Inca Gold

    Giordino leaned out a side window for a better view and peered into the distance through the trusty binoculars. He patted Pitt on the shoulder. "Your hot spot is coming up off to, port."

    Pitt nodded, made a slight course change and peered at a solitary mountain rising from the desert floor directly ahead. Cerro el Capirote was aptly named. Though not exactly conical in shape, there was a slight resemblance to a dunce cap with the tip flattened.

    "I think I can make out an animal-like sculpture on the summit," observed Giordino.

    "I'll descend and hover over it," Pitt acknowledged.

    He cut his airspeed, dropped, and swung around the top of the mountain. He approached and circled cautiously, on the watch for sudden downdrafts. Then he hovered the helicopter almost nose-to-nose with the grotesque stone effigy. Mouth agape, it seemed to stare back with the truculent expression of a hungry junkyard dog.

    "Step right up, folks," hawked Pitt as if he were a carnival barker, "and view the astounding demon of the underworld who shuffles cards with his nose and deals 'em with his toes."

    "It exists," cried Sha

    "Looks like a timeworn gargoyle," said Giordino, successfully controlling his emotions.

    "You've got to land," demanded Rodgers. "We must get a closer look."

    "Too many high rocks around the sculpture," said Pitt. "I have to find a flat spot to set down."

    "There's a small clearing free of boulders about forty meters beyond the demon," Giordino said, pointing through the windscreen over Pitt's shoulder.

    Pitt nodded and banked around the towering rock carving so he could make his approach into the wind blowing across the mountain from the west. He reduced speed, eased back the cyclic stick. The turquoise helicopter hovered a moment, flared out, and then settled onto the only open space on the stone summit of Cerro el Capirote.

    Giordino was first out, carrying tie-down lines that he attached to the helicopter and wrapped around rock outcroppings. When he completed the operation, he moved in front of the cockpit and drew his hand across his throat. Pitt shut off the engine and the rotor blades wound down.

    Rodgers jumped down and offered a hand to Sha

    Before he joined the others already gathered around the stone beast, he took a moment and stepped to the edge of the craggy wall and stared down, thankful that he did not have to make the ascent. The unobstructed panorama of the desert was breathtaking. The October sun tinted the rocks and sand in vivid colors that turned drab during the hot summer. The waters of the Gulf sparkled to the south and the mountain ranges on both sides of the marshlands of the Laguna Salada rose majestically through a slight haze.

    Satisfaction swelled within him. He had made a good call. The ancients had indeed selected an imposing spot to hide their treasure.

    When he finally approached the huge stone beast, Sha

    "Does he have the proper pedigree?" Pitt asked.

    "Definitely Chachapoyan influence," Sha

    "The technique is the same?"

    "Almost identical."

    "Then perhaps the same sculptor had a hand in carving this one."

    "It's possible." Sha

    "The ancients must have had a strange sense of humor to create a god whose looks could sour milk."

    "The legend is vague but it contends that a condor laid an egg that was eaten and vomited by a jaguar. A snake was hatched from the regurgitated egg and slithered into the sea where it grew fish scales. The rest of the mythological account says that because the beast was so ugly and shu

    "The original ugly duckling fairy tale."

    "He's hideous," Sha

    "I understand. I sense something more than cold stone too." Pitt stared down at one of the wings that had dropped off the body and shattered into several pieces. "Poor old guy. He looks like he's fallen on hard times."

    Sha

    Pitt interrupted her by abruptly raising a hand for silence. "You hear something, a strange sound like someone crying?"

    She cocked an ear and listened, then shook her head. "I only hear the shutter and automatic winding mechanism on Miles's camera."

    The eerie sound Pitt thought he heard was gone. He gri

    "Or those the Demonio del Muertos is guarding."

    "I thought he guaranteed they rest in eternal peace."

    Sha

    Pitt left Sha

    "Not unless the ancients discovered a method for fusing rock," answered Giordino. "This big gargoyle is carved from an immense slab of solid granite that forms the core of the mountain. I can't find a telltale crack anywhere around the statue's base. If there's a passage, it has to be somewhere else on the mountain."

    Pitt tilted his head, listening. "There it is again."

    "You mean that banshee wail?"

    "You heard it?" Pitt asked in surprise.

    "I figured it was just wind whistling through the rocks."

    "There isn't a whisper of wind."

    A curious look crossed Giordino's face as he wetted one index finger with his tongue and tested the air. "You're right. Nary a stir."