Inca Gold (Dirk Pitt 12)

I'll show you the way while brother Joseph escorts our experts." He hesitated, pulled three black ski masks from his coat pocket and flipped one to Oxley. "Put that on, we don't want them to see our faces."

"Why bother? They won't live to identify us."

"To intimidate them."

"A little extreme, but I guess you have a point."

While Zolar guided the Moores to the enclosed room, Oxley and Sarason carefully removed the golden mummy from the container and laid it on a table covered with several layers of velvet padding.

The room had been furnished with a small kitchen, beds, and a bathroom. A large desk was set with note and sketch pads and several magnifying glasses with varied degrees of magnification. There was also a computer terminal with a laser printer loaded with the proper software. An array of overhead spotlights was positioned to accent the images engraved on the golden body suit.

When the Moores entered the room, their headsets and blindfolds were removed.

"I trust you were not too uncomfortable," said Zolar courteously.

The Moores blinked under the bright lights and rubbed their eyes. Henry Moore looked and acted the role of an Ivy League professor. He was aging gracefully with a slim body, a full head of shaggy gray hair, and the complexion of a teenage boy. Dressed in a tweed jacket with leather patches on the sleeves, he wore his school tie knotted under the collar of a dark green cotton shirt. As an added touch he sported a small white carnation in his lapel.

Micki Moore was a good fifteen years younger than her husband. Like him, she had a slender figure, almost as thin as the seventies era fashion model she had once been. Her skin was on the dark side and the high, rounded cheekbones suggested American Indian genes somewhere in her ancestry. She was a good-looking woman, beautifully poised, with an elegance and regal bearing that made her stand out at university cocktail and dinner parties. Her gray eyes focused and then darted from one masked brother to another before coming to rest on the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo.

"A truly magnificent piece of work," she said softly. "You never fully described what it was you wanted my husband and me to decipher."

"We apologize for the melodramatic precautions," Zolar said sincerely. "But as you can see, this Inca artifact is priceless, and until it is fully examined by experts such as you, we do not wish word of its existence to reach certain people who might attempt to steal it."

Henry Moore ignored the brothers and rushed to the table. He took a pair of reading glasses from a case in his breast pocket, slid them over his nose and peered closely at the glyphs on one arm of the suit.

"Remarkable detail," he said admiringly. "Except for textiles and a few pieces of pottery, this is the most extensive display of iconography I've ever seen produced on any object from the Late Horizon era."

"Do you see any problem in deciphering the images?" asked Zolar.

"It will be a labor of love," said Moore, without taking his eyes from the golden suit. "But Rome wasn't built in a day. It will be a slow process."

Sarason was impatient. "We need answers as soon as possible."

"You can't rush me," Moore said indignantly. "Not if you want an accurate version of what the images tell us."

"He's right," said Oxley. "We can't afford faulty data."

"The Moores are being well paid for their efforts," Sarason said sternly. "Misinterpretations will cancel all payment."

Anger rising, Moore snapped, "Misinterpretations indeed! You're lucky my wife and I accepted your proposal. One look at what's on the table, and we're aware of the reasons behind your juvenile hocus-pocus games. Running around with masks over your faces as if you were holding up a bank. Total and utter nonsense."

"What are you saying?" Sarason demanded.

"Any historian worth his salt knows the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo was stolen from Spain in the nineteen twenties and never recovered."

"How do you know this isn't another one that was recently discovered?"

Moore pointed to the first image of a panel that traveled from the left shoulder to the hand. "The symbol of a great warrior, a Chachapoyan general known as Naymlap who served the great Inca ruler Huascar. Legend claims he stood as high as any modern star basketball player and had blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Judging from the size of the golden suit and my knowledge of its history, there is no doubt that this is Naymlap's mummy."

Sarason moved close to the anthropologist. "You and your wife just do your job, no mistakes, no more lectures."

Zolar quickly stepped in to defuse what was rapidly developing into a nasty confrontation. "Please excuse my associate, Dr. Moore. I apologize for his rude behavior, but I think you understand that we're all a little excited about finding the golden suit. You're quite right. This is Naymlap's mummy."

"How did you come by it?" asked Moore.

"I can't say, but I will promise you that it is going back to Spain as soon as it has been fully studied by experts such as you and your wife."

A canny smile curled Moore's lips. "Very scrupulous of you, whatever your name is, to send it back to its rightful owners. But not before my wife and I decode the instructions leading to Huascar's treasure."