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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    "A champagne from where?"

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

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

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

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

    "I drink them both," Pitt protested.

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

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

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

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

    "Out of nearly a hundred islands in and around the Gulf that rise at least fifty meters above the sea, I've narrowed it down to two probables and four possibles. The rest don't fit the geological pattern."

    "All in the northern end?"

    Pitt nodded. "I didn't consider any below the twenty-eighth parallel."

    "Can I see where you're going to search?" asked Loren, as she laid out a variety of cold cuts, cheeses, smoked fish, a loaf of sourdough bread, coleslaw, and down-home potato salad.

    Pitt walked to a closet, pulled out a long roll of paper and spread it on the kitchen counter. "An enhanced picture of the Gulf. I've circled the islands that come closest to matching Yaeger's translation of the quipu."

    Loren and Giordino put down their drinks and examined the photo, taken from a geophysical orbiting satellite, that revealed the upper reaches of the Sea of Cortez in astonishing detail. Pitt handed Loren a large magnifying glass.

    "The definition is unbelievable," said Loren, peering through the glass at the tiny islands.

    "See anything resembling a rock that doesn't look natural?" asked Giordino.

    "The enhancement is good, but not that good," answered Pitt.

    Loren hovered over the islands Pitt had circled. Then she looked up at him. "I assume you intend to make an aerial survey of the most promising sites?"

    "The next step in the process of elimination."

    "By plane?"

    "Helicopter."

    "Looks to me like a pretty large area to cover by helicopter," said Loren. "What do you use for a base?"

    "An old ferryboat."

    "A ferry?" Loren said, surprised.

    "Actually a car/passenger ferry that originally plied San Francisco Bay until 1957. She was later sold and used until 1962 by the Mexicans from Guaymas across the Gulf to Santa Rosalia. Then she was taken out of service. Rudi Gunn chartered her for a song."

    "We have the admiral to thank," Giordino grunted. "He's tighter than the lid on a rusty pickle jar."

    "1962?" Loren muttered, shaking her head. "That was thirty-six years ago. She's either a derelict by now or in a museum."

    "According to Rudi she's still used as a work boat," said Pitt, "and has a top deck large enough to accommodate a helicopter. He assures me that she'll make a good platform to launch reconnaissance flights."

    "When search operations cease with daylight," Giordino continued to explain, "the ferry will cruise overnight to the next range of islands on Dirk's survey list. This approach will save us a considerable amount of flight time."

    Loren handed Pitt a plate and silverware. "Sounds like you've got everything pretty well under control. What happens when you find what looks like a promising treasure site?"

    "We'll worry about putting together an excavation operation after we study the geology of the island," Pitt answered.

    "Help yourself to the feast," said Loren.

    Giordino wasted no time. He began building a sandwich of monumental proportions. "You lay out a good spread, lady."

    "Beats slaving over a hot stove." Loren laughed. "What about permits? You can't go running around digging for treasure in Mexico without permission from government authorities.

    Pitt laid a hefty portion of mortadella on a slice of sourdough bread. "Admiral Sandecker thought it best to wait. We don't want to advertise our objective. If word got out that we had a line on the biggest bonanza in history, a thousand treasure hunters would descend on us like locusts. Mexican officials would throw us out of the country in a mad grab to keep the hoard for their own government. And Congress would give NUMA hell for spending American tax dollars on a treasure hunt in another country. No, the quieter, the better."

    "We can't afford to be shot down before we've had half a chance of making the find," said Giordino in an unusual display of seriousness.

    Loren was silent while she ladled a spoonful of potato salad onto her plate, then asked, "Why don't you have someone on your team as insurance in the event local Mexican officials become suspicious and start asking questions?"

    Pitt looked at her. "You mean a public relations expert?"

    No, a bona fide, card-carrying member of the United States Congress."

    Pitt stared into those sensual violet eyes. "You?"

    "Why not? The Speaker of the House has called for a recess next week. My aides can cover for me. I'd love to get out of Washington for a few days and see a piece of Mexico."

    "Frankly," said Giordino, "I think it's a stellar concept." He gave Loren a wink and a toothy smile. "Dirk is always more congenial when you're around."

    Pitt put his arm around Loren. "If something should go wrong, if this thing blows up in our faces while we're in foreign territory and you're along for the ride, the scandal could ruin your political career."

    She looked across the table at him brazenly. "So the voters throw me out on the streets. Then I'd have no choice but to marry you."

    "A fate worse than listening to a presidential speech," said Giordino, "but a good idea just the same."

    "Somehow I can't picture us walking down the aisle of the Washington Cathedral," Pitt said thoughtfully, "and then setting up housekeeping in some brick townhouse in Georgetown."

    Loren had hoped for a different reaction, but she knew that Pitt was no ordinary man. She recalled their first meeting at a lawn party nearly ten years before given by some forgotten former secretary of environment. There was a magnetism that had drawn her to him. He was not handsome in the movie star sense, but there was a masculine, no-nonsense air about him that awakened a desire she hadn't experienced with other men. He was tall and lean. That helped. As a congresswoman she had known many wealthy and powerful men, several of them devilishly good-looking. But here was a man who wore the reputation of an adventurer comfortably and cared nothing for power or fame. And rightly so. He was the genuine article.

    There were no strings attached to their off-and-on ten-year affair. He had known other women, she had known other men, and yet their bond still held firm. Any thought of marriage had seemed remote. Each was already married to his or her job. But the years had mellowed their relationship, and as a woman Loren knew her biological clock did not have too many ticks left if she wished to have children.

    "It doesn't have to be like that," she said finally.

    He sensed her feeling. "No," he said affectionately, "we can make several major improvements."

    She gave him a peculiar look. "Are you proposing to me?"

    A quiet look deepened his green eyes. "Let's just say I was making a suggestion about things to come."

 

    "Can you put us closer to the dominant peak?" Sarason asked his brother Charles Oxley, who was at the controls of a small amphibious flying boat. "The crest of the lower one is too sharp for our requirements."

    "Do you see something?"

    Sarason peered through binoculars out a side window of the aircraft. "The island has definite possibilities, but it would help if I knew what sort of landmark to look for."

    Oxley banked the twin turboprop-engined Baffin CZ410 for a better view of Isla Danzante, a steep-sided, 5-square-kilometer (3-square-mile) rock formation that jutted 400 meters (1312 feet) above the Sea of Cortez just south of the popular resort town of Loreto. "Has the right look about it," he commented, staring down. "Two small beaches to land boats. The slopes are honeycombed with small caves. What do you say, brother?"

    Sarason turned and looked at the man in the rear passenger seat. "I say the esteemed Professor Moore is still holding out on us."

    "You'll be alerted to the proper site when I see it," Moore said curtly.

    "I say we throw the little bastard out the hatch and watch him try to fly," Sarason snapped harshly.

    Moore crossed his arms smugly. "You do, and you'll never find the treasure."

    "I'm getting damned sick of hearing that."

    "What about Isla Danzante?" asked Oxley. "Has it got the right features?"

    Moore snatched the binoculars from Sarason without asking and peered at the broken terrain running across the ridge of the island. After a few moments, he handed them back and relaxed in his seat with an iced shaker of martinis. "Not the one we're looking for," he proclaimed regally.

    Sarason clasped his hands tightly to prevent them from strangling Moore. After a few moments, he regained a degree of composure and turned the page of the same boater's guide that was being used by Pitt. "Next search point is Isla Carmen. Size, one hundred and fifty square kilometers. Length, thirty kilometers. Has several peaks rising over three hundred meters."

    "That's a pass," announced Moore. "Far too large."

    "Your speedy response is duly noted," Sarason muttered sarcastically. "After that we have Isla Cholla, a small flat-topped rock with a light tower and a few fishing huts."

    "Skip that one too," said Moore.

    "Okay, next up is Isla San Ildefonso, six miles offshore east of San Sebastian."

    "Size?"

    "About two and a half square kilometers. No beaches."

    "There has to be a beach," said Moore, taking another slug from his martini shaker. He swallowed the last few drops and his face took on an expression of deprivation. "The Incas could not have landed and unloaded their rafts without a beach."

    "After San Ildefonso we come to Bahia Coyote," said Sarason. "There we'll have a choice of six islands that are little more than huge rocks rising from the sea."

    Oxley eased the Baffin amphibian into a slow climb until he reached 700 meters (about 2300 feet). Then he set a course due north. Twenty-five minutes later the bay and the long peninsula that shield it from the Gulf came into view. Oxley descended and began circling the small rocky islands scattered around the entrance to the bay.

    "Isla Guapa and Isla Bargo are possibilities," observed Sarason. "They both rise sharply from the water and have small but open summits."

    Moore squirmed sideways in his seat and peered down. "They don't look promising to me--" He stopped talking and grabbed Sarason's binoculars again. "That island down there."

    "Which one?" queried Sarason irritably. "There are six of them."

    "The one that looks like a floating duck looking backward."

    "Isla Bargo. Fits the profile. Steep walls on three sides, rounded crest. There is also a small beach in the crook of the neck."

    "That's it," Moore said excitedly. "That must be it."

    Oxley was skeptical. "How can you be so sure?"

    A curious look crossed Moore's face for a fleeting instant. "A gut feeling, nothing more."

    Sarason snatched back the glasses and studied the island. "There, on the crown. It looks like something carved in the rock."

    "Don't pay any attention to that," said Moore, wiping a trickle of sweat from his forehead. "It doesn't mean a thing."

    Sarason was no fool. Could it be a signpost cut by the Incas to mark the passageway to the treasure, he wondered in silence.

    Moore sank back in his seat and said nothing.

    "I'll land and taxi to that little beach," said Oxley. "From the air, at least, it looks like a relatively easy climb to the summit."

    Sarason nodded. "Take her down."

    Oxley made two passes over the water off the island's beach, making certain there were no underwater reefs or rocks that could tear out the bottom of the aircraft. He came into the wind and settled the plane on the blue sea, striking the light swells and riding them like a speedboat across a choppy lake. The propellers flashed in the sun as they whipped sheets of spray over the wing.

    The plane quickly slowed from the drag of the water as Oxley eased back on the throttles, keeping just enough power to move the plane toward the beach. Forty-six meters (151 feet) from shore, he extended the wheels into the water. The tires soon touched and gripped the sandy shelf that sloped toward the island. Two minutes later the plane rose from a low surf and rolled onto the beach like a dripping duck.

    Two fishermen wandered over from a small driftwood shack and gawked at the aircraft as Oxley turned off the ignition switches and the propellers swung to a stop. The passenger door opened and Sarason stepped down to the white sand beach, followed by Moore and finally Oxley, who locked and secured the door and cargo hatch. As an added security measure, Samson generously paid the fishermen to guard the plane. Then they set off on a scarcely defined footpath leading to the top of the island.

    At first the trail was an easy hike but then it angled more steeply the closer they came to the summit. Gulls soared over them, squawking and staring down at the sweating humans through indifferent beady eyes. Their flight was majestic as they steered by the feathers in their tails, wings outstretched and motionless to catch the warm updrafts. One particularly curious bird swooped over Moore and splattered his shoulder.

    The anthropologist, appearing to suffer from the effects of alcohol and exertion, stared dumbly at his stained shirt, too tired to curse. Samson, a wide grin on his face, saluted the gull and climbed over a large rock blocking the trail. Then the blue sea came into view and he looked across the channel to the white sand beach of Playa el Coyote and the Sierra el Cardonal mountains beyond.

    Moore had stopped, gasping for air, sweat flowing freely. He looked on the verge of collapse when Oxley grabbed his hand and heaved him onto the flat top of the summit.

    "Didn't anybody ever tell you booze and rock climbing don't mix?"

    Moore ignored him. Then suddenly, the exhaustion washed away and he stiffened. His eyes squinted in drunken concentration. He brushed Oxley aside and stumbled toward a rock the size of a small automobile that was crudely carved in the shape of some animal. Like a drunk who had witnessed a vision, he staggered around the rock sculpture, his hands fluttering over the rough, uneven surface.

    "A dog," he gasped between labored breaths, "it's only a stupid dog."

    "Wrong," said Samson. "A coyote. The namesake of the bay. Superstitious fishermen carved it as a symbol to protect their crews and boats when they go to sea."

    "Why should an old rock carving interest you?" asked Oxley.

    "As an anthropologist, primitive sculptures can be a great source of knowledge."

    Samson was watching Moore, and for once his eyes were no longer filled with distaste. There was no question in his mind that the drunken professor had given away the key to the treasure's location.

    He could kill Moore now, Samson thought icily. Throw the little man over the edge of the island's west palisade into the surf that crashed on the rocks far below. And who would care? The body would probably drift out with the tide and become shark food. Any investigation by local Mexican authorities was doubtful.

    "You realize, of course, that we no longer require your services, don't you, Henry?" It was the first time Sarason had uttered Moore's given name, and there was an unpleasant familiarity about it.

    Moore shook his head and spoke with an icy composure that seemed unnatural under the circumstances. "You'll never do it without me."

    "A pathetic bluff," Samson sneered. "Now that we know we're searching for an island with a sculpture, an ancient one I presume, what more can you possibly contribute to the search?"

    Moore's drunkenness had seemingly melted away, and he abruptly appeared as sober as a judge. "A rock sculpture is only the first of several benchmarks the Incas erected. They all have to be interpreted."

    Samson smiled. It was a cold and evil smile. "You wouldn't lie to me now, would you, Henry? You wouldn't deceive my brother and me into thinking Isla Bargo isn't the treasure site so you can return later on your own and dig it up? I sincerely hope that little plot isn't running through your mind."

    Moore glared at him, simple dislike showing where there should have been fear. "Blow off the top of the island," he said with a shrug, "and see what it gets you. Level it to the waterline. You won't find an ounce of Huascar's treasure, not in a thousand years. Not without someone who knows the secrets of the markers."

    "He may be right," Oxley said quietly. "And if he's lying, we can return and excavate on our own. Either way, we win."

    Sarason smiled bleakly. He could read Henry Moore's thoughts. The anthropologist was playing for time, waiting and scheming to use the ultimate end of the search to somehow claim the riches for himself. But Samson was a schemer too and he had considered every option. At the moment he could see no avenue open for Moore to make a miraculous escape with tons of gold. Certainly not unless Moore had a plan that he had not yet fathomed.

    Leniency and patience, they were the watchwords for now, Samson decided. He patted Moore on the back. "Forgive my frustration. Let's get back to the plane and call it a day. I think we could all use a cool bath, a tall margarita, and a good supper."

    "Amen," said Oxley. "We'll take up tomorrow where we left off today."

    "I knew you'd see the light," said Moore. "I'll show you the way. All you boys have to do is keep the faith."

    When they arrived back at the aircraft, Samson entered first. On a hunch, he picked up Moore's discarded martini shaker and shook a few drops onto his tongue. Water, not gin.

    Sarason silently cursed himself. He had not picked up on how dangerous Moore was. Why would Moore act the role of a drunk if not to lull everyone into thinking he was harmless? He slowly began to comprehend that Henry Moore was not entirely what he seemed. There was more to the famous and respected anthropologist than met the eye, much more.

    As a man who could kill without the slightest remorse, Sarason should have recognized another killer when he saw one.

    Micki Moore stepped out of the blue-tiled swimming pool below the hacienda and stretched out on a lounge chair. She was wearing a red bikini that did very little to conceal her thin form. The sun was warm and she did not dry herself, preferring to let the water drops cling to her body. She glanced up at the main house and motioned to one of the servants to bring her another rum collins. She acted as though she were the mistress of the manor, totally disregarding the armed guards who roamed the grounds. Her behavior was hardly in keeping with someone who was being held hostage.

    The hacienda was built around the pool and a large garden filled with a variety of tropical plants. All major rooms had balconies with dramatic views of the sea and the town of Guaymas. She was more than happy to relax around the pool or in her skylit bedroom with its own patio and Jacuzzi while the men flew up and down the Gulf in search of the treasure. She picked up her watch from a small table. Five o'clock. The conniving brothers and her husband would be returning soon. She sighed with pleasure at the thought of another fabulous dinner of local dishes.

    After the servant girl brought the rum collins, Micki drank it down to the ice cubes and settled back for a brief nap. Just before she drifted off, she thought she heard a car drive up the road from town and stop at the front gate of the hacienda.

    When she awoke a short time later, her skin felt cool and she sensed that the sun had passed behind a cloud. But then she opened her eyes, and was startled to see a man standing over her, his shadow thrown across the upper half of her body.

    The eyes that stared at her looked like stagnant black pools. There was no life to them. Even his face seemed incapable of expression. The stranger appeared emaciated, as if he been sick for a long time. Micki shivered as though an icy breeze suddenly swept over her. She thought it odd that he took no notice of her exposed body, but gazed directly into her eyes. She felt as if he were looking inside her.

    "Who are you?" she asked. "Do you work for Mr. Zolar?"

    He did not reply for several seconds. When he spoke, it was with an odd voice with no inflection. "My name is Tupac Amaru."

    And then he turned and walked away.

 

    Admiral Sandecker stood in front of his desk and held out his hand as Gaskill and Ragsdale were ushered into his office. He gave a friendly smile. "Gentlemen, please take a seat and get comfortable."

    Gaskill looked down at the little man who stood slightly below his shoulders. "Thank you for taking the time to see us."

    "NUMA has worked with Customs and the FBI in the past. Our relations were always based on cordial cooperation."

    "I hope you weren't apprehensive when we asked to meet with you," said Ragsdale.

    "Curious is more like it. Would you like some coffee?"

    Gaskill nodded. "Black for me, thank you."

    "Whatever artificial sweetener that's handy in mine," said Ragsdale.

    Sandecker spoke into his intercom, and then looked up and asked, "Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?"

    Ragsdale came straight to the point. "We'd like NUMA's help settling a thorny problem dealing with stolen artifacts."

    "A little out of our line," said Sandecker. "Our field is ocean science and engineering."

    Gaskill nodded. "We understand, but it has come to Customs' attention that someone in your agency has smuggled a valuable artifact into the country illegally."

    "That someone was me," Sandecker shot back without batting an eye.

    Ragsdale and Gaskill glanced at each other and shifted uneasily in their chairs. This turn of events was not what they had expected.

    "Are you aware, Admiral, that the United States prohibits the importing of stolen artifacts under a United Nations convention that seeks to protect antiquities worldwide?"

    "I am."

    "And are you also aware, sir, that officials at the Ecuadorian embassy have filed a protest?"

    "As a matter of fact, I instigated the protest."

    Gaskill sighed and visibly relaxed. "I had a feeling in my bones there was more to this than a simple smuggling."

    "I think Mr. Gaskill and I would both appreciate an explanation," said Ragsdale.

    Sandecker paused as his private secretary, Julie Wolff, entered with a tray of coffee cups and set them on the edge of his desk. "Excuse me, Admiral, but Rudi Gunn called from San Felipe to report that he and Al Giordino have landed and are making final preparations for the project."

    "What is Dirk's status?"

    "He's driving and should be somewhere in Texas about now."

    Sandecker turned back to the government agents after Julie had closed the door. "Sorry for the interruption. Where were we?"

    "You were going to tell us why you smuggled a stolen artifact into the United States," said Ragsdale, his face serious.

    The admiral casually opened a box of his cigars and offered them. The agents shook their heads. He leaned back in his desk chair, lit a cigar, and graciously blew a cloud of blue smoke over his shoulder toward an open window. Then he told them the story of Drake's quipu, beginning with the war between the Inca princes and ending with Hiram Yaeger's translation of the coiled strands and their knots.

    "But surely, Admiral," questioned Ragsdale, "you and NUMA don't intend to get into the treasure hunting business?"

    "We most certainly do." Sandecker smiled.

    "I wish you'd explain the Ecuadorian protest," said Gaskill.

    "As insurance. Ecuador is in bitter conflict with an army of peasant rebels in the mountains. Their government officials were not about to allow us to search for the quipu and then take it to the United States for decoding and preservation for fear their people would think they had sold a priceless national treasure to foreigners. By claiming we stole it, they're off the hook. So they agreed to loan the guipu to NUMA for a year. And when we return it with the proper ceremony, they'll be applauded as national heroes."

    "But why NUMA?" Ragsdale persisted. "Why not the Smithsonian or National Geographic?"

    "Because we don't have a proprietary interest. And we're in a better position to keep the search and discovery out of the public eye."

    "But you can't legally keep any of it."

    "Of course not. If it's discovered in the Sea of Cortez, where we believe it lies, Mexico will cry `finders keepers.' Peru will claim original ownership, and the two countries will have to negotiate, thereby assuring the treasures will eventually be displayed in their national museums."

    "And our State Department will get credit for a public relations coup with our good neighbors to the south," added Ragsdale.

    "You said it, sir, not me."

    "Why didn't you notify Customs or the FBI about this?" inquired Gaskill.

    "I informed the President," Sandecker replied matter-of-factly. "If he failed to filter the information from the White House to your agencies, then you'll just have to blame the White House."

    Ragsdale finished his coffee and set the cup on the tray. "You've closed the door on one problem that concerned us all, Admiral. And believe me when I say we are extremely relieved at not having to put you through the hassle of an investigation. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint, you've opened the door to another dilemma."

    Gaskill looked at Ragsdale. "The coincidence is nothing short of astonishing."

    "Coincidence?" Sandecker asked curiously.

    "That after almost five hundred years, two vital clues to the mystery of Huascar's treasure surfaced from two different sources within five days of each other."

    Sandecker shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't follow you."

    In turn, Gaskill filled the admiral in on the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo. He finished by giving a brief summary of the case against Zolar International.

    "Are you telling me that another party is searching for Huascar's treasure at this very minute?" Sandecker asked incredulously.

    Ragsdale nodded. "An international syndicate that deals in art theft, antiquity smuggling, and art forgery with annual profits running into untold millions of untaxed dollars."

    "I had no idea."

    "Regrettably, our government and news media have not seen the benefit in educating the general public on a criminal activity that is second only to the drug trade."

    "In one robbery alone," explained Gaskill, "the dollar estimate of the masterpieces stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston in April 1990 came to two hundred million."

    "When you throw in the combined theft, smuggling, and forgery operations taking place in nearly every country of the world," Ragsdale continued, "you can understand why we're looking at a billion-dollar industry."

    "The list of art and antiquities stolen over the past hundred years would equal the number of names in the New York phone book," Gaskill emphasized.

    "Who buys such a staggering amount of illegal goods?" asked Sandecker.

    "The demand far exceeds the supply," answered Gaskill. "Wealthy collectors are indirectly responsible for looting because they create a strong market demand. They stand in line to purchase historically significant hot goods from underground dealers. The list of clients reads like a celebrity register. Heads of state, high-level government officials, motion picture personalities, top business leaders, and even curators of major museums who look the other way while negotiating for black market goods to enhance their collections. If they have a buck, they'll buy it."

    "Drug dealers also buy untold amounts of illegal art and antiquities as a fast and easy way of laundering money while building an investment."

    "I can see why unrecorded artifacts are lost in the shuffle," said Sandecker. "But surely famous art paintings and sculptures turn up and are recovered."

    Ragsdale shook his head. "Sometimes we get lucky, and a tip leads us to stolen property. Occasionally honest art dealers or museum curators will call us when they recognize pieces the thieves are trying to sell. All too often missing art remains lost from lack of leads."

    "A tremendous number of antiquities obtained by grave robbers are sold before archaeologists have a chance to study them," Gaskill said. "For example, during the desert war against Iraq in the early nineties, thousands of artifacts, including untranslated clay tablets, jewelry, textiles, glass, pottery, gold and silver coins, and cylinder seals, were plundered from both Kuwaiti and Iraqi museums by anti-Hussein opposition forces and Shiite and Kurdish rebels. Much of it had already passed through dealers and auction houses before any of the pieces could be catalogued as missing or stolen."

    "Hardly seems possible that a collector would pay big money for art he knows damn well belongs to someone else," said Sandecker. "He certainly can't put it on display without risking exposure or arrest. What does he do with it?"

    "Call it a psychological warp," replied Ragsdale. "Gaskill and I can recite any number of cases involving collectors who stash their illegal acquisitions in a secret vault where they sit and view it once a day, or maybe once every ten years. Never mind that none of it is on public display. They get their high by possessing something no one else can own."

    Gaskill nodded in agreement. "Collector addiction can make people carry out macabre schemes. It's bad enough to desecrate and despoil Indian graves by digging up and selling skulls and mummified bodies of women and children, but certain collectors of American Civil War memorabilia have gone so far as to dig up graves in national cemeteries just to retrieve Union and Confederate belt buckles."

    "A sad commentary on avarice," mused Sandecker.

    "The stories of grave plundering for artifacts are endless," said Ragsdale. "Bones of the dead from every culture, beginning with the Neanderthal, are smashed and scattered. The sanctity of the dead means little if there is a profit to be made."

    "Because of the many collectors' insatiable lust for antiquities," said Gaskill, "they're prime candidates for rip-offs. Their seemingly inexhaustible demand creates a lucrative trade in forgeries."

    Ragsdale nodded. "Without proper archaeological study, copied artifacts can pass undetected. Many of the collections in respected museums display forged antiquities and no one realizes. Every curator or collector is unwilling to believe he has been screwed by a forger, and few scholars have the guts to state that the pieces they are examining are suspect."

    "Famous art is not exempt," Gaskill further explained. "Agent Ragsdale and I have both seen cases where an outstanding masterpiece was stolen, copied by experts, and the forgery returned through channels for the finder's fee and insurance. The gallery and its curator happily hang the fake, never realizing they've been had."

    "How are the stolen objects distributed and sold?" queried Sandecker.

    "Tomb looters and art thieves sell through an underground network of crooked dealers who put up the money and supervise the sales from a distance, acting through agents without revealing their identity."

    "Can't they be traced through the network?"

    Gaskill shook his head. "Because the suppliers and their distributors also operate behind closed doors under a heavy veil of secrecy, it is next to impossible for us to penetrate any particular branch of the network with any prospect of following a trail to the top dealers."

    Ragsdale took over. "It's not like tracing a drug user to his street-corner dealer, and then to his suppliers, and then up the ladder to the drug lords, who are mostly uneducated, seldom go to extremes to hide their identities, and are often drug users themselves. Instead, we find ourselves matching wits with men who are well educated and highly connected in the top levels of business and government. They're shrewd, and they're cunning. Except in rare cases, they never deal with their clients on a direct face-to-face basis. Whenever we get close, they pull into their shells and throw up a wall of expensive attorneys to block our investigations."

    "Have you had any luck at all?" asked Sandecker.

    "We've picked off a few of the small dealers who operate on their own," replied Ragsdale. "And both our agencies have recovered substantial numbers of stolen goods. Some during shipment, some from buyers, who almost never do jail time because they claim they didn't know the pieces they bought were stolen. What we've recovered is only a trickle. Without solid evidence we can't stem the main flow of illegal objects."

    "Sounds to me like you fellows are outgunned and outclassed," said Sandecker.

    Ragsdale nodded. "We'd be the first to admit it."

    Sandecker silently rocked back and forth in his swivel chair, mulling over the words of the government agents seated across the desk. At last he said, "How can NUMA help you?"

    Gaskill leaned across the desk. "We think you cracked the door open by unknowingly synchronizing your search for Huascar's treasure with the world's largest dealer of hot art and antiquities."

    "Zolar International."

    "Yes, a family whose tentacles reach into every comer of the trade.

    "FBI and Customs agents," said Ragsdale, "have never before encountered a single group of art forgers, thieves, and artifact smugglers who have operated in so many countries for so many years and have involved such a diverse cast of wealthy celebrities, who have illegally bought literally billions of dollars worth of stolen art and antiques."

    "I'm listening," said Sandecker.

    "This is our chance to get in on the ground floor," revealed Gaskill. "Because of the possibility of finding fantastic riches, the Zolars have shed all caution and launched a search to locate the treasure and keep it for themselves. If they are successful, this presents us with a rare window of opportunity to observe their method of shipment and trail it back to their secret storehouse . . ."

    "Where you nab them redhanded with the swag," Sandecker finished.

    Ragsdale grinned. "We don't exactly use those terms anymore, Admiral, but yes, you're on the right track."

    Sandecker was intrigued. "You want me to call off my search team. Is that the message?"

    Gaskill and Ragsdale looked at each other and nodded.

    "Yes, sir," said Gaskill. "That's the message."

    "With your approval, of course," Ragsdale hastily added.

    "Have you boys cleared this with your superiors?"

    Ragsdale nodded solemnly. "Director Moran of the FBI and Director Thomas of the Customs Service have given their approval."

    "You don't mind if I give them a call and confirm?"

    "Not at all," said Gaskill. "I apologize that Agent Ragsdale and I didn't go through the chain of command arid request that they deal with you directly, but we felt it was best to present our case from firsthand knowledge and let the chips fall where they may."

    "I can appreciate that," said Sandecker generously.

    "Then you'll cooperate?" asked Ragsdale. "And call off your search team?"

    Sandecker stared idly at the smoke curling from his cigar for several moments. "NUMA will play ball with the bureau and Customs, but I won't close down our search project."

    Gaskill stared at the admiral, not knowing if he was joking. "I don't think I catch your drift, sir."

    "Have you people ever hunted for something that has been lost for almost five hundred years?"

    Ragsdale glanced at his partner and shrugged. "Speaking for the bureau, our search operations are generally confined to missing persons, fugitives, and bodies. Lost treasure is out of our domain."

    "I don't believe I have to explain what the Customs Service looks for," said Gaskill.

    "I'm quite familiar with your directives," Sandecker said conversationally. "But finding lost treasure is a million-to-one long shot. You can't interview people for leads who have been dead since the fifteen hundreds. All our quipu and your golden mummy have done is given vague references to a mysterious island in the Sea of Cortez. A clue that puts the proverbial needle somewhere within a hundred-and-sixty-thousand-square-kilometer haystack. I'm assuming the Zolars are amateurs at this kind of search game. So the chances of them finding the cavern containing Huascar's golden chain are ten meters this side of nil."

    "You think your people have a better chance?" asked Gaskill testily.

    "My special projects director and his team are the best in the business. If you don't believe me, check our records."

    "How do you plan to play ball with us?" Ragsdale asked, his tone edged with disbelief.

    Sandecker made his thrust. "We conduct our search at the same time as the Zolars, but we hang in the shadows. They have no reason to suspect rivals and will assume any NUMA personnel or aircraft they sight are on an oceanographic research project. If the Zolars are successful in discovering the treasure, my team will simply melt away and return to Washington."

    "And should the Zolars strike out?" demanded Ragsdale.

    "If NUMA can't find the treasure, it doesn't want to be found."

    "And if NUMA is successful?" Ragsdale pushed forward.

    "We leave a trail of bread crumbs for the   to follow, and let them think they discovered the hoard on their own." Sandecker paused, his hard gaze moving from Ragsdale to Gaskill and back. "From then on, gentlemen, the show belongs to you."

 

    "I keep imagining that Rudolph Valentino is going to ride over the next dune and carry me away to his tent," said Loren sleepily. She was sitting on thee front seat of the Pierce Arrow, her legs curled under her, staring at the ocean of sand dunes that dominated the landscape.

    "Keep looking," said Pitt. "The Coachella Dunes, slightly north of here, are where Hollywood used to shoot many of their desert movies."

    Fifty kilometers (31 miles) after passing through Yuma, Arizona, across the Colorado River into California, Pitt swung the big Pierce Arrow left off Interstate Highway 8 and onto the narrow state road that led to the border towns of Calexico and Mexicali. Drivers and passengers in cars that passed, or those coming from the opposite direction, stared and gawked at the old classic auto and the trailer it pulled.

    Loren had sweet-talked Pitt into driving the old auto cross-country, camping in the trailer, and then joining a tour around southern Arizona sponsored by the Classic Car Club of America. The tour was scheduled to begin in two weeks. Pitt doubted that they could wrap up the treasure hunt in such a short time but went along with Loren because he enjoyed driving his old cars on extended tours.

    "How much farther to the border?" Loren asked.

    "Another forty-two kilometers will put us into Mexico," he answered. "Then a hundred and sixty-five klicks to San Felipe. We should arrive at the dock, where Al and Rudi have tied up the ferry, by dinnertime."

    "Speaking of edibles and liquids," she said lazily, "the refrigerator is empty and the cupboards are bare. Except for breakfast cereal and coffee this morning, we cleaned out the food stock at that campground in Sedona last night."

    He took his right hand from the steering wheel, squeezed her knee and smiled. "1 suppose I have to keep the passengers happy by filling their bellies."

    "How about that truck stop up ahead?" She straightened and pointed through the flat, narrow windshield of the Pierce.

    Pitt gazed over the ornate radiator cap, a crouched archer poised to fire an arrow. He saw a sign by the side of the road, dried and bleached by the desert sun, and on the verge of collapsing into the sand at any moment. The lettering was so old and faded he could hardly read the words.

Ice-cold beer and food a mother would love. Only 2 more minutes to the Box Car Cafe.

    He laughed. "The cold beer sounds good, but I'm leery of the cuisine. When I was a boy, my mother loved to make dishes that turned me green."

    "Shame on you. Your mother is a good cook."

    "She is now, but twenty-five years ago, even the starving homeless wouldn't come near our doorstep."

    "You're terrible." Loren turned the dial of the old tube-type radio, trying to tune in a Mexicali station. She finally found one, playing Mexican music, that came in clear. "I don't care if the chef has the black plague, I'm starved."

    Take a woman on a long trip, Pitt mused miserably, and they're always hungry or demanding to stop at a bathroom.

    "And besides," she threw in, "you need gas."

    Pitt glanced at the fuel gauge. The needle stood steady at a quarter tank. "I guess it won't hurt to fill up before we cross the border."

    "It doesn't seem as if we've driven very far since the last gas stop."

    "A big car that was built sixty years ago, with a twelve cylinder engine and pulling a house trailer, won't win any awards for fuel economy."

    The roadside restaurant and gas station came into view. All Pitt saw as they drove closer was a dilapidated pair of old railroad freight cars joined together, with two gas pumps out front and a neon EAT sign barely flickering in the shadow of the Box Car Cafe. A cluster of battered old house trailers was parked in the rear, abandoned and empty. Out front in the dirt parking lot, eighteen to twenty bikers were milling around a small fleet of Harley-Davidsons, drinking beer and enjoying a cool breeze that was blowing in from the Gulf.

    "Boy, you sure can pick 'em," said Pitt drolly.

    "Maybe we'd better go on," Loren murmured, having second thoughts.

    "You afraid of the bikers? They're probably weary travelers just like you and me."

    "They certainly don't dress like us." She nodded at the assembly, divided equally between men and women, all wearing black riding gear festooned with badges, patches, and embroidered messages touting America's most famous motorcycle.

    Pitt turned the outsize steering wheel and the Pierce rolled off the blacktop up to the gas pumps. The big V-12 engine was so whisper-quiet it was hard to tell it had stopped when he turned off the ignition. He opened the suicide door that swung outward from the front, put a foot on the high running board and stepped down. " Hi there," he greeted the nearest biker, a bleached blond female with a ponytail, wearing black leather pants and jacket. "How's the food here?"

    "Not quite up to the standards of Spago's or Chasen's," she said pleasantly. "But if you're hungry, it's not half bad."

    A metal sign liberally peppered with bullet holes said Self Service, so Pitt inserted the nozzle of the gas pump inside the Pierce Arrow's tank filler and squeezed the handle. When he had the engine rebuilt, the machine shop modified the valves to burn unleaded gas without problems.

    Loren warily hunched down in her seat as the bikers all walked over and admired the old car and trailer. After answering a barrage of questions, Pitt lifted the hood and showed them the engine. Then he pulled Loren from the car.

    "I thought you'd like to meet these nice people," he said. "They all belong to a bike riding club from West Hollywood."

    She thought Pitt was joking and was embarrassed half to death as he made introductions. Then she was astounded to discover they were attorneys with their wives on a weekend ride around the Southern California desert. She was also impressed and flattered that they recognized her when Pitt gave them her name.

    After a congenial conversation, the Hollywood barristers and their spouses bid goodbye, climbed aboard their beloved hogs and roared off, exhaust stacks reverberating in chorus, toward the Imperial Valley. Pitt and Loren waved, then turned and faced the freight cars.

    The rails beneath the rusting wheel-trucks were buried in the sand. The weathered wooden walls had once been painted a reddish tan, and the lettering above the long row of crudely installed windows read Southern Pacific Lines. Thanks to the dry air, the body shells of the antique boxcars had survived the ravages of constant exposure and appeared in relatively good condition.

    Pitt owned a piece of railroad history, a Pullman car. It was part of the collection housed inside his hangar in Washington. The once-luxurious rail car had been pulled by the famed Manhattan Limited out of New York in the years prior to World War I. He judged these freight cars to have been built sometime around 1915.

    He and Loren climbed a makeshift stairway and entered a door cut into the end of one car. The interior was timeworn but neat and clean. There were no tables, only a long counter with stools that stretched the length of the two attached cars. The open kitchen was situated on the opposite side of the counter and looked as if it was constructed from used lumber that had lain in the sun for several decades. Pictures on the walls showed early engines, smoke spouting from their stacks, pulling passenger and freight trains across the desert sands. The list of records on a Wurlitzer jukebox was a mix of favorite pop music from the forties and fifties and the sounds of steam locomotives. Two plays for twenty-five cents.

    Pitt put a quarter in the slot and made his selections. One was Frankie Carle playing "Sweet Lorraine." The other was the clamor of a Norfolk & Western single expansion articulated steam locomotive leaving a station and coming to speed.

    A tall man, in his early sixties, with gray hair and white beard, was wiping the oak counter top. He looked up and smiled, his blue-green eyes filled with warmth and congeniality. "Greetings, folks. Welcome to the Box Car Cafe. Travel far?"

    "Not far," Pitt answered, throwing Loren a rakish grin. "We didn't leave Sedona as early as I planned."

    "Don't blame me," she said loftily. "You're the one who woke up with carnal passions."

    "What can I get you?" said the man behind the bar. He was wearing cowboy boots, denim pants, and a plaid shirt that was badly faded from too many washings.

    "Your advertised ice-cold beer would be nice," replied Loren, opening a menu.

    "Mexican or domestic?"

    "Corona?"

    "One Corona coming up. And you, sir?"

    "What do you have on tap?" asked Pitt.

    "Olympia, Coors, and Budweiser."

    "I'd like an Oly."

    "Anything to eat?" inquired the man behind the counter.

    "Your mesquite chiliburger," said Loren. "And coleslaw."

    "I'm not real hungry," said Pitt. "I'll just have the coleslaw. Do you own this place?"

    "Bought it from the original owner when I gave up prospecting." He set their beer on the bar and turned to his stove.

    "The box cars are interesting relics of railroad history. Were they moved here, or did the railroad run through at one time?"

    "We're actually sitting on the siding of the old main line," answered the diner's owner. "The tracks used to run from Yuma to El Centro. The line was abandoned in 1947 for lack of business. The rise of truck lines did it in. These cars were bought by an old fella who used to be an engineer for the Southern Pacific. He and his wife made a restaurant and gas station out of them. With the main interstate going north of here and all, we don't see too much traffic anymore."

    The bartender/cook looked as if he might have been a fixture of the desert even before the rails were laid. He had the worn look of a man who had seen more than he should and heard a thousand stories that remained in his head, classified and indexed as drama, humor, or horror. There was also an unmistakable aura of style about him, a sophistication that said he didn't belong in a godforsaken roadside tavern on a remote and seldom-traveled road through the desert.

    For a fleeting instant, Pitt thought the old cook looked vaguely familiar. On reflection, though, Pitt figured the man only resembled someone he couldn't quite place. "I'll bet you can recite some pretty interesting tales about the dunes around here," he said, making idle conversation.

    "A lot of bones lie in them, remains of pioneers and miners who tried to cross four hundred kilometers of desert from Yuma to Borrego Springs in the middle of summer."

    "Once they passed the Colorado River, there was no water?" asked Loren.

    "Not a drop, not until Borrego. That was long before the valley was irrigated. Only after them old boys died from the sun did they learn their bodies lay not five meters from water. The trauma was so great they've all come back as ghosts to haunt the desert."

    Loren looked perplexed. "I think I missed something."

    "There's no water on the surface," the old fellow explained. "But underground there's whole rivers of it, some as wide and deep as the Colorado."

    Pitt was curious. "I've never heard of large bodies of water running under the desert."

    "There's two for sure. One, a really big sucker, runs from upper Nevada south into the Mojave Desert and then west, where it empties into the Pacific below Los Angeles. The other flows west under the Imperial Valley of California before curling south and spilling into the Sea of Cortez."

    "What proof do you have these rivers actually exist?" asked Loren. "Has anyone seen them?"

    "The underground stream that flows into the Pacific," answered the cook, as he prepared Loren's chiliburger, "was supposedly found by an engineer searching for oil. He alleged his geophysical instruments detected the river and tracked it across the Mojave and under the town of Laguna Beach into the ocean. So far nobody has proved or disproved his claim. The river traveling to the Sea of Cortez comes from an old story about a prospector who discovered a cave that led down into a deep cavern with a river running through it."

    Pitt tensed as Yaeger's translation of the quipu suddenly flashed through his mind. "This prospector, how did he describe this underground river?"

    The diner's owner talked without turning from his stove. "His name was Leigh Hunt, and he was probably a very inventive liar. But he swore up and down that back in 1942 he discovered a cave in the Castle Dome Mountains not too far northeast of here. From the mouth of the cave, through a chain of caverns, he descended two kilometers deep into the earth until he encountered an underground river rushing through a vast canyon. It was there Hunt claims he found rich deposits of placer gold."

    "I think I saw the movie," said Loren skeptically.

    The old cook turned and waved a spatula in the air. "People at the assay office stated that the sand Hunt carried back from the underground canyon assayed at three thousand dollars per ton. A mighty good recovery rate when you remember that gold was only twenty dollars and sixty-five cents an ounce back then."

    "Did Hunt ever return to the canyon and the river?" asked Pitt.

    "He tried, but a whole army of scavengers followed him back to the mountain, hungering for a piece of the River of Gold, as it became known. He got mad and dynamited a narrow part of the passage about a hundred meters inside the entrance. Brought down half the mountain. Neither Hunt nor those who followed him were ever able to dig through the rubble or find another cave leading inside."

    "With today's mining technology," said Pitt, "reexcavating the passage should be a viable project."

    "Sure, if you want to spend about two million dollars," snorted the cook. "Nobody I ever heard about was willing to gamble that much money on a story that might be pure hokum." He paused to set the chiliburger and coleslaw dishes on the counter. Then he drew a mug of beer from a tap, walked around the bar and sat down on a stool next to Pitt. "They say old Hunt somehow made it back inside the mountain but never came out. He disappeared right after he blew the cave and was not seen again. There was talk that he found another way inside and died there. A few people believe in a great river that flows through a canyon deep beneath the sands, but most think it's only another tall tale of the desert."

    "Such things do exist," said Pitt. "A few years ago I was on an expedition that found an underground stream."

    "Somewhere in the desert Southwest?" inquired the cook.

    "No, the Sahara. It flowed under a hazardous waste plant and carried pollutants to the Niger River, and then into the Atlantic where it caused a proliferation of red tides."

    "The Mojave River north of here goes underground after running above the surface for a considerable distance. Nobody knows for certain where it ends up."

    Between bites of the chiliburger Loren asked, "You seem convinced that Hunt's river flows into the Sea of Cortez. How do you know it doesn't enter the Pacific off California?"

    "Because of Hunt's backpack and canteen. He lost them in the cave and they were found six months later, having drifted up on a beach in the Gulf."

    "Don't you think that's highly improbable? The pack and canteen could have belonged to anyone. Why would anyone believe they were his?" Loren questioned the cook as if she was sitting on a congressional investigation committee.

    "I guess because his name was stenciled on them."

    The unexpected obstacle did not deter Loren. She simply sidestepped it. "There could be a good twenty or more logical explanations for his effects being in the Gulf. They could have been lost or thrown there by someone who found or stole them from Hunt, or more likely he never died in the cave and dropped them from a boat himself."

    "Could be he lost them in the sea," admitted the cook, "but then how do you explain the other bodies?"

    Pitt looked at him. "What other bodies?"

    "The fisherman who disappeared in Lake Cocopah," replied the cook in a hushed voice, as if he was afraid of being overheard. "And the two divers that vanished into Satan's Sink. What was left of their bodies was found floating in the Gulf."

    "And the desert telegraph sends out another pair of tall tales," suggested Loren dryly.

    The cook held up his right hand. "God's truth. You can check the stories out with the sheriff's department."

    "Where are the sink and lake located?" asked Pitt.

    "Lake Cocopah, the spot where the fisherman was lost, is southeast of Yuma. Satan's Sink lies in Mexico at the northern foot of the Sierra el Mayor Mountains. You can draw a line from Hunt's mountain through Lake Cocopah and then Satan's Sink right into the Sea of Cortez."

    Loren continued the interrogation. "Who's to say they didn't drown while fishing and diving in the Gulf?"

    "The fisherman and his wife were out on the lake for the better part of the day when she wanted to head back to their camper to start dinner. He rowed her ashore and then continued trolling around the lake. An hour later, when she looked for him, all she could see was his overturned boat. Three weeks later a water-skier spotted his body floating in the Gulf a hundred and fifty kilometers from the lake."

    "I'm more inclined to believe his wife did him in, dumped his remains in the sea and threw off suspicion by claiming he was sucked into an underground waterway."

    "What about the divers?" Pitt queried.

    "Not much to tell. They dove into Satan's Sink, a flooded pool in an earthquake fault, and never came out. A month later, battered to a pulp, they were also pulled out of the Gulf."

    Pitt stabbed a fork at his coleslaw, but he was no longer hungry. His mind was shifting gears. "Do you happen to know approximately where Hunt's gear and the bodies were found?"

    "I haven't made a detailed study of the phenomena," answered the diner's owner, staring thoughtfully at the heavily scarred wooden floor. "But as I recollect most of them were found in the waters off Punta el Macharro."

    "What part of the Gulf would that be?"

    "On the western shore. Macharro Point, as we call it in English, is two or three kilometers above San Felipe."

    Loren looked at Pitt. "Our destination."

    Pitt made a wry smile. "Remind me to keep a sharp eye for dead bodies."

    The cook finished off his beer. "You folks heading for San Felipe to do a little fishing?"

    Pitt nodded. "I guess you might call it a fishing expedition."

    "The scenery ain't much to look at once you drop below Mexicali. The desert seems desolate and barren to most folks, but it has countless paradoxes. There are more ghosts, skeletons, and myths per kilometer than any jungle or mountains on earth. Keep that in mind and you'll see them as sure as the Irish see leprechauns."

    "We'll keep that in mind," Loren said, smiting, "when we cross over Leigh Hunt's underground River of Gold."

    "Oh, you'll cross it all right," said the cook. "The sad fact is you won't know it."

 

    After Pitt paid for the gas and the meal, he went outside and checked the Pierce Arrow's oil and water. The old cook accompanied Loren onto the dining car's observation platform. He was carrying a bowl of carrots and lettuce. "Have a good trip," he said cheerfully.

    "Thank you." Loren nodded at the vegetables. "Feeding a rabbit?"

    "No, my burro. Mr. Periwinkle is getting up there in age and can't graze too well on his own."

    Loren held out her hand. "It's been fun listening to your stories, Mr. . ."

    "Cussler, Clive Cussler. Mighty nice to have met you, ma'am."

    When they were on the road again, the Pierce Arrow and its trailer smoothly rolling toward the border crossing, Pitt turned to Loren. "For a moment there, I thought the old geezer might have given me a clue to the treasure site."

    "You mean Yaeger's far-out translation about a river running under an island?"

    "It still doesn't seem geologically possible."

    Loren turned the rearview mirror to reapply her lipstick. "If the river flowed deep enough it might conceivably pass under the Gulf."

    "Maybe, but there's no way in hell to know for certain without drilling through several kilometers of hard rock.

    "You'll be lucky just to find your way to the treasure cavern without a major excavation."

    Pitt smiled as he stared at the road ahead. "He could really spin the yarns, couldn't he?"

    "The old cook? He certainly had an active imagination."

    "I'm sorry I didn't get his name."

    Loren settled back in the seat and gazed out her window as the dunes gave way to a tapestry of mesquite and cactus. "He told me what it was."

    "And?"

    "It was an odd name." She paused, trying to remember. Then she shrugged in defeat. "Funny thing . . . I've already forgotten it."

 

    Loren was driving when they reached San Felipe. Pitt had stretched out in the backseat and was snoring away, but she did not bother to wake him. She guided the dusty, bug-splattered Pierce Arrow around the town's traffic circle, making a wide turn so she didn't run one side of the trailer over the curb, and turned south toward the town's breakwater-enclosed harbor. She did not expect to see such a proliferation of hotels and restaurants. The once sleepy fishing village was riding the crest of a tourist boom. Resorts appeared to be under construction up and down the beaches.

    Five kilometers (3 miles) south of town she turned left on a road leading toward the waters of the Gulf. Loren thought it strange that an artificial, man-made harbor had been constructed on such an exposed piece of shoreline. She thought a more practical site would have been under the shelter of Macharro Point several kilometers to the north. Oh well, she decided. What did gringos know about Baja politics?

    Loren stopped the Pierce alongside an antiquated ferryboat that looked like a ghost from a scrap yard. The impression was heightened by the low tide that had left the ferry's hull tipped drunkenly on an angle with its keel sunk into the harbor bottom's silt.

    "Rise and shine, big boy," she said, reaching over the seat and shaking Pitt.

    He blinked and peered curiously through the side window at the old boat. "I must have entered a time warp or I've fallen into the Twilight Zone. Which is it?"

    "Neither. You're at the harbor in San Felipe, and you're looking at your home for the next two weeks."

    "Good lord," Pitt mumbled in amazement, "an honest-to-God steamboat with a walking beam engine and side paddlewheels."

    "I must admit it does have an air of Mark Twain about it.

    "What do you want to bet it ferried Grant's troops across the Mississippi to Vicksburg?"

    Gunn and Giordino spotted them and waved. They walked across a gangplank to the dock as Pitt and Loren climbed from the car and stood gazing at the boat.

    "Have a good trip?" asked Gunn.

    "Except for Dirk's snoring, it was marvelous," said Loren.

    Pitt looked at her indignantly. "I don't snore."

    She rolled her eyes toward the heavens. "I have tendonitis in my elbow from poking you."

    "What do you think of our work platform?" asked Giordino, gesturing grandly at the ferryboat. "Built in 1923. She was one of the last walking beam steamboats to be built."

    Pitt lifted his sunglasses and studied the antique vessel.

    When seen from a distance most ships tend to look smaller than they actually are. Only up close do they appear huge. This was true of the passenger/car ferries of the first half of the century. In her heyday the 70-meter (230-foot) vessel could carry five hundred passengers and sixty automobiles. The long black hull was topped with a two-story white superstructure whose upper deck mounted one large smokestack and two pilothouses, one on each end. Like most car ferries, she could be loaded and off-loaded from either bow or stern, depending on the direction the ferry was steaming at the time. Even when new, she would never have been called glamorous, but she had supplied an important and unforgettable service in the lives of millions of her former passengers.

    The name painted across the center of the superstructure that housed the paddlewheels identified her as the Alhambra.

    "Where did you steal that derelict?" asked Pitt. "From a maritime museum?"

    "To know her is to love her," said Giordino without feeling.

    "She was the only vessel I could find quickly that could land a helicopter," Gunn explained. "Besides, I kept Sandecker happy by obtaining her on the cheap."

    Loren smiled. "At least this is one relic you can't get in your transportation collection."

    Pitt pointed to the walking beam mounted above the high A-frame that tilted up and down, one end driven by a connecting rod from the steam cylinder, the other driving the crank that turned the paddlewheel. "I can't believe her boilers are still fired by coal."

    "They were converted to oil fifty years ago," said Gunn. "The engines are still in remarkable shape. Her cruising speed is twenty miles an hour."

    "Don't you mean knots or kilometers?" said Loren.

    "Ferryboat speeds are measured in miles," answered Gunn knowledgeably.

    "Doesn't look like she's going anywhere," said Pitt. "Not unless you dig her keel out of the muck."

    "She'll be floating like a cork by midnight," Gunn assured him. "The tide runs four to five meters in this section of the Gulf."

    Though he made a show of disapproval, Pitt already felt great affection toward the old ferry. It was love at first sight. Antique automobiles, aircraft, or boats, anything mechanical that came from the past, fascinated him. Born too late, he often complained, born eighty years too late.

    "And the crew?"

    "An engineer with one assistant and two deckhands." Gunn paused and gave a wide boyish smile. "I get to man the helm while you and Al cavort around the Gulf in your flying machine."

    "Speaking of the helicopter, where have you hidden it?"

    "Inside the auto deck," replied Gunn. "Makes it convenient to service it without worrying about the weather. We push it out onto the loading deck for flight operations."

    Pitt looked at Giordino. "Have you planned a daily search pattern?"

    The stocky Italian shook his head. "I worked out the fuel range and flight times, but left the search pattern for you."

    "What sort of time frame are we looking at?"

    "Should be able to cover the area in three days."

    "Before I forget," said Gunn. "The admiral wants you to contact him first thing in the morning. There's an Iridium phone in the forward pilothouse."

    "Why not call him now?" asked Pitt.

    Gunn looked at his watch. "We're three hours behind the East Coast. About now he's sitting in the Kennedy Center watching a play."

    "Excuse me," interrupted Loren. "May I ask a few questions?"

    The men paused and stared at her. Pitt bowed. "You have the floor, Congresswoman."

    "The first is where do you plan to park the Pierce Arrow? It doesn't look safe enough around here to leave a hundred-thousand-dollar classic car sitting unattended on a fishing dock."

    Gunn looked surprised that she should ask. "Didn't Dirk tell you? The Pierce and the trailer come on board the ferry. There's acres of room inside."

    "Is there a bath and shower?"

    "As a matter of fact, there are four ladies' restrooms on the upper passenger deck and a shower in the crew's quarters."

    "No standing in line for the potty. I like that."

    Pitt laughed. "You don't even have to unpack."

    "Make believe you're on a Carnival Lines cruise ship," said Giordino humorously.

    "And your final question?" inquired Gunn.

    "I'm starved," she announced regally. "When do we eat?"

 

    In autumn, the Baja sun has a peculiar radiance, spilling down through a sky of strange brilliant blue-white. This day, there wasn't a cloud to be seen from horizon to horizon. One of the most arid lands in the world, the Baja Peninsula protects the Sea of Cortez from the heavy swells that roll in from the dim reaches of the Pacific Ocean. Tropical storms with high winds are not unknown during the summer months, but near the end of October the prevailing winds turn east to west and generally spare the Gulf from high, choppy swells.

    With the Pierce Arrow and its travel trailer safely tied down on the cavernous auto deck, Gunn at the wheel in the pilothouse, and Loren stretched on a lounge chair in a bikini, the ferry moved out of the breakwater harbor and made a wide turn to the south. The old boat presented an impressive sight as black smoke rose from her stack and her paddlewheels pounded the water. The walking beam, shaped like a flattened diamond, rocked up and down, transmitting the power from the engine's huge piston to the shaft that cranked the paddlewheels. There was a rhythm to its motion, almost hypnotic if you stared at it long enough.

    While Giordino made a preflight inspection of the helicopter and topped off the fuel tank, Pitt was briefed on the latest developments by Sandecker in Washington over the Motorola Iridium satellite phone. Not until an hour later, as the ferry steamed off Point Estrella, did Pitt switch off the phone and descend to the improvised flight pad on the open forward deck of the ferry. As soon as Pitt was strapped in his seat, Giordino lifted the turquoise NUMA craft off the ferry and set a parallel course along the coastline.

    "What did the old boy have to say before we left the Alhambra?" asked Giordino as he leveled the chopper off at 800 meters (2600 feet). "Did Yaeger turn up any new clues?"

    Pitt was sitting in the copilot's seat and acting as navigator. "Yaeger had no startling revelations. The only information he could add was that he believes the statue of the demon sits directly over the entrance to the passageway leading to the treasure cavern."

    "What about the mysterious river?"

    "He's still in the dark on that one."

    "And Sandecker?"

    "The latest news is that we've been blindsided. Customs and the FBI dropped in out of the blue and informed him that a gang of art thieves is also on the trail of Huascar's treasure. He warned us to keep a sharp eye out for them."

    "We have competition?"

    "A family that oversees a worldwide empire dealing in stolen and forged works of art."

    "What do they call themselves?" asked Giordino.

    "Zolar International."

    Giordino looked blank for a moment, and then he laughed uncontrollably.

    "What's so hilarious?"

    "Zolar," Giordino choked out. "1 remember a dumb kid in the eighth grade who did a corny magician act at school assemblies. He called himself the Great Zolar."

    "From what Sandecker told me," said Pitt, "the guy who heads the organization is nowhere close to dumb. Government agents a mate his annual illicit take in excess of eighty million dollars. A tidy sum when you consider the IRS is shut out of the profits."

    "Okay, so he isn't the nerdy kid I knew in school. How close do the Feds think Zolar is to the treasure?"

    "They think he has better directions than we do."

    "I'm willing to bet my Thanksgiving turkey we find the site first."

    "Either way, you'd lose."

    Giordino turned and looked at him. "Care to let your old buddy in on the rationale?"

    "If we hit the jackpot ahead of them, we're supposed to fade into the landscape and let them scoop up the loot."

    "Give it up?" Giordino was incredulous.

    "Those are the orders," said Pitt, resentment written in his eyes.

    "But why?" demanded Giordino. "What great wisdom does our benevolent government see in making criminals rich?"

    "So Customs and the FBI can trail and trap them into an indictment and eventual conviction for some pretty heavy crimes."

    "I can't say this sort of justice appeals to me. Will the taxpayers be notified of the windfall?"

    "Probably not, any more than they were told about the Spanish gold the army removed from Victorio Peak in New Mexico after it was discovered by a group of civilians in the nineteen thirties."

    "We live in a sordid, unrelenting world," Giordino observed poetically.

    Pitt motioned toward the rising sun. "Come around on an approximate heading of one-one-o degrees."

    Giordino took note of the eastern heading. "You want to check out the other side of the Gulf on the first run?"

    "Only four islands have the geological features similar to what we're looking for. But you know I like launching the search on the outer perimeters of our grid and then working back toward the more promising targets."

    Giordino grinned. "Any sane man would begin in the center."

    "Didn't you know?" Pitt came back. "The village idiot has all the fun."

 

    It had been a long four days of searching. Oxley was discouraged, Sarason oddly complacent, while Moore was baffled. They had flown over every island in the Sea of Cortez that had the correct geological formations. Several displayed features on their peaks that suggested man-made rock carvings. But low altitude reconnaissance and strenuous climbs up steep palisades to verify the rock structures up close revealed configurations that appeared as sculpted beasts only in their imaginations.

    Moore was no longer the arrogant academic. He was plainly baffled. The rock carving had to exist on an island in an inland sea. The pictographs on the golden mummy suit were distinct, and there was no mistaking the directions in his translation. For a man so cocksure of himself, the failure was maddening.

    Moore was also puzzled by Sarason's sudden change in attitude. The bastard, Moore mused, no longer displayed animosity or anger. Those strange almost colorless eyes always seemed to be in a constant state of observation, never losing their intensity. Moore knew whenever he gazed into them that he was facing a man who was no stranger to death.

    Moore was becoming increasingly uneasy. The balance of power had shifted. His edge was dulled now he was certain that Sarason saw beyond his credentials as an insolent schoolteacher. If he had recognized the killer instinct in Sarason, it stood to reason Sarason had identified it in him too.

    But there was a small measure of satisfaction. Sarason was not clairvoyant. He could not have known, nor did any man alive know except the President of the United States, that Professor Henry Moore, respected anthropologist, and his equally respected archaeologist wife, Micki were experts in carrying out assassinations of foreign terrorist leaders. With their academic credentials they easily traveled in and out of foreign countries as consultants on archaeological projects. Interestingly, the CIA was in total ignorance of their actions. Their assignments came directly from an obscure agency calling itself the Foreign Activities Council that operated out of a small basement room under the White House.

    Moore shifted restlessly in his seat and studied a chart of the Gulf. Finally he said, "Something is very, very wrong."

    Oxley looked at his watch. "Five o'clock. I prefer to land in daylight. We might as well call it a day."

    Sarason's expressionless gaze rested on the empty horizon ahead. Untypically, he acted relaxed and quiet. He offered no comment.

    "It's got to be here, "Moore said, examining the islands he had crossed out on his chart as if he had flunked a test.

    "I have an unpleasant feeling we might have flown right by it," said Oxley.

    Now that he saw Moore in a different light, Sarason viewed him with the respect one adversary has for another. He also realized that despite his slim frame, the professor was strong and quick. Struggling up the rocky walls of promising islands, gasping from aggravated exhaustion and playing drunk, was nothing more than an act. On two occasions, Moore leaped over a fissure with the agility of a mountain goat. On another, with seemingly little effort, he cast aside a boulder blocking his path that easily equaled his weight.

    Sarason said, "Perhaps the Inca sculpture we're looking for was destroyed."

    In the rear seat of the seaplane Moore shook his head. "No, I'd have recognized the pieces."

    "Suppose it was moved? It wouldn't be the first time an ancient sculpture was relocated to a museum for display."

    "If Mexican archaeologists had taken a massive rock carving and set it up for exhibit," said Moore doggedly, "I'd have known about it."

    "Then how do you explain that it is not where it is supposed to be?"

    "I can't," Moore admitted. "As soon as we land back at the hacienda, I'll review my notes. There must be a seemingly insignificant clue that I missed in my translation of the golden suit."

    "I trust you will find it before tomorrow morning," Sarason said dryly.

    Oxley fought the urge to doze off. He had been at the controls since nine o'clock in the morning and his neck was stiff with weariness. He held the control column between his knees and poured himself a cup of coffee from a thermos. He took a swallow and made a face. It was not only cold but tasted as strong as battery acid. Suddenly, his eye caught a flash of green from under a cloud. He pointed out the window to the right of the Baffin flying boat.

    "Don't see many helicopters in this part of the Gulf," he said casually.

    Sarason didn't bother to look. "Must be a Mexican navy patrol plane."

    "No doubt looking for a drunken fisherman with a broken engine," added Moore.

    Oxley shook his head. "I can't ever recall seeing a turquoise military aircraft."

    Sarason looked up, startled. "Turquoise? Can you make out its markings?"

    Oxley lifted the binoculars and peered through the windscreen. "American."

    "A Drug Enforcement Agency patrol working with Mexican authorities, probably."

    "No, it belongs to National Underwater and Marine Agency. I wonder what they're doing in the Gulf?"

    "They conduct ocean surveys all over the world," said Moore unconcernedly.

    Sarason stiffened as though he'd been shot. "Two scum from NUMA wrecked our operation in Peru."

    "Hardly seems likely there's a connection," said Oxley.

    "What operation did NUMA wreck in Peru?" asked Moore, sniffing the air.

    "They stepped outside their jurisdiction," answered Sarason vaguely.

    "I'd like to hear about it sometime."

    "Not a subject that concerns you," Sarason said, brushing him off. "How many people in the craft?"

    "Looks like a model that seats four," replied Oxley, "but I only see a pilot and one passenger."

    "Are they approaching or headed away?"

    "The pilot has turned onto a converging course that will cross about two hundred meters above us."

    "Can you ascend and turn with him?" asked Sarason. "I want a closer look."

    "Since aviation authorities can't take away a license I never applied for--" Oxley smiled-- "I'll put you in the pilot's lap."

    "Is that safe?" Moore asked.

    Oxley grinned. "Depends on the other pilot."

    Sarason took the binoculars and peered at the turquoise helicopter. This was a different model from the one that had landed at the sacrificial well. That one had a shorter fuselage and landing skids. This one had retractable landing gear. But there was no mistaking the color scheme and markings. He told himself it was ridiculous to think the men in the approaching helicopter could possibly be the same ones who appeared out of nowhere in the Andes.

    He trained the binoculars on the helicopter's cockpit. In another few seconds he would be able to discern the faces inside. For some strange, inexplicable reason his calm began to crack and he felt his nerves tighten.

 

    "What do you think?" asked Giordino. "Could they be the ones?"

    "They could be." Pitt stared through a pair of naval glasses at the amphibian seaplane flying on a diagonal course below the helicopter. "After watching the pilot circle Estanque Island for fifteen minutes as if he were looking for something on the peak, I think it's safe to say we've met up with our competition."

    "According to Sandecker, they launched their search two days ahead of us," said Giordino. "Since they're still taking in the sights, they can't have experienced any success either."

    Pitt smiled. "Sort of gladdens the heart, doesn't it?"

    "If they can't find it, and we can't find it, then the Incas must have sold us a wagon load of hocus pocus."

    "I don't think so. Stop and consider. There are two different search efforts in the same area, but as far as we know both teams are using two unrelated sets of instructions. We have the Inca quipu while they're following the engravings on a golden mummy suit. At the worst, our separate sets of clues would have led us to different locations. No, the ancients haven't misled us. The treasure is out there. We simply haven't looked in the right place."

    Giordino always marveled that Pitt could sit for hours analyzing charts, studying instruments, mentally recording every ship on the sea below, the geology of the offshore islands, and every variance of the wind without the slightest sign of fatigue, his concentration always focused. He had to suffer the same muscle aches, joint stiffness, and nervous stress that plagued Giordino, but he gave no indication of discomfort. In truth, Pitt felt every ache and pain, but he could shut it all from his mind and keep going as strongly as when he started in the morning.

    "Between their coverage and ours," said Giordino, "we must have exhausted every island that comes anywhere close to the right geological features."

    "I agree," said Pitt thoughtfully. "But I'm convinced we're all on the right playing field."

    "Then where is it? Where in hell is that damned demon?"

    Pitt motioned down at the sea. "Sitting somewhere down there. Right where it's been for almost five hundred years. Thumbing its nose at us."

    Giordino pointed at the other aircraft. "Our search buddies are climbing up to check us out. You want me to ditch them?"

    "No point. Their airspeed is a good eighty kilometers per hour faster than ours. Maintain a steady course toward the ferry and act innocent."

    "Nice-looking Baffin seaplane," said Giordino. "You don't see them except in the North Canadian lake country."

    "He's moving in a bit close for a passing stranger, wouldn't you say?"

    "Either he's being neighborly or he wants to read our name tags."

    Pitt stared through the binoculars at the cockpit of the plane that was now flying alongside the NUMA helicopter no more than 50 meters (164 feet) away.

    "What do you see?" asked Giordino, minding his flying.

    "Some guy staring back at me through binoculars," replied Pitt with a grin.

    "Maybe we should call them up and invite them over for ajar of Grey Poupon mustard."

    The passenger in the seaplane dropped his glasses for a moment to massage his eyes before resuming his inspection. Pitt pressed his elbows against his body to steady his view. When he lowered the binoculars, he was no longer smiling.

    "An old friend from Peru," he said in cold surprise.

    Giordino turned and looked at Pitt curiously. "Old friend?"

    "Dr. Steve Miller's imposter come back to haunt us."

    Pitt's smile returned, and it was hideously diabolic. Then he waved.

 

    If Pitt was surprised at the unexpected confrontation, Sarason was stunned. "You!" he gasped.

    "What did you say?" asked Oxley.

    His senses reeling at seeing the man who had caused him so much grief, uncertain if this was a trick of his mind, Sarason refocused the binoculars and examined the devil that was grinning fiendishly and waving slowly like a mourner at graveside bidding goodbye to the departed. A slight shift of the binoculars and all color drained from his face as he recognized Giordino as the pilot.

    "The men in that helicopter," he said, his voice thick, "are the same two who wreaked havoc on our operation in Peru."

    Oxley looked unconvinced. "Think of the odds, brother. Are you certain?"

    "It's them, there can be no others. Their faces are burned in my memory. They cost our family millions of dollars in artifacts that were later seized by Peruvian government archaeologists."

    Moore was listening intently. "Why are they here?"

    "The same purpose we are. Someone must have leaked information on our project." He turned and glared at Moore. "Perhaps the good professor has friends at NUMA?"

    "My only connection with the government is on April fifteenth when I file my income tax return," Moore said testily. "Whoever they are, they're no friends of mine."

    Oxley remained dubious. "Henry's right. Impossible for him to have made outside contact. Our security is too tight. Your assertion might make more sense to me if they were Customs officials, not scientists or engineers from an oceanographic research agency."

    "No. I swear it's the same men who appeared out of nowhere and rescued the archaeologist and photographer from the sacred well. Their names are Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino. Pitt is the most dangerous of the two. He was the one who killed my men and emasculated Tupac Amaru. We must follow them and find out where they're operating from."

    "I have only enough fuel to make it back to Guaymas," said Oxley. "We'll have to let them go."

    "Force them down, force them to crash," Sarason demanded.

    Oxley shook his head. "If they're as dangerous as you suggest, they may well be armed, and we're not. Relax, brother, we'll meet up with them again."

    "They're scavengers, using NUMA as a cover to beat us to the treasure."

    "Think what you're saying," snapped Moore. "It is absolutely impossible for them to know where to search. My wife and I were the only ones ever to decode the images on the golden mummy suit. Either this has to be a coincidence or you're hallucinating."

    "As my brother can tell you," said Sarason coldly, "I am not one to hallucinate."

    "A couple of NUMA underwater freaks who roam the world fighting evil," muttered Moore sharply. "You'd better lay off the mescal."

    Sarason did not hear Moore. The thought of Amaru triggered something inside Sarason. He slowly regained control, the initial shock replaced by malevolence. He could not wait to unleash the mad dog from the Andes.

    "This time," he murmured nastily, "they will be the ones who pay."

 

    Joseph Zolar had finally arrived in his jet and was waiting in the dining room of the hacienda with Micki Moore when the searchers entered wearily and sat down. "I guess I don't have to ask if you've found anything. The look on your faces reflects defeat."

    "We'll find it," said Oxley through a yawn. "The demon has to be out there somewhere."

    "I'm not as confident," muttered Moore, reaching for a glass of chilled chardonnay. "We've almost run out of islands to search."

    Sarason came over and gave Zolar a brotherly pat on both shoulders. "We expected you three days ago."

    "I was delayed. A transaction that netted us one million two hundred thousand Swiss francs."

    "A dealer?"

    "A collector. A Saudi sheik."

    "How did the Vincente deal go?"

    "Sold him the entire lot, with the exception of those damned Indian ceremonial idols. For some inexplicable reason, they scared the hell out of him."

    Samson laughed. "Maybe it's the curse."

    Zolar shrugged impassively. "If they come with a curse, it simply means the next potential buyer will have to pay a premium."

    "Did you bring the idols with you?" asked Oxley. "I'd like to have a look at them."

    "They're in a packing crate inside the cargo hold of the airplane." Zolar glanced admiringly at the quesadilla that was placed in front of him on a plate. "I had hoped you would greet me with good news."

    "You can't say we haven't tried," replied Moore. "We've examined every rock that sticks out of the sea from the Colorado River south to Cabo San Lucas, and haven't seen anything remotely resembling a stone demon with wings and a serpent's head."

    "I hate to bring more grim tidings," Sarason said to Zolar, "but we met up with my friends who messed things up in Peru."

    Zolar looked at him, puzzled. "Not those two, devils from NUMA?"

    "The same. As incredible as it sounds, I believe they're after Huascar's gold too."

    "I'm forced to agree," said Oxley. "Why else did they pop up in the same area?"

    "Impossible for them to know something we don't," said Zolar.

    "Perhaps they've been following you," said Micki, holding up her glass as Henry poured her wine.

    Oxley shook his head. "No, our amphibian has twice the fuel range of their helicopter."

    Moore turned to Zolar. "My wife may have something. The odds are astronomical that it was a chance encounter."

    "How do we handle it?" Samson asked no one in particular.

    Zolar smiled. "I think Mrs. Moore has given us the answer."

    "Me?" wondered Micki. "All I suggested was--"

    "They might have been following us." So.

    Zolar looked at her slyly. "We'll begin by requesting our mercenary friends in local law enforcement to begin earning their money by launching an investigation to find our competitor's base of operations. Once found, we'll follow them."

 

    Darkness was only a half hour away when Giordino set the helicopter down neatly within the white circle painted on the loading deck of the Alhambra. The deckhands, who simply went by the names of Jesus and Gato, stood by to push the craft inside the cavernous auto deck and tie it down.

    Loren and Gunn were standing outside the sweep of the rotor blades. When Giordino cut the ignition switch, they stepped forward. They were not alone. A man and a woman moved out of the shadow of the ferry's huge superstructure and joined them.

    "Any luck?" Gunn shouted above the diminishing beat of the rotors at Giordino who was leaning out the open window of the cockpit.

    Giordino replied with a thumbs-down.

    Pitt stepped from the helicopter's passenger door and knitted his thick, black eyebrows in surprise. "I didn't expect to see you two again, certainly not here."

    Dr. Shannon Kelsey smiled, her manner coolly dignified, while Miles Rodgers pumped Pitt's hand in a genuine show of friendliness. "Hope you don't mind us popping in like this," said Rodgers.

    "Not at all. I'm glad to see you. I assume you've all introduced yourselves to each other."

    "Yes, we've all become acquainted. Shannon and 1 certainly didn't expect to be greeted by a congresswoman and the assistant director of NUMA."

    "Dr. Kelsey has regaled me with her adventures in Peru," said Loren in a voice that was low and throaty. "She's led an interesting life."

    Giordino exited the helicopter and stared at the newcomers with interest. "Hail, hail, the gang's all here," he said in greeting. "Is this a reunion or an old mummy hunters' convention?"

    "Yes, what brings you to our humble ferry in the Sea of Cortez?" asked Pitt.

    "Government agents requested Miles and me to drop everything in Peru and fly here to assist your search," answered Shannon.

    Pitt looked at Gunn. "Government agents?"

    Gunn made a know-nothing shrug and held up a piece of paper. "The fax informing us of their arrival came an hour after they showed up in a chartered boat. They insisted on waiting to reveal the purpose of their visit until you returned."

    "They were Customs agents," Miles enlightened Pitt. "They appeared in the Pueblo de los Muertos with a high-level State Department official and played on our patriotism."

    "Miles and I were asked to identify and photograph Huascar's treasure after you found it," explained Shannon. "They came to us because of my expertise in Andean culture and artifacts, Miles's reputation as a photographer, and mostly because of our recent involvement with you and NUMA."

    "And you volunteered," Pitt surmised.

    Rodgers replied "When the Customs agents informed us the gang of smugglers we met in the Andes are connected with the family of underground art dealers who are also searching for the treasure, we started packing."

    "The Zolars?"

    Rodgers nodded. "The possibility we might be of help in trapping Doc Miller's murderer quickly overcame any reluctance to become involved."

    "Wait a minute," said Giordino. "The Zolars are involved with Amaru and the Solpemachaco?"

    Rodgers nodded again. "You weren't told? No one informed you that the Solpemachaco and the Zolar family are one and the same?"

    "I guess someone forgot," Giordino said caustically. He and Pitt looked at each other as understanding dawned. Each read the other's mind and they silently agreed not to mention their unexpected run-in with Doc Miller's imposter.

    "Were you briefed on the instructions we deciphered on the quipu?" Pitt asked Shannon, changing the subject.

    Shannon nodded. "I was given a full translation."

    "By whom?"

    "The courier who hand-delivered it was an FBI agent."

    Pitt stared at Gunn and then Giordino with deceptive calm. "The plot thickens. I'm surprised Washington didn't issue press kits about the search to the news media and sell the movie rights to Hollywood."

    "If word leaks out," said Giordino, "every treasure hunter between here and the polar icecaps will swarm into the Gulf like fleas after a hemophiliac St. Bernard."

    Fatigue began to tighten its grip on Pitt. He was stiff and numb and his back ached. His body demanded to lie down and rest. He had every right to be tired and discouraged. What the hell, he thought, why not share the despair. No good reason why he should bear the cross by himself.

    "I hate to say it," he said slowly, staring at Shannon, "but it looks as if you and Miles made a wasted trip."

    Shannon looked at him in surprise. "You haven't found the treasure site?"

    "Did someone tell you we had?"

    "We were led to believe you had pinned down the location," said Shannon.

    "Wishful thinking," said Pitt. "We haven't seen a trace of a stone carving."

    "Are you familiar with the symbol marker described by the quipu?" Gunn asked Shannon.

    "Yes," she replied without hesitation. "The Demonio del Muertos."

    Pitt sighed. "The demon of the dead. Dr. Ortiz told us. I go to the back of the class for not making the connection."

    "I remember," said Gunn. "Dr. Ortiz was excavating a large grotesque rock sculpture with fangs and described it as a Chachapoyan god of the underworld."

    Pitt repeated Dr. Ortiz's exact words. "Part jaguar, part condor, part snake, he sank his fangs into whoever disturbed the dead."

    "The body and wings have the scales of a lizard," Shannon added to the description.

    "Now that you know exactly what you're looking for," Loren said with renewed enthusiasm, "the search should go easier."

    "So we know the I.D. of the beast that guards the hoard," said Giordino, bringing the conversation back to earth. "So what? Dirk and I have examined every island that falls within the pattern and we've come up empty. We've exhausted our search area, and what we might have missed our competitors have likely checked off their list too."

    "Al's right," Pitt admitted. "We have no place left to search."

    "You're sure you've seen no trace of the demon?" asked Rodgers.

    Giordino shook his head. "Not so much as a scale or a fang."

    Shannon scowled in defeat. "Then the myth is simply that. . . a myth."

    The treasure that never was," murmured Gunn. He collapsed dejectedly on an old wooden passenger's bench. "It's over," he said slowly. "I'll call the admiral and tell him we're closing down the project."

    "Our rivals in the seaplane should be cutting bait and flying off into the sunset too," said Giordino.

    "To regroup and try again," said Pitt. "They're not the type to fly away from a billion dollars in treasure."

    Gunn looked up at him, surprised. "You've seen them?"

    "We waved in passing," answered Pitt without going into detail.

    "A great disappointment not to catch Doc's killer," Rodgers said sadly. "I also had high hopes of being the first to photograph the treasures and Huascar's golden chain."

    "A washout," murmured Gunn. "A damned washout."

    Shannon nodded at Rodgers. "We'd better make arrangements to return to Peru."

    Loren sank next to Gunn. "A shame after everyone worked so hard."

    Pitt suddenly returned to life, shrugging off the exhaustion and becoming his old cheerful self again. "I can't I speak for the rest of you pitiful purveyors of doom, but I'm going to take a bath, mix myself a tequila on the rocks with lime, grill a steak, get a good night's sleep, and go out in the morning and find that ugly critter guarding the treasure."

    They all stared at him as if he had suffered a mental breakdown, all that is except Giordino. He didn't need a third eye to know Pitt was scenting a trail. "You have the look of a born-again Christian. Why the about-face?"

    "Do you remember when a NUMA search team found that hundred-and-fifty-year-old steamship that belonged to the Republic of Texas navy?"

    "Back in 1987, wasn't it? The ship was the Zavala."

    "The same. And do you recall where it was found?"

    "Under a parking lot in Galveston."

    "Get the picture?"

    "I certainly don't," snapped Shannon. "What are you driving at?"

    "Whose turn is it to cook dinner?" Pitt inquired, ignoring her.

    Gunn raised a hand. "My night in the galley. Why ask?"

    "Because, after we've all enjoyed a good meal and a cocktail or two, I'll lay out Dirk's master plan."

    "Which island have you selected?" Shannon asked cynically. "Bali Ha'i or Atlantis?"

    "There is no island," Pitt answered mysteriously. "No island at all. The treasure that never was, but is, sits on dry land."

 

 

    An hour and a half later, with Giordino standing at the helm, the old ferry reversed course as her paddlewheels drove her northward back toward San Felipe. While Gunn, assisted by Rodgers, prepared dinner in the ferry's galley, Loren searched for Pitt and finally found him sitting on a folding chair down in the engine room, chatting with the chief engineer as he soaked up the sounds, smells, and motion of the Alhambra's monstrous engines. He wore the expression of a man in the throes of undisguised euphoria. She carried a small bottle of blanco tequila and a glass of ice as she crept up behind him.

    Gordo Padilla smoked the stub of a cigar while wiping a clean cloth over a pair of brass steam gauges. He wore scuffed cowboy boots, a T-shirt covered with bright illustrations of tropical birds, and a pair of pants cut off at the knees. His sleek, well-oiled hair was as thick as marsh grass, and the brown eyes in his round face wandered over the engines with the same ardor they would display if beholding the full-figured body of a model in a bikini.

    Most ship's engineers are thought to be big ebullient men with hairy chests and thick forearms illustrated with colorful tattoos. Padilla was devoid of body hair and tattoos. He looked like an ant crawling on his great walking beam engines. Diminutive, his height and weight would have easily qualified him to ride a racehorse.

    "Rosa, my wife," he said between swallows of Tecate beer, "she thinks I love these engines more than her. I tell her they better than a mistress. Much cheaper and I never have to sneak around alleys to see them."

    "Women have never understood the affection a man can have for a machine," Pitt agreed.

    "Women can't feel passionate about greasy gears and pistons," said Loren, slipping a hand down the front of Pitt's aloha shirt, "because they don't love back."

    "Ah, but pretty lady," said Padilla, "you can't imagine the satisfaction we feel after seducing an engine into running smoothly."

    Loren laughed. "No, and I don't want to." She looked up at the huge A-frame that supported the walking beams, and then to the great cylinders, steam condensers, and boilers. "But I must admit, it's an impressive apparatus."

    "Apparatus?" Pitt squeezed her around the waist. "In light of modern diesel turbines, walking beam engines seem antiquated. But when you look back on the engineering and manufacturing techniques that were state-of-the-art during their era, they are monuments to the genius of our forefathers."

    She passed him the little bottle of tequila and the glass of ice. "Enough of this masculine crap about smelly old engines. Swill this down. Dinner will be ready in ten minutes."

    "You have no respect for the finer things in life," said Pitt, nuzzling her hand.

    "Make your choice. The engines or me?"

    He looked up at the piston rod as it pumped the walking beam up and down. "I can't deny having an obsession with the stroke of an engine." He smiled slyly. "But I freely confess there's a lot to be said for stroking something that's soft and cuddly."

    "Now there's a comforting thought for all the women of the world."

    Jesus dropped down the ladder from the car deck and said something in Spanish to Padilla. He listened, nodded, and looked at Pitt. "Jesus says the lights of a plane have been circling the ferry for the past half hour."

    Pitt stared for a moment at the giant crank that turned the paddlewheels. Then he gave Loren a squeeze and said briefly, "A good sign."

    "A sign of what?" she asked curiously.

    "The guys on the other side," he said in a cheery voice. "They've failed and now they hope to follow us to the mother lode. That gives an advantage to our team."

 

    After a hearty dinner on one of the thirty tables in the yawning, unobstructed passengers' section of the ferry, the table was cleared and Pitt spread out a nautical chart and two geological land survey maps. Pitt spoke to them distinctly and precisely, laying out his thoughts so clearly they might have been their own.

    "The landscape is not the same. There have been great changes in the past almost five hundred years." He paused and pieced together the three maps, depicting an uninterrupted view of the desert terrain from the upper shore of the Gulf north to the Coachella Valley of California.

    "Thousands of years ago the Sea of Cortez used to stretch over the present-day Colorado Desert and Imperial Valley above the Salton Sea. Through the centuries, the Colorado River flooded and carried enormous amounts of silt into the sea, eventually forming a delta and diking in the northern area of the sea. This buildup of silt left behind a large body of water that was later known as Lake Cahuilla, named, I believe, after the Indians who lived on its banks. As you travel around the foothills that rim the basin, you can still see the ancient waterline and find seashells scattered throughout the desert.

    "When did it dry up?" asked Shannon.

    "Between 1100 and 1200 A.D."

    "Then where did the Salton Sea come from?"

    "In an attempt to irrigate the desert, a canal was built to carry water from the Colorado River. In 1905, after unseasonably heavy rains and much silting, the river burst the banks of the canal and water poured into the lowest part of the desert's basin. A desperate dam operation stopped the flow, but not before enough water had flowed through to form the Salton Sea, with a surface eighty meters below sea level. Actually, it's a large lake that will eventually go the way of Lake Cahuilla, despite irrigation drainage that has temporarily stabilized its present size."

    Gunn produced a bottle of Mexican brandy. "A short intermission for spirits to rejuvenate the bloodstream." Lacking the proper snifter goblets, he poured the brandy into plastic cups. Then he raised his. "A toast to success."

    "Hear, hear," said Giordino. "Amazing how a good meal and a little brandy changes one's attitude."

    "We're all hoping Dirk has discovered a new solution," said Loren.

    "Interesting to see if he makes sense." Shannon made an impatient gesture. "Let's hear where all this is going."

    Pitt said nothing but leaned over the maps and drew a circular line through the desert with a red felt-tip pen. "This is approximately where the Gulf extended in the late fourteen hundreds, before the river's silt buildup worked south."

    "Less than a kilometer from the present border between the United States and Mexico," observed Rodgers.

    "An area now mostly covered by wetlands and mudflats known as the Laguna Salada."

    "How does this swamp fit into the picture?" asked Gunn.

    Pitt's face glowed like a corporate executive officer about to announce a fat dividend to his stockholders. "The island where the Incas and the Chachapoyas buried Huascar's golden chain is no longer an island."

    Then he sat down and sipped his brandy, allowing the revelation to penetrate and blossom.

    As if responding to a drill sergeant's command, everyone leaned over the charts and studied the markings Pitt had made indicating the ancient shoreline. Shannon pointed to a small snake Pitt had drawn that coiled around a high rock outcropping halfway between the marsh and the foothills of the Las Tinajas Mountains.

    "What does the snake signify?"

    "A kind of `X marks the spot,' " answered Pitt.

    Gunn closely examined the geological survey map. "You've designated a small mountain that, according to the contour elevations, tops out at slightly less than five hundred meters."

    "Or about sixteen hundred feet," Giordino tallied.

    "What is it called?" Loren wondered.

    "Cerro el Capirote," Pitt answered. "Capirote in English means a tall, pointed ceremonial hat, or what we used to call a dunce cap."

    "So you think this high pinnacle in the middle of nowhere is our treasure site?" Rodgers asked Pitt.

    "If you study the maps closely, you'll find several other small mounts with sharp summits rising from the desert floor beside the swamp. Any one of them matches the general description. But I'm laying my money on Cerro el Capirote."

    "What brings you to such an uncompromising decision?" Shannon queried.

    "I put myself in the Incas' shoes, or sandals as it were, and selected the best spot to hide what was at the time the world's greatest treasure. If I were General Naymlap, I'd look for the most imposing island at the upper end of a sea as far away from the hated Spanish conquerors as I could find. Cerro el Capirote was about as far as he could go in the early fifteen hundreds, and its height makes it the most imposing."

    The mood on the passenger deck of the ferry was definitely on the upswing. New hope had been injected into a project that had come within a hair of being written off as a failure. Pitt's unshakable confidence had infected everyone. Even Shannon was belting down the brandy and grinning like a Dodge City saloon hostess. It was as if all doubt had been thrown overboard. Suddenly, they all took finding the demon perched on the peak of Cerro el Capirote for granted.

    If they had the slightest hint that Pitt had reservations, the party would have died a quick death. He felt secure in his conclusions, but he was too pragmatic not to harbor a few small doubts.

    And then there was the dark side of the coin. He and Giordino had not mentioned that they had identified Doc Miller's killer as one of the other searchers. They both quietly realized that the Zolars or the Solpemachaco, whatever devious name they went under in this part of the world, were not aware that the treasure was in Pitt's sights.

    Pitt began to picture Tupac Amaru in his mind, the cold, lifeless eyes, and he knew the hunt was about to become ugly and downright dirty.

 

    They sailed the Alhambra north of Punta San Felipe and heaved to when her paddlewheels churned up a wake of red silt. A few kilometers ahead, the mouth of the Colorado River, wide and shallow, gaped on the horizon. Spread on either side of the murky, salt-laden water were barren mudflats, totally devoid of vegetation. Few planets in the universe could have looked as wretched and dead.

    Pitt gazed at the grim landscape through the windscreen of the helicopter as he adjusted his safety harness. Shannon was strapped in the copilot's seat and Giordino and Rodgers sat in the rear passenger section of the cabin. He waved at Gunn, who replied with a V for victory sign, and Loren, who appropriately blew him a kiss.