The Inca Prophecy (34 page)

‘It would be fun lying on a beach in the Caribbean, too!’

‘At the end of this, we’ll go diving in the Bahamas, I promise.’

‘I’m keeping a tally of these promises of yours, and I’ll hold you
to that one too. Although with my luck, we’ll be searching for those ruins of Atlantis off the island of Bimini.’

‘Excellent idea! One skull recovered, two to go.’ O’Connor grinned as he carefully lifted the crystal skull from its niche and placed it in the felt-lined box that sat on the floor of the vault. But no sooner had he secured the skull than a dull, wailing noise reached the depths of the vault.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ Aleta’s pulse started to race.

‘It’s nothing to do with the skull. My guess is they’ve found the body in the boatshed, which might make things a tad awkward. Are you sure you’re comfortable with that thing?’ O’Connor asked, looking at the Socimi Aleta had slung over her wetsuit.

‘You stick to your Glock,’ Aleta responded, more confidently than she felt.

O’Connor led the way back down to the boatshed, his rubber booties silent on the stone steps. But when they reached the heavy wooden door, a shaft of light came from underneath it.

‘Get down,’ O’Connor hissed, reaching up for the old cast-iron handle. He eased the door open and was immediately met with a burst of machine-gun fire from two guards at the top of the far steps. O’Connor squeezed off two rounds instinctively, and both guards tumbled into the water. The noise had been enough to wake the dead, but all those hours on the CIA pistol ranges had been worth it, he thought grimly, as he grabbed the rope handle on the crystal skull box.

‘We’ll take the boat, it’s quicker!’ he yelled to Aleta. Pistol in one hand and the skull box in the other, O’Connor doubled along the ledge, flicked the motorboat’s mooring hawser off the wooden
bollard and lowered the skull box on to the rear seat of the craft. By the time he had the key in the ignition, Aleta was alongside him. Another burst of machine-gun fire crackled over their heads as the boat’s massive twin V8 Cadillac engines burst into life.

Aleta fired two bursts in quick succession and two more guards tumbled into the dark but bloodied waters. O’Connor scraped the boat against the stone wall, putting a long gash in the polished mahogany as they roared out of the marina.

‘Hang on!’ he yelled as more bullets crackled overhead. ‘And hold fire. We’ll use the darkness.’ Orange flashes of light were giving a clear indication of their attackers’ positions along the villa’s stone balustrades. The operator of the searchlight was frantically trying to get a fix on the speedboat and O’Connor spun the helm back and forth, zigzagging like a Second World War destroyer avoiding torpedoes. Suddenly, another burst of fire crackled past the port side, but this time it was coming from the lake. Another speedboat was powering towards them from the opposite shore. Beyond the range of the gunfire from the villa, O’Connor spun the helm briskly. The superbly engineered boat turned on a dime and roared away from their attackers towards the marina at Sala Comacina, to the south of Ossuccio. But the other speedboat was powerful too, and well piloted. The boats were evenly matched as they roared across the lake at 35 knots, but Felici’s machine planed the better of the two and the bouncing ride was putting astray the aim of those behind. On the shore, sirens could be heard: the reports of gunfire had reached the local police.

‘Fire when I turn!’ O’Connor yelled as the marina came in sight. He veered closer to the shore and his pursuers came with him.
O’Connor spun the helm and the boat turned in its own length, gathering speed as it raced towards the attacking boat. Aleta’s short, sharp bursts of fire found their mark, ripping chunks of mahogany from the hull of the other boat, shattering the windscreen and taking out the helmsman. Aleta gunned down the other assassin as the boat roared past, out of control, slamming across three luxury cruisers in a massive explosion of flames and smoke.

O’Connor continued to the east, seeking the darkness across the other side of the lake, and he cut the power to a slow, less audible cruise, before turning back to the west. Argegno was relatively quiet; all the action was further north. Every available police car had descended on the villa and the Sala Comacina marina, which was blazing fiercely. O’Connor grinned to himself as he steered towards a small beach to the north of the Argegno marina. Felici would be furious. Wiley would be apoplectic.

The boat crunched on the pebbles and O’Connor and Aleta leapt out. O’Connor’s meticulous planning had not gone to waste. Their Audi was only a short distance away, and twenty minutes later, they were headed south on the twisting, turning SS340.

‘Are you okay?’ O’Connor asked. When they reached the A9, he turned right instead of left, waiting for Aleta’s answer.

Aleta struggled with her emotions. Firing weapons at a pistol club had been one thing, but using them in anger was quite another. Yet, she reasoned, Felici’s guards were trained assassins, and it was them or her, and she forced herself to relax. ‘You’re going west?’ she asked, dodging the question.

O’Connor nodded. ‘I’m not sure if Felici will want to get involved, particularly when he’s tied up with the Pope’s funeral and
the conclave, but he’ll try to get our description to the Italian police. The Swiss border’s less than five kilometres away, and if we can make it across, that might buy us a little time. I’m figuring we’ll be able to get out through Kloten, in Zurich, with our new passports from the Israelis. They’re in the false bottom of my bag.’

‘This will make the third change of identity since I’ve known you! Will the real Aleta Weizman please stand up,’ she said, as she released the slim file from the hidden compartment in O’Connor’s luggage. ‘What’s it to be this time, sir? Musician or banker?’

‘We’re going into Switzerland, so banker sounds fine. Yours is the personal secretary.’

‘Don’t push your luck,’ said Aleta, as the lights of the border crossing at Como Nord loomed in the distance.

The light-hearted banter helped to relieve the tension, but she could feel her pulse racing again as O’Connor rolled to a stop in one of the crossing lanes.

Chapter 41

Aleta need not have worried. No official descriptions had yet been circulated, and since Switzerland was part of the Schengen zone, the attractive Swiss border guard was relaxed about entry. O’Connor smiled at her as he handed over forty Swiss francs for the ‘vignette’, the sticker that proved the Swiss motorway tax had been paid.

‘
Reisen Sie sicher
… safe travel,’ she said, returning O’Connor’s smile.

‘Reisen Sie sicher,’
Aleta mimicked, when they were out of ear-shot.

‘Would you prefer she go through our bags?’ O’Connor responded, raising an eyebrow.

‘I think she would have been more than happy to inspect your bags, your aftershave, your underwear … including what’s in them,’ Aleta retorted with a smile on her face. ‘Which reminds me,
how long do we keep this celibate thing going?’

O’Connor put his hand on Aleta’s knee. ‘I’ll have to organise things out of Zürich, and we can take a few hours off by the lake. We can’t take too long though. The South American zenith’s just ten days away.’

‘Not so urgent that we can’t catch our breath,’ Aleta insisted. ‘I need to inspect your underwear,’ she said, letting her hand drift over O’Connor’s taut thigh.

Suddenly O’Connor’s demeanour changed, his eyes riveted to the rear-vision mirror. There was a red Ducati 1198 behind them, with a muscular, thickset rider. The traffic was light, but as O’Connor slowed behind a truck, the Ducati slowed as well. O’Connor pulled out and passed, and a short while later, the bike pulled out as well.

‘Don’t turn around, but we’ve got company,’ O’Connor said, watching the bike in the mirror.

‘These guys don’t give up, do they? Wiley?’

‘Hard to say. Probably one of his, although Felici’s reasons for getting us out of the way are just as pressing. This guy’s on a Ducati racing bike, and it’s a big one. It’s as fast as this baby is, and we’re not going to outrun him.’

The bike followed 200 metres behind for kilometre after kilometre at a steady 130 kilometres an hour while O’Connor pondered his options. Either side of the motorway, the Swiss Alps soared towards the clouds, granite peaks covered in snow.

O’Connor glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Two trucks had entered the motorway and the bike was caught behind them, one overtaking the other. ‘Hang on!’ O’Connor said sharply. He hit the brakes hard and veered to the right. The two trucks and the bike
roared past, with a bank-up of cars behind. O’Connor floored the Audi off the access road, and roared into the mountains towards the Passo San Gottardo, the St Gotthard Pass. The road corkscrewed up the mountain and the tyres squealed as O’Connor pushed the Audi to its limits.

‘Trained at Le Mans, did we?’ Aleta braced herself against the dash as O’Connor dropped down two gears in a racing change.

‘Baltimore. President’s Secret Service detail,’ he said with a grin, but it faded as he caught sight of the Ducati, the rider crouched over and almost touching the bitumen as he raced up the tortuous alpine road.

‘He’s back, and looking unfriendly,’ O’Connor observed, calmly sliding the Audi into the next corner. Aleta ducked instinctively as Wiley’s asset held the bike upright long enough to let go a burst from his Uzi.

‘Have a shot at him next time he’s on your side,’ O’Connor said between gritted teeth.

Aleta slammed a magazine into the Socimi, wound down the window and waited until the road twisted to the right. She let go three short bursts out the window and the bike wobbled, but the rider regained control and leaned into the corners, gaining with every one until he was only metres behind on the approach to the Teufelsbrücke, the famous stone bridge over the Schöllenen Gorge.

‘Hang on!’ O’Connor yelled as they roared on to the bridge. He hit the brakes hard, at the same time opening his door. The bike slammed into the open door, taking it off its hinges as the rider cart-wheeled over the side of the bridge. His helmet was no match for the sharp granite boulders and the sheer 60-metre drop to the river below.
O’Connor slowly stepped out of the Audi and wheeled the bike to the guard rail. He heaved it over, watching it smash onto the rocks and slowly sink into the water.

‘They’re quite expensive, those Ducatis,’ he said, picking up the fallen Uzi and heaving the Audi door on to the back seat before climbing in behind the wheel. ‘But at least we’re adding to our weapons collection.’

‘The sooner we recover the other two skulls the better,’ said Aleta, shaken.

O’Connor nodded. ‘It won’t be long before the police find the bike and the body, so we’ll need to get out of Zurich as soon as I can arrange it … but Peru is nice at this time of year.’

O’Connor would have preferred to charter a flight into a minor airport in Peru, but time was running against them, and he had to accept the risk of flying into Jorge Chávez. He and Aleta used another alias to book two seats for the 10 000-kilometre flight from Zurich to Lima via Amsterdam. It would take them the best part of twenty hours.

‘What a pity,’ O’Connor whispered, as the KLM hostess showed them into the business-class cabin. ‘No first class on this leg, otherwise we could join the mile-high club. But it looks like it’s separate beds.’

Aleta grinned at him. ‘You’re probably already a member.’

He raised an eyebrow suggestively as he stowed the box containing the priceless crystal skull, along with his briefcase, in the overhead locker.

Three hours into the flight, Aleta and O’Connor had finally started
to relax. The cabin lights were dimmed and O’Connor slid his hand along the inside of Aleta’s thigh. She leaned forward and kissed him before gently removing his hand.

‘That’s not fair,’ she whispered huskily, brushing the inside of his thigh in return. ‘We’ll get arrested!’

‘Cusco, you have a date,’ O’Connor promised, returning his attention to the documents they’d taken from Felici’s vault. O’Connor had devoted every spare moment to solving it, but without success. Suddenly he had a thought. He delved into his briefcase for Brother Gonzáles’ rare copy of the Beale papers. An hour later he tapped Aleta on the shoulder, looking disgustingly pleased with himself.

‘I’ve cracked the cipher!’ he whispered. ‘The key was in the Beale papers. The code was right under Felici’s nose.’

‘You’ll have to explain,’ said Aleta, bringing her seat upright.

‘Only one of the Beale ciphers was ever cracked, the one that gave the details of how much gold was hidden in Bedford County. But that’s not the point. It’s the way the cipher was cracked that holds the key. I’m sure that’s why Brother Gonzáles gave us the book.’ O’Connor spread the complete Inca prophecy they’d captured from the vault in Lake Como, together with the cipher, on Aleta’s tray table.

‘The second cipher of the Beale papers was cracked by linking the code with the words of the Declaration of Independence. If you number every word of the declaration like this …’ O’Connor began to pencil the beginning of the declaration, and to number every word: