Treasure

  Rivas nodded a "Thank you" and sat down. "You chose a most unusual setting."

  "Yes, I thought it appropriate." Topiltzin's tone suddenly turned contemptuous. "Your President was afraid for us to confer openly. He did not want to embarrass and anger his friends in Mexico City."

  Rivas knew better than to be baited. "The President asked me to express his gratitude for allowing me to talk with you."

  "I expected someone with a higher rank of state."

  "Your conditions were you'd speak with only one man. We took that to mean no interpreter for our side. And since you do not wish to speak Spanish or English, I am the only ranking government official who has a tongue for Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs."

  "You speak it very well."

  "My family immigrated to America from the town of Escampo. They taught it to me when I was quite young."

  "I know Escampo; a small village with proud people who barely survive."

  "You claim you'll end poverty in Mexico. The President is most interested in your programs."

  "Is that why he sent you?" Topiltzin asked.

  Rivas nodded. "He wishes to open a line of communication. "

  There was silence as a grim smile crossed Topiltzin's features. "A shrewd man. Because of my country's economic collapse he knows my movement will sweep the ruling Partido Revolutionary Institutional out of office, and he fears an upheaval in U.S. and Mexican relations. So he plays both ends against the middle."

  "I can't read the President's mind."

  "He will soon learn the great majority of Mexican people are finished with being doormats for the ruling class and wealthy. They are sick of political fraud and corruption. They are tired of digging garbage in the slums. They will suffer no more."

  "By building a utopia from the dust of the Aztecs?"

  "Your own nation would do well to return to the ways of your founding fathers."

  "The Aztecs were the biggest butchers in the Americas. To fashion a modern government on ancient barbarian beliefs is . . ." Rivas paused.

  He almost said "idiotic." Instead, he pulled back and said, "naive."

  Topiltzin's round face tensed and his hands worked compulsively. "You forget, it was the Spanish conquistadors who slaughtered our common ancestors."

  "Spain could say the same about the Moors, which would hardly justify restoring the Inquisition."

  "What does your President want from me?"

  "Merely peace and prosperity in Mexico," replied Rivas, holding the line. "And a promise you will not steer a course toward Communism."

  "I am not a Marxist. I detest Communists as much as he does. No armed guerrillas exist among my followers."

  "He'll be glad to hear it."

  "Our new Aztec nation will attain greatness once the criminally wealthy, the corrupt officials, and present government and army leaders are sacrificed."

  Rivas wasn't sure he interpreted right. "You're talking about the execution of thousands of people."

  "No, Mr. Rivas, I'm talking sacrificial victims for our revered gods, Quetzalcoad, Huitzilopochtli, Tezcatlipoca."

  Rivas looked at him, not comprehending. "Sacrificial victims?"

  Topiltzin did not reply.

  Rivas, staring at the stoic face, suddenly knew. "No!" he burst out.

  "You can't be serious."

  "Our country will again be known by its Aztec name of Tenochtitian,"

  Topiltzin continued impassively. "We shall be a religious state.

  Nahuatl will become our official language. Population will be brought under control by stern measures. Foreign industries will be the property of the state. Only the native born can be allowed to live within our borders. All others will be expelled from the country."

  Rivas was stunned. He sat white-faced, listening in silence.

  Topiltzin went on without pause. "No more goods are to be purchased from the United States nor will you be allowed to buy our oil. Our debts to world banks will be declared null and void, and all foreign assets confiscated. I also demand the return of our lands in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. To ensure this return I intend to turn loose millions of my people across the border."

  Topiltzin's threats were nothing short of frightening. Rivas's distraught mind could not conceive the terrible consequences.

  "Pure madness," Rivas said desperately. "The President will never listen to such absurd demands."

  "He will not believe what I say?"

  "No sane man would."

  Rivas in his uneasiness had stepped too far.

  Topiltzin slowly rose to his feet, eyes unblinking, head lowered, and spoke in a toneless voice. "Then I must send him a message he will understand."

  He raised his hands over his head, arms outstretched toward the dark sky. As if on cue four Indians appeared wearing white capes clasped at the neck and nothing else. Approaching from all sides, they quickly subdued Rivas, who froze in astonishment. They carried him to the stone altar sculpted with the skulls and crossbones and threw him on his back, holding him down by the arms and legs.

  At first Rivas was too dazed to protest, too incredulous with shock to comprehend Topiltzin's intention. When horrorstruck realization came, he cried out.

  "Oh, God! No! No!"

  Topiltzin coldly ignored the terrified American, the pitiful fright in his eyes, and stepped to the side of the altar. He gave a nod, and one of the men ripped away Rivas's shirt, exposing the chest.

  "Don't do this!" Rivas pleaded.

  A razor-sharp obsidian knife seemed to materialize in Topiltzin's upraised left hand. The moonlight glinted from the black, glassy blade as it hung poised.

  Rivas screamed-the last sound he would ever make.

  Then the knife plunged.

  The tall column-statues looked down upon the bloody act with stone-cold indifference. They had witnessed the horrible disPlay of inhuman cruelty thousands of times, a thousand years ago. There was no pity in their timeworn chiseled eyes as Rivas's still-beating heart was torn from his chest.

  Despite the people and activity around him, Pitt was captivated by the dense silence of the cold north. There was an incredible stillness about it that seemed to overwhelm the voices and sounds of machinery. He felt as though he were standing in numbing solitude inside a refrigerator on a desolate world.

  Daylight finally appeared, filtered by a peculiar gray mist that permitted no shadows. By midmorning the sun began to burn away the icy haze and the sky turned a soft orange-white. The ethereal light made the rocky peaks overlooking the fjord look like tombstones in a snow-covered cemetery.

  The scene surrounding the crash site was beginning to resemble a military invasion. A fleet of five Air Force helicopters had been the first to arrive, ferrying an Army Special Service Force of heavily armed and determined-looking men who immediately cordoned off the fuselage and began patrolling the entire area. An hour later, Federal Aviation accident investigators landed and set about marking the scattered wreckage for removal. They were followed by a team of pathologists who tagged and removed the bodies to the helicopters, which quickly airlifted them to the morgue at Tule Air Force Base.

  The Navy was represented by Commander Knight and the unexpected appearance of the Polar Explorer. All halted their grisly chores and turned their eyes toward the sea as a series of loud whoops from the ship's siren echoed -off the jagged mountains.

  Dodging newly-formed ice calves, floating low and opaque, and the winter's first bergs, which resembled the ruins of Gothic castles, the Polar Explorer came about slowly and entered the mouth of the fjord. for a time the ash-blue sea hissed quietly past the scarred, and then it turned to white.

  The immense prow of the icebreaker effortlessly bulldozed a path through the ice pack, heaving to less than fifty meters from the wreckage.

  Knight stopped engines, climbed down a ladder to the ice and graciously offered the facilities of the ship to the security and investigation teams as a command post-an offer that was thankfully accepted w
ithout a second's hesitation.

  Pitt was impressed with the security. The news blackout had not yet been penetrated: the story given out at Kennedy Airport revealed only that the U.N. flight was overdue. It was only a matter of another hour before a shrewd correspondent got wise and blew the whistle.

  "I think my eyeballs just froze to their lids," Giordino said gloomily.

  He was sitting in the pilot's seat of the NUMA helicopter, trying to drink a cup of coffee before it froze. ,Must be colder than a Minnesota dairy cow's tit in January."

  Pitt gave his friend a dubious look. "How would you know?

  You haven't been outside your heated cockpit all night."

  "I get frostbite by looking at an ice cube in a glass of Scotch." Giordino held up one hand, five fingers an all spread.

  "Look at that. I'm so stiff with cold I can't make a fist."

  Pitt happened to glance out the side window and spotted Commander Knight trudging over the ice from the ship. He walked back to the cabin and opened the cargo door when Knight reached the boarding ladder. Giordino moaned in self-pity as his precious heat escaped and a frigid breeze engulfed the interior of the chopper.

  Knight waved a greeting and climbed on board, exhaling clouds of vapor.

  He reached inside his parka and produced a leather-covered flask.

  "A little something from the sick bay. Cognac. Can't begin to guess the brand. Thought you might find a good use for it."

  "I think you just sent Giordino to heaven," Pitt said, laughing.

  "I'd rather be in hell," Giordino muttered. He tipped the flask and savored the brandy as it trickled into his stomach. Then he raised his hand again and made a fist. "I I'm cured."

  "Might as well settle in," said Knight. "We've been ordered to remain on station for the next twenty-four hours. If you'll pardon the awful pun, they want to keep us on ice until the cleanup is over."

  "How are the survivors doing?" inquired Pitt.

  "Miss Kamil is resting comfortably. Incidentally, she asked to see you.

  Something about having dinner together in New York. "

  "Dinner?" asked Pitt innocently.

  "fullny thing," Knight continued. "Just before Doc Gale surgically repaired the flight attendant's torn knee ligaments, she mentioned a dinner date with you too."

  Pitt had a pure-as-the-driven-snow expression on his face. "I guess they must be hungry."

  Giordino rolled his eyes and tilted the flask again. "I I've heard this song before."

  "And the steward?"

  "Rough shape," Knight replied. "But Doc thinks he'll pull through. His name is Rubin. While he was slipping under the anesthetic he babbled some wild story about the pilot murdering the first and second officers and then vanishing in flight."

  "Maybe not so wild," said Pitt. "The pilot's body has yet to be found."

  "Not my territory," Knight shagged. "I've got enough to worry about without getting bogged down in an unsolved air mystery.

  "Where do we stand on the Russian sub?" asked Giordino.

  "We keep the lid on our discovery until we can report face to face with the big brass at the Pentagon. Stupid to fumble away the ball away through a communications leak. A piece of luck, for us at any rate, the plane crashing. Gives us the logical excuse to set a course for home and our dock in Portsmouth as soon as the survivors can be airlifted to a stateside hospital. Let's hope the unexpected diversion will confuse Soviet intelligence analysts enough to get them off our back."

  "Don't count on it," Giordino said, his face beginning to glow. "If the Russians had the slightest suspicion we struck pay dirt, and they're paranoid enough to think our side caused the plane crash as a diversion, they'll come charging in with salvage ships, a protective fleet of warships, a swarm of covering aircraft and, when they pinpoint the sub, raise and tow it back to their station at Severomorsk on the Kola Peninsula."

  "Or blow it into smithereens," Pitt added.

  "Destroy it?"

  "The Soviets don't have major salvage technology. Their prime objective would be to make certain no one else laid hands on it."

  Giordino passed the cognac to Pitt. "No sense debating the cold war here. Why don't we return to the ship, where it's nice and warm?"

  "Might as well," said Knight. "You two have already done more than your share."

  Pitt stretched and began zipping up his parka. "Think I'll take a hike."

  "You're not coming back with us?"

  "In a bit. Thought I'd look in on the archaeologists and see how they are."

  "Wasted trip. Doc sent one of his medics over to their camp. He's already reported back. Except for a few bruises and strains they were all fine."

  "Might find it interesting to see what they've dug up," Pitt persisted.

  Giordino was an old hand at reading Pitts mind. "Maybe they've found a few old Greek amphoras lying around."

  "Won't hurt to ask."

  Knight gave Pitt the benefit of a hard stare. "Mind what you say."

  "I have our geological survey story down pat."

  "And the aircraft passengers and crew?"

  "They were all trapped among the wreckage and died from hypothermia brought on by exposure to the frigid water."

  "I think he's ready for the big sting," said Giordino dryly. "Good,"

  Knight nodded. "You've got the right idea. Just don't suggest anything they have no reason to know."

  Pitt opened the cargo door and gave a casual nod. "Don't wait up. Then he stepped into the cold.

  "Persistent cuss," Knight muttered. "I didn't know Pitt was interested in antiquities."

  Giordino gazed through the cockpit window as Pitt set off across the fjord. Then he sighed.

  "Neither did he."

  The ice field was firm and flat, and Pitt made good time across the fjord. He scanned the ominous gray cloud ceiling rolling in from the northwest. The weather could change from bright sunshine to a blinding blizzard within minutes and obliterate all landmarks. He wasn't keen on wandering lost without even a compass, and he increased his pace.

  A pair of white gyrfalcons soared above him. Seemingly immune to the Arctic cold, they were a select group of birds that remained in the north during the harsh winter.

  Moving in a southerly direction, he crossed the shoreline and kept his bearings on the smoke that rose above the archaeologists' hut. The distant and indistinct smudge appeared as though seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

  Pitt was only ten minutes away from the camp when the storm struck. One minute he could see nearly twenty kilometers, the next his visibility was cut to less than five meters.

  He started jogging, desperately hoping he was traveling in something remotely resembling a straight line. The horizontally driving snow came against his left shoulder and he leaned into it slightly to compensate for his drift.

  The wind increased and beat against him until he could barely stand. He shuffled blindly forward, looking down at his feet, counting his strides, his arms huddled about his head. He knew it was impossible to walk sightless without gradually wandering in a circle. He was also aware that he could walk past the archaeolgists' hut, missing it by a few meters, and stumble on until he dropped from exhaustion.

  Despite the high wind-chill factor, his heavy clothing kept him reasonably warm, and he could tell by his heartbeat that he was not unduly exerting himself.

  Pitt paused when he calculated that he was in the approximate vicinity of the hut. He continued walking another thirty paces before stopping again.

  He turned to his right and moved over about three meters until he could still see his footprints trailing off in the blowing snow from the opposite direction. Then he walked parallel to his original path, mowing the lawn as if he was searching for an object beneath the sea. He took about sixty steps before his old footprints faded and disappeared m the snow.

  He walked five lanes before he swung to his right again, repeating the pattern until he was sure he had retraced the now obliterated ce
nter line. Then he picked up the grid again on the other side. On the third lane he stumbled into a snowdrift and fell against a metal wall.

  He followed it around two corners before meeting a rope that led to a door. With a great sigh of relief, Pitt pushed open the door, savoring the knowledge that his life had been in danger and he had won. He stepped inside and tensed.

  This was not the living quarters, but rather a large Quonsetlike shelter covering a series of excavations in the exposed earth. The interior temperature was not much above freezing, but he was thankful to be safe from the gale-force wind.

  The only light came from a Coleman lantern. At first he thought the structure was deserted, but then a head and pair of shoulders seemed to rise up from a trough in the ground. The figure was kneeling, facing away from Pitt, and seeming absorbed in carefully scraping loose gravel from a small shelf in the trough.

  Pitt stepped from the shadows and looked down.

  "you'ready?" he asked.

  Lily spun around, more puzzled than startled. The light was in her eyes and all she could make out was a vague form.

  "Ready for what?"

  "To go out on the town."

  The voice came back to her. She lifted the lamp and slowly rose to her feet. She looked into his face, captivated once again by Pitts eyes, while he was taken by her dark red hair that looked like fire under the bright light of the hissing Coleman.

  "Mr. Pitt . . . isn't it?" She slipped off her right glove and extended her hand.

  He also removed his glove, reached out and gave her hand a firm squeeze.

  "I prefer attractive ladies to call me Dirk."

  She felt like an embarrassed little girl, mad at herself for not having any makeup On, wondering if he noticed the calluses on her hand. And to make it worse, she could feel herself blushing.

  "Lily Sharp," she stammered. "My friends and I were hoping we could thank you for last night. I thought you were joking about dinner. I really didn't think I'd see you again."

  "As you can hear-" he paused and tilted his head toward the moaning wind outside. a blizzard couldn't keep me away."