5
New York City
‘You know, if these things react to earth energy,’
said Eddie, peering at the statuettes inside their display case in
Nina’s office, ‘maybe we should ask DARPA where to look. They know
how to find the stuff, after all.’
‘I don’t think they’d
be too happy to hear from us,’ Nina replied sarcastically, looking
up from her laptop. ‘Since we blew up their top-secret
billion-dollar ship.’
‘All right, Christ,
just a suggestion,’ Eddie snapped back. The bad feelings left over
from the disastrous dinner had faded, but things were still
prickly. ‘How about President Cole, then? He owes us a favour – we
saved his life. And a whole bunch of other world leaders too. Come
to think of it, the Russian president was one of ’em. Ask him if we
can go back to Grozevny. We can get a triangulation from
there.’
‘Oh yeah, great idea.
Remember the nuclear submarine that sank there? Still kind of a
sore point with the Russians.’
‘Hey, it wasn’t our
fault it sank. Well, not entirely . . . ’
‘Besides,’ she said,
going to a large map of the world on one wall, ‘even if we got
another result from Grozevny, I don’t think it would help much.’ A
red thread had been strung from a pin placed over Glastonbury,
angling southwest across the map to South America. ‘We got the best
bearing we could, but it was still only an approximation. And
Grozevny,’ she tapped the map on the northern coast of Russia,
‘isn’t that far off the same bearing. Even if we got a
triangulation from there, it still wouldn’t be accurate enough. The
search area would cover hundreds of square miles.’
‘Better than half a
continent.’
‘I know, but . . . ’
She sighed. ‘We need a break, more information.’
The phone rang. Nina
put the call on speaker; it was Lola. ‘Ankit Jindal from Interpol
is here to see you. He says it’s about the statues.’
Eddie raised his
eyebrows. ‘That was quick.’
‘Send him in!’ Nina
said.
‘We need a million
dollars, an’ all,’ said Eddie with a hopeful glance at the phone.
It remained silent. ‘Tchah! Worth a try.’
A knock, and Ankit
Jindal entered. The handsome Indian’s glossy black hair had
developed into even more of a quiff since they had last seen him.
‘Hello,’ he said, beaming.
They shook hands.
‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Kit,’ said Nina. ‘Why didn’t you
tell us you were coming to New York?’
‘I could have done,
but what would be the fun in that? Besides, considering why I’m
here, I thought it would be better to discuss it face to
face.’
‘So why are you
here?’ Eddie asked.
Kit indicated the
display case. ‘Your little purple friends. Mr Penrose sent me a
copy of your report about what you discovered in
England.’
‘He did?’ Nina was
slightly surprised. Certainly, it was part of Penrose’s job to keep
other international bodies like Interpol informed of the UN’s
activities, but he didn’t normally do so with such promptness.
‘What’s Interpol’s interest?’
Kit opened his
briefcase, taking out several files. ‘After that business with the
Khoils, the Cultural Property Crime Unit tried to track down the
owners of the unidentified items found in their vault. Most of them
we eventually located, but a few we couldn’t find.’ He opened a
file. ‘But we had a breakthrough. Most of the Khoils’ computer
records had been wiped or encrypted, but our experts managed to
recover a shipping manifest.’
He handed Nina a copy
of a document. Much of it was gibberish to her, the computerised
tracking of a container from port to port, but the final
destination – Nuuk in Greenland, the country where the Indian
billionaires had been preparing to sit out a global collapse – was
clear enough. ‘It doesn’t specifically name the container’s
contents, although that’s not surprising if it was filled with
stolen art treasures. But the shipping agent is based in
Singapore.’
She found a name at
the top of the page. ‘Stamford West?’
‘Sounds like a Tube
station,’ said Eddie.
‘Interpol has been
watching Mr West for some time,’ Kit told them. ‘He’s been linked
to the smuggling of artworks and antiquities from several
countries, although there has never been enough evidence against
him to make a case.’
‘But you’re sure he
was involved with the Khoils?’ said Nina. Kit nodded. ‘Which might
mean that he knows where the second statue came from
originally.’
‘He might. But that’s
only part of the reason I came here.’ The Indian opened another
file. ‘There is also evidence – only circumstantial, unfortunately
– linking him to another black market operation. Look at these.’ He
laid several glossy photographs on the desk.
Nina picked one up.
‘Oh, this is beautiful,’ she said, fascinated. The image was of a
small statue of a broad-faced man sitting cross-legged, eyes closed
as if in meditation. The figure gleamed under the photographer’s
lights; it was made of pure gold. ‘Inca?’
‘Yes.’ He indicated
the other photos, which showed similarly spectacular pieces. ‘Our
experts confirmed they’re genuine, dating from no later than the
sixteenth century.’
‘And these were found
on the black market?’
‘No, in a drugs raid
on a mansion in Mexico a few weeks ago. The man had a taste for
ancient art. But his records contained a paper trail that led back
to their illegal source.’
‘Peru?’
Kit shook his head.
‘Venezuela.’
‘What?’ Nina shook
her head. ‘That doesn’t make sense – the Inca empire never extended
that far from the Andes. Are you sure they weren’t just smuggled
through Venezuela?’
‘After these were
recovered, we checked with our informants to find out if any other
Inca artefacts had come on to the black market. They had, and
apparently some were being sold for very large sums, tens of
millions of dollars. We didn’t find out who was selling them or
exactly where they were coming from, but there are two things we
are certain about.’
‘Which are?’ Eddie
asked.
‘They are definitely
coming from somewhere in Venezuela, most likely the south of the
country. And they are all completely unknown artefacts. Nobody has
ever seen them before.’
The implication of
that struck Nina almost physically. ‘Unknown?’ she echoed. ‘But if
all these pieces are genuine Inca artefacts, that would mean . . .
there’s an undiscovered Inca settlement somewhere in
Venezuela!’
‘Somebody must’ve discovered it,’ Eddie pointed out,
nodding at the photos.
She wasn’t listening.
‘That would be an enormous change to what we thought we knew about
the Inca empire. They made incursions into the Amazon jungle, but
never settled there – they were a mountain people.’ She went to the
wall map, holding her thumb and forefinger apart above the scale
before moving her hand in steps across the map. ‘Venezuela is a
good nine hundred miles from the empire’s outer reaches. Any Inca
outpost that far away would be . . . ’ Her eyes widened.
‘Legendary. No, it couldn’t
be!’
‘What couldn’t be?’
Eddie demanded.
‘The Spanish
conquered Peru in the 1530s,’ she explained excitedly. ‘Francisco
Pizarro, the leader of the Conquistadors, captured the Inca emperor
Atahualpa, who tried to make a deal – in return for his freedom,
he’d give Pizarro enough gold to fill his cell from floor to
ceiling. Pizarro agreed, after demanding that he also get enough
silver to fill the neighbouring cell. Atahualpa told him it would
take two months to collect the gold and silver from throughout the
empire, so Pizarro sent messengers to issue his demands, while
keeping Atahualpa as a hostage.’
‘How big was the
room?’ asked Kit.
‘I can’t remember
exactly, but quite large. So enough gold to fill it would be worth
millions of dollars in today’s money – maybe even
billions.’
Eddie whistled
appreciatively. ‘Did this Pizarro get the gold?’
‘I don’t know if
anyone ever literally tried to fill the room with treasure, but
Pizarro certainly became extremely rich. Although that didn’t stop
him from putting Atahualpa up before a kangaroo court, forcing him
to convert to Christianity, and then executing him.’
‘Ungrateful
git!’
‘Yeah, the
Conquistadors weren’t exactly shining beacons of integrity. But the
thing was, when Pizarro took control of Cuzco, the capital, the
Spanish realised there was much less gold there than they’d
expected from previous expeditions. They melted down everything
they could get their hands on, tens of tons of it – but they
thought they were going to find hundreds of tons. And it didn’t take long before
they started thinking that Atahualpa’s message hadn’t only been to
send gold for his ransom, but also to warn his people to hide as
much treasure as they could from the Spanish.’
‘This treasure,’ said
Kit, ‘it might have been hidden in Venezuela?’
Nina looked at the
map again. ‘Nobody knows. But there’s a legend of a hidden city
where the Incas kept their greatest treasures. It’s
called—’
‘El Dorado!’ Eddie
cut in.
‘No – you’ve fallen
into the same trap as the Spanish,’ she said. ‘That really
is a myth, or rather a
misinterpretation. The Chibcha Indians in Colombia had a ritual
where they covered their king in gold dust and he went out into
their sacred lake to wash himself clean. The Spanish, who only
heard about it second-hand, thought El Dorado meant a golden
city, not a golden man.’
‘Huh. And I thought
I’d actually learned something from cartoons as a
kid!’
‘Hey, I loved that
show too – it was one of the few cartoons my parents didn’t mind me
watching. Even if it was just so they could point out all the
historical inaccuracies . . . Anyway, the real legendary city, if
that’s not an oxymoron, was called Paititi. The story was that it
was somewhere in the jungle, but since we’re talking about the
Amazon rainforest, that doesn’t really narrow things
down.’
Eddie shrugged. ‘So
much for that, then.’
‘Ah,’ said Nina with
a knowing smile, ‘but there’s more to it. About sixty years after
Atahualpa’s execution, Sir Walter Raleigh went to South America in
search of El Dorado, which he thought was somewhere along the
Orinoco river.’ She indicated the river on the map; the red thread
crossed it inland of its massive delta – and again much further to
the southwest, along the border between Venezuela and Colombia. ‘He
was exploring there because of the story of a Spanish sailor who
was set adrift on the river by his men. He claimed that he was
rescued by an Indian tribe, the Manoans, who took him to a city
deep in the jungle . . . where he met a man who said he was the
last heir of the Inca empire.’
‘Did Raleigh find the
city?’ Kit asked.
‘No, he never did. He
met the Manoans, though. They were traders, who covered hundreds of
miles of rivers and could easily have been in regular contact with
the Incas.’
‘And maybe told them
a good place to hide a city?’ Eddie wondered. ‘Even helped them
shift the gold?’
‘Maybe. But Paititi
could well have been the city Raleigh was searching for. The
timescale fits with the fall of the empire.’ She turned to Kit,
thoughtful. ‘So, there’s a possible connection between the Khoils’
statue and the Inca artefacts on the black market – this guy
West.’
‘That’s right,’ he
said. ‘The reason I came here is because in your report you said a
third statue may be somewhere in South America. Perhaps the second
was there too – Stamford West would have been able to smuggle it
out of the country without it being found by customs
agents.’
Nina pursed her lips.
‘I’m not sure about that. There’s been nothing to suggest that the
second statue came from there.’
‘Well, it is just a
theory,’ Kit said with a shrug. ‘But the third statue could be in
southern Venezuela, and these Inca treasures are coming from
southern Venezuela. Perhaps the same place. I think – Interpol
thinks – it is worth investigating. Mr West may have some
answers.’
‘He’s in Singapore,
you said?’ Eddie asked. ‘I’ve got a friend in the Singapore police;
she’ll be able to help us out when we go and see this
bloke.’
‘Wait, “we”?’ said
Nina. ‘We are not going anywhere –
there’s too much to do here.’
Eddie waved
dismissively at the piles of books and papers on her desk. ‘That’s
not exactly my kind of reading. If I go to Singapore with Kit, at
least I’ll be doing what I’m good at.’
Kit looked between
them, noting Nina’s glare at her husband. ‘A personal connection
with the Singapore police could be very useful.’ The glare turned
on him. ‘But I will, er . . . let you both decide what you want to
do. I’ll be in New York until tomorrow, so call me. Good to see you
again.’ He gathered up his files and left the office.
Nina rounded on
Eddie. ‘So you’re going to Singapore, huh?’
‘Oh, so it’s all
right for you to jet off round the world whenever you feel like you
need a break, but not me?’
‘You think you need a
break?’
‘I didn’t mean it in
a Ross and Rachel sense,’ Eddie said irritably. ‘You heard Kit. I
can help him out.’
‘But you still meant
it in an “I don’t want to deal with my issues, so I’m going to run
off to the other side of the world” sense, right?’
‘What bloody issues?’
Eddie protested. ‘You got a bit embarrassed in front of two people,
neither of who you’re ever going to see again—’
‘So you’ve decided
that, have you?’
‘Why, do you
want to see them again?’
‘They’re my family
now, so maybe I might.’
‘Oh, might you? Just
don’t expect me to go with you. Anyway, the only issue is that you’ve blown everything totally out
of proportion.’
‘Oh, for—’ Nina
dropped heavily into her chair. ‘I sometimes wonder why I married
you. Fine, okay, go to Singapore. Try not to get arrested for
chewing gum.’
Eddie gave her a
sarcastic look. ‘I’ll go and pack.’ He departed, leaving Nina to
knead her forehead in frustration.
Once outside the UN
building, Kit made a phone call. ‘It’s Jindal. I’ve just left the
IHA.’
‘And?’ said a terse
male voice.
‘It took a while to
convince Dr Wilde that the Venezuelan connection is our best lead
to the third statue, but she seems to have accepted it. And Eddie
has offered to help with West.’
‘Eddie?’
‘Mr
Chase.’
‘Don’t get too
involved with these people, Jindal,’ came the disapproving
response. ‘Once the Group has all three statues we will still need
Dr Wilde, but Chase is irrelevant. Just make sure you maintain your
cover at Interpol until we have them.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ll
report again when I’ve found out if West has the information we
need.’
A sound of
confirmation from the other end of the line, then the abrupt click
of disconnection without a further word. Not that Kit had expected
anything more. He pocketed the phone and walked away into New
York.