Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

Esperando por el Roberto E. Lee.

"Miralos andando," repeated Maderas, confused. "What do they mean, `Go to the dam'?"

"Levee," Pitt guessed. "The opening words of the song are, `Go down to the levee.' "

As the trumpets blared, the guitars strummed, and the seven throats of the band warbled out a mariachi version of "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee," Loren stood among the throng that had mobbed on board the ferry and waved wildly. She could see Pitt search the crowd until he found her and happily waved back.

She saw the dressing wrapped around his head, the left arm in a sling, and the cast on one wrist. In his borrowed shorts and golf shirt he looked out of place among the uniformed crew of the Mexican navy.

At first glance, he appeared amazingly fit for a man who had survived a journey through hell, purgatory, and a black abyss. But Loren knew Pitt was a master at covering up exhaustion and pain. She could see them in his eyes.

Pitt spotted Admiral Sandecker standing behind Giordino in his wheelchair. His wandering eyes also picked out Gordo Padilla with his arm around his wife, Rosa. Jesus, Gato, and the engineer, whose name he could never remember, stood nearby brandishing bottles in the air. Then the gangplank was down, and Pitt shook hands with Maderas and Hidalgo.

"Thank you, gentlemen, and thank your corpsman for me. He did a first-rate job of patching me up."

"It is we who are in your debt, Senor Pitt," said Hidalgo. "My mother and father own a small ranch not far from here and will reap the benefits when wells are sunk into your river."

"Please make me one promise," said Pitt.

"If it's within our power," replied Maderas.

Pitt grinned. "Don't ever let anyone name that damned river after me."

He turned and walked across to the auto deck of the ferry and into a sea of bodies. Loren rushed up to him, stopped, and slowly put her arms around his neck so she would not press her body against his injuries. Her lips were trembling as she kissed him.

She pulled back as the tears flowed, smiled and said, "Welcome home, sailor."

Then the rush was on. Newsmen and TV cameramen from both sides of the border swarmed around as Pitt greeted Sandecker and Giordino.

"I thought sure you'd bought a tombstone this time," said Giordino, beaming like a neon sign on the Las Vegas strip.

Pitt smiled. "If I hadn't found the Wallowing Windbag, I wouldn't be here."

"I hope you realize," said Sandecker, faking a frown, "that you're getting too old for swimming around in caves."

Pitt held up his good hand as if taking an oath. "So help me, Admiral, if I ever so much as look at another underground cavern, shoot me in the foot."

Then Shannon came up and planted a long kiss on his lips that had Loren fuming. When she released him, she said, "I missed you."

Before he could reply, Miles Rodgers and Peter Duncan were pumping his uninjured hand. "You're one tough character," said Rodgers.

"I busted the computer and lost your data," Pitt said to Duncan. "I'm genuinely sorry."

"No problem," Duncan replied with a broad smile. "Now that you've proven the river runs from Satan's Sinkhole under Cerro el Capirote and shown where it resurges into the Gulf, we can trace its path with floating sonic geophysical imaging systems along with transmitting instrument packages."

At that moment, unnoticed by most of the mob, a dilapidated Mexicali taxi smoked to a stop. A man jumped out and hurried across the dock and onto the auto deck wearing only a blanket. He put his head down and barreled his way through the mass of people until he reached Pitt.

"Rudi!" Pitt roared as he wrapped his free arm around the little man's shoulder. "Where did you fall from?"

As if he'd timed it, Gunn's splinted fingers lost their grip on the blanket and it fell to the deck, leaving him standing in only the hospital smock. "I escaped the clutches of the nurse from hell to come here and greet you," he said, without any sign of embarrassment.

"Are you mending okay?"

"I'll be back at my desk at NUMA before you."

Pitt turned and hailed Rodgers. "Miles, you got your camera?"

"No good photographer is ever without his cameras," Rodgers shouted over the noise of the crowd.