'Sorry, I struck out. For a while there I entertained hopes the demon god might hold a key to the location of the cave,' answered Yaeger. 'The knots on that particular coil seemed to signify a measurement of distance. I have the impression it indicates a number of paces inside a tunnel leading from the demon to the cave. But the copper strands had deteriorated, and Brunhilda couldn't reconstruct a coherent meaning.'
'What sort of demon?' asked Sandecker.
'I don't have the slightest idea.'
'A signpost leading to the treasure maybe?' mused Gunn.
'Or a sinister deity to scare off thieves,' suggested Pitt.
Sandecker rapped his cigar on the lip of a glass cup, knocking off along ash. 'A sound theory if the elements and vandals haven't taken their toll over four hundred years, leaving a sculpture that can't be distinguished from an ordinary rock.'
'To sum up,' said Pitt, 'we're searching for a steep outcropping of rock or pinnacle on an island in the Sea of Cortez with a stone carving of a demon on top of it.'
'A generalization,' Yaeger said, sitting down at the table. 'But that pretty well summarizes what I could glean out of the quipu.'
Gunn removed his glasses, held them up to the light and checked for smudges. 'Any hope at all that Bill Straight can restore the deteriorated coils?'
'I'll ask him to begin work on them,' answered Yaeger.
'He'll be diligently laboring over them within the hour,' Sandecker assured him.
'If Straight's conservation experts can reconstruct enough of the knots and strands for Brunhilda to analyze, I think I can promise to add enough data to put you within spitting distance of the tunnel leading to the treasure cave.'
'You'd better,' Pitt advised, 'because I have ambitions in life other thin going around Mexico digging empty holes.'
Gunn turned toward Sandecker. 'Well, what do you say, Admiral? Is it a go?'
The feisty little chief of NUMA stared at the map on the screen. Finally, he sighed and muttered, 'I want a proposal detailing the search project and its cost when I walk in my office tomorrow morning. Consider yourselves on paid vacation for the next three weeks. And not a word outside this room. If the news media get wind that NUMA is conducting a treasure hunt, I'll catch all kinds of hell from Congress.'
'And if we find Huascar's treasure?' asked Pitt.
'Then we'll all be impoverished heroes.'
Yaeger missed the point. 'Impoverished?'
'What the admiral is implying,' said Pitt, 'is that the finders will not be the keepers.'
Sandecker nodded. 'Cry a river, gentlemen, but if you are successful in finding the hoard, every troy ounce of it will probably be turned over to the government of Peru.'
Pitt and Giordino exchanged knowing grins, each reading the other's mind, but it was Giordino who spoke first.
'I'm beginning to think there is a lesson somewhere in all this.'
Sandecker looked at him uneasily. 'What lesson is that?'
Giordino studied his cigar as he answered. 'The treasure would probably be better off if we left it where it is.'
Gaskill lay stretched out in bed, a cold cup of coffee and a dish with a half-eaten bologna sandwich beside him on the bed stand. The blanket warming his huge bulk was strewn with typewritten pages. He raised the cup and sipped the coffee before reading the next page of a book-length manuscript. The title was The Thief Who Was Never Caught. It was a nonfiction account of the search for the Specter, written by a retired Scotland Yard inspector by the name of Nathan Pembroke. The inspector spent nearly five decades digging through international police archives, tracking down every lead, regardless of its reliability, in his relentless hunt.
Pembroke, hearing of Gaskill's interest in the elusive art thief from the nineteen twenties and thirties, sent him the yellowed, dog-eared pages of the manuscript he had painstakingly compiled, one that had been rejected by over thirty editors in as many years. Gaskill could not put it down. He was totally absorbed in the masterful investigative work by Pembroke, who was now in his late eighties. The Englishman had been the lead investigator on the Specter's last known heist, which took place in London in 1939. The stolen art consisted of a Joshua Reynolds, a pair of Constables, and three Turners. Like all the other brilliantly executed thefts by the Specter, the case was never solved and none of the art was recovered. Pembroke, stubbornly insisting there was no such thing as a perfect crime, became obsessed with discovering the Specter's identity.
For half a century his obsession never dimmed, and he refused to give up the chase. Only a few months before his health failed, and he was forced to enter a nursing home, did he make a breakthrough that enabled him to write the end to his superbly narrated account.
A great pity, Gaskill thought, that no editor thought it worth publishing. He could think of at least ten famous art thefts that might have been solved if The Thief Who Was Never Caught had been printed and distributed.
Gaskill finished the last page an hour before dawn. He lay back on his pillow staring at the ceiling, fitting the pieces into neat little slots, until the sun's rays crept above the windowsill of his bedroom in the town of Cicero just outside Chicago. Suddenly, he felt as if a logjam had broken free and was rushing into open water.
Gaskill smiled like a man who held a winning lottery ticket as he reached for the phone. He dialed a number from memory and fluffed the pillows so he could sit up while waiting for an answer.
A very sleepy voice croaked, 'Francis Ragsdale here.'
'Gaskill.'
'Jesus, Dave. Why so early?'
'Who's that?' came the slurred voice of Ragsdale's wife over the receiver.
'Dave Gaskill.'
'Doesn't he know it's Sunday?'
'Sorry to wake you,' said Gaskill, 'but I have good news that couldn't wait.'
'All right,' Ragsdale mumbled through a yawn. 'Let's hear it.'
'I can tell you the name of the Specter.'
'Who?'
'Our favorite art thief.'
Ragsdale came fully awake. 'The Specter? You made an I.D.?'
'Not me. A retired inspector from Scotland Yard.'
'A limey made him?'
'He spent a lifetime writing an entire book on the Specter. Some of it's conjecture but he's compiled some pretty convincing evidence.'
'What does he have?'
Gaskill cleared his throat for effect. 'The name of the greatest art thief in history was Mansfield Zolar.'
'Say again?'
'Mansfield Zolar. Mean anything to you?'
'You're running me around the park.'
'Swear on my badge.'
'I'm afraid to ask--'
'Don't bother,' Gaskill interrupted. 'I know what you're thinking. He was the father.'
'Good lord, Zolar International. This is like finding the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle that fell on matching carpet. The Zolars, or whatever cockamamie names they call themselves. It all begins to fit.'
'Like bread crumbs to the front door.'
'You were right during lunch the other day. The Specter did sire a dynasty of rotten apples who carried on the tradition.'
'We've had Zolar International under surveillance on at least four occasions that I can recall, but it always came up clean. I never guessed a connection to the legendary Specter.'
'Same with the bureau,' said Ragsdale. 'We've always suspected they were behind just about every seven
