Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"You were in communication with Admiral Sandecker?" inquired Pitt.

Stewart shook his head. "His director of operations, Rudi Gunn."

"After we set everyone on shore, I assume we sail back on-site and continue with the project?"

"The crew and I do. You and Al have been ordered to return to the sacred well and retrieve Dr.

Miller's body."

Pitt looked at Stewart as if he were a psychiatrist contemplating a mental case. "Why us? Why not the Peruvian police?"

Stewart shrugged. "When I protested that the two of you were vital to the specimen collection operation, Gunn said he was flying in your replacements from NUMA's research lab in Key West. That's all he would say."

Pitt swung a hand toward the empty helicopter landing pad. "Did you inform Rudi that Al and I are not exactly popular with the local natives and that we're fresh out of aircraft?"

"No to the former." Stewart grinned. "Yes to the latter. American embassy officials are making arrangements for you to charter a commercial helicopter in Lima."

"This makes about as much sense as ordering a peanut butter sandwich in a French restaurant."

"If you have a complaint, I suggest you take it up with Gunn personally when he meets us on the dock in Callao."

Pitt's eyes narrowed. "Sandecker's right-hand man flies over sixty-five hundred kilometers from Washington to oversee a body recovery? What gives?"

"More than meets the eye, obviously," said Stewart. He turned and looked at Shannon. "Gunn also relayed a message to you from a David Gaskill. He said you'd recall the name."

She seemed to stare at the deck in thought for a moment. "Yes, I remember, he's an undercover agent with the U.S. Customs Service who specializes in the illicit smuggling of antiquities."

Stewart continued, "Gaskill said to tell you he thinks he's traced the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo to a private collector in Chicago."

Shannon's heart fluttered and she gripped the handrail until her knuckles turned ivory.

"Good news?" asked Pitt.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She looked stunned.

Pitt put his arm around her waist to support her. "Are you all right?"

"The Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo," she murmured reverently, "was lost to the world in a daring robbery at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Seville in 1922. There isn't an archaeologist alive who wouldn't sign away his or her pension to study it."

"What exactly makes it so special?" asked Stewart.

"It is considered the most prized artifact to ever come out of South America because of its historic significance," Shannon lectured, as if entranced. "The gold casing covered the mummy of a great Chachapoyan general known as Naymlap, from the toes to the top of the head. The Spanish conquerors discovered Naymlap's tomb in 1547 in a city called Tiapollo high in the mountains. The event was recorded in two early documents but today Tiapollo's precise location is unknown. I've only seen old black-and-white photos of the suit, but you could tell that the intricately hammered metalwork was breathtaking. The iconography, the traditional images, and the designs on the exterior were lavishly sophisticated and formed a pictorial record of a legendary event."

"Picture writing, as in Egyptian hieroglyphics?" asked Pitt.

"Very similar."

"What we might call an illustrated comic strip," added Giordino as he stepped out on deck.

Shannon laughed. "Only without the panels. The panels were never fully deciphered. The obscure references seem to indicate a long journey by boat to a place somewhere beyond the empire of the Aztecs."

"For what purpose?" asked Stewart.

"To hide a vast royal treasure that belonged to Huascar, an Inca king who was captured in battle and murdered by his brother Atahualpa, who was in turn executed by the Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. Huascar possessed a sacred gold chain that was two hundred and fourteen meters long. One report given to the Spaniards by Incas claimed that two hundred men could scarcely lift it."

"Roughly figuring that each man hoisted sixty percent of his weight," mused Giordino, "you're talking over nine thousand kilograms or twenty thousand pounds of gold. Multiply that by twelve troy ounces . .

."