The Lost City

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Their flight to the Peruvian capital was uneventful and boring and as soon they had cleared customs they were piling into a hired SUV and racing into the city. Lea watched the suburbs rush past in a blur as Hawke weaved the Pajero deftly in and out of the lanes on the highway, and her mind drifted to Dirk Kruger and his new friends, Saqqal and Jawad. As for Rajavi, the Iranian strongman, she shuddered to think what was behind the mask.

She hated that she didn’t know what Kruger was up to. Was he now using his massive wealth and grubby black market connections to expand his network in a bid to beat them to the truth they had sought for so long? Even worse was the fact that now they had two enemies to fight — the Oracle and his mysterious Athanatoi and now Kruger and his nutcase Syrian terrorist friends and their weird obsession with Utopia — whatever the hell that was.

She glanced in the mirror and looked at Ryan. He was sullenly staring out of the window but his eyes were covered by a pair of sunglasses. He’d pulled his messy hair forward to hide his face. He hadn’t spoken since Reaper told him about Maria’s death and she knew he was turning inside himself again. This time it would be worse than ever. The anger and misery of grief was whispering its poison in his mind and only time could heal that.

“We’re here,” Hawke said, interrupting her thoughts. She looked up to see they were in the rear car park of a coffee shop in the Miraflores district of the city. They had called ahead to the Larco Museum and Balta had told them he wanted to meet here. She unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed down from the chunky SUV before following Hawke, Scarlet and Luis into the coffee shop. Reaper and Lexi stayed in the Pajero with a silent Ryan Bale.

Out the front window of the coffee shop they saw huge crowds of people jostling for space along the street.

“What the hell is going on?” Hawke asked.

“Lollapalooza,” Scarlet said matter-of-factly. “Good line-up this year as well.”

“Like who?” asked Lea.

“Foo Fighters, Aerosmith, Chili Peppers, Temper Trap, Kaiser Chiefs, Chainsmokers…”

“An excellent line-up,” Hawke said, giving them a look. “I’m especially proud of the fact I only recognized about two bands out of that lot.”

Lea rolled her eyes and took a step toward their guide. “Do you see him, Luis?”

Luis Montoya stood on his tiptoes to peer over the heads of the customers in the busy shop and looked down-heartened for a few moments before a smile suddenly flashed on his face. “There! He’s over by the other window.”

Lea followed his gaze and saw Professor Mauricio Balta innocuously stirring some sugar into a large cup of coffee. The two empty cups on his table told her he’d been waiting for some time.

They approached him, Hawke scanning the small space for anything suspicious as they went, and as their shadows fell over his table, Balta looked up from his coffee and smiled at them. “You must be here about the mask?”

Hawke held out his hand. “That’s right, Doc. The name’s Hawke, and this is Lea Donovan, Scarlet Sloane and Doctor Luis Montoya from the University of Bogotá.”

The legs of his chair scratched on the tiled floor as he pushed it back to greet them, meticulously shaking their hands with a polite bow of the head. “Please, take a seat,” he said, gesturing at the empty chairs he had obviously arranged around his little table.

“Thanks,” Lea said and sat down opposite him. The others joined her.

Balta spoke first. “So, is it true? Does the Mask of Inti really exist?”

Luis nodded his head. “It most certainly does, Professor Balta! Héctor Barrera saw it with his own eyes… He held it in his hands.”

“Our friend saw it too,” Lea said. “And he has an unusually powerful eidetic memory. He can recall everything he sees for days afterwards. That is how he was able to draw this.”

Hawke pulled out the paper from the inside pocket of his jacket, unfolded it and flattened it on the table before sliding it across to Balta.

Balta opened his eyes wide and gasped with surprise. “Are you telling me that your friend really saw this on the Mask of Inti?”

“Yes,” Lea said. “But now we’re out of ideas. That’s why we need your help.”

“This is truly remarkable,” he said, unable to take his eyes off the slip of paper. Finally he raised his head and stared at Lea. “Are you absolutely certain this is what was on the mask?”

Lea nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely.”

“What’s so special about it, professor?” Hawke said.

“What’s so special about it?” he asked, raising his eyes to meet them all. “If this is real then we must get back to my office at once. If this isn’t a joke, then what you have here is the key to locating the Lost City of the Incas.”