Authors: Isla Whitcroft
Her knees aching on the bare wooden floor, she sat back and looked at the map from a distance. Something suddenly struck her. The squares and triangles obviously denoted buildings, she could
recognise the meandering river, but what were the blue lines running seemingly at random from some buildings but not others? She looked at them again, puzzled. Did they denote the distance between
important parts of the town, perhaps? Or maybe they were streets long vanished into the dust? There was no key to enlighten her, no way of knowing for sure.
Suddenly weary, Cate looked at her watch. It was only mid-afternoon, but she had been awake for hours. She carefully folded the map up and put it safely under the bed, took a banana from her
backpack and ate it slowly while she thought. She had a quick wash at the tiny white basin in the corner of her room, pulled down the raffia blinds and crawled gratefully into bed.
Two hours later, she woke to the sound of her phone bleeping next to her ear.
‘Marcus,’ Cate said groggily. ‘What’s up?’
‘That list you gave us – brilliant work from you and Arthur, by the way – but it came in just too late. Another site was hit this morning – four dead, more treasures
gone. And we missed it.’ He sounded despondent.
‘I’m sorry, Marcus,’ said Cate. She understood his frustration. No matter what they did, it seemed that the criminals were always one step ahead of them.
‘There’s more bad news. Novak Dabrowski,’ Marcus said flatly. ‘We know who he is, in fact we know him very well. But not as Novak Dabrowski – we called him Marek
Bronicz. He worked on secondment for IMIA.’
He fell silent. Outside the wind was getting up, whipping around the hostel, rattling at the window. The overhanging trees were scratching on the roof just above her.
‘He worked for you?’ Cate whispered, not sure if she had heard right. ‘He worked for IMIA?’
‘Yes, Cate. For IMIA. For six months. In the Mediterranean sector, which is why Dave Osbourne never met him. Pity – he would have recognised him right away.’
‘What happened?’ Cate asked quietly. ‘How on earth did Novak end up working for Johnny James in LA?’
‘We quickly realised that he wasn’t right for IMIA,’ explained Marcus. ‘He was just too violent, too unpredictable, and he was suspected of stealing gold bullion from a
heist we intercepted in Sicily. It was the final straw and Henri got rid of him and refused to pass him on to another spy organisation. He must have gone private then, got a job with Johnny
James.’
Cate thought back to those cold blue eyes in the pale face, staring at her intently outside Johnny James’s office. She suddenly remembered and felt sick. She had been talking about her
dad, Graeme Carlisle. She had given Novak her name, handed him her identity on a plate. What an idiot she had been. She could kick herself.
‘Bronicz was one of the back-up crew who helped to rescue you from
The Good Times
,’ Marcus was saying. ‘He would have known exactly who you were. He probably recognised
you the first time he set eyes on you at Johnny James’s house and, if he was up to anything criminal, he would have seen you as a danger, a direct threat. Until we find out otherwise, we have
to assume he is the most likely candidate behind the attempts on your life. He must have had Gabriel in his pocket – he might even have been the second man in the truck.’
‘When I saw him at the marina he was injured,’ Cate said suddenly. ‘He was limping and his arm was in a sling. When I defended Ritchie, I hit the assailant on his right arm. It
must have been Novak in the truck. He must have followed me from Johnny James’s place. I’m sure you’re right Marcus – he was on to me the minute he saw me.’
There was a silence.
‘It it’s any consolation, those bugs you planted on Burt have paid off big time though,’ Marcus said. ‘He’s been calling round all his old buddies, trying to find
someone who can get him a false passport. Looks like he’s about to do a runner, which means he’s probably scared and ready to talk. We’re picking him up this evening. In the
meantime, try not to worry. Henri and I think that you’re pretty safe where you are and we’ve an alert out for Dabrowski in LA and all airports and borders in and out of Mexico. But
even so, I know I don’t have to tell you to keep your head down and watch out.’
‘I forgot, someone was asking for you,’ Maria said as she handed Cate a thick porcelain mug containing a wickedly strong-looking coffee at the end of an amazing
meal. Maria had cooked spicy chilli fajitas followed by delicious churros – a sort of cross between a donut and a fritter, Cate thought. She was now sitting in a comfy chair underneath a
large fan to enjoy her coffee and daydream about Michel.
‘A man phoned,’ Maria said. ‘He didn’t leave his name. Said he wasn’t sure if you were here, but was just checking anyway.’
Cate stared back at Maria, all thoughts of an easy few hours gone and replaced by a wave of fear. Novak Dabrowski. It had to be him.
She could kick herself. Why on earth had she been stupid enough to sign in as Cate Carlisle? Marcus had offered her a false passport, arguing that it would be safer than using her own. She
should have listened to him.
‘How long ago did he call?’ Cate tried to keep her voice calm.
‘About two hours ago. When you were in your room. I told him you’d be back later. That OK?’
Cate stood up quickly. She had to stay calm. ‘Maria,’ she said casually, ‘I fancy a trip to town. To Paplanta. What time’s the next bus out of here?’
Maria looked up at the plastic clock behind reception. ‘It’s gone. No more now till tomorrow.’
‘Can you call me a taxi, Maria?’
The Mexican woman grinned. ‘
Te cae
. Are you serious? There is only one – and now it is siesta time. Maybe tonight?’
Cate thought fast. She had to get out of the hostel and find somewhere to hide until she could work out how to get safely back to Veracruz.
Her heart racing, Cate took the stairs up to the room two steps at a time. In seconds, her rucksack was packed, the precious spy gear zipped into an invisible interior pocket, but as Cate did a
quick final check of the room she spotted the old map lying under her now-bare bed and grabbed it. She wasn’t leaving that behind.
Downstairs, Maria was nowhere to be seen. She slipped quietly out of the door, around the back of the hostel and into the humid gloom of the jungle. She couldn’t risk being out in the open
now.
Staying close to the clearing, she pushed her way carefully through the vines that hung from the trees like curtains, steering clear of the strange-looking plants that grew all around. High
above her, creatures chattered and grunted restlessly in the trees, watching her closely, wary but not yet alarmed. Ahead of her she saw the bright plumage and unmistakable oversized bill of a
toucan meandering its way through the overgrowth. At any other time she would have been enthralled by this close-up of nature’s most colourful beings, but now every strange movement and
sudden sound made her heart skip a beat, pushed her breathing faster, her heart pounding with a savage fear.
Cate crossed the river, wider now than it was at the dig, jumping from stone to stone, holding her rucksack high above her head. The cool of the water provided a welcome relief from the
humidity.
She stopped by the bank and tried to call Marcus, waving away the swarms of mosquitoes that buzzed around her head as she did. His phone went straight to voicemail so, in desperation, she texted
him instead.
Novak on his way. Need to leave immediately. Pls send transport.
Eventually she was back at the dig, looking out from the jungle towards the hut. She sat down against a tree, pulled out her binoculars and made herself comfortable. For now,
she was in no hurry to leave the safety of her jungle cover.
She looked down at her phone, hoping for a return message from Marcus. The signal was low here, and flickered in and out of range. She reached into a side pocket of her rucksack and pulled out
the powerful hyper-dongle that Arthur had given to her and plugged it in. The signal picked up, but her inbox remained annoyingly quiet.
She hated to beg for help, but this time she had no choice. If Novak was determined enough to come all this way to find her, then he must really mean business.
It was hard to keep her imagination in check. After all, he could be close by even now, waiting for her, a gun in his hand, a bullet with her name on. She had never felt so lonely, so far away
from home.
Behind her, a sudden shrill shriek had her leaping to her feet, but it was only a hunting eagle, rising up from a nearby tree before floating majestically out over the bright green treetops.
Night came suddenly. The darkness dropped like a blanket over the tops of the trees and the temperature plummeted with it. Cate stood up and eased out her stiff legs. These
rainforests held wild cats, hunters like pumas and jaguars, not to mention the odd nasty reptile, and Cate knew that she was far more vulnerable to attack in the darkness. It was time to take
shelter. Scanning the clearing and the jungle fringe one more time, she ran to the hut and went inside.
She stood for a minute or two, waiting for her heart to stop racing and her breathing to return to normal; then she set about securing her hideout. There was a door bolt, but nothing for it to
go into, just splintered wood. Cate looked down. At her feet was a thin metal wedge, presumably used to keep the door open. She pushed it hard underneath the bottom of the door and then jammed a
chair firmly under the handle. It would do for now.
She was cold, sore, and craved a hot drink. Using her torch she found a battered saucepan on the shelf and filled it with water from a bottle, switched on the electric ring and said a prayer of
thanks as it glowed red.
Whilst she waited for the water to boil, she pulled the spy kit out of her bag and found the tin containing the night-vision lenses. Despite her anxiety, she felt a growing excitement as she put
the lenses in.
She looked about her, blinking hard, then reached for the tiny remote control, pressing the green button firmly down. Instantly, the darkness lifted, the room was filled with colours so bright
that it seemed as if sunlight was flooding in! Cate looked around her.
She tried the zoom-in option, and her close-up vision became sharper. She looked down at the floor and she could see every speck of dust, the tiny cracks in the floorboards, the grime between
them.
‘Wow,’ said Cate, ‘I’m an eagle.’
Cheered up, she switched on her torch again, removed the lenses and stored them carefully away. With her vision back to normal, she made a cup of tea, stashed her rucksack under Amber’s
bed and sat on the bare mattress, wide awake, waiting for first light.
To distract herself, Cate looked up at the pictures and slogans plastered on the slats of the bed above her as she sipped her drink. There were photographs of Gandhi, of Obama and Mandela, as
well as famous explorers and anthropologists – Darwin, David Attenborough, and a fair-haired, white-bearded man called Thor Heyerdahl. Cate did a double-take. The name was familiar . . . and
somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered her father telling her about the famous Norwegian explorer who had set out to prove that the Egyptians could have made it across the Atlantic to
Peru.
She turned to the books on the side table and scrabbled through them until she found what she was looking for.
A Compendium of Great Twentieth Century Explorers.
She flicked through the
pages until she came to Thor Heyerdahl. There he was, standing on the deck of what looked like a primitive sailing raft, his long blond hair flowing, a modern-day Viking.
A prolific explorer, Thor Heyerdahl had become convinced that Egyptians had made the epic voyage from Africa to South America, travelling by sea and then land, bringing with them their pyramid
architecture, sun worship, and an obsession with astrology and calendars. Despite widespread derision from the scientific community, the Norwegian had been determined to prove his point. Using
early African boat-building techniques, he had created a raft out of papyrus reeds, named her
Ra
after the Egyptian sun god, and set out from North Africa in 1969.
Ra
had broken
apart, but he tried again the following year with
Ra II
and this time made it six thousand kilometres across the Atlantic, landing safely in Barbados in the Caribbean. Proof, he said, that
the Egyptians could indeed have made it to South America.
There were other theories too. He believed that Vikings had settled on the East Coast of America; in Peru he had heard a legend that the Incas had told of white gods who had come from the north
in the morning of time. They had white skins and long beards and were taller than the Incas. Heyerdahl had never stopped searching for proof that ancient people travelled further than experts had
ever believed.
Cate scanned through the last few pages of the chapter. Despite making the voyage successfully, and selling thousands of books about his travels to an adoring public, most of Heyerdahl’s
theories were still dismissed as fantasy by his fellow scientists and he died in 2002 without ever being taken seriously.
Cate closed the book thoughtfully. Was Heyerdahl the Thor that Jade had been talking about on Twitter? And if so, what did her message mean?
Thor was so wrong and yet so right
–
about what?
Cate gave up trying to work it out and looked at her watch. Nine hours to go till dawn. She would have to move on soon, it was dangerous to stay in one spot for too long.
Then she heard him – heavy footsteps on the hard earth outside the hut, walking slowly towards the door. She saw a face at the window, peering into the room. Terrified, she shrank back
against the wall.
Her heart in her mouth, penknife in hand, Cate edged along the wall to the door and stood beside it, waiting for it to open. Surprise, if used wisely, was a valuable weapon. It was one of her
mantras.
The person was at the door now, pushing against Cate’s makeshift barricade. The timber strained and bent as he put his weight against it. Cate tightened her grip on her knife and readied
herself for attack.