It always amused Sarason that their father had insisted on his sons and daughters adopting and legalizing different surnames. As the oldest, only Zolar bore the family name. The far-flung international trade empire that the senior Zolar had amassed before he died was divided equally between his five sons and two daughters. Each had become a corporate executive officer of either an art and antique gallery, an auction house, or an import/export firm. The family's seemingly separate operations were in reality one entity, a jointly owned conglomerate secretly known as the Solpemachaco. Unknown and unregistered with any international government financial agencies or stock markets, its managing director was Joseph Zolar in his role as family elder.
"Nothing short of a miracle that I was able to save most of the artifacts and successfully smuggle them out of the country after the blunders committed by our ignorant rabble. Not to mention the intrusion by members of our own government."
"U.S. Customs or drug agents?" asked Zolar.
"Neither. Two engineers from the National Underwater and Marine Agency. They showed up out of nowhere when Juan Chaco sent out a distress call after Dr. Kelsey and her photographer became trapped in the sacred well."
"How did they cause problems?"
Sarason related the entire story from the murder of the true Dr. Miller by Amaru to the escape of Pitt and the others from the Valley of the Viracocha to the death of Juan Chaco. He finished by giving a rough tally of the artifacts he had salvaged from the valley, and how he arranged to have the cache transported to Callao, then smuggled out of Peru in a secret cargo compartment inside an oil tanker owned by a subsidiary of Zolar International. It was one of two such ships used for the express purpose of slipping looted and stolen art in and out of foreign countries while transporting small shipments of crude oil.
Zolar stared into the desert without seeing it. "The Aztec Star. She is scheduled to reach San Francisco in four days."
"That puts her in brother Charles's sphere of activity."
"Yes, Charles has arranged for your shipment to be transported to our distribution center in Galveston where he will see to the restoration of the artifacts." Zolar held his glass up to be refilled. "How is the wine?"
"A classic," answered Sarason, "but a bit dry for my taste."
"Perhaps you'd prefer a sauvignon blanc from Touraine. It has a pleasing fruitiness with a scent of herbs."
"I never acquired your taste for fine wines, brother. I'll settle for a beer."
Zolar did not have to instruct his serving lady. She quietly left them and returned in minutes with an iced glass and a bottle of Coors beer.
"A pity about Chaco," said Zolar. "He was a loyal associate."
"I had no choice. He was running scared after the fiasco in the Valley of Viracocha and made subtle threats to unveil the Solpemachaco. It would not have been wise to allow him to fall into the hands of the Peruvian Investigative Police."
"I trust your decisions, as I always have. But there is still Tupac Amaru. What is his situation?"
"He should have died," replied Sarason. "Yet when I returned to the temple after the attack of our gun-happy mercenaries, I found him buried under a pile of rubble and still breathing. As soon as the artifacts were cleared out and loaded aboard three additional military helicopters, whose flight crews I was forced to buy off at a premium, I paid the local huaqueros to carry him to their village for care. He should be back on his feet in a few days."
"You might have been wise to remove Amaru too."
"I considered it. But he knows nothing that could lead international investigators to our doorstep."
"Would you like another serving of pork?"
"Yes, please."
"Still, I don't like having a mad dog loose around the house."
"Not to worry. Oddly, it was Chaco who gave me the idea of keeping Amaru on the payroll."
"Why, so he can murder little old ladies whenever the mood strikes him?"
"Nothing so ludicrous." Sarason smiled. "The man may well prove to be a valuable asset."
"You mean as a hired killer."
"I prefer to think of him as someone who eliminates obstacles. Let's face it, brother. I can't continue eliminating our enemies by myself without risk of eventual discovery and capture. The family should consider itself fortunate that I am not the only one who has the capacity to kill if necessary. Amaru makes an ideal executioner. He enjoys it."
"Just be sure you keep him on a strong leash when he's out of his cage."
"Not to worry," said Sarason firmly. Then he changed the subject. "Any buyers in mind for our Chachapoyan merchandise?"
"A drug dealer by the name of Pedro Vincente," replied Zolar. "He hungers after anything that's pre-Columbian. He also pays a cash premium since it's a way for him to launder his drug profits."
"And you take the cash and use it to finance our underground art and artifact operations."
"An equitable arrangement for all concerned."
"How soon before you make the sale?"
"I'll set up a meeting with Vincente right after Sister Marta has your shipment cleaned up and ready for display. You should have your share of the profits within ten days."
Sarason nodded and gazed at the bubbles in his beer. "I think you see through me, Joseph. I'm seriously considering retiring from the family business while I'm still healthy."
Zolar looked at him with a shifty grin. "You do and you'll be throwing away two hundred million dollars."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your share of the treasure."
Sarason paused with a forkful of pork in front of his mouth. "What treasure?"
"You're the last of the family to learn what ultimate prize is within our grasp."
"I don't follow you."
"The object that will lead us to Huascar's treasure." Zolar looked at him slyly for a moment, then smiled. "We have the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo."
The fork dropped to the plate as Sarason stared in total incredulity. "You found Naymlap's mummy encased in his suit of gold? It is actually in your hands?"
"Our hands, little brother. One evening, while searching through our father's old business records, I came upon a ledger itemizing his clandestine transactions. It was he who masterminded the mummy's theft from the museum in Spain."
"The old fox, he never said a word."
"He considered it the highlight of his plundering career, but too hot a subject to reveal to his own family."
"How did you track it down?"
"Father recorded the sale to a wealthy Sicilian mafioso. I sent our brother Charles to investigate, not expecting him to learn anything from a trail over seventy years old. Charles found the late mobster's villa and met with the son, who said his father had kept the mummy and its suit hidden away until he died in 1984 at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. The son then sold the mummy on the black market through his relatives in New York. The buyer was a rich junk dealer in Chicago by the name of Rummel."
"I'm surprised the son spoke to Charles. Mafia families are not noted for revealing their involvement with stolen goods."
"He not only spoke," said Zolar, "but received our brother like a long=lost relative and cooperated wholeheartedly by providing the name of the Chicago purchaser."
"I underestimated Charles," Sarason said, finishing off his final morsel of braised pork. "I wasn't aware of his talent for obtaining information."
"A cash payment of three million dollars helped immeasurably."
Sarason frowned. "A bit generous, weren't we? The suit can't be worth more than half that much to a collector with deep pockets who has to keep it hidden."
"Not at all. A cheap investment if the engraved images on the suit lead us to Huascar's golden chain."
"The ultimate prize," Samson repeated his brother's phrase. "No single treasure in world history can match its value."
"Dessert?" Zolar asked. "A slice of chocolate apricot torte?"
"A very small slice and coffee, strong," answered
Sarason. "How much extra did it cost to buy the suit from the junk dealer?"
Zolar nodded, and again his serving lady silently complied. "Not a cent. We stole it. As luck would have it, our brother Samuel in New York had sold Rummel most of his collection of illegal pre-Columbian antiquities and knew the location of the concealed gallery that held the suit. He and Charles worked together on the theft."
"I still can't believe it's in our hands."
"A near thing too. Charles and Sam barely smuggled it from Rummel's penthouse before Customs agents stormed the place."
Do you think they were tipped of?"
Zolar shook his head. "Not by anyone on our end. Our brothers got away clean."
"Where did they take it?" asked Sarason.
Zolar smiled, but not with his eyes. "Nowhere. The mummy is still in the building. They rented an apartment six floors below Rummel and hid it there until we can safely move it to Galveston for a proper examination. Both Rummel and the Customs agents think it was already smuggled out of the building by a moving van."
"A nice touch. But what happens now? The images engraved in the gold body casing have to be deciphered. Not a simple exercise."
"I've hired the finest authorities on Inca art to decode and interpret the glyphs. A husband and wife team. He's an anthropologist and she's an archaeologist who excels as a decoding analyst with computers."
"I should have known you'd cover every base," said Sarason, stirring his coffee. "But we'd better hope their version of the text is correct, or we'll be spending a lot of time and money chasing up and down Mexico after ghosts."
Time is on our side," Zolar assured him confidentially. "Who but us could possibly have a clue to the treasure's burial site?"
After a fruitless excursion to the archives of the Library of Congress, where he had hoped to find documentary evidence leading to the Concepcion's ultimate fate, Julien Perlmutter sat in the vast reading room. He closed a copy of the diary kept by Francis Drake and later presented to Queen Elizabeth, describing his epic voyage. The diary, lost for centuries, had only recently been discovered in the dusty basement of the royal archives in England.
He leaned his great bulk back in the chair and sighed. The diary added little to what he already knew.
Drake had sent the Concepcion back to England under the command of the Golden Hind's sailing master, Thomas Cuttill. The galleon was never seen again and was presumed lost at sea with all hands.
Beyond that, the only mention of the fate of the Concepcion was unverified. It came from a book Perlmutter could recall reading on the Amazon River, published in 1939 by journalist/explorer Nicholas Bender, who followed the routes of the early explorers in search of El Dorado. Perlmutter called up the book from the library staff and reexamined it. In the Note section there was a she-t reference to a 1594
Portuguese survey expedition that had come upon an Englishman living with a tribe of local inhabitants beside the river. The Englishman claimed that he had served under the English sea dog, Francis Drake, who placed him in command of a Spanish treasure galleon that was swept into a jungle by an immense tidal wave. The Portuguese thought the man quite mad and continued on their mission, leaving him in the village where they found him.
Perlmutter made a note of the publisher. Then he signed the Drake diary and Bender's book back to the library staff and caught a taxi home. He felt discouraged, but it was not the first time he had failed to run down a clue to a historical puzzle from the twenty-five million books and forty million manuscripts in the library. The key to unlocking the mystery of the Concepcion, if there was one, had to be buried somewhere else.
Perlmutter sat in the backseat of the cab and stared out the window at the passing automobiles and buildings without seeing them. He knew from experience that each research project moved at a pace all its own. Some threw out the key answers with a shower of fireworks. Others entangled themselves in an endless maze of dead ends and slowly died without a solution. The Concepcion enigma was different. It appeared as a shadow that eluded his grip. Did Nicholas Bender quote a genuine source, or did he embellish a myth as so many nonfiction authors were prone to do?
The question was still goading his mind when he walked into the clutter that was his office. A ship's clock on the mantel read three thirty-five in the afternoon. Still plenty of time to make calls before most businesses closed. He settled into a handsome leather swivel chair behind his desk and punched in the number for New York City information. The operator gave him the number of Bender's publishing house almost before he finished asking for it. Then Perlmutter poured a snifter of Napoleon brandy and waited for his call to go through. No doubt one more wasted effort, he thought. Bender was probably dead by now and so was his editor.
"Falkner and Massey," answered a female voice heavy with the city's distinct accent.
"I'd like to talk to the editor of Nicholas Bender, please."
Nicholas Bender?"
"He's one of your authors."
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know the name."
"Mr. Bender wrote nonfiction adventure books a long time ago. Perhaps someone who has been on your staff for a number of years might recall him?"
"I'll direct you to Mr. Adams, our senior editor. He's been with the company longer than anyone I know."
"Thank you."
There was a good thirty-second pause, and then a man answered. "Frank Adams here."
"Mr. Adams, my name is St. Julien Perlmutter."
"A pleasure, Mr. Perlmutter. I've heard of you. You're down in Washington, I believe."
"Yes, I live in the capital."
"Keep us in mind should you decide to publish a book on maritime history."
"I've yet to finish any book I started." Perlmutter laughed. "We'll both grow old waiting for a completed manuscript from me."
"At seventy-four, I'm already old," said Adams congenially.
"The very reason I rang you," said Perlmutter. "Do you recall a Nicholas Bender?"
"I do indeed. He was somewhat of a soldier of fortune in his youth. We've published quite a few of the books he wrote describing his travels in the days before globetrotting was discovered by the middle class."
"I'm trying to trace the source of a reference he made in a book called On the Trail of El Dorado."
"That's ancient history. We must have published that book back in the early forties."
"Nineteen thirty-nine to be exact."
"How can I help you?"
"I was hoping Bender might have donated his notes and manuscripts to a university archive. I'd like to study them."
"I really don't know what he did with his material," said Adams. "I'll have to ask him."
"He's still alive?" Perlmutter asked in surprise.
"Oh dear me, yes. I had dinner with him not more than three months ago."
"He must be in his nineties."
"Nicholas is eighty-four. I believe he was just twenty-five when he wrote On the Trail of El Dorado.
That was only the second of twenty-six books we published for him. The last was in 1978, a book on hiking in the Yukon."
"Does Mr. Bender still have all his mental faculties?"
"He does indeed. Nicholas is as sharp as an icepick despite his poor health."
"May I have a number where I can reach him?"
"I doubt whether he'll take any calls from strangers. Since his wife died, Nicholas has become somewhat of a recluse. He lives on a small farm in Vermont, sadly waiting to die."
"I don't mean to sound heartless," said Perlmutter. "But it is most urgent that I speak to him."
"Since you're a respected authority on maritime lore and a renowned gourmand, I'm sure he wouldn't mind talking to you. But first, let me pave the way just to play safe. What is your number should he wish to call you direct?"
Perlmutter gave Adams the phone number for the line he used only for close friends. "Thank you, Mr.
Adams. If I ever do write a manuscript on shipwrecks, you'll be the first editor
to read it."
He hung up, ambled into his kitchen, opened the refrigerator, expertly shucked a dozen Gulf oysters, poured a few drops of Tabasco and sherry vinegar into the open shells, and downed them accompanied by a bottle of Anchor Steam beer. His timing was perfect. He had no sooner polished off the oysters and dropped the empty bottle in a trash compactor when the phone rang.
"Julien Perlmutter here."
"Hello," replied a remarkably deep voice. "This is Nicholas Bender. Frank Adams said you wished to speak to me."
"Yes, sir, thank you. I didn't expect you to call me so soon."
"Always delighted to talk to someone who has read my books," said Bender cheerfully. "Not many of you left."
"The book I found of interest was On the Trail of El Dorado."
"Yes, Yes, I nearly died ten times during that trek through hell."
"You made a reference to a Portuguese survey mission that found a crewman of Sir Francis Drake living among the natives along the Amazon River."
"Thomas Cuttill," Bender replied without the slightest hesitation. "I recall including the event in my book, yes."
"I wonder if you could refer me to the source of your information," said Perlmutter, his hopes rising with Bender's quick recollection.
"If I may ask, Mr. Perlmutter, what exactly is it you are pursuing?"
"I'm researching the history of a Spanish treasure galleon captured by Drake. Most reports put the ship lost at sea on its way back to England. But according to your account of Thomas Cuttill, it was carried into a rain forest on the crest of a tidal wave."
"That's quite true," replied Bender. "I'd have looked for her myself if I had thought there was the slightest chance of finding anything. But the jungle where she disappeared is so thick you'd literally have to stumble and fall on the wreck before you'd see it."
"You're that positive the Portuguese account of finding Cuttill is not just a fabrication or a myth?"
"It is historical fact. There is no doubt about that."
"How can you be so sure?"