The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  The more I think about it, the more certain I am that our patron, Shǐ, screwed us over. So ne’s going to take what I deliver in whatever state I deliver it in, and ne’s going to better damn well pay us and give us a clean break. One way or the other.

  It’s clear Liáng is brooding in the silence. Does he not want to upset his crush, Shǐ? Or is it that nationalistic sensibility rearing its ugly head again? I get that jade is a Chinese national symbol. But I never understood the whole national furor thing.

  I mean, I’m American. America’s great—fuck, yeah! But we don’t have anything so symbolic to get worked up over. I don’t know—maybe bald eagles? Turkey and stuffing? Asking strangers for candy in the middle of the night? Canada?

  I’ve filled one balloon bag, inflated it to neutral buoyancy and I’m attaching it to my DPV when Puo pipes in. He whispers, “The two wet teams have entered the museum, four frogmen total.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SHIT.

  I start stuffing the second balloon bag faster. “Where are they?” I ask Puo.

  Puo’s silent long enough for me to almost ask again when he says, “You need to go mute with me. I think they can detect our transmissions.”

  I feel sick to my stomach, but keep my mouth shut. If that’s true, they can zero in on us pretty damn fast.

  Puo continues, “You can still talk to each other, just not me. Switch your comm-links to another channel and turn your transmission power in your settings to ultra-low—” Puo cuts off for a second and then says, “Yeah. Yeah, they’re definitely tracking me. Hang on.”

  If they’re tracking Puo’s transmissions, then they’re not likely tracking Liáng and me yet. I take the opportunity to do as Puo suggests and open a channel to Liáng on ultra-low while keeping a receiving channel open to Puo.

  You track active sources, the sources that are putting energy into the water. It’s how we track the squiddies in the first place. But it’s not possible to track passive receivers. So it’s possible for the authorities to track Puo’s squiddie as he talks to us, but not track Liáng and I as we listen in. Puo’s squiddie is essentially acting like a blow horn.

  “Panda,” I whisper. “Bag as quickly as you can. So long as they’re chasing Puo, we have some extra time.” Whispering, of course, is completely unnecessary, but it’s hard to overcome the instinct of trying to remain hidden.

  “Roger, that,” Liáng says quickly.

  Is that the first time Liáng’s said that exact phrase to me? It sounds weird coming from him. Sounds like Puo. Not sure I like that. But at least he’s not bitching about damaging the jade anymore.

  I’m now tossing bowls into the second balloon bag. Some of the bowls are heavy, solid pieces, while others are small and delicate. They clink together as they shift to the bottom. I consciously switch to picking up the heavier pieces that aren’t likely to break, but don’t mention this to Liáng.

  Puo comes back on the line. “They’re using encrypted comms—”

  No surprise there. So are we.

  “—They came in through the holes the panels made and are attempting to herd me. I think I can buy you two, maybe three minutes as we play hide-and-seek up here. Wrap it up down there, and I’ll follow you to the exit point.”

  “You hear that, Panda?” I ask Liáng on our separate line. My second balloon bag is nearly full. I set a two-minute timer in my helmet—there’s nothing in the silt cloud for the digital clock to snap to so it floats in the lower right of my vision. “Set your timer for two minutes.”

  “I heard that,” Liáng says. “How are we going to exit with the wet teams up there?”

  Liáng was told was that we’d exit above and swim to the nearest underground station (with many distractions and feints along the way). “One thing at a time,” I say.

  Liáng is quiet for a bit. The only sounds in the vault are the clinking of jade pieces landing on top of each other in our bags and the distant alarms and drabble of rain on the sea surface. Eventually he says, “And what about the squiddies?”

  “What about them?” I ask. Their absence has been niggling at the back of my mind, but there’s little I can do about it at the moment.

  “Where are they hiding?” Liáng asks. “You never finished that thought.”

  “They could be hiding anywhere,” I say. One minute, thirty seconds left on the timer. “There’s plenty of nearby buildings for them to hide in—”

  “Or perhaps,” Liáng says dramatically, “inside of underground stations.”

  “Bump-bum-bum,” I snark back in a deep voice. “How long you been sitting on that? Couldn’t just share? Had to go for the dramatic reveal?” I ask annoyed. Is there something you know, Liáng, that you aren’t sharing with Puo and I? That perhaps Shǐ told you?

  Then in my best announcer voice, because I’m feeling like a smartass, I say, “Will our heroines survive the dastardly evils of the villain? Will they escape alive? Tune in tomorrow. Same bat-time. Same bat-channel.”

  “What?” Liáng asks, annoyed.

  I can’t quite work up a laugh, but I do smirk at him (which he can’t see). I make the 1960’s Batman transition scene noise and continue to pack in the jade as quickly as I can.

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything?” Liáng says.

  “Holy dramatic plot twist, Batman!” I say.

  Liáng grrs over the comm-link.

  “Relax, Plump Panda,” I say, “You’re coming with us. But like I said, one thing at a time.”

  The floating timer in my lower right shows twenty-seven seconds.

  “Wrap it up,” I tell Liáng, “We need to move—”

  Puo breaks in breathless, “I lost one. Dang they’re good—”

  “One what?” I can’t help myself from asking, even though Puo can’t hear me. One frogman? One team?

  Puo continues in the same breath, “—I think they know I’m playing the rabbit. One team kept snipping at my heels, and I lost the other one. Now I think the team keeping on my butt is trying to keep me occupied to prevent me from doing anything else—”

  “Panda,” I rush on our separate line, “we’re outta here. Zip ‘em up and attach ‘em.” I seal off the balloon bag I’m stuffing and hit the auto-buoyancy controls.

  Puo continues, “I plan on giving them the slip and circling back to meet at the prescribed exit point.”

  Prescribed exit point. I moderate my exhale as I hurry. We need to get there first.

  I attach the second balloon bag to my DPV. “Panda, how we doin’?”

  “I’m almost ready,” Liáng says. After a few seconds he says, “Done.”

  I know a harried voice when I hear one—a lot of games/cons rely on that moment when the mark’s voice turns, which I don’t know how to interpret here. Liáng’s legitimately worried about running into the wet team. But what does that mean? He’s not working with Shǐ? Working with Shǐ, but the betrayal comes later away from the wet teams?

  These thoughts do me no good in the present moment. We still need to get our sweet asses outta here without running into a suddenly missing wet team.

  The vault is a mess of silt that won’t settle. Even with my bright helmet lights (that I’m suddenly paranoid about), I can’t see more than a few feet or Liáng. “I’m just inside behind the vault door. On me,” I command Liáng.

  “Understood,” Liáng responds. I hear the whir of his DPV, but only see a light haze of his helmet lights. After six more seconds his muted helmet lights come into better focus and Liáng says, “I’m behind you.”

  Winn’s voice suddenly flashes through my mind, I normally like being behind you …. He said that to me once. Back in the Seattle Isles Sewers sneaking into what we thought was Valle’s underwater vault. We had an unscheduled tryst on that job, couldn’t keep our hands off each other. He smelled of rubber from the dry scuba suits mixed with sweat. His skin was cold. That was the point, to warm up.

  “Queen Bee,” Liáng says, “what’s
the hold up?”

  “What?” I ask stupidly. I look back and see the orange tip of Liáng’s DPV. Liáng is a dark cloudy mess behind his helmet lights. Two black balloon bags float above him.

  Right. Damn it. I banish Winn’s memory with a slight shake of my head.

  “Let’s go,” I say and kick my DPV into gear. “Stay tight to me. We’re heading down,” I tell him. At this point, there’s nothing to lie about. “The British Museum is secretly connected to the London underground tubes.” It’s how they moved the most valuable artifacts in and out. The closest station for people was Tottenham Court, which is where we sent our rogue squiddie through on the scouting mission. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  Liáng doesn’t say anything to that. Nothing.

  “Already knew that?” I ask. Perhaps there had been reason to lie. I maneuver the DPV out of the vault into the jagged hole left by the smashing panel.

  Liáng answers, “It’s been rumored for hundreds of years. I was trying to think through if you actually knew it for a fact or were gambling and we’re about to get pinned.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say.

  “Any time,” Liáng says.

  I direct the DPV downward at a slow speed. The slow speed of descent has nothing to do with pressure equalization or nitrogen absorption (we’re in closed-circuit scuba suits that protect us), but everything to do with the fact that I can’t see more than two freaking feet at a time.

  And the balloon bags? Great idea in theory. They do work—makes it stupid easy to move the jade—but, attached to the DPV: they float. Like in my face when I’m pointed downward. Making seeing ahead, an already difficult task, even worse. I should’ve had Liáng take point.

  The jagged edges of brick pass by in the silt cloud, signifying we’re dropping another level. We must have hit a thermal pocket. The water is noticeably colder along the middle of my back and the internal heater starts pulling more power. The water feels thinner too.

  “Stay tight to me,” I say to Liáng. “We should level out after one more floor.”

  Liáng doesn’t respond verbally, but I hear his DPV following.

  Through the heavy silt cloud the carved-stone façade of the fake-Elgin panel emerges. The panel is split open and empty, the runners having emerged to do their job.

  The panel, however, is resting one level above where we need to be. “Panda,” I say, “Follow me. We need to find a way down.”

  I wonder what Puo’s up to, but I don’t want to try and contact him, potentially giving us away.

  I direct the DPV out into the tunnel; the fake-Elgin panel slides away to get lost behind in the silt cloud. The timer floating in my lower right vision blinks zero at me—I turn it off.

  Our progress is still maddeningly slow. Our helmet lights reflect the brown and sand-colored swirling silt. It’s hard to gauge visibility other than: it sucks. The tunnel we’re in mirrors the one above it, another brick vault tunnel. I can just make out the recesses of the vault doors as we swim by, but not the vault designations.

  I shove off the thoughts of what might’ve been if we could’ve hit this place covertly. All kinds of unopened vaults are down here. And I’m pretty sure coming back isn’t going to be an option.

  The tunnel dead-ends unexpectedly. I look for some signs but don’t see any. “Right or left?” I ask Liáng, intending to go the opposite way of whatever he suggested.

  But Liáng doesn’t take the bait, instead opting for a brooding silence.

  Well, fine then. I go left for no other reason than gut instinct. Which seems to pan out about fifty percent of the time in situations like this.

  We need to find a way down to the next level—or make one. But setting off the explosives we meant for the vault door would likely bring a whole lot of unwanted company.

  The silt cloud is dissipating after we turned left, growing thinner. Our helmet lights increase their range.

  Movement up ahead!

  My heart lurches in my throat.

  It’s a runner.

  I exhale heavily and tell Liáng it’s only a runner, running around doing its job.

  Damn. Where is that unaccounted for wet team? And where is Puo? Why hasn’t he checked in yet?

  I check the one-way comm-link to Puo—still open.

  In my panicked thinking from the runner’s movement the only weapons I have that I can think of are the stunner and the commando knife with the saw-tooth back attached to the DPV. The knife is about the only traditional real weapon useful in an underwater environment. Underwater guns are impractical for us and serve no real purpose other than to provide an excuse to the wet teams to fire at us in self-defense (the wet teams will definitely have underwater guns).

  Oy vey—the whole point of being smarter and cleverer than the authorities is to avoid run-ins with wet teams, a point we’ve been successful with in the past. This is the closest we’ve ever been to a wet team.

  I take a deep inhaling breath, feeling it expand out in my chest comfortingly. The Muppies had to have been ready, waiting to get here this quick. Did Shǐ tip them off in a bid to blackmail us?

  The water is progressively becoming clearer. The runner we briefly saw has long since gone, off on its mission of spreading its air-bubble love.

  Finally, I see a sign on the wall of a little green man going up stairs with an arrow. We’re nearing a stairwell of some kind. I point it out to Liáng, who again doesn’t respond.

  What is with him? Still being pissy about offending his national sensibilities?

  The vaults are smaller in this tunnel, but packed closer together. Now that the water is clearer I can see the inscription in the black oval sign, SABZ-3. Brazilian artifacts, maybe? There’s got to be some good stuff coming out of the Amazon.

  The brown metal stairwell door looms ahead at the end of the tunnel. The door looks to be melting into its frame surrounded in brick, the silt and ocean crud reclaiming it to its own purposes.

  The only sounds in the tunnel are the whirs of our DPV, and the small sounds of the thin water rushing over my helmet and the two balloon bags strumming against the progress of the DPV.

  I look back and see Liáng following closely behind. His closed-circuit scuba suit matches mine and is a patchy, almost pixelated, dark-blue and black—which is the best underwater camouflage (and also on wet asphalt for some reason). His helmet is a shiny black, reflecting a curved image of me looking back at him. I can’t see his face, but I imagine it’s the bored, pouty look he carries around so much.

  I slow my DPV to a stop next to the stairwell door. The balloon bags slowly straighten themselves out, drifting forward from the momentum a moment ago. The brown metal door has a long silver metal bar across the middle that I push down to open it.

  Something’s wrong. It’s obvious as soon as I can see into the stairwell.

  The silt in the stairwell is stirred up. There are shadows cast on the wall to the right of me at an impossible angle to be from my helmet lights.

  Someone’s in the stairwell!

  I smash the door open as hard as I can. It smacks against something solid before it’s fully open.

  “Panda! Help!” Adrenaline crashes over me. My forearms strain against the door. Pneumatic tension swells in my elbows.

  A hand in a black, pixelated camouflage glove whips around from the door and tries to grab me.

  “Shit!” I scream and back off. Then I immediately push forward and slam the door back in place.

  How many are in the stairwell?

  “Panda, where the fuck are you!”

  The door pushes back on me. I have no leverage. It’s easily pushing me back.

  I scramble my legs behind me to try and get some kind of purchase.

  A blacked-out helmet carefully emerges from behind the door to get a look at me.

  My heart is pounding so hard, I almost think the frogman can see it jumping in my chest. Aside from my female form, all he should be able to see is the big middl
e finger in the center of my helmet.

  The door keeps gaining ground against me. Where the fuck is Liáng—?

  The door suddenly shoves forward and the owner of the blacked-out helmet pushes out from behind the door. Silt billows out from behind him.

  He twists and pivots lightning fast and launches himself at me, arms outstretched.

  I have a split second to register that his hands are empty: no knife. I use the door I was trying to crush him with as a shield and deflect his oncoming hands.

  It half-works. It stops his momentum, but his hands in black gloves wrap around the edge of the door. He pulls himself around head first.

  I use my adrenaline-filled panic to elbow him in the helmet away from me. Ow!

  It doesn’t look like his helmet broke. As he recovers, twisting away, I gather my legs to prepare to double thrust kick him away.

  I don’t want to kill him. But there ain’t a whole lotta room in underwater fights. Almost everything that would be disabling in air ends up being a death sentence underwater. How the hell am I going to get out of this?

  I unleash two very muscled legs at full force to try and connect, and hopefully knock him out.

  He catches my leading leg above the ankle and pushes it downward while rolling over my other leg. Like a rabid monkey he expertly claws his way up onto my chest.

  He’s going for my rebreather tubes! Bastard!

  He’s in close. Right on top of me. Minimizing my ability to do anything.

  I try to punch, grab, pinch anything, everything.

  It’s the frogman’s standard dirty tactic. Disable the suspect’s ability to breathe and then back off offering them a secondary breather off their tanks. Either tether yourself, essentially handcuff yourself, to the frogman or die. And the underwater gun pointed at you while you accept their lifeline will dissuade any ideas of funny business.

  He continues to ignore my frantic attacks and fumbles at my rebreather tubes coming out of the back of my helmet.

  It’s not working! I can’t get him off of me.

  Damn it. I am not going to die down here.