Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  “Oh Pavel, not again!” Maggie said.

  “Her husband, when he found out,” Pavel continued, “reacted very badly. He threatened to kill me, and when I was hit by a jeep that swerved across the road to get me, I knew he was serious.”

  “Are you sure it was the husband driving the jeep?” Sam asked.

  “No, I just assumed it was he.”

  Sam frowned. “If everyone thought you were dead why was Noel Winslow coming here to find you? In fact, now that I think of it, your postcard to him said ‘got your message’ so how���”

  “Noel knew that I was alive. He was the only person who did.”

  “Oh that’s bloody charming, that is,” Maggie declared, stomping over to the bar to pour herself a whisky. “And you couldn’t let your other friends know that you’d just changed your name and gone bush?”

  “I didn’t plan to be in hiding so long, Maggie. But when I got Noel’s telegram about the Hand I thought it best to remain dead, and incognito at Inticancha, until he arrived to explain.”

  Sam ran her hands through her hair and then held her head as she shook it and smiled. “There is one person we haven’t considered at all.”

  “Who?” Maggie asked, returning to her seat at the table.

  “William Sanchez’s idiot son. Whatever happened to him, Pavel?” Sam asked.

  “I have no idea. He returned to Cuzco with the others. I think Jean put him on a plane to his mother in San Francisco. But I remember now, that it was Paolo who took the photograph.”

  “And he would be, what, about 46 or so now?” Sam queried.

  “What an intriguing idea,” Maggie remarked.

  “Far-fetched if you ask me,” Pavel said.

  “Well you’re an expert on all things far-fetched, so you would know,” Maggie laughed.

  “Let’s play with this,” Sam suggested. “Paolo would be about the same age as, say, Enrico Vasquez,” she grinned.

  “And Pablo Escobar,” Maggie laughed.

  “You may be right Maggie,” Sam said, “it’s more likely that an idiot grew up to be an imbecile who can’t organise his own sock drawer���”

  “Without help,” she and Maggie finished in unison.

  “But why would Paolo Sanchez be doing this?” Pavel asked.

  “Greed and revenge, Pavel, they’re two of the oldest and poorest excuses for bad behaviour known to man,” Maggie said. “He might hold you all responsible for his father’s death.”

  “Pah,” Pavel snorted. “It was his father’s own greed that unleashed the vengeance of the huacas. We had nothing to do with William Sanchez’s punishment or death.”

  “But a 10-year-old boy is more likely to blame you,” Maggie stated.

  “Of course, he might have grown up believing he really is the reincarnation of Tupac Amaru,” Sam laughed.

  “I think you two have lost your plots. I am going to bed,” Pavel said, bumping the table as he stood up. “No I’m not. Who is this?” he asked, pointing to the surveillance photos that had slipped out of Sam’s notebook. “I think I know him.”

  “Of course you do, that’s Phineas,” Maggie said. “Marcus Bridger,” she added, when Pavel didn’t seem to recognise the nickname.

  “No not him, him,” Pavel stressed. “The one with the nose too big for his face.”

  “That is Andrew Barstoc. He’s Bridger’s right hand man and my prime suspect,” Sam stated.

  “Barstoc?” Pavel closed his eyes. “Oh, Andy. He was on a dig with us maybe five years ago.”

  “But he’s not an archaeologist or anything,” Sam noted. “He’s a businessman.”

  “You get all types on an archaeological dig, Sam,” Maggie explained. “It’s not just dedicated or loopy scientists like me and Pavel who like spending weeks in the jungle or desert digging things up. Doing a dig is a popular semester break activity for students of everything from history, anthropology and engineering, to psychology or business studies. Then there are the holidaying amateur archaeologists who work the rest of the year as lawyers, teachers or bus drivers.”

  “Was Barstoc part of your new dig at Inticancha?” Sam asked.

  “No. We only started work there, this time around, at the end of 1995.”

  “Well, was anyone from the original dig on the one with Barstoc?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes, Elmer Rockly was there that summer,” Pavel replied. “In fact he and Andy, who was poncy sycophant by the way, spent a lot of time drinking together.”

  “So,” said Sam, “if we return to one of our earlier theories that one of your Guardians may have told some of the other members of the original team, then it’s possible that Rockly then passed the story on to Barstoc. I love it!” she exclaimed. “It’s a classic example of the Six Degrees of Separation, with a straight line from my prime suspect to the Hand of God in four steps.”

  “What?” Pavel asked, as if he thought he’d missed a very important clue.

  Sam laughed. “There’s a play, and a movie, called Six Degrees of Separation in which a theory is proposed that everyone in the world is connected by no more than six associations.”

  “There’s also a silly game called the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon that demonstrates the theory,” Maggie said. “You play by using movies to link any actor in the world to the American actor Kevin Bacon. There’s even a search engine on the internet called the Oracle of Bacon that uses a massive data base to work it out for you. You key-in the name of an actor, no matter how obscure, and the oracle connects that person through other actors to Kevin Bacon in as few steps as possible.”

  “I don’t think this internet is going to help our plan after all,” Pavel moaned. “We don’t even have a computer here and already I’m confused.”

  “I’ll give you an example,” Sam said. “Even though I’ve never met him, there are three degrees of separation between me and Professor Stephen Hawking. This is because I know an actress in Melbourne who is a friend of the English actor Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Picard in Star Trek. Professor Hawking guest starred in one episode of that series.”

  Pavel narrowed his eyes and studied Sam. “Does this three degrees benefit you in any way?”

  Sam shrugged. “I suppose I could call him up, introduce myself as a friend of a friend, and ask him to explain the Big Bang Theory to me in words of less than three syllables.”

  Pavel laughed. “It would be a much better idea to invite him over to put his genius to work on solving our little mystery.”

  “Speaking of our mystery,” Maggie said, “I suggest, Pavel, that you do not leave the hotel again until we all leave on Wednesday. If we really are going ahead with this so-called plan, then we should take a few precautions, especially with Agent 00-Vasquez hanging around. Sam and I can go looking for an internet connection tomorrow, once we work out what rumours we want to start and in whose lap we want to drop them.”

  Cuzco, Peru, Tuesday October 6, 1998

  Sam, who was sharing a large cafe table with three English backpackers and an American couple who were videotaping their lunch, sat drumming her fingers on her leg while she waited for Maggie to show her face in an upstairs window across the street.

  Three and half days of dodging spies or henchmen, or whatever they were that followed them every time they left the hotel, was starting to take its toll on Sam’s nerves. It had been quite a lark at first trying to lose the men that Enrico Vasquez had obviously put in place to tail them. On one occasion they’d taken five buses and two hours to get just half way across town to visit Maggie’s friend Jonathan, who had a computer and modem. And on Sunday they’d caught five separate taxis from the Hotel Royal Inca to the Hotel Royal Inca just for the fun of watching the guy behind them scrambling for the next available taxi each time. Vasquez himself had taken up permanent residence in a restaurant on Plaza Recogijo from where he waved cheerily to them every time they entered or left the hotel, but he made no attempt at contact.

  Pavel meanwhile had been hiding
out, in either his room or theirs, nutting out the finer details of his great plan. Or so he said. Sam suspected it was because he was embarrassed to be seen in public after Maggie had decided on Saturday morning that making Pavel less recognisable, and more respectable, was a good excuse for getting rid of his ‘woolly mammoth look’. She’d insisted he shave off his sideburns and moustache, for the first time in 25 years, and had then attacked his hair with a pair of scissors. He was now almost unrecognisable as Dr Pavel Mercier, but because he thought he looked strange he’d adopted a rather startled expression.

  “Would you like another coffee?” the waiter asked, bringing Sam back to the here and now.

  “Um, yes please,” she replied. The Americans had finished filming their luncheon epic and were getting up to leave, so Sam slid along the bench seat to use the backpackers as cover from the spying eyes in the street. She wondered whether it was time to start worrying about why it was taking Maggie so long just to pick up a parcel. Not that it was safe for her to come out yet. The one person they hadn’t quite managed to shake off their tail was still pacing the crowded street outside looking for them.

  When Sam had first spotted him in the Plaza de Armas five hours before, she had turned away in such surprise and haste that she’d walked straight into a parked car. After Maggie had helped her up off the ground Sam had wanted to confront the ‘known dealer in stolen antiquities’ right there in public, but Maggie had insisted it would be more sensible to lose Mr Fez as soon as possible.

  Easier said than done, Sam thought as she watched him now, emerging from a small hotel up the street. The man was obviously more accomplished at tailing people than any of Vasquez’s cronies were. She and Maggie had thought they’d lost him long before they entered this street but, while they were still trying to figure out which house belonged to Pavel’s expert craftsman, Sam had spotted Mr Fez mingling with a group of tourists. It had taken them another half hour of aimless walking before they cut through a small market and doubled back. So had Mr Fez, eventually, but not until Maggie was inside the house of Miguel Schneider and Sam was staked out in the cafe.

  Sam glanced up at the window opposite and was relieved to see Maggie looking down on her, but she shook her head, held up four fingers and pointed to the front door.

  “Excuse me,” Sam said to backpackers. “Do you think you could all do me a favour?”

  “Maybe,” said the woman, very cautiously.

  “See that guy, in the baggy beige suit, hanging around the front of the little hotel? Well he’s been hassling my friend and me for two days. He bought us a couple of drinks on Sunday night and now he won’t leave us alone. He followed us all the way from our hotel today.”

  “Where’s your friend?” asked the younger of the two men.

  “She’s in that house on the corner over there,” Sam said.

  “What’s she doing in the house?” the woman asked.

  “It belongs to a friend of a friend. She was dropping something off.”

  The woman eyed Sam as if she thought she was a drug runner. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Oh come on, Sandra, be a sport,” the other guy said. “What do you want us to do?” he asked.

  “Well, he’s going in and out of places up and down the street looking for us. If you could just make sure he stays inside somewhere long enough for us to take off, it would be great,” Sam said, noticing that Miguel Schneider had cracked open his front door.

  “Sure, we can do that love,” the young guy said. “Come on.”

  “Thank you,” Sam said, and then called the waiter over and paid for her drinks and their lunch. “It’s the least I can do,” she shrugged when Sandra objected.

  Sam watched as they wandered slowly up the street, waiting for Mr Fez to emerge from a cafe. When he entered the shop next door, the two guys pushed their way in after him and Sandra gave a short nod. Sam raised her hand to Miguel and waved a thank you to Sandra as she dashed across the street to meet Maggie on the corner.

  “Pavel, go pack your stuff. We are leaving,” Maggie ordered, as she and Sam barged into the hotel room.

  “What? Why? Did you get the Hand?”

  “Yes, and we are leaving, now.”

  “But we’re booked on a flight to Lima tomorrow, Maggie.”

  “And Vasquez probably already knows that, so he won’t expect us to leave tonight,” she said.

  Pavel sat down. “My darling, please take a moment to calm yourself. What is the hurry?”

  Sam placed the parcel she was carrying on the table in front of him. “The Turkish bloke who attacked me in Cairo has been following us for the last five hours. It’s time to go home.”

  “But the flights out of Cuzco are always overbooked. We’ll never get on a plane at such short notice,” Pavel said, removing the string from the parcel.

  “Two phone calls and we are out of here,” said Maggie who was already dialling. “Hello Randolph? This is Maggie Tremaine. Fuel up your kite, I’m calling in another debt. We’ll be there in two hours.”

  “Oh no,” Sam wailed, “I’d rather take my chances with Mr Fez.”

  “What is wrong, Sam?” Pavel asked.

  “Randolph P. bloody Fitzwanker, or whatever his name is, was the crazy barnstormer who flew us from Lima last week. We nearly died 53 times on the way here.”

  “It will be dark by the time we leave, Sam,” Maggie said, as she dialled another number. “You won’t see the mountains until we plough into them, and then you won’t care.”

  “Oh lovely,” Pavel sighed with admiration, as he lifted the lid of the wooden box he’d unwrapped. “Miguel has done a fine, fine job. It’s almost as if his work was touched by Inti himself.”

  Sam peered at the replica of the Hand of God. It was indeed beautiful workmanship. Five large golden fingers, each in its own velvet-lined recess, lay in a semi-circle as if the Sun God had rested his hand in the box. “There’s no bracelet,” she noted.

  “The bracelet, though mostly gold, also contains pearls and turquoise,” Pavel explained. “It would have been impossible to make without the real one as a model, and it would have been too expensive to try. Besides part of my plan is to express my belief that the now missing Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet is part of the Hand of God.”

  “This is not real gold is it?” Sam queried, as Maggie joined them at the table.

  “Oh yes,” Pavel said, picking up the thumb, “they have been dipped in real gold. The moulds underneath are of whatever Miguel decided was the most appropriate metal to achieve the correct weight. May I have the real thumb, please my sweet.”

  Maggie undid her shirt and removed the digit from her vest pocket. Pavel laid the replica in her other palm.

  “My goodness,” Maggie exclaimed. “You can hardly tell the difference between them, in appearance or weight.”

  “I don’t suppose either of you have thought about how we are going to get this through customs?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, good point,” Maggie said. “I’ll have to ring and reschedule with Peter.”

  “Who is Peter?” Sam asked. “No, wait, let me guess. He’s probably a friend at the Australian Embassy in Lima.”

  “Very good guess, Sam dear. Now start packing you two.”

  Forty minutes later Pavel, dressed in shorts, a very loud floral shirt, a Panama hat and with a camera around his neck, carried his bags out to the car that waited in front of the Hotel Royal Inca. Vasquez glanced at him with disinterest and then returned his attention to his magazine so Pavel went back into the hotel. He exited again moments later with Sam and Maggie’s packs, which he added to his gear in the boot of the car, before shutting it. He made one more trip inside and, this time carrying a small overnight bag, got into the front passenger seat of the car.

  “Jonathan, nice to see you again,” Pavel said to the driver.

  “Good god, it is you,” Jonathan replied. “It’s nice to see you’re not dead, Pavel, but what on earth happened to your hair?”

 
; “Maggie happened to my hair,” Pavel grunted. “If you would like to pull slowly out from the curb, as if we’re leaving, the ladies will know it’s time to join us.”

  Jonathan did as he was asked and Pavel reached over to open the back door. “Okay, stop,” Pavel said, as he saw Sam and Maggie make their dash from the hotel.

  “Go, go, go,” Maggie said, as she and Sam threw themselves laughing into the back seat and slammed the door. “What’s the super agent doing?” she asked, as the car lurched forward.

  Sam watched Vasquez as he leapt to his feet and gesticulated wildly at his colleagues in a black car, and at his foyer spy who had emerged from the hotel with his hands out as if to say, ‘how was I supposed to know?’

  “Oh, he is pissed off,” Sam said gleefully. “If he was a huaca this plaza would be in ruins now. But he’s marshalling his troops. There’s one car on our tail already, and Vasquez is joining the chase himself in a jeep.”

  “Don’t worry, we can lose them,” Jonathan said. “I’ll head in the opposite direction to the air field too so they won’t have a clue where we’re going.”

  “A long as we get there in one piece,” Pavel said, grabbing the dashboard as Jonathan made a right turn into a very narrow street and then a left into a stream of traffic.

  “Oh yes!” Sam exclaimed, as a screeching of tyres, a cacophony of car horns and the sound of metal being mangled, accompanied her view of the black pursuit car’s collision with a stationary truck. “One down, but Vasquez is still back there.”

  “How far back?” Jonathan asked.

  “About five cars, and taking every dangerous opportunity to close the gap.”

  “Okay, I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Hang on, everyone. And Sam, you tell me the moment he’s out of sight.” Jonathan swung the car through an intersection, and took the first street on the right.

  “Can’t see him,” Sam said.

  “Good.” Jonathan swerved into a narrow street on the left and then turned sharply through an open gate into a small vacant block where he spun the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes. The car came to a rest, facing the gateway, with Pavel still howling in fear.