Return to Atlantis: A Novel (8 page)

“No, no, don’t apologize—I shouldn’t have asked such a silly question,” Julie said sympathetically. “It must have been horrible.”

“It still is. But thanks.”

“Have you … have you heard from Eddie? Or anything about him?”

“No. Not directly,” Nina replied, the sudden bitterness behind the words surprising even her. “According to Interpol he’s alive, but beyond that I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.” Julie looked at her husband as if expecting him to follow up her question, but he offered nothing.

A waiter glided over to the table, asking if they were ready to order. Larry shooed him away. Nina turned her gaze to her father-in-law. “You actually last saw Eddie after I did, in England. Elizabeth told me about it, but … what about you? Why did Eddie hit you?”

Larry was annoyed to be reminded. “He caught me off guard,” he said, unconsciously raising a hand to rub a long-faded bruise on his jaw. “Unbelievable. Right
after Catherine’s burial service, too. I can’t believe he was so disrespectful.”

Nina knew that was the last thing Eddie would have wanted to do; of all his family members in England, he had been closest to his late grandmother by far. “He must have had some reason to be so angry at you.”

“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 Incan artifacts, 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 recognize 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 apologize 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 realize 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.

N
ina 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 watercooler.

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?”

Lola laughed. “No, I’m fine. The
uh-oh
was for you. You’ve got that look again.”

“What look?”

“The look that warns everyone they should stay out of your way.”

“I don’t have a look,” Nina protested as the big-haired
blonde padded back to the reception desk. “Do I? What does the look look like?”

“That was almost a tongue twister,” said Lola, sitting. “But … well, you’d know it when you saw it. Everyone else does.”

“
Everyone
thinks I have a look? Oh, great,” Nina said, exasperated. “I thought I was a half-decent boss, but apparently I’m some terrifying flame-haired Medusa stalking the halls with her deadly
look
.”

“Only occasionally,” Lola said with a teasing smile. “By the way, Mr. Penrose asked me to call him when you arrived. He wants to see you.”

“Tell him I’m here,” said Nina, starting for her office.

“Okay. Oh, by the way, how was your dinner with Eddie’s dad?” Nina glowered at her. “There’s the look again,” Lola said, hurriedly picking up the phone.

Penrose was in Nina’s office less than ten minutes later. “There’s been a development regarding the statues.”

“What kind of development?”

“They’ve been found.”

Her eyes widened. “Stikes has been caught?”

“I’m afraid not. But they’re secure, and apparently intact. They’re in Japan.”

“Japan? Who’s got them?”

“Do you know of a man called Takashi Seiji?” Nina shook her head. “He’s a Japanese businessman, the head of Takashi Industries.”

“Never heard of it.”

“I’m not really surprised—it’s the kind of company that owns dozens of other companies that you probably
have
heard of. But that’s not important. What does matter is that he has all three statues. Here.” He handed her a color printout; it showed the trio of crudely carved figurines inside a display case.

Nina examined the picture closely. As far as she could tell, the statues were in the same condition as when she had last seen them. “What’s his interest in them?”

“He owns one of them.”

She was startled. “What?”

Penrose gave her another picture. In this there was only a single statue, the one discovered in the Khoils’ underground vault in Greenland. There was a date stamp in one corner: over ten years earlier. “He also supplied all the necessary certificates of ownership. It was stolen from him last year. Apparently by the same group that stole Michelangelo’s
David
and the Talonor Codex.”

“Working for the Khoils,” Nina remembered. “But wait—Interpol tried to track down the owners of everything they’d stolen, and nobody ever claimed the statue. If he’d reported the theft, they would have returned it to him. Why didn’t he say anything?”

“No idea. But there was a Japanese connection, as I recall—that exporter in Singapore got something out of the country for the Khoils.”

“The statue?”

“Possibly. But this is why Mr. Takashi wants to meet you.”

“He’s coming here? Is he bringing the statues?”

He hesitated. “Ah … actually, no. He wants you to see him. In Japan. He’s a recluse who doesn’t like traveling. Supposedly, he rarely leaves his penthouse.”

“Who does he think he is, Howard Hughes?” Nina frowned, weighing up her options. On the one hand, she was already busy enough without adding a trip across the Pacific; on the other, it meant the possibility of finally uncovering the secret of the statues … “How did he get hold of them?”

“Via the black market, it seems.”

Disgust entered her voice. “Can we even trust this guy? Buying stolen antiquities on the black market isn’t exactly ethical.”

“Mr. Takashi might be reclusive,” said Penrose, “but he’s also a major contributor to a number of United Nations charitable programs. The UN certainly trusts him. Besides, he’s told us that he’ll return the other two statues
to their countries. But first he wants you to examine them, to confirm that they’re genuine—and also to tell you what he knows about his statue.”

“There are these marvelous new inventions called telephones. Has he heard of them?”

Penrose smiled. “What can I say, Nina? Maybe he’s just a fan of yours. But we definitely think you should go. Securing the statues will ease the minds of a number of concerned people, and you might even learn something new about them.”

He was right, Nina decided reluctantly. “He’s definitely willing to give the other statues back to Egypt and Peru? No conditions?”

“Apparently that’s so. His main concern was reclaiming his own property, but he said he bought the others as well to get them back into the right hands.”

“How much did he pay for them?”

“I don’t know, but … a large sum, I imagine.”

“Which is probably now in Stikes’s pocket. Great,” she said glumly. “When does he want to see me?”

“He said that’s up to you,” said Penrose, “but from the IHA’s point of view, the sooner the better. If the statues are off the market, that’s one security issue we no longer need to worry about.”

She considered it. “Okay, I’ll go see him. Once this is wrapped up, I can focus on the Atlantis excavations.”

Penrose nodded. “A sound choice. I’ll let Mr. Takashi know.”

He left the office, and Nina picked up her phone. “Lola. I need you to book a flight for me.”