The Inca Con

Genres: Conspiracy Thrillers; Suspense; Terrorism & Assassination Thrillers

Synopsis

Rex Dalton, the former black ops field agent, and his best friend, Digger, the former military dog, are exploring the remarkable history of Peru when they befriend a retired American couple. The couple invites them to join their expedition to a remote village high up in the Andes Mountains to inspect an archaeological site in which they want to invest.

But on arrival in the village, it doesn’t take long for Rex to discover that his new friends are victims of a cleverly designed con. This con is run by people who will do anything to make sure Rex and Digger don’t interfere.

THE INCA CON is a full-length novel, a nail-biting thriller by best-selling author JC Ryan. It is the fifth book in the electrifying new Rex Dalton series.

Release date: January 11, 2019

Publisher: Amazon

Print pages: 320

Content advisory: None

Sample

One

HE’D CHOSEN THE high road, which added two hours to his route, but he was in no hurry. The roundabout route rewarded him with a lifetime of breathtaking vistas to this invigorating experience. Walking easterly from Abancay to Curahuasi, Peru, the higher peaks of the Andes were usually on his left, while glimpses through river gorges flanked by lower peaks could be had on the right. Plenty of switchbacks reversed the views in some places, and at times they walked toward the north or the south, following the steep road that would eventually lead downward as steeply as it had led upward.

Rex Dalton and his constant companion, his Dutch Shepherd dog, Digger, had arrived in Lima on the day of the spring equinox. In the intervening weeks, they’d wandered as the wind took them, exploring the rich history of the western bulge of Peru. They had just missed the best traveling weather for one of the most famous of all Peruvian destinations, Machu Picchu. Before the rainy season started in earnest, it was time.

Approaching the Sacred Valley on foot had been a whim, but after nearly fifteen hours on the road from Abancay, where he turned in his rental vehicle, Rex was committed to the plan. The difference between fifteen hours on foot and four in a car was the opportunity to stop and drink in the spectacular scenery that would have otherwise whizzed by barely noticed.

Digger seemed to enjoy it, too, dashing here and there to inspect some item of interest only to a dog. A bit of a nuisance, but a bit entertaining, was Digger’s apparent mission to catch a vizcacha. The peculiar animals, related to chinchillas but looking more like a long-tailed, rather short-eared rabbit, were plentiful along the trail. Their homes, resembling a prairie-dog colony in numbers, interested Digger a great deal, and Rex found it amusing to see him race around after an adult, while the rest of them hurried the babies in among the rocks where he couldn’t reach them.

Rex had camped overnight, though he could have walked the entire fifteen hours in one day. He’d elected to break it up because there would be only twelve hours of sunlight. Starting before dawn wouldn’t have been an issue but descending the last set of switchbacks after dark wasn’t prudent. He planned to get to Curahuasi in time for a midday meal before finding a room for the night, and he was on target when he reached the intersection of Route 116 – the high road – and 3S, the main road. Only a little over a mile to go.

When Rex arrived in the center of the dusty little town, he looked for a café first. He’d have preferred one with tables outside, but the first one he came to had only a wide opening for a door, with tables inside. Oddly enough, it was a pizza restaurant. Digger’s nose lifted at the aromas emanating from the open door.

“Really, Digger? You want pizza in Peru?”

Digger’s mouth stretched in a dog’s broad grin, his tongue lolled out, and if he could have spoken, he’d have said, “Why not?”

Rex could think of several reasons why not, including that garlic, an essential ingredient of pizza in his opinion, was toxic to dogs. And the fact that he had no idea what a Peruvian pizza might have for toppings. But it seemed to be the only option. He’d have to figure out something else for Digger, who had made it clear from the time they became partners that he expected human food. They’d had an ongoing struggle on that subject, and Rex had become an expert on what Digger could or shouldn’t eat.

As he stepped inside, and his eyes adjusted to the dim interior from the bright sunlight outside, he realized it wasn’t the dingy, dirt-floored establishment he’d expected. The tables were draped with cream-colored cloths, brown runners placed precisely in the middle to bisect the length. A clean tile floor, devoid of animal hair, suggested the place wasn’t dog-friendly.

“Digger, you’d better wait outside. Stay.”

Digger flopped down on his belly with a sigh that Rex interpreted as dissatisfied acquiescence.

“Hey, you picked the place. I’ll bring you a slice, and if you behave, maybe more.”

Rex went on in and allowed a young woman with a sleek black bun at the nape of her neck to lead him to a table. The establishment wasn’t crowded, but a couple of other tables were occupied, one by two men talking earnestly in stage whispers, and the other by an older couple, tanned and fit for their apparent age, which was betrayed by their graying hair.

The two men could have been American or European, but they spoke English. The whispers didn’t convey an accent. Both were blond, though one was older than the other. Rex couldn’t see their eyes, and they didn’t appear to be much above or below average height.

Rex ordered the house special, wondering if it would resemble an American or an Italian pizza in any way. He didn’t particularly care. He wasn’t picky about his food. In his thirty-six years, he’d dined on unremarkable but satisfying home cooking from the German-influenced kitchen of his midwestern-raised mother, to the cuisine of countries all over the world in his past life as a field operative of a top-secret black ops paramilitary organization. It was during his time in the latter that he learned that food, as long as it wouldn’t make him sick, was fuel, which would keep him going.

Digger might turn up his nose, though. He was a real pain in the ass sometimes when it came to food.

As he waited for his order to arrive, Rex became aware that the two men were discussing a misfortune that had befallen one of them, the younger one. He would have ignored them but couldn’t tune them out as the whispers became more strident and the younger man’s voice rose. With less than a foot between the tables, which were lined up in military precision, side by side, he and the couple on the other side of the table where the men were seated were witnesses to the narrative, whether they wanted to hear it or not.

“I’m telling you, I don’t know what to do,” the younger man hissed.

“And I’m telling you, your money is gone, and you might as well accept that fact,” the older one said with exaggerated patience. “There’s nothing you can do. Unless you’ve left something out. Tell me again.”

The younger man sighed heavily. “Telling you again won’t change the outcome.” His voice raised a few decibels.

“Just humor me.”

“Okay. Now please pay attention. I was looking at some curios in the marketplace over in Abancay. They looked old, and I thought I’d buy a statue of Virachocha.”

The older man interrupted. “Who’s that again?”

“The Inca god of creation. I’ve told you this. And it isn’t important. Just that it looked old.” The younger man was becoming more agitated, and his voice was rising in both volume and pitch.

“Okay, go on.”

“So, I’m looking at this statue, and this woman comes up to me and takes it out of my hands. She says, ‘It’s a fake.’”

“Did you believe her?”

“For crap’s sake, will you just let me tell the story?”

The older man took a long drink from the brown bottle in front of him and slammed it back on the table. “Fine. Go ahead.”

“I asked her, ‘How do you know?’, and she says she’s Ministry. She hands me a card. Ministry of Culture, it says. She tells me there are more fakes being sold than the genuine article, and then, get this, she says, ‘Lucky for you. Because it’s illegal to buy or sell the genuine antiquities.’

“It freaked me out. It was like she was threatening me, just because I was looking at this old statue, you know? Like she was accusing me of robbing Peru’s cultural heritage.” He stopped speaking, shook his head, and took a swig from his bottle of beer.

“And that was the last you saw her?”

“Yeah, that was the last I saw her. But before she left, she told me to call the number on her card if anyone offered me something that could be original. Seems the shop owners have gotten smart. They don’t put the real antiquities out for people to see. But when they see an American, like me, they think we all have money.”

“You do have money.”

“That’s beside the point. They’ll offer the real deal to Americans or other unsuspecting tourists. So, I was supposed to call this Agent Gonzales if that happened to me, and she’d come and arrest the shop owner.”

“And it happened to you,” the older man prompted, earning a glare from the raconteur.

“It did. Very next day, I’m looking at stuff in the Mercado Central here, and this creepy old man comes out and whispers he has what I’m looking for in the back. I mean, could have been anything, from drugs to women, whatever. I was curious, right? So, I follow him into the back room, and there’s this gorgeous gold medallion, had to be a good four ounces of high-grade gold, right? Carved in the shape of Inti.”

“I hesitate to ask.”

“The sun god. Jeez, don’t you ever listen to anything I tell you?”

The older man made a gesture with his hand, to indicate the other should continue.

“So, I’m thinking, that’s gotta be the genuine article. I tell the shop owner, ‘Just a minute. I need to get my partner here to talk about this.’ I’m gonna call the agent, right? Gonzales? But the shop owner says, ‘You must hurry. Another buyer is coming.’

“I figure he’s playing me, but then someone else comes in to look at it. He and the shop owner are jabbering away in Spanish, and he pulls out his wallet. So I figure, I’ve got seconds to get this, and I’d better do it, or this priceless artifact will be gone forever. You should have seen the guy who entered the shop – he was swarthy.”

“Swarthy? Did you just say ‘swarthy’? The hell does that mean?”

“You know. Dark. Dark skin, dark hair, dark personality. I figure he’s a smuggler.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” The older guy shook his head.

Rex shared his disgust. The young guy was looking more and more like an idiot. He couldn’t help but think about the old adage; since light travels faster than sound, some people appear to be bright until you hear them speak. He’d just described every native Peruvian male, except for the personality part. Rex thought Peruvians were unaccountably happy, considering their poverty.

“No, seriously. This guy was not a good guy. So I tell the shop owner I’ll take it.”

“You bought the statue.”

“Yeah, but first it was a bidding war. I had to pay almost a hundred thousand for it.”

“Dollars?” The older man’s eyebrows levitated to a spot under his shock of blond bangs.

“Soles. But that’s still a chunk of change, about thirty K US, right?”

“And you bought it why?”

“To keep it from leaving the country, of course! I figured the shop owner would get busted, I’d get my money back, and this Gonzales chick might be grateful, know what I mean?” The younger man leered as he said it.

“Shit, Junior, how thick are you? So, what’s the problem? She’s not grateful enough?”

“The problem is that the number on the card is fake.”

“And…”

“And as soon as I called and found out it was fake, I got worried. I mean, could I get arrested for buying this thing?”

“I have no idea, you might very well find your ass in the slammer.”

“Well, that’s my problem.”

“I suggest you pre-empt it all and go to the police and tell them this story,” the older man said, with a show of indifference.

“Dude, that could get me thrown in jail!” the young man continued.

“I don’t know what you want me to do about it. I swear you’ve got more money than brains. Man up.”

“But, Uncle Rich, what if they arrest me?”

Rex looked from the blond older man to the tow-headed youth. He didn’t see a resemblance, other than the color of their hair. Maybe the ‘uncle’ was honorary.

What difference does it make? None. I’m not involved in this.

Rex had to put his hand over his face to hide the grin when Einstein’s words popped up in his mind. “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”  

Rex had eaten all the pizza he wanted, and he knew Digger was waiting for his share. Surprisingly, it was a pretty good pizza. Digger would be picky about it. He didn’t like green peppers. But he’d eat everything else, including the olives. For some unknown reason, Digger loved black olives. The pepperoni was a given, but the pepperoni here had garlic in it. He asked the server to have a small pizza made up with no sauce, cheese, or pepperoni. “Just vegetables, please, but no garlic, onions or green pepper. And lots of grilled chicken.” Digger would enjoy it, it wouldn’t be bad for him, and it would help extend the supply of dog food they could carry while on foot.

Without waiting to hear the uncle’s solution to the kid’s problem, Rex left the café and gave Digger his ‘pizza’. Rex still found it bewildering to watch the dog every time he fed him. A meal which Rex would spend twenty to thirty minutes on to consume, Digger gulped down in less than thirty seconds with three to four bites, and then, most amazing of all, he would sit back, lick his lips, and look accusatory at Rex as if to say, ‘when are you going to feed me? I had nothing to eat all day’. 

When the dog had finished, Rex rooted in Digger’s pannier-style backpack for his collapsible bowl and a bottle of water. Digger lapped the water gratefully.

When Rex had first planned to hike instead of driving in Peru, he’d wondered if Digger would allow the contraption. He needn’t have worried. It was like the harness Digger was used to, except that it had a soft cotton canvas bridge over his back with expandable side pockets attached. A sturdy handle allowed him to hold it while Digger stepped out when it was time to take it off, and provided a ring for a leash, which stayed in one of the pockets most of the time.

Rex had put it on him empty at first. When Digger didn’t seem to mind that, he started adding weight gradually, until the dog was carrying his own food, water, and toys. At the last minute, Rex had added the coms units and night-vision camera that fit on Digger’s regular harness. He didn’t anticipate trouble, but experience had taught him trouble seemed to find them anyway. In any case, Rex thought it was only fair for Digger to carry his share, and Digger seemed to agree.

The next order of business was a room, a shower, and a good night’s sleep in a real bed. Then he’d replenish their supplies and be on his way to Cuzco.

Two

THE NEXT DESTINATION on Rex’s agenda was Cusco, jumping off point for tourist attractions throughout the Sacred Valley. Rex wasn’t averse to using a guide, and in some cases, it was required. However, walking in a crowd of tourists wasn’t his style. Besides, he preferred to acclimate himself to the altitude gradually, by walking from village to village and the historical sites that fascinated him.

Rex had a keen interest in history. Formally trained with double major undergraduate degrees in history and linguistics, he’d further refined his interests with an MA in political science. He had a facility with languages that bordered on the savant. He would have described it, had anyone asked, as a ‘knack’, but that would have been modesty—it was much more than that. He’d been fluent in German, French and Spanish by the time he’d graduated high school and had a little Italian then, as well. Since then he’d become fluent in Italian and added Mandarin, Arabic, and Hindi to his language repertoire. On this trip, within a couple of months of arriving in Peru, he’d been conversant in Quechuan, the ancient language spoken by eight to ten million of the indigenous people living in the more isolated rural areas across South America, including Peru.

However, he’d abandoned his plans to enter diplomatic service after his parents and younger siblings, a brother and a sister, were killed in the 2004 bombing of a train station in Madrid, where the family was enjoying a vacation in celebration of Rex’s newly-minted MA. A short stint in the Marines followed by training as a Delta Force operator, rapidly morphed into his being headhunted as a special field operative for Crisis Response Consultancy, otherwise known as CRC after the fashion of government alphabet-soup agencies. CRC operated where the government, including the CIA, could not.

All that and more was water under the bridge now. Circumstances beyond his control had interrupted that career, and his control of circumstances since then was what had given him the leisure to pursue his first love – the study of history – in the places where it had happened. He had no specific itinerary, no timelines to keep—he went where he wanted when he wanted, and Digger never protested. For now, that was Peru and the Inca civilization.

How he’d come to be traveling with Digger, the former Australian military dog, was part of the career interruption. He’d become a reluctant dog owner with the dying words of a good friend, Digger’s handler. In the months since then, Rex had overcome his childhood fear of dogs and learned to trust Digger’s instincts, though, especially in the early days of their friendship, he wasn’t always fond of the dog’s demands. In his field agent days at CRC, Rex preferred to work alone on missions, but since he and Digger were forced to team up, he had to admit, Digger was smarter than many people. The dog had snatched Rex’s bacon out of the fire as often as it had been the other way around. They’d wrangled for alpha position in the early days, and Rex had a sneaking suspicion that if he held it, it was only because Digger had conceded out of pity or because Rex had bribed him with peanut butter served in his favorite toy, a now-battered Kong, the peculiar-looking, ribbed, hard-rubber toy dogs loved because of its erratic way of bouncing and the hole in the middle that could hide treats. Digger preferred his filled with peanut butter or lamb jerky. Truth be told, they probably shared the alpha position depending on the circumstances.

On the morning after his arrival in Curahuasi, refreshed by a tepid shower and a night’s sleep in a real, though lumpy, bed, Rex was whistling cheerily as he and Digger stopped at a bodega for supplies to last for the three-day trek to Cusco. His map had estimated twenty-eight hours of walking. He’d decided to take it leisurely, making sure he’d be able to see the sights along the way, even if that required a side-trek. Once he reached Cusco, he’d turn north for the Sacred Valley, and take the adventures as they came.

At the bodega, he recognized the older couple who’d been seated on the other side of the men who’d had such a contentious conversation at the pizza restaurant the evening before. He avoided eye contact, unwilling to be delayed by chatting with them, though they seemed pleasant enough.

However, they must have taken note of him as he had of them. The woman greeted him in English. Rex, ever mindful of not standing out, smiled just politely enough to avoid rudeness and returned her greeting with the same careful degree of civility. Then he turned away, intent on his shopping. It didn’t work.

“Excuse me, young man, but weren’t you in the restaurant last night? We didn’t get a chance to introduce ourselves, because of that… oh dear how shall I say it… ‘unfortunate’ young man.”

Rex looked around, pretending he thought she was talking to someone else.

“Yes, I’m sure it was you. Tell me, what did you think of that story we couldn’t help but overhear?”

He had to give her credit for her persistence. “I didn’t pay much attention,” he responded.

“You left before the end of it. But we could see you were paying attention. Oh, I’m sorry, how rude of me. I’m Florence Marks. Barry! Barry, come over here and meet… I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say.” Rex had several names, as evidenced by his growing collection of passports. He was traveling under the name Raymond Davis for this trip. Resigned to the delay, he answered, “Ray Davis. Nice to meet you.”

“And you. So, what did you think of that?” she continued.

Rex glanced at Mr. Marks, who offered him a weak smile in apology for his wife’s insistence on engaging Rex in conversation.

Rex decided to be honest, and hope that would help extricate him from the conversation sooner. “I think he was scammed and should go to the police. But honestly, it’s none of my business.”

“That’s exactly what we told him! Isn’t it, dear?” She included her silent husband as if it mattered to Rex whether he agreed or not. The man didn’t respond.

“Good advice. Hope he took it,” Rex muttered.

“Oh, is that your furbaby?” Mrs. Marks exclaimed, spotting Digger’s interest from just outside the open-air market’s entrance.

Rex suppressed an urge to roll his eyes.

Good thing Digger wouldn’t understand that word or Mrs. Marks might have earned herself an indignant growl.

“Well, I call him my buddy,” he managed. Digger’s tail wagged uncertainly, as if he understood he was being discussed.

“May I pet him?”

“He’s a working dog, ma’am. Whether you can pet him depends on him. He’ll let you know if it’s okay.”

Mrs. Marks’ face went blank. “Oh, well, then I probably shouldn’t.”

“Maybe that’s best. If you’ll excuse me, I meant to get an early start. I just need to finish my shopping. Goodbye.” Rex edged away, hoping he hadn’t sounded too abrupt, but there was probably not an easy way to make a clean getaway from Mrs. Marks.

“We’re going to Cusco. Is that where you’re headed?”

Rex would have preferred not to say, but he didn’t have a ready lie. “Er, yes.”

“Maybe we’ll see you there at dinner. Are you taking the Machu Picchu tour that starts day after tomorrow?”

“No, ma’am. I’m hiking. I won’t be there until the day after that. To Cusco, I mean.” Rex took another step away before Mrs. Marks squealed in dismay.

“I’m so sorry! Maybe we could give you a lift to Cusco? Would that help?”

Before Rex could think of a polite way to say he was walking by choice and wouldn’t accept a lift even if she weren’t a nosy old biddy, Mr. Marks finally intervened.

“Dear, maybe Mr. Davis is walking because he wants to.” To Rex, he said, “I’m sorry. Since our son died, she thinks she needs to mother anyone his age.”

Rex felt instant regret about his thoughts on the woman’s gregariousness. Having lost his entire family, he understood lingering grief and that it manifested in different ways at different times. “That’s all right. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It was a long time ago. But thank you.” Mr. Marks stuck out his hand and Rex shook it firmly. “Good luck on your hike.”

“Thanks. Good luck on your tour.”

Rex finished his shopping, spoke in Quechuan to the proprietor as he paid for his purchases, and waved at the Marks couple as he left. Mrs. Marks gave him a fond smile and waved back.

Before they left, Rex divided his purchases among his backpack and the panniers on Digger’s, then hoisted his to his back. “Let’s hit the trail, buddy.”

Despite it being late spring south of the equator, the air was chilly at nearly nine-thousand feet of altitude. Rex was dressed for the temperature he expected at noon, around fifty-six degrees. At only a couple of hours after sunrise, he’d donned a colorful poncho against the chill. Earlier in his travels, he’d abandoned his light jacket for the poncho. It was much more practical, as it served double duty as a blanket at night and was more efficiently folded for carrying in a roll on his backpack when he was ready to take it off. Otherwise, he wore long denim pants, a Western-style long-sleeved plaid shirt with snaps, and a pair of light-weight hiking boots. 

Except for the high-end ultralight backpack he wore, the hiking boots, and his stature, just under six feet but taller than the natives by inches, he might have passed for an urban Peruvian. Weeks in the high altitude of Peru had tanned his naturally olive skin to a shade close to the Mestizo population of the cities, and his dark hair and eyes did nothing to dispel that image. Even his Quechuan, limited though it was, sounded native, an indication of his rare talent for picking up languages and speaking them without a foreign accent. And his vocabulary was growing with every encounter he had with the native population. He’d be fluent before he left, if the past was anything to go by.

Digger showed his appreciation for the cool of the early morning by trotting up to twenty or thirty yards ahead and then racing back to Rex’s side. He’d be less eager to run ahead when the sun was directly overhead, beating on his black coat with the intensity found only where the air was thinner. Fortunately, their path crossed streams and lay under trees in many spots, when it wasn’t along well-populated areas in the rich farmland of the region. Digger would have plenty of water or shade to stay cool enough, and their trek would gain over two thousand feet of altitude, making it cooler yet. And another reason to hike rather than drive was that they’d get used to the altitude gradually, as they’d been doing since leaving Lima.

Rex let his mind wander, relaxing his guard for the first time since he’d begun to suspect that his old mentor, John Brandt, CEO of CRC, was looking for him. No one would look for him here.