Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

“Don’t,” she snapped, in the tone of a first and only warning. Chase got the message. “I’ve had three showers and I still can’t get rid of the smell.” She looked past him at Sophia and lowered her voice. “What’s she doing here?”

Chase took a breath, bracing himself for trouble. “Okay. Nina, you remember Sophia Blackwood, right? Sophia, Nina Wilde?”

“Hello again,” said Sophia politely.

Nina nodded in disinterested acknowledgment before turning back to Chase. “What’s going on?”

“Hector told you that I went to Shanghai to get some IHA files stolen from the rig that sank at Atlantis, right?”

“Yes. He said you thought they were stolen by Richard Yuen.” Nina looked back at Sophia, somewhat accusingly.

“That’s right. The thing is, Sophia’s the one who told me Yuen had the files in the first place. I went to China to get them-and also to rescue her.” “Rescue? From what?”

“My husband’s a very dangerous man,” Sophia said, stepping closer. “I had no idea when I married him, of course, but since then I’ve learned some things about him that I wish I hadn’t.”

“It’s a good job you did, though,” Chase told her. “Otherwise we’d never have found out that our rig was sunk deliberately. And whatever it is he’s up to, he’d have been able to carry on doing it without anyone knowing.”

“So what is he doing?” asked Nina.

Sophia shook her head. “I’m still not entirely sure. All I know is that he apparently had a lot of people killed to get hold of the IHA’s files on the Tomb of Hercules-and from the sound of it, tried to kill you as well.”

“Think I’ll have to have words with him,” Chase rumbled, one fist clenching.

Sophia put a hand on his arm. Nina blinked in surprise at the contact. “Eddie, please don’t rush into anything. You saw how much security my husband had in Shanghai, and now he’ll have even more.”

Chase smiled mirthlessly. “Trust me, it won’t be enough. If I’d known what I know now when you gave me that note, I would have killed the bastard right there on the boat.”

Nina tapped his other arm. “What note?”

“When we were at the party the other night, Sophia stuck a note in my jacket.”

“And why did she give the note to you in the first place?” Nina looked back and forth between Chase and Sophia. “Y’know, I got the impression that there was some hostility between you. Which seems to have completely disappeared now, by the way.” Sophia withdrew her hand.

“Oh boy,” Chase said to himself, before facing Nina. “Okay. Nina. This is the thing. Sophia and I, we know each other because… we used to be married.”

It took a couple of seconds before Nina managed a response. “What?”

“I’ll go and make the tea while you discuss it,” Sophia said, quickly heading for the kettle.

“She’s your ex-wife?” Nina flapped a disbelieving hand after her. “Lady Blackwood, I believe she was introduced as? You were married to-to-to royalty?”

“She’s not royalty!” Chase corrected. “Her dad was a lord, and after he died… Look, I don’t know how it works. I never cared about that side of things!”

“But you didn’t think it was worth mentioning? You know, maybe in passing?”

“What difference does it make? It didn’t work out, we got divorced, I didn’t see her again until the other night. I mean, I don’t ask you about all your past boyfriends.”

“Those were boyfriends , Eddie. Not husbands . There is a difference. Especially when your ex is a member of the English aristocracy!”

“God!” Chase rubbed his forehead, exasperated. “Okay, you want to know one reason why I never talked about it? In case exactly this happened! You Yanks, you keep going on about how great it was that you kicked out the Brits and now everybody’s equal and all that, but one whiff of a title and you start cringing and fawning like you’re still part of the bloody colonies!”

“We do not!” Nina protested.

“But I bet you’re already comparing yourself to her, aren’t you? You’re thinking ‘She’s Lady Blackwood, not Ms . Blackwood or Dr . Blackwood,’ like that automatically means she’s better than you.”

“She is standing right here,” said Sophia in a chilly tone as she poured the tea.

Chase ignored her, looking deep into Nina’s eyes. “Tell me honestly that you haven’t been comparing yourself to her, and I’ll admit I was wrong not telling you about us.”

Nina looked away first, drawing her robe more tightly around her. “I need to get dressed,” she said sullenly, retreating into the bedroom and closing the door.

“Fuck,” Chase muttered under his breath.

“I don’t mean to be rude, Eddie,” Sophia offered from across the room, “but you really haven’t gotten any better at defusing arguments since we were married.”

“Shut up. Sorry,” he added after a moment. “Christ! Why the hell didn’t I tell her? She already knew I’d been married before, so why didn’t I just get the whole thing out into the open?” He slumped heavily onto the couch.

Sophia came out from behind the counter, bearing two cups of tea. She placed one on the table in front of him. “Because you never expected it to become an issue. This whole thing is my fault. I’m sorry.”

Chase gave her a look as she sat next to him. “Well, that’s something you’ve gotten better at since we were married. You, apologizing?”

“A lot of things have changed since then,” she said, sounding sad. “Not all of them for the better.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, sipping tea. Then they looked up as Nina emerged from the bedroom. She was dressed in unassuming jeans and a T-shirt, red hair tied back in a ponytail.

“Okay, Eddie,” she said with an all-business air, “we can talk about this later, because right now we have more important things to worry about. Sophia, I apologize if I was rude to you just now.”

“That’s all right,” said Sophia. “I can understand that it must have been something of a shock. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. So.” She sat in an armchair, facing them. “I guess now we need to figure out why your husband is so interested in the Tomb of Hercules.”

The Atlantic at dawn was a beautiful shade of deep, almost iridescent blue far below the 747, but Nina was in no mood to appreciate the view from the porthole. Instead she flicked through the pages of Hermocrates- now sealed in plastic sheets clipped into a binder, a far cry from the solid and heavy Victorian album in which they had formerly been preserved-and checked her notes as she tried to ignore the conversation taking place on the opposite side of the first-class cabin.

She, Chase and Sophia were the only passengers in the compartment; it seemed that the tourists making up most of the half-filled plane’s passengers were already spending so much on their African safari vacations that the thousands of extra dollars required to go first class were an extravagance too much. They were an extravagance too much for the IHA as well, which had originally only paid for economy tickets to Botswana. Sophia had arranged for the upgrade, one phone call from Nina’s apartment the previous day prompting a replacement black American Express card to arrive via motorcycle courier within hours. Apparently Yuen hadn’t thought to cancel his wife’s credit cards.

Nina was grateful to her for that much at least, as the big reclining seat made working much easier than if she’d been jammed into economy… but she still resented Sophia’s presence. All the more so as she glanced surreptitiously across the cabin. Chase and Sophia were sitting together, talking quietly, easily. From the occasional snippets she could overhear, they were talking about their past.