“Good suggestion,” Ashwood observed. “We’ll wait for you to get back.”

It was late afternoon when screams erupted from the vicinity of the third and farthest opening in the Inca wall.

“Cave-in?” Ashwood ventured hopefully.

Igor twisted to look. “I’m afraid not.”

Da Rimini and Blanco Fernández were running toward the campsite. Trang Ho followed, her half-frame camera working furiously. Even at a distance the glint of sunlight on metal was impossible to mistake.

Manco rose to stare. The prisoners tried to.

Blanco had slung his rifle. Now he passed the contents of his cupped palms to his brother. Hairpins, pieces of necklace, earrings, and household utensils tumbled to the ground, overflowing from Fernández’s hands.

Every one of them was fashioned of dull, yellow gold.

“That’s nothing.” Da Rimini’s expression was wild. “Look at this.” She unwrapped the towel from the object she was carrying. It caught the setting sun along with everyone’s breath.

The plate was half an inch thick and eighteen inches in diameter, solid gold, inscribed with designs and symbols inlaid with turquoise. The raised outer rim was lined with twenty-one emeralds, each the size of a silver dollar.

“That’s it.” Ashwood straightened. “They’ll kill us for sure now.”

Da Rimini gazed haughtily down at Fewick. “Mira! There is more inside, much more. You did not have enough confidence in your own research.” She glanced over her shoulder.

“The last opening leads to a small cave, the far end of which is lined with broken stone. It was a wall which had collapsed, perhaps from an earthquake. We dug and broke through to another, much bigger cave. The floor is of Inca stonework. So are the bins which are filled to overflowing with artifacts like this!” She turned the plate and it threw sunlight into the trees.

“We left in a hurry to bring Manco the news, but I saw at least one clay pot full of emeralds, another of gold figurines. We did not walk the length of the cavern but we saw enough to know that this is truly the Paititi of legend. This is the place where the Incas hid the treasure the conquistadores never found. Riches beyond imagining.”

Manco Fernández held a necklace of heavy gold up to the setting sun. “Incaworld!” he proclaimed, his fingers clenching around the strand. Visions of millions of eager visitors filled his thoughts, and they were all buying Inca Cola and fried chicken and T-shirts.

The following day the prisoners were herded into the cave. Not so they could view the treasure, but because it made it easier for their captors to keep an eye on them. Though they could see little because the Fernández brothers were using the lights, Fewick, at least, was ecstatic.

“This is unprecedented.” Blanco Fernández directed them to a depression in the floor and ordered them to sit. “The quality of the stonework both underfoot and in the bins is superb. The Incas were not known for building underground.”

“What I would like to know,” said Igor, “is what happened to the people who built this place and hid this treasure here?”

Fewick considered. “Perhaps they left to join in the fight against the Spaniards and the location was lost as the builders were killed. Or as the empire disintegrated they may have intermarried with the jungle peoples, or been wiped out by them. The fallen wall sealed this part of the cave, and in any case the local Indians would be reluctant to enter an obviously sacred place. Though clearly not to visit the site.”

They were forced to sit there most of the day while their captors loaded backpacks with the choicest artifacts and jewels. The only consolation was that it was much cooler inside the cave than out in the sun.

When they decided they could carry no more, Carter knew, Da Rimini would carry out her sentence. Oddly he found himself worrying not for himself but for Macha, who had not returned since being chased into the jungle by Fewick’s cat.

“Hey, what’s this?” Concern resounded from the depths of the cavern and he recognized the voice of Manco Fernández. By sitting erect and straining he could just make out the man’s light, bobbing in the distance like an inquisitive will-o’-the-wisp.

“Qué hay?” Blanco shouted.

“Come and see.” His brother’s voice echoed off the dark stone walls. Da Rimini and Manco took flashlight and lantern and moved to comply. The occasional flare of Trang Ho’s camera accompanied them like a parasitic firefly.

Left alone in the darkness, Carter whispered to Igor. “Turn your back to mine and let me work on your ropes.”

It was not to be. Da Rimini soon returned and the two men had to separate hurriedly. Her light blinded them.

“We have found something puzzling.” The beam of the flashlight focused on Fewick. “You are the archaeologist. You mus’ explain this thing to us.”

“Why should I help you?” Fewick shot back, with a resolve that made Carter proud.

“Because if you do not I will shoot off your left testicle.”

Fewick struggled to his feet. “Always ready to aid a lady in need of assistance.”

Da Rimini wasn’t about to leave the prisoners alone for any length of time. “The rest of you come too.”

At the far end of the cavern a perfectly circular platform of exquisitely dressed stone surmounted the paving. Atop the platform and fashioned of identical gray stone was a small circular building whose walls inclined inward. The structure was roofless and airy, the curving wall punctured by traditional trapezoidal Inca-style windows. In order to enter, one had to step around a single oddly carved rectangular block of stone that must have weighed several tons.

“It looks just like the intihuatana,” Fewick exclaimed in surprise.

“The what?” Ashwood asked, puzzled.

“An altar stone at Machu Picchu which is hewn out of the mountain itself. Its four corners point to the four points of the compass. The name means ‘the place where the sun is tied,’ or more colloquially, ‘the hitching post of the sun.’” He frowned. “But there is no sun here.”

“This isn’t what you were brought to look at.” An impatient Da Rimini prodded them forward.

They entered the little building and found themselves looking at a gigantic egg.

IX

The egg was twice the size of Fewick’s belly, which was saying something. Four legs of what appeared to be rutilated blue ceramic raised it two feet off the stone floor.

“It won’t move,” Manco Fernández informed them. “I tried.”

The top and upper two thirds of the egg were completely covered with carvings and inscriptions. They resembled neither the Pusharo petroglyphs nor those which decorated the wall outside the cave. In the artificial light its surface shone like a pearl, lustrous and full of reticent whorls of iridescence.

“If I am to examine it properly I will need my hands free,” Fewick declared firmly.

“All right.” Da Rimini nodded to Blanco, who released the archaeologist. “But don’ try nothin’.”

Fewick favored her with a wan smile, then approached the egg and cautiously ran his fingers across the engraved surface. “It feels sticky in places, glassy-smooth in others. Most peculiar. If it is an Inca artifact it is unique.” He glanced at the entrance to the circular shelter. “Clearly a connection exists between this object and the replica of the intihuatana, but what it might be quite escapes me.”

“Never mind that.” Da Rimini’s hands were in constant motion, piercing the air like psychotic hummingbirds. “Is it valuable? Some kind of enormous gemstone, perhaps?”

“I am not a geologist.” Fewick gazed in fascination at the glistening, milky-white engraved ovoid. “Superficially it much resembles chalcedony, but the presence of iridescence suggests a different composition. It is not a moonstone. Quartz crystals larger than this have been found in Minas Gerais province in Brazil, but that is a long ways from here. Until now, the crystal skull of the Mayas has been the largest artifact of its type found in Mesoamerica. This is bigger, but less spectacular.”

“It mus’ still be valuable.” Da Rimini blinked in irritation as Trang Ho’s camera flashed.

“Wonderful,” the reporter was bubbling. “Another major discovery. I’ll get a series out of this trip, and maybe a book.”

“I hope y’all get a rare disease,” Ashwood told her. “An’ if you set that thing off in my face one more time, tied or not, so help me I’ll …”

Oblivious, Ho continued to take pictures from different angles.