Ragsdale added. "A pity your dad, Mansfield Zolar, aka the Specter, isn't still alive or we could bust him too."
Zolar looked as if he were in the throes of cardiac arrest. Oxley appeared too paralyzed to move.
"By the time you two and the rest of your family, partners, associates, and buyers get out of prison, you'll be as old as the artifacts you stole."
Federal agents began filling the aircraft. The FBI took charge of the air crew and Zolar's serving lady while the Customs people unbuckled the tiedown straps securing the golden artifacts. Ragsdale nodded to his team.
"Take them downtown to the U.S. Attorney's Office." As soon as the shattered art thieves were led into two different cars, the agents turned to the Moores.
"I can't tell you how grateful we are for your cooperation," said Gaskill. "Nailing the Zolar family will put a huge dent in the art theft and artifact smuggling trade."
"We're not entirely benevolent," said Micki, happily relieved. "Henry feels certain the Peruvian government will post a reward."
Gaskill nodded. "I think you've got a sure bet."
"The prestige of being the first to catalogue and photograph the treasure will go a long way toward enhancing our scientific reputations," Henry Moore explained as he holstered his gun.
"Customs would also like a detailed report on the objects, if you don't mind?" asked Gaskill.
Moore nodded vigorously. "Micki and I will be happy to work with you. We've already inventoried the treasure. We'll have a report for you before it's formally returned to Peru."
"Where will you store it all until then?" asked Micki.
"In a government warehouse whose location we can't reveal," answered Gaskill.
"Is there any news on Congresswoman Smith and the little man with NUMA?"
Gaskill nodded. "Minutes before you landed we received word they were rescued by a local tribe of Indians and are on their way to a local hospital."
Micki sank down into a passenger seat and sighed. "Then it's over."
Henry sat on an armrest and took her hand in his. "It is for us," he said gently. "From now on we'll live the rest of our lives together as a pair of old teachers in a university with vine-covered walls."
She looked up at him. "Is that so terrible?"
"No," he said, kissing her lightly on the forehead, "I think we can handle it."
Slowly climbing from the depths of a dead stupor, Pitt felt as if he were struggling up a mud-slick slope, only to slip back every time he reached out and touched consciousness. He tried to retain a grip on these brief moments of awareness, only to fall back into a void. If he could open his eyes, he thought vaguely, he might return to reality. Finally, with a mighty effort, he forced open his eyelids.
Seeing only grave-cold blackness, he shook his head in despair, thinking he had fallen back into the void. And then the pain came rushing back like a burst of fire, and he came fully awake. Rolling sideways and then forward into a sitting position, he swung his head from side to side, trying to shake off the fog that clung to the alcoves of his mind. He renewed his fight with the pounding ache in his shoulder, the stiff hurt in his chest, and the sting from his wrist. Tenderly he felt the gash on his forehead.
"A hell of a fine specimen of manhood you are," he muttered.
Pitt was surprised to find that he didn't feel overly weak from loss of blood. He unclipped from his forearm the flashlight that Giordino had given him after their drop over the falls, switched it on, and propped it in the sand so the beam was aimed at his upper torso. He unzipped his wet suit jacket and tenderly probed the wound in his shoulder. The bullet had passed through the flesh and out his back without striking the scapula or the clavicle. The neoprene rubber on his shredded but still nearly skintight wet suit had helped seal the opening and restrict the flow of blood. Relieved that he did not feel as drained as he thought he would, he relaxed and took stock of his situation. His chances of survival were somewhere beyond impossible. With 100 kilometers (62 miles) of unknown rapids, sharp cascades, and extensive river passages that passed through caverns completely immersed with water, he did not need a palmist to tell him that the life line running across his hand would halt long before he reached senior citizenship. Even if he had air passages the entire way, there was still the distance from the opening of the subterranean channel to the surface of the Gulf.
Most other men who found themselves in a Hades of darkness deep within the earth with no hope of escape would have panicked and died tearing their fingers to the bone in a vain attempt to claw their way to the surface. But Pitt was not afraid. He was curiously content and at peace with himself.
If he was going to die, he thought, he might as well get comfortable. With his good hand he dug indentations in the sand to accommodate his body contour. He was surprised when the flashlight beam reflected from a thousand golden specks in the black sand. He held up a handful under the light.
"This place is loaded with placer gold," he said to himself.
He shone the light around the cavern. The walls were cut with ledges of white quartz streaked with tiny veins of gold. Pitt began laughing as he saw humor in the implausibility of it all.
"A gold mine," he proclaimed to the silent cave. "I've made a fabulously rich gold strike and nobody will ever know it."
He sat back and contemplated his discovery. Someone must be telling him something, he thought. Just because he wasn't afraid of the old man with the scythe didn't mean he had to give up and wait for him. A stubborn resolve sparked within him.
Better to ent