The Atlantis Cipher (The Relic Hunters Book 2)

by David Leadbeater

  Bodie dragged him up and motioned at Cassidy. “We go now. We have to get there. We have to help them.”

  And he knew, as she turned away from him, that the fear he saw etched on Cassidy Coleman’s face was not for herself, not for them. The fear was for a woman and her child.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The National History Museum in Rio de Janeiro sat a twenty-minute drive north of the famous Copacabana Beach and nearby Sugarloaf Mountain. The entrance was fronted by palm trees, bordered by banks of grass, and framed by the golden sun. Heidi could think of worse places to be.

  After landing they had been taken to the hotel and then for a ride, courtesy of the local CIA station, through the colorful streets of Rio, threading between small parked cars and marveling at the multitude of wires crossing above their heads. Delivery bikes and motorcycles were plentiful, and pedestrians walked in the roads because the sidewalks were crammed. They passed high walls decorated with excessive, beautiful street art, futuristic-looking trams, and the yellow-and-green flag of Brazil flying above boulevards chock full of market stalls. The pace was lively and the noise raucous. Heidi found herself being grateful they were cocooned inside the black, air-conditioned, noise-reducing bubble all the way to the front of the museum.

  Gunn climbed out first, ignoring the others as he got his first real gulp of Brazilian air. “Ah, paradise.” He sighed. “So perfect.”

  Jemma pushed open the door he’d let swing back into her knees. “You’d better sunscreen up, geek. I hear hair gel really attracts the rays.”

  Gunn turned to her anxiously. “Does it?”

  “Mister Practical,” Jemma said, sighing, “you should read up on the real world.”

  Gunn turned away. “Why should I when mine is so much better?”

  “It may have helped you in the past,” Jemma said. “But we’re in a whole new situation now.”

  Heidi came up beside them, not commenting on their conversation as she waited for Cross. He took a good look at their surroundings before sidling up.

  “We expecting company?”

  “Not that we know of. Why?”

  “Just checking. You mentioned ‘other factions’ involved here.”

  “Well, I guess it’s possible.” Heidi realized he made a good point and reassessed the view. “Intel suggests a Chinese faction, among others. But they won’t be wearing signs around their necks.”

  During the flight they had probed the museum and its security measures. Cross had found the first loophole, an outdated sensor array, and Jemma the second, a hackable security system. Together they had worked up a plan. But it was Heidi’s responsibility to find out exactly where the statues of Baal were being kept.

  “We have the vault,” she said quietly. “One floor down, and then the main workrooms next to that. Our man only managed a quick flyby, but reports he saw the statues sitting in the third workroom to the right of the vault. Three people working on them. He reported no security upgrades, but like I said, he only managed a quick look.”

  Cross nodded knowingly at her. “AC problem? Internet issues?”

  “No. Something far simpler. Coffee-machine upgrade. They’ve been asking for one for months.”

  “And a mysterious benefactor bought and paid for plumbing it in.” Cross nodded. “As you say, simple and forgettable. The perfect recon.”

  Heidi nodded in acknowledgment. “And now over to you, Eli. Time to implement your plan.”

  “Sure. Well, let’s get inside the museum and take a look. Make sure there are no surprises.”

  They spent the time until dark investigating both inside and outside the museum and then gathered on the grounds in a deep nest of shadows, properly attired and tooled-up, again courtesy of the local CIA. Heidi had arranged everything nicely, and Cross commented that thievery was so much easier with the help of the American government.

  She shrugged. “I guess we’re pretty well versed in it.”

  The team laughed quietly and made ready to move. Gunn was using a mobile tablet, which made it possible for him to join them in the field. A fact he was not entirely comfortable with.

  “First time for everything, my friend,” Jemma said. “You gotta get your toes wet sometime.”

  “It’s not my toes I’m worried about. It’s the rest of my body. I’d feel better if Cass and Bodie were here.”

  She slapped his back. “Can’t sit behind a screen forever. Some jobs need to be done up close and personal.”

  Gunn nodded. But he didn’t seem convinced.

  “Use your strengths first,” Jemma said, laying it out for him, “in any situation.”

  With midnight almost upon them, the team tuned out the relaxed atmosphere of a warm Brazilian night and crossed a gray paved area to lose themselves in a tangle of bushes that ran all the way to the back of the museum. With care, they crept through, keeping a close eye on the windows and the grounds. Sensors were easy. Gunn had identified two by hacking the museum’s antiquated system and knew their exact placement. The team merely hopped over the infrared beams. The windows, though, were another matter. Gunn could only initiate a brute-force overtake, which gave him control of the museum’s systems for just a few minutes. During that time Cross took a small glass cutter and hammer out.

  Heidi glared at him. “Really?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s just for the last bit, and I won’t use the steel.”

  Cross proceeded to cut a circle, tap out the glass, and then reach inside to lever open the window lock. Once they were inside, he made sure all the sensors were touching again and stuck a large piece of clear tape over the small hole.

  “A bit rudimentary,” Heidi said.

  “If you think it’s shit, just say so,” Gunn said. “I mean, I do.”

  “Keep your opinions to yourself,” Cross whispered. “Unless you want me to tie you to the urinals for the night.”

  “Whatever works,” Jemma said. “We didn’t have much time to make a perfect plan here.”

  Now Heidi looked surprised. “We had the entire plane journey, Miss Blunt.”

  “I don’t know how it works in your world, CIA,” Jemma said, “but in the world of the elite thief, a job even as basic as this takes weeks of planning. That is—if you want to do it right.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, oh yeah. You don’t just look at it and live with it. You move in. You move in like it’s your brand-new permanent home. It’s your whole life for as long as it takes.”

  Heidi saw a new level of dedication. Of course, that was the reason these guys were the best. And that the CIA was now using them.

  “Still nothing from Bodie?” she said, changing the subject.

  “Alone, I’d be worried. But the man’s with Cassidy.” Cross shook his head. “I doubt there’s a single situation on earth that girl couldn’t handle.”

  They were slipping quietly along a corridor, confident that the cameras were looped out to play an empty scene supplied by Gunn. The young computer expert kept a constant watch on his feed and plotted the paths and stations of all the guards.

  “Wait,” he said, holding a finger to his lips.

  A shadow passed the end of the corridor, not stopping.

  He waved them on. Heidi would have preferred a bit more warning but assumed the kid knew what he was up to. She concentrated on the job at hand, taking Jemma’s advice literally in an effort to quell the distracting voices in her head. Distractions would get them caught, or killed.

  The stairs were unmanned and went straight to the below-ground floor. Cross paused at the end as Gunn rechecked his systems.

  “Interestingly,” he said, “when I rerun the loop and check the system, which I do as a precaution, I am seeing evidence of a similar loop implant . . .” He paused. “Maybe from an hour ago?”

  “What does that mean?” Heidi asked.

  “Simple,” Jemma said. “He’s found digital footprints. Somebody has been here before us.”

  Heidi gritted her teeth.
“You’re sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Somebody followed protocols similar to mine. Somebody well trained. If I weren’t this good, we’d never have known.”

  Heidi ignored the bravado. “So, who’s that good?”

  “A few,” Gunn admitted. “But it’s not exactly a cutting-edge system. From the list you gave us . . . the short list of interested parties? I’d say the Chinese. I’ve seen their work before on a couple of relic-hunting missions. This mirrors their MO perfectly. The way they bypass protocols. The redundancies they leave in their work. Hackers like me . . . they leave trails like fingerprints.”

  Heidi thought it sounded plausible, given the Chinese’s competency and dedication to any mission, the time they had already had to reach Rio, and Gunn’s certainty, but there was nothing they could do about it now. “Are we still okay?”

  “We’re good to go.”

  “Surely they have more security in here,” Heidi whispered. “For the vault and the labs.”

  “Trust me with this,” Gunn said. “It’s my job. Move out.”

  Cross pushed open the door. Heidi tried not to cringe in expectation of sudden, whirring alarms. The place remained silent, eerily so. Part of the lab ahead was illuminated while other areas lay in darkness. A smattering of shadows played games with her imagination—the broken blinds in one window with the marble head behind them might have been one of Hell’s demons, waiting to pounce. The half-finished coat of armor in a far corner might have moved once . . . twice . . .

  Cross craned his neck up at the camera mounted on a white-painted swivel, set into the place where the wall met the ceiling. “I see lenses twitching up there, bud.”

  Gunn checked his tablet once more. “We’re in the clear, Eli.”

  “Could someone else be watching?” Jemma asked shrewdly.

  Gunn caught her meaning. “An enemy piggybacking on my signal? Interesting,” he mused.

  While Heidi did not think it interesting in the least, she found herself enjoying how this team complemented each other. Their strengths were widespread, not singular; nobody could rely on just one person. Cross pushed ahead as Gunn mulled over the situation. Together, they approached the room where the newfound statues should be kept.

  It was dark, but the light shining from other windows was enough to illuminate that which they sought. Inside the lab stood a long bench-like table, and resting on its waist-high top were five statues. Heidi almost pressed her nose to the glass, so intent was she on getting a closer look.

  Then Cross picked the lock.

  “Shall we?”

  They moved quickly inside, Jemma taking pictures with Heidi’s phone, as they’d agreed. Gunn shifted to the corner of the room, still thinking. Cross took out a flashlight and studied the statues more closely.

  Standing less than a foot tall, they were bronzed figurines. Baal had been called the King of the Gods, also known as Yahweh and Beelzebub, and was one of the ancient Phoenicians’ greatest gods. Heidi saw them as small, decorative objects, potentially nondescript and unappealing, influenced probably by the artist’s neighboring countries or regions—Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Aegean Islands. To the untrained eye the figurines would be hard to distinguish from other cultures—crude, wearing a conical hat, and with one arm raised.

  “You see the patterns there and there.” Heidi pointed them out to Cross, indicating the gold leaf around the hat and body. “You see the feet? The carving? I need pictures of that for comparison.”

  Jemma took the photos.

  Gunn spoke from the corner of the room. “I think we need to go.”

  “Why?” Heidi asked. “Problem?”

  “We’re all good, but there’s definitely another signal in the vicinity. I can’t pin it down.”

  Jemma looked over. “Really, nerd?”

  “I’m by no means the best when working in these conditions, and this tablet’s not powerful enough,” he said. “Really! There just isn’t enough processing power to isolate a signal. It’s a lightweight.”

  “We talking about the tablet, or you?”

  “Piss off.”

  By now, Heidi had all she needed. To her mind, the decision was already made. The evidence was standing right there before her eyes. But care had to be taken and the chain had to be followed. “We can go,” she said.

  “Are they of the same provenance?” Cross sidled up close. “I only ask ’cause it’s kinda important to the mission that these statues were made by the same person.”

  Heidi hid her exultation, trying to maintain a professional face. “You’re quite right, my friend, but we will leave that to the scientists.”

  “I’ve seen the photos of the Azores statues,” he said, moving out of the door before her. “And I’ve just seen these with my own eyes. If I’m not mistaken, they’re very much the same, Heidi.”

  She grinned. “I know. But we don’t want to get carried away.”

  “Yeah,” Cross agreed with a sigh. “Don’t wanna lose the edge, I guess. So Gunn? Same way out?”

  “We’re clear,” Gunn replied. “I could leave the loop on all night and they’d never know anything different. It’s what they expect. Just got to watch out for the random patrol.”

  Up the stairs and back to the window they crossed paths with only one guard. He paused briefly as if hearing something and peered down the darkened corridor in their direction. After a few minutes he moved off, and they waited another ten. With that, they left the museum the same way that they’d entered.

  On the ground, in the bushes, they crouched.

  “You hear that?” Cross asked, listening.

  Jemma scrunched her face up. “Shit.”

  Gunn tore his gaze away from the dimly lit screen he held. “Do not say my first op is about to go pear-shaped.”

  “I believe I know that sound,” Heidi said. “I’ve heard it too many times before. What do you think, Eli?”

  “Feet,” Cross said with an unhappy shrug of the shoulders. “Lots of feet. That is the sound of several people running toward us.”

  “Bollocks,” Gunn hissed. “I bet you wish we had Cassidy here now.”

  Cross didn’t reply, but the expression on his face was enough to show he agreed with the computer geek.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It became clear that the rushing feet knew exactly where to go.

  Cross rose just a millisecond before Heidi. “The good news is it’s doubtful they’re the Chinese because they should have left a while ago. And it’s not guards as they’re still inside,” he said. “I don’t know who these guys are.”

  “That’s good news?” Heidi said. “Let’s just hope it’s some local gang blundering in the dark.”

  “Well, they’re not blundering now,” Gunn said urgently. “They’re heading right this way!”

  The men were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, faces dark; some wore headscarves and others face masks with skeletal images. Several carried knives and at least two carried .38s. They made little sound but ran right for the team.

  She reached for the gun she’d left behind in the room just in case the museum used weapons detectors. Shit! They were not equipped to fight these opponents.

  She radioed the car before running hard to the left, veering away from them. Gunn loped at her side, hissing for an odd kind of aid.

  “Keep me straight. Make sure I’m not going to trip over anything.”

  He was tapping at his tablet as he ran.

  Now? Some people just can’t put their phones down.

  She’d met what she called the phone zombies—and Gunn was a prime example—on the streets of DC and London. Even bumped into a few. But never before had she seen one in danger, running for its life.

  “Gunn! Put Sonic down and run!”

  He glanced up, evaded a bush, kept sprinting.

  “What the hell are you—”

  Then it became apparent he had a plan. The sprinklers turned on behind them, several high jets of water suddenly shooting up in wide
arcs, surprising their pursuers, and tripping a few up. Then, the brightest of floodlights glared on, shining in their faces. Alarms sounded just as Heidi made it to the road and saw the black car pulling up.

  “Get in!”

  They piled in and the vehicle squealed away from the curb just as their pursuers reached them. One aimed a kick at the car that connected perfectly and must have practically broken his foot. Another attempted to jump onto the trunk, missed, and face-planted in the road.

  “Well done!” Heidi congratulated Gunn. “You kept them off us just long enough.”

  The younger man blushed. “Happy I could help.”

  Heidi punched him. “You fucking British. So well mannered. Take a fucking compliment and own it, brother.”

  Gunn just grinned, rubbing his shoulder where she’d hit him. Heidi squirmed in her seat to look out the back window.

  “All hell breaking loose at the museum,” she said, wincing. “But we left no trace and nothing was taken. Problem is, those lunatics have a car.”

  Cross twisted. “They do? That’s not good at all. Let’s move it, Lucas.”

  Heidi echoed his statement and the car lurched ahead. Lucas knew his way around, speeding up several narrow streets to attempt evasion. After two minutes, though, their pursuers were closing despite it being clear that their car was beyond full.

  “We have guns in the car, right?” Heidi asked.

  Lucas motioned to the glovebox. Gunn, in the front seat, opened the latch and plucked out a single black Glock and two mags.

  “That’s it?”

  Heidi sighed. “Make ’em count.”

  “Oh, thanks for the advice.”

  The car wound down a sharp hill and bounced across a junction. At the bottom, a curve sent them to the left, toward the sea. Heidi watched as the pursuing vehicle, a dark-blue Toyota sedan, moved up to their rear bumper.

  “You gonna shoot them, or what?” Cross asked.

  “They haven’t actually fired on us yet.”

  “They want the pictures.”

  “Possibly. But how did they blunder on us at the museum?”

  “Well, they blundered across the gardens. And they blundered into our car. And now they’re blundering up our ass. Maybe that guard tipped them off. Maybe they were watching for days. It’d make sense.”