Inca Kings

CHAPTER SIX

Lyon bustled with good-natured excitement.

Kenzie waited halfway across a bridge that spanned one of the wide rivers dissecting the city, shrouded by shadow, studying the brightly lit auction house that stood on the other side. Soft light surrounded her. Couples passed by, arm in arm, whispering. The river flowed dark below, its lower banks concreted over and turned into a local communal area for kids and parents alike. Plush sofas and climbing frames filled both banks whilst adult-sized slides took people happily from top to bottom. Kenzie paused for a moment, seeing something she’d lost forever and sometimes wished for, but then Tremayne was at her side.

“You ready?”

She watched him carefully, never more conscious that this man would try to kill her instantly if he thought it would help his collusions. “We are. Don’t forget, Tremayne, that your future depends on this going off without a hitch.”

“Then let me work and move your ass.”

He pushed by, followed by the three new guards. Kenzie fell in line, knowing Dahl was up ahead watching them all. The auction was imminent. The CIA device arrived too late and now they were forced to put on a show, sell the new item and use Tremayne’s final confirmation call later to trace the seller. Kenzie had taken the time to study the relic, send pictures to the team, and consider what they had found out.

The investigation was ongoing, stuck in ancient history and veiled behind a thousand lies, but this item, as well as the others, was believed to be one of thousands of priceless objects hidden by the Incas in the sixteenth century. Immersed in murder, invasion, mystery and an unquenchable craving, the legend was of lost Inca gold that lay hidden somewhere in the high, misty mountains around Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. With quests and treasure hunts and organized explorations going right through to the nineteenth century the fabled hoard kept its final secrets well — described once as “a treasure that could not be moved by one man alone, and nor by thousands”, it vanished in time much like the Incas themselves. A cold trail, a new generation, a modern world was not the place for ancient artifacts that so-called experts said probably never existed anyway.

Kenzie was intrigued with the legend despite herself, and had urged Hayden and the others to hurry up with their investigations. The English girl, Karin Blake, was mentioned as being the Internet geek of the team. She should now have reached the end of her military training, but had not made contact with them. Kenzie didn’t know what to make of that, knowing only that Karin was a genius super-geek who would probably have found all the answers to the mystery of the Inca treasure by now. The whole military training thing felt a bit off to her.

For now though, she marched across the bridge in Tremayne’s wake and approached the glitzy auction house to be ushered quickly through the front doors. An opulent interior, a corridor lined with masterpieces, a chandelier-blanketed lobby and they were approaching the auction room. It all felt the same to Kenzie: the people, the luxury, the self-glorifying expressions. She would be happy to leave this world at her heels.

Joining late, Tremayne’s lot had been slated to be one of the last. Kenzie sat through an interminable duration before their time arrived and Tremayne emerged from a shadowy corner to perform his deeds.

She watched. They still didn’t care too much about the buyer, though Dahl wanted it all. Was it always the same buyer? For Tremayne, yes, but the seller used more than just a single middleman. He was clever, slick, streetwise. He’d been operating this way for over a decade and never given anything away.

Until now. What changed?

Tremayne played his part nicely. The lot was a golden vase of medium height, its origin obscured, its value understated for now. A supplementary payment would be made later. The seller kept everything safe this way, allowing him to retain total anonymity and avoid all contact with the criminal underworld. Kenzie saw the hammer drop at four-point-two million euros and studied the auction room. It had emptied quite rapidly as the night progressed, leaving only two dozen hardy bodies in attendance. She saw nobody she knew, nobody overly keen on the vase, nobody dangerous.

But the eyes of the world had turned to the Incan artifacts.

She watched as Tremayne disappeared into the holding area, accompanied by his new goons. She tagged along, watched the exchange of the vase, and waited for their car to arrive. She watched Tremayne the whole time. Once in the car he would make the call, and she held the CIA device.

“All good?” she asked.

“Smooth as Cleopatra’s ass,” he returned, clearly enjoying the excitement of the auction.

“You mean asp?”

“No. I really don’t.”

They waited, the moments stretching to minutes. Kenzie started to feel antsy, but quelled the jitters, staying professional. The F-Pace arrived and they headed inside. This time Tremayne rode in the back and she sat alongside him.

“You ready?”

“After this — we’re done.”

Kenzie didn’t look away, didn’t flinch. “You’ll walk away.”

“Without being shot in the back?”

“Or knifed.” She couldn’t help it.

Tremayne couldn’t hide the flash of fear that widened his eyes. Quickly then, he fished out a phone and asked for the device. “How does it work?”

“Just attach it to the side. Give it a few minutes to pair and then make the call. The device will do the rest.”

“This guy has major failsafes in place. And if he knows I’m looking…”

“Just do it. This is no time to lose your nerve.”

Tremayne attached the small device and then waited. A blue light flashed. He pressed a button, speed-dialing the seller. Kenzie knew he would keep everything the same as always — no small talk, no speakerphone, no questions. She hoped the device was as good as her team made it sound.

Her team?

A ring tone and then the call was answered.

“Yes?” A rich voice, relaxed and in control.

Tremayne cleared his throat. “Went off without a hitch. Ended up at four point two.” He hesitated.

Kenzie leaned forward, a question on her face,

The seller said, “And?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re headed to the exchange now. I’ll organize the supplementary and we’re done.”

“Excellent. What else?”

Tremayne looked surprised. Kenzie watched the blue light blink. How much time did they need? Seconds? Minutes? The top-flight agencies kept a very tight lid on what they could do these days.

Tremayne recovered. “Just wondering if you were about to offer me another… item. Y’know, to sell?”

“Ah, soon but not quite yet. As you intimated, we can’t have too many items diluting the market now, can we?”

Tremayne muttered an affirmative.

“Goodbye.”

The line clicked, a tiny death knell.

Tremayne blinked at Kenzie. “Kept him on the line as long as possible.”

Kenzie clicked a button on her phone and waited for Dahl to answer. His voice was quiet. “I’m talking to the team now. And, don’t worry, I have your position on GPS.”

Tremayne leaned forward, so far that he invaded her space even in the back of the car. She took a personal moment to push his head away, barely refraining from cracking it against the side window.

“Conferencing the call,” Dahl said.

Immediately Kenzie heard Hayden’s voice. “So what are you saying? You pinpointed it but you didn’t?”

Was she talking to Dahl? Then a man’s voice answered her question. “Hey, it’s a prototype. But yeah, we pinpointed it to…” He coughed and Kenzie detected some embarrassment. “The mountains around Peru.”

“Shit.”

“Well, a little tighter than that. I’ll send you the information.”

“It’s better than we had,” Dahl said, as Kenzie watched Tremayne and his guards. They would be getting antsy now, wondering what was going to happen next. She waved Tremayne on, essentially telling him to make the drop and get it finished with.

“It is.” Hayden sighed. “It is. We can work with this. Of course, I’d have put a pretty firm, friggin’ guess that it would be the mountains of Peru.”

“That would have been pure conjecture,” Dahl said. “The treasure could have been moved over the centuries.”

“I guess.”

With the conversation winding up, Kenzie made her presence known. “We’re heading for the drop here. Then we’re done.”

It was a signal to Dahl. “I’m on my way.”

She broke the connection and slipped her phone in her purse, now more than ever acutely aware of Tremayne’s reputation and his vicious instinct for survival. Darkness swarmed outside, interrupted by the ever-more-infrequent glares of streetlamps, traffic lights and lit road junctions. The neighborhood grew shabbier, the frontages now barred. She knew these places well. She’d once frequented them in many a city, after making deals. There was a time when she really believed she had found her vocation, a career for life. Now, more than miss any aspect of it, she hated what she’d become.

Trying to change all that. Was this the heart Dahl kept banging on about? The only people who’d previously shown faith in her were those who’d trained her to become a professional killer. She wasn’t sure how to take Dahl’s convictions because she had no real experience of trust though the last decade to base them on.

And before that… life was a haze of memory. Repressed. Unnecessary distractions, her instructors said. The things she could remember revolved around her family and how the men in authority had allowed them to pay a terrible price, a chunk of retribution leveled at the Israeli government but metered out on an intensely personal level.

Confused, lost, she held on to team SPEAR as if they were the shaky raft after a shipwreck. She wanted to belong, but knew she never would.

Twenty minutes passed before the F-Pace pulled to a halt outside a metal shutter. Its sides were rusted, its door pockmarked. Tremayne stayed put and then the door started to roll up, the sound an ear-splitting screech that made Kenzie grimace.

“Not the most subtle entrance.”

“This guy doesn’t do subtle,” Tremayne breathed. “Nor does he have to. Cracktooth owns everything you can see.”

Cracktooth? Kenzie watched, prepared and waited as the most dangerous moment of the evening approached. She wondered if Dahl had arrived, but couldn’t count on it. She watched Tremayne exit the car, hand over the relic and then perform some kind of transaction on a portable tablet. All seemed well. A crooked-toothed, straggly-haired individual cracked a jagged smile.

Tremayne bent at the waist and then glanced back through the window at her, nodding, smirking and baring his teeth. The grinning man raised a gun.

Not like this. Not now.

She couldn’t move more than a meter before the gun went off.