still breathing.'
'Don't do this, Vinnie. Don't make me kill you.'
Pesci laughed at that. 'Kill me? What the fuck you talkin' about?'
'I can't let you kill me before I've had absolution.'
Pesci levelled his gun at Bazin's groin. 'I'll give you absolution, pal. Lay out the plastic and kneel like a good Catholic boy. Or I'll make you kneel. You hear what I'm saying?'
In his mind – and nightmares – Bazin had gone through this moment many times, wondering what he could do to save himself if ever la mano sinistra del diavolo came for him. His answer was always the same: not a lot. Unless the killer made a mistake.
Fortunately Pesci had. A big one. He hadn't unfolded the plastic before he'd dropped it on to the floor. Bazin picked it up and threw it out in front of him. It billowed like an opaque sail, momentarily screening him from Pesci. In that instant Bazin leapt low and hard at the other man. Before Pesci could get off a shot Bazin had located his solar plexus with his left hand and his windpipe with the right. The blow to the solar plexus incapacitated him. The one to the windpipe killed him.
Standing over Pesci's body, Bazin felt no elation. Not only was he in more need of absolution than ever now but he knew Gambini would send another Vinnie Pesci to hunt him down, then another, until sooner or later he would be wrapped in black plastic and buried. If he wanted to live long enough for absolution he'd have to find somewhere on Earth where Gambini and his other enemies from his old life couldn't find him.
One of the two phones by his bed began to ring. He wondered who could be calling him. Then he realized it was the phone Torino had given him. Only the priest knew the number.
'Are you watching?' His half-brother sounded breathless with excitement.
Bazin glanced at the laptop. 'I can see Kelly talking to his wife.'
'You haven't been listening?'
'I've been kinda busy.'
'Listen to what they're saying, then go back over the recordings but tell no one what you hear. After that I need you to do something. And if you do this right I promise you that the Holy Father himself will absolve you of your sins.'
Bazin gazed down at Pesci's still twitching corpse. 'What do I have to do?'
'Kelly and the false nun who visited him yesterday are leaving the country. They're taking someone with them – an academic called Quinn. I have matters to arrange in the Vatican, but I want you to follow them and not let them out of your sight.'
'Where are they going?'
'Listen to what Ross is telling his wife. It explains everything. Stay with him and the nun wherever they lead you. They'll be going off the beaten track, into the jungle. Can you handle that?'
Bazin thought of Gambini's people and the countless others who would be hunting for him. He thought of disappearing into the jungle. Then he thought of the Holy Father offering him redemption. He smiled. 'Yes,' he said. 'That works for me.'
PART TWO
Terra Incognita
24
Peru South America's third largest country lies just south of the equator, on the north-west coast of South America, and is divided into three main areas: the narrow Pacific coastal strip to the west, which includes the capital, Lima; the central mighty Andes mountain range, which runs like a distorted spine down the western side of the continent; and the eastern section, which covers more than half of the country and forms the western part of the fabled Amazon basin.
Overlapping the borders of nine countries and covering a significant proportion of South America, the Amazon basin dwarfs even a relatively large country like Peru. Its legendary river cuts across the entire continent, from the Peruvian Andes in the west to the Atlantic Ocean in the east, a distance of more than four thousand miles. The Amazon, including its tributaries, holds an astonishing fifth of the world's fresh water – more than the next six largest rivers combined – and its flow is so powerful that it dilutes the salt water of the Atlantic more than a hundred miles from the shoreline. Manau, an island in the river's mouth, is as large as Denmark.
The Amazon jungle is no less awe-inspiring. It extends over 1.2 billion acres – of which only a fraction has been explored – and accounts for more than half of all the rainforest in the world. Teeming with life, it hosts a diversity of organisms found nowhere else on Earth: more than two million insect species, a hundred thousand plant, two thousand fish and six hundred mammal – and these are just the ones that are known. New species are discovered every year. The Amazon is also the source of many rare and valuable minerals.
Reading these facts in his guidebook both discouraged and encouraged Ross Kelly as his domestic Aerocondor flight flew across the Andes from Lima's Aeroporto Internacional Jorge Chavez to the Northern Highlands. The sheer scale of the Amazon emphasized how difficult it would be to find what he was seeking, but it also promised that anything could be lost in its massive, uncharted forest, including Falcon's magical garden. Most of all, though, it made him grasp the enormity of his task.
After he had decided to seek out the garden, he had allowed himself a rush of hope, but now he felt flat and alone. At Xplore he had been able to draw on all the company's resources: surveys, tests and field personnel. Now he was in a strange country with only a frail, possibly insane nun, an intense PhD student and an ancient notebook of cryptic clues to help him.
He glanced to his left, where Zeb was engrossed in a history of Peru. Beside her, Sister Chantal lay back in her seat, mouth open, snoring. She had forsaken her habit and wimple for practical cotton trousers, walking boots and a fleece.
Zeb nudged him. 'You okay?'
'Yeah.'
'Don't worry about Lauren. She's in good hands.' As soon as they'd arrived in Lima, Ross had called his father, and again just before the domestic flight had taken off. Of course, there had been no change in Lauren's condition, but he couldn't stop worrying about whether he had done the right thing in leaving her. His nightmare was that before she died she would wake momentarily, call him, and he wouldn't be there to comfort her and say goodbye. Zeb tapped her book. 'This'll cheer you up. I know where Falcon started his journey.'
'We knew that already – in Cajamarca. That's why we're flying there.'
Zeb flashed him a withering look. 'I mean I know exactly where it started.'
He reached into his crumpled linen jacket and took out his notes. Falcon had written that the quest began in Cajamarca outside a place called La Prision del Rey, the king's prison. 'You know where La Prision del Rey is?'
'Yep.'
It did cheer him. If the first cryptic clue tallied with the real world, independent of any interpretation from Sister Chantal, it lent credibility to the other clues. Particularly as he hadn't yet found any place called La Prision del Rey in his guidebook.
'It goes back to the conquest of Peru by the Spanish, one of the most bizarre events in history. In 1532 Francisco Pizarro crossed the mountains from the coast, with fewer than two hundred men, and established himself in the great Inca plaza in Cajamarca. The Inca emperor, Atahualpa, with an unarmed retinue of thousands entered the plaza in good faith to meet the strange white men.
'Pizarro didn't meet Atahualpa, though. Instead he sent his chaplain, who approached the Inca and informed him that a certain God the Father had sent His Son, part of a Trinity, to Earth, where He was crucified. Before that happened, the chaplain explained, the Son, whose name was Jesus Christ, had conferred His power upon an Apostle, Peter, and Peter had passed that power, successively, to other men, called popes, one of whom had
