Inca Gold dp-12 Page 23

  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 bel
ieved 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.
<
br />   "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.