Hayden smiled grimly, taking in the team. “We’ll be there soon, Armand. Good job.”
“Of course, of course. I am merely magnificent.”
“Now.” Hayden breathed out a ragged sigh and glanced around, her hair framed by a huge white Motor Show sign. “Where the hell can we find a car?”
*
Despite the proximity of innumerable vehicles it took thirty minutes for their transport to turn up. By that time the team was chomping at the bit and bordering on irritable. With no further information forthcoming, Webb’s trail was growing colder by the minute. Beat cops and informants failed to find anything on the street. CCTV cameras came up blank, even the covert ones.
And Europe was a big continent. So many places to disappear.
A minibus packed them all in, with Dahl taking the wheel. Ironically, as he set off, the streets of Barcelona became much easier to navigate as people left the area or turned in for the night.
Alicia wiggled her elbows into Yorgi’s ribs. “Whoa, it’s a good job you’re smaller than a woman, Yogi. And stop friggin’ wriggling, ’less you want me to headlock ya.”
Drake turned partway around. “Don’t let her bully you, mate. Give her as good back.”
“Webb came to Barcelona for a reason,” Hayden was saying. “Are we to believe it was just for her?”
“She had skills,” Dahl said. “Took a major weapon to take her down.”
“A blunt instrument.” Drake thought about the litter bin and then glanced over at the Swede. “And a major tool.”
“Weapon,” the Swede amended.
“Y’know, I’m not convinced—”
“Still,” Hayden interrupted. “If the woman’s so important—who is she?”
“Just wait,” Kinimaka said. “And we’ll find out.”
“Maybe not Barcelona.” Mai always thought outside the box. “Maybe Spain.”
“To recap then,” Hayden said. “We have fanatics dedicated to preserving the secrets of Saint Germain, and Tyler Webb journeying from Transylvania to Versailles to Barcelona, digging through old chemistry books and enlisting the help of expert teams . . . and people. What is he ultimately chasing, though? And why?”
“Dude willingly abetted the destruction of his own organization to get where he is,” Smyth said, then tapped his forehead. “Crazy. This situation could exist entirely in his head.”
“The cultists don’t think so,” Lauren said.
“He’s collecting items. Or following a map. Or stealing artefacts.” Drake shrugged. “Whatever. We’ll ask him when we find him.”
“If we don’t get taken off this thing first,” Hayden fretted. “I mean, the entire team chasing one man?”
Drake scratched his forehead as Dahl wound through the quiet streets. “Don’t be daft. The world’s most wanted man, and a path of destruction and danger across Europe? Of course we’ll see it through. Not to mention the personal angles.”
A call came through, which routed through Bluetooth to the vehicle’s phone system. Dahl touched a button.
“Yes?”
“Argento here. We have progress, mi amico. The woman is a ghost, a fringe-walker that nobody has ever heard of or seen before. How about that?”
“I’m not sure how that helps us, Armand,” Hayden ventured as the Italian actually paused.
“She wasn’t always that way. Take her story back many years and she was—and is—Sabrina Balboni, an Italian actress, singer and dancer. Very different back then, she fell into bad ways after gaining her fame and ended up convicted of manslaughter when a car she was traveling in killed a passerby. She and three other people, including the driver, were heavily under the influence of cocaine at the time. She did a stretch—a long one—completed her time and then fell off the map. Utterly. We haven’t delved into the last twelve years yet, but she is a loner and totally devoted to herself. That’s why she rolled over on Webb.”
“I’ll tell you this,” Dahl said. “Those last twelve years? They taught her some furious skills. The way she moved . . .”
“Calm down.” Kenzie patted his arm. “We’ll get you an autograph.”
“So what did she know?” Hayden asked.
“Webb contacted her because she has these ‘furious skills’, as you say. She has no equal, a reputation passed on only by word of mouth, and a contact protocol worthy of a president. Webb has always run in powerful circles and was made aware of her long ago. He paid a healthy monthly retainer just so, one day, he might be able to enlist her services. Now the time has come, it seems.”
“But what are—” Dahl slowed for a red light “—these skills?”
“Basically, Sabrina is a thief. At a more complex level—she’s Catwoman . . .”
“My favorite,” Yorgi intoned with a deep Russian accent.
“Just so we’re clear,” Kenzie whispered under Argento’s narrative. “She’s not joining the team.”
“Webb needs her services simply because his quest—whatever it is—gets harder with every stop along the way. The man needs Balboni’s help to gain easy, fast entry to at least three more places, quite possibly because he can’t take it slow and easy anymore. Not with the cult after him. He knows they’re watching all these places. His solution is Sabrina Balboni.”
Drake nodded. “Logical. Webb’s not striking like a sledgehammer anymore. So where are these three places?”
“Ah, mi amico, the trillion-euro question. First, I have to ask, did any Alfa Romeos get hurt as your chase progressed?”
“Nope. Not one,” Drake guessed, knowing the subject was close to the Italian’s heart.
“Ah, good to know. That is good. Well, he explained to her where he was going next and hinted that nobody knew the final destination short of the country. He required her skills to gain access to one of Spain’s oldest colleges, the University of Barcelona, which is why he agreed to meet amidst a hundred thousand people intent on watching the match. Her idea. She is governed by anonymity, this woman, just a face in a crowd that nobody ever remembers. They were headed to the university right away.”
Dahl slowed the vehicle to a crawl. Hayden leaned forward. “And the final destination?”
“America,” Argento said.
Of course, Drake thought. Something else that just didn’t make any sense.
Dahl punched Seville into the satnav. “We can be there soon,” he said. “Call the locals again, Armand, and have them watch the place.”
“Already done. But it has been over an hour and a half.”
“I know that,” Hayden hissed, her frustration showing. “I friggin’ know that.”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
In typical and by now, expected fashion, the University of Barcelona had quite the multi-layered history. It had moved premises, been closed down, and changed buildings since its construction in the fifteenth century. In a stroke of good luck, though, they found that the Bourbon dynasty had closed the place down during the time Saint Germain had lived, perhaps even at the man’s request. Who knew? The secrets, loaded decisions and inner conspiracies of the ruling classes were as deep and convoluted then as they are right now, from a town crier to a president.
Dahl pushed the minibus through sparse traffic, around sharp bends and down darkened streets as they followed the quickest route. Webb had a good head start. It occurred to Drake that Sabrina Balboni had always known this and intentionally dragged the questioning out, but he couldn’t tell for sure until he met her face to face. The team readied themselves and checked all weapons, seeing the local cops up ahead, their cars waiting in the dark and giving off little reflection.
The building spanned the corner before them, stretching in both directions, its frontage higher than the walls and consisting of three arched entryways and ten arched windows, all dark. Trees swayed softly in front and higher structures to each side brooded in solitude, giving the appearance of watchtowers. The area was quiet, passing cars lending a peaceful and ordinary quality to the scene.
“One thing bugs me,” Kinimaka said. “If Webb now needs Sabrina’s talents to break into these places how did he get into this one?”
“She had time to explain it,” Dahl said, “when they met. And, if they had comms set up, even as we chased them.”
“One snake slithering alongside another,” Alicia said. “You and she might bond well, Bridget.”
Not waiting for clearance, the SPEAR team moved out, seeing no reason not to head straight for the main entrance. The small security unit inside had been alerted, but reported nothing suspicious.
“Remember,” Dahl said. “This man may now have less reach, less influence and less power, but he still has some very clever, influential and extremely resourceful people working for him. Eyes open, guns up.”
The doors were unlocked, the interior darkened. The security unit met them halfway inside, again with shrugs. Spanish comment was passed, and even with no grasp of the language Drake knew they were all drawing blanks.
“Go,” Hayden said and pointed. “Wait outside.”
Argento had passed on Sabrina’s information that Webb was only interested in the library, and the man’s excited knowledge that Germain had studied there at will and convenience throughout his entire life all the languages of the known world and more.
Webb’s words. Probably taken from some ancient script.
Meaning unknown. Drake thought it probably had to do with reading a map or following directions, maybe concocting something from the chemistry directives Webb took from Paris. They ventured carefully down one corridor and then an adjacent one, all the while closing in on the library. Darkness swarmed all around but fled from the soft, muted hallway lamps left on for security. As they closed in on the library door Hayden’s pants pocket began to vibrate.
Holding up a hand, muttering that this was their only contact with the entire enterprise and reasoning that something urgent may have arisen, she quickly answered. “Yeah?”
“Oh, hello. Tyler Webb here. Is that Agent Jaye? Hayden Jaye?”
“Webb!” she hissed involuntarily.
“Oh it is. Excellent. Did the cellphone buzz in your pocket, Hayden? Did you feel me, vibrating through your groin?”
“Oh for fu—”
“Yeah, that was me. Think about it. In any case I have no time for that. Later, no doubt, when I have all the time in the world. If you survive.”
Hayden held back all the words she wanted to say, all the threats she wanted to vent, all the lethal promises she wanted to make. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, my friends have left a little . . . care package. A little revenge for stealing my thief.”
“Sabrina set us up!” Kenzie hissed.
“No, no.” Drake hoped she was wrong. “He always knew we’d come.”
“One day,” Hayden breathed into the cell. “Face to face.”
“If not this then that day will be your last, Hayden. Oh and don’t forget—I’m watching you. Always.”
The line died. Silence fell like a ton of lead. Hayden stared at the offending phone and then at her friends and colleagues. “What now?”
Dahl gestured at the library door about ten meters ahead. “We go forward. It’s what we always do.”
He advanced and stepped on something hidden beneath the carpet. An ominous click sounded in the half-darkness, but from the roof above their heads.
Drake knew that sound. “Bomb!” he cried and turned to run.
*
As one, the team spun and fled, heading away from the library. In retrospect Drake realized they should have bolted in the other direction—Webb would never destroy the treasures of Saint Germain. As the clicks sounded and death neared, he made the fastest and hardest decision of his life.
“Wait!” he screamed above the noise. “We’re going the wrong fucking way!”
“Oh, shit.” Even Dahl vacillated.
Drake took their lives in his hands, grabbed Alicia, and hustled back past the detonation device. As he passed, a deep booming began; a resounding shockwave that stunned his senses and battered his ears. Above, he saw the entire length of the corridor’s ceiling heave up and then collapse back down, swelled and shattered by the blast. He ran faster and lower, pulling Alicia and hearing the rest of the team racing behind.
Straight into the blast.
The corridor’s walls bulged, bowed by the initial convulsion. Wooden panels smashed and shattered, some zipping across the corridor like deadly poisoned darts, passing between the runners and striking their body armor. Drake hid his face as they ran the gauntlet, grunting as objects abused his body.
Then the ceiling started to fall.
Plaster rained down, and concrete blocks. Drake hurdled one. A cloud of dust screened the way ahead.
“Drake!” Alicia cried out, and a heavy lump of masonry crashed down inches from his head. Behind, Smyth shielded Lauren, his arm constantly bombarded by falling shrapnel. Kinimaka plowed through the debris, kicking up almost as much rubble as fell around him. Dahl spun in mid-flight, seeing a descending jagged chunk and knowing instinctively that it would strike Hayden. He caught it momentarily in two hands, still running, then redirected its flight with a quick flick of the wrist. Beau twisted between collapsing curtains of wreckage, struck more times than he’d ever tell. Mai and Kenzie hugged opposite sides of the ruined walls, trusting that there would be no third explosion.
Drake staggered as a thick timber spar glanced off his shoulders, sprawling headlong, then rolling, still keeping up the speed. His body screamed, his nerves alight with pain. Dust filled his nose and eyes. They couldn’t be sure what was happening up ahead and all the walls were destroyed, bristling with serrated wood and rough plasterboard edges. Beau kicked a ragged pole of wood aside. Mai used rubble the size of a boulder to leap off to avoid a hole in the floor. Kinimaka barged aside a cascading heap so the others could move quicker.
Drake gained his feet once more, using Alicia and Dahl as they reached arms down to him. The dust was clearing, the noise all but abated. Ahead, the library door appeared intact.
Dahl kicked it off its hinges, anxious to get out of the plaster dust and smoke and into what should be a safe haven. Quickly the team filed through, coughing and hanging their heads, staring at one another and seeing a ragged crew: white haired, white clothed and holding arms and legs where projectiles had struck.
“We all okay?” Drake panted. “Anyone badly hurt?”
All were fine, and then Hayden’s cell rang again. She held it up so all could see the big screen.
Webb again.
“Don’t answer,” Dahl said. “Keep the bastard guessing.”
“You know,” Smyth said, holding his right arm extremely gingerly. “He could have killed us all back there. Wiped us off the map. What gives?”
“Impossible to say,” Hayden said. “Lack of resources. Not enough time. Mistake. Design. Drake’s quick thinking. My call is that the asshole thinks of this as a game, loves it more than family or power. Gets off on it.”
“You think it gives him a boner?” Alicia wondered.
Drake and Dahl choked simultaneously, and not only on dust. “Jeez, Myles, tone it down to PG 13 wouldya? We don’t need to hear that.”
“It’s what you were thinking.”
Dahl blinked. “No actually, it wasn’t at all.”
“What about you, Yorgi? I bet you were wondering.”
The Russian ignored her, which did the trick and stopped her conjectures.
Hayden pocketed her phone and took a three-sixty gander around the library. Stacks of hardbacks rose from floor to ceiling, all sizes, all colors, with no clear labelling system.
“Whatever he found here,” she said. “Will probably stay secret.”
Drake hated to, but tended to agree. “So that leaves us . . . fucked. We don’t know what he’s searching for. What he finds. Or why. Or where he’s going to next. Fucked.”
“Not yet.” The words came surprisingly from Lauren. “I
do have one idea.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Drake sipped strong coffee whilst they all crowded around the two-way mirror, staring at Sabrina Balboni as the master thief stared back at them. Trying to read her was an impossibility. Drake wondered what it took to become one of the world’s greatest burglars whilst also adorning yourself in anonymity. How deep the demands, how desperate the craving.
How overwhelming the guilt.
Balboni had chosen a profession that, by necessity, forced her to become a shadow, a true wraith of society. He wondered how her position now, facing prison, would sway her decisions in the next few hours.
Toward the good guys, he hoped. She was their last hope. After this, they were down to good fortune and a trip to Dubai.
Could be worse. He found his lips were curling up into a private smile, then realized he was staring straight at Mai. The Japanese woman noticed and returned it with warmth. He was caught, wedged between two stormy seas, the future an impenetrable cloud of impossibility. Thankfully, Hayden began to speak and he turned toward her.
“I will go in again. Reiterate the hard line. Then we’ll let Lauren come in and propose the deal.”
Drake listened as Hayden repeated the bleak future Sabrina had to look forward to and, try as she might, the thief just couldn’t keep the horror from her eyes. Alicia took the time to rib Yorgi just a little.
“So what’s it like, Yogi? To stand so close to a real thief?”
“What you mean?” The Russian looked suitably annoyed. “I am also real.”
“Not on the same level, dude.” Alicia pointed through the window. “That’s a master. A genius. A light-fingered virtuoso with real-world expertise.”
“I am master thief too!”
Dahl glanced down the passageway. “Hey, keep it down. We’re in a police station.”
“Well, you’re good at impersonating a female, I’ll give you that.” Alicia turned the screw.
“I have proven my skills.” Yorgi sulked.
Matt Drake 14 - The Treasures of Saint Germain Page 11
