Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

Mac arched an eyebrow. “He didn’t tell you?”

“He’s very secretive about his past,” she said acidly.

He closed the door behind them, and Nina took a moment to look around. The hall was actually more of an atrium, two floors of balcony landings running around it above them, topped by a pair of beautiful old stained-glass skylights. Like its owner, the house had a crisp, spartan air, the few examples of ornamentation she could see clearly valuable antiques.

Mac ushered them into an adjoining living room. “I used to be Eddie’s commanding officer,” he explained. “Colonel Jim McCrimmon of Her Majesty’s Special Air Service. Retired now, of course. But I still work as a consultant for… certain agencies.”

“He means MI6,” Chase said with a disapproving sneer. “Bunch of tossers.”

Mac chuckled. “Eddie has a very low opinion of the Secret Intelligence Service, I’m afraid. But they’re not all bad-by spook standards, at least. You wouldn’t be here now if some of them hadn’t arranged a black bag flight to get you out of Namibia. Please, take a seat.”

Although there was a sofa in the room, Nina and Chase sat on separate armchairs. Mac noted this with a twitch of his eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “So,” he began, voice becoming more serious, “you both made it in one piece, more or less. Now, perhaps you care to explain why I just pulled an awful lot of strings to get you here?”

Chase did most of the talking, Nina occasionally chipping in to add information, or to correct him. The presence of his former commander seemed to temper his responses to her, though they still had a distinct sarcastic edge. It took some time for the full story to be explained, and when it was, Mac leaned back in his chair with an expression of concern.

“So, this man Yuen has a secret uranium mine…” he rumbled, steepling his fingers.

“And he’s kidnapped Sophia,” Chase reminded him.

“She is his wife. I don’t know if kidnapping is technically the correct term in the circumstances. But it’s the uranium mine that’s the most important issue here.” He frowned. “Though you do realize that I can’t act on what you’ve just told me?”

Chase was confused. “Why not? Just get the U.N. involved, they can send inspectors into the mine-”

“It’s not the mine, Eddie. It’s you! You’ve been accused of assassinating a government minister, for God’s sake! And I fully believe that you’re innocent,” he continued, waving a finger to forestall Chase’s objections, “but I can’t go to the head of SIS with a bizarre story about uranium mines and ancient parchments, and ask him to authorize an investigation when the source of the story is wanted for the murder of a minister of state! The man was even shot with that ridiculous hand cannon of yours!”

“We do have kind of a credibility problem,” Nina was forced to admit.

Chase was undeterred. “It won’t matter once somebody sees that mine. All it’ll take is one piece of uranium ore and Yuen’s up shit creek.” He leaned forward, hands open pleadingly. “Come on, Mac. I’m not asking you to go direct to the prime minister, but I know you can at least nudge things in the right direction. Get someone to check out the mine, and everything’ll snowball from there.”

“Hrmm.” Mac appeared to be agonizing over a decision. “Oh, what the hell,” he finally said. “I’m already in this up to my waist by getting you out of the country. Might as well go all the way to my neck, eh?”

Chase grinned. “That’s the spirit.”

“It could take a few days, though. I used up a lot of favors arranging your extraction, so I’ll need to take a softly, softly approach. But yes, one way or another, we’ll get somebody into that mine, and then we can take a closer look at this Yuen fellow.”

“Great.” Chase sat back. “And speaking of Yuen, I need to use your computer to do some Googling. Sophia told me that after he left Botswana he was going to Switzerland-I’m hoping he stuck to his plan. Once I find out where he is, I can catch him before he leaves with Sophia.”

“Wait, what?” Nina said in surprise. “You’re still going after her?”

His voice turned stony. “I promised I’d help her. I always see the job through.”

“This isn’t your job anymore, Eddie! Let other people handle it.”

“That’s not my style.” Chase stood. “Computer still in the study upstairs, is it?” he asked Mac, who nodded, the subtlest hint of warning in his eyes. Chase ignored it and headed for the door.

“Eddie!” Nina shouted, standing up. “Don’t do this, don’t be stupid!”

He rounded on her, angry. “Oh, is that what you really think of me, Doctor? That I’m stupid?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Nina backtracked, regretting her poor choice of words, but Chase pressed on.

“You think just because I don’t have a bunch of letters after my name that I’m an idiot? This is exactly the sort of crap I’ve been putting up with ever since you let your job title go to your head and started thinking you were better than me. No, I take that back-you always thought you were better than me, you just stopped hiding it!”

“That’s not true!”

“At least I knew where I stood with Sophia,” he growled. They regarded each other in silence for a moment before Chase dismissively turned away.

“Eddie,” Nina said, fighting to maintain a facade of reason and calm, “you work for the IHA now, you’re not a freelancer. What you want to do, it’s got nothing to do with the sinking of the rig or recovering the Hermocrates text. It’s a personal vendetta! You can’t do that, not as a member of the IHA.”

Chase kept his broad back to her for some seconds before he finally half turned, not quite looking at her. “Then I quit,” he said bluntly, and left the room.

Nina stared after him, paralyzed by the turmoil of her emotions. Somehow she knew that Chase hadn’t merely been talking about his job; that he had walked out on her in more than a literal sense. She tried to call after him, but her throat had clenched shut, lips trembling.

She heard Mac stand up behind her, suddenly filled with shame and embarrassment that he had witnessed the fight. “I-I’m sorry,” she managed to whisper.

“No need to apologize,” he said softly. After a moment, he put a reassuring hand on her arm. She looked around, and saw his sympathetic gaze. “I know that Eddie sometimes makes… rash decisions. But he usually comes to his senses.”

“It’s not just him, though,” Nina told him. “He’s not-he wasn’t wrong about me. I did let my job go to my head. I…” Even thinking of the confession was painful, never mind actually giving voice to it. “I stopped being an archaeologist, and started being a bureaucrat. No, worse than that-I started being a politician . It all became about playing power games to get what I wanted. And the worst thing was, I enjoyed it.” She looked away from Mac, drawing in a long breath as a deeper shame demanded admission. “No, the worst thing was…I really did think I was better than Eddie, just because of my job title. I hurt him without even realizing it.” Blinking away tears, she looked back into Mac’s eyes. “Oh my God, I’ve wrecked everything.”

“Perhaps you should tell him,” Mac suggested quietly.

“I can’t. Not when he’s… you know what he’s like. He won’t listen, he’ll just try to twist it so that he can claim victory.”

“Hrmm. Maybe he does need to cool off first,” Mac conceded. He took his hand off Nina, straightening purposefully. “I have a suggestion. You look as though you’ve had rather a rough few days.”