Empire of Gold

hadn’t been hurt yet.’

‘You sure? Maybe you got things mixed up.’

‘A helicopter taking off is kind of memorable,’ she said testily. ‘It was already in the air when I met Kit. And he definitely hadn’t been shot. But he said—’ Her confused look returned.

‘What?’

‘He said that Pachac and his men had just gone past – up to where we found him and Mr McCrimmon.’

‘But Mac wasn’t with him?’

‘No. Actually, he said he hadn’t seen him.’

‘And this was after the gunship took off?’

‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’

He leaned forward, thinking. If there was one person in the world he trusted to give a completely accurate account of events, even on the brink of death, it was his former commanding officer. Mac was right. Therefore Macy had to be wrong.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ he said. He hadn’t meant to say it angrily, but the image of Mac’s bloodied, pain-twisted face as his life ebbed away put a harsh edge to his voice.

Macy pulled away. ‘I’m not lying! I know what I saw.’

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I wasn’t saying that you were lying . . . ’ He tailed off.

Mac. Kit. Macy. Three different accounts of the same events. But two of them contradicted each other. He had assumed that Macy’s was the odd one out.

What if it wasn’t?

To him, Mac’s version was the inviolable truth. What about the others?

Macy first. She saw the helicopter take off and leave the cavern, then encountered Kit, who told her he was looking for Mac. The next time she saw him, he had been shot – and so had Mac.

Now Kit. He was with Mac when Pachac and his men attacked, shooting the Indian in the arm – and the Scot in the back.

But Mac had been shot before the gunship took off.

The idea that someone might have lied about events simply hadn’t occurred to him until Macy put it into his mind. Why would anyone lie? It made no sense.

But nor did the contradiction. And Pachac had denied killing Mac. He’d had every reason to, considering his situation at the time . . . but his confusion at the accusation had been genuine.

And the revolutionary leader and his men had already escaped the cave and reached their vehicles by the time Eddie started in pursuit – but the gap between his hearing the gunshots and finding Mac had been maybe thirty seconds. Even taking into account the time he spent with the Scot as he spoke his last words, Pachac couldn’t have got so far ahead so quickly. Which meant he had to have left earlier.

Which meant he couldn’t have killed Mac.

Eddie felt a cold tightness close around his chest. If Pachac hadn’t killed Mac . . . that left only one other possibility.

Kit.

Mac had been shot in the back. And Kit had been behind him. Shot in the arm . . . the left arm. Kit was right-handed. And the injury was only a flesh wound, a single shot. Mac had taken two fatal bullets.

Ten bullets left in the Steyr he had taken from Kit, out of fifteen. Five used; one for the flesh wound, two fired off as decoys . . . and the first two, before Kit encountered Macy, used to kill Mac.

It couldn’t be true, though. Why? What reason could he have?

His thoughts went wider . . . and came up with more questions. Kit had been pulled out of the group by Stikes, not once, but twice – with a very feeble excuse the second time. And Stikes himself had initially wondered why Kit was on the mission at all.

Why was the head of Interpol’s Cultural Property Crime Unit personally accompanying an archaeological expedition? His interest had been . . .

The statues.

It was Kit who had suggested – no, pushed a link between Nina’s discovery at Glastonbury and South America, responding immediately to the IHA’s report. Kit who had proposed a joint Interpol/IHA mission. Kit who had been determined to accompany the explorers to El Dorado even though the smuggling case was closed. Kit whose first concern when an apparent earthquake shook the cave was the statues.

And Kit who had gone to follow a lead on the location of those same statues.

Which had been stolen by Alexander Stikes.

‘The statues . . .’ Eddie jerked upright as realisation struck him. ‘The fucking statues!’

‘What?’ Macy asked, startled. ‘What is it?’

He ignored her, the answer burning in his mind. It was the only possible explanation for what had happened at El Dorado.

Kit and Stikes were working together.