The man hadn’t moved. “I will show you when I am inside,” he said. He looked around him. “Please… it is not safe for me out here.”
Matt knew he had to make a decision. It was something he was finding more and more. Although he was in the professor’s house and she and Richard were far older than him, he always seemed to be the one in charge.
Quickly, he turned over the options. They were all supposed to be leaving the house at ten o’clock the next morning, driving up to Lima to catch the flight that would take them to London. This was no time to be meeting with complete strangers. On the other hand, there were six of them and one of him. Professor Chambers had a weapon. And the man seemed genuine enough.
“All right!” Matt called out. “Come in…”
The man began to walk towards the house. At the same time, Richard went over to the cabinet and reached inside. There was another gun there. He wasn’t taking any chances.
The man came into the main room, Professor Chambers following him with the rifle. Now that he was inside, Matt could see that he was a few years older than Richard, with the dark hair and olive skin of a native Peruvian. He had obviously been on the road for a while. He was dusty and unshaven and his clothes were crumpled with sweat patches under the arms. There was a haunted look in his eyes. From the look of him, he didn’t seem to be a threat.
The first thing he did was to take a pair of spectacles out of his top pocket and put them on. Now he looked like a school teacher or perhaps an accountant working in a small, local office. He had a cheap watch on his wrist and his shoes were scuffed and down-at-heel. He looked straight at Matt. “Are you Matthew Freeman?” He blinked. “I did not think I would find you here.”
“Sit down,” Richard said.
The man sat on the sofa with his back to the French windows. Richard pressed the button that turned off the garden lights and everything outside the room disappeared into blackness again. It had clouded over during the night. The moon and the stars had disappeared. Richard came back over to the sofa and sat down on one of the arms. He hadn’t reset the security system. But then the visitor wouldn’t be staying very long. Scott and Jamie perched on the edge of the coffee table. Professor Chambers sat in a chair with the rifle between her knees.
“So what do you want?” she demanded.
“I will tell you everything you want to know,” Ramon said. “But can I first ask you for a drink? I have been travelling all day and I had to wait until night before coming here. Believe me, if I had been seen I would have been killed.”
“I’ll get it,” Pedro said. He got up and went into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glass of water. The man took it in both hands and gulped greedily.
“How do you know about me?” Matt asked.
“I know a great deal about you, Matthew. May I call you that? I know how you came to Peru and I think I know what you have been doing since you arrived here. I was present, also, the night you came to the hacienda at Ica, although perhaps you did not see me. I was there because I was hired to work for Diego Salamanda.”
Ramon must have known the effect the name would have on everyone in the room. Salamanda had been the chairman and owner of a huge news corporation in South America. Deliberately deformed as a child – his head had been grotesquely stretched – he had used his power and wealth to bring back the Old Ones. Matt and Pedro had gone to his hacienda searching for Richard, and later on Matt and Salamanda had confronted each other in the Nazca Desert. Matt had killed him, turning back the bullets fired from his own gun.
“Please… do not think of me as your enemy,” Ramon continued, hastily. “I swear to you that I was not part of his plans.” He paused. Beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead. “I am not even in business. I am a lecturer at Lima University and Senor Salamanda paid me to help him with a special project. I should explain that my speciality is Ancient History.” He bowed in the direction of Professor Chambers. “I have heard you speak many times, Senora. I was there, for example, last April when you gave the presentation at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia. I thought it was a brilliant talk.”
Professor Chambers thought for a moment. “It’s true that I was there,” she said. “But anyone could know that.”
“ Senor Salamanda told me that he was in possession of a diary which he wanted me to interpret on his behalf,” Ramon went on. “The diary had been written in the sixteenth century by a man called Joseph de Cordoba. This man travelled here to Peru with the Spanish conquistadors. Salamanda told me that he bought the diary from a bookseller in London, a man called William Morton.”
“He didn’t buy it,” Matt said. “He stole it. He killed William Morton to get it.” Matt knew because he had been there at the time. Morton had been demanding two million pounds but all he had got was a knife in the back.
“I did not know these things,” Ramon exclaimed. “I was innocent. My job was to work only on the text, to unlock its secrets and I spent many, many hours in his office and also at his home in Ica. The diary was never allowed to leave his side. He made it clear to me from the start that it was the most precious thing to him in the world. And as I read it, as I began to study it, I realized why. It told this extraordinary history… the Old Ones, a battle many thousands of years ago and a gate that could be unlocked by the stars.” He lowered his head.
“I know that I am responsible for what happened last June. I did the work that I was paid to do and I helped Salamanda to open the gate. I have allowed a terrible thing to happen and it has been on my conscience ever since.” He twisted on the sofa, urging them to believe him. “I am not a bad man. I am a Catholic. I go to Church. I believe in heaven and hell. And I have been thinking… what can I do to make amends for what I have done? What can I do to undo the damage that I have caused? And I knew, finally, that I must find you. So I came.”
“How did you know where we were?” Jamie asked.
“Senor Salamanda often mentioned the name of Professor Chambers. I guessed that you would be with her and I have brought you something. You will not shoot me if I reach into my bag?”
He glanced at the professor, then reached beside him. He took out an old, leather-bound book and laid it on the table. Nobody in the room said anything. But they all knew what it was. It was hard to believe that it was actually there, in front of them. The cover was dark brown with a few faint tracings of gold, tied with a cord. The edges of the pages were rough and uneven. Matt recognized it at once. It contained everything they needed to know about the Old Ones. It might even describe how they could be defeated.
“It is the diary of the mad monk,” Ramon said.
And it was. The small, square book sitting there in the middle of the table was, supposedly, the only copy in the world. There was no limit to how many secrets it might contain, how valuable it might be.
“How did you get it?” Richard demanded.
“I stole it!” Ramon took out a handkerchief and wiped it across his forehead. “I thought it would be impossible but in fact it was easy. You see, I still had my electronic pass-key to the office of Salamanda News International in Lima. And I had this crazy idea. Maybe the key had not been cancelled. Senor Salamanda was dead but surely they had forgotten about me. Two days ago I returned to the office. Nobody saw me, although by now they will know that it is gone. I took it from his desk and hurried away into the night. It is possible that the cameras will have identified me and that they will be searching for me even now.”
Richard was still suspicious. “What do you want from us?” he asked. “Do you want us to pay you?”
Ramon shook his head. “Can you not understand me?” he exclaimed. He clasped his hands in front of him. “I am twenty-eight years old. Next year I hope to be married. When I was given this work by Senor Salamanda, I knew nothing. It was just, for me, a job.