The Spear of Atlantis (Wilde/Chase 14)

by Andy McDermott

  So how could she test her theory?

  The answer was so stunningly obvious that she almost blurted it out, before remembering she was in a public place. Instead she carried out another search.

  The new subject: bus times from Seville to Granada.

  Eddie’s day had also started early. His mission was reconnaissance, walking with Ana and Macy through Venice’s narrow, twisting streets with Olivia as his guide. They had started from the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, making their way eastwards in a ragged zigzag. Eddie was paying particular attention to the canals, as the only way to travel with any speed through the labyrinthine city was by water, but he was also checking the bridges and piazzas. It wouldn’t be enough merely to get clear of the Scuola; they needed somewhere to go . . .

  They entered St Mark’s Square. The long, arched marble arcades of the Procuratie flanking the expanse led their eyes to the Campanile di San Marco directly ahead, the red-brick bell tower the tallest structure in Venice. Beyond it stood the opulent domes and spires of St Mark’s Cathedral. The great space was already filled with sightseers, selfie sticks waving in the air like flags. ‘Isn’t this magnificent?’ proclaimed Olivia.

  Eddie spotted something in the square’s north-eastern corner. ‘Ay up,’ he said, pointing out a circle of blue glass set into a tall building. ‘I know what that is – the Clock Tower of St Mark’s. It’s an astronomical clock.’

  Olivia was impressed. ‘It is indeed. Well done, Eddie. I think Nina must finally be rubbing off on you.’

  A cheeky grin crept on to his face. ‘James Bond threw a villain through it in the film Moonraker.’

  Now she was less so. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s what Dan Brown said about it in Inferno. Very educational.’

  She shook her head. ‘Macy, I hope you develop a better taste in literature than your father.’

  ‘Nowt wrong with a book with a boat chase on the cover,’ Eddie chuckled. ‘How do we get to the water from here?’

  ‘Right, past the Campanile,’ Olivia told him. ‘Although I’m not sure it’ll be what you’re looking for. That said, I’m not sure what you are looking for.’

  ‘I need somewhere I can get out of a boat, quickly,’ he explained. ‘But it also needs to be somewhere anyone following me can’t do it so fast, to give me time to get clear. Not sure how I’m going to manage it, but I’ll know the right place when I see it.’

  They rounded the Campanile into the piazza’s southern leg, where the literally palatial Palazzo Ducale, the home of the Doges, the former rulers of Venice, adjoined the cathedral. Beyond it was the great tidal lagoon from which the archipelago rose. The three female members of the group slowed to take in the wonder of their surroundings, but Eddie was concerned only with the water’s edge. ‘Well, that’s not what I was after,’ he complained as they approached it.

  Olivia regarded the jetties and bobbing boats. ‘What were you expecting? A convenient ramp?’

  ‘Actually, yeah. Roger Moore drove right up one in his hover-gondola. Somewhere around here.’ He looked along the quayside, but saw only narrow steps set into the stone.

  ‘I hate to shatter your illusions, Eddie, but the James Bond movies are not documentaries.’

  ‘You mean there aren’t really hover-gondolas? Tchah! I’ve been lied to.’

  ‘Movies aren’t real, Daddy,’ said Macy with a smile. ‘You said that to me on the ship.’

  ‘Always good to have my words chucked back at me by a seven-year-old,’ Eddie said, laughing. ‘Still got to find somewhere, though.’ He opened his map. ‘Are there any dead-end canals coming off the main one?’

  He had asked the question almost rhetorically, but Olivia gave him an answer. ‘Off the Grand Canal? Yes, quite a few; there’s one not far from here, near the Venetian Institute.’

  ‘Won’t going down a dead end mean you are trapped?’ said Ana.

  ‘Depends how it ends,’ the Yorkshireman replied. He found a truncated blue line on the map to the left of their position. ‘Is that it?’

  Olivia nodded. ‘Yes. It’s a little convoluted to reach from here, but I know the way.’

  ‘We’ll have a look. Are you okay, by the way? To walk, I mean.’

  The old woman was using her cane, but the suggestion that she was not up to the challenge prompted a stern look at her grandson-in-law. ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘Just checking. So where do we go?’

  ‘This way.’ She started west along the waterfront.

  Nina had also gone west, returning to the Plaza de Armas bus terminal. Buses to Granada were both cheap and relatively frequent. She bought a ticket, then found a seat to wait.

  The spear marker was in her bag, along with her other belongings. She had protected the cardboard replica of the other disc, further desecrating her book – an act that caused a surprising amount of mental anguish – by tearing off its hardback covers and using them to sandwich her creation. She checked her watch. Twenty minutes before departure.

  She passed the time by people-watching. Nobody paid her any attention. She still didn’t feel safe, but once she left Seville, things should get easier. No one knew she was going to Granada, and if the local cops didn’t find her in the next fifteen minutes, the chances of her getting caught would drop dramatically.

  Ten minutes to go; five. Her bus pulled up. A quick check for police or security guards, then she joined the boarding passengers. An overweight, sour-faced woman shoved past her. Nina shot her a dirty look, checking that nothing in her bag had been damaged. She let the others on first, then found a seat behind the pushy woman.

  More minutes passed, then the engine started. Nina waited impatiently for the bus to move off. A glance towards the main entrance for patrolling cops—

  Her blood froze.

  Agreste.

  She saw the Frenchman through gaps in the milling crowd. He was stationary, looking at something in his hand. Nina ducked lower before he could spot her.

  How the hell had he found her? The only person she had told about coming to Seville was Eddie, and even if someone had eavesdropped on their phone call, the odds of Agreste turning up at the bus station at the exact time she was leaving the city were astronomical.

  He had known exactly where she was. But how?

  The bus started to pull out, but Nina’s panic didn’t subside. If Ana’s killer had tracked her this far, he could follow her to Granada too . . .

  The rational part of her mind rose through her fear. Agreste had tracked her, literally. The former detective was holding a smartphone, gaze fixed on its screen as he panned it from side to side. Suddenly his gaze snapped towards the departing bus.

  Nina felt another shot of terror – had he spotted her? – but he was unable to see its passengers through the grubby windows. He glanced back at the phone as if to confirm something before watching it drive to the terminal’s exit.

  He knew she was aboard.

  She looked down at her bag with fearful suspicion. Something inside had given away her location.

  She carefully took out her belongings. It couldn’t be anything she had picked up since leaving the Atlantia, so she put aside the ruined book, then used her hat to conceal the marker from her fellow passengers. What was left?

  She still had some of Ana’s euros. She held each note up to the window. Watermarks showed through, but none revealed anything that might be a tracking device.

  It occurred that she didn’t even know what a modern tracking device looked like. Probably not a black box with a flashing red light, she decided. For anything to have gone unnoticed, it would have to be small . . .

  Small and flat. She eyed her passport. It was the one essential thing she needed to keep with her at all times. She carefully opened it. Her faintly embarrassing dead-eyed photo greeted her, reminding her how much she missed her long red hair. She thumbed through the little book for anything that didn’t belong—

  It was so inconspicuous she almost missed it.

 
Tucked between two of the pages was a square of transparent plastic, little larger than a postage stamp. Only when she tilted the passport to catch the light did she see a thin octagonal pattern of silvery metal.

  She took hold of the plastic. It had been fixed in place with a spot of glue. With great care, she worked it loose and held it up to the window. Details became visible: a little chip and a minuscule battery, the GPS antenna spiralling around them.

  Nina was almost impressed. The gadget was tiny, unobtrusive . . . yet it had brought Agreste right to her. And he now knew where she was going.

  She had one advantage: he didn’t know she had found the tracker. How could she make best use of that fact?

  She had three hours to come up with an answer.

  Eddie surveyed the small piazza of Campo Santo Stefano. He was less than half a mile from St Mark’s, but the atmosphere was completely different. It had a more laid-back, youthful feel, and was considerably less busy.

  That suited his purposes. He suspected he would make a spectacular entrance, and the fewer people there were in the piazza, the less likely anyone was to get hurt.

  He went to the southern end and regarded a short, narrow stretch of canal. It ran alongside the Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti, home of the Venetian Institute, for about a hundred metres. The little branch stopped at a wall below him, a couple of small boats moored to one side.

  Something else caught his eye. Several large planks were stacked against the side wall, held fast by a grimy length of rope. From the accumulated sludge, it seemed they had been there for a while.

  He made another mental note, then looked back at his companions. ‘This might work. We’ll see if there’s anywhere else that’s as good, but—’

  He was cut off by his daughter. ‘Daddy, my feet hurt,’ Macy protested. ‘I don’t want to walk any more.’

  ‘We could use a break,’ Olivia added, leaning on her cane. ‘Drink, food – you know, the essentials for ordinary people rather than SAS supermen.’

  Eddie looked to Ana. ‘You an’ all?’

  ‘I am quite thirsty,’ she admitted.

  ‘Bunch of wimps,’ he said, grinning. ‘All right, we’ll find a café.’

  They did not have to go far; the piazza was home to several. While they were refreshing themselves, Eddie had a phone call – one he had been particularly hoping for. ‘Jared, hi.’

  ‘I’m in,’ came the simple reply.

  ‘No small talk?’

  Mocking amusement entered the other man’s voice. ‘You’re old, so I thought you wouldn’t want me to waste any of your precious remaining time.’

  ‘Funny fu . . . dge-eater,’ Eddie said, aware that Macy and Olivia were right beside him. ‘When can you get here?’

  ‘I’ll be in Venice by eight o’clock tonight.’

  ‘No trouble getting out of work?’

  ‘I told my superiors I wanted to help you and Nina, and they said: what do you need? You did the Mossad a huge favour when you uncovered that little nest of Nazis, and we don’t forget things like that. We help our friends – and I mean that personally as well as professionally.’

  ‘I don’t need to call in the whole Mossad on this, but thanks. See you soon.’

  ‘You too, old man.’

  Ana had heard Eddie’s half of the conversation. ‘Did you say the Mossad?’

  ‘You know someone in the Israeli secret service?’ asked Olivia.

  ‘Friends in low places,’ the Yorkshireman said. ‘But yeah. He’s someone I’d really hoped could help out. I think I’ve got enough people now to do what we need to do.’ He looked back at the canal. ‘Just as soon as I work out what that is . . .’

  21

  Granada, Spain

  Under normal circumstances, Nina would have found the bus ride to Granada rather dull; the landscape, while pretty enough, was mostly flat farmland, and it wasn’t until the ranges of the Sierra Nevada began to rise to the east that the scenery became worthy of any attention.

  However, she spent the entire trip on a knife-edge of tension. She knew Agreste was trailing her. He wouldn’t even need the tracker; he could just follow the bus. Somehow, she had to lose him.

  Her window of opportunity would be limited. And she didn’t know Granada at all – she would have to wing it with every step.

  She made the most of the last few minutes of the journey to get a sense of her surroundings. Granada was an ancient city, but the bus terminal was in a relatively new part of town. Broad streets laid out in a grid, anonymous apartment blocks, a tram system, the ubiquitous McDonald’s restaurants and Aldi supermarkets: it could have been anywhere in the world.

  It was the older and probably more characterful section she was interested in, though first she had to get there – without Ana’s killer catching her. But a plan was forming as the bus approached the terminal. After discovering the tracker, she had thoroughly searched all her other belongings to make sure Agreste hadn’t planted a backup. He hadn’t. So the first step was to get rid of the little device, in such a way that he didn’t immediately realise . . .

  The bus drove past a long modern building that she saw was her destination, then turned down a side street. There was a parking lot outside the terminal. If Agreste was following closely, he would probably stop there to watch for her as she emerged from the main entrance – the only entrance, as far as she could tell. She would have to find another escape route.

  Another turn, and the bus went through a gate into the terminal proper. Nina held her bag with her left hand and the tracker in the other. She shuffled to the side of her seat, ready to move.

  The bus pulled into a bay. The impatient woman in front of Nina was on her feet before the doors opened. Nina was right behind her. The two women bumped together. The Spaniard gave her an affronted scowl, then marched down the aisle. Nina followed, right hand now empty.

  The Spanish woman had obviously made the journey before, and turned straight towards the exit. Nina quickly went the other way, ducking between parked buses. Agreste might be out of his car – she had to move fast.

  She emerged from beneath the sunshade covering the bays. The entrance through which her bus had come was to the left, about ninety yards away; the exit was at the terminal’s opposite end, slightly closer. Gripping the bag, she ran for it.

  A man shouted in Spanish, waving for her to return to the passenger area, but she ignored him. A bus started to reverse out ahead of her. She swerved around it, sprinting for the exit—

  Made it. A glance back. The shouting man was behind the moving bus, not following her.

  Nor was anyone else. This was her chance.

  She went left, hurrying across a street and through a small tree-lined plaza before taking a side road between some apartment blocks. The more buildings she could put between herself and the bus terminal, the less chance Agreste had of picking up her trail. Around a corner, down to a large traffic circle, then she turned again, running south-east. Doubling back was far from an original tactic, but she hoped it would confuse her pursuer long enough for her to lose him.

  Another look back. No sign of Agreste. She continued past more apartment blocks to cross a street that led back to the bus station. The Frenchman was still not in sight. She reached the other side, then ran into a housing development, disparately designed properties piled together. She reached an empty plot, checking that nobody was watching before scaling a wall.

  Beyond was a vacant lot, poles and orange tape marking where construction of another house would soon start, but for now there was nothing ahead but trees. Nina kept moving, before long reaching an RV park. She followed a road past the camper vans back to the main street. The bus terminal was a block away, to her left. She went right, heading for a shopping mall.

  Agreste was still not in sight. She slowed to regain her breath.

  She needed to get clear, in case the Frenchman started searching the surrounding streets once he realised the tracker was no longer on his target, but she needed f
ood and water – and the mall would probably sell something else she needed. A last check, then she made her way to the shopping complex.

  A couple of hours later, she had reached the heart of Granada. This was more what she had expected: narrow streets, old buildings, grand civic structures and churches.

  The grandest of all was also the hardest to reach. The Alhambra had been built on a hilltop, but what the photographs hadn’t shown was just how steep that hill was in reality. Legs aching, she finally reached the ticket office at the eastern end of the old fortress.

  The Hall of the Ambassadors was in the section known as the Nazrid Palaces. With a certain inevitability, this was both the most popular and the most expensive part to visit. The only way to enter was as part of a guided tour with an assigned time slot. Resigning herself to acting like a tourist rather than an archaeologist, she bought a ticket, then made her way to her group’s meeting point.

  A guide eventually assembled everyone and led them through a gate. Nina hung back at the rear, using her hat and sunglasses to cover her features, and forcing herself not to correct the hapless man on historical minutiae as the tour progressed.

  The Alhambra was an odd mix of eras and religions. Its history was predominantly Islamic, Spain ruled for centuries by the Moors before the Christian Reconquistas gradually drove them out to leave the Nasrid Emirate of Granada as the sole remaining island of Muslim rule on the Iberian peninsula. Once the last sultan finally surrendered in 1492 – a turning point in Western history, Nina mused, the same year that Christopher Columbus first reached the Americas – the Spanish royals wasted no time in stamping their own identity upon the fortress, destroying many priceless carvings and artworks in the process.

  While the Reconquistas had worked hard to remove the touch of Islam from the Alhambra, some parts had been too remarkable even for them to desecrate. The sultan’s palace had largely been left intact, albeit more for its monetary than cultural value. As a result, the deeper the tour group went into the complex of buildings, the more overtly Islamic the decorations became. Mosaics of stars adorned the walls, tiles bore elaborate Arabic inscriptions praising God or reciting poetry, and the ceilings were panelled in wood, exquisite carvings cut into the centuries-old timber.