Empire of Gold

19


Nina jerked awake, a fierce cramp burning in her arm. For a nightmarish moment she thought the antivenom had worn off, letting the Gormar’s toxin continue its work, but as she scrambled to sit up she realised it was only the result of her uncomfortable sleeping position on the hard floor.

She rolled her shoulder to ease the stiffness. The wallowing nausea had subsided, leaving just a hangover queasiness. Examining her wrist, she saw that the swollen sting had gone down, though it was still an angry red.

‘Nina? Are you all right?’

She looked round to see Kit sitting against the wall of his cell. ‘I’m . . . not great,’ she admitted. ‘But better than I was.’ A glance told her that the guard had been replaced by another man. ‘How long was I asleep?’

Kit checked his watch. ‘Quite a while. It’s after eleven in the morning.’

She had been out for something like fourteen hours while her body did its best to expunge the poison from her system. ‘Jesus. How long have you been awake?’

‘About an hour. I didn’t want to wake you.’

Another look at the guard. This one apparently understood English, his eyes flicking between them as he followed their conversation. ‘We’ve got a new watchman – did I miss anything else?’

‘No, he was there when I woke up. I’ve been spending the time wondering how on earth I ended up in this situation. It seems destiny works in strange ways.’

Nina made a sarcastic sound. ‘You think being tortured with scorpions was our destiny?’

‘I prefer that to it being nothing more than bad luck.’

‘Huh. I kind of see your point. Just hope that our destinies don’t end in here.’

‘So do I. But . . . I do think that things happen for a reason, even if we can’t always see it at first. There is order in the universe, but it has to be maintained – whether by the gods, or by our actions. Part of our purpose is to keep that order.’

‘Interesting,’ said Nina with a faint smile. ‘I’m not used to philosophical discussion in the morning. But then, I do live with Eddie.’

Kit grinned back through his puffy lips. ‘Not bad for a humble policeman, no?’

‘So is that why you became a cop? To maintain order?’

He nodded. ‘In some ways. Growing up in India, I saw a lot of corruption, a lot of greed that caused others to suffer. I wanted to do what I could to stop it – to make sure that people who took more than they deserved were punished.’

‘Sounds like a good motivation to me.’

The Interpol officer gave her an appreciative look, then sighed. ‘It did not always make me popular. Even among my colleagues.’

‘Yeah, I know what that feels like,’ Nina told him sympathetically.

‘But then, this is what I mean about destiny. If I had been the kind of cop who looked the other way when I saw others taking bribes, I probably wouldn’t have been “encouraged” to move from regular police work into more specialised areas like art theft. And if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been offered a position at Interpol, which means I would not have investigated the Khoils, I would not have met you and Eddie . . . and I would not be here right now.’

Nina raised her eyebrows. ‘And you’re still upbeat about it? If I’d thought about the course of my life like that, I’d be going “Oh God, where did it all go so wrong?”!’

He smiled. ‘I’m a very upbeat person. And I don’t regret my decisions. Even though at the moment they seem to have brought me to a rather dark place.’

‘You’re not kidding.’ She tapped the bars. ‘Any ideas how we can get out into the light?’

‘A few. Unfortunately, they all begin with us being outside these cells.’

‘That’s not as helpful as I was hoping for.’

‘I’m still working on them.’

The door opened and a pair of soldiers trooped in. ‘Work faster,’ Nina urgently told Kit as they unlocked her cell and entered. ‘All right, okay!’ she protested as she was pulled to her feet.

They took her back upstairs, ascending a broad marble staircase to the mansion’s upper floor. Nina screwed up her eyes, dazzled by the brightness of the morning sun through panoramic windows as she was led through a luxurious lounge with a giant TV on one wall. Beyond, a large balcony overlooked the golf course.

Stikes and Callas, the general in full uniform, waited for her outside, but there was also a third man; tall, tanned, with long jet-black hair swept greasily back from his forehead. His pastel jacket and trousers were clearly of some extremely expensive designer label, though the stylish effect was offset by a vulgar gold medallion. Even this early in the day, he had a glass of Scotch and clunking ice cubes in his hand.

‘Ah, here she is!’ said Callas as the soldiers brought Nina into the open. ‘My expert.’

The third man’s eyebrows flickered in recognition. ‘Wait, she is . . . ’

‘Dr Nina Wilde,’ Callas announced. ‘Discoverer of Atlantis, and the secret of the Sphinx, and now . . . my guest. Dr Wilde, meet my good friend Francisco de Quesada.’

She remembered the Venezuelan mentioning the name at the military base, though in a far from friendly way. Like Pachac, then; another of his allies of necessity.

De Quesada took in Nina’s dirty, dishevelled clothing. ‘You do not let your guests shower, Salbatore?’

‘She’s not entirely a willing guest,’ said Stikes.

‘But she will still tell you how much this is worth,’ Callas said, indicating something on a glass coffee table: the khipu, opened out to its full length, knotted strands displayed along the braided central cord. Nina noticed the case holding the statues on the floor nearby.

De Quesada shook his head. ‘I am already paying you fifty million dollars for the sun disc—’

‘It is worth far more,’ Callas smoothly interjected.

‘Perhaps. But you are also getting a share of my . . . proceeds.’ He looked askance at Nina. ‘Is it safe to talk in front of her?’

Callas snorted. ‘You can say anything you like – she won’t be telling anyone.’

‘My drug revenue, then. Now that the American DEA and the government have cracked down in Colombia, I need Venezuela to ship my product. Which means I need you, general. Or should I call you el Jefe?’

Callas smiled proudly, only to be deflated by Stikes’s ‘Let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched.’

‘Which brings me to another English phrase,’ said de Quesada. He gestured dismissively at the khipu. ‘“Money for old rope”. You are getting a lot of money from me, Salbatore – cash now, and a share of what will come later. Why should I pay another million for this trash?’

‘That is why I brought Dr Wilde,’ said Callas. ‘Who better to tell you why these strings are worth so much? If you can’t trust the world’s most famous archaeologist, then who can you trust?’

‘Yes, who?’ de Quesada replied, his tone suggesting to Nina that the Venezuelan’s veiled dislike was mutual. But he sat back, gesturing at her with his drink. ‘Very well. Impress me, Dr Wilde.’

‘And be honest,’ Stikes added in a quiet but threatening voice.

Nina walked to the table, examining the khipu. Fully opened, it was more than three feet long, the number of multicoloured strings attached to the woven spine greater than she had thought; well over a hundred. The number of knots on each string ranged from a couple to over a dozen.

The topmost knot on each string, she noticed, was always one of four kinds. She knew that the Incas had divided their empire into quadrants based on astronomical features: could they be directions? Below the first, the other knots were more varied, strung like beads. If it were indeed a guide to the Incas’ journey, it would require considerable work to decode.

But she had seen such guides before – leading to Atlantis, to Eden. It could be done. El Dorado could be found.

If she made the khipu seem dull enough to dissuade de Quesada from buying it.

‘Well, it’s called a khipu,’ she began, slipping into a professorial tone. ‘They were used as a system of record-keeping by the Incas. The knots on each string are a way of storing numbers, similar to an abacus.’ She tried to remember what Osterhagen had said about them. ‘They were used to keep censuses, calculate taxes, track how much food was grown.’ Keep it boring, she told herself. ‘They were the backbone of the Inca accounting system.’

To her relief, de Quesada didn’t appear impressed. ‘But they are valuable, no?’ prompted Callas.

‘I suppose, but more because of their scarcity than any intrinsic worth. There are only a few hundred still in existence. The Conquistadors destroyed all the ones they found.’

‘The Conquistadors?’ De Quesada’s eyes flashed with sudden interest. ‘Why did they destroy them?’

‘They thought the Incas used them to send secret messages,’ said Nina, aware that Callas now had a look of greedy expectancy. It seemed she had unwittingly pushed one of de Quesada’s buttons. ‘I don’t think that’s true, because as far as we know the khipus only contained numerical information – the Incas never developed a written language. But the Spanish—’

De Quesada regarded the khipu more closely. ‘So the Conquistadors destroyed them to show their power over the Incas?’

‘You could say that. Really, though, they’re just—’

He cut her off again, getting to his feet. ‘I will buy it, Salbatore!’ He cackled, swigging from his glass. ‘You just make sure that my old friend Arcani Pachac knows I have it, like his precious sun disc. That little communist cagada thinks he is the Inca emperor reborn? Then I’ll remind him what the Spanish did to the Incas. A million dollars, you said? Make it two!’

‘You – you’re spending two million dollars just to annoy Pachac?’ Nina said, shocked and appalled.

‘I am spending more than that! The sun disc, this great symbol of Pachac’s glorious heritage?’ His words dripped sarcasm. ‘I have the perfect place for it. When it is installed, I will send him a picture – it will drive him mad!’

‘Francisco and Pachac were once partners,’ explained Callas. ‘Until—’

‘Until he turned against me,’ said de Quesada. ‘He got politics, decided he wanted to restore the poor downtrodden Indians to power.’ He mimed wiping a tear from one eye, pulling an exaggeratedly sad face. ‘The defeated should keep their heads down. The Spanish nobles were the victors. They still are.’

‘But all that money,’ said Nina. ‘You’re spending millions out of spite? Why?’

De Quesada shrugged and took another drink. ‘Because I can. I already have cars, boats, planes, houses, women . . . I have to spend my money on something. Other than bribes, anyway.’ He looked back at the khipu. ‘I will take it. What about the sun disc? How are you going to get it to Colombia?’

‘It’s already being dealt with,’ said Stikes.

‘You found a replacement for West?’

‘Indeed we did.’ He gave Nina a smug look. ‘As for the khipu, you can take it with you if you like, but I’d recommend using our agent’s services for that as well. In case anyone asks questions.’

De Quesada scowled. ‘You are probably right. I cannot take a shit in my own country without some government pendejo or bastard from the DEA trying to look up my ass. Maybe after tonight I should move to Venezuela, eh?’

‘Maybe,’ said Callas noncommittally.

‘And speaking of tonight . . . ’ A small but distinctly cunning smile as de Quesada took something from his jacket: a DVD in a transparent case. ‘I know you have made a deal with Pachac, giving him control over the southern routes across the border. I want you to give those routes to me.’

Callas stiffened at the challenge, regarding the disc suspiciously. ‘What?’

‘Capture and kill his runners, and give his drugs to me. The only cocaine shipped through Venezuela will be mine.’

The general shook his head. ‘We have made a deal, we will stick to it. Just as I will stick to the deal I made with Pachac.’

De Quesada laughed. ‘Yes, of course you will. It never crossed your mind to use your new power to change the deal with him in your favour.’ His smile vanished. ‘Or the deal with me.’

Callas looked pointedly towards the two soldiers, both of whom were armed. ‘I don’t like your tone, Francisco.’

‘And I don’t like being double-crossed, Salbatore. So, let’s make sure it never happens, eh?’ He held out the DVD to Callas, who hesitated before snatching it from him, then nodded towards the television in the lounge. ‘Put it on.’

‘Watch her,’ Callas ordered one of the soldiers, who moved closer to Nina. The other closed the door behind Callas, Stikes and de Quesada as they went into the lounge. The reflections on the glass made it hard for Nina to see inside, but she could make out Callas putting the disc into a player and switching on the TV.

He watched it for less than a minute before whirling angrily on de Quesada. A brief argument, Callas becoming more furious by the moment, then the Venezuelan stormed back to the player, ejected the disc and hurled it across the room. Still seething, he threw the door open and returned to the balcony, clenching his fists round the handrail as he glared out across Caracas.

De Quesada followed. ‘If that became public, your new position would become very unstable.’ He finished his drink, crunching an ice cube between his teeth. ‘It might even give the Americans an excuse for regime change. However much oil you offer them, they are not going to tolerate a drug lord as president.’

‘I am not a drug lord!’ Callas spat.

‘But you are working with one, and there was the proof.’

‘That recording would also be damaging to you,’ Stikes pointed out.

‘A calculated risk. But,’ de Quesada went on, ‘it will be much easier if we just make sure it is never seen, eh? Accept my new deal. You will still get your percentage – and you know you would rather deal with me than a psychopath like Pachac.’

The general drew in a long breath before facing de Quesada. ‘Pachac is . . . unreliable, yes. Very well. You will have his territory. But if the video is ever seen . . . ’ He jabbed a threatening finger at the Colombian’s heart.

De Quesada simply smiled. ‘It will not be.’ He rattled the last couple of ice cubes in his glass. ‘Now, we should celebrate our new deal with a drink.’

‘Not for you, I’m afraid,’ Stikes said to Nina. He nodded to the soldiers. As they led her away, he added, in an overly casual way: ‘Oh, by the way – your husband.’

‘What about him?’ demanded Nina, heart sinking.

‘Dead.’ The word was delivered with a thin smirk. Nina felt as though she had been stung by the scorpion again, her throat clenching tight. ‘I must admit, he put up a good show. Even rescued your friends. But then their plane got shot down and exploded in the jungle. The end of the Chase, you might say.’

Fury and despair rose simultaneously inside her, the former narrowly gaining ascendance. She lunged at Stikes, but the soldiers caught her before she could reach him, twisting her arms behind her back. ‘I’ll f*cking kill you!’ she snarled.

Stikes merely smirked again as she was dragged away.