“I don’t want any trouble. I was just—” Rickard shook his head and decided to stop talking. It didn’t matter. They weren’t listening and probably couldn’t understand even if they were.
The men seemed to be growing increasingly irate, working themselves up into a frenzy. They were now on each side of him, yelling and pointing back to the group of boys, who had now regrouped to watch.
Not a positive development. It was Rickards’ last thought before one of the men lunged forward with a hard right punch.
But the man wasn’t expecting what Rickards did. Stepping calmly to the side, he forced the first man to instinctively lunge even further, drawing him off-balance. This allowed Rickards to grab a fist, twisting it up and around, then outward, momentarily lifting the man’s entire body off the ground before falling hard onto the concrete with a powerful thud.
In a flash, Rickards was struck hard across the jaw, causing him to stumble backward along with the momentum of the second man. Long enough to work a foot between the man’s legs and trip him up, following him down to the ground with a punch across the bridge of the guy’s nose.
“Oh my God, what are you doing?!”
Rickards regained his footing and found Angela Reed standing behind him, staring in incredulity. Behind him, both men rose to their feet, wavering and yelling profusely, but clearly reluctant at a second attack.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“What happened to not bothering anyone?!”
“Well, okay. There’s that,” he said. “But I was just helping some kid.”
“What kid?”
Rickards turned, looking, but found the small boy nowhere in sight.
Of course.
She rushed to grab him before the two men regained their confidence. “We have to get out of here!”
Not far away, Fischer sat expressionless, watching the commotion with the same small camera perched on the dashboard in front of him.
Americans. Brash and clumsy.
They were all like that. Americans. Like bulls in a china shop. Never any tact or discretion. But to Fischer, the scuffle revealed something else. Something very important.
Regardless of whatever problems he had, Joe Rickards had some fight in him. And that meant he would not go easily.
43
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
Rickards trod behind Angela apologetically. “I’m sorry. It was an accident.”
She turned and stared at him sarcastically. “Oh, really?! Those men just happened to fall on the ground by accident?”
Well, the first one, kind of.
He cleared his throat. “They approached me.”
“Is that right? And why did they approach you?”
Rickards deliberated but decided to end it. “Never mind.”
Angela started forward again, passing an elderly couple who slowed to observe them. “We’ve been here for four hours!”
Rickards shook his head. It didn’t matter. He continued behind her, rubbing his jaw. So much for people respecting the native indigenas.
In her hotel room, she closed the door hard behind her and watched Rickards fall into an old vinyl chair next to a small desk.
“Did you get anything from Lopez’s boss?” he asked.
She inhaled. “It didn’t sound like she knew anything more. Or if she did, she wasn’t about to tell me. I had to get off the phone when she started asking questions.”
“What did you say?”
“That I had to go to the bathroom.”
“What?”
“I got nervous. It was the only thing I could think of.”
Rickards leaned back with a hand still on his jaw. “We’re not exactly batting a thousand here.”
“I don’t understand it,” Angela said, pacing. “Nothing is making sense. My grandfather. This thing with Lillian. And now our only link here to the letter is gone? We should have called him before we came.”
“Probably,” Rickards said, his gaze dropping as he pondered. “And you’re right. It’s not making sense.” After a pause, he slowly squinted and spoke quietly to himself. “Are we out of the box?”
“Huh?”
He looked up, not realizing he’d spoken loud enough to be heard. “I said, are we outside the box?”
“What box?”
He sighed and dropped his hand over the arm of the chair. “It’s not making sense. But it should be. Every investigation, no matter what it is, should make more sense as more details are uncovered. Sometimes it takes a while, but eventually, the more you learn, the more comes to light.”
“That doesn’t feel like that’s what’s happening,” Angela replied.
“No, it doesn’t,” agreed Rickards. “Which doesn’t make sense.” He looked up at her. “Which means we need to step outside the box. When nothing feels right, you need to get outside of your presumptions and question them. Question what you assume is correct.”
“Meaning what?”
“For starters, what if the story on Lopez is wrong?”
“As in he didn’t run off?”
“Correct. A man engaged to be married, with some unknown woman?”
“It’s possible.”
“Possible, yes. But is it likely?”
“We don’t even know him.”
“That’s right.” Rickards nodded. “Or his relationship. So all things being equal while making no assumptions about his relationship…is it more likely to be true, or less?”
“You’re the man. You tell me.”
“All things being equal,” Rickards said, “it’s less likely. Most men don’t run off with another woman when they’re engaged.”
“Some do.”
He nodded. “Some do. But on average, most don’t. We’re talking overall.”
“Okay, so…”
“So, what happens if we assume the story is not true?”
“Then I guess the question becomes what happened to him.”
“Which then calls into question another assumption.”
“And that is?”
“Your grandfather’s girlfriend.”
“Lillian?”
“Maybe she’s at her sister’s and maybe she’s not. If she is, how likely would it be for the phones to go out again?”
“There could be a number of reasons.”
“There could. But all things being equal…”
“It does seem coincidental.”
Rickards stared ahead, blinking. “Most seasoned investigators don’t believe in coincidences, Angela. Most believe that what has the appearance of coincidence…is just a string of events that haven’t yet been identified.”
“What are you saying? You think something happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at her phone, sitting on the tall wooden dresser next to the TV. “I’m calling the nursing home.”
But as she began dialing, Rickards suddenly rose from the chair and grabbed her arm. “Wait.”
He moved quickly to the door, opened it and stepped out, pulling her with him.
“What are you doing?”
Rickards stared down at her. “There’s a third assumption that we need to consider.”
“Like what?”
“Exclusivity,” he said. “This entire time we’ve been acting under the assumption that we’re the only ones who know about this. The connection to your grandfather, his brother, and that letter.”
“And your question is?”
“Are we really the only ones?”
Angela didn’t answer. Nor did she move. She merely stared until gradually taking a small step back and curiously looking around. “Why are we in the hallway?”
44
Fernandez, the senior Peruvian intelligence officer, stood before Ottman with a stonelike expression. He was dressed in a pressed white uniform and perfectly polished black shoes, his rank of colonel, a black flap with six small gold bars, displayed prominently on each shoulder and giving a strong,
formidable appearance. Very different from the thoughts that were silently running through his head.
The colonel was also beginning to perspire.
“He is a U.S. federal officer,” he finally said.
“That is correct,” replied Ottman, comfortably seated in one of the apartment’s plush chairs.
“We cannot just make him disappear. He went through customs. He’s now in the system.”
“Only hours ago. Not too late to delete the records.”
“It’s not that easy.” Fernandez shook his head. “I don’t have any control—” The colonel stopped, visibly perturbed.
In the chair, Ottman remained calm. “I did not suggest it was easy.”
“This is not what we talked about. Not part of our agreement. If my involvement is exposed, it won’t matter what country I’m living in.”
The elderly Ottman almost let a grin escape but didn’t. It was something he had seen many times throughout his life. Corruption was an unforgiving mistress. Just a little was easy both to engage and hide. Eventually, though, events unraveled in unexpected ways, causing circumstances to change quickly. Allowing lies and deception to mount and slowly begin to spin out of control. Forcing the perpetrator to finally face and ultimately admit to themselves just how deep down the hole they had gone. And in Fernandez’s case, just how committed he now was.
A single bead of sweat appeared on the colonel’s unblemished, olive-colored forehead. He couldn’t back out. Not without attracting the attention of several other high-ranking officials in the government, and potentially the president himself. Let alone risking an international incident over the disappearance of a federal agent from the most powerful country in the world.
“What has he done?” Fernandez asked.
“It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he knows. If one of them holds the key, it must be seized. At all costs.”
“But you want to seize them without knowing.”
“It’s worth the risk.”
For who? thought the colonel. “His flight information can be tracked from the States. They will know he landed here.”
“But if they cannot verify he went through customs, it leaves many possibilities of what could have happened.”
“What about credit card transactions?”
“We can take care of that,” Ottman replied. If they could drain Lopez’s bank account and plant evidence without anyone noticing, they could change Rickards’ credit card transactions.
Fernandez continued staring at Ottman, or rather the man he still believed was named Bauer, quietly weighing his options.
He was in deep now. Perhaps too deep.
The call came barely fifteen minutes later. Ottman took it while Fernandez was still in the room--and listening.
“Go ahead.”
Fischer’s voice echoed over the tiny speaker. “They’ve left the hotel again. This time in their car.”
“Which direction are they headed?”
“North.”
Ottman peered at the colonel standing near the window. “Toward Alerta.”
“Correct.”
“Can you hear them?”
“Yes,” said Fischer. “The transmitter is working, but it has a one-kilometer range. When we reach the road north, I will need to fall back to avoid detection.”
“What are they saying?”
In his car, Fischer moved the phone from his ear and lowered it down to the small, portable speaker.
“—don’t think so.” It was Rickards’ voice. “If your uncle’s secret is somehow still in this town, why hasn’t Lopez come back yet? It’s only a two-hour drive. If he found something significant, at the very least he would have come back to get some help.”
Angela’s voice was quiet for a moment. “Maybe he’s still looking for it.”
“It feels like there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” Rickards’ voice said. “Starting with what that guy was really searching for.”
“Lopez?”
“No.”
“My uncle?”
“No. The first guy. That British explorer.”
“Percy Fawcett?”
“What was Fawcett actually searching for?”
“I told you.”
“No, you didn’t. I read some of your grandfather’s journals on the plane. His pursuit of trying to understand what happened to his brother. But there was nothing about Fawcett. No mention at all.”
“Because my grandfather didn’t know Fawcett had anything to do with my uncle.”
“That’s right. And when he did, he suddenly gets on an airplane in the middle of a snowstorm,” Rickards said. “So he clearly knew something more about Fawcett.”
“Everyone knows about Percy Fawcett.”
“Then what does everyone think he was looking for?” He cut Angela off as she began to answer. “Not what the history books say. But what other people say.”
There was a pause in the speaker. When Angela answered, her voice was in a lower tone. “They’re just theories.”
“I’m sure they are.”
“Some are…pretty wild.”
“How wild?”
“Like conspiracy theories.”
“I’ve seen a lot of conspiracy theories that turned out to be true.”
“I haven’t. I’m an anthropologist. My job is to follow the facts, not what people wish was true. I’ve lived my life—”
“Spill it!”
The speaker went silent again before she finally answered. “Fawcett said he was looking for the remains of a lost civilization. A place he called ‘Z.’ A civilization most scholars think was too large to exist in such a harsh environment as the Amazon. But Fawcett was convinced it did. And he was looking for its remains.” She paused again. “But some people, other people, think he was looking for Paititi.”
“Excuse me?”
“Paititi,” she repeated.
“And what is that?”
“The lost Incan city. Also known as the Lost City of Gold.”
“Did you say gold?”
“Yes. A lost Incan city buried deep in the Amazon. The same one that was mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book The Lost World. But it’s just a theory.”
“The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?”
“Yes,” Angela said. “He lived around the turn of the nineteenth century.”
There was another pause.
“Wait a minute,” Rickards’ voice sounded. “A writer wrote a book about this lost city over a hundred years ago?”
“A fictional book.”
“And when was our explorer Percy Fawcett searching the jungles of South America?”
“Around the same time.”
“And did these two guys know each other?”
“Yes. They were friends.”
“Jesus,” Rickards moaned. “Don’t you think that was need-to-know information?”
“Everyone knows that Doyle’s book was based on some of Fawcett’s exploits. It’s not particularly controversial.”
“Why not?”
“Because Doyle’s book was fiction,” Angela said. “And because Fawcett was also known to embellish his stories. A lot.”
“Including this Paititi?”
“It’s assumed that Fawcett told Doyle about the legend and Doyle added it to his story. It’s never been found. And believe me, hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have looked for it.”
“You’re sure it’s not real.”
“Believe me,” she said. “It’s not real. People have been searching for it for years. Now they’re even scanning the jungle with things like radar and lidar. And they still haven’t found it.”
Rickards was quiet for a long time. “Okay. I told you I don’t believe in coincidences. So let me ask you something for the sake of being thorough. With you as our resident historian—”
“Anthropologist.”
“Fine. With you as our anthropologist, are you a
ware of any other historical books that were believed to be fiction but turned out to be fact?”
In his car, Fischer could almost hear Angela take a deep breath, prompting him to glance down at the speaker as he drove.
“Actually…yes.” There was a small change in her voice. “With The Iliad. Written by Homer, about the Trojan War. And the city of Troy. Everyone thought it was fiction until someone found Troy’s remains using clues from the book. An Austrian archaeologist, I think. Or maybe German.
Rickards nodded. “Even I know that story.”
“You’re saying that you think Paititi is real. Like Troy was real?”
“No. I’ve known about Paititi for exactly one minute. But I am suggesting that maybe we shouldn’t be ruling anything out.”
“Doyle’s book has been read thousands of times. Millions, probably. If there were real clues as to where Paititi might actually be, people would have discovered it by now.”
Rickards didn’t answer.
“Right?”
“The quote in your uncle’s letter, the one written in German, was from Fawcett’s book.”
“Yes.”
“And Fawcett’s book was not fiction.”
“Correct.”
“Then what did the Germans think they’d found?”
Back in the suite, the two older men continued listening until Ottman ended the call--as soon as Paititi was mentioned. The colonel stood facing him.
He wished Fernandez hadn’t heard that. He had leverage on the man, but people could still be unpredictable.
“We need them in custody,” Ottman said flatly. He tapped a few buttons on this phone to bring up a video, sliding the device forward and pushing Play for Fernandez to watch as a small video clip began playing.
“In case you need another reason.”
45
The drive took less than two hours, by precisely twelve minutes, allowing them to reach the town well before the southern hemisphere’s sunset. A town still in full light and looking almost exactly as he had expected. Much like a small abandoned town in the U.S. would look.
The Last Monument Page 13