The Good Thief

by Judith Leon

  “She will tell you something about yourself that she could not otherwise know,” Jeremy said.

  Galina barged forward in order to go first, and Teal said to her, “You are writing a book you hope will be sold in the West and bring you money.”

  Galina stiffened, opened her mouth to speak, closed it, nodded and sat down.

  “Who doesn’t want to write a book and make money?” Todor said. “That could be a lucky guess. Try me.” He stepped forward. “I bet you tell me I survived a bomb blast. Hah! Who can’t see that?” Sweat dripped off the end of his nose.

  “You also have scars on your back where your father, uncle and grandfather beat you harshly,” Teal said.

  For a moment, he kept his mouth shut, as if caught off guard, but then he frowned. “Could be another lucky guess. Eastern Europeans all got big families who beat the kids.” He sat down.

  Foo Hai stepped forward, and Teal studied him a moment. “You barely survived your childhood in an orphanage and managed to hide a tiny item, which is the only thing you have that belonged to your original family.” Teal let her gaze wander over the man’s face and hands. “The item is green. A frog. Stone. Maybe jade.”

  Foo Hai returned to his seat, giving no hint whether what she’d said was true or not. It was Lindsey’s turn. As she approached Teal, she ached to grasp her tightly in a hug and then turn and flee with her. Could Teal see that? What would the girl reveal in front of all these bloody people?

  “You aren’t like the others,” Teal said, loud enough for all to hear.

  Chapter 26

  J eremy glared at Lindsey. Slick Hair also straightened and stared at her, as did Foo Hai and Todor, all watching with eyes narrowed. Please don’t expose me, Lindsey thought, willing her words to leap the space between her head and Teal’s. With no other way of warning Teal, Lindsey stepped closer to Teal so that her back was now to all others watching except Jeremy, who stood to her extreme right. The potential for exposure was perilously high. Teal might have recognized the Pentha logo, but maybe not. Maybe she would know that Lindsey was from the Academy. Maybe not. Lindsey risked it. She winked at Teal with her left eye, praying that the bridge of her nose would hide the movement from Jeremy.

  Teal frowned. Then she closed her eyes a moment, then opened them and “read” Lindsey. “You come from a wealthy family, but you still want more. Others here have some kind of vision, even though it may be cruel or desperate. A huge desire for revenge, some weird loyalty, or a cause. You don’t have any vision or cause. You love only money. Your heart is truly cold.”

  “Well, you’re a nasty little bitch,” Lindsey said. She turned abruptly, feigning anger, but inwardly cheering.

  Everyone still watched her, frowns suggesting speculation. Had they bought it?

  Teal had to have recognized Lindsey’s true intentions, and, knowing them, helped hide them beautifully. But was she really acting? If only Lindsey could get a clear message to the girl that help was on the way.

  She found the final two readings rather prosaic. Soon Jeremy had summed up the demonstration and seemed about ready to dismiss Teal when Foo Hai spoke for the first time all evening.

  “This is not enough,” he said in fluent, British-accented English. “You want millions from your highest bidder for this girl and the disks. The demonstration may be real or it may be a con. You say you have combined several enhanced abilities in her, but where is the proof? A demonstration of speed on TV? The Russian woman pointed out that videos are easily faked. It seems you have wasted our time, and people who waste our time…” He stopped to make sure Jeremy was paying attention. “…always regret it.”

  Jeremy paled. “We have other potentially very high bidders here tonight.” He looked pointedly at Lindsey, then at Galina, and back to Foo Hai. “They aren’t complaining. You are free to leave.”

  Todor said, “I also say show us more.”

  This was the moment to push for more information out of Jeremy. “You say you have sixteen other girls. Why are you showing us only one? Where are the others?”

  Unanimously, the bidders all joined in demanding the answer.

  “Where are they? In the U.S.? Would we have to kidnap them ourselves?”

  Jeremy raised a hand to calm the furor. “Most do live in the United States. They do not live under high security. The disks you purchase will provide their names and locations. They live in suburban homes.” He put a different DVD into the television. “I’ll give a quick overview.”

  A series of pictures of girls four or five years old was shown on the screen. The faces and complexions were very different, yet there was something about them that made them seem related. All bright-eyed. Glossy-haired. Perfect teeth. Perfect features, perfectly proportioned.

  “Average IQ of this group is 184,” Jeremy said. “All are now older and look much different, of course. Their test copies are on the disks.” He looked at Lindsey. “Imagine what wealthy people would pay to make sure their child not only had no birth defects, but was genetically enhanced in some manner to make them superior to all their peers.”

  Foo Hai looked at Lindsey, studying her openly, the first time he’d allowed himself to give even the impression that he was taking in everything he saw and heard.

  Jeremy spoke to Galina, Todor and Yun. “Imagine what your intel ops and special forces could do if composed of such superwomen. And then using Lab 33 methods, imagine their progeny.”

  Foo Hai said, “I don’t bid on this girl as also having the genes for great speed unless I see it myself. No video will be accepted.”

  “Let’s see a live demonstration of the girl running,” Todor said, and Lindsey joined Yun and Galina in repeating the demand. The more time she could spend with Teal, the more time she spent seeing the buildings and its grounds, the better.

  Jeremy’s protests were all based on logistics: ice, snow and cold, but eventually they all bundled up and went outside into the bitter chill of the night air. All the bidders were marched blindfolded toward some unknown destination. Lindsey longed to risk a peek at the exterior of the building, but heard the boots of someone move in close behind her.

  From just ahead, she recognized the voice of Bing, muttering that the whole thing was “quite draconian.”

  “Shut up,” Foo Hai said.

  Lindsey caught a whiff, just behind her, of the stale cigarette smell of Slick Hair. A muffled metallic click and a sixth sense told her that he had a gun pointed at her—which, of course, no one could see blindfolded. Lindsey shivered. Zuza moved closer as they walked. Judging by the footfalls, it didn’t sound as if any of the other bidders were followed closely by any of Jeremy’s people. This might mean he thought she, of all the others, might try something. So, maybe they did suspect she was an agent. How she wished that Marko had somehow managed to follow her in spite of the GPS jamming.

  The crunch of boots on gravel finally gave way to pavement, and they angled downhill around a bend until they’d reached a level area. Jeremy’s place apparently sat on a low hill near flat land.

  “You may now remove your blindfolds,” Jeremy said and met no resistance.

  Five vehicles faced the road at intervals between barren trees, motors running, headlights on, lighting the road for Teal. She wore a heavy sweatshirt much too large for her, and she was stretching and doing jumping jacks.

  “She hasn’t eaten much for the last few days…because of the flu,” Jeremy said.

  Teal stopped her motion and frowned at him but said nothing about being deliberately starved.

  Lindsey subtly scanned her surroundings and the night sky. A dim glow on the horizon in the east suggested the ambient light from either a small town not too far away or perhaps from Prague some thirty minutes or so away. She also spotted Polaris and calculated that if Jeremy’s place followed the curve of the road, it faced essentially south or southeast. The bark on the massive trees that lined both sides of the road looked smooth and almost silvery in this light, naked limbs glistenin
g with ice.

  When Todor shouted and all heads turned his direction, Lindsey stepped away from her position, snapped off a few twigs from the nearest branch and dropped them into her pocket. To cover her moves, she pulled a tissue from the same pocket and faked a sneeze, hoping that it would seem as though she’d stepped away out of politeness. Nevertheless, she saw good old Mr. Bushy Brows watching her from inside one of the cars.

  A gunshot fired and Lindsey ducked.

  Immediately, she felt stupid. The shot simply marked the beginning of Teal’s run. Amazingly, the girl seemed turbo-charged. Her wide strides were more like leaps, as the demo tape had shown, yet her legs moved so fast, the devil seemed right behind her. And probably was. As soon as a man in a suit clocked her, she slowed down, blocked at the end of the run by two more of Jeremy’s henchmen. It was now obvious that Jeremy’s operation wasn’t simply Bushy Brows, Jeremy and Slick Hair.

  Drivers, also in suits, sat in each of the five cars. And at least one of Jeremy’s men escorted the bidder in each car, that was five, and the five drivers would also have to be his men or they couldn’t be trusted with the location. So Jeremy had at least ten men.

  Teal was jogging now back toward Jeremy when she stumbled and fell onto one knee, as if dizzy. Doubtless she was faint from lack of food. Lindsey rushed to her, bent over and whispered, “Athena” as she pulled Teal up by the arm. Then she turned away, and said loudly, “She does run like the wind. I’d hate to see her hurt herself.”

  Lindsey had seen the light of hope in the girl’s eyes, as if she’d glimpsed the cavalry riding toward the fort. Please, please, let it be so.

  “This concludes our presentation,” Jeremy said. He passed around printouts of minimum bids next to blank spaces for the bidder’s offer. “Call the number on your printout with your bid by 10:00 a.m. You will be contacted by noon tomorrow if it has been accepted. Good evening.”

  Slick Hair hurried over, handing blindfolds to Foo Hai and Bing.

  Just before Brows appeared, fumbling as he slipped the blindfold on Lindsey and Zuza again, Lindsey noticed that the bidding for each of the three disks started at ten million dollars. For Teal, listed as “Enhanced Live Female,” the bid started at fifteen million.

  Chapter 27

  B lindfolded again, Lindsey decided the return drive to Prague was taking longer than the drive out. Brows had to be taking a different route. The car never picked up much speed, so they must not be traveling on throughways, just back roads and side streets, making it impossible to calculate their direction. She had no idea how she could find Jeremy’s place again, only that she must.

  Teal had to be recovered as fast as possible. Preferably in darkness, just before the light of dawn. And definitely before noon tomorrow when Jeremy would receive the bids and decide the winner. There would be no way to predict how soon after his decision Jeremy might hand the girl over to someone else if Lindsey’s bid was topped. That meant 5:00 a.m. at the latest. Sam would be arriving soon, and Tito with an extraction team. But how to figure out the location for the raid?

  She concentrated on putting together the clues of the locale, but what kept popping into her mind was the half-cleaned mural. At first she fought the interruption, but each time the image of the mural returned, she remembered something new. Maybe it was important. She’d loved how the revelers under the tree in the painting represented humanity: a mother nursing a baby, half-naked children, maidens with flower wreaths in their hair, a monk, matrons in shawls that covered their heads, men in nationalistic costume, old people smiling in contentment. All dramatically lit. Definitely not Renaissance or Baroque. Something almost modern about it. The goddess dimly visible in the tree—her headdress so distinctive. Something was trying to work its way to Lindsey’s conscious mind.

  She bit her lip, frustrated and angry as the car continued its slow progression. Tripping out on the mural just wasted time. If she had a few days, she could do some detective work and figure out the artist and then learn where this particular fresco had been painted. But they didn’t have that luxury. They had until dawn. At least she had the tree twigs. Maybe that would lead to something.

  What had Zuza said? A tree will be important in solving this.

  Maybe Zuza was right. Lindsey couldn’t wait to tell Sam and Marko—

  Marko! Dear God, he must be frantic. A new sense of urgency pushed her. Aren’t we there yet? she wanted to yell at Brows. Almost as if in response to her anger, she was thrown against the left rear door as the limo made a sharp turn. She’d barely righted herself when she was thrown against Zuza, who leaned to the right as they made what seemed almost a one-eighty turn. Then another turn and another. Then she heard the hollow, ringing roar of crossing a bridge.

  She guessed they were crossing The Vltava River again. Several minutes later, Brows told her to remove her blindfold, and the limousine pulled up near a taxi stand, a different location than where they’d been picked up. They were just outside

  Old Town Square

  . The teenage boy stood there. He climbed in the front and tossed the purses to Brows. Brows all but threw the purses at her and Zuza and then shoved the two of them out the door. The driver sped off, tires screeching.

  Other black cars flew by, heading south, the ones she’d seen at Teal’s running demo. So, the other bidders had been let off somewhere nearby, as well. She and Zuza walked toward the line of taxis at the beautifully lit old square, still alive with milling people at 11:30 on a cold Friday night. Even at this distance, the ice sculptures glistened—pristine and beautiful.

  “Wait a sec,” she said to Zuza. She stepped back into an arched doorway, took out her cell phone, used a coin to open the back, and looked for bugs. She didn’t find anything suspicious but decided not to risk a call to Marko at the safe house, just in case she’d missed something.

  Zuza tugged her sleeve and gestured with her head to a black car that pulled up on the opposite side of the street beneath a streetlight. Its windows were tinted; Lindsey couldn’t see faces inside, yet she was certain she caught the glint of gold on the driver’s neck in the distinctive shape of Foo Hai’s calligraphy pendant.

  Not good! Lindsey thought as Zuza said, “We must hurry.”

  They bounded out of the doorway into a walk that was closer to a run, passing two of the dazzling ice sculptures before reaching the line of taxis. Lindsey gave the cabbie an address five doors down from the tobacco shop. Yesterday her taxi had proceeded southwest to reach the safe house. The man sped off, turned south but then east.

  Panic welled. What the hell was he doing? He turned north on a one-way street, jabbering something in Czech. Zuza answered him, then translated. “He says the Ice Festival brings many tourists and traffic, so we are taking back roads. They say this all the time, but tonight, I think it is true.”

  He jabbered some more and Zuza added, “He says someone is following us.”

  Lindsey heard a loud popping and zings off the cab. Gunfire!

  She and Zuza scrunched down. The rear of the car dropped and the sickening bounce of flat tires began. The cabbie pulled over and then another shot hit him. He called out and slumped over.

  “Zuza! Get out! Duck and run toward that alley!”

  Zuza leaped out and Lindsey followed her, bullets flying around them, the sound of their boots crunching in the snow. God, the poor cabbie. Her terror inched a notch higher when it looked like the narrow alley was a dead end with solid brick walls on either side. Second stories overhung the ground level. The only light came from two windows above in an alley so narrow people could almost shake hands with their neighbors from their upstairs windows.

  Lindsey raced in front of Zuza. They ran in the shadow of the overhangs, hugging the walls, passing a couple of doors bolted shut, knocking down trash cans.

  Lindsey glanced over her shoulder. Limned by the distant streetlights, dark shapes barreled toward them, one taller than the others. At least three. Maybe fifty feet away.

  From
behind Lindsey, Zuza called frantically, “Up ahead. Go left.”

  Two more shots zinged by as Zuza caught up and pulled Lindsey into a pedestrian passageway. They dashed into it.

  The passageway took them back to the street. Zuza gasped and panted. The frigid night air sawed at Lindsey’s windpipe. Slowed by their coats and boots, they wove through parked and passing cars as they dashed across the narrow street, not daring to ask for help. Anyone who stopped might also be shot. Lindsey didn’t even dare to stop running long enough to pull out her cell phone.

  “We hide in the old Jewish cemetery,” Zuza called between great gulps of air. “I know a way in and a place they can’t find us.” She pointed toward an even less well-lit street and Lindsey led them. She didn’t hear anything, but a glance behind revealed three shadows darting in and out of street-lamp glows, keeping pace. She could make them out clearly as a half-moon now stood high in the sky.

  She and Zuza reached a walled-in park, only a tangle of barren treetops and a few evergreens visible from the street. They ran alongside a wall higher than their heads, past antiquated buildings and then they turned a corner, now running parallel to the river. Just ahead a snow-thickened branch hung down over the wall.

  “Here,” Zuza said. She grabbed the branch, scrambled up the wall, straddled the top and stretched her hand down to help Lindsey.

  As Lindsey hoisted herself over the top, shots rang out again. Zuza screamed. Lindsey crashed onto the snow on the inside of the wall and caught Zuza as Zuza rolled down from the top.

  Zuza’s coat had a horrible smoking hole in it. Breathing hard, her hands shaking, Lindsey pulled off one glove and opened the coat. In the freezing darkness, Zuza’s blood looked like black oil as it flowed out of a hole, a wide exit wound on the right side of her chest near her collarbone.

  Chapter 28

  T he top-hatted coachman halted the two horses at exactly fifteen minutes before midnight, right on schedule. From the horses’ nostrils, exhaled breath created a gray cloud that rose in the late night air. The tour guide, robed in a hooded, monklike gown, launched into the crescendo of his Midnight Tour of Haunted Prague, speaking to the six black-clad tourists in his carriage.