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 pl
astic 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."
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