MasterStroke (28 page)

The music had the effect of tempering Sandrine’s mood, as classical sometimes did. Jack was watching expectantly, waiting for something to happen, his hands still half-raised in supplication. She was away somewhere else, on another level, weighing the argument. Although she hated to admit it, there were aspects of what he said that made sense.
He’s trying to cover his ass, to make up for being such a bastard and hiding important information from me
, she thought, and this fuelled her anger anew. She’d come all this way, gone far out on a limb, humiliated herself in front of her friends and now she had no idea how to get back. Even a partial retreat was difficult to entertain.

Marcus eventually waded in. The old man cleared his throat, quietly and not without a trace of nervousness as he didn’t really know that his opinion wouldn’t be violently rejected, mustering as much decorum as he could under the circumstances.

“I think the young man makes some good points, Sandrine. And he appears well qualified to negotiate on my behalf, from what I’ve just seen. Do you think we can get out of this, Mr Lucas?”

Jack’s manner changed in an instant.

“Good question. We just have to hope so,” he said, smiling a wintery smile. “If everything goes well and, if you agree to the terms, this can be nothing more than a commercial enterprise. They make an offer, you get the price you want, they get the artwork. Everything is legal and above board.”

Sandrine had time to study Jack as he talked. As much as she hated to admit it, and as volcanic as her anger had been minutes before, there was something about having him so close that completely short-circuited her brain. She should still be angry, to want to pummel him into the floor, but the ill will had started to drain from her. She tried to hold onto it as best she could for she was determined that Jack wouldn’t escape quite so easily.

But she couldn’t help it. She was mesmerised by his closeness and the raw unadorned masculinity of his physical presence. The faint sharpness of his cologne. The firm set of his lips in profile, curled just slightly with good humour, which evoked within her the memory of their softness and how they felt on her body. The glossy sheen of his hair as it curled around his collar, ridiculously too long for current fashion but which somehow suited him so well. The way he stood, broad shoulders back, chest jutting, hips slightly relaxed and angled towards her as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. The gleam of his black leather jacket under the lights. His overall confidence and take-charge manner. Jack represented so much she would ordinarily have found far too macho but which was now over-poweringly attractive and erotic.

As the old feelings began to engulf her, and her body tingled with pleasure, Sandrine found herself moving closer to him.
This is ridiculous
, she told herself.
He’s just too magnetic and I’m looking like a little fool, erratic and angry one minute, fawning the next. How stupid do I appear to everybody else?

It was Mariel who came up with the question of the moment. Her belligerent manner had softened somewhat but there remained an edge of steel in her tone.

“If these men are as bad as you say, why can’t they be arrested?” she asked.

Jack shrugged in a way that suggested he’d been mulling over the exact same question.

“That’s the interesting thing. As strange as it may seem, at the moment, they haven’t done anything wrong. There’s no outstanding warrants against them. Their previous associations mean nothing. And they’re travelling on Russian diplomatic passports which is worrying in itself but they pretty much can’t be touched unless they do something really stupid.”

“So the law can’t help us?” Mariel concluded.

“’Fraid not. Not until it’s too late, at least from a legal point of view. That’s not to say you don’t have any protection. I have enough people watching over us.”

“Who exactly do you work for, Jack?” Sandrine chimed in.

Jack considered his answer carefully.

“There’s a lot I can’t say, only because the information could be dangerous to you. As I mentioned before, I run my own business, sourcing rare and hard-to-get items for collectors. But I also work for an inter-governmental taskforce that monitors the involvement of organised crime in international art. As a result, there are certain useful resources I can call upon.”

“So what do we do now?” Marcus appeared to be handling the pressure well.

“The art folios are stored in the vault of a downtown bank. We wait until Sergei comes back to us with fresh instructions from his employer and mull over the next move. For your safety, I’d suggest protective custody. This could be the time they make a move so we’ll need to relocate you to somewhere secure,” Jack said.

Both Marcus and Mariel looked especially stricken. A muddle of voices protested energetically. Jack held his hands up in surrender but the cacophony only escalated. Nobody was paying any attention to him. Eventually, he whistled long and loud, two fingers in his mouth. The shrill sharpness was like fingernails scraping down a blackboard. All faces turned to him.

“OK. I figured that wouldn’t be too popular. So we’ll move to the fall-back plan,” he said.

“What’s that?” Mariel asked.

“Well, I’ll have to think of one first,” Jack replied sheepishly. “I’ve never had to protect a group like you lot. You’re a bigger headache than the threat itself.”

Sandrine couldn’t work out who looked the more perturbed, her friends or Jack himself.

Chapter Thirty Four

Later, Jack would lament the mistakes that had been made, the missed opportunities. He blamed himself for much of it but Sandrine thought he was being far too critical. It had happened so quickly and without warning. Nothing could have prepared him for those events.

They spent a little time around the front counter, discussing what to do next. As much as Jack tried to make the case that isolating them at a safe house, where they could be protected around the clock, was the best move, dissension came from all sides. Marcus was having none of it; he’d been travelling for weeks, he said, and just wanted to be back in his own bed. Mariel protested that she had work to do and couldn’t be spared from the newspaper; the more she protested, the more it seemed as if she feared being absent in case another journalist scooped her on an important story. Sandrine said that Heathcliff would fret without her and, anyway, who would feed him and give him the attention he so craved; in reality, she recognised that she only wanted to be where Jack was and she could take Heathcliff with her wherever she went. Marcella was the lone voice of reason.

“I agree with Jack. Our safety is far more important than whether we sleep in our own beds or the cat gets chucked under the chin on a regular basis. We need to be responsible and look after each other.”

Sandrine quietly agreed but, before she could say anything, Jack reached for his cell phone to answer a call. He stepped away from the group and conducted a short, quiet conversation.

“Our transport is waiting in the back lane. We should clear out of here, have an early dinner somewhere safe and discuss our next move.”

Marcus, Marcella and Mariel drifted towards the back of the store. Sandrine locked the front door while Jack waited for her. She joined him mid-way into the shop and he wandered a little way ahead. A strange feeling stopped her and she turned back, looking out the front window to where a light-coloured delivery van had parked in the No Standing zone immediately in front of the store. The driver, in dark blue overalls, looked directly at her then hurried away.

It was a scenario that played out a couple of times a day. This end of the CBD was always crowded with couriers and delivery trucks. Parking was at a premium; drivers routinely took the chance that they could do their business and get away without getting ticketed or towed. Sandrine was used to such behaviour but there was something that caught her attention although she wasn’t sure exactly what.

She turned and continued towards the back of the store.

“Odd,” she said.

Jack was distracted, having to herd the chattering group into the storeroom and laneway beyond.

“Odd, how?” he asked, his attention not really focused on Sandrine.

At that second, the world turned upside down. Sandrine was walking closely behind Jack and her attention was focused on the movement of dark denim stretched tight across his muscular bum. She’d immediately forgotten about the van parked at the curb or her reluctance to attend the safe house or even the disquieting off-handedness of Sergei as he’d reminisced about the “good old days” and the implications it had for the safety of her and her friends. Jack’s physicality had taken the place of everything, her focus narrowed and then her eardrums filled with thunder and she was thrown to the floor.

She could well have lost consciousness. She would never be entirely sure but the next thing she could recall was the bitter, acrid smell of smoke, thick enough to choke her. Sandrine was coughing violently and started to gag reflexively. There was very little light, just enough to note she was sprawled across the floor, covered in books. Printed pages fluttered down on her. Somewhere in front of her, there was a low moan, then a shriek of pain mixed with panic.

It’s not that there was no sound, but her ears echoed with a metallic ring. It was confusing, trying to work out what she was seeing and from what angle but, eventually, Sandrine worked out she was lying on her side in what appeared to be a dark, smoky cave. Her mouth tasted of ashes and she spat grit as she attempted to sit up but found she couldn’t move. Something heavy was pinning her down, angled across her lower body. She couldn’t get a grip on the bulky form that hindered her movements. With a wearied sigh, she slumped back, a cold and clammy sweat beading her features.

Immediately in front of her was Jack, face down and still. She couldn’t see any more; some of the bookcases, including those at the front of the store, were torn and scattered. The lights had gone out.

This puzzled her greatly, and she added this mystery to all the other things she couldn’t fathom. It was too early yet to be scared, to panic, for her mind to be flooded with adrenalin. At that time, seconds after all logic had fled her universe, she assumed the unquestioning curiosity of a child. There was an explanation, there had to be one, it just hadn’t occurred to her yet.

Through the smoky darkness strode dark-clad figures. Sandrine greeted their arrival with a weak smile but they took no notice. As they came close, it was obvious they had no faces, just two big round eyes like enormous insects and a criss-crossing of dark mesh where their noses and mouths should have been.

They peered closely at her then moved on, towards Jack who remained face-down. One of the figures leaned down and pointed close to Jack’s head but another pulled him away, barking something hollow and metallic in the negative.

“No time. Leave him,” it seemed to say. “Get the other.”

They returned soon after, two carrying another figure slumped between them. A shock of white hair bobbed as they walked. Sandrine was reminded of Marcus. They’ve come to help, she thought with a flash of hope. Earthquake? They’ve come to rescue us from the earthquake.

The dark-clad figures disappeared and then everything went relatively quiet again. Eventually, a high-pitched wail sounded through the ringing of Sandrine’s ears. Then another and another. They were in competition, each trying to outdo the others, growing louder, closer, more urgent.

She thought she should recognise the sounds, they were so familiar, but her brain refused to work. There were shapes and forms and muddles of emotion bumping around in her mind but they came and went without explanation. She sought to grab one and examine it but it slipped away. She wasn’t too concerned. She was tired, amazingly so, and growing wearier with a suddenness that, in ordinary circumstances, would have been alarming.

The sirens reached an ear-shattering pitch at the same time the dark smoky interior of the bookshop was strobed with pulsing red and blue lights. But Sandrine no longer noticed the cacophony. She had passed out and the pain blessedly fled her ravaged body.

Chapter Thirty Five

Sandrine came awake with a start, comfortably numb, almost floating, in what seemed to be a shiny, bright-lit capsule. She was lying down and, when she tried to move, she found she couldn’t which perplexed but didn’t panic her. What was of concern was that something was clamped over her nose and mouth, and she could taste a slight antiseptic tang to the air she breathed.

Raising her head as high as she could, which wasn’t much, she could see she was draped in a pale blanket with straps across her chest and legs holding her down. There was a tube running from her left arm up to a bag of clear liquid suspended above her.

Ambulance. The word popped into her head but didn’t mean much for a few seconds. She looked around. There didn’t seem much available room but a lot of it was taken up with a bulky red-headed man in a dark, short-sleeved shirt with colourful patches on the pockets and sleeves. A stethoscope hung around his neck and a nameplate on his left breast pocket identified him simply as Warner. His attention was beyond her, beyond where she could see.

She said something in a halting voice and he looked around and smiled.

“Good to see you’re awake. How do you feel?” His voice was soft and smooth.

“Where am I?” Sandrine said but the words were muffled. The man reached across and lifted something from over her nose and mouth.

“You won’t need this anymore,” he said. “Now, sorry, I couldn’t hear you properly. How are you?”

“Where am I?” she repeated.

“You’re safe. I’m a paramedic and you’re in an ambulance. There’s no major damage, just a few cuts and bruises. You’ll have a bad headache for a couple of days. You were extremely lucky, if you and your friends weren’t behind those heavy bookcases when the bomb went off, it could have been a lot worse.”

The silence hung between them for a minute.

Bomb? What bomb? What is this person talking about?

“I don’t understand,” she said eventually. “What are you talking about?”