"I lost the camera too."
"Tough break. Nobody will be coming this way again soon, certainly not over those falls."
"Any idea how far to the treasure cavern?" asked Giordino.
"A rough guess? Maybe two kilometers."
Giordino looked at him. "You'll have to go it alone."
"You're talking crazy."
"I'll only be a burden." He was no longer smiling. "Forget about me. Get to the treasure cavern."
"I can't leave you here."
"Busted bones or not, I can still float. I'll follow you later."
"Take care when you get there," said Pitt grimly. "You may drift, but you can't escape the current. Mind you stay close to shore out of the mainstream or you'll be swept beyond recovery."
"No big deal if I am. Our air tanks went with the Wallowing Windbag. If we meet a flooded gallery between here and the treasure chamber longer than we can hold our breath, we'll drown anyway."
"You're supposed to look on the bright side."
Giordino removed a spare flashlight from a belt around one thigh. "You'll need this. Your headlamp looks like it lost a fight with a rock. Come to think of it, your face is a mess too. You're bleeding all over the shredded remains of your nice clean wet suit.'
"Another dip in the river will fix that," said Pitt, attaching the flashlight around the forearm above his broken left wrist where the computer used to be. He dropped his weight belt. "I won't be needing this any longer."
"Aren't you taking your air tank?"
"I don't want to be hindered any more than I have to."
"What if you come to a flooded chamber?"
"I'll have to free dive through as far as I can on my lungs."
"One last favor," said Giordino, holding up the empty harness straps that once supported his air tanks. "Wrap my legs together to keep them from flopping around."
Pitt cinched the straps as tight as he dared, conscious of his broken wrist and the need to be gentle. Except for a sharp intake of breath, Giordino uttered no sound. "Rest up for at least an hour before you follow," Pitt ordered.
"Just get a move on and do what you can to save Loren and Rudi. I'll be along as soon as I'm able."
"I'll keep a watch for you."
"Better find a big net."
Pitt gave Giordino's arm a farewell grip. Then he waded into the river until the current swept him off his feet and carried him into the next cavern.
Giordino watched until Pitt's light vanished around the next bend in the canyon and was lost in the darkness. Two kilometers (1.2 miles), he mused. He hoped to God the final leg of the journey was in air-filled chambers.
Zolar drew a long, relieved breath. Things had gone well, better than he'd expected. The project was winding down. The trailer used for the operations office, the forklift, and the winch had been airlifted away along with most of Colonel Campos's men. Only a small squad of army engineers remained behind to load the final lot onto the army transport helicopter that was parked beside the stolen NUMA craft.
Zolar looked down at the remaining pieces of the golden treasure, which stood in a neat row. He studied the brilliantly gleaming antiquities with an eye toward their ultimate sale price. The artistry and magnificence of the metalwork of the twenty-eight golden statues of Inca warriors was indescribable. They each stood one meter high and provided a rare glimpse into the creative mastery of Inca artisans.
"A few more and you'd have yourself a chess set," said Oxley, admiring the golden display.
"A pity I won't keep them," replied Zolar sadly. "But I'm afraid I'll have to be content with using the profits from my share of their sale to buy legitimate artifacts for my personal collection."
Fernando Matos hungrily devoured the sight of the golden army with his eyes while he mentally estimated his 2 percent cut of the spoils. "We have nothing that can touch this in our National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City."
"You can always donate your share," said Oxley sarcastically.
Matos shot him a barbed look and started to say something but was cut off by the approach of Colonel Campos. "Lieutenant Ramos reports from the cavern that no objects remain inside the mountain. As soon as he and his men arrive from below, they will load the objects. Then I will be on my way to the airstrip to oversee the transshipment."
"Thank you, Colonel," Zolar said politely. He didn't trust Campos as far as he could throw the stone demon. "If you have no objections, the rest of us will join you."
"But of course." Campos looked around the nearly vacated summit. "And your other people?"
Zolar's deepset eyes took on a cold look. "My brother Cyrus and his crew will follow in our helicopter as soon as they tie up a pair of loose ends."
Campos understood. He smiled cynically. "It makes me sick to think about all the bandits running loose to rob and murder foreign visitors."
While they waited for Lieutenant Ramos and his squad to exit the passageway and load the artifacts, Matos walked over and inspected the stone demon. He reached out and laid his hand on the neck and was surprised at the coolness of the stone after it had been absorbing the sun's rays all day. Abruptly, he jerked his hand back. It felt as if the cold stone had suddenly turned pliant and slimy like the scaly skin of a fish.
He stepped back, startled, and half spun around to hurry away. At that instant he saw a human head rising over the edge of the sharp drop in front of the demon. As a man who grew up in a family of university instructors, he did not believe in superstition and folklore. Matos stood frozen more out of curiosity than fright.
The head rose and was seen to be attached to the body of a man who wearily climbed onto the surface of the summit. Then the intruder stood unsteadily for a moment and aimed an old rifle at Matos.
Yuma had lain on a ledge for nearly a full minute, catching his breath and waiting for his heart to slow. When he lifted his head over the rim, he saw a strange looking little man with a bald head and huge glasses, incongruously dressed in a business suit with shirt and tie, staring back at him. To Yuma, the man reminded him of the government officials who passed through the Montolo village once a year, promising aid in the form of fertilizer, feed and grain, and money, but went on their way and never delivered. After climbing over the rim of the slope he also spotted a group of men standing by the army helicopter 30 meters (100 feet) away. They did not notice him. He had planned the climb to terminate behind the great stone demon out of sight of anyone. Except Matos, who unfortunately happened to be standing nearby.
He pointed his worn and scarred old Winchester at the man and spoke softly. "Do not make a sound or you die."
Yuma did not have to look back to confirm that the first of his neighbors and relatives were scrambling onto the mountaintop. He realized that he desperately needed another minute for all of his tiny force to reach high ground. If the man in front of him gave the alarm, all surprise would be lost and the rest of his people would be caught in an exposed position on the mountainside. He had to stall somehow.
Matters were made even worse by the sudden appearance of an officer and a squad of army engineers who walked from a deep fissure in the rock. They looked neither left nor right and headed straight toward what appeared to Yuma as a staggered row of short, golden men.
At seeing the approaching engineers, the helicopter pilot started up his engines and set them on idle and engaged the twin rotors of the big transport.
Beside the stone demon, Matos slowly raised his hands.
"Put your hands down!" Yuma hissed.
Matos did as he was ordered. "How did you get through our security?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"This is my people's sacred ground," Yuma answered quietly. "You are defiling it with your greed."
For every few seconds gained, two more Montolos climbed over the rim of the ledge behind Yuma and formed a group out of sight behind the demon. They had come this far without causing injury or death, and Yuma hated to start now.
"Walk back toward me," h
e ordered Matos. "Stand next to the demon."
There was a wild, crazed look in Matos's eyes. His lust for golden wealth slowly began to short-circuit his fear. His share would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. He couldn't give it up because of a band of superstitious Indians. He glanced nervously over his shoulder at the engineers closing with the helicopter. Dread of losing his dreams created an agonizing knot in his stomach.
Yuma could see it coming. He was losing the man in the suit. "You want gold?" said Yuma. "Take it and leave our mountain."
As he saw more men materializing behind Yuma, Matos finally snapped. He turned and began to run, shouting, "Intruders! Shoot them!"
Without lifting his gun and aiming, Yuma fired from the hip, his shot striking Matos in the knee. The bureaucrat jerked sideways, his glasses flew off his head, and he sprawled heavily on his chest. He rolled over on his back, raising his leg and clutching his knee with both hands.
Yuma's relatives and neighbors, guns at the ready, fanned out like ghosts in a cemetery as they encircled the helicopter. Lieutenant Ramos, no fool he, instantly took in the situation. His men were engineers and not infantrymen and carried no weapons. He immediately raised his hands in surrender and shouted to his small squad to do likewise.
Zolar swore loudly. "Where in hell did these Indians come from?"
"No time to reason why," snapped Oxley. "We're pulling out."
He jumped through the cargo hatch and pulled Zolar in after him.
"The gold warriors!" Zolar protested. "They're not loaded."
"Forget them."
"No!" Zolar resisted.
"You damn fool. Can't you see, those men are armed. The army engineers can't help us." He turned and yelled to the pilot of the helicopter. "Lift off! Andale, andale!"
Colonel Campos was slower than the others to react. He stupidly ordered Lieutenant Ramos and his men to resist. "Attack them!" he cried.
Ramos stared at him. "With what, Colonel, our bare hands?"
Yuma and his tribal members were only 10 meters (33 feet) from the helicopter now. So far only one shot had been fired. The sight of the sun glinting off the golden warriors momentarily stunned the Montolos. The only pure gold object any of them had ever seen was a small chalice on the altar of the little mission church in the nearby village of Ilano Colorado.
Dust began to swirl as the pilot applied the throttles and the rotor blades of the helicopter furiously beat the air. The wheels were lifting off the mountain's summit when Campos finally realized discretion was the better part of greed. He ran four steps and leaped toward the cargo door at the urging of Charles Oxley who reached out for him.
At that instant the helicopter lurched sharply upward. Campos's upraised hands caught empty air. His momentum carried him under the helicopter and off the edge of the cliff as if he'd taken a running dive into water. Oxley watched the colonel's body grow smaller and smaller as it turned end over end before smashing onto the rocks far below.
"Good Christ," gasped Oxley.
Zolar, grimly hanging on to a strap inside the cargo bay, did not witness Campos's plunge to the base of the mountain. His concerns were elsewhere. "Cyrus is still down in the cavern."
"He's with Amaru and his men. Not to worry. Their automatic weapons are more than a match for a few Indians carrying hunting rifles and shotguns. They'll leave in the last helicopter still on the mountain."
Only then did it occur to Zolar that someone was missing. "Where's Matos and the colonel?"
"The Indians shot Matos and Campos made his move too late."
"He stayed on Cerro el Capirote?"
"No, he fell off Cerro el Capirote. He's dead."
Zolar's reaction was a psychiatrist's dream. His expression went thoughtful for a moment, and then he broke out laughing. "Matos shot and the good colonel dead. More profits for the family."
Yuma's prearranged plan with Pitt was accomplished. He and his people had secured the summit and forced the evil ones from the sacred mountain of the dead. He watched as two of his nephews led Lieutenant Ramos and his army engineers down the steep trail to the desert floor below.
There was no way to carry Matos. His knee was tightly bandaged and he was forced to hobble along as best he could, assisted by a pair of engineers.
Curiosity drew Yuma to the enlarged opening to the interior passageway. He had a nagging ache to explore the cavern and see with his own eyes the river described by Pitt. The water he saw in his dreams. But the older men were too frightened to enter the bowels of the sacred mountain, and the gold created a problem with the younger men. They wanted to drop everything and carry it off before armed troops returned.
"This is our mountain," said one young man, the son of Yuma's neighboring rancher. "The little golden people belong to us."
"First we must see the river inside the mountain," countered Yuma.
"It is forbidden for the living to enter the land of the dead," warned Yuma's older brother.
A nephew stared at Yuma doubtfully. "There is no river that runs beneath the desert."
"I believe the man who told me."
"You cannot trust the gringo, no more than those with Spanish blood in their veins."
Yuma shook his head and pointed to the gold. "This proves he did not lie."
"The soldiers will come back and kill us if we do not leave," protested another villager.
"The golden people are too heavy to carry down the steep trail," the young man argued. "They must be lowered by rope down the rock walls. That will take time."
"Let us offer prayers to the demon and be on our way," said the brother.
The young man persisted. "Not until the golden people are safely below."
Yuma reluctantly gave in. "So it is, my family, my friends. I will keep my promise and enter the mountain alone. Take the men of gold, but hurry. You do not have much daylight left."
As he turned and walked through the enlarged opening leading to the passageway, Yuma felt little fear.
Good had come from the climb to the top of the mountain. The evil men were cast down. The demon was at peace again. Now, with the blessing of the demon, Billy Yuma felt confident he could safely enter the land of the dead. And maybe find a trail leading to the lost sacred idols of his people.
Loren sat huddled in the cramped rock cell, sinking into the quicksand of self-pity. She had no more fight left in her. The hours had merged until time lost all sense of meaning. She could not remember when she had last eaten. She tried to recall what it felt like to be warm and dry, but that memory seemed like an event that occurred ages ago.
Her self-confidence, the independence, the satisfaction of being a respected legislator in the world's only superpower, meant nothing in that damp little cave. Standing on the floor of the House of Representatives seemed a million light-years away. She had come to the end, and she had fought as long as she could. Now she accepted the end. Better to die and get it over with.
She looked over at Rudi Gunn. He had hardly moved at all in the last hour. She didn't have to be a doctor to see that he had slipped, badly in that time. Tupac Amaru, in a storm of sadistic wrath, had broken several of Gunn's fingers by stomping them. Amaru had also injured Gunn severely by kicking him repeatedly in the stomach and head. If Rudi didn't receive medical attention very soon, he might die.
Loren's mind turned to Pitt. Every conceivable road to freedom was blocked unless he could ride to their rescue at the head of the U.S. Cavalry. Not a likely prospect.
She recalled the other times he had saved her. The first was on board the Russian cruise ship where she was held captive by agents of the old Soviet government. Pitt had shown up and rescued her from a savage beating. The second time was when she was held hostage by the fanatic Hideki Suma in his underwater city off the coast of Japan. Pitt and Giordino had risked their lives to free her and a fellow congressman.
She had no right to give up. But Pitt was dead, crushed by concussion grenades in the sea. If her countrymen could have sent
a group of Special Forces over the border to save her, they would have done so by now.
She had watched through the cave opening as the golden treasure was hauled past her cell and through the guardians' chamber up to the peak of the hollow mountain. When all the gold was gone, she knew it would be time for her and Rudi to die.
They did not have to wait long. One of Amaru's foul-smelling henchman walked up to their guard and gave him an order. The ugly slug turned and motioned them out of the cave. "Salga, salga," he commanded them.
Loren shook Gunn awake and helped him rise to his feet. "They want to move us," she told him softly.
Gunn looked at her dazedly, and then incredibly, he forced a tight smile. "About time they upgraded us to a better room."
With Gunn shuffling alongside Loren, her arm around his waist, his over her shoulders, they were led to a flat area between the stalagmites near the shoreline of the river. Amaru was joking with four of his men who were grouped around him. Another man she recognized from the ferryboat as Cyrus Sarason. The Latin Americans appeared cool and relaxed, but Sarason was sweating heavily and his shirt beneath his armpits was stained.
Their one-eyed guard pushed them roughly forward and moved slightly apart from the others. Sarason reminded Loren of a high school coach who was pressed into service as a chaperon at a prom, seeing out a dull and boring duty.
In contrast, Amaru looked as if he were bursting at the seams with nervous energy. Excitement gleamed in his eyes. He stared at Loren with the same intensity as a man crawling through the desert who suddenly sights a saloon advertising cold beer. He came over and roughly cupped Loren's chin with one hand.
"Are you ready to entertain us?"
"Leave her be," said Samson. "There is no need to prolong our stay here."
Something cold and slimy moved through Loren's stomach. Not this, she thought, God not this. "If you're going to kill us, get it over with."
"You'll get your wish soon enough." Amaru laughed sadistically. "But not before you pleasure my men. When they are finished, and if they are satisfied, perhaps they will give you a thumbs-up and let you live. If not, then a thumbs-down like the Romans judging a gladiator in the arena. I suggest you make them happy."
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