Inca Gold - Cussler Clive - Страница 13

    He had expected the darkness to shroud his vision, forcing him to scale the limestone by feel only. But a strange light was forming below him. He turned and stared down into the water.

    The pool was emitting an eerie phosphorescent green light. No chemist, Pitt could only assume the strange emission was caused by some sort of chemical reaction from the decaying slime. Thankful for the illumination, however dim, he continued his grueling climb upward.

    The last 3 meters (10 feet) were the worst. So near, yet so far. The brink of the sinkhole seemed close enough to touch with his outstretched fingertips. Three meters, no more. Just ten feet. It might as well have been the summit of Mount Everest. A high school track star could have done it in his sleep. But not Pitt. A few months on the low side of forty, he felt like a tired old man.

    His body was hard and lean, he watched his diet and exercised just enough to maintain a steady weight. There were the scars from numerous injuries, including gunshot wounds, but all the joints still functioned in a reasonably satisfactory manner. He'd given up smoking years ago, but still indulged himself occasionally with a glass of good wine or a tequila on the rocks with lime. His tastes had changed through the years from Cutty Sark scotch to Bombay gin to Sauza Commemorativo tequila. If asked why, he had no answer. He met each day as if life-was-a-game and games-were-life, and the reasons for doing certain things were hermetically sealed and buried inside his head.

    Then, when he was within reach of the sinkhole's edge, he dropped the loop attached to the C hook. One moment stiffening fingers were tugging it from the limestone, the next it was falling toward the water where it entered the weirdly glowing algae layer with hardly a splash to mark its entry. In combination with the pick hammer, he began using the pockets of limestone as toe- and handholds. Near the top he swung the hammer in a circle above his head and hurled it over the edge of the sinkhole in an attempt to implant the pick end into soft soil.

    It took four tries before the sharp point dug in and remained firm. With the final reserve of his strength, he took the line in both hands and pulled his body up until he could see flat ground before him in the growing darkness. He lay quiet and studied his surroundings. The dank rain forest seemed to close in around him. It was dark now and the only light came from the few stars and a crescent moon that breached the scattered clouds and the intertwined branches of the crowded trees. The dim light that filtered down illuminated the ancient ruins with a ghostly quality that was equaled by the sinister, claustrophobic effect of the invading walls of the forest. The eerie scene was enhanced by the almost complete silence. Pitt half expected to see weird stirring and hear ominous rustling in the darkness, but he saw no lights or moving shadows nor heard voices. The only sound came from the faint splatter of a sudden light rain on the leaves.

    Enough laziness, he told himself. Get on, get moving, find out what happened to Giordino and the others. Time is slipping away. Only your first ordeal is over. That was physical, now you have to use your brain. He moved away from the sinkhole as fleetingly as a phantom.

    The campsite was deserted. The tents he'd observed before being lowered into the sacrificial well were intact and empty. No signs of carnage, no indications of death. He approached the clearing where Giordino had landed the NUMA helicopter. It was riddled from bow to tail by bullets. Using it to fly for help was a dashed hope. No amount of repair would put it in the sky again.

    The shattered rotor blades hung down like distorted arms twisted at the elbow. A colony of termites couldn't have done a better job on a decaying tree stump. Pitt sniffed the aroma of aviation fuel and thought it incredible the fuel tanks had failed to explode. It was too painfully obvious that a group of bandits or rebels had attacked the camp and blasted the craft into scrap.

    His fears lessened considerably at discovering the gunfire he'd heard in the sinkhole was directed against the helicopter and not human flesh. His boss at NUMA's national headquarters in Washington, D.C., Admiral James Sandecker, wouldn't take kindly to the write-off of one of the agency's fleet of aircraft, but Pitt had braved the feisty little sea dog's wrath on numerous occasions and lived to tell about it. Not that it mattered what Sandecker would say now. Giordino and the archaeology project people were gone, taken captive by some force unknown to him.

    He pushed aside the entry door that sagged drunkenly on one hinge and entered, making his way to the cockpit. He groped under the pilot's seat until he found a long pocket and retrieved a flashlight. The battery case felt undamaged. He held his breath and flicked on the switch. The beam flashed on and lit up the cockpit.

    "Score one for the home team," he muttered to himself.

    Pitt carefully made his way into the cargo compartment. The hurricane of shells had torn it into a jagged mess, but nothing seemed vandalized or removed. He found his nylon carry bag and pulled out the contents. His shirt and sneakers had escaped unscathed but a bullet had pierced the knee of his pants and caused irreparable damage to his brief boxer shorts. Removing the shorty wet suit, he found a towel and gave his body a vigorous rubdown to remove the sinkhole's slime from his skin. After pulling on his clothes and sneakers, he then rummaged around until he came upon the box lunches packed by the chef on board their research ship. His box was splattered against a bulkhead, but Giordino's had survived intact. Pitt wolfed down a peanut butter sandwich and a dill pickle and drained a can of root beer. Now, he felt almost human again.

    Back in the cockpit, he unlatched a panel door to a small compartment and pulled out a leather holster containing an old .45-caliber automatic Colt pistol. His father, Senator George Pitt, had carried it from Normandy to the Elbe River during World War II and then presented it to Dirk when he graduated from the Air Force Academy. The weapon had saved Pitt's life at least twice in the ensuing seventeen years. Though the blueing was pretty well worn away, it was lovingly maintained and functioned even more smoothly than when new. Pitt noted with no small displeasure that a stray bullet had gouged the leather holster and creased one of the grips. He ran his belt through the loops of the holster and buckled it around his waist along with the sheath of the dive knife.

    He fashioned a small shade to contain the beam of the flashlight and searched the campsite. Unlike the helicopter, there was no sign of gunfire except spent shells on the ground, but the tents had been ransacked and any useful equipment or supplies that could be carried away were gone. A quick survey of the soft ground showed what direction the exodus had taken. A path that had been hacked out by machetes angled off through the dense thickets before vanishing in the darkness.

    The forest looked forbidding and impenetrable. This was not an expedition he would have ever considered or undertaken in daylight, much less nighttime. He was at the mercy of the insects and animals that found humans fair game in the rain forest. With no small concern the subject of snakes came to mind. He recalled hearing of boa constrictors and anacondas reaching lengths of 24 meters (80 feet). But it was the deadly poisonous snakes like the bushmaster, the cascabel, or the nasty fer-de-lance, or lance-head, that caused Pitt a high degree of trepidation. Low sneakers and light fabric pants offered no protection against a viper with a mean streak.

    Beneath great stone faces staring menacingly down at him from the walls of the ruined city, Pitt set off at a steady pace, following the trail of footprints under the narrow beam of the flashlight. He wished he had a plan, but he was operating in the unknown. His chances of dashing through a murderous jungle and rescuing the hostages from any number of hard-bitten bandits or revolutionaries were plain hopeless. Failure seemed inevitable. But any thought of sitting around and doing nothing, or trying somehow to save himself, never entered his mind.