Empire of Gold (12 page)

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Authors: Andy McDermott

BOOK: Empire of Gold
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‘Must be my electrifying personality.’ Silence. ‘Oh come on, that was funny.’
‘Mm,’ said Macy, not quite a ringing endorsement. ‘Touch it again – I want to check something.’ Nina brought her hand back to the statues and the strange light returned. Macy held the compass above the glowing figures, taking a bearing. ‘So it’s pointing . . . just about exactly southwest. If there really is a third statue, it’s somewhere that way.’
‘Southwest . . . ’ Nina echoed. She turned to Barley. ‘Do you have a globe?’
 
The Tor’s Arthurian archaeological team did not in fact have a globe of the world to hand, but they had the next best thing; a virtual equivalent on Barley’s computer. ‘Are you sure you want to rule out any potential sites in the UK?’ he asked in response to Nina’s request for him to zoom out. ‘Dartmoor alone has over eight hundred Neolithic and Bronze Age sites, and that’s southwest of here.’
‘I have a hunch that we’re looking for something more far-flung,’ she said. ‘The first statue was found on another continent - in a chamber that was sealed centuries before the start of the European Bronze Age.’
The image on the screen pulled back more and more, until the Earth’s curvature appeared at the edges of the screen. Nina followed a line running diagonally down and to the left from Glastonbury, at the map’s centre. Though it passed close to the Azores, out in the Atlantic, it didn’t touch land until it reached South America, visible only as a line of green along the very edge of the visible hemisphere. ‘Can you switch it to a cartographic view?’
Barley fussed with the controls. The image changed, continents distorting as they morphed from a three-dimensional representation to a flat one. The line now made landfall near the great delta of the Orinoco river, on the continent’s northern coast. ‘Venezuela?’ said Macy.
‘And Colombia. And Brazil,
and
Peru,’ Nina added, following the line southwest through more countries until it reached the Pacific.
‘Rather a lot of ground to cover,’ said Barley. ‘And I think you’ll find Dartmoor a lot easier to reach!’
‘The best sites are always in the worst places . . . ’ She regarded the map. South America: home to numerous ancient civilisations. Could one have possessed the third statue? It was possible. But which – and why?
She thanked Barley, gently reminding him of the need for discretion, and headed back to the Range Rover with Macy. ‘So what now?’ Macy asked.
‘I don’t know. Like Dr Barley said, there’s a lot of ground to cover. And we don’t have a distance, only a direction.’
There was one thing she was sure of, though. Ancient artefacts that could conduct earth energy definitely fell within the IHA’s remit. If there was a third statue somewhere in South America, it was up to her to find it.
Before anyone else did.
 
Eddie put a pint of beer and a whisky on the table. ‘There you go.’
‘Thanks,’ said Mac, leaning forward to pick up his glass. His left leg creaked faintly, metal and plastic rather than flesh and bone; he had lost the limb from the knee down in Afghanistan. He took a sip of whisky, then looked round the sunlit beer garden. ‘Nice afternoon for a trip to the seaside. I’m glad you called – it was looking to be a rather boring day otherwise.’
‘Any excuse to get out of work, right?’ said Eddie, grinning.
‘Hmph. I wish. The jobs from Vauxhall Cross seem to be drying up of late.’
Vauxhall Cross in London was the location of the headquarters of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. Since his retirement from the military, Mac had on occasion worked for the agency as what was euphemistically described as a ‘consultant’, even though some of his operations had been very hands-on. ‘Really?’ said Eddie. ‘Alderley not appreciating you, is he? Miserable sod. After everything you’ve done for him . . . ’
Mac shook his head. ‘Peter’s not the problem. It’s more that everything I’ve got to offer – contacts, local knowledge, intel . . . it’s all getting a bit out of date. The whole world’s moving on, Eddie, and when you’re not at the centre of things you start to get left behind, unfortunately.’ A small sigh, then his expression changed to one of curiosity. ‘And speaking of being left behind, you seem to have been abandoned by your other half. Where’s Nina today?’
‘Glastonbury. Work stuff.’
‘And you’re not with her?’ Eddie’s lack of an immediate response told his friend volumes. ‘Things all right with the two of you?’
‘Just having a rough patch,’ the Yorkshireman admitted. ‘You know what it’s like. Everything seems to end up in an argument. And we had a pretty big one last night.’
‘About what?’
‘My dad. We had dinner with him and his wife, and . . . it could’ve gone better.’
‘You actually met him?’ Mac was surprised. ‘A long time since that last happened.’
‘Twenty-odd years, yeah. Lizzie basically tricked me into it. I would’ve told him to fuck off when he invited us to dinner, but Nina insisted that we go. And that turned out fucking brilliantly. He hasn’t changed – he’s still an arsehole.’
‘Hrmm.’
Eddie eyed the older man. ‘Hrmm what?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Bollocks, nothing. That wasn’t a “that’s interesting” hrmm or an “I need to think about this” hrmm – that was a “you’re being an idiot but it’s not my place to comment” hrmm. What?’
‘Well, since you ask,’ said Mac, sitting up with a faint smile, ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot—’
‘Cheers, always good to know.’
‘—but I know you well enough to imagine that . . . well, perhaps he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t changed.’
‘You saying
I’m
an arsehole?’
The smile reappeared. ‘Never crossed my mind,’ said Mac, before his face became more serious. ‘But he made the first move – he was the one who put out his hand.’
‘So?’
‘So he was trying to have some sort of reconciliation, at least. Apparently it didn’t go well, but still, he made the effort.’
‘Doesn’t mean that I should’ve been all fawning and grateful.’
‘I’m not saying that. I know there are some rather large issues between the two of you. But it could be worth trying to deal with them while you have the chance.’
The older man’s tone made Eddie suspect there was more behind his words than he was saying. ‘Sounds like something that’s been on your mind.’
A silence, then: ‘It has,’ Mac admitted. ‘I got in touch with Angela recently.’
‘After so long? You’ve been divorced for, what, seven years?’
‘Eight. But we met up a couple of months ago. It went rather well, actually.’
‘Are you thinking about getting back together?’ asked Eddie in surprise.
‘No, nothing like that – it’s been too long, too much water under the bridge. But it was . . .
nice
. It reminded me how much we had in common. And in all honesty, the older I get, the more I’ve realised how easy it is to lose contact with people. You can’t rely on them just being there any more – you have to make an effort. It might be hard, but it can be worth it.’
‘And you reckon I should make an effort with my dad?’
Mac took another drink. ‘Just a thought.’
‘It might get Nina off my back, I suppose.’ Eddie’s phone rang; he recognised the ringtone. ‘Speak of the devil . . .’ He answered it. ‘Hey, love. Where are you?’
‘Just leaving Glastonbury with Macy,’ said Nina. ‘Heading back to Bournemouth.’
‘Did you find anything interesting?’
‘You could say that.’ Enthusiasm was clear in her voice. ‘We need to get back to New York. I think we’re going to be busy.’
5
New York City
‘
Y
ou know, if these things react to earth energy,’ said Eddie, peering at the statuettes inside their display case in Nina’s office, ‘maybe we should ask DARPA where to look. They know how to find the stuff, after all.’
‘I don’t think they’d be too happy to hear from us,’ Nina replied sarcastically, looking up from her laptop. ‘Since we blew up their top-secret billion-dollar ship.’
‘All right, Christ, just a suggestion,’ Eddie snapped back. The bad feelings left over from the disastrous dinner had faded, but things were still prickly. ‘How about President Cole, then? He owes us a favour – we saved his life. And a whole bunch of other world leaders too. Come to think of it, the Russian president was one of ’em. Ask him if we can go back to Grozevny. We can get a triangulation from there.’
‘Oh yeah, great idea. Remember the nuclear submarine that sank there? Still kind of a sore point with the Russians.’
‘Hey, it wasn’t our fault it sank. Well, not entirely . . . ’
‘Besides,’ she said, going to a large map of the world on one wall, ‘even if we got another result from Grozevny, I don’t think it would help much.’ A red thread had been strung from a pin placed over Glastonbury, angling southwest across the map to South America. ‘We got the best bearing we could, but it was still only an approximation. And Grozevny,’ she tapped the map on the northern coast of Russia, ‘isn’t that far off the same bearing. Even if we got a triangulation from there, it still wouldn’t be accurate enough. The search area would cover hundreds of square miles.’
‘Better than half a continent.’
‘I know, but . . . ’ She sighed. ‘We need a break, more information.’
The phone rang. Nina put the call on speaker; it was Lola. ‘Ankit Jindal from Interpol is here to see you. He says it’s about the statues.’
Eddie raised his eyebrows. ‘That was quick.’
‘Send him in!’ Nina said.
‘We need a million dollars, an’ all,’ said Eddie with a hopeful glance at the phone. It remained silent. ‘Tchah! Worth a try.’
A knock, and Ankit Jindal entered. The handsome Indian’s glossy black hair had developed into even more of a quiff since they had last seen him. ‘Hello,’ he said, beaming.
They shook hands. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure, Kit,’ said Nina. ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were coming to New York?’
‘I could have done, but what would be the fun in that? Besides, considering why I’m here, I thought it would be better to discuss it face to face.’
‘So why are you here?’ Eddie asked.
Kit indicated the display case. ‘Your little purple friends. Mr Penrose sent me a copy of your report about what you discovered in England.’
‘He did?’ Nina was slightly surprised. Certainly, it was part of Penrose’s job to keep other international bodies like Interpol informed of the UN’s activities, but he didn’t normally do so with such promptness. ‘What’s Interpol’s interest?’
Kit opened his briefcase, taking out several files. ‘After that business with the Khoils, the Cultural Property Crime Unit tried to track down the owners of the unidentified items found in their vault. Most of them we eventually located, but a few we couldn’t find.’ He opened a file. ‘But we had a breakthrough. Most of the Khoils’ computer records had been wiped or encrypted, but our experts managed to recover a shipping manifest.’
He handed Nina a copy of a document. Much of it was gibberish to her, the computerised tracking of a container from port to port, but the final destination – Nuuk in Greenland, the country where the Indian billionaires had been preparing to sit out a global collapse – was clear enough. ‘It doesn’t specifically name the container’s contents, although that’s not surprising if it was filled with stolen art treasures. But the shipping agent is based in Singapore.’
She found a name at the top of the page. ‘Stamford West?’
‘Sounds like a Tube station,’ said Eddie.
‘Interpol has been watching Mr West for some time,’ Kit told them. ‘He’s been linked to the smuggling of artworks and antiquities from several countries, although there has never been enough evidence against him to make a case.’
‘But you’re sure he was involved with the Khoils?’ said Nina. Kit nodded. ‘Which might mean that he knows where the second statue came from originally.’
‘He might. But that’s only part of the reason I came here.’ The Indian opened another file. ‘There is also evidence – only circumstantial, unfortunately – linking him to another black market operation. Look at these.’ He laid several glossy photographs on the desk.
Nina picked one up. ‘Oh, this is beautiful,’ she said, fascinated. The image was of a small statue of a broad-faced man sitting cross-legged, eyes closed as if in meditation. The figure gleamed under the photographer’s lights; it was made of pure gold. ‘Inca?’
‘Yes.’ He indicated the other photos, which showed similarly spectacular pieces. ‘Our experts confirmed they’re genuine, dating from no later than the sixteenth century.’
‘And these were found on the black market?’
‘No, in a drugs raid on a mansion in Mexico a few weeks ago. The man had a taste for ancient art. But his records contained a paper trail that led back to their illegal source.’

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