Empire of Gold

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 f*ck 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 f*cking tortured you?’

Her answer, when it came, was in a very small voice. ‘Stikes.’

‘Stikes? F*cking—’ 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 f*cker.’ 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.’