The Codex

74

Hauser’s eyes scanned the ground ahead, reading it like a book: a seedpod pressed into the earth; a creased blade of grass; dew brushed from a leaf. He had learned how to track in Vietnam, and now every detail told him exactly where the Broadbents had gone as clearly as if they had left a trail of breadcrumbs. He followed their route rapidly but methodically, Steyr AUG at the ready. He felt better now, relaxed, if not at peace. Hauser had always found hunting a strangely compelling activity. And there was nothing to compare with the feeling of hunting the human animal. It was indeed the most dangerous game.

His worthless soldiers were still digging and blasting away at the far end of the city. Good. It would keep them busy. Tracking and killing Broadbent and his sons was a job for a lone hunter slipping unseen through the jungle, not for a noisy group of incompetent soldiers. Hauser had the advantage. He knew the Broadbents were unarmed, and he knew they would have to cross the bridge. It was only a matter of time before he caught up with them.

With them gone, he could loot the tomb at his leisure, bring out the Codex and the portable artworks, leave the rest for later. Now that he had softened up Skiba he was pretty sure he could extract more than fifty million from him, perhaps a lot more. Switzerland would be a good base to operate from. That was how Broadbent himself used to do it, launder questionable antiquities through Switzerland, claiming they were from an “old Swiss collection.” The masterworks couldn’t be sold on the open market — they were too famous and Broadbent’s ownership too widely known — but they could be quietly placed here and there. There was always some Saudi sheik or Japanese industrialist or American billionaire who wanted to own a beautiful painting and who wasn’t too particular where it came from.

Hauser abandoned these pleasant fantasies and turned his attention back to the ground. More dew swiped from a leaf; a spot of blood on the soil. He followed the traces into a ruined gallery and turned on his lamp. Moss scraped from a stone, an imprint in the soft ground — any idiot could follow these tracks.

He followed the signs as fast as he could, putting, as they said, as much pressure on the trail as possible. As he emerged into a broad forest, he saw one particularly clear trace, where they had stirred up some rotten leaves in their headlong flight.

Too clear. He froze, listened, and then crouched and minutely examined the ground ahead. Amateurish. The Viet Cong would laugh at this one: a bent sapling, a loop of vine hidden under leaves, an almost invisible trip wire. He took one careful step back, picked up a stick lying conveniently nearby, and lobbed it at the trip wire.

There was a snap, the sapling shot up, the loop jerked. And then Hauser felt a sudden breath of air and a tug on his pantleg. He looked down. Embedded in the loose crease of his pant was a small dart, its fire-hardened tip dribbling a dark liquid.

The poisoned dart had missed him by less than an inch.

For several minutes he remained frozen. He examined every square inch of ground around him, every tree, every limb. Satisfied there was no other trap, he leaned over and was about to pluck the dart out of his khakis when he stopped himself yet again — and just in time. The sides of the dart had imbedded in them two nearly invisible spines, also wet with poison, ready to prick the finger of whoever tried to grasp it.

He took a twig and flicked the dart off his pantleg.

Very clever. Three multilayered traps in one. Simple and effective. This was the Indian’s work, no doubt about it.

Hauser moved forward, a little more slowly now, and with newfound respect.