Inca Gold dp-12 Page 21

  "You should see the latest computer-generated movies featuring the long-gone old stars with the new. I've watched the video of Arizona Sunset at least a dozen times."

  "Who plays the leads?"

  "Humphrey Bogart, Lionel Barrymore, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts, and Tom Cruise. It's so real, you'd swear they all acted together on the set."

  Sandecker laid his hand on Yaeger's shoulder. "Let's see if you can make a reasonably accurate documentary."

  Yaeger did his magic on the computer, and the two men watched, fascinated, as the monitor displayed a sea so blue and distinct it was like looking through a window at the real thing. Then slowly, the water began convulsing into a wave that rolled away from the land, stranding the galleon on the seabed, as dry as if it were a toy boat on the blanket of a boy's bed. Then the computer visualized the wave rushing back toward shore, rising higher and higher, then cresting and engulfing the ship under a rolling mass of froth, sand, and water, hurling it toward land at an incredible speed, until finally the ship stopped and settled as the wave smoothed out and died.

  "Five kilometers," murmured Yaeger. "She looks to be approximately five kilometers from the coast."

  "No wonder she was lost and forgotten," said Sandecker. "I suggest you contact Pitt and make arrangements to fax your computer's grid coordinates."

  Yaeger gave Sandecker a queer look indeed. "Are you authorizing the search, Admiral?"

  Sandecker feigned a look of surprise as he rose and walked toward the door. Just before exiting, he turned and grinned impishly. "I can't very well authorize what could turn out to be a wild goose chase, now can I?"

  "You think that's what we're looking at, a wild goose chase?"

  Sandecker shrugged. "You've done your magic. If the ship truly rests in a jungle and not on the bottom of the sea, then the burden falls on Pitt and Giordino to go in that hell on earth and find her."

  Giordino contemplated the dried red stain on the stone floor of the temple. "No sign of Amaru in the rubble," he said with an utter lack of emotion.

  "I wonder how far he got?" Miles Rodgers asked no one in particular. He and Shannon had arrived from the sacred well an hour before noon on a helicopter piloted by Giordino.

  "His mercenary buddies must have carried him off," Pitt surmised.

  "Knowing a sadist like Amaru might still be alive," said Rodgers, "is enough to cause nightmares."

  Giordino gave a mechanical shrug. "Even if he survived the rocket attack, he'd have died from loss of blood."

  Pitt turned and stared at Shannon, who was directing a team of archaeologists and a small army of workers. They were numbering the shattered blocks of stone from the temple in preparation for a restoration project. She seemed to have discovered something in the debris and was bending down for a closer examination. "A man like Amaru doesn't die easily. I don't think we've heard the last of him."

  "A grim prospect," said Rodgers, "made worse by the latest news from Lima."

  Pitt raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know we received CNN this deep in the Andes."

  "We do now. The helicopter that landed about an hour ago belonged to the Peruvian News Bureau. It brought in a team of television reporters and a mountain of equipment. The City of the Dead has become international news."

  "So what did they have to report?" pressed Giordino.

  "The military and police have admitted their failure to capture the army renegade mercenaries who flew into the valley to slit our throats and remove the artifacts. Nor have investigators tracked down any of Amaru's grave looters."

  Pitt smiled at Rodgers. "Not exactly the sort of report that will look good on their resumes."

  "The government tried to save face by handing out a story that the thieves dumped the artifacts over the mountains and are now hiding out in the Amazon forests of Brazil."

  "Never happened," said Pitt. "Otherwise why would U.S. Customs insist we provide them with an inventory of the artifacts? They know better. No, the loot is not scattered on a mountaintop. If I read the brains behind the Solpemachaco correctly, they're not the kind to panic and run. Their informants in the military alerted them every step of the way, from the minute an assault force was assembled and launched to capture them. They would have also learned the flight plan of the assault transports, and then plotted a safe route to avoid them. After quickly loading the artifacts, they flew to a prearranged rendezvous at an airstrip or seaport where the stolen riches were either transferred aboard a jetliner or a cargo ship. I doubt whether Peru will ever see its historical treasures again."

  "A nice tight scenario," said Rodgers thoughtfully. "But aren't you forgetting the bad guys only had one helicopter after we stole their backup?"

  "And we knocked that one into a mountain," added Giordino.

  "I think if we knew the full truth, the gang of second-rate killers ordered in by the boss who impersonated Doc Miller was followed later by a couple of heavy-lift helicopter transports, probably the old model Boeing Chinooks that were sold around the world. They can lift almost fifty troops or twenty tons of cargo. Enough mercenaries were left on the ground to stow the artifacts. They made their getaway in plenty of time after our escape and before we alerted the Peruvian government, who took their time in mounting an aerial posse."

  Rodgers stared at Pitt with renewed admiration. Only Giordino was not impressed. He knew from long years of experience that Pitt was one of that rare breed who could stand back and analyze events as they occurred, down to the finest details. It was a gift with which few men and women are born. Just as the greatest mathematicians and physicists compute incredibly intricate formulas on a level incomprehensible to people with no head for figures, so Pitt operated on a deductive level incomprehensible to all but a few of the top criminal investigators in the world. Giordino often found it maddening that while he was attempting to explain something to Pitt, the mesmeric green eyes would focus on some unseen object in the distance and he would know that Pitt was concentrating on something.

  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.
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  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 eigh
t 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?"