Empire of Gold

He ran for the gate. As he cleared the ancient walls, he heard something over the noise of birds and insects: a low grumble. Engines.

Receding. The trucks were already heading away down the logging track.

‘Shit!’ He stopped, forcing back his anger, trying to think. There was only one road, and it took a long and circuitous route back to Valverde and the spur leading to the base. It would take a couple of hours for Callas’s convoy to get there. The base itself was about five miles to the northwest . . .

Eddie already knew there was only one course of action he could take.

He raised his wrist, turning in place until the hour hand of his watch pointed at the sun. South, he knew from his military training, was exactly halfway between the hour hand and the twelve o’clock position on the watch face. With that established, it only took a moment to work out which way was northwest. One last look after the vehicles carrying his wife and friends, then he set off at a run into the trees.

14

The bumpy drive from the ruins took two hours, Nina and the others sweating in the back of the troop truck. Ahead and behind it were the Land Cruisers. Kit and Valero looked after Becker, while Macy tried, with limited success, to comfort the weeping, terrified Loretta. Nina’s fleeting thoughts of leaping over the tailgate to escape into the jungle were tempered by the AK-103s pointed at her companions – and the presence of Cuff’s body. Loretta’s hysteria at the sight had forced the soldiers to cover it, but the huddled shape was a constant reminder of Callas’s ruthlessness.

She knew he would display that trait again soon enough. The general’s greed had convinced him to keep her alive – for the moment – in the hope she could lead him to even greater riches . . . but he had no cause to spare the others. They had witnessed his plundering of Paititi, something he wanted to keep secret even after successfully completing his ‘operation’.

They would have to be silenced.

The little convoy turned off the road to Valverde on to a narrower, even rougher track. A warning sign read Prohibida La Entrada: Zona Militar. Callas’s domain, a private kingdom. Here, he could do whatever he wanted to his prisoners, and nobody would ever know.

The truck slowed. Nina looked ahead, seeing a chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire stretching into the vine-draped trees to each side. A soldier opened a gate to let the vehicles through. They rumbled on for a short way before emerging in a large rectangular space bulldozed out of the jungle.

The military base.

The Mi-17 was parked on a concrete helipad, being refuelled. The crate containing the Inca treasure rested beside it. At the facility’s heart was a giant rectangular radar antenna, aimed towards the Colombian border. The rest of the base was less imposing: an assortment of prefabricated control and administration huts, and tents for the troops luckless enough to be stationed in the sweltering green hell.

The lead Land Cruiser stopped beside the helipad, Callas getting out to check the crate. The other two vehicles pulled up behind it. Stikes emerged from the second Toyota and strolled to the truck. ‘Everyone comfortable in there?’ he asked mockingly.

‘For God’s sake,’ said Nina, indicating Becker’s injured leg, ‘he needs a doctor.’

‘At least give him something for the pain,’ Kit added.

‘He’ll get something for the pain soon enough, don’t worry.’ Stikes looked away at a distant noise. ‘Ah! Excellent timing. My new toy has arrived.’

Nina followed his gaze. Off to the southwest was the dot of an approaching helicopter – two helicopters, she realised, picking out a smaller one flying alongside.

Callas joined Stikes by the truck. ‘I wasn’t actually sure this friend of yours could live up to his promises,’ Stikes said to him. ‘For once, I’m pleased to be wrong.’

The Venezuelan spat. ‘Pachac is no friend of mine. Maoist scum! If I could do this without him – or that drug-dealing pig, de Quesada – I would, but I need their money. For now, at least. After we succeed, I think I will change the deal. It is time Venezuela was . . . cleaned.’

‘Well, if you need my services again, you have my card,’ said Stikes. Callas smiled darkly, then watched the helicopters.

Valero frowned as they neared, puzzled. ‘What is it?’ Nina asked.

‘The big helicopter – it is a gunship, Russian. You yanquis call them Hinds.’ Nina looked more closely as the two choppers prepared to land. The subject of Valero’s confusion was, she suspected, every bit as deadly as it was ugly, stubby wings bearing rocket pods and a huge multi-barrelled cannon beneath its nose. ‘We have them here in Venezuela – but this one is from Peru.’

‘Peru?’ Now it was Nina’s turn to be bewildered. ‘But that’s Colombia over there. Peru’s four hundred miles away.’

‘I know. And this Pachac, I have heard of him. He is a communist revolutionary, but a dangerous one, a killer – even the Shining Path threw him out. He is also a drug lord.’

‘Sounds like a nice guy,’ said Macy.

‘If he has got a gunship, that is bad. If he has brought it to my country to give to mercenaries, that is worse! I do not like this.’

‘You’re not the only one,’ said Nina. The Hind moved over the pad, blowing dust and grit in all directions as it touched down beside the Mil, tripod landing gear compressing under its armoured weight. The smaller helicopter, a civilian Jet Ranger, followed suit.

A man climbed from the Jet Ranger, bending low beneath the still spinning rotors even though his short stature meant he was in no danger of decapitation. Like Stikes, he wore a military beret, this one blood-red. Giving the Hind an almost longing look, he approached Callas and Stikes.

‘Ah, Inkarri!’ cried Callas, suddenly exuding warmth and friendliness towards the new arrival, who responded with similar, not entirely sincere, enthusiasm. He was not of Hispanic descent, instead having the broad features of