That policy also had the advantage of reducing the number of people, particularly law enforcement, who might come after her. Her recent if indirect brush with the FBI and LAPD AET served as a reminder of the dangers of enemies who didn’t have to hide in the shadows.
Peyton looked to the side and nodded. “Oh, yeah. My fault for not being clearer. The client already has this one in his collection, but he’s got a line on another one. Different design. Longer wings, and different shape. He’s dubbed it ‘the Bomber.’ The client also got his hands on an old map from some nineteenth-century English explorers who were checking out rumors of Inca artifacts in the mountains of Ecuador.”
“Ecuador, huh?”
Hitting a place where she could at least speak the language was always welcome, though she lacked any real contacts in the country. Given the way Peyton was acting, she doubted it’d be a problem.
“The map had a lot of holes,” Peyton continued, “but there was enough information on the image they sent me to point me the right way. I’ve already done some analysis based on aerial surveys and satellite data, and I’ve found a suspicious site just begging to be checked out. It’s sitting there singing, ‘Come and get me, Shay.’”
She frowned. “Mighty convenient that no one has checked out the site before and found the figurine, don’t you think?”
Peyton shook a finger. “But that’s the thing. Even with the map, I had to do a lot of algorithmic imagery analysis to find the possible site. If you didn’t already know exactly where to look, there would be no way to find it. No one’s just going to stumble onto it.”
“So we’ve got the location… Wait, if there’s a map, and explorers already visited there, why didn’t they already recover the Bomber?”
“Lots of rumors about guardians, and a note on the map that when translated talks about scaly demons who eat men.”
Shay chuckled. “At least they aren’t frog-men. Any notes or rumors about these scaly demons being immune to guns?”
“Not that I’ve read.”
“What about Durand? Find anything about him moving on the object?”
Peyton sighed and shrugged. “I’ve been trying to track him, but it’s gotten a lot harder since he knows about you chasing him, so I have no idea. But the client only came into possession of this map within the last week. It’s not like even if Durand heard about the artifact that he’s had tons of time to get down there and find it, and that’s assuming he actually has access to the map and the resources to figure it out.”
“The asshole has the United States government behind him. I’m guessing there are more than a few imagery analysts working for Project Nephilim and Project Ragnarok. If we have an advantage, it’s not gonna be in our ability to decode shit. We just got lucky with the symbols and the phrase because we had more samples than they did.”
Peyton stuck out his lip and looked down. She’d poked his male ego, but she didn’t give a damn. If Shay could acknowledge that Marcus was better at parkour and that Durand had at least a few skills that were better than hers, Peyton could deal with the fact he wasn’t the only person in the country with decent research and computer skills.
Shay pointed to a shelf on the other side of the room. “Pack some jammers. Can never be too sure.”
“You’re going to take the job, then? I think you should, but I can’t guarantee Durand will show up.”
“It’s an easy million if he doesn’t, and if he does, it’ll be a nice bonus.”
“I already booked you a flight. Supersonic down to Quito. Leaves tonight.”
“You were that certain I’d take the job?”
Peyton shook his head. “I was certain you’d want to take any chance to screw with Durand, even if it was a small one.”
“You’re right.” Shay grinned. “Look out, Durand, this time I’m getting there first.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Shay slipped on her backpack, slammed the door of her rented Wrangler, and groaned. A mountain loomed over her, its peak disappearing into the thick clouds. Boulders and smaller rocks littered the ground in uneven piles. The way her Wrangler had bounced on the way up the mountain, she was surprised there weren’t even more.
Looking at satellite photos hadn’t prepared her for the extreme angle of the mountain.
Better than swimming to the bottom of some freezing lake.
This wouldn’t be a leisurely hike, but a climb with full gear to a cave that might be hundreds of feet up. She needed to verify the cave’s location before she bothered climbing anywhere.
Shay pulled out her phone but had no signal. Given that she was in the middle of a bunch of mountains, she wasn’t suspicious or surprised. Cell towers had limited range. Satellites were impressive feats of engineering, but they still needed line of sight to work.
She brought up an app to scan the local frequency ranges. No indication of any artificial jamming. Nature was her only enemy at the moment, not a government stooge. That gave her some time, at least, even if she didn’t relish the climb.
The physical challenge was one thing, but not all physical challenges were interesting. Obstacle courses and parkour offered variety that climbing a nearly-sheer cliff couldn’t provide.
“Guess it can’t all be fun and shooting,” Shay muttered.
Her trip to the back of the Wrangler netted her a drone and her AR goggles.
A few minutes later, the drone hummed to life, the feed connected to her goggles. She piloted the drone, her stomach knotting as her brain adjusted to her eyes seeing the ground shrink even though her body didn’t move. While she didn’t always use the direct feed because of the feeling it gave her, it offered her a better inherent sense of distances and proportions.
Two hundred and fifty feet up, Shay found the cave. Too round, too perfect. Even if she hadn’t been looking for a figurine allegedly
