Heart of Fire by Linda Howard Page B

where the actual instructions had come from, the instructions that he had copied. He had never lost his professional spirit of competition, and the slight paranoia that went along with it, so he had written the instructions in the code he had devised. Jillian's eyes filled with tears; she could just picture him, quivering with suppressed excitement and glee, as he encoded the information, making it all the more mysterious. He had loved things like that, which was why he had developed the code in the first place and then shown Jillian how to decipher it. She remembered the key, and the key was all that was important to breaking any code. Her father had called it a running code, since it changed with every word, but with the key memorized she could take a pad and pencil and decode it. The key itself was simple, if a bit obscure. She had no doubt that an intelligence agency could break it in little time, but it had served her father's purpose well, just as it was now serving hers.
    The last map he had found, the one with the precise details of latitude and longitude, miles and yards, had been made in 1916 by an explorer who had ventured deep into the rain forest and found incredible ruins, a city that had rivaled those of the Incas, with what seemed to be a palace carved deep into a cliff of stone. The explorer had made it out of the jungle alive, but had succumbed to malaria. Tossing in high fever right before he died, he had muttered about seeing "the heart on the tomb," which everyone had taken to be a forecast of his own death. A pity, but not a difficult prediction.
    Her father had been certain the explorer had stumbled on the hidden city of the Anzar, and had actually seen the huge red diamond but for some reason had been unable to retrieve the gem. After reading his papers, Jillian was also certain of it.
    She had thought she would be able to protect the site, but now she didn't know. As Ben had said, the situation had changed. The odds were loaded on Kates's side now. The thought of the site being looted made her tremble with rage. She had pointedly told Rick before they left the States that the laws against stealing antiquities and national treasures were severe, but that countries often offered rewards for new finds as a means of preventing theft. He had shrugged off her concerns, carelessly swearing that he didn't intend to steal the diamond. Why go to all the trouble to steal something when you could make money from it legally?
    In her occupation, she was well aware of all the angles. Why settle for a reward if you had a contact who would pay much more? She didn't think Rick had those kinds of contacts, but she was certain Kates did. Her opinion of him hadn't improved on acquaintance, rather had steadily gone downhill. He was too smooth, too… cold. She had no trouble believing the things Ben had told her about him.
    She had to go through with this. For her father, and for herself. But just in case the worst happened and she didn't make it back, she would not let Kates get away with both murder and looting. The idea of looting infuriated her almost more than the thought of getting killed.
    Briskly she got out a pen and pad and began writing. Twenty minutes later she sealed two envelopes, feeling grimly triumphant. She scrawled the hotel manager's name on one and the address of a colleague in the States on the other. She would privately give both envelopes to the hotel manager, with instructions to open the one addressed to him and promptly mail the other if she didn't personally return to retrieve their belongings. Inside, in both letters, she had outlined the circumstances. The Brazilian government might not pull out all the stops on her account, but she hoped they would at least investigate something as valuable as the Empress. And in a further effort to make certain the truth was known about the Anzar, and about her father, she hoped her letter, coupled with her own death, would cause enough interest that her