Thieves Like Us 01 - Thieves Like Us (21 page)

‘So much for Samraj’s poor little victim, huh?’ said Motti bitterly.

‘I am helping Samraj with her experiments on the acolytes of Ophiuchus.’ Yianna seemed proud of herself. ‘They have helped us learn the secrets of the Amrita.’

‘And in return you stick needles in them, yes?’ Con was unimpressed. ‘Demnos is an idiot. His dear, darling daughter wasn’t abducted by anyone. You faked it – you went willingly with Samraj.’

‘
Most
willingly.’ Yianna’s smile twisted into a leer. ‘My poor, dear father rarely leaves me alone – so we seized the opportunity. I should really thank your friends here.’

‘Don’t bother,’ muttered Patch.

‘But I must. You made my apparent kidnapping seem so much more convincing.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ drawled Motti.

‘You left so much incriminating evidence behind you.’ Yianna nodded knowingly. ‘The hole in the hothouse wall. The triggering of the perimeter alarms … Oh, and where is that blond boy, by the way? I couldn’t resist teasing the little poppet, waiting all alone in the darkness.’

Motti and Patch stared at each other. Con saw the horror on their faces.

‘Shall I spell it out for you?’ Yianna’s eyes shone darkly. ‘That wasn’t Samraj’s home you broke into two nights ago. It was my father’s.’

‘You’re crazy,’ hissed Motti. ‘We know it was Samraj’s place.’

‘You only
think
you know – because that is what Coldhardt told you. So easily duped – just like the police.’ She smiled. ‘Oh yes, when I found the three of you blundering about my home, I knew at once how I might turn your visit to my advantage. I called the police and told them the alarms were set off by accident … that everything was quite under control.’

Con sneered. ‘And of course, they now believe that you made those claims under duress …’

‘You must have seen the helicopter, boys, while you were hiding out in the area? You thought it was a police helicopter perhaps?’ Yianna shook some stray hairs from her eyes – a swift, feral movement. ‘It was Samraj coming to collect me, now our plans are almost complete. I used you, and now I have tricked
you all – just as Coldhardt has.’

‘If you think you can trick us into doubting Coldhardt, you’re crazy,’ said Con fiercely.

‘Coldhardt knows the difference between the two houses, even if you don’t,’ Yianna sneered. ‘After all, he has been staying with Samraj as her guest, at her home here in Rome. While you fought for him in Cairo, he lay in bed with her.’

‘You lying bitch!’ Con hurled herself recklessly at Yianna, but Motti grabbed hold of her, hauled her back.

‘She’s still holding the gun,’ he hissed at her.

‘This may look like a hospital,’ Yianna said, just the faintest tremble in her voice as she levelled the gun at Con’s chest, ‘but I know nothing of first aid. If I shoot you, you will bleed to death here.’ Her eyes narrowed, the dark rings around them making her seem so much older. ‘Samraj warned me intruders might come tonight. Having witnessed your bungled attempts at breaking and entry, I doubted you would make it this far – but now you are here, we may as well have you all. The girl is outside, you said – I shall have her collected. Where is the blond boy?’

‘He’s gone,’ Motti snarled. ‘Run away.’

‘You expect me to believe that?’ She moved the gun to cover Patch. ‘I think this little one will tell me. Won’t you, little boy?’

Patch raised his hands slowly, nervously. ‘I may be little, but I’m ever so bright.’

Con took the hint, closing her eyes as Patch threw down a phosphor cap. It exploded in a blaze of light. Yianna cried out, staggered back. Motti slugged her in
the jaw and she fell sprawling against one of the beds, shouting as she became entangled with the wires and tubes hooked into the man who lay there.

‘Out!’ Motti snapped, leading the rush for the double doors.

But two dark figures were blocking the way. They looked like the men from the museum in Cairo.

‘Like I said,’ hissed Yianna, struggling to free herself, ‘Samraj warned me intruders might come tonight. You think she would not give me protection?’

Motti reached them first, threw a punch at the closest cultist. But the man dodged aside and struck him in the throat. Patch yelled and threw himself at Motti’s assailant, fists flying. The other man plucked him free and swung him round into the wall, head first. With a pitiful squeak, Patch went down in a crumpled heap.

Con assumed a fighting stance as both Yianna’s bodyguards turned to face her. Patch was down. Motti was gasping for breath on the floor. She backed away towards Yianna, who was still struggling to get back up – where was the bitch’s gun? The thought of using it terrified Con, but maybe she could bluff her way out …

But then the acolyte in the bed lashed out with his one free arm and gripped her by the throat. The skin on his arm came up short against the wires, stretched grotesquely like melted mozzarella. She struggled to free herself, but his grip was like iron. He stared up at her with cold, dark eyes like he felt nothing. Nothing but disgust for her.

The taller of Yianna’s bodyguards loomed over
Con, a dark wraith in this sterile, frightening place. He took a firm hold of her, twisted her arm behind her back.

Yianna struggled up. ‘The little one!’ she shouted. ‘Where is he?’

Con’s heart quickened. Patch was no longer crumpled on the floor. He had gone.

‘Get after him,’ Yianna told her other bodyguard. ‘Quickly! He’ll be trying to get back to his friends.’ She smiled darkly at Con. ‘We should show him there’s nowhere he can run to.’

Patch hared out of the restricted area and stabbed desperately at the call lift button. His head was throbbing, he felt sick. But he had to get out, tell Tye what had happened. She’d know what to do.

Together they’d rescue Motti and Con. No question.

The doors opened at once – but already he could hear running feet behind him. Patch threw himself inside, hit the ground floor button again and again. Finally the doors began to move.

But Yianna’s minder was going to get to him long before they closed.

Patch scrabbled for his false eye, tugged it out and lobbed it at the dark shadow approaching. It cracked off the man’s head, stalling him for a moment – long enough for the doors to close.

He grabbed the guard’s radio from his pocket, struggled to remember the simple Italian phrases Con had taught him on the way over here. ‘
Uscita sei
,’ he shouted into it as the lift doors opened again on the
ground floor. ‘
Rapidamente! Intruso avvistato! Rapidamente!
’

The radio squawked back a moment later but Patch ignored it. Let security run around trying to spot intruders at exit six. He was too busy wondering which of these keys would get him through to the security station before the bodyguard could –

Too late. Patch swore as his faceless, implacable pursuer swept down the stairs and tore across the marble towards him.

‘I’m in main reception! Open up!’ Patch yelled into his radio. But English was no good. ‘Uh,
ricezione principale, aprasi
—’

He threw the radio at the minder, knew he’d miss, didn’t stay to see. He was running for the large marble reception desk, desperate to put something between him and his attacker. But the man leaped through the air and landed on top of the desk like this was some martial arts movie, completing the effect with a whistling kick that narrowly missed taking Patch’s head off.

With nowhere left to go, Patch pelted towards the locked door – just as it opened to reveal a young security guard with a shaved head and a gun. His eyes widened in fear as Patch hurtled towards him.

‘Get out of here!’ Patch yelled. He brought down the guard with a clumsy tackle, knocking him back the way he’d come, through the doorway. The heavy door swung shut behind them, locking out the masked man.

The security guard tried to bring his gun to bear on Patch.

‘Not me!’ Patch knocked it away angrily and pointed
to the closed door. ‘
He’s
the one you’ve got to worry about –
capite?
’

Suddenly the door shuddered under some great impact. Patch scrambled to his feet as a second blow almost smashed it off its hinges.

He helped up the dazed security guard. ‘If I were you, mate, I’d find another job, pronto.’

The door began to splinter under another pulverising blow.

Patch let the guard run first. Then he followed him out through the security station and headlong into the night outside.

Tye was getting nervous, waiting in the van. She knew in many ways that she had the cushiest job as getaway driver, the least to lose. But just hanging around uselessly while the long minutes scraped against her nerves … wondering over and over if something had gone wrong, if this was the time that her friends wouldn’t be coming back … It never got any easier.

Suddenly her stomach twisted as she caught movement in the rear-view. A security guard was sprinting down the dark, deserted road towards her, with Patch apparently in hot pursuit. What the hell was –?

Her mouth dried as she saw a dark figure steal out from between two parked cars close by. The guard was running blindly, he hadn’t noticed. Not even when the moon peered through the covering clouds and lent a sheen to the stiletto blade in the figure’s hand.

Tye opened her mouth to scream out a warning,
but too late. The figure swiped at the guard’s back as he ran past. An arc of blood spat out. The guard tumbled to the ground.

Patch skidded to a halt as the dark shape turned its attentions on him.

‘No!’ Tye fumbled for the ignition key. The engine turned over.

Then she jumped as a dark, veiled face appeared up close against her window. A woman’s hooded eyes bored soullessly into hers.

It was the Ophiuchus cultist she’d faced in Cairo.

Tye turned, catching a glimpse of movement through the windscreen – just as the glass exploded in on her, a thousand tiny shards tearing the air. A man’s hand reached in to grab hold of her and she slammed the van into reverse gear, stepped on the gas, squealed away from her attackers down the road towards Patch. She had to get to him before the guard-killer did. And now she saw another of the lithe, shadowy figures had appeared outside the Serpens building, cutting off the boy’s retreat.

Tye drew level with the guard-killer and twisted hard on the wheel, swerving to smash into him. She caught him a glancing blow but he rolled with it, somersaulted backwards and landed on his feet. He crouched into a fighting stance.

‘That’s right, Patch, get him!’ she yelled, slamming on the brakes. As the man turned, ready to fend off an imaginary attack from his quarry, she jumped out of the van and kicked him where it hurt, following up with a judo strike to the back of his neck.

Before he’d even hit the asphalt, Tye was back in
the van. It lurched as Patch threw open the doors and jumped in the back.

‘Hold on!’ she yelled, flooring it in first, the night air cold on her face through the smashed-in windscreen. Two more sinister silhouettes jumped into the road to block her way. She screwed up her eyes and kept her course. At the last possible moment, the figures jumped clear.

‘Where are they?’ she shouted at Patch. ‘Motti and Con?’

‘They’re caught inside!’ he yelled back. ‘Yianna’s got them!’

‘Yianna –?’

Tye stamped on the brakes and the van slewed to a halt. Patch was thrown forward, colliding with the back of her seat. ‘Yianna’s working with Samraj!’ he gasped without missing a beat. ‘We – we’ve got to get them out of there!’

‘Are they hurt?’

‘Motti was hit in the throat, I – I dunno how bad he is. Then there were these zombie cult people in the beds, wires and stuff shoved into them, and then Yianna had these two minders and they were the ones who mullered us in Cairo, I swear, and one of them grabbed Con when I –’

‘Slow down,’ Tye told him. She saw now just how awful he looked. He was white as a sheet. A huge lump on his forehead offset the bruise on his face. His patch was yanked down over his cheek, and she could see that he’d lost his false eye.

‘This is all
my
fault. I let them down. I’m useless.’ He gritted his teeth, started hitting himself around the
head. ‘Useless rubbish.’

Tye struggled to grab hold of his flailing hands. ‘Patch, stop it.’

He went limp in her arms, started to sob. ‘I tried to get us out, Tye. I threw a phosphor cap but it wasn’t enough.’

‘Listen to me,’ she squeezed both his hands. ‘Patch, you did everything you could. If you stayed you’d have got caught. Now we have to call Coldhardt. He’ll tell us what to do.’

‘Him?’ Patch stared at her. ‘Yianna said Coldhardt’s been tricking us. That he’s been seeing Samraj in secret, screwing us over for her. Said it was really
Demnos’s
place we broke into while you were in Aqaba, not hers. And I didn’t believe it first of all, but her painting
was
on the wall, see? I recognised her, that’s how I knew who she was, and she was acting sick and sort of harmless till I gave that away, so it’s
my
fault that she suddenly –’

‘Don’t start that again. I need you with me on this.’

‘D’you reckon it’s true about Coldhardt?’ Patch looked at her beseechingly. ‘D’you think he’s been lying to us?’

‘I think we need to get our heads straight, and some
facts
straight.’ Tye swallowed hard, a sick feeling clawing at her insides. ‘But the first thing we’ve got to do is get Con and Motti back. Right?’

He nodded.

‘Maybe we can double back, try to –’

But then in the rear-view, she saw a black Chrysler turn the corner.

‘Oh, God.’ Tye floored the van again. ‘They’re
coming after us. We can’t help Motti and Con if we’re all in the same boat.’ She pulled out her mobile and stuffed it into his hands as she took a corner at speed. ‘Call Coldhardt. Tell him what’s happened. Ask him what we do.’

‘But what if he’s –’

The Chrysler was picking up speed, looming larger in the wing mirror. ‘Patch,’ Tye shouted, ‘whatever they say Coldhardt’s done, he still cares about us. We know that. Right?’ She realised with a sick feeling inside that she was asking him as much as telling him. ‘
Right
. So call him. Direct line to the Bat-phone in the hub.’ She had the pedal pinned to the floor but she couldn’t pull away from the big black car behind them. The night air blasted in through the empty windscreen. ‘Do it! This could be the last chance we have!’