Clive Cussler - Inca Gold

"If Straight's conservation experts can reconstruct enough of the knots and strands for Brunhilda to analyze, I think I can promise to add enough data to put you within spitting distance of the tunnel leading to the treasure cave."

"You'd better," Pitt advised, "because I have ambitions in life other thin going around Mexico digging empty holes."

Gunn turned toward Sandecker. "Well, what do you say, Admiral? Is it a go?"

The feisty little chief of NUMA stared at the map on the screen. Finally, he sighed and muttered, "I want a proposal detailing the search project and its cost when I walk in my office tomorrow morning. Consider yourselves on paid vacation for the next three weeks. And not a word outside this room. If the news media get wind that NUMA is conducting a treasure hunt, I'll catch all kinds of hell from Congress."

"And if we find Huascar's treasure?" asked Pitt.

"Then we'll all be impoverished heroes."

Yaeger missed the point. "Impoverished?"

"What the admiral is implying," said Pitt, "is that the finders will not be the keepers."

Sandecker nodded. "Cry a river, gentlemen, but if you are successful in finding the hoard, every troy ounce of it will probably be turned over to the government of Peru."

Pitt and Giordino exchanged knowing grins, each reading the other's mind, but it was Giordino who spoke first.

"I'm beginning to think there is a lesson somewhere in all this."

Sandecker looked at him uneasily. "What lesson is that?"

Giordino studied his cigar as he answered. "The treasure would probably be better off if we left it where it is."

Gaskill lay stretched out in bed, a cold cup of coffee and a dish with a half-eaten bologna sandwich beside him on the bed stand. The blanket warming his huge bulk was strewn with typewritten pages. He raised the cup and sipped the coffee before reading the next page of a book-length manuscript. The title was The Thief Who Was Never Caught. It was a nonfiction account of the search for the Specter, written by a retired Scotland Yard inspector by the name of Nathan Pembroke. The inspector spent nearly five decades digging through international police archives, tracking down every lead, regardless of its reliability, in his relentless hunt.

Pembroke, hearing of Gaskill's interest in the elusive art thief from the nineteen twenties and thirties, sent him the yellowed, dog-eared pages of the manuscript he had painstakingly compiled, one that had been rejected by over thirty editors in as many years. Gaskill could not put it down. He was totally absorbed in the masterful investigative work by Pembroke, who was now in his late eighties. The Englishman had been the lead investigator on the Specter's last known heist, which took place in London in 1939. The stolen art consisted of a Joshua Reynolds, a pair of Constables, and three Turners. Like all the other brilliantly executed thefts by the Specter, the case was never solved and none of the art was recovered. Pembroke, stubbornly insisting there was no such thing as a perfect crime, became obsessed with discovering the Specter's identity.

For half a century his obsession never dimmed, and he refused to give up the chase. Only a few months before his health failed, and he was forced to enter a nursing home, did he make a breakthrough that enabled him to write the end to his superbly narrated account.

A great pity, Gaskill thought, that no editor thought it worth publishing. He could think of at least ten famous art thefts that might have been solved if The Thief Who Was Never Caught had been printed and distributed.

Gaskill finished the last page an hour before dawn. He lay back on his pillow staring at the ceiling, fitting the pieces into neat little slots, until the sun's rays crept above the windowsill of his bedroom in the town of Cicero just outside Chicago. Suddenly, he felt as if a logjam had broken free and was rushing into open water.

Gaskill smiled like a man who held a winning lottery ticket as he reached for the phone. He dialed a number from memory and fluffed the pillows so he could sit up while waiting for an answer.

A very sleepy voice croaked, "Francis Ragsdale here."

"Gaskill."

"Jesus, Dave. Why so early?"

"Who's that?" came the slurred voice of Ragsdale's wife over the receiver.

"Dave Gaskill."

"Doesn't he know it's Sunday?"

"Sorry to wake you," said Gaskill, "but I have good news that couldn't wait."

"All right," Ragsdale mumbled through a yawn. "Let's hear it."

"I can tell you the name of the Specter."

"Who?"

"Our favorite art thief."

Ragsdale came fully awake. "The Specter? You made an I.D.?"

"Not me. A retired inspector from Scotland Yard."

"A limey made him?"

"He spent a lifetime writing an entire book on the Specter. Some of it's conjecture but he's compiled some pretty convincing evidence."

"What does he have?"

Gaskill cleared his throat for effect. "The name of the greatest art thief in history was Mansfield Zolar."

"Say again?"

"Mansfield Zolar. Mean anything to you?"

"You're running me around the park."

"Swear on my badge."

"I'm afraid to ask--"

"Don't bother," Gaskill interrupted. "I know what you're thinking. He was the father."

"Good lord, Zolar International. This is like finding the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle that fell on matching carpet. The Zolars, or whatever cockamamie names they call themselves. It all begins to fit."

"Like bread crumbs to the front door."

"You were right during lunch the other day. The Specter did sire a dynasty of rotten apples who carried on the tradition."

"We've had Zolar International under surveillance on at least four occasions that I can recall, but it always came up clean. I never guessed a connection to the legendary Specter."

"Same with the bureau," said Ragsdale. "We've always suspected they were behind just about every seven figure art and artifact theft that goes down, but we've been unable to find enough evidence to indict any one of them."

"You have my sympathy. No evidence of stolen goods, no search warrant or arrest."

"Little short of a miracle how an underground business as vast as the Zolars' can operate on such a widespread scale and never leave a clue."

"They don't make mistakes," said Gaskill.

"Have you tried to get an undercover agent inside?" asked Ragsdale.

"Twice. They were wise almost immediately. If I wasn't certain my people are solid, I'd have sworn they were tipped off."

"We've never been able to penetrate them either. And the collectors who buy the hot art are just as tight-lipped and cautious."

"And yet we both know the Zolars launder stolen artifacts like drug dealers launder money."

Ragsdale was silent for a few moments. Finally he said, "I think it's about time we stop meeting for lunch to exchange notes and start working together on a full-time basis."

"I like your style," Gaskill acknowledged. "I'll start the ball rolling on my end by submitting a proposal for a joint task force to my superior as soon as I hit the office."

"I'll do likewise on my end."

"Why don't we set up a combined meeting with our teams, say Thursday morning?"

"Sounds like a winner," agreed Ragsdale.

"That should give us time to lay the initial groundwork."

"Speaking of the Specter, did you track down the stolen Diego Riveras? You mentioned over lunch that you might have a lead on them."

"Still working on the case," Gaskill replied. "But it's beginning to look like the Riveras went to Japan and ended up in a private collection."

"What do you want to bet the Zolars set up the buy?"

"If they did, there will be no trail. They use too many front organizations and intermediaries to handle the sale. We're talking the superstars of crime. Since old Mansfield Zolar pulled off his first heist, no one in the family has ever been touched by you, by me, by any other law enforcement agency in the world. They've never seen the inside of a courtroom. They're so lily white it's disgusting."