by Davis Bunn
He took the return too fast, especially for somebody already deep in planning his next step. But he was both running late and in full operational mode. Not to mention that the treasure’s proximity left him oblivious to the here and now.
To Harry it seemed as though a flicker of sunlight coalesced into a hammer. The car whacked his door so hard it shoved him into the passenger seat. His seat belt parted and flipped across his face. That scratch was what hurt the most, at least initially.
He rose in stages, brushing the shards of side-window glass from his chest, glad to find his body still in working order.
Which was when he saw the three cops emerging from their car.
Dialing Emma was an automatic response. Harry didn’t see cops. He saw doom. His instantaneous reaction was to reach out and touch the lady one final time.
The cops walked toward him with guns out and aimed. Harry did not move. One hand held the phone to his ear. The other was raised beside his head. Open and empty.
“I just want you to know how much—” Harry didn’t finish the sentence because the cop reached through his window and ripped the phone from his ear.
They couldn’t get the driver’s door open, so they pulled him out through the passenger side. Which was when he realized he might have cracked a rib.
They had him assume the position with hands planted on their car. He shifted his head enough to watch two of them search the car, pulling out his purchases, searching the trunk. They spent some time on the car radio, one cop guarding Harry with a cocked pistol. They pulled his arms behind him, fitted on the manacles, shoved him into the rear seat. Two of them took off, hoofing up in the direction of the castle. Harry watched them disappear through the rear window, knowing with utter certainty what it felt like to have a pro set them up.
FORTY-FIVE
HARRY BENNETT WAS BACK IN THE BOX.
This particular cage was concrete, while the isolation tank in Barbados had been rusting steel plate. But the mildew was the same. And the stench, a funky brew of sweat and heat and fear and bone-aching hopelessness.
From somewhere down an unseen corridor, Harry heard a moan. He opened his mouth, partly in sympathy, partly in a horrible exercise, like he needed to reacquaint himself with the darkest recesses of his own psyche.
The concrete cave was seven feet long and five wide. The ceiling was so low his head scraped if he stood upright. A lamp inside a wire-mesh grid burned at eye level. The bed was a joke, a concrete slab jutting from the wall, so narrow he could not lie flat on his back without slipping off, and no way did he want to hit that floor. A single blanket. No pillow, just a slanted lump of concrete for his head. Harry wanted to tell himself he’d survived worse. But he knew it was a lie.
A ten-inch square was cut from the outside wall, another from the wall facing the hallway. Wire mesh covered both. Now and then a puff of hot afternoon air filtered through.
The cop had driven him back along the road toward the interior. Harry had feared that the cop was delivering him to the Turkish military base. But when they emerged from the mountains, the cop took the turn toward Famigusta, the provincial capital. Harry had leaned against the door, breathing like he’d run a mile. The cop had grinned in the rearview mirror. Harry didn’t need to understand the man’s words. He knew the cops had plenty of tricks of their own in store.
The cop pulled up in front of a squat municipal building. Harry saw a guy walking past with a briefcase and another in robes and figured the one building saw duty as the provincial courthouse, police station, and lockup. The cop pulled Harry through a side entrance that led straight to the rear jail cells. His induction took all of three seconds, a terse exchange between the cop holding his arm and the guy behind the counter. Harry asked for a telephone call and got whacked for his trouble. They dragged him back and dumped him on the slimy floor.
Harry eased himself down on the cement bunk and gingerly rubbed the side of his knee where the police car had rammed his door. His cheek hurt where the seat belt had scratched him. He was breathing easier, so he decided his rib was only bruised. A single bit of good news in a truly awful day.
Harry felt the weight of the heat bear down with casual brutality. He recalled how liberated he had felt the previous day, and was vaguely ashamed of himself. Like he had momentarily forgotten a vital lesson, one deeply ingrained by the Barbados jail. That failure was a pattern he would follow for the rest of his life. He rubbed his face, trying to scrub away the sensation that he had been wrong to let himself hope again. Pretend that he was normal. That he could shape his own dreams. Find a woman and love her. Claim a treasure. Claim a future for his own.
“HAKIM SPEAKING.”
“Do you know who this is?”
“Of course.”
“I’m breaking my word with this call. What’s worse, I’m breaking the trust of a very good man.” A shaky breath, then, “But I can’t stand here and let him die.”
THE HOURS PASSED INTO A heat-sodden dusk. The guy in the cell down the hall kept up his soft moaning. The wire-mesh window in the outside wall became etched with the day’s final light. The bulb burned relentlessly inside the ceiling cage. But in his heart, where it mattered, everything was going dark. Harry knew the sensation. The nightmare crept out from the recesses of his past and slithered to sit beside him on the cement bunk. Close enough to whisper straight into his brain.
His mind’s eye became filled with dread images. The cops would let him cook here a while, then take him out and work on him. Then they’d shackle him and hand him over to the Turkish commandant. The soldiers would drag him into a building set deep inside the base. Surrounded by acres of soldiers so scared their hands shook when they served tea in the commandant’s office. They’d lock Harry into that place, and they’d work on him some more. Long and hard and slow. And nobody in that compound would hear a thing.
Eventually Storm and Emma would come for him. Harry was certain of that. Sooner or later the commandant would let him go. And Harry would shuffle out, toothless and weary. Ready to take his place outside whatever bar would have him. Cadging drinks. Pretending not to notice the disgust in the eyes of other salvagers. Guys like he used to be.
STORM MADE THE CALL ON her own phone, tersely apologizing to Boucaud for not making the rendezvous, and requesting a second chance. The man’s response was so strident the words did not truly register. Storm shut her phone and sat cradling it with both hands.
Emma said, “We don’t know if Boucaud actually showed up. It could all have been a ruse.”
“This is supposed to make me feel better, thinking maybe my making that phone call had a hand in getting Harry jailed?”
“Did you ever think maybe Boucaud expected to land all three of us in that prison instead of just Harry?”
Storm didn’t respond. She sat in the passenger seat, rocking slightly, her hands clenched between her knees.
They were seated in their latest rental, watching the night close in. The dashboard clock was the loudest Emma had ever heard, a tinny ratcheting sound, like it was built to remind them of every lost minute. Emma said, “When I started out as a federal agent, I took an oath. I don’t recall every word. But I’m pretty sure there was something in it about not committing a series of felonies in a foreign land.”
Storm’s gaze never left the barbed-wire fence gleaming in the yellow streetlights. “That’s why you’re not coming.”
“Have you ever driven one of those things before?”
“Have you?”
Emma bit her lip. “Something I heard my first day of training. Scope the terrain. Know where you’re going and what you’ll find when you get there. The unknown can kill you. What if—”
“No time for that.” Storm ended the conversation by opening her door. If she waited any longer, the fear would freeze her up solid. “You stay here until I come out those gates. Then leave.”
The quarry office was a pair of grey steel trailers set on stone foundations just inside the main gat
e. Storm climbed the stairs and entered, her legs as weak as they had been coming off the mountain. A lone guy sat behind a desk in the front office. She walked up and announced, “I’m here for the truck.”
Storm couldn’t tell if the man behind the desk understood her. She pointed out the window at the vehicle stationed at their side of the lot. “Keys. For that.”
He held out his hand. “Passport.”
She reached into her purse and set a pile of bills on the desk. “Will that do?”
STORM STALLED THE TRUCK TWICE leaving the lot. The guard emerged to shout something up at her. When she finally rolled onto the street, the guard shook his head, waved in disgust, and went back inside.
Famigusta looked exactly like the poor provincial capital that it was. The region was almost entirely agricultural, the rocky cliff line cutting off any hope of beachfront development. With all routes to the wealthier Greek Cyprus cut off, Famigusta had spent the last thirty years in dusty neglect. The night only accented the city’s flaws. Storm passed rusting produce warehouses, driving streets that were utterly empty by nine o’clock at night. The only sign of newness came as she approached the city center, where a few brightly lit shopfronts gleamed inside crumbling facades. The truck jounced hard, the engine throbbing so loud she could hear nothing save her own pounding fear. The hood went on forever. She felt like she was seated twenty feet off the ground. The wheels made a high-pitched whine. She kept the truck in second, as shifting gears was a workout she did not want to repeat too often.
The municipal building was just where Hakim had described to Emma, which eased Storm’s panic a fraction. A lot was riding on Hakim getting all the details right. A man’s life, for one. Storm rumbled straight past, not wanting to risk a U-turn in front of the police station. Two blocks later, she cut back through an alley so tight she scraped a fire escape with one side mirror and might have dislodged an AC unit with the other. She took another left and returned to the municipal building from behind. As she struggled to put the truck into neutral, she spotted a wrecked Suzuki parked at the far end of the fenced-in municipal lot.
This time, seeing that Hakim had gotten another item right only accelerated Storm’s terror.
EMMA FOLLOWED STORM AT A distance, listening to the truck’s rumble echo off the surrounding buildings. The alley behind the municipal building was utterly silent. Emma parked in the empty lot to the building’s north, which granted her views both of the front entrance and Storm, all without leaving the comfort of her latest rental. They had signed for this particular car using Storm’s passport, since Emma’s was still with the harbor Jet Ski operator. Not to mention that the severely dented Suzuki parked inside the municipal lot had been rented in Emma’s name. The largest car on the rental company’s lot had been a four-door Peugeot sedan. It was painted the color of a dirty cream puff and drove like a well-padded tank.
The front of the municipal building was very colonial. The four steps descending to the street were broad as patios. The colonnaded porch held an outdoor waiting area and a glass-fronted guard station and was completely empty. Even the guard station was vacant.
Emma watched Storm emerge from the truck and walk over to stand beneath the rear wall. Storm called up. Emma rolled down her window in time to hear someone answer. She was fairly certain the voice belonged to Harry.
Then a car rolled up and parked across the street from the front entrance. Emma ducked and hissed through the side window, “Storm!”
HARRY LAY ON THE CONCRETE bunk listening to something drip. He had no idea where the sound came from. His cage didn’t have a sink, just a pair of buckets by the steel door. He could hear insects crawling on the floor. He lay with his outer arm tucked across his body to keep from falling off and told himself none of it mattered. Or at least, it wouldn’t matter for long.
He had a sudden image, back to the moment it had all gone wrong. Back to that night in the church, when he had called his best friend a coward and a cheat. Lying there on the concrete slab, Harry finally realized why Sean had met him inside that church. It wasn’t to cool Harry down, like he’d always assumed. Harry lay there and sweated from the coming pain, and finally understood that Sean had wanted to share the best of himself. The old man knew he was reaching the end of the line. He couldn’t name the date, but he knew the hunters were out there. So he had tried to both protect his friend and offer what he considered the best part of himself.
Only Harry had remained too blind and too proud and too stubborn, right to the end.
So whatever words Sean might have been willing to share, if Harry had ever been willing to ask, had gone unspoken. The gift ungiven. Because that was the way Harry had wanted it.
Harry lay on his back and wondered what he might have to offer anyone. Some tiny fragment of himself worth passing on. There at the last minute, spoken in the final breath, a shred of lasting meaning to a life lived for little more than the next good haul.
Which was when he heard an angel call his name.
FORTY-SIX
FROM THE BACK, THE MUNICIPAL building looked like a giant pillbox. The ground floor was windowless. The second floor was rimmed by tiny little squares, denoting the prison block. Just as Hakim had described.
Storm stood in shadows as dark as the dread that almost choked her. The three streetlights lining the alley and the municipal lot were all out. “Harry?”
There was nothing but silence in response. She raised her voice and called again.
“Storm?”
She clenched her fists in the effort required to keep from wailing. “Where are you?”
“Here! I’m here!”
But where was that? Shadows flitted over several of the little squares at once, which meant more than one prisoner had heard the exchange. Storm felt submerged in sweat. She needed an oxygen mask just to stay upright. “I can’t tell which one is you!”
She heard a sharp crash. Then another, followed by a loud pop. The little square at the building’s right-hand corner went dark.
“Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Stay right there!”
She heard Emma call her name. But there was no time to stop. An instant’s hesitation would leave her weeping in terror.
Which was why she did not realize she had just told Harry to stay where he was, locked inside a prison cell, until she got back in the truck, found reverse, and started revving the motor.
EMMA STARTED TO CLIMB FROM the car. But she was in clear view of the vehicle parked in front of the municipal building. It was part SUV and part pickup. The yellow streetlight made it impossible to make out the vehicle’s color. But the vehicle had a squarish ugliness that was uniquely military. And the driver’s door was painted with a red star.
Emma hated the chains of indecision that held her. For the first time in her professional career, she wished for a superior on site to issue marching orders. She should warn Storm, but what of Harry?
Then a shadow flittered from the vehicle. The man was small, slender, and impossibly swift. He molded so naturally with the gloom he might as well have cast the shadows out before him, netting the dark, dragging it along with him.
Emma started her motor, slammed the car into drive, and rammed the gas pedal into the carpet.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Storm’s giant truck belch a lungful of smoke and gradually gain momentum. In reverse.
THE TRUCK WAS BUILT FOR hauling stones down from the mountain limestone mines to the beachfront tourist developments. Clearly the designers had not intended for their twelve-wheelers to need ramming speed in reverse. Even so, once it got going, the truck built up a gut-wrenching level of thrust. The only problem was, Storm could not see where she was headed. The lid of the hold completely blocked her rear window. She scouted one side mirror, then the other, back and forth, while the truck roared and belched and rumbled and flew.
She had only the vaguest idea of anything beyond step one. Her own personal “mission impossible” was
to spring Harry. After that, well, everything was just left up to Emma.
Only at that very moment, Storm saw Emma peel the Peugeot away in a swirl of smoke and tires. Headed for the exit.
Storm shouted her friend’s name. Then the wall loomed up, completely filling her vision. She had time for one final glimpse through the side mirror, taking aim straight at the lone dark square. Then she straightened in her seat, pressed her head hard into the seat rest, and braced herself tightly, both hands on the wheel, both feet ramming the gas pedal into the floorboards.
And gave off a truly magnificent scream.
EMMA FELT BETTER THAN GOOD, finally having a target for her rage. It was wonderful. She hammered the pedal down so hard it probably mashed straight through the cheesy carpet and floorboard, connecting her straight to the engine block. The motor shrilled, the tires spun, and she catapulted forward.
She really hadn’t given her aim much thought, other than stopping the tan man from making it through the building’s front doors. The guy flitted up the stairs, fast as a bat on steroids. Which left her with no alternative, really. Except to follow.
The Peugeot’s suspension was built to cushion its passengers over bumpy French lanes. Even so, smacking the patio-sized steps bounced her head off the ceiling. Emma gave the vacant guard station a flitting glance, and had a sudden notion that the place was empty on purpose. Everybody drawn away by an official crisis, sent far off enough to let this guy do his job and escape unseen.
