Clive Cussler - Inca Gold

"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 symbols 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.