Inca Kings (Matt Drake Book 15)

by David Leadbeater

  “Any news?”

  “Not yet. But the Lyon auction is tomorrow and the deadline for lot entry is tonight. It will happen soon.”

  “How will the artifact arrive in time?”

  “My guess is it’s already here. Maybe among others, maybe not. No, scratch that,” Tremayne dismissed himself. “This guy is as careful and painstaking as they get. But he never fails. And neither do I.”

  Kenzie considered reminding him about what had happened during the last job, but let it go. Another guard wandered by, looking aimless. Kenzie chuckled as Tremayne almost whimpered. The last set of guards had been good—challenging even Dahl—but this new set were so far below par they might as well be ushers. She diverted her thoughts, mulling over Dahl and all that was happening in his life. The Swede was distracted, yes, but handling it well. Kenzie could only imagine the distress a person might feel if forced to move away from their children, no matter the distance.

  Once a Mossad rising star, Kenzie had been considered among the best of the best. When the government she worked for failed to protect her family, and then lied to her about it all, she descended toward anarchy. Moreover, when they tried to cover it up she found and fostered a deep hatred for authority and for the power-hungry figures that invariably ended up at the helm.

  But was there still some good in her?

  Dahl thought so. He’d noticed without even trying. She still wasn’t trying but seemed to have found a new lease in life. A way to escape the endless degenerations; the descent into depravity that, eventually, grabbed hold and never let you escape.

  Tremayne clicked on his laptop, no doubt organizing shady deals all across France. On request, he showed Kenzie an image galley of the Lyon auction house and a blueprint of the area. Google maps helped with the roads and alleys to either side, the faster routes, the dead ends. When she looked around it was after midnight.

  “Time to go,” she said and fixed Tremayne with a glare. “You’ve been a good boy so far. Tomorrow’s the big one. Don’t fuck it up.”

  He saluted smartly, eyes hidden beneath dark clouds. She left the place wondering what was to come, because where Tremayne was involved you never could really tell.

  *

  Dahl let her into his hotel room, the T-shirt and jeans ensemble making her double-take.

  “Shit, you look normal.”

  “I am normal. It’s all the rest who are crazy.”

  She perched on the arm of the sofa. “Did it arrive?”

  Dahl poured her a shot of brandy, her favorite tipple. “No, and that’s a problem. When is Tremayne confirming collection and drop-off with our mystery seller?”

  “In the morning.” Kenzie threw the Napoleon back in one and then spread her arms. “That’s all he said.”

  “We have to narrow that down. Better still, delay it. If the CIA device doesn’t arrive in time this is all for nothing.”

  “I doubt Tremayne has a choice, but I will try.”

  Dahl leaned against the side of the mini-bar, facing her. “You think he’ll run?”

  “I don’t. Not now. Truth be told, his job isn’t that hard.”

  “How about after the job?”

  “We never spoke about that. Does he have a deal?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Dahl grunted. “Man’s a dangerous criminal and should be treated as such.”

  Kenzie waved her glass for a top up. “So was I. And yet here I am.”

  Dahl almost choked. “You’re suggesting we bring Tremayne on the team?”

  “No, no, of course not. I just wondered why I was the chosen one.” She reached out for the glass and held it, touching his hand. Her eyes twinkled.

  Dahl backed away quickly. “I thought we covered that.”

  “I only worry that I’m going to prove you wrong. Your friends . . . most of them think I’ll mess it all up.”

  “Did they tell you that?”

  “No . . . no they didn’t.”

  Dahl looked hard at her. “I understand what happened to you. Hell, if the same thing happened to me I’d lose my mind.” He swallowed involuntarily. “It almost did. Different circumstances perhaps, but I couldn’t speak for my actions if I survived that night and my family didn’t.”

  “I imagine most people think that way, but few would implement it.”

  “Grief,” Dahl said. “Is the ultimate game-changer. Nobody comes out the same.”

  Kenzie rose and deposited the glass on a table. “And some of us never come out,” she said, then affected a bright smile. “Well, if we’re not snuggling down tonight I guess I better get to bed.” She hesitated. “How’s things with the ball and chain?”

  Dahl reached for the bottle. “Ending,” he said shortly. “Goodnight, Kenzie.”

  “Night.”

  She left the room quietly, unsure, on edge, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lyon bustled with good-natured excitement.

  Kenzie waited halfway across a bridge that spanned one of the wide rivers dissecting the city, shrouded by shadow, studying the brightly lit auction house that stood on the other side. Soft light surrounded her. Couples passed by, arm in arm, whispering. The river flowed dark below, its lower banks concreted over and turned into a local communal area for kids and parents alike. Plush sofas and climbing frames filled both banks whilst adult-sized slides took people happily from top to bottom. Kenzie paused for a moment, seeing something she’d lost forever and sometimes wished for, but then Tremayne was at her side.

  “You ready?”

  She watched him carefully, never more conscious that this man would try to kill her instantly if he thought it would help his collusions. “We are. Don’t forget, Tremayne, that your future depends on this going off without a hitch.”

  “Then let me work and move your ass.”

  He pushed by, followed by the three new guards. Kenzie fell in line, knowing Dahl was up ahead watching them all. The auction was imminent. The CIA device arrived too late and now they were forced to put on a show, sell the new item and use Tremayne’s final confirmation call later to trace the seller. Kenzie had taken the time to study the relic, send pictures to the team, and consider what they had found out.

  The investigation was ongoing, stuck in ancient history and veiled behind a thousand lies, but this item, as well as the others, was believed to be one of thousands of priceless objects hidden by the Incas in the sixteenth century. Immersed in murder, invasion, mystery and an unquenchable craving, the legend was of lost Inca gold that lay hidden somewhere in the high, misty mountains around Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. With quests and treasure hunts and organized explorations going right through to the nineteenth century the fabled hoard kept its final secrets well—described once as “a treasure that could not be moved by one man alone, and nor by thousands”, it vanished in time much like the Incas themselves. A cold trail, a new generation, a modern world was not the place for ancient artifacts that so-called experts said probably never existed anyway.

  Kenzie was intrigued with the legend despite herself, and had urged Hayden and the others to hurry up with their investigations. The English girl, Karin Blake, was mentioned as being the Internet geek of the team. She should now have reached the end of her military training, but had not made contact with them. Kenzie didn’t know what to make of that, knowing only that Karin was a genius super-geek who would probably have found all the answers to the mystery of the Inca treasure by now. The whole military training thing felt a bit off to her.

  For now though, she marched across the bridge in Tremayne’s wake and approached the glitzy auction house to be ushered quickly through the front doors. An opulent interior, a corridor lined with masterpieces, a chandelier-blanketed lobby and they were approaching the auction room. It all felt the same to Kenzie: the people, the luxury, the self-glorifying expressions. She would be happy to leave this world at her heels.

  Joining late, Tremayne’s lot had been slated to be one of the last. Kenz
ie sat through an interminable duration before their time arrived and Tremayne emerged from a shadowy corner to perform his deeds.

  She watched. They still didn’t care too much about the buyer, though Dahl wanted it all. Was it always the same buyer? For Tremayne, yes, but the seller used more than just a single middleman. He was clever, slick, streetwise. He’d been operating this way for over a decade and never given anything away.

  Until now. What changed?

  Tremayne played his part nicely. The lot was a golden vase of medium height, its origin obscured, its value understated for now. A supplementary payment would be made later. The seller kept everything safe this way, allowing him to retain total anonymity and avoid all contact with the criminal underworld. Kenzie saw the hammer drop at four-point-two million euros and studied the auction room. It had emptied quite rapidly as the night progressed, leaving only two dozen hardy bodies in attendance. She saw nobody she knew, nobody overly keen on the vase, nobody dangerous.

  But the eyes of the world had turned to the Incan artifacts.

  She watched as Tremayne disappeared into the holding area, accompanied by his new goons. She tagged along, watched the exchange of the vase, and waited for their car to arrive. She watched Tremayne the whole time. Once in the car he would make the call, and she held the CIA device.

  “All good?” she asked.

  “Smooth as Cleopatra’s ass,” he returned, clearly enjoying the excitement of the auction.

  “You mean asp?”

  “No. I really don’t.”

  They waited, the moments stretching to minutes. Kenzie started to feel antsy, but quelled the jitters, staying professional. The F-Pace arrived and they headed inside. This time Tremayne rode in the back and she sat alongside him.

  “You ready?”

  “After this—we’re done.”

  Kenzie didn’t look away, didn’t flinch. “You’ll walk away.”

  “Without being shot in the back?”

  “Or knifed.” She couldn’t help it.

  Tremayne couldn’t hide the flash of fear that widened his eyes. Quickly then, he fished out a phone and asked for the device. “How does it work?”

  “Just attach it to the side. Give it a few minutes to pair and then make the call. The device will do the rest.”

  “This guy has major failsafes in place. And if he knows I’m looking . . .”

  “Just do it. This is no time to lose your nerve.”

  Tremayne attached the small device and then waited. A blue light flashed. He pressed a button, speed-dialing the seller. Kenzie knew he would keep everything the same as always—no small talk, no speakerphone, no questions. She hoped the device was as good as her team made it sound.

  Her team?

  A ring tone and then the call was answered.

  “Yes?” A rich voice, relaxed and in control.

  Tremayne cleared his throat. “Went off without a hitch. Ended up at four point two.” He hesitated.

  Kenzie leaned forward, a question on her face,

  The seller said, “And?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re headed to the exchange now. I’ll organize the supplementary and we’re done.”

  “Excellent. What else?”

  Tremayne looked surprised. Kenzie watched the blue light blink. How much time did they need? Seconds? Minutes? The top-flight agencies kept a very tight lid on what they could do these days.

  Tremayne recovered. “Just wondering if you were about to offer me another . . . item. Y’know, to sell?”

  “Ah, soon but not quite yet. As you intimated, we can’t have too many items diluting the market now, can we?”

  Tremayne muttered an affirmative.

  “Goodbye.”

  The line clicked, a tiny death knell.

  Tremayne blinked at Kenzie. “Kept him on the line as long as possible.”

  Kenzie clicked a button on her phone and waited for Dahl to answer. His voice was quiet. “I’m talking to the team now. And, don’t worry, I have your position on GPS.”

  Tremayne leaned forward, so far that he invaded her space even in the back of the car. She took a personal moment to push his head away, barely refraining from cracking it against the side window.

  “Conferencing the call,” Dahl said.

  Immediately Kenzie heard Hayden’s voice. “So what are you saying? You pinpointed it but you didn’t?”

  Was she talking to Dahl? Then a man’s voice answered her question. “Hey, it’s a prototype. But yeah, we pinpointed it to . . .” He coughed and Kenzie detected some embarrassment. “The mountains around Peru.”

  “Shit.”

  “Well, a little tighter than that. I’ll send you the information.”

  “It’s better than we had,” Dahl said, as Kenzie watched Tremayne and his guards. They would be getting antsy now, wondering what was going to happen next. She waved Tremayne on, essentially telling him to make the drop and get it finished with.

  “It is.” Hayden sighed. “It is. We can work with this. Of course, I’d have put a pretty firm, friggin’ guess that it would be the mountains of Peru.”

  “That would have been pure conjecture,” Dahl said. “The treasure could have been moved over the centuries.”

  “I guess.”

  With the conversation winding up, Kenzie made her presence known. “We’re heading for the drop here. Then we’re done.”

  It was a signal to Dahl. “I’m on my way.”

  She broke the connection and slipped her phone in her purse, now more than ever acutely aware of Tremayne’s reputation and his vicious instinct for survival. Darkness swarmed outside, interrupted by the ever-more-infrequent glares of streetlamps, traffic lights and lit road junctions. The neighborhood grew shabbier, the frontages now barred. She knew these places well. She’d once frequented them in many a city, after making deals. There was a time when she really believed she had found her vocation, a career for life. Now, more than miss any aspect of it, she hated what she’d become.

  Trying to change all that. Was this the heart Dahl kept banging on about? The only people who’d previously shown faith in her were those who’d trained her to become a professional killer. She wasn’t sure how to take Dahl’s convictions because she had no real experience of trust though the last decade to base them on.

  And before that . . . life was a haze of memory. Repressed. Unnecessary distractions, her instructors said. The things she could remember revolved around her family and how the men in authority had allowed them to pay a terrible price, a chunk of retribution leveled at the Israeli government but metered out on an intensely personal level.

  Confused, lost, she held on to team SPEAR as if they were the shaky raft after a shipwreck. She wanted to belong, but knew she never would.

  Twenty minutes passed before the F-Pace pulled to a halt outside a metal shutter. Its sides were rusted, its door pockmarked. Tremayne stayed put and then the door started to roll up, the sound an ear-splitting screech that made Kenzie grimace.

  “Not the most subtle entrance.”

  “This guy doesn’t do subtle,” Tremayne breathed. “Nor does he have to. Cracktooth owns everything you can see.”

  Cracktooth? Kenzie watched, prepared and waited as the most dangerous moment of the evening approached. She wondered if Dahl had arrived, but couldn’t count on it. She watched Tremayne exit the car, hand over the relic and then perform some kind of transaction on a portable tablet. All seemed well. A crooked-toothed, straggly-haired individual cracked a jagged smile.

  Tremayne bent at the waist and then glanced back through the window at her, nodding, smirking and baring his teeth. The grinning man raised a gun.

  Not like this. Not now.

  She couldn’t move more than a meter before the gun went off.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She flung herself full length, grateful that the car had a roomy back seat. A bullet shattered the glass, spraying the interior and her back. Another came immediately after, the noise overwhelming, t
he closeness to death a living nightmare. Kenzie squirmed, falling to the rear footwell. A third bullet punched through the back door, disappearing through the seat where she’d just sat. She heard Tremayne complaining that he’d “just bought the fucker”, and then a noise above her head.

  Cracktooth opening the rear door.

  Kenzie pushed hard off her heels, angling her body through the door and hitting Cracktooth in the chest with her head. The blow wasn’t hard enough to move, nor even stagger him, but it was packed with surprise, and brimming with fury.

  She landed hard on the road outside, ignored the pain and rolled against his legs. A peripheral glance showed Tremayne turning to his guards who were exiting the car, no doubt reaching for weapons too. This was about as bad as it got.

  Kenzie changed tack, rolling under the car.

  She pushed with both legs, wrenched her arms, scraped her skin and tore her dress. The hot exhaust brushed her shoulder, an intense kiss that would leave a permanent mark. Material tore at her knees. She flattened herself as much as she was able. She saw Cracktooth’s shoes move back and then his knees appear as he bent, making her writhe with even greater purpose. She saw other feet appear to the front of the car—the guards—then one set appeared at the side she was aiming for.

  Now Cracktooth waved his gun under the car. She heard his laughter.

  A shot. The bullet passed perilously close to her head, taking out the front tire. Tremayne cursed once more. Cracktooth could barely contain his mirth.

  Kenzie squashed herself into a tight, flat shape and squeezed out the other side, then kicked at the legs that stood there. The guard was waiting, but hadn’t expected the instant attack. He jerked forward, inadvertently pulled his trigger, and fired. The bullet slammed into the concrete next to Kenzie’s head, the bullet as close as any had ever come to ending her existence.