Empire of Gold

‘Who’s going to be found guilty of murder.’

‘What, for doing the right thing? Dealing with some rapist scumbag who got off on a technicality?’

‘I don’t—’ Nina forced herself to calm down, lowering her voice and putting her arms round her husband. ‘Eddie, I don’t want to argue. Not now, not after everything that’s happened. I’ve had enough fighting. I want . . . ’ She looked into his eyes. ‘I want you.’ She kissed him. ‘Please.’

His face softened, a bit. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Yeah. I’m fine, and I just . . . I just want to think about something else tonight.’ A twitch at the corner of her mouth quickly broadened into a sly grin. ‘I want you to take my mind off everything except one thing.’

Eddie’s anger faded, replaced by a lecherous smirk. ‘I think I can manage that.’ He turned Nina round and gave her backside a gentle slap to direct her back to the bed. ‘You were taking your top off, I think.’

‘Yeah?’ She peered back at him coquettishly over her shoulder as she undressed. ‘And so were you.’

‘So I was.’ He removed his T-shirt, revealing the bandages and bruises on his body. ‘Ow! Bloody hell,’ he muttered at a twinge of pain.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, it only hurts when I breathe. Although . . . ’ He regarded the bed. ‘I think I might want to stay on the bottom.’

‘Lie down, then,’ said Nina. She grinned again. ‘I’ll do all the work this time. You deserve to relax.’

Eddie laughed as he took off the rest of his clothes, then climbed on to the mattress beside her and shuffled round to lie on his back. He stretched, nestling his head into the plump pillows. ‘Oh, God. This is a really bloody comfy bed.’

‘Hey!’ Nina protested. ‘Don’t you dare fall asleep.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Eddie with a huge smile. ‘That won’t happen until after we’re done.’

Despite everything she had been through in the previous few days, Nina felt extremely relaxed the following morning.

That said, it proved impossible for her not to feel a resurgence of nerves at a meeting in Interpol’s Caracas offices. The events at the Clubhouse were discussed, inevitably bringing back memories of her incarceration and torture by Stikes. Eddie noticed her tensing up and put a reassuring arm round her. But the mercenary was not the primary topic, nor even his late employer.

As well as Kit, several other Interpol officers were attending the meeting, along with a number of Venezuelan officials and a diplomat from the Colombian embassy, who had flown in with a representative of the US Drug Enforcement Administration: a craggy-faced man called Joe Baker. On a wallmounted screen was a still frame from de Quesada’s incriminating DVD, the drug lord frozen as he shook hands with Callas.

‘This man is called Francisco de Quesada,’ explained Baker, pointing at the screen. ‘Colombian drug lord, with an estimated personal fortune of over half a billion dollars. Most of the world’s cocaine is made from coca plants grown in Peru; after the Colombian government, with the DEA’s help as part of Plan Colombia, cracked down on production in Colombia itself, the drug lords switched to Peru as a manufacturing base. De Quesada controls most of the supply routes from Peru through the Colombian jungle into Venezuela, from where the cocaine is shipped to other countries.’

Eddie had a question. ‘If the Colombians cracked down, why don’t they just arrest this guy?’

The Colombian official answered, his air of annoyance suggesting this was a political sore point. ‘He has the best lawyers money can buy. American lawyers. Every time we have tried to bring de Quesada to trial, they got him off.’

‘Ah,’ said Nina scathingly. ‘An export Uncle Sam can be really proud of.’

Baker jerked a thumb at the screen. ‘We got him now, though. That DVD you recovered puts de Quesada square in the frame. He’s confessing on camera to high-end involvement in the international narcotics trade. Right now, the Colombians are putting a case together, and this time it doesn’t matter how many lawyers he hires or who he tries to pay off or threaten. With evidence like that, he’s going down.’

‘Won’t he just flee the country?’

‘He can try, Dr Wilde, he can try. But he’ll have one hell of a job even fleeing his house. He’s got a place on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, and we’re watching the only road, we got ships offshore, we got satellite surveillance . . . he ain’t going anywhere. And as soon as our Colombian friends get all the right names on the dotted lines, we’re gonna go in and get him.’ He nodded towards one of the Interpol agents, a man Nina and Eddie had met before; Walther Probst, a tactical liaison officer. ‘We’ll have a SWAT team made up of DEA, Interpol and Colombian forces. We’ll bag him.’

‘But,’ said Kit, standing to address the room, ‘he also has the treasures that were stolen from Paititi – the sun disc and the khipu. Considering their enormous value, the Venezuelan government understandably wants them back.’

‘I’m sure the Peruvian government’ll have its own opinions on who owns them,’ said Nina, raising some muted laughter.

‘That’s for the international courts to decide,’ said Kit with a smile, before becoming serious once more. ‘But for now, they’re worried the treasures could be damaged or destroyed during the raid.’

‘We’ll aim to minimise that possibility,’ said Baker, folding his arms.

‘Even so, there’s still a risk.’ He turned to Nina. ‘Which is why President Suarez has personally requested that Dr Wilde, as director of the IHA, oversees their safe recovery.’

Nina, who had been taking a sip of water, coughed it out. ‘Wait, what?’

‘Nice of him to tell us!’ Eddie hooted.

‘You won’t be going in with the SWAT team,’ Probst assured them. ‘Once we have secured de Quesada and the house, you will come in to locate and identify the artefacts.’