Viper's Nest Read online

  The wheel had nearly completed its circuit now. A few more minutes and they would be out in the world again, and she would be facing – what? A bullet through her head? Bundled into a van and taken somewhere quiet to be disposed of. Cate shuddered. Marcus was right about one thing: she had to get out of this town fast. But he was talking again, more to himself, Cate thought, than to her.

  ‘It’s one thing sending you in to spy for us when people think you’re just a regular sixteen-year-old kid. But we can’t just ignore the fact that someone almost certainly knows who you are. If something happens to you, not only will I feel personally responsible, but your father will probably hunt us down like the mad dogs we are. And I can’t say I’ll blame him either.’

  ‘OK, Marcus, how about a compromise?’ Cate put on her reasonable voice. ‘Let’s ask Henri and whatever he says, we’ll go with it. Deal?’

  The wheel juddered to a halt and the door was pulled open by a bored-looking youth.

  ‘Deal,’ said Marcus reluctantly as he stepped down from the gondola and scanned the crowd with eagle eyes. As she alighted behind him, Cate noticed for the first time a bulge underneath his jacket, just above his waistline. As usual, Marcus had come ready for trouble.

  ‘I must say, I like the idea of having an undercover agent checking out El Tajin.’ Henri, his voice hammering like a machine gun out of the speaker on Marcus’s phone, had been as pragmatic as always, just as Cate suspected he would. ‘We were talking about putting someone in there anyway and Cate speaks pretty good Spanish, as I recall. It’s amazing what you can pick up if you listen. The locals often hang out with the backpackers, people have a few beers, tongues get loose. It’s a good idea. But with a potential price on Cate’s head, well, I don’t know if we can take that risk. We may have to end up bailing her out of trouble and we really can’t afford the manpower at the moment. As far as IMIA is concerned, Cate may well be a spent force.’

  Cate took a sharp intake of breath and Marcus shot her an apologetic glance. Tact was never Henri’s strongest point.

  Oblivious, Henri tutted to himself, clearly thinking hard. ‘I have to consider this. I’ll let you know as soon as I reach a decision. In the meantime, Marcus, take Cate somewhere secure. She’s no longer safe in LA.

  Five minutes later, Cate found herself looking up at the dirty windows of an apartment over a cut-price grocery store three blocks back from the ocean.

  ‘We’re not in a James Bond movie,’ said Marcus as he spotted the disappointment on her face. ‘Real spies blend into the background; they don’t drive flash cars and live in penthouse suites. We’re not even good-looking. Well, present company excepted, of course. In fact, a good spy is delighted if no one can ever remember what he or she looks like. Stay there.’ He gestured towards the porch. ‘I’ll just check we weren’t followed.’

  Once inside the grubby two-roomed apartment, Cate sat down gingerly on a rather dirty cream sofa.

  ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ Marcus waved a couple of chipped mugs at her. ‘Though there’s no milk, I’m afraid.’

  Cate shook her head.

  ‘Game of cards?’ Marcus produced a pack from his pocket and began to deal. ‘Pontoon?’

  Cate had just beaten Marcus for the third time in a row when his phone bleeped softly.

  ‘Henri says to go ahead,’ he said, looking up from his phone. ‘Oh, and apparently Novak Dabrowski left the Polish security services three years ago. Which begs the question, where has he been in the meantime?’

  A few minutes later there was a gentle knock at the door.

  ‘Yo, Jay,’ said Marcus, high-fiving with the bespectacled young black man carrying a large, battered briefcase. ‘Haven’t seen you since that Croatian deal went down. Was it three years ago? Oh, by the way, this is Cate, your operative. I guess you’ve been told what she needs.’

  Jay looked at Cate, opened his mouth and then shut it again. He put his bag down and began to unpack the contents on to the glass coffee table.

  Cate spotted the standard spy stuff: a few bugs, a compact bundle of dollar notes, a microscopic infra-red camera hidden in a pen, a tiny laser that could cut through just about anything. Funny, she reflected, how she knew exactly what they were. When she had first used these gadgets last summer she had thought that they were amazing, so complicated that she would never be able to use them. But now, after two missions, they felt almost like old friends – familiar, easy-to-use and totally reliable. Perhaps this spying thing was growing on her after all.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, picking up what looked like a conductor’s baton and waving it around.

  ‘Aha – clever little thing, this is,’ said Jay, putting out his hand. His breath smelled of chewing gum and coffee. ‘It’s new, but very sensitive and reliable. It’s a metal detector, see?’

  He pulled a tiny attachment from the bottom of the small leather bag and pushed it on to the tip of the rod. He waved it over Cate’s hand and it bleeped happily at the silver Tiffany ring that Monique and her dad had given her for her sixteenth birthday present.

  ‘It’s accurate to a distance of about three metres. Flick this switch here . . .’ he pointed to a tiny red knob at the side of the baton ‘. . . and it becomes a heat-seeker.’

  ‘Useful for searching out live targets,’ explained Marcus, seeing her puzzled face. ‘Even works through solid stone. We thought it might come in handy, as you’re going to be hanging out in the pyramids!’

  ‘Ever worn contact lenses?’ Jay asked her.

  Cate shook her head, taken aback at the question. She had twenty-twenty vision, unlike Arthur and her friend Louisa.

  ‘I’d like you to practise wearing these.’

  Cate took the small plastic tin from him and, to her amazement, opened it up to find a pair of clear eye lenses cupped in a bed of blue fluid.

  ‘You want me to wear contact lenses?’ She was baffled.

  ‘At Christmas we kitted you out with night-vision goggles,’ Marcus reminded her. ‘This is the next step up. Night-vision lenses. Safe, secure, easy to use. State of the art, ultra high-tech, they mould to the shape of your eye and give you the clearest daytime vision in the darkest of places.’

  ‘Wow,’ Cate said. ‘That really is incredible. Who on earth thought of that?’

  ‘The military,’ said Jay, his eyes dancing enthusiastically behind his thick glasses. ‘Like with most of these inventions. It’s usually them or the gaming industry. We’ve been using these since January and, I can tell you, it’s a lifesaving bit of kit. And you never know – you might just need it.’

  Suddenly Marcus had an uncharacteristically worried expression on his face. ‘Cate, I promise you we’ll stay in close touch and if you come across anything in your investigations in Mexico, anything at all that you think warrants back-up, call us and we’ll get to you as quickly as we can. Just use my safe number or Skype us at HQ. And promise me you won’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  Cate looked at him and then over to Jay. She picked up the gadgets and almost lovingly loaded them into her rucksack. ‘You can rely on me,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 14

  The turquoise swimming pool shimmered and glittered in the warm sunshine. Somewhere nearby, a waterfall was tinkling gently into a miniature lake teeming with exotic fish. Cate lay on a sun lounger, enthralled by the sounds of the forest, the deep throb of the hummingbirds and the shrieks of the parakeets coming from the lush tropical greenery that surrounded the hotel grounds, grateful for the distraction they provided to her endlessly churning thoughts.

  Behind her lay the vast marble edifice of the smartest hotel in Veracruz, a place that, with its vast oil paintings and gleaming stone floors, reminded Cate more of a cathedral than somewhere to rest her head. It was situated almost directly on the main plaza, a huge cobblestone square edged by vast, gracious colonial buildings built on arches, underneath which a bewildering array of vendors and musicians plied their trade to tourists and locals alike.

  T
he limousine had dropped them off just by the square and, as the numerous cases – most of them leather, very heavy and belonging to Nancy – were being unloaded by a flurry of overexcited hotel porters, Cate wandered a few metres away. Her phone beeped. It was a text from Ritchie. Cate had a sudden pang of guilt. She had forgotten to tell him she was going to Mexico. But now, knowing what she knew, she was loathe to tell anyone where she was.

  A group of Spanish guitar players had struck up a fast and furious melody that quickly had people around them clapping and stamping in time to the music. Several stalls were enjoying a roaring trade in lunchtime food; the aromas of paprika, shellfish and coffee wafted towards the new arrivals.

  ‘I love this city.’ Lucas was suddenly at her side. ‘I always use it as my base when I come to Mexico, even though it’s a few hours from where I’ll be doing the filming. It’s so full of history and atmosphere. They call Veracruz the crossroads of the Americas – and with good reason. Wars, invasions, pirates and traders from every corner of the globe – all human life either has been or is here.’

  He paused and then his voice hardened. ‘What are you up to, Cate? The other night at the restaurant I went to the loo shortly after you did. And guess what? I saw you following someone and clambering on to a boat. Peering through a window. Spying.’ His voice turned angry almost. ‘I’m guessing that you have somehow decided that it would be sensible to work with IMIA again when we both know how dangerous they are.’

  Cate stared at him, her guilt rendering her dumb, her usually quick-witted mind frozen. She knew she could trust Lucas, and that thanks to his army days in counter-intelligence he understood how organisations like IMIA worked. But how much could she tell him? How far could she push his loyalty?

  She took a deep breath. ‘Some friends of mine have gone missing from El Tajin, where they were working on an archaeological dig. When IMIA found out I was in LA, they contacted me and asked me if I could get down there and start asking some questions. They thought that a teenager working undercover might give them an advantage.’

  Lucas was silent for minute. ‘Are you in danger?’ ‘I don’t think so. Well, not now I’m down here – and as long as no one knows where I’ve gone when I go to El Tajin. So please, don’t tell anyone, Lucas. And I mean no one.’

  He stared at her, visibly shocked. ‘Not even your mother?’ Cate felt her face burning at the realisation that she was admitting, not just to herself but also to Lucas, that she couldn’t trust her own mother. ‘I can’t risk her stopping me,’ she lied, feeling more miserable by the second. ‘But if I don’t go and at least try to help find my friends, well, I’ll never forgive myself.’

  Lucas’s face finally softened. ‘You’re obsessed with saving the world. Or trying to. God knows why. It’s not as if you actually make a difference. Not really.’

  ‘You are too,’ Cate said. ‘Look why you’re here in Mexico.’ ‘Sometimes I think I’d be better off just buying a vineyard. Making cheese. Going on reality TV shows,’ Lucas replied. He sighed. ‘I’m not going to stop you, Cate. I can’t. But I’m telling you one thing: you may be clever, you may be brave, but you’ve also been damn lucky so far. The army taught us that you can never rely on luck because, sure as hell, one day it will run out.’

  Her phone bleeped. It was another text from Ritchie.

  Where r u? Hv I offended u? Can we meet 4 coffee? Need 2 talk.

  Cate felt a pang of guilt. Poor Ritchie. She had just cleared off without telling him anything. And after all they had been through that terrible night together too. No wonder he wanted to meet.

  She frowned. It felt mean not to reply to him. Surely it wouldn’t do any harm to let him know she was out of town, so long as she kept the details vague.

  Gone away with Lucas, Nancy and Mum for a break. Call u when back in LA.

  Now, sitting by the hotel pool, Cate reached under her sunbed and pulled out her tablet, then looked around her carefully. There was no one nearby, even the waiters had vanished back into the cool of the hotel. She looked at her watch. Two p.m. Evening in London.

  Arthur had a bowl of cereal in his hand.

  ‘Arthur,’ Cate began. ‘I’ve made it to Mexico. I’m here with Mum too – but not for long. I’m planning to break away – get up to El Tajin. Just to check it out. But I can’t tell Mum, not till I’ve gone.’

  ‘I wish you luck,’ said Arthur. ‘She’ll be pretty mad. She sent me an email saying she’d hardly seen you since you arrived in LA. Seems to think you’ve got yourself a new boyfriend.’

  Cate blushed. ‘No way!’ she cried. ‘Ritchie is a lovely guy but, well, he’s just a friend. And, you know, I’ve only recently split up with Michel. Anyway, did you find anything out?’ Cate continued, quickly changing the subject.

  ‘Weeeelll.’ Arthur was clearly enjoying himself. ‘You know you gave me the names of all those sites that had been attacked? You wanted me to try and find out any links between them that marked them out as a target?’

  Cate nodded.

  ‘I tried all sorts of things. Where they were sited, how old they were, the cultures that built them, the type of stuff they were excavating, how big or small. I even tried their geographical coordinates.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Cate. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Arthur sat back in his chair. ‘Not a thing. Apart from the fact they were all digs in Mexico and by the coast – which we knew already – I couldn’t find one thing to link them.’

  Cate tried hard to hide her disappointment. Another possible lead gone.

  ‘At least you tried, Arthur,’ she said kindly. ‘You can’t win ’em all.’

  ‘Ahem.’ There was a small cough from the screen. ‘Actually, I think I can claim yet another victory for the geek in your life! I decided to take a step back. An overview, as they say. Perhaps it wasn’t the sites themselves that were providing the common thread, perhaps it was the victims. It appears that, as in Europe, archaeological digs in Mexico are pretty tightly regulated. You can’t just turn up and start excavating ancient sites. You have to be properly organised, even if you are just a small team, overseen by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Mexico City.’

  ‘Right,’ said Cate. She wasn’t quite sure where this was going but Arthur was clearly on a roll.

  ‘I was up most of last night, but finally I managed to find a way into their departmental system. Then it took a few likely keywords and up it popped. A spreadsheet containing all the archaeological sites in Mexico, who’s currently working on them, which university they’re from and so on. I saw El Tajin, of course, with the four names including your friends Amber and Jade. I ran the spreadsheet against the names of the five sites which had been attacked and there was a link . . .’

  Cate sat forward on the bed, her heart racing. ‘Go on, Arthur, tell me. I can’t bear the suspense.’

  ‘It was the money,’ Arthur said triumphantly. ‘Archaeological digs don’t come cheap and to keep going they all need outside sponsorships. Some of the sites are openly sponsored by big corporations. BD Oil, for example. Cervaza beer is another one. In return, they get to display their logos – in the site museum, say – trumpet their goodness in the media, bring their employees up for festivals and so on.’

  ‘Seems fair enough,’ said Cate. ‘They’re going to expect something in return.’

  ‘Agreed. But our digs were all funded by the same company in what looked like a highly confidential and secretive agreement, asking for nothing in return. In fact, there’s a warning note on the spreadsheet that the company has specifically stipulated no publicity. Wanna know the name of the company?’

  ‘Oh Arthur, you’re such a tease.’ Cate grinned at her brother. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Johnny James Holdings. Head office in LA, bank accounts filed in the Caymen Islands. For tax reasons probably.’

  Cate stared at her brother. ‘Johnny James.’ Somewhere a light was going on in her brain. What had Ritchie said about his uncle?


  Johnny James had agreed to sponsor the twins, paid for everything. If he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have been able to go.

  ‘JJ Holdings is the umbrella company for a variety of smaller enterprises,’ continued Arthur. ‘Including a film production company, a record label, and, of course, the hotel where you were staying – the Erin Hotel in Santa Monica.’

  ‘So Johnny James wasn’t just sponsoring the twins. He was funding digs all over Mexico,’ Cate said slowly. ‘And for some reason he doesn’t want anyone to know about it and doesn’t seem to want anything in return. Why, when he is such a publicity seeker in other areas for his charitable work?’

  Arthur shrugged. ‘Dunno, sis. I leave the clever stuff to you.’

  ‘Arthur,’ said Cate suddenly. Her heart was racing now. For the first time in this seemingly unsolvable mystery it seemed they could just be one step ahead of the criminals. ‘Are there others on the list – other digs that JJ Holdings are sponsoring that haven’t been attacked yet? If we can find that out – well, we might be able to prevent the next heist, or use it to catch whoever’s responsible.’

  ‘Yeah, of course, sorry. I’ve got them here. I’ll text them to you.’

  ‘Wicked, Arthur,’ said Cate admiringly. ‘Top of the class today. I’ll pass them on to Marcus right away. And now, just in case you get bored, I’ve got another little job for you. I need you to check out a yacht, a boat called Ming Yue – which I think means Bright Moon. Owned by a Chinese billionaire called Xu Yongmin.’

  ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Cate thoughtfully. ‘Anything that could link the boat to the twins, to Mexico, I guess. I want to know why Novak Dabrowski was showing photographs of Mexican antiquities to a man onboard the boat when he was supposed to be in New York and the boat was meant to be locked up.’

  Arthur shrugged. ‘I’ll see what I can do. I haven’t done much work in China. It’ll be an education. Do you mind if I finish my supper now? It’s not often I can convince Monique to buy Coco Pops, but she felt sorry for me because you’re away and gave in to pester power. A bit like I always give in to your pester power!’ He grinned and blew Cate a kiss. ‘And before you ask, no, I won’t save any for you. They’re mine, all mine!’