At the discovery of the three Incan artifacts—they’d also found a tumi, which is a ceremonial knife made from gold, silver, copper, and bronze—everyone went wild. There was hooting, hollering, hugging, and high fives. If they’d had a bottle of champagne handy, they would all have been dripping from head to toe.

Farah Karim quickly put a stop to the celebration. She blew her whistle incessantly, shrieking that if everyone didn’t step clear of the cache of artifacts that instant, she would immediately resign from the project.

Fortunately for her, Cala seconded her request, and everyone cleared the area.

From her pack, Farah retrieved a roll of yellow caution tape and marked off a three-hundred-square-foot area. “No one goes past this tape but me, Alejándro, Bernita, and Andy,” she’d commanded.

That had been almost an hour ago.

The two Bolivians were working the north end of the clearing, leaving Andy and Farah to work the south end.

Andy was kneeling in the dirt ten feet from Farah. There was a small pile of green stakes next to each of them. With a stiff brush, Andy worked a section of dirt off the partially exposed artifact directly in front of him, revealing a beautiful ribbon of zig-zag patterning.

“Sweet!” he exclaimed.

Farah crawled over to him and asked, “What have you got?”

“Looks like a large vessel.”

Farah took her cell phone out of her pocket. After taking several pictures of the exposed artifact, she aimed the phone at Andy and said, “Say Paititi!”

“Paititi,” Andy said, hoping he wouldn’t look as goofy as he felt.

Farah snapped a couple of shots, then turned the phone to him. She said, “You look ever so unhappy to have found treasure.”

“I don’t photograph well. I’m better on video.”

“Okay, then,” she said pointing her phone at him a second time. “Let’s see it, DiCaprio.”

Andy smiled and said, “Paititi.”

“Is that it?”

He shrugged.

She turned the phone around toward him and played his three-second video. Watching it with him, she said, “You know what? You are better on video.”

Andy laughed.

Farah made her way back to the artifact she was cataloging. After a few long seconds she said, “I lied to you before.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I told you I wasn’t scared of anything. That’s not true. There’s one thing that scares me.”

Andy put down his brush and gave her his undivided attention.

“Men,” she said.

Andy put his hand to his chest. “Men?”

“Relax, not you.”

“Oh.”

“That’s not to say you’re not a man.” She threw up her hands. “That came out wrong.” She took a breath. “Last night—there wasn’t a snake.”

Andy got up and walked a few feet toward her. “What do you mean?”