Empire of Gold_A Novel

by Andy McDermott

  “Turned out okay?”

  “I was going to say had no complaints, actually.” Another swig. “But I get the feeling you’ve got some, and they’re nothing to do with your opinion of my parenting skills.”

  “You could say that.” Eddie produced an envelope and took out two photographs, which he tossed onto the table beside Larry. “Recognize those?”

  Larry didn’t look at them. “There’s not much point me answering, is there? Since I’m sure you think you already know the answer.”

  Eddie laughed sarcastically. “Don’t worry, I’m not fucking taping you. You don’t need to get all evasive.”

  Larry sat forward. “What’s this all about, Edward?”

  Eddie did the same, fixing him with a stony stare. “It’s about whether you’re going to do the right thing. For once in your life.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like—”

  “Shut up!” Eddie barked.

  Larry flinched, then stood, bristling. “I don’t take that kind of attitude from anybody. Least of all you.”

  Eddie didn’t move, eyes locked on his father’s. “Sit down. Or I’ll make you sit down. And you know I’ll do it.”

  His jaw tight with anger, the elder Chase returned to his seat. “Get to it, then,” he growled. “What do you want?”

  “First off, I want you to look at those photos.” His father picked them up. “The big gold face is an Inca sun disk—religious thing, their version of a cross. The other thing’s called a khipu. Not as impressive, since it’s basically a load of strings, but this one’s important ’cause Nina thinks it’s the key to finding El Dorado.”

  Larry raised an eyebrow. “What, the El Dorado?”

  “No, Elvis’s Cadillac.”

  “You can be sarcastic or make your point, Edward. I’m not going to listen to you do both.”

  “All right. My point is that they were stolen from an archaeological site in Venezuela, and that you shipped them out of the country. And when I say shipped, I mean smuggled. ’Cause let’s not beat around the bush—that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” said Larry. “I don’t handle anything illegal.”

  “What about those?” Eddie demanded, indicating the photos. “They’re stolen goods—I’d call that illegal right off the bat.”

  “Stolen? From who? I’ve got access to international watch lists from customs, police, insurers—neither of these things were on any of them. Due diligence; I carry it out before taking on any job.”

  “That’s a technicality and you bloody know it. It’d never stand up in court.”

  “As a matter of fact, it has, on more than one occasion. I know what I’m doing. I’m very good at it.”

  “So good that you don’t care who you work for as long as they pay well?” Eddie said. “That guy you gave your business card to was a fucking drug lord!”

  “How he makes his money isn’t any of my concern. All I was doing was delivering a cargo to him—a cargo that as far as I knew was totally legitimate. If it had been drugs I wouldn’t have touched it. Do you think I’m a fucking idiot or something?”

  “You’re something, all right. Didn’t it even cross your mind that the job was a bit dodgy when Diego del Cocainio rings up out of the blue from South America and asks you to shift some merchandise for him, no questions asked?”

  Larry almost laughed. “As a matter of fact, the whole thing was arranged by a friend of yours.”

  That caught Eddie totally off guard. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Your old SAS mate.” Eddie was left even more bewildered. Mac? Relishing the fact that the balance of power had shifted somewhat back in his direction, Larry continued, “Alexander Stikes.”

  “Stikes?” Eddie exploded. “Stikes is no fucking friend of mine! The bastard tried to kill me!”

  “Really? Well, obviously I’m glad he didn’t succeed, but I didn’t know anything about that. He actually said you’d recommended me to him.”

  “Oh, and didn’t that give away that something was wrong?”

  Larry gave him an icy look. “I thought maybe you were attempting to apologize by putting some business my way. But I checked out his company, and everything seemed legit, so I had no reason to doubt him. He put me in touch with Callas and de Quesada, so all I did was act as middleman and ship some goods between them.”

  “Without them being checked by customs.”

  A contemptuous snort. “You seem to be under the impression that if something crosses a border without a seventeen-point customs check, that means there’s been some great conspiracy. Do you have any idea how many items actually are checked by customs? Maybe one in twenty—and that’s in the West, where they have the technology and manpower to do even that many. Really, all they’re looking for are drugs. Down here, it’s more like one in a hundred. I just make sure that my clients’ cargoes are in the other ninety-nine percent. A word in the ear of the right person is usually all it takes.”

  “And a bribe?”

  “I prefer to think of them as favors. You know, customs men are almost universally underpaid and underappreciated. I just show a little gratitude for the job they’re doing.”

  “And what about you, then?” Eddie demanded. “You don’t have any problems with taking money from a drug lord?”

  “As I said, his business isn’t my business. He was just another client. The only questions I ask are where, when, and how much?”

  Eddie stood, voice low and harsh. “I’ve got a new question you should ask yourself: Am I going to give every penny I got from this job to the British Legion or Help for Heroes, or am I going to jail?”

  A startled pause. “You—you’re threatening me?”

  “That’s right.”

  Anger flared in the older man’s eyes—and defiance. “You’ve got no proof.”

  Eddie took out the business card. “You dealt with de Quesada.”

  “Anyone could have given him that card. Besides, he’s an alleged drug lord, not a convicted one.”

  “Well, he’s a dead drug lord now.”

  Larry’s expression hovered between surprise and relief. “So you’ve got even less proof that I had anything to do with him.”

  “Interpol’s got his records. And why do you think I kept your card in a plastic bag? So they can get fingerprints off it. Yours and de Quesada’s.”

  “So … they haven’t actually fingerprinted it yet?”

  “Not yet. But I’ll give it back to them if you don’t make a very large donation to charity in the next few days.” He returned the card to his pocket. “I’m giving you a chance here, Dad. You do the right thing. Or I will.”

  Larry gulped down the last of his drink, fingers clenched tightly around the glass. “I’ll … think about it.”

  “Don’t think for too long.” Eddie went to the door, looking back at his father with disdain. “Have a nice trip.” With that, he left.

  Larry banged the empty glass down on the table and jumped up. He paced back and forth across the room, shaking with barely contained fury, before taking a long breath and picking up his phone. He thumbed through the contact list and dialed a number.

  “This is Larry Chase,” he said when he got a reply. “I need … I need to speak to Mr. Stikes.”

  Nina had already returned to Caracas; Eddie flew back to meet her. She was understandably curious about his side trip to the Colombian capital, but he refused to tell her anything beyond its being connected to Stikes. However, they were both too tired to argue about it, flopping into the luxurious bed in their hotel suite and almost instantly falling asleep.

  As soon as Eddie was woken by voices from the next room the following morning, he realized that Nina had something more important occupying her mind than his excursion to Bogotá. Her excitement was clear even through the door. He got dressed and went through to the lounge, finding Nina sitting at a table with Macy, Osterhagen, Kit, and even Mac. “What’s this,
a remake of The Breakfast Club?”

  Nina hurriedly gulped a mouthful of toast, washing it down with a swig of coffee. “Mm, morning! Guess you slept well—you don’t normally get up this late.”

  “Well, yesterday was kind of knackering. Mornin’, all.” He waved to the others, getting greetings in response. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “I thought you needed a lie-in. And you looked so sweet while you were asleep.”

  “Funny, I’ve seen Eddie when he’s asleep,” said Mac, “and that’s not a word I would ever have used to describe him.”

  “Yeah, well, kipping with a bunch of sweaty, farting SAS blokes tends to make you scrunch your face up,” Eddie retorted. He looked at the table, seeing the recovered khipu laid out on a long white board, and a jumble of notes in front of the three archaeologists. “So, do we have this thing figured out? Hope you’re going to wash your hands before you pick it up,” he added to Nina, who was wolfing down another slice of buttered toast.

  She waved to Macy for a napkin. “Yeah, Leonard thinks he’s got something.”

  Eddie pulled up a chair and sat as Osterhagen, with deep bags under his eyes that suggested he had been working all night, held up a large photo of the map in Paititi. “We know the start point of the journey,” the German explained. “Cuzco, of course, the center of the Inca empire. And we know the end point—Paititi. What we needed were reference points along the way. If we could identify other known locations, it would allow us to work out the code shared between the map and the khipu—directions and distances.”

  Eddie nodded. “So what’ve you found?”

  Osterhagen was about to speak when Macy enthusiastically cut in. “Only the biggest Inca landmark in the world,” she said, waving at a blowup of part of the painted wall. “Machu Picchu!” She pointed out a small illustration among the markings, little more than a sketch: two rounded-off conical peaks, one large, one small, with lines presumably representing buildings at their bases. “It’s about seventy miles northwest of Cuzco, along a thing called the Inca Trail.”

  “I’ve traveled along it many times,” said Osterhagen, trying to wrest back the discussion from the perky student. “I know the landmarks well. Now, the number of these markings here”—he indicated part of the map—“correspond to the huacas along the Inca Trail between Cuzco and Machu Picchu.”

  “Huacas?” said Eddie. “Sounds like an Inca puking.”

  Those who knew him well either smiled or let his attempt at a joke pass without comment; Osterhagen, however, seemed mildly affronted. “No, they are sacred sites,” he said. “The Incas believed that certain places were of spiritual importance. Some were natural features like springs or mountain peaks, some were places of historical importance, and others were burial sites for mummies. Not all of them survived the Spanish conquest, because the conquistadores tried to eradicate everything associated with the existing religions.”

  “But it’s kinda hard to destroy an entire mountain,” Macy added. “A lot of them survived.”

  “Got you,” Eddie said, examining the photographs. “You know where these things are today, so we can work backward and say this marking means a burial site, or whatever.”

  “And the other part,” said Nina, having wiped her fingers, “is the khipu.” She indicated the leftmost section of the collection of knotted strings. “This part is a record of the first stage of their journey, as far as Machu Picchu. The number of strings matches the number of huacas on the map.”

  “A lot of landmarks,” noted Eddie.

  “It was a long journey. It’s over a thousand miles from Cuzco to Paititi, and that’s as the crow flies—the Incas took an even longer route. You see this?”

  She pointed farther along the Inca artifact’s woven spine. Although the strings were dirty and darkened by time, Eddie saw that the various strands were discernibly different. Those up to roughly two-thirds of the way along the khipu’s length were a variety of shades, mostly grays and browns and reds with greens and blues interspersed; beyond that point, they were almost entirely of the last two. “The colors change,” he said. “What does that mean?”

  “We think,” said Osterhagen, “the colors represent different types of terrain. This section here”—he gestured at a cluster of gray strings in the first section of the khipu—“corresponds to the highlands along the Inca Trail leading to Machu Picchu. By going back toward Cuzco, we found that other colors match particular features of the landscape.” He gently nudged one of the strands with a toothpick. “This shade of turquoise seems to represent river valleys, for example.”

  Eddie took a closer look. The string had multiple knots of different types along its length. “So the map tells you what landmarks to look for, the colors of the strings show you the terrain … so the knots are, what? Directions? Distances?”

  “Both, in a way,” said Nina.

  “The Incas had a system of sacred routes radiating outward from Cuzco,” Osterhagen explained. “They were called ceque pathways, and they connected all corners of the empire. Some were actual roads or paths, but most were just straight lines from one huaca to another. We knew that the pathways had ritual significance—the most important ones, the forty-one ceques around Cuzco, can be linked to the lunar calendar. But nobody has ever worked out how to connect all the others around the empire.”

  “Until now, at a guess,” Eddie said, seeing that Nina was practically bouncing in her seat with excitement.

  “You got that right,” she told him with a broad grin. “Leonard used the data he got by backtracking from Machu Picchu to Cuzco to figure out that the knots closest to the main cord give you directions, based on star charts—the Incas had a very advanced astronomical system.”

  “Not as good as the Egyptian one, though,” Macy chipped in, defending the non-Cuban half of her heritage.

  “Maybe not, but still accurate enough to be usable for navigation. So that’s part of the key. And the other part is also on the khipu—the rest of the knots. The Inca numerical system was decimal, like ours, and on a khipu it worked like an abacus. The knots represent units, tens, hundreds and so on, depending on their position. If you know the system, you can tell what number’s recorded on a piece of string at a glance, or even by touch.”

  “Again, because I had reference points,” said Osterhagen, “we were able to work out what the numbers meant. They are indeed distances. Nina calculated how they relate to huacas in the real world. In her head,” he added, impressed.

  “So you know the total distance they traveled?” asked Kit.

  “Something like seventeen hundred miles,” Nina replied.

  “Jesus,” said Eddie. “And you said it was a thousand miles in a straight line? Seven hundred miles is a hell of a detour.”

  “It’s because they were sticking to what they knew for most of it,” Macy said. She opened up a large map of South America. “From Cuzco, they were pretty much heading northwest along the east side of the Andes. I guess they didn’t want to go into the jungle.”

  “But they had to eventually,” added Nina. She pointed back at the section of the khipu where the colored threads became predominantly green and blue. “We think the green ones represent jungle terrain. And the directions at the top of each string almost all indicate northeast. The blue ones, it seems likely that they mean to follow rivers.”

  “Makes sense,” said Eddie. “Not a lot of other landmarks in the jungle.”

  “Especially if you’re used to living among mountains.” She moved her finger back along the khipu. “So if we backtrack from Paititi, they covered long distances with comparatively few changes of direction … and then here”—she indicated the point where the color scheme reverted to the redder end of the spectrum—“is where they crossed from the Andes into the Amazon basin. But even up in the highlands, they were still heading mainly northeast … until here.”

  Eddie examined the strings she was pointing out. The exact meaning of the knots at their tops were a mystery
to him, but he immediately saw what she meant: those to the right of her finger were tied right over left, while on the other side they were fastened left over right. “So that’s where they changed direction,” he deduced. “They stopped following the Andes and went out into the jungle.”

  Nina nodded. “That’s the dogleg, where the extra seven hundred miles came from. And it’s something else too.”

  He could tell from her struggle to contain another smile that it was something big. Which, considering what they were looking for, could only be one thing. “El Dorado?”

  “El Doraaaa-do!” she sang, showing him a blowup of the painted city, the Punchaco—and the final piece of statue—at its heart. Mac chuckled at her unrestrained enthusiasm. “The number of huaca markings on the map before you get there is exactly the same as the number of strings on the khipu up to the point where they turn northeast. They left Cuzco, headed along the Andes, thought they’d found a safe place to hide the empire’s greatest treasures … then had to move again to avoid the Spanish. But they left some of the treasure behind. And now … we can find it.”

  Eddie gave her a genially mocking look. “What, you mean you haven’t already? I thought you were supposed to be good at this archaeology lark!”

  She pouted. “Well, we have only just had breakfast. At least give us until lunchtime!”

  It took rather longer than that, the process of calculating all the directions and distances represented by each thread of the khipu and then relating those to known huacas throughout Peru dragging on through the day. But Osterhagen’s knowledge of the country and its culture proved an enormous asset, even though he was at times on the verge of falling asleep at the table and had to be prodded awake by the two women. The Incas had illustrated on their map what were now known archaeological sites, and the German’s wealth of experience allowed the group to skip long sections of the trek, narrowing the possible location of the lost city each time.

  While Nina, Osterhagen, and Macy worked in the lounge, Eddie made a phone call from the bedroom. “Hi, Nan.”

  “Edward!” came the delighted voice from across the Atlantic. “It’s so wonderful to hear from you. How are you, my little lambchop?” His grandmother sounded somewhat stronger than the last time they had spoken, if still a little breathless.