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the next day s plans, of course, but also the arrival in town of a known buyer
of antiquities. After a few hours tossing and turning, and reaching no
conclusions, I crept quietly down the stairs, shoes in hand, and eased my way
out the door. It was still dark, about 5:30 in the morning. As quickly and as
quietly as I could, I started the truck, threw it into gear, and swung it
around to head out. As I did so, the beam caught Hilda in her upstairs window,
her arm raised as if in a benediction, a curious sort of blessing. I gunned
the engine. Operation Atahualpa was under way.
12
Did he hear it? The soft swish of the sand as it began its descent, slowly,
first a trickle, then faster and faster, filling the void. Did he turn from
his work at the sound, now a soft rumble, to see his fate sealed, or, dazzled
by what he had found, did he work on, oblivious of what was to befall him? Did
he scrabble at it, not comprehending at first, thinking that with a few short
strokes he d be free? Or trapped, did he curse fate, as the air slowly ebbed
away?
I d gassed up the truck in town on my way back to the site the previous day,
so, throwing caution to the winds, I just floored it, trimming a full twenty
minutes off the drive to Trujillo. By 8:10 I was at the gate, impatiently
scanning the skies for the incoming aircraft. Steve and Ricardo were on
standby for the flight, so I wasn t sure they d made it. If they hadn t, I was
to wait there until they did. The flight was a few minutes late, but as soon
as the steps were rolled up and the door opened, Steve and Ricardo, who d
maneuvered themselves to the front of the plane, bolted down the steps and
across the tarmac.
Seeing them coming, I headed for a Telefonico del Peru booth, where, upon my
arrival, and in what I considered a stroke of brilliance, I d posted an out of
service sign. Using Hilda s phone card, I called Montero. We re on our way,
was all I said before slamming down the receiver and waving to the two men.
By nine we were back on the highway. I drove again. Steve and Ricardo hadn t
had even as much sleep as I had, so they dozed while I drove. The trip back
was slower, with lots more traffic, and I had to ease up considerably in the
towns, now crowded with people. A couple of times I caught myself pounding the
wheel in frustration.
Just a little before noon, I pulled the truck up in front of a yellow
building on the main street of Campina Vieja. Waiting there were Carlos
Montero and an older, slimmer version of the man, His Honor, the mayor, Cesar
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Montero. They climbed into the backseat of the truck, and to make room Steve
climbed into the back. Two policemen on motorcycles, exactly one half the
town s police force, pulled ahead of me, and I wheeled the truck away from the
curb and back onto the highway until we reached the dirt road which led to the
site. Hilda, Tracey, and Ralph all saw our dust and were waiting for us when
we got there.
The truck had barely come to rest when Steve was up and out the back,
yelling, Okay, let s roll!
Ralph and Hilda had briefed the students just a few minutes earlier, and the
place was abuzz. Three students Susan, George, and Robert and a couple of the
Peruvian workers crammed into the back of the truck with Steve, and the
cavalcade pulled away again. Ricardo sat up front with me, Tracey sat in the
backseat with the two Monteros (one could only hope the mayor was not as bad
as his brother), and, as we pulled away, I heard Hilda and Ralph begin
directing the remaining students and crew to start filling in the excavation
with the back dirt just as fast as they could.
The truck and its police escort pulled out onto the highway again, heading
north. About a mile farther along, we turned left off the highway at a small
marker and bounced along what was not, to my way of thinking, a road, just a
dusty trail in the sand. I just concentrated on not getting off the track and
bogged down. Ahead of us I could see thealgarrobal, the thorn tree thicket. We
circled to the right around it, and on the far side pulled to a stop, police
lights flashing. Then everyone was out of the truck and running all of us,
that is, except Carlos and Cesar, who hung way back toward what appeared to be
a very ordinary hill.
Two things about that moment I will never forget: the expression on Rolando
Guerra s face, and my first sight of Cerro de las Ruinas.
Seeing what must have looked like a horde of howling banshees, Guerra reached
for a rifle, but before he could do that, the police, guns out, shouted at him
to get his hands up. Steve and Ricardo went up to him and shoved
theircredential in his face. The police quickly searched Guerra s truck and a
little lean-to on the property, and looked along the wall. There was nothing.
No mounds of looted artifacts, just a pile of bricks, a trowel, a shovel, a
jacket.
For a moment or two, I thought that we d made a mistake, that we were
terrorizing a simple farmer trying to protect a little piece of land. Then,
for just an instant, I saw a look of pure hatred, then sly cunning flash
across Guerra s face. He was guilty of something, all right. Whatever it was
he was up to, he was up to no good.
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But there was no reason to detain him. The police told him the archaeologists
had the right to dig the land, and that he would have to leave. In a bit of an
anticlimax, Guerra picked up his tools, his rifle, and jacket, and pulled away
in a beat-up old Chevy truck, without so much as a backward glance.
All of us, exhausted from the waiting, the anticipation, the adrenaline rush,
looked about.
What a mess! Ramos said.
Over to our right was what appeared to be a bare hill, only one small bush
clinging to life on the slope. I shaded my eyes to see the top. It was
flattened irregularly, and the sides were streaked with deep vertical cuts
that appeared to be the result of torrents of water in a time long before.
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