Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"A nice touch. But what happens now? The images engraved in the gold body casing have to be deciphered. Not a simple exercise."

"I've hired the finest authorities on Inca art to decode and interpret the glyphs. A husband and wife team. He's an anthropologist and she's an archaeologist who excels as a decoding analyst with computers."

"I should have known you'd cover every base," said Sarason, stirring his coffee. "But we'd better hope their version of the text is correct, or we'll be spending a lot of time and money chasing up and down Mexico after ghosts."

Time is on our side," Zolar assured him confidentially. "Who but us could possibly have a clue to the treasure's burial site?"

After a fruitless excursion to the archives of the Library of Congress, where he had hoped to find documentary evidence leading to the Concepcion's ultimate fate, Julien Perlmutter sat in the vast reading room. He closed a copy of the diary kept by Francis Drake and later presented to Queen Elizabeth, describing his epic voyage. The diary, lost for centuries, had only recently been discovered in the dusty basement of the royal archives in England.

He leaned his great bulk back in the chair and sighed. The diary added little to what he already knew.

Drake had sent the Concepcion back to England under the command of the Golden Hind's sailing master, Thomas Cuttill. The galleon was never seen again and was presumed lost at sea with all hands.

Beyond that, the only mention of the fate of the Concepcion was unverified. It came from a book Perlmutter could recall reading on the Amazon River, published in 1939 by journalist/explorer Nicholas Bender, who followed the routes of the early explorers in search of El Dorado. Perlmutter called up the book from the library staff and reexamined it. In the Note section there was a she-t reference to a 1594

Portuguese survey expedition that had come upon an Englishman living with a tribe of local inhabitants beside the river. The Englishman claimed that he had served under the English sea dog, Francis Drake, who placed him in command of a Spanish treasure galleon that was swept into a jungle by an immense tidal wave. The Portuguese thought the man quite mad and continued on their mission, leaving him in the village where they found him.

Perlmutter made a note of the publisher. Then he signed the Drake diary and Bender's book back to the library staff and caught a taxi home. He felt discouraged, but it was not the first time he had failed to run down a clue to a historical puzzle from the twenty-five million books and forty million manuscripts in the library. The key to unlocking the mystery of the Concepcion, if there was one, had to be buried somewhere else.

Perlmutter sat in the backseat of the cab and stared out the window at the passing automobiles and buildings without seeing them. He knew from experience that each research project moved at a pace all its own. Some threw out the key answers with a shower of fireworks. Others entangled themselves in an endless maze of dead ends and slowly died without a solution. The Concepcion enigma was different. It appeared as a shadow that eluded his grip. Did Nicholas Bender quote a genuine source, or did he embellish a myth as so many nonfiction authors were prone to do?

The question was still goading his mind when he walked into the clutter that was his office. A ship's clock on the mantel read three thirty-five in the afternoon. Still plenty of time to make calls before most businesses closed. He settled into a handsome leather swivel chair behind his desk and punched in the number for New York City information. The operator gave him the number of Bender's publishing house almost before he finished asking for it. Then Perlmutter poured a snifter of Napoleon brandy and waited for his call to go through. No doubt one more wasted effort, he thought. Bender was probably dead by now and so was his editor.

"Falkner and Massey," answered a female voice heavy with the city's distinct accent.

"I'd like to talk to the editor of Nicholas Bender, please."

Nicholas Bender?"

"He's one of your authors."

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know the name."

"Mr. Bender wrote nonfiction adventure books a long time ago. Perhaps someone who has been on your staff for a number of years might recall him?"

"I'll direct you to Mr. Adams, our senior editor. He's been with the company longer than anyone I know."

"Thank you."

There was a good thirty-second pause, and then a man answered. "Frank Adams here."

"Mr. Adams, my name is St. Julien Perlmutter."

"A pleasure, Mr. Perlmutter. I've heard of you. You're down in Washington, I believe."

"Yes, I live in the capital."

"Keep us in mind should you decide to publish a book on maritime history."

"I've yet to finish any book I started." Perlmutter laughed. "We'll both grow old waiting for a completed manuscript from me."

"At seventy-four, I'm already old," said Adams congenially.

"The very reason I rang you," said Perlmutter. "Do you recall a Nicholas Bender?"

"I do indeed. He was somewhat of a soldier of fortune in his youth. We've published quite a few of the books he wrote describing his travels in the days before globetrotting was discovered by the middle class."

"I'm trying to trace the source of a reference he made in a book called On the Trail of El Dorado."