Empire of Gold

by Andy McDermott

  The Malay lurched backwards into one of the shelving racks. It toppled over, knocking him to the floor beneath it – and dropping dozens of heavy box files on to Kit. He managed to protect his face, but still took several painful hits.

  West was gone, the other door slamming shut. Eddie tried to pull Kit out from under the collapsed shelves. ‘No, go after him!’ Kit groaned. ‘Get the memory card!’

  Eddie reluctantly let go and ran to the door. As he expected, it was locked. A couple of kicks took care of that. The room beyond was a small storeroom, a fire door swinging open in the back wall. He rushed to it and looked out into the rain. Metal steps led down to ground level.

  No sign of West, but considering his bulk he couldn’t have got far. Eddie clanged down the stairs. If West had gone round to the front of the cabin, he would have been seen by the Singaporean officers. He must have headed deeper into the port. Which way, though? The towering maze of containers, stacked as many as five high, rose just yards away like a giant child’s building blocks. He listened for footsteps, but heard nothing. Not, he was reluctantly forced to admit, that he could have picked much out through the hiss of rain and rumble of distant machinery; years of exposure to gunshots and other loud noises had permanently affected his hearing.

  He ran to a container and jumped to grab the edge of its roof, pulling himself up. The containers to each side were stacked two high; he leapt again and scrambled on top of one, then pounded along its forty-foot length to jump up once more. He was now over twenty-five feet above the ground, giving him more of a chance of spotting West – he hoped.

  The containers were arranged in long blocks, six wide, with roadways between them housing the tracks for the gangling cranes. The nearest was to his left; he looked down into it. Nobody there. He hurried across to the right, rounding a gaping hole where several containers had been plucked from the tier. The other roadway was considerably wider, with room for containers to be lowered on to flatbed trailers. The great yellow crane spanning the block along which he was running was ahead, slowly lowering a container towards a waiting truck.

  But the huge machine wasn’t what caught his attention. Instead, it was a rotund figure a hundred yards away, shouting into a walkie-talkie as he ran.

  A look ahead told Eddie where he was going. The floodlit, slab-like sides of cargo ships rose above the containers. The waterfront.

  But West wasn’t going to board a ship. He was trying to dispose of the memory card. On the ground, even in the dockland sprawl, the Singaporean authorities could use CCTV and dogs to retrace his steps and eventually find it. But in the water, amongst the currents and traffic and floating garbage, the tiny plastic chip would be lost for ever.

  ‘Not a fucking chance,’ Eddie muttered as he set off at a run. He could easily catch up with West on the ground – but first had to get down there.

  He was too high up to risk dropping to the concrete. But doubling back and descending that way would cost him too much time. He needed an intermediate step . . .

  The crane.

  He ran at it, the driver in his elevated cabin reacting in surprise at the sight of the interloper, then hurriedly hitting the emergency stop. The container jolted to a halt above the trailer—

  Eddie made a running jump, crossing the gap and landing with a bang on the container roof eight feet below. He ran along the container’s length, vaulted the end of the spreader and thumped down on his backside on the truck’s roof to slide off and drop the last nine feet to the ground.

  The impact jarred his joints. He rolled with a pained grunt and jumped up. The startled truck driver threw open the cab door and yelled in Chinese, but Eddie was already running after West.

  The fat man disappeared round a corner. Eddie pushed harder, reaching the corner of the container block just in time to see West make another turn about fifty yards ahead, still heading for the waterfront. Feet splashing through puddles, Eddie followed. At the turn he saw that he had closed the distance again, West only forty yards away. He would be able to tackle him well short of the sea—

  Lights came on behind him, his running shadow stretching ahead on the wet ground.

  He looked back – and saw a forklift bearing down on him.

  Eddie jinked to one side of the roadway. The forklift changed course, tracking him. West had called for help over the radio, and a dock worker had responded.

  The containers were stacked too high for him to climb. The machine charged at him like a bull, its forks great steel horns lowered to punch into his chest. Eddie backed against a container. He could see the driver’s face between the headlights, fixed in malevolent expectation—

  ‘Olé!’ Eddie cried, whirling and dropping flat as the twin forks speared over him and punched through the metal wall.

  He had gambled with his life that the container was full – and it was. The vehicle slammed to a stop just short of him as the forks hit whatever was inside. The corrugated side tore open with a screech . . . and dozens of cans tumbled out of the mangled hole, thunking off him as he scrambled out from beneath the embedded tines. The sickly smell of dog food filled his nostrils.

  The forklift whined and jolted as it tried to pull free. Eddie snatched up a can and hurled it at the driver’s head. There was a ringing clonk of metal against bone, and the man let out an almost comical squawk of pain before toppling nervelessly from the open cab.

  Eddie looked back towards the waterfront. West was out of sight again, having gone down another intersecting roadway. Had the fat man gone left or right? If he followed the wrong path, it could cost him his chance to catch up.

  He sprinted for the junction. Left or right? He had only a moment to make a choice—

  He made it – and carried straight on.

  Whichever way he had gone, West would still be heading for the sea. A broad expanse of rain-soaked concrete glistened in the floodlights between the end of the container stacks and a waiting ship.

  He burst into the open, looking left, seeing nobody, right—

  West was about thirty yards away – and twenty yards from the oily water behind the ship’s stern.

  Eddie pounded after him. The gap closed with every step, but West had seen him, fear driving him faster. Nine yards, eight, seven, but the obese man was nearly there, about to throw the memory card into the sea. Yards shrank to feet, the tweed almost in reach—

  West whipped his arm forward just as Eddie dived at him and clamped a hand over his, the tackle sending them both over the quayside.

  They entered the water with a huge splash. Eddie’s eyes and nose immediately started to sting, the sea polluted with oil and anti-fouling biocides and effluent from the hundreds of ships that passed through each week. West thrashed; Eddie kept his grip on his hand, feeling the card’s sharp edge digging into his palm.

  But it was slipping away, the fat man still desperate to lose the incriminating data even in his panic. If he opened his fingers, it would be gone . . .

  Eddie pulled West’s hand to his face – and bit it.

  A muffled gurgle of shock and pain, the card popping free – and Eddie sucked it into his mouth along with some of the foul water. The vile taste almost made him throw up, but he choked back the reflexive response and swallowed. He let go of West’s hand and shoved him away, then kicked upwards until his head broke the surface. Gasping, he shook water from his eyes and swam to the dock, taking hold of a concrete piling.

  West surfaced, spluttering and screeching. ‘Help! Help me! I can’t swim!’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Eddie growled. He reluctantly pushed himself back out and grabbed West by his collar to haul him to the quay.

  Running footsteps above. ‘Eddie!’ Kit shouted. ‘Eddie, where are you?’

  ‘Three bloody guesses!’ he called back.

  A head peered over the edge. ‘Over here!’ said Kit, pointing. Other faces appeared, including Ayu’s. ‘We’ll get you out.’

  A lifebelt was tossed down, which West eagerly grabbed,
followed by a rope ladder. Before long, both men were on the dock, dripping. ‘I see I’m going to have to buy a new suit,’ Kit said unhappily at the sight of his oil-stained jacket.

  ‘You got promoted; you can afford it,’ Eddie replied, spitting to clear the revolting taste from his mouth. ‘Christ, that’s rank.’

  West was already on the defensive. ‘I had no idea this was a police operation,’ he protested to the uniformed officers. ‘I thought I was being robbed – I was running for my life!’

  Ayu struggled to bring his bloated arms together behind his back so she could handcuff him. ‘You’re involved in smuggling, Mr West. You’re under arrest.’

  ‘Smuggling?’ West hooted. ‘I’m sure you were recording the meeting, so check your tapes – I told them that under no circumstances would I get involved in anything illegal. Where’s your evidence?’

  Kit turned to Eddie. ‘Where is our evidence, Eddie? What happened to the memory card?’

  He patted his stomach, then indicated the polluted water. ‘With the amount of crap I swallowed, it’ll come out pretty quickly.’ A queasy grin. ‘From one end or the other.’

  The port’s customs officials had all the facilities necessary to catch foreign objects as they left the human body, by whatever route. To Eddie’s relief, if it could be called that, a cup of clean but very salty water was enough to make him puke out his stomach contents into a bowl, rather than having to speed nature’s course along with a laxative. The memory card was recovered and cleaned; it had not been damaged by its brief immersion in either seawater or digestive acids.

  Now, the data contained on it had been extracted. ‘This bloke West did ship stuff for the Khoils,’ Eddie told Nina via phone from Interpol’s Singapore office. ‘The statue the Khoils had in their vault, he smuggled it out of Japan.’

  ‘Japan? Do we know who it belonged to originally?’ Nina asked.

  ‘No, just which ports he moved it through. He’ll be questioned about it, though. Kit said there might be a plea bargain on offer. Oh, and Kit was right about the Venezuelan connection. West moved all those Inca treasures out of the country.’

  ‘Did they originate from Venezuela, though? Or was it just a transit point from Peru?’

  ‘Kit was checking a— Oh, hang on, here he is. You can ask him yourself.’ Kit entered, holding a sheaf of papers and looking pleased with himself. Eddie put the phone on speaker. ‘It’s Nina.’

  ‘Hi, Kit,’ she said. ‘Have you got something?’

  ‘I think I may have,’ he said, riffling through the pages. ‘As well as the files on West’s memory card, we also got a warrant for his phone records. A lot of international calls, as you’d expect – and many were to Venezuela. Most were mobile numbers, but there were also some to a landline in a town in the south of the country, a place called Valverde.’

  ‘Valverde?’

  ‘I already looked it up – it’s near the Orinoco river, about twenty-five kilometres from the Colombian border. Right on that line you put on the map in your office.’

  ‘What about the smuggled artefacts?’ she asked, with growing excitement. ‘Did they come from Venezuela originally?’

  ‘It looks that way. West was dealing directly with the seller. I think this is well worth investigating – another Interpol/IHA mission.’ Now it was the turn of Kit’s enthusiasm to rise. ‘I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the Inca artefacts are coming from a region that is exactly in the direction you are looking. There’s a good chance we could find the source of the artefacts and shut down their black market sales, and find the third statue at the same time.’

  ‘Raleigh thought the lost city was somewhere along the Orinoco,’ said Nina. ‘The Incas might have hidden the third statue near Valverde! I’ll talk to Sebastian, get him to speak to the Venezuelans about an expedition. I think you’re right, Kit – I doubt this is a coincidence. If we find Paititi, we might be able to kill two birds with one stone.’

  ‘So long as we don’t get killed ourselves,’ said Eddie. ‘Somebody else must have found this place already, remember?’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange some local security. And you’ll be there to look after us too.’

  ‘And so will I,’ said Kit. ‘You can make the archaeological discoveries while Interpol stops these smugglers. We have already caught their middleman, and now we can catch them as well.’

  ‘Great,’ said Nina. ‘Better brush up on my Spanish, I suppose . . . ’

  8

  Venezuela

  As it turned out, Nina didn’t need to work on her language skills in the four days it took to make the arrangements with the Venezuelan government. The moment she heard about the plan, Macy practically begged to volunteer her services. Though initially dubious, Nina knew one area where Macy’s abilities far outclassed her own: with her part-Cuban heritage, the young woman was completely fluent in Spanish. And, she had to admit, while Macy could sometimes be annoying, she was usually fun company.

  Which right now was more than she could say of her husband. Though things had thawed, there was still the uncomfortable feeling of tiptoeing over eggshells around each other. Nina hated it – and was sure that Eddie did too – but neither was willing to make the first move and apologise to the other.

  That said, there were larger matters on her mind. The United States and Venezuela were not close at the best of times, but over recent months the Venezuelan president, Tito Suarez, had made increasingly vocal accusations of US interference in his country’s affairs. The State Department, conversely, had noted increasing civil unrest in Venezuela’s cities, to the extent of issuing a suggestion – not quite a warning, but the subtext was clear – that American citizens should postpone all but essential visits to the Bolivarian Republic until the situation improved.

  From the penthouse balcony of her Caracas hotel, however, Nina saw little evidence of brewing revolution in the city below, only cars and billboards and a giant video screen on the front of what she assumed from the mast on its roof was a television station. Despite her being an American, the Venezuelan government had rolled out the metaphorical red carpet for the IHA’s director and her expedition. She had a shrewd idea why; considering her past record, the prospect of her discovering a legendary city in the jungle would be irresistible, bringing the nation both international prestige and tourist money. She had never visited the country before, and had been surprised and impressed by its capital, a bustling and in places strikingly modern metropolis. There was clearly a lot of money at work.

  However, it was also clear that, even under an ostensibly socialist government, that wealth was far from evenly spread. Beyond the skyscrapers, great chunks of the city were packed tight with ramshackle little structures: the barrios, home to millions of the urban poor. Yet between these cramped slums were towering condominiums, expansive villas, even golf courses. With a gap so large financially and small physically between rich and poor, it was easy to imagine resentments simmering away until they boiled over.

  She wasn’t planning on staying long in Caracas, however. Returning to the suite – though it was a beautiful day, the stench of smog was stinging her sinuses – she joined Eddie, Macy and Kit to await their visitor.

  He finally arrived over half an hour late, which could have been down to the gridlocked streets, but Nina suspected was just as likely due to his displeasure at being there at all. Dr Leonard Osterhagen, a burly German in his fifties with a trim salt-and-pepper goatee that matched his hair, worked for not the IHA but one of the other United Nations cultural organisations – and in very short order made his opinion of the newer agency plain. ‘I do not see why the IHA has assumed control of this expedition,’ he said. ‘And I resent being shanghaied from our dig in Peru.’

  ‘You weren’t shanghaied, Dr Osterhagen,’ said Nina in a placatory tone. ‘It was simply a request for inter-agency cooperation.’

  ‘Cooperation! It was an order, I think. When the IHA makes a demand, everyone else must dance
for it.’

  ‘I’ll have to disagree with that interpretation,’ she said, her patience already wearing thin.

  ‘Well, of course you do. You are the one who benefits. The IHA takes money away from other agencies, diverts funds from serious research and puts it into grand exhibitions, like Atlantis. Our work is not supposed to be a fairground show.’ He gestured at Kit. ‘And we are archaeologists, not policemen! Why is Interpol involved?’

  Nina passed a folder to Osterhagen. ‘Take a look.’

  He scowled and flipped it open . . . and his expression became first one of shock, then wonder. Inside were the photographs of the black market artefacts Kit had shown her in New York. He shuffled back and forth through them before looking up at Nina in amazement. ‘Where were these found?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ Nina said, relieved by his abrupt change of attitude. ‘They’d been sold on the black market, which is why Interpol got involved, but they were found here. In Venezuela. And that’s why I requested this meeting. You’re one of the world’s foremost experts in Inca history, so I thought you might be interested. But if you’d prefer to leave it to the IHA . . . ’