Empire of Gold (68 page)

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Authors: Andy McDermott

BOOK: Empire of Gold
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‘Weird how?’
‘I mean, he was
pissed
. But scary-pissed. Like he was so angry that it wasn’t showing on the outside, you know?’
Nina did know; she had seen that kind of cold fury before, not least earlier that day, and it never boded well. ‘Why was he angry? What were you talking about?’
‘About what happened at El Dorado – something to do with Kit. I told him what I was doing just before Mr McCrimmon got shot, and he got mad and kept saying I was remembering it wrong. Then he went quiet, like he was working something out, and then he found the maid and wanted to know how to get to San Bartolo.’ She thought for a moment. ‘No, not San Bartolo; somewhere near it, a pumping station on some gas pipeline. Station fourteen.’
‘What’s it got to do with Kit?’
‘I don’t know. But it seemed like he was comparing what I told him with what Kit told him, and then he said something about the statues – and that’s when he got angry. He took a cab.’
The statues
. Nina made the connection. ‘Oh God.’
Eddie had somehow realised what Kit had been trying to keep from him: that Interpol was making a deal with Stikes to recover the statues. But Eddie would only be interested in revenge – for her torture, for Mac’s death. And he would be going after Stikes.
And if his anger was because he believed Kit had betrayed him by dealing with the mercenary – or worse, that he was somehow in league with him . . .
‘When did he leave?’ she asked Macy urgently.
‘I don’t know – a half-hour ago? What is it?’
‘I think Eddie’s about to do something he’ll regret. How do we get to this pumping station?’
 
‘That is it,’ said the taxi driver, pointing.
Eddie saw a handful of lights in the darkness off the Panamerica Highway. Gas tanks and pipes behind a fence, a small cliff beyond the facility. A car was parked outside the gate.
Except for the burning coal of his fury, his mind was completely analytical, assessing the scene from a tactical perspective. The car had to be Kit’s, and if he was there, Stikes would be too. But it was unlikely he would have come alone. So where would the other mercenaries be?
Elevated positions, where they could both cover their boss and watch the road. On top of the tanks, on the cliff. No way to know how many – but Stikes’s forces had been winnowed down at El Dorado, and it was unlikely he would have been able to drum up more at such short notice. He had left the cavern with only the Hind’s pilot and one other man . . .
The driver started to slow for the turning on to the dirt road. ‘No, keep going,’ Eddie told him. He looked down the highway, seeing taillights disappear round a curve in the distance. ‘Stop once we get round the next corner.’
He turned his attention to the rugged landscape. Scrubby bushes, small trees. Adequate cover. It would take him ten to fifteen minutes to make a stealthy crossing.
The taxi passed the pumping station. Eddie looked back, seeing movement. Two figures on an elevated walkway. Even at this distance, he recognised them both.
Stikes. And Kit.
His fears had been confirmed. They
were
working together.
The coal inside him burned hotter.
Stikes’s satellite phone warbled. The mercenary answered it, then gave Kit a crooked smile. ‘It’s for you.’
Kit took the phone, listened to the brief message, then disconnected. ‘The helicopter is on its way,’ he reported. ‘It should be here in about twenty minutes.’
Stikes checked his watch, then nodded. He noticed Kit looking towards the gate. ‘Something wrong?’
‘The security cameras. It could be hard for me to explain to Interpol what was going on if this is recorded – and the Group’s representative certainly won’t want to be seen.’
Stikes tutted. ‘Do you think I’m an amateur? The camera at the gate is sending a looped recording – and as long as we stay away from the pumps,’ he gestured at the machinery behind Kit, ‘none of the others can see us. I don’t particularly want to appear on
Candid Camera
either.’
‘I suppose not.’ He turned his gaze back to the gate and the road beyond, seeing a lone car pass out of sight round a bend.
 
‘You want me to wait?’ asked the taxi driver.
‘No, that’s fine,’ said Eddie, paying him and providing a generous tip before getting out. The driver shrugged, then drove away.
Eddie started uphill through the undergrowth towards the escarpment.
 
With no time to go through the rigmarole of obtaining a car through government or United Nations channels, Nina and Macy had followed Eddie’s example and got the maid to summon a taxi. It was now heading through Lima’s southern outskirts for the Panamerica Highway. ‘How long before we get to this station?’ Nina asked.
Macy put the question to the driver in Spanish. ‘About twenty-five minutes,’ she said after getting an answer. ‘And yes, I already told him that we’re in a rush.’
Nina tapped her foot in impatience – and worry. Would they get there in time to stop Eddie making a mistake?
 
Kit broke off from pacing the catwalk to check his watch. Over twenty minutes had passed since the phone call, and there was still no sign of a helicopter. The Group’s representative might simply be being cautious . . . but might also have decided that the risk was too great and abandoned the meeting.
And their operative. The thought twisted his stomach into a knot. He glanced at the gas tank. Stikes’s sniper was still lying on the platform. The Interpol officer had no doubts whatsoever that Stikes would kill him the moment he felt things had gone wrong . . .
A new sound over the unceasing rumble of the gas pumps. Rotor blades. The helicopter.
Unable to conceal a sigh of relief, he looked for the noise’s source, seeing strobe lights in the sky to the west.
 
Eddie also heard the incoming chopper, and froze behind one of the tanks. Stikes and Kit showed no signs of surprise or alarm, so they were expecting it. Who was aboard?
For now, that was irrelevant. What mattered was that it gave him a deadline: it was no more than two minutes away from touching down. He had to be finished before it arrived.
He set off again, moving through the pumping station’s shadows until he reached the ladder up one of the tanks. From here, the sound of the pumps was a steady, churning rumble, backed by the low-frequency hiss of gas rushing through the main pipeline. It would mask the sound of his climb – and better yet, he realised as he took hold of the ladder, there was a vibration running through the framework that would camouflage his steps.
He began to climb. The tank was about thirty feet high. As he approached its top he slowed, cautiously peering on to the platform.
A man dressed in black lay upon it, back to him.
One of Stikes’s men, armed with a SCAR rifle with a telescopic sight. He wasn’t looking through the scope, though; he was watching the approaching helicopter.
Eddie waited, poised at the top of the ladder. If he climbed any higher, the man might catch him in his peripheral vision and raise the alarm. The chopper was now only a minute out.
Look away, dammit!
After another agonising few seconds, the man finally moved his eye back to the sight. Eddie carefully climbed the last few rungs to crouch on the platform just behind the sniper . . .
Then he lunged, grabbing the mercenary’s head and yanking it back as hard as he could, wrapping an arm tightly round his throat.
The sniper made a choked gurgling sound, dropping the SCAR and trying to claw at his attacker’s face. Eddie squeezed harder, twisting sharply – and a crunch of crushed cartilage came from the sniper’s neck, followed by the muffled snap of bone. The man went limp.
Eddie dropped him and caught the SCAR by its strap just before it tipped over the platform’s edge. He lay beside the dead man, recognising him as Voeker, and quickly and expertly checked the gun. A full load of thirty 5.56mm rounds, and the scope was a high-quality night vision unit, a sharp red chevron superimposed over the centre of the shimmering green image.
He lined up the chevron’s point on Stikes’s head. The mercenary leader was completely unaware of him, a sitting duck. All he had to do was pull the trigger . . .
It wasn’t mercy that stopped his finger from tightening – he had already decided that Stikes was going to die. Instead, it was the urge to find out what was going on, to catch everybody involved. The helicopter swung overhead, kicking up dust as it settled on the pad. Stikes picked up the case, and the two men on the catwalk headed for the metal stairs.
Eddie moved the sight to the helicopter. A young, beefy blond man in a dark suit climbed out. Was this the contact? No - he hurried round to the aircraft’s far side to open the door for another passenger.
At first, all he could see beneath the fuselage was a pair of black stiletto-heeled boots. Then the new arrival strode into view.
He was so shocked that he almost dropped the rifle.
The person meeting Stikes was someone he knew. Someone he thought was dead.
His ex-wife. Sophia.
41
‘I
know you,’ said Stikes with a suspicious frown as Sophia Blackwood descended the steps, her long black coat billowing in the idling helicopter’s rotor wash. ‘You were Chase’s wife.’
‘I know you too,’ said Kit, alarmed. ‘You tried to set off a nuclear bomb in New York!’
Stikes’s frown deepened. ‘You’re also, if I remember correctly, supposed to be dead.’
Sophia smiled, coming fully into the light at the foot of the stairs – revealing that her beautiful face was marred by a deep, crooked scar that ran from an inch behind her left eye down her cheek and on to her neck, disappearing beneath a black scarf. The rest of her outfit was also black, including a pair of expensive leather gloves. ‘Gentlemen, I’m all those things, and more,’ she said. ‘But right now, I’m the person
you
wanted to meet’ – she turned away from Stikes and looked at Kit – ‘and, like it or not,
your
superior. So shall we get to business?’
‘As you wish,
Lady
Blackwood,’ said Stikes. There was a faint tinge of mockery to the word; the British government had stripped Sophia of her title following her failed attack on the United States. She gave him a cold look. ‘I assume Jindal told you what I want in exchange for these.’ He held up the case.
‘I know what you want,’ said Sophia. ‘However, the people I represent are more curious about
why
.’
‘It’s simple, really. When I first met Jindal in Venezuela, I knew something wasn’t right. Interpol division heads don’t go out and do fieldwork – and they certainly don’t do fieldwork that’s only tangentially related to their job. He gave me some cock-and-bull story about the archaeological expedition being connected to a smuggling investigation, but he obviously had some other motive for being there. So I had a little chat with him, and learned about your organisation. The Group.’
If Sophia’s look at Stikes had been cold, the one she directed at Kit was positively icy. ‘Funny. He somehow forgot to mention that.’
‘I was tortured!’ Kit protested. ‘If I hadn’t said anything, he would have killed me. And I didn’t tell him
why
the Group need the statues. How could I? I haven’t been told myself.’
‘You told him more than enough, apparently.’ She turned back to Stikes. ‘So, you have some idea of the Group’s objectives. What do you want from them? Your wanted status with international law enforcement to disappear, perhaps? Or is it just about money?’
‘Only indirectly,’ said the Englishman. ‘I’m actually offering them my services.’
Sophia arched a perfect eyebrow. ‘Are you now?’
‘Yes. I have the experience, the connections and, frankly, the ruthlessness to be a great asset. From what Jindal told me, what they’re planning will genuinely change the world. I want to make sure I’m on the side that benefits when it happens.’
‘Everyone will benefit. Or so they say.’ There was a glint in her eye that suggested she had a different opinion.

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