Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"How much time will you need to put the bite on them?"

Gunn held up his wrist and peered through his glasses at the dial of his trusty old Timex. "Give me twenty minutes to call and make a deal. Afterward, I'll inform Stewart that we'll drop in and pick up the magnetometer. Then I'll contact Yaeger and reconfirm his data."

Pitt stared blankly at him. "Washington isn't exactly around the corner. Are you making conference calls with smoke signals or mirrors?"

Gunn reached into his pocket and held up what looked like a small, portable telephone. "The Iridium, built by Motorola. Digital, wireless, you can call anywhere in the world with it."

"I'm familiar with the system," Pitt acknowledged. "Works off a satellite enhancement network. Where did you steal a unit?"

Gunn glanced furtively around the ruins. "Bite your tongue. This is merely a temporary appropriation from the Peruvian television crew."

Pitt gazed fondly at his little bespectacled friend with deep admiration and wonder. It was a rare event when shy Gunn slipped out of his academic shell to perform a sneaky deed. "You're okay, Rudi, I don't care what the celebrity gossip columns say about you."

In terms of artifacts and treasures, the looters had barely scratched the surface in the City of the Dead.

They had concentrated on the royal tombs near the temple, but thanks to Pitt's intrusion, they did not have time to do extensive excavation on most of the surrounding tombs. Many of them contained the remains of high officials of the Chachapoya confederation. Ortiz and his team of archaeologists also found what appeared to be untouched burial houses of eight noblemen. Ortiz was overjoyed when he discovered the royal coffins were in pristine condition and had never been opened.

"We will need ten years, maybe twenty, to conduct a full excavation of the valley," said Ortiz during the customary after-dinner conversation. "No discovery in the Americas can touch this one for the sheer number of antiquities. We have to go slow. Not even the seed of a flower or one bead of a necklace can be overlooked. We must miss nothing, because we have an unparalleled opportunity to gain a new understanding of the Chachapoyan culture."

"You have your work cut out for you," said Pitt. "I only hope none of the Chachapoya treasures are stolen during shipment to your national museum."

"Any loss between here and Lima is the least of my worries," replied Ortiz. "Almost as many artifacts are stolen from our museums as from the original tombs."

"Don't you have tight security to protect your country's valuable objects?" asked Rodgers.

"Of course, but professional art thieves are very shrewd. They often switch a genuine artifact with a skillfully done forgery. Months, sometimes years, can go by before the crime is discovered."

"Only three weeks ago," said Shannon, "the National Heritage Museum in Guatemala reported the theft of pre-Columbian Mayan art objects with an estimated value of eight million d

ollars. The thieves were dressed as guards and carried off the treasures during viewing hours as if they were simply moving them from one wing to another. No one thought to question them."

"My favorite," said Ortiz without smiling, "was the theft of forty-five twelfth-century Shang dynasty drinking vessels from a museum in Bejjing. The thieves carefully disassembled the glass cases and rearranged the remaining pieces to create the illusion that nothing was missing. Three months passed before the curator noticed the pieces were missing and realized they'd been stolen."

Gunn held up his glasses and checked for smudges. "I had no idea art theft was such a widespread crime."

Ortiz nodded. "In Peru, major art and antiquity collections are stolen as often as banks are robbed.

What is even more tragic is that the thieves are getting bolder. They have no hesitation in kidnapping a collector for ransom. The ransom is, of course, his art objects. In many cases, they simply murder a collector before looting his house."

"You were lucky only a fraction of the art treasures were plundered from the City of the Dead before the looters were stopped," said Pitt.

"Lucky indeed. But tragically the choice items have already made their way out of the country."

"A wonder the city wasn't discovered by the huaqueros long before now," said Shannon, deliberately avoiding any eye contact with Pitt.

"Pueblo de los Muertos sits in this isolated valley ninety kilometers from the nearest village," replied Ortiz. "Traveling in here is a major ordeal, especially by foot. The native population had no reason to struggle seven or eight days through a jungle to search for something they thought existed only in legends from their dim past. When Hiram Bingham discovered Machu Picchu on a mountaintop the local inhabitants had never ventured there. And though it would not deter a hardened huaquero, descendants of the Chachapoya still believe that all ruins across the mountains in the great forests to the east are protected by a demon god like the one we found this afternoon. They're deathly afraid to go near them."

Shannon nodded. "Many still swear that anyone who finds and enters the City of the Dead will be turned to stone."

"Ah yes," Giordino murmured, "the old `cursed be you who disturb my bones' routine."

"Since none of us feels any stiffening of the joints," said Ortiz jovially, "I must assume the evil spirits that frequent the ruins have lost their spell."

"Too bad it didn't work against Amaru and his looters," said Pitt.

Rodgers moved behind Shannon and placed a possessive hand on the nape of her neck. "I understand you're all bidding us goodbye in the morning."

Shannon looked surprised and made no attempt to remove Rodgers's hand. "Is that true?" she said, looking at Pitt. "You're leaving?"