“I think we work from the sinkhole out. We obviously can’t dive until the team gets here, but we should assume that he stashed it somewhere else. Maybe among the skeletons. Or it’s possible he buried it…”
“When he ran, he stopped in that other clearing. Maybe there was a reason. I’d say we should start there,” Spencer said.
“Okay. Twist my arm. Not that I’m not looking forward to digging through several thousand dead Incas.”
“I thought you might like that suggestion. Come on. Grab your gun. Let’s see whether there’s anything over there. Will you be okay here alone, Allie?”
She waved them away. “Go on. Get out of here. Do what you need to do. I’ve got my boyfriend SIG Sauer to keep me company…”
The search took all morning and yielded nothing, and that afternoon they began on the sinkhole chamber, hunting for anything suspicious or any cavity they might have overlooked the day before. As they were finishing with the largest cavern, Drake cried out. Spencer came running.
“What?”
“Look. You see that?” Drake asked, pointing into the darkness behind a mound of bones.
Spencer squinted and directed his fading flashlight beam where Drake had indicated — a recess in the cave wall a foot off the floor.
“Yeah. It’s a plastic tackle box. Hold my flashlight. I’ll get it.”
Spencer picked up a tibia from one of the skeletons. He got down on his hands and knees and slowly eased the shinbone into the cavity as Drake held the light steady.
A lightning-like blur struck at the bone, nearly jolting it from Spencer’s grip. Spencer pulled back as a triangular brown-scaled head with malevolent black eyes glowered at them from the recess.
“Damn. Viper. Another reminder of why you don’t want to stick your hand in dark holes,” Spencer said. He prodded the snake again. It struck at the bone two more times before slithering off along the wall in search of more tender prey. Spencer leapt to his feet and backed away, as did Drake, and they watched the six-foot-long serpent disappear into the bone garden.
“That was close,” Drake said, shaken.
“The Amazon has a way of reminding you who’s boss, doesn’t it?” Spencer said, his voice even, his composure unruffled by his brush with death.
He got back on his knees and slid the bone under the plastic handle, and pulled the container from its hiding place. It was a dull blue plastic tackle box, no markings, held shut by a single corroded clasp. Drake unsheathed his knife and used the tip to unhook it, and flipped the clasp open. Spencer inched his toe under the lid and kicked it wide, wary lest another surprise await him inside.
They stared at the contents: A single piece of animal hide with unfamiliar symbols on it.
“What do you think? Inca?” Spencer asked.
“Could be. Too bad neither of us can read it, huh?”
“They left that out of my high school curriculum. Obscure pre-Columbian glyphs.”
“You think it could tell us where the ore is?”
“No way of knowing until an expert looks at it.”
“Crap.”
“Close it up. Palenko obviously thought it was important enough to want to protect it from the elements.”
By evening they were dusty from looking through piles of skeletons, and had nothing more to show for it but sore backs and spiderwebs stuck in their hair. The next day brought more of the same, and by nighttime they were both disillusioned, the enormity of the task weighing heavily on them as they ate in silence, mulling over other possible hiding places — assuming Palenko hadn’t tossed the ore into the river or secreted it many miles away. The only positive was that Allie seemed to be recovering, and was strengthening with every passing hour. She’d already begun weaning herself off the morphine as the worst of the pain diminished.
Dusk brought with it the rumble of thunderheads approaching from the west, and they resigned themselves to another rainy night. Darkness descended quickly, and Drake volunteered to take the first watch, his mind too wound up with the puzzle of where the Russian might have hidden his treasure to sleep. Spencer was slumbering in his tent within minutes, the storm’s approaching fury not fazing him. Drake tried to get comfortable on the hard stone floor, his muscles tense, long hours of watching the rain fall his only relief from the tedious duty.
A flash of lightning lit the grotto and the gray stone of the altar seemed to glow for a split second against the inky backdrop of the jungle before fading into darkness, followed by explosive thunder. Drake shifted, his head still sore, his calf aching dully, and resigned himself to a long, wet night. When the rain came, it arrived in heavy sheets, drops the size of golf balls pummeling the ground. Another tree of lightning seared the night sky, and looking out of the cave, Drake was suddenly seized by a conviction so strong it was like a physical assault.
He contemplated going into the downpour with his machete, but decided to wait for morning. If his intuition was right, they’d have plenty of time before the team was in the air. He sighed, a feeling of peace settling upon him as he peered into the gloom. He absently fingered the hilt of his father’s knife and watched the celestial pyrotechnics as he waited for the new day to arrive, and with it, the end of his odyssey.
Because he knew where Palenko had hidden his ore.
He was suddenly as sure of it as he was of his last name.
Tomorrow, the last puzzle piece would fall into place and the jungle would reveal its final secret.
Chapter Forty-Three
Drake and Spencer walked across the clearing, their boots sliding on the wet grass, machetes in hand, rifles hanging from their shoulders, as Allie watched from the shelter of the cave. They slowed as they approached the altar, and Drake circled it, eyeing the base — two square stone columns supporting the slab top.
“I don’t know. I mean, I respect your hunch and all, but what’s your best guess? He buried it somewhere around here?” Spencer asked skeptically.
“Could be. But the altar’s the key. I’m sure of it. He chose it for the sacrifices. It was important to him.”
“So was rubbing mud all over himself and doing the world’s worst tap dance routine. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”
“You take that side, I’ll take this one. It’s probably buried near the base.”
Fifteen minutes later they’d excavated a trench around the altar and were working on the ground between the pillars. Spencer set down his machete, already soaking with sweat, and shook his head.
“Sorry, man. Looks like a false alarm.”
Drake jammed the machete blade into the wet ground and rose before taking a long drink from his canteen. “I would have bet anything it’s here. It has to be.”
“Yeah, well, unless it’s ten feet down, I don’t think so.”
Drake stepped away from the altar, staring at it, and began pacing as he examined it from every angle. He was about to say something when he stopped mid-stride. After another glance he retrieved his machete and tapped on the top, and then the two columns, with its handle. He turned to Spencer, who was watching him like he was demented.
“How much do you think this thing weighs?” Drake asked.
“Probably thousands of pounds.”
“Then how did they get it here? From wherever it came from?”
“Beats me. Maybe they carved it out of some of the local stone.”
“What kind of stone does it look like to you?”
“I don’t know that much about rocks. Granite?”
“No. It’s not granite. More like some of that lighter-colored stone from deep inside the cave where the iron deposits peter out. By the sinkhole.”
“Whatever. What’s the difference? It’s stone.”
“Right. But some stones are softer than others.”