"Just me and my associates at the university. Nothing big like your team."
"And what'd you know about my team?"
"Enough to know you are the woman for this job."
"Now, you're offering me employment?"
"Nope, I'm offering you and your team adventure. It's a small thing for you, I'm sure, after what you did in Britain, with Templars gold. That was amazing." Mary Luca leaned even closer. Her voice dropped. "You are something of a legend already. Charles Potter called you Lara Croft, you know, from the movie Tomb Raider."
Olivia bit down the snicker that suddenly crept up the back of her throat. She looked away. The amusement was short-lived. In place of the momentary gratification was a sudden need to cry. This woman knew nothing of the price she paid. The horrid dreams at night when the faces of those men who died because of her appeared to her.
"Is there a problem?"
She was jerked back to the restaurant and to the face before her.
"You want me to got to Peru, I guess."
"I can't ask you to," Mary said. "But I'm hoping you'd take the offer. You'd want to know what's in it for you. If Coleman is right, and I do believe he is, there is an incredible cache of gold in that temple. It's a whorehouse actually, a spa or something, that's what he said in his article. The point is, this will be worth your while, quite extremely. It is your territory. You have a good team. You can get it."
Olivia listened. When Mary Luca had finished speaking, she picked up her cup of tea and sipped. It was now tepid, the taste lukewarm. She thought deeply for a second. There was nothing profound or philosophical about a warm cup of tea. Wendy's made one of the best cups of tea around. She would either say yes or no.
"I'll think about it."
"Fair enough," Mary said and sat back. She turned to the counter. Wendy was there, his bulk so obvious. "I'd like to order now."
"Yeah, by all means."
—
They rode to the auto shop in an entourage of three cars: two trucks loaded with Pietro Oscar's goons, and a black Escalade, built like a hearse. It was formerly owned by a company that undertook burial arrangements.
Curious folks gawked as the entourage pulled up in front of the auto shop. Pietro stepped onto the dusty street and pulled his collar up. He looked up and down, relishing the drama.
He raised his hands up. "Who runs this place?"
Lee lurked behind him. Goons guarded the street; Pietro walked into the place. Leno was under a Santa Fe. He struggled out from under the car and spilled a set of ratchets on the dirty floor.
Reno was back at work. He was sitting on the hood of a brown mustang that was missing its grille; two other guys were there as well, each busy with his own chore.
Reno saw Pietro and froze. The handwriting had been on the wall all day. When he didn't see Lee come in with the cat's head at the time he promised, he knew there was trouble. But he was not expecting trouble in the form of Pietro Oscar. To make an already rotten situation fester, Reno was here.
Leno glanced at Reno, where he sat looking dumbly. The earth should open and swallow him right now. He'd be glad to be gone.
"How may I help you, boss?"
Pietro looked at Lee. He said, "This is your friend?"
Lee nodded.
"A friend of my friend is my friend," Pietro announced. He looked around and his eyes settled on Reno. "Hey there, you look like you've seen the devil himself. What are you called?"
"Reno."
"Hm, good. Now I want you and your other friends to go get lunch."
Reno and the other two hurried out of the shop. Leno stood there, terrified. Pietro put his arm around his shoulder and pulled him to the bench at the back of the shop. He pushed Leno down on it.
"Where did you find the golden cat head?"
Leno looked at Lee, who was sweating in the sun. I'm going to kill you! I will kill you, Lee! I swear my mother's life on it!
"I can't tell you."
"Say again?"
But Leno dared say again because when he looked in Pietro Oscar's eyes, he saw trouble—trouble from which people have been reported to not come back whole from. Leno buried his face in his hands and prayed for his life. The voice that whispered back to him said he was on his own now. Leno wasn't sure if that was God or not.
"My friend, Reno."
"Your friend? Reno? The guy with the eyes like he's seen the devil?" Pietro got up. He threw his hands up again. "Why doesn't anyone want to do things by themselves in this town, huh? You all have to use your friends."
He said to Lee, "Get that boy back here now. Get Reno, now!"
"Meanwhile, where did he find it?"
Leno mumbled. His eyes were suddenly too big in their sockets because they were filling up with water, or something.
"Or did he get it from a friend too? Looks like we are gonna have a chain of friends from here to Beijing."
"From the hill. He got it from the hill—"
"What hill?"
But just then, Reno marched in, with all the confidence of the only well-behaved child in the crew of vagabonds.
"You wanted me, boss?"
"You are Reno?"
The boy nodded. He wiped the sweat off his forehead. He cleaned his hand off on the seat of his jumpsuit.
"Good. Where did you get the gold?"
Reno grimaced. "I don't have any gold, boss."
Pietro may be a cruel man, but he could also tell when another man was telling the truth, right off the bat. And this lad here was telling the truth, though Pietro hated the boy's version. He'd, in fact, have shot Reno on the spot if he hadn't been so confused by everything.
"Don't play with me, boy. Your friend here, Leno, he just told me he got the golden cat from you."
Understanding dawned on Reno. His jaw fell on the floor with a splat. He looked from Lee to Leno.
Leno had lost his voice and was staring longingly at the patch of real estate between his feet. If it could just open and gulp him.
"Leno, you said you didn't see it," Reno said, menacingly, fists tightened.
Pietro put a hand on Reno's chest. "Alright, I get it. Stop right there. I see what happened here. But that's now in the past."
He pulled Reno closer.
"Where did you find the gold? And don't tell me about a fucking friend in fairytale land, or I'll shoot you. Where did you find it?"
"At the hill."
Reno spilled his guts. He told Pietro Oscar everything, as he remembered it.
—
Tami Capaldi was eating a heavily-spiced taco for lunch. The oil dribbled down the corners of her slim fingers when she heard the unmistakable noise of several cars moving together. Tami looked out the window to see Pietro Oscar's cars zoom past. She hissed, “The fool and his toadies.”
Once, while searching for a place to stay, Tami had a brush with one of Oscar's men, a bum, a degenerate who was looking for some pussy, as it were. This man had grabbed her hand, pressed her against the wall, and tried to kiss her.
She had kicked the man between his thighs, and he had sung seven hosannas. Oscar had looked for her, but Tami was long gone. She imagined Oscar was in a good mood that day.
Oscar owned half the town now. She shuddered at what would happen to her if the man knew she had been in Florida with her husband. There was also the thought of how much she had lost recently.
She had heard the man could take a man's wife from him if he wanted. How about a beautiful widow?
The image of Olivia Newton flashed before her eyes, and she pushed it away. Specific memories belonged in the past, buried there for eternity. And specific memories refused to stay buried too. Like the memory of her husband, Gabriel. Last night, Tami wept into her pillow.
Father, forgive me for I have sinned. The vile things I've done, I deserve to be taken away by a bad man such as Oscar.
She had walked past the cathedral on the street of Ajenté. Stabbed in the heart with so much guilt, she had walked on, head high. A pro
ud, strong woman who would not let her past define her.
She finished her lunch thinking about what Olivia must have done with her share of the Templars gold.
The attic!
She had forgotten about the thing she saw under the rubble up in the attic the other day. She went to see how Roddy was getting along with the TV.
Roddy was doing just fine. A talk show was on, but Roddy was not watching it. Spittle dribbled down the side of his mouth. A small puddle of it was on the old carpet. His bottle of root beer had fallen over too.
Tami went up the stairs quickly. He pushed the chairs aside, careful not to wake Roddy. The object was as she saw it the last time, half of it hidden under the papers and mattress.
She pulled it out; it was heavy, coated in dust.
She blew the dust away and saw it was coated still, with bronze, because in some places, the bronze material had peeled off, revealing a yellowish substance.
And it is heavy. Why is it this heavy?
She raised the artifact to the light; she frowned. She'd seen it somewhere before. She placed it carefully on the floor and went to get the history book she was previously looking at.
She flipped through the pages and stopped at a collection of photos of artifacts.
"There you are…" she whispered.
She looked at the object she found; she compared and saw they were similar. It was shaped like a tennis racket, alright. In the Peruvian history book, it said there were only four of them. All four were owned by one man, and all lost in the earthquake that rocked the area in 1432 C.E.
She looked at the artifact again. Could someone have made a copy? Or was it possible that one was saved?
Tami came back down to the shop. Roddy snored on. She took her bag up and hid the artifact in it.
There was a pawnshop in Cusco. She'd take it there.
—
Pietro Oscar's business was done with the boys in the auto shop in an hour.
Reno lost his gold to Leno, who, in turn, lost it to the syndicate leader, Pietro. The loss was total and was not to be spoken about with anyone.
"You don't want to lose more than a cat's head that isn't even yours to begin with, do you?" Pietro asked the boys.
They shook their heads in unison, and solemnly.
Pietro drove off afterward.
Reno stared at his coworker, Reno, mutinously.
As he drove away, Pietro agreed with the voice in his head. It said he hadn't seen the last of the boy, Reno. His eyes still had that haunted look of a man who has seen the devil himself. Maybe he'd have to do something about it.
But first, he would have to verify the boy's story.
He'd have to find the man Patrick Coleman.
—
Miami.
When Olivia Newton left Wendy's and her meeting with Mary Luca, she rode a taxi to her little office on Miami Riverwalk. The cameras focused on her five feet and four inches in a red jacket and black pants as she went in the double doors. Benji, the Iranian doorman, the one she fondly called “the Beard” because Benji wore his black beard like a magician's, coiled upwards at the ends.
Olivia had moved here shortly after Rome and after Shugborough Hall. The memory of those days, a bittersweet taste in her mental palate.
Her office greeted her with stark, austere neatness, and order only matched by the stars. The walls and blinds were white. Two floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the street below, and the water out there was deep blue. Yachts drifted slowly on the still surface.
There was a single shelf with her collection of literature, a table, and a chair with her computer on it—life as she dreamt it to be.
She found Mary Luca at the University of Florida alumni association lineup. She had graduated magna cum laude from the history department and went on to take South American History. She's been writing a lot on the history of the Incas and Peru's areas of historical interest. The woman was trying to explore and create her own niche.
But archeologist Patrick Coleman beat her to it. Mary Luca didn't seem conceited, though.
Next, Olivia looked Peru up. Wikipedia wasn't as helpful. Maybe billionaire Frank Miller could do some magic.
"Frank?"
Olivia cringed from the telephone. Loud music blared in the background. Miller's voice squeaked, "Hey Olivia, what's up?"
"Is this a good time?"
"For you, it's always a good time, ma'am."
She closed her eyes. The almost total quiet of her office, the calm appearance of the sea nearby, made even the minimal of noises sound like a lights and sirens parade.
"We need to talk. Call me when you can."
She hung up before Miller could say anymore.
What she did next was to search for Patrick Coleman.
The New York Times was reporting the sudden disappearance of the archeologist.
—
The American Embassy, Santiago de Surco, Peru.
The American embassy was abuzz with the news of professor Patrick Coleman, archeologist. CIA chief Harry McCurdy was on the phone with director Ezra Hunan.
Hunan had worked two years undercover before he broke his left knee and fractured his collarbone while running from the KGB in Russia back in the cold war. Greying and trudging on towards retirement when he turned sixty the next year, Hunan was hoping his clean record would remain so. When his phone rang, and it was Harry McCurdy on the line, Hunan knew the rest of his career had just been put on a precipice. He had known Harry for the most part of twenty years, part of which they'd alternated between boss and employee.
"Who the hell is Patrick Coleman?" he growled into the telephone.
"It is not who he is," Ezra, his former colleague, said. "What's important is what Coleman was doing in Peru."
"What is it, Harry?"
"That is why Seth is in Peru. He’ll fill you in, alright. This is a top priority that I know you can handle. That's why the loop to you is as short as possible. You talk to him, he talks to me. Simple. Hunan?"
"Yeah."
"This is big, just listen to Seth."
Hunan placed the phone back in its place, and his deep-set eyes riveted on the man standing in front of him. He was standing there when Hunan's secretary called him down from his meeting upstairs, where he was listening to embassy briefings from his team. And he was standing still while Hunan talked on the phone.
Seth Kowalski was a short man, about a million pits in his face around the chin and jaw. He would have achieved a little attractiveness. But the disproportionately high forehead and a hairstyle reminiscent of Elvis Presley wouldn't allow him.
Kowalski wore a tight-fitting suit the color of the sky, a very uncomfortable sight in the hot and blowing terrain of Peru.
Hunan placed folded hands on his desk. Seth took the cue and pulled the opposite chair. When he sat, he looked even more diminished.
"I'm listening."
"I have nothing to say to you, sir."
"Yeah? Harry told me that you have a lot to tell me."
"How can I? It's your city, not mine. I've only been here all of two hours, sir. Maybe I'll just ask you questions instead since whether you were in Langley or in Peru, ineptitude stares in your face."
Hunan colored furiously.
"No need to get mad, all I want to know is, how the hell didn't you put someone on an American citizen who's come to your territory to look for gold?"
Hunan frowned. "Gold?"
"Certainly you know this is Peru, the Machu Picchu mountain is just a thirty minutes drive from this spot." Seth poked his thumb in the air.
"Patrick Coleman is only a professor, a goddamn archeologist—"
"And what do archeologists do? They dig. What do they dig for?"
Hunan relaxed.
Some say he has gone soft since he left the field years ago. People like Seth Kowalski always came into his office to remind him of that. If he was going to keep his good records untainted, Hunan would have to play by Seth's rules.
The earlier Hunan realized Seth was his nemesis, the better for him.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing." The agent shrugged. "I just want to find what Patrick found."
"This isn't about the professor."
Seth leaned forward, delighted. He smiled. "You learn fast, sir."
Hunan seethed. Cocky prick!
"You want to know if I have a stake in the showdown here, I don't. There's someone you have to know about, though. The man's name's Pietro Oscar. He runs everything out here, as far as we know he's untouchable, protected by bigwigs in business and politics. I'll have a dossier brought to you in your hotel later. You can read about him over something local."
"And not just that, I want to know how they run it, the routes and everything, the bootleggers, the gold runners, and prostitution."
"Bootleggers? Prostitution? What's that got to do with Coleman?"
"I don't know yet, but I'll find out. But get me all the information you have on this Pietro guy. And anyone else. If you can also, get the local police off my ass for as long as I'm here."
"Why? You looking to commit some crime?"
"I'm looking to secure gold in a foreign country." Seth smiled again.
It was the face of a man who'd enjoy slitting a man's throat without remorse.
Hunan said he would do his best.
Seth left quietly, like a snake.
—
Tami Capaldi closed from work earlier than she usually would. She told Roddy her grandma spilled her meds all over the kitchen floor if Tami wasn't there to help her get it right.
Roddy probably went back to sleep when she left. She wasn't sure. It had been a slow day. She had sold two old elephant tusks from India to a Turkish merchant who was in town for a day or two. Then a man built so close to the ground had come in an hour before Tami punched out. He was American by the sound of his tongue. Tami didn't know if he was a midget or just plain short. He had little holes around his jaw, and teeth were like white juju beads. She thought that forehead was too much.
He wanted to buy anything that might interest a man of foreign heritage. Tami hadn't known how to respond, so she asked if she could delight him with some old Peruvian literature or sculptures.
The man wasn't into books, but maybe an Inca chief's head would do. It did. He paid well. Tami skimmed his excess payment and recorded the rest in Roddy's record book.
The Inca Temple Page 5
