The Copper Egg Read online

  “Fuck,” Hudson moaned. “I can’t move. I’m paralyzed.” He sobbed quietly.

  Claire reached for his hand. She would heal him with love.

  “It’s so dark,” Hudson whispered. “I’m all alone.”

  Claire didn’t respond because the sky had exploded into colors and heat and love that rained down on her face and trickled gently into her mouth, nose, and ears.

  Time seemed to expand, or maybe it stopped altogether. She wasn’t sure. She relaxed and let herself drift, as if floating on the waves. Soon the voices would start.

  *

  Claire woke up to a dark sky lit with the Milky Way, always more brilliant when viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. Beside her, Hudson snored like an old dog with asthma.

  She blinked, her eyes stiff and dry, then raised herself up onto her elbows. She listened for the voices. Nothing. No sound but the surf crashing up onto the beach, then falling back. She pulled her aching body up onto the bench. Still no voices.

  God damn it.

  She needed the voices to find Chaco’s tomb, but even with this fresh San Pedro trip, the voices were gone for good. Using Denis’s maps would never work, so she’d come to Peru only to fail with amazing speed.

  Claire reached into her pocket for the copper egg. She found it calming to hold. Its imperfections appealed to her, the verdigris still stuck in its grooves. But as she rolled the copper egg around in her palm, it began to tingle. She stared down at the egg. What the hell? The tingle worsened to a buzz. Then, as if she had zero control over her own hand, her fingers curled protectively around the egg. Now she clutched live electricity. She tried to force open her hand but couldn’t. Christ! Her palm was on fire. She slammed her eyes shut. Images flashed. Fuzzy, then sharp, then fuzzy. She could smell the sea. Smell warm llamas.

  A native girl kissed a llama’s nose. People hurried down a street between one-story adobe buildings.

  When was this? Where was this?

  The girl was back home now; she passed through a room into an inner courtyard.

  “Come here, Ixchel,” said Uncle.

  Uncle and Auntie gave her a present. To celebrate. “You are ten cycles.”

  She was thrilled. She’d never been given a gift before. There just wasn’t enough for extra things like gifts. She opened the small bag and pulled out a small copper egg.

  “It’s from your papa,” her uncle said.

  Ixchel jumped up. “Papa? You’ve seen him? Is he here?”

  Uncle and Auntie exchanged a glance. “No, your papa isn’t here,” Auntie said, “and he won’t likely come to visit. But he managed to get this egg to Uncle. It’s for you.”

  Sadness coursed through her. Ixchel missed her papa. He left five years ago, but she didn’t know when—or if—he was ever coming back. She looked up into the sky, as if it could tell her where her father might be. The night sky was bright. Clusters glowed.

  Something had gone wrong five years ago in King Chaco’s city. She didn’t know what. People had been crying in the streets. Papa had been very upset. The rest of her memories about that time were confused, so she pushed them away. All she knew was that she hadn’t seen Papa since that day.

  Claire gritted her teeth, trying to force her hand open with the other, digging at her fingers. She tried opening her eyes but couldn’t do it. Her breath was harsh and loud in her ears. She tried calling to Hudson for help, but her mouth wouldn’t open.

  “How can Papa afford this?” She caressed the copper egg.

  Uncle said, “Do not worry about that. Your papa wants you to have this egg.”

  Ixchel glowed. No one she knew had a copper egg.

  Auntie said she must carry this egg with her always.

  Ixchel was afraid she would lose it. “I will hide it under my sleeping pallet,” she said.

  “No,” Uncle said. “This egg is very, very important to your safety. You must carry it with you from this moment forward until the day you join our ancestors in the sky.”

  Auntie gripped Ixchel’s hand. “Promise you will do this for us.”

  Ixchel promised.

  Claire gasped and bent forward. She unfurled her fingers and let the burning egg drop onto the sand. Then she slowly folded herself over her knees. Everything ached, as if she’d run two marathons back to back. She licked her dry, cracked lips.

  Chills began skittering through her, raising goose bumps along her arms. She glared down at the egg as she hugged herself. It hadn’t been the usual voices. It had been one specific person, a vision, as if Claire’d been right there with the child Ixchel, seeing everything through her.

  This was different from the voices in her head. This was like watching a movie trailer, but only the first few minutes. She wanted more. What was this girl’s connection to the egg, to Chaco?

  One of her favorite treasure hunts was searching for answers. Unfortunately, this was often the hardest booty to dig up.

  Claire woke Hudson, relieved he didn’t seem to remember his bad trip. By the time he dropped her off at La Casa del Sol, her brain was racing. She no longer heard voices, but she might have tapped into something even better.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sochi

  Tuesday, March 21

  Tuesday morning, Sochi sat in her CNTP office studying the website with rising fury. Not even the bag of pastries she’d picked up at Las Dulces on her way to work could calm her down. The Higuchi Collection, a Japanese antiquities dealer owned by relatives of Carlos Higuchi, had just posted ten new Peruvian artifacts. Since the CNTP no longer allowed legal export of antiquities, the Higuchi cache had come from looters.

  A low growl rumbled up her throat as she scanned the photos. A set of ten flutes made from pelican bones. A quipu, or knotted string, that the ancients had used to record information because they didn’t have a written language. Horns made of deer and llama bone. Pottery dated to 1000 B.C.

  Sochi squeezed her short hair until it hurt, using the pain to focus. These items must have come from Caral, one of the oldest civilizations in the Andes Mountains. The inhabitants of this elaborate city, filled with temples, pyramids, and sunken plazas, had existed two millennia before the Moche or Chimú had settled along the coast of what became Peru.

  “Fucking bastard,” Sochi spat. The Higuchi pipeline, through which Peruvian wealth flowed straight to Japan, was as strong as ever. She had failed to make even a dent in Higuchi’s smuggling. She rested her forehead on her arms, exhausted. Peace. That was all she wanted…just five minutes of peace. But it was out of reach. She couldn’t relax for a second because of the constant looting. Despite the mindboggling increase in looting since the Lord of Sipan’s tomb was discovered in 1987, experts estimated that at least one thousand tombs still remained undiscovered, including the fabled tomb of King Chacochutl.

  How could Sochi watch a movie while Peru was being looted? How could she enjoy fresh seafood at El Mar Azul while Peru was being drained of its lifeblood by a vampire like Higuchi? The only one who could tamp down Sochi’s anxiety had been Claire. She’d always found a way to pull Sochi out of her head with conversation, dance, sex, or something as simple as a light touch on her shoulder. Sochi shivered at the memory.

  Damn it. She forced herself to sit up straighter. If she ever saw Claire again, she would be cold, glacial even. She wouldn’t ask Claire why she’d abandoned Sochi to a loneliness so deep it took most of every morning to claw her way out of it.

  While the rest of the world worried about the Middle East or Ebola in Africa or terrorism, the excavation work continued in Peru. It rarely made the international news, but each week something new appeared on the “Peru This Week” feature of archaeology.com. The only people monitoring Peruvian archaeological finds were archaeologists digging in Peru. It was like a fraternity; dissent was common between members, but the public face was unified. Everyone knew what everyone else was doing and which university or nonprofit was paying for it. Each team was close-lipped about the precise finds but always
willing to hint that it would be a “game changer” when revealed.

  She wished the looters had the same sort of network, one she could exploit to bring Higuchi down. With a heavy sigh, she realized how much she missed her sense of humor. She used to laugh. She used to make others laugh.

  She laced her fingers together and stared at her nails, painted a light mauve so she’d keep them out of her mouth and stop biting them. The humor thing might be what she resented most about Claire’s abandonment. After Claire left, pain moved into Sochi’s house and kicked humor out on its ass. Her sense of humor had been homeless ever since. It still hung around, nose pressed sadly against the glass looking for a way back in, but Sochi was ruthless.

  She pressed her fingertips against her forehead. No more thoughts of Claire. No more thoughts of Higuchi. Maybe she needed to call up a friend. Sochi sighed. Once she’d created La Bruja, staying connected to friends had been hard, even her oldest friend Lila. Not only was Sochi twice as busy now, but it was easier to slip into La Bruja if she didn’t have her friends’ voices in her head. It had been months since she’d talked with any of them. The isolation felt like penance.

  *

  An hour later, Sochi sat in her boss’s office, wondering what new scheme Aurelio had come up with now. Beside her sat Manuel Sosa, another of Aurelio’s assistants. Sochi had more seniority, but Aurelio—although he’d never dare say it—felt more comfortable with a man by his side to help pick up the pieces in case she, a mere girl, failed. Manuel, tall and bony with deeply set eyes and a patchy beard-in-training, drove her crazy. The guy was so busy kissing Aurelio’s butt he probably had a permanent kink in his spine.

  “I want us to think big,” Aurelio said. His pewter gray hair, swept straight back, was gelled so intensely that his comb left tracks that never moved, even on a windy day. He was the ultimate politician, interested less in what he could do for the CNTP than in what the CNTP could do for him.

  “Big,” Manuel parroted.

  “Think grand, think dramatic. What did that American president say about Iraq—shock and awe? That’s what we want. That’s how we’re going to beat these looters. We’ll be heroes.”

  Sochi sighed. It would be her job to implement Aurelio’s crazy-assed ideas.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking. We need drones. That’s the wave of the future as far as looting control. Manuel, because engines are involved, you’ll be in charge of that.”

  Sochi snorted. Manuel wouldn’t recognize an engine if someone opened his car hood and pointed. But Manuel was a guy, so he obviously knew more about engines than she did.

  “The drones must be quiet and outfitted with cameras, the kind that see at night. Screw the budget. Just go out today and buy them.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll get right on that.” Manuel shot her a triumphant look, smug because he clearly had been given the prime assignment. He was going to play with cool airplanes. The drones, however, could be useful in photographing sites and then creating 3-D maps. They could also help with encroachment, watching to make sure developers and squatters respected boundaries. Most sites—there were over 100,000—weren’t protected, so developers would just start bulldozing, assuming no one was paying attention. They would disturb the site then say it was now clearly archaeologically worthless. That was like ripping out random pages of a book then pronouncing the story full of holes.

  “Sochi, I’ve been hearing rumors of a tracking device unlike any other,” Aurelio said. “It is a liquid that can be painted on. When it dries it is invisible and cannot be detected by scans.”

  “With all due respect, sir, a liquid can’t transmit a radio signal. What you’re describing is science fiction.”

  Aurelio waved impatiently. “I trust you will find out. Ask the Americans, since they have their greedy fat fingers in everything. But we will use this device to conduct a sting operation.”

  “A what?”

  “We will use some of our artifacts as bait, but they will be marked with this new technology. Then we will announce to the country that we’ve found an amazing treasure. Let’s say we’ve found Chacochutl’s tomb to really get the looters excited. Neither Higuchi nor La Bruja will be able to resist. One of them will steal the marked artifacts, and you will follow, thus discovering their smuggling route. You will call for police and the looters will be caught. We will cut the country’s antiquities losses in half with this plan.”

  Sochi kept her face impassive. Her boss’s plan was less “shock and awe” and more “stupid and idiotic.”

  “Sir, there are so many ways this could go wrong. I’m not sure we can tempt the looters with just a handful of artifacts. And how will they steal them? Perhaps we should take some time to refine this idea.”

  “No time to delay. The details I leave up to you. Remember, my friends, shock and awe.”

  She should feel satisfied because Aurelio actually gave her the more difficult assignment, but she just felt tired.

  *

  As Sochi locked her car, she looked around the Chan Chan parking lot, saddened at the lack of other cars, taxis, or tourist buses. The whole world wanted to visit Machu Picchu, but did any of those people even know that Peru was home to hundreds of archaeological treasures beyond the restored mountain city? Few knew about the amazing wonders displayed at the museum in Sipan, or the discoveries at Keulap.

  When Sochi knocked on Hudson’s open door, he scowled like a man confronting his worst enemy. Pleased, Sochi smiled. “Got a minute?”

  “For you, no. Go away. Unless, of course, you have my backflap in your bag.” Dressed in khaki shorts, a Tommy Bahama shirt, and sandals, Hudson Petroski didn’t look like any of the other Chan Chan subdirectors.

  Sochi sauntered into Hudson’s office, a dusty place where every flat surface was covered with stacks of papers or boxes of broken pottery. She moved a pile of books off a chair and pulled it up to Hudson’s desk. “Any historical site in Peru would be thrilled to have a personal visit from the assistant to CNTP’s executive director.”

  “From one of the assistants to the executive director. When do I get my backflap back?”

  “Say that ten times,” she said with a wry smile. “But don’t hold your breath. The backflap isn’t yours. It belongs to Peru.” She scanned the office, marveling at how different it felt without Claire in it. Gone were the potted plants, the clean shelves, the tasteful tapestry on the walls. Now the office looked like a cross between the set for a low-budget samurai movie and a surf shop. Hudson would always be the last surfer dude on the beach, still irresponsible long after the other “dudes” had started families, paid mortgages, and stashed their unused surfboards in the corner of the garage.

  “I found it,” he snapped. “It belongs here in the Chan Chan museum.”

  Hudson’s backflap was stunning. The enormous gold blade flared out in the shape of a half-moon. The handle along the top was made in the image of a snarling spider man grasping a severed head. The CNTP’s other backflap was less gruesome, but larger and therefore more valuable.

  “We’re taking good care of it.”

  “You should know I’ve petitioned your boss twice for its return, and I think I’m wearing him down.”

  Sochi held tight to her neutral expression. Aurelio was the kind of man to hand over an artifact permanently if it could buy him even five minutes of American goodwill. Asshole. “I have plans for your backflap. What do you know about Carlos Higuchi?” Somehow, sparring with Hudson was helping her recover from the shock of seeing Claire.

  Hudson’s eyebrows arched in surprise. He was her height but carried a lot more muscle. With his broad shoulders and thick neck, he must have been a wrestler in school. She knew the female CNTP employees’ descriptions of Hudson ranged from “adorable” and “charming” all the way to “hot,” but Sochi found him none of the above. He was as obstinate as a child, unable to let go of the backflap as if she’d really stolen it from him. It was an amazingly valuable find and could never be protected well
enough at Chan Chan. She also detected a deep undercurrent of insecurity in Hudson that made her nervous. She suspected that he constantly compared himself to Claire, which couldn’t help since Claire had been known as one of the most creative and resourceful archaeologists to have worked in Peru for decades.

  Hudson shrugged. “Carlos Higuchi. Wealthy businessman who has his finger in all sorts of industries in this country. He’s sansei, third generation Japanese in Peru. He reestablished contacts with relatives in Japan during the nineties, and some of them now run a gallery specializing in pre-Columbian artifacts from Peru.”

  “Who’s his source? How’s he getting stuff out of the country?”

  Hudson shrugged. “I have no idea. My job is to excavate Chan Chan. It’s your job to catch smugglers, not mine.”

  “I just thought you might have heard something.”

  “I don’t know anything about Higuchi’s operation. How could I? I’m not a smuggler.”

  Sudden panic made her ears ring. Did he know? Impossible.

  The voices of a group of German tourists drifted through the open windows, along with the scent of salt water and humidity. Despite traffic noise from the Pan American, she could hear the ocean caressing Peru, one wave after another.

  She picked up a sherd, pretending to admire the black glaze while waiting for her heart to beat its way back to normal. “Okay, fair enough. But how about a new tracking material based on nanotechnology? Something that was likely developed in America, something that can emit an electronic signal?”

  A half-smile flickered across Hudson’s chiseled face. “You think because I’m an American I know everything that’s going on? I wish.” He leaned his chair back on two legs, his faded T-shirt stretching across his chest. “Guess you drove all the way out here for nothing.”

  Sochi smiled mysteriously.

  His chair dropped back to the floor with a hollow thud. “Wait a damn minute.” He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “You said you have plans for my backflap. Then you ask about Higuchi, then about some mysterious way to track an artifact.”