"But what can you do?"
"I will know when the chance comes. You and Scotty will be ready. Somehow, some place, we will get our chance—and the golden skull will be ours again!"
CHAPTER XIX
The Nipa Hut
Colonel Felix Rojas paced the floor of Tony Briotti's room in the Manila Hotel. He was in uniform now, but his visit, as he made quite clear, was not official. At least not yet.
Rick had just finished relating the story of how the golden skull had fallen into the hands of Lazada. "Can't you just go to him and demand the skull?" he asked.
Rojas smiled sadly. "If only it were that simple. Suppose two Malays arrived at your Department of Defense and claimed that your Assistant Secretary of the Interior had stolen a valuable Indian necklace from an archaeological expedition. What would happen?"
Rick knew perfectly well what would happen. "They would get thrown out—if they could get anyone to listen to them in the first place."
"Exactly. The situation is not particularly different, except that I'm sure we pay more attention to Americans here than you would to Malays in your country. After all, you owned us for nearly half a century."