Clive Cussler - Inca Gold

"I wasn't planning on driving or hiking to the mountain," said Pitt.

Starger looked at him and grinned. "What can the National Underwater and Marine Agency do that Customs and the FBI can't? Swim over the desert?"

"No, not over," said Pitt in a deadly earnest voice. "Under."

NIGHTMARE PASSAGE

October 31, 1998

Satan's Sink, Baja, Mexico

In the parched foothills on the northern end of the Sierra el Mayor Mountains, almost 50 kilometers (31 miles) due south of Mexicali, there is a borehole, a naturally formed tunnel, in the side of a cliff. Carved millions of years ago by the turbulent action of an ancient sea, the corridor slopes downward to the bottom of a small cavern, sculpted from the volcanic rock by Pliocene epoch water and more recently by windblown sand. There on the floor of the cavern a pool of water emerges from beneath the desert. Except for a tint of cobalt blue, the water is so clear as to appear invisible and from ground level the sinkhole looks to be bottomless.

Satan's Sink was shaped nothing like the sacrificial pool in Peru, Pitt thought, as he gazed at the yellow nylon line trailing into the transparent depths. He sat on a rock at the edge of the water, his eyes shaded with a look of concern, hands lightly grasping the nylon line whose end was wound around the drum of a compact reel.

Outside, 80 meters (262 feet) above the bottom of the tubular borehole, Admiral Sandecker sat in a lawn chair beside a ravaged and rusting 1951 Chevy half-ton pickup truck with a faded camper in the bed that looked as though it should have been recycled years ago. Another automobile was parked behind it, a very tired and worn 1968 Plymouth Belvedere station wagon. Both had Baja California Norte license plates.

Sandecker held a can of Coors beer in one hand as he lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes with the other and scrutinized the surrounding landscape. He was dressed to complement the old truck, having the appearance of any one of thousands of retired American vagabonds who travel and camp around the Baja Peninsula on the cheap.

He was surprised to find so many flowering plants in the Sonoran Desert, despite scant water and a climate that runs from subfreezing nights in the winter to a summer heat that produces furnace temperatures. Far off in the distance he watched a small herd of horses grazing on bunchgrass.

Satisfied the only life within his immediate area was a red diamondback rattler sunning itself on a rock and a black tailed jackrabbit that hopped up to him, took one look, and leaped away, he rose from his lawn chair and ambled down the slope of the borehole to the pool.

"Any sign of the law?" asked Pitt at the admiral's approach.

Nothing around here but snakes and rabbits," grunted Sandecker. He nodded toward the water. "How long have they been down?"

Pitt glanced at his watch. "Thirty-eight minutes."

"I'd feel a whole lot better if they were using professional equipment instead of old dive gear borrowed from local Customs agents."

"Every minute counts if we're to save Loren and Rudi. By doing an exploratory survey now to see if my plan has the slightest chance of succeeding, we save six hours. The same time it takes for our state-of-the-art equipment to arrive in Calexico from Washington."

"Sheer madness to attempt such a dangerous operation," said Sandecker in a tired voice.

"Do we have an alternative?"

"None that comes to mind."

"Then we must give it a try," said Pitt firmly.

"You don't even know yet if you have the slightest prospect of--"

"They've signaled," Pitt interrupted the admiral as the line tautened in his hands. "They're on their way up."

Together, Pitt pulling in on the line, Sandecker holding the reel between his knees and turning the crank, they began hauling in the two divers who were somewhere deep inside the sinkhole on the other end of the 200-meter 460(656-foot) line. A long fifteen minutes later, breathing heavily, they brought in the red knot that signified the third fifty-meter mark.

"Only fifty meters to go," Sandecker commented heavily. He pulled on the reel as he cranked, trying to ease the strain on Pitt who did the major share of the work. The admiral was a health enthusiast, jogged several miles a day, and occasionally worked out in the NUMA headquarters health spa, but the exertion of pulling dead weight without a time-out pushed his heart rate close to the red line. "I see them," he panted thankfully.

Gratefully, Pitt let go of the line and sagged to a sitting position to catch his breath. "They can ascend on their own from there."

Giordino was the first of the two divers to surface. He removed his twin air tanks and hoisted them to Sandecker. Then he offered a hand to Pitt who leaned back and heaved him out of the water. The next man up was Dr. Peter Duncan, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, who had arrived in Calexico by chartered jet only an hour after Sandecker contacted him in San Diego. At first he thought the admiral was joking about an underground river, but curiosity overcame his skepticism and he dropped everything to join in the exploratory dive. He spit out the mouthpiece to his air regulator.

"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."