Gaskill looked at Ragsdale. "The coincidence is nothing short of astonishing."
"Coincidence?" Sandecker asked curiously.
"That after almost five hundred years, two vital clues to the mystery of Huascar's treasure surfaced from two different sources within five days of each other."
Sandecker shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't follow you."
In turn, Gaskill filled the admiral in on the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo. He finished by giving a brief summary of the case against Zolar International.
"Are you telling me that another party is searching for Huascar's treasure at this very minute?"
Sandecker asked incredulously.
Ragsdale nodded. "An international syndicate that deals in art theft, antiquity smuggling, and art forgery with annual profits running into untold millions of untaxed dollars."
"I had no idea."
"Regrettably, our government and news media have not seen the benefit in educating the general public on a criminal activity that is second only to the drug trade."
"In one robbery alone," explained Gaskill, "the dollar estimate of the masterpieces stolen from the Gardner Museum in Boston in April 1990 came to two hundred million."
"When you throw in the combined theft, smuggling, and forgery operations taking place in nearly every country of the world," Ragsdale continued, "you can understand why we're looking at a billion-dollar industry."
"The list of art and antiquities stolen over the past hundred years would equal the number of names in the New York phone book," Gaskill emphasized.
"Who buys such a staggering amount of illegal goods?" asked Sandecker.
"The demand far exceeds the supply," answered Gaskill. "Wealthy collectors are indirectly responsible for looting because they create a strong market demand. They stand in line to purchase historically significant hot goods from underground dealers. The list of clients reads like a celebrity register. Heads of state, highlevel government officials, motion picture personalities, top business leaders, and even curators of major museums who look the other way while negotiating for black market goods to enhance their collections. If they have a buck, they'll buy it."
"Drug dealers also buy untold amounts of illegal art and antiquities as a fast and easy way of laundering money while building an investment."
"I can see why unrecorded artifacts are lost in the shuffle," said Sandecker. "But surely famous art paintings and sculptures turn up and are recovered."
Ragsdale shook his head. "Sometimes we get lucky, and a tip leads us to stolen property.
Occasionally honest art dealers or museum curators will call us when they recognize pieces the thieves are trying to sell. All too often missing art remains lost from lack of leads."
"A tremendous number of antiquities obtained by grave robbers are sold before archaeologists have a chance to study them," Gaskill said. "For example, during the desert war against Iraq in the early nineties, thousands of artifacts, including untranslated clay tablets, jewelry, textiles, glass, pottery, gold and silver coins, and cylinder seals, were plundered from both Kuwaiti and Iraqi museums by anti-Hussein opposition forces and Shiite and Kurdish rebels. Much of it had already passed through dealers and auction houses before any of the pieces could be catalogued as missing or stolen."
"Hardly seems possible that a collector would pay big money for art he knows damn well belongs to someone else," said Sandecker. "He certainly can't put it on display without risking exposure or arrest.
What does he do with it?"
"Call it a psychological warp," replied Ragsdale. "Gaskill and I can recite any number of cases involving collectors who stash their illegal acquisitions in a secret vault where they sit and view it once a day, or maybe once every ten years. Never mind that none of it is on public display. They get their high by possessing something no one else can own."
Gaskill nodded in agreement. "Collector addiction can make people carry out macabre schemes. It's bad enough to desecrate and despoil Indian graves by digging up and selling skulls and mummified bodies of women and children, but certain collectors of American Civil War memorabilia have gone so far as to dig up graves in national cemeteries just to retrieve Union and Confederate belt buckles."
"A sad commentary on avarice," mused Sandecker.
"The stories of grave plundering for artifacts are endless," said Ragsdale. "Bones of the dead from every culture, beginning with the Neanderthal, are smashed and scattered. The sanctity of the dead means little if there is a profit to be made."
"Because of the many collectors' insatiable lust for antiquities," said Gaskill, "they're prime candidates for rip-offs. Their seemingly inexhaustible demand creates a lucrative trade in forgeries."
Ragsdale nodded. "Without proper archaeological study, copied artifacts can pass undetected. Many of the collections in respected museums display forged antiquities and no one realizes. Every curator or collector is unwilling to believe he has been screwed by a forger, and few scholars have the guts to state that the pieces they are examining are suspect."
"Famous art is not exempt," Gaskill further explained. "Agent Ragsdale and I have both seen cases where an outstanding masterpiece was stolen, copied by experts, and the forgery returned through channels for the finder's fee and insurance. The gallery and its curator happily hang the fake, never realizing they've been had."
"How are the stolen objects distributed and sold?" queried Sandecker.
"Tomb looters and art thieves sell through an underground network of crooked dealers who put up the money and supervise the sales from a distance, acting through agents without revealing their identity."
"Can't they be traced through the network?"
Gaskill shook his head. "Because the suppliers and their distributors also operate behind closed doors under a heavy veil of secrecy, it is next to impossible for us to penetrate any particular branch of the network with any prospect of following a trail to the top dealers."
Ragsdale took over. "It's not like tracing a drug user to his street-corner dealer, and then to his suppliers, and then up the ladder to the drug lords, who are mostly uneducated, seldom go to extremes to hide their identities, and are often drug users themselves. Instead, we find ourselves matching wits with men who are well educated and highly connected in the top levels of business and government. They're shrewd, and they're cunning. Except in rare cases, they never deal with their clients on a direct face-to-face basis. Whenever we get close, they pull into their shells and throw up a wall of expensive attorneys to block our investigations."
"Have you had any luck at all?" asked Sandecker.
"We've picked off a few of the small dealers who operate on their own," replied Ragsdale. "And both our agencies have recovered substantial numbers of stolen goods. Some during shipment, some from buyers, who almost never do jail time because they claim they didn't know the pieces they bought were stolen. What we've recovered is only a trickle. Without solid evidence we can't stem the main flow of illegal objects."
"Sounds to me like you fellows are outgunned and outclassed," said Sandecker.
Ragsdale nodded. "We'd be the first to admit it."
Sandecker silently rocked back and forth in his swivel chair, mulling over the words of the government agents seated across the desk. At last he said, "How can NUMA help you?"
Gaskill leaned across the desk. "We think you cracked the door open by unknowingly synchronizing your search for Huascar's treasure with the world's largest dealer of hot art and antiquities."
"Zolar International."
"Yes, a family whose tentacles reach into every comer of the trade.
"FBI and Customs agents," said Ragsdale, "have never before encountered a single group of art forgers, thieves, and artifact smugglers who have operated in so many countries for so many years and have involved such a diverse cast of wealthy celebrities, who have illegally bought literally billions of dollars worth of stolen art and antiques."
"I'm listening," said Sandecker.
"This is our chance to get in on the ground floor," revealed Gaskill. "Because of the possibility of finding fantastic riches, the Zolars have shed all caution and launched a search to locate the treasure and keep it for themselves. If they are successful, this presents us with a rare window of opportunity to observe their method of shipment and trail it back to their secret storehouse . . ."
"Where you nab them redhanded with the swag," Sandecker finished.
Ragsdale grinned. "We don't exactly use those terms anymore, Admiral, but yes, you're on the right track."
Sandecker was intrigued. "You want me to call off my search team. Is that the message?"
Gaskill and Ragsdale looked at each other and nodded.
"Yes, sir," said Gaskill. "That's the message."
"With your approval, of course," Ragsdale hastily added.
"Have you boys cleared this with your superiors?"
Ragsdale nodded solemnly. "Director Moran of the FBI and Director Thomas of the Customs Service have given their approval."
"You don't mind if I give them a call and confirm?"
"Not at all," said Gaskill. "I apologize that Agent Ragsdale and I didn't go through the chain of command arid request that they deal with you directly, but we felt it was best to present our case from firsthand knowledge and let the chips fall where they may."
"I can appreciate that," said Sandecker generously.
"Then you'll cooperate?" asked Ragsdale. "And call off your search team?"
Sandecker stared idly at the smoke curling from his cigar for several moments. "NUMA will play ball with the bureau and Customs, but I won't close down our search project."
Gaskill stared at the admiral, not knowing if he was joking. "I don't think I catch your drift, sir."
"Have you people ever hunted for something that has been lost for almost five hundred years?"
Ragsdale glanced at his partner and shrugged. "Speaking for the bureau, our search operations are generally confined to missing persons, fugitives, and bodies. Lost treasure is out of our domain."
"I don't believe I have to explain what the Customs Service looks for," said Gaskill.
"I'm quite familiar with your directives," Sandecker said conversationally. "But finding lost treasure is a million-to-one long shot. You can't interview people for leads who have been dead since the fifteen hundreds. All our quipu and your golden mummy have done is given vague references to a mysterious island in the Sea of Cortez. A clue that puts the proverbial needle somewhere within a hundred-and-sixty-thousand-square-kilometer haystack. I'm assuming the Zolars are amateurs at this kind of search game. So the chances of them finding the cavern containing Huascar's golden chain are ten meters this side of nil."
"You think your people have a better chance?" asked Gaskill testily.
"My special projects director and his team are the best in the business. If you don't believe me, check our records."
"How do you plan to play ball with us?" Ragsdale asked, his tone edged with disbelief.
Sandecker made his thrust. "We conduct our search at the same time as the Zolars, but we hang in the shadows. They have no reason to suspect rivals and will assume any NUMA personnel or aircraft they sight are on an oceanographic research project. If the Zolars are successful in discovering the treasure, my team will simply melt away and return to Washington."
"And should the Zolars strike out?" demanded Ragsdale.
"If NUMA can't find the treasure, it doesn't want to be found."
"And if NUMA is successful?" Ragsdale pushed forward.
"We leave a trail of bread crumbs for the to follow, and let them think they discovered the hoard on their own." Sandecker paused, his hard gaze moving from Ragsdale to Gaskill and back. "From then on, gentlemen, the show belongs to you."
"I keep imagining that Rudolph Valentino is going to ride over the next dune and carry me away to his tent," said Loren sleepily. She was sitting on thee front seat of the Pierce Arrow, her legs curled under her, staring at the ocean of sand dunes that dominated the landscape.
"Keep looking," said Pitt. "The Coachella Dunes, slightly north of here, are where Hollywood used to shoot many of their desert movies."
Fifty kilometers (31 miles) after passing through Yuma, Arizona, across the Colorado River into California, Pitt swung the big Pierce Arrow left off Interstate Highway 8 and onto the narrow state road that led to the border towns of Calexico and Mexicali. Drivers and passengers in cars that passed, or those coming from the opposite direction, stared and gawked at the old classic auto and the trailer it pulled.
Loren had sweet-talked Pitt into driving the old auto cross-country, camping in the trailer, and then joining a tour around southern Arizona sponsored by the Classic Car Club of America. The tour was scheduled to begin in two weeks. Pitt doubted that they could wrap up the treasure hunt in such a short time but went along with Loren because he enjoyed driving his old cars on extended tours.
"How much farther to the border?" Loren asked.
"Another forty-two kilometers will put us into Mexico," he answered. "Then a hundred and sixty-five klicks to San Felipe. We should arrive at the dock, where Al and Rudi have tied up the ferry, by dinnertime."
"Speaking of edibles and liquids," she said lazily, "the refrigerator is empty and the cupboards are bare.
Except for breakfast cereal and coffee this morning, we cleaned out the food stock at that campground in Sedona last night."
He took his right hand from the steering wheel, squeezed her knee and smiled. "1 suppose I have to keep the passengers happy by filling their bellies."
"How about that truck stop up ahead?" She straightened and pointed through the flat, narrow windshield of the Pierce.
Pitt gazed over the ornate radiator cap, a crouched archer poised to fire an arrow. He saw a sign by the side of the road, dried and bleached by the desert sun, and on the verge of collapsing into the sand at any moment. The lettering was so old and faded he could hardly read the words.
Ice-cold beer and food a mother would love. Only 2 more minutes to the Box Car Cafe.
He laughed. "The cold beer sounds good, but I'm leery of the cuisine. When I was a boy, my mother loved to make dishes that turned me green."
"Shame on you. Your mother is a good cook."
"She is now, but twenty-five years ago, even the starving homeless wouldn't come near our doorstep."
"You're terrible." Loren turned the dial of the old tube-type radio, trying to tune in a Mexicali station.
She finally found one, playing Mexican music, that came in clear. "I don't care if the chef has the black plague, I'm starved."
Take a woman on a long trip, Pitt mused miserably, and they're always hungry or demanding to stop at a bathroom.
"And besides," she threw in, "you need gas."
Pitt glanced at the fuel gauge. The needle stood steady at a quarter tank. "I guess it won't hurt to fill up before we cross the border."
"It doesn't seem as if we've driven very far since the last gas stop."
"A big car that was built sixty years ago, with a twelve cylinder engine and pulling a house trailer, won't win any awards for fuel economy."
The roadside restaurant and gas station came into view. All Pitt saw as they drove closer was a dilapidated pair of old railroad freight cars joined together, with two gas pumps out front and a neon EAT sign barely flickering in the shadow of the Box Car Cafe. A cluster of battered old house trailers was parked in the rear, abandoned and empty. Out front in the dirt parking lot, eighteen to twenty bikers were milling around a small fleet of Harley-Davidsons, drinking beer and enjoying a cool breeze that was blowing in from the Gulf.
"Boy, you sure can pick 'em," said Pitt drolly.
"Maybe we'd better go on," Loren murmured, having second thoughts.
"You afraid of the bikers? They're probably weary travelers just like you and me."
"They certainly don't dress like us." She nodded at the assembly, divided equally between men and wome
n, all wearing black riding gear festooned with badges, patches, and embroidered messages touting America's most famous motorcycle.
Pitt turned the outsize steering wheel and the Pierce rolled off the blacktop up to the gas pumps. The big V-12 engine was so whisper-quiet it was hard to tell it had stopped when he turned off the ignition.
He opened the suicide door that swung outward from the front, put a foot on the high running board and stepped down. " Hi there," he greeted the nearest biker, a bleached blond female with a ponytail, wearing black leather pants and jacket. "How's the food here?"
"Not quite up to the standards of Spago's or Chasen's," she said pleasantly. "But if you're hungry, it's not half bad."
A metal sign liberally peppered with bullet holes said Self Service, so Pitt inserted the nozzle of the gas pump inside the Pierce Arrow's tank filler and squeezed the handle. When he had the engine rebuilt, the machine shop modified the valves to burn unleaded gas without problems.
Loren warily hunched down in her seat as the bikers all walked over and admired the old car and trailer. After answering a barrage of questions, Pitt lifted the hood and showed them the engine. Then he pulled Loren from the car.
"I thought you'd like to meet these nice people," he said. "They all belong to a bike riding club from West Hollywood."
She thought Pitt was joking and was embarrassed half to death as he made introductions. Then she was astounded to discover they were attorneys with their wives on a weekend ride around the Southern California desert. She was also impressed and flattered that they recognized her when Pitt gave them her name.
After a congenial conversation, the Hollywood barristers and their spouses bid goodbye, climbed aboard their beloved hogs and roared off, exhaust stacks reverberating in chorus, toward the Imperial Valley. Pitt and Loren waved, then turned and faced the freight cars.
The rails beneath the rusting wheel-trucks were buried in the sand. The weathered wooden walls had once been painted a reddish tan, and the lettering above the long row of crudely installed windows read Southern Pacific Lines. Thanks to the dry air, the body shells of the antique boxcars had survived the ravages of constant exposure and appeared in relatively good condition.