Gold of Kings

by Davis Bunn

  He walked to Storm’s window and pulled the curtain back a fraction. The day remained utterly still. “What happened to your two watchers?”

  Her muffled voice replied, “They said they’d be on duty all night.”

  “Their car’s gone.”

  “Maybe they moved it.” She remained lost beneath the covers. “Or somebody’s come and taken their place.”

  Harry doubted that. If he couldn’t see their car, they couldn’t see Storm’s room. He walked to Storm’s bed and ratcheted a bullet into the chamber.

  Storm’s tousled head emerged. Soon as she focused on the gun in Harry’s hand, her eyes went from sleepy squint to round-eyed alarm. “What’s wrong?”

  Harry said, “You’ve got ninety seconds. What you can’t pack in that time, you leave.”

  Harry returned to his room, dressed, and threw his gear into the nylon duffel. “Storm!”

  “I’m ready.”

  He liked that. A lot. The lady had the makings of a pro. “We’re taking the Bentley. You remember where it’s parked?”

  “I…”

  “The shed for the mowers. Back left side of the lot. I need you to carry my duffel.” He moved to the door, checked the window a final time. “I open, you bolt. Don’t run in a straight line. Okay, go!”

  Harry let her set the pace. He ran one step behind and to the left. He did not stop to reconnoiter. If the attacker was there, he’d be positioned where he could observe and remain utterly hidden. Harry wanted to show light, action, awareness, moving targets. He held the pistol in his right hand, the car keys in his left. If the guy took a shot, Harry’s plan was to fire, tap her rear foot and trip her, fire, fall on top of her, fire. Standard ops.

  The palms were silent silhouettes cut from the yellow streetlights and the early dawn. Despite her carrying both their bags, Storm accelerated to where she almost pulled away from him. She checked her forward thrust by bouncing off a parked SUV, twisted like a ballplayer searching out the empty pocket, and jinked to her left. If Harry had not been so worried he’d have laughed out loud.

  The mowing shed smelled of gas and oil and cut grass. He pressed the key fob and the Bentley’s lights blinked in response. Storm slipped on the oily concrete and almost went down, but Harry gripped her arm and flung her toward the passenger door. He scrambled over the hood, jammed the pistol into his belt, gunned the motor, slapped the gearshift into reverse, and hammered the pedal. The wheels spun on the oily concrete, twisting the car around to where it scraped Harry’s side on the shed door. Harry spun the car through a tight circle, rammed the car into drive, and burned rubber out of the parking lot.

  TO STORM’S SLEEP-ADDLED BRAIN, HARRY carried a charge like a fused explosive. The internal fission was in direct contrast to his stern calm. Like a sniper’s weapon with the safety in the firing position.

  Storm recognized it as the same transformation he had gone through in Selim’s home. Harry’s customary restless impatience was gone. He was all tight calmness now, intensely focused. Storm watched him as much as the road, digesting the fact that Harry Bennett was the direct opposite of every other man she had ever known. Danger brought Harry into his element.

  “Harry.” She reached out and touched his arm. “Tell me what happened.”

  He swung the big car through another turn. “Give me a minute.”

  She withdrew her hand and went back to clutching the center console and the door. Harry drove in a pattern that could only be called random. Twice he spun through U-turns, racing back in the same direction he had come. He took turns very late, then spun and gunned and tracked hard. Finally he reversed into a drive screened by oleander, opened all the windows, listened intently, said, “Hang tight.”

  He opened his door, switched off the overhead light, slipped from the car, and melted with the shadows by the side of the drive. He carried the pistol down low by his thigh. He ducked into the bushes. Five minutes passed. Ten. The car’s engine purred softly. As suddenly as he had evaporated, he reappeared. Harry’s expression was so resolute he only appeared to be flesh and blood. At some deep level he was tempered and forged into a different element. One made for fire and peril.

  He slipped back into the car, but did not fully shut his door. “I’m pretty sure we weren’t followed. We’ll just sit here for a while.”

  Storm waited.

  Harry said, “I woke up to a warning.”

  Storm leaned against the opposite door. Whether to face him bodily or move further away, she could not say.

  “A nightmare, a hunch. Call it what you want. All I can tell you is, I woke up and felt like I could smell cordite from guns that hadn’t been fired yet.” He slipped the gun’s safety on, then rubbed the pistol up and down his pants leg. “You live with danger long enough, you develop a sense of how it smells. Or tastes. Both, I guess. Guys who pull long-term combat duty, they grow eyes in the back of their heads. You test the wind all the time. I figured we were safe there in the church for a couple of days. This morning I woke up knowing I was wrong.”

  She licked her lips.

  Harry squinted at the sun rising above the eastern roof. “I dreamed Sean whispered my name.”

  “That would sure get me up and moving.”

  “The old man had that danger sense.”

  “You knew him better than I did.”

  “Different, maybe. Not better. That was why we argued.”

  “When?”

  “The last time I saw him. Sean had promised to bankroll my op. We met at the church after evening service. It was often someplace like that. The only time I went by the shop was very late or very early.”

  “He didn’t want to publicly reveal anybody from his confidential list.”

  Harry used the hand not holding the pistol to wave that away. Whatever. “When I showed up at church that night, Sean told me he had a bad feeling about the project. The Caribbean nations had been making noises about shutting down salvagers working the region. Sean felt in his gut they were looking for somebody to use as an example. He couldn’t invest in something that might put me at risk.”

  “So you fought.”

  “It was the biggest haul I’d ever gone after. Two tons of minted doubloons. I had already spent four years on the search, fitting the pieces together.” Harry fitted the gun into his belt, put the car into gear, said, “I called him a coward.”

  HARRY FOLLOWED STORM’S DIRECTIONS THROUGH the silent business district. The eight-lane highway rounded a man-made lake, then became mired in stoplights and strip malls and big-box superstores. Harry kept a constant watch in all directions, racing around slower traffic and gunning through lights. When the airport overpass loomed ahead of them, silver black and empty, Storm said, “Sean wrote me a letter. He left it with Richard.”

  He started to tell her that it needed to wait. But in truth he was beginning to wonder if maybe his senses were still prison honed and he had read the morning wrong. “Say again?”

  “I spent yesterday reading and rereading it. And researching why those particular items in the vault might be important.”

  The overpass was only two years old, almost always empty, and already crumbling. The tires thrummed up the incline, spinning loose concrete against the car’s underbody. Harry said, “Did you tell Emma?”

  “She was with you all day, remember?”

  “This is important, Storm. Emma needs to know this. Her boss—”

  “The letter didn’t come out and say directly that Sean knew somebody was out to kill him. And even if he did, Emma’s boss wouldn’t believe us.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Only when he glanced over did he realize she was fighting for control. Storm managed, “What he wrote was so beautiful.”

  “Can you tell me—”

  His question was broken off by a sledgehammer striking the side of his head.

  Only it wasn’t a hammer. It just felt like one.

  Maybe the driver of the other car saw Harry turn toward St
orm. Perhaps fate merely handed them a low blow. The result was the same. Harry was totally focused on Storm when the attackers slammed into the Bentley and rocked his head against the car door.

  The attack was timed to perfection. At the highest point, the overpass tilted downward and swept through a right-hand curve. At that juncture, a section of the railing had crumbled with the bridge’s outer edge. The rails were temporarily replaced by wooden barriers painted with red danger slashes and topped by flashing lights. Some of the steel stanchions where the new railing would be attached were already in place. They glinted in the rising sun like hungry teeth. A scaffolding was suspended to the curve’s outer edge, ready for the workers to fit in the railing. Harry noticed all this in the same adrenaline instant.

  If he’d been driving any other car, the attackers would have rammed them straight through the temporary barriers and into a ninety-foot drop. But the Bentley was not just any car.

  The Bentley Continental Flying Spur weighed in at a trace over six thousand pounds, about the same as a medium-sized truck. The Bentley also sat very close to the ground, on a wheelbase not much different from the Lincoln Town Car.

  The attackers drove a Honda. It had probably once been a hot street model, with juiced engine and wide tires and flames down the sides. But the flames were mostly rust and the engine sputtered more than throbbed.

  Their car bounced off the Bentley like a volleyball.

  Harry and danger were old acquaintances. Not friends. It was more of a love-hate relationship. But one thing was absolutely true about every instant that danger struck. Time never moved slower than in that instant.

  The driver shouted something at the guy in the passenger seat. Both were young, no more than twenty. Latino blood was Harry’s guess. The driver wore a do-rag, the passenger an Orioles cap pointed backward. Both were shirtless. Their shoulders and necks were heavily tattooed. The driver swung the wheel. The driver telegraphed the next move as clearly as if he’d semaphored out the open window. At the same moment, the passenger snarled something at Harry and thrust a snub-nosed machine pistol out the window.

  “Down! Get down!”

  Harry tapped the brake. They clearly expected him to slow, because the shooter was already swiveling in his seat, using the Honda’s forward motion to draw them into position for one long spray of bullets.

  Only Harry did not hit the brakes hard. He just touched the pedal once, long enough to change the angle. As Storm ducked into the foot well, Harry slammed his foot down on the gas. The Bentley roared and caught the Honda just behind the passenger door.

  The Honda’s rear tires shrilled and smoked. Harry kept his foot on the gas, driving the Honda into a spin.

  The first bullets were high and wide. They splintered the right-hand corner of the windshield and tore the ceiling upholstery. Storm screamed.

  “Stay down!”

  Storm held to her fetal position, tight against the floor, covered now with glass fragments. Harry turned slightly to the left, away from the Honda. The smaller car continued its slow spin, like a revolving door set on smoking tires. The passenger let off a longer burst. It took out both side windows and rattled the rear fender as the Bentley rushed past and took them on to safety.

  Or so Harry thought.

  Harry did not consciously see the new threat until after he had responded to it. His was an automatic reaction, like a hand jerked from a flame, only this particular comeback was danger honed.

  The shooter had set himself up perfectly. A new segment of steel barrier, including the railing, shone mirror sharp, reflecting the rising sun straight back into Harry’s eyes. The little tan man stood on the scaffolding with his thighs leaning against the new steel. He held to a pro’s stance, the long-bore hunting rifle balanced against a scaffolding pillar and one elbow braced on his chest.

  The natural response would be to hammer the gas and turn hard into the curve. Away from the rifle. Only that would have given the shooter all the time in the world. His prey then had to drive straight past his lair. Which was why the shooter was showing himself. So that Harry would make the turn and draw the Bentley right across his field of fire.

  Only Harry threw them toward the danger. Harry jammed the pedal to the floor and bellowed in time to the engine.

  The muzzle flashed. But with three tons of roaring metal bearing straight at him, the shooter flinched. The high-velocity bullet hit the point where the windshield joined with the car’s roof. It opened the top like a can opener. The rearview mirror dropped down on Storm.

  The Bentley flew forward at ninety-six miles an hour. Harry knew because of the laser display that had flashed into view when his speed hit eighty, shining the readout onto the fractured windshield like an auto cue.

  The tan man flung himself to one side. The same instant, Harry spun the wheel. The car responded like it gripped the concrete with tigers’ claws, turning so they slammed the passenger door into the gleaming new barrier.

  Harry was already accelerating away when they hit. The barrier shrieked like a woman, or so it seemed to Harry. Perhaps it was just Storm giving off some highly justified steam. The bolts tore out of the barrier’s lower segment. Harry fought the wheel and watched the lower rail fall off and bang noisily through the scaffolding.

  Harry kept his foot on the pedal, steering away from the barrier. The tires gripped and spun and gripped again. He pulled the pistol free of his belt, thumbed the safety, extended his arm out wide, and blasted away. He couldn’t see the shooter, but he found a target almost as good. A new Harley Softail leaned where the scaffolding met the highway. Harry took aim at the gas tank as the car shuddered and finally tore away from the crumpled barrier. The Harley went up with a very satisfying boom.

  As they accelerated away, the steering wheel shimmied and bucked so badly Harry dropped the empty gun and took a two-handed grip. The smell of burning oil rose from under the crumpled hood. Harry kept his foot down solid against the floorboard long after they left the overpass and were out of range. Finally, as they pulled into the airport entrance, he managed to unlock his muscles.

  He looked at the figure still crouched in the foot well. “You can get up now.”

  EIGHTEEN

  HARRY’S CELL PHONE RANG JUST as their flight was called. Emma said, “Sorry it’s taken a while. I just got your messages.”

  His voice sounded breathless to his own ears. Like he’d just run a hard mile. Or was still taking incoming fire. “I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour, girl.”

  “Something came up. I hitched a ride to DC with Hakim’s people. Where are you?”

  “Boarding our flight to Reagan National.” Harry stepped from the line and waved Storm onto the plane. “Who is Hakim?”

  “My contact with Interpol.”

  Harry decided that had to wait. He gave Emma a swift rundown of the attack, then asked, “What happened to the agents guarding Storm?”

  A tight sigh. “Dauer pulled them off.”

  Harry started to ask why, then decided the more important question was, “You’re still on our side, right?”

  “I want to be. Very much.”

  He felt a warm glow add itself to the already powerful mix. “That’s got to count for something.”

  “Where’s the Bentley?”

  “Airport short-term lot, second floor, east bay. Bring a wrecker.”

  “How is Storm handling it?”

  “She’s got a lot of the old man in her. I thought for a while she was going to fall apart. But she’s settled like a pro. She still gets the tremors every now and then. They come, she hangs tight, they go. Then she’s right back into researching the treasure.”

  “In other words, she’s working on something that may already have resulted in three deaths and two further attacks. While the assailant is still at large.”

  “Unless I hit him. Which I doubt. Yeah, that pretty much sums things up at this end.”

  “You don’t sound worried.”

  Truth be told,
Harry Bennett felt like the world had been etched with crystal clarity. He had almost forgotten the feeling, when all of life was brought to a higher state. Relearning the thrill, scenting treasure on the wind.

  Strangely enough, he wanted to share that with Emma. But as he walked forward and handed his boarding pass to the attendant, all he said into the phone was, “Storm needs your help with something.”

  Harry outlined what Storm had told him upon their arrival at the airport. Emma replied, “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “All anybody can ask.”

  “I can’t come to the funeral. Tell Storm I’m sorry. But I have to write a report and deliver it personally.”

  Harry dropped into the seat next to Storm. “You’ve got more trouble with that guy Dauer?”

  Storm looked up at the man’s name.

  Emma replied carefully, “I can’t protect you anymore, Harry.”

  “I hear you.”

  “I may not even be able to protect myself.”

  HARRY SHUT THE PHONE JUST as the flight attendant started her preflight announcements. He used the time to study Storm. The lady was so much like the old man it took Harry’s breath away. Ninety minutes after taking a heavy shelling, she was so intent upon her work that the air about her crackled with condensed power.

  Sean’s old Bible was open in her lap. He knew it was Sean’s because the page was bordered by his cryptic writing. One passage had been circled, underlined, annotated. Harry leaned close enough to see that the page belonged to the book of Matthew. The handwriting had been done with such vehemence that the page had been ripped and taped back together. No surprise there. Nothing about Sean’s life had been done in half measure.

  Harry’s mind skipped across the electric sea of his thoughts. He knew what Sean would tell him. That maybe the reason their opponents, whoever they were, stayed on the hunt was not because of the treasure at all. The Turk, Selim, had told them straight out that Sean had been searching for the people attacking his company. Maybe all the enemy wanted was to chop off this last loose end, just in case Sean had told his granddaughter whatever he had managed to discover.