Origin (10 page)

But there was still the city-wide CCTV system, the facial recognition software, and the physical eyes on the ground. If the order was given, every government agency in Santiago could be instructed to find Matthew Adams and Evelyn Edwards. The municipal police, the national police, the paramilitary carabineros, all of these and more could be mobilized in the search.

But for now, the technicians would continue to monitor what they could, and hope for a result.

‘Damn!’ Eldridge exclaimed violently, punching a marble pillar in the Santa Ana foyer with a gloved hand.

Adams and Edwards were nowhere to be seen – not in the tunnels, not on the platforms, not in the service areas and, according to the information coming through his earpiece, they had yet to be picked up by any surveillance on the streets of the city.

Eldridge knew the pair could still be in the underground system – a thorough search of the labyrinth could literally take days – and started to realize that his chances of making an arrest were growing slimmer every minute.

It was an hour later when he learnt that the hunt may have already moved beyond the confines of the city.

The proprietors of the grocery store on Catedral had been found by a couple of customers – unharmed, but gagged and tied up behind the counter – and they had reported it immediately to the local police.

It seemed that the owners of the store, who lived in the apartment above, had had a car parked behind the premises, which had been stolen by the fugitives. An instant APB had been put on the vehicle, and Eldridge learnt soon after that the car had made it as far north as Mercedarios in Conchali, before being abandoned. It was unknown what had happened to the pair since – they might have stolen another car, gone back on to the subway, or even caught a surface train or bus out of the city.

The technicians back at base were running images of the escaped pair through the surveillance camera footage of all train, metro and bus stations but had so far found nothing. Information from traffic cameras, including images of the drivers as they passed speed check areas, was also being analysed, but Eldridge didn’t hold out much hope.

The game was going to continue, and it was certainly going to be an interesting one.

L
YNN CHECKED HER
backpack again as she and Adams reclined in the back of the large truck. Everything was still there, mercifully intact. Evidence of the man they had found in the ice, a man forty thousand years old. A man people were willing to kill for.

As she turned to Adams, who sat next to her, it troubled her deeply that he was now a target too. He knew about the body – and even if he didn’t, they would assume he did anyway – and he was therefore in as much danger as she was.

They had found the truck at a roadside stop just outside the city limits of Santiago. They had ditched the first stolen car, and then Adams had hot-wired another from a parking lot just two blocks over. They had then driven this one out of the city, careful to obscure their faces whenever they noticed traffic or speed cameras of any kind, aware that such images could be fed back and analysed. The resources of their enemy seemed truly enormous.

They had driven the stolen vehicle north to Colina, a fairly large town fifteen miles north of Santiago. There, they had parked the car in a secure underground parking lot, paying for a week’s stay, sure that it wouldn’t be noticed by the authorities until they were long gone from the area.

They had then hiked to a truck stop, bought lunch and got chatting to a friendly driver, shipping computer parts up to a factory in Copiapó, four hundred miles further north. For a little
mordida
, the local term for a bit of friendly bribery which meant literally ‘the bite’, the driver agreed to their travelling with him. It was no skin off his nose, he explained, and he was grateful for the extra cash.

‘So where are we headed?’ Adams asked Lynn finally.

Thus far, it had only been clear that she wanted to travel north. ‘Peru,’ she said. ‘A place called Nazca.’

‘Nazca?’ Adams asked. ‘As in the Nazca lines?’ When Lynn nodded in reply, he asked, ‘Why there?’

The Nazca lines were mysterious etchings on the desert floor, of such incredible size that they were only clearly visible from the air. A collection of straight lines, animals, geometrical figures and birds up to three hundred metres in size, it is believed they were scratched into the desert
pampa
over two thousand years ago. Theories on the purpose of the lines included it being a vast astronomical calendar, or a collection of ritual walkways connected to a water or fertility cult, or a representation of the dreams of a drug-taking shaman; some even believed them to be extraterrestrial landing strips.

Adams had heard of them but he had no idea why they should head there. He had no problem with Peru itself – if they were trying to get back to the US, Peru was as good a transit point as any – but he knew Lynn must have a good reason for travelling to Nazca specifically.

‘Fabricio Baranelli,’ Lynn answered cryptically.

‘Who?’

‘I guess I should say
Professor
Fabricio Baranelli,’ Lynn corrected herself. ‘He is the top man in his field, after all.’

‘And that field is?’ Adams asked.

‘Archaeology. He’s on an expedition at the moment, mapping the area. I think he’s developing some sort of new theory about the geoglyphs there.’

‘Geoglyphs?’

‘The lines, the marks in the earth. I don’t know exactly what he’s working on, but it’s important.’

‘And why do we want to see him?’ Adams asked, still confused.

‘I know him from Harvard,’ Lynn explained. ‘I’ve known him for years, and he’s a dear friend. He’s also the only person I know in South America who might be able to help us. The fact that he’s digging around a major, protected archaeological site means he must be plugged in to the government, he must have friends in the right places. I’m hoping he might be able to use his contacts, maybe get us back into the US.’

Adams considered the matter. He had been wondering how they were going to get back to America. He was resourceful but he was having difficulty working out a plan for getting Lynn back. Her passport would certainly be compromised by now, of that he was sure. In fact, he didn’t even know if he could trust his own anymore; it was feasible that the enemy might have tracked his route from Pine Ridge, discovered the passport he had been using, and flagged it up. That left crossing borders on foot, which he wasn’t sure Lynn would manage, given the vast distances involved, or using other forms of transport, each of which presented their own problems. These methods were all slow as well, which gave the enemy more time to track them down.

Baranelli was an outside bet, but he might offer them something – it certainly helped to have government contacts. He might also have close media contacts, which they could perhaps use to get the evidence in Lynn’s backpack out into the public domain.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘This truck will take us as far as Copiapó, which still puts us about six hundred miles away from Nazca, with the Peruvian border in the middle. Any plans for that?’ he asked, with more sarcasm than he wished.

Lynn didn’t mind a bit – she realized what a position she had put him in, pulling him out of his own life and putting him in mortal danger. A bit of sarcasm was neither here not there in comparison. She smiled at him warmly, taking his hand in hers. ‘Hey,’ she said, looking into his dark, brown eyes, finding herself lost in them for a moment, hypnotized by his soul. She blinked out of it, and carried on. ‘I’m sorry I got you into this, I really am. And I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I owe you my life.’

Adams held her gaze for a time, then turned away, embarrassed by his own perceived failings. They had survived, but he had hardly put in a faultless performance.

He looked up into her eyes again, and Lynn could see the earnestness, the honesty, in the man she once loved. ‘I’d do it again, any time you asked.’

She smiled, nodded her head, and wiped a tear from her eye. ‘I know,’ she whispered, holding his hand to her heart, ‘I know.’ She kissed his hand, looked up at him again. ‘You want to know my plan for getting to Peru?
You
. I have faith in you, Matt. I need
you
to get us there.’

‘H
OW ARE THINGS
progressing?’

Jacobs heard the words loud and clear but did not have an immediate answer. What was he supposed to tell them? That he was currently pulling all the strings he could, using the full resources of the US government, just to hunt down two normal, everyday, inconsequential human beings? What would they think of him and his organization then?

But if he lied, would they know? And if they
did
know, what would their reaction be? Jacobs was not in fear for his physical safety but if they reneged on their promises as a result of the continued failure of the Alpha Brigade, it would be worse than torture and death to him.

But, he considered, their resources were necessarily diluted by distance, and as a result they needed him just as much as he needed them – perhaps even more so at this point in time.

And so Jacobs decided to give them the truth, although not a complete explanation.

‘The targets are still at large,’ he said finally. ‘We are close to reacquiring them, however, and there is no indication that the information has gone any further thus far. And even if details of the find
are
eventually revealed, we are confident we can downplay the evidence. There shouldn’t be a problem. Especially,’ Jacobs continued, building in confidence, ‘as the latest reports from CERN indicate that we are about to enter the testing phase for the device. Even if knowledge of your existence, and our involvement, was now made public, it would be too late to matter any more anyway.’

‘You are wrong,’ the voice countered immediately. ‘Anomalies
always
matter. Unknown variables can disrupt things beyond comprehension. Everything needs to be
perfect
. We thought you understood this.’

‘This is
life
,’ Jacobs shot back, trying to rein in his frustration. ‘Things
are
sometimes imperfect, you just have to deal with them the best way you can.’

‘This is not how one of us would handle things,’ came back the instant response. ‘We do not accept imperfection.’

The connection was terminated and Jacobs sat back in his leather chair and took a sip of water from the thick glass on the desk in front of him.

So they didn’t accept imperfection. Well, that was absolutely fine.

Neither did he.

‘Are you OK?’ Lynn asked Adams from the passenger seat of the small, twenty-year-old Fiat.

Adams was all too aware of how he must look. Sweat was rolling down his brow, he had a ghostly pallor, and he was shivering uncontrollably. The absence of sleep, combined with the adrenalin and excitement of the past few days, was becoming intolerable, and it was a lot harder than he had anticipated.

Since the incident in the desert all those years before, he had been unwilling to talk about his problems. He had at first refused to accept he even had a problem, and even when he had finally admitted it, he had never considered asking for help. He realized now that this was unrealistic bravado and for the first time in his life he wanted help. He wanted to just crawl up into a ball and
cry
for help. But he also knew this was never going to happen.

‘I think I’m coming down with a fever,’ he lied.

‘Do you want me to drive?’

Adams thought about it for a few moments. Concentrating on the road was hurting his head but at least it was giving him something to do. Sitting in the passenger seat, consumed by self-pity, would probably be worse.

‘No thanks,’ he replied, putting a bit more life into his voice. ‘I’ll be fine. Best I have something to do, you know?’

Lynn looked at him, as if really seeing him for the first time since their reunion the day before. ‘You’ve changed since we were together,’ she said finally.

If you only knew
, Adams thought. ‘How do you mean?’ he asked instead.

Again, Lynn considered the matter. ‘I don’t know . . . Before, you seemed so full of life . . . Larger than life, really. Now you seem more . . . subdued.’ She smiled apologetically at him, sorry to be so negative but curious about the change in the man she had once loved so much.

‘Life does that to you eventually, I guess,’ Adams replied, knowing as he said it that it was such comments that had made Lynn notice the change in the first place. ‘But it’s probably just the fever getting me down, you know,’ he recovered quickly.

Seconds of silence passed into minutes as they continued along Interstate Five, through the vast expanse of the Chilean desert plains.

They had reached Copiapó late the previous night, and had paid cash for the local bus to Caldera on the coast. Once in the small town, they had asked around for a car to buy, and found a willing seller just minutes away. The car was no piece of art, had no air conditioning, and was barely roadworthy, but it seemed able to go from A to B. Which was all they could ask, considering the price they paid. It was also unlikely to be traced until they were long gone. Unless their pursuers tracked them to Caldera and then went door to door until they found someone who had recently sold a car, they figured they would be relatively safe.

They’d stocked up on food, drink and jerrycans of gasoline, unsure how regular gas stations were going to be, and then started the long trek north. The road bordered the Pacific Ocean for much of its length, and both Adams and Lynn were amazed by the beauty of the route. Eventually, the coastal mountains rose up, and the road started to turn north-east, into the vast wilderness of the Atacama Desert.

They were halfway to Nazca now, and just a hundred miles away from the Peruvian border.

Adams decided to forget about the previous conversation and get on to another topic. He was also starting to feel drowsy, and needed the conversation to keep him awake. ‘So tell me about the body.’