Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"How do you plan to play ball with us?" Ragsdale asked, his tone edged with disbelief.

Sandecker made his thrust. "We conduct our search at the same time as the Zolars, but we hang in the shadows. They have no reason to suspect rivals and will assume any NUMA personnel or aircraft they sight are on an oceanographic research project. If the Zolars are successful in discovering the treasure, my team will simply melt away and return to Washington."

"And should the Zolars strike out?" demanded Ragsdale.

"If NUMA can't find the treasure, it doesn't want to be found."

"And if NUMA is successful?" Ragsdale pushed forward.

"We leave a trail of bread crumbs for the to follow, and let them think they discovered the hoard on their own." Sandecker paused, his hard gaze moving from Ragsdale to Gaskill and back. "From then on, gentlemen, the show belongs to you."

"I keep imagining that Rudolph Valentino is going to ride over the next dune and carry me away to his tent," said Loren sleepily. She was sitting on thee front seat of the Pierce Arrow, her legs curled under her, staring at the ocean of sand dunes that dominated the landscape.

"Keep looking," said Pitt. "The Coachella Dunes, slightly north of here, are where Hollywood used to shoot many of their desert movies."

Fifty kilometers (31 miles) after passing through Yuma, Arizona, across the Colorado River into California, Pitt swung the big Pierce Arrow left off Interstate Highway 8 and onto the narrow state road that led to the border towns of Calexico and Mexicali. Drivers and passengers in cars that passed, or those coming from the opposite direction, stared and gawked at the old classic auto and the trailer it pulled.

Loren had sweet-talked Pitt into driving the old auto cross-country, camping in the trailer, and then joining a tour around southern Arizona sponsored by the Classic Car Club of America. The tour was scheduled to begin in two weeks. Pitt doubted that they could wrap up the treasure hunt in such a short time but went along with Loren because he enjoyed driving his old cars on extended tours.

"How much farther to the border?" Loren asked.

"Another forty-two kilometers will put us into Mexico," he answered. "Then a hundred and sixty-five klicks to San Felipe. We should arrive at the dock, where Al and Rudi have tied up the ferry, by dinnertime."

"Speaking of edibles and liquids," she said lazily, "the refrigerator is empty and the cupboards are bare.

Except for breakfast cereal and coffee this morning, we cleaned out the food stock at that campground in Sedona last night."

He took his right hand from the steering wheel, squeezed her knee and smiled. "1 suppose I have to keep the passengers happy by filling their bellies."

"How about that truck stop up ahead?" She straightened and pointed through the flat, narrow windshield of the Pierce.

Pitt gazed over the ornate radiator cap, a crouched archer poised to fire an arrow. He saw a sign by the side of the road, dried and bleached by the desert sun, and on the verge of collapsing into the sand at any moment. The lettering was so old and faded he could hardly read the words.

Ice-cold beer and food a mother would love. Only 2 more minutes to the Box Car Cafe.

He laughed. "The cold beer sounds good, but I'm leery of the cuisine. When I was a boy, my mother loved to make dishes that turned me green."

"Shame on you. Your mother is a good cook."

"She is now, but twenty-five years ago, even the starving homeless wouldn't come near our doorstep."

"You're terrible." Loren turned the dial of the old tube-type radio, trying to tune in a Mexicali station.

She finally found one, playing Mexican music, that came in clear. "I don't care if the chef has the black plague, I'm starved."

Take a woman on a long trip, Pitt mused miserably, and they're always hungry or demanding to stop at a bathroom.

"And besides," she threw in, "you need gas."

Pitt glanced at the fuel gauge. The needle stood steady at a quarter tank. "I guess it won't hurt to fill up before we cross the border."

"It doesn't seem as if we've driven very far since the last gas stop."

"A big car that was built sixty years ago, with a twelve cylinder engine and pulling a house trailer, won't win any awards for fuel economy."

The roadside restaurant and gas station came into view. All Pitt saw as they drove closer was a dilapidated pair of old railroad freight cars joined together, with two gas pumps out front and a neon EAT sign barely flickering in the shadow of the Box Car Cafe. A cluster of battered old house trailers was parked in the rear, abandoned and empty. Out front in the dirt parking lot, eighteen to twenty bikers were milling around a small fleet of Harley-Davidsons, drinking beer and enjoying a cool breeze that was blowing in from the Gulf.

"Boy, you sure can pick 'em," said Pitt drolly.