by Rob Jones
“Yeah, about a million times,” Jodie said, fingers wrapping around her wine glass and lifting it to her smiling mouth. “But I like to hear you say it.”
Blanco clasped his hands and looked down at his boots. “Yeah, I guess I miss those days. I miss Mom and Pops, too.” He looked up at Quinn. “You know, kiddo, you really ought to speak to your parents because one day it’ll be too late.”
“I don’t talk about my family,” she said, changing the subject. “Truth or dare, Ben?”
“Truth.”
“Are you frightened about becoming a father?”
He answered immediately. “Yes, of course I am. I worry about Megan giving birth, I worry about failing her or the baby. Yeah, I’m frightened. Now your turn. Truth or dare, Quinn?”
“Are you kidding? No one knows the truth about Ghost,” she said defiantly. “I pick dare.”
“In that case,” Lewis said. “Kiss Jodie.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Amy said. “Are you like seven years old? I thought you were a Yale-educated historian.”
“Also a former marine,” he said proudly. “That never goes away.”
“No, it’s fine,” Jodie said, winking at Quinn. “I will if you will.”
Quinn shrugged and slid over to Jodie. When the two of them kissed, Lewis fumbled for his iPhone camera but Blanco reached out and stopped him. “Nu-huh, Ben.”
“Damn it.”
Jodie and Quinn parted lips and the goth turned to the young historian. “Happy now?”
“Hell, yeah.”
Jodie shook her head. “Pathetic.”
“Maybe you can show us how to be more mature,” Amy said. “Truth or dare, Jodie?”
She looked at Lewis with disgust. “Truth.”
“Worst moment in your life,” Lewis said quickly.
“That’s easy.” Jodie choked back some unwanted emotion. “I was doing just great until my dad got fired from his job at the local cemetery.”
“What happened?”
“He actually buried someone in the wrong plot.”
“Not good.”
“It was a grave mistake.”
Amy threw a cushion at her. “Damn it, I thought you were being serious.”
Jodie shrugged. “You don’t want me to get serious, and believe me, talking about my past will bring this party down in a big way.” She ripped the plastic wrap off a Gauloises pack and pulled out a cigarette. Sliding the tip onto her lip, she lit it with a match and sucked deeply. “That’s much better.”
“You still haven’t answered,” Lewis said.
She shrugged. “Worst moment? Not much to say. Dad walked out when I was eleven, I went off the rails and Mom couldn’t control me. I got caught stealing a neighbor’s car and crashing it through a gas station store and they sent me to juvie for three years.”
Hunter looked at her in the low light. She looked younger now, and even slightly vulnerable. No longer the cynical apartment thief but a young woman cut loose by her parents in her most fragile years and left to fend for herself. He hated it, but he felt sorry for her. “Did it work?”
“Are you kidding?” she said bitterly. “The only thing Juvenile Hall ever taught me was how to take drugs, pick pockets and break through just about any lock they ever made. When I got out of that place I was a much more dedicated criminal than the girl who walked into it.”
“Then, how did you wind up working for Amy?”
“Same way Quinn did – I got caught trying to knock her off, only in my case it was her house in DC. She was going to call the cops but I talked her out of it with my usual charm.”
After a long pause, Amy sipped some wine and looked through the candlelight to Hunter. “What about you, stranger? Truth or dare.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hunter said. “You guys all know each other; you all have a lot in common. I’m the outsider.”
Amy said, “It’s true we have a lot in common, but…”
Quinn interrupted her, laughing. “Are you kidding? We get along because we have nothing in common, Amy. You couldn’t get a better bunch of misfits if you advertised on Craigslist. Look at you. You’re from an FBI family of New England blue bloods with more ethics than the Catholic church. Sal is a streetfighter-turned-soldier-turned merc from Brooklyn whose parents ran a pizza parlor. Jodie is damn thief with a record as long as your arm and Lewis is the kind of asshole who eats broccoli smoothies.”
“Drink,” he said. “You drink them.”
In the laughter, Amy said, “Truth or dare, Max. You’re not getting away with it.”
“In that case, truth.”
Quinn jumped in. “Who was Avril?”
“You don’t have to answer that, Max,” Amy said, scowling at the goth.
“It’s okay, Amy.” Hunter took some wine and blew out a breath. “Avril was my fiancée. We met here in Paris when I was doing some post-doc work. We fell in love and it was fast and furious. Then one day she left me, just told me it was over and walked out. I almost left Paris and went home, but I’d got the job at UNESCO by then. It’s a big city and I’ve not seen her since. Not much else to say about me and tragedy. There’s my mother, I guess but now’s not the time.”
“I’m sorry,” Amy asked. “And so is Quinn. Right, Quinn?”
Quinn rolled her eyes, stuffed a cigarette in her mouth and got up off the floor. “I’m going for a smoke.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me anything about you at all?” Hunter asked her.
“I picked dare, Hunter.”
“I know, but…”
“Listen, no one gets to know about Ghost,” she said. “That’s just the way I like it.”
After she had padded out of the room, he looked at Amy. “You must have researched her past before you hired her?”
Jodie huffed out a short, cynical laugh. “Yeah, right.”
“I tried,” Amy said. “But she’s Ghost, remember? She scrubbed every last bit of her history off the internet before we had a chance to check her out.”
“So you just took her word for it?”
“I know enough about her,” she said. “Besides, she was looking at a long time behind bars when we caught her.”
Hunter considered what she said. “Is Quinn Mosley even her real name?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Jodie.
“There’s a birth certificate,” Amy said. “I know that much, but…”
“But she could have worked her magic on that, too,” Lewis said. “In a world run by computers, the hacker controls the past, present and future.”
“A scary thought, right?” Blanco said.
Hunter looked at his watch and changed the subject. “Nearly midnight, guys. Time to see Julian.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Approaching midnight and the Louvre was a very different place. After being ushered though security with passes arranged by Walters, they found themselves walking along eerie, low-lit corridors lined with renaissance art and sculptures. Going further back in time, their heels clipped on the black and white tiles of a vast hall filled with classical statues whose stony eyes seemed to follow them as they made their way to the other side.
They stepped into a stairway with an impressive vaulted ceiling and walked up to the next floor where Walters’s office was located. Turning a corner in the corridor, they immediately realized something was wrong. Halfway down the corridor, bright light from the office was spilling out onto a floor strewn with loose papers.
Hunter suddenly wished he was armed. Raising his hand to stop the others, he took a few cautious steps forward, peered inside the office and took in the carnage. Books and box files were ripped from shelves, the desk was upturned and Walters’s personal collection of Egyptian ceramics was smashed up and littering the floor.
“What’s up, Max?” Amy called.
“You’d better come and see for yourselves.”
They stepped into the trashed office and tried to take it all in.
“Da
mn,” Jodie said, breaking the shocked silence. “They got to old misery chops.”
“Now’s not the time,” Amy said. “Max and Walters are close, remember?”
“If they got Julian,” Hunter said. “We have to presume they got the photos, and with Julian’s knowledge, it won’t be long before they know the location of the Ramesses tomb.”
“Not good,” Quinn said.
Hunter smashed his fist into the wall. “Bollocks! How could we have let this happen? Any hope we had of finding Atlantis is dead on the vine.”
“This is awful,” Amy said. “I’m so sorry, Max.”
“This is getting creepier by the second,” Quinn said. “He most probably had something really important to tell you before they kidnapped his ass.”
“Quinn, please,” Blanco said.
“Sorry.”
“Wait,” Jodie said. “Anyone else hear that?”
“What?” Lewis asked.
“Nothing. I thought I heard something but I was…”
“I hear it, too,” Amy said. “Faint, but it’s definitely something.”
“Is it Lewis’s brain working?” asked Quinn. ‘If so, talk about a glitch in the matrix.”
“That’s funny coming from a douchenuts like you.”
Then they heard a man screaming for help from somewhere beneath them in the palace. All of them recognized the terrified voice of Julian Walters.
“Julian!” Hunter said. “He’s still in the Louvre!”
He bolted from the office, scanning up and down the corridor to locate the sound of his old mentor’s screams. “This way!”
Galvanized by the professor’s kidnapping, Hunter and the team ran back along the corridor and down the stairs. When they reached the hall with the statues they heard more screams coming from a room to their right. They sprinted to the room and found themselves staring at the Colossal statue of Ramesses II. He stared back, impassive and inscrutable.
“Behind the statue!” Lewis called out.
Hunter saw Walters now, badly beaten with a black eye and a cut on his cheek. A number of men in black were forcing him through a fire escape, but before they pushed him through, he caught his old friend’s eye.
“Julian!”
“Don’t worry about me!” he called out. “Run for your lives!”
One of the men punched him in the stomach and he doubled over. Another turned and pointed a pistol at them. “Get back!”
“Professor!” Amy cried out.
“We’re not letting them take you, Julian,” Hunter called out.
Walters swung his fist and struck one of the men in the face, cutting him. “Don’t worry Max, save yourselves! I’m old… next time you listen to the Mozart horn concerto, think of me and the old days. Köchel 18!”
“Shut up!” Another hefty punch in his stomach and over he went, coughing and spluttering and then one of the disciples stopped, two dark eyes staring at them. Slowly, he raised a steady arm and pointed at Hunter.
“Stay away from us.”
“Who the hell are you?” Hunter asked.
The man said nothing, and slipped away into the shadows slamming the door behind him.
“What the hell just happened?” Quinn said.
Amy blew out a deep breath. “They took the professor.”
“Not yet, they didn’t,” Hunter said. “I’m going after him.”
“And you’re not going alone, stranger,” Amy said.
“Fine, I’ll take Jodie. I might need her skills, but no one else. We can’t put the entire team’s lives at risk. Everyone else get back to the apartment, get the kit and wait for us to call.” He threw Blanco the key. “If you guys are right and this is the work of the Creed, something tells me the police aren’t going to be on our side.”
He didn’t wait for a response. When he kicked the fire door’s panic bar and rushed out into the night he found himself standing in the rain. The Sully Wing was situated in the north-western section of the original palace and now they were standing in the main courtyard in front of the famous glass pyramid.
Looking beyond the famous landmark, Jodie saw a black Peugeot parked up on the roundabout next to the smaller inverted pyramid. “There!” she cried. “They’re putting him that car. Thank God it’s not a damn helicopter, or we’d be really screwed.”
“We’re still kinda screwed, Jodie. We don’t have a car.”
The Peugeot screamed away to the west, screeching beneath an archway on the palace’s south side. “Oh, ye of little faith,” she said, breaking into a run. “You coming or not?”
Hunter was already pounding along the asphalt after her, and by the time he’d caught up she was already racing under the arch and looking up and down the Quai François Mitterand until she found what she was looking for; parked up on the side of the road in the middle of a long line of cars was an old Fiat.
“This is our ride.”
She pulled a small case from an inside pocket and selected something that looked like an attachment to a Swiss army knife. She extended it and slid it down between the window glass and the rubber seal. A small clunk and she flung the door open.
They both moved for the driver’s door.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Driving.”
“I think not, Hunter. Get your ass into the passenger seat.”
He swallowed his argument when he saw a wild look in her eyes. Over her shoulder, the black Peugeot was racing west across the Pont du Carrouse, crossing the River Seine and heading into the seventh arrondissement. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“How many cars have you stolen and gotten away from the cops in?”
“Zero.”
“Then shut your yap and do as I say.”
“You know what you’re doing, right?”
“Stole my neighbor’s Chevy when I was a kid. That was the first of dozens, so yeah.”
She climbed into the Fiat and took less than a minute to hot-wire the ignition while Hunter buckled up in the passenger seat. When she revved the engine and tore away along the bridge in pursuit of the Peugeot, he watched the young thief effortlessly changing the gears and dipping the clutch, swerving off the bridge and giving chase along the quiet midnight streets. She weaved in and out of the light traffic, the streetlights flickering on her determined face, and speeded up until they hit fifty and drove deeper into the Left Bank.
Skidding around a tight bend, she pulled a cigarette from her pocket and fired it up. Ahead of them the rear lights of the Peugeot slipped out of sight around a bend, but she was on it, dumping down into second gear and taking the corner at speed. The engine growled as she breathed out the smoke and smiled. “Now we’re cooking with gas, right?”
From the look of pure delight on her face, he guessed they were cooking with gas.
“I guess so, just make sure you don’t lose him. The streets in this district are narrow and dangerous. It’s like a labyrinth.”
“Then hold on to your ass with both hands, Hunter, because this is going to get real.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Up ahead, the Peugeot was making good progress south along the Rue du Bac before swerving without warning onto the Boulevard Saint Germain. Even at this time of night, the traffic here was heavier, but Jodie was calm. She spun the cheap plastic wheel, worn smooth by years of use, hard to the right and booted the throttle hard.
The Fiat surged forward but she had steered too hard and they were heading for a parked car on the north side of the boulevard. She caught the skid in a heartbeat and corrected their course with a speedy spin of the wheel back to the left.
Hunter hung on for his life, not knowing whether he was blown away by her driving or scared out of his wits. When the Peugeot’s rear lights flashed over to the left in a neon blur, he knew where it was headed. “They’re going down the Rue Saint-Dominique.”
“Means jack shit to me, Hunter.”
“It’s a very busy road.”
“B
usier is better. Cops watching on CCTV have a tougher time tracking us.”
The engine roared. Streetlights flashed on the wet hood and the wipers raced back and forth across the rain-slick glass.
“I guess you really do know what you’re doing.”
Jodie said nothing. She was glancing in the rear view mirror with a furrowed brow on her face. “Damn it to hell.”
“What’s up?”
“Looks like the traffic didn’t save us after all. Cops on our ass.”
Hunter’s mind raced to process the information. He had a well-earned reputation for being a daredevil among the archaeological community and he was a decorated soldier but he’d never crossed the police before. Suddenly, he was looking at a criminal record for car theft and probably a dozen more charges he couldn’t even think of. When the police car sirens and lights went on, his heart started to pound.
“Shit,” he said. “Do we pull over?”
Jodie huffed out a weary laugh. “You really are new to this.”
“If you mean car theft, then yes.”
“No, we don’t pull over, Hunter.” She spoke quietly, never taking her eyes off the car in front which was now ripping across the road inside the park south of Les Invalides. When the Peugeot turned left and headed south, she spun the wheel and their car turned in the same direction. “If we pull over we go directly to jail and your friend is dead.”
Hunter leaned forward and checked the side mirror. It was coated with rainwater but the flashing blue lights were clear enough. Flopping back into his seat, he saw the enormous Eiffel Tower looming up ahead. “But they’ll call for backup and catch us that way. Then we get done for failing to stop, too.”
“I wouldn’t worry about failing to stop, dude,” she said coolly. “You left polite society when you stole this car with me outside the museum.”
He nodded, finally starting to see things the way she saw them. “I guess we have nothing to lose then.”
“I know I don’t.”
She hit the gas. Beneath their feet, the tires raced along the slick asphalt, flicking wild arcs of water up the side of the car and over the mudguards. The Peugeot left the road, broke through a low fence and ploughed across the Champs de Mars. Jodie was undeterred by the attempt to lose her. She changed down and piled the Fiat over the kerb in pursuit, striking a metal trash bin and swerving back around onto a broad gravel path.
