‘I can’t tell you, Oswald,’ she replied. ‘I’m sorry. But part of the IHA’s remit from its founding six years ago was to make sure that potentially dangerous archaeological discoveries stayed out of the wrong hands. As director of the IHA, I made a decision to restrict all information about what we found, for reasons of global security.’
‘Even from the nations funding the IHA?’
‘Especially from them,’ Eddie rumbled.
Seretse eyed him. ‘I see.’ He leaned back. ‘Would I be correct in assuming that if the information were to be released, it could result in, shall we say, disagreements between certain members of the UN Security Council? Certain nuclear-armed members?’
‘To put it mildly, yes,’ Nina told him.
The diplomat nodded. ‘Then I had better accept your resignation immediately.’ He slid the letter across the desk to an out-tray. ‘After all, I can’t use my position as United Nations liaison to demand answers from somebody who no longer works for the organisation, can I?’
Nina managed a faint smile. ‘Thank you, Oswald.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt I have not heard the last of this. But now that you both no longer work for the IHA, such matters are no longer your concern.’ He stood, straightening his immaculate suit before extending his hand. ‘I may have only worked with you briefly, but you both lived up to your reputations.’
Eddie rose and crossed the room to stand beside Nina. ‘Good or bad?’
Now it was Seretse’s turn to smile slightly. ‘It’s perhaps best that I do not say.’ He shook their hands. ‘Good luck, to the pair of you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Nina. ‘I’m sorry to have dropped this bomb on you’ – Eddie suppressed a sarcastic comment on her choice of words – ‘but we need to do this. We want to . . .’ She was more careful with her phraseology this time. ‘We want to spend as much time with each other as we can.’
‘Ah, yes, I can quite understand that. A job like this can keep us away from our families for too long.’ But there was something in Seretse’s eyes that suggested he had picked up a little more meaning from Nina’s remark. ‘I hope you do everything you want to achieve.’
‘So do I,’ she said, heartfelt.
He rounded his desk to show them out. ‘If I may ask, what are you going to do?’
‘Travel, for one thing. And not with my archaeologist’s hat on. I want to see new places, meet new people.’
Seretse nodded. ‘It sounds most agreeable. Where are you going?’
‘Vietnam first,’ Eddie said. ‘There’s a place I want to visit there. And then, well . . . kind of a world tour.’
‘We’re going to see some friends in Hollywood too, at some point,’ said Nina. ‘Do you know Grant Thorn? The movie star?’
Seretse shook his head. ‘I must admit to preferring French cinema to Hollywood blockbusters.’
‘Me too, actually. Although I don’t think I’ll ever talk Eddie round to my point of view.’
‘You know those Jason Statham Transporter movies technically count as French cinema, right?’ he said with a grin.
Nina sighed. ‘Yes, this is the man I’m going to be spending the rest of my . . . time with.’ She shook Seretse’s hand again. ‘Goodbye, Oswald.’
‘Bye, Ozzy,’ Eddie added. Seretse gave them both a tired look, but smiled in farewell.
Nina held her upbeat expression as she and Eddie walked to the elevators, but her facade crumbled as they descended towards the lobby of the Secretariat Building. He put his arm around her. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, trying to reassure her. ‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not okay,’ she replied, struggling to keep her composure. ‘Eddie, I’m going to die! You saw the doctor’s report. Even if they didn’t know what was wrong with me, they still knew it was bad. The eitr infected me, and . . . I don’t know how long I’ve got.’
‘It might be years.’
‘And it might be weeks! The Russians told us how quickly the stuff can kill, even in small doses.’ She unconsciously touched her cheek; the red mark had faded, but was still visible, a hardened blemish against her otherwise smooth skin. ‘I only got hit by a drop, but we both know that’s all it takes. I’ve lasted longer than the nine steps Thor took, but . . . it’s only a matter of time.’
The elevator doors opened. She blinked away tears before stepping out. ‘All right then,’ said Eddie softly as he walked beside her. ‘We don’t know how long you’ve got. But there might be a cure out there somewhere. We can’t give up on finding it, ever – I’m sure as fuck not going to, and I’m not going to let you either! And until we find it, we can make what you’ve got – what we’ve got – as good as it possibly can be. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ she managed to say.
They crossed the lobby, heading for the exits to the plaza outside. Eddie looked around at their modernist surroundings. ‘You know, I’m actually going to miss this place.’
‘So am I,’ Nina replied. ‘But there’s something I’m going to miss more.’
‘What?’
‘Being—’ Her voice caught, choked off by a sudden rush of emotion. She breathed hard, forcing out the words. ‘Being the mother of your children.’
Eddie couldn’t reply, as overcome as his wife. Tears streaming, they went through the doors and out into the winter cold of New York.
Two days later, the weather was considerably warmer.
‘Are we there yet?’ said Nina in joking complaint as she wiped sweat from her forehead. Even though the rented 4x4 had air conditioning, the temperature at midday was still stifling.
‘Not much further,’ said Eddie as he guided their vehicle down the bumpy jungle track. Under normal circumstances, to hire a car in Vietnam he would first have had to apply for a Vietnamese driver’s licence, which would have taken at least a week. However, on this occasion the time to process the paperwork had been reduced to a couple of hours; they were both grateful to Seretse that their United Nations documentation would remain valid for a few months.
‘So this is where you came eight years ago?’ She watched the brilliant greenery roll by. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Yeah, it is.’ He sounded almost surprised, prompting a questioning look from his wife. ‘I didn’t really get the chance to play tourist last time I was here. Besides, it was pissing it down.’
‘At least it’s not raining today. I wouldn’t fancy trekking through the jungle in a monsoon to find Natalia’s grave.’
He gave her a slightly confused glance. ‘Sorry, what?’
‘Natalia’s grave? That’s why we came here, remember. How far from the village is it?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ He seemed distracted, but there was something else to his attitude as well. Nina couldn’t quite tell what, though. Almost . . . expectant? ‘Not far.’
He guided the Nissan Patrol around a bend in the narrow track, bushes whipping at the vehicle’s flank. Ahead, a cluster of buildings came into view: the village of Ly Quang. ‘Is that it?’ Nina asked.
‘That’s it. Hasn’t changed much.’ He brought the 4x4 down the hill and pulled up outside the largest building.
The sweltering heat hit them the moment they opened the Patrol’s doors. Nina screwed up her eyes as pinpricks of sweat beaded around them, then surveyed their surroundings. It was clear that the village did not get many visitors; the few people in sight had already taken an interest in the new arrivals.
One of them, a woman Nina guessed to be in her mid thirties, regarded Eddie first with uncertainty, then dawning recognition. ‘Ay up,’ he said. ‘Looks like somebody remembers me.’
The woman hurried to the car to meet him, speaking excitedly. ‘Sorry, I still don’t speak Vietnamese,’ he replied with an apologetic shrug. ‘But this does.’
He took his phone from inside his leather jacket and brought up an app: an English–Vietnamese translator. A set of phrases had already been saved, a tap of Eddie’s finger prompting the phone to say the first in a mechanical voice. The woman did no
t seem wowed by the technology – the country’s cellular phone network had been massively expanded over the course of eight years – but her reaction to what it was saying was more excited.
‘What did you ask her?’ said Nina.
Eddie didn’t answer, instead tapping a second phrase. The woman listened, nodding enthusiastically, then waved for him to wait as she ran into the large building. ‘Eddie?’ Nina asked again. ‘What did it say?’
‘Just checking something,’ he replied, though he was having trouble holding back a smile.
‘What . . .’ Nina began, stopping as the Vietnamese woman reappeared – followed by someone else.
A blonde Caucasian woman in her late twenties, whose eyes widened in delighted shock at the sight of the Englishman. ‘Eddie!’ she cried. ‘My God! But that means . . .’
‘Yeah, that means.’ Eddie’s grin could no longer be contained. He turned to his wife. ‘Nina? I’d like you to meet Natalia Pöltl.’
Eight Years Earlier . . .
‘But you know I am right, Eddie,’ Natalia continued, desperation entering her voice. ‘And it is what I want to do. Please!’ She wrapped her hands around his. ‘I will not let anyone else die because of me. You have to do it. You have to!’ She squeezed his hands, then let go and turned away, getting down on her knees. ‘You . . . you know how to make it not hurt, don’t you?’ she said quietly.
‘Yeah, I do,’ he replied. ‘But—’
‘Then do it. It is the only way to end this.’ She raised her head, and closed her eyes.
He stared down at the young woman. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’
‘Yes,’ came the reply.
He was silent for a long moment. Then he slowly raised the gun.
‘Please,’ whispered Natalia. ‘Do it.’
Chase hesitated – then pulled the trigger.
Natalia shrieked, flinching . . . before slowly opening one eye, not daring to speak for several seconds. ‘You . . . did not shoot me.’
Chase’s gun was pointed towards the sky, smoke curling from its barrel. ‘Course I didn’t bloody shoot you. I’m not a psychopath!’
‘But – you have to! If the Americans or the Russians take me alive, they will use me to—’
‘They won’t,’ he said firmly. ‘And you know why? ’Cause they’re going to think you are dead.’
Natalia stood, regarding him in confusion. ‘I do not understand.’
‘You will. You won’t like it, but you’ll understand.’ He set off, heading south-west. ‘Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To find your dead body.’
Bewildered, she followed him. ‘Eddie, what are you talking about?’
‘I’m going to keep my promises – both of them,’ he told her. ‘I promised to protect you, and you made me promise not to let anyone carry on your grandfather’s work. And I just had an idea how to do both of those things.’
They continued through the jungle. The valley floor was muddy, still sodden from the storm, but the relatively flat ground let them move at a decent pace. Before long, the trees thinned out as they neared the steep earthen wall of the valley’s west side.
Chase looked up at it. ‘Okay, somewhere at the top of that’s the camp where they were keeping you and your friends. So a bit south of it there’ll be a big mudslide.’ His gaze moved along the stepped cliff, spotting an area largely stripped of vegetation about a quarter of a mile away. ‘That’s where we fell down.’
They picked their way along the valley until they reached the swathe of destruction. Chase turned his attention to the ground, trying to match what he remembered from the darkness of the previous night with what he saw now. ‘There!’ he finally said, pointing out a shape half buried in the mud.
Natalia recoiled when she realised what it was: the body of a woman. ‘Who is she?’
‘One of the Russians – she came after me when I was carrying you out of the camp, but we all got washed away by the mudslide.’ Feet squelching in the sludge, Chase went to the broken-necked corpse. Insects had already started to feast on it; revolted, he swatted the flies away before picking up the body. Its head lolled horribly.
The young German was appalled. ‘What are you doing?’ she shrilled as he carried the dead woman towards her.
‘Saving your life. Take your clothes off.’
‘What?’
‘You need to swap clothes with her.’ He laid the body on the ground and, with a degree of disgust at himself even though he knew it had to be done, started to undress it. ‘I’m going to do what you asked me to: put a bullet in your head and burn your body. Except she’s going to be you – that’s hopefully what Lock and his people’ll think, anyway.’
Realisation dawned. ‘You are going to trick them into thinking you have killed me?’
‘Yeah. I’ll make damn sure that they find me and see what’s left of the body. If it’s so badly burned that they think they won’t be able to get anything useful from it, then they’ll leave – and they’ll stop looking for you.’
‘But if they find you with the body, they will kill you!’
‘They can try,’ Chase said, with a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘The main thing is that you’ll be safe.’ He looked away as Natalia started to remove her clothing, concentrating on the unpleasant task of stripping the dead Russian. ‘Once you’ve got dressed, I want you to go back to the village and stay with your friends. I know roughly where we are, so if you head east,’ he gestured over his shoulder with a thumb, ‘you’ll get to the river, and then you can follow it back to that crossing we used. If you even think there’s anyone nearby, hide until you’re sure they’ve gone – and for Christ’s sake don’t step on any more landmines!’
Even without looking at her, he could tell she was dismayed. ‘You . . . you are going to leave me?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘You’re going to leave me. And here’s another promise. I’ll never tell anyone – anyone – that you’re still alive until I’m absolutely sure that nobody’ll be able to use you to restart your grandfather’s experiments. You won’t ever see me again unless I’m one hundred per cent sure of that. Otherwise there’s a risk I might lead somebody to you.’ He removed the last piece of the Russian’s clothing. ‘Here. Put these on,’ he said, still not looking around at Natalia as he held up the bundle.
She took the damp and dirty garments from him, then passed him her own. ‘Let me help.’
Chase shook his head. ‘No. Soon as you’re dressed, get to the village. I’ll take it from here.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t argue. It’s the only way to keep you safe, and you wouldn’t want me to break a promise by not protecting you, would you?’ He began to dress the body in Natalia’s clothes. The Russian was slightly bigger than the young woman, but the clothes she had borrowed from her friends in the village were loose-fitting enough that it did not matter.
He was halfway done when he felt a hand on his shoulder. ‘Eddie? I . . . I am ready to go.’
Chase turned to see that Natalia was now dressed – and that despite her words, she did not want to leave. He stood and faced her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I am frightened. And not just for me. These people, when they find you, they will—’
‘Hey, hey. It’s okay.’ He put his hands on the young woman’s shoulders and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s the only way to keep you safe. Although,’ he added as an idea came to him, ‘sorry about this.’
‘Sorry about what— Ah!’ She gasped as he twiddled a skein of her blond hair around his forefinger and tugged hard, strands snapping. ‘That hurt! Why did you do that?’
He tucked the hairs into a pocket. ‘Her hair’s darker than yours. If I make sure they find these, it’ll be more convincing. Now go on, get moving.’
Chase straightened, gently but firmly pushing her away. Natalia got the message and, with an expression of deep regret, set off into the
jungle to the east. Then she paused, looking back. ‘Eddie. Thank you.’
He nodded. ‘Can you make me a promise?’
‘Of course. What is it?’
‘That you’ll make the most of the life you’ve got.’
Tears shone in her eyes. ‘I will. If you do the same.’
‘Always do.’ He gestured for her to go. Reluctantly she turned away and headed into the trees. Before long she was lost to sight amidst the undergrowth.
Chase watched until he was sure she had gone, then looked back at the dead woman. ‘Okay,’ he said with a sigh, ‘sorry about this, but I’m going to have to kill you again.’ He finished dressing the corpse, then raised it over one shoulder in a fireman’s lift. ‘Now, where’s the best place to start a fire?’ He got his bearings, and headed back into the jungle . . .
‘So that’s what happened,’ finished Eddie. He and Nina were seated with Natalia on the same makeshift bench on which the young woman had told the Yorkshireman her story eight years earlier. ‘Lock and Hoyt bought it, and so did Kagan and the Russians. They actually believed I’d executed Natalia. As if!’
‘Yeah, and I believed you too,’ said Nina, still reeling from the revelation. ‘You jerk! You lied to me!’ She punched him, only semi-playfully, on the arm. Natalia looked on with a mixture of amusement and concern, unsure exactly how angry she was.
‘No I didn’t!’ he protested. ‘And by the way: ow.’
‘You did, you said you killed her!’
‘No, I said I did what she asked me to do. Which was to make sure nobody used her DNA to recreate the eitr. Lock and the Russians both thought she was dead, so they stopped looking for her. Problem solved!’
‘I did not agree with him at the time,’ said Natalia. ‘But now I am very glad that he did what he did. It has not been easy, but the friends I have made here, the help I have been able to give to the children – I would not give that up for anything.’
The Valhalla Prophecy_A Novel Page 49
