Текст книги "Inca Gold"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

    "I never envisioned a water source that extensive," he said between deep breaths.

    "You found an access to the river," Pitt stated., not asked, happily.

    "The sinkhole drops about sixty meters before it meets a horizontal feeding stream that runs a hundred and twenty meters through a series of narrow fissures to the river," explained Giordino.

    Can we gain passage for the float equipment?" Pitt queried.

    "It gets a little tight in places, but I think we can squeeze it through."

    "The water temperature?"

    "A cool but bearable twenty degrees Celsius, about sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit."

    Duncan pulled off his hood, revealing the great bush of a red beard. He made no effort to climb from the pool. He rested his arms on the bank and babbled in excitement. "I didn't believe it when you described a wide river with a current of nine knots under the Sonoran Desert. Now that I've seen it with my own eyes, I still don't believe it. I'd guess anywhere from ten to fifteen million acre-feet of water a year is flowing down there."

    "Do you think it's the same underground stream that flows under Cerro el Capirote?" asked Sandecker.

    "No doubt about it," answered Duncan. "Now that I've seen the river exists with my own eyes, I'd be willing to gamble it's the same stream that Leigh Hunt claimed runs beneath the Castle Dome Mountains."

    "So Hunt's canyon of gold probably exists." Pitt smiled.

    "You know about that legend?"

    "No legend now."

    A delighted look crossed Duncan's face. "No, I guess not, I'm happy to say."

    "Good thing we were tied to a fixed guideline," said Giordino.

    Duncan nodded. "I couldn't agree more. Without it, we would have been swept away by the river when we emerged from the feeder stream."

    "And joined those two divers who ended up in the Gulf."

    I can't help but wonder where the source is," mused Sandecker.

    Giordino rubbed a hand through his curly mop. "The latest in geophysical ground-penetrating instruments should have no problem tracking the course."

    "There is no predicting what a discovery of this magnitude means to the drought-plagued Southwest," said Duncan, still aroused by what he'd seen. "The benefits could result in thousands of jobs, millions of acres brought under cultivation, pasture for livestock. We might even see the desert turned into a Garden of Eden."

    "The thieves will drown in the water that makes the desert into a garden," Pitt said, staring into the crystal blue pool and remembering Billy Yuma's words.

    "What was that you said?" asked Giordino curiously.

    Pitt shook his head and smiled. "An old Indian proverb."

    After carrying the dive equipment up to the surface entrance of the borehole, Giordino and Duncan stripped off their suits while Sandecker loaded their gear into the Plymouth station wagon. The admiral came over as Pitt drove alongside in the old pickup and stopped.

    "I'll meet you back here in two hours," he notified Sandecker.

    "Mind telling us where you're going?"

    "I have to see a man about raising an army."

    "Anybody I know?"

    "No, but if things go half as well as I hope, you'll be shaking his hand and pinning a medal on him by the time the sun goes down."

    Gaskill and Ragsdale were waiting at the small airport west of Calexico on the United States side of the border when the NUMA plane landed and taxied up to a large Customs Service van. They had begun transferring the underwater survival equipment to the van from the cargo hatch of the plane when Sandecker and Giordino arrived in the station wagon.

    The pilot came over and shook their hands. "We had to hustle to assemble your shopping list, but we managed to scrounge every piece of gear you requested."

    "Were our engineers able to lower the profile of the Hovercraft as Pitt requested?" asked Giordino.

    "A miraculous crash job." The pilot smiled. "But the admiral's mechanical whiz kids said to tell you they modified the Wallowing Windbag down to a maximum height of sixty-one centimeters."

    "I'll thank everyone personally when I return to Washington," said Sandecker warmly.

    "Would you like me to head back?" the pilot asked the admiral. "Or stand by here?"

    "Stick by your aircraft in case we need you."

    They had just finished loading the van and were closing the rear cargo doors when Curtis Starger came racing across the airstrip in a gray Customs vehicle. He braked to a stop and came from behind the wheel as if shot out of a cannon.

    "We got problems," he announced.

    "What kind of problems?" Gaskill demanded.

    "Mexican Border Police just closed down their side of the border to all U.S. traffic entering Mexico."

    "What about commercial traffic?"

    "That too. They also added insult to injury by putting up a flock of military helicopters with orders to force down all intruding aircraft and stop any vehicle that looks suspicious."

    Ragsdale looked at Sandecker. "They must be onto your fishing expedition."

    "I don't think so. No one saw us enter or leave the borehole."

    Starger laughed. "What do you want to bet that after Senor Matos ran back and reported our hard stand to the Zolars, they frothed at the mouth and coerced their buddies in the government to raise the drawbridge."

    "That would be my guess," agreed Ragsdale. "They were afraid we'd come charging in like the Light Brigade."

    Gaskill looked around. "Where's Pitt?"

    "He's safe on. the other side," replied Giordino.

    Sandecker struck the side of the aircraft with his fist. "To come this close," he muttered angrily. "A bust, a goddamned bust."

    There must be some way we can get these people and their gear back to Satan's Sink," said Ragsdale to his fellow federal agents.

    Starger and Gaskill matched crafty grins. "Oh, I think the Customs Service can save the day," said Starger.

    "You two got something up your sleeves?"

    "The Escobar affair," Starger revealed. "Familiar with it?"

    Ragsdale nodded. "The underground drug smuggling operation."

    Juan Escobar lived just across the border in Mexico," Starger explained to Sandecker and Giordino, "but operated a truck repair garage on this side. He smuggled in a number of large narcotics shipments before the Drug Enforcement Agency got wise to him. In a cooperative investigation our agents discovered a tunnel running a hundred and fifty meters from his house under the border fence to his repair shop. We were too late for an arrest. Escobar somehow got antsy, shut down his operation before we could nail him, and disappeared along with his family."

    "One of our agents," added Gaskill, "a Hispanic who was born and raised in East Los Angeles, lives in Escobar's former house and commutes through the border crossing, posing as the new owner of Escobar's truck repair shop."

    Starger smiled with pride. "The DEA and Customs have made over twenty arrests on information that came to him from other drug traffickers wanting to use the tunnel."

    "Are you saying it's still open?" asked Sandecker.

    "You'd be surprised how often it comes in handy for the good guys," answered Starger.

    Giordino looked like a man offered salvation. "Can we get our stuff through to the other side?"

    Starger nodded. "We simply drive the van into the repair shop. I'll get some men to help us carry your equipment under the border to Escobar's house, then load it into our undercover agent's parts truck out of sight in the garage. The vehicle is well known over there, so there is no reason why you'd be stopped."

    Sandecker looked at Giordino. "Well," he said solemnly, "are you ready to write your obituary?"

    The stone demon stoically ignored the activity around him as if biding his time. He did not feel, nor could he turn his head and see, the recent gouges and craters in his body and remaining wing, shot there by laughing Mexican soldiers who used him for target practice when their officers had disappeared into the mountain. Something within the carved stone sensed that its menacing eyes would still be surveying the ageless desert centuries after the intruding humans had died and passed beyond memory into the afterworld.

    A shadow passed over the demon for the fifth time that morning as a sleek craft dropped from the sky and settled onto the only open space large enough for it to land, a narrow slot between two army helicopters and the big winch with its equally large auxiliary power unit.

    In the rear passenger seat of the blue and green police helicopter, Police Comandante of Baja Norte Rafael Corona stared thoughtfully out the window at the turmoil on the mountaintop. His eyes wandered to the malevolent expression of the stone demon. It seemed to stare back at him.

    Aged sixty-five, he contemplated his coming retirement without joy. He did not look forward to a life of boredom in a small house overlooking the bay at Ensenada, existing on a pension that would permit few luxuries. His square, brown-skinned face reflected a solid career that went back forty-five years. Corona had never E been popular with his fellow officers. Hardworking, straight as an arrow, he had prided himself on never taking a bribe. Not one peso in all his years on the force. Though he never faulted others for accepting graft under the table from known criminals or shady businessmen seeking to sidestep investigations, neither did he condone it. He had gone his own way, never informing, never voicing complaints or personal moral judgments.

    Bitterly he recalled how he had been passed over for promotion more times than he could remember. But whenever his superiors slipped too far and were discovered in scandal, the civilian commissioners always turned to Corona, a man they resented for his honesty but needed because he could be trusted.

    There was a reason Cortina could never be bought in a land where corruption and kickbacks were commonplace. Every man, and woman too, has a price. Resentfully but patiently Cortina had waited until his price was met. If he was to sell out, he wouldn't come cheap. And the ten million dollars the Zolars offered for his cooperation, above and beyond the official approval for the treasure removal, was enough to ensure that his wife, four sons and their wives, and eight grandchildren would enjoy life in the new and rejuvenated Mexico spawned under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

    At the same time, he knew the old days of looking the other way while holding out an open palm were dying out. The last two presidents of Mexico had waged all-out war against bureaucratic corruption. And the legalization and price regulation of certain drugs had dealt the drug dealers a blow that had cut their profits by 80 percent and their death-dealing volume by two-thirds.

    Cortina stepped from the helicopter and was met by one of Amaru's men. He remembered arresting him for armed robbery in La Paz and helping obtain a conviction and a five-year prison term. If the freed criminal recognized Corona, there was no indication. He was ushered by the ex-convict into an aluminum house trailer that had been airlifted from Yuma to be used as an office for the treasure recovery project on top of the mountain.

    He was surprised to see modern oil paintings by some of the Southwest's finest artists adorning the walls. Inside the richly paneled trailer, seated around an antique French Second Empire table, were Joseph Zolar, his two brothers, Fernando Matos from the National Affairs Department, and Colonel Roberto Campos, commander of northern Mexico's military forces on the Baja Peninsula.

    Cortina gave a nod and a slight bow and was motioned to a chair. His eyes widened slightly as a very attractive serving lady brought him a glass of champagne and a plate of smoked sturgeon topped by a small mound of caviar. Zolar pointed to a cutaway illustration of the passageway leading to the interior caverns.

    "Not an easy job, let me tell you. Bringing all that gold across a river deep below the floor of the desert, and then transporting it up a narrow tunnel to the top of the mountain."

    "It goes well?" asked Cortina.

    "Too early to throw confetti," replied Zolar. "The hardest part, dragging out Huascar's chain, is under way. Once it reaches the surface–" he paused to read the dial of his watch– "in about half an hour from now, we will cut it into sections for easier loading and unloading during shipping. After it is safe inside our storage facilities in Morocco, it will be reconnected."

    "Why Morocco?" inquired Fernando Matos. "Why not your warehouse in Galveston or your estate in Douglas, Arizona?"

    "Protection. This is one collection of artifacts we don't want to risk storing in the United States. We have an arrangement with the military commander in Morocco who protects our shipments. The country also makes a convenient distribution center to ship the artifacts throughout Europe, South America, and the Far East."

    "How do you plan to bring out the rest of the antiquities?" asked Campos.

    "After they are floated across the underground river on rafts, they will be drawn up the passageway on a train of narrow platforms with ski runners."

    "Then the winch I requisitioned has proven useful?"

    "A godsend, Colonel," replied Oxley. "By six o'clock this evening your men should be loading the last of the golden artifacts onto the helicopters you so graciously provided.

    Cortina held his glass of champagne but didn't taste it. "Is there any way of measuring the weight of the treasure?"

    "Professor Henry Moore and his wife have given me an estimate of sixty tons."

    "Good God," murmured Colonel Campos, an imposing figure of a man with a great mass of gray hair. "I had no idea it was so vast."

    "Historical records failed to give a full inventory," said Oxley.

    "And the value?" asked Corona.

    "Our original estimate," Oxley lectured, "was two hundred and fifty million American dollars. But I think it's safe to say it's worth closer to three hundred million."

    Oxley's amount was a total fabrication. The market price of the gold alone had risen close to seven hundred million dollars after the Moores' inventory. Incredibly, the added value as antiquities easily pushed the price well over one billion dollars on the underground market.

    Zolar faced Corona and Campos, a broad smile on his face. "What this means, gentlemen, is that we can raise the ante considerably for the people of Baja California Norte."

    "There will be more than enough for the public works your government administrators have envisioned," added Sarason.

    Corona glanced sideways at Campos, and wondered how much the colonel was collecting to look the other way while the Zolars made off with the bulk of the treasure, including the massive golden chain. And Matos was an enigma. He couldn't figure out how the sniveling government official fit into the scheme of things. "In light of the increased estimated valuation, I believe a bonus should be forthcoming."

    An opportunist, Campos instantly picked up on Corona's drift. "Yes, yes, I agree with my good friend Rafael. For me, it was not an easy matter to seal off the border."

    It amused Cortina to hear Campos use his Christian name for the first time in the ten years they had occasionally met to discuss mutual police and military business. He knew how much it would irritate Campos if he did the same, so he said, "Roberto is quite right. Local businessmen and politicians are already complaining about the loss of tourist revenue and the halting of commercial traffic. Both of us will have to do some heavy explaining to our superiors."

    "Won't they understand when you tell them it was to keep American federal agents from making an unauthorized border crossing to confiscate the treasure?" asked Oxley.

    "I assure you the National Affairs Department will cooperate in every way to back your position," said Matos.

    "Perhaps." Cortina shrugged. "Who can say for certain whether our government will buy the story or order Colonel Campos and me tried in court for overstepping our authority."

    "Your bonus." Zolar put it to Cortina. "What did you have in mind?"

    Without batting an eye, Cortina replied, "An additional ten million dollars in cash."

    Campos was visibly stunned for an instant, but he jumped right in beside Corona. "Police Comandante Cortina speaks for both of us. Considering our risk and the added value of the treasure, ten million cash above our original agreement is not too much to ask."

    Sarason entered into the negotiations. "You realize, of course, that the estimated value is nowhere near the price that we will eventually receive. Comandante Cortina knows that stolen jewels are rarely fenced for more than twenty percent of their true worth."

    Zolar and Oxley maintained serious expressions, all the while knowing there were over a thousand collectors on their client list who were eagerly waiting to purchase portions of the golden artifacts at premium prices.

    "Ten million," Cortina repeated stubbornly.

    Sarason kept up the pretense of hard bargaining. "That's a lot of money," he protested.

    "Protecting you from American and Mexican law enforcement agents is only half our involvement," Cortina reminded him. "Without Colonel Campos's heavy transport helicopters to haul the gold to your transfer site in the Altar Desert, you would end up with nothing."

    "And without our involvement in the discovery, you would too," said Sarason.

    Corona spread his hands indifferently. "I cannot deny that we need each other. But I strongly believe it would be in your best interests to be generous."

    Sarason looked at his brothers. Zolar gave a barely perceptible nod. After a moment, Sarason turned to Corona and Campos and gestured in apparent defeat. "We know when we have a losing hand. Consider yourselves another ten million dollars richer."

    The maximum load the winch could tow was five tons, so Huascar's chain was to be cut in the middle and dragged out in two pieces. The soldiers of the Mexican engineering battalion would then fashion a raft from boards requisitioned from the nearest lumber yard to ferry the main mass of the treasure across the subterranean river. Only the golden throne proved too heavy for the raft. Once Huascar's chain was pulled to the mountain peak, the winch cable was to be carried back down and attached to a harness wrapped around the throne. After sending a signal topside, it would be winched across the river bottom until it reached dry ground. From there the engineers, aided by Amaru's men, planned to muscle it onto a sled for the final journey from the heart of the mountain. Once out of the mountain, all of the artifacts would be loaded aboard vessels the Inca artisans who created the golden masterworks could never have visualized birds that flew without wings, known in modern times as helicopters.

    On the island of treasure, Micki Moore busily catalogued and recorded descriptions of the pieces while Henry measured and photographed them. They had to work quickly. Amaru was driving the military engineers to remove everything in a hurry, an effort that reduced the small mountain of golden antiquities at an incredible rate. What had taken the Incas and Chachapoyas six days to cache inside the mountain, modern equipment was about to remove in ten hours.

    She moved close to her husband and whispered, "I can't do this."

    He looked at her.

    Her eyes seemed to reflect the gold that gleamed under the bright lights brought in by the engineers. "I don't want any of the gold."

    "Why not?" he asked her softly.

    "I can't explain," she said. "I feel dirty enough as it is. I know you must have come to feel the same. We must do something to keep it out of Zolar's hands."

    "Wasn't that our original intent, to terminate the Zolars and hijack the treasure after it was loaded aboard the aircraft in the Altar Desert?"

    "That was before we saw how vast and magnificent it is. Let it go, Henry, we've bitten off more than we can chew."

    Moore turned thoughtful. "This is one hell of time to get a conscience."

    "Conscience has nothing to do with it. It's ridiculous to think we could unload tons of antiquities. We have to face facts. You and I don't have the facilities or the contacts to dispose of so large a hoard on the underground market."

    "Selling Huascar's chain would not be all that difficult."

    Micki looked up into his eyes for a long time. "You're a very good anthropologist, and I'm a very good archaeologist. We're also very good at jumping out of airplanes at night into strange countries and murdering people. Stealing priceless ancient art is not what we do best. Besides, we hate these people. I say we work together in keeping the treasure in one piece. Not scattered inside the vaults of a bunch of scavengers hungry for possessions no one else can own or ever view."

    "I have to admit," he said wearily, "I've had my reservations too. What do you suggest we do?"

    "The right thing," she replied huskily.

    For the first time Moore noticed the compassion in her eyes. There was a beauty he had never seen before. She put her arms around him and gazed into his eyes. "We don't have to kill anymore. This time we won't have to crawl back under a rock when our operation is finished."

    He took her head between his hands and kissed her. "I'm proud of you, old girl."

    She pushed him back, her eyes widening as if she remembered something. "The hostages. I promised them we would rescue them if we could."

    "Where are they?"

    "If they're still alive, they should be on the surface."

    Moore looked around the cavern and saw that Amaru was overseeing the removal of the mummies of the guardians from inside the crypt. The Zolars were leaving the caverns as bare as when the Incas found them. Nothing of value was to be left.

    "We've got a detailed inventory," he said to Micki. "Let's be on our way."

    The Moores hitched a ride on a sled stacked with golden animals being towed up to the staging area. When they came into daylight, they searched the summit, but Loren Smith and Rudi Gunn were nowhere to be found.

    By then, it was too late for the Moores to reenter the mountain.

    Loren shivered. Tattered clothing was no protection against the cool dampness of the cavern. Gunn put his arm around her to provide what body warmth he had to give. The tiny cell-like chamber that was their prison was little more than a wide crack in the limestone. There was no room to stand up, and whenever they tried to move about to find a comfortable position or to keep warm, the guard shoved his gun butt at them through the opening.

    After the two sections of the golden chain had been brought through the passageway, Amaru forced them from the mountain crest down to the little cavity behind the guardian's crypt. Unknown to the Moores, Loren and Rudi had been imprisoned before the scientists made their way out of the treasure cavern.

    "We would appreciate a drink of water," Loren told the guard.

    He turned and looked at her blankly. He was an appalling figure, enormous, with an entirely repulsive face, thick lips, flat nose, and one eye. The empty socket he left exposed, giving him the brutal ugliness of Quasimodo.

    This time when Loren shivered it wasn't from the cold. It was the fear that coursed throughout her half-naked body. She knew that to show audacity might invite pain, but she no longer cared. "Water, you drooling imbecile. Do you understand, agua?"

    He gave her a cruel look and slowly vanished from their narrow line of vision. In a few minutes he returned and tossed a military canteen of water into the cave.

    "I think you've made a friend," said Gunn.

    "If he thinks he's getting a kiss on the first date," said Loren, twisting off the cap of the canteen, "he's got another think coming."

    She offered Gunn a drink, but he shook his head. "Ladies first."

    Loren drank sparingly and passed the canteen to Gunn. "I wonder what happened to the Moores?"

    "They may not know we were moved from the summit down to this hellhole."

    "I fear the Zolars intend to bury us alive in here," Loren said. The tears came to her eyes for the first time as her defenses began to crack. She had endured the beatings and the abuse, but now that it seemed she and Gunn were abandoned, the faint hope that had kept her going was all but extinguished.

    "There is still Dirk," Gunn said gently.

    She shook her head as if embarrassed at being seen wiping away the tears. "Please stop. Even if he were still alive, Dirk couldn't fight his way into this rotten mountain with a division of Marines and reach us in time."

    "If I know our man, he wouldn't need a division of Marines."

    "He's only human. He would be the last one to think of himself as a miracle worker."

    "As long as we're still alive," said Gunn, "and there is a chance, that's all that matters."

    "But for how long?" She shook her head sadly. "A few more minutes, a couple of hours? The truth is, we're already as good as dead."

    When the first section of chain was dragged into daylight, everyone on the summit stood and admired it. The sheer mass of so much gold in one place took their breath away. Despite the dust and calcite drippings from centuries underground, the great mass of yellow gold gleamed blindingly under the noon sun.

    In all the years the Zolars had been practicing the theft of antiquities, they had never seen such a masterwork of art so rich in splendor from the past. No treasured object known to history could match it. Fewer than four collectors throughout the world could have afforded the entire piece. The sight was doubly grand when the second section of chain was pulled from the passage opening and laid beside the first.

    "Mother of heaven!" gasped Colonel Campos. "The links are as large as a man's wrist."

    "Difficult to believe the Incas had mastered such highly technical skills in metallurgy," murmured Zolar.

    Sarason knelt down and studied the links. "Their artistry and sophistication is phenomenal. Each link is perfect. There isn't a flaw anywhere."

    Corona walked over to one of the end links and lifted it with considerable effort. "They must weigh fifty kilos each."

    This is truly light-years ahead of any other discovery," said Oxley, trembling at the incredible sight.

    Sarason tore his gaze away and gestured to Amaru. "Get it loaded on board the helicopter, quickly."

    The evil-eyed killer nodded silently and began giving orders to his men and a squad of soldiers. Even Corona, Campos, and Matos pitched in. With help from a straining forklift and plenty of sweat, the two sections of chain were manhandled aboard two army helicopters and sent on their way to the desert airstrip.

    Zolar watched as the two aircraft became tiny specks in the sky. "Nothing can stop us now," he said cheerfully to his brothers. "A few more hours and we're home free, with the largest treasure known to man."

    To Sandecker, the audacious plan to come in through the back door of Cerro el Capirote in a wild attempt to save Loren Smith and Rudi Gunn was nothing less than suicidal. He knew the reasons Pitt had for risking his life, rescuing a loved one and a close friend from death, evening the score with a pair of murderers, and snatching a wondrous treasure from the hands of thieves. Those were grounds for justification of other men. Not Pitt. His motivation went much deeper. To challenge the unknown, laugh at the devil, and dare the odds. Those were his stimulants.

    As for Giordino, Pitt's friend since childhood, Sandecker never doubted for an instant the rugged Italian would follow Pitt into a molten sea of lava.

    Sandecker could have stopped them. But he hadn't built what was thought of by many as the finest, most productive, and budget efficient agency in the government without taking his fair share of risky gambles. His fondness for marching out of step with official Washington made him the object of respect as well as envy. The other directors of national bureaus would never consider hands-on control of a hazardous project in the field that might run the risk of censure from Congress and force resignation by presidential order. Sandecker's only regret was that this was one adventure he couldn't lead himself.

    He paused after carrying a load of dive gear from the old Chevy down the tubular bore and looked at Peter Duncan, who sat beside the sinkhole, busily overlaying a transparency of a topographical map onto a hydrographic survey of known underground water systems.

    The two charts were enlarged to the same scale, enabling Duncan to trace the approximate course of the subterranean river. Around him, the others were setting out the dive gear and float equipment. "As the crow flies," Duncan said to no one specifically, "the distance between Satan's Sinkhole and Cerro el Capirote works out to roughly thirty kilometers."

    Sandecker looked down into the water of the sinkhole. "What quirk of nature formed the river channel?"

    "About sixty million years ago," answered Duncan, "a shift in the earth caused a fault in the limestone, allowing water to seep in and carve out a series of connecting caverns."

    The admiral turned to Pitt. "How long do you think it will take you to get there?"

    "Running with a current of nine knots," said Pitt, "we should make the treasure cavern in three hours."

    Duncan looked doubtful. "I've never seen a river that didn't meander. If I were you I'd add another two hours to my estimated time of arrival."

    "The Wallowing Windbag will make up the time," Giordino said confidently as he stripped off his clothes.

    "Only if you have clear sailing all the way. You're entering the unknown. There is no second-guessing the difficulties you might encounter. Submerged passages extending ten kilometers or more, cascades that fall the height of a ten-story building, or unnavigable rapids through rocks. White-water rafters have a saying– if there is a rock, you'll strike it. If there is an eddy, you'll get caught in it."