Eye of the Cobra

by Christopher Sherlock

  He couldn’t speak. He got up and walked out of the office. Behind him he heard de Villiers’ voice.

  ‘Wyatt, wait . . .’

  Wyatt felt tears come to his eyes as he quickened his pace. His whole world was collapsing around him.

  Outside he started up his car and accelerated away.

  It was over.

  He drove, foot flat to the floor. Drove hard and fast, not thinking, because that was too painful. He wasn’t going to let anyone do this to him ever again. All his life had been geared for this year, for the possibility of taking the championship. Now, when he had it all in his hands, it was taken from him.

  It was like that other time. The accident - coming round, finding his father dead. Then the hospital, and Estelle shouting at him.

  You killed him. You killed him.

  He’d been powerless against it, but in Japan he’d learned to fight the emptiness he felt inside. Now that hollowness threatened to return, and to destroy him.

  No, he would not be beaten.

  There was more to this business than met the eye . . .

  He had to find Suzie. That was all that really mattered now.

  When John Tennant arrived at the hotel, it was full of delegates checking in for a business conference. John waited patiently on the sidelines for a few moments, then he walked round the building and worked out that it would have taken an acrobat to climb the wall and get into Vanessa Tyson’s room on the seventh floor.

  The foyer had cleared when he returned. The concierge looked him up and down as he approached, but he wasn’t fazed by this.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said, ‘I’m from the Belgian police.’

  The concierge looked put out.

  ‘I hope this case of the drugs is sorted out. And now Wyatt Chase is dropped from Calibre- Shensu.’

  ‘What?’

  This was news to Tennant.

  ‘Oh yes. It was on the television.’

  Wheels started turning in Tennant’s mind.

  ‘Perhaps you can help me?’ he said. ‘I can’t believe the decision against Chase is fair, but I’m sure it’s linked to his involvement with Vanessa Tyson.’

  The concierge smiled.

  ‘I admire Chase. If I can do something that would help . . .’

  ‘Well, first of all . . . Who was on duty at this desk the evening before Miss Tyson’s arrest?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Did you see anything remotely suspicious that evening, after Miss Tyson had gone off to dinner?’

  The man looked up reflectively.

  ‘No, not really. The hotel was empty.’

  ‘When do you finish today?’

  ‘In five minutes. I’ve been on since midnight.’

  ‘Well then, I wonder if you would have lunch with me?’

  After a couple of drinks the concierge had loosened up considerably.

  ‘So,’ Tennant said again, ‘there’s nothing that comes to mind about that evening?’

  ‘Ah, yes. At ten thirty, I remember, a man walked out of the lounge to the lifts.’

  ‘How do you remember the time so well?’

  ‘My girlfriend always phones me at ten thirty to say hallo.’

  A smile crept across Tennant’s face. ‘But why didn’t you remember this earlier?’ he said.

  ‘It didn’t seem important. But thinking about it now, I was aware of . . . well. . . the way he moved.’

  ‘Moved?’

  ‘In control. Almost like one of the Formula One drivers. In fact, I thought he might be a driver, but I didn’t recognise him. He was about six feet tall, with short blond hair, dressed in a dark suit. Confident - like an American. And he was carrying a black leather document-case.’

  John Tennant walked out into the pouring rain and moved along the street towards the centre of the town. The new information was disturbing. Who was the blond-haired man? What was the purpose behind the framing of Vanessa Tyson? Maybe the man had been making a delivery to her room.

  Tennant was still none the wiser about what was going on, but he sensed that Vanessa Tyson was a small pawn in a very big game. It was a game he meant to put a stop to, once and for all.

  Wyatt moved into the ring. His opponent, Dan Bugner, was twice his weight, and those extra kilograms were all solid muscle and bone. Bugner was the highest-graded karateka in Britain - Seventh Dan, equal in level to Wyatt.

  Wyatt liked the concentration demanded by direct contact karate. He needed to clear his mind, get rid of the weakness, and combat was the only way to do that.

  The karateka in London knew about him. They’d been asking him to fight Bugner ever since he’d moved there from Japan, but he’d always declined. Now he’d taken the challenge.

  This was their third round. They were both dripping with sweat. Dan Bugner moved in, fast and sure, and the blow hit Wyatt hard under the heart. He didn’t back off, but moved forward, disconcerting Bugner with his lack of fear.

  The next blow contacted Wyatt’s skull. Stars flew in front of his eyes, but he didn’t lose his balance or his concentration. He squared his hips and dropped low as Bugner moved in again. He didn’t block a hard kick that landed in his solar- plexus; instead he ignored the pain, swivelled his hips and drove his fist hard into Bugner’s face.

  Bugner’s mouth opened up, the skin split up from his lips to the left of his nose. He staggered back, and then collapsed backwards, unconscious.

  There was no applause from the ringside, just an intake of breath.

  Wyatt walked off the floor. He knew there would be no more challenges. He felt sick. But he’d needed to expel the rage that was threatening to destroy him.

  Wyatt inserted the key in his front door. Before he had a chance to turn it, his arms were gripped and pulled back. He dropped and pivoted: two quick kicks and the men were sprawling on the drive. He focused, and saw the distinctive uniforms of the London police. Damn. From the shadows another man appeared, not in uniform.

  ‘We’ve got you for assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, Chase. Frank Johnson, the journalist, is pressing charges, and, believe me, they’ll stick. And now it’s assaulting police officers as well.’

  Wyatt breathed in deeply. He knew he was in serious trouble.

  ‘I need to change,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ replied the detective, ‘but no tricks.’

  He got into the police car five minutes later, and the detective handcuffed him.

  ‘Let me tell you, Chase, it’s bastards like you I particularly enjoy nailing.’

  Wyatt pressed his hands together and fought against the temptation to smash his right elbow hard into the detective’s face. He was in enough trouble already. He stared at the police driver’s head and wondered how the hell he was going to extricate himself from the mess he’d got into.

  The campus of the University of Buenos Aires was empty. The buildings stood silent in the darkness, and the pavements that rang to the sound of students during the day, were deserted. In the corner of one building, however, a solitary light burned. Inside it, Carlos Ramirez sat opposite Professor Durate, who was poring over a map.

  ‘Yes, Carlos,’ he said excitedly, ‘there’s even a bearing scribbled here to one side. But you see, the problem I have is that there’s nothing there.’

  Carlos pointed to the position on the map.

  ‘But what’s that?’

  ‘Mount Roraima.’

  ‘Well . . .?’

  ‘It is one of the most inaccessible places on earth.’

  ‘Good. Excellent!’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ the professor replied, taking off his reading-glasses.

  ‘An inaccessible place is just what I have been searching for.’

  Professor Durate got up, stretched and then slapped his old friend hard on the back.

  ‘You are the most enigmatic man I have ever met, Carlos. This woman, she is a prisoner?’

  ‘Please, it is better that you do not know.’

  He drove home ver
y fast, but it was still two hours from the university to his estancia. After forty-five minutes the concrete turned to grass and the paved side-streets to dirty lanes. At the side of the road were little outdoor grill restaurants - sometimes no more than card-tables and a portable kitchen. He breathed in deeply, enjoying the smell of grilled meat.

  Then came the first pastures, dotted with cattle. In this area many people owned holiday houses where they came from the city for the weekend. Another hour, and the air smelt fresh. Now in the moonlight he saw the typical scenery of the pampas, a landscape of endless grass pastures broken only by trees and the occasional house.

  He smelt the air again as he came onto his land, and felt very good. A long drive, lined with blue-gums, led up to his estancia.

  He pulled up outside the long, sprawling courtyard and turned off the engine. He listened to the noise of the cicadas.

  Estelle came out, a shawl wrapped round her shoulders, and he embraced her and felt the tears on her face.

  ‘Oh God, Carlos,’ she sobbed.

  ‘What’s wrong, my love?’

  ‘They’ve arrested Wyatt for assault.’

  Tennant landed at Heathrow and took a taxi to New Scotland Yard. He had been delayed a day in Belgium whilst arranging Vanessa Tyson’s deportation to London. Rain lashed against the windows as they crawled at a snail’s pace through the early-morning London traffic.

  ‘Sorry, guv’nor, but the bleedin’ place is a continuous traffic jam. There’s talk of banning cars from the city centre,’ the cabbie said apologetically.

  Tennant nodded, sifting through some urgent paperwork. It was certain that Tyson would receive a long sentence - but he sensed that he was close to the bigger fish and he didn’t want it to get out of the net.

  When he’d finished, he paged through the paper he’d bought at the airport. The header on the sports page brought him up short. ‘Chase Out, Sartori In.’

  He devoured the article. Wyatt Chase’s career as a driver was over, the article said - after the incident at Monaco, his assault on two journalists at Heathrow and now the rumour of his involvement in drug-trafficking, no one would want to give him a drive in Formula One.

  He knew Chase had been arrested for assault, and he was looking forward to interrogating him about his involvement with Tyson, amongst other things. He also now suspected Chase might, just might, be involved in the drugs business.

  The cab pulled up outside New Scotland Yard, and John paid the fare and dashed inside. An hour later he was shaking with fury.

  ‘How the hell could you let Chase go!’ he yelled.

  ‘Now listen, sir. Bail was set at fifty thousand pounds - so he’s hardly likely to jump the country. Chase’s stepfather knows some very influential people through his polo connections.’

  He whispered a name in Tennant’s ear. ‘You must understand, sir, I didn’t have any choice.’

  ‘So, where the hell is he?’

  ‘At his house, I suppose.

  ‘I want an immediate run-down on his stepfather. We’ll probably never see Chase again. Fifty thousand pounds, my friend, in that league is pocket-money.’

  Bruce de Villiers shifted uneasily in his chair. Aito Shensu had flown in the previous night, anxious to find out what was going on.

  ‘Bruce, I do not like this at all,’ he said now, taking off his glasses and staring directly into Bruce’s eyes. ‘Jack Phelps had no right to order you to dismiss Wyatt without consulting me. At Shensu we stand by the people we employ. Wyatt was provoked. By dismissing him, you have dishonoured his name.’

  Bruce cursed silently to himself. He ran a tight team, and he kept complete control of all areas. Sartori’s dismissal, and now the assault charge against Chase, were taking his focus away from the team. He said defensively, ‘Jack said you’d both withdraw all your support if Chase was kept on.’

  Aito was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘You remember how I helped you before?’

  De Villiers nodded, reddening at the same time.

  ‘Then I would think you could have learned from that,’ Aito said quietly.

  ‘Aito, I thought you and Jack were in complete agreement!’

  ‘And what if I had been? You should have stuck up for Wyatt.’

  De Villiers turned and looked out across the test circuit.

  ‘All I care about is winning in Formula One,’ he said. ‘These things are getting in the way.’

  ‘No. Winning is commitment, but it is the individual who counts. If a person is your friend, when he strikes hardship or is in trouble, you cannot walk away from him.’

  ‘So, what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Continue. But I will find Wyatt, and he will drive for Shensu again, no argument.’

  The door slammed shut and Bruce sank back in his chair. Aito was right. He’d taken the coward’s way out.

  Wyatt stood in the estancia’s big lounge and waited for her, and she walked in, wearing a simple black dress. He could never quite picture her in his mind, she was always better-looking in real life than in his imagination. Her face was serious.

  ‘So you come here a criminal . . .’

  ‘I didn’t mean to punch up those reporters. They caught me at the wrong moment.’

  Estelle didn’t sit down, just focused her eyes on his.

  ‘And the drugs . . .?’

  ‘You know I’d never deal in drugs.’

  ‘And that bitch, Vanessa Tyson?’

  ‘Just the once.’

  ‘My God, Wyatt, how can you be such a fool? She used you!’

  He came up to her, tried to touch her arm, but she brushed his hand away.

  ‘Everything you do is emotional,’ she said.

  ‘You drive like a lunatic and kill James. You lose your cool with Danny and he blows his brains out. Now you beat up innocent people.’

  He gripped her wrists and pulled her close to him.

  ‘You think I do those things deliberately?’

  She burst into tears. He had never seen her lose control before.

  ‘Goddamnit, Wyatt, what the hell are you doing with your life? Everything you do hurts me!’

  She turned from him and left the room, and he heard her sobbing in the distance. Inside he felt hollow. There was nothing he could do to change anything.

  Wyatt studied the maps and the photographs. Carlos’s study was lined with books and trophies: the Ramirez family had played polo for three generations, and each had produced a ten-goal player. Carlos rested his hand on Wyatt’s arm.

  ‘I leave this estancia to you.’

  ‘No, Carlos, there are your brother’s sons.’

  ‘You are my son, in spirit if not in body. You continue the blood-line. I want you to forget this Formula One, and I want you to forget about your father.’

  ‘I cannot. I will never shake off this terrible guilt. I race because I know that’s what he wanted me to do.’

  Carlos got up from the desk and walked across to a black-and-white photograph that hung on the wall. He handed it to Wyatt.

  ‘It is the remains of the Jesuit mission in San Ignacio mini.’

  Wyatt looked at the dry-stone walls covered in vegetation, the trees growing out of roofless buildings. There was a feeling of emptiness about the place, a sense of desolation.

  ‘In 1609,’ Carlos said, ‘at the request of the Governor of Paraguay, the Spanish king gave the Jesuits permission to set up missions in Paraguay, to convert the Guarani Indians to Christianity. This was the first such mission. Had these missions survived, they might have established an independent theocratic state and altered the whole course of our history.’

  The picture lay still in Wyatt’s hands.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘In 1750, by the terms of a treaty between Spain and Portugal, seven missions were handed over to the Portuguese in exchange for the colony of Sacramento. When the Indians and some of the Jesuits refused to move, they were decimated. But one of their descendants still lives today - one of th
e priests had broken the Holy Order and had been having an affair with the daughter of the Governor of Paraguay.’

  He handed Wyatt a hand-painted portrait of a beautiful girl with raven hair.

  ‘Her name was Eva Ramirez. When her priest-lover was killed, she was on the verge of committing suicide, but somehow she carried on. It was later that she discovered she was pregnant with the priest’s child. Amidst great scandal, she gave birth. Her father died soon afterwards - from shame, it was said. She inherited his farms and estates. She raised the child herself, then sent him to the Jesuits for his education.

  ‘The child was christened Carlos Ramirez - taking the first name of his father. The name has been handed down from generation to generation in our family, along with the diaries and the picture of Eva. So you see, I carry on a tradition; I carry a burden, as it were - to honour the courage of Eva Ramirez and her lover . . . Perhaps my brother David did more good than I. Nevertheless, like you I carry a sense of responsibility about the past.

  ‘That is why I understand you so well, Wyatt. Yes, unfortunately, you are right, you cannot forget the past - just as I must honour that long-ago Jesuit priest whose blood and name I carry.’

  Carlos went over to a map of South America that covered most of one wall of the study.

  ‘The man who I was supposed to meet, Raoul. The man who said he knew where I could find Suzie ... I searched his hotel room and I found a map. There were markings on it, and with the help of a friend of mine at the university, I located this place.’

  Wyatt slid forward on his chair.

  ‘She is alive,’ he said. ‘I got a message from her on my answering-machine - a message I couldn’t make out.’

  ‘You must understand one thing, Wyatt. There are few men who would build a place at the most inaccessible point of the Amazon basin.’

  Wyatt studied a picture of Mount Roraima that Carlos had handed him.

  ‘It is my guess,’ Carlos said, ‘that she is being held somewhere in the area of this mountain.’

  ‘But that was what she said to me! That she was being held a prisoner on a mountain in the jungle!’

  ‘It must be the place. We will find her.’