Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [100]
And then suddenly the man’s attention returned to Cameron.
‘Mr Cameron,’ he said, opening the screen door. ‘Please, come inside. I was hoping you’d come, but I didn’t expect to see you so soon. Please, please, come inside.’
Cameron stepped through the doorway.
It didn’t occur to him until he was fully inside the house that the man’s Southern accent had completely disappeared.
‘Mr Cameron, my real name is not Andrew Wilcox,’ the young man now sitting opposite him said. The drawl was gone, replaced by a voice that was clear and precise, educated. East Coast.
Pete Cameron had his pad and pen out. ‘Can you tell me your real name?’ he asked gently.
The young man seemed to think about that for a moment, and as he did so, Cameron got a better look at him. He was a tall man, handsome, too, with blond hair and a square jaw. He had broad shoulders and he looked physically fit. But there was something wrong about him.
It was the eyes, Cameron realised.
They were tinged with red. Heavy black sacks hung beneath both of them. He looked like a man on the edge, a man who hadn’t slept in days.
And then at last, the man spoke. ‘My real name,’ he said, ‘is Andrew Trent.’
‘I used to be a First Lieutenant in the Marines,’ Andrew Trent explained, ‘in command of an Atlantic-based Reconnaissance unit. But if you examine the official USMC records, you’ll find that I died in an accident in Peru in March, 1997.’
Trent spoke in a low, even voice, a voice tinged with bitterness.
‘So, you’re a dead man,’ Pete Cameron said. ‘Nice, very nice. Okay, first question: why me? Why did you contact me?’
‘I’ve seen your work,’ Trent said. ‘I like it. Mother Jones. The Post. You tell it straight. You also don’t just write down the first thing you hear. You check things out and because of that, people believe you. I need people to believe what I’m going to tell you.’
‘If it’s worth telling in the first place,’ Cameron said. ‘All right, then, how is it that according to the United States Government you are officially dead?’
Trent offered Cameron a half-smile, a smile totally devoid of humour. ‘If it’s worth telling in the first place,’ he repeated. ‘Mr Cameron, what if I were to tell you that the Government of the United States of America ordered that my whole unit be killed.’
Cameron was silent.
‘What if I were to tell you that our government – yours and mine – planted men inside my unit for the sole purpose of killing me and my men in the event that we found something of immense technological value during a mission.
‘What if I were to tell you that that was exactly what happened in Peru in March, 1997. What would you think then, Mr Cameron? If I told you all that, then do you think my story would be worth telling?’
Trent told Cameron his story, told him about what had happened inside the ruins of the Incan temple high in the mountains of Peru.
A team of university researchers who had been working inside the temple had apparently discovered a series of frescoes chiselled into its stone walls. Magnificent coloured frescoes that depicted scenes from Incan history.
One of the frescoes in particular had captured their attention.
It depicted a scene not unlike the famous painting of the Incan emperor, Atahualpa, meeting the Spanish conquistadors.
On the left-hand side of the fresco stood the Incan emperor, in full ceremonial dress, surrounded by his people. He was holding a golden chalice in his outstretched hands. A gift.
On the right-hand side of the fresco stood four strange-looking men. Unlike the olive-skinned Incans, their skin was bone white. And they were thin, unnaturally thin – tall, emaciated. They had large black eyes and round-domed foreheads. They also had pointed, narrow chins and – bizarrely – no mouths.
In the carved stone picture, the leader of this delegation of tall white ‘men’ was holding a silver box in his outstretched hands, reciprocating the gesture of the Incan emperor in front of him.
It was an exchange of gifts.
‘How long did it take them to find it?’ Cameron