Andy Mcdermott - Temple of the Gods

‘God knows what,’ Larry said huffily. ‘He shows up out of the blue, starts ranting on at me, and then pow ! Smacks me in the mouth.’

Nina raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Ranting? About what?’

‘About some friend of his who’d died.’

‘Do you mean Mac? Jim McCrimmon?’

‘Yeah, him. He blamed me for it, for God knows what reason.’

She gave him a deeply suspicious look. ‘And why would Eddie do that? Was it anything to do with when he met you in Bogotá?’

Larry said nothing, but Julie rounded on him. ‘Wait, you met Eddie in Colombia? You didn’t tell me about that!’

‘I’m sure I mentioned it,’ Larry said uncomfortably.

Scowling, the blonde turned away from her husband to address Nina. ‘I’m trying to remember what Eddie said — I’m sorry, I was so surprised to see him, and the whole thing happened so fast, I didn’t really get it all. But he said…’ Her frown deepened with the effort of mental dredging. ‘He said Larry talked to someone about you, about El Dorado — and then this guy turned up there.’

‘Stikes?’ Nina suggested.

‘Yes, that’s it! Stikes.’

Now it was Nina’s turn to round on Larry. ‘You talked to Stikes ? About me?’

‘He was a client of mine,’ Larry replied defensively.

‘He was what ?’ The last word came out as an angry yelp, drawing the attention of other diners. She dropped her voice to a furious whisper. ‘You were working for Alexander goddamn Stikes?’

‘I told Edward the same thing I’m going to tell you,’ said Larry, bristling. ‘He was just a client who asked me to arrange the shipping of some goods on behalf of his clients. His company was a legitimate British business, and none of the goods were illegal or on any international watch lists. So I did nothing wrong.’ He slapped both hands down on the table for emphasis. ‘ Nothing .’

Nina was already putting the pieces together, and not liking the picture they formed. ‘And these clients of his: they wouldn’t have been General Salbatore Callas and Francisco de Quesada, would they?’

The answer emerged with considerable reluctance. ‘Yes.’

‘A murderer who tried to overthrow the Venezuelan president, and a drug lord?’

‘What they do for a living isn’t my business,’ Larry protested. ‘Do postmen carry out background checks before they give someone their mail?’

‘Postmen don’t pick and choose who they deliver to,’ Nina countered. ‘You do.’ She thought for a moment, still fuming. ‘I didn’t know about any of this — but Eddie must have, before he saw you in Bogotá. What happened?’

The waiter reappeared. ‘Not now,’ Larry snapped, before continuing with bad grace: ‘All right, yes, I made a delivery to de Quesada in Colombia.’

‘Let me guess,’ Nina cut in. ‘Two Inca artefacts, one of which was made of solid gold and weighed about two tons?’

‘It was a hell of a job to transport, let me tell you,’ said Larry almost with pride, before the glares of the two women reminded him to stick to the point. ‘But I made the delivery and de Quesada was impressed at how quickly I’d arranged everything, so I gave him my card in case he might put any future work my way. But I didn’t think any more of it — until Edward turned up at my hotel. With my business card. He threatened that if I didn’t give my entire fee to charity, he was going to turn the card — with my fingerprints on it, obviously — over to Interpol and have me implicated in whatever the hell was going on.’

‘That would be murder, robbery, an attempted coup and drug smuggling,’ Nina reminded him. ‘Just to start with.’

‘None of which had anything to do with me! But do you have any idea how much being accused of involvement in that sort of thing could damage my business? Obviously I was worried — and I don’t take threats lying down, especially not from my own son. So I called Stikes to see if there was anything he could do to fix the situation.’

‘And… what? You told him that we were searching for El Dorado in Peru?’

A pause, Larry choosing his words with care. ‘It came up,’ he admitted. ‘Stikes asked about you — I didn’t think anything of it,’ he said defensively as Nina’s look darkened. ‘He wanted to know where you were. I assumed it was because he might want to straighten things out with you.’

While for the most part Larry did not resemble his son physically, being taller and thinner-faced, their eyes were all but identical, and Nina knew one of Eddie’s subtle expressions well enough to recognise the same on his father: he was dissembling.

‘But you must have known that Eddie and Stikes weren’t exactly old army buddies.’

‘Not until Edward told me,’ Larry insisted. ‘When Stikes first contacted me, he said he was actually a friend of his, and that Edward had recommended me to him for a job.’

‘And you believed him? After what happened when we had dinner at your house?’

‘I thought that maybe Edward was trying to apologise by sending me a potential client. Clearly I was wrong.’

‘But after Eddie told you, you still spoke to Stikes anyway?’ Nina’s voice became accusing. ‘Did you think that he might, I don’t know, make your problem go away ?’

It took Julie a moment to realise what she was implying, and when Nina’s veiled meaning struck her she gasped. Larry, on the other hand, got it immediately; the reason for his delayed response was pure outrage. ‘Of course that’s not what I thought,’ he said in a low growl. ‘That’s just — Christ, no, that’s not it at all! I can’t believe you’d even—’

Nina’s own anger was rising. ‘That’s what happened, though. People died in Peru, Larry, a lot of people — because you told Stikes that I was there. Eddie’s friend — my friend too — was killed. Murdered.’ She rose from her seat, once again attracting the attention of other diners, but ignoring them. ‘So now do you know why Eddie was so mad at you? It was your fault , Larry! If you hadn’t called Stikes in order to cover your own ass, all those people would still be alive!’

‘But how could I know ?’ Larry cried, the words somewhere between a demand and a plea. ‘I had no idea any of that would happen!’

‘Well, of course you didn’t. Because that would have meant thinking beyond yourself, wouldn’t it?’ She shoved back her chair. ‘Julie, every time we’ve met dinner’s ended in an argument. I’m sorry, it’s not your fault. But you, Larry…’ She gave him a look of utter disgust. ‘What you’ve done, it’s… unforgivable.’ Without a further word, she turned and walked away.

Julie blushed crimson under the eyes of the other patrons, leaving Larry to shift awkwardly in his seat. The waiter hesitantly returned. ‘I, er, think we’ll call it a night,’ the Englishman told him, tossing a couple of bills on the table. Julie was already on her feet as Larry stood up to leave.

Nina emerged from the elevator and made her way to the IHA’s offices, still angry about what she had learned the previous evening. All the deaths at El Dorado, the destruction of a priceless archaeological site… everything had happened because of Larry Chase. A few words to the wrong person had ended dozens of lives. And for what? Nothing more than money. The mere thought stoked her fury once more.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Lola Gianetti from the water cooler.

Nina stopped. ‘Uh-oh what? What is it?’ She gave Lola a worried look; her assistant was seven months pregnant and, judging from the size of her bump, the baby was impatient to leave its increasingly cramped accommodation. ‘Was it a kick? Or a contraction? It wasn’t a contraction, was it?’