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"Yeah, it's me." That American voice convinces me I have correctly identified the man, despite not seeing his whole face. The stubble on his jaw threw me off for a moment, but hearing his voice confirmed his identity for me. "Errol, you really shouldn't have come here."
Christian Frisk raises a gun.
Chapter Thirty
Ashley
"I shouldn't have come?" Errol says. "Why the bloody hell are you here? Last I heard, you'd moved to New Zealand to be with your sweetheart. How did you even know where I was? Or where the treasure was?"
The stranger chuckles. "You might be the best at solving riddles and finding lost treasures, but you have no aptitude for covert missions. It was depressingly easy to keep track of you. I'd hoped for a little more resistance."
"We haven't even started to resist, yecacan."
"Aren't you going to introduce me?" the man asks. He saunters into the cavern, now lit by the sun shining down through the skylight. "All right, I'll do it myself."
He approaches me.
Errol places himself between me and the new guy. "Ye donnae need to know her name. Tell me what you're doing here."
The man ignores Errol and leans sideways to give me a smile I can only describe as creepy. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Christian Frisk, Errol's partner in crime."
"My former partner," Errol says. "You quit, remember?"
Frisk shrugs one shoulder. "I've reinstated our professional relationship. That means half of everything you've found here belongs to me."
"It belongs to the world," I say. "The relics we found shouldn't go into a private collection. They should be available to everyone. Or no one at all."
"No one?" Frisk raises his brows. "Are you honestly that stupid? The greatest hoard in history is not public property. It belongs to me, because Errol and I have a contract."
"You're off your head," Errol says. "We never signed a contract, and you quit, anyway."
Errol had mentioned his partner to me, but like he just said, he believed the man had moved to the other side of the world. What does Christian Frisk want now? To plunder the Grand Canyon hoard, apparently. But I can't help wondering if Frisk has an ulterior motive, beyond wanting to claim the treasure for his own.
Frisk taps his gun on his thigh, as if he's considering what to do now. "If you have any weapons, give them up now. I won't ask again."
"There's one of you," Munro says, his gruff voice no longer grumpy, but now tinged with menace. "And there are three of us. Unless you want to die, best turn around and leave."
Frisk's lips twitch in an almost smile. "Scots always are arrogant, eh? Errol never seemed that way, and he never seemed particularly smart either. He's more of an idiot savant, well-versed in solving puzzles, but clueless in every other way."
"Insults won't get you what you want," I say. "So let's cut the crap and be upfront with each other."
"Are you in charge here?" Frisk smirks, glancing at Errol and Munro. "I should've guessed Scots are like neutered puppies. You need a woman to take the lead. Fine. Let's chat, Ashley."
He must've thought speaking my name, when I hadn't told him that, would knock me off balance. It didn't. Munro's friend and fellow river guide had warned us that someone might've bugged our raft, which turned out to be true, but a GPS tracker means that person wanted to follow us. We had no choice but to keep going. Destroying the tracker clearly didn't stop Frisk from finding us. I wonder if he might've planted a tracker somewhere else too, like on Errol's backpack or his clothes.
"How did you find us?" I ask.
"We can discuss that later." Frisk backs up to the doorway Errol had blasted out of the rock. He tips his head backward and to the side, then hollers, "Come in, gentlemen."
Frisk moves to the side.
And more men file through the opening, each carrying at least one weapon—handguns, rifles, machetes, and even brass knuckles. Every man has a physique that rivals that of Errol and Munro, and every single one of them wears a hard expression. Most have tattoos and scars, as if they've fought in many rough battles. Frisk's companions look like men accustomed to doing whatever it takes to accomplish their task, whatever that might be. We're about to learn the answer, I suspect.
I count five men.
Then a straggler clomps into the cavern, hauling a plastic sled that's loaded with tough-looking boxes. The last man sets the sled down and straps his arms over his chest. He seems just as rough-and-tumble as the others. Frisk is the odd man out in his gang, since he lacks visible evidence of down-and-dirty fights. I suspect Christian Frisk never gets his hands dirty. He has other people do that work for him.
"Now that you understand the situation," Frisk says. "Let's have a real conversation about what will happen here."
