The Eden Legacy dk-4

by Will Adams

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ asked Davit, blanching and putting up his hands.

  ‘What the fuck does it look like?’ retorted Boris.

  ‘Sandro said no guns.’

  ‘Well, Sandro lied, didn’t he? What do you think this is? Girl scouts?’

  ‘I don’t do guns. Not after last time.’

  ‘You do whatever the fuck I tell you to do,’ said Boris. ‘I’m in charge of this operation, and I’m going to do what I’ve been tasked to do, and you’re going to help me.’ He raised the gun at Davit’s face. ‘Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ said Davit. ‘It’s clear.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ He felt a little foolish as he tucked the Heckler amp; Koch away in his belt. ‘I’m sorry if I upset you. But we go back a long way, you and me; I’d hate to see you get hurt.’

  ‘I’m a grown-up,’ said Davit. ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘Fine. Then we’ll say no more about it, okay?’ He put on as bright a smile as he could muster, rubbed his hands together in an effort to lighten the atmosphere, walked over to Claudia. ‘How about serving us up some of this delicious food of yours, eh? I’m starving.’

  II

  Knox was in a good mood as he moored the Yvette and headed up the track to Eden. It would be a weight off his back to tell Rebecca what he was doing here and why he’d kept it secret until now. But he sensed trouble when Rebecca, sitting at her father’s desk, didn’t even look up at him. Then he noticed his overnight bag up on his camp-bed, papers spilling out of his box-file on the Winterton.

  He turned to Rebecca, spread his hands, put on his most contrite face. But it was pretty obvious that she was in no mood for his contrition, partly from her stony expression but mostly because she chose that moment to pick her father’s shotgun up from behind the desk and aim it vaguely his way. ‘A freelance journalist, eh?’ she asked.

  There was no point lying. ‘No,’ he confessed. ‘I’m a marine archaeologist.’

  ‘A marine archaeologist!’ she snorted. ‘A treasure hunter, you mean. Just another fucking treasure hunter come looking to plunder the Winterton.’

  ‘It’s not how you think,’ he said. ‘I was going to tell you everything.’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘I swear. Let me tell you now. Just put that gun down.’

  ‘So I can listen to more of your bullshit?’ Her eyes glittered. ‘I trusted you. My father and my sister went missing and I needed help and I told you everything. I thought you were on my side. How could you betray me like that?’

  ‘I had no choice. I gave my word to-’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear another word.’ She stood and motioned him towards the door. ‘Just get out. Go on. Get out. I can’t bear to look at you any longer.’

  ‘Rebecca, please.’

  ‘Get out.’

  He backed on to the veranda; she slammed the door in his face. He could hear her shooting bolts and then the diminishing sound of footsteps. Christ, what a mess. He considered shouting out his story so that she’d hear him through the walls, but she was still too angry. Better to give her a night to calm down, come back first thing tomorrow with apologies and the truth. But where to sleep? Rebecca was too sore for him to risk taking one of the cabins. He could trudge down to Pierre’s place… but there was a bed on the Yvette, and Rebecca was unlikely to come looking for him out there.

  He waded out, climbed aboard, sat on deck as it grew dark around him, watching the shore, lulled by soothing sounds, the creak of wood, the soft splash of distant breakers. Away to the south, someone lit a beach bonfire, perhaps Pierre’s women cooking dinner. Confrontation and guilt had robbed him of his own appetite; he dined on biscuits and beer. His thoughts kept drifting to Rebecca, though he tried to stop them. Her anger had upset him more than he’d have imagined possible, not least because it was justified. Gaille would never have erupted like that, however; she’d have given him at least a chance to explain himself. But Gaille had been a conciliator by nature, always wanting to think the best of people. Rebecca, on the other hand… he gave a rueful laugh. Yet there were similarities between the two women too. Their vitality, their intelligence, the way they both came alive when talking about their passions. One of his most treasured memories of Gaille was an evening in Alexandria when she’d shown him photographs of an ancient mural she’d coaxed back to life. The way her skin had glowed had been one of the things that had first enchanted him about her. Rebecca lit up in the exact same way whenever she talked about animal behaviour. And they were both resourceful too, as well as scientifically minded, loyal and courageous, prepared to risk everything for the people they loved. And they both looked so damned good, too.

  It troubled him to be thinking about Gaille and Rebecca this way. Comparing them like this. Gaille had been the love of Knox’s life, and her death had been his fault. Not entirely or even mostly his fault, sure. That credit belonged to Mikhail Nergadze, who’d shot her through the forehead from about two feet away, while she’d been utterly unable to defend herself. But if Knox had been braver, faster or smarter, Mikhail might never have had either the desire or the opportunity to murder her. So she deserved better from him than this. She deserved the kind of loyalty that she’d have shown him, not the kind that would let him fall for Rebecca like this, or the kind that would let Emilia Kirkpatrick sweep him into bed that weekend in Hove, just because he’d been feeling sorry for himself.

  He gave a little snort at the memory of Emilia. She’d been something of a force of nature, and about the least sentimental woman Knox had ever met. She’d been so insistent on having no strings attached that, before sleeping with him, she’d even double checked in a rather ham-handed way that he wouldn’t himself be part of the Eden salvage. And when Madagascar’s coup had delayed the project by a year, enabling Knox to take part, Emilia had freaked out about it, no doubt fearing he was carrying a torch for her. Understandable enough, of course, because according to Rebecca she hadn’t just started seeing Pierre by then, she’d got pregnant by him too, and had since become the mother of his…

  Knox frowned. Emilia had assured him that she was on the pill, that he needn’t worry about consequences. Yet she’d come back to Madagascar and had got pregnant within a couple of months at the most, depending on Michel’s precise date of birth. His breath came a little faster; he felt slightly dazed. There was a photo of Emilia with Michel on the wall of the cabin. He set down his beer, got to his feet, climbed down the companionway ladder, switched on the light. It ran off the ship’s batteries, and was therefore so dim that he had to remove the photograph from the wall and hold it up close to the bulb to see much of anything at all. Squint though he might, he couldn’t reach any firm conclusion one way or the other. But that meant that the possibility had to remain.

  Maybe Michel wasn’t Pierre’s son after all.

  Maybe he was his.

  III

  Davit lay on his back, his arm around Claudia, and looked up at the walls of the tent above him, the way they flapped in the occasional gusts of breeze, the way the moonlight glowed through the blue fabric. Things scuttled outside; things screeched and crept. He turned to look at Claudia, kissed her on her brow.

  ‘I don’t want to be here any more,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to be part of this.’

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ he assured her.

  ‘No, it won’t,’ she said. ‘Why has your friend brought a gun? What has he done, this man you’re looking for?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to tell me,’ she said. ‘You mean you’re ashamed of what you’re doing here, but you’re still going to do it anyway.’

  ‘You don’t understand. My life back home…’ He shook his head. ‘I have to change it. I have to.’

  Her body began to heave and hump against him; he could tell that she was sobbing. It distressed him to hear her so unhappy. He tried to comfort her by stroking her hair, but she only shook he
r head. ‘Why don’t you want to change your life here?’ she asked. ‘Why don’t you want to change it with me?’

  Davit didn’t reply at once. He’d thought about staying on a few days, enjoying Claudia, the sea, some sunshine. But he’d never thought about staying on for good. He was a Georgian through and through; he couldn’t give up his homeland and family and friends. But then he realised with a jolt that he’d already given them up; or, rather, they’d given him up. He just hadn’t accepted it yet, like the ghost who refused to leave his corpse. ‘What would we do?’ he asked. ‘How would we survive?’

  A moment’s silence as they both contemplated this. ‘Work, work, work?’ she suggested.

  Davit laughed. ‘Work, work, work,’ he agreed.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I

  It was pitch black when Rebecca’s alarm sounded the next morning. She threw off her bedclothes and fumbled for the matches to light the candle she’d left out for herself, then washed briskly, dressed and went out to the Jeep. Despite the cool, it started first time. A good omen, perhaps. She drove as fast as conditions allowed, the world growing light around her, villages coming to life. She kept checking her watch, measuring her progress, a little panicky until she saw the first signs promoting hotels in Ifaty, and knew she was nearly there.

  She pulled up outside Mustafa’s gates. The guard was expecting her; he hurried to her window to let her know that Mr Habib’s daughter Ahdaf was coming out. Rebecca felt a twinge of alarm, but the guard knew nothing else and only shook his head at her questions. Ahdaf then appeared, looking flustered. ‘What’s going on?’ Rebecca asked her. ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘He went to Ilakaka last night,’ Ahdaf told her. ‘He just called to ask me to tell you that he had to go there on your behalf, and that he’s been successful. He said you’d understand what that meant.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Rebecca. Ilakaka was the shantytown hub of Madagascar’s recent sapphire boom. If you needed cash in a hurry, Ilakaka was an obvious place to try.

  ‘He said to tell you he’s finalising everything now, but he’ll be setting off very shortly. He says he’ll meet you in Tulear. Do you know La Terrasse? It’s on Independence Square?’

  Rebecca nodded. Independence Square was where the kidnappers had told her to wait with the ransom. ‘When will he get there?’

  ‘He couldn’t be sure. As soon as he can.’

  Rebecca thanked her and sped off south. Anxiety came in hot spasms as she drove. She passed a petrol station. It was as well to fill up while she could. A doddering antique of a man held a hose-pipe in her tank while his great-grandfather turned a rusted hand-crank. They changed places every five litres, the effort too much to sustain. When they’d finally filled her up, one of them produced a pocket calculator on which he tried to multiply volume pumped by price per litre, while the other watched over his shoulder and chided him for doing it wrong. It took them five attempts and still they couldn’t agree. She checked her watch. Eight fifty-six. She was supposed to be in Independence Square in less than five minutes. She wailed in exasperation and thrust twice what it should have cost at the two men, then sped off in a cloud of dust.

  II

  Boris woke to a pounding headache as the sides of his tent grew light with dawn. They needed an early start, but he decided to give himself another five minutes. With luck, Davit or Claudia would get up and start brewing coffee. But there was no sound from the other tent.

  Not even snoring.

  He pushed off his sleeping bag, grabbed the Heckler amp; Koch, hurried out. Their tent was still there, but that meant nothing. He strode over, pulled back the flap. Davit’s sleeping bag was still inside, but the man himself had gone, Claudia with him. There was a note lying on the bag: an apologia from Davit, claiming that he’d never have signed on to this mission if he’d known there’d be guns; that he’d decided to take Claudia on a tour of the island, see how things worked out between them. Sorry.

  The sleeping bag was still contoured from the weight of Davit’s body. Boris touched the synthetic fabric; it still felt slightly warm, as though they’d slept here last night, and had only left at first light. But it was still first light right now. Maybe the sound of their departure was what had woken him in the first place.

  He took a moment to listen, heard a faint noise. Yes, the outboard. He swore and took the safety catch off the Heckler amp; Koch as he ran down to the beach, holding it out to the side lest he trip and shoot himself. But even as he reached the sand, he saw them already well out to sea, heading north back towards Morombe.

  He splashed out several paces into the sea. ‘Come back,’ he yelled. ‘Come back.’ Davit heard him or, more likely, saw him. He pushed Claudia down in the boat, then ducked down himself. ‘Come back,’ yelled Boris for the third time. But they couldn’t have heard him over the motor, and wouldn’t have obeyed even if they had. He aimed the Heckler amp; Koch, but they were already out of his effective range; all he’d achieve by shooting was wasting ammunition and drawing attention to himself. He yelled out in frustration as he walked back ashore; but in truth it wasn’t that severe a blow. He hadn’t wanted Davit along in the first place; he’d just been slowing him down. He still had his gun, his bags, the laptop and IP terminal. And he was close enough to Eden that he could walk from here.

  He trudged back to the camp, then began to pack what he needed.

  III

  Knox made his way early to Eden, hoping that Rebecca had calmed down overnight, but instead he found the Jeep gone and the lodge locked. He needed to get inside; his bag was in there, as well as the information about Michel’s date of birth. He circled it looking for an open window, but without result. That was when he remembered the keys dangling from the hook on the backside of the Yvette’s water tank.

  He waded back out. They were wrapped in sticky tape to stop them jangling. He peeled the tape off as he made his way back to shore. All bar one were standard issue house, car or motorbike keys; but that one intrigued him. It was a double-bit key, modern and highly sophisticated, similar to the one MGS had for its safe-room, where they kept their most precious discoveries and confidential documents. Emilia had asked him several questions about it during his office tour. He ran his finger along its edge. Surely it had to open something both important and recently built.

  The boathouse was ugly and blockish, but it was also new and large and close enough to the Yvette to make it an appropriate mission control for the salvage. He hadn’t seen anything unusual on his previous visit, but then he hadn’t looked very hard. One of the standard keys fitted its front door. It was so gloomy inside that he couldn’t see much. He took the tour nevertheless, looking for anything he might have overlooked. He was about to give up when he noticed the air compressor’s rubber wheels. Mobile compressors typically came with their own generators; there wasn’t much point to them otherwise. He pulled off the brown sacking and yes, there it was. So what was the second generator for? It was quite modern and powerful enough to run a number of appliances simultaneously. He checked behind and beneath it, saw a single fat grey cable that vanished into the concrete.

  On his hands and knees, he went over every inch of floor, found nothing. He paced out the boathouse’s length, inside and out. It was a full pace longer on the outside. He went to the rear internal wall, took the dive-gear from the pegs, knocked on the plasterboard panels. The right one was solid; but the left sounded hollow. He put his shoulder to it and pushed. It gave an inch or two, then slid to one side, like a closet door opening, revealing empty space behind.

  A solid steel door gleamed dully to his right. The threebit key fit perfectly in its lock. He turned it, heard the elaborate internal mechanism smoothly cede, then pushed down the handle and pulled it towards him. It was heavy and stiff and it exhaled a sigh of stale air. A flight of steps led down into the darkness. He flipped a lightswitch inside the door, but nothing happened. He started up the generator and the stairwell began to glow.

  He walked
over to it and then down with a growing sense of trepidation, fearful of what-or, more accurately, who, and in what state-he might find waiting for him at the foot.

  IV

  La Terrasse proved to be a chic sidewalk cafe with glossy white furniture beneath a blue-and-gold striped canopy. Rebecca parked on a nearby side street, took a table facing the square and watched the traffic, constantly checking the time, praying that Mustafa would arrive with the money before the kidnappers got in touch. The town and its people seemed extraordinarily vivid to her, as though burnished by her adrenaline. She found it hard to stay still. Her father and her sister were just one hurdle away. She kept daydreaming about their reunion but then she’d panic about everything that might still go wrong. She tried to quash any negative thinking before it could take root, for it was like woodworm: once it was inside you, it never seemed to go away.

  Her cafe-au-lait arrived, a jug of steaming black coffee, a small steel bowl of condensed milk. She scooped up a bulb of the sweet white treacle with her teaspoon, dangled a thin strand to make patterns in her coffee. She wiped it off with her finger, then licked it clean: sickly yet delicious, just what her body craved. She stirred in a whole spoonful, gulped the coffee down greedily before it lost its pleasurable heat.

  Rebecca had suffered several bouts of negative thinking over the years, but the worst had been during her first few months in England. She’d never before spent time in a town larger or more sophisticated than Tulear. Oxford had bewildered her. All those brilliant, beautiful, shiny and learned young people. Adam’s old friends had tried to make her welcome, but it wasn’t the faculty who determined your acceptance, it was your peers. And she simply hadn’t known how to behave around them. The humiliations had piled up. Many now seemed trivial. In retrospect, they were trivial. But, at the time, they’d been mortifying. A buffet dinner had been thrown in her honour. She’d been invited to serve herself first. Everyone had gawped when she’d piled her plate high with rice from the bowl, as you did in Madagascar. A fellow guest had remarked upon it in that peculiarly hurtful put-down manner of the pompous Englishman. It hadn’t sounded like an insult, except that everybody had sniggered. And when another guest had later earned laughter by telling everyone that his grandfather had left him nothing but invoices in his will, Rebecca had tried to redeem herself by joking that her grandfather had left her only bills. The embarrassed silence had been broken by a law student with wretched skin who’d explained with great gentleness that invoices were bills. Rebecca had smiled blandly as though she’d known this all along, had spent the rest of the evening in tears in an upstairs bathroom. It had been like that for weeks. In her imagination, her fellow students had spent their lives trading jokes about her behind her back.