Empire of Gold

39


The panoramic windows of the villa in which the Peruvian government had housed the surviving explorers looked out across Lima from the city’s southeastern hills, but even though he was facing the view Eddie’s eyes weren’t taking in the spectacular burning sky of a Pacific sunset beyond the darkening capital. His focus was directed inwards.

Kit hesitated at the door before steeling himself and entering. He stood beside Eddie’s chair, gazing in silence at the vista outside for a long moment, then finally summoned the courage to speak. ‘Eddie?’

Eddie didn’t seem to have registered his presence, until a fractional tilt of his head brought the Indian into his eyeline. ‘Eddie,’ Kit repeated, ‘I just wanted to say that . . . I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Mac. It shouldn’t have happened.’

‘No. It shouldn’t.’ There was an odd, almost mechanical feel to Eddie’s eventual response, rusty gears slowly grinding to life.

‘If he hadn’t decided to destroy the helicopter, if he hadn’t been in that place at that time . . . it wouldn’t have. He’d still be alive. If he hadn’t gone after Stikes . . .’

‘Stikes.’ The word was a growl. ‘You shouldn’t talk to me about Stikes.’

A cold fear swept through Kit’s body. Eddie couldn’t possibly know about the phone call – could he? ‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re a cop. And I’m going to murder that f*cker.’

He tried to conceal his relief. ‘I think this is one occasion where I would be willing to look the other way.’

Eddie nodded, then sank back into silence. Kit felt compelled to keep speaking. ‘He was a good man. Brave and honourable.’ He looked down at the floor, shaking his head.

Someone tentatively cleared their throat. Kit turned to see one of the villa’s staff, a pretty young maid, standing in the doorway holding a cordless telephone. ‘Excuse, please, Mr Jindal?’ she said. ‘Telephone for you.’

Kit glanced at Eddie, then went to her and took the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Jindal.’ It was Stikes. ‘Have you discussed my proposal with your superiors?’

He took a breath before answering. ‘Yes.’

‘And?’

Another look at Eddie, this time surreptitious, to make sure he wasn’t listening. But he appeared completely detached from the rest of the world. ‘Yes, they agree.’

‘Good. And did you tell them I want to meet one of their representatives in person? Not an errand boy like you.’

‘I did,’ Kit said through his teeth. ‘Someone is on the way.’

‘Excellent. In that case, there’s a town called San Bartolo, twenty miles south of Lima on the Panamerica Highway. About two miles past it is a pumping station for the gas pipeline, number fourteen. Meet me there in one hour.’

‘San Bartolo, station fourteen,’ Kit echoed. ‘All right, I’ll be there.’ He returned the handset to the maid. ‘Eddie, I have to meet some people from Interpol. I think we might have a lead on the statues. Will you be all right?’

The Englishman remained still, not even moving his eyes to look at him. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Okay. I’ll see you later.’ He turned to leave, then paused at the doorway. ‘Again, I’m so sorry about Mac. I’m sorry.’

Eddie didn’t reply.

Freshly showered and in clean clothes, Nina left her room and went downstairs to look for Eddie. Instead, she found Kit in the villa’s hall, donning a jacket. ‘Are you leaving?’ she asked.

‘I have to meet someone.’

‘Interpol?’

A conflicted look crossed his face. ‘Not exactly,’ he replied after a moment. ‘Look, don’t say anything to Eddie, but . . . it’s about Stikes. He’s offered to hand over the statues.’

‘What? You’re kidding!’

‘No, I think he really means it. He wants to make a deal – in exchange for immunity.’

Nina frowned. ‘I don’t think the Venezuelans will be thrilled about that.’

‘I’m not happy about it either. But nothing has been finalised. I’m on my way to meet . . . his representative, to see what his terms are. If Interpol accepts them, he’ll give us the statues.’

Nina was torn by the prospect. ‘As much as I want them back, I don’t like the idea of that son of a bitch getting an amnesty. But . . . ’

‘If there is a chance we can recover the statues, I think we should take it. At least that way, the people who died trying to find them won’t have given their lives for nothing.’

‘People like Mac,’ she said unhappily. ‘Is that why you don’t want to mention this to Eddie?’

‘Yes. I was talking to him a few minutes ago, and he got angry just at the mention of Stikes’s name. If he found out we were negotiating with him, I think his reaction would be a lot stronger.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’ She looked down the hall. ‘Is he in the lounge?’ Kit nodded. ‘Let me know what happens. And good luck.’

‘Thank you.’ Kit departed, and Nina headed for the lounge.

She found Eddie still in the same chair where she had left him, contemplating the sunset. ‘Hey,’ she said, perching on the chair’s arm and gently resting her hand on his chest. ‘You okay?’

This time, at least he didn’t pull away from her touch, but neither did he respond to it. ‘I know what you’re feeling right now,’ she continued. ‘I’ve been there; I’ve lost people who were close to me. I just want you to know that I’m here for you, and I always will be. Whatever you need, just ask me.’

He stirred, jaw muscles tightening. ‘I didn’t lose Mac,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He was taken.’

‘I know. And I know what that’s like too. It happened to Rowan, remember?’

‘It’s not the same. It’s—’ He stumbled, struggling to put his thoughts into words. ‘Mac was different. You don’t know what it was like, what he meant to me.’

‘He was my friend too, Eddie. I’m going to miss him just as much.’

Now there was a distinct edge to his voice. ‘No, you won’t. Mac wasn’t just a friend. I would’ve—’ He choked off, taking a sharp breath. ‘I would have died for him. That’s what he meant to me. And he would’ve done the same for me. You wouldn’t understand.’

Nina tried to suppress a flare of anger. ‘I do understand. And I do know what it feels like. My parents were murdered, remember?’ She experienced a sudden resurgence of loss, rising on the back of her current feelings. ‘I know. Believe me, I know.’

They both fell silent. For a couple of minutes, the only sound was their breathing. Then: ‘Excuse, please?’

Nina looked round to see the maid. ‘Yes?’

‘Telephone, from IHA.’ Nina held out a hand, but the maid shook her head. ‘For Mr Chase.’

Slightly surprised, Nina passed the phone to Eddie. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Lola, hi. What is it?’

He listened to Lola. ‘But it’s the middle of the night over there,’ he objected. Nina could faintly hear her assistant’s voice as she replied; even at this level, she detected a worried urgency. ‘Okay, thanks,’ Eddie said, disconnecting, and punching in a new number.

‘What’s wrong?’ Nina asked.

‘Lizzie’s been trying to get hold of me. Lola said it’s urgent.’

‘Nan?’

Eddie’s look said as much as any words. He stood and put the phone to his ear, anxiously awaiting an answer. ‘Lizzie, it’s me,’ he finally said. ‘I just got your message. What is it?’

He paced back and forth before the windows as he listened to his sister. Nina watched with growing concern as his expression became increasingly stony, his interjections more terse – a sign that he was putting up his shields as a reaction to bad news. Finally he stopped, and with a simple ‘Okay. Right,’ ended the call.

Nina almost didn’t want to ask the obvious question, because she was sure she already knew the answer. But she had to. ‘What did Elizabeth say?’

‘She said . . .’ Eddie began, before his voice shrank to a dry croak. He swallowed, then spoke again. ‘She said that Nan died today.’

Even though it was expected, the news was still a painful shock. ‘Oh, God,’ said Nina. ‘Eddie, I’m sorry.’

‘It wasn’t her lungs,’ he went on quietly. ‘They thought she was responding well to the oxygen therapy. But apparently there’s some side effect of emphysema, something about blood building up in the liver – I dunno, I didn’t really understand it. But that suddenly got worse, so they took her to hospital, and that’s . . . that’s where . . .’

Abruptly, he hurled the telephone at the wall. It shattered. The maid shrieked in fright, then fled as Eddie grabbed the chair and flung it across the room. It hit a small table, wood flying as both pieces of furniture smashed. ‘F*ck!’ he roared, running after the chair and stamping on its remains in a fury.

‘Eddie, stop!’ Nina cried, hurrying to him. ‘Please, stop! Please!’

He dropped to his knees amongst the wreckage. ‘Oh, God!’ he gasped, voice trembling. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

Nina crouched, putting her arms round him. ‘I’m here, I’m here. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay . . .’

‘No it’s not – it’s not going to be f*cking okay!’ He pulled away from her and stood, kicking away debris. ‘You know what one of the last things Nan said was? Just before she died? She asked where I was. She wanted to know why I wasn’t there with the rest of her family. I should have been there – I could have been there if it hadn’t been for your f*cking statues!’

Nina recoiled, shocked, as his rage was turned on her – then stiffened as the injustice of the accusation stoked her own suppressed anger. ‘That’s not fair.’

‘Isn’t it? If you hadn’t been looking for them, Mac wouldn’t have come to South America, and I would have been able to stay in England with Nan.’

‘We had to find them. That’s part of the IHA’s job – making sure things like that don’t fall into the wrong hands.’

‘And Stikes is the right f*cking hands?’ he yelled. ‘If we’d just left everything alone, things would have been fine! We had two of them, Callas didn’t give a shit about the first piece, and nobody would ever have found the second one! What’s all this got us, except for people killed?’

She struggled to keep her temper under control, knowing that he was under immense emotional pressure. ‘We’ve been here before, Eddie. When Mitzi died, while we were looking for Excalibur. Remember?’

‘Course I f*cking remember. And you know who got me through it? Mac! Who’s going to get me through this?’

‘I will!’

‘But it’s your f*cking fault!’

Nina felt as though she had been slapped. ‘I can’t believe you said that.’

It looked for a moment as if even he knew he had gone too far . . . but then his gaze snapped to something behind her. ‘What?’ he demanded.

Nina turned to see the maid waiting almost fearfully in the doorway, clutching a replacement telephone handset. ‘I’m sorry, but . . . another telephone call. For Dr Wilde.’

‘Tell ’em to f*ck off,’ Eddie snarled.

‘No, but . . . it is the president of Peru!’

‘And? Tell him to f*ck off!’

The young woman seemed on the verge of tears. Nina shot Eddie a furious look, then went to her. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said.

‘Work always comes first with you, doesn’t it?’ Eddie said bitterly. Nina held in an angry reply as she took the phone.

The call was short, but straight to the point. ‘I have to go,’ she told Eddie with reluctance. ‘The President wants to see me.’

‘Now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You should have said no.’

‘I can’t face having two arguments at once.’ She returned the handset to the maid, who made as rapid an exit as etiquette would allow. ‘They’re sending a car. I’ll be back as soon as I can. We can talk then. If you’ve calmed down.’

‘Never been calmer,’ rumbled Eddie, tapping a piece of the broken chair with his foot as she left.

The sky over Lima had darkened, the city coming alive with sparkling pinpoints. But Eddie now had his back to the view, sitting on a couch in the fading half-light. The smashed furniture was still strewn across the floor, the maid not having dared return to clean it up.

He heard footsteps and raised his eyes to see Macy at the doorway. ‘Eddie? Why are you in the dark – jeez!’ She saw the wreckage. ‘What happened?’

‘I had words with the chair,’ Eddie said drily. He had managed to recover his composure since Nina’s departure, but was still simmering inside, grief and anger and confusion all swirling in a toxic mix.

‘Uh-huh . . . ’ Macy entered cautiously. ‘Where’s Nina?’

‘Busy.’ He said the word with a caustic sourness. ‘She went to talk to the President.’

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Of America?’

‘Of Peru.’

They fell again, considerably less impressed. ‘Oh.’ She went to the window, twitching fingers betraying her awkwardness before she finally spoke her mind. ‘I, ah . . . heard you two arguing. While I was in the shower, so I guess it must have been a big one.’

‘You could say that.’

‘What was it about?’

Tact and subtlety had never been Macy’s strong points, but Eddie managed to hold back a scathing reply; she was also genuinely concerned. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said instead. ‘All started because I got some bad news.’

‘What?’

He took a deep breath. ‘My nan died.’

‘Your nan? Oh!’ exclaimed Macy, as she realised she had met her. She hurried to the couch and sat beside him. ‘Oh no, I’m sorry. That’s terrible. She was so sweet!’

‘Yeah, she was,’ said Eddie.

‘God, I’m really sorry. And right after Mac as well—’ She clamped her mouth shut, appalled at her own insensitivity. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean . . .’

Eddie gave her a small, sad smile. ‘Don’t worry about it. This really has been a f*cking shitty day all round. At least it can’t get any worse.’

‘I’m still sorry,’ she said. ‘Can I – is there anything you want?’

‘My nan back. And Mac.’

Macy wasn’t sure how to react to that, until Eddie eased her mind with another faint smile. ‘Mr McCrimmon really meant a lot to you, didn’t he?’ she said. ‘How long have you known him?’

‘A long time. It was . . .’ He worked it out. ‘Christ, over sixteen years, when I first joined the SAS. God knows why, but he took me under his wing.’

‘He must have seen something good in you,’ Macy suggested.

‘Again, God knows why. But yeah, he sorted me out. I was a bit of an arsehole when I was younger. Bad attitude, aggressive . . .’

She glanced at the demolished chair. ‘You don’t say.’

‘Oi! You want me to have words with you too?’ But it was said lightly, not with anger. ‘He got me through a lot of stuff. I’d be dead ten times over if it hadn’t been for him – not just when I was in the Regiment. He taught me pretty much everything I know. And I don’t mean about being a soldier, I mean about . . . about being a good person. About doing the right thing.’

‘I don’t think that’s something you can teach,’ Macy said quietly. ‘It’s something that’s there already.’

‘But he brought it out, taught me to never give up. “Fight to the end”, that was his motto. It—’ He broke off, voice catching. ‘It was the last thing he said before he died.’ He lowered his head. ‘Christ. I shouldn’t have left him. I shouldn’t have let him come at all, but . . . ’ He sat up, misery returning with self-recrimination. ‘If I’d gone with Kit to find him instead of going after Stikes, he’d still be alive. I had an AK, I would have been able to take out Pachac, and Mac could have blown up the chopper before it took off. But I didn’t, and Pachac shot him and Kit – so Stikes got away. It’s all my fault.’

‘It wasn’t,’ Macy insisted. ‘You can’t blame yourself. And it couldn’t have . . .’ She paused, frowning.

‘What?’

‘I’m not sure, but . . . ’ The frown deepened as she tried to remember the sequence of events in the lost city. ‘Pachac couldn’t have done what he did until after Stikes got away.’

‘No, he must have done,’ Eddie countered. ‘Mac told me he was about to take out Stikes’s chopper when he got shot. Kit said so as well – Pachac caught them by surprise.’

Macy shook her head. ‘No, that’s wrong. I met Kit just as the chopper was going out of the cave, and he hadn’t been hurt yet.’

‘You sure? Maybe you got things mixed up.’

‘A helicopter taking off is kind of memorable,’ she said testily. ‘It was already in the air when I met Kit. And he definitely hadn’t been shot. But he said—’ Her confused look returned.

‘What?’

‘He said that Pachac and his men had just gone past – up to where we found him and Mr McCrimmon.’

‘But Mac wasn’t with him?’

‘No. Actually, he said he hadn’t seen him.’

‘And this was after the gunship took off?’

‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’

He leaned forward, thinking. If there was one person in the world he trusted to give a completely accurate account of events, even on the brink of death, it was his former commanding officer. Mac was right. Therefore Macy had to be wrong.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. He hadn’t meant to say it angrily, but the image of Mac’s bloodied, pain-twisted face as his life ebbed away put a harsh edge to his voice.

Macy pulled away. ‘I’m not lying! I know what I saw.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I wasn’t saying that you were lying . . . ’ He tailed off.

Mac. Kit. Macy. Three different accounts of the same events. But two of them contradicted each other. He had assumed that Macy’s was the odd one out.

What if it wasn’t?

To him, Mac’s version was the inviolable truth. What about the others?

Macy first. She saw the helicopter take off and leave the cavern, then encountered Kit, who told her he was looking for Mac. The next time she saw him, he had been shot – and so had Mac.

Now Kit. He was with Mac when Pachac and his men attacked, shooting the Indian in the arm – and the Scot in the back.

But Mac had been shot before the gunship took off.

The idea that someone might have lied about events simply hadn’t occurred to him until Macy put it into his mind. Why would anyone lie? It made no sense.

But nor did the contradiction. And Pachac had denied killing Mac. He’d had every reason to, considering his situation at the time . . . but his confusion at the accusation had been genuine.

And the revolutionary leader and his men had already escaped the cave and reached their vehicles by the time Eddie started in pursuit – but the gap between his hearing the gunshots and finding Mac had been maybe thirty seconds. Even taking into account the time he spent with the Scot as he spoke his last words, Pachac couldn’t have got so far ahead so quickly. Which meant he had to have left earlier.

Which meant he couldn’t have killed Mac.

Eddie felt a cold tightness close around his chest. If Pachac hadn’t killed Mac . . . that left only one other possibility.

Kit.

Mac had been shot in the back. And Kit had been behind him. Shot in the arm . . . the left arm. Kit was right-handed. And the injury was only a flesh wound, a single shot. Mac had taken two fatal bullets.

Ten bullets left in the Steyr he had taken from Kit, out of fifteen. Five used; one for the flesh wound, two fired off as decoys . . . and the first two, before Kit encountered Macy, used to kill Mac.

It couldn’t be true, though. Why? What reason could he have?

His thoughts went wider . . . and came up with more questions. Kit had been pulled out of the group by Stikes, not once, but twice – with a very feeble excuse the second time. And Stikes himself had initially wondered why Kit was on the mission at all.

Why was the head of Interpol’s Cultural Property Crime Unit personally accompanying an archaeological expedition? His interest had been . . .

The statues.

It was Kit who had suggested – no, pushed a link between Nina’s discovery at Glastonbury and South America, responding immediately to the IHA’s report. Kit who had proposed a joint Interpol/IHA mission. Kit who had been determined to accompany the explorers to El Dorado even though the smuggling case was closed. Kit whose first concern when an apparent earthquake shook the cave was the statues.

And Kit who had gone to follow a lead on the location of those same statues.

Which had been stolen by Alexander Stikes.

‘The statues . . .’ Eddie jerked upright as realisation struck him. ‘The f*cking statues!’

‘What?’ Macy asked, startled. ‘What is it?’

He ignored her, the answer burning in his mind. It was the only possible explanation for what had happened at El Dorado.

Kit and Stikes were working together.

Stikes had already announced that he was going to take the Interpol agent with him, giving weak reasons that not even Pachac believed, when Nina flooded the cave. Then, as Stikes tried to escape in the Hind, Mac had been about to destroy the gunship – until Kit shot him in the back. To save Stikes and the statues.

And now . . . they were about to meet again.

Eddie stood and ran from the room, the bewildered Macy following him. ‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Hey, housekeeping! Miss Maid, are you there?’

The maid nervously emerged from a side room. ‘Yes?’

‘Look, I’m sorry I shouted at you. And don’t worry about the chair, I’ll clean it up later. I just need to ask you something. Do you know where . . .’ He struggled to recall Kit’s half-heard telephone conversation. ‘San Barn, Bart . . . San Bartolo. Do you know where San Bartolo is?’

She nodded, still timorous. ‘It is a town on the sea. About thirty, thirty-five kilometres south of the city.’

‘Does it have a railway station?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, so do you know what station fourteen is? What kind of station is it?’

‘Station? I don’t know, it . . . ’ She thought, then her face lit up. ‘No, I know. A gas station.’

‘Gas station? What, selling petrol?’

‘No, no. The gas, the . . .’ She made a hissing sound. ‘The gas, in the pipes! To cook with.’

‘A gas pipeline?’

‘Yes, yes! My brother, he work on the pipeline. It comes all the way from the jungle to Lima. There are stations on it, they pump the gas.’

‘Get me a taxi,’ he ordered. ‘And make sure it’s someone who’s willing to break the speed limit.’ The maid scurried away.

‘Eddie, what’s going on?’ Macy asked.

His expression was now utterly cold, determined – just as it had been when he went after Pachac. ‘I’m going to look for Kit. If I find what I think I’m going to . . .’ He didn’t need to complete the sentence for Macy to be fully aware that it was a threat.

‘I’m coming with you.’

He fixed her with a look so chilling that she felt genuine fear. His voice made it clear that he would not accept – or even tolerate – any argument. ‘No. You’re not. Stay here.’

Eddie turned away, leaving an unnaturally quiet Macy with the frightening feeling that she had just seen the face his enemies saw – before he killed them.