[JJ06] Quicksand

by Gigi Pandian

  As Sébastien headed for the crypt with the miniature video camera, I got comfortable in a sheltered walkway outside the church. Well, as comfortable as one can get on a chilly night while leaning against a rough stone wall and hoping not to be discovered. Though I hadn’t slept much in days, adrenaline kept me going. I wasn’t the slightest bit tired, and I could have sworn I didn’t hear or see a thing.

  It was only the video feed on my phone that alerted me there was something wrong.

  I watched helplessly as North’s angry face filled the screen of my phone—before the feed went dark.

  CHAPTER 41

  This was all my fault. How had I agreed to let an elderly friend of Sanjay’s help with such a risky plan?

  My hands shook so badly that I was having trouble hitting the buttons to call Lane. The phone slipped from my hand and clattered to the stones below.

  That was all I needed, to smash my cell phone while I was trapped on freezing, foggy Mont Saint-Michel in the middle of the night below a clandestine treasure hunt operation in which my partner had just been captured and my sort-of boyfriend was off with a beautiful doctor hundreds of miles away.

  I scooped up the phone. It was badly scratched but still functional. I was about to will my fingers to work and call Lane, when the phone rang. The screen showed as Sébastien’s number, but after what I’d just seen, it couldn’t be him. I desperately hoped I wasn’t about to speak with the person I was guessing now possessed the phone.

  I sank down onto the stone floor and answered the phone.

  “I hope,” the English voice said, “that I’m not speaking with whom I believe this to be.”

  “Don’t say anything!” A voice in the background called out. It was Sébastien’s voice. Relief flooded through me as I realized he was alive—followed by dread.

  North now had a hostage.

  “Would somebody put a gag on him?” North’s muffled voice said.

  “North,” I said.

  “Well, this is unfortunate. I was led to believe you were vacationing with Lane at a Loire Valley chateaux. I wonder who Lane ordered dozens of roses for then. Any ideas? No matter. I hoped you had forgotten all about me by now, but it seems I was misinformed.”

  “How could I forget you, North?”

  “As charming as you are, I hoped we wouldn’t encounter one another again.”

  “Let the Frenchman go,” I said. “He has nothing to do with this.”

  “Feisty from afar. I’m afraid you have no bargaining chip at the moment. I’m the one who has Sébastien Renaud.”

  My breath caught.

  “Oh yes, I know who he is. He wasn’t foolish enough to have any identification on him, but he was once quite well-known. It appears he didn’t think anyone would still recognize him after all these years. Such a shame he’s so humble.”

  I closed my eyes. If I could have sunk any lower onto the cold stone floor, I would have. “That’s how you found us?”

  “That’s part of it. I wasn’t sure about the collapse in the crypt. There are minor tremors periodically, which is what the other crews believed happened.”

  “But you’re too smart for that.”

  “Flattery will normally get you everywhere, but not today. No, I couldn’t be sure, so I checked up on your whereabouts. By the way, that was very nicely played, my dear. I never suspected you two had split up. I’m not taking any more chances. I know you’re not far. Why don’t you and Lane meet me in the Devil’s Dungeon in one hour?”

  “Why would we do that?”

  “Your combination of cunning and innocence really is quite charming, Jaya, but I’m tired. I haven’t slept much in days. This project is behind schedule, and I’ve had to pitch in myself. Me! You can understand why I’m not feeling especially generous.”

  “Lane is farther away than that. Even if I could reach him—”

  “I’m a reasonable man. You have an hour and a half.”

  “That’s not enough—”

  “If you try my patience, I might be forced to do something I’ve never done before. I’d hate to harm Sébastien.”

  “You didn’t have the same qualms about Hugo.”

  North didn’t answer right away, but I heard his heavy breathing. He was flustered. I should have taken it as a sign I was pushing him too far, but I didn’t think that was it. Whenever we mentioned Hugo, he seemed genuinely upset. “I didn’t hurt Hugo,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I had to stall for time. I had no idea how soon Lane would be there.

  “Remember,” North continued, his voice forceful, “I can make each of your lives so miserable you will wish you were dead. I’ll start with you. I still have that information that will ruin your life. One phone call from me is all it would take.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, my voice shaking to such an extent I barely recognized it.

  “Of course you care. Now is not a good time to call my bluff.”

  “I’m not bluffing. Stay on the line.” I muted North and started tapping in a new phone number. I hoped I knew how to use the phone well enough that I was putting the two lines on with each other while leaving North muted.

  Though it was late evening in France, it was only early afternoon in San Francisco. I hoped the dean would answer his phone. Or I hoped he didn’t. God, I had no idea what I wanted.

  He answered.

  “Dean,” I said.

  “Jaya, is that you? I almost didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t recognize the number.”

  “I’m afraid something has come up in France.”

  “You need a few more days? I’m sure Naveen would be more than happy to cover for you.”

  “I need more than a few days, actually. Naveen can take over my classes.” I took a deep breath, feeling my teeth chatter from both cold and fear. “I’m resigning.”

  “We must have a bad connection.” I could almost hear his disapproving frown.

  “You heard me properly. I’ll send in my formal resignation as soon as I can. I’m sorry.”

  I clicked off, and clicked back over to North. He was swearing with such creativity that I almost muted him again.

  “That,” North said, breathing hard, “was a very stupid thing to do. I’m still going to send them the information on your misdeeds. This won’t be the end of your grief.”

  “It doesn’t matter any more,” I said. “Sébastien’s career is long over. Lane’s new career ended last year. And now my career is finished. Lane and I can disappear together. I’m calling the police now. You can’t hurt us. You have nothing to threaten us with.”

  North laughed. “Oh yes. I most certainly do. Thanks for staying on the line with me. I knew you weren’t far. Dante? Will you escort Jaya to the dungeon while I send along proof of Jaya’s plagiarism?”

  I’d been so focused on the conversation that I hadn’t been paying attention to my surroundings. Dante stepped into the walkway directly in front of me.

  North had played me. This whole time, he knew I was close by. All he had to do was keep me talking until they could find me.

  I tried to scramble up from my seated position, but Dante was too close. He held an object in his hand that made my mouth go dry. A thick, black club. Even more frightening were his angry eyes that glared at me with such hatred that you’d think I’d kicked his puppy. The last thought I had before everything went dark, was that I’d given up everything in my life for nothing.

  CHAPTER 42

  I woke up in a dark, damp room with my head feeling like it was twice the size it should have been.

  “Jaya, thank God.”

  The hand on my back startled me. I sat up and immediately wished I hadn’t. If I’d eaten anything recently, I would have thrown it up.

  “Lie back down,” Sé
bastien said. “Here, use my coat as a pillow.”

  “I’d rather use it as a coat,” I mumbled, lying back down and letting darkness envelope me again.

  When I came to a second time, my head felt only slightly bigger than it should have. I carefully eased myself up.

  “Where are we?” I asked, looking around the dim room. Sébastien sat next to me on the rocky floor, his back against the stone wall.

  “Not in the Devil’s Dungeon. That’s actually on a map. This place where we are...”

  “Are we still on the Mont?”

  “Yes, but far beneath the abbey. Where we are, nobody will find us.”

  My eyes took a few moments to focus. There was very little light in the room. A single oil lamp hung in one corner.

  The sound of a heavy door creaking echoed through the dungeon.

  Lane stumbled into the room. “Jones,” he said, rushing to my side.

  “He’s here to rescue you,” a posh voice said from the doorway.

  I was certain North was going to take a step back and lock us in. Instead, someone else shut the door, leaving North inside with us. North closed his eyes and leaned against the solid door, his fists clenched.

  “What’s going on?” I said. “Did Dante get a bit confused?”

  North opened his eyes and glared at us. “This is what I get for refusing to kill you lot.”

  I looked from North’s uncharacteristically disheveled hair, to the narrow ceiling made of rock, to the oil lamp flickering in the corner.

  It all made sense now.

  North wasn’t the one pulling the strings. He never was.

  That’s why nothing had made sense about Hugo’s strange disappearance, why North hadn’t been able to change plans midstream, and why it had degenerated from a smooth operation to a botched one.

  North was the smooth talker. The con man. But he wasn’t a mastermind.

  Whereas Dante, the unpleasant man with cold eyes who was a liability for North to keep around—that was a man who would commit murder. For someone so intelligent and evil, it would be easy—maybe even fun, in a sick way—to play the role of a brain-damaged sidekick.

  “It was never you,” I said. “It was Dante. This whole time, you were his front.”

  North’s excuse for keeping Dante around was that he was in Dante’s debt after Dante suffered a head injury on a job gone wrong. But that was all a lie. The nasty man was there because he was the one pulling the strings.

  The conversation Lane and I had overheard made sense now. North was complaining to Dante that he didn’t like what he was being forced to do on this job. He’d been kept in the dark about the nature of the treasure at first, too, which is why he said he never would have written about a related subject in his fake letter to me. North mentioned the East India Company to entice me to come to France, in case an invitation from Lane wasn’t enough to get me there. But like much of Western Europe, so much of France’s past was caught up with their colonial history that there was a good chance any long-lost treasure would involve a colonial connection.

  A strange expression crossed North’s face. His angry glower disappeared, replaced with resignation.

  “Yes,” he said, “and now that you know the truth, I’m in more danger than I was before. Thank you for that. And in case you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm.” He stepped away from the door and rubbed his arms. “God, it’s freezing in here.”

  Lane had remained suspiciously silent. Now he let go of my shoulder and rushed at North.

  “Hey!” North said, ducking as Lane punched him.

  Lane was aiming for North’s nose, but North was able to move slightly, so Lane’s punch only caught the edge of his jaw.

  Sébastien attempted to pull Lane off, but I had no such inclination. If Lane wanted to punch North, that was fine by me. The man had it coming.

  “We’re all in this together now,” Sébastien said. “Let’s use our energy to find our way out of here.”

  “We’re not in this together,” Lane said, straightening up and shaking out his hand. “Is there any rope around here?”

  I found an old piece of rope in a corner of the dungeon that I could use to tie North’s hands behind his back.

  “I hardly think that’s sanitary,” North said.

  “You should have thought about that before you lied to me,” Lane said. He stretched the fingers of his hand. He would no doubt end up with a nasty bruise from punching North. But not nearly as bad as the bruise on his opposite shoulder.

  “You need me,” North said, backing away from me and the rope.

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “I’m the only one who knows where Hugo is.”

  Lane’s breath caught. “Hugo is alive?”

  “Weren’t you listening to me a minute ago? I’m not a killer. I’m a trained forger who’s a decent thief and a brilliant con man. A general-purpose rogue, if you will. But not a killer.”

  “Where are you keeping Hugo?” Lane said. “Here on Mont Saint-Michel?”

  North shook his head. “Too risky. After Hugo approached you at the Louvre, it was clear he wanted to tell you what was really going on. I was asked to take care of him in a way I disapproved of. I kidnapped him instead.”

  “There was so much blood,” I said.

  “Yes,” North said with a sigh. “I’ve never done a kidnapping before. It turns out people don’t go willingly, even if you insist it’s for their own good.”

  Lane scoffed.

  “He’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for me,” North snapped. “And he will be in a few days if I don’t get out of here. He’s only got enough food and water to last another couple of days.”

  Lane’s hand was balled into another fist.

  “Don’t waste your energy,” I said.

  Lane circled North, but relaxed his fist. “This could be a trick. He’s a con man, you know.”

  “You’re about to tie me up with a mildewy rope,” North said. “How could that possibly be part of my plan?”

  I’d forgotten about the rope in my hand when he mentioned Hugo. “Thanks for the reminder.”

  “See, I’m a helpful guy.”

  Sébastien took the rope from my hands. “I can tie a knot that nobody can escape from. Not even Houdini.”

  North’s face fell. “I knew you were trouble the moment I saw you, Mr. Renaud.”

  Sébastien wrapped the rope around North’s wrists.

  “Ouch. Does it have to be so tight? Are you upset that I recognized you? It’s your fault for being too modest. The night of our encounter, I thought it looked like someone had searched my room. The trip wire hadn’t been activated, and nothing in particular was different. Only that vague feeling you get when something isn’t quite the way you left it. Just like a skilled illusionist would have been able to accomplish. That’s when I remembered your face. It took me a little time to track down your name, but you were too famous in your day to be forgotten. Once I had your name, it was easy to connect you to Jaya through her friend Sanjay.”

  “Merde,” Sébastien muttered.

  “I can’t feel my hands,” North said.

  “Bon.”

  “It’s not my fault you’re full of false modesty,” North retorted. “Look where it’s got you.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Sébastien,” Lane said. “None of us could have known this would happen.”

  The old magician nodded and turned toward the wall. He ran his fingers along the stone.

  “You know this place,” I said to North, “and you’re supposedly the expert on contingency plans. That means there’s another way out of this dungeon.”

  North laughed mirthlessly. “This dungeon is the contingency plan. The idea of last resort. Remember, nobody was supposed to g
et hurt. Nobody is ever supposed to get hurt.”

  Sébastien clapped his hands together. “Finally! Now that I have your attention, may I point something out? This room is so damp, for the same reason it’s not on a map of Le Mont Saint-Michel: the tide fills this room with water. Look at the floor. It has already begun. Unless we get out of here, in a matter of hours, we will drown.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Sébastien showed us the base of the wall where water was seeping in.

  “This must have been why they abandoned this level,” he said. “The tremors shifted the land, cracking the rock and letting the ocean water in. I suspect that we’ve been left in here to drown.”

  North cleared his throat. “I hate to say this, but you’re absolutely right. That was the plan I refused to participate in. Your deaths are supposed to look natural, like you were stupid tourists who didn’t pay attention to the tide warnings. After drowning in here in the salt water, your bodies were to be released into the tides.”

  “If water is getting in,” I said, “that means there must be a way out.”

  Sébastien shook his head. “Only if you’re three inches high and can swim in the opposite direction of a fierce tide.”

  “The light,” I said, pointing at the oil lamp hung in the corner. “The fact that light still works means the water won’t rise to the top! All we have to do is tread water and wait for the tide to go back down.”

  “And pray we don’t get hypothermia,” Lane said.

  “It’s worse than that, I’m afraid,” North said. “We brought that lamp with us. It hasn’t been sitting here through another high tide.”

  “And these water marks,” Sébastien added, pointing at the low ceiling. “The tide will fill this entire room.”

  We stared at each other.

  “Well, then,” Lane said. “Let’s get to work finding a way out.”

  With four of us, we could each take one wall. Two were made of solid rock, and two of mortared stone blocks. Sébastien untied North, and instructed us to use small fragments of wood we found strewn across the floor to look for cracks in the rock and trace the mortar in between the stones, looking for weak spots.