time we stop meeting for lunch to exchange notes and start working together on a full-time basis."

"I like your style," Gaskill acknowledged. "I'll start the ball rolling on my end by submitting a proposal for a joint task force to my superior as soon as I hit the office."

"I'll do likewise on my end."

"Why don't we set up a combined meeting with our teams, say Thursday morning?"

"Sounds like a winner," agreed Ragsdale.

"That should give us time to lay the initial groundwork."

"Speaking of the Specter, did you track down the stolen Diego Riveras? You mentioned over lunch that you might have a lead on them."

"Still working on the case," Gaskill replied. "But it's beginning to look like the Riveras went to Japan and ended up in a private collection."

"What do you want to bet the Zolars set up the buy?"

"If they did, there will be no trail. They use too many front organizations and intermediaries to handle the sale. We're talking the superstars of crime. Since old Mansfield Zolar pulled off his first heist, no one in the family has ever been touched by you, by me, by any other law enforcement agency in the world. They've never seen the inside of a courtroom. They're so lily white it's disgusting."

"We'll take them down this time," Ragsdale said encouragingly.

"They're not the type to make mistakes we can use to our advantage," said Gaskill.

"Maybe, maybe not. But I've always had the feeling that an outsider, someone not directly connected with you, me, or the Zolars, will come along and short-circuit their system."

"Whoever he is, I hope he shows up quick. I'd hate to see the Zolars retire to Brazil before we can drop the axe on their necks."

"Now that we know Papa was the founder of the operation, and how he operated, we'll have a better idea of what to look for."

"Before we ring off," said Ragsdale, "tell me, did you ever tie an expert translator to the golden mummy suit that slipped through your hands?"

Gaskill winced. He didn't like to be reminded. "All known experts on such glyphs have been accounted for except two. A pair of anthropologists from Harvard, Dr. Henry Moore and his wife. They've dropped from sight. None of their fellow professors or neighbors have a clue to their whereabouts."

Ragsdale laughed. "Be nice to catch them playing cozy with one of the Zolars."

"I'm working on it."

"Good luck."

"Talk to you soon," said Gaskill.

"I'll call you later this morning."

"Make it this afternoon. I have an interrogation beginning at nine o'clock."

"Better yet," said Ragsdale, "you call me when you have something in the works for a joint conference."

"I'll do that."

Gaskill hung up smiling. He had no intention of going into the office this morning. Getting agency sanction for a joint task force with the FBI would be more complicated on Ragsdale's end than Gaskill's. After reading all night, he was going to enjoy a nice, mind-settling sleep.

He loved it when a case that died from lack of evidence one minute abruptly popped back to life again. He began to see things more clearly. It was a nice feeling to be in control. Motivation stimulated by incentive was a wonderful thing.

Where had he heard that, he wondered. A Dale Carnegie class? A Customs Service policy instructor? Before it came back to him, he was sound asleep.

Pedro Vincente set down his beautifully restored DC-3 transport onto the runway of the airport at Harlingen, Texas. He taxied the fifty-five-year-old aircraft down to the front of the U.S. Customs Service hangar and shut down the two 1200-horsepower, Pratt & Whitney engines.

Two uniformed Customs agents were waiting when Vincente opened the passenger door and stepped to the ground. The taller of the two, with red hair mussed by a breeze and a face full of freckles, held a clipboard above his eyes to shield them from the bright Texas sun. The other was holding a beagle by a leash.

"Mr. Vincente?" the agent asked politely. "Pedro Vincente?"

"Yes, I'm Vincente."

"We appreciate your alerting us of your arrival into the United States."

"Always happy to cooperate with your government," Vincente said. He would have offered to shake hands, but he knew from previous border crossings the agents steered clear of bodily contact. He handed the redheaded agent a copy of his flight plan.

The agent slipped the paper onto his clipboard and examined the entries while his partner lifted the beagle into the aircraft to sniff for drugs. "Your departure point was Nicoya, Costa Rica?"

"That is correct."

"And your destination is Wichita, Kansas?"

"My ex-wife and my children live there."

"And the purpose of your visit?"

Vincente shrugged. "I fly from my home once a month to see my children. I'll be flying home the day after tomorrow."

"Your occupation is `farmer'?"

"Yes, I grow coffee beans."

"I hope that's all you grow," said the agent with a tight-lipped grin.

"Coffee is the only crop I need to make a comfortable living," said Vincente indignantly.

"May I see your passport, please?"

The routine never varied. Though Vincente often drew the same two agents, they always acted as if he were a tourist on his first visit to the States. The agent eyeballed the photo inside, comparing the straight, slicked back black hair, partridge brown eyes, smooth olive complexion, and sharp nose. The height and weight showed a short man on the thin side whose age was forty-four.

Vincente was a fastidious dresser. His clothes looked as if they came right out of GQ-- designer shirt, slacks, and green alpaca sport coat with a silk bandanna tied around his neck. The Customs agent thought he looked like a fancy mambo dancer.

Finally the agent finished his appraisal of the passport and smiled officially. "Would you mind waiting in our office, Mr. Vincente, while we search your aircraft? I believe you're familiar with the procedure."

"Of course." He held up a pair of Spanish magazines. "I always come prepared to spend some time."

The agent stared admiringly at the DC-3. "It's a pleasure to examine such a great old aircraft. I bet she flies as good as she looks."

"She began life as a commercial airliner for TWA shortly before the war. I found her hauling cargo for a mining company in Guatemala. Bought her on the spot and spent a goodly sum having her restored."

He was halfway to the office when he suddenly turned and shouted to the agent, "May I borrow your phone to call the fuel truck? I don't have enough in my tanks to make Wichita."

"Sure, just check with the agent behind the desk."

An hour later, Vincente was winging across Texas on his way to Wichita. Beside him in the copilot's seat were four briefcases stuffed with over six million dollars, smuggled on board just prior to takeoff by one of the two men who drove the refueling truck.

After a thorough search of the plane, and not finding the slightest trace of drugs or other illegal contraband, the Customs agents concluded Vincente was clean. They had investigated him years before and were satisfied he was a respected Costa Rican businessman who made a vast fortune growing coffee beans. It was true that Pedro Vincente owned the second largest coffee plantation in Costa Rica. It was also true he had amassed ten times what his coffee plantation made him as he was also the genius behind a highly successful drug smuggling operation known as Julio Juan Carlos.

Like the Zolars and their criminal empire, Vincente directed his smuggling operation from a distance. Day-to-day activities were left to his lieutenants, none of whom had a clue to his real identity.

Vincente actually had a former wife who was living with his four children on a large farm outside of Wichita. The farm was a gift from him after she begged for a divorce. An airstrip was built on the farm so he could fly in and out from Costa Rica to visit the children while purchasing stolen art and illegal antiquities from the Zolar family. Customs and Drug Enforcement agents were more concerned about what came into the country rather than what went out.

It was late afternoon when Vincente touched down on the narrow strip in the middle of a corn field. A golden-tan jet aircraft with a purple stripe running along its side was parked at one end. A large blue tent with an awning extending from the front had been erected beside the jet. A man in a white linen suit was seated under the awning beside a table set with a picnic lunch. Vincente waved from the cockpit, quickly ran through his postflight checklist, and exited the DC-3. He carried three of the briefcases, leaving one behind.

The man sitting at the table rose from his chair, came forward and embraced Vincente. "Pedro, always a delight to see you."

"Joseph, old friend, you don't know how much I look forward to our little encounters."

"Believe me when I say I'd rather deal with an honorable man like you than all my other clients put together."

Vincente grinned. "Fattening the lamb with flattery before the slaughter?"

Zolar laughed easily. "No, no, not until we've had a few glasses of good champagne to make you mellow."

Vincente followed Joseph Zolar under the awning and sat down as a young Latin American serving girl poured the champagne and offered hors d'oeuvres. "Have you brought choice merchandise for me?"

"Here's to a mutual transaction that profits good friends," Zolar said as they clinked glasses. Then he nodded. "I have personally selected for your consideration the rarest of rare artifacts from the Incas of Peru. I've also brought extremely valuable religious objects from American Southwest Indians. I guarantee objects that have just arrived from the Andes will lift your matchless collection of pre-Columbian art above that of any museum in the world."

"I'm anxious to see them."

"My staff has them displayed inside the tent for your pleasure," said Zolar.

People who begin to collect scarce and uncommon objects soon become addicts, enslaved by their need to acquire and accumulate what no one else can own. Pedro Vincente was one of the brotherhood who was driven constantly to expand his collection, one that few people knew existed. He was also one of the lucky ones who possessed secret, untaxed funds that could be laundered to satisfy his craving.

Vincente had purchased 70 percent of his cherished collectibles from Zolar over twenty years. It did not bother him in the least that he often paid five or ten times the true value of the objects, especially since most of them were stolen goods. The relationship was advantageous to both. Vincente laundered his drug money, and Zolar used the cash to secretly purchase and expand his ever-increasing inventory of illegal art.

"What makes the Andean artifacts so valuable?" asked Vincente, as they finished off a second glass of champagne.

"They are Chachapoyan."

"I've never seen Chachapoyan artwork."

"Few have," replied Zolar. "What you are about to view was recently excavated from the lost City of the Dead high in the Andes."

"I hope you're not about to show me a few potsherds and burial urns," said Vincente, his anticipation beginning to dwindle. "No authentic Chachapoyan artifacts have ever come on the market."

Zolar swept back the tent flap with a dramatic flourish. "Feast your eyes on the greatest collection of Chachapoyan art ever assembled."

In his unbridled excitement, Vincente did not notice a small glass case on a stand in one corner of the tent. He walked directly to three long tables with black velvet coverings set up in the shape of a horseshoe. One side table held only textiles, the other ceramics. The center table was set up like an exhibit in a Fifth Avenue jewelry store. The extensive array of precious handcrafted splendor stunned Vincente. He had never seen so many pre-Columbian antiquities so rich in rarity and beauty displayed in one place.

"This is unbelievable!" he gasped. "You have truly outdone yourself."

"No dealer anywhere has ever had his hands on such masterworks."

Vincente went from piece to piece, touching and examining each with a critical eye. Just to feel the embroidered textiles and gold ornaments with their gemstones took Vincente's breath away. It seemed utterly incongruous that such a hoard of wealth was sitting in a corn field in Kansas. At last he finally murmured in awe, "So this is Chachapoyan art."

"Every piece original and fully authenticated."

"These treasures all came from graves?"

"Yes, tombs of royalty and the wealthy."

"Magnificent."

"See anything you like?" Zolar asked facetiously.

"Is there more?" asked Vincente as the excitement wore off and he began to turn his mind toward acquisition.

"What you see is everything I have that is Chachapoyan."

"You're not holding back any major pieces?"

"Absolutely not," Zolar said with righteous resentment. "You have first crack at the entire collection. I will not sell it piecemeal. I don't have to tell you, my friend, there are five other collectors waiting in the wings for such an opportunity."

"I'll give you four million dollars for the lot."

"I appreciate the richness of your initial offer. But you know me well enough to understand I never haggle. There is one price, and one price only."

"Which is?"

"Six million."

Vincente cleared several artifacts, making an open space on one table. He opened the briefcases side by side, one at a time. All were filled with closely packed stacks of high denomination bills. "I only brought five million."

Zolar was not fooled for an instant. "A great pity I have to pass. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have sold the collection to."

"But I am your best customer," complained Vincente.

"I can't deny that," said Zolar. "We are like brothers. I am the only man who knows of your secret activities, and you are the only one outside my family who knows mine. Why do you put me through this ordeal every time we deal? You should know better by now."

Suddenly Vincente laughed and gave a typically Latin shrug. "What is the use? You know I have more money than I can ever spend. Having the artifacts in my possession makes me a happy man. Forgive my bargaining habits. Paying retail was never a tradition in my family."

"Your reserve supply of cash is still in your aircraft, of course."

Without a word, Vincente exited the tent and returned in a few minutes with the fourth briefcase. He set it beside the others and opened it. "Six million, five hundred thousand. You said you have some rare religious objects from the American Southwest. Are they included too?"

"For the extra five hundred thousand you can have them," answered Zolar. "You'll find the Indian religious idols under the glass case in the corner."

Vincente walked over and removed the glass dust cover. He stared at the strangely shaped gnarled figures. These were no ordinary ceremonial idols. Although they looked as if they had been carved and painted by a young child, he was aware of their significance from long experience of collecting objects from the American Southwest.

"Hopi?" he asked.

"No, Montolo. Very old. Very important in their ceremonial rituals."

Vincente reached down and began to pick one up for a closer look. His heart skipped the next three beats and he felt an icy shroud fall over him. The fingers of his hand did not feel as if they came in contact with the hardened root of a long-dead cottonwood tree. The idol felt more like the soft flesh of a woman's arm. Vincente could have sworn he heard it utter an audible moan.

"Did you hear that?" he asked, thrusting the idol back in the case as if it had burned his hand.

Zolar peered at him questioningly. "I didn't hear anything."

Vincente looked like a man having a nightmare. "Please, my friend, let us finish our business, and then you must leave. I do not want these idols on my property."

"Does that mean you don't wish to buy them?" Zolar asked, surprised.

No, no. Spirits are alive in those idols. I can feel their presence."

"Superstitious nonsense."

Vincente grasped Zolar by the shoulders, his eyes pleading. "Destroy them," he begged. "Destroy them or they will surely destroy you."

Under an Indian summer sun, two hundred prime examples of automotive builders' art sat on the green grass of East Potomac Park and glittered like spangles under a theatrical spotlight.

Staged for people who appreciated the timeless beauty and exacting craftsmanship of coach-built automobiles, and those who simply had a love affair with old cars, the annual Capital Concours de Beaux Moteurcar was primarily a benefit to raise money for child abuse treatment centers around metropolitan Washington. During the weekend the event was held, fifty thousand enthusiastic old-car buffs swarmed into the park to gaze lovingly at the Duesenbergs, Auburns, Cords, Bugattis, and Packards, products of automakers long since gone.

The atmosphere was heavy with nostalgia. The crowds that strolled the exhibit area and admired the immaculate design and flawless detailing could but wonder about an era and lifestyle when the well-to-do ordered a chassis and engine from a factory and then had the body custom built to their own particular tastes. The younger onlookers dreamed of owning an exotic car someday while those over the age of sixty-five fondly recalled seeing them driven through the towns and cities of their youth.

The cars were classified by year, body style, and country of origin. Trophies were awarded to the best of their class and plaques to the runners-up. "Best of show" was the most coveted award. A few of the wealthier owners spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring their pride and joy to a level of perfection far beyond the car's original condition on the day it rolled out of the factory.

Unlike the more conservatively dressed owners of other cars, Pitt sat in an old-fashioned canvas lawn chair wearing a flowered Hawaiian aloha shirt, white shorts, and sandals. Behind him stood a gleaming, dark blue 1936 Pierce Arrow berline (sedan body with a divider window) that was hitched to a 1936 Pierce Arrow Travelodge house trailer painted a matching color.

In between answering questions from passersby about the car and trailer, he had his nose buried in a thick boater's guide to the Sea of Cortez. Occasionally he jotted notes on a long pad of legal notepaper, yellow with blue-ruled lines. None of the islands listed and illustrated in the guide matched the steeply sided slopes of the monolithic outcropping that Yaeger had gleaned out of the Drake quipu. Only a few showed sheer walls. A number of them inclined sharply from the surrounding water, but instead of rising in the shape of a Chinese hat or a Mexican sombrero, they flattened out into mesas.

Giordino, wearing baggy khaki shorts that dropped to just above his knees and a T-shirt advertising Alkali Sam's Tequila, approached the Pierce Arrow through the crowd. He was accompanied by Loren, who looked sensational in a turquoise jumpsuit. She was carrying a picnic basket while Giordino balanced an ice chest on one shoulder.

I hope you're hungry," she said brightly to Pitt. "We bought half ownership in a delicatessen."

"What she really means," Giordino sighed as he set the ice chest on the grass, "is we loaded up on enough food to feed a crew of lumberjacks."

Pitt rolled forward out of the lawn chair and stared at a sentence printed across Giordino's shirt. "What does that say about Alkali Sam's Tequila?"

"If your eyes are still open," Giordino recited, "it ain't Alkali Sam's."

Pitt laughed and pointed toward the open door of the sixty-two-year-old house trailer. "Why don't we step into my mobile palace and get out of the sun?"

Giordino hoisted the ice chest, carried it inside, and set it on a kitchen counter. Loren followed and began spreading the contents of the picnic basket across the table of a booth that could be made into a bed. "For something built during the Depression," she said, gazing at the wooden interior with leaded glass windows in the cupboards, "it looks surprisingly modern."

"Pierce Arrow was ahead of its time," Pitt explained. "They went into the travel trailer business to supplement dwindling profits from the sales of their cars. After two years, they quit. The Depression killed them. They manufactured three models, one longer and one shorter than this one. Except for updating the stove and the refrigerator, I restored it to original condition."

"I've got Corona, Coors, or Cheurlin," said Giordino. "Name your poison."

"What kind of beer is Cheurlin?" asked Loren.

"Domaine Cheurlin Extra Dry is a brand name for a bubbly. I bought it in Elephant Butte."

"A champagne from where?"

"New Mexico," Pitt answered. "An excellent sparkling wine. Al and I stumbled onto the winery during a canoe trip down the Rio Grande."

"Okay." Loren smiled, holding up a flute-stemmed glass. "Fill it up."

Pitt smiled and nodded at the glass. "You cheated. You came prepared."

"I've hung around you long enough to know your solemn secret." She fetched a second glass and passed it to him. "For a price I won't tell the world the big, dauntless daredevil of the dismal depths prefers champagne over beer."

"I drink them both," Pitt protested.

"If she tells the boys down at the local saloon," said Giordino in a serious tone, "you'll be laughed out of town."

"What is it going to cost me?" Pitt asked, acting subdued.

Loren gave him a very sexy look indeed. "We'll negotiate that little matter later tonight."

Giordino nodded at the open Sea of Cortez boating book. "Find any likely prospects?"

"Out of nearly a hundred islands in and around the Gulf that rise at least fifty meters above the sea, I've narrowed it down to two probables and four possibles. The rest don't fit the geological pattern."

"All in the northern end?"

Pitt nodded. "I didn't consider any below the twenty-eighth parallel."

"Can I see where you're going to search?" asked Loren, as she laid out a variety of cold cuts, cheeses, smoked fish, a loaf of sourdough bread, coleslaw, and down-home potato salad.

Pitt walked to a closet, pulled out a long roll of paper and spread it on the kitchen counter. "An enhanced picture of the Gulf. I've circled the islands that come closest to matching Yaeger's translation of the quipu."

Loren and Giordino put down their drinks and examined the photo, taken from a geophysical orbiting satellite, that revealed the upper reaches of the Sea of Cortez in astonishing detail. Pitt handed Loren a large magnifying glass.

"The definition is unbelievable," said Loren, peering through the glass at the tiny islands.

"See anything resembling a rock that doesn't look natural?" asked Giordino.

"The enhancement is good, but not that good," answered Pitt.

Loren hovered over the islands Pitt had circled. Then she looked up at him. "I assume you intend to make an aerial survey of the most promising sites?"

"The next step in the process of elimination."

"By plane?"

"Helicopter."

"Looks to me like a pretty large area to cover by helicopter," said Loren. "What do you use for a base?"

"An old ferryboat."

"A ferry?" Loren said, surprised.

"Actually a car/passenger ferry that originally plied San Francisco Bay until 1957. She was later sold and used until 1962 by the Mexicans from Guaymas across the Gulf to Santa Rosalia. Then she was taken out of service. Rudi Gunn chartered her for a song."

"We have the admiral to thank," Giordino grunted. "He's tighter than the lid on a rusty pickle jar."

"1962?" Loren muttered, shaking her head. "That was thirty-six years ago. She's either a derelict by now or in a museum."

"According to Rudi she's still used as a work boat," said Pitt, "and has a top deck large enough to accommodate a helicopter. He assures me that she'll make a good platform to launch reconnaissance flights."

"When search operations cease with daylight," Giordino continued to explain, "the ferry will cruise overnight to the next range of islands on Dirk's survey list. This approach will save us a considerable amount of flight time."

Loren handed Pitt a plate and silverware. "Sounds like you've got everything pretty well under control. What happens when you find what looks like a promising treasure site?"

"We'll worry about putting together an excavation operation after we study the geology of the island," Pitt answered.

"Help yourself to the feast," said Loren.

Giordino wasted no time. He began building a sandwich of monumental proportions. "You lay out a good spread, lady."

"Beats slaving over a hot stove." Loren laughed. "What about permits? You can't go running around digging for treasure in Mexico without permission from government authorities.

Pitt laid a hefty portion of mortadella on a slice of sourdough bread. "Admiral Sandecker thought it best to wait. We don't want to advertise our objective. If word got out that we had a line on the biggest bonanza in history, a thousand treasure hunters would descend on us like locusts. Mexican officials would throw us out of the country in a mad grab to keep the hoard for their own government. And Congress would give NUMA hell for spending American tax dollars on a treasure hunt in another country. No, the quieter, the better."

"We can't afford to be shot down before we've had half a chance of making the find," said Giordino in an unusual display of seriousness.

Loren was silent while she ladled a spoonful of potato salad onto her plate, then asked, "Why don't you have someone on your team as insurance in the event local Mexican officials become suspicious and start asking questions?"

Pitt looked at her. "You mean a public relations expert?"

No, a bona fide, card-carrying member of the United States Congress."

Pitt stared into those sensual violet eyes. "You?"

"Why not? The Speaker of the House has called for a recess next week. My aides can cover for me. I'd love to get out of Washington for a few days and see a piece of Mexico."

"Frankly," said Giordino, "I think it's a stellar concept." He gave Loren a wink and a toothy smile. "Dirk is always more congenial when you're around."

Pitt put his arm around Loren. "If something should go wrong, if this thing blows up in our faces while we're in foreign territory and you're along for the ride, the scandal could ruin your political career."

She looked across the table at him brazenly. "So the voters throw me out on the streets. Then I'd have no choice but to marry you."

"A fate worse than listening to a presidential speech," said Giordino, "but a good idea just the same."

"Somehow I can't picture us walking down the aisle of the Washington Cathedral," Pitt said thoughtfully, "and then setting up housekeeping in some brick townhouse in Georgetown."

Loren had hoped for a different reaction, but she knew that Pitt was no ordinary man. She recalled their first meeting at a lawn party nearly ten years before given by some forgotten former secretary of environment. There was a magnetism that had drawn her to him. He was not handsome in the movie star sense, but there was a masculine, no-nonsense air about him that awakened a desire she hadn't experienced with other men. He was tall and lean. That helped. As a congresswoman she had known many wealthy and powerful men, several of them devilishly good-looking. But here was a man who wore the reputation of an adventurer comfortably and cared nothing for power or fame. And rightly so. He was the genuine article.

There were no strings attached to their off-and-on ten-year affair. He had known other women, she had known other men, and yet their bond still held firm. Any thought of marriage had seemed remote. Each was already married to his or her job. But the years had mellowed their relationship, and as a woman Loren knew her biological clock did not have too many ticks left if she wished to have children.

"It doesn't have to be like that," she said finally.

He sensed her feeling. "No," he said affectionately, "we can make several major improvements."

She gave him a peculiar look. "Are you proposing to me?"

A quiet look deepened his green eyes. "Let's just say I was making a suggestion about things to come."

"Can you put us closer to the dominant peak?" Sarason asked his brother Charles Oxley, who was at the controls of a small amphibious flying boat. "The crest of the lower one is too sharp for our requirements."

"Do you see something?"

Sarason peered through binoculars out a side window of the aircraft. "The island has definite possibilities, but it would help if I knew what sort of landmark to look for."

Oxley banked the twin turboprop-engined Baffin CZ410 for a better view of Isla Danzante, a steep-sided, 5-square-kilometer (3-square-mile) rock formation that jutted 400 meters (1312 feet) above the Sea of Cortez just south of the popular resort town of Loreto. "Has the right look about it," he commented, staring down. "Two small beaches to land boats. The slopes are honeycombed with small caves. What do you say, brother?"

Sarason turned and looked at the man in the rear passenger seat. "I say the esteemed Professor Moore is still holding out on us."

"You'll be alerted to the proper site when I see it," Moore said curtly.

"I say we throw the little bastard out the hatch and watch him try to fly," Sarason snapped harshly.

Moore crossed his arms smugly. "You do, and you'll never find the treasure."

"I'm getting damned sick of hearing that."

"What about Isla Danzante?" asked Oxley. "Has it got the right features?"

Moore snatched the binoculars from Sarason without asking and peered at the broken terrain running across the ridge of the island. After a few moments, he handed them back and relaxed in his seat with an iced shaker of martinis. "Not the one we're looking for," he proclaimed regally.

Sarason clasped his hands tightly to prevent them from strangling Moore. After a few moments, he regained a degree of composure and turned the page of the same boater's guide that was being used by Pitt. "Next search point is Isla Carmen. Size, one hundred and fifty square kilometers. Length, thirty kilometers. Has several peaks rising over three hundred meters."

"That's a pass," announced Moore. "Far too large."

"Your speedy response is duly noted," Sarason muttered sarcastically. "After that we have Isla Cholla, a small flat-topped rock with a light tower and a few fishing huts."

"Skip that one too," said Moore.

"Okay, next up is Isla San Ildefonso, six miles offshore east of San Sebastian."

"Size?"

"About two and a half square kilometers. No beaches."

"There has to be a beach," said Moore, taking another slug from his martini shaker. He swallowed the last few drops and his face took on an expression of deprivation. "The Incas could not have landed and unloaded their rafts without a beach."

"After San Ildefonso we come to Bahia Coyote," said Sarason. "There we'll have a choice of six islands that are little more than huge rocks rising from the sea."

Oxley eased the Baffin amphibian into a slow climb until he reached 700 meters (about 2300 feet). Then he set a course due north. Twenty-five minutes later the bay and the long peninsula that shield it from the Gulf came into view. Oxley descended and began circling the small rocky islands scattered around the entrance to the bay.

"Isla Guapa and Isla Bargo are possibilities," observed Sarason. "They both rise sharply from the water and have small but open summits."

Moore squirmed sideways in his seat and peered down. "They don't look promising to me--" He stopped talking and grabbed Sarason's binoculars again. "That island down there."

"Which one?" queried Sarason irritably. "There are six of them."

"The one that looks like a floating duck looking backward."

"Isla Bargo. Fits the profile. Steep walls on three sides, rounded crest. There is also a small beach in the crook of the neck."

"That's it," Moore said excitedly. "That must be it."

Oxley was skeptical. "How can you be so sure?"

A curious look crossed Moore's face for a fleeting instant. "A gut feeling, nothing more."

Sarason snatched back the glasses and studied the island. "There, on the crown. It looks like something carved in the rock."

"Don't pay any attention to that," said Moore, wiping a trickle of sweat from his forehead. "It doesn't mean a thing."

Sarason was no fool. Could it be a signpost cut by the Incas to mark the passageway to the treasure, he wondered in silence.

Moore sank back in his seat and said nothing.

"I'll land and taxi to that little beach," said Oxley. "From the air, at least, it looks like a relatively easy climb to the summit."

Sarason nodded. "Take her down."

Oxley made two passes over the water off the island's beach, making certain there were no underwater reefs or rocks that could tear out the bottom of the aircraft. He came into the wind and settled the plane on the blue sea, striking the light swells and riding them like a speedboat across a choppy lake. The propellers flashed in the sun as they whipped sheets of spray over the wing.

The plane quickly slowed from the drag of the water as Oxley eased back on the throttles, keeping just enough power to move the plane toward the beach. Forty-six meters (151 feet) from shore, he extended the wheels into the water. The tires soon touched and gripped the sandy shelf that sloped toward the island. Two minutes later the plane rose from a low surf and rolled onto the beach like a dripping duck.

Two fishermen wandered over from a small driftwood shack and gawked at the aircraft as Oxley turned off the ignition switches and the propellers swung to a stop. The passenger door opened and Sarason stepped down to the white sand beach, followed by Moore and finally Oxley, who locked and secured the door and cargo hatch. As an added security measure, Samson generously paid the fishermen to guard the plane. Then they set off on a scarcely defined footpath leading to the top of the island.

At first the trail was an easy hike but then it angled more steeply the closer they came to the summit. Gulls soared over them, squawking and staring down at the sweating humans through indifferent beady eyes. Their flight was majestic as they steered by the feathers in their tails, wings outstretched and motionless to catch the warm updrafts. One particularly curious bird swooped over Moore and splattered his shoulder.

The anthropologist, appearing to suffer from the effects of alcohol and exertion, stared dumbly at his stained shirt, too tired to curse. Samson, a wide grin on his face, saluted the gull and climbed over a large rock blocking the trail. Then the blue sea came into view and he looked across the channel to the white sand beach of Playa el Coyote and the Sierra el Cardonal mountains beyond.

Moore had stopped, gasping for air, sweat flowing freely. He looked on the verge of collapse when Oxley grabbed his hand and heaved him onto the flat top of the summit.

"Didn't anybody ever tell you booze and rock climbing don't mix?"

Moore ignored him. Then suddenly, the exhaustion washed away and he stiffened. His eyes squinted in drunken concentration. He brushed Oxley aside and stumbled toward a rock the size of a small automobile that was crudely carved in the shape of some animal. Like a drunk who had witnessed a vision, he staggered around the rock sculpture, his hands fluttering over the rough, uneven surface.

"A dog," he gasped between labored breaths, "it's only a stupid dog."

"Wrong," said Samson. "A coyote. The namesake of the bay. Superstitious fishermen carved it as a symbol to protect their crews and boats when they go to sea."

"Why should an old rock carving interest you?" asked Oxley.

"As an anthropologist, primitive sculptures can be a great source of knowledge."

Samson was watching Moore, and for once his eyes were no longer filled with distaste. There was no question in his mind that the drunken professor had given away the key to the treasure's location.

He could kill Moore now, Samson thought icily. Throw the little man over the edge of the island's west palisade into the surf that crashed on the rocks far below. And who would care? The body would probably drift out with the tide and become shark food. Any investigation by local Mexican authorities was doubtful.

"You realize, of course, that we no longer require your services, don't you, Henry?" It was the first time Sarason had uttered Moore's given name, and there was an unpleasant familiarity about it.

Moore shook his head and spoke with an icy composure that seemed unnatural under the circumstances. "You'll never do it without me."

"A pathetic bluff," Samson sneered. "Now that we know we're searching for an island with a sculpture, an ancient one I presume, what more can you possibly contribute to the search?"

Moore's drunkenness had seemingly melted away, and he abruptly appeared as sober as a judge. "A rock sculpture is only the first of several benchmarks the Incas erected. They all have to be interpreted."

Samson smiled. It was a cold and evil smile. "You wouldn't lie to me now, would you, Henry? You wouldn't deceive my brother and me into thinking Isla Bargo isn't the treasure site so you can return later on your own and dig it up? I sincerely hope that little plot isn't running through your mind."

Moore glared at him, simple dislike showing where there should have been fear. "Blow off the top of the island," he said with a shrug, "and see what it gets you. Level it to the waterline. You won't find an ounce of Huascar's treasure, not in a thousand years. Not without someone who knows the secrets of the markers."

"He may be right," Oxley said quietly. "And if he's lying, we can return and excavate on our own. Either way, we win."

Sarason smiled bleakly. He could read Henry Moore's thoughts. The anthropologist was playing for time, waiting and scheming to use the ultimate end of the search to somehow claim the riches for himself. But Samson was a schemer too and he had considered every option. At the moment he could see no avenue open for Moore to make a miraculous escape with tons of gold. Certainly not unless Moore had a plan that he had not yet fathomed.

Leniency and patience, they were the watchwords for now, Samson decided. He patted Moore on the back. "Forgive my frustration. Let's get back to the plane and call it a day. I think we could all use a cool bath, a tall margarita, and a good supper."

"Amen," said Oxley. "We'll take up tomorrow where we left off today."

"I knew you'd see the light," said Moore. "I'll show you the way. All you boys have to do is keep the faith."

When they arrived back at the aircraft, Samson entered first. On a hunch, he picked up Moore's discarded martini shaker and shook a few drops onto his tongue. Water, not gin.

Sarason silently cursed himself. He had not picked up on how dangerous Moore was. Why would Moore act the role of a drunk if not to lull everyone into thinking he was harmless? He slowly began to comprehend that Henry Moore was not entirely what he seemed. There was more to the famous and respected anthropologist than met the eye, much more.

As a man who could kill without the slightest remorse, Sarason should have recognized another killer when he saw one.

Micki Moore stepped out of the blue-tiled swimming pool below the hacienda and stretched out on a lounge chair. She was wearing a red bikini that did very little to conceal her thin form. The sun was warm and she did not dry herself, preferring to let the water drops cling to her body. She glanced up at the main house and motioned to one of the servants to bring her another rum collins. She acted as though she were the mistress of the manor, totally disregarding the armed guards who roamed the grounds. Her behavior was hardly in keeping with someone who was being held hostage.