The Relic Hunters

CHAPTER FORTY

“To the death then,” Bodie said.

“The event is expected!” Heidi cried. “You can’t risk this. You—”

“Jemma. Jeff,” Bodie said. “You’ve got three minutes to decide where we’re looking. Cassidy, we have no weapons. You’re in charge of handing them out after you take them away from the guards. Cross, you’re the best trained. Stay on watch. Gunn — you’re the cannon fodder. You’re in first.”

The team made ready, preparing minds and bodies for a fast assault. Gunn shook his head, resigned to the ribbing. The truth was, of course, that if there was no tech work to do, he was essentially a loose end.

Jeff appeared even more frightened than Gunn. Bodie considered cutting him loose, or at least leaving him behind, but decided they stood a better chance taking him along. Besides, none of them intended to die this day.

“No blueprints. No history. No information,” Jeff said. “I could find it eventually perhaps, but not in three minutes.”

Gunn was furiously jabbing at his iPad. “Local council,” he said. “The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, have plans and they have archives.” He dropped down to his heels on a patch of grass. “One second…”

Hacking was Gunn’s specialty. “There’s not much,” he said in a deflated voice. “Buildings are built on a curve, two stories, big basements. At least fifteen to twenty rooms, not including toilets, closets, cupboards, etcetera. Only two front doors, not even a yard at the back. Damn, it’s secure.”

“Secure ain’t even on the table when we’re here,” Cassidy said. “We ready?”

“Smooth and sweet,” Bodie said, sighing down at the cellphone still held in his right hand. “Heidi? Wish us luck.”

“I said—”

He ended the call, pocketed the phone, and joined his fast-moving crew. He wondered for a second what the hell he was doing, heading into a hostile environment without a real plan and any equipment, knowing they could die at any minute, but then remembered all who had died and suffered in the Athens Museum, at the bus station, and so many more before that. A group that planned mass-casualty events to subdue the world was a group that needed to find extinction.

Cassidy was their asteroid. She jogged at the head of the group, entering the mews and wasting no time going around the slightly curved building until she reached one of the two doors. Nobody appeared to be around. The entire street was empty, quiet. Three cars were parked along its length and one bicycle. Between these narrow buildings London and Knightsbridge seemed far, far away.

“Get ready,” she said without turning. “This ain’t gonna be quiet and it ain’t gonna be painless. Time to get bloody.”

She picked up a decorative bike stop — a lump of iron where a cyclist inserted their front tire — and hefted it. Then she launched it through the door’s top window. Glass shattered, the noise alarming in the drowsy street. She knocked persistent shards out with an elbow and reached inside for the lock.

“Yale, done,” she said. “Key… done.”

She withdrew her arm, turned the handle, opened the door, and retrieved the bike stop. The team fell in behind her. They came first to a vestibule, and two men rushing straight for them. The men wore suits and white ties; they were clean-shaven and wide. Security guards. Muscle. But nobody did muscle like Cassidy Coleman. She launched the bike stop at the first; solid iron hurled through the air, smashing not only the man’s teeth but his jaw as well. Cassidy didn’t stop to check as he crumpled to the floor.

Guard number two was reaching for a holster. Cassidy let him get a hand inside his jacket before rushing in, elbow first. The blow broke his nose and sent blood washing over a nearby wall, but he didn’t flinch. Fingers gripped around the gun he pulled them out, only to have them covered by Cassidy’s powerful hand and crushed until either they broke or he dropped the weapon. He struggled, she clamped him hard, using legs and body too. Bodie was upon them by that time and helped by picking up the felled guard’s gun and striking the second across the temple.

“Nice,” he said as the man subsided.

“You’re welcome,” Cassidy replied. “Enjoyed it.”

Across the vestibule lay a wide, high hallway. Wooden floors and expensively decorated walls met their eyes, and a wide staircase leading to the second floor. Gunn had already identified the second floor as the most likely to yield clues, but that still gave them a dozen rooms to cover.

More guards rushed from the right; three this time, guns already drawn. Cassidy didn’t stand on ceremony, pumping two rounds into the first. Bodie shot the second, and the third stumbled over his comrades, rolling and coming to a stop by their feet. Cassidy knelt down and rendered him unconscious as Cross scooped up all their weapons.

He distributed them to the team.

Everyone except Jeff received one with varying reactions. Gunn looked a little aghast until Jeff caught his attention.

“If you don’t want it hand it to me.”

“Really? Have you ever shot a gun before?”

“Have you?”

“I’ve seen people shot,” Gunn said defensively.

“So have I.” Jeff motioned to the dead guards.

“Shut the hell up,” Cassidy said, moving on. “Fucking battle of the geeks.”

Ignoring the right-hand offshoot, they headed for the stairs. A plush carpet helped muffle their footsteps, not that it would help. The Illuminati had known they were coming, but any chance of secrecy had vanished now. They pounded up the stairs. Cassidy met a guard at the top, bent so that he flipped over her shoulders and hurled him into space down their long length. Bodie watched the fall, tracking him with the pistol, but he landed with a loud crack and stayed still, barely breathing.

The corridor at the top was empty, for now. Bodie imagined Illuminati bosses searching for ways out like rats running away from an explosion. Cassidy chose left at random, used Cross’s help to enter it safely, and scanned it quickly.

“Clear. Do your thing, people.”

She watched the corridor from a covert angle as the rest of the team scanned walls and desks, taking pictures. It felt arbitrary, unsystematic. It felt somewhat desperate. But what choice did they have?

“Just a thought,” she said. “They don’t know where we are.”

Gunn snapped a finger up at the room’s CCTV camera.

“No. The security team know where we are, but the Illuminati big-wigs don’t.”

“And the point?” Bodie asked, watching over everything and everyone as per usual.

“We grab one and beat the testosterone out of him.”

“You think he’ll know?”

“Well, he’ll know where the statue is.”

Bodie pursed his lips. “Wouldn’t bank on it, love.”

“Well, how about we put it to the test? ’Cause one just flew out of a room down the corridor and is headed this way with his Hood guard.”

Bodie nodded grimly. “On your word.” He backed her up.

Cassidy waited, then flung the door open as the Hood rushed past, right into his face. The man hit hard and fell back, stunned. Cassidy stepped out, right in front of the running Illuminati chief. The man pulled up sharp, suit and coat flapping about him, polished shoes skidding on the floor.

“This is not—” the man began.

Then his Hood attacked, no longer dazed. Cassidy saw the leap and blocked it, but a busy fist managed to smash into her kidneys. She gasped, blocked some more, fell back. The Hood stepped past the door and Bodie hit him from the side, shoulder-barging at speed, and sent him crashing into the opposite wall.

The Illuminati chief backed off.

Bodie checked for other dangers, saw none. The Hood bounced back fighting, but they had expected that. Cassidy sidestepped his lunge and tripped him, right into Bodie who took him hard with a raised knee. The blow made the man grunt, sent him to his knees, but even then he wasn’t done.

Twisting, rolling, he gained two meters of space. Cassidy pursued; Bodie a step behind. The Hood kicked out, feet like scythes. Cassidy got tangled and went down, but Bodie jumped over them both to land near the man’s head. As the redhead hit the floor, hands breaking her fall, Bodie stepped on the Hood’s neck, firmly but not with a crushing blow. He would never kill if he could knock someone out cold.

The Hood still twisted; Cassidy delivered three debilitating blows, taking the remaining starch out of him. Now Cross and the others arrived, the latter using a belt he’d taken from another guard to tie the Hood’s hands. Working together, the team dragged the Hood back into the office the Illuminati boss had exited, along with the man himself.

Before they could reach even that uncertain safety another two guards rushed them. The house was livening up, the corridors and rat-runs turning as hot and lively as Leicester Square on a Friday night. Cassidy shot one, Cross the other, and the team managed to drag their bodies out of sight.

Bodie shoved the Illuminati boss backward, right into his own desk. “Where is it?” he cried, voice and word measured carefully to see what might spill.

“You’ll never get it!” the man cried. “The journal is secure! Save your skins, save all of us and run!”

Journal?

“What have you done?” Jemma asked.

“Run!” The voice cracked with fear. “There is not time. We have to get clear.”

“Hey, hey.” Bodie clicked his fingers in the man’s face. “Look at me. What’s your name?”

“Voltar,” he said, lips dry.

“I’ll let you go,” Bodie said. “I will. As soon as you tell me what I want to know.”

“The journal, it is lost. It is hidden you can’t have it!” The man was close to raving. Jemma, Gunn and Jeff spread out past him, checking the walls for pictures in the same way that had yielded success so far. No reason to believe this would be any different.

“Then you stay,” Bodie said calmly. “Sit. Sit down.”

He knew it was the last thing the man wanted. His nervous system was set to flight; he knew what was coming.

“Please…”

“Sit.”

Cassidy took out the camera. Cross checked the door and the hallway, nodded with satisfaction.

“There’s a reason they’re not coming,” Voltar suddenly piped up as if seeing another tack. “Do you not see? They’re getting clear.”

“Give me the journal and you can join them.” Bodie waved his gun airily. “And the waypoint.”

“I don’t know any waypoint. We only have minutes.”

Gunn looked around at that, Jeff too. Bodie saw on their faces that they weren’t ready to die. Not this way. Still, he played it cool.

“I’ll count the seconds if you like.” He glared into Voltar’s ice-blue eyes.

The man’s Hood guard started to groan. Cassidy gave him a kick back into unconsciousness. Voltar saw it as the final defeat.

“There is no time,” he said.

“Give me the journal. The waypoint. I’ll make sure you get out of here.”

“They were waiting for you, you know. We knew you were coming. Then they activated the event and everything went to chaos. If they hadn’t ordered the event we’d have taken you quietly. Now, the place is pure bedlam, everyone running and thinking just for themselves, for their own lives and fortunes.” He shook his head. “Why not me?”

Bodie saw Jemma double-take at something on the wall.

“The journal then,” Voltar said. “It is in the safe behind the Da Vinci there. Don’t worry, it is a fake. Combination 905541.”

Cassidy was on it, throwing the painting aside without a glance and jabbing at the keypad. “Better be no nasty surprises in here,” she said. “Or your face is gonna meet my boot. We good?”

Voltar nodded. “There are no surprises.”

Bodie knew some marks that had planted small explosives within their safes, even one lunatic that left a grenade inside, the pin attached to the door. Cassidy unlocked the door and peered inside.

“What we looking for?”

“The black wallet at the back. The journal is inside.”

“What journal?” Bodie said finally. “What is it?”

Jemma beckoned to Gunn, showed him what she had found.

An alarm began to shriek inside the building, leaving nobody in any doubt that they should be running for the hills.

Voltar was regarding Bodie with hatred and horror. “You said you wanted the journal. What do you mean?”

Bodie, spurred on by the alarm and the look on Jemma’s face, shoved his gun up under the soft skin of Voltar’s jaw. “Tell me everything right now, fuckwit, or I swear to God I’m gonna paint the ceiling red.”

Voltar certainly had nothing to lose. “The journal belonged to that damned archaeologist that started all this. He drew the map you people have been chasing and following. The archaeologist called Roland Hunt.”

“He left a journal?” Bodie stared over at Jeff. “We never knew that.”

“The Illuminati of the early nineteen hundreds stopped Hunt in the nick of time. They confiscated his journal after he was captured, escaped and then recaptured. Later, they let him go again but knew nothing of the map.”

Bodie judged the man’s words. “Why would they let him go?”

“The Illuminati are brothers. World shapers and savers. We are not the monsters you seem to think we are.”

“If you believe that, mate, you don’t know a thing about your bosses.”

The alarm wailed. Cassidy brought the black wallet over, briefly showing him the journal inside. He kept his gun lodged under Voltar’s skin and nodded at Cross.

“We good out there?”

“Yeah, all clear.”

Turned back to Voltar. “How long do we have, and what is going to happen?”

“From the start of the alarm? Ten minutes. That leaves us only seven to my count. And the termination event has been activated.”

Bodie refrained from sighing. Cassidy tapped a foot. “Sounds bad.”

“It is. They will bring the building down.”

Jemma ran over, Gunn and Jeff at her back. “The picture on the wall there? When and how did you obtain it?”

The entire building started to shake.