Free Return to Atlantis: A Novel by Andy McDermott Page B

of a number of concerned people, and you might even learn something new about them.”
    He was right, Nina decided reluctantly. “He’s definitely willing to give the other statues back to Egypt and Peru? No conditions?”
    “Apparently that’s so. His main concern was reclaiming his own property, but he said he bought the others as well to get them back into the right hands.”
    “How much did he pay for them?”
    “I don’t know, but … a large sum, I imagine.”
    “Which is probably now in Stikes’s pocket. Great,” she said glumly. “When does he want to see me?”
    “He said that’s up to you,” said Penrose, “but from the IHA’s point of view, the sooner the better. If the statues are off the market, that’s one security issue we no longer need to worry about.”
    She considered it. “Okay, I’ll go see him. Once this is wrapped up, I can focus on the Atlantis excavations.”
    Penrose nodded. “A sound choice. I’ll let Mr. Takashi know.”
    He left the office, and Nina picked up her phone. “Lola. I need you to book a flight for me.”

    Half a world away, Eddie had completed a flight of his own, and was making a taxi journey through the bustling streets of Hong Kong. He had visited the former British colony several times before, and was always amazed by the island’s energy and vibrancy, a hothouse for deal making and fast action. It was a vanguard for the new China, raw entrepreneurial capitalism workingat a merciless pace that shocked even Americans. Anyone who wasn’t constantly clawing their way up like the ever-climbing skyscrapers very quickly got trampled.
    But this time, the city’s rush was nothing more than a background hum. There was only one thing on his mind. The taxi deposited him at a corner near the address he had been given, and he carved his way like an icebreaker through the crowds filling the narrow, advertising-banner-filled street to reach one particular door. He found the buzzer for the apartment and pushed it. After a pause, a female voice spoke in Cantonese.
    “It’s Eddie Chase,” he said.
    The voice switched to English. “You made it. Come on in. Sixth floor, on the left.” The door latch clacked, and he entered the building.
    There was no elevator, so he pounded up the cramped stairwell to the sixth floor. A woman opened the door as he reached it. “Come inside.”
    There was no mistaking Madeline Scarber’s sandpaper-throated voice, but its owner was very different from Eddie’s preconceptions. For a start, her name had led him to assume that she was Caucasian, but the short, skeletal woman with the helmet-like black bob was of Chinese descent. She was also younger than he had imagined, around fifty rather than the pensioner her gravelly growl suggested. “Not what you expected, huh?” she said as she ushered him inside. “My mother was Chinese German, and she married a Dutch American. I’m a one-woman melting pot.”
    More like a one-woman ashtray
, Eddie thought as the all-pervading reek of stale cigarette smoke hit him, but he kept it to himself. Scarber closed the door and followed him into a lounge. The room was expensively furnished in stark black and white, a glimpse of the harbor visible through the window between two much taller apartment blocks. She waved for him to sit on a stylish but, as it turned out, not especially comfortable leather couch. “So you’re here, kiddo. I guess you want to knowwhat I want from you in return for telling you how to find Alexander Stikes.”
    “It’d crossed my mind.”
    Scarber lit a cigarette, then almost as an afterthought offered him one. “We’d like you to do something for us.”
    “We?”
Eddie asked as she held out her expensive lighter.
    “The people I represent. We have a mutual enemy.”
    “Stikes?”
    She shook her head. “Stikes is part of it, but no big deal to us.”
    “He is to me.”
    “I know. Which is why my proposal will benefit us both.”
    He leaned back and blew out smoke.