'The what?' said Zeb.
'Snakes,' said Sister Chantal, calmly. 'Very poisonous small ones you can easily step on if you're not careful.'
'I rest my case,' said Zeb, crossing her arms. 'I'm not going anywhere without an expert jungle guide.'
It seemed that their desperate quest was about to fizzle out before it had even begun. Perhaps this was a sign that he should go home to Lauren and accept whatever was going to happen. He glanced back at Amazonas Tours. A couple stood outside, holding hands. A little girl sat on the man's shoulders, twirling his hair in her fingers. Ross remembered the numerous occasions when Lauren had pointed out similar family units. 'That'll be us one day, Ross,' she'd said. Not any more, he thought. Not if she doesn't recover. Not if the baby dies.
He was about to launch into a speech about how he was going on whether the women joined him or not, when the man in the safari suit stepped into view. He was shorter and stockier than Ross with a clean-shaven ruddy face and immaculately combed hair. He exuded the subtle smell of soap. 'I apologize if I'm intruding,' he said, in a very English accent, 'but I couldn't help overhearing your predicament in Amazonas Tours. I believe I may be able to help.' He extended his hand to Ross. 'The name's Nigel Hackett, and I have a proposal. May I suggest we retire to that bar over there and discuss it?'
27
Nigel Hackett couldn't help himself.
'Please don't do that. Your towel's sucio,' he said to the waiter in the Heladeria Holanda Bar as the waiter placed a bottle of Inca Kola on the table and wiped his glass. Hackett noticed his three potential clients watching him and smiled apologetically. 'I do hate it when they wipe a freshly washed glass with a filthy towel.'
All his life, Nigel Hackett had done everything that was expected of him. As a sickly child, beset by allergies, he had gone out of his way to please his ambitious parents. When they had invested in a first-class education for their precious only child – Holmewood House in Kent, then Charterhouse and a medical degree at Cambridge – he had passed all his exams and met their expectations. He had qualified as a doctor, completed a short service commission in the British Army Medical Corps, then settled down as a GP near Guildford. He married a girl his parents approved of, then did everything to please her: earning enough money and status to give her a comfortable life as the wife of a Home Counties doctor.
Despite his apparent conformity, however, Nigel Hackett harboured a secret. Ever since he was a boy, when the legendary adventurer Matt Lincoln had visited his school to lecture on the lost pre-Incan civilizations of Peru and the Amazon, he had dreamt of becoming an explorer. He wanted to discover the fabled lost city for which Lincoln had searched in vain, the mother megalopolis in the heart of the Amazon Basin from which all South American civilizations sprang. Hackett had told no one of this dream, though. Not until his thirty-first birthday, when his wife had left him for her salsa-dance teacher and broken his heart. Three years ago, he had sold up, paid off his divorce settlement and set up a river-running outfit on the Amazon. The plan was to live on the boat, support himself by ferrying tourists to the great sites and use his spare time to follow his dream: exploring the jungle to discover lost cities – and their gold.
Dreams rarely come true.
Hackett wasn't a natural explorer. His allergies and obsessive fear of dirt were manageable in England – even when he had been in the army – but not in the jungle. The soil made his nose itch and his eyes water. He had to wear thick glasses, rather than contact lenses, to correct his poor eyesight. Though he had made some good contacts and friends, who got him government permits and offered to sell any gold he found without involving the authorities, his river-running business was barely viable. The locals were squeezing him out and he was only surviving by ferrying oil geologists into the jungle and offering himself as their on-board doctor. As for his dream, he had had precious little time to look for any ruins – most of which had been discovered anyway. He had come to Cajamarca in a last-ditch attempt to link up with local tour companies and offer visitors a one-ticket tour of the cloud forest and the Amazon. But none of the tour operators in Cajamarca or nearby Chachapoyas was biting: the status quo suited them just fine.
Hackett needed a change of fortune. Unless he earned some money soon he faced the unthinkable: selling his new boat and the Land Rover to return to the grey skies of England with his tail between his legs. When he had overheard the frustrated trio of travellers in Amazonas Tours – the tall American, the young, disconcertingly attractive red-haired woman and the elegant elderly lady with striking eyes – he had listened.
Introductions made, he smiled at his potential clients, wondering what had brought together a geologist, an academic and a nun. 'So, you want equipment, provisions, transport and a guide?'
'Yes,' said Ross.
'For how long?'
'Up to two months.'
'Two months? That's not going to be cheap.'
'Obviously.'
'All of you are going?'
'Yes,' said the elderly sister, who wore none of the trappings of a nun, save the large crucifix he glimpsed at her neck. She smiled as she sipped her latte. Something about her eyes made Hackett decide against underestimating her.
'But you don't know exactly where you want to go,' he observed.
'Not exactly,' said Ross. 'We know where to start and we've got directions that lead to the river, then into the jungle.'
Hackett's eyes widened. 'Let me guess. You're looking for gold.'
There was a pause as the three glanced at each other. The attractive young woman, Zeb, dipped her finger into some spilt coffee on the table by her cup and licked it off. He shuddered. Had she no idea how many germs she had just ingested? 'Yes,' she said. 'We're treasure hunters.'
'Aren't we all?' he said drily. God, there was one born every minute. 'Don't tell me, someone sold you a map.'
'No,' said Ross.
'You have a map, though, haven't you? Where did you get it? Someone sold it you in Lima, no doubt. Told you it leads to lost treasure, Inca gold.' He laughed. 'I'm warning you, there are thousands of maps flying around and they're all nonsense. I know. I've checked out a few myself.' Hackett studied them again. The bizarre trio didn't resemble the Yank tourists who came, in their loud shirts and ironed denims, for safe adventure. 'Take my advice, my friends, don't waste your time and money. Enjoy Peru. See the amazing Chachapoyan ruins here. Go south to Cuzco and Machu Picchu, travel east to jungle-locked Iquitos, then north to the beach in Máncora. Paint the town red in Lima and go home.'
'Mr Hackett, we don't have a map,' said Ross. 'What we do have is a very old document, written by a Jesuit priest, shortly after Pizarro's conquest of Peru.'
Hackett almost laughed again, but the other man's expression cut through his scepticism. This was no holiday adventurer seeking easy gold. 'Where did you buy it?'
'I didn't buy it,' said the nun, 'but it contains directions and we need your help to follow them.'
'Directions to where?'
'The Jesuit priest accompanied a troop of conquistadors into the jungle.' Her beautiful eyes crinkled in an enigmatic smile. 'To find Eldorado.'
'The fabled city of gold.' An electric surge of excitement rippled through Hackett. 'And he found something?'
The trio nodded.
Hackett sat forward. 'What?'
'That's what we want to check out,' said Ross.
'Can I see the document?'
Sister Chantal handed him a book. Hackett opened it carefully. Its leather binding and yellowed vellum pages appeared authentic. There were some mismatched pages bound into the back but they looked equally old. He turned to the first pages; the directions were in Castilian Spanish and in a cryptic style. He felt three pairs of eyes assessing him. He registered the start point, La Prisión del Rey, and read the first direction. He flicked through the next few pages, digesting as much as he could. After a few minutes he looked up, trying to appear unimpressed. 'Are all the directions in here?'
The nun took the book from him. 'All of them.'
'Do they mean anything to you, Mr Hackett?' asked Zeb.
'I think so,' said Hackett, licking his lips. He wanted to reach for his asthma inhaler, but instead he slowed his breathing to calm his racing heart. Was this yet another pipe dream, more castles in the air? Or, as he was about to give up and go home, was it the real thing?
'Can you, for example, tell us exactly where the quest starts?' asked Ross.
They were testing him now. Hackett checked his watch. Good, it would soon be dark. He rose from his chair and threw some money on to the table to cover the drinks. 'Come with me.' He moved to the door. 'I can do better than tell you where your priest started his quest.' He opened the door and walked out into the dusk. 'A lot better.'
As they followed Hackett across the town square and down a sidestreet to the only Inca building left standing in Cajamarca, Ross had no idea that he, too, was being followed. The small chamber where the Inca emperor had been imprisoned by Pizarro was unremarkable inside, except for what Hackett assured Ross were signs of Inca construction: trapezoidal doorways and niches in the inner walls. It smelt of dust and the past.
'This is it,' said Hackett. 'The tour guides call it El Cuarto del Rescate, the ransom chamber, but your priest was right. This was actually La Prisión del Rey.' He looked Ross in the eye. 'But you already knew that, didn't you? Would you be more impressed if I told you where the first direction leads?'
'Yes,' said Ross. 'I think we would.'
When Hackett led them outside it was dark, and as Ross's eyes settled on a bright star, he tried to remember what the charts in Falcon's notebook had said about the night sky in June. Hackett followed his gaze then said to Sister Chantal, 'Tell me again the first direction in your book.'
She read it aloud: '"With the cross as your guide, march two days to an ancient lost city on the eyebrow of the jungle." '
Hackett smiled. 'Oh, yes, the Eyebrow of the Jungle, La Ceja de la Selva.' He pointed up to the bright star. 'That's your cross – Crux, also known as the Southern Cross.' He flashed a boyish smile. 'But we don't need to follow it because I already know where it leads. The ancient city on the Eyebrow of the Jungle may have been lost when your priest wrote his book, but Juan Crisóstomo found it in 1843. It's called Kuelap.' He pointed to a spotless silver Land Rover parked nearby. 'And it won't take us two days in that.' He smiled at Ross. 'More impressed?'
Ross couldn't suppress a grin. 'A little.'
Hackett indicated the notebook in Sister Chantal's hands. 'From what I read, most of the early directions seem pretty straightforward. The important thing is to find where on the river they lead you. Once you take a boat and head up the Amazon I suspect the clues will be harder to follow. Fortunately, June's the beginning of the drier season and the riverbanks won't be flooded. Most landmarks should be visible.'
Ross couldn't help liking the Englishman. 'Will you help us, then? Can you provide transport, a guide to keep us out of trouble and whatever supplies we need to survive the trip? We'll pay whatever you think is fair.'
For a while Hackett didn't say anything. Then, 'Does anyone else know about this?'
'No.'
'Let's say I get a guide, equip the expedition and come with you. And let's say we do find Eldorado. Do we share everything? I know a man who can sell the gold for us.'
'I don't see why not.' Ross turned to Chantal and Zeb, who nodded. 'The way we see it, a percentage of something is better than all of nothing. We'll split any gold we find four ways. Equal partners.' He and the women extended their hands, which Hackett shook.
'Have you got a good guide?' asked Zeb.
Hackett nodded. 'Juarez helps me with the boat. He's Quechua and knows the Amazon as well as anybody.' He reached into a pocket and brought out an inhaler. 'But this isn't just about gold for me. The area of dense cloud forest is littered with the remains of great pre-Inca civilizations, thousands of years old, and one of the great mysteries is what caused people like the Chachapoyans to live in that high mountain jungle. Where did they come from? Many archaeologists believe that the Chacha migrated overland through the jungles of the Amazon Basin and that the cradle of the continent's civilization, the great metropolis with its massive towers, battlements and plazas, is still out there, hidden in the Amazon rainforest. Some say that could be Eldorado.' Hackett smiled. 'I've wanted to find it for as long as I can remember.'
Ross felt a stab of guilt for allowing him to believe they were looking for Eldorado, then reminded himself that there was probably more chance of finding Hackett's lost city than Falcon's miraculous garden. 'What about the permits everyone keeps talking about?'
Hackett waved a hand dismissively. 'This government doesn't care about preserving its culture, only the money it brings in from tourism. Back in 2003 they granted the oil companies carte blanche access to indigenous ancestral lands throughout almost the entire Peruvian Amazon – and we all know how much the oil industry cares about conservation. If something valuable is out there we'd better find it quick before they destroy it. If it's big enough and valuable enough it might even make the government stop churning up the jungle.'
'When can we leave?' demanded Ross.
'Today's Monday . . . Thursday?'
'No sooner?'
'It'll take a little time to arrange supplies for a month or two.' He pulled out a pad, scribbled some notes, then tore off a sheet and handed it to Ross. 'I'll collect most of what you'll need but here are some personal items you must have in the jungle – sunscreen, sun hats, rucksacks, that kind of thing, if you haven't already got them.'
Ross scanned the list. They had most of the items already, but one surprised him. 'Condoms? I'm married.'
Hackett laughed. 'They're not for sex. They're for the jungle. And buy the smallest you can find – however proud you are of what you've got. The water in the Amazon isn't as warm as you think and you need a nice tight fit.'
'I don't understand.'
'You will, trust me. Where are you staying?'
'El Ingenio.'
'I'll pick you up first thing on Thursday. Before dawn. Say, four thirty? We'll have a long day ahead of us.'
'We'll be waiting,' said Ross, wondering how he was going to fill the time once he'd bought the remaining few items.
From where Marco Bazin stood in the shadows, he didn't need the discreet earphone connected to the directional microphone in his hand. He had heard everything, both in the bar and out on the street. Now he knew when and where Kelly was setting off on his quest, he had time to meet Torino and tell him his plan.
Despite his fatigue, Bazin felt good as he watched Kelly and the others shake hands with the Englishman and go their separate ways. In the sun his olive skin was already losing its sallow pallor, his hair was growing back and he felt strong for the first time in months.
He had been tailing Kelly, the nun and the student with bright red hair all the way from the States, and had let them out of his sight only when they'd checked into their hotel yesterday evening. Then he had wandered around the bars on the seamier side of town, recruiting help.
He preferred to work alone but in the past he'd occasionally brought in jackals and vultures for preparation, back-up and cleanup work. This was one of those occasions, except now he was doing it for a higher purpose.
'Is the notebook a treasure map?'
Bazin stepped out of the alleyway, adjusted his Panama hat and turned to the man beside him. The Peruvian's greedy eyes gleamed like jet. 'Let me worry about the book, Raul. You worry about getting the equipment, guns and men. You can have them by Wednesday noon?'
'Sí. You will pay the men how much, señor?'
'What we agreed. No more, no less.'
The Source Page 13