The Source - Michael Cordy [75]
Ross thought of the ore-riddled caves they had walked through to reach the valley. Perhaps they contained seams of gold, once mined by the inhabitants of this place.
'Where would the gold be?' said Mendoza.
'In a sacred place.' Hackett pointed again at the carvings and tapped the image of the ziggurat. 'Somewhere in here.'
Just then, Juarez's voice cried, 'Sister Chantal's found something!'
Ross and the others followed Hackett's Maglite beam to the far recesses of the chamber where Juarez stood with the nun, pointing his torch down a flight of dark steps that disappeared into the depths of the pyramid. The stairs descended one flight, levelled out, then turned back on themselves, descending further into the darkness. The zoo smell wafted up from the bowels of the stone ziggurat. Animal droppings lay on the rough-hewn steps. Large ones.
Mendoza cocked his weapon, Hackett pulled a pistol from his backpack, and Juarez took the rifle from his shoulder.
'If there's gold it'll be down here,' said Hackett, moving to the stairs.
'I go with you,' said Juarez, eyes bright with uncustomary bravado. 'You said we share everything. I want to see this gold.'
Hackett prodded a vine, which slithered away. A snake. 'Whatever you say.' He checked his pistol, then glanced nervously at Ross and Mendoza. 'You're coming, too, aren't you?'
Mendoza nodded. Ross hesitated, holding his broken wrist. He hadn't come for gold or to explore any ancient lost city, and he wasn't armed, but he felt compelled to see what was down there. 'I'm coming,' he said.
'I'm not,' said Zeb. 'I'll stay with Sister Chantal.'
'Let's go.' Hackett adjusted his hat, then headed down the stairs.
44
Juarez and Hackett went first down the wide steps, followed by Ross and Mendoza. Before he descended into the pungent darkness, Ross glanced back at the nun, trying in vain to read her inscrutable expression. Had she been there before? Did she know what was down there?
At the end of the first flight, the air was cooler but the smell stronger. Ross took out his own torch and shone it into the darkness. They followed the steps down three more returns until they came to a small antechamber and an open portal. Stone brackets that had once held flaming torches lined the walls. In the Maglite beam, Ross saw that the portal led into a large chamber with a passage down the centre, lined on each side with rows of stone shelves, stacked six high. Each contained what appeared to be a stone coffin. He shuddered.
'They were probably for the bodies of the more prestigious sacrificial victims,' said Hackett. 'Minus the hearts, of course.'
Ross saw Juarez's shoulders tremble. The Peruvian hated ruins, so to him this place must be terrifying. And at that moment, in the claustrophobic tomb surrounded by the remains of those who had died in agony more than a thousand years ago, he had some respect for the curse.
Suddenly Juarez yelped and Ross almost dropped his torch. 'Mirada! Mirada! Oro! Oro!' Look! Look! Gold! Gold!
'Fuck!' said Hackett.
Ross turned his beam to meet Juarez's – and saw it. Not piles of treasure strewn around in decadent abandon, as the movies showed, but blocks, each one laid out with architectural precision. The ingots formed a six-foot-high version of the ziggurat they were standing in. A few were missing. Who took them? he wondered. The survivors fleeing to found new cities and new civilizations? Sister Chantal?
Mendoza whistled. 'How much is this worth?'
Hackett was wheezing with excitement. He patted his jacket for his inhaler, took a puff and collected himself. 'The last time I checked, gold was about six hundred and fifty dollars an ounce.' He picked up an ingot. 'Each of these must weigh at least four or five hundred ounces and there are hundreds, if not thousands.'
'So we're all rich, yes?' said Juarez.
'Very,' said Mendoza. 'Hundreds of millions of dollars rich. But how do we move it?'