Kingdom of Darkness

by Andy McDermott

  ‘Things have gone beyond that. Now, are you going to help me?’ Santos glared at the mayor, who shrank back. ‘Then get out of my way.’

  The police chief ran across the square, rifle in hand. One of the side streets was only short, continuing as a track out of town towards the graveyard. The last building on the street was derelict. He positioned himself behind a crumbling wall to get a view of the entire hillside. There was little cover beyond the occasional tree or boulder; his target would have nowhere to hide.

  And the moment he was seen . . . he was a dead man. Santos was an accomplished shot. The Remington’s magazine held only three bullets, but one would be enough.

  He raised the scope to his eye, checking each potential cover spot in turn. No trace of anyone. Dust prickled the back of his neck. Irritated, he wiped it, then resumed his search. The Englishman was out there somewhere . . .

  A loud, echoing clang from behind. The church bell. It chimed again. He frowned. The priest was an old man, easily cowed; if this was some sort of attempt to warn away the visitor, then he would have to pay him a visit and remind him that God did not call the shots in Lago Amargo.

  Clang. Clang. The bell continued its tuneless toll. Santos swept his scope over the hillside once more, then raised his head from the rifle for a wider view. Still no sign of Chase, but he caught movement at the edge of his vision. He glanced over his shoulder.

  Some of the townsfolk were advancing towards him, twenty or more, Silva and his daughter leading them. ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Get back! This is police business. Go back to your homes or you’ll answer to me.’

  The civilians stopped. He looked back at the hill, the dust clearing enough to reveal the road winding up to the graveyard.

  Nobody was on it – or the surrounding open ground. Suddenly uneasy, he darted the sight from tree to rock to tree. Still no one. But Miranda had told him the Englishman was coming. Where was he?

  He looked around again to find the young cop – and froze.

  The bell clanged one last time. The townspeople, Miranda amongst them, parted from the centre of the street, clearing a path for a ghostly figure striding out from a dense wall of dust.

  Eddie Chase.

  Santos started to bring up the rifle, only to freeze again as the Englishman swept open his leather jacket to reveal that he was armed. The gun was in his waistband, but his cold expression warned the police chief that the slightest move would see it drawn without hesitation . . . and fired.

  ‘Miranda!’ Santos called. ‘Stop him! You have your gun – shoot him!’

  Miranda stared at him, conflicted . . . then silently retreated out of sight. Dismayed, Santos turned to Silva for help. ‘Pablo! Do something! You’re in this with me – if I go down, so do you!’

  The mayor breathed deeply before replying. ‘It . . . perhaps it’s time this ended, Eduardo. It has gone too far.’

  Rage overtook fear. ‘You fucking coward!’ snarled Santos. ‘All of you! You’re cowards! This is my town – without me, you’d have nothing! I protected you!’

  ‘Protected?’ cried Julieta as the Englishman passed her, his stride relentless. ‘All you’ve ever done is threaten us!’

  Santos shook with anger. ‘You bastards! I’ll remember who refused to stand with me, you—’

  Eddie stopped about thirty feet from the cop. ‘Oi! Arsehole! It’s not them you want to worry about.’

  Santos switched to English. ‘You should not have come back. You should have run away, as fast as you could.’

  ‘Well, people keep telling me I’m not that bright.’ He took in the cop’s rifle. ‘That a Remington? Decent gun. You should be able to take me down with one shot.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘If you’re fast enough.’

  Santos hesitated, then turned to face him, keeping the rifle low. ‘What, you think this is a shoot-out? That this is the Wild West and you are a cowboy, like John Wayne?’

  Eddie remained still, his dusty jacket flapping stiffly in the wind. ‘Was always more of a Clint Eastwood fan. But it’s up to you. You can either give yourself up so the feds can deal with you, or . . . draw.’ He moved his right hand fractionally closer to his gun.

  Santos caught the movement, his eyes darting between the weapon and Eddie’s face. The Englishman’s expression remained unreadable. The cop licked his lips . . . then almost imperceptibly began to bring his rifle towards the other man.

  Only Eddie’s eyes moved in response, momentarily regarding the Remington before fixing back upon the police chief. Now sweating despite the cold breeze, Santos again ran his tongue around his bone-dry mouth. If he was fast enough, he could get off one shot before his opponent reacted. It might not be a killing wound, but it wouldn’t have to be – if it stopped him from firing, then a second round would finish him . . .

  The rifle’s barrel rose, millimetre by millimetre. Eddie remained statue still. Santos struggled to control his breathing, feeling every beat of his pounding heart. Just a little more, and no matter how fast the Englishman drew his gun, it wouldn’t be enough for him to get off the first shot. He could do it.

  He could do it.

  He could—

  Santos burst into motion. The Remington whipped upwards, the barrel swinging towards Eddie’s chest—

  Eddie was faster.

  Santos was thrown back against the wall as a bullet ripped through his right shoulder, shattering bone. The rifle flew from his numbed hand and clattered to the ground. He gasped for breath as fire burned across his chest.

  The Englishman closed on him, a near-silhouette against the dusty haze. He kicked the Remington away, then loomed over the fallen man, bringing up his gun. Santos felt a terror like nothing he had ever experienced before, not even when fighting in the Malvinas. ‘No, no!’ he gasped, feebly raising his uninjured arm in a pathetic attempt to ward off the shadowy figure. ‘Please, don’t kill me!’ His bladder let go, hot urine soaking his clothing.

  The gun remained fixed on his face . . . then Eddie turned away. ‘You people need a new sheriff,’ he told the townsfolk laconically as he walked back down the street, fading into the drifting dust.

  Miranda ran to Santos, his own gun raised. ‘Eduardo Santos,’ he said, almost unable to believe that he was making the challenge, ‘you are under arrest for attempted murder . . .’

  23

  Eddie looked up at a knock on the door of Silva’s office. Miranda entered, speaking to the mayor before addressing the Englishman. ‘Santos and Vargas are both in the jail. El Jefe’s shoulder has been bandaged.’

  ‘What’re you going to do with them?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘I will have to tell the federal police what has happened here. All of it,’ he added, with a mournful look at Silva.

  The mayor dropped into a chair with a heavy sigh. ‘I was afraid this day would come.’

  ‘What, the day your town’s little secret got out?’ Eddie replied, scathing. ‘That you were hiding a bunch of Nazi war criminals?’

  ‘It has never gone this far before, never!’ Silva protested. ‘The cops were only supposed to scare people away. They never tried to kill anyone.’

  ‘But you didn’t try too hard to talk Santos out of it after you spoke to Kroll, did you?’

  ‘You do not understand,’ he said, hands jittering in agitation. ‘El Jefe is not a man you argue with. Even though I am the mayor, he . . . he has all the power.’

  ‘Had all the power,’ Eddie corrected. ‘You’re in charge now. So do the right thing.’

  Silva put his head in his hands. ‘The men in the Enklave, the Germans . . . without them, there would not be a town. You have seen the dry lake, the farms – Lago Amargo is dying! It would be dead without their payments.’

  ‘But Julieta said they made the lake dry up in the first place. Get rid of them and you get your water back.’<
br />
  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know . . .’

  Eddie banged a hand on the desk, making him jump. ‘I’ll tell you what I know. Those bastards up in the Enklave have got my wife, and my friends. I’m going to get them back – and you’re going to help me. Otherwise there really won’t be a town, ’cause I’ll burn the fucking place to the ground. Starting with your hotel.’

  Silva wearily raised his head. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘I want you to call Kroll. Tell him I’m dead. That way, they won’t expect any trouble when I go up there.’

  ‘But what if he wants to speak to Santos?’

  ‘I don’t fucking know! You’re a politician; lie. But once you’ve done that, I need to know the best way to get up there, and what I can expect to find.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Silva. ‘I have never been inside the Enklave. No one from the town has.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Eddie said in disbelief. ‘So nobody knows what’s up there?’

  ‘I do,’ said a new voice.

  All three turned to see Julieta at the door, which she had silently eased open. Silva jumped up, admonishing her in Spanish.

  She responded in English. ‘No, Papá. I will not go to my room. I am not a child any more! This town has been sick for a long time, and we all know it – but this man has helped us by stopping El Jefe. So now we must help him. It is the right thing to do.’

  Silva was clearly unhappy at being challenged by his daughter, but he seemed so drained by the day’s events that he lacked the energy to argue with her. ‘How do you know what is in the Enklave?’ he asked instead.

  ‘I have been inside.’

  The mayor’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

  ‘Roland took me up the hill, in secret. We followed the old railroad.’

  ‘Roland? That boy?’

  ‘You’ve met him?’ Eddie asked Silva. ‘They come down to the town?’

  ‘Once or twice a year. They buy supplies, tools, things like that. They grow their own food, but it must not be enough for all of them any more.’

  ‘All of them?’ echoed the Yorkshireman. ‘How many of these buggers are there? How big’s this Enklave?’

  ‘Their land starts at the edge of the lake, and goes all the way to the old mines in the mountains.’ The bases of the peaks Eddie had seen on the way into Lago Amargo were at least ten miles away; the Enklave was indeed huge. ‘It is . . .’ Silva thought for a moment, ‘more than two hundred and fifty square kilometres. But I do not know how many people live there.’

  ‘Over one hundred,’ said Julieta. ‘Roland told me. Maybe one hundred and twenty.’

  ‘That’s a lot of Nazis,’ Eddie muttered.

  ‘Roland is not a Nazi!’ she protested. ‘He is . . . different. He wanted to find out more about the world, so . . .’ Guilt crossed her face as she glanced at the computer on Silva’s desk. ‘So I let him use the Internet when you were not here, Papá. Volker, too. He used it even more than Roland.’

  ‘Volker Koenig?’ said Eddie.

  ‘Yes, Roland’s brother.’

  ‘I met him. Briefly.’

  ‘Where is he?’ she asked, excited. ‘Is he okay?’

  He hesitated before giving her the bad news. ‘I’m . . . afraid not. He’s dead.’

  Julieta stared at him, stricken. ‘What – what happened to him?’ asked her father, equally shocked.

  ‘He came looking for us, but a Nazi called Jaekel shot him. I’m sorry.’

  ‘He shot Volker?’ she whispered. ‘But – but why? Why was he looking for you?’

  ‘He wanted to give something to my wife – she’s an archaeologist, Nina Wilde.’

  ‘I know that name!’ she said. ‘She is famous, yes?’ Eddie nodded. ‘Volker read about her on the computer. You are really married to her?’

  ‘Yeah, hard to believe with a face like this, I know,’ he said with a bruised smile. ‘They’re holding her, somewhere up there. I’m going to get her back, and the other people they’ve kidnapped too. You know how to get in?’

  ‘Yes – there is a hole in the fence. Roland and Volker used it to sneak down to the town.’

  ‘Will you show me?’

  ‘Of course. I will go with you.’

  ‘You will not,’ said Silva firmly.

  ‘I have to, Papá,’ Julieta insisted. ‘I have to find Roland and make sure he is okay . . . and I must tell him his brother is dead.’

  Her father’s face fell. ‘I . . . Yes, you are right. But,’ he went on, raising a forefinger in warning, ‘you are not to take any risks, you understand? These people have become dangerous.’

  ‘They always were,’ Eddie pointed out. The reminder did not make Silva any happier.

  ‘What are you going to do once you are inside?’ Miranda asked.

  ‘First priority is rescuing Nina and the others. Then,’ he added to Julieta, ‘we’ll try to find your boyfriend. Anything else that happens . . . well, that’s up to them.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Silva.

  ‘It means that if anyone gets in my way, they’ll wish they hadn’t. But the main thing is finding Nina. Once I’ve done that, I’ll bring her and the others out, then call in the cavalry.’

  Silva put his head in his hands again. ‘This could end everything. I do not know what to do . . .’

  ‘Do what is right, Papá,’ Julieta told him softly.

  A sigh, then the mayor looked up at Eddie. ‘Okay. I will phone Kroll. Then,’ reluctance filled his voice, ‘Julieta can take you into the Enklave. If you promise that you will keep her safe.’

  The Yorkshireman nodded. ‘I’ll watch out for her, trust me.’

  ‘Okay. Then . . . good luck, Mr Chase. I hope you find your wife, and your friends.’

  ‘So do I,’ replied Eddie. ‘So do I.’

  After retrieving his belongings from the police station, Eddie set out with Julieta. ‘So how far’s the entrance?’ he asked, looking westwards towards the distant mountains. The crumpled hills rose quite steeply in places, but there was a distinct edge to the terrain that suggested a plateau higher up the slope.

  ‘There is a big gate about two kilometres from here,’ said Julieta, pointing along the dry lake bed. ‘The railroad from the mines goes to it, but it has not been used for a long time. Planes sometimes land on the lake, though; they have marked out an airstrip. There have been a lot recently – more than usual.’

  ‘How often do they normally come?’

  ‘Once every two or three months.’

  ‘Bringing people, or cargo?’

  ‘Mostly cargo. I was once out at the lake when a plane landed, so I hid in the bushes to watch. It brought lots of wooden boxes, but I do not know what was in them. But one came not long ago,’ she added, ‘and some men got in and flew away. That was weird, because they do not usually leave the Enklave.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Two weeks?’

  Probably going to Egypt, Eddie thought; their entrance to Alexander’s tomb would have taken some time to prepare. ‘So if nobody leaves, how did you meet Roland and his brother?’

  ‘I told you, they were . . . different. It was over a year ago – I was looking for herbs when I found them both hiding behind some rocks. It was funny,’ she said, a faint flush of pink appearing on her cheeks as she smiled, ‘you would think they had never seen a girl before. Roland was so shy, he could hardly look at me! Volker was more . . . oh, I do not know the right word.’

  ‘Confident?’

  ‘Yes, that is it! But he was more confident about everything. Volker was the real explorer – he wanted to know all he could. After I showed him the Internet, it was hard to get him off the computer.’

  ‘And Roland wasn’t like that?’

 
; ‘He was, but not so much.’ Another blushing smile. ‘He was more interested in me. They would both sneak out of the Enklave, and I would spend time with Roland while Volker used the Internet.’

  ‘What was he reading about?’

  ‘Everything. In many languages, too – he was very smart. So is Roland, actually. He told me they are all taught English and Spanish as well as German. But Volker read a lot about history.’

  ‘What, like archaeology?’

  ‘Sometimes. But most of it was recent history. The Second World War.’ She shook her head. ‘There were always rumours about the people in the Enklave, that they were Nazis, but my father told me not to think about them. He tried not to think too much about the Enklave himself – like it was a secret he wished was not there. He wanted me to stay away from them when they came into town, but . . . I did that anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They were not nice people. They always seemed very angry, looking at us like we had done something wrong – even though it was our town! But Roland and Volker were not like that. They were not supposed to go outside the Enklave, but they did – well, it was Volker’s idea, but Roland went with him – because they wanted to see if what they had been told about the rest of the world was true.’

  Eddie smiled faintly. ‘If Roland’d never seen a girl before, I’m guessing they were pretty surprised about everything else they found.’

  ‘Volker was – and he was angry, too, at first. Like he didn’t want to believe it. But he kept coming back to find out more, and . . . and he was still angry, but now at the people in the Enklave for lying to him.’

  ‘What did they lie about?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask, because I did not think I wanted to know. But when he left, he said he was going to stop the lies. Roland did not want him to go, but he said he had to. That . . . that was the last time I saw him.’ Her voice caught.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Thank you. I do not know how I am going to tell Roland, though.’ She wiped an eye, then changed direction, heading away from the lake bed. ‘Up here.’