Gold of the Gods (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Back on the balcony of the Hotel Casa
Blanca, Chief of Police Pedro Ramirez was
scanning the crowd in the square below.
Behind a pair of aviator-style dark glasses
favoured by security men and dictators the
world over, his eyes darted restlessly back
and forth.

Not for nothing did his men know him
as
El Reptil
, the Reptile. They said that his
cold eyes never missed a trick. Some even
joked that he had never been known to
blink. But for the head of security for
Cartagena, the day of the annual carnival
was no different from any other. This was a
day of work, not play.

Scanning the rooftops with an expert eye,
he carefully noted the positions of his men
as, every few seconds, the micro-receiver in
his left ear crackled into life. So far, the day
was going well. The mayor had delivered his
speech to the VIPs and the crowd seemed
good-natured enough, despite a few rowdy
local ruffians looking a little the worse for
wear.

Ramirez's reputation for ruthless
efficiency and iron discipline had been
earned the hard way, and he was not about
to throw it away now. On his watch, all
would go according to plan. And with news
of the expedition to the Lost City spreading
through the crowd like wildfire, he was
taking no chances.

Everything had proceeded like clockwork.
Mayor Rafael had kept his speech
short, as requested. And if he had not, one
of Ramirez's men had been positioned next
to the sound engineer to cut the microphone
feed on a prearranged signal. The
VIPs had moved from the ballroom onto
the platform outside with the minimum of
fuss. When it came to the smooth running
of public events, no one was in any doubt
who ran the show. And it wasn't Mayor
Rafael.

But all this was the easy bit. Now that the
light was beginning to fade and the crowd
was growing more animated, keeping
control of any disturbance would be more
of a problem. And this year, of all years,
Ramirez had reason to be nervous.

As he was turning to leave the balcony
and join the VIPs on the stage below, a
commotion in the crowd made him stop. To
his annoyance his view was blocked by the
bloated figure of the toad, whose bulbous
eyes and grinning mouth seemed to leer
mockingly back at him.

Ramirez cursed and reached for his radio.
'
Qué pasa?
' he barked.

A storm of white noise exploded in his ear.
Ramirez listened intently. He could see two of
his men peering into the crowd through high-powered
binoculars from the roof of the
church opposite. In the shadows of the bell
tower, a high-velocity rifle with telescopic
sights was brought into the firing position.

Ramirez smiled. His men had been well
trained. But then, of course, he knew that
already. Chief of Police Pedro Ramirez had
not been the commandant of the National
Police Training Centre in Bogotá for five
years for nothing. The men under his
command were not only hand-picked. They
were also hand-trained.

As the gabble in his ear subsided,
Ramirez relaxed. When Beck had passed
out, it had caused a commotion in the
tightly packed crowd, and in the confusion
a scuffle had broken out. The disturbance
had calmed down as quickly as it had
started. The rifle withdrew again inside the
shadows of the bell tower.

* * *

On the viewing platform below, oblivious
to any problem, Mayor Rafael and his
guests were preparing for the climax of the
carnival. 'You have fireworks displays for
your Señor Fawkes, Professor Granger?' the
mayor was asking his distinguished guest.
'But only for Señor Fawkes. I am right, no?
In Colombia we celebrate with fireworks
many days of the year. But for our carnival
here in Cartagena, we like the biggest.
El
óptimo!
The very best. You shall soon see.'

The mayor stood up to a roar of approval
from the crowd, which he acknowledged
with a statesman-like bow before making
his way forward to a cluster of microphones
at the front of the stage. Uncle Al listened
with a polite smile to a speech that sounded
much like the one he had just heard in the
ballroom of the Hotel Casa Blanca. Only
this time there was no mention of the Lost
City. To the mayor's evident delight, once
again the crowd laughed in all the right
places.

As Don Rafael turned to introduce this
year's guest of honour with a regal flourish,
Professor Granger recognized the words
'
pirata inglés
'. Caught off guard, he raised
his panama hat and gave a nervous wave to
the crowd, unsure what the mayor had been
saying.

Then the penny dropped. It was clear
Mayor Rafael had a wicked sense of
humour. Sir Francis Drake, the conqueror
of the Spanish Armada, had stormed the
city in 1586. In exchange for mercy, a huge
ransom had been paid, and to this day all
Englishmen were considered pirates. But
judging by the reaction of the crowd, there
were no hard feelings. Alan Granger
breathed a sigh of relief.

As the mayor's speech ended, mayhem
was finally let loose in the night sky. Star
bursts and flares exploded in a barrage of
sound. Fire fountains bathed the crowd in
rainbows of coloured light; they screamed
and cheered in approval.

Caught in the crush in the centre of the
square, Beck was at last coming to his senses
after his encounter with the Indian. He felt
himself being shaken, and a voice he dimly
recognized was yelling in his ear, 'Beck.
Beck. What happened? Are you all right?'
The voice wavered and echoed, as if someone
were shouting down at him from the
top of a well.

Beck struggled to remember where he
was. Loud bangs exploded all around him
and a mad artist seemed to be chucking tins
of paint around inside his skull. Then, in a
flash, it came back to him. Cartagena. The
twins. The carnival. The Indian with
the gleaming eyes.

Beck slowly sat up and looked around.
The blood had drained from his normally
ruddy features and his tousled brown hair
was even more ruffled than usual.

'Beck, Beck. Are you all right? What
happened? You look like you've seen a
ghost.' He recognized Christina's voice as
Marco helped him to his feet.

'What happened to the Indian?'
muttered Beck. 'The Indian with the
strange eyes. Surely you must have seen
him?' He described the man he had seen
in the crowd. He could picture him again
now in his mind's eye – his white tunic,
thick, dark eyebrows framing the glittering
eyes.

Christina listened intently, her mouth
dropping open in disbelief as Beck
described the man he had seen. 'Beck, the
man you describe is a Kogi. You remember.
The tribe who live in the forest of the Sierra
Nevada, where the Lost City was found by
Don Gonzalo.'

'Yes,' said Marco, solemnly voicing his
sister's unspoken thoughts. 'But there were
no Kogis in the crowd today, Beck. The
Mamas, their holy men, forbid it. You must
have been dreaming it. You have a vivid
imagination, my friend.'

'But I saw him – and he spoke to me . . .
Yes, I remember now.
Perdido no más
. He
said it three times. That's Gonzalo's motto,
isn't it?'

Marco's answer was drowned out by a
volley of bangs and flashes as a barrage of
fireworks exploded overhead. The Grand
Parade that marked the finale of the carnival
had begun and the floats were being
paraded in front of the VIP platform. The
teenagers could see the mayor clapping and
waving like a man possessed.

'This is Dad's big moment,' shouted
Christina. The effigy of Don Gonzalo was
making its way unsteadily towards the stage.
Accompanied by a guard of conquistadors,
it waved drunkenly to the crowd as it
rocked from side to side. When it came
alongside, the mayor rose and signalled to
Professor Granger to climb aboard. The two
beauty queens Beck had seen earlier greeted
the men with a kiss on each cheek and
placed garlands of flowers around their
necks.

'Quick,' yelled Marco. 'We're near
Gonzalo's Arch, where the parade leaves the
square. If we hurry, we can watch the floats
go by.'

Still feeling slightly unsteady on his feet,
Beck followed the twins as they snaked
through the crush to where a group of
Ramirez's men were hemming the crowd in
with ropes on both sides of the route to the
arch.

'That's odd,' said Christina in Beck's ear.
'I've never seen the crowd kept away from
the floats before. Ramirez has gone power
crazy. I wish he'd just let everyone have
some fun.' Beck looked at her blankly. 'He
was that goon in the uniform who was
talking to Dad in the ballroom just now,'
she added. 'He's chief of police in Cartagena.
Likes to think he runs the place.'

Beyond the cordon of policemen, Beck
could see the horses pulling Gonzalo's float
snort nervously and paw the ground. They
rolled their eyes as the bang and fizz
of the explosions from the fireworks
rocked the square. The two conquistadors
holding the horses' heads were talking into
earpieces and seemed to be nodding at the
police.

As Gonzalo's float passed by, they heard
something that sounded like a tin can
bouncing over the cobbles. It was followed
by a muffled bang as clouds of dense smoke
engulfed the crowd. Immediately the police
closed in around them, pushing the crowd
back towards the middle of the square.

'Marco, Christina! Get down! Get down!'
Beck shouted, pulling the twins to the
ground. 'Something's wrong. That smoke
isn't from a firework.'

By now Ramirez's men were swarming
everywhere and panic began to spread
through the crowd. A series of loud bangs
echoed around the buildings and Beck
could see rifles appearing from behind
balustrades on the roofs. A deep
whop whop
whop
of helicopter blades descended from
the sky above.

'
Tonto!
' spluttered Marco. 'That idiot
Ramirez is guaranteed to make things
worse. That chopper is blowing all the
smoke down onto the crowd.'

'Follow me,' Beck shouted as they forced
their way through the crowd in the direction
of the arch, where the swirling cloud of green
smoke seemed thinnest. At last, crouched
down again, he could breathe in fresh air.

'Look. Over here!' said Marco. 'I can see
under the smoke. They're trying to rescue
Dad and Professor Granger. There's a car
and . . .' His voice tailed off as the telltale
rattle of a second canister bouncing along
the cobbles was immediately followed by a
phutt
and a loud hiss; more clouds of dense
smoke engulfed them.

But Beck had already seen enough. Just
before the second canister exploded, he had
caught a glimpse of something that made
his heart freeze. The float carrying the effigy
of Don Gonzalo had come to a halt just
beyond the arch. A black limousine with
tinted windows was blocking its path and
the conquistadors were shouting and
waving their arms wildly.

But instead of swords, they were now
brandishing pistols and shouting at the
mayor and Professor Granger, who were
being bundled roughly off the float. The
doors on the near side of the limo were
pulled open and the pair pushed roughly
inside.

As smoke engulfed the crowd once more,
the salsa music pumping out of the PA
system was turned off and Marco recognized
the voice of the chief of police
appealing for calm. Then, from beyond the
arch, came a high-pitched squeal of tyres.
The crowd began to break up in confusion.

Beck's brain was working overtime. A
switch had been thrown in his mind and
instinct had taken over. If they crouched
close to the ground, they would still be able
to breathe while the panicking crowd
dispersed. He gestured to the twins to stay
low, then covered his mouth and peered
towards the arch, his eyes stinging badly and
the screams of the crowd ringing in his ears.

After what seemed like an age the smoke
began to thin. The three teenagers stared
in horror towards the float beyond the
arch. The black limo was no longer to be
seen. The effigy of Don Gonzalo, its
arms still waving, lay on the cobbles,
grinning amiably towards the sky. Two
bouquets of flowers lay tossed aside on the
cobblestones and petals floated gently to
the ground in the night air. A panama hat
had come to rest at a jaunty angle in the
gutter.

But the mayor and Professor Granger
were gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

Beck's dreams that night were troubled.
Once more he was back in the square. The
Indian with the glittering eyes was pointing
at the sky, where the jungles of the Sierra
Nevada seemed to hover in the clouds. But
each time Beck tried to move, a giant wave
crashed down on him, flooding the square.

And then the crowd turned into huge
shoals of fish darting back and forth.
Chasing them this way and that, the
carnival effigies had become sharks with
bared teeth and staring eyes. And Don
Gonzalo, his mouth leering in a ghastly
grin, his teeth jagged, was no longer chasing
the fish. It was Beck he was after now.

Lungs bursting, fighting for air, Beck
struck out desperately towards the sky.
Somewhere above him he could hear the
dull sound of the church bell ringing above
the waves. He could see the spire clearly
above the surface, shining in the bright sunlight.
If only he could escape those vicious
teeth. If only he could reach the surface
before they ripped into the soft flesh of his
legs. If only—

Beck sat bolt upright in his bed. Wide
awake now, he struggled to remember
where he was. The ringing had stopped and
somewhere downstairs he could hear someone
speaking.

'
Pronto?
'

Beck recognized Marco's voice talking
into the phone in the hall below. At once
the dramatic events of the previous evening
came flooding back. With a sick feeling in
the pit of his stomach, he could see the
smoke canisters exploding around him and
the chaos erupting in the square. Then the
frightening truth hit home once again.
Uncle Al and Mayor Rafael had been kidnapped.
Beck had heard about Colombia's
reputation as the 'Kidnap Capital of the
World' and his heart sank. Almost certainly
the gang would demand a large ransom in
return for the safe return of Uncle Al and
the mayor.

The previous night, in a blur of flashing
blue lights, squealing tyres and blaring
horns, Ramirez's men had spirited the three
teenagers out of the square. Still reeling
from the shock, they were soon back in
the safety of the mayor's hacienda a few
kilometres down the coast. Beck was
relieved to see a three-metre-high chain-mail
fence surrounding the grounds.

Doña Maria de Castillo, the twins'
mother and the head of an international aid
agency, was away on a field trip in a remote
part of Africa. Making contact with her was
proving difficult and no one knew when she
was likely to return. Meanwhile Señora
Cordova, the housekeeper, clucked around
them, cooking supper and telling anyone
who would listen that everything would be
fine.

Police Chief Ramirez was at his oily
worst. Nervously running a finger up and
down the scar in his hollow cheek, he fixed
his thin lips in a permanent sneer. The twins
listened in surly silence, clearly unimpressed
by Ramirez's promise that his team were
doing everything they could to track down
the kidnappers.

'If they're that good, why couldn't they
have stopped the gang in the first place?'
said Marco later as they dragged themselves
despondently to bed.

Now, in the cold light of morning, Beck
held his breath and listened intently. Marco
was evidently talking to Ramirez, who was
giving him an update on the latest
information. From the tone of Marco's
voice, Beck guessed that the news was not
good.

Hurriedly pulling on some clothes, he
made his way along the balcony, glancing
into Christina's room as he passed.
Everything was neat and tidy. In pride of
place on the wall above the bed was a
framed photograph of the Colombian pop
star, Shakira. Beck couldn't help noticing
that it had been signed in person and
wondered how many more pop stars were
on first-name terms with the twins.

In Marco's room, the contrast could
hardly have been greater. A hurricane
looked like it had ripped through overnight
and clothes lay scattered around the floor in
untidy piles. A poster of the Colombian
football team, also signed, had been Blutacked
unevenly to the wall. One corner
had come loose and was curling downwards
at an awkward angle.

Down in the hallway at the foot of a
sweeping wooden staircase that creaked
loudly as he descended, Marco and Christina
were already deep in conversation.

'Ramirez says there is nothing he can do
until the gang contact him with their
demands,' Marco was saying. 'He's put a
police guard on the house in case the gang
try to kidnap us as well. We are forbidden to
leave under any circumstances. The Reptile
says it's for our own safety.'

'What he means is he doesn't want us
poking our noses in where they're not
wanted,' said Christina with a contemptuous
toss of her curls.

Beck took in this latest development. 'We
can't just sit on our backsides and do
nothing,' he said after a while. 'Anyway, it
might not be money the gang want. Surely
it must be something to do with the
expedition to the Lost City. Why else would
they have kidnapped the mayor and Uncle
Al just after the announcement?'

'Ramirez didn't want my father to make
that announcement,' said Marco. 'He said it
was too dangerous.'

'But the gang must have already known
about the expedition,' said Christina. 'It
must have leaked out somehow. Ramirez
probably couldn't keep his mouth shut and
told some of his goons. The walls have ears
in Colombia.'

'But even your father doesn't know
exactly where the city is,' said Beck. 'After
all, it wouldn't be the
Lost
City if he did.'

'Yes, but maybe the gang thinks he knows
how to find it, and with Professor Granger's
expert knowledge of the Indians, they could
force them to take them there,' suggested
Marco.

'And loot the gold before the archaeologists
get there,' added Christina. A
silence fell on the room as this possibility
sank in.

'Do you think your dad may have known
more than he was letting on?' asked Beck
finally.

'I overheard him once telling Mum he
was convinced Gonzalo made a map before
he died, but no one in the family has ever
found it.' Marco paused and looked across
at his sister, as if for reassurance. Christina
gave a brief nod. 'Come with us, Beck,' he
said quietly. 'There's something you should
see.'

The twins led the way along an oakpanelled
corridor before stopping in front
of a polished door with a brass plaque on it.
The single word,
Jefe
, had been etched on
the plaque in a flowery copperplate. 'Hail to
the Chief,' said Christina, raising her eyebrows
knowingly at Beck.

Marco went into his father's study and
reappeared moments later, clutching a
heavy, ancient key that looked to Beck as if
it had been used to lock up prisoners in the
Tower of London. Hanging next to it on a
rusty key ring was another key that looked
like a miniature version of its larger brother.

Further down the corridor, Marco led the
way through a door. The hacienda had been
built in the old Spanish style around a stone
courtyard. In the centre was an intricately
carved fountain of a dolphin and on the far
side was an ancient wooden door that
looked like it hadn't been opened for many
years.

'Dad always keeps it locked and no one is
allowed in,' said Marco. 'The old part of the
hacienda was built by Gonzalo himself,
using beams from the galleon he sailed in
from Spain. It's like stepping back into
history.'

Marco slowly inserted the larger of the
two keys into the lock. There was a flinty
sound like a rusty bicycle chain as the key
turned with a rough jolt. Marco pushed and
the door creaked open on its ancient hinges.
Shafts of early morning sun lit up the
interior of the room in a swirl of dust.
Inside, a long wooden table was surrounded
by carved high-backed chairs. Five brass
candlesticks covered in dribbling waterfalls
of melted wax stood in a line along the
centre of the table.

Hanging from the beams were the everyday
objects of a Spanish warship. A musket,
its butt almost entirely rotted away, was
displayed next to a curved rapier with
moth-eaten tassels still attached to the
scabbard. On an oak-panelled wall at the far
end of the room hung a ship's wheel.

'The table was taken from the map room
in Gonzalo's flagship,' said Marco. 'We
think Columbus himself may have sat
around it on these very chairs. There are
many legends surrounding Gonzalo. When
we were younger, we were very frightened of
this room. My family have always believed
that Gonzalo was sitting in the chair at the
head of the table on the night he died.' He
paused. 'It's also said that anyone who sits in
that chair will find the Lost City . . .'
Marco's voice trailed off.

'Or die trying.' Christina was standing
silently behind Beck and her voice made
him jump. 'Dad never allows anyone to
come in here except on very special
occasions. And as far as we know, he's never
sat in the chair.'

'Until perhaps a few days ago.' Marco's
face was stern now and he looked worried.
'The day before you and your uncle arrived
in fact. Dad was muttering our family
motto all day. I asked him about it and he
told me he had been into Gonzalo's room –
he was sure there was some kind of puzzle or
a clue. But he wouldn't say what.'

'Do you think the map to the Lost City
may be hidden in this room then?' asked
Beck.

'It's not possible,' replied Marco. 'Every
inch has been searched many times, even
under the floorboards and behind the
panels. Dad badly wanted to find it but he
never could.'

Beck walked slowly into the room and
made his way towards Gonzalo's chair. His
heart was beating fast now. As a child he had
been taught not to believe in ghosts or
superstitions or tales of Bluebeard and
things that went bump in the night.

'Poppycock,' Uncle Al had once told
him. 'All poppycock.' And Beck was
inclined to agree. Although these days he
used a different, rather ruder, word to
describe it himself. In the school dormitory
when he was a new boy, he had realized at
once that it was one of the older boys
making tapping noises to scare the 'piglets',
as the juniors were known.

Once he had got himself into serious hot
water when he tried to turn the tables after
lights out one night: covered in a sheet, he'd
leaped out at one of the seniors, making
screeching banshee noises. Just his luck it
happened to be the Head of House. Bentley,
or Bent Jaw, as he was known, had chosen
not to see the funny side and Beck had
spent the following two Saturdays in
detention.

But now Beck was pacing boldly across
the room, the ancient floorboards creaking
ominously under his feet. His eyes flicked
ceaselessly back and forth. As a young child
he had spent time in the bush with the
Masai in Kenya and he had learned how to
use his eyes to survive. Now it was pure
instinct. On the mantelpiece above the fireplace
he saw a scattering of ancient coins
and the tattered remains of an old flag.

Finally he came to a halt behind
Gonzalo's chair, placing the palms of his
hands on its high back. Then, without
warning, he pulled the chair out from under
the table. And sat down. A jolt like
an electric shock surged through his
body as Christina let out a yelp of surprise.

It was at that very moment that Beck saw
it. Above the fireplace directly opposite his
chair hung an oil painting of Don Gonzalo.
By now Beck recognized the conquistador's
features as if they were his own. No one
could mistake the goatee beard or the long
face with its distinctive Roman nose.

But it was not these that caught his
attention now. Beck's eagle eyes had noted
them the moment he entered the room. It
was Don Gonzalo's pointing finger and the
direction in which his eyes were gazing that
made his heart knock against his ribs. From
his position in the chair, and only from the
exact position where he was now sitting, he
could see that both the finger and Don
Gonzalo's eyes were pointing directly at the
words under the family crest on the ornate
gilt frame.

'
Perdido no más
.' Beck whispered the
words as if in a trance. 'That's it. That's
the clue. Your father was staring right at it
all the time and never realized.'

Mystified, the twins followed Beck's gaze
across the room and stared blankly at the
painting of Gonzalo.

'Look. Follow his finger directly up.'
Beck traced a straight line through the air
from the top of Gonzalo's finger towards
the top of the portrait where it bordered the
frame. 'His eyes are looking at your family
motto. But his finger is pointing directly at
the letter O.'

In an instant Marco had dashed around
the table and was lifting the dusty old portrait
down from the wall. Laying it flat on the
table, the three teenagers stared down at the
embossed wooden crest of
la rana
, the toad,
and the family motto beneath.