‘I’ve contacted the perfect person for the job.’
XXIX
‘You’re absolutely sure?’
Aaron Devlin listened to the voice on the other end of the line before he acknowledged the details and set the phone down into its cradle in the corner his seat.
The Bombadier jet was parked on the servicing apron of Chile’s largest international airport, and the voice on the other end of the line had been an agent in Washington DC who had picked up a link between Lucy Morgan’s work in Cambodia and the DIA’s investigation into the remains excavated from Israel.
Warner and Morgan had been identified and pursued in Berlin, but once again had slipped away from Lieutenant Veer and another agent sent to apprehend them. A rapid egress from the scene and an assessment of their activities had enabled to agents to ascertain that Morgan had been studying an Incan artefact known as a quipu, and Aaron’s contacts had quickly identified the precise quipu in question and sent him everything that had been learned from it during previous studies.
The DIA had deciphered the quipu approximately six months prior to Aaron’s arrival in Peru, but had been unaware of its links to the archaeological sites in Cambodia and Yonaguni. Thus, the measurements and data contained within the quipu had presented no useful information and had been disregarded. Now, the information had suddenly been thrown into sharp relief by the revelatory imagery from the other sites, and its contents had stunned even Aaron.
The quipu detailed a particular location on a plateau deep in the deserts of Peru’s with astonishing precision, comparable to a modern Global Positioning System fix. Aaron’s assistants had been required to ascertain where the quipu had first been found, because the coordinates were based on the quipu’s original location. Many of the ancient Inca’s artefacts had been destroyed by the conquistadores including quipu, which had been considered by the Christian invaders as unGodly with typically bigoted arrogance. However, hundreds had survived and in 2014 a set of twenty five had been unearthed in an archaeological complex called Incahuasi, south of Lima. Six hundred years old, the quipu were perfectly preserved and one of them stood out as exceptional, for it matched perfectly the icons found at the seven-thousand year old burial site in Israel.
Orientating the data deciphered from the quipu with its location, Aaron’s team had been able to get a fix on the location the quipu described: the Nazca Plateau. Aaron picked up an image of an aircraft seen landing at the airport the day before, an antiquated old seaplane that had in the space of a few days completed half a circumnavigation of the globe from Egypt to Peru.
‘A Consolidated Catalina is not an aircraft designed to fly such distances,’ he murmured to himself as he used the Internet to study the aircraft type.
Built during World War II for the United States Navy and Army air force as a long-range, amphibious reconnaissance and antisubmarine aircraft, the Catalina was renowned for its long-range and endurance. However it was never really designed for all-weather operations, better suited to work in warm temperatures and low to medium altitudes. What interested Aaron was that the Catalina had last been seen on radar flying high into the Peruvian Andes on what had been filed on its flight plan as a sightseeing trip.
Aaron was no aviator, but he was fully aware of the dangers of flying in mountainous terrain. High elevations created various types of winds that could pull an aircraft from the sky and cause it to plummet into the ground. Most aviators avoided these conditions rather than choosing to fly directly into them.
To his annoyance Lieutenant Veer had lost track of Lucy Morgan somewhere between Cambodia and Cairo, where the Catalina had landed, but then picked them up again in Berlin after they had somewhat foolishly booked seats on a commercial flight. He considered it something of a triumph that he had decided to maintain a watch on the Catalina. Although he was certain now that they had not been aboard when the aircraft had departed Cairo, it was also obvious that Yuri Polkov was following the same aircraft, his private Lear Jet also identified at Schipol Airport and now being tracked across the Atlantic, heading for South America.
Aaron examined a photograph taken in Berlin after an incident at the museum and on the autobahn nearby. Clearly, Yuri Polkov’s men had pursued Lucy Morgan just as Aaron had been but they had been in possession of better information. Morgan’s disappearance from the city, with Warner in tow meant that fresh help had arrived to assist them, help with sufficient influence and power to spirit them out of Germany and away to South America. With so many parties now involved, it was difficult to track allegiances or fathom motivations.
Meanwhile the Catalina continued its journey across Europe and over the North Atlantic. Aaron had resisted the temptation to have the aircraft’s owners apprehended and questioned. Though he could not be sure, his instincts told him that the aircraft pilot was involved somehow and may well lead him to Lucy Morgan by a more roundabout means.
‘What are they looking for in Peru?’ he asked out loud.
The voice that replied came from speakers mounted in the aircraft, wirelessly linked to American spy satellites equipped to transfer secure communications outside of normal channels.
‘Given their previous research, it would seem likely that they are pursuing further evidence located in or around the sites of ancient civilizations. What we cannot confirm is where they will go next. We can reroute spy satellites to monitor the area but their orbits are not sufficient to maintain a constant watch and the aircraft you identified could easily depart the area and be missed.’
Aaron nodded. The Catalina’s amphibious nature allowed it to land in places that would not be accessible to other aircraft. Flying in mountainous terrain beyond the reach of local radar, the aircraft could be lost in a moment and impossible to locate in such a vast and uninhabited country.
‘We’ve got to get ahead of the game,’ Aaron insisted. ‘Apprehending Yuri Polkov and removing him from play could put us ahead of Morgan.’
‘Polkov is a dealer, a mercenary seeking profit. He likely knows nothing that would benefit us, and his possession of the quipu does not threaten our position, for we already know of its contents and the locations it describes. Our purpose and priority is to confiscate everything that Lucy Morgan or Yuri Polkov find and ensure that they are unable to share any of their discoveries with the wider world.’
Aaron nodded as he picked up a picture that had been taken four days before Vladimir Polkov had approached Lucy Morgan. The agency had been following Polkov and his entourage around Chicago, Illinois. As his enquiries had concerned Lucy Morgan, his presence then flagged up the CIA’s interest, the agency having placed a permanent watch on Lucy ever since the events in Israel. Aaron had been on Morgan’s tail almost immediately, but it was only recently that he had been able to assess much of the surveillance data that had been gathered on her movements during the period preceding the Polkovs’ appearance in Chicago.
The photograph was a split image of Chicago’s Lake Shore Hospitaclass="underline" one of Lucy Morgan walking inside, and one of the young girls who was being treated at the hospital for an unknown genetic disorder. Aaron stared at the image for a long moment before he spoke.
‘What is Lucy Morgan’s end game here?’ Aaron asked out loud. ‘Why do you think she intends to deliberately go against the conditions of her nondisclosure agreement with the DIA?’
The voice of Majestic Twelve’s Number Three replied.
‘The reasons why are irrelevant. All that matters is that she is attempting to expose national secrets and she must be stopped from doing so. This task above all others is the focus of your mission.’