Kingdom of Darkness

4

‘So, ah… what are you in here for?’

Nina suspected that the nervous young blonde had wanted to ask the question since being brought into the cell twenty minutes earlier, but something had put her off; possibly the redhead’s dishevelled appearance, or more likely the overpowering miasma of Chanel No. 5. ‘Me?’ she said. ‘Take your pick: grand theft auto, reckless endangerment, destruction of property and vehicular homicide. Oh, and,’ she sniffed her sleeve, ‘air pollution.’ The girl’s mouth slowly dropped open. ‘What about you?’

‘I, uh, tried to take a bag from Versace.’

‘Riiight.’ They sat in silence. ‘Of course, there were mitigating circumstances,’ Nina eventually said.

The blonde perked up. ‘Oh, same with me! I don’t suppose you could… help me think of some?’

Nina was spared from further conversation by the arrival of two cops at the cell door. ‘Wilde!’ one barked. ‘Nina Wilde. Come with us, please.’

The ‘please’ was something new; her status with the Beverly Hills Police Department had apparently been upgraded. Had her phone call finally gotten results? She stood and waited for the cops to unlock the cell, then went with them to an office on a higher floor. A sunset sky was visible beyond the slatted blinds.

Eddie was already there. ‘Oh, thank Christ,’ he said as she entered. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she replied as they embraced. She held him for a long moment, then eased her grip as she realised they had company: two stone-faced men in dark suits. ‘And you guys are…?’

‘Special Agent Daniel Beck of the FBI,’ said the older of the pair. He gestured to his companion. ‘This is Agent John S. Petrelli. Dr Wilde, we’re glad you and your husband are okay.’

‘We are, an’ all,’ Eddie told him with a humourless grin as the cops exited. ‘So, now that Nina’s here, maybe you can finally tell us what’s going on?’

Beck seemed uncertain himself, which did not fill Nina with confidence. ‘Firstly, all the charges against you have been dropped. We’ve been ordered to take you back to New York. A… situation has arisen.’

‘No shit,’ said Nina impatiently. ‘A man gets murdered right in front of me, then the killer tries to shoot me too? I’d call that a situation as well.’

‘Who told you to take us home?’ Eddie asked.

‘The order came direct from Washington,’ Petrelli told him. ‘From the State Department — but it was approved by the White House.’

The Englishman turned to his wife. ‘You must’ve done a good job with your phone call. Who did you ring?’

‘Seretse, at the UN. From what that young guy said just before he got shot, I figured the IHA needed to know. I never imagined Seretse would be able to pull strings all the way up to the White House, though.’

‘You got better results than me, then.’

‘Why, who did you call?’

Eddie looked sheepish. ‘Macy. Only person I could think of in LA.’

‘What about Grant? Or even Marvin?’

‘You’ve got Marvin’s business card, so I didn’t have his number. And would you really want Grant having the paparazzi follow him down here?’

‘Good point. Is Macy okay?’

‘Yeah, she’s fine. A bit shaken up, but seeing someone get killed right in front of you’ll do that.’

‘I know,’ she agreed gloomily. ‘I thought I’d left this kind of thing behind me. I’d hoped I had.’

‘Maybe you should’ve let more people know you’d left the IHA. That kid might have given his conspiracy theory to someone else. What was in those papers, anyway?’

‘Something about the dig in Alexandria. I didn’t have time to see much, but he’d definitely got inside information — there was a plan of the outer tomb with specific archaeological notations on it.’ She turned to the FBI agents. ‘Where are the papers now? Some of them got burned up in the limo, and the cops took the rest from me.’

‘They’ve already been taken away for analysis,’ was Beck’s reply. ‘They’ll be brought to you in New York.’

The couple exchanged glances. ‘Okay, what’s going on?’ Eddie demanded. ‘We blow up half of Beverly Hills, and then get to walk away as if nothing’s happened? You said there was a situation — what situation?’

Beck passed a photograph from a manila folder to them. ‘Is this the man who tried to kill you, Dr Wilde?’

Nina stared at the picture. Though the printout was new and glossy, it was clearly from an old source, the image a grainy, dirt-specked monochrome.

The face on it was instantly recognisable, however. Glaring into the camera was her would-be assassin, the scar across his face clearly visible. He was younger in the photograph — she guessed it had been taken about fifteen years earlier — but it was definitely the same man. ‘Yes, it’s him.’

Eddie nodded in agreement. ‘That’s the ugly bugger, yeah. Who is he?’

‘His name is Maximilian Jaekel,’ said Beck. ‘There’s a standing arrest warrant on him from all international and US law enforcement agencies.’

‘Why?’ Nina asked. ‘What did he do?’

‘He’s a wanted war criminal,’ Petrelli told her. ‘He got into the country undetected, but when the Beverly Hills police took fingerprints from his body to check his ID, they were immediately red-flagged.’

‘So what did he want with me?’ Neither agent had an answer.

Eddie looked more closely at the photograph — not at the subject’s face, but his clothing. Only part of it was visible, the image cropped near the base of Jaekel’s neck, but the top of a dark raised collar still showed. ‘You said he’s a war criminal,’ he said slowly. ‘Which war?’ To Nina, it sounded as if he already knew the answer.

Beck hesitated before replying. ‘World War Two.’

‘What?’ said Nina, with almost a laugh of disbelief. ‘The war ended in 1945! This guy was late thirties, forty at most. Someone’s made a mistake.’

‘That’s what we thought too, at first,’ said Beck. ‘But the fingerprints are a perfect match to the ones on file, and everything else confirms it: dental records, the facial scar — even the SS blood group tattoo on his left arm. The body’s already en route to Quantico for further testing, but it looks like the results will be the same.’ His expression became more grim. ‘The man who tried to kill you today was a Nazi war criminal… and was over ninety years old.’

The flight back to New York brought Nina and Eddie into JFK airport in the early hours of the morning. A black SUV transported them and their FBI minders to the city.

Nina peered at the rising towers of Manhattan as they approached the East River. ‘I didn’t think I’d be back here so soon,’ she said. Her body was weary, but her eyes never tired of the sight. Even after all her travels, New York was still home.

‘Just hope we can get refunds for the flights we’d already booked,’ Eddie grumbled. They were taking the Queensboro Bridge to 59th Street; the United Nations complex came into view on the far bank, the glass tower of the Secretariat building alight even in the pre-dawn gloom. ‘And that we can get right back to what we were doing without any pissing about.’

There was a pointedness to his words, but she decided to ignore it. For now. ‘Is Seretse already at the UN?’ she asked Beck.

‘He’s there now, yeah,’ the agent replied. ‘He should be ready to meet you by the time we arrive.’

‘Good.’ She leaned back, rereading the file on the mysteriously youthful Maximilian Jaekel. ‘Did you look at this on the plane?’ she asked Eddie.

He nodded. ‘Nice guy, him and all his SS mates. France, Yugoslavia, Greece; they committed atrocities in all of ’em. Scumbags. Can’t believe that most of his unit managed to get away after the war.’

‘They bribed their way out of being sent to trial, apparently.’

A disgusted snort. ‘There isn’t any amount of money you could have paid me to let those Nazi bastards go. If I’d caught them, I would’ve shot ’em on the spot.’

Nina was a firm believer in the principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but in this case, with the benefit of historical hindsight, she could entirely sympathise with the former soldier’s viewpoint. ‘It’s a shame someone didn’t do that at the time. It would have saved that kid’s life. Have you found out anything more about him?’ she asked Beck.

‘The victim had a US passport under the name Volker Koenig,’ said Beck, ‘but it was a fake. An extremely good fake — it held up when he arrived at JFK — but it means we don’t even know if that’s really his name. Jaekel also had a fake passport, from the same source.’

‘Koenig came to New York first?’

‘And then travelled on to LA, yeah.’

‘Looking for you,’ Eddie suggested. The idea did not make Nina any more comfortable.

‘Jaekel had been tracking him — we found texts on his phone listing the flights he’d taken,’ Petrelli noted. ‘We’re trying to identify the sender, but it looks like they came from a burner. All we know is that they originated in Italy.’

They continued across the bridge into Manhattan, then headed to the United Nations. Nina expected them to go to the Secretariat building, home to the offices of both Oswald Seretse and the International Heritage Agency, but instead they stopped outside the much lower sweeping block of the General Assembly. The two FBI agents led the way in.

‘Wow,’ said Nina as she entered, stopping in momentary disorientation. The previous day she had been in a replica of the visitors’ lobby on the other side of the continent; now she was in the real thing. ‘It’s like I never left.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Eddie muttered.

Nina was about to ask him exactly what he meant by that when someone called her name. A tall figure in a blue suit strode towards the group. ‘Oswald!’

‘Good morning, Nina,’ said Oswald Seretse, shaking her hand. The Gambian diplomat, who in addition to his duties at the United Nations was acting as the IHA’s interim director following Nina’s resignation, was immaculately presented as always, despite signs of sleeplessness around his eyes. ‘I’m glad to see you again. Although obviously the circumstances are far from ideal.’

‘You’re not kidding,’ said Eddie. ‘Hey, Ozzy.’

Vexation and amusement fought for dominance of Seretse’s expression, the latter just winning out. ‘Good to see you too, Eddie.’ The Englishman grinned and shook his hand.

‘Late night?’ Nina asked.

‘There was a Security Council meeting concerning the Iranian nuclear programme. As ever, these things do tend to drag on. I had to excuse myself to meet you.’

‘What happened to us must be a big deal, then,’ said Eddie.

‘It certainly is. If you’ll come with me, there’s an office where we can discuss matters.’ He headed back across the lobby.

Eddie looked up at Foucault’s Pendulum as they followed. ‘Got to admit, Grant’s version of diplomacy is more interesting than the real thing. Even if his writers know fuck-all about how bullets work.’

‘If you mean “interesting” in the Chinese proverb sense, then yeah,’ said Nina. ‘I’d rather real-life diplomats stuck to sitting at tables talking things out, though.’

‘I dunno, sometimes you just have to shoot a bugger.’

‘That would explain the enormous backlog of IHA incident reports prominently featuring your name that I inherited from my predecessors,’ Seretse said as they reached the security checkpoint. IDs were quickly checked, and they went deeper into the building. ‘In here.’

The windowless room was a secondary conference area, a place for the small print of treaties to be hammered out by functionaries while their masters argued the bigger picture in the far more impressive main hall nearby. ‘Before we start, Oswald,’ said Nina, ‘I want to thank you for acting on my phone call so quickly. If you hadn’t got the State Department to intervene, God knows how long we would have been stuck in a police cell.’

The normally unflappable diplomat looked uncomfortable. ‘I must make an admission, Nina. I did call the State Department after we spoke in the hope of intervening on your behalf, yes… but they still have not replied to me. I suspect that I had little, if anything, to do with your release.’

‘Then who did?’

‘I don’t know.’

Eddie regarded the FBI agents. ‘You?’

‘We got orders from the top,’ said Petrelli. ‘But who gave them…’ He shrugged.

‘Looks like we’ve got friends in high places,’ the Englishman mused. ‘Makes a change.’

‘So what else do we have?’ Nina asked.

Seretse took several files from his briefcase. ‘I can give you as much as I know so far. Firstly, concerning the apparent threat against the archaeological excavation in Alexandria: is this the plan you saw in Los Angeles?’

He slid a sheet of paper across to her. Nina recognised it at once as the illustration of the tomb of Alexander the Great that Volker Koenig had thrust upon her. ‘Yes, although the one I saw had annotations. In German.’

‘German, eh?’ said Eddie, raising an eyebrow. ‘There’s a coincidence.’

Seretse took back the plan. ‘This was sent to me by William Schofield in Egypt. It’s the most up-to-date survey of the outer tomb, made in preparation for the opening of the inner chamber two days from now. It has not been released to anyone outside the IHA or the Ministry of State for Antiquities.’

‘Somebody leaked it, then,’ said Nina. She knew most of the IHA employees on the dig personally, and couldn’t imagine any of them committing such a security breach.

‘So it would seem.’ He opened another file, revealing several sheets of creased paper in protective plastic sleeves. ‘These are the documents you managed to save after your limousine… caught fire and broke in half.’ The pause was accompanied by a faint sigh, though Nina wasn’t sure if it was disbelief at the outrageousness of the situation, or the same kind of ‘oh no, not again’ resignation that she herself had learned to adopt many years ago. ‘I had one of the UN’s translators read them. What you told me on the phone appears to be correct — they are part of a plan to raid the tomb.’

The archaeologist felt a chill. ‘Have you warned Bill and the others in Egypt?’

‘Yes, we did so immediately. Unfortunately,’ Seretse leaned back, steepling his hands, ‘we do not know how the raid is to be carried out. There are references to an entrance, but it must have been described on one of the pages that was lost.’

‘They can’t just be planning to walk in through the front door, though,’ said Eddie. ‘There’s a lot of security, isn’t there?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Nina told him. ‘One of archaeology’s greatest long-lost sites, right in the middle of an Egyptian city? The whole dig’s been guarded from the moment the first tunnel was discovered. Half the country’s population fancies themselves as freelance relic hunters, especially after all the political upheavals. And by “freelance relic hunters”, I mean thieves,’ she added for the benefit of the two agents.

Beck shot her a sardonic smile. ‘I kind of got the picture.’

‘I think it wise that we not tell the Egyptian ambassador you said that, Nina,’ said Seretse. ‘However, I am sure that Dr Assad will increase security still further in light of this threat.’

‘And what about security for Nina?’ Eddie asked. ‘Whoever this lot are and whatever they’re planning to do in Egypt, they came over here and tried to kill her too.’

‘Why, though?’ said Nina. ‘I don’t even work for the IHA any more, so I’m not connected to the dig.’

‘Perhaps the FBI has some more information,’ Seretse suggested.

‘We might,’ Beck replied. He opened a file he had been given after landing. ‘These are the preliminary results of Jaekel’s autopsy. We rechecked the fingerprints and other biometrics; they’re a match for everything the DoJ’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section has on record for him. He and the other surviving members of his unit were processed when they were captured at the end of the war, so we’ve mugshots, prints and so on.’

He laid out eight photographs in a row on the desk. Jaekel’s was the first; the others were equally old and grainy. His finger tapped each one in turn. ‘Maximilian Jaekel, Garan Oster, Archard Walther, Herman Schneider, Steiner Henkel, Bren Gausmann, Ubel Rasche… and the leader, SS-Obersturmbannführer Erich Kroll.’ The final picture showed a hard-featured man with close-cropped blond hair, a wide, downturned mouth and intense, malevolent eyes. ‘They committed war crimes across Europe — slaughtering civilians, murdering prisoners of war, stealing an untold amount of valuables — and Kroll was actually promoted for all of it just before the end.’

‘So what happened to them?’ Nina asked, taking a closer look at the faces from the past. None looked like anybody she wanted to meet.

‘No one knows. After they bribed their way free, they disappeared.’

‘Until one of them turned up in LA and tried to kill us,’ said Eddie.

Nina shook her head. ‘It can’t be the same guy. It’s just not possible.’

‘The fingerprints say it’s him,’ said Petrelli.

‘Maybe he’s a clone,’ Eddie offered. ‘Like in The Boys from Brazil? There might be a whole army of cloned Nazis goose-stepping around somewhere.’

‘Be serious, Eddie,’ sighed Nina.

‘We did find something unusual,’ Beck admitted. ‘We don’t know what it means, though.’ He took out another picture, this one in colour. ‘The man who shot at you in LA, Jaekel — he died trying to reach this. BHPD thought he was going for a gun and took him down.’

The image showed a flat silver flask lying on asphalt. ‘Yeah, I saw it,’ said Eddie. ‘I thought it was a gun too, from the way he was so set on reaching it.’

‘What was in it?’ asked Seretse.

‘Water,’ Petrelli replied, to his listeners’ surprise.

‘Water?’ Nina echoed. ‘Seriously? You’re telling me he was killed because he wouldn’t give up his flask of water?’

‘He was dying for a drink,’ Eddie said with a grin. ‘Dead thirsty.’

She held in a groan. ‘Maybe the flask had some sentimental value.’

Beck shook his head. ‘It’s silver, so it’s probably worth a few hundred bucks, but we didn’t find anything special about it.’ He paused, as if trying to convince himself of what he was about to say. ‘What was in it, on the other hand…’

Eddie regarded him quizzically. ‘You said it was water.’

‘It was. But… it wasn’t normal water.’

‘How so?’ Nina asked.

The FBI agent produced a thick document. ‘I’m a cop, not a chemist, so I don’t understand half of this. But our analysts gave me a cheat sheet.’ He flicked through the topmost pages. ‘Here: “The water sample contains a high level of colloidal silver, at over five hundred parts per million. Such levels run the risk of the user’s developing argyria with prolonged consumption, though the initial autopsy report shows no evidence of such a condition in the deceased. In addition, the water was discovered to hold a small electrical charge, though as yet the cause and mechanism for this remains unidentified. Finally, the water was also found to contain molecules of carbon-60, also known as buckminsterfullerene or buckyballs—”’

‘You just made that up!’ said Eddie. ‘That’s not a real name, surely.’

Nina smiled. ‘Let me tell you about the problems archaeologists have with moronic acid sometime.’

‘I’m just reading what it says here,’ said Beck. ‘Okay, so: “The concentration of these molecules is far higher than previously discovered in any natural water source, though there is none of the expected purple colouration associated with carbon-60 content. Carbon-60 is believed to have potential for various medical treatments, including inhibition of the HIV virus and antioxidant neutralisation of free radicals, but all current research is still experimental.” Like I said, it’s not normal water.’

‘With all that crap floating about in it, it sounds as bad as New York tap water,’ Eddie joked, before noticing his wife’s thoughtful expression. ‘What?’

‘We’ve seen something like this before,’ she said. ‘In Egypt — when Khalid Osir was looking for the strain of yeast that extended the lives of the ancient Egyptian rulers. The yeast we found in the Pyramid of Osiris had very similar properties.’

‘Life extension?’ said Seretse. ‘You’re suggesting that this water may have somehow slowed the ageing process of these war criminals?’

‘I don’t know, but it would explain why this guy,’ she indicated Jaekel’s picture, ‘only looked forty rather than ninety.’

‘What, clones are out, but you’re fine with magic water?’ Eddie scoffed.

‘Yeah,’ Petrelli agreed. ‘It sounds pretty far-fetched.’

‘You’re the ones who insisted that the dead guy in LA is a wanted Nazi war criminal,’ Nina countered. ‘And the water’s not magic — it just has unusual properties. It’s not the first time we’ve encountered something like that.’

Her husband’s face turned downcast. ‘Yeah. Some of it pretty recently.’

Seeing Seretse’s inquisitive gaze — she had not told him the full reason for her resignation from the IHA — Nina quickly moved the subject along. ‘It’d also explain why Jaekel was so desperate to get the flask, even with cops pointing guns at him. If the water really does have some kind of anti-ageing effect, then it would literally be his lifeline.’

‘But what does it have to do with what happened in Los Angeles?’ asked the diplomat. ‘The murder of the young man, the attempt on your life, and these plans to rob the tomb of Alexander the Great?’

‘I don’t know, but— Holy crap!’ she gasped as an answer suddenly came to her. It was wild, even crazy, but it made a twisted kind of sense…

Seretse and the two FBI men stared at her, startled by the outburst. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But I think I’ve found a connection!’

‘What connection?’ said Beck.

‘Alexander the Great — as well as all the historical records we have of his achievements, there was also a text called the Alexander Romance,’ she said, mind racing. ‘In a way, it was the first ever novel. Parts of it recounted his actual life and conquests in a semi-fictionalised, romanticised way — hence the name — but there were also chapters that were more fantastical. Alexander and his men went on adventures where they encountered strange beasts and monsters, races of giants, centaurs, plant men, that kind of thing. Alexander himself went to the bottom of the ocean in a diving bell and was carried into the sky by eagles, until the gods themselves ordered him to return to earth.’

‘Now that’s the kind of history book I’d want to read,’ Eddie said. ‘Better than boring lists of kings and queens!’

‘I have read the Alexander Romance,’ said Seretse. ‘In the original Greek, of course — I studied it at Cambridge.’

‘Well of course,’ said Nina, a little facetiously. ‘It loses so much in translation.’

He ignored her veiled sarcasm. ‘As I recall, the most fantastical parts of the story came after the death of King Darius of Persia.’

‘That’s right,’ she told him. ‘Alexander defeated Darius’s armies, and in the historical accounts secured the Achaemenid Empire before moving on into India. In the Romance, Alexander took a detour and headed north to explore the lands around what he thought was an ocean, but is presumably the Caspian Sea, given his route. That’s where he encountered all these weird creatures. But the main reason he went there was because he’d heard of a place called the Land of Darkness — which contains the Spring of Immortality.’

‘Like the Fountain of Youth?’ Eddie said sceptically.

‘Yes, although there aren’t many details, because Alexander never actually found it. What happened was that Alexander’s cook, Andreas, discovered it by accident — he put a dried fish in a stream to wash it, and the fish came back to life. Andreas drank the spring water himself, and even kept some of it, but was too frightened to tell Alexander what he’d found. By the time he eventually did, the army had moved on, and when they went back, they couldn’t find the right spring. The secret of immortality was right there in front of them, but now it’s lost for ever.’

‘Sheesh,’ said Beck. ‘I bet Alexander wasn’t happy about that.’

‘He wasn’t. He had a stone tied around Andreas’ neck and threw him into the sea.’

‘Maybe he just didn’t like his cooking,’ Eddie joked.

‘I doubt it was exactly haute cuisine, yeah. But because Andreas was now immortal, he became a spirit. Or so the story goes, at least.’

Seretse regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Could there be any truth to it? It would not be the first time you have discovered that a legend was based on fact.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I mean, without some solid evidence, I’m certainly not going to buy into the story that there really is a spring that gives you eternal life, even if this guy Jaekel apparently believed it. Was there anything else in those plans that might tell us more?’

He referred to a translation of the German text. ‘Perhaps. There is a passage here… “According to the relics, the statue of Bucephalus is located in the inner burial chamber. Obtaining the statue intact is our primary objective: it holds the map to the Kingdom of Darkness. We must secure the map before we can find the spring.” Could they mean the Spring of Immortality?’

‘Maybe,’ said Nina. ‘I don’t remember anything about a statue of Bucephalus when I was at the IHA, though. Has anything like that been found in the tomb since then?’ Seretse shook his head.

‘Who’s Bucephalus?’ Eddie asked.

‘Alexander’s horse. He tamed him as a child, and rode him throughout his campaigns. He was so devoted to him that when Bucephalus was stolen by a forest tribe, he ordered his men to cut down every single tree and slaughter every last member of the tribe if he wasn’t returned. He got his horse back very quickly.’

Eddie’s eyes widened. ‘Not surprised. That’s a bloke who really loves his ride.’

‘There wasn’t any sentiment involved,’ Nina continued. ‘When Bucephalus was killed in battle, I think against Porus in India, Alexander just found another horse and carried on fighting. Victory mattered more to him than anyone or anything else.’

‘Seems that Jaekel and his buddies feel the same way,’ said Beck. ‘They were willing to gun a man down in broad daylight to stop him from telling you about all of this, Dr Wilde — and then they tried to kill you too.’

‘Why, though?’ she asked. ‘This is nothing to do with me any more.’

‘But the young man in Los Angeles was specifically looking for you,’ Seretse pointed out. ‘He must have been certain that you would help him prevent the raiding of the tomb. And this man Jaekel must also have considered you a threat — you said that he targeted you, again specifically. So it would appear that you are somehow connected, even if you don’t know how.’

‘You could still be in danger,’ Petrelli warned. ‘We don’t know how many more of these guys are out there. They might try again.’

‘Well, thanks for brightening my morning,’ Nina told him, exasperated.

‘We must find out what is going on, though,’ insisted Seretse. ‘The Egyptian government is extremely concerned about the threat to the dig. Since the IHA is a partner in the excavation, they have asked us to assist in any way we can.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Eddie said, suddenly wary. ‘Who’s this “we”? If you mean me and Nina, we don’t work for the IHA any more, remember?’

‘Yes, I know. However, considering the circumstances…’ Avoiding Eddie’s increasingly hostile gaze, the United Nations official faced Nina. ‘I would like to request your help in investigating these events, and securing the tomb of Alexander the Great from the raiders.’

‘What?’ protested Eddie. ‘No, no fucking way. We’ve got better things to do than act as security guards for another bloody hole in the ground.’

‘Eddie, wait,’ said Nina.

He rounded on her. ‘No, you wait! We agreed, okay! We’re doing what we’re doing for a reason, remember, and the last thing you need is to get dragged back into the job that—’ He almost blurted out got you poisoned. ‘That you wanted to leave in the first place.’

‘I didn’t want to leave,’ Nina said quietly.

Seretse broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘If it makes a difference, the request does not come from the Egyptians alone. The State Department has also asked for your help, Nina.’

‘Oh, well then, how can we fucking refuse?’ Eddie said, throwing up his hands.

‘If there really are Nazi war criminals still at large, they’ve got to be found and brought to justice,’ said Beck. ‘And speaking strictly off the record, Mr Chase — not as an FBI agent, but as someone with family who died in the war — I agree with what you said in the car, about the kind of justice these people deserve. If I were in your shoes, I’d do it.’

‘You’re not in my shoes,’ Eddie snapped. ‘You don’t have a clue about all the shit we’ve been through. We—’

‘Eddie,’ Nina cut in, still speaking softly. ‘I’ve got to do it.’

‘What?’

‘Agent Petrelli’s right: they might try to take another shot at me. If we go to Egypt, it’ll be harder for them to find us.’

He stared at her. ‘No it won’t, it’ll be bloody easier — because you’ll be in the same place they’re planning to rob!’

‘Yes — behind maximum security! You know Dr Assad; he’ll have the ASPS on full alert now that there’s a definite threat. You’ve worked with them, you know they’re good at what they do.’

‘Yeah, they are,’ Eddie said in a begrudging tone. ‘Which means they don’t need us. We could just head back to the west coast and stay out of the way until this all gets sorted out.’

‘They found us in LA,’ she countered. ‘Who even knew we were there? But that kid found us — and Jaekel found him.’ She addressed Seretse. ‘Oswald, I’m going to say right up front that I don’t want to do this. Eddie’s right: I left the IHA for very good reasons — which I’m not going to go into,’ she added. ‘But whatever all this is about — what happened in Los Angeles, this plan to rob Alexander’s tomb — somehow, these people think I can stop them. And considering who it seems they are…’ she gazed at the line of scowling monochromatic faces on the desk, ‘I’d say it’s my duty, as the former head of the IHA, and as a human being, to do just that.’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Eddie growled, shaking his head before pointedly looking away from her.

Nina sympathised, but she knew that in his current mood he would not be receptive to any apology. Instead she asked Seretse: ‘So, what do we do?’

‘I can have you flown to Egypt to meet Dr Assad and his people—’

‘First class,’ she interrupted. ‘We just got off a long flight; we’re not getting straight back on another one and sitting in coach for thirteen hours.’

‘Very well,’ said the diplomat reluctantly. ‘Once you get there, any help you can provide to ensure the safety of the excavation will, I’m sure, be very much appreciated. Then you can go back to what you were doing. Both of you.’

Eddie, still fuming, gave no answer beyond a curt nod. ‘Thank you,’ said Nina. ‘Before all that, though, I really want to go home and have a shower.’

Seretse’s nose twitched. ‘I didn’t want to comment, but… Chanel?’

‘By the gallon, yeah.’

He stood. ‘I will make the arrangements.’ He extended his hand. ‘Welcome back, Nina. Even if it is only temporary.’

Eddie rose, turning away from the others as he headed for the exit. ‘Yeah. Fucking great to be back.’

Nina stepped out of the shower, draping herself in a towel. She let it soak up the moisture on her skin, taking in the familiar surroundings of her apartment. It might have been an unwelcome break in the grand tour she and Eddie had planned, but still… it was good to be home.

It was also, she was forced to admit, good to be back at work, however unpleasant the circumstances. She wiped condensation from the mirror, looking into her reflection’s green eyes. Two months away had recharged her batteries and given her a new sense of perspective — as well as taking her mind off her illness. Two months, travelling with the man she loved, no concerns except those inside her own head.

But now her concerns had become external, in more ways than one. The towel slipped off her right side as she worked it down her body. What she saw there made her pause. Two months of denial, of believing that somehow she was different from all the other victims of the black poison from the depths of the earth. That she could carry on as if nothing had changed.

Only now, that was no longer an option.

Another look at the face in the mirror. Strands of damp red hair framed it, cheekbones picked out by the overhead light. Was she more gaunt than before? Had the shadows under her eyes become deeper? Denial returned: no, it was just the unflattering lighting and the effects of jet lag, surely.

Surely…

Eddie’s voice snapped her back into the present. ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll talk to you again soon,’ he said as he approached the bathroom. ‘Thanks for ringing. Bye.’

Nina hurriedly pulled the towel tight again as the door opened. ‘Don’t you ever knock?’ she said with a smile.

‘This from the woman who just wanders in and out while I’m having a dump,’ he replied. ‘I never get a chance to read my iPad in peace.’

‘Maybe if you didn’t spend so frickin’ long reading it…’ She glanced at the phone in his hand. ‘Who was that?’

‘Macy. She wanted to check we were okay — and find out what was going on.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Most of it.’

Nina eyed him. ‘Are you sure that was wise?’

‘I didn’t tell her the part about Nazi war criminals hunting for the Fountain of Youth, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ he said, tetchy. ‘I still know how to keep secrets.’

‘Okay, okay. Is Macy all right?’

‘Yeah. A bit pissed off that we left LA without seeing her, but apart from that, she’s fine.’

‘Good. I’m glad nothing happened to her. It’s bad enough that we got dragged into this business without our friends getting involved too.’

‘Speaking of business…’ His expression became harder. ‘Are you still definitely wanting to go to Egypt?’

She drew the towel tighter. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Nina! It’s the exact opposite of what we planned!’

‘What am I supposed to do?’ she fired back. ‘Just ignore the fact that someone tried to kill me? Whatever’s going on, I’ve been dragged into it, whether I like it or not! Besides, the inner tomb’s going to be opened in two days from now. If the Egyptians do that and secure everything without any trouble, then we can come back home and pick up where we left off. For all we know, just the fact that we know about their plan might stop these people from trying.’

‘Or if they’ve already gone to so much effort, they might try even harder to get what they’re after. They don’t need you there, Nina,’ Eddie insisted. ‘The world of archaeology doesn’t fall apart when you’re not in it!’

‘It’s two days, Eddie. Two days! That’s all.’ Nina waved her hands for emphasis, the towel accidentally slipping away from her body. She quickly yanked it back — but it was too late.

Eddie stared hard at her side, gaze as piercing as an X-ray. ‘Let me see that.’ His voice was suddenly, oddly calm.

‘There’s… there’s nothing to see,’ she told him lamely.

‘Nina, I’m not fucking blind. Let me look.’

Reluctantly, she drew back the towel. Eddie bent down to look at her side. He regarded the pale skin in silence, then let out a heavy sigh. ‘So, when were you planning on telling me?’

‘I… don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t want to worry you.’

‘You didn’t…’ Another sigh, this time of disbelief and exasperation. ‘I’m your fucking husband, Nina. How could you not tell me?’

Revealed on Nina’s flank was a line of ugly lumps, the largest almost half an inch across. They could easily have been mistaken for blisters, or warts — but both Nina and Eddie knew they were far more malevolent. ‘When did these appear?’

She couldn’t meet his eyes, using the excuse of examining the blemishes to look away. ‘I don’t know exactly,’ she lied. It had been close to two weeks. ‘The biggest one came out first, and it… it’s just been growing ever since.’

‘And you deliberately kept them hidden from me? Is that why you suddenly started wearing T-shirts to bed?’ She nodded. ‘For fuck’s sake! You should have told me!’

Nina looked back at him. ‘What could you have done about them?’

The simple, quiet question floored him. ‘About them? Not much,’ he had to admit. ‘But I could do things for you! Whatever you need, I’ll do it.’

‘You already are, Eddie.’ She blinked away a tear. ‘You already are. But…’

‘But?’

‘There’s nothing you can do about — about these.’ She jabbed at the lumps with sudden anger. ‘There’s nothing anyone can do, nothing! We both know what’s going to happen to me. These things are going to kill me, and I didn’t tell you about them because the thing I need most from you is for you not to worry for me, and if I think about what’s going to happen I get so mad because — because — because of all the things I’ll never get to do! Like having a child — only now we daren’t risk it…’

‘The doctors didn’t think I could get infected.’

‘But the baby would be! We already know that…’ She broke down, letting the wet towel drop to the floor as she clutched Eddie tightly.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay,’ he said, wrapping his muscular arms around her.

‘It’s not, though, is it?’ she managed through her sobs.

He choked back tears of his own. ‘No, it’s fucking not. If I hadn’t already killed the fuckers who caused all this, I’d kill ’em again! Bastards.’

Nina sighed. ‘Enough people have died already. All that death, and nothing to show for it. We found Valhalla, we found something that had been hidden for over a thousand years, but they burned it down. It’s a waste.’ Anger flared in her once more. ‘The whole thing’s such a waste, Eddie! I’m dying, and for what? I found something incredible, and they destroyed it!’

‘Yeah, and we also found something horrible, and it’s a bloody good job that got destroyed too,’ he reminded her. ‘We kept a bunch of arseholes from getting hold of the worst poison on the planet. And we stopped a nuclear war while we were at it.’

‘Saving the world again, right?’ She managed a small, sad laugh.

Eddie made a similar sound of strained amusement. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. Christ, it wouldn’t even be the second time.’

‘And this is what we get in return?’ She felt her naked side again, disgusted by the tumorous excrescences. ‘This is why I want to go to Egypt,’ she said, looking back at her husband with renewed determination. ‘One last job, as the cliché goes. If nothing else, I can help make sure that Alexander’s tomb is opened properly. Part of that legacy I talked about.’

‘What, finding Atlantis and Excalibur and El Dorado and everything else wasn’t enough?’ There was still an edge behind the words, even though his tone had lightened.

‘I just don’t like loose ends. Please, Eddie. Let me do this.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Two days?’ he finally said. ‘Two days, and then we’re done. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ she promised. ‘Let me see this through. As you like to say, fight to the end.’

Despite his clear reluctance, he nodded. ‘Fight to the end.’