The Prisoner's Gold

36

Sarah and Maggie moved quickly through the warehouse, checking the markers for each row as they ran. Fortunately, what the facility lacked in modernization was more than made up for in organization. Each section of the space had been assigned a numeric label, and each box within that space had been further identified with a unique stamp. Every object was perfectly catalogued, with a place for everything and everything in its place.

Sarah wondered if the artifacts themselves had been tagged with barcodes.

She would find out soon enough.

Maggie suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. ‘There,’ she said as she pointed at a pair of boxes collecting dust on a shelf. ‘That’s what we’re after.’

‘Jack, did you copy?’ Sarah asked. ‘Maggie found the boxes.’

‘How big are they?’ Cobb asked.

Sarah stepped forward and took note of the size. ‘A little bigger than a shoebox. Why?’

Cobb didn’t give her an answer.

Cobb watched as the two men from the patrol car stepped out of their vehicle and walked cautiously toward the Mercedes. ‘Hector, talk to me.’

‘I’m not getting any radio chatter from the police band,’ Garcia said in his ear. ‘Looks like a genuine patrol. They’re not responding to a call, at least. I can’t understand what they’re saying on the radio, but the voices are all calm and bored.’

‘Stand down, Josh,’ Cobb instructed. ‘Let me see if I can work this out.’ Cobb didn’t want anyone to get shot just for doing his job, but he knew that McNutt wouldn’t hesitate to drop the unexpected visitors if it meant protecting the team.

‘Copy that, chief. But I’m here if you need me.’

Cobb knew his sniper was zeroed in, the crosshairs of his scope tracking the patrolmen’s every move. He stepped away from the bus stop and waved his map like a flag. ‘Hey there! Hey, officers!’ Cobb called out with a phony drunken slur to his voice. He ambled across the road toward the warehouse, staggering like a drunkard.

The men abandoned the Mercedes and headed straight for him.

‘Jack just bought you some extra time,’ McNutt informed the women.

‘How?’ Sarah wondered.

McNutt watched closely. ‘I think he’s pretending to be me.’

Cobb spread the map on the ground in the middle of the street, luring the patrolmen in for a closer look. ‘You’re just who I was looking for. Can you give a guy directions? I think there’s something wrong with my map. It’s in Chinese.’

He wobbled as he spoke, then flailed his arms wildly as he pretended to catch his balance. In actuality, he used the move to lift his shirt and expose the grip of the semi-automatic pistol he had holstered in the rear of his waistband.

Just in case.

Sarah peeled open the seal on the first box with one of the tools in her burglary arsenal. Some girls never left home without lip gloss; Sarah rarely went anywhere without lock picks and a pocket knife. She lifted the lid and peeked inside.

‘Loose-leaf documents, a couple of bound notebooks, and a book,’ she announced. She opened the second box and reported its contents as well. ‘More of the same.’

Maggie rifled through the collection. ‘I can’t translate all of this right now. Even if I hurried, I might not catch what we’re looking for. I need to be thorough.’

‘Just take it,’ Papineau ordered. ‘Take all of it.’

Sarah didn’t need to be told twice. From one of her pockets she withdrew a small folded piece of fabric. With a snap of her wrist, the compact square unfurled into a pouch. After dumping the entire contents of the first box into the bag, she threw her arms through the handles and swung the satchel over her shoulders like a backpack.

When she was done, she pulled an identical bag from Maggie’s pocket and emptied the second box. In less than a minute, the haul was secured and the boxes resealed. The missing layer of dust was the only evidence that anyone had tampered with the collection.

‘Done and done,’ Sarah announced. ‘We’re on the move.’

As the men from the patrol car drew closer, they started shouting in Cantonese.

‘Sorry, fellas,’ Cobb replied, ‘I have no idea what you’re saying. I’m just trying to find my way back to Guangzee … Guangzow? … Gesundheit?’

Maggie translated their response in his ear. ‘They said, “What are you doing here? Show us your papers. You have no right to be here.”’

‘Chief,’ McNutt said, ‘this party’s about to get crowded. I have a car approaching from the north. He’ll be on you in twenty … nineteen … eighteen.’

Cobb could see the headlights of the new arrival in the distance.

The patrolmen saw it, too. The first turned to the second and quickly argued his point.

Maggie translated. ‘‘‘Shit! They’re already here. Let’s just kill him and get this over with. We’ll get all the credit.’’’

Cobb pulled his weapon before Maggie had even finished.

It was kill or be killed.

Cobb squeezed his trigger twice, burying a hollow-point round into each of the men’s foreheads. The backs of their skulls burst open like overripe cantaloupe. As their bodies hit the ground, their weapons clattered harmlessly to the pavement.

McNutt saw everything through his scope. ‘Nice shootin’, chief. By the way, those are Czech machine pistols. Definitely not military or police issue. Not around here.’

‘They weren’t cops,’ Cobb agreed as he took out his phone and snapped their pictures for possible identification. Then he turned his gaze toward the car that was bearing down on him. ‘And neither are they. A little help here, Josh?’

‘Already on it,’ McNutt replied as he steadied his aim. ‘Three … two … one …’

A second later the .50 caliber slug from McNutt’s rifle tore through the engine of the approaching sedan as if the car was made of Jell-O. Smoke and steam billowed from under the hood as the driver jerked the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes. The car came to a stop a mere twenty feet from where Cobb stood, but none of the goons inside leaped out to confront him.

‘Wrong move, fellas,’ McNutt said with a grin. Moving objects at least made things interesting — though not much of a challenge to a marksman with McNutt’s skill — but a stationary target was child’s play. The next time he fired, the gas tank ruptured and the sedan exploded in a magnificent shower of flames.

‘Sorry, chief, didn’t mean to singe your whiskers.’

Cobb had bigger concerns than a few burned hairs.

‘More from the west,’ Cobb shouted as he spotted two more cars barreling in his direction. ‘Sarah, get Maggie out of there. Evac plan beta. Josh, light ’em up!’

‘With pleasure,’ McNutt announced.

Cobb broke for the Mercedes as McNutt opened fire. The modification the sniper had purchased for his rifle allowed for semi-automatic fire; he didn’t need to chamber each round; all he needed to do was tap the trigger.

It didn’t just make things easier, it made things fun.

Cobb started the engine with his spare key and threw the gear into DRIVE as thunder boomed from the hillside. McNutt squeezed off round after round, each roar from his rifle leaving his enemy more damaged than the last. But it wasn’t enough. He had already destroyed the first car and disabled the next two, but three more vehicles suddenly appeared.

‘More party-crashers headed your way,’ McNutt informed the others. ‘And I’ve only got two shots left. I was never strong in math, but—’

‘I can handle the last one,’ Cobb assured him. ‘Just make your shots count.’

‘Copy that.’

Cobb floored the accelerator and sped toward the rear of the warehouse.

Maggie glanced in all directions, but the only exits she saw were the oversized garage doors of the loading bays. She was sure that Sarah couldn’t pick her way through it because there were no locks to be picked. Nor were there mechanical overrides. The doors were opened electronically or not at all.

‘Where are we going?’ Maggie asked.

Sarah ran toward the garage doors. ‘Through there.’

Maggie didn’t understand. ‘How do we raise it?’

‘Who said anything about raising it?’ Sarah replied. As she spoke, she reached into her suit and produced a small aerosol bottle that had been labeled as designer perfume.

It wasn’t.

‘Stand back,’ Sarah warned. ‘You really don’t want to inhale this stuff.’

She drew a three-foot arch near the door’s base.

Maggie watched with fascination as the colorless liquid that Sarah sprayed on the metal panel began to bubble. By the time Sarah stood back to admire her artwork, the fluid had transformed into a thick arc of foam.

Sarah pressed a breath-mint-sized receiver into the goo and stood back.

‘Open sesame,’ she said as she pressed the detonator.

Maggie instinctively covered her ears, but there was no explosion. Instead, the receiver ignited like a white-hot ember. In a flash of sparks and smoke the foam incinerated, cutting cleanly through the metal door as it burned. When the fire was out, all that remained was a hole.

‘Careful,’ Sarah said. ‘The edges are still hot. Like, really hot.’

Given what she had just seen, Maggie had no trouble believing that the rim of their escape tunnel was still too hot to touch.

Cobb arrived at the delivery zone just as Sarah crawled through the improvised exit. Maggie stood beside her, clutching her own pack as if it held the meaning of life.

‘We good?’ Cobb asked.

‘We’re great,’ Sarah answered as she and Maggie jumped into the car.

‘Josh?’ Cobb said.

‘The highway,’ McNutt replied in his ear.

Given the location of the warehouse, the team had multiple escape routes. They could work their way through the residential neighborhoods to the east to the subway line that serviced this section of Panyu. Or they could head south to the crisscrossing waterways of the delta. But their best option — the one that McNutt was recommending — was north on the adjacent highway. If they could get to the thoroughfare, they would have a straight shot toward the relative safety of Guangzhou.

‘Can we make it?’ Cobb asked.

‘Yes,’ McNutt answered. ‘Go to Plan D.’

Cobb turned to Maggie as he gunned the engine. ‘You better buckle up.’

As the Mercedes bounced up the road toward the highway, Maggie hunkered low in her seat. When Cobb cranked the wheel, the centrifugal force pinned her against the side of the car. Tires squealed and a horn blared from behind as the last remaining sedan gave chase.

‘What’s Plan D?’ Maggie asked. ‘I only heard about A and B.’

‘D stands for “demolition”,’ Sarah explained. ‘That means Josh gets to blow some shit up.’

Cobb pushed the pedal to the floor, trying to put some distance between his team and their pursuers. Why aren’t they shooting at us? Why do they need us alive?

Then the real reason came to him.

They can’t risk damaging what we took.

‘Hey, chief,’ McNutt said, ‘see the construction barrels?’

Cobb saw a row of bright yellow barrels just ahead of him, lining each side of the road. ‘Affirmative. I see them.’

‘Yeah, whatever you do, don’t run into them. Seriously, that would be … not good.’

Cobb understood the message. ‘Everyone, hang on.’

As he drove past the barrels, Cobb braced for the fireworks.

McNutt laughed in his ear. ‘Boom.’

No sooner had the word left his mouth than a huge fireball erupted behind the Mercedes. The charges he had concealed in the plastic drums not only flipped the approaching sedan, they destroyed the road entirely. The asphalt that the team had driven on only moments before was now a smoldering crater in the earth.

The shockwave shattered the rear window of the Mercedes as it sped off into the distance. Through Maggie’s screams of confusion and Sarah’s shouts of excitement, Cobb could still make out the chuckling of his sniper over the comms.

‘Is everyone okay?’ Garcia shouted.

He knew better than to press for updates throughout the chaos, but the explosion had sounded like an atomic blast. For all he knew, he was listening to the death knell of his dying teammates.

‘You’re clear,’ McNutt said to Cobb. ‘No one on your six. Actually, nothing on your six. See you at the rendezvous.’

‘Thanks, Josh. See you soon.’ Cobb turned his attention to Garcia. ‘Yes, Hector, we’re fine. Tell Papi we’re coming home.’

Cobb pulled onto the highway as real police cars, legitimate cruisers this time, raced past them in the opposite direction, sirens blaring and lights flashing.

‘And the package?’ Papi asked impatiently. ‘Do you have it?’

Cobb glanced at the backpack on Sarah’s lap. ‘Yeah, we’ve got it.’

Maggie held her satchel with both hands. ‘I hope Polo ends up being worth it. We might have just started World War III.’