River Of Death Part 15

'I am deeply moved by your sufferings,' Hamilton said. 'What's a d.a.m.ned sight more important is that you're alive. I didn't want to depress anyone any more than we already were by saying what was in my mind, but I didn't really think we'd see the night out.'

Ramon said: 'And how could that have been?'

'Quite simple, really. Lots of ways. With a small cannon, a rocket launcher, any kind of anti-aircraft gun or a mortar. They could have directed two or .three very nasty pounds of high explosive straight through this open doorway. Maybe the shrapnel would not have got us all, but the concussion in this confined s.p.a.ce would have finished us off. Or they could have crawled over the grain store roof from the back and lobbed in a few grenades or a stick or so of blasting powder. The effect would have been the same. Maybe they didn't have any of those materials to hand, which I don't for a moment believe - Von Manteuffel lugs around with him enough weaponry and artillery for an armoured battalion. Maybe the idea just didn't occur to them, which I don't believe either. I think that Von Manteuffel believes, as he has reason to, that we are dangerous in the dark and is waiting for daylight before moving in for the kill.'

Serrano said unhappily: 'It will be daylight quite soon.'

'It will, won't it?' In the first faint glimmering of light Maria, Serrano and Silver stared at Hamilton without comprehension as he extracted the camera from his haversack, opened it, released the flap to display the transceiver, extended an aerial and spoke into the microphone.

'Night-watch,' Hamilton said. 'Night-watch.'

The speaker crackled and the reply was immediate.

'We have you, Night-watch.'

'Now.'

'Now it is. How many vultures?'

'Thirty. Forty. A guess.' Repeat after me: Stay under cover. Napalm.'

'Stay under cover. Napalm.' Hamilton switched off. 'Useful, no? Very thoughtful is Colonel Diaz.'

'Napalm!' Ramon said.

'You heard the man.'

'But napalm!'

'Very tough, those airborne commandos. But, no, they don't use it directly. They've no intention of dropping the stuff on us. They ring the area. Not a new technique but very intimidating.'

Hamilton made another switch on the camera and a faint bleeping sound could be heard.

'Homing signal,' Ramon explained to no-one in particular. 'How else do you think they'd ever locate this place?'

'You've got everything organised, haven't you?' Maria sounded slightly bitter. 'Never thought to tell us, did you?'

'Why should I?' Hamilton said indifferently. 'n.o.body ever tells me anything.'

'How long will they take to get here?'

'Twenty minutes. No more.'

'And dawn is in about the same time?'

'About.'

'It's starting to get light already. They could still attack before your friends get here.'

'Most unlikely. In the first place, it'll take Von Manteuffel and his minions some time to get organised and if we can't hold them off for a few minutes after that then we've no right to be here in the first place. Secondly, as soon as they hear the sound of the helicopter engines they're going to forget all about us.'

It was becoming quite light now but still the courtyard remained deserted. If Von Manteuffel ,and his men were preparing to launch an attack they were being extremely discreet about it.

By and by Ramon said: 'Engines. I can hear them now. They're coming in from the south.'

'I don't hear them myself, but if you say they're coming in, then they're coming in. Do you see what I see, Ramon?'

'Yes, indeed. I see a man on the roof of their mess hall with a pair of binoculars to his eyes. He must have good hearing, too. The legs?'

'If you would.'

In his typical one-sweep movement Ramon lifted his rifle and squeezed the trigger. The man with the binoculars collapsed to the roof then, after some seconds, scuttled crab-wise away on two hands and a knee, dragging a useless leg behind him.

Hamilton said: 'Our friend, General Von Manteuffel, must, as they say, be losing his cool or he wouldn't have taken a stupid liberty like that. I don't think we'll be seeing any more sky-watchers.' He paused. 'I can hear them now.'

The sound of the aero-engines was now .unmistakable and increased rapidly in strength as the craft approached: finally, the rackety clamour of the engines reached an almost intolerable pitch as three large gunships began to descend between the reverberating walls of the cliff sides. '

Hamilton said: 'Inside, I think.'

Maria paused in the doorway. 'Okay to look?'

Hamilton pushed her roughly inside and behind a wooden part.i.tion where he joined her.

'Napalm, you ninny. Some of that stuff could fly loose.'

'Rockets? Bombs?'

'Jesus! This is an historic monument.'

Moments later, almost having to shout to make herself heard over the clamour, she said: 'That awful smell.'

'Napalm.'

'Shouldn't we - shouldn't we go out and help ,them?'

'Help them? We'd only be in their way. Believe me, those lads don't require help of any kind. And has it occurred to you that they'd probably mow us down before we got three paces beyond that doorway? They don't know who we are and airborne commandos have the odd habit of shooting you first and asking who you are afterwards. A little discretion and patience until peace and calm reign again.'

The peace and calm came within two minutes. The sound of the helicopter engines died away. A klaxon sounded, presumably to indicate an all-clear. Not one shot had been fired.

Hamilton said: 'I think the intrepid Captain Hamilton and his gallant crew may now safely risk a peek outside.' They filed out through the open doorway.

Three gunships stood in the courtyard before the ziggurat. The ruins of the ancient city were ringed with smoke from the still burning napalm.

At least fifty commandos, looking very tough and very competent and certainly armed to the teeth, had their guns trained on about three dozen of Von Manteuffel's followers, while four commandos, one of them carrying a carton of handcuffs which had been brought along for the purpose, moved along them securing their wrists behind their backs. In the forefront of the captives was Von Manteuffel himself, already handcuffed.

As Hamilton and the others reached the centre of the courtyard an Army officer advanced to meet them.

'Mr Hamilton?' he said. 'Major Ramirez. At your service.'

'You have already been of more than enough service.' They shook hands.

'We are most grateful. That really was efficient.'

'My men are disappointed,' Ramirez said. 'We had expected a rather more -- ah - challenging training exercise. You wish to leave now?'

'An hour, if we may.' Hamilton pointed to Von Manteuffel. Td like to speak to that man.'

Von Manteuffel was brought forward between two soldiers. His face was grey and without expression.

Hamilton said: 'Major, this is Major-General Wolfgang Von Manteuffel of the S.S.'

'The last of the infamous n.a.z.i war-time criminals, no? I do not have to shake hands?'

'No.' Hamilton looked consideringly at Von Manteuffel. 'You have, of course, murdered Colonel Spaatz. And Hiller. Along, of course, with Dr Huston, his daughter, scores of Muscias and G.o.d knows how many others.

To every road there is an end. With your permission, Major, there are a couple of things I would like to show Von Manteuffel.'

Accompanied by a group Of soldiers armed with shovels, powerful electric torches and two large battery-powered floodlamps, they made their way towards the base of the ziggurat.

'This ziggurat is unique,' Hamilton said. 'Every other known one is solid throughout. This one has been hollowed out and honeycombed like the great Egyptian ones. Please follow me.'

He led them along a winding, crumbling 'pa.s.sageway until they came to a low, vaulted cavern, smooth-walled, with no further pa.s.sageway leading from it. The floor was deeply covered with broken fragments of rock and a great deal of gravel to a depth of between one and two feet. Hamilton spoke to Ramirez and indicated a particular area: eight soldiers with shovels immediately began to excavate this area. In a short time an area of about six feet by six had been cleared to reveal a square slab of stone with an inset iron ring at either end. Crowbars were inserted into the rings and the slab, not without some considerable difficulty, lifted clear.

A shallow flight of stairs led down from the opening in the cavern floor. They moved down these, along a rough-hewn pa.s.sage and halted before a heavy wooden door.

Hamilton said: 'Well, Serrano, this is where you come into your own. As for you, Von Manteuffel, let your last reflections on earth be the most ironic you've ever had. You'd have given your heart and your soul - if you ever had one - for what lies beyond that door but you sat atop it all those years and never dreamed it was there.'

He paused, as if deep in thought, then said: 'It's a mite dark in there.

There are no windows or lights. If you would be so kind, Major, as to have your men switch on all torches and floodlamps. I'm afraid the air will also be a bit musty, but it won't kill you. Ramon, Navarro, give me a hand with this door.'

The door proved to be reluctant to yield, but with a sepulchral creaking sound, yield it eventually did. Hamilton took one of the floodlights and pa.s.sed through, the others crowding close behind.

The large square cavern was hewn from the solid rock. All four sides had stepped rock shelves cut into them to a depth of fifteen inches. The spectacle was astonishing, far beyond any belief: the entire cavern gleamed and glittered with thousands upon thousands of artifacts in solid gold.

There were bowls, crocks, crockery, all in solid gold. There were helmets, shields, plaques, necklets, busts and figurines, all in solid gold. There were bells, flutes, ocarinos, rope-chains, vases, breast-plates, open-work head-dresses, filigree masks and knives, all in solid gold. There were monkeys, alligators, snakes, eagles and condors, pelicans and vultures and innumerable jaguars, all in solid gold. And for good measure there were half a dozen open boxes, sparkling and glittering with an untold fortune in precious stones, more than half of them emeralds. It was a treasure-house inconceivably far beyond the dreams of avarice.

It seemed as if the awed silence would last for ever. Serrano, at last, was the first to speak.

'The lost treasure of the Indies. The El Dorado of a million dreams. The Spanish always believed that some vanished tribe had taken with them a huge treasure trove such as this: mankind has believed in the myth ever since and thousands have lost their lives in the search for the El Dorado. But it was no myth, no myth.'

Serrano, it was clear, was scarcely capable of believing the evidence of his eyes.

'It was a myth, all right,' Hamilton said. 'But the golden treasure was there all right but everybody looked for it in the wrong place -- up in the Guianas. And they all looked for the wrong thing -- they thought it was royal Inca gold. But it wasn't. The people who made those were the Quimbaya of the Cauca valley, the greatest masters of the goldsmith's art in history. For them gold had no commercial value, it was solely a thing of beauty.'

'And the Spaniards would have melted the lot and sent it back to Spain in ingot form. Mr Hamilton, you have done the world of art an immeasurable service. And you were the only non-Indian alive who knew of this. You could have been the richest man alive.'

Hamilton shrugged. 'Once a Quimbaya, always a Quimbaya.'

Ramirez said: 'What will become of this?'

'It is to be a national museum. The rightful owners, the Muscias, will return and become the custodians. Few people, I'm afraid, will ever see this -- just accredited scholars from all over the world and but a few of those at a time. The Brazilian government -- who don't even know the location of this place yet - is determined that the Muscias, what's left of them, will not be destroyed by civilisation.'

Hamilton looked at Von Manteuffel who was gazing, trance-like, at the immense fortune that had lain beneath his feet. He was stunned. But then so, too, was everyone else.

Hamilton said: 'Von Manteuffel.' Von Manteuffel turned his head slowly and looked at him like a sightless man.

'Come. I have one last thing to show you.'

Hamilton led the way into another, much smaller cavern. Side by side at the far end lay two stone sarcophagi. Above each was a plain pine board with poker-burnt inscriptions.

Hamilton said: 'A friend of mine did those, Von Manteuffel. Jim Clinton.

Remember Jim Clinton? You should. After all, you murdered him shortly afterwards. Read them. Read them aloud.'

Still in the same odd sightless fashion Von Manteuffel looked slowly around, looked at Hamilton, and read: 'Dr Hannibal Huston. R.I.P.'

'And the other?' Hamilton said.

'Lucy Huston Hamilton. Beloved wife of John , Hamilton. R.I.P.'

Everyone stared at Hamilton. Shocked comprehension came slowly but it came.

Von Manteuffel said: 'I am a dead man.'

Hamilton, with Ramon and Navarro, Von Manteuffel and the others trudging along closely behind, made their way to a helicopter which was parked at the edge of the courtyard only yards from the rim of the plateau.

Suddenly Von Manteuffel, wrists still handcuffed behind his back, ran towards the edge of the cliff. Ramon started after him, but Hamilton caught him by the arm.

'Let him be. You heard what he said. He's a dead man.'