Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

"Why do I feel as though you've acted on General Hospital?"

Shannon smiled. "I was raised on a farm with five brothers who were always discovering new ways to injure themselves."

"What turned you to archaeology?"

"There was an old Indian burial mound in one corner of our wheat field. I used to dig around it for arrowheads. For a book report in high school, I found a text on the excavation of the Hopewell Indian culture burial mounds in southern Ohio. Inspired, I began digging into the site on our farm. After finding several pieces of pottery and four skeletons, I was hooked. Hardly a professional dig, mind you. I learned how to excavate properly in college and became fascinated with cultural development in the central Andes, and made up my mind to specialize in that area."

Pitt looked at her silently for a moment. "When did you first meet Doc Miller?"

"Only briefly about six years ago when I was working on my doctorate. I attended a lecture he gave on the Inca highway network that ran from the Colombian-Ecuador border almost five thousand kilometers to central Chile. It was his work that inspired me to focus my studies on Andean culture. I've been coming down here ever since."

"Then you didn't really know him very well?" Pitt questioned. '

Shannon shook her head. "Like most archaeologists, we concentrated

on our own pet projects. We corresponded occasionally and exchanged data. About six months ago, I invited him to come along on this expedition to supervise the Peruvian university student volunteers. He was between projects and accepted. Then he kindly offered to fly down from the States five weeks early to begin preparations, arranging permits from the Peruvians, setting up the logistics for equipment and supplies, that sort of thing.

Juan Chaco and he worked closely together."

"When you arrived, did you notice anything different about him?"

A curious look appeared in Shannon's eyes. "What an odd question."

"His looks, his actions," Pitt persisted.

She thought a moment. "Since Phoenix, he had grown a beard and lost about fifteen pounds, but now that I think of it, he rarely removed his sunglasses."

"Any change in his voice?"

She shrugged. "A little deeper perhaps. I thought he had a cold."

"Did you notice whether he wore a ring? One with a large amber setting?"

Her eyes narrowed. "A sixty-million-year-old piece of yellow amber with the fossil of a primitive ant in the center? Doc was proud of that ring. I remember him wearing it during the Inca road survey, but it wasn't on his hand at the sacred well. When I asked him why it was missing, he said the ring became loose on his finger after his weight loss and he left it home to be resized. How do you know about Doc's ring?"

Pitt had been wearing the amber ring he had taken from the corpse at the bottom of the sacred well with the setting unseen under his finger. He slipped it off and handed it to Shannon without speaking.

She held it up to the light from a round window, staring in amazement at the tiny ancient insect imbedded in the amber. "Where. . . ?" her voice trailed off.

"Whoever posed as Doc murdered him and took his place. You accepted the imposter because there was no reason not to. The possibility of foul play never entered your mind. The killer's only mistake was forgetting to remove the ring when he threw Doc's body into the sinkhole."

"You're saying Doc was murdered before I left the States?" she stated in bewilderment.

"Only a day or two after he arrived at the campsite," Pitt explained. "Judging from the condition of the body, he must have been under water for more than a month."

"Strange that Miles and I missed seeing him."

"Not so strange. You descended directly in front of the passage to the adjoining cavern and were sucked in almost immediately. I reached the bottom on the opposite side and was able to swim a search grid, looking for what I thought would be two fresh bodies before the surge caught me. Instead, I found Doc's remains and the bones of a sixteenth-century Spanish soldier."

"So Doc really was murdered," she said as a look of horror dawned on her face. "Juan Chaco must have known, because he was the liaison for our project and was working with Doc before we arrived. Is it possible he was involved?"

Pitt nodded. "Up to his eyeballs. If you were smuggling ancient treasures, where could you find a better informant and front man than an internationally respected archaeological expert and government official?"

"Then who was the imposter?"

"Another agent of the Solpemachaco. A canny operator who staged a masterful performance of his death, with Amaru's help. Perhaps he's one of the men at the top of the organization who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. We may never know."

"If he murdered Doc, he deserves to be hanged," Shannon said, her hazel eyes glinting with anger.