Chase craned his neck to look. “Wow. That’s not what I expected.”
Nina followed his gaze. Up on the top of a steep rocky slope was a very incongruous building. “God, who designed that? Walt Disney?”
“The shah had it built,” said Shala. “It was one of his summer palaces, but he only visited it a few times before the revolution. After that, the mullahs used it as a retreat, until Hajjar bought it from the government.”
“It looks like a cartoon,” Nina observed. The building was practically a parody of a Persian palace, its upper levels crammed with minarets and domes. “I guess the shah didn’t have much taste.”
“I was going to say I thought it looked cool,” Chase remarked, “but I won’t bother now.” He surveyed the fortress through binoculars. “How do you get up to it?”
“From the outside, you can only get there up the access road or by helicopter,” said Shala. Castille let out a muted groan at the last word.
“No cable car?” asked Chase.
“No.”
“Shame. I always wanted to re-create Where Eagles Dare.”
“The access road is guarded, I assume,” Castille said.
Shala nodded. “Yes. There is a gate at the bottom, and there are television cameras along the road with another gate at the top. We have been watching Hajjar for some time; he usually has at least four men on guard. There is also an electric fence.”
Chase turned the binoculars to the surrounding hills. “Don’t suppose we could just blow up a power line and cut off the electricity, could we?”
“There you go again! And no, the fortress has its own generators.”
“Thought it might.” He lowered the binoculars, thinking. “You said from outside there’s only those two ways in. There’s something inside?”
“There is another way, yes.” Shala looked over her shoulder. “Dr. Wilde, please can you pass me the blue rucksack?” Nina complied, pulling it from among the other bundles in the van’s rear bed. Shala rifled through its contents, taking out a set of architectural blueprints. “My father obtained these before the revolution. He hoped to use them to get into the fortress and assassinate the shah, but unfortunately the revolution happened first.”
Nina frowned, confused. “Wasn’t the revolution supposed to get rid of the shah?”
“Different revolutionaries,” said Chase enigmatically.
“He decided to keep them in case the ayatollah stayed here, but he never did. Maybe they can help you, though.” Shala tapped a fingernail on the blueprint’s bottom corner. “There is a shaft up to the service basement level of the fortress. It was built for access to the sewage outflow that leads to the river.”
Nina wrinkled her nose. “Ew. They just pump it right into the river?”
“Literally crapping on the people,” said Chase. “But this shaft, we can get to it from the outflow pipe?”
“Yes. But there is one problem …”
Castille clapped a hand to his forehead. “Ah, of course there is.”
“The pipe,” said Shala, “it is … quite small. Too small for you to fit into, Eddie. And you too, Hugo, I am afraid.”
“No need to apologize,” Castille replied. “Crawling through a pipe full of merde? I have, as the saying goes, been there, done that… ruined the T-shirt.”
“So, too small for me and Hugo, eh?” said Chase. “Hafez isn’t in any state for it either, and we can’t exactly send you and the sprog …” A sly grin slowly appeared on his face. “Dr. Wilde …”
“Yes?” It struck Nina a moment too late exactly why he was smiling. Everyone looked expectantly back at her. “No!”
The upper levels of Hajjar’s home were as ostentatious and overblown as its exterior, Kari saw as she and Volgan were brought from the cells. The illicit trade in ancient Persian treasures had clearly been a highly profitable one, and it appeared Hajjar spent a good proportion of his profits on decorations and fittings made of gold. Unlike her own family, in this case wealth did not denote taste.
Hajjar’s office was a circular room in the highest domed tower. The click of her heels on the polished marble floor echoed through the open space. Hajjar himself was seated behind a huge semicircular desk, itself marble-topped and trimmed in gold. On the wall behind him was a massive plasma screen, and Kari noticed the black shark eye of a video camera in its lower bezel.
“Ms. Frost! Yuri!” Hajjar boomed with utterly insincere heartiness. “So glad you could make it!”
“Don’t waste my time, Hajjar,” said Kari coldly. “Just tell me what you want.”
Hajjar looked mildly offended. “Very well. I am about to have a videoconference call with your father, and I wanted you to be here so I can assure him of my … intent. He is a very hard man to get hold of, by the way. I was becoming impatient.”
“He has a lot going on.”
“Mm, I’m sure. He was almost as hard to contact as your rival, Mr. Qobras.”
“You spoke to Qobras?” gulped Volgan.
“Not yet in person, but soon. After all, for something as important as this …” he reached out and picked up the Atlantean artifact from its bed of velvet on his desk, the gleaming reflections from its surface illuminating his face like fire, “I knew he would want to talk to me.”
“Whatever Qobras is willing to pay you for the artifact, my father will pay more,” said Kari.
“I’m sure he will, but I’m afraid it and Yuri come as a pair. And Qobras is apparently very keen to see him again.”
“Please, Miss Frost,” Volgan begged, “you’ve got to help me. Qobras will kill me!” His frenzied eyes fixed on the artifact in Hajjar’s hands. “I can tell you more about the piece—I can tell you more about Qobras! I worked for him for twelve years, I know his secrets—”
Hajjar clicked his fingers, and one of the guards clubbed Volgan with his gun. His hands still cuffed behind his back, the Russian fell heavily onto the slick marble.
“Enough,” said Hajjar. A soft chime from the computer on his desk drew his attention, and he smiled. “Ms. Frost, your father is calling. If you would stand in the view of the camera?” Her guard shoved her forward. “Thank you. And get him out of the way.” The other guard dragged Volgan across the floor like a sack of flour.
Hajjar tapped at the computer, then swiveled his red leather chair to face the giant screen. It lit up with the image of Kristian Frost in his office at Ravnsfjord. Frost’s eyes flicked to one side, looking at a screen of his own. “Kari!”
“Mr. Frost,” said Hajjar before she could answer, “I’m so pleased that you finally contacted me. I thought the life of your daughter would be more important than your business schedule.” He let out a self-satisfied chuckle.
Frost regarded him with utter contempt. “Kari, are you all right? Has this … person mistreated you?”
“I’m fine—for the moment,” she told him.
“What about the artifact? And Dr. Wilde?”
“Dr. Wilde was arrested by the Iranian army and will be tried for illegal trading in antiquities,” Hajjar cut in, “and probably for her complicity in the murder of several soldiers as well. As for the artifact… that is no longer any concern of yours.”
“How much do you want, Hajjar?”
The Iranian leaned back in his chair. “Straight to business, I see. Very well. For the safe return of your daughter, I want ten million dollars, U.S.”
“In addition to the ten million I already paid you for the artifact?” Frost growled.
“In the interests of efficiency, you can even transfer it to the same account,” said Hajjar smugly.
“And the artifact?”
“As I said, that is no longer for sale.”
“Not even for another ten million?”
There was a long pause before Hajjar answered, the dealer’s greed clearly threatening to overturn his plans. “No, not even for that,” he said at last, with obvious reluctance.
“Fifteen million.”
Hajjar fli
nched. He half turned, looking back at Kari. “You value this … this piece of metal more than your own daughter?”
“I would have offered twenty,” she told him.
On the big screen, Frost’s face gave away a brief flicker of pride before turning to stone once more. “Twenty million, then.”
Hajjar was lost for words, eyes darting back and forth between the Frosts before he hurriedly swung around to face the screen. “No! No, the artifact is not for sale to you, at any price! Ten million dollars for your daughter, that is the only deal I am making. You will call me back in one hour to confirm the transfer. One hour!” He whirled around again and stabbed at the computer, terminating the call before Frost could speak.
“Hajjar,” said Kari, fake admiration in her voice, “I’m impressed! Not many men could stand up to my father like that. Especially to turn down twenty million dollars.”
Hajjar scuttled around the desk to her. “Twenty million!” he screeched, before clearing his throat. “Twenty million dollars!” he repeated. “For this, this thing?” He waved his hook hand at the artifact. “What is it? What is so important about this piece?”
For a moment Kari’s eyes lit up with something approaching awe. “It’s the key to the past… and the future.” Then she tipped her head slightly, giving Hajjar a seductive look. “You could be a part of it, Failak. Sell us the artifact and I promise you that my father will take no action against you over this. And I…”
“You will what?” asked Hajjar, caught between suspicion and intrigue.
“I will forgive you, completely. And maybe even more than that. As I said, few men have the courage to stand up to my father.” She shifted position slightly, rolling her hips and shoulders under her coat. “I was very impressed.”
Intrigue won out. “Really?” He licked his lips, watching her movements intently. “Then maybe we could—”
“Sir,” interrupted Kari’s guard, the one who had spurned her in the cells. “Qobras will be calling soon. You need to be ready for him.”
Irritation flashed across Hajjar’s face. “You’re right. I do. Yes.” He took a deep breath, then turned his back on Kari. “Wait with her over there until her father calls back. You,” he added, clicking his fingers at the other guard, “bring Yuri over here.”
“Nice try, bitch,” Kari’s guard whispered in her ear. She sighed. It had been worth a shot.
But for Hajjar to turn down twenty million dollars … how much was Qobras offering?
“I look ridiculous,” Nina protested.
Leaving Hafez, who was both relieved at not having to move and frustrated at being unable to help, in the van, Shala led the rest of the group down to a small river winding along the foot of the crag. The far bank rose steeply before leveling out thirty feet above—with the electric fence surrounding the entire fortress running along the top.
Although fast flowing, the river was shallow enough for them to wade across. Shala took off her shoes and pulled up her coat as Chase and Castille helped her across, simply splashing through the cold water without even bothering to remove their boots. Nina, on the other hand, felt incredibly silly as she hurried across—in a wet suit.
“I dunno,” Chase told her, helping Shala sit down, “you look pretty good to me. But then I’ve always had a thing for women in rubber.”
“Shut up.” The one-piece wet suit Shala had brought was more suited to surfing than to stealthy infiltration work: black with a hot-pink insert running from her neck down to her crotch and then up again over her back, with equally lurid strips down the legs and arms. The wet suit itself seemed fairly new, but the too-tight and grubby sneakers on her feet were another matter. “Are you absolutely sure neither of you can fit into this pipe?”
“See for yourself,” said Shala, pointing. A stub of rusting metal protruded from the steep bank a foot above the surface of the river, water trickling from it. Nina’s hopes that she could persuade the lanky Castille to take her place were dashed when she realized how thick the metal was. The actual interior of the pipe was barely eighteen inches in diameter—too small for Castille, and she doubted Chase would even be able to get his head and one shoulder inside.
For that matter, she wasn’t sure if she would fit.
“You’ll fit,” Chase said, as if reading her mind. “Might be a squeeze around your bum, but…”
“Hey!”
“Just kidding.” He smirked, then opened the rucksack they had brought from the van. “Here’s your gear. Torch, two-way radio and a headset—it’s not exactly Bluetooth, but you’ll be able to tell us when you’ve shut off the power to the fence. Gun—”
“I’ve never used a gun,” Nina said as Chase took out a small automatic in a canvas holster with a belt wrapped around it.
“Yeah? Thought you Yanks were shooting stuff before you could walk. Turn around.”
“I’m really not sure about this …” she said as Chase fastened the belt high around her waist, turning it so that the holster rested in the curve of her lower back.
“Just a precaution; hopefully you won’t meet anyone.” He clipped the walkie-talkie to the belt, then turned her around and fitted the headset, giving her a wink. “But if you do, just think Lara Croft. Bang-bang.” His gaze moved to her neck, and her pendant. “Do you want me to look after that for you?”
She considered it. “No thank you. It’s sort of my good-luck charm.”
Chase raised an eyebrow. “Considering the day you’ve had, you’ve got a bloody funny idea about what’s lucky.”
“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
“Good point.” Nina tucked the pendant inside the wet suit, then pulled the zipper all the way up her neck as Chase’s gap-toothed grin returned. “Let’s get you shafted.”
Nina’s trepidation turned to outright disgust as she kneeled to examine the pipe. “Oh my God! It stinks!”
“What did you expect? It’s a sewer!”
Her stomach churned. “I feel sick. God, I don’t think I can do this …”
“Hey, listen,” said Chase, resting a hand on her arm, “I know you can. You’re an archaeologist, right? You must have dug about in muck and all kinds of horrible stuff before this, right?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“The pipe’s not all that long. Fifty yards, tops, then it opens out into the access shaft. That’s got a ladder, you can just climb right up. You can do it.”
“But what if there’s somebody at the top? What if—”
“Nina.” He squeezed her arm. “My job’s to look after you. If I thought you were going to be in danger, you wouldn’t be going.”
“But you still gave me a gun.”
“Yeah, well… nothing’s totally safe, is it?” She wasn’t reassured. “Look, once you’ve shut down the fence, Hugo and I’ll be inside in less than five minutes. Simple plan—we come in, punch Hajjar in the face, rescue Kari, done.”
“Punching people in the face is pretty much your solution to everything, isn’t it?” said Nina.
“Hey, if it works … Anyway, I’ll be with you all the way on the radio. And we’ve got the plans of the place—I’ll tell you exactly where to go. Once you’ve done it, just stay out of sight and you’ll be safe. Trust me.”
Nina tied back her hair, then, with extreme reluctance and a look of undisguised revulsion, climbed headfirst into the filthy pipe. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“That’s … better than nothing,” Chase said, switching on his own radio. “Here, I’ll help you in. Give me a radio test.” He lifted her feet and pushed her inside.
His radio crackled. “Don’t you even think about grabbing my ass.”
“Never crossed my mind,” said Chase, raising an appreciative eyebrow at her wet-suit-clad buttocks as they wriggled into the pipe. He pushed her feet again, and Nina disappeared into the darkness.
The flashlight in one hand ahead of her, she crawled up the sloping pipe. It was a tight squeeze, but she was—just—able to fit. She p
aused for a moment to shine the light straight along the pipe. Nothing but darkness at the far end.
“I bet Lara Croft never had to crawl up somebody’s toilet,” she muttered, before beginning her laborious ascent.
Kari watched Hajjar’s frustration grow as he waited for Qobras to call, his fingers drumming on his desk. It seemed he wasn’t a man accustomed to waiting for anything.
“Failak,” she said, “I need to use the bathroom. Please?”
“Not again,” her guard complained quietly, but Hajjar waved his hand dismissively at the door. Kari stood and made a little noise of triumph at the guard. “I’m not taking off your handcuffs,” he muttered as he led her from the room.
“How’re you doing?” asked Chase, through a crackle of static.
“Oh, superfine,” Nina grumbled. “Can’t wait to write this one up for the International Journal of Archaeology.”
A noise came through the headset that could have been muffled laughter. “You’re doing great. Can you see the end?”
She directed the beam ahead. “I think … yes! I can see it! And I can hear something as well.” She tried to pick out the noise. A kind of hissing rumble … like water coming down a pipe! “Oh, shit!”
She cringed and stifled a shriek as several gallons of cold water gushed down the pipe and splashed around her. “Oh God, oh! Disgusting!”
Chase’s jovial response didn’t improve her mood. “At least they remembered to flush.”
“Feeling better?” Hajjar asked mockingly as Kari was brought back into the circular room.
“The attendant’s manners leave something to be desired,” she sniffed. “I hope I didn’t miss Qobras.”
“No, but he will call any minute. So you’re just in time.” He gestured, and the guard shoved her onto a lounger. Volgan looked pleadingly at her, but said nothing.
“Remember my father’s offer,” she said. “Whatever Qobras offers, he can—”
The computer chimed. Hajjar snapped his fingers at Kari’s guard, who clapped a heavy hand on her shoulder. She stopped talking, watching as Hajjar turned to face the screen.
It was the first time she’d ever observed Qobras “live,” having previously only seen him in photographs. And those had been several years out of date. His black hair was now streaked with gray running back from his temples, his face more lined—but his eyes were as sharp as ever.
The Hunt for Atlantis_A Novel Page 12
