Temple of the Gods

head. ‘All those thousands of agents, billions of dollars, computers, satellites… and they can’t find one man.’

More than one, thought Nina, glancing at the photo of herself and Eddie.

She gave Penrose what additional facts she had, then the Englishman departed, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She continued reading Hayter’s files, but anything further the Atlanteans had recorded about the statues remained hidden in the Temple of Poseidon…

The phone rang. Lola again. ‘Nina, there’s a phone call for you.’

‘“Do not disturb” is still in effect, Lola,’ Nina replied testily.

‘I know, but I think this could be important.’

Something in Lola’s tone made Nina’s heart pound. Eddie! Was it someone with news about him? Or even her husband himself, finally making contact? ‘Put it through!’

She waited in tense anticipation for the call to be transferred. A click of the line… then a voice.

It belonged to a man called Chase. But not the one she had hoped to hear.

Larry Chase, Eddie’s father.

3 Mozambique

The bar was dimly lit at best, and the haze of smoke made it more murky still. Most of the miasma was from cigarettes, but it was bolstered by the tang of cigars and even whiffs of hashish from the darkest corners.

Eddie shot a disapproving glance towards one of the shadowed users as he stubbed out his cigarette. Second-hand smoke was one thing; second-hand narcotics another entirely. He flicked another Marlboro out of its pack and was about to light it when he paused, gazing at his reflection in his Zippo. He had quit smoking years ago, during his first, short-lived marriage, but the strain of being on the run, perpetually alert for the approaching hand of the authorities, had seen him take up the habit once more.

He shook his head and lit the cigarette. Nina would be furious if she knew, he thought, a sudden gloom settling over him. There was a cellular phone on the scratched table before him, and he could talk to her with a couple of key presses… but he knew it wasn’t possible. For one thing, any contact — on a line that was almost certainly being monitored — could see Interpol eyeing Nina as an accomplice rather than a witness.

For another, from what she had said the last time he saw her, in Peru… she thought he was guilty. She might not even want to speak to him.

So he had to prove his innocence first. Which meant finding Stikes. And doing whatever was necessary to force the truth from him — before his much-deserved death.

He looked at his watch. Strutter was, as expected, late. Tracking down contacts and wheedling information out of them, especially on a subject as risky as Stikes, wasn’t something that could be done to a timetable. But the Kenyan had said earlier that he had a promising lead, so Eddie was willing to wait.

The phone rang. Strutter? No — the number on the screen was British. There was only one person in his home country who knew how to contact him. Nevertheless, he was still cautious and terse when he answered, putting a finger to his other ear to block out the tinny music coming from a tape deck behind the bar. ‘Yeah?’

‘It’s me.’ He knew the voice. Peter Alderley, an officer of MI6, the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service. Not a friend, exactly — in fact, Eddie rather disliked him — but for now an uneasy ally. The murder of Mac had instilled them both with the need to uncover the truth. Alderley had given Eddie a sporting head start to escape the law in London following their comrade’s funeral, and since then had provided surreptitious updates on Interpol’s search for him during their intermittent contacts.

In return Eddie had provided Alderley with what information he had uncovered on his travels, and was hoping he had managed to do something useful with it. ‘What’ve you got?’

‘First thing: Interpol is getting closer to you. They know you were just in Botswana.’

‘Do they know where I am now?’

‘No, but if I were you I’d move on. Sharpish.’

‘That’s the plan anyway — I’m just waiting to find out where to go. What else?’

‘That paper you found in Jindal’s flat, the one with a number and some Hindi text. I’ve had it checked out — on the quiet, obviously, which is why it took so long. The number could mean anything, of course, but my best guess is the international code for a Greek phone number.’

‘Greek?’ Eddie was surprised. He couldn’t imagine any possible link between Kit and Greece.

‘Yeah. I tried ringing it, but it’s a dead number. The thing is, though, the text with it translates as “and the best of the greatest”. I think what we’ve got here is a fairly simple code. The “best of the greatest” is probably another number, so if you add that to the one you already have, you get the real result.’

‘So what’s the other number?’

‘Damned if I know. Something significant to Jindal, at a guess. You knew him far better than I did — any idea what it might be?’

Eddie thought about Kit. Youthful, handsome, an idealistic Indian cop who had specialised in the investigation of art thefts before transferring to Interpol to do the same thing in a worldwide jurisdiction. Cheery and good- natured but with steely determination behind his smile, a cricket fan, a Hindu, not as stylish a dresser as he thought he was. A friend.

A friend who had killed another friend in cold blood. Eddie hadn’t witnessed it personally, but when he pieced together everything seen by others there was only one possible conclusion.

Kit had murdered Mac in order to let Stikes escape from El Dorado. He had shot the elderly Scot twice in the back and left him to die.

What Eddie couldn’t fathom was why. Why had the Interpol officer suddenly turned against his friends and the law he had pledged to uphold? Why had he struck a deal with Stikes, a man who just days earlier had tortured him? Blackmail? Brainwashing? Eddie didn’t know.

And Stikes wasn’t the only one of Eddie’s enemies with whom Kit was involved. When Eddie confronted him at the pumping station, he had found not only Kit making a deal with Stikes, but also someone he thought was dead. His ex-wife, Sophia Blackwood. Aristocrat, murderer, terrorist… and seemingly in charge, negotiating with the mercenary and giving Kit orders.

Eddie couldn’t reconcile the friend he thought he knew with the man who had tried to kill him. The contradictions made it impossible for him to get a handle on Kit’s thought processes. ‘I dunno,’ he told Alderley at last. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘Well, keep thinking about it. Maybe you’ll come up with something. I’ll have another poke through Interpol’s file on him to see if anything suggests itself.’

‘Just don’t attract any attention. If you get busted, it’ll make it a real pain in the arse for me to stay ahead of the cops.’

‘Glad you’ve got my best interests at heart,’ Alderley snarked. ‘But I want to know what happened as much as you do. If I find out something new, I’ll be in touch — and you do the same if you hear anything.’

‘Will do. And… thanks.’

‘I can’t exactly say it’s my pleasure, for all sorts of reasons, but I appreciate hearing that. Don’t get caught, okay?’

Alderley disconnected. Eddie put down the phone, then tapped the growing length of ash from the end of his cigarette and took a drag. The best of the greatest. But who or what was the greatest in Kit’s mind?

He thought back three months. One of his first ports of call after fleeing Peru, and then England after paying his last respects to both his late grandmother and Mac, had been India. Eddie had broken into the young cop’s apartment to find it had already been searched by Interpol officers trying to learn more about the circumstances of his death. Suspecting that Kit would have kept his secrets hidden in a way his colleagues wouldn’t expect, he had eventually discovered something concealed in plain sight. Interpol had taken Kit’s laptop and printer, but left the latter’s paper… and written on the bottom sheet, Eddie found words in Hindi and a number.