Inca Gold

    He swam a few meters away from the skeleton and pulled a bone out of the silt, a tibia by the shape of it. He returned and held it against the Spaniard's protruding forearm and hand. The bone from the silt was much rougher and pitted as well as more deeply stained from the minerals in the water. The bony structure of the skeleton was smooth in comparison. Next he studied the teeth, which were in remarkably good condition. Pitt found caps on two molars, not gold but silver. Pitt was no expert on sixteenth-century dentistry, but he knew that Europeans didn't even begin to fill cavities and cap teeth until the late eighteenth century.
    "Rudi?"
    "I'm listening," answered Gunn.
    "Please send down a line. I want to lift something."
    "A line with a small weight attached to the end is on the way."
    "Try to drop it where you see our bubbles."
    "Will do." There was a pause, and then Gunn's voice came back over Pitt's earphones with a slight edge to it. "Your archaeologist lady is raising hell. She says you can't touch anything down there."
    "Pretend she's in Moline, Illinois, and drop the line."
    Gunn replied nervously. "She's making a terrible scene up here."
    Either drop the line or throw her over the edge," Pitt snapped obstinately.
    "Stand by."
    Moments later a small steel hook attached to a nylon line materialized through the green void and landed in the silt two meters away. Giordino effortlessly swam over, snagged the line with one hand, and returned. Then, with the finesse of a pickpocket delicately lifting a wallet, Pitt very carefully wrapped the loose end of the line around a strap holding the breastplate to the skeleton and cinched it with the hook. He stared at Giordino and made the thumbs-up gesture. Giordino nodded and was mildly surprised when Pitt released the line, allowing it to slacken and leaving the skeleton where it lay.
    They took turns being lifted out of the sinkhole. As the crane raised him by his safety line, Pitt looked down and vowed he would never again enter that odious slough. At the rim, Gunn was there to help swing him onto firm ground and remove his full face mask.
    "Thank God, you're back," he said. "That madwoman threatened to shoot off my testicles."
    Giordino laughed. "She learned that from Pitt. Just be thankful your name isn't Amaru."
    "What. . . what was that?"
    "Another story," said Pitt, inhaling the humid mountain air and enjoying every second of it.
    He was struggling out of his dive suit when Shannon stormed up to him like a wild grizzly who had her cubs stolen. "I warned you not to disturb any artifacts," she said firmly.
    Pitt looked at her for a long moment, his green eyes strangely soft and understanding. "There is nothing left to touch," he said finally. "Somebody beat you to it. Any artifacts that were in your sacred pool a month ago are gone. Only the bones of animals and sacrificial victims are left scattered on the bottom."
    Her face turned incredulous and the hazel eyes flew very wide. "Are you certain?"
    "Would you like proof?"
    "We have our own equipment. I'll dive into the pool and see for myself."
    "Not necessary," he advised.
    She turned and called to Miles Rodgers. "Let's get suited up."
    "You begin probing around in the silt and you will surely die," Pitt said, with all the emotion of a professor lecturing to a physics class.
    Maybe Shannon wasn't listening to Pitt, but Rodgers was. "I think we had better listen to what Dirk is saying."
    "I don't wish to sound nasty, but he lacks the necessary credentials to make a case."
    "What if he's right?" Rodgers asked innocently.
    "I've waited a long time to explore and survey the bottom of the pool. You and I came within minutes of losing our lives trying to unlock its secrets. I can't believe there isn't a time capsule of valuable antiquities down there."
    Pitt took the line leading down into the water and held it loosely in his hand. "Here is the verification. Pull on this line and I guarantee you'll change your mind."
    "You attached the other end?" she challenged him. "To what?"
    "A set of bones masquerading as a Spanish conquistador."
    "You're beyond belief," she said helplessly.
    It was a long time since a woman had stared at him like that. "Do you think I'm a head case? Do you think I enjoy this? I damn well don't enjoy spending my time saving your backside. Okay, you want to die and be buried in a thousand bits and pieces, enjoy the trip."
    Uncertainty crept into her expression. "You're not making sense."
    "Perhaps a little demonstration is in order." Pitt gently pulled in the line until it became taut. Then he gave it a hard jerk.
    For a moment nothing happened. Then a rumbling came from the bottom of the well, swelling in volume, sending tremors through the limestone walls. The violence of the explosion was electrifying. The underwater blast came like the eruption of a huge depth charge as a seething column of white froth and green slime burst out of the sinkhole, splattering everyone and everything standing within 20 meters (66 feet) of the edge. The thunder of the explosion rolled over the jungle as the spray fell back into the sinkhole, leaving a heavy mist that swirled into the sky and temporarily blocked out the sun.
    Shannon stood half-drenched and stared down into her beloved sacred well as if she couldn't make up her mind whether or not to be sick. Everyone around the edge stood like statues suddenly frozen in shock. Only Pitt looked as though he'd witnessed an everyday event.
    Fading incomprehension and the tentative beginnings of understanding appeared in Shannon's eyes. "How in God's name did you know. . ."
    "That there was a booby trap?" Pitt finished. "No great deduction. Whoever buried a good forty-five kilograms of high explosive under the skeleton made two major mistakes. One, why clean out every antiquity but the most obvious? And two, the bones couldn't have been more than fifty years old and the armor hasn't rusted enough to have been underwater for four centuries."
    "Who would have done such a thing?" asked Rodgers dazedly.
    "The same man who murdered Doc Miller," answered Pitt.
    "The imposter?"
    "More likely Amaru. The man who took Miller's place didn't want to risk exposure and investigation by Peruvian authorities, not before they cleaned out the City of the Dead. The Solperrzachaco had robbed the sacrificial well of its artifacts long before you arrived. That's why the imposter sent out a call for help when you and Shannon vanished in the sinkhole. It was all part of the plot to make your deaths look like an accident. Although he felt reasonably sure that you'd be sucked into the adjoining cavern by the underwater surge before you could fully search the bottom and realize all artifacts had been removed, he hedged his bets by lowering the phony conquistador into position purely as a red herring to blow you to pieces in the event the surge didn't carry you away."
    Shannon's eyes took on a saddened and disillusioned look. "Then all antiquities from the sacred well are gone."
    "You can take a small measure of cheer in knowing they were removed and not destroyed," said Pitt.