The first hotel they came to refused to take them. It was a small, rough-looking place filled with students and backpackers smoking and sipping beer in the open courtyard. Matt crouched in the street beside the door, once again disguising his height, while Pedro spoke to the receptionist – an elderly woman with suspicious eyes. He had money, but she wasn’t having any of it. What he didn’t have was a passport. The money was certainly stolen. Why would two Peruvian beggar boys want to stay in a tourist hotel unless it was to rob the other guests?
The second hotel was the same. At the third, Matt went in and tried to book a room, speaking in English. The owner stared at him in something close to shock and he could understand why. The language he was speaking simply didn’t fit in with his appearance and he backed away quickly. He had no need to remind himself that the police were looking for him. The fact that Captain Rodriguez had been at the hacienda proved that he was in the pay of Diego Salamanda – if any more proof were needed. Matt had no papers, no identity. If the police got their hands on him a second time, he would disappear for good.
By now it was late morning. Matt was thirsty, hungry and exhausted. He could feel the lack of oxygen in the air. Every time he exerted himself, he had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. How high up were they? On the bus, it had felt as if they were climbing for hours.
He looked at Pedro and gestured. “Do you want to eat?”
Pedro nodded. “Estoy muerto de hambre.”
They chose the shabbiest, quietest restaurant they could find, but even so the owner refused to serve them until they had paid. But once he had their money and knew they wouldn’t run away, he took pity on them and served a huge meal of chicharrones – chunks of deep-fried pork ribs – and a jug of chicha, which tasted sweet and fruity and was some sort of ancient Inca beer.
Matt and Pedro ate in silence. They had no choice. But even so Matt was beginning to feel closer to the other boy – as if the two of them had known each other all their lives and really had no need to talk. A few other travellers came in, but they paid no attention to them and Matt was able to relax and collect his thoughts.
One of the travellers at the next table was reading a Spanish newspaper. He turned a page and at that moment, everything changed. Pedro nudged him and pointed. Matt turned and saw a photograph of himself – taken by Richard in the middle of York. Matt saw the pale skin, the neat hair, the smiling face and jolted upright in his chair. The picture belonged to another time, another world. He could hardly believe it was himself.
And then came the fear. Had the Peruvian police published the photograph to try and track him down? How had they got it? He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, but he had to know what the newspaper said. And how was he meant to do that? It was the same old problem. The article was in Spanish and Pedro couldn’t read. But then the traveller moved his hand and Matt saw English words. His own name, in capital letters. He leant forward. And there it was, a message that was surely from the Nexus:
There was a telephone number printed below.
So someone had finally realized he was missing and had taken steps to find him! Almost for the first time since he arrived in Peru, Matt felt a surge of hope. The Nexus had reached out to him. He was going to be all right.
He quickly memorized the number before the traveller turned the page. The table had a paper cloth and he wrote it down in tomato sauce, using a toothpick, then tore it out. As soon as they had finished eating, he hurried into the street.
“We need to find a telephone,” he told Pedro.
“Si… un telefono.” Pedro was the one who had seen the photograph. He knew what was going on.
Just about every hotel and cafe in Cuzco had telephone and Internet facilities. Matt went into the first one he found, threw down some money and made his demand in English. He wasn’t worrying about his safety any more. He was shown into a creaky, wooden booth where he took out the scrap of torn paper and dialled the number. There was a pause, a dialling tone, then -
“Matthew? Is that you?” It was Fabian speaking. He sounded exhausted and excited at the same time and it occurred to Matt that this was a dedicated telephone line and he must have been sitting beside the receiver, waiting for the call.
“Mr Fabian?”
“Where are you? How are you? Are you all right?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“I can’t believe it’s you. We’ve all been so worried about you. I nearly went crazy when you and Richard didn’t show up in Lima and then Alberto told me what happened. Is Richard with you?”
“No. He’s not.” Matt felt a sense of relief just talking to Fabian, hearing his voice once again. “I’m OK, but I need your help.”
“Of course. We’ve been waiting for you to ring. You don’t need to worry about anything now, Matt. You just need to tell me where you are and how I can reach you.”
“I’m in Cuzco.”
“Cuzco?” Fabian was astonished. “What are you doing there?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Just tell me. And as soon as I put this phone down, I’m on my way…”
Half an hour later, Susan Ashwood received a telephone call at her home in Manchester, England. It was Fabian, phoning from Lima.
“I’ve spoken to Matthew,” he told her. “You won’t believe the things that have been happening to him but he’s alive and he’s all right. He’s in Cuzco. Don’t ask me how he got there. It’s too long a story. But I’ve already booked a flight and I’ll be there this evening. I’m going to bring him in. And there’s wonderful news, Miss Ashwood. Something you won’t believe. He says he’s found a second Gatekeeper. Another one of the Five…”
The two of them spoke for some time as Fabian filled her in on what Matt had told him. Then he rang off and Susan Ashwood called Nathalie Johnson to pass on the news.
“Matthew is in Cuzco,” she said. “He saw the advertisement and telephoned Fabian…”
The two women spoke for about ten minutes.
And shortly after that, Diego Salamanda received a call at his hacienda near Ica. He barely spoke at all, holding the receiver against his ear. The mouthpiece, of course, came nowhere near his mouth. When he did want to talk, he had to slide the receiver down his face.
Eventually, he smiled and hung up. The caller had told him exactly what he wanted to hear.
Now he knew where Matt was too.
INTO THIN AIR
The next available flight from Lima didn’t get in until nine o’clock in the evening and Fabian had arranged to meet Matt and Pedro one hour after that, in front of the cathedral in the main square. That gave them the rest of the day to kill until he arrived.
They spent the time walking around Cuzco, trying to keep out of everyone’s way. It was a weird experience for Matt. Normally someone like him would only come here as a tourist and if he had been dressed differently, that was what people would think he was. He could imagine himself stopping to photograph the long galleries with their stone archways and the bustling shops behind.
But his disguise had put him right at the heart of the city. Matt had become part of it. At one point, as he and Pedro sat on a step outside a museum, he even found himself being photographed by two Americans. For reasons he couldn’t quite understand, he was annoyed to see the expensive zoom lens being focused on him. Before the camera had clicked, he sprang to his feet.
“Why don’t you take a picture of someone else?” he snapped at the astonished couple. He knew he wasn’t being fair but he still felt a brief sense of victory as the man and his wife backed away, confused.
Later that afternoon, he and Pedro came upon the temple of Coricancha. In fact, they could hardly have missed it. This was a major tourist attraction, located in the southern part of the city and surrounded by coaches, with a non-stop flow of visitors around the main entrance. Once again there were Inca walls, and a terrace high above, giving panoramic views over the city. There was also a Spanish church on the site. In fact it had been constructed over it – one building on top of another – as if it had been dropped there from outer space.