The Tomb of Hercules_A Novel

by Andy McDermott

  She had been one of those visitors. And she remembered the layout. Steps from the single platform led to a mezzanine, stairs from there emerging on each side of Murray Street just a short distance from City Hall.

  Where there would be cops.

  Frosted glass skylights in the vaulted ceiling let in enough illumination for her to see the elaborately tiled walls, but Nina couldn’t spare even a moment to appreciate the sight as she clambered up onto the platform and looked back. The rear lights of the train stared at her like demonic eyes. Somewhere beyond them she could hear her remaining pursuers coming after her, scrambling under the carriages.

  She gripped the book to her chest and ran up the stairs into the mezzanine. The staircase to her right would emerge closest to City Hall—

  Shit!

  Nina stopped, cursing her own stupidity. The station was closed—and so were its entrances. There was no daylight visible at the top of either flight of stairs. They had been sealed off.

  No way out.

  Noises from the platform below. She couldn’t go back into the tunnel—

  She spotted a space in one wall, an alcove where there had once been a ticket booth.

  And a hatch set into it…

  Nina ran to it, having no other options. There was a handle—and a small lock.

  She tugged the handle. It didn’t move. Running feet on the platform.

  She slammed the end of the book hard against the panel, once, twice. Glass cracked, but she didn’t care as she drove it against the closed hatch like a battering ram one last time—

  The lock broke, pieces of metal popping free.

  Nina threw the hatch open, not caring what was beyond as she climbed through and pulled it shut behind her. Low ceiling, a short passage leading to a vertical shaft.

  Which only went down.

  She looked over the edge. There was a very faint light below, a lone bulb at the bottom. The shaft went down deeper than the subway tunnel. She had no idea where it led.

  Not that she had a choice. The running men were drawing closer.

  Struggling to support the book in the crook of her elbow, Nina hurriedly descended the ladder.

  Shanghai

  The glass elevator ascended the sheer face of the Ycom building, giving Chase and Sophia a spectacular view out over Shanghai as it rose. Mei had parked her taxi in a lot beneath the building, and was waiting for them. There was a security station at the entrance to the lower ground lobby, but the two guards on duty had practically saluted Sophia, quickly ushering her through.

  They weren’t alone in the elevator. As an Internet service provider, Ycom was a twenty-four-hour operation, and ascending with them was a nerdy young Chinese man in a Buffy T-shirt—like yuppies, geeks too were apparently the same anywhere in the world—who had just received a bag of delicious-smelling food from a delivery boy on a moped. He also seemed to recognize Sophia, smiling bashfully while never quite having the nerve to look directly at her.

  He got off on the twentieth floor. “Looks like you’ve got a fan club,” said Chase as the doors closed and the elevator resumed its ascent to the top floor.

  “Richard likes to show me off,” Sophia told him. “I’ve been paraded around the building a few times.”

  “Right. And I bet all the geeks like him couldn’t wait to crack one off afterwards.”

  “Eddie!” Sophia chided him. “That’s disgusting.”

  He grinned. “Well, you know me.”

  “All too well, but you never used to be that vulgar.”

  “Hey, I didn’t have to come,” Chase said, raising a hand as if about to push a button to stop the elevator. “I can go home again if you want.”

  “I’m sorry.” She looked away from him, out at the shimmering Blade Runner neon of the city. “It’s just that… I didn’t know how I was going to feel when I saw you again. Especially after the way you reacted on Corvus’s yacht. And in all truthfulness? I still don’t know.” A sidelong glance. “And I can tell that you’ve still got some issues. Eddie, I—”

  “You asked for help, so I came to help,” interrupted Chase firmly. “Especially since it affects the IHA.” Something occurred to him. “How did you know I worked for the IHA in the first place? You’d obviously written that note before the party; you knew I’d be there.”

  “Richard has a file on you,” Sophia said. “And one on your… your girlfriend. Dr. Wilde.”

  “Nina?” Chase exclaimed, filled with sudden alarm.

  “Yes. I don’t know why he has them, but they were with the other files I think he stole from the IHA.” She turned to face the door. “We’re here.”

  Chase had more questions, but held them back as a soft bell chimed and the doors parted. Sophia stepped out into a reception area of black marble, her heels ticking on the polished stone. He followed.

  Seated behind a large semicircular black desk was a single uniformed security guard. He reacted with pleased surprise on seeing Sophia, then wariness when he noticed Chase behind her. “Good evening, Lady Sophia,” he said in a thick accent, standing and lowering his head in a slight bow.

  “Good evening, Deng,” Sophia replied pleasantly. She rounded the desk, gesturing with one hand for Chase to stay where he was. “How are you tonight?”

  “Very good, Lady Sophia,” said Deng, breathing faster. Chase couldn’t decide whether the man was nervous or excited. He got a fairly good idea a moment later when Sophia stepped right up to Deng and whispered something in Mandarin. Deng’s eyebrows rose with the distinct delight of somebody who couldn’t believe his luck. He stuttered a reply. Sophia leaned even closer, whispering into his ear, then giving him a very soft kiss that left a little smudge of glossy red lipstick on his cheek. Chase narrowed his eyes.

  Deng fiddled with his tie, then bowed again and hurriedly backed away through a side door into a washroom. “What was that?” Chase demanded.

  “Deng and I have an arrangement,” Sophia answered.

  “Yeah, it bloody looks like it!”

  There was a flash of irritation in her dark eyes. “Not like that. Although that’s what he thinks now—I just told him to, well, get ready for me in there. I’ve been nice to him, given him little gifts, and he’s been useful in return. Like looking the other way when I need to get into my husband’s office without anyone knowing.”

  Chase glanced at the door. “He’s getting ready for you, eh?”

  “Eddie, we don’t have time for this. Come on.” She went to the double doors behind the desk.

  “You go in,” he told her. “Be with you in a sec.”

  “Eddie!”

  He ignored her, going to the bathroom door and quietly tapping on it. Deng’s eager voice came from the other side. He slowly opened the door to be greeted by the sight of the security guard, back to him, pulling off his shirt. Deng said something else, full of enthusiastic anticipation, and turned around—

  Chase punched him in the face. Deng wobbled backwards until he bumped against the wall, eyes crossed, then slowly slid down to the floor and passed out.

  “In your fucking dreams, mate,” Chase told the inert figure with an angry jab of his forefinger. He emerged from the bathroom to find Sophia waiting, her arms crossed impatiently. “What?” he asked, semi-innocently. “You didn’t seriously think I was going to let the dirty little sod get away with that?”

  “Just come on,” she snapped, opening the door.

  Beyond was a suite of interconnected rooms, softly lit and expensively decorated. Dominating the central hall were several large sheets of copper-colored metal hanging down from the ceiling like stiff banners. “What the hell are these?” Chase asked. The metal had a weathered, hand-beaten look to it, with long, coiling strips in other colors winding at random across its surface.

  “Richard’s latest installation. He changes them every month or two,” said Sophia, leading him past them to an office at the far end of the suite. “They’re by a German artist called Klaus Klem. Worth about eight mi
llion dollars altogether.”

  “Eight million?” Chase cried. “I wouldn’t give eight pence for them!”

  Sophia sighed. “You never did have an eye for art, did you? Anyway, here we are.” She went to one wall and moved aside an abstract painting, which Chase imagined was probably worth another eight million dollars, to reveal the door of a small safe. Rather than a dial, it had an electronic keypad.

  “You got the combination?” he asked.

  Sophia gave him a sly smile. “Some champagne and a big bed, and I can get whatever I want.”

  “Yeah, that was never a problem for you, was it?” He turned away before she could reply, looking out of the huge floor-to-ceiling window behind Yuen’s oversized desk. Below, the rear wall of the Ycom building dropped away in its long sweeping curve. At the base of the structure was an ornamental lake. Fountains swelled within it, lit from below the water by slowly pulsating colored lights.

  There was a bleep, and he looked around to see Sophia opening the safe. She held up a maroon British passport with a triumphant wave, then took out a couple of other items and went to the desk. A quick tap on the keyboard recessed into the desk’s surface woke up a computer, a trio of large flat-screen monitors smoothly rising from slots in the black marble. Chase noticed that a list of folders in a window on the central monitor was sorted by names of politicians, including Victor Dalton, but then his gaze switched to the small white object Sophia held. “What’s that you’ve got?”

  “Flash drive. I’m pretty sure this is how Richard obtained the files I saw, but I want to check.” She reached under the desk and plugged in the drive. “The password I have to the copies on the server only has read privileges—I can’t copy or e-mail them.”

  “Guess you couldn’t get everything you wanted, then.”

  As the computer accessed the drive, Sophia fixed Chase with a hard—but also somewhat pleading—look. “Eddie, please, can you put your problems with me on hold for now? I know you can’t resist making your sarcastic little comments at every opportunity, but try. This is too important.”

  “Okay, I’ll try,” said Chase, feeling uncomfortably chastened. On the screen, a new directory window appeared. “Is that it?”

  Sophia quickly scanned down the list of files. “These are the files I saw, yes. And here’s the one on you.” She pointed a glossy red nail at the title of one of the documents: CHASE, EDWARD J.

  Chase was more concerned by the file below: WILDE, NINA P. But then his attention was seized by something else on one of the other monitors—a live feed from a security camera. It showed the marble lobby outside, and four uniformed men cautiously entering it from a side door. All were armed. “Uh-oh.”

  “What?”

  “Company’s coming. Time to go.” Sophia unplugged the drive and put it in her handbag along with her passport. On the screen, one of the men looked into the bathroom, then reacted with alarm as he saw the unconscious Deng. “Well, I guess strolling out casually’s not an option now. Are there any other exits?”

  Sophia shook her head. “Just the lift and the emergency stairs. We can go up to the helipad, take Richard’s helicopter—”

  “Can you fly a chopper?”

  “No.”

  “Nor can I.”

  She looked dismayed. “I thought you could!”

  “Learning’s on my to-do list,” Chase quipped. The guards moved out of frame on the monitor; he heard the doors at the far end of the suite open. “You’re still the boss’s wife. They won’t shoot you.”

  “They might! What if they’ve been told what happened at the opera, that I helped you escape?”

  “Trust me, when they see you looking like that it won’t be their guns they’ll be shooting. Just buy me a few seconds. Go!” He ducked and headed for an adjoining room.

  “Lady Sophia!” came a shout from outside the office. “We know you are in here. Please, come out—Mr. Yuen has asked us to bring you to him.”

  Sophia stepped into the hall, coming around one of the hanging metal art pieces to see the four men waiting for her. Their guns were in their hands, but not aimed at her. She advanced slowly, slinkily, one high-heeled foot in front of the other as she swayed her hips in the tight red silk dress. That caught the attention of three of the security guards, at least.

  The fourth was more professional, however, looking cautiously into the nearby rooms. “Where is the man?”

  “What man?”

  “You came here with a man. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know.” That was true; she had completely lost sight of Chase.

  The guard sidestepped an installation piece and came towards her. The other men followed a few paces behind, on the other side of the hanging artwork. “We do not want to hurt you, but Mr. Yuen has told us to use force if you do not cooperate. Where is the—”

  A noise to one side—

  The guards looked around as Chase leaped from a side room almost at ceiling height, having jumped from a table. His outstretched arms grabbed the rail from which the artwork hung as he slammed his feet against the metal sheet.

  It rang like a gong, swinging upwards with the force of Chase’s weight behind it and sweeping two of the guards off the floor. One of them hit another installation piece, wrenching it from its hangings. It landed with an enormous bang, then toppled over and flattened him beneath it. The other man crashed against the wall so hard that he almost broke through it, embedded unmoving in the plasterboard beneath the expensive wallpaper.

  Chase dropped to the ground, rolling to avoid the metal sheet as it swung back. Another startled guard there—he scythed up with his legs at the man’s knees. The guard pitched onto his back with a yelp. Chase was already up, fist driving a sledgehammer blow into his face. The man instantly went limp.

  The remaining guard aimed his gun at Chase—

  Sophia swept aside the front of her dress and delivered a hard kick up between the guard’s legs. The hefty platform toe of her shoe crunched into his crotch. He made a high-pitched keening noise, face contorted in agony, then dropped to the floor and curled up in a ball.

  “I see you still know how to take care of yourself,” said Chase, kicking the other guards’ guns away.

  She picked up the fallen weapon from the sobbing man at her feet. “Shanghai’s a tough town.”

  “Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her after him, heading for the elevators.

  They only got a few steps into the lobby before an alarm shrilled, red warning lights flashing. The display screen of the elevator flashed Mandarin characters. “The lift’s locked down!” Sophia gasped.

  “They’ll already be on their way up the stairs,” said Chase grimly. Cut off, and the only remaining escape route led to an aircraft they couldn’t fly …

  He turned and hurried back into the suite of offices. “We can’t get out down here!” Sophia protested.

  “Then I’ll have to do some DIY.” He stopped at the fallen art piece, one end of which had bent upwards when it hit the floor. Chase looked down the hall to Yuen’s office at the end, the sloping windows …

  “Give me a hand!” he ordered, grabbing one corner of the metal sheet and dragging it down the hall. Sophia obeyed, confused.

  They passed the guard she’d kicked, who was showing signs of recovery. Sophia jabbed a spike heel between his legs. He curled up even tighter, tears streaming down his face.

  “Stop enjoying yourself,” Chase told her. They pulled the metal sheet into the office. “And take off those bloody shoes!”

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she tugged at the straps and kicked off her stilettos. “There isn’t a way out in here!”

  Chase took the gun from her and fired several shots at the window, the glass exploding. “There is now!”

  “What do you—” Realization crossed her face, followed a moment later by genuine fear. “Oh my God! Are you insane?”

  “It’s been suggested.” He dragged the metal sheet to the window, a cold wind bl
owing through the shattered hole. Sophia didn’t move.

  “We—we can go up to the helipad! You could pretend to take me hostage, demand a pilot—”

  “They already know I came to rescue you, not kidnap you!” Chase leaned out of the window, looking down. The slope of the building’s side was at least seventy degrees to the vertical on the floor below, but it became shallower as it descended, almost horizontal at the bottom …

  Sophia stared at him in horror. “Eddie, we’ll die!”

  He dropped the installation piece so that its bent front end hung over the edge of the broken window, then held out his hand to her. “Have I ever let you die before?”

  “No, but—”

  “I’m not going to start now.” He offered his hand again, more forcefully. “Trust me.” Sophia hesitated, then took it.

  Chase pulled her to him. “Okay, just hold on to me, and whatever happens, don’t let go.” He kicked the metal piece farther over the edge, its underside crunching on the broken glass.

  Behind them, the doors to the lobby flew open. More guards.

  Chase stepped onto the metal sheet and knelt down. Reluctantly, Sophia did the same, clinging to him. He grabbed the artwork’s bent corners and jerked forward, inching it over the edge, then turned his head to Sophia. Their cheeks touched. “Ready for a magic carpet ride?”

  The guards burst into the room. “Don’t move!” someone shouted.

  One last shove—

  They tipped over the edge of the building and plunged downwards.

  6

  Sophia’s scream was lost in the wind as they shot down the glass wall, the installation piece a makeshift sled shrilling and rippling beneath them.

  Chase held on to the raised metal corners with all his strength, feeling the edges cutting into his palms. He endured the pain—he had no choice, because if he let go then even the minuscule amount of control he had over the course of their descent would be lost.