Viper's Nest Read online

  Isla Whitcroft is a journalist who writes for national newspapers including the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday and The Times. She lives in Northamptonshire with her husband and three children.

  For my first and dearly loved friend Joanna Sparks (1964 – 1973). The happiest girl I ever knew. Best friends forever!

  First published in Great Britain in 2012

  by Piccadilly Press Ltd,

  5 Castle Road, London NW1 8PR

  www.piccadillypress.co.uk

  Text copyright © Isla Whitcroft, 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  The right of Isla Whitcroft to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978 1 84812 243 7 (paperback)

  eISBN: 978 1 84812 244 4

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Croydon, CR1 4PD

  Cover design by Simon Davis

  Cover illustration by Sue Hellard

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  The hot Mexican wind blew in angrily from the ocean, sweeping over the low valley, then up the mountain ranges and on to the inland rainforests.

  By the time it reached the ancient ruins, the wind was almost at gale force – whipping through the surrounding jungle and howling round the towering pyramids and the crumbling stone shelters, up to where the vast stone warriors were standing proud, their flat, expressionless faces and smooth bodies glinting in the fractious moonlight as they had done for over a thousand years.

  A large wooden hut stood a few metres away from the site, almost engulfed by the jungle on three sides, close to a small river which was usually placid and calm, but was currently a frenzy of foam and raging water. Inside the hut, lying on narrow bunk beds, four members of the University of California archaeological student team were trying hard to snatch some sleep.

  But it wasn’t just the raging wind that was keeping them awake. There was another reason too. Each one of them was struggling to control their feelings of excitement, the realisation that, against all the odds, a bunch of students had cracked a conundrum that had eluded the finest brains in archaeology for the best part of one hundred years.

  ‘You awake, sis?’ A pale face framed by short, dark, curly hair appeared over the top bunk and peered down into the gloom below her. ‘Sis?’ she said more urgently and then, spotting the headphones wire, grinned to herself.

  She picked up her pillow and, aiming carefully, threw it down to the bunk below, chuckling to herself as her twin sister sat up with a snort of annoyance.

  ‘That’ll teach you to ignore me,’ Jade whispered, dodging as her twin retaliated with a pillow of her own. ‘What’s the point of having a twin if you can’t talk to them in the middle of the night?’

  There was silence for a few seconds and then the girl on the lower bunk whispered, ‘What time do you think the professor will get here?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Her twin was uncharacteristically non-committal. ‘But when she does arrive, once she’s checked everything out, then we’ll know for sure.’ She tried hard to keep her excited voice low. ‘Just think, this time tomorrow we could be in the papers all over the world. Famous! On TV, radio – maybe they’ll even make a film about us. The four students who changed the history of the world. We’ll be known as the Famous Four. With you the most famous of all. Better get yourself an agent!’

  Amber giggled, then dropped her voice even further. ‘Honestly, Jade, you do get carried away. But still, it is amazing. To see what I saw. The first people in what, over a thousand years? Incredible.’

  ‘What are you guys rabbiting on about?’ A Scandinavian accent came floating through the thin plywood partition. ‘Keep it down, huh? We all need to get at least a few hours’ sleep.’

  ‘Sorry, Stefan,’ the girls said as one, then lay back down on their pillows.

  ‘Try counting ancient treasures,’ Jade whispered, making Amber smile in the darkness. ‘Get in some practice for the real thing.’

  But sleep still eluded Amber, her exhaustion not enough to quell the flurry of images in her head. She could see herself a few days earlier, out for an early morning stroll into the fringes of the jungle by the ruin. She had heard an outraged hiss and rattle, and she had known immediately what it was. Her heart had started thumping and she’d forced herself to remember the wildlife training she had sat through on her arrival at the site.

  ‘Retreat quietly and gently,’ Thor had told her. Although he was an archaeology student too, he was also a bit of a wildlife expert. ‘Snakes are rarely aggressive unless they feel threatened.’

  Amber had pushed herself sideways through the scrubby bush, retreating as quietly and quickly as she could from the deadly viper. Then, as she made her escape, her foot had slipped down into the ground. Her leg and suddenly half her body disappeared into a widening, crumbling hole that seemed to tunnel right back under the base of an ancient wall.

  Forgetting the tropical rattlesnake, she had sprinted back to camp, grabbing a couple of torches and a startled Stefan, and within minutes the pair were through the hole and into a damp tunnel, marvelling as it opened into a wide stone passageway.

  As the light from their torches played on the stone walls, they saw them – ancient wall daubings, the colours still clear and rich, telling stories of the artists and their daily lives. The scenes were filled with hunting, sailing and children playing.

  As always when she saw such drawings for the first time, Amber found tears clouding her eyes. Even in the midst of the grind of ancient daily life – the hunger, the disease, the murderous rituals – someone had still found time to create art.

  ‘Awesome,’ Stefan had breathed. He was by far the most experienced of the team, already on his doctorate in ancient Mexican history and the only one of them qualified to lead a dig. ‘Well done, Amber. A-grades all round, huh? These are as clear as any on this entire site.’ He moved the torchlight systematically from one end of the wall to another. ‘These ones look different though . . .’

  Stefan and Amber moved towards some other paintings – small sketches, little more than stick drawings. Wordlessly, they examined them in minute detail. There was no mistaking their message. The story they were telling was mind-blowing, earth-changing – almost too much to take in.

  Stefan straightened up and looked at Amber, and for a few seconds their eyes locked together in shock, recognition and amazement.

  ‘I’ll call the professor,’ said Stefan flatly. ‘She needs to see these as soon as possible.’

  Amber nodded. ‘I can hardly believe what I’m seeing. Do you think they’re for real? Can they really be suggesting what they seem to be?’

  Stefan shrugged, but his green eyes were wide, his face p
ale in the torchlight. He looked, thought Amber, as shocked as she felt.

  ‘I can’t see why or how they would be fakes,’ he said, ‘but we’ll have to leave that up to the prof. But either way, we – or rather you, Amber – have found something really special.’

  But Amber wasn’t listening any more. Something about the sketches wasn’t quite right – something in the composition, the dynamics of the artwork was bothering her.

  Amber dropped to her knees, bringing the torch close up to the warriors. That was it! The arrows, already unleashed into the air, were all pointing, not at the enemy and their snake-headed sailing ships, but to another invisible target. Trance-like, she followed their trajectory, tracing it over the cold wall with her fingers, oblivious to the icy water that was dripping on to her head from the stone-cold roof above.

  Then she understood. The perspective was different to the usual style of artwork. The arrows were pointing out of the painting and away to the other side of the passageway. They were a message – a signpost.

  Stefan was looking over her shoulder now and she heard him take a deep breath. He had spotted it too and his torch swung round in the direction that the arrows were pointing. The beam fell on what looked like the entrance to a tunnel in the wall.

  But now their luck was running out. Not far inside the opening, stones and debris blocked the entrance, if that’s what it was, completely.

  For a few seconds the two of them stood there in silence, playing their torches up and down in a vain search for a way through.

  ‘It’s no good. We’ll have to go back and get help. It’s probably a dead end anyway,’ Amber said, remembering other false and blocked trails that she had already experienced in her time here. ‘Or if anything was there, it was probably looted years ago. Like most of the stuff around here.’

  ‘Look at this, Ambs!’ The excitement in Stefan’s voice made her jump. ‘Up here – look! There’s a gap. It’s tiny, but it’s there.’ Stefan shone his torch through the hole and stood still for what seemed like an eternity.

  Finally he turned towards Amber and his entire face was lit up by a smile that was triumphant, awed, humble and thrilled. ‘It’s all here, Amber. It’s here. Just like the painting showed us – and more!’

  As they walked back out of the tunnel and into the fresh air, Amber had been too overcome to speak. But Stefan was already back in practical mode, taking charge of the situation.

  ‘We can’t breathe a word of this to anyone,’ he said gravely. ‘Not to the guards and certainly not to any of the tourists. We have to wait until the prof arrives to take over.’ Stefan stopped and turned to Amber, who gazed back at him, trying to take in what he was saying. ‘This has to be managed properly, by the ancient history experts, maybe even the Mexican government. Certainly not by us. I’ve got some experience, but this is way out of my league.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘They send four students to work on a very standard dig, not expecting them to find anything at all. And then this!’

  Above them, the morning sun was already throwing out heat strong enough to make the grass they were walking through warm to the touch.

  ‘Actually, Amber, I think it’s best we just keep it between us four,’ he went on. ‘Don’t tell anyone else, not family, not friends. The fewer people know about this the better. Agreed?’

  Amber nodded, still too dumbstruck to speak. Stefan was right. If word got out about their find, the place would be swamped – media, tourists and dealers would be all over the site in hours.

  But it was hard, so hard, to keep quiet about something as stupendous as this, particularly when Stefan told her it would take a few days for the professor to fly over from a remote dig in Ethiopia. It was only natural that she sneaked back there once or twice over the next few days. And completely natural too, to make a map of the cave and the blocked entrance. Unable to resist rummaging around the debris, she found a precious stone and what looked like an ancient dagger, which she took away and hid safely in the hut. After all, it was human nature to want to ensure that the world knew it was she, Amber, who had been the person who unearthed this amazing hoard.

  Thank God she could at least share her excitement with Jade. That was the brilliant thing about having a twin. Amber could tell Jade absolutely anything and know it would never, ever, go any further.

  The hut was nearly silent now. There was only the sound of gentle breathing and sleepy grunts as Amber’s companions finally succumbed to sleep. Soon even Amber was drifting off, exhaustion finally getting the better of excitement, her final thoughts of the precious package lying just below her.

  So no one stirred as the four men, their faces obscured by ancient death masks, their bodies shrouded in black, crept out of the tunnels which scored the interior of the pyramids and made their way carefully down the worn stone steps and across the main site.

  They didn’t hear the quickly subdued shout as two security guards and their dogs were overpowered. Nor, thanks to howling wind, did they hear the gunshots as the intruders showed the guards no mercy.

  It was only when they awoke, starting with terror to see the demonic faces looming over them and the feel of cold shotguns at their necks, did they understand that they were at the beginning of a nightmare.

  CHAPTER 1

  Sitting at a vast window, perched high above Los Angeles International Airport, Cate Carlisle watched spellbound as yet another glinting metal giant powered down on to the baking-hot tarmac, swaying and rocking as it landed, before thrusting forward along the runway in a seemingly unstoppable surge.

  As the red-white-and-blue jumbo finally pulled to a halt, Cate put her fruit cocktail down on the table, sat back in the white leather cocoon seat and sighed. The Encounter restaurant was stunning – with lava lamps on the bar, beaten metal covering the walls and a stupendous three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view – but this certainly wasn’t how she had imagined she would spend the first day of her Easter holiday in LA.

  It was whilst Cate had been waiting for her suitcases to appear on the luggage carousel that her phone had rung.

  ‘Sorry, darling.’ Her mother was, as usual, abrupt and to the point. ‘Burt and I have been on a business trip to Mexico and it’s taken longer than we thought to drive back to LA. Queues at the border.’

  ‘Hang on, Mum,’ Cate shouted, a hand over one ear to try to cut out the hubbub of the hundreds of passengers milling around her. ‘Who’s Burt, and where are you again?’

  ‘Burt? Burt Tyler – he’s my new partner, darling,’ her mother said, sounding surprised that Cate didn’t know already. ‘And we’re in Mexico. We’ve got a deal going with the locals to buy some gorgeous stuff. Sorry, darling, got to go. Go and grab a bite to eat and we’ll pick you up as soon as we can. Can’t wait to see you – and Burt is dying to meet you too.’

  Then she was gone, leaving Cate silently fuming as she struggled to lift her two leather suitcases from the carousel. Driving from Mexico? Surely that would take most of the day. This was so typical of her mother. She hadn’t seen her in well over a year and now she couldn’t even make it to the airport to pick her up on time. She was so disappointed too; she had spent the last few hours of the journey psyching herself up to greet her mum and now . . . well, now it was all just a huge anti-climax.

  Cate yanked grumpily at the smaller of the cases, half dragged it over the edge of the carousel and dropped it neatly on to her sandal-clad toes. Pulling a face and biting her lip to stop herself from yelling out, she managed to lever it on to her trolley and turned back to the carousel and reached for the other one. As she was hauling it off, her phone rang again and she struggled to balance the case and answer at the same time, only to drop that case too, as the call rang off.

  ‘Here, let me help.’ A large, tanned arm came over Cate’s shoulder and pulled easily at the heavy case before placing it carefully on the trolley. She looked up in surprise and then further up again to see a very tall, tousled-haired boy, eighteen or nineteen, wearing a faded green UCLA Foot
ball T-shirt and grinning down at her.

  ‘I thought you girls were supposed to be good at multitasking,’ he said, in an unmistakable Californian drawl. ‘You know, talking on the phone and lifting luggage at the same time. What happened to you?’

  Cate’s mouth dropped open. For a few seconds she didn’t know whether to be annoyed or laugh at his cheek, but the amused glint in his brown eyes won her over.

  She smiled back at him. ‘I’ve been clumsy all day – I managed to drop my dinner into the lap of the snoring bloke sitting next to me when I was trying to change the film. He was pretty mad, but not because of the mess. My dinner was lamb cutlets and apparently he was a vegetarian. But at least it stopped the snoring.’

  ‘Aha,’ laughed the boy. ‘A beautiful Brit. With a British sense of humour. Welcome to LA.’

  He stuck out a large hand and shook hers enthusiastically. ‘The name’s Ritchie, by the way. Ritchie Daner. Second-year med student at UCLA and all-round knight in shining armour.’

  ‘Cate – Cate Carlisle,’ said Cate. ‘Studying for A-levels at a school in London. Not normally a damsel in distress. Anyway, thanks for the help with the bags and, er, maybe see you around.’

  ‘Where you headed, Cate?’ Ritchie asked. Easily six foot four, he towered over her by nearly a foot, but somehow Cate felt reassured rather than intimidated by his size.

  ‘Actually,’ she began, ‘I’m not quite sure. Well, that is, I’m going to have something to eat while I wait for my lift. My mum’s supposed to be picking me up, but she’s been delayed for a few hours.’

  She flushed with embarrassment, more for her mother than for herself. She was under no illusions about how unreliable her mother could be, but she really hated other people to know about it. Even when, all those years ago, her mother had suddenly upped and left Cate and her younger brother Arthur at their home in London to ‘find herself’ in LA, Cate had not been able to bring herself to talk to her friends at school about what had happened.