The reply was a hurried whisper. ‘Yeah. I think Osir believed me.’
‘You think?’
‘Well, he didn’t have me killed on the spot! Look, I can’t talk long - I’m in the bathroom and they’ll get suspicious.’
‘Did you see the zodiac?’ Macy asked.
‘No - it’s not here.’
Eddie looked at Macy in dismay. ‘Bugg—’
‘Don’t even start,’ said Nina, cutting him off. ‘It’s on his yacht in Monaco. That’s where we’re going. He’s got a private jet at Geneva airport.’
‘How am I going to find you if you’re on a bloody boat?’
‘I don’t know! Maybe I can - dammit, gotta go! I’ll see you soon, I love you, bye!’
‘Love you too,’ said Eddie, just after the line closed. He looked at Macy, who had put a worried hand to her mouth. ‘Well, that’s fucking marvellous.’
‘You . . . you know how you didn’t want her to go in there, and I was all, “No, we have to find the pyramid before he does”?’ she said. ‘Now thinking: ’kay, might have been wrong.’
‘Bit late,’ Eddie growled. He banged a fist on the steering wheel. ‘Shit. Monaco’s over three hundred miles away. It’ll take us at least five hours to drive there through the bloody Alps. Probably more with all the grand prix traffic.’ A clattering rumble reached him: a helicopter flying up the valley, heading for the castle. ‘And they’ll be there in less than an hour.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Get there as fast as possible and wait for her to call us,’ he said grimly, starting the car. ‘Nowt else we can do.’ He pulled out, and with a crunch of gravel spun the car round to head south.
14
Monaco
Though hardly the only micro-state to dot the map of Europe, the Principality of Monaco is by far the wealthiest, at least in terms of income per head - and also the most glamorous. The tiny country’s location on the French Riviera near the Italian border gives it a warm subtropical climate, and its royal family and casinos add an air of expensive mystique . . . to say nothing of its tax haven status, which makes it a magnet for the super-rich.
It is, however, arguably most famous for its annual motor race, million-dollar vehicles screaming through the twisting streets at over 180 miles per hour. From the foredeck of Osir’s huge yacht, the Solar Barque, moored offshore beyond Monaco’s outer breakwater, Nina couldn’t see the Saturday qualifying session as the drivers steeled themselves for the Sunday race - but she could hear it, the roaring wail of ultra-high-performance engines echoing off buildings as cars speared along the harbour front before looping back into the city and making the steep ascent to Casino Square.
‘Wow,’ she said to Osir. ‘Must be distracting if you live there and you’re trying to watch TV.’
The cult leader was, in fact, trying to watch TV. ‘I think anyone who lives in Monaco and doesn’t like the noise of racing cars can afford to take a vacation for one week each year,’ he said, eyes fixed on a live broadcast of the qualifying session. ‘But then, anyone - no!’ He muttered an Arabic curse.
‘Someone else has beaten Virtanen’s lap time?’ asked Shaban from a nearby lounger with mocking indifference.
Osir glared at him. ‘By over a tenth of a second! We’ll be lucky to have a car in the front half of the grid at this rate.’
‘We shouldn’t have any cars at all. It is a huge waste of money.’
‘It helps spread the Osirian Temple’s name around the world,’ said Osir. ‘I consider it worth it - and I am not having this discussion again, Sebak.’ His brother scowled and stood, retreating inside the yacht.
Nina turned away from the sunlit vista of the city to Osir. ‘You know, I wouldn’t have thought they’d let religions sponsor cars.’
‘Technically, the Osirian Temple is not sponsoring anything,’ he said, keeping a close watch on the screen. ‘All the money comes from the Osiris Investment Group.’ A new set of numbers appeared. ‘Ah, that’s more like it! That should put us on the third row.’
‘Sponsoring racing teams, running this enormous yacht . . . the Osirian Temple’s not really like other religions, is it?’
Osir eyed her over his sunglasses. ‘You sound disapproving, Nina.’
She shrugged. ‘Not my concern. I’m just sayin’.’
‘My clever accountants worked out a way for the Solar Barque to cost me absolutely nothing, thanks to some loss-making subsidiaries and carefully crafted leaseback agreements with OIG. Since I can have it, I may as well enjoy it. And you may as well too.’ He pushed an intercom button on his lounger’s arm. ‘Nadia? Two martinis, please.’
‘I’m okay,’ said Nina, holding up a hand.
‘I insist. On a beautiful day like this, you should take the maximum pleasure from every one of your senses.’
‘I’d rather be working on the zodiac.’
‘When it’s ready,’ he said, to her disappointment. ‘My experts are making sure it is as perfectly reassembled as possible. It will still take them hours, but I don’t want the slightest clue to be missed.’
She couldn’t stop herself from saying, ‘Then maybe you should have left it on the ceiling of the Hall of Records.’
He smirked. ‘Now you really do disapprove.’
‘Moving it wouldn’t have been my first choice - especially since your brother and that asshole Diamondback tried to kill me while they were doing it.’ She shot a venomous look at the deck above. Diamondback was leaning against the rail, surreptitiously keeping an eye on her. ‘But it’s done. So I might as well profit from it.’
‘And you will, Nina. We both will.’ He smiled, then turned as a lithe young Jamaican woman in a bikini arrived with a tray. ‘Nadia, thank you.’
Nadia handed the tall glasses, ice clinking, to Nina and Osir. ‘Is there anything else you want?’ she asked in a suggestive tone.
Osir grinned. ‘Always, my dear . . . but not just now. Perhaps after the party at the casino.’ He gave her backside something between a brush and a swat as she turned to leave, making her giggle.
‘You got a hunky guy in Speedos for me?’ Nina asked. She had seen several other young women in similar states of near-undress since boarding - along with numerous green-blazered guards, some armed with silenced MP7 sub-machine guns.
‘I’m sure we could arrange one.’
She got the feeling he wasn’t joking. ‘So, tell me,’ she said, wanting both to change the subject and to pass the time until she could legitimately go for another ‘bathroom break’ - her first attempt to contact Eddie from the yacht had failed because the head she chose had zero cell phone reception, ‘how does a guy go from being a baker to founding his own religion? With a spell as a movie star in between, too.’
Osir sat up and muted the flatscreen, pleased at the opportunity to talk about his favourite subject: himself. ‘I said in Switzerland that I like to gamble, yes? Well, I became an actor because I took a gamble. I was only fourteen, and a movie was being shot in my town. From the moment I saw the actors, and the crew attending them, I knew I had to be a part of it - somehow. But they were only on location for three days before going back to the studio. So every day I sneaked out of school and hung around the shoot, talking to people between takes - including the lead actor, Fadil. I tried to convince Sebak to come with me - he was twelve - but he was afraid of being caught, and thought our father would be furious.’
‘And was he?’
Osir smiled. ‘Oh, yes. But I’ll come to that. On the last day, they were shooting a scene where the two leads get out of a car and go into a hotel, and they needed some extras in the background. Because one of the people I had befriended was the assistant director, he called me over.’