Tasker lowered the lenses and crawled back around the stone abutment until he was safely on the other side of the mountain before standing. The rain drew lines through the mud he had smeared over his face and hair, and which still clung to his fatigues. It reeked of sulfur and decay, but in addition to making him nearly invisible against the ground and the night, it held the mosquitoes at bay.
He half-slid, half-scrabbled down the wet slope, silently skirting massive trees and jagged boulders, and slipping through tangles of shrubbery like a ghost. Even he didn't see the three men guarding their boats until he was right on top of them. He both confirmed the success of the mission and dismissed them with a nod. Making no more sound than the falling rain, the men, specters as intangible as mist, eased their boat out of the undergrowth and into the river. They pushed away from the bank and drifted into the fog that clung to the rapids, and then they were gone.
Tasker vanished into the recently vacated blind and waited for McMasters. Two hours from now, before the first rays of the rising sun highlighted the cloud cover, they would rendezvous with the rest of the unit several miles to the east. Then the waiting would begin.
He withdrew the handheld tracking device from inside his filthy jacket and shielded the display with his hand before turning it on. A small blue beacon radiated in concentric rings at the center of the grid. Everything was going according to plan. He switched off the unit and returned it to his jacket.
Half an hour later, McMasters emerged from the forest, and together they lowered their craft into the water. With a shove, they floated away from the shore and gained momentum as they were carried downriver.
Soon enough, their tracking would begin in earnest. For now, they had plenty of time to relax and let their prey expend all of their energy hacking through the forest and creating their path for them. Then all they would have to do was overwhelm them once they found the rest of the relics.
It was now only a matter of time before they were multimillionaires.
Tasker couldn't help but smile in the darkness.
No one would ever find the bodies. There were countless places to dispose of the remains, and just as many creatures that would be happy to expedite the process of decomposition.
There was just one more thing he had to do before the hunt officially commenced.
VII
The ringing phone roused Eldon from a sound slumber. His eyes were still too blurred by sleep to clearly read the clock. All he knew was that it was late enough that there had better be a really good explanation for waking him.
He snatched the phone from the headboard after the third ring and answered in his most irritated tone.
'Monahan.'
'Good morning, Mr. Consul-general.'
He immediately recognized the voice, and was suddenly wide awake.
'How did you get this number?'
'You insult me, Eldon.'
'Why are you calling me? Especially here? If anything happens, you know how quickly it will be traced.'
'Which is exactly why I'm calling. To remind you that we're in this together. I'm not the only one taking a risk here, am I
Eldon's heart beat so hard and fast that he could barely breathe, let alone formulate a reply. This had gone beyond threat to implication. If their plan spiraled out of control, he would no longer have the luxury of deniability. How had he allowed this to happen? He could have somehow maintained the upper hand, or he could have simply walked away. But he would have still been a third-rate diplomat in a Third World country, and the prospect of that future was even more frightening than the consequences of a liaison with the devil.
'Don't tell me the sound of my sweet voice has lulled you back to sleep,' Tasker said.
'No,' Eldon whispered.
'Good.' He could hear the smile in Tasker's voice. 'Now here's what I need you to do...'
Eldon held his breath while Tasker detailed what he realized would be the end of his career in politics. The room began to spin around him and the floor tilted on an unseen fulcrum. There'd be no opportunity to return to the States to vie for a seat in the Senate. He'd be lucky if he ever had the chance to return to America again, luckier still if he managed to stay out of prison.
Life as he knew it had come to an end.
Something broke inside of him and he started to cry.
'You're pathetic,' Tasker said. 'Suck it up and do exactly as I told you,' he added, before disconnecting.
Eldon buried his face in his trembling hands. His shoulders shook as he sobbed. He would be unable to return to sleep tonight, if ever.
There was no immediate need to climb out of bed and do what Tasker asked, but he feared that even from hundreds of miles away, Tasker would know, and the consequences would be dire. The man was a snake without a conscience. Though Eldon had been wrong to trust him to uphold his end of their original deal, he completely trusted that the man would follow through on this most recent threat.
Rising, he passed through his bedroom and stepped out onto the hardwood floor in the hallway of the old hacienda that had housed countless Consul-generals before him. Until now, he had never paused to wonder what had become of those who had never reached the ambassador's mansion. A short staircase led him down to the recessed living quarters. As he had been instructed, he weaved through the maze of leather couches and chairs in the darkness until he reached the wet bar at the back of the room, and walked around behind it. He shoved aside a row of champagne bottles on the bottom shelf to reveal a rectangular white box standing on end. It looked like the kind department stores used to wrap sweaters, only larger.
Collapsing onto his rear end, he pulled the box down into his lap. It took several minutes to muster the courage to open it. The headdress fit snugly inside, polished to a high shine that reflected the moonlight from the window behind him. As Tasker had promised, an envelope rested over the jeweled eyes of the relic. Eldon fumbled it open and held the small stack of photographs in hands that shook so badly he could hardly see the pictures clearly.
They were snapshots from the surveillance camera in his office. In the first, he sat at his desk with the headdress in his left hand, lovingly tracing the contours of the precious stones with his right. In the next, he accepted the golden artifact from the dirty pilot. And there were more. All of them showed him in various poses with what the Peruvian government would undoubtedly consider a national treasure. Each bore a time and date stamp. If he had a change of heart and attempted to renege on his side of the bargain, copies would be sent to a dozen different Peruvian and American agencies. Too much time had passed for them to forgive him outright. The Peruvians would undoubtedly love nothing more than to make an example of him and give Uncle Sam a political black eye in the process.
He suddenly realized the true depths of Tasker's deviousness. What if the man had never intended to cut him in on the profits? What if Eldon's only purpose was to serve as a smokescreen for the operation? The black market connections were Tasker's. When he found the relics, they would be in his possession. There were no guarantees that he would ever come back for Eldon. All he had was Tasker's word, the word of a blackmailer who even now was stalking an unknowing expedition into the mountains where he intended to kill them.
His only option was to go through with it, even assuming Tasker had no intention of honoring their partnership.
What were his alternatives? Slip off in the middle of the night and go into hiding, his life ruined? He'd sooner kill himself than live like that.
There would soon be questions regarding the whereabouts of the marines, questions he would be unable to answer without incriminating himself. And in this envelope was the rope they would use to hang him.
Worse still, if Tasker was as evil as Eldon now believed, what would prevent the man from returning to Lima to tie off his loose ends?
But the greatest injustice was still to come. Tasker had arranged for him to make the handoff to the
