Empire of Gold nwaec-7

by Andy McDermott

  Two days later, the expedition assembled in the little jungle town of Valverde, where Nina discovered to her surprise that their Venezuelan guide and pilot were the same person. Oscar Valero was a heavy-set man in his forties, proudly dressed in the olive-green fatigues and cap of the Bolivarian Militia; it was also clear from his not exactly subtle questions that he had been told to keep a close watch on the yanquis.

  Osterhagen, meanwhile, had been joined by his assistants – three of them, giving Nina the feeling that he was trying to match the numbers of ‘her’ team. Ralf Becker, gangling and thatch-haired, was another German and Osterhagen’s deputy, while the other two were Americans: Loretta Soto, a plump and shy Hispanic woman, and Day Cuff, a long-faced young man with a pretentious little triangular ‘soul patch’ beard. Cuff’s eyes had immediately locked on to Macy – more specifically, her chest – and it seemed nothing short of a nuclear strike would draw them away.

  They met in the bar of the optimistically named Hotel Grande, mostly for the practical reason that it was Valverde’s only hotel, but also because of its connection to the Interpol investigation: a payphone in its lobby was the landline through which Stamford West had communicated with his local contact. Like the hotel, though, the payphone was the only one in Valverde. The stream of people using it seemed to rule out any chance of spotting an obvious suspect.

  ‘Lot of soldiers around here,’ Eddie noted as another uniformed man made a call. There had also been a visible military presence on the streets.

  ‘There is a base near here, to watch the border,’ explained Valero. ‘To keep out the drug-running dogs and the Colombian puppets of the gringo imperialists. No offence,’ he added with a cheery smile at Nina.

  ‘None taken,’ she replied icily. ‘You know what we need you to do for the aerial survey, right?’

  ‘Sí, no problem. If there’s something out there, we’ll find it. You wanna start now?’

  The way Osterhagen leaned forward expectantly told Nina that she wasn’t the only one impatient to begin the search. ‘No time like the present.’

  Becker sprang to his feet. ‘Great, okay, let’s go!’ he said enthusiastically as he donned a hat – a rather familiar-looking fedora.

  Eddie grinned. ‘He thinks he’s Indiana Jones,’ he whispered to Nina.

  ‘All archaeologists think they’re Indiana Jones,’ Nina replied as she stood, equally amused. ‘Well, except the ones who think they’re Lara Croft.’

  He regarded the tall, bony German. ‘I’m glad he went for the Indy look. I wouldn’t want to see him in Lycra and hot pants.’ His smile widened. ‘Now Macy, on the other hand . . . ’ His wife batted his arm.

  Valverde was about two kilometres south of the Orinoco, its airstrip between the two. It was only a ten-minute walk from the Grande to what passed as a terminal, a hut with radio masts rising not quite vertically from its roof. The expedition members had been flown in by government helicopters, but the waiting aircraft was considerably more basic – a Cessna Caravan, a single-propeller, nine-seater light plane that was as unexciting and utilitarian in appearance as its name suggested.

  ‘Oh,’ said Cuff in sneering disappointment. ‘That’s what we’re flying in? I was hoping for something a bit less prehistoric.’

  Valero seemed insulted. ‘It’s only twenty-five years old, perfectly safe. What did you expect? A jumbo jet?’

  Cuff wasn’t satisfied. ‘Whatever, it’d better be well maintained if you expect me to set foot in it. Although somehow I doubt Venezuelan airworthiness testing is quite up to FAA standards . . .’

  Eddie had already taken a dislike to the smug twenty-something, and decided he wasn’t going to put up with an entire flight of whining. ‘Hey, Dave, how about not pissing off the guy we need to keep us from a fiery screaming death?’

  The already nervous Loretta looked even more upset at the thought, but Cuff responded with a haughty huff. ‘It’s not Dave. It’s Day. Day F. Cuff.’

  ‘Oh, of the Boston Cuffs, no doubt,’ Eddie said in his Roger Moore voice, guessing that he was supposed to be impressed. ‘Well, since it’s going to be a long flight, either stop moaning or F. Cuff off.’

  ‘Eddie,’ Nina chided, trying to conceal her amusement.

  Cuff’s mood was far more readable. ‘You know, Leonard,’ he said to Osterhagen, ‘I think I’ll sit this out. Aerial surveys aren’t my speciality.’

  Osterhagen frowned, but nodded. ‘And Loretta, you don’t look very happy. Do you want to stay here too?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Loretta said with a relieved sigh. ‘I really don’t like flying. I – I’m sure this is a very good plane,’ she hurriedly added to Valero, ‘but it makes me nervous.’

  The Venezuelan shrugged. ‘Two less people, it saves me fuel. No problem!’

  Cuff set off back towards town, Loretta following. Macy nudged Eddie. ‘Thanks,’ she whispered.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For getting rid of him. What a creep. Didn’t you see the way he was staring at me?’

  ‘Nah, I was too busy looking at your tits,’ said Eddie, grinning - earning him swats from both the remaining women.

  Everyone boarded the plane as Valero circled it to make his pre-flight checks. That done, he clambered inside and took a navigation chart from a door pocket. ‘Okay, this is where we go,’ he said, pointing out the planned search pattern. ‘We keep out of this grid, though.’ He tapped a rectangular marking near the border. ‘Military airspace.’

  ‘Be just our luck if what we’re looking for is right in the middle of some army base,’ said Eddie, checking the map for settlements and landmarks. It was unlikely that anything would go wrong during the flight, but he preferred to be prepared.

  Valero shook his head. ‘If the military had found anything, President Suarez would know. No point sending you to look for something he already knows about, hey?’ He fastened his seatbelt. ‘Okay, you ready?’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Nina.

  Valero donned his headphones and started the engine, steering the Cessna to the end of the landing strip. He spoke with local air traffic control over his headset, then looked back at his passengers. ‘Hold on tight,’ he said. ‘This will be bumpy.’

  He revved the engine to full, then released the brakes. The Cessna surged forward. Macy yelped as she was jolted about, and Nina gripped her seat as hard as she could to hold herself in place. Even though the worst of the unpaved runway’s dips and humps had been bulldozed out, it felt like riding a bicycle with flat tyres over jagged rocks.

  ‘Glad we didn’t – pack the – fine china for the picnic,’ Eddie managed to get out through his rattling teeth.

  Valero laughed, adjusting the trim controls and pulling back on the control yoke. The Cessna tipped back, then a few seconds later the battering stopped as it left the ground. Sounds of relief filled the cabin.

  ‘Jeez,’ said Nina. ‘The only rougher flight I’ve had was the one that crashed!’ Another laugh from Valero, and he brought the Caravan up to two thousand feet before turning to begin the aerial survey.

  The Cessna had been chosen for the task because its wings were mounted above the fuselage, giving its occupants an uninterrupted view of the landscape. The low cruising altitude was near enough to the ground to let the observers pick out details, but still give them the expansive overview they needed. The Orinoco, in places an almost mile-wide gently snaking line of reflected sky and patchy cloud, passed below; on each side, green pointillist swathes of dense jungle, dotted with darker patches of swampland, stretched off to the horizon.

  Macy gazed down at the rainforest, awed by its scale. ‘How are we going to spot anything in all that?’

  Osterhagen was the expert. ‘We look for straight lines – any sign of artificial construction. It’s how the ruins of a pre-Colombian civilisation were found on the border of Brazil and Bolivia about ten years ago.’

  ‘Also watch for sawtooth patterns, zigzags,’ added Becker, waving a finger to illustrate. ‘The I
ncas often built defensive walls that way.’

  Macy nodded, then looked back out of the window. The others did the same, scanning the ground below with eyes and binoculars as Valero brought the plane into its search pattern.

  The first sector contained nothing but trees and marsh. As did the second, and the third. Eddie, however, spotted something in the fourth after they crossed back to the south side of the river. ‘Is that a road over there?’ he asked Valero, pointing.

  The pilot looked through his side window. ‘Sí. It goes through Valverde to Matuso, to the south. Oh, and there is another road off it that goes to the military base.’ He gestured westwards. A faint line could be made out, winding through miles of jungle until it reached a distinctly rectilinear patch of brown amongst the greenery.

  Eddie peered at it through binoculars. ‘Radar station, it looks like.’ Even at this distance he could make out a rectangular antenna. He also spotted various small buildings and an empty concrete helipad. No hangar to protect a chopper from the jungle elements, though, so airborne visitors probably didn’t stay long.

  ‘Hey, hey!’ Valero held up a hand, trying to block his view. ‘No spying, okay?’

  Smiling at the Venezuelan’s paranoia, Nina turned her attention back to the jungle. South of the Orinoco was a mostly flat plain of nothing but rainforest for two hundred miles to the Brazilian border, and well beyond. If the Incas had come all the way here from their homeland in the Andes, they had picked as good a spot as any to hide their settlement. She knew from first-hand experience how hard it was to pick out even large structures beneath the jungle canopy.

  The plane flew on. There was a moment of excitement when Osterhagen saw something that at first glance appeared man-made, but, when Valero circled, it was revealed as nothing more than a low ridge of granite breaking up through the soil. Another sector cleared, on to the next, the Cessna diligently avoiding the restricted airspace surrounding the base. The engine’s constant drone and vibration became increasingly wearisome as the flight stretched into its second hour, as did the sheer visual monotony of the greenery below. The only variation came from more rocky scarps pushing their way up into the jungle, but disappointment further blunted the thrill of potential discovery as each flypast revealed nothing but natural stone. Then—

  ‘Is that another road?’ Macy asked.

  Nina glimpsed a thin brown line amongst the trees. ‘Not much of one. More like a track.’

  Osterhagen checked a map. ‘There is nothing marked on here.’

  Valero looked down at the narrow path. ‘A logging track,’ he said, disgusted. ‘This whole region is prohibido for logging.’ He pulled a notepad and pencil from the door pocket, scribbling down the GPS coordinates. ‘I will have to report this when we land.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Nina, a thought occurring. ‘How far are we from the road between Valverde and that other town?’

  Eddie checked the GPS unit, then applied the figures to Osterhagen’s map. ‘Two or three miles, maybe. What’re you thinking?’

  ‘Well, we know somebody discovered a trove of Inca artefacts. What if they were loggers? They went deep into the jungle to look for hardwood trees . . . but found something a lot more valuable.’

  ‘And then used the payphone in Valverde to talk to West after finding buyers,’ said Kit. ‘It’s possible.’

  Nina tried to follow the track. It was only intermittently visible, the work of the loggers ironically having exposed their secret to view from the air, but now she knew it was there she could just about make out its course. ‘Fly along it,’ she told Valero. ‘If we don’t see anything, we can go back to the search pattern. But if these loggers really did find Paititi . . . ’

  Valero changed course, reducing the Cessna’s speed as its occupants all stared intently at the jungle below. The track curved confusingly in places, the loggers apparently having gone out of their way to fell specific trees, but in general it headed westwards. Nina looked further ahead . . .

  A distinct line ran through the trees. She almost dismissed it as another geological feature – until something else about it caught her attention. ‘There!’ she said, sitting up and pointing. ‘Do you see it?’

  Osterhagen took a sharp breath, pressing his face against the window for a better look. ‘Yes. Yes, I do! Oscar, take us closer.’

  Valero complied, turning the Cessna. From some angles the feature almost vanished into the jungle – but from others it stood out clearly, even through the all-covering vegetation. It was faint, like a shadow or a ghostly impression of an item long since removed, but it was definitely there. A shape, a few hundred metres long.

  A zigzag. Too regular, too precise to be natural.

  Macy turned excitedly to Osterhagen. ‘Inca defences, just like you said.’

  The German couldn’t tear his eyes from the sight. ‘It must be, yes. It must be!’

  Nina examined the surrounding landscape as the plane continued to circle. At one end of the mysterious line, the ground sloped steeply away to marshland, hints of a cliff visible through the tall trees. A cliff would provide a natural defence on one side; had a wall been built on others to protect a settlement?

  There was only one way to know for sure. ‘We’ve got to get down there,’ she announced. ‘I think we’ve found Paititi!’

  9

  The Toyota Land Cruiser picked its way along the narrow track, mud squishing out from beneath its tyres. Another vehicle, a twin save for its colour, followed.

  Eddie was driving, Nina beside him and Macy and Kit in the rear seats, the young woman yawning from the early start. Valero piloted Osterhagen’s group in the second 4×4, the two men having the most off-roading experience. Even so, it was slow going. The day before, Valero had flown back along the track to find where it joined the road, but this morning, even knowing the approximate location, it took some time to discover the trail; it had been concealed, bushes and a mouldering log covering the turnoff. And the track itself constantly twisted between the trees, bushes and low branches swatting the Toyotas as they crawled past.

  Eddie checked the odometer. ‘Five miles since we left the road. Can’t be much further.’ He hauled the wheel over to avoid a large jutting bough, the vehicle lurching over the ruts carved by dragged logs.

  Macy liberally spritzed herself with insect repellent. ‘I just had a thought—’

  ‘First time for everything,’ Eddie cut in.

  She slapped his shoulder. ‘No, but what if the people who found it come back? They might be armed.’

  The same had occurred to Eddie, who had been less than pleased at the Venezuelans’ refusal to let him or even Kit bring weapons into the country. However, he tried to sound reassuring. ‘Oscar’s got a gun.’

  ‘If he knows how to use it. I was chatting to him last night. You know what he used to be before he joined the militia?’

  ‘A pilot?’ Nina suggested.

  ‘Well, yeah,’ Macy said peevishly, ‘but before that, I meant. He was a chef! That’s not exactly like being in the SAS.’

  ‘Depends how bad a cook he was,’ said Eddie. ‘If he got a lot of complaints, he’d have to— Whoa, hang on.’ He slowed sharply. ‘End of the road.’

  They entered a clearing, ragged stumps showing where the loggers had chainsawed down several valuable hardwood trees. A steep bank of earth rose ahead. Layers of tyre tracks in the dirt showed that the area had seen a fair amount of traffic.

  ‘There’s another path over there,’ said Nina, indicating the bank.

  ‘Not sure it’s drivable, though,’ Eddie replied. He stopped the Land Cruiser. ‘It’s probably better to go on foot from here . . . and there’s something I want to check.’

  ‘What?’ Nina asked, but he had already hopped out, eyes fixed on something on the ground nearby. Curious, she followed.

  ‘Oh, ew,’ said Macy, wrinkling her nose as she stepped into the mud. ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘That would be the jungle,’ said Cuff patronisingly a
s he got out of the second Toyota. He closed his eyes and waved a hand under his nose as if wafting the scent of some delicious meal into his nostrils. ‘The most diverse ecosystem on the planet. The lungs of the world. Just smell that life.’

  ‘I can smell something,’ Macy said, adding ‘like bullshit’ under her breath. Despite the repellent, small insects were swarming round her; she flapped a hand before treating them to a burst of spray.

  Osterhagen emerged from the Land Cruiser behind Cuff. ‘Why have you stopped? We can go . . . ’ He tailed off as Eddie waved urgently for silence.

  ‘What is it?’ Nina whispered.

  Her husband crouched and pointed at the mud. ‘These tyre tracks, they’re recent. Less than a day old – there hasn’t been time for any rain to wash them out.’ In the humid equatorial climate of the rainforest, downpours were an almost metronomic occurrence. He went to the nearby path. ‘And there are some footprints here.’