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Moore looked around the cavern and saw that Amaru was overseeing the removal of the mummies of the guardians from inside the crypt. The Zolars were leaving the caverns as bare as when the Incas found them. Nothing of value was to be left.
"We've got a detailed inventory," he said to Micki. "Let's be on our way."
The Moores hitched a ride on a sled stacked with golden animals being towed up to the staging area. When they came into daylight, they searched the summit, but Loren Smith and Rudi Gu
By then, it was too late for the Moores to reenter the mountain.
Loren shivered. Tattered clothing was no protection against the cool dampness of the cavern. Gu
After the two sections of the golden chain had been brought through the passageway, Amaru forced them from the mountain crest down to the little cavity behind the guardian's crypt. Unknown to the Moores, Loren and Rudi had been imprisoned before the scientists made their way out of the treasure cavern.
"We would appreciate a drink of water," Loren told the guard.
He turned and looked at her blankly. He was an appalling figure, enormous, with an entirely repulsive face, thick lips, flat nose, and one eye. The empty socket he left exposed, giving him the brutal ugliness of Quasimodo.
This time when Loren shivered it wasn't from the cold. It was the fear that coursed throughout her half-naked body. She knew that to show audacity might invite pain, but she no longer cared. "Water, you drooling imbecile. Do you understand, agua?"
He gave her a cruel look and slowly vanished from their narrow line of vision. In a few minutes he returned and tossed a military canteen of water into the cave.
"I think you've made a friend," said Gu
"If he thinks he's getting a kiss on the first date," said Loren, twisting off the cap of the canteen, "he's got another think coming."
She offered Gu
Loren drank sparingly and passed the canteen to Gu
"They may not know we were moved from the summit down to this hellhole."
"I fear the Zolars intend to bury us alive in here," Loren said. The tears came to her eyes for the first time as her defenses began to crack. She had endured the beatings and the abuse, but now that it seemed she and Gu
"There is still Dirk," Gu
She shook her head as if embarrassed at being seen wiping away the tears. "Please stop. Even if he were still alive, Dirk couldn't fight his way into this rotten mountain with a division of Marines and reach us in time."
"If I know our man, he wouldn't need a division of Marines."
"He's only human. He would be the last one to think of himself as a miracle worker."
"As long as we're still alive," said Gu
"But for how long?" She shook her head sadly. "A few more minutes, a couple of hours? The truth is, we're already as good as dead."
When the first section of chain was dragged into daylight, everyone on the summit stood and admired it. The sheer mass of so much gold in one place took their breath away. Despite the dust and calcite drippings from centuries underground, the great mass of yellow gold gleamed blindingly under the noon sun.
In all the years the Zolars had been practicing the theft of antiquities, they had never seen such a masterwork of art so rich in splendor from the past. No treasured object known to history could match it. Fewer than four collectors throughout the world could have afforded the entire piece. The sight was doubly grand when the second section of chain was pulled from the passage opening and laid beside the first.
"Mother of heaven!" gasped Colonel Campos. "The links are as large as a man's wrist."
"Difficult to believe the Incas had mastered such highly technical skills in metallurgy," murmured Zolar.
Sarason knelt down and studied the links. "Their artistry and sophistication is phenomenal. Each link is perfect. There isn't a flaw anywhere."
Corona walked over to one of the end links and lifted it with considerable effort. "They must weigh fifty kilos each."
This is truly light-years ahead of any other discovery," said Oxley, trembling at the incredible sight.
Sarason tore his gaze away and gestured to Amaru. "Get it loaded on board the helicopter, quickly."
The evil-eyed killer nodded silently and began giving orders to his men and a squad of soldiers. Even Corona, Campos, and Matos pitched in. With help from a straining forklift and plenty of sweat, the two sections of chain were manhandled aboard two army helicopters and sent on their way to the desert airstrip.
Zolar watched as the two aircraft became tiny specks in the sky. "Nothing can stop us now," he said cheerfully to his brothers. "A few more hours and we're home free, with the largest treasure known to man."
To Sandecker, the audacious plan to come in through the back door of Cerro el Capirote in a wild attempt to save Loren Smith and Rudi Gu
As for Giordino, Pitt's friend since childhood, Sandecker never doubted for an instant the rugged Italian would follow Pitt into a molten sea of lava.
Sandecker could have stopped them. But he hadn't built what was thought of by many as the finest, most productive, and budget efficient agency in the government without taking his fair share of risky gambles. His fondness for marching out of step with official Washington made him the object of respect as well as envy. The other directors of national bureaus would never consider hands-on control of a hazardous project in the field that might run the risk of censure from Congress and force resignation by presidential order. Sandecker's only regret was that this was one adventure he couldn't lead himself.
He paused after carrying a load of dive gear from the old Chevy down the tubular bore and looked at Peter Duncan, who sat beside the sinkhole, busily overlaying a transparency of a topographical map onto a hydrographic survey of known underground water systems.
The two charts were enlarged to the same scale, enabling Duncan to trace the approximate course of the subterranean river. Around him, the others were setting out the dive gear and float equipment. "As the crow flies," Duncan said to no one specifically, "the distance between Satan's Sinkhole and Cerro el Capirote works out to roughly thirty kilometers."
Sandecker looked down into the water of the sinkhole. "What quirk of nature formed the river cha