"I didn't take the time to do a postmortem examination."
"Okay, but how do you explain the trail of blood from the interior chamber where Doc was shot? There must be a gallon of it spread from here to there."
"Closer to a pint," said Pitt thoughtfully. "You exaggerate."
"How long would you guess the body rested here from the time you knocked out the guard and then released the students who arrived and tied him up?" asked Rodgers.
"Four, maybe five minutes at the outside."
"And within that time a sixty-seven-year-old dead man bounds down two hundred tiny, narrow, niched steps laid on a seventy-five-degree angle. Steps that can't be taken more than one at a time without falling, and then he vanishes without shedding another drop of blood." Rodgers shook his head. "Houdini would have flushed with envy."
"Are you sure it was Doc Miller?" Pitt asked pensively.
"Of course it was Doc," Rodgers said incredulously. "Who else do you think it was?"
"How long have you known him?"
"By reputation, at least fifteen years. Personally, I only met him five days ago." Rodgers stared at Pitt as if he were a madman. "Look, you're fishing in empty waters. Doc is one of the world's leading anthropologists. He is to ancient American culture what Leakey is to African prehistory. His face has graced a hundred articles in dozens of magazines from the Smithsonian to the National Geographic. He has narrated and appeared in any number of public service television documentaries on early man. Doc was no recluse, he loved publicity. He was easily recognizable."
"Just fishing," Pitt said in a patient explaining tone. "Nothing like a wild plot to stir the mind-'
He broke off as Shannon and Giordino sprinted into view around the circular base of the temple. Even at this height above the ground he could see they appeared agitated. He waited until Giordino was halfway up the stairs before he shouted.
"Don't tell me, somebody beat you to the radio and smashed it."
Giordino paused, leaning against the sheer stairway. "Wrong," he shouted back. "It was gone. Snatched by person or persons unknown."
By the time Shannon and Giordino reached the top of the stairs they were both panting from the exertion and glistening with sweat. Shannon daintily patted her face with a soft tissue all women seem to produce at the most crucial times. Giordino merely rubbed an already damp sleeve across his forehead.
"Whoever built this thing," he said between breaths, "should have installed an elevator."
"Did you find the tomb with the radio?" Pitt asked.
Giordino nodded. "We found it all right. No cheapskates, these guys. The tomb was furnished right out of Abercrombie & Fitch. The best outdoor paraphernalia money can buy. There was even a portable generator providing power to a refrigerator."
"Empty?" Pitt guessed.
Giordino nodded. "The rat who made off with the radio took the time to smash nearly four sixpacks of perfectly good Coors beer."
"Coors in Peru?" Rodgers asked dubiously.
"I can show you the labels on the broken bottles," moaned Giordino. "Someone wanted us to go thirsty."
"No fear of that with a jungle just beyond the pass," Pitt said with a slight smile.
Giordino stared at Pitt, but there was no return smile. "So how do we call in the marines?"
Pitt shrugged. "With the tomb robbers' radio missing, and the one in our helicopter looking like a lump of Swiss cheese-" he broke off and turned to Rodgers. "What about your communications at the sinkhole site?"
The photographer shook his head. "One of Amaru's men shot our radio to junk the same as yours."
"Don't tell me," Shannon said resignedly, "we have to trudge thirty kilometers back through the forest primeval to the project site at the sinkhole, and then another ninety kilometers to Chachapoya?"
"Maybe Chaco will become worried when he realizes all contact is lost with the project and send in a search party to investigate," Rodgers said hopefully.
"Even if they traced us to the City of the Dead," Pitt said slowly, "they'd arrive too late. All they'd find would be dead bodies scattered around the ruins."
Everyone glanced at him in puzzled curiosity.
"Amaru claimed we have upset the applecart of powerful men," Pitt continued by way of explanation, "and that they would never allow us to leave this valley alive for fear that we would expose their artifact theft operation."
"But if they intended to kill us," Shannon said uncertainly, "why bring us here? They could have just as well shot everyone and thrown our remains into the sinkhole."
"In order for them to make it look like a Shining Path raid, they may have had it in their mind to play the hostage for ransom game. If the Peruvian government, your university officials in the States, or the families of the archaeological students had paid enormous sums for your release, all the better. They'd have simply considered the ransom money as a bonus to the profits of their illegal smuggling and murdered all of you anyway."
"Who are these people?" Shannon asked sharply.
"Amaru referred to them as the Solpemachaco, whatever that translates into."
"Solpemachaco," Shannon echoed. "A combination Medusa/dragon myth from the local ancients. Folklore passed down through the centuries describes Solpemachaco as an evil serpent with seven heads who lives in a cave. One myth claims he lives here in the Pueblo de los Muertos."
Giordino yawned indifferently. "Sounds like a bad screenplay starring another monster from the bowels of the earth."
"More likely a clever play on words," said Pitt. "A metaphor as a code name for an international looting organization with a vast reach into the underground antiquities market."
"The serpent's seven heads could represent the masterminds behind the organization," suggested Shannon.
"Or seven different bases of operation," added Rodgers.
"Now that we've cleared up that mystery," Giordino said wryly, "why don't we clear the hell out of here and head for the sinkhole before the Sioux and Cheyenne come charging through the pass?"
"Because they'd be waiting when we got there," said Pitt. "Methinks we should stay put."
"You really believe they'll send men to kill us?" Shannon said, her expression more angry than fearful.
Pitt nodded. "I'd bet my pension on it. Whoever made off with the radio most certainly tattled on us. I judge his pals will soar into the valley like maddened hornets in. . ." he paused to glance at his watch before continuing, ". . . about an hour and a half. After that, they'll shoot down anyone who vaguely resembles an archaeologist."
"Not what I call a cheery thought," she murmured.
"With six automatic rifles and Dirk's handgun I reckon we might discourage a first-rate gang of two dozen cutthroats for all of ten minutes," muttered Giordino gloomily.
"We can't stay here and fight armed criminals," Rodgers protested. "We'd all be slaughtered."
"And there are the lives of those kids to consider," said Shannon, suddenly looking a little pale.
"Before we're swept up in an orgy of pessimism," said Pitt briskly, as if he hadn't a care in the world, "I suggest we round up everyone and evacuate the temple."
"Then what?" demanded Rodgers.
"First, we look around for Amaru's landing site."
"For what purpose?"
Giordino rolled his eyes. "I know that look. He's hatching another Machiavellian scheme."
"Nothing too contrived," Pitt said patiently. "I figure that after the bushwhackers land and begin chasing around the ruins searching for us, we'll borrow their helicopter and fly off to the nearest four-star hotel and a refreshing bath."
There was a moment of incredulous stillness. They all stared at Pitt as if he'd just stepped out of a Martian space capsule. Giordino was the first to break the stunned silence.
"See," he said with a wide grin. "I told you so."
Pitt's estimate of an hour and a half was shy by only ten minutes. The stillness of the valley was broken by the throb of rotor blades whipping the air as two Peruvian military helicopters flew over the crest of a saddle between mountain peaks and circled the ancient buildings. After a cursory reconnaissance of the area, they descended in a clearing amid the ruins less than 100 meters (328 feet) from the front of the conical temple structure. The troops spilled out rapidly through the rear clamshell doors under the beating rotor blades and lined up at rigid attention as though they were standing for inspection.
These were no ordinary soldiers dedicated to preserving the peace of their nation. They were mercenary misfits who hired themselves out to the highest bidder. At the direction of the officer in charge, a captain incongruously attired in full dress uniform, the two platoons of thirty men each were formed into one closely packed battle line led by two lieutenants. Satisfied the line was straight, the captain raised a swagger stick above his head and motioned for the officers under his command to launch the assault on the temple. Then he climbed a low wall to direct the one-sided battle from what he thought was a safe viewpoint.
The captain shouted encouragement to his men, urging them to bravely charge up the steps of the temple. His voice echoed because of the hard acoustics of the ruins. But he broke off and uttered a strange awking sound that became a fit of gagging pain. For a brief instant he stiffened, his face twisted in incomprehension, then he folded forward and pitched off the wall, landing with a loud crack on the back of his head.
A short, dumpy lieutenant in baggy combat fatigues rushed over and knelt beside the fallen captain, looked up at the funeral palace in dazed understanding, opened his mouth to shout an order, then crumpled over the body beneath him, the sharp crack of a Type 56-1 rifle the last thing he heard before death swept over him.
From the landing on the upper level of the temple, flat on his stomach behind a small barricade of stones, Pitt stared down at the line of confused troops through the sights of the rifle and fired another four rounds into their ranks, picking off the only remaining officer. There was no look of surprise or fear on Pitt's face at seeing the overwhelming mercenary force, only a set look of determination in the deep green eyes. By resisting he was providing a diversion to save the lives of thirteen innocent people. Merely firing over the troops' heads to momentarily slow the assault was a futile waste of time. These men had come to kill all witnesses to a criminal operation. Kill or be killed was a cliche, but it held true. These men would give no quarter.
Pitt was not a pitiless man, his eyes were neither steel hard nor ice cold. For him there was no enjoyment in killing a complete stranger. His biggest regret was that the faceless men responsible for the crimes were not in his sights.
Cautiously, he pulled the assault rifle back from the tight peephole between the stones and surveyed the ground below. The Peruvian mercenaries had fanned out behind the stone ruins. A few scattered shots were fired upward at the temple, chipping the stone carvings before ricocheting and whining off into the cliff of tombs behind. These were hardened, disciplined fighting men who recovered quickly under pressure. Killing their officers had stalled but not stopped them. The sergeants had taken command and were concentrating on a tactic to eliminate this unexpected resistance.
Pitt ducked back behind the stone barricade as a torrent of automatic weapons fire peppered the outside columns, sending chips of stone flying in all directions. This came as no surprise to him. The Peruvians were laying down a covering fire as they crouched and dashed from ruin to ruin, moving ever closer to the base of the stairs leading up the rounded front of the temple. Pitt moved sideways like a crab and edged into the shelter of the death palace before rising to his feet and running to the rear wall. He cast a wary eye out an arched window.
Knowing that the round walls of the temple were too smooth to scale for an attack and too steep for the defenders to escape, none of the soldiers had circled around to the rear. Pitt could easily predict that they were gambling their entire force on a frontal assault up the stairway. What he hadn't foreseen was that they were going to reduce a lot of the palace of the dead on top of the temple to rubble before charging up the stairway.
Pitt scurried back to the barricade and let loose a long burst from the Chinese automatic rifle until the final shell spit across the stone floor. He rolled to one side and was in the act of inserting another long, curved ammo stick in the gun's magazine when he heard a whoosh, and a forty-millimeter rocket from a People's Republic of China Type 69 launcher sailed up and burst against one side of the temple 8 meters (26 feet) behind Pitt. It detonated with a thunderous explosion that hurled stone like shrapnel and tore a huge hole in the wall. Within seconds the ancient shrine to the death gods was clogged with debris and the evil stench of high explosives.
There was a loud ringing in Pitt's ears, the reverberating roar of the detonation, the pounding of his own heart. He was momentarily blinded and his nose and throat were immediately filled with dust. He frantically rubbed his eyes clear and gazed down at the surrounding ruins. He was just in time to see the black smoke cloud and bright flash produced by the rocket's booster. He ducked with his hands over his head as another rocket slammed into the ancient stone and exploded with a deafening roar. The vicious blow pelted Pitt with flying rubble and the concussion knocked the breath out of him.
For a moment he lay motionless, almost lifeless. Then he struggled painfully to his hands and knees, coughing dust, seized the rifle, and crawled back into the interior of the palace. He took a last look at the mountain of precious artifacts and paid a final call on Amaru.
The grave looter had regained consciousness and glared at Pitt, his hands clutching his groin, now clotted with dried blood, the murderous face masked in hate. There was a strange coldness about him now, an utter indifference to the pain. He radiated evil.
"Your friends have a destructive nature," said Pitt, as another rocket struck the temple.
"You are trapped," Amaru rasped in a low tone.
"Thanks to your staged murder of Dr. Miller's imposter. He made off with your radio and called in reinforcements."
"Your time to die has arrived, Yankee pig."
"Yankee pig," Pitt repeated. "I haven't been called that in ages."
"You will suffer as you have made me suffer."