Blue Gold (NUMA Files 2)

“I may have read it in a detective novel.”

“Good advice. Let’s take another look.”

They walked back to the river and uncovered the body. Paul rolled it over onto its stomach. The smaller entry wound indicated that the man had been shot in the back. Trout gently removed a carved pendant from around his neck. It showed a winged woman holding her hands in front of her as if she were pouring from them. He passed it to Gamay, who said the figure reminded her of Egyptian engravings of the rebirth of Osiris.

Paul was taking a closer look at the reddish welts on the dead man’s shoulders. “Looks like he’s been whipped.” He rolled the body onto its back again. “Hey, check out this strange scar,” he said, indicating a pale thin line on the Indian’s lower abdomen. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he had his appendix out.”

Two dugouts arrived from across the river. The shaman, whose head was adorned with a brilliant crown of feathers, announced that the grave was ready. Trout covered the dead body with the blanket, and, with Gamay at the tiller, they used the inflatable to tow the blue-and-white canoe to the other side. Trout and Ramirez carried the body a few hundred yards into the forest and buried it in the shallow hole. The shaman surrounded the grave with what looked like various dried chicken parts and solemnly warned the assemblage that the spot would be forever taboo. Then they towed the empty canoe to midstream, where the current would catch it, and set the dugout adrift.

“How far will it go?” Paul asked as they watched the blue-and-white craft wheel slowly on its final journey.

“There are rapids not far from here. If it isn’t broken up on the rocks or caught in the weeds, it could continue on to the sea.”

“Ave atque vale,” Trout said, quoting the old Roman salute to the dead. “Hail and farewell.”

They went back across the river. As Ramirez was climbing from the inflatable, he slipped on the wet bank.

“Are you all right?” Gamay said.

Ramirez grimaced with pain. “You see, the evil spirits have already begun their work. I’ve apparently twisted something. I’ll put a cold compress on it, but I may require your assistance to walk.”

He limped back to the house with a hand from the Trouts. Ramirez said he would report the incident to the regional authorities. He didn’t expect a response. A dead Indian was still considered a good Indian by many in his country.

“Well,” he said, brightening. “What is done is done. I look forward to our dinner tonight.”

The Trouts went back to their room to rest and clean up for dinner. Ramirez collected rainwater in a roof cistern and channeled it into a shower. Gamay had evidently been thinking about the Indian. As she toweled off she said, “Do you remember the Ice Man they found in the Alps?”

Paul had slipped into a silk bathrobe and was stretched out on the bed with his hands behind his head. “Sure. Stone Age guy who got freeze-dried in a glacier. What about him?”

“By looking at the tools and possessions he carried it was possible to picture his way of life. The Indians around here are at a Stone Age level. Our blue-faced friend doesn’t fit the mold. How did he learn to make those things? If we had found those tools on the Ice Man, it would be in every newspaper headline. I can see it now: ‘Ice Man Flicks a Bic.’ ”

“Maybe he subscribes to Popular Mechanics.”

“Maybe he gets Boy’s Life, too, but even if he got instructions every month on how to make neat stuff, where would he get refined metals to make them with?”

“Perhaps Dr. Ramirez can enlighten us at dinner. I hope you’re hungry,” Paul said. He was staring out the window.

“I’m starved. Why?”

“I just saw a couple of natives carrying a tapir to the barbecue pit.”

4

AS AUSTIN STEPPED THROUGH the big bay door into the cavernous building at the San Diego naval station, his nostrils were assaulted by a hell smell emanating from the three leviathans whose floodlit carcasses were laid out on flatbed trailers. The young sailor standing just inside the door had seen the broad-shouldered man with the strange white hair approach and assumed from his commanding presence that he was an officer in mufti. When Austin went to identify himself, the sailor snapped to attention.

“Seaman Cummings, sir,” the seaman said. “You might want to use this.” He offered Austin a surgical mask similar to the one he was wearing. “The smell has gotten real strong since they started pulling out the vital organs.” Austin thanked the seaman, wondering whom he had offended to pull such foul duty, and slipped the mask over his nose. The gauze had been sprinkled with a perfumed disinfectant that didn’t quite cut the strong odor but subdued the gag reflex.

“What have we got?” Austin said.

“A mama, a papa, and a baby,” the sailor said. “Boy, what a time we had getting them here.”

The seaman wasn’t exaggerating, Austin thought. The final count was fourteen whales. Disposing of their bodies would have been a tall order even without the turf battles. As the first government agency to arrive on the scene, the Coast Guard was worried about hazards to navigation and planned to tow the whales out to sea and sink them with gunfire. The highly dramatic TV reports had gone around the world and stirred up animal rights activists who were angrier over the whale deaths than if Los Angeles had fallen into the Pacific Ocean with all its inhabitants. They wanted answers, fast. The Environmental Protection Agency was equally curious to know what had killed mammals that were under EPA protection.

The city of San Diego was horrified at the prospect of huge, smelly carcasses drifting up to its beaches, marinas, seaside hotels, and shorefront houses. The mayor called the district congressman who happened to be on the naval appropriations committee, and a compromise was reached with amazing speed. Three whales would be brought to shore for necropsy. The others would be towed out to sea and used for target practice. Greenpeace protested, but by the time they mobilized their mosquito fleet, the whales had been blasted to blubbery smithereens by navy gunners.

In the meantime an oceangoing tug hauled the remaining whales to the base. Navy cranes lifted the massive bodies from the water in improvised slings, and they were transported to a vacant warehouse. Mammalian forensic specialists from several California universities went to work as soon as the whales were delivered. An improvised laboratory was set up. Dressed in foul-weather gear, gloves, and boots, the technicians swarmed around and on top of the carcasses like large yellow insects.

The head of each animal had been separated from its body, brain tissue removed and taken to the dissecting tables for tests. Wheelbarrows served the function of stainless steel trays in a human autopsy.