Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

The men paused and stared at her. Pitt bowed. "You have the floor, Congresswoman."

"The first is where do you plan to park the Pierce Arrow? It doesn't look safe enough around here to leave a hundred-thousand-dollar classic car sitting unattended on a fishing dock."

Gunn looked surprised that she should ask. "Didn't Dirk tell you? The Pierce and the trailer come on board the ferry. There's acres of room inside."

"Is there a bath and shower?"

"As a matter of fact, there are four ladies' restrooms on the upper passenger deck and a shower in the crew's quarters."

"No standing in line for the potty. I like that."

Pitt laughed. "You don't even have to unpack."

"Make believe you're on a Carnival Lines cruise ship," said Giordino humorously.

"And your final question?" inquired Gunn.

"I'm starved," she announced regally. "When do we eat?"

In autumn, the Baja sun has a peculiar radiance, spilling down through a sky of strange brilliant blue-white. This day, there wasn't a cloud to be seen from horizon to horizon. One of the most arid lands in the world, the Baja Peninsula protects the Sea of Cortez from the heavy swells that roll in from the dim reaches of the Pacific Ocean. Tropical storms with high winds are not unknown during the summer months, but near the end of October the prevailing winds turn east to west and generally spare the Gulf from high, choppy swells.

With the Pierce Arrow and its travel trailer safely tied down on the cavernous auto deck, Gunn at the wheel in the pilothouse, and Loren stretched on a lounge chair in a bikini, the ferry moved out of the breakwater harbor and made a wide turn to the south. The old boat presented an impressive sight as black smoke rose from her stack and her paddlewheels pounded the water. The walking beam, shaped like a flattened diamond, rocked up and down, transmitting the power from the engine's huge piston to the shaft that cranked the paddlewheels. There was a rhythm to its motion, almost hypnotic if you stared at it long enough.

While Giordino made a preflight inspection of the helicopter and topped off the fuel tank, Pitt was briefed on the latest developments by Sandecker in Washington over the Motorola Iridium satellite phone. Not until an hour later, as the ferry steamed off Point Estrella, did Pitt switch off the phone and descend to the improvised flight pad on the open forward deck of the ferry. As soon as Pitt was strapped in his seat, Giordino lifted the turquoise NUMA craft off the ferry and set a parallel course along the coastline.

"What did the old boy have to say before we left the Alhambra?" asked Giordino as he leveled the chopper off at 800 meters (2600 feet). "Did Yaeger turn up any new clues?"

Pitt was sitting in the copilot's seat and acting as navigator. "Yaeger had no startling revelations. The only information he could add was that he believes the statue of the demon sits directly over the entrance to the passageway leading to the treasure cavern."

"What about the mysterious river?"

"He's still in the dark on that one."

"And Sandecker?"

"The latest news is that we've been blindsided. Customs and the FBI dropped in out of the blue and informed him that a gang of art thieves is also on the trail of Huascar's treasure. He warned us to keep a sharp eye out for them."

"We have competition?"

"A family that oversees a worldwide empire dealing in stolen and forged works of art."

"What do they call themselves?" asked Giordino.

"Zolar International."

Giordino looked blank for a moment, and then he laughed uncontrollably.

"What's so hilarious?"

"Zolar," Giordino choked out. "1 remember a dumb kid in the eighth grade who did a corny magician act at school assemblies. He called himself the Great Zolar."

"From what Sandecker told me," said Pitt, "the guy who heads the organization is nowhere close to dumb. Government agents a mate his annual illicit take in excess of eighty million dollars. A tidy sum when you consider the IRS is shut out of the profits."

"Okay, so he isn't the nerdy kid I knew in school. How close do the Feds think Zolar is to the treasure?"

"They think he has better directions than we do."

"I'm willing to bet my Thanksgiving turkey we find the site first."