25
‘So, Mac,’ said Eddie, with a twinge of stiff and
bruised muscles as he raised a glass of beer, ‘how does it feel to
be back in action?’
The Scot regarded him
through narrowed eyes. ‘What, you mean apart from the injuries, the
fear, the gunshots and car crashes and explosions, and losing my
leg – again?’ He thumped the heel of his reattached prosthetic limb
on the floor.
‘Yeah, apart from all
that.’
Mac smiled and raised
his own drink. ‘Rather good, actually. Cheers!’
‘Cheers.’ The two men
clinked glasses.
Over twenty-four
hours had passed since the end of Callas’s attempted revolution,
and the pair were sitting in the hotel bar. It had been a busy day
for all of the group. In addition to receiving medical treatment
for their numerous battle scars, the various members had then had
to deal with officialdom, both Venezuelan and from their own
countries. Eddie and Mac had been summoned to the British embassy,
Kit went to make his report at the local Interpol headquarters, and
Nina and Macy were whisked away by a cavalcade of black SUVs to
deal with the US ambassador. The meeting for the two Brits had been
relatively short; as Mac had told Eddie, the United Kingdom’s
interest in Venezuela was minor, and beyond expressing a regret
that Suarez hadn’t suffered an injury that would force him to leave
office, the MI6 officer debriefing them stuck to obtaining a purely
factual account of events.
The debriefing for
the two Americans would, Eddie suspected, be more politically
charged. ‘How long do you reckon they’ll keep Nina and Macy, then?
Or will they just ship’em straight off to Guantanamo? They could
put them in Sophia’s old cell.’
Mac smiled. ‘Maybe
they’ll become the next communist icons. You might see Nina’s face
on a T-shirt, like Guevara.’
‘Oh, she’d love
that,’ said Eddie with a laugh. ‘Now Macy, she’d probably go for
it.’
‘She might at that.’
Mac sat back, his expression turning wistful.
‘What is
it?’
‘At the risk of
sounding like a broken record, I wanted to say that, once again,
you’ve done damn good work, Eddie. Whatever we may think of Suarez
politically, he’s not a murderer like Callas. Stopping Callas from
taking power will have saved God knows how many lives. Well
done.’
‘I learned from the
best,’ said Eddie. ‘And you helped.’
‘Well, just a tad.’
Mac waved a hand in false modesty. ‘But yes, it was reassuring to
know that I’ve still got it. Getting old doesn’t mean we become
useless.’
‘We? You saying
I’m getting old?’ Eddie asked,
grinning.
‘It happens to us
all, in the end. If we’re lucky.’
‘Speak for yourself.
Soon as Nina finds the Fountain of Youth, I’m going to drink out of
it from a bucket!’
Kit entered the bar,
accompanied, to Eddie’s surprise, by Osterhagen. ‘Kit, mate! How
did it go with Interpol?’
‘As well as could be
expected,’ the Indian replied. ‘I had a teleconference with my
superiors – they were confused about how an investigation into
artefact smuggling turned into the prevention of a coup d’état, but
I think I explained everything. As far as I can comprehend how I
ended up in this situation myself.’
‘You’ll get used to
it. You’ve known Nina for eight months and had this kind of mad
shit happen to you twice. I’ve known her for five years, so think how much I’ve been through.’ He
turned his attention to Osterhagen. ‘Doc! How are
you?’
‘Good, thank you,’
said the German.
‘What about Ralf? Is
he okay?’
‘Yes. He is being
flown back to Germany and his family.’ He sat down beside Eddie. ‘I
heard you had an eventful night.’
Eddie chuckled. ‘You
could say that.’
‘But you rescued Nina
and Mr Jindal safely.’ He looked round. ‘Where is Nina? I heard she
recovered the statues and the khipu. I have a theory about the
khipu, and want to discuss it with her.’
‘We recovered the
statues . . . ’ Eddie admitted.
‘And the
khipu?’
He grimaced. ‘Er . .
. no.’
‘What? Then where is
it?’
‘Probably best to ask
Nina that yourself,’ Eddie told him, seeing his wife and Macy
enter. ‘Bloody hell, about time! What kept you?’
Nina shook her head
in exasperation. ‘From the way the people from the State Department
were carrying on, you’d think we personally expropriated the
plantations of United Fruit or something. They were one step away
from accusing us of being communists because we didn’t throw Suarez
under a bus when we had the chance.’ She squeezed between
Osterhagen and Eddie. ‘I’ve had it with debriefings.’
‘No you haven’t.
You’ve got one more debriefing to come tonight.’
‘Huh?’ He waggled his
eyebrows lasciviously, and after a moment she picked up on his
double entendre. ‘Oh. Oh!’ She blushed a little. ‘Well, ah, it’s
been kind of a long day, and I need to get some sleep, and ah . . .
’ Macy mouthed Go on! at her. ‘But we
have been through an incredibly intense experience, I suppose, a
lot of pent-up tension to get rid of, and, ah, somebody please stop
me babbling before I make a total ass of myself?’
Everyone laughed, and
Eddie put his arm round Nina and kissed her. Osterhagen gave the
couple more room. ‘I suppose we can discuss the khipu tomorrow,’ he
said.
‘What about the
khipu?’ Nina asked.
The German saw
Eddie’s glare. ‘It . . . can wait.’
‘Are you sure? I
realised something about it at the Clubhouse, how it relates to the
map. I think the knots are—’
The glare took on a
death-ray intensity. ‘No, really, it can wait!’ said Osterhagen,
throwing up his hands. ‘You know, I would like a
drink.’
‘Me too,’ said Macy.
‘In fact, I’d like several drinks.’
Eddie gestured
towards the bar, catching the attention of a waiter. ‘Suarez is
paying for everything, so have whatever you want.’
‘Seriously?’ He
nodded; she beamed. ‘Awesome! Champagne, then!’
‘You want anything?’
Eddie asked Nina.
Now it was her turn
to look libidinous. ‘Yes, but I think we should put it on room
service.’
He cackled, standing
and pulling her up with him. ‘Well,’ he said, clapping his hands,
‘we’ll see you all in the morning!’ With that, he scooped the
surprised – but excited – Nina up in his arms and carried her from
the room.
Mac, amused, held up
his glass to the pair as the door swung shut behind them. ‘Here’s
to young love.’
Eddie tossed Nina on
to their suite’s big bed, making her whoop and giggle. ‘All right,
love,’ he said, a grin splitting his face. ‘Get your kit
off.’
Nina started to pull
off her clothes as Eddie jumped on to the bed beside her,
unfastening his belt . . . until he saw her bare arm. The red lump
of the scorpion’s sting was still clearly visible. From its size,
he immediately knew it was more than a mere insect bite. He
frowned. ‘What the hell’s that?’
‘It’s, uh . . .
nothing. Don’t worry about it,’ she replied – partly because she
didn’t want events redirected from where they had been heading, but
mostly because she knew how Eddie would respond.
He wasn’t having it,
however. ‘My arse, nothing.’ He examined it more closely. ‘That
looks like a scorpion sting! Where the fuck did you get
that?’
Nina sat up, half
clothed. ‘The Clubhouse,’ she admitted.
‘How did you get a
scorpion sting at the Clubhouse?’
‘They . . . ’ She
still didn’t want to reveal the truth, now because of her
unwillingness to replay what had happened in her mind. But Eddie’s
increasingly outraged expression made it clear that he would guess
for himself soon enough. ‘They used one to torture me, to find out
about the statues and El Dorado.’
‘They tortured you?’ Eddie rolled from the bed and paced
across the room, furious, before whirling to face her.
‘Who fucking tortured
you?’
Her answer, when it
came, was in a very small voice. ‘Stikes.’
‘Stikes? Fucking—’ He was so apoplectic that for a
moment he couldn’t speak. Then his voice went unsettlingly cold.
‘Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, I’m going to find him. And
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to hunt that bastard down and put
a bullet in his face.’
She knew that he
meant it. ‘Eddie, Eddie, it’s okay.’ She got off the bed and went
to him. ‘I’m all right.’
‘It’s not okay. That fucker.’
He almost spat the word. ‘He’s going to get what he
deserves.’
‘Aren’t you the one
who once said that revenge isn’t professional?’
‘Depends what it’s
for. And he’s done plenty. Time it stopped.’
‘That’d just make you
a vigilante. No better than Jerry Rosenthal back in New
York.’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing
wrong with that. He’s a sound bloke.’
‘Who’s going to be
found guilty of murder.’
‘What, for doing the
right thing? Dealing with some rapist scumbag who got off on a
technicality?’
‘I don’t—’ Nina
forced herself to calm down, lowering her voice and putting her
arms round her husband. ‘Eddie, I don’t want to argue. Not now, not
after everything that’s happened. I’ve had enough fighting. I want
. . . ’ She looked into his eyes. ‘I want you.’ She kissed him.
‘Please.’
His face softened, a
bit. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘Yeah. I’m fine, and
I just . . . I just want to think about something else tonight.’ A
twitch at the corner of her mouth quickly broadened into a sly
grin. ‘I want you to take my mind off everything except one
thing.’
Eddie’s anger faded,
replaced by a lecherous smirk. ‘I think I can manage that.’ He
turned Nina round and gave her backside a gentle slap to direct her
back to the bed. ‘You were taking your top off, I
think.’
‘Yeah?’ She peered
back at him coquettishly over her shoulder as she undressed. ‘And
so were you.’
‘So I was.’ He
removed his T-shirt, revealing the bandages and bruises on his
body. ‘Ow! Bloody hell,’ he muttered at a twinge of
pain.
‘You
okay?’
‘Yeah, it only hurts
when I breathe. Although . . . ’ He regarded the bed. ‘I think I
might want to stay on the bottom.’
‘Lie down, then,’
said Nina. She grinned again. ‘I’ll do all the work this time. You
deserve to relax.’
Eddie laughed as he
took off the rest of his clothes, then climbed on to the mattress
beside her and shuffled round to lie on his back. He stretched,
nestling his head into the plump pillows. ‘Oh, God. This is a
really bloody comfy bed.’
‘Hey!’ Nina
protested. ‘Don’t you dare fall
asleep.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said
Eddie with a huge smile. ‘That won’t happen until after we’re
done.’
Despite everything
she had been through in the previous few days, Nina felt extremely
relaxed the following morning.
That said, it proved
impossible for her not to feel a resurgence of nerves at a meeting
in Interpol’s Caracas offices. The events at the Clubhouse were
discussed, inevitably bringing back memories of her incarceration
and torture by Stikes. Eddie noticed her tensing up and put a
reassuring arm round her. But the mercenary was not the primary
topic, nor even his late employer.
As well as Kit,
several other Interpol officers were attending the meeting, along
with a number of Venezuelan officials and a diplomat from the
Colombian embassy, who had flown in with a representative of the US
Drug Enforcement Administration: a craggy-faced man called Joe
Baker. On a wallmounted screen was a still frame from de Quesada’s
incriminating DVD, the drug lord frozen as he shook hands with
Callas.
‘This man is called
Francisco de Quesada,’ explained Baker, pointing at the screen.
‘Colombian drug lord, with an estimated personal fortune of over
half a billion dollars. Most of the world’s cocaine is made from
coca plants grown in Peru; after the Colombian government, with the
DEA’s help as part of Plan Colombia, cracked down on production in
Colombia itself, the drug lords switched to Peru as a manufacturing
base. De Quesada controls most of the supply routes from Peru
through the Colombian jungle into Venezuela, from where the cocaine
is shipped to other countries.’
Eddie had a question.
‘If the Colombians cracked down, why don’t they just arrest this
guy?’
The Colombian
official answered, his air of annoyance suggesting this was a
political sore point. ‘He has the best lawyers money can buy.
American lawyers. Every time we have tried to bring de Quesada to
trial, they got him off.’
‘Ah,’ said Nina
scathingly. ‘An export Uncle Sam can be really proud
of.’
Baker jerked a thumb
at the screen. ‘We got him now, though. That DVD you recovered puts
de Quesada square in the frame. He’s confessing on camera to
high-end involvement in the international narcotics trade. Right
now, the Colombians are putting a case together, and this time it
doesn’t matter how many lawyers he hires or who he tries to pay off
or threaten. With evidence like that, he’s going
down.’
‘Won’t he just flee
the country?’
‘He can try, Dr
Wilde, he can try. But he’ll have one hell of a job even fleeing
his house. He’s got a place on
Colombia’s Caribbean coast, and we’re watching the only road, we
got ships offshore, we got satellite surveillance . . . he ain’t
going anywhere. And as soon as our Colombian friends get all the
right names on the dotted lines, we’re gonna go in and get him.’ He
nodded towards one of the Interpol agents, a man Nina and Eddie had
met before; Walther Probst, a tactical liaison officer. ‘We’ll have
a SWAT team made up of DEA, Interpol and Colombian forces. We’ll
bag him.’
‘But,’ said Kit,
standing to address the room, ‘he also has the treasures that were
stolen from Paititi – the sun disc and the khipu. Considering their
enormous value, the Venezuelan government understandably wants them
back.’
‘I’m sure the
Peruvian government’ll have its own opinions on who owns them,’
said Nina, raising some muted laughter.
‘That’s for the
international courts to decide,’ said Kit with a smile, before
becoming serious once more. ‘But for now, they’re worried the
treasures could be damaged or destroyed during the
raid.’
‘We’ll aim to
minimise that possibility,’ said Baker, folding his
arms.
‘Even so, there’s
still a risk.’ He turned to Nina. ‘Which is why President Suarez
has personally requested that Dr Wilde, as director of the IHA,
oversees their safe recovery.’
Nina, who had been
taking a sip of water, coughed it out. ‘Wait, what?’
‘Nice of him to tell
us!’ Eddie hooted.
‘You won’t be going
in with the SWAT team,’ Probst assured them. ‘Once we have secured
de Quesada and the house, you will come in to locate and identify
the artefacts.’
‘You don’t need us
there for that. Big sun made of solid gold, thing like a hippie
belt with loads of strings hanging off it. They should be a piece
of piss to spot.’
‘All the same, it
would be good to have your help,’ said Kit. ‘Interpol and the IHA
started this operation together, so it makes sense for us to see it
through to its conclusion.’
Eddie looked
dubiously at the image of de Quesada. ‘What kind of fight is he
likely to put up?’
‘His house usually
has seven or eight bodyguards,’ said Baker, going to a laptop and
tapping its keyboard. The freezeframe was replaced by an aerial
photograph of a small island. Shaped somewhat like a kidney bean,
it was cut off from the high cliffs of the mainland by a narrow,
curving channel. The island was a sea-worn stack, sides almost
vertical; its flat top was slightly lower than the nearby land, a
bridge sloping down to it across the channel’s narrowest point. The
island itself, however, was completely dominated by a palatial
Spanish-style white house. ‘But the bridge is the only way on or
off the island, apart from a jetty on the seaward side. So he
either stands and fights, which means he’ll die, or he runs. And
these drug lords ain’t big on self-sacrifice. So we think he’ll get
his men to try to hold us back while he runs for a
boat.’
‘What if he gets
away?’ Nina asked.
Baker snorted
faintly. ‘Doesn’t matter if he’s got the fastest boat in the world,
Dr Wilde – it won’t get far with a fifty-calibre hole through its
engine block. We’ll have snipers on the cliffs. Like I said, he
ain’t going anywhere.’
Eddie had another
question. ‘What about his bodyguards? What’s their
armament?’
‘Based on the
information we have,’ said Probst, ‘most likely assault rifles and
shotguns, handguns, maybe grenades. But we will have superior
numbers, snipers, tear gas – and the advantage of
surprise.’
‘And when were you
planning on doing all this?’ Nina demanded.
The Colombian
official answered. ‘We are getting the warrants signed by judges
now. The operation will take place tomorrow.’
‘Great,’ said Eddie.
‘You know, I was hoping for a bit of recovery time. Like a month.
In Antigua.’
‘You’ll still be
going to the Caribbean,’ Kit pointed out. ‘So will you come? Having
the IHA there to verify the identity of the stolen artefacts will
be very helpful.’
Nina looked at Eddie,
who gave her an ‘I guess’ shrug. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But we’re
not going to be involved in the actual SWAT raid, okay? I’ve had
enough of that kind of thing lately to last me a
lifetime.’
‘We’ll take care of
all that, Dr Wilde,’ said Baker confidently. ‘Don’t you
worry.’
‘Famous last words,’
Eddie muttered.
After the Interpol
meeting Nina and Eddie returned to the hotel, where Osterhagen was
waiting.
‘I am glad you are
back,’ he said excitedly, following them to their suite with a wad
of papers clutched in his hand. Macy, who had been helping the
German with his work, tagged along. ‘The khipu – you said you
thought the knots are connected to the map at Paititi. I believe
you are right. Loretta’s camera was recovered from Callas’s
headquarters, and I have been examining the pictures of the map. I
think the khipu is the key to deciphering the markings on it. With
the map and the khipu, we can find the lost city!’
‘Well, that’s a bit
of a problem,’ said Nina as she entered the suite. ‘A Colombian
drug lord called de Quesada bought the khipu off Callas. Paid two
million dollars for it.’
Osterhagen was
horrified. ‘What? But – surely he couldn’t know its
importance?’
‘He doesn’t,’ said
Eddie. ‘The only reason he bought it was to piss off one of his
rivals.’
‘Pachac,’ Nina added.
‘The guy who brought the helicopter to the military base.’ The
German’s grim look told her that he remembered the murderous
Peruvian all too well. ‘Seems that there’s bad blood between them.
De Quesada bought the sun disc because he knew it would drive
Pachac mad to know that he owned a symbol of the Inca empire. Same
with the khipu.’
Osterhagen flopped
down glumly on a sofa. ‘Then we cannot decipher the
map.’
‘Not so fast, Doc,’
said Eddie. ‘That’s why we were just at Interpol. They’re going to
raid his home – partly because he admitted to being a drug smuggler
on national TV, but also because Suarez wants those Inca treasures
back. I think he’s a lot more bothered about getting his hands on
two tons of solid gold than the khipu, but they’ll be a package
deal. We’ll get them both.’
‘ “We”?’ said Macy,
surprised. ‘You’re going too?’
‘So it seems,’ Nina
replied with a faint sigh. ‘They want someone from the IHA to take
charge of the artefacts once they’ve been secured. Specifically,
me.’
‘Huh. You’re not
going to have to get all dressed up in body armour, are
you?’
Eddie smirked, giving
his wife’s body an exaggerated once-over. ‘I dunno, some women look
really hot in combat gear . . . ’
Nina huffed. ‘Oh,
God. Just when I think I know everything about you, you always come
up with some new fetish! But,’ she went on, turning back to
Osterhagen, ‘if everything goes to plan, we’ll have the khipu back
in our possession soon.’
‘Excellent,’ he said,
relieved. He held up his notes, which included colour printouts of
the painted wall. ‘I think I have worked out how the knots on the
khipu relate to the markings on the map. Once we have the khipu, it
should, I hope, be quite straightforward to calculate the
location.’
‘Can’t we just use
the statues?’ Eddie asked. ‘I mean, the other half of the last one
should be in El Dorado. You can just use your magic mojo to point
to it.’
‘Not without knowing
where to find another earth energy source,’ Nina reminded him. ‘We
only know about Glastonbury, and we can’t triangulate a position
without one. Unless you want me to wander around South America
holding the statues out in front of me until they start
glowing.’
‘I suppose. It’d be
pretty funny to watch, though. So, we get the khipu back, work out
the map, and then . . . ’
‘And then,’ said
Nina, ‘we find El Dorado.’