Empire of Gold

28


Nina watched in horror as her husband was hauled along behind the floatplane. The Seahawk accelerated, but was still a long way short of its sixty-four knot takeoff speed in the confined channel.

It had to be stopped. But how?

The waterway narrowed just before its end . . .

She ran back to the trucks and scrambled into the lead SUV. The key was in the ignition; she turned it, the big V8 roaring in response. Into drive, apply the gas—

The Expedition surged forward, flattening bushes and saplings as Nina turned to follow the plane. A small tree tumbled with a crack of shattering wood – and she was at the cliff, the drop looming. She swerved to drive along it, the right front wheel thumping over the ragged edge before finding solid ground. Craning her neck, she saw the floatplane was ahead of her – with Eddie skittering in its wake.

She accelerated. Past thirty – and gaining. The Expedition crashed over rocks and roots, slamming her against the door. Ignoring the pain, Nina stayed focused on the cliff ahead – and the plane below. She was almost level with the aircraft. Forty, and the 4×4 was airborne for a moment as it hit a bump, smashing down more shrubs as it landed.

Past the plane, but the end of the channel was just ahead—

Nina opened the door and jammed the steering wheel hard to the right as she threw herself out.

The Expedition shot over the edge and plunged towards the water.

De Quesada adjusted the rudder to keep the Cessna in the centre of the channel. The cliffs were far enough apart to accommodate the Skyhawk’s ten metre wingspan, but after having someone jump on his plane, he didn’t need any more close calls—

An SUV fell from the sky directly ahead and hit the water with a colossal eruption of spray.

‘Mierda!’ he shrieked, yanking back the throttle and applying full rudder to swing round it. But the vehicle was buried nose-down in the mud beneath the shallow water, blocking his escape route.

The only way out was back the way he had come. Keeping the rudder hard over, he reapplied power in pulses, swinging the plane around to reverse course.

A man was in the water, directly in his path.

Eddie gasped for breath, shaking water from his eyes. The rope was still looped round his leg, coils bobbing on the surface around him. He reached down to untangle it, looking for the plane.

It was powering towards him.

Nina had crashed through a stand of bushes to a soft, if messy, splashdown in a glutinous pool of mud. Bruised, face cut, she dragged herself from the mire and staggered to the cliff edge.

Her plan had worked. She had blocked the exit from the narrow canyon, forcing the plane to stop . . . but it had turned round and was now heading straight for Eddie.

It accelerated, about to mow him down—

Eddie abandoned his attempt to untangle himself and dropped underwater, kicking downwards. The float’s keel bashed against his foot as it passed just inches above him in the shallow channel.

He surfaced, heart pounding – then realised the danger was far from over as the colourful line skimmed sinuously past him, still hooked to the strut. He grabbed the rope as it jerked into motion, friction burning his palms.

But at least now he wasn’t a helpless dead weight. He pulled himself along the rope towards the float.

Something yanked hard on his entangled leg – the winch. It had sunk when the plane stopped, and was now being towed along behind again. Eddie grimaced, but kept reeling himself in. He was almost level with the Cessna’s tail, the float just feet away.

The cave passed by to his left, the channel ahead curving round the island. Over the engine’s roar he heard gunshots echoing from the cliffs.

Despite the best efforts of Probst and his team, two of the bodyguards had reached a speedboat and started it. The cops concentrated their fire on the vessel as it moved from the jetty - but this allowed another two thugs to reach the bottom of the path and find cover, shooting back.

Kit ducked as bullets smacked into the cliff in front of him. He wiped away grit and opened his eyes – to see the floatplane approaching.

Probst spotted it too. ‘De Quesada, it must be!’ He swung round his rifle and opened fire.

‘No!’ said Kit, batting the weapon upwards. ‘You’ll hit Eddie!’ He pointed at the man who had just pulled himself on to one of the floats.

Probst swore in German, then shouted to the others: ‘Don’t shoot the plane! Chase is aboard!’

‘He’ll get away!’ Cruz protested.

Kit looked out to sea. The Coast Guard vessel was coming in at speed. ‘Forget the speedboats – tell them to block him before he can take off!’

Clinging to the float, Eddie winced as bullets struck the plane - then the barrage stopped. Hoping that meant he had been seen, he hooked an elbow round the diagonal brace connecting the float to the wing and freed his leg from the rope. It whipped away as he released it, the heavy winch still acting like an anchor.

He saw the jetty ahead, one of the speedboats moving away.

Into the plane’s path.

De Quesada had seen it too. The engine note rose, the wing flaps clunking to their full extent as he tried to give the plane as much lift as possible.

Eddie moved forward and briefly raised his head to glance into the cabin. He was surprised to see the khipu in a plastic bag on the passenger seat, but was more interested in the drug lord. The Colombian was concentrating on getting the plane into the air.

He advanced again, reaching for the door handle . . .

Wind whistled through a bullet hole in the cabin roof. Ten centimetres over, and the round would have struck de Quesada himself. Blessing his good fortune, he looked round to see where else the plane had been hit . . .

The top of a head, short dark hair fluttering in the wind, was visible through a window. Edging towards the passenger-side door.

Jaw set, de Quesada gripped the control yoke tightly with one hand, his other clenching into a fist . . .

Eddie pulled the door open, thrusting himself into the cramped cabin – and was punched hard in the face.

Caught completely by surprise, he toppled backwards, clawing for a handhold but only managing to snatch up the bag on the passenger seat. With nothing to support himself, he fell. . .

His empty hand caught the rope just as the drag of the waves snatched him from the float. He slid back down the line. Even wet, it burned his skin again before he managed to get a grip with his other hand, using a corner of the large bag as a makeshift glove to protect his palm. He hung on tightly, gasping in the spray.

The spray suddenly stopped as the Cessna took off.

‘Oh, shiiiiit!’ Eddie yelled as he was pulled from the water. He was heading into the sky – but if he let go of the rope, he would slam into the speedboat directly ahead like a torpedo.

The men in the boat were forced to duck as the Skyhawk roared barely a foot above. One realised it was trailing something and raised his head to see what—

Eddie pulled up both feet and kicked the bodyguard in the face, backflipping him out of the boat in a spray of blood and teeth.

Behind him, the rope rasped over the speedboat’s side—

The winch smashed through the hull – and snagged. The boat flipped over, flinging the other man screaming into the sea, and landed upside down, carving a great swathe out of the ocean as it was dragged behind the floatplane.

The extra weight threw the Cessna out of control. It yawed sideways as the boat pulled it back down.

Eddie hit the waves again, this time managing to stay upright and holding his legs out straight in front of him to use his feet as impromptu waterskis. Each crest pummelled him as he was pulled along.

He saw the Coast Guard cutter looming ahead. The Cessna levelled, then regained height. The rope tightened. In another second, he too would be airborne—

He let go.

Arms windmilling, Eddie skied along the water for over a hundred feet, finally losing his balance and falling over. He skipped like a stone, bouncing once, twice, before hitting the cutter’s side with a thunk.

Above, de Quesada had been forced to roll the Cessna almost on its side to avoid a crash, shooting between the cutter’s elevated bridge and radar mast with less than a foot of clearance. He straightened with an exultant whoop, turning the plane towards Panamanian airspace—

The speedboat, still bounding along at the end of the rope, collided with the cutter.

The Coast Guard boat rolled with the impact – but the plane fared worse. The float was ripped away – along with a chunk of the wing at the top of the support brace and a large section of the fuselage floor.

De Quesada screamed as he suddenly found himself with nothing but open air beneath his feet. The yoke went slack, control cables severed. The ailerons drooped, sending the crippled aircraft inexorably towards the glittering water—

It smashed into the sea at over eighty knots. The impact crushed the damaged fuselage like a beer can, impaling de Quesada on the control yoke. Fuel lines ruptured, avgas gushing over hot metal. What was left of the Skyhawk exploded in a flash of orange fire and oily black smoke.

Eddie surfaced beside the cutter, broken bits of boat raining around him. He spotted the plastic bag containing the late drug lord’s belongings floating nearby and swam to collect it before shouting up to the deck. ‘Oi! Man overboard!’

One of the boat’s stunned crew peered down at him, then tossed a knotted line over the side. Eddie clambered up. The Cessna’s burning remains were strewn along the water in the distance. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said to the crewman. ‘That’s the last time I fly on a no-frills airline.’

The villa’s interior was every bit as expensive as its exterior suggested, but one room stood out above all others. Nina gazed down at the golden sun disc set into the bathroom floor. ‘Unbelievable,’ she said, half in amazement, half in disgust. ‘Spending fifty million dollars on one of the most incredible Inca relics ever discovered . . . and then doing this with it?’

‘If you’ve got more money than you can ever spend, I suppose you get daft with it eventually,’ said Eddie, drying his hair with one of de Quesada’s towels. After his rescue, the Coast Guard ship had landed at the island, and the surviving members of the drug lord’s gang had surrendered. The remaining speedboat had been used to ferry Nina and the SWAT team from the mainland. ‘So, we found the sun disc, and I got the khipu off el druggio. Plus we saved the world the cost of the bastard’s trial. Job done, I think.’

‘Is the khipu okay?’

‘Far as I know. It was sealed in a bag with a bunch of other stuff – passports, cash, stuff like that. Kit’s checking through it all.’

‘And are you okay?’

He patted his jeans. ‘Bit damp, still. Banged-up, shot at, the usual. Nothing too serious.’ In truth, one knee had a searing ache from his impact with the cliff and the friction burns on his palms still stung, but he covered the discomfort. ‘What about you?’

Nina’s hand went to the Band-Aid one of Probst’s men had applied to a cut on her face. ‘I’m okay. Just had a scratchy landing when I bailed out of that truck. But it was pretty muddy, which broke the fall.’

‘You’re lucky you didn’t break the rest of you,’ Eddie said. ‘It was a bloody stupid risk.’

‘Oh, kettle, pot!’ she snapped. ‘And if I hadn’t done it, de Quesada would have gotten away – and you would have been dragged along behind his plane like a banner advertising balding Englishmen.’

‘The difference is, this kind of stuff is what I do.’

‘No, it isn’t! Not any more. You work for the United Nations now, not a stunt troupe. Every time I watch you doing something like this, I almost have a heart attack because . . .’ Her voice fell. ‘Because I’m scared that I’m about to watch you die.’

‘I’m not gonna die, okay?’ he said firmly. ‘Just ’cause I don’t bounce as much as I used to doesn’t mean I’ll smash like Humpty bastard Dumpty if I take a bit of a fall.’

‘There’s a difference between a bit of a fall and a hundredfoot drop off a cliff,’ Nina pointed out. ‘And when people are actively trying to kill you . . . ’

‘You’d think they’d learn,’ Eddie snorted. ‘Anyone who tries to kill me gets f*cked up.’

‘Who’s trying to kill you?’ Kit asked, appearing in the doorway.

‘Nobody at the moment, thank God,’ said Nina. She gave Eddie a look that promised the discussion was not over, then turned to the Interpol officer. ‘Have you searched the rest of the house?’

‘Yes. Some of his other artworks are on the CPCU’s list of stolen items, although nothing on the scale of that.’ He indicated the sun disc. ‘And the bag Eddie recovered contained a phone with a list of de Quesada’s contacts around the world – that should be very useful.’ His optimistic look clouded. ‘I just wish it hadn’t cost twelve of the good guys’ lives to get it.’

‘Almost thirteen,’ Nina said quietly. Eddie decided to ignore her.

‘There’s another thing,’ Kit said. ‘Eddie, can you take a look at something?’

‘What is it?’ asked Nina.

‘Just . . . something Eddie might be able to identify with his military experience. Nina, can you photograph the sun disc so we can send pictures to Interpol and the UN, please?’ He handed her a digital camera.

She realised Kit was being evasive, but nevertheless took the camera. ‘What about the khipu?’

‘It’s with de Quesada’s other items. You can examine it as soon as we’ve finished checking them.’

‘Okay . . .’ She exchanged curious looks with her husband as Kit led him from the room.

‘So what’ve you found?’ Eddie asked as they walked down the hall.

‘It was in de Quesada’s office, among his papers.’ Kit stopped outside the arched doorway, glancing almost furtively into the room to make sure the other agents were occupied before taking something from a pocket. ‘Here.’

Eddie took it: a plastic evidence bag, containing a business card. ‘What’s so special . . . ’ he began – then he read it. He said nothing for several moments.

‘It’s . . . it is your father’s, isn’t it?’ Kit asked, breaking the silence.

‘Yeah,’ said Eddie, voice flat. ‘Yeah, it is.’ The card was identical to the one his father had given Nina, which had been taken from her by Stikes. It definitely wasn’t the same card, though, this one pristine and uncreased. ‘Think I’ll have to have words . . . ’