Inca Gold

    "I judge it was built about 1380," said Ortiz. "A fine example of Chachapoyan architecture. All the comforts of home except a bath. There is, however, a mountain stream about fifty meters to the south. As for your other personal needs, I'm sure you'll make do."
    "Thank you, Dr. Ortiz," said Gunn. "You're most considerate."
    "Please, it's Alberto," he replied, raising a bushy white eyebrow. "Dinner at eighteen hundred hours at my place." He gave Giordino a benevolent stare. "I believe you know how to find your way about the city."
    "I've taken the tour," Giordino acknowledged.
    An invigorating bath in the icy water of the stream to wash off the day's sweat, a shave, a change into warmer clothes to ward off the cold of the Andes night air, and the men from NUMA trooped through the City of the Dead toward the Peruvian cultural authority's command post. Ortiz greeted them at the entrance and introduced four of his assistants from the National Institute of Culture in Chiclayo, none of whom spoke English.
    "A drink before dinner, gentlemen? I have gin, vodka, scotch, and pisco, a native white brandy."
    "You came well prepared," observed Gunn.
    Oritz laughed. "Just because we're working in difficult areas of the country does not mean we can't provide a few creature comforts."
    "I'll try your local brandy," said Pitt.
    Giordino and Gunn were not as adventurous and stuck with scotch on the rocks. After he did the honors, Ortiz gestured for them to sit in old-fashioned canvas lawn chairs.
    "How badly were the artifacts damaged during the rocket attack?" asked Pitt, launching the conversation.
    "What few objects the looters left behind were badly crushed by falling masonry. Most of it is shattered beyond restoration, I'm afraid."
    "You found nothing worth saving?"
    "A thorough job." Ortiz shook his head sadly. "Amazing how they worked so fast to excavate the ruins of the temple, remove the salvageable and undamaged antiquities, and escape with a good four tons of the stuff before we could arrive and catch them in the act. What the early Spanish treasure hunters and their sanctimonious missionary padres didn't plunder from the Inca cities and send back to Seville, the damned huagueros have found and sold. They steal antiquities faster than an army of ants can strip a forest."
    "Huagueros?" questioned Gunn.
    "The local term for robbers of ancient graves," explained Giordino.
    Pitt stared at him curiously. "Where did you learn that?"
    Giordino shrugged. "You hang around archaeologists, you're bound to pick up a few expressions."
    "It is hard to entirely fault the huaqueros," said Ortiz. "The poor farmers of the high country suffer from terrorism, inflation, and corruption that rob them of what little they can take from the earth. The wholesale looting of archaeological sites and the selling of artifacts by these people enable them to purchase a few small comforts to ease their dreadful poverty."
    "Then there is the good with the bad," observed Gunn.
    "Unfortunately, they leave nothing but a few scraps of bone and broken pottery for scientists like me to study. Entire buildings-temples and palaces-are gutted and demolished for their architectural ornamentation, the carvings sold for outrageously low prices. Nothing is spared. The stones from the walls are taken away and used as cheap building materials. Much of the architectural beauty of these ancient cultures has been destroyed and lost forever."
    "I gather it's a family operation," said Pitt.
    "Yes, the search for underground tombs has been carried on from one generation to another for hundreds of years. Fathers, brothers, uncles, and cousins all work together. It has become a custom, a tradition. Entire communities band together to dig for ancient treasures."
    "Tombs being their primary target," Gunn presumed.
    "That is where most of the ancient treasures are hidden. The riches of most ancient empires were buried with their rulers and the wealthy."
    "Big believers in you can take it with you," said Giordino.
    "From the Neanderthals to the Egyptians to the Incas," Ortiz continued, "they all believed in a continued life in the great beyond. Not reincarnation, mind you. But life as they lived on earth. So they believed in taking their most prized possessions with them into the grave. Many kings and emperors also took along their favorite wives, officials, soldiers, servants, and prized animals as well as treasure. Grave robbing is as old as prostitution."
    "A pity U.S. leaders don't follow in their footsteps," said Giordino sardonically. "Just think, when a President dies, he could order that he be buried with the entire Congress and half the bureaucracy."
    Pitt laughed. "A ritual most American citizens would applaud."
    "Many of my countrymen feel the same about our government," Ortiz agreed.
    Gunn asked, "How do they locate the graves?"
    "The poorer huaqueros search with picks and shovels and long metal rods to probe for buried tombs. The wellfunded theft and smuggling organizations, on the other hand, use modern, expensive metal detectors and lowlevel radar instruments."
    "Have you crossed paths with the Solpemachaco in the past?" asked Pitt.
    "At four other historical sites." Ortiz spat on the ground. "I was always too late. They're like a stench with an unknown source. The organization exists, that much is certain. I have seen the tragic results of their pillage. But I have yet to find hard evidence leading to the bastards who make the payoffs to the huaqueros and then smuggle our cultural heritage into an international underground market."
    "Your police and security forces can't put a stop to the flow of stolen treasures?" asked Gunn.
    "Stopping the huaqueros is like trying to catch mercury in your hands," answered Ortiz. "The profit is too enormous and there are too many of them. As you have found out for yourselves, any number of our military and government officials can be bought."
    "You have a tough job, Alberto," Pitt sympathized. "I don't envy you."
    "And a thankless one," Ortiz said solemnly. "To the poor hill people, I am the enemy. And the wealthy families avoid me like the plague because they collect thousands of precious artifacts for themselves."
    "Sounds as if you're in a no-win situation."
    "Quite true. My colleagues from other cultural schools and museums around the country are in a race to discover the great treasure sites, but we always lose to the huaqueros."
    "Don't you receive help from your government?" asked Giordino.
    "Obtaining funding from the government or private sources for archaeology projects is an uphill battle. A pity, but it seems no one wants to invest in history."
    The conversation drifted to other subjects after one of Ortiz's assistants announced that dinner was ready. Two courses consisted of a pungent beef stew accompanied by bowls of locally grown parched corn and beans. The only touches of more refined dining came from an excellent Peruvian red wine and a fruit salad. Dessert consisted of mangos with syrup.
    As they gathered around a warm campfire, Pitt asked Ortiz, "Do you think Tupac Amaru and his men have totally stripped the City of the Dead, or are there tombs and buildings that are still undiscovered?"