Golden Relic (35 page)

"Um, no Marcus, not until earlier this evening," Sam fibbed. "She was quite annoyed with
him."

"I'm not surprised," Bridger said.

Louis unhooked the rope to let Pavel and Ben into the performance area. Ben placed the box on the
pedestal but Pavel raised his hands in warning, reached into his pocket and pulled out a compass.

"This side must face west," Pavel pronounced, turning the box around.

Bridger cleared his throat. "What is he doing, Sam?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Sam stated.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Pavel bellowed. "I would like to announce the discovery of a major
archaeological site in Peru,
north-east
," he stressed for all those who had got it wrong, "of
Machu Picchu. My colleague Louis Ducruet and I would like to tell you the story of Inticancha, the
secret city of Manco Capac and the last refuge of the last Inca king, Tupac Amaru."

Bridger cleared his throat again. "The man's barely back from the dead, and he's grandstanding
already," he whispered in Sam's ear.

"Those of you who know me," Pavel smiled, "will know that any story I tell must feature an
ancient curse on a priceless relic, or it's not worth telling. I promise not to disappoint you."

The audience laughed as if they did indeed expect nothing less from Pavel.

"I think I need a drink," Bridger muttered. "Would you like one, Sam?"

"No, thank you, Marcus."

As Sam watched Bridger disappear into the crowd she noted that Maggie was right about the level
of interest in Pavel's announcement. While quite a few people were still making their way across the
room to see what was happening, the vast majority had returned to their own conversations. Sam
estimated there were just over a hundred people hanging on to Pavel's every word.

Sam concentrated on the faces in the audience as Pavel and Louis recounted their revised story of
the discovery in 1962 of a remarkable ceremonial site and a 'golden hand' that caused localised
earthquakes every time they tried to move it. Pavel explained how they had to leave the relic in its
sacred hiding place and abandon the site when one of their crew was badly injured. When they
returned the next month, he said, the hand was gone and as the site was constantly being rocked by
tremors they left it in peace.

Sam spotted Barstoc and moved to stand behind him as Pavel described his return to the site the
year before, his discovery of the journal of Vasco Dias, the story it told of the city and the curse
and the realisation of just what had been stolen from Inticancha all those years ago - the Hand
of God.

"What do you think of this bizarre story, Mr Barstoc?" Sam asked quietly.

Barstoc jumped slightly and turned to face Sam. "It's nonsense, of course," he said. "Pavel
Mercier loves putting on a show. He's nearly as bad as Marcus in that respect."

"But as fate would have it," Pavel waved his finger, "two weeks ago I was in Cuzco and happened
to see an article and photo in the paper about the theft in Paris of the Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet. Now
this was an artefact that I knew about, of course, but I had never actually seen it until then. And
what did I see? The wrist band of the Hand of God." Pavel paused for effect.

"So I set out to look for the other pieces. Remembering that it had been re-stolen from a small
museum in Punta Arenas in 1978, I went to Chile and discovered the bracelet had been sold to that
museum in 1970 by an old man who needed money. I tracked down his daughter and in her attic, where
the old man's belongings had been stored on his death, I found the Hand of God." With a great
flourish, Pavel lifted the lid on the box.

The audience took a collective breath at the sight of the beautiful golden digits of Inti the Sun
God.

"What are you going to do with it, Pavel?" someone asked.

"Ah, tonight it goes straight back to the vault, where it stays until I decide."

"But you must return it to Peru," Escobar shouted.

Pavel shrugged. "Perhaps."

Barstoc, Sam noticed, cricked his neck twice and then walked away.

"Where's he going?" Sam muttered into her brooch. 'Heading straight for Marcus Bridger' came the
response. 'No, he kept right on going. He's gone to the men's room.'

The audience crowded in to get a better view of the Hand and Pavel and Louis began fielding
questions. Sam looked around for Maggie and Vasquez but both had disappeared from sight.

"That Pavel, is certainly one out of the box," the woman beside her commented.

"Yes," agreed her companion. "It's like he hits a hole in one every time he tees off. Imagine
re-finding the find of the century."

Sam closed her eyes as an uncomfortable tingling took over her body. A hole in one, she thought.
Shit! "Ben, can you hear me? Oh good. What was the other thing you were going to tell me about
Barstoc's stepfather?" She stuck her finger in her ear to hear properly.

"Bloody hell," she exclaimed a little too loudly, for someone who was standing on her own. "Where
is he? And where's Maggie?" She looked wildly around but still couldn't see Maggie, so she pushed
her way back through the crowd to Pavel. She tugged him on the arm so she could whisper a question
in his ear.

"Yes, I believe so, Sam," Pavel replied.

A scream from somewhere in the hall, was followed by another and another until someone yelled
'fire'. Sam realised there was smoke billowing from the interior of the Rites of Life and Death
Exhibit. It took three seconds for the chaos to set in and then there was panic, pandemonium and
people running madly in all directions.

Sam caught sight of Marcus Bridger, with a fire extinguisher, trying to run towards his
exhibition. "Stay alert everyone," Sam spoke into her microphone. "This has to be a set up."

The lights went out.

"Sam, where are you?" Maggie called out.

"Over here," Sam said, realising it was a pretty stupid response to give in pitch darkness. But
Maggie found her anyway.

"Just before the lights went out I saw Escobar and Vasquez hovering around Pavel," Maggie said,
as the emergency generator kicked in and a few lights at the other end of the room came back on.

Sam and Maggie turned around to find Pavel and Louis helping Ben up off the floor. The box and
the Hand of God were gone.

"Ben, we have to go in there after Marcus," Sam pointed at the Exhibition.

"I just saw Vasquez go in through the exit," Pavel said. "He was carrying something."

"Ben, you take the exit, I'll take the entrance," Sam said, already on the run.

"Have those fools gone in to put out the fire?" Maggie asked, keeping pace with Sam.

"I don't think so, Maggie," Sam stated, heading through the open door behind Charon and into the
catacombs. "Tell me, what does Marcus's father do for a crust?"

"He's a heart surgeon, why?" Maggie asked.

"Because I'm an idiot!" Sam exclaimed, crashing into a wall in the dark before finding the exit
from the replica Egyptian tomb into the Voodoo exhibit. Maggie was right behind her all the way.
They emerged into the semi-darkness of the central exhibition area which was thick with smoke from a
well-contained fire in a very large bin.

"Over there." Maggie pointed to a man yanking something out of the main phallus display.

"Barstoc, Marcus," Sam tried both names, but the man made a dash for the nearest wall and dived
behind it. Sam drew her gun, and added, "Don't run, there's nowhere to go."

"We've got the place surrounded," Maggie declared. "I've always wanted to say that," she added as
she followed Sam carefully across the space. Sam edged up to the wall and then snapped her body
around it, weapon in front. There was nothing but an empty doorway and Pavel's now-empty box lying
on the ground.

"Stay here, Maggie," Sam ordered.

"No way. What if he doubles back? I'd rather be where your gun is."

"Make sure you stay behind me then," Sam said, as she moved through the doorway and down a short
corridor.

"What is that dreadful noise?" Maggie asked. "It sounds like a koala on heat."

"Shh," Sam snapped. She peered around the corner into the almost complete darkness of the large
Apache burial ground exhibit. She could just make out the figure of a man on the far side. He was
down on all fours and writhing in agony but appeared to be trying to gather something together.

"Get up," Sam ordered, advancing into the exhibit. Her quarry, who was still trying to move away
from her, let out a guttural moan as he struggled to his feet.

"Stop," Sam yelled. "I am a police officer and I am armed. Do not try to leave." She grabbed her
lapel and spoke into the microphone. "Could we have some lights in the exhibition area please."

"Tupac," Maggie called out.

The man stopped in his tracks and straightened his back.

Sam glanced quizzically at Maggie.

"Well," Maggie shrugged. "It
was
one of your theories, Sam."

"Tupac Amaru," Sam shouted. "Please, don't move again or I will shoot you."

"If you shoot the Sapa Inca, I will shoot your friend."

Sam reeled around to find Andrew Barstoc holding a gun to Maggie's head.

"If you shoot anyone," Ben said, stepping out of the shadows, "you're a dead man."

The exhibit's artificial torches flickered to life, casting an eerie glow over the Apache burial
ground and it occupants. Barstoc hesitated for a moment then dropped his weapon and held up his
hands.

A crashing sound heralded the arrival of Enrico Vasquez, armed with a fire extinguisher.

"Don't move," ordered Rivers, who came crashing in behind him.

"But what is going on?" Vasquez demanded.

"We'll explain later Enrico," Maggie said. "Sam, he's still trying to get away," she pointed.

"Marcus," Sam said, moving towards him. "Give it up. The Hand is trying to tell you are
not
Tupac Amaru. It's killing you, you fool."

The self-proclaimed reincarnation of the last Inca king collapsed to his knees. Seven golden
digits spilled out of the cloth he no longer had the strength to hold and lay scattered on the
ground in front of him. Dr Marcus Bridger forced himself into a sitting position, clutching the
Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet to his chest as he grimaced in pain. "It is mine," he growled.

"Maggie, have you got the thumb and the other fingers?" Sam asked urgently.

Maggie yanked her shirt out and pulled the three digits from her vest.

"Which way is west?" Sam asked. Everyone just stared her. "Come on, dammit, which is west?"

"Um, that way," Ben pointed.

Sam laid the thumb to the left of Bridger, put Louis' middle finger behind him and the pinky
finger to the right. "Help me, please Maggie. Find the other two real ones. Put them in the correct
places."

Sam tried to remove the bracelet from Bridger's hand. His whole body was soaked in sweat, he was
dying a slow painful death, but he would not relinquish his prize.

"It's done, Sam," Maggie stated.

"
Marcus
, let go you stupid bastard." Sam slapped him in the face, caught the bracelet as
it fell from his hand, and placed it in front, and to the south, of the rest of the Hand of God.
Marcus Bridger, the idiot son of William Sanchez, fell backwards and didn't move again.

Sam, Maggie, Pavel, Ben and Vasquez sat staring at each other over the box in which
the real and now complete Hand of God lay - with the thumb facing west, just in case. After Sam
had been officially re-introduced to Miguel Richer, the Peruvian Ambassador, everyone had agreed
that Vasquez deserved an explanation.

"Well, that is some story," he exclaimed. "And you said my imagination was fertile."

"What I want to know," Rigby demanded, as he and Rivers joined them at the table in the Regency
bar, "is how you worked out it was Bridger."

"It occurred to me," Sam explained, "that a man who plays golf at Sunningdale, as Daniel Bridger
does, would not be the sort of man who would organise a protest to stop a golf course being built,
which is what Marcus boasted that his 'archaeologist' father had done. I knew my hunch was right
when Ben confirmed that Marcus had also been adopted, and Pavel verified that the golf course
protest was one of William Sanchez's annoying stories of his exploits on previous digs."

"Very clever, Sam."

"Thank you, Maggie. But even so, at the time, I still thought that Barstoc was the main culprit;
that he was, I don't know, using Marcus."

"But it was the other way around," Rivers stated.

"It was," Sam agreed. "Marcus, or should I say Paolo Sanchez, is truly convinced he is Tupac
Amaru. And Barstoc, for some unfathomable reason, honestly believes that Marcus is the Sapa Inca and
that they are spiritual brothers. He's quite obsessed by the notion. He claimed last night he would
do anything to serve and protect him and, in fact, has done everything that Marcus asked of
him."

"And Marcus was using his precious phallic collection to conceal the pieces of the Hand he'd
already collected?" Vasquez asked.

"Yeah," Ben snarled. "Which is why he was so insistent on unpacking them himself when we searched
your stuff at the airport. And probably why he was so pissed off with Barstoc."

"That and the fact that Marcus returned from Paris to discover that Professor Marsden was dead,"
Sam added. "Barstoc claims it was an accident that he killed Lloyd when he did. It was 'premature'
he said, because they hadn't yet found the golden thumb."

"Why is Andrew admitting to so much?" Maggie asked.

"He's whacko if you ask me," Rigby said. "But he seems to be admitting to anything he thinks we
can prove."

"Including anything he thinks we can prove against Marcus," Sam stated. "It's the Sapa Inca
spiritual brotherhood thing. Andrew Barstoc is prepared to go down for everything just to keep
Marcus out of prison."

"By the way," Ben said, "our colleagues in Sydney had a little chat with those antique dealers
that Barstoc visited. According to one of these gentleman, who is now negotiating a reduced sentence
in exchange for his cooperation, Barstoc was actually holding an auction."