Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

Oxley muttered something unintelligible under his breath as Sarason stepped toward Moore. But Zolar stretched out an arm and held him back. "You see through our masquerade."

"I do."

"Shall I assume you wish to make a counterproposal, Dr. Moore?"

Moore glanced at his wife. She looked strangely withdrawn. Then he turned to Zolar. "If our expertise leads you to the treasure, I don't think a twenty percent share is out of line."

The brothers stared at one another for several moments, considering. Oxley and Zolar couldn't see Sarason's face behind the ski mask but they could see their br

other's eyes blaze with fury.

Zolar nodded. "Considering the potential for incredible riches, I do believe Dr. Moore is being quite generous."

"I agree," said Oxley. "All things considered, the good professor's offer is not exorbitant." He held out his hand. "You and Mrs. Moore have a deal. If we find the treasure, your share is twenty percent."

Moore shook hands. He turned to his wife and smiled as if blissfully unaware of their death sentence.

"Well, my dear, shall we get to work?"

THE DEMON OF DEATH

October 22, 1998

Washington, D.C.

She was waiting at the curb outside the terminal, her windblown cinnamon hair glistening under the morning sun, when Pitt walked out of the baggage area of Dulles airport. Congresswoman Loren Smith lifted the sunglasses that hid her incredible violet eyes, rose from behind the wheel, and perched on top of the car seat. She waved, her hands covered with supple leather driving gloves.

A tall woman with an exquisitely proportioned Sharon Stone body, she was wearing red leather pants and jacket over a black turtleneck sweater. Everyone within twenty meters, male and female, openly stared at her as she sat on top of the bright, fire engine red, 1953 Allard J2X sports car. She and the car were both classic works of stylish elegance, and they made a perfect match.

She threw Pitt a seductive look and said, "Hi, sailor, need a ride?"

He set his bag and a large metal case containing the jade box on the sidewalk, leaned over the low-slung body of the Allard and gave Loren a hard, quick kiss on the mouth. "You stole one of my cars."

"That's the thanks I get for playing hooky from a committee hearing to meet you at the airport?"

Pitt stared down at the Spartan vehicle that had won eight of the nine sports car races it had entered forty-five years earlier. There was not enough room for the two of them and his baggage in the small seating area, and the car had no trunk. "Where am I supposed to put my bags?"

She reached down on the passenger's seat and handed him a pair of bungee cords. "I came prepared.

You can tie down your baggage on the trunk rack."

Pitt shook his head in wonderment. Loren was as bright and perceptive as they come. A five-term congresswoman from the state of Colorado, she was respected by her colleagues for her grasp of difficult issues and her uncanny gift for coming up with solid solutions. Vivacious and outgoing in the halls of Congress, Loren was a private woman, seldom showing up at dinner parties and political functions, preferring to stay close to her townhouse in Alexandria, studying her aides' recommendations on bills coming up for a vote and responding to her constituents' mail. Her only social interest outside her work was her sporadic affair with Pitt.

"Where's A1 and Rudi?" she asked, a look of tender concern in her eyes at seeing his unshaven face, haggard from exhaustion.

"On the next flight. They had a little business to clear up and return some equipment we borrowed."

After cinching his bags on a chrome rack mounted on the rear deck of the Allard, he opened the tiny passenger door, slid his long legs under the low dashboard and stretched them out to the firewall. "Dare I trust you to drive me home?"

Loren threw him a wily smile, nodded politely to the airport policeman who was motioning her to move on, shifted the Allard's three-speed gearbox into first gear, and mashed down the accelerator. The big Cadillac V-8 engine responded with a mighty roar, and the car leaped forward, rear tires screeching and smoking on the asphalt pavement. Pitt shrugged helplessly at the policeman as they whipped past him, furiously groping for the buckle of his seat belt.

"This is hardly conduct becoming a representative of the people," he yelled above the thunder of the exhaust.

"Who's to know?" She laughed. "The car is registered in your name."

Several times during the wild ride over the open highway from Dulles to the city, Loren swept the tachometer needle into the red. Pitt took a fatalistic view. If he was going to die at the hands of this madwoman, there was little else he could do but sit back and enjoy the ride. In reality, he had complete confidence in her driving skills. They had both driven the Allard in vintage sports car races, he in the men's events, she in the women's. He relaxed, zipped up his windbreaker and breathed in the brisk fall air that rushed over and around the little twin windscreens mounted on the cowling.

Loren slipped the Allard through the traffic with the ease of quicksilver running downhill through a maze. She soon pulled up in front of the old metal aircraft hangar, on the far end of Washington's international airport, that Pitt called home.