Sarason gestured `toward one section of the underground facility. "We've partitioned a special room. I'll show you the way while brother Joseph escorts our experts." He hesitated, pulled three black ski masks from his coat pocket and flipped one to Oxley. "Put that on, we don't want them to see our faces."
"Why bother? They won't live to identify us."
"To intimidate them."
"A little extreme, but I guess you have a point."
While Zolar guided the Moores to the enclosed room, Oxley and Sarason carefully removed the golden mummy from the container and laid it on a table covered with several layers of velvet padding. The room had been furnished with a small kitchen, beds, and a bathroom. A large desk was set with note and sketch pads and several magnifying glasses with varied degrees of magnification. There was also a computer terminal with a laser printer loaded with the proper software. An array of overhead spotlights was positioned to accent the images engraved on the golden body suit.
When the Moores entered the room, their headsets and blindfolds were removed.
"I trust you were not too uncomfortable," said Zolar courteously.
The Moores blinked under the bright lights and rubbed their eyes. Henry Moore looked and acted the role of an Ivy League professor. He was aging gracefully with a slim body, a full head of shaggy gray hair, and the complexion of a teenage boy. Dressed in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves, he wore his school tie knotted under the collar of a dark green cotton shirt. As an added touch he sported a small white carnation in his lapel.
Micki Moore was a good fifteen years younger than her husband. Like him, she had a slender figure, almost as thin as the seventies era fashion model she had once been. Her skin was on the dark side and the high, rounded cheekbones suggested American Indian genes somewhere in her ancestry. She was a good-looking woman, beautifully poised, with an elegance and regal bearing that made her stand out at university cocktail and dinner parties. Her gray eyes focused and then darted from one masked brother to another before coming to rest on the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo.
"A truly magnificent piece of work," she said softly. "You never fully described what it was you wanted my husband and me to decipher."
"We apologize for the melodramatic precautions," Zolar said sincerely. "But as you can see, this Inca artifact is priceless, and until it is fully examined by experts such as you, we do not wish word of its existence to reach certain people who might attempt to steal it."
Henry Moore ignored the brothers and rushed to the table. He took a pair of reading glasses from a case in his breast pocket, slid them over his nose and peered closely at the glyphs on one arm of the suit. "Remarkable detail," he said admiringly. "Except for textiles and a few pieces of pottery, this is the most extensive display of iconography I've ever seen produced on any object from the Late Horizon era."
"Do you see any problem in deciphering the images?" asked Zolar.
"It will be a labor of love," said Moore, without taking his eyes from the golden suit. "But Rome wasn't built in a day. It will be a slow process."
Sarason was impatient. "We need answers as soon as possible."
"You can't rush me," Moore said indignantly. "Not if you want an accurate version of what the images tell us."
"He's right," said Oxley. "We can't afford faulty data."
"The Moores are being well paid for their efforts," Sarason said sternly. "Misinterpretations will cancel all payment."
Anger rising, Moore snapped, "Misinterpretations indeed! You're lucky my wife and I accepted your proposal. One look at what's on the table, and we're aware of the reasons behind your juvenile hocus-pocus games. Running around with masks over your faces as if you were holding up a bank. Total and utter nonsense."
"What are you saying?" Sarason demanded.
"Any historian worth his salt knows the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo was stolen from Spain in the nineteen twenties and never recovered."
"How do you know this isn't another one that was recently discovered?"
Moore pointed to the first image of a panel that traveled from the left shoulder to the hand. "The symbol of a great warrior, a Chachapoyan general known as Naymlap who served the great Inca ruler Huascar. Legend claims he stood as high as any modern star basketball player and had blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Judging from the size of the golden suit and my knowledge of its history, there is no doubt that this is Naymlap's mummy."
Sarason moved close to the anthropologist. "You and your wife just do your job, no mistakes, no more lectures."
Zolar quickly stepped in to defuse what was rapidly developing into a nasty confrontation. "Please excuse my associate, Dr. Moore. I apologize for his rude behavior, but I think you understand that we're all a little excited about finding the golden suit. You're quite right. This is Naymlap's mummy."
"How did you come by it?" asked Moore.
"I can't say, but I will promise you that it is going back to Spain as soon as it has been fully studied by experts such as you and your wife."
A canny smile curled Moore's lips. "Very scrupulous of you, whatever your name is, to send it back to its rightful owners. But not before my wife and I decode the instructions leading to Huascar's treasure."
Oxley muttered something unintelligible under his breath as Sarason stepped toward Moore. But Zolar stretched out an arm and held him back. "You see through our masquerade."
"I do."
"Shall I assume you wish to make a counterproposal, Dr. Moore?"
Moore glanced at his wife. She looked strangely withdrawn. Then he turned to Zolar. "If our expertise leads you to the treasure, I don't think a twenty percent share is out of line."
The brothers stared at one another for several moments, considering. Oxley and Zolar couldn't see Sarason's face behind the ski mask but they could see their brother's eyes blaze with fury.
Zolar nodded. "Considering the potential for incredible riches, I do believe Dr. Moore is being quite generous."
"I agree," said Oxley. "All things considered, the good professor's offer is not exorbitant." He held out his hand. "You and Mrs. Moore have a deal. If we find the treasure, your share is twenty percent."
Moore shook hands. He turned to his wife and smiled as if blissfully unaware of their death sentence. "Well, my dear, shall we get to work?"
THE DEMON OF DEATH
October 22, 1998
Washington, D.C.
She was waiting at the curb outside the terminal, her windblown cinnamon hair glistening under the morning sun, when Pitt walked out of the baggage area of Dulles airport. Congresswoman Loren Smith lifted the sunglasses that hid her incredible violet eyes, rose from behind the wheel, and perched on top of the car seat. She waved, her hands covered with supple leather driving gloves.
A tall woman with an exquisitely proportioned Sharon Stone body, she was wearing red leather pants and jacket over a black turtleneck sweater. Everyone within twenty meters, male and female, openly stared at her as she sat on top of the bright, fire engine red, 1953 Allard J2X sports car. She and the car were both classic works of stylish elegance, and they made a perfect match.
She threw Pitt a seductive look and said, "Hi, sailor, need a ride?"
He set his bag and a large metal case containing the jade box on the sidewalk, leaned over the low-slung body of the Allard and gave Loren a hard, quick kiss on the mouth. "You stole one of my cars."
"That's the thanks I get for playing hooky from a committee hearing to meet you at the airport?"
Pitt stared down at the Spartan vehicle that had won eight of the nine sports car races it had entered forty-five years earlier. There was not enough room for the two of them and his baggage in the small seating area, and the car had no trunk. "Where am I supposed to put my bags?"
She reached down on the passenger's seat and handed him a pair of bungee cords. "I came prepared. You can tie down your baggage on the trunk rack."
Pitt shook his head in wonderment. Loren w
as as bright and perceptive as they come. A five-term congresswoman from the state of Colorado, she was respected by her colleagues for her grasp of difficult issues and her uncanny gift for coming up with solid solutions. Vivacious and outgoing in the halls of Congress, Loren was a private woman, seldom showing up at dinner parties and political functions, preferring to stay close to her townhouse in Alexandria, studying her aides' recommendations on bills coming up for a vote and responding to her constituents' mail. Her only social interest outside her work was her sporadic affair with Pitt.
"Where's A1 and Rudi?" she asked, a look of tender concern in her eyes at seeing his unshaven face, haggard from exhaustion.
"On the next flight. They had a little business to clear up and return some equipment we borrowed."
After cinching his bags on a chrome rack mounted on the rear deck of the Allard, he opened the tiny passenger door, slid his long legs under the low dashboard and stretched them out to the firewall. "Dare I trust you to drive me home?"
Loren threw him a wily smile, nodded politely to the airport policeman who was motioning her to move on, shifted the Allard's three-speed gearbox into first gear, and mashed down the accelerator. The big Cadillac V-8 engine responded with a mighty roar, and the car leaped forward, rear tires screeching and smoking on the asphalt pavement. Pitt shrugged helplessly at the policeman as they whipped past him, furiously groping for the buckle of his seat belt.
"This is hardly conduct becoming a representative of the people," he yelled above the thunder of the exhaust.
"Who's to know?" She laughed. "The car is registered in your name."
Several times during the wild ride over the open highway from Dulles to the city, Loren swept the tachometer needle into the red. Pitt took a fatalistic view. If he was going to die at the hands of this madwoman, there was little else he could do but sit back and enjoy the ride. In reality, he had complete confidence in her driving skills. They had both driven the Allard in vintage sports car races, he in the men's events, she in the women's. He relaxed, zipped up his windbreaker and breathed in the brisk fall air that rushed over and around the little twin windscreens mounted on the cowling.
Loren slipped the Allard through the traffic with the ease of quicksilver running downhill through a maze. She soon pulled up in front of the old metal aircraft hangar, on the far end of Washington's international airport, that Pitt called home.
The structure had been built during the late nineteen thirties as a maintenance facility for early commercial airliners. In 1980, it was condemned and scheduled for demolition, but Pitt took pity on the deserted and forlorn structure and purchased it. Then he talked the local heritage preservation committee into having it placed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks. Afterward, except for remodeling the former upstairs offices into an apartment, he restored the hangar to its original condition.
Pitt never felt the urge to invest his savings and a substantial inheritance from his grandfather into stocks, bonds, and real estate. Instead, he chose antique and classic automobiles, and souvenirs large and small collected during his global adventures as special projects director for NUMA.
The ground floor of the old hangar was filled with nearly thirty old cars, from a 1932 Stutz towncar and French Avions Voisin sedan to a huge 1951 Daimler convertible, the youngest car in the collection. An early Ford Trimotor aircraft sat in one corner, its corrugated aluminum wing sheltering a World War II Messerschmitt ME 262 jet fighter. Along the far wall, an early Pullman railroad car, with Manhattan Limited lettered on the sides, rested on a short length of steel track. But perhaps the strangest item was an old Victorian claw-footed bathtub with an outboard motor clamped to the back. The bathtub, like the other collectibles inside the hangar, had its own unique story.
Loren stopped beside a small receiver mounted on a post. Pitt whistled the first few bars of "Yankee Doodle" and sound recognition software electronically shut down the security system and opened a big drive-through door. Loren eased the Allard inside and turned off the ignition.
"There you are," she announced proudly. "Home in one piece."
"With a new speed record from Dulles to Washington that will stand for decades," he said dryly.
"Don't be such an old grunt. You're lucky I picked you up."
"Why are you so good to me?" he asked affectionately.
"Considering all the abuse you heap on me, I really don't know."
"Abuse? Show me your black-and-blue marks."
"As a matter of fact--" Loren slipped down her leather pants to reveal a large bruise on one thigh.
"Don't look at me," he said, knowing full well he wasn't the culprit.
"It's your fault."
"I'll have you know I haven't socked a girl since Gretchen Snodgrass smeared paste on my chair in kindergarten."
"I got this from a collision with a bumper on one of your old relics."
Pitt laughed. "You should be more careful."
"Come upstairs," she ordered, wiggling her pants back up. "I've planned a gourmet brunch in honor of your homecoming."
Pitt undid the cords to his baggage and dutifully followed Loren upstairs, enjoying the fluid movement of the tightly bound package inside the leather pants. True to her word, she had laid out a lavish setting on the formal table in his dining room. Pitt was starved and his anticipation was heightened by the appetizing aromas drifting from the kitchen.
"How long?" he asked.
"Just time enough for you to get out of your grimy duds and shower," she answered.
He needed no further encouragement. He quickly stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower, reclining on the tile floor with his feet propped on one wall as steaming hot water splashed on the opposite side. He almost drifted off to sleep, but roused himself after ten minutes and soaped up before rinsing off. After shaving and drying his hair, he slipped into a silk paisley robe Loren had given him for Christmas.
When he entered the kitchen, she came over and gave him a long kiss. "Ummm, you smell good, you shaved."
He saw that the metal case containing the jade box had been opened. "And you've been snooping."
"As a congresswoman I have certain inalienable rights," she said, handing him a glass of champagne. "A beautiful work of art. What is it?"
"It," he answered, "is a pre-Columbian antiquity that contains the directions to hidden riches worth so much money it would take you and your buddies in Congress all of two days to spend it."
She looked at him suspiciously. "You must be joking. That would be over a billion dollars."
"I never joke about lost treasure."
She turned and retrieved two dishes of huevos rancheros with chorizo and refried beans heavy on the salsa from the oven and placed them on the table. "Tell me about it while we eat."
Between mouthfuls, as he ravenously attacked Loren's Mexican brunch, Pitt began with his arrival at the sacrificial well and told her what happened up to his discovery of the jade box and the quipu in the Ecuadorian rain forest. He rounded out his narrative with the myths, the precious few facts, and finished with broad speculation.
Loren listened without interrupting until Pitt finished, then said, "Northern Mexico, you think?"
"Only a guess until the quipu is deciphered."
"How is that possible if, as you say, the knowledge about the knots died with the last Inca?"
"I'm banking on Hiram Yaeger's computer to come up with the key."
"A wild shot in the dark at best," she said, sipping her champagne.
"Our only prospect, but a damned good one." Pitt rose, pulled open the dining room curtains and gazed at an airliner that was lifting off the end of a runway, then sat down again. "Time is our real problem. The thieves who stole the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo before Customs agents could seize it have a head start."
"Won't they be delayed too?" asked Loren.
"Because they have to translate the images on the suit? A good authority on Inca textile designs and ideographic symbo
ls on pottery should be able to interpret the images on the suit."
Loren came around the table and sat in Pitt's lap. "So it's developing into a race for the treasure."
Pitt slipped his arms around her waist and gave her a tight squeeze. "Things seem to be shaping up that way."
"Just be careful," she said, running her hands under his robe. "I have a feeling your competitors are not nice people."
Early the next morning, a half hour ahead of the morning traffic rush, Pitt dropped Loren off at her townhouse and drove to the NUMA headquarters building. Not about to risk damage to the Allard by the crazy drivers of the nation's capital, he drove an aging but pristine 1984 Jeep Grand Wagoneer that he had modified by installing a Rodeck 500-horsepower V-8 engine taken from a hot rod wrecked at a national drag race meet. The driver of a Ferrari or Lamborghini who might have stopped beside him at a red light would never suspect that Pitt could blow their doors off from zero to a hundred miles an hour before their superior gear ratios and wind dynamics gave them the edge.
He slipped the Jeep into his parking space beneath the tall, green-glassed tower that housed NUMA's offices and took the elevator up to Yaeger's computer floor, the carrying handle of the metal case containing the jade box gripped tightly in his right hand. When he stepped into a private conference room he found Admiral Sandecker, Giordino, and Gunn already waiting for him. He set the case on the floor and shook hands.
"I apologize for being late."
"You're not late." Admiral James Sandecker spoke in a sharp tone that could slice a frozen pork roast. "We're all early. In suspense and full of anticipation about the map, or whatever you call it."
"Quipu," explained Pitt patiently. "An Inca recording device."
"I'm told the thing is supposed to lead to a great treasure. Is that true?"
"I wasn't aware of your interest," Pitt said, with the hint of a smile.
"When you take matters into your own hands on agency time and money, all behind my back I might add, I'm giving heavy thought to placing an advertisement in the help wanted section for a new projects director."
"Purely an oversight, sir," said Pitt, exercising considerable willpower to keep a straight face. "I had every intention of sending you a full report."
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