Will Adams - The Eden Legacy

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Boris came a little way inside the basement. ‘Ilya Nergadze is dying,’ he said. ‘Sandro’s boss now. He knows what kind of person Mikhail was, what he did to your fiancee. He doesn’t blame you for what you did. He just wants to move on, restore his family’s reputation and strength. But your Black Sea survey has got him spooked. I’m sure you can understand that. He sent me to talk to you, get your word you’ll drop it. Do that, you’ll never hear from any of us again.’

Knox hesitated. Boris’s story sounded plausible enough. Rumours had been swirling that Ilya was sick; and while Sandro was no saint, he was known as a pragmatist. And, as Boris said, if they wanted him dead, he’d be dead already. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You can tell Sandro he has my word.’

Boris smiled. ‘I think he’d rather hear it from you yourself.’

‘How do you mean?’ frowned Knox. ‘Is he here?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Boris, nodding at the steps. ‘We’re going to go talk to him right now.’

Rebecca went back into the Internet cafe for her recharged mobile, took it over to the computer, which still had MGS’s website up. On a whim as much as anything, she punched in its telephone number. A young woman answered, her voice bright and keen to please. ‘Good morning, MGS Salvage,’ she said. ‘How may I help you?’

‘Daniel Richardson, please,’ said Rebecca.

‘I’m sorry. Daniel’s out of the country at the moment.’

‘Where?’

A first small hesitation. ‘Let me put you through to Frank. Frank deals with Daniel’s work while Daniel’s away.’ Silence for twenty seconds or so, then a man picked up. ‘This is Frank. Who’s calling?’

‘My name’s Cecilia,’ said Rebecca, putting on a breezy airhead voice. ‘I’m a friend of Danny’s.’

‘Danny’s?’ He sounded like he was picking up dogshit with his teeth.

‘He promised to call last week but I haven’t heard a word.’

‘He’s away.’

‘When’s he back?’

‘Why d’you want to know?’

‘It’s personal.’

‘Why don’t you try him on his mobile?’

‘I lost the number.’

Frank laughed. ‘Sure you did, love.’

She dropped the phoney voice. ‘So what’s the deal with the Eden Reserve?’ she asked. ‘Are you doing a job there?’

Silence from Frank. When he spoke again, his tone was markedly different. Hard, shrewd and a little bit disquieted. ‘Who is this? I want your name. I want your full name now.’

‘It’s the Winterton, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’ve found the silver.’

‘Who the fuck is this? Are you a journalist?’

‘You have, haven’t you? You’ve found the silver.’

‘I’m warning you, if one word of this leaks-’

She killed the call. A muscle began going crazy along the line of her jaw. So Daniel hadn’t come here looking for the silver. He’d already found it. No. Scratch that. Adam and Emilia had found it. That was surely the only way to explain the involvement of the Landseer Trust. They’d found the silver and had taken advantage of MGS doing a job just up the coast to ask them to come here afterwards. And then Landseer had emailed Daniel to let him know her father and sister had gone missing, and he’d headed straight on down. But with what purpose? Had he come to help find them, or to take advantage of their absence to plunder the silver? She recalled, a little hollowly, how quickly he’d accepted Titch’s suggestion last night that he go back to Eden. She settled her bill and went out, trying to put Daniel out of her mind, focus back on the important stuff, on her father and Emilia, the kidnap and the ransom. But another part of her brain was whirring independently away. The Winterton’s lost silver, her father’s investments, the hotel group’s interest in Eden-all these millions swirling around, yet the only people playing for small stakes here were the kidnappers.

She stopped walking abruptly, sensing the outline of a larger picture, wanting to give it the chance to reveal itself. Mustafa coveted Eden; the kidnap had given him the opportunity to win it. But had that been just pure chance, or was there more to it than that? Was it possible, in short, that Mustafa had been behind the kidnap himself, that he’d planned the whole enterprise simply to get her to sign Eden away? The more she thought about it, the more plausible it became. Even Mustafa’s trip to Ilakaka made sense as a pantomime designed to make her late and so panic her into signing whatever he put in front of her without first reading it; and also to give him credibility should she grow suspicious and try to contest the contract in court. Meanwhile, he’d get to own Eden for a fraction of its true worth. No, for nothing. After all, if she’d left the money beneath the tamarind tree, as instructed, he’d have been able to pick it up at his leisure, and have the contract granting him Eden too. But he’d only get Eden if first it was hers outright. And for that to be the case…

Her heart seemed to stop on her. She gave a cry of anguish and ran to her new Toyota.

Boris kept Knox closely covered as he marched him upstairs. The way he was behaving, it was like he’d bought his cover story, but he knew better than to take this man for granted. They reached the boathouse doorway, where he’d left his laptop case. He talked Knox through how to set the IP terminal up in line of sight to the satellite, then hook it up to the laptop. When he was done, he made Knox put his hands behind him so that he could bind his wrists with flexi-cuffs. ‘What the hell’s that for?’ asked Knox.

‘Peace of mind,’ Boris told him. He placed the laptop on the work-table, opened it up, established a broadband connection, called Georgia, carried out the security protocols. This wasn’t his usual time-slot; it took over a minute for Sandro to appear. ‘I’ve got someone for you,’ Boris told him, pulling Knox into shot.

Sandro leaned forward, squinted at his screen. ‘Daniel Knox?’ he asked.

‘It’s me,’ said Knox.

‘See?’ said Boris.

Sandro ignored him, addressed Knox instead. ‘You’re planning a salvage project off our coast, I believe,’ he said.

‘Not any more,’ Knox told him. ‘I’ve called it off.’

‘And why should I believe that? You’ve effectively just admitted you were coming after us.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Knox. ‘I was coming after you. I was coming after you because you sent your fucking son to Greece where he murdered my fiancee in cold blood; and then put a price on my head and turned me into a fugitive. I couldn’t even visit Gaille’s grave; I couldn’t even mourn.’ He seemed to catch the anger rising in himself; he took a long breath. ‘But it’s over. It was over before this. I’ve got more important things in my life now than your family.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as none of your business.’

‘So you’ll give me your word, then? If we leave you alone, you’ll leave us alone?’

‘Yes. I give you my word.’

‘What is this?’ demanded Boris in Georgian.

‘We’re going to let him go.’

‘But your father told me to-’

‘My father is dead, Boris. He died early this morning.’

Boris went numb. ‘We had a deal.’

‘That deal was with my father. My-’

‘It was with you both. It was with the both of you.’

‘My father is dead. I am now head of the Nergadze family. The deal is off. My decision on this is final.’

‘You can’t do this.’

‘I promised you one hundred thousand euros for finding Mr Knox. You have found Mr Knox. I will pay you your fee in full. On your return, so long as Mr Knox remains unharmed, I will also authorise a bonus for-’