CHAPTER ONE

      JASON did not like London. He had not liked it when he was a student, and he liked it even less now. The crowded thoroughfares, all confusingly one way, the noise of the traffic, the sickly smell of diesel; all these things combined to make him yearn for the open spaces of his estancia; though it must be added that anyone observing his tall, immaculately-suited figure and darkly cynical features would never have suspected he felt more at home on the pampa.

      It was strange, he reflected, when he had been born and brought up in England, albeit in the care of the local council, that he should feel more at ease in the South American republic where he had his home. The well-trammelled spaces of his fatherland held no interest for him, and as soon as he had obtained the engineering degree he had worked for, he left for more adventurous climes. But building bridges in Australia or pipelines in the Middle East soon began to pall, however, and because the money was good he joined a mercenary force fighting in Central Africa. But even money would not compensate for the lack of self-respect he felt facing a barefoot enemy, equipped with only the meanest kind of ammunition, with weaponry of the most sophisticated kind. He left for America with funds to pay the deposit on some land of his own, and succeeded only in blowing it all in on a speculative land deal that left him broke and jobless.

      And that was how he met Charles Durham …

      Jason moved to the window of his hotel suite now and surveyed the busy street several floors below without enthusiasm. Was it really fifteen years since that bar-room brawl? He could hardly credit it. And yet so much had happened in the years since, he should not find it so difficult to believe.

      Durham was an archaeologist, taking a break from a dig he was working on in Mexico. He was holidaying in New Orleans at the time, and his initial encounter with Jason took place in the street outside one of the many bars and taverns. He, Jason, had been rolling drunk at the time, he remembered wryly, and was losing the fight he was having with the burly bartender when Durham recognised a fellow Englishman and intervened. He had settled the bill, which had been the cause of the fight, and the bartender, recognising the fact that sober Jason would have little difficulty in laying him out, had been more than willing to accept the settlement. Durham had taken Jason to his lodgings, sobered him up, and eventually persuaded him to admit to his abortive foray into the real estate business. Subsequently, he had offered him a job working with him in Mexico, and although Jason had known little about archaeology, he had been willing to learn.

      He worked with Durham for almost two years before they discovered the ruins of the Mayan pyramid, and beneath, untouched for hundreds of years, the burial chamber. Even now, so many years on, Jason could remember the thrill they had felt upon discovering the necklaces and rings and bracelets that decked the crumbling skeleton the chamber had contained, and the jade mask that hid the hollow eye-sockets and gaping mouth.

      With his share of what was left after the government had taken their dues, Durham intended to create a research institute in England, but Jason had decided to spend some time in South America. He lived in Brazil for a year, and then twelve years ago he had bought some land in Santa Vittoria, a tiny country sandwiched between Brazil and Uruguay. Although he and Durham had intended to keep in touch, England was a long way from his home at