Pitt noticed thin beads of perspiration on the Mexican official's head. He turned to his boss from NUMA. "I'm hardly an expert on executive politics, Admiral, but what do you want to bet the President of Mexico and his cabinet have not been informed of the true situation?"
"I suspect you'd win," said Sandecker. "That would explain why we're not talking to a major player."
The color had drained from Matos's face, and he looked positively sick. "You misunderstand, my nation stands ready to cooperate in every way possible."
"You tell your superiors in the National Affairs Department," said Pitt, "or whoever you really work for, that they aren't as smart as they thought."
"The meeting is over," said Starger. "We'll consider our options and inform your government of our actions this time tomorrow."
Matos tried to retrieve a shred of dignity. He stared balefully and when he spoke his voice was quieter. "I must warn you of any attempt to send your Special Forces into Mexico--"
Sandecker cut him off. "I'll give you twenty-four hours to send Congresswoman Smith and my deputy director, Rudi Gunn, over the border crossing between Mexicali and Calexico unharmed. One minute later and a lot of people will get hurt."
"You do not have the authority to make threats."
"Once I tell my President your security forces are torturing Smith and Gunn for state secrets, there is no telling how he will react."
Matos looked horrified. "But that is a total lie, an absurd fabrication."
Sandecker smiled icily. "See, I know how to invent situations too."
"I give you my word
"That will be all, Senor Matos," said Starger. "Please keep my office apprised of any further incidents."
When the Mexican official left the conference room, he looked like a man who had stood by and watched as his wife ran off with the plumber and his dog was run over by a milk truck. As soon as he was gone, Ragsdale, who had sat back and quietly absorbed the conversation, turned to Gaskill.
"Well, if nothing else, they don't know we knocked over their illegal storage facility."
"Let's hope they remain in the dark for another two days."
"Did you take an inventory of the stolen goods?" asked Pitt.
"The quantity was so great, it will take weeks to thoroughly itemize every object."
"Do you recall seeing any Southwestern Indian religious idols, carved from cottonwood?"
Gaskill shook his head. "No, nothing like that."
"Please let me know if you do. I have an Indian friend who would like them back."
Ragsdale nodded at Sandecker. "How do you read the situation, Admiral?" he asked.
"The Zolars have promised the moon," Sandecker said. "I'm beginning to believe that if they were arrested, half the citizenry of the state of Sonora would rise up and break them out of jail."
"They'll never allow Loren and Rudi to go free and talk," said Pitt.
"I hate to be the one to mention it," Ragsdale said quietly, "but they could already be dead."
Pitt shook his head. "I won't let myself believe that."
Sandecker rose and began working off his frustration by pacing the floor. "Even if the President approves a clandestine entry, our special response team has no intelligence to guide them to the location where Loren and Rudi are held captive."
"I have an idea the Zolars are holding them on the mountain," said Giordino.
Starger nodded in agreement. "You might be right. The hacienda they used as a headquarters to conduct the treasure search appears deserted."
Ragsdale sighed. "If Smith and Gunn are still alive, I fear it won't be for long."
"We can do nothing but look helplessly through the fence," said Starger in frustration.
Ragsdale stared out the window across the border. "The FBI can't launch a raid onto Mexican soil."
"Nor Customs," said Gaskill.
Pitt looked at the federal agents for a moment. Then he addressed himself directly to Sandecker.
"They can't, but NUMA can."
They all looked at him, uncomprehending.
"We can what?" asked Sandecker.
"Go into Mexico and rescue Loren and Rudi without creating an international incident."
"Sure you will." Gaskill laughed. "Getting across the border is no trick, but the Zolars have the Sonoran police and military on their side. Satellite photos show heavy security on top and around the base of Cerro el Capirote. You couldn't get within ten kilometers without getting shot."
"I wasn't planning on driving or hiking to the mountain," said Pitt.
Starger looked at him and grinned. "What can the National Underwater and Marine Agency do that Customs and the FBI can't? Swim over the desert?"
"No, not over," said Pitt in a deadly earnest voice. "Under."
NIGHTMARE PASSAGE
October 31, 1998
Satan's Sink, Baja, Mexico
In the parched foothills on the northern end of the Sierra el Mayor Mountains, almost 50 kilometers (31 miles) due south of Mexicali, there is a borehole, a naturally formed tunnel, in the side of a cliff.
Carved millions of years ago by the turbulent action of an ancient sea, the corridor slopes downward to the bottom of a small cavern, sculpted from the volcanic rock by Pliocene epoch water and more recently by windblown sand. There on the floor of the cavern a pool of water emerges from beneath the desert. Except for a tint of cobalt blue, the water is so clear as to appear invisible and from ground level the sinkhole looks to be bottomless.
Satan's Sink was shaped nothing like the sacrificial pool in Peru, Pitt thought, as he gazed at the yellow nylon line trailing into the transparent depths. He sat on a rock at the edge of the water, his eyes shaded with a look of concern, hands lightly grasping the nylon line whose end was wound around the drum of a compact reel.
Outside, 80 meters (262 feet) above the bottom of the tubular borehole, Admiral Sandecker sat in a lawn chair beside a ravaged and rusting 1951 Chevy half-ton pickup truck with a faded camper in the bed that looked as though it should have been recycled years ago. Another automobile was parked behind it, a very tired and worn 1968 Plymouth Belvedere station wagon. Both had Baja California Norte license plates.
Sandecker held a can of Coors beer in one hand as he lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes with the other and scrutinized the surrounding landscape. He was dressed to complement the old truck, having the appearance of any one of thousands of retired American vagabonds who travel and camp around the Baja Peninsula on the cheap.
He was surprised to find so many flowering plants in the Sonoran Desert, despite scant water and a climate that runs from subfreezing nights in the winter to a summer heat that produces furnace temperatures. Far off in the distance he watched a small herd of horses grazing on bunchgrass.
Satisfied the only life within his immediate area was a red diamondback rattler sunning itself on a rock and a black tailed jackrabbit that hopped up to him, took one look, and leaped away, he rose from his lawn chair and ambled down the slope of the borehole to the pool.
"Any sign of the law?" asked Pitt at the admiral's approach.
Nothing around here but snakes and rabbits," grunted Sandecker. He nodded toward the water.
"How long have they been down?"
Pitt glanced at his watch. "Thirty-eight minutes."
"I'd feel a whole lot better if they were using professional equipment instead of old dive gear borrowed from local Customs agents."
"Every minute counts if we're to save Loren and Rudi. By doing an exploratory survey now to see if my plan has the slightest chance of succeeding, we save six hours. The same time it takes for our state-of-the-art equipment to arrive in Calexico from Washington."
"Sheer madness to attempt such a dangerous operation," said Sandecker in a tired voice.
"Do we have an alternative?"
"None that comes to mind."
"Then we must give it a try," said Pitt firmly.
"You don't even know yet if you have the sl
ightest prospect of--"
"They've signaled," Pitt interrupted the admiral as the line tautened in his hands. "They're on their way up."
Together, Pitt pulling in on the line, Sandecker holding the reel between his knees and turning the crank, they began hauling in the two divers who were somewhere deep inside the sinkhole on the other end of the 200-meter 460(656-foot) line. A long fifteen minutes later, breathing heavily, they brought in the red knot that signified the third fifty-meter mark.
"Only fifty meters to go," Sandecker commented heavily. He pulled on the reel as he cranked, trying to ease the strain on Pitt who did the major share of the work. The admiral was a health enthusiast, jogged several miles a day, and occasionally worked out in the NUMA headquarters health spa, but the exertion of pulling dead weight without a time-out pushed his heart rate close to the red line. "I see them," he panted thankfully.
Gratefully, Pitt let go of the line and sagged to a sitting position to catch his breath. "They can ascend on their own from there."
Giordino was the first of the two divers to surface. He removed his twin air tanks and hoisted them to Sandecker. Then he offered a hand to Pitt who leaned back and heaved him out of the water. The next man up was Dr. Peter Duncan, a U.S. Geological Survey hydrologist, who had arrived in Calexico by chartered jet only an hour after Sandecker contacted him in San Diego. At first he thought the admiral was joking about an underground river, but curiosity overcame his skepticism and he dropped everything to join in the exploratory dive. He spit out the mouthpiece to his air regulator.
"I never envisioned a water source that extensive," he said between deep breaths.
"You found an access to the river," Pitt stated., not asked, happily.
"The sinkhole drops about sixty meters before it meets a horizontal feeding stream that runs a hundred and twenty meters through a series of narrow fissures to the river," explained Giordino.
Can we gain passage for the float equipment?" Pitt queried.
"It gets a little tight in places, but I think we can squeeze it through."
"The water temperature?"
"A cool but bearable twenty degrees Celsius, about sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit."
Duncan pulled off his hood, revealing the great bush of a red beard. He made no effort to climb from the pool. He rested his arms on the bank and babbled in excitement. "I didn't believe it when you described a wide river with a current of nine knots under the Sonoran Desert. Now that I've seen it with my own eyes, I still don't believe it. I'd guess anywhere from ten to fifteen million acre-feet of water a year is flowing down there."
"Do you think it's the same underground stream that flows under Cerro el Capirote?" asked Sandecker.
"No doubt about it," answered Duncan. "Now that I've seen the river exists with my own eyes, I'd be willing to gamble it's the same stream that Leigh Hunt claimed runs beneath the Castle Dome Mountains."
"So Hunt's canyon of gold probably exists." Pitt smiled.
"You know about that legend?"
"No legend now."
A delighted look crossed Duncan's face. "No, I guess not, I'm happy to say."
"Good thing we were tied to a fixed guideline," said Giordino.
Duncan nodded. "I couldn't agree more. Without it, we would have been swept away by the river when we emerged from the feeder stream."
"And joined those two divers who ended up in the Gulf."
I can't help but wonder where the source is," mused Sandecker.
Giordino rubbed a hand through his curly mop. "The latest in geophysical ground-penetrating instruments should have no problem tracking the course."
"There is no predicting what a discovery of this magnitude means to the drought-plagued Southwest,"
said Duncan, still aroused by what he'd seen. "The benefits could result in thousands of jobs, millions of acres brought under cultivation, pasture for livestock. We might even see the desert turned into a Garden of Eden."
"The thieves will drown in the water that makes the desert into a garden," Pitt said, staring into the crystal blue pool and remembering Billy Yuma's words.
"What was that you said?" asked Giordino curiously.
Pitt shook his head and smiled. "An old Indian proverb."
After carrying the dive equipment up to the surface entrance of the borehole, Giordino and Duncan stripped off their suits while Sandecker loaded their gear into the Plymouth station wagon. The admiral came over as Pitt drove alongside in the old pickup and stopped.
"I'll meet you back here in two hours," he notified Sandecker.
"Mind telling us where you're going?"
"I have to see a man about raising an army."
"Anybody I know?"
"No, but if things go half as well as I hope, you'll be shaking his hand and pinning a medal on him by the time the sun goes down."
Gaskill and Ragsdale were waiting at the small airport west of Calexico on the United States side of the border when the NUMA plane landed and taxied up to a large Customs Service van. They had begun transferring the underwater survival equipment to the van from the cargo hatch of the plane when Sandecker and Giordino arrived in the station wagon.
The pilot came over and shook their hands. "We had to hustle to assemble your shopping list, but we managed to scrounge every piece of gear you requested."
"Were our engineers able to lower the profile of the Hovercraft as Pitt requested?" asked Giordino.
"A miraculous crash job." The pilot smiled. "But the admiral's mechanical whiz kids said to tell you they modified the Wallowing Windbag down to a maximum height of sixty-one centimeters."
"I'll thank everyone personally when I return to Washington," said Sandecker warmly.
"Would you like me to head back?" the pilot asked the admiral. "Or stand by here?"
"Stick by your aircraft in case we need you."
They had just finished loading the van and were closing the rear cargo doors when Curtis Starger came racing across the airstrip in a gray Customs vehicle. He braked to a stop and came from behind the wheel as if shot out of a cannon.
"We got problems," he announced.
"What kind of problems?" Gaskill demanded.
"Mexican Border Police just closed down their side of the border to all U.S. traffic entering Mexico."
"What about commercial traffic?"
"That too. They also added insult to injury by putting up a flock of military helicopters with orders to force down all intruding aircraft and stop any vehicle that looks suspicious."
Ragsdale looked at Sandecker. "They must be onto your fishing expedition."
"I don't think so. No one saw us enter or leave the borehole."
Starger laughed. "What do you want to bet that after Senor Matos ran back and reported our hard stand to the Zolars, they frothed at the mouth and coerced their buddies in the government to raise the drawbridge."
"That would be my guess," agreed Ragsdale. "They were afraid we'd come charging in like the Light Brigade."
Gaskill looked around. "Where's Pitt?"
"He's safe on. the other side," replied Giordino.
Sandecker struck the side of the aircraft with his fist. "To come this close," he muttered angrily. "A bust, a goddamned bust."
There must be some way we can get these people and their gear back to Satan's Sink," said Ragsdale to his fellow federal agents.
Starger and Gaskill matched crafty grins. "Oh, I think the Customs Service can save the day," said Starger.
"You two got something up your sleeves?"
"The Escobar affair," Starger revealed. "Familiar with it?"
Ragsdale nodded. "The underground drug smuggling operation."
Juan Escobar lived just across the border in Mexico," Starger explained to Sandecker and Giordino,
"but operated a truck repair garage on this side. He smuggled in a number of large narcotics shipments before the Drug Enforcement Agency got wise to him. In a cooperative investigation our agents discovered a tunnel runnin
g a hundred and fifty meters from his house under the border fence to his repair shop. We were too late for an arrest. Escobar somehow got antsy, shut down his operation before we could nail him, and disappeared along with his family."
"One of our agents," added Gaskill, "a Hispanic who was born and raised in East Los Angeles, lives in Escobar's former house and commutes through the border crossing, posing as the new owner of Escobar's truck repair shop."
Starger smiled with pride. "The DEA and Customs have made over twenty arrests on information that came to him from other drug traffickers wanting to use the tunnel."
"Are you saying it's still open?" asked Sandecker.
"You'd be surprised how often it comes in handy for the good guys," answered Starger.
Giordino looked like a man offered salvation. "Can we get our stuff through to the other side?"
Starger nodded. "We simply drive the van into the repair shop. I'll get some men to help us carry your equipment under the border to Escobar's house, then load it into our undercover agent's parts truck out of sight in the garage. The vehicle is well known over there, so there is no reason why you'd be stopped."
Sandecker looked at Giordino. "Well," he said solemnly, "are you ready to write your obituary?"
The stone demon stoically ignored the activity around him as if biding his time. He did not feel, nor could he turn his head and see, the recent gouges and craters in his body and remaining wing, shot there by laughing Mexican soldiers who used him for target practice when their officers had disappeared into the mountain. Something within the carved stone sensed that its menacing eyes would still be surveying the ageless desert centuries after the intruding humans had died and passed beyond memory into the afterworld.
A shadow passed over the demon for the fifth time that morning as a sleek craft dropped from the sky and settled onto the only open space large enough for it to land, a narrow slot between two army helicopters and the big winch with its equally large auxiliary power unit.