Pitt leaned over Giordino's shoulder and examined the instrument panel, his eyes coming to rest on the fuel gauges. He reached over and tapped the instrument glass. Both needles quivered just below the three-quarter mark. "How far do you figure she'll take us?"

    "Fuel range should be in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty kilometers. If a bullet, didn't bite a hole in one of the tanks, I'd guess she'll carry us about two hundred and eighty."

    "Must be a chart of the area around somewhere and a pair of dividers."

    Shannon found a navigation kit in a pocket beside her seat and passed it to Pitt. He removed a chart and unfolded it against her back. Using the dividers, careful not to stick the points through the chart paper and stab her, Pitt laid out a course to the Peruvian coast.

    "I estimate roughly three hundred kilometers to the Deep Fathom."

    "What's Deep Fathom?" asked Shannon.

    "Our research ship."

    "Surely you don't intend to land at sea when one of Peru's largest cities is much closer?"

    "She means the international airport at Trujillo," explained Giordino.

    "The Solpemachaco has too many friends to suit me," said Pitt. "Friends who have enough clout to order in a regiment of mercenaries at a moment's notice. Once they spread the word we stole a helicopter and sent the pride of their military to a graveyard, our lives won't be worth the spare tire inside the trunk of an Edsel. We'll be safer on board an American ship outside their offshore limit until we can arrange for our U.S. Embassy staff to make a full report to honest officials in the Peruvian government."

    "I see your point," agreed Shannon. "But don't overlook the archaeology students. They know the whole story. Their parents are very influential and will see that a true account of their abduction and the pillaging of national treasures hits the news media."

    "You're assuming, of course," Giordino said matter-of-factly, "that a Peruvian posse won't cut us off at any one of twenty passes between here and the sea."

    "On the contrary," replied Pitt. "I'm counting on it. Care to bet the other assault helicopter isn't chasing our tail rotor as we speak?"

    "So we hug the ground and dodge sheep and cows until we cross over water," acknowledged Giordino.

    "Precisely. Cuddling with low clouds won't hurt matters either."

    "Forgetting a little something, aren't you?" said Shannon wearily, as though reminding a husband who neglected to carry out the trash. "If my math is correct, our fuel tanks will run dry twenty kilometers short of your ship. I hope you aren't proposing we swim the rest of the way."

    "We solve that insignificant problem," said Pitt calmly, "by calling up the ship and arranging for it to run full speed on a converging course."

    "Every klick helps," said Giordino, "but we'll still be cutting it a mite fine."

    "Survival is guaranteed," Pitt said confidently. "This aircraft carries life vests for everyone on board plus two life rafts. I know-- I checked when I walked through the main cabin." He paused, turned, and looked back. Rodgers was checking to see all the students had their shoulder harnesses on properly.

    "Our pursuers will be on to us the instant you make contact with your vessel," Shannon persisted bleakly. "They'll know exactly where to intercept and shoot us down."

    "Not," Pitt replied loftily, "if I play my cards right."

 

    Setting the office chair to almost a full reclining position, communications technician Jim Stucky settled in comfortably and began reading a paperback mystery novel by Wick Downing. He had finally gotten used to the thump that reverberated throughout the hull of the NUMA oceanographic ship, Deep Fathom, every time the sonar unit bounced a signal off the seafloor of the Peru Basin. Boredom had set in soon after the vessel began endlessly cruising back and forth charting the geology 2500 fathoms below the ship's keel. Stucky was in the middle of the chapter where a woman's body is found floating inside a waterbed when Pitt's voice crackled over the speaker.

    "NUMA calling Deep Fathom. You awake, Stucky?"

    Stucky jerked erect and pressed the transmit button. "This is Deep Fathom. I read you, NUMA. Please stand by." While Pitt waited, Stucky alerted his skipper over the ship's speaker system.

    Captain Frank Stewart hurried from the bridge into the communications cabin. "Did I hear you correctly? You're in contact with Pitt and Giordino?"

    Stucky nodded. "Pitt is standing by."

    Stewart picked up the microphone. "Dirk, this is Frank Stewart."

    "Good to hear your beer-soaked voice again, Frank."

    "What have you guys been up to? Admiral Sandecker has been erupting like a volcano the past twenty-four hours, demanding to know your status."

    "Believe me, Frank, it hasn't been a good day."

    "What is your present position?"

    "Somewhere over the Andes in an antique Peruvian military chopper."

    "What happened to our NUMA helicopter?" Stewart demanded.

    "The Red Baron shot it down," said Pitt hastily. "That's not important. Listen to me carefully. We took bullet strikes in our fuel tanks. We can't stay in the air for more than a half hour. Please meet and pick us up in the town square of Chiclayo. You'll find it on your charts of the Peruvian mainland. Use our NUMA backup copter."

    Stewart looked down at Stucky. Both men exchanged puzzled glances. Stewart pressed the transmit button again. "Please repeat. I don't read you clearly."

    "We are required to land in Chiclayo due to loss of fuel. Rendezvous with us in the survey helicopter and transport us back to the ship. Besides Giordino and me, there are twelve passengers."

    Stewart looked dazed. "What in hell is going on? He and Giordino flew off the ship with our only bird. And now they're flying a military aircraft that's been shot up with twelve people on board. What's this baloney about a backup chopper?"

    "Stand by, Stewart transmitted to Pitt. Then he reached out and picked up the ship's phone and buzzed the bridge. "Find a map of Peru in the chart room and bring it to communications right away."

    "You think Pitt has fallen off his pogo stick?" asked Stucky.

    Not in a thousand years," answered Stewart. "Those guys are in trouble and Pitt's laying a red herring to mislead eavesdroppers." A crewman brought the map, and Stewart stretched it flat on a desk. "Their rescue mission took them on a course almost due east of here. Chiclayo is a good seventy-five kilometers southwest of his flight path."

    "Now that we've established his con job," said Stucky, "what's Pitt's game plan?"

    "We'll soon find out." Stewart picked up the microphone and transmitted. "NUMA, are you still with us?"

    "Still here, pal," came Pitt's imperturbable voice.

    "I will fly the spare copter to Chiclayo and pick up you and your passengers myself. Do you copy?"

    "Much appreciated, skipper. Always happy to see you never do things halfway. Have a beer waiting when I arrive."

    "Will do," answered Stewart.

    "And put on some speed will you?" said Pitt. "I need a bath real bad. See you soon."

    Stucky stared at Stewart and laughed. "Since when did you learn to fly a helicopter?"

    Stewart laughed back. "Only in my dreams."

    "Do you mind telling me what I missed?"

    "In a second." Stewart picked up the ship's phone again and snapped out orders. "Pull in the sonar's sensor and set a new course on zero-nine-zero degrees. Soon as the sensor is secured, give me full speed. And no excuses from the chief engineer that his precious engines have to be coddled. I want every revolution." He hung up the phone with a thoughtful expression. "Where were we? Oh yes, you don't know the score."

    "Is it some sort of riddle?" Stucky muttered.

    "Not at all. Obvious to me. Pitt and Giordino don't have enough fuel to reach the ship, so we're going to put on all speed and meet them approximately halfway between here and the shore, hopefully before they're forced to ditch in water infested with sharks."

 

    Giordino whipped along, a bare 10 meters (33 feet) above the tops of the trees at only 144 kilometers (90 miles) an hour. The twenty-year-old helicopter was capable of flying almost another 100 kilometers faster, but he reduced speed to conserve what little fuel he had left after passing over the mountains. Only one more range of foothills and a narrow coastal plain separated the aircraft from the sea. Every third minute he glanced warily at the fuel gauges. The needles were edging uncomfortably close to the red. His eyes returned to the green foliage rushing past below. The forest was thick and the clearings were scattered with large boulders. It was a decidedly unfriendly place to force-land a helicopter.

    Pitt had limped back into the cargo compartment and begun passing out the life vests. Shannon followed, firmly took the vests out of his hands, and handed them to Rodgers.

    "No, you don't," she said firmly, pushing Pitt into a canvas seat mounted along the bulkhead of the fuselage. She nodded at the loosely knotted, blood-soaked bandanna around his leg. "You sit down and stay put."

    She found a first aid kit in a metal locker and knelt in front of him. Without the slightest sign of nervous stress, she cut off Pitt's pant leg, cleaned the wound, and competently sewed the eight stitches to close the wound before wrapping a bandage around it.

    "Nice job," said Pitt admiringly. "You missed your calling as an angel of mercy."

    "You were lucky." She snapped the lid on the first aid kit. "The bullet merely sliced the skin."

    "Why do I feel as though you've acted on General Hospital?"

    Shannon smiled. "I was raised on a farm with five brothers who were always discovering new ways to injure themselves."

    "What turned you to archaeology?"

    "There was an old Indian burial mound in one corner of our wheat field. I used to dig around it for arrowheads. For a book report in high school, I found a text on the excavation of the Hopewell Indian culture burial mounds in southern Ohio. Inspired, I began digging into the site on our farm. After finding several pieces of pottery and four skeletons, I was hooked. Hardly a professional dig, mind you. I learned how to excavate properly in college and became fascinated with cultural development in the central Andes, and made up my mind to specialize in that area."

    Pitt looked at her silently for a moment. "When did you first meet Doc Miller?"

    "Only briefly about six years ago when I was working on my doctorate. I attended a lecture he gave on the Inca highway network that ran from the Colombian-Ecuador border almost five thousand kilometers to central Chile. It was his work that inspired me to focus my studies on Andean culture. I've been coming down here ever since."

    "Then you didn't really know him very well?" Pitt questioned. '

    Shannon shook her head. "Like most archaeologists, we concentrated on our own pet projects. We corresponded occasionally and exchanged data. About six months ago, I invited him to come along on this expedition to supervise the Peruvian university student volunteers. He was between projects and accepted. Then he kindly offered to fly down from the States five weeks early to begin preparations, arranging permits from the Peruvians, setting up the logistics for equipment and supplies, that sort of thing. Juan Chaco and he worked closely together."

    "When you arrived, did you notice anything different about him?"

    A curious look appeared in Shannon's eyes. "What an odd question."

    "His looks, his actions," Pitt persisted.

    She thought a moment. "Since Phoenix, he had grown a beard and lost about fifteen pounds, but now that I think of it, he rarely removed his sunglasses."

    "Any change in his voice?"

    She shrugged. "A little deeper perhaps. I thought he had a cold."

    "Did you notice whether he wore a ring? One with a large amber setting?"

    Her eyes narrowed. "A sixty-million-year-old piece of yellow amber with the fossil of a primitive ant in the center? Doc was proud of that ring. I remember him wearing it during the Inca road survey, but it wasn't on his hand at the sacred well. When I asked him why it was missing, he said the ring became loose on his finger after his weight loss and he left it home to be resized. How do you know about Doc's ring?"

    Pitt had been wearing the amber ring he had taken from the corpse at the bottom of the sacred well with the setting unseen under his finger. He slipped it off and handed it to Shannon without speaking.

    She held it up to the light from a round window, staring in amazement at the tiny ancient insect imbedded in the amber. "Where. . . ?" her voice trailed off.

    "Whoever posed as Doc murdered him and took his place. You accepted the imposter because there was no reason not to. The possibility of foul play never entered your mind. The killer's only mistake was forgetting to remove the ring when he threw Doc's body into the sinkhole."

    "You're saying Doc was murdered before I left the States?" she stated in bewilderment.

    "Only a day or two after he arrived at the campsite," Pitt explained. "Judging from the condition of the body, he must have been under water for more than a month."

    "Strange that Miles and I missed seeing him."

    "Not so strange. You descended directly in front of the passage to the adjoining cavern and were sucked in almost immediately. I reached the bottom on the opposite side and was able to swim a search grid, looking for what I thought would be two fresh bodies before the surge caught me. Instead, I found Doc's remains and the bones of a sixteenth-century Spanish soldier."

    "So Doc really was murdered," she said as a look of horror dawned on her face. "Juan Chaco must have known, because he was the liaison for our project and was working with Doc before we arrived. Is it possible he was involved?"

    Pitt nodded. "Up to his eyeballs. If you were smuggling ancient treasures, where could you find a better informant and front man than an internationally respected archaeological expert and government official?"

    "Then who was the imposter?"

    "Another agent of the Solpemachaco. A canny operator who staged a masterful performance of his death, with Amaru's help. Perhaps he's one of the men at the top of the organization who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. We may never know."

    "If he murdered Doc, he deserves to be hanged," Shannon said, her hazel eyes glinting with anger.

    "At least we'll be able to nail Juan Chaco to the door of a Peruvian courthouse-" Pitt suddenly tensed and swung toward the cockpit as Giordino threw the helicopter in a steeply banked circle. "What's up?"

    "A gut feeling," Giordino answered. "I decided to run a three-sixty to check our tail. Good thing I'm sensitive to vibes. We've got company."

    Pitt pushed himself to his feet, returned to the cockpit and, favoring his leg, eased into the copilot's seat. "Bandits or good guys?" he asked.

    "Our pals who dropped in on us at the temple didn't fall for your artful dodge to Chiclayo." Without taking his hands from the controls, Giordino nodded out of the windshield to his left at a helicopter crossing a low ridge of mountains to the east.

    "They must have guessed our course and overhauled us after you reduced speed to conserve fuel," Pitt surmised.

    "No racks mounting air-to-air rockets," observed Giordino. "They'll have to shoot us down with rifles--"

 

    A burst of flame and a puff of smoke erupted from the open forward passenger door of the pursuing aircraft, and a rocket soared through the sky, passing so close to the nose of the helicopter Pitt and Giordino felt they could have reached out the side windows and touched it.

    "Correction," Pitt called. "A forty-millimeter rocket launcher. The same one they used against the temple."

    Giordino slammed the collective pitch into an abrupt ascent and shoved the throttles to their stops in an attempt to throw off the launcher team's aim. "Grab your rifle and keep them busy until I can reach those low clouds along the coast."

    "Tough luck!" Pitt shouted over the shrill whine of the engines. "I tossed it away, and my Colt is empty. Any of you carry a gun on board?"

    Giordino made an imperceptible nod as he hurled the chopper in another violent maneuver. "I can't speak for the rest of them. You'll find mine wedged in a corner behind the cabin bulkhead."

    Pitt took a radio headset that was hanging on the arm of his seat and clamped it over his ears. Then he struggled out of his seat and clutched both sides of the open cockpit door with his hands to stay on his feet during a sharp turn. He plugged the lead from the headset into a socket mounted on the bulkhead and hailed Giordino. "Put on your headset so we can coordinate our defense."

    Giordino didn't answer as he mashed down on the left pedal and skidded the craft around in a flat turn. As if he were juggling, he balanced his movements with the controls while slipping the headset over his ears. He winced and involuntarily ducked as another rocket tore through the air less than a meter under the belly of the helicopter and exploded in an orange burst of flame against the palisade of a low mountain.

    Grabbing whatever handhold was within reach, Pitt staggered to the side passenger door, undogged the latches, and slid the door back until it was wide open. Shannon, her face showing more concern than fear, crawled across the floor with a cargo rope and wrapped one end around Pitt's waist as he was reaching for the automatic rifle Giordino had used to knock out the Peruvian pilots. Then she tied the opposite end to a longitudinal strut.

    "Now you won't fall out," she exclaimed.

    Pitt smiled. "I don't deserve you." Then he was lying flat on his stomach aiming the rifle out the door. "I'm ready, Al. Give me a clear shot."

    Giordino fought to twist the helicopter so that Pitt would face the blind side of the attackers. Because the passenger doors were positioned on the same side of both helicopters, the Peruvian pilot was faced with the same dilemma. He might have risked opening the clamshell doors in the aft end to allow the mercenary rifleman to blast away with an open line of fire, but that would have slowed his airspeed and made control of the chopper unwieldy. Like old propeller-driven warbirds tangling in a dogfight, the pilots maneuvered for an advantage, hurling their aircraft around the sky in a series of acrobatics never intended by their designers.

    His opponent knew his stuff, thought Giordino, with the respect of one professional for another. Outgunned by the military mercenaries, he felt like a mouse tormented by a cat before becoming a quick snack. His eyes darted from the instruments to his nemesis, then down at the ground to make certain he didn't pile into a low ridge or a tree. He yanked back the collective and broadened the pitch of the rotor blades to increase their bite in the damp air. The chopper shot upward in a maneuver matched by the other pilot. But then Giordino pushed the nose down and mashed his foot on the right rudder pedal, accelerating and throwing the craft on its side under his attacker and giving Pitt a straight shot.

    "Now!" he yelled in his microphone.

    Pitt didn't aim at the pilots in the cockpit, he sighted at the engine hump below the rotor and squeezed the trigger. The gun spat twice and went silent.

    "What's wrong?" inquired Giordino. "No gunfire. I run interference to the goal line and you fumble the ball."

    "This gun had only two rounds in it," Pitt snapped back.

    "When I took it off one of Amaru's gunmen, I didn't stop to count the shells."

    Furious with frustration, Pitt jerked out the clip and saw it was empty. "Did any of you bring a gun on board?" he shouted to Rodgers and the petrified students.

    Rodgers, tightly strapped in a seat with legs braced against a bulkhead to avoid being bounced around by Giordino's violent tactics, spread his hands. "We left them behind when we made a break for the ship."

    At that instant a rocket burst through a port window, flamed across the width of the fuselage, and exited through the opposite side of the helicopter without bursting or injuring anyone. Designed to detonate after striking armored vehicles or fortified bunkers, the rocket failed to explode after striking thin aluminum and plastic. If one hits the turbines, Pitt thought uneasily, it's all over. He stared wildly about the cabin, saw that they had all released their shoulder harnesses and lay huddled on the floor under the seats as if the canvas webbing and small tubular supports could stop a forty-millimeter tank-killing rocket. He cursed as the wildly swaying aircraft threw him against the doorframe.

    Shannon saw the furious look on Pitt's face, the despair as he flung the empty rifle out the open door. And yet she stared at him with absolute faith in her eyes. She had come to know him well enough in the past twenty-four hours to know he was not a man who would willingly accept defeat.

    Pitt caught the look and it infuriated him. "What do you expect me to do," he demanded, "leap across space and brain them with the jawbone of an ass? Or maybe they'll go away if I throw rocks at them-" Pitt broke off as his eyes fell on one of the life rafts. He broke into a wild grin. "Al, you hear me?"

    "I'm a little busy to take calls," Giordino answered tensely.

    "Lay this antique on her port side and fly above them."

    "Whatever you're concocting, make it quick before they put a rocket up our nose or we run out of fuel."

    "Back by popular demand," Pitt said, becoming his old cheerful self again, "Mandrake Pitt and his deathdefying magic act." He unsnapped the buckles on the tiedown straps holding one of the life rafts to the floor. The fluorescent orange raft was labeled Twenty-Man Flotation Unit, in English, and weighed over 45 kilograms (100 pounds). Leaning out the door secured by the rope Shannon had tied around his waist, both legs and feet spread and set, he hoisted the uninflated life raft onto his shoulder and waited.

    Giordino was tiring. Helicopters require constant hands-on concentration just to stay in the air, because they are made up of a thousand opposing forces that want nothing to do with each other. The general rule of thumb is that most pilots fly solo for an hour. After that, they turn control over to their backup or copilot. Giordino had been behind the controls for an hour and a half, was denied sleep for the past thirty-six hours, and now the strain of throwing the aircraft all over the sky was rapidly draining what strength he had in reserve. For almost six minutes, an eternity in a dogfight, he had prevented his adversary from gaining a brief advantage for a clear shot from the men manning the rocket launcher.

    The other craft passed directly across Giordino's vulnerable glass-enclosed cockpit. For a brief instant in time he could clearly see the Peruvian pilot. The face under the combat flight helmet flashed a set of white teeth and waved. "The bastard is laughing at me," Giordino blurted in fury.

    "What did you say?" came Pitt.

    "Those fornicating baboons think this is funny," Giordino said savagely. He knew what he had to do. He had noticed an almost indiscernible quirk to the enemy pilot's flying technique. When he bent left there was no hesitation, but he was a fraction of a second slow in banking right. Giordino feinted left and abruptly threw the nose skyward and curled right. The other pilot caught the feint and promptly went left but reacted too slowly to Giordino's wild ascending turn and twist in the opposite direction. Before he could counter, Giordino had hurled his machine around and over the attacker.

    Pitt's opportunity came in just the blink of an eye, but his timing was right on the money. Lifting the life raft above his head with both hands as easily as if it were a sofa pillow, he thrust it out the open door as the Peruvian chopper whipped beneath him. The orange bundle dropped with the impetus of a bowling ball and smashed through one of the gyrating rotor blades 2 meters (about 6 feet) from the tip. The blade shattered into metallic slivers that spiraled outward from the centrifugal force. Now unbalanced, the remaining four blades whirled in ever-increasing vibration until they broke away from the rotor hub in a rain of small pieces.

    The big helicopter seemed to hang poised for a moment before it yawed in circles and angled nose-first toward the ground at 190 kilometers (118 miles) an hour. Pitt hung out the door and watched, fascinated, as the Peruvian craft bored through the trees and crashed into a low hill only a few meters below the summit. He stared at the glinting shreds of metal that flew off into the branches of the trees. The big injured bird came to rest on its right side, a crumpled lump of twisted metal. And then it was lost in a huge fireball that erupted and wrapped it in flames and black smoke.

    Giordino eased back on the throttles and made a slow circular pass over the column of smoke, but neither he nor Pitt saw any evidence of life. "This has to be the first time in history an aircraft was knocked out of the sky by a life raft," said Giordino.

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

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

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

    "Fuel, what fuel?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Say again, NUMA."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    How far to rendezvous?" Pitt asked Stucky.

    "The skipper makes it about sixty kilometers."

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

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

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

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

    "I'm here."

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

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

    "You'll be the first to know."

    "Good luck."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Giordino pointed dead ahead. "The Deep Fathom."

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

    "Why the starboard side?"

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

    Enlightened, Shannon nodded. "Understood."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Yes, I am aware of our failure."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "What of Amaru? Is he still alive?"

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

    "Too bad. He was a loyal follower."

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

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

    "Useful, how?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "What else?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "What are the monitors showing?"

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

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

    "With computer enhancement it becomes even sharper."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Good news?" asked Pitt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Very similar."

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

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

    "For what purpose?" asked Stewart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "An animal skin painted with symbolic pictographs?"

    "No, a quipu," Shannon replied softly.

    Stewart tilted his head quizzically. "A what?"

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

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

    "That was the idea," Shannon agreed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

    "Hello, you old derelict."

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

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

    "Where are you calling from?"

    "A ship off the coast of Peru."

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

    "A long story."

    "Aren't they all?"

    "I need a favor."

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

    "The Golden Hind."

    "Francis Drake's Golden Hind?"

    "The same."

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

    "What about the Inca treasures?"

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

    "Did the galleon reach port?"

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

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

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

    "What was the gist of it?"

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

    "Do you have a source for the rumor?"

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

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

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

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

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

    "I leave it to you, Julien."

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "You heard wrong, pal."

    "Are you calling from the Deep Fathom?"

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

    "What can I do for you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Give it your best try."

    "How soon do you need it?"

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

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

    "Thanks, Hiram. I owe you."

    "About a hundred times over."

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "What do you know that I don't?"

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

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

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

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

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

    "I'll be in touch."

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "It did?" muttered a confused Pottle.

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

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

    "We're missing something."

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

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

    "Maybe he sits on the john."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "They could be on vacation."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "What monster?" asked Gaskill with raised eyebrows.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Okay, monitor their movements every few minutes."

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

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

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

    "Got to be Adolphus Rummel."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Do they return anything to the truck?"

    "Only empty boxes."

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "That's trespassing!" Rummel blurted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

IN SEARCH OF THE CONCEPCION

October 15, 1998

Callao, Peru

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "And that includes you."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Can you sketch them?"

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

    "Sounds sensible to me," Giordino said cheerfully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Something along those lines."

    "And Sandecker agreed to it."

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

    "Who is going in with us?"

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

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

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

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

    "Nor me," Giordino agreed firmly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Why the rush?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Ready for lift."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Rudi?"

    "I'm listening," answered Gunn.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "Stand by."

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

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

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

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

    "What. . . what was that?"

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

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