Golden Relic (30 page)

"Would you like another coffee?" the waiter asked, bringing Sam back to the here and now.

"Um, yes please," she replied. The Americans had finished filming their luncheon epic and were
getting up to leave, so Sam slid along the bench seat to use the backpackers as cover from the
spying eyes in the street. She wondered whether it was time to start worrying about why it was
taking Maggie so long just to pick up a parcel. Not that it was safe for her to come out yet. The
one person they hadn't quite managed to shake off their tail was still pacing the crowded street
outside looking for them.

When Sam had first spotted him in the Plaza de Armas five hours before, she had turned away in
such surprise and haste that she'd walked straight into a parked car. After Maggie had helped her up
off the ground Sam had wanted to confront the 'known dealer in stolen antiquities' right there in
public, but Maggie had insisted it would be more sensible to lose Mr Fez as soon as possible.

Easier said than done, Sam thought as she watched him now, emerging from a small hotel up the
street. The man was obviously more accomplished at tailing people than any of Vasquez's cronies
were. She and Maggie had thought they'd lost him long before they entered this street but, while
they were still trying to figure out which house belonged to Pavel's expert craftsman, Sam had
spotted Mr Fez mingling with a group of tourists. It had taken them another half hour of aimless
walking before they cut through a small market and doubled back. So had Mr Fez, eventually, but not
until Maggie was inside the house of Miguel Schneider and Sam was staked out in the cafe.

Sam glanced up at the window opposite and was relieved to see Maggie looking down on her, but she
shook her head, held up four fingers and pointed to the front door.

"Excuse me," Sam said to backpackers. "Do you think you could all do me a favour?"

"Maybe," said the woman, very cautiously.

"See that guy, in the baggy beige suit, hanging around the front of the little hotel? Well he's
been hassling my friend and me for two days. He bought us a couple of drinks on Sunday night and now
he won't leave us alone. He followed us all the way from our hotel today."

"Where's your friend?" asked the younger of the two men.

"She's in that house on the corner over there," Sam said.

"What's she doing in the house?" the woman asked.

"It belongs to a friend of a friend. She was dropping something off."

The woman eyed Sam as if she thought she was a drug runner. "I don't know," she said.

"Oh come on, Sandra, be a sport," the other guy said. "What do you want us to do?" he asked.

"Well, he's going in and out of places up and down the street looking for us. If you could just
make sure he stays inside somewhere long enough for us to take off, it would be great," Sam said,
noticing that Miguel Schneider had cracked open his front door.

"Sure, we can do that love," the young guy said. "Come on."

"Thank you," Sam said, and then called the waiter over and paid for her drinks and their lunch.
"It's the least I can do," she shrugged when Sandra objected.

Sam watched as they wandered slowly up the street, waiting for Mr Fez to emerge from a cafe. When
he entered the shop next door, the two guys pushed their way in after him and Sandra gave a short
nod. Sam raised her hand to Miguel and waved a thank you to Sandra as she dashed across the street
to meet Maggie on the corner.

"Pavel, go pack your stuff. We are leaving," Maggie ordered, as she and Sam barged into the hotel
room.

"What? Why? Did you get the Hand?"

"Yes, and we are leaving, now."

"But we're booked on a flight to Lima tomorrow, Maggie."

"And Vasquez probably already knows that, so he won't expect us to leave tonight," she said.

Pavel sat down. "My darling, please take a moment to calm yourself. What is the hurry?"

Sam placed the parcel she was carrying on the table in front of him. "The Turkish bloke who
attacked me in Cairo has been following us for the last five hours. It's time to go home."

"But the flights out of Cuzco are always overbooked. We'll never get on a plane at such short
notice," Pavel said, removing the string from the parcel.

"Two phone calls and we are out of here," said Maggie who was already dialling. "Hello Randolph?
This is Maggie Tremaine. Fuel up your kite, I'm calling in another debt. We'll be there in two
hours."

"Oh no," Sam wailed, "I'd rather take my chances with Mr Fez."

"What is wrong, Sam?" Pavel asked.

"Randolph P. bloody Fitzwanker, or whatever his name is, was the crazy barnstormer who flew us
from Lima last week. We nearly died 53 times on the way here."

"It will be dark by the time we leave, Sam," Maggie said, as she dialled another number. "You
won't see the mountains until we plough into them, and then you won't care."

"Oh lovely," Pavel sighed with admiration, as he lifted the lid of the wooden box he'd unwrapped.
"Miguel has done a fine, fine job. It's almost as if his work was touched by Inti himself."

Sam peered at the replica of the Hand of God. It was indeed beautiful workmanship. Five large
golden fingers, each in its own velvet-lined recess, lay in a semi-circle as if the Sun God had
rested his hand in the box. "There's no bracelet," she noted.

"The bracelet, though mostly gold, also contains pearls and turquoise," Pavel explained. "It
would have been impossible to make without the real one as a model, and it would have been too
expensive to try. Besides part of my plan is to express my belief that the now missing Tahuantinsuyu
Bracelet is part of the Hand of God."

"This is not real gold is it?" Sam queried, as Maggie joined them at the table.

"Oh yes," Pavel said, picking up the thumb, "they have been dipped in real gold. The moulds
underneath are of whatever Miguel decided was the most appropriate metal to achieve the correct
weight. May I have the real thumb, please my sweet."

Maggie undid her shirt and removed the digit from her vest pocket. Pavel laid the replica in her
other palm.

"My goodness," Maggie exclaimed. "You can hardly tell the difference between them, in appearance
or weight."

"I don't suppose either of you have thought about how we are going to get this through customs?"
Sam asked.

"Oh, good point," Maggie said. "I'll have to ring and reschedule with Peter."

"Who is Peter?" Sam asked. "No, wait, let me guess. He's probably a friend at the Australian
Embassy in Lima."

"Very good guess, Sam dear. Now start packing you two."

Forty minutes later Pavel, dressed in shorts, a very loud floral shirt, a Panama
hat and with a camera around his neck, carried his bags out to the car that waited in front of the
Hotel Royal Inca. Vasquez glanced at him with disinterest and then returned his attention to his
magazine so Pavel went back into the hotel. He exited again moments later with Sam and Maggie's
packs, which he added to his gear in the boot of the car, before shutting it. He made one more trip
inside and, this time carrying a small overnight bag, got into the front passenger seat of the car.

"Jonathan, nice to see you again," Pavel said to the driver.

"Good god, it is you," Jonathan replied. "It's nice to see you're not dead, Pavel, but what on
earth happened to your hair?"

"Maggie happened to my hair," Pavel grunted. "If you would like to pull slowly out from the curb,
as if we're leaving, the ladies will know it's time to join us."

Jonathan did as he was asked and Pavel reached over to open the back door. "Okay, stop," Pavel
said, as he saw Sam and Maggie make their dash from the hotel.

"Go, go, go," Maggie said, as she and Sam threw themselves laughing into the back seat and
slammed the door. "What's the super agent doing?" she asked, as the car lurched forward.

Sam watched Vasquez as he leapt to his feet and gesticulated wildly at his colleagues in a black
car, and at his foyer spy who had emerged from the hotel with his hands out as if to say, 'how was I
supposed to know?'

"Oh, he is pissed off," Sam said gleefully. "If he was a
huaca
this plaza would be in
ruins now. But he's marshalling his troops. There's one car on our tail already, and Vasquez is
joining the chase himself in a jeep."

"Don't worry, we can lose them," Jonathan said. "I'll head in the opposite direction to the air
field too so they won't have a clue where we're going."

"A long as we get there in one piece," Pavel said, grabbing the dashboard as Jonathan made a
right turn into a very narrow street and then a left into a stream of traffic.

"Oh yes!" Sam exclaimed, as a screeching of tyres, a cacophony of car horns and the sound of
metal being mangled, accompanied her view of the black pursuit car's collision with a stationary
truck. "One down, but Vasquez is still back there."

"How far back?" Jonathan asked.

"About five cars, and taking every dangerous opportunity to close the gap."

"Okay, I've got an idea," he said. "Hang on, everyone. And Sam, you tell me the moment he's out
of sight." Jonathan swung the car through an intersection, and took the first street on the
right.

"Can't see him," Sam said.

"Good." Jonathan swerved into a narrow street on the left and then turned sharply through an open
gate into a small vacant block where he spun the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes. The car
came to a rest, facing the gateway, with Pavel still howling in fear.

"Quiet Pavel," Maggie ordered. "You're perfectly all right."

"My stomach is still out on the street," he complained.

"There they go," Jonathan said, as Vasquez's jeep sped past. He drove out the gate and headed
back the way they'd come but had to wait at the corner for a car to pass before making a left turn
to follow the very slow driver down the street. "Bloody Volvo drivers, they're the same the world
over," he swore. "Get out of the way!" he yelled, as he overtook the car and sped through the next
intersection.

"We're nearly there," Maggie said half an hour later, as they cruised along a bumpy dirt road.
"That's one of the walls I was telling you about the day we arrived, Sam."

"That's nice," Sam said, peering out at a large section of Inca stonework that had been reclaimed
from the hillside. "I'm glad I actually got to see it before my untimely death later tonight." She
took a few deep breaths as they turned onto a winding rutted track through a small forest and into a
large clearing which contained nothing but a hangar and the plane from hell on the far side. Sam
groaned and slouched down into the seat.

Jonathan parked the car and Maggie leapt out, stuck her fingers in her mouth and gave a loud
whistle. Randolph sauntered out of the hangar, wiping his hands on a rag.

"Crank her up, mate," Maggie requested, "we're on a tight schedule."

"Are you coming, Sam?" Pavel asked, looking in the back window at her.

"I was thinking of taking up residency in Cuzco," Sam said, getting out of the car. "The thought
of getting back into that, that thing is making me nauseous." She helped Jonathan and Pavel carry
the bags to the plane, mostly because she figured it would be more difficult for her to run
screaming off into the hills if she was laden down with stuff.

Randolph had already started the engines, which Sam decided was a good thing, because the
deafening noise would cover the sound of all the important bits dropping off it. Although that
thought didn't help the fact that bits
were
actually falling off. Sam stared in puzzlement as
a second tiny piece of the wing leapt onto the ground. She turned around to see if anyone else had
noticed and then realised that the source of the problem was the car that had just emerged from the
forest.

"Get on the plane," she yelled. "Everyone, get on the plane now. Someone is shooting at us."

Pavel, who was already inside hauled Maggie into the cabin. Sam leapt in after her and then held
her hand out for Jonathan. "You cannot stay here, Jonathan," she shouted.

Randolph aimed his plane at the runway while Sam and Jonathan fought with the door, finally
getting it shut.

Mr Fez, who had obviously realised he wasn't going to catch them, had stopped his car and jumped
out so he could take better aim with his gun.

"Bloody Volvo drivers, they're the same the world over," Sam swore.

"Is it the same Volvo?" Jonathan asked.

"The very same," Sam nodded.

"The bastard," Randolph yelled, "he is trying to kill my baby."

"He's going to kill all of us if you don't get this crate in the air," Sam shouted, just as the
wheels left the ground.

"Well," Maggie breathed a sigh of relief, "I give him this much, he is persistent."

Sam pushed the recalcitrant trolley loaded with their bags towards the Arrivals
exit doors. She had always wondered what this moment of coming home from an overseas trip would feel
like. She'd been on the other side often enough, waiting for her friends in a sea of strangers
waiting for their friends or families. She kicked the trolley wheel again, thinking it was a pity
that not a soul knew they were coming; there'd be no one jumping up and down outside to greet
them.

"This airport has changed since I was last here," Pavel commented, as he helped Sam by kicking
the wheel on the other side.

"When were you last here?"

"Maybe 20 years ago," he replied.

Sam laughed. "If you think the airport has changed, just wait till you see the city," she
said.

The doors opened and the sea of strangers, plus one familiar face, all leant forward to see if
they should get excited yet.

"Rivers? What are you doing here?" Sam asked, as he ducked under the barrier and followed them
out.

"Maggie called me from the plane," he said. "Hi Maggie," he added with a grin.