‘And including me too,’ said Ziff, to much surprise from both the film crew and the other archaeologists.
‘I know what I’m doing, Steven,’ said Nina. ‘I have done this before. A lot. You don’t need to take on extra responsibilities.’
‘That’s the deal, Nina,’ he insisted. ‘Mike already okayed it. You want us, then you accept it. Otherwise you’ll have to wait to find a new crew — and I know you’re not the patient type.’ He indicated the tunnel entrance. ‘What we found down there isn’t a secret any more, and like you said, if you can figure out how to find the lost city, so can someone else.’
She struggled to contain her irritation. The proposition felt more like blackmail, and she had often felt Fisher was more interested in using the series to boost his résumé than showcase her discoveries.
But he was right about her concerns; the longer it took to get the expedition moving, the greater the chance that Zhakana might be looted first… ‘Okay,’ she grumbled. ‘We do it your way, Steven. But I still decide what’s important archaeologically, okay? It is kinda my area of expertise.’
Lydia rolled her eyes, but Fisher nodded. ‘If we’re all in agreement…’ He regarded his crew, who one by one gave their assent. ‘I’ll call Mike, get the lawyers to draw up contracts.’
‘With danger money,’ said Rivero.
‘Hell yes, with danger money! We’re not filming this on Malibu Beach.’
‘More’s the pity,’ Lydia muttered.
‘But yeah, we’re good to go. So Nina, I think you need to make some calls yourself.’
‘You’re right,’ Nina replied. ‘I’ve got to contact the Congolese government and actually get permission to visit the country in the first place — although I won’t tell them straight up that we’re looking for a lost city housing a palace built by King Solomon. We don’t want to draw that much attention. I’ll also have to arrange the logistics, security…’ She stopped as she realised that in her excitement and focus on one objective, she had overlooked something equally important. ‘And… I really should tell my family.’
6
‘You want to do bloody what?’ Eddie barked.
He was in Larry and Julie’s luxurious home outside Southampton, Macy reading a book with her grandparents while he took the phone call. ‘What’s Mommy doing?’ she asked, worried. ‘Is she okay?’
‘Yeah, love, she’s fine,’ he assured her. ‘At least, until I get hold of her!’
‘I heard that,’ said Nina.
‘You were meant to!’ He went into the adjoining room to continue what he knew would be a heated discussion in privacy. ‘Okay, say that again, so I can be sure I didn’t just have a massive brain fart. You want to go to…’
‘The Democratic Republic of Congo.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. You haven’t got a talking gorilla or Tim Curry, so why the’ — he lowered his voice — ‘fuck do you want to go there?’
‘The map room I found in the First Temple? I figured out where it leads. There’s a lost city, somewhere in the jungle in the eastern Congo. King Solomon visited it three thousand years ago and built a palace to protect a biblical relic. It might still be there.’
‘And it might not! Three thousand years is a long time.’
‘The Atlantean temple we found in Brazil had been there even longer, and it was still intact.’
‘And it’d been looked after by a tribe who tried to kill us, remember?’
‘I can hardly forget,’ she said. ‘But someone leaked photos of the map room online — with enough detail for anyone else to find the city the same way I did. If looters get there first, they’ll destroy the site.’
‘So? Tell the IHA where it is. I know you think Blumberg’s a cock, but he’s on the same side as you.’
‘Lester’s too by-the-book. He’d tell the Congolese government everything up front — and I’m not sure I’d trust them to protect the site. There’s a high level of corruption — and right now, there’s a lot of conflict with a secessionist movement in the east.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said Eddie, unimpressed. ‘And whereabouts in the country is this place again?’
Her voice became almost apologetic. ‘The… east?’
‘Right. So you want to search for a lost city full of treasure during a civil war in a country that’s famous for violence and corruption?’
‘Well, when you put it like that, of course it makes me sound crazy,’ she said sarcastically. ‘But we won’t be near the conflict zone, because we’re going into the jungle.’
A humourless laugh. ‘Where do you think rebels go and bloody hide? They’re not working out of their bedrooms.’
‘Eddie, I already checked all this,’ she protested. ‘Most of the secessionist violence is in the population centres along the eastern border. We’re going much farther west, into an uninhabited part of the country.’
‘Oh, “we” are, are we?’
‘Not we-us, obviously. You’ll stay with Macy, because I sure as hell don’t want her coming to the Congo! But the network has already agreed to fund the expedition. The documentary crew is coming with me.’
‘Great, so a bunch of rich Americans with expensive camera gear want to trek through one of the world’s poorest countries, that’s full of men with guns?’
Nina made an irritated sound. ‘We’re not all Americans, and that’s not the point anyway! I certainly wasn’t intending to go out there without help. That’s actually something you can help with.’
‘Me?’
‘I can’t think of a better person to arrange international security. You’ve got friends and contacts everywhere, and you’ve worked in the business — from behind a desk and on the front line. You must know people who can protect us.’
‘Well, yeah,’ he told her. ‘There are people in Congo and the countries near it who I’d trust. Question is, whether any of ’em’d be available. Especially on short notice.’ He thought for a moment. ‘How short notice?’
‘I want to start as soon as possible.’
‘Why am I not bloody surprised? And for how long?’
‘Eight days in the DRC. Two days to reach the site from the nearest airport, two days back, and four to explore.’
‘Uh-huh. And what about the time it’ll take you to get to and from that airport? Airlines don’t do direct international flights to piddly-shit little airstrips. What you’re actually saying is that you want me to look after Macy on my own for another two weeks on top of the time you’ve already been away!’
‘I thought you loved looking after her?’
‘I do! But it’s her I’m thinking about, not me. She hasn’t seen her mum for three weeks, and now you want to extend that by another fortnight?’
‘I know it’s a long time, and I know it’s not what we planned,’ said Nina. ‘But this is a big deal for me.’
‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘I mean, you’ve just found the original Jewish temple — and you found that because you also found the bloody Ark of the Covenant! And you found Atlantis, and the Garden of Eden, and all the other stuff you got books and movies and TV shows out of. And you did all of that before you turned forty! So why’s it so important that you find this city, right now?’
A long pause, enough that he wondered if they had lost the connection, then Nina spoke again. She sounded almost sad. ‘It’s because I did all that stuff before I turned forty, Eddie.’