Clive Cussler - Inca Gold

Pitt laid a hefty portion of mortadella on a slice of sourdough bread. "Admiral Sandecker thought it best to wait. We don't want to advertise our objective. If word got out that we had a line on the biggest bonanza in history, a thousand treasure hunters would descend on us like locusts. Mexican officials would throw us out of the country in a mad grab to keep the hoard for their own government. And Congress would give NUMA hell for spending American tax dollars on a treasure hunt in another country. No, the quieter, the better."

"We can't afford to be shot down before we've had half a chance of making the find," said Giordino in an unusual display of seriousness.

Loren was silent while she ladled a spoonful of potato salad onto her plate, then asked, "Why don't you have someone on your team as insurance in the event local Mexican officials become suspicious and start asking questions?"

Pitt looked at her. "You mean a public relations expert?"

No, a bona fide, card-carrying member of the United States Congress."

Pitt stared into those sensual violet eyes. "You?"

"Why not? The Speaker of the House has called for a recess next week. My aides can cover for me. I'd love to get out of Washington for a few days and see a piece of Mexico."

"Frankly," said Giordino, "I think it's a stellar concept." He gave Loren a wink and a toothy smile. "Dirk is always more congenial when you're around."

Pitt put his arm around Loren. "If something should go wrong, if this thing blows up in our faces while we're in foreign territory and you're along for the ride, the scandal could ruin your political career."

She looked across the table at him brazenly. "So the voters throw me out on the streets. Then I'd have no choice but to marry you."

"A fate worse than listening to a presidential speech," said Giordino, "but a good idea just the same."

"Somehow I can't picture us walking down the aisle of the Washington Cathedral," Pitt said thoughtfully, "and then setting up housekeeping in some brick townhouse in Georgetown."

Loren had hoped for a different reaction, but she knew that Pitt was no ordinary man. She recalled their first meeting at a lawn party nearly ten years before given by some forgotten former secretary of environment. There was a magnetism that had drawn her to him. He was not handsome in the movie star sense, but there was a masculine, no-nonsense air about him that awakened a desire she hadn't experienced with other men. He was tall and lean. That helped. As a congresswoman she had known many wealthy and powerful men, several of them devilishly good-looking. But here was a man who wore the reputation of an adventurer comfortably and cared nothing for power or fame. And rightly so. He was the genuine article.

There were no strings attached to their off-and-on ten-year affair. He had known other women, she had known other men, and yet their bond still held firm. Any thought of marriage had seemed remote. Each was already married to his or her job. But the years had mellowed their relationship, and as a woman Loren knew her biological clock did not have too many ticks left if she wished to have children.

"It doesn't have to be like that," she said finally.

He sensed her feeling. "No," he said affectionately, "we can make several major improvements."

She gave him a peculiar look. "Are you proposing to me?"

A quiet look deepened his green eyes. "Let's just say I was making a suggestion about things to come."

"Can you put us closer to the dominant peak?" Sarason asked his brother Charles Oxley, who was at the controls of a small amphibious flying boat. "The crest of the lower one is too sharp for our requirements."

"Do you see something?"

Sarason peered through binoculars out a side window of the aircraft. "The island has definite possibilities, but it would help if I knew what sort of landmark to look for."

Oxley banked the twin turboprop-engined Baffin CZ410 for a better view of Isla Danzante, a steep-sided, 5-square-kilometer (3-square-mile) rock formation that jutted 400 meters (1312 feet) above the Sea of Cortez just south of the popular resort town of Loreto. "Has the right look about it," he commented, staring down. "Two small beaches to land boats. The slopes are honeycombed with small caves. What do you say, brother?"

Sarason turned and looked at the man in the rear passenger seat. "I say the esteemed Professor Moore is still holding out on us."

"You'll be alerted to the proper site when I see it," Moore said curtly.

"I say we throw the little bastard out the hatch and watch him try to fly," Sarason snapped harshly.

Moore crossed his arms smugly. "You do, and you'll never find the treasure."

"I'm getting damned sick of hearing that."

"What about Isla Danzante?" asked Oxley. "Has it got the right features?"

Moore snatched the binoculars from Sarason without asking and peered at the broken terrain running across the ridge of the island. After a few moments, he handed them back and relaxed in his seat with an iced shaker of martinis. "Not the one we're looking for," he proclaimed regally.

Sarason clasped his hands tightly to prevent them from strangling Moore. After a few moments, he regained a degree of composure and turned the page of the same boater's guide that was being used by Pitt. "Next search point is Isla Carmen. Size, one hundred and fifty square kilometers. Length, thirty kilometers. Has several peaks rising over three hundred meters."

"That's a pass," announced Moore. "Far too large."

"Your speedy response is duly noted," Sarason muttered sarcastically. "After that we have Isla Cholla, a small flat-topped rock with a light tower and a few fishing huts."

"Skip that one too," said Moore.

"Okay, next up is Isla San Ildefonso, six miles offshore east of San Sebastian."

"Size?"

"About two and a half square kilometers. No beaches."

"There has to be a beach," said Moore, taking another slug from his martini shaker. He swallowed the last few drops and his face took on an expression of deprivation. "The Incas could not have landed and unloaded their rafts without a beach."

"After San Ildefonso we come to Bahia Coyote," said Sarason. "There we'll have a choice of six islands that are little more than huge rocks rising from the sea."

Oxley eased the Baffin amphibian into a slow climb until he reached 700 meters (about 2300 feet). Then he set a course due north. Twenty-five minutes later the bay and the long peninsula that shield it from the Gulf came into view. Oxley descended and began circling the small rocky islands scattered around the entrance to the bay.

"Isla Guapa and Isla Bargo are possibilities," observed Sarason. "They both rise sharply from the water and have small but open summits."

Moore squirmed sideways in his seat and peered down. "They don't look promising to me--" He stopped talking and grabbed Sarason's binoculars again. "That island down there."

"Which one?" queried Sarason irritably. "There are six of them."

"The one that looks like a floating duck looking backward."

"Isla Bargo. Fits the profile. Steep walls on three sides, rounded crest. There is also a small beach in the crook of the neck."

"That's it," Moore said excitedly. "That must be it."

Oxley was skeptical. "How can you be so sure?"

A curious look crossed Moore's face for a fleeting instant. "A gut feeling, nothing more."

Sarason snatched back the glasses and studied the island. "There, on the crown. It looks like something carved in the rock."

"Don't pay any attention to that," said Moore, wiping a trickle of sweat from his forehead. "It doesn't mean a thing."

Sarason was no fool. Could it be a signpost cut by the Incas to mark the passageway to the treasure, he wondered in silence.