Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  GOLDEN RELIC

  by

  LINDY CAMERON

  BLURB

  Chapter One

  Melbourne, Wednesday September 16, 1998

  The hands tore at Lloyd Marsden’s flesh with a surprising savagery. It was hardly fair, he thought, that in his last moments of life he was also being tormented by a gathering of avenging gods.

  He stared, unblinking, at the carved stone feet of Toltac, noticing for the first time how disproportionate the toenails were. They were all he could see from where he lay on his workroom floor; just the feet, surrounded by little dust balls that rolled slightly with each laboured breath he took.

  He was going to die, a relic among relics. The fingers of monsters scraped at his throat while the Furies flapped and screeched in the darkness at the edge of his life. It occurred to Lloyd, however, that at least one of the hands striking at him had been human. Was this the price for refusing to accept that things must change; the punishment for not going quietly into the future?

  No, this was history. This was ‘punishment for all the desecrations’- that’s what the chanting, spiteful voices were saying. Anubis, curling his jackal-lips into a snarl, poked at Lloyd’s chest as if he had nothing better to do; the three-jawed hound of hell drooled and clawed at his paralysed feet; and Quetzalcoatl, crouching behind, removed Lloyd’s spine with his fingernails.

  When the ‘destroyer’ in his necklace of skulls hovered above him, Lloyd recognised the poisonous hallucinations for what they were - this Hindu apparition was proof of that. “I’ve never even been to India!” his mind screamed. Shiva vanished, to be replaced by the Sun God who smiled sadly down on Professor Lloyd Marsden, waved his tormentors away, then melted into the dark and dust.

  Desecrations indeed! Lloyd thought. How ridiculous! He made a curse of his own - on a dead old friend and his bloody curse and visions. Lloyd still had the pen in his hand but couldn’t remember whether he’d written the words, or whether he cared anymore.

  Charon stood over him, offering his hand. “That’s more like it,” Lloyd thought. An experienced guide to the next world was just what he needed right now. In his mind he fumbled for a coin, hoping Muu-Muu would take care of things here for him.

  Paris, Wednesday September 16, 1998

  Pablo Escobar was seething. It was making him sweat and causing a severe irritation in his left armpit that he could not attend to in this polite company. Polite? He glanced around the negotiating table. Nobody had been listening to him; nobody ever listened to him. Hell, half the time nobody even noticed him. He could swing from the light fitting and these people wouldn’t even acknowledge that he’d got up from his chair. Still, he didn’t scratch; that would have been bad manners. He banged on the table instead.

  “Excuse me, but I am losing my patience over this issue.”

  “Dr Escobar,” said the dragon lady on his left, “I think if you were to consult a dictionary for the precise definition of that word you would find that you can’t lose what you’ve never been known to have.”

  Escobar stared at the so-called ‘mediator’ for a moment, while he replayed her statement in his mind to make sure it had in fact been an insult, before he insulted her in return.

  “Dr Tremaine,” he stated softly, “the only reason you are here is because the right man for the job is sadly no longer with us.”

  “Dr Escobar, the only reason I am here is because I’m being paid, and not nearly enough as it turns out, to help you, Professor Jorge and your respective museums sort this mess out once and for all. And we all know that had Dr Mercier been alive to deal with this situation, he wouldn’t put up with your nonsense any more than I plan to. And would you please stop scratching. It’s very hard to hold a serious conversation with someone who can’t sit still.”

  Escobar, mortified, sat on his hands and didn’t say a word for ten minutes.

  Dr Maggie Tremaine glared at Pierre Dessalines, the man who had talked her into this job, and silently swore that she would never again allow money to influence her better judgement; she should have stayed at home.

  Professor Benjamin Jorge, Director of the Archaeological Museum in Santiago, Chile, sat forward eagerly and made the most of Escobar’s silence to reiterate his position, and that of his institution and indeed his government, on the rightful ownership of the ‘famous’ Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet.

  “Would you agree,” Maggie interrupted him, “that it is only famous because of the dispute between your governments?”

  “I don’t follow,” Jorge stated. Escobar opened his mouth and closed it again.

  “The artefact in dispute is a bracelet, quite beautiful and valuable in its own right, but just a bracelet,” Maggie said. “Melt down the gold and sell the gems, you might be able to put a down payment on a new car. As a cultural artefact, however, it is priceless. But famous? I don’t think so. Everybody knows about it because of your dispute, but even you, and I’m talking to both of you now, cannot agree on when or where or even why it was made. The only thing you do agree on is that it is genuine Inca jewellery. But it is still just a bracelet.” Maggie gave a palms-up shrug as she looked from one man to the other. “It has no other significance, does it?” she added.

  Jorge and Escobar exchanged guarded glances before returning their puzzled attention to Maggie.

  “If it has no significance, why are we here?” Maggie asked.

  “We are here Dr Tremaine because that Peruvian weasel over there,” Jorge said, waving dismissively at Escobar, “thinks he can use against us our generosity in lending the Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet to the exhibition of Monsieur Dessalines here at the Paris Museum. Escobar believes that because our bracelet is about to go on display in neutral territory that he can make a case in this international arena to steal it from us - with your blessing. When it sits at home in its glass case in Santiago he can deal with no one but me, my institution and my government. In Paris he thinks he has the chance to create an incident.”

  “Create an incident?” Maggie repeated. “Don’t you mean open a debate?”

  Professor Jorge ran his fingers through his moustache thoughtfully. “It depends on where you are sitting.”

  “Would you like to comment on this, Dr Escobar?” Maggie asked.

  Escobar cleared his throat. He would like to have used his hands for emphasis but he was still sitting on them. “The one fact that my esteemed colleague continues to ignore,” he said, “is that this is an Inca relic. It belongs to Peru. It is part of our cultural heritage.”

  “It is as much our heritage as yours, Escobar,” Jorge stated. “The border that has divided us for the last 70 years is not even the same one which separated us 120 years ago, and further back when Tahuantinsuyu, the Inca Empire, was at its height there was no Chile or Peru. The northern reaches of what is now my country were part of that Empire, and therefore we share that heritage.”

  “So the borders have changed,” Escobar shrugged. “They can change again.”

  Jorge gave Maggie an I told you so look. “Would you call a not-so-veiled threat to our borders a debate or an incident?”

  Maggie closed her eyes for a moment and then said, “I think I would call a ten minute recess.”

  Jorge and Escobar left the room together in silence, but as soon as the door closed behind them Maggie could tell that their heated conversation in Spanish had a lot more to do with animal husbandry than any kind of professional discourse or attempt at diplomacy.

  Maggie put her head down on the table and took a breath before sitting up and shaking her head at Pierre Dessalines. “This is intolerable,” she said. “I realise the need for a mediator to stop Escobar and Jorge from throttling each other and causing some kind of ‘incident’, but quite honestly I’m going to need a Va
lium or something or I might just strangle that Escobar myself.” Maggie smiled and added, “With my own bare hands and a great deal of enjoyment.”

  “I am sorry, Maggie,” Pierre said. “I have on three occasions stopped myself from throwing Dr Escobar in the Seine. Even Professor Jorge is becoming a little tiresome. That is why I asked you to come. I thought you would be the best person to handle this.”

  Maggie waved her hands at nothing in particular. “I probably am, Pierre,” she said. “It’s just that, apart from the fact that Escobar is so irritating, I can’t understand why the Director of his Museum in Cuzco has delegated this job to him. If the Peruvian’s really are serious about claiming this relic as their own, why isn’t Emilio himself here arguing this rather dubious case, rather than entrusting it to his most inept assistant?”

  “It is Escobar’s grail. To him it is personal.”

  “But he has no case. And when the personal becomes political it also becomes dangerous. We have to convince him of that. Or more sensibly we have to inform Emilio of the danger, so that he will recall Escobar and end this nonsense.”

  When the two rivals returned to the conference room Escobar took up his argument at almost the same point, as if there had been no recess or verbal fracas in the hallway outside.

  “I return to Professor Jorge’s own statement, with which I cannot help but agree,” he said, “that the northern reaches of what is now Chile did form part of Tahuantinsuyu. However, as the relic in question was unearthed in Punta Arenas, so far away from any part of the Empire that it couldn’t have gone any further south without crossing the ocean and turning up in Antarctica, one can only assume that it was stolen. It therefore belongs to Peru.”

  Maggie felt a tension headache crawling across the top of her head and pressing on her eyebrows. Pierre excused himself from the table, with obvious relief, to attend to his assistant who had entered the room.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t follow your logic, Dr Escobar,” Maggie said, as politely as possible. “Who do you think stole it?”

  Escobar flung out his hands. “Who knows? Probably a conquistador four centuries ago, but maybe it was the German tourist caught trying to smuggle it out of Chile ten years ago. He claims he stole it from a little museum in Punta Arenas; but he was a thief, that makes it likely he was a liar. He could just as easily have taken it from a house in Cuzco, Lima or anywhere else in Peru.”

  “Or Santiago in Chile, or Sydney, Australia for that matter,” Maggie stated, quite baffled at what passed for sound argument in Escobar’s little corner of the universe. “I can’t imagine why the thief would lie about where he found the bracelet unless��� oh, of course, he was trying to sabotage your claim to ownership.”

  Maggie hesitated long enough for Escobar to take a breath before continuing. “Unless you have proof, which you have yet to present, there is no reason not to believe that the German tourist found the bracelet, just as he said, in Punta Arenas - which is in Chile, is it not Dr Escobar?”

  “Yes, but���”

  “There are no buts, Dr Escobar. You have defeated your own argument. It matters not where it was found when you cannot prove where it came from in the first place.”

  Escobar began rifling through the notes in front of him looking for another stand to take, while Jorge grinned triumphantly at Maggie who tried to ignore both of them.

  Maggie pondered, instead, the consummate skill of professional mediators whom, she assumed, managed to remain objective while dealing with opposing points of view. She concluded, however, that they probably only ever dealt with valid disputes between evenly matched sides with justifiable though differing opinions presented by sane people with well-researched arguments. Dr Pablo Escobar would not be found within spitting distance of a negotiation of that kind and, well, she was an archaeologist not a mediator, professional or otherwise, and objectivity was not a concept she normally associated with fools or foolish notions.

  Pierre, his expression a mixture of disbelief and trepidation, returned to the table. “We have a problem,” he stated quietly.

  “Another one?” Maggie asked.

  “The van transporting some of the exhibits for the ‘Pre-Columbian Treasures of the Americas’ exhibition has been hijacked en route from the airport.” Pierre’s statement was met with stony silence. He cleared his throat. “The thieves have acquired an Aztec dagger, a gold Sic��n ceremonial mask, three Toltec figurines and the, em, Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet.”

  Paris, Thursday September 17, 1998

  It was 6.30 am, but even so the airport bar was crowded with passengers, well-wishing families and friends and a bizarre variety of yet-to-be checked in luggage, including a unicycle, a surfboard, and what looked to Maggie like a suitcase-sized stealth bomber wrapped in brown paper.

  Pierre struggled through the throng and handed Maggie a cup of coffee before taking his seat. “What do you suppose an American is doing in Paris with a surfboard?” he asked.

  “Perhaps he thinks he’s in Texas,” Maggie suggested.

  “I don’t think there is surfing in that Paris either,” Pierre stated.

  Maggie shrugged, “Maybe he’s taking my flight to Sydney. Do you really care?”

  “No, but I am trying to���”

  “I am going home, Pierre,” Maggie said, placing her hand affectionately on his arm. “There is absolutely nothing you could say or offer to make me stay, so you may as well say goodbye now. There’s no need to wait till my plane leaves.”

  “But Maggie, we see each other so rarely these days. And I do so enjoy your company,” Pierre said, placing his hand over hers.

  Maggie nearly choked on her coffee. “This tactic is beneath even you, Pierre,” she laughed. “Are you saying that you wish me to stay here and share the flack from this hijacking, help you face the criticism regarding the safety and feasibility of eclectic exhibitions like yours, and deal with the international fallout in general, because you enjoy my company?”

  Pierre shrugged and smiled. “What can I say, Maggie? I���”

  “You can say ‘goodbye Maggie’ - that’s what you can say,” she said.

  “This is a nightmare,” Pierre intoned.

  “That is an understatement, my friend,” Maggie said. “But you don’t really think Jorge is right about Escobar being behind the hijacking?”

  “I doubt it,” Pierre said. “That would mean his demand for a hearing of his case for rightful ownership was a complete charade. His claim on the bracelet, as you say, was dubious but if it was a sham to cover his part in a plot to steal the artefact in question then it didn’t work because Escobar was the first person that Jorge accused.”

  “I agree,” Maggie said, “but only because I find it impossible to imagine Dr Pablo Escobar as a criminal mastermind. I don’t believe anyone could pretend to be that incompetent. Mind you if the real brains behind this operation sent Escobar in as the court jester then he certainly succeeded in creating a diversion.”

  “Merde, merde, merde,” Pierre snarled, uncharacteristically. He shrugged at Maggie’s surprised look. “I don’t have energy for anything else at the moment,” he said.

  “There is one thing you haven’t considered yet,” Maggie said, trying to sound positive. “Maybe this has nothing to do with the Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet - specifically I mean.”

  “I don’t understand,” Pierre said.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, okay, but the Sic��n ceremonial mask that was also hijacked was the one from the London collection wasn’t it?” When Pierre nodded, Maggie continued. “The same mask that Alistair Nash found near Bat��n Grande in the early seventies and agreed to lend to your exhibition just before he died last year?” Pierre nodded again. “What do you think it’s worth?”

  “I have no idea,” Pierre admitted.

  “It’s solid gold,” Maggie reminded him. “It’s worth twenty times what the Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet is worth - both for its intrinsic value and as a cultural artefact. I
mean at least there’s no question about where it came from. So maybe that’s what the thieves were after; or perhaps they were just after what they could get.”

  Pierre looked miserable, so Maggie smiled and said, “of course the field of investigation is much narrower if we limit our, sorry, if you limit your suspicions to Escobar and the bracelet.”

  “Oh Maggie, please stay,” Pierre pleaded. “Your thoughts on this debacle are much clearer than mine.”

  “That’s because, unlike you, I am not accepting responsibility for this debacle.”

  Pierre ran his hand through his hair. “It is my fault, isn’t it?”

  “No Pierre, it is not. But for a while to come it will feel like it is, and you will be the one that everyone blames - except Professor Jorge who will continue to accuse Escobar, even if it turns out the hijack was carried out by soccer hooligans who wanted the van and not its contents.”

  Melbourne, Thursday September 17, 1998

  “You do realise you’re going to miss the Writers’ Festival because of this so-called red tape. Are you listening, Sam?”

  “Yes Jacqui, I’m listening,” Sam lied, dragging her attention away from the acrobats performing a gravity-defying act on the Southbank promenade below, and back to her sister and the remains of their shared platter of anti pasto.

  “I don’t understand why you have to go to Canberra for six weeks to be reassigned to your new job which is here in Melbourne,” Jacqui continued, as she struggled back into her woollen coat. “I take it this is a promotion?”

  “Yes, it’s a promotion,” Sam said, piling a piece of bread with prosciutto and eggplant.

  “Yeah, well, given the nature of bureaucracies like yours, you probably won’t even get a bigger desk let alone a new office. But they’ll drag you all the way to our nation’s capital just to give you a new business card and say: ‘there’s a good little Special Agent, now off you go back to your cubicle, next to the boring Detective Ben Muldoon, and we’ll be in touch soon’. They’re my taxes at work flying you all over the country, you know,” Jacqui stated, wagging her finger.