Suddenly he was thinking a strange thought, what if the collector had been sold fakes and forged artworks? Rummel would not be the first greedy collector who had been sold a bill of goods in his unbridled lust to acquire art from any source, legal or not. He swept away the pessimistic thought and basked in a glow of fulfillment. The culmination of long hours of unflagging effort was only minutes away.

    Swain had punched in the security code that allowed the elevator to rise beyond the residents' apartments and open directly into Rummel's penthouse. The doors parted and they stepped onto the marble floor of the foyer, unannounced. Out of habit, Gaskill lightly fingered his shoulder-holstered nine-millimeter automatic. Pottle found the button to a speaker box on a credenza and pressed it. A loud buzzer was heard throughout the penthouse.

    After a short pause, a voice fogged with sleep answered. "Who's there?"

    "Mr. Rummel," said Pottle into the speaker. "Will you please come to the elevator?"

    "You'd better leave. I'm calling security."

    "Don't bother. We're federal agents. Please comply and we'll explain our presence."

    Swain watched the floor lights over the elevator flicker as it automatically descended. "That's why I'd never lease a penthouse," she said in mock seriousness. "Intruders can rig your private elevator easier than stealing a Mercedes-Benz."

    Rummel appeared in pajamas, slippers, and an old-fashioned chenille robe. The material of the robe reminded Gaskill of a bedspread he'd slept on as a young boy in his grandmother's house. "My name is David Gaskill. I'm a special agent with the United States Customs Service. I have an authorized federal court warrant to search the premises."

    Rummel indifferently slipped on a pair of rimless glasses and began reading the warrant as if it were the morning newspaper. Up close, he looked a good ten years younger than seventy-six. And although he had just come out of bed, he appeared alert and quite meticulous.

    Impatient, Gaskill moved around him. "Pardon me."

    Rummel peered up. "Look through my rooms all you want. I have nothing to hide."

    The wealthy scrap dealer appeared anything but rude and irritable. He seemed to take the intrusion in good grace with a show of cooperation.

    Gaskill knew it was nothing but an act. "We're only interested in your foyer."

    He had briefed Swain and Pottle on what to search for and they immediately set to work. Every crack and seam was closely examined. But it was the mirror that intrigued Swain. As a woman she was instinctively drawn to it. Gazing into the reflective backing, she found it free of even the tiniest imperfection. The glass was beveled around the edges with etchings of flowers in the corners. Her best guess was that it was eighteenth century. She could not help but wonder about all the other people who had stood in front of it over the past three hundred years and stared at their reflections. Their images were still there. She could sense them.

    Next she studied the intricately sculptured frame, crowded with cherubs overlaid in gold. Keenly observant, she noticed the tiny seam on the neck of one cherub. The gilt around the edges looked worn from friction. Swain gently grasped the head and tried to turn it clockwise. It remained stationary. She tried the opposite direction, and the head rotated until it was facing backward. There was a noticeable click, and one side of the mirror came ajar and stopped a few centimeters from the wall.

    She peered through the crack down the hidden stairwell and said, "Good call, boss."

    Rummel paled as Gaskill silently swung the mirror wide open. He smiled broadly as he was swept by a wave of satisfaction. This was what Gaskill liked best about his job, the game of wits culminating in ultimate triumph over his antagonist.

    "Will you please lead the way, Mr. Rummel?"

    "The apartment below belongs to my attorney, Sidney Kammer," said Rummel, a shrewd gleam forming in his eyes. "Your warrant only authorizes you to search my penthouse."

    Gaskill groped about in his coat pocket for a moment before extracting a small box containing a bass plug, a fishing lure he had purchased the day before. He extended his hand and dropped the box down the stairs. "Forgive my clumsiness. I hope Mr. Kammer doesn't mind if I retrieve my property."

    "That's trespassing!" Rummel blurted.

    There was no reply. Followed by Pottle, the burly Customs agent was already descending the stairway, pausing only to retrieve his bass plug box. What he saw upon reaching the floor below took his breath away.

    Magnificent pre-Columbian artworks filled room after room of the apartment. Glass-enclosed Incan textiles hung from the ceilings. One entire room was devoted solely to ceremonial masks. Another held religious altars and burial urns. Others were filled with ornate headdresses, elaborately painted ceramics, and exotic sculptures. All doors in the apartment had been removed for easier access, the kitchen and bathrooms stripped of their sinks, cupboards and accessories to provide more space for the immense collection. Gaskill and Pottle stood overwhelmed by the spectacular array of antiquities. The quantity went far beyond what they expected.

    After the initial amazement faded, Gaskill rushed from room to room, searching for the piece de resistance of the collection. What he found was a shattered, empty glass case in the center of a room. Disillusionment flooded over him.

    "Mr. Rummel!" he shouted. "Come here!"

    Escorted by Swain, a thoroughly defeated and distraught Rummel shuffled slowly into the exhibition room. He froze in sudden horror as though one of the Inca battle lances on the wall had pierced his stomach. "It's gone!" he gasped. "The Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo is gone."

    Gaskill's face went tight and cold. The floor around the empty display case was flanked by a pile of furniture consisting of a couch, end tables, and two chairs. He looked from Pottle to Swain. "The movers," he rasped in a tone barely audible. "They've stolen the suit from right under our noses."

    "They left the building over an hour ago," said Swain tonelessly.

    Pottle looked dazed. "Too late to mount a search. They've already stashed the suit by now." Then he added, "If it isn't on an airplane flying out of the country."

    Gaskill sank into one of the chairs. "To have come so close," he murmured vacantly. "God forbid the suit won't be lost for another seventy-six years."

IN SEARCH OF THE CONCEPCION

October 15, 1998

Callao, Peru

    Peru's principal seaport, Callao, was founded by Francisco Pizarro in 1537 and quickly became the main shipping port for the gold and silver plundered from the Inca empire. Appropriately, the port itself was plundered by Francis Drake forty-one years later. Spain's conquest of Peru ended almost at the spot where it had begun. The last of the Spanish forces surrendered to Simon Bolivar at Callao in 1825, and Peru became a sovereign nation for the first time since the fall of the Incas. Now joined with Lima as one sprawling metropolitan area, the combined cities host a population of nearly 6.5 million.

    Situated on the west bank of the Andes along the lowlands, Callao and Lima have an annual rainfall of only 41 millimeters (1.5 inches), making the surrounding land area one of the earth's chilliest and driest deserts in the lower latitudes. Winter fog supports thin ground cover and mesquite and little else. The only water, besides excessive humidity, flows down several streams and the Rimac River from the Andes.