Night Of The Condor

Brave words, thought Leigh, as she relived the conversation, but in reality Evan had been violently shocked by the conditions in the valley. And the desperate jokiness of his early letters, outlining the squalor and hardship on the site, had soon degenerated into angry bewilderment, and a string of complaints.

His most recent letters had suggested he was near the end of his tether, and it was these which had led to her sudden decision to fly out to Peru to join him, in spite of her father’s forcefully stated opposition.

But this time, Leigh had been adamant. ‘We’ve been apart for a year. We’re of age, and we’re in love. We deserve a little happiness.’

She had faltered slightly when she realised Justin Frazier was not prepared to assist in any way with her arrangements.

‘I’m not going to ease your path for you, Leigh,’ he said flatly. ‘This whole idea is madness from start to finish. I can only hope when you get to Lima and realise the problems confronting you, your own common sense will bring you home again.’

His words had lingered uneasily throughout that interminable journey, in spite of her efforts to tell herself that when she got to Peru, happiness would be hers for the taking. But now—with Evan’s failure to show at the airport, the sheer impersonality of this hotel suite, and, most of all, the swirling sea mist outside—all her old doubts had returned.

Leigh gave herself a brief mental shake. She needed some practical stimulation. She supposed she should eat, but she was too strung up to be hungry. On the other hand, some coffee might be good. As she moved to the internal telephone beside the wide bed to call room service, it rang, startling her.

She lifted the receiver. ‘Yes?’

‘Señorita Frazier, there is a gentleman here at reception asking for you. Do you wish to come down and speak to him?’

A smile began to spread across Leigh’s face. Evan, she thought, her depression lifting miraculously. She said, ‘Ask him to come up here, por favor.’

There was a short silence, then the clerk said, ‘You are certain that is what you wish, señorita?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Leigh returned with a trace of impatience. ‘And will you arrange for some coffee to be sent up too.’

‘At once, señorita.’ The phone went down.

She sped to the dressing-table, and tugged a comb through her shoulder-length tawny hair so that it curved elegantly towards her neck. She renewed her lipstick hastily, wishing with irritation that she had changed from the clothes she had been travelling in. But the spare lines of the chic sand-coloured linen dress still looked relatively fresh, she decided, and after their long separation Evan, she hoped, would be too delighted to see her to be over-concerned about the finer details of her appearance.

She put up a hand and touched the gold chain she wore round her throat. She thought, I’m nervous. Nervous of seeing Evan again. But that’s ridiculous. It’s what I want, after all, what I came all this way for.

For one nightmare moment, she tried and failed to remember what Evan looked like, reminding herself, as panic rose inside her, that the same thing was said to happen to brides on their way to the altar.

The brisk rap on the door was a relief, cutting across the blankness in her mind. She took a deep steadying breath, as she walked across the room, and her smile was firmly back in place as she flung open the door.

She said gaily, ‘Darling, you got here at last …’ then stopped dead, because no trick of the mind could ever have turned the complete stranger confronting her into Evan.

Evan was fair, and this man was as dark as midnight—thick black hair springing back from a high forehead, a lean face, with high cheekbones, deeply tanned, the lines of nose, mouth and chin all forcefully, even harshly marked. He was tall, long-legged, and broad-shouldered, dressed in denims, with a worn leather jacket slung carelessly across one shoulder.

Leigh said sharply, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

He gave her an unsmiling look. ‘It might have been wiser to have established that before inviting me to your room, Miss Frazier. Do you usually behave so recklessly in a foreign country?’

She said glacially, ‘I was expecting my fiancé.’

‘My regrets for your disappointment.’ He neither looked nor sounded even slightly regretful. ‘I presume you had some reason to believe he would meet you here?’

Leigh’s chin tilted. ‘May I know what business this is of yours, Mr … er …?’

‘Rourke Martinez,’ he said. ‘And it’s “Doctor”, Miss Frazier.’ He looked at her drily. ‘I see the name is familiar to you.’

Oh, she had heard of him all right, Leigh thought faintly. Most of Evan’s discontent had been centred on this man. ‘Everyone defers to him,’ he had written shortly after his arrival. ‘He stalks round the camp behaving as if he was one of the ancient Incas with the power of life and death over us all. Even Fergus Willard, who’s technically in charge, does as he tells him.’

Knowing that her instinctive reaction to his name had given her away too thoroughly to warrant a denial, she gave a slight shrug. ‘I believe Evan has mentioned you, Doctor Martinez, yes.’

‘I’m sure he has.’ He sounded faintly amused. ‘And not in any flattering terms either, unless I miss my guess. Now that my identity has been established, are you going to invite me in? Or would you prefer this interview to be conducted in one of the reception areas downstairs?’

‘Arrogant bastard’ had been another of Evan’s descriptions, and it seemed perfectly justified, Leigh thought, her hackles rising.

Down the corridor, the lift doors opened, and a white-coated waiter emerged, with a tray of coffee. The coffee which she had ordered. And although there was nothing she wanted less than to have to invite Rourke Martinez into her suite, she could see that to object would cause unnecessary complications, and probably make her look foolish into the bargain.

She said abruptly, ‘You’d better come in,’ and turned back into the suite.

The waiter deposited the tray where she indicated on the table by the window, and stood waiting for the inevitable tip. Rourke Martinez provided it with a brief word in Spanish, but not before the waiter sent Leigh an infuriating leer, shared equally between herself, the open door to the inner room, and the big bed which suddenly seemed to dominate it.

She was aware she was flushing angrily, as she pulled forward a chair and sat down. ‘Coffee, Doctor Martinez?’

‘Black, please.’ He took the cup she handed him, with a word of thanks, then leaned back in his own chair, very much at ease. Then he said quietly, ‘What are you doing here, Miss Frazier? Why have you come?’

‘To join my fiancé. I should have thought that was obvious.’ His whole attitude needled her, making her speak more sharply than she would normally have done. ‘Is it any concern of yours?’

‘As he’s employed on the Atayahuanco project, and I happen to be its co-director, then I’d say I was concerned,’ he said grimly. ‘May I ask who authorised you to come here? I certainly didn’t, and nor did Doctor Willard. By the time we received notification of your arrival, it was too late to turn you back.’

‘I wasn’t aware you had any right to do so.’ Leigh was rigid with shock and temper. She set her cup down carefully, to avoid hurling it at him.

‘We have any rights in this that we choose to assume, Miss Frazier,’ Rourke Martinez said almost casually. ‘Our work at Atayahuanco is difficult enough, without deliberately inviting additional problems in the shape of random visitors.’ His eyes skimmed her, indicating silently but unmistakably that the shape of this particular random visitor failed to impress him in any way. He went on, ‘Your arrival seems to indicate one of two things—either you expect Evan Gilchrist to join you here in Lima, or that you expect to go to Atayahuanco to be with him.’ He paused. ‘I’m afraid that neither possibility is acceptable.’

Leigh sat up very straight in her chair. She said, ‘Doctor Martinez, I don’t think you realise …’

‘Exactly who I’m talking to?’ he finished for her. ‘Yes, I do, Miss Frazier. I’m well aware that it’s a charitable trust set up by Frazier Industries which provides most of the financing for our project. I’m also aware that you probably consider that gives you carte blanche to do as you wish here.’ He paused again. ‘Well, I’m here to tell you you’re wrong, and to give you some advice.’

She smiled icily, controlling her temper with an heroic effort. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’

‘That’s up to you,’ he said. ‘But for what it’s worth, I suggest you get the next available flight back to the United Kingdom. This is no place for you, and I’m surprised your family didn’t tell you so.’ He gave her another assessing look. ‘Or did they?’

‘I happen to be an adult, Doctor Martinez,’ Leigh said loudly and clearly. ‘I do as I want.’

‘Not,’ he said, ‘a particularly adult point of view. But let that pass. Is Gilchrist meeting you here?’

‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me,’ she said, heavily sarcastic. ‘You seem to rule the roost at Atayahuanco. Have you graciously given Evan permission to meet me?’

‘No.’

‘No, of course not.’ She stared at him defiantly. ‘And now I’m supposed to confess my fault, and grovel, right?’

He shrugged. ‘It would make little difference if you did. Evan Gilchrist walked off the project some forty-eight hours before we got the radio message announcing your imminent arrival.’ He paused. ‘Indicating that he already knew you were coming, and had gone to meet you. But, for various reasons, I wasn’t convinced.’

Leigh’s mouth was dry. She picked up the cooling coffee, and drank some of it. At last she said, ‘He—he didn’t know I was coming. I didn’t mention it in my last letter. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision …’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Did he give no idea where he was going?’

‘We had no idea he was even leaving,’ Rourke Martinez told her. ‘He took some provisions and a mule, and vanished in the night. There was no need to have done that, no matter how much he hated Atayahuanco and everything connected with it. If he’d given some indication that he wanted out, he could have flown out on the supply helicopter with me yesterday.’ He sent her a lightning glance. ‘He wasn’t that much of an asset.’