‘But Julieta said they made the lake dry up in the first place. Get rid of them and you get your water back.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know…’
Eddie banged a hand on the desk, making him jump. ‘I’ll tell you what I know. Those bastards up in the Enklave have got my wife, and my friends. I’m going to get them back — and you’re going to help me. Otherwise there really won’t be a town, ’cause I’ll burn the fucking place to the ground. Starting with your hotel.’
Silva wearily raised his head. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘I want you to call Kroll. Tell him I’m dead. That way, they won’t expect any trouble when I go up there.’
‘But what if he wants to speak to Santos?’
‘I don’t fucking know! You’re a politician; lie. But once you’ve done that, I need to know the best way to get up there, and what I can expect to find.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Silva. ‘I have never been inside the Enklave. No one from the town has.’
‘Seriously?’ Eddie said in disbelief. ‘So nobody knows what’s up there?’
‘I do,’ said a new voice.
All three turned to see Julieta at the door, which she had silently eased open. Silva jumped up, admonishing her in Spanish.
She responded in English. ‘No, Papá. I will not go to my room. I am not a child any more! This town has been sick for a long time, and we all know it — but this man has helped us by stopping El Jefe. So now we must help him. It is the right thing to do.’
Silva was clearly unhappy at being challenged by his daughter, but he seemed so drained by the day’s events that he lacked the energy to argue with her. ‘How do you know what is in the Enklave?’ he asked instead.
‘I have been inside.’
The mayor’s eyes widened. ‘What?’
‘Roland took me up the hill, in secret. We followed the old railroad.’
‘Roland? That boy?’
‘You’ve met him?’ Eddie asked Silva. ‘They come down to the town?’
‘Once or twice a year. They buy supplies, tools, things like that. They grow their own food, but it must not be enough for all of them any more.’
‘All of them?’ echoed the Yorkshireman. ‘How many of these buggers are there? How big’s this Enklave?’
‘Their land starts at the edge of the lake, and goes all the way to the old mines in the mountains.’ The bases of the peaks Eddie had seen on the way into Lago Amargo were at least ten miles away; the Enklave was indeed huge. ‘It is…’ Silva thought for a moment, ‘more than two hundred and fifty square kilometres. But I do not know how many people live there.’
‘Over one hundred,’ said Julieta. ‘Roland told me. Maybe one hundred and twenty.’
‘That’s a lot of Nazis,’ Eddie muttered.
‘Roland is not a Nazi!’ she protested. ‘He is… different. He wanted to find out more about the world, so…’ Guilt crossed her face as she glanced at the computer on Silva’s desk. ‘So I let him use the Internet when you were not here, Papá. Volker, too. He used it even more than Roland.’
‘Volker Koenig?’ said Eddie.
‘Yes, Roland’s brother.’
‘I met him. Briefly.’
‘Where is he?’ she asked, excited. ‘Is he okay?’
He hesitated before giving her the bad news. ‘I’m… afraid not. He’s dead.’
Julieta stared at him, stricken. ‘What — what happened to him?’ asked her father, equally shocked.
‘He came looking for us, but a Nazi called Jaekel shot him. I’m sorry.’
‘He shot Volker?’ she whispered. ‘But — but why? Why was he looking for you?’
‘He wanted to give something to my wife — she’s an archaeologist, Nina Wilde.’
‘I know that name!’ she said. ‘She is famous, yes?’ Eddie nodded. ‘Volker read about her on the computer. You are really married to her?’
‘Yeah, hard to believe with a face like this, I know,’ he said with a bruised smile. ‘They’re holding her, somewhere up there. I’m going to get her back, and the other people they’ve kidnapped too. You know how to get in?’
‘Yes — there is a hole in the fence. Roland and Volker used it to sneak down to the town.’
‘Will you show me?’
‘Of course. I will go with you.’
‘You will not,’ said Silva firmly.
‘I have to, Papá,’ Julieta insisted. ‘I have to find Roland and make sure he is okay… and I must tell him his brother is dead.’
Her father’s face fell. ‘I… Yes, you are right. But,’ he went on, raising a forefinger in warning, ‘you are not to take any risks, you understand? These people have become dangerous.’
‘They always were,’ Eddie pointed out. The reminder did not make Silva any happier.
‘What are you going to do once you are inside?’ Miranda asked.
‘First priority is rescuing Nina and the others. Then,’ he added to Julieta, ‘we’ll try to find your boyfriend. Anything else that happens… well, that’s up to them.’
‘What does that mean?’ said Silva.
‘It means that if anyone gets in my way, they’ll wish they hadn’t. But the main thing is finding Nina. Once I’ve done that, I’ll bring her and the others out, then call in the cavalry.’
Silva put his head in his hands again. ‘This could end everything. I do not know what to do…’
‘Do what is right, Papá,’ Julieta told him softly.
A sigh, then the mayor looked up at Eddie. ‘Okay. I will phone Kroll. Then,’ reluctance filled his voice, ‘Julieta can take you into the Enklave. If you promise that you will keep her safe.’
The Yorkshireman nodded. ‘I’ll watch out for her, trust me.’
‘Okay. Then… good luck, Mr Chase. I hope you find your wife, and your friends.’
‘So do I,’ replied Eddie. ‘So do I.’
After retrieving his belongings from the police station, Eddie set out with Julieta. ‘So how far’s the entrance?’ he asked, looking westwards towards the distant mountains. The crumpled hills rose quite steeply in places, but there was a distinct edge to the terrain that suggested a plateau higher up the slope.
‘There is a big gate about two kilometres from here,’ said Julieta, pointing along the dry lake bed. ‘The railroad from the mines goes to it, but it has not been used for a long time. Planes sometimes land on the lake, though; they have marked out an airstrip. There have been a lot recently — more than usual.’
‘How often do they normally come?’
‘Once every two or three months.’
‘Bringing people, or cargo?’
‘Mostly cargo. I was once out at the lake when a plane landed, so I hid in the bushes to watch. It brought lots of wooden boxes, but I do not know what was in them. But one came not long ago,’ she added, ‘and some men got in and flew away. That was weird, because they do not usually leave the Enklave.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Two weeks?’
Probably going to Egypt, Eddie thought; their entrance to Alexander’s tomb would have taken some time to prepare. ‘So if nobody leaves, how did you meet Roland and his brother?’
‘I told you, they were… different. It was over a year ago — I was looking for herbs when I found them both hiding behind some rocks. It was funny,’ she said, a faint flush of pink appearing on her cheeks as she smiled, ‘you would think they had never seen a girl before. Roland was so shy, he could hardly look at me! Volker was more… oh, I do not know the right word.’
‘Confident?’
‘Yes, that is it! But he was more confident about everything. Volker was the real explorer — he wanted to know all he could. After I showed him the Internet, it was hard to get him off the computer.’