Trouble and Treasure (#1, Trouble and Treasure Series) (3 page)

There was a low thumping of an engine
running somewhere down the hill. It could be a farmer doing some
late-night mowing or another car-full of bad guys ready to do some
people mowing instead.

As he moved his face towards the noise, I
could see his sharp brow crinkle and press over his eyes. It was
Shaw, I realized. The build, the stature, the face, the voice.
Apparently Shaw was more than a lawyer/antiques dealer. That, or he
had a natural talent for putting down bad guys.

I saw the dips and ridges of his tensed
neck muscles as he arched his head further towards the sound. He
didn't turn his body fully, and he kept his hands where I could see
them. “We might want to get out of here,” he said in a low
tone.

“
I don't trust you yet,” I said, “So don't
you move.”

He turned his head back to me, but apart
from that, stayed as still as a tree trunk.

“
You tell me what’s going on, then I'm
going back into the house to call the police. No,” I corrected, “We
are going back into the house.” I kept the gun pointed at
him.

I realized I wasn't offering much incentive
to play along – tell me your story and I'll arrange for the boys in
blue to put you behind bars.

But I had a gun, and guns offer real
currency in otherwise-shitty deals.

He sighed. I could tell with every second he
was paying less and less attention to me and my inexpertly-held
gun, and far more attention to the ever-growing putt-putt of the
engine echoing through the valley.

“
Short version,” his tone was clipped,
“That globe you put up for auction isn't an ordinary antique. It
has a treasure map on it. It's also part of a set – a set you said
you own. Combined, that set is a map to the greatest treasure
humankind has ever imagined.”

My jaw could have dropped off at that.
“Treasure map?”

“
Treasure map,” he repeated easily. “You
don't have to believe me. But do believe this: the men in there,”
he shrugged towards the house, “Aren't here for tea and
biscuits.”

I sniffed, feeling the weight of the gun in
my hand as if it were the only solid thing left in the world.

“
I'm going to call the police,” I
rasped.

“
They won't get here in time,” he said,
tone dropping a notch or two.

The fine hair along the back of my neck
stood on end. The sound of the engine came closer and closer.

Down by the edge of the property I heard the
crunch of tires against gravel.

“
Find somewhere to hide.” Shaw stared
straight at me, relaxing his arms and dropping them to his side. He
didn't take one look at my gun as he moved back and turned towards
the driveway below us.

“
D-don't move,” I tried.

He responded by reaching into his pocket
then throwing a set of keys right at me.

The keys bounced off my chest, falling to
the soft grass below.

“
My car is parked in the laneway.” He
pointed across the field in the direction of town. “It's by a grove
of oaks, right next to a bridge.”

Though I knew the place, I didn’t make a
move for the keys.

“
Lock yourself in or drive away – your
choice.” He reached behind him and pulled something from the back
of his pants.

It was a gun. Another gun, apparently.

I had a gun and he had a gun – the odds were
back to being utterly against me; he was trained, and I was a
whimpering mess.

“
Go, Amanda, get out of here,” he
encouraged with a sharp flap of his free hand.

I remained where I was, gun still held
before me, eyes wide.

Too fast, everything was happening too
fast.

The car came into view at the top of the
incline, though it wasn't a car – it was a big black van.

“
Run,” Shaw snapped, flattening himself as
he raised his gun at the approaching vehicle.

Run?

At night, with bare feet, in a pink dressing
gown, while every mercenary and burglar in the district wanted to
steal my antiques?

“
Or stand right there and advertise our
position; that's a great way to get yourself shot.” Shaw half
turned to me, though his eyes were still focused on the van, and he
waved me down with an emphatic pat of his free hand.

I watched the hand flap in the darkness, the
light rays of the moon glinting off some ring on his middle
finger.

“
G-e-t d-o-w-n,” Shaw spat again. Obviously
fed up at me standing there all dithery and overcome, he snapped up
and pushed me over with all the finesse and kindness of a
play-ground bully.

I yelped, tumbled over, and came to rest
face-first in the damp grass.

A scream of protest came to my lips, but the
crunch of the van's tires became all the sharper. Judging by the
clarity of the sound, it wasn't far away. Fifteen meters maybe,
possibly ten.

Lying on the ground, immobile, and
face-first – again – gave me time to process what was going on
here. Very soon this Shaw character was either going to shoot the
occupants of that van, be shot by the occupants of the van, or
throw up his hands and join their evil order – turning around to
capture and torture me.

I was exquisitely aware, as the crunch of
dirt and stone under wheels filled the night air, of how slippery
and sweaty my palms had become.

I blinked my eyes once, then screwed them
shut against the outside world and all the apparent gun-toting
misery it had to offer this night.

There was a single gunshot. Though I’d been
expecting it, my stomach gave such a jolt it felt as if it would
jump right out of my middle.

As my skin flamed and prickled with the
expectation of a full-on gun fight, a massive beam of light cut
over the lawn.

No, my first thought wasn't aliens (well,
maybe for a nanosecond).

The sound of a chopper's rotors slicing
through the night's breeze sounded from above.

“
We have you surrounded,” a determined,
guttural voice crackled over a loud speaker, “Stay in your vehicle.
Any attempt at violence will be met with swift
retaliation.”

Over the ear splitting sound of the chopper,
I couldn't hear whether the van was doing what it was told. So,
with an almighty sniff, I raised myself up and took a peek.

The chopper above was hovering low – so low
that the downward stream of the rotors not only flattened my hair
but threatened to flatten my body as well.

The black van had indeed stopped. Despite
the phenomenal force of the downward draft, I stared up at the
chopper above. Not only was it large and sleek, but it had two
prominent gun turrets either side of its nose.

Gun turrets.

A helicopter with actual gun turrets.

That point ricocheted around my head with
all the force and speed of a bullet. The mercenaries and burglars
had been one thing – but this was something else entirely. The
great hulk of metal that hovered above my turning circle was
something that belonged in a war – not on a country estate.

Somehow this situation had taken a turn
towards even greater danger and peril; and yes, I was still in my
dressing gown.

“
About bloody time,” Shaw managed to shout
over the roar of the helicopter.

As the words left his mouth, several
black-clad figures leapt from the open doors of the chopper and
rappelled down, landing either side of the van.

They had very large guns.

With my hair still flattened against my face
and my eyes blinking hard to stay open, I watched, bottom lip
quivering.

Then... then I pushed up, feet sinking into
the damp soft grass.

The spotlight from the helicopter was
centered directly over the van.

I stepped backwards, receding further into
the darkness beyond this fraught scene.

The men from the helicopter shouted various
threatening orders at the occupants of the van. Though I couldn’t
make out the exact words over the sound of the rotors above, I
could bet they weren't asking for directions.

I took several steps backwards, feet gently
pressing into the firm ground behind.

I turned.

I ran.

I ran because there was a helicopter on my
lawn, there were mercenaries in my drawing room, and there was a
burglar in my hall.

Keys jingling in my hand, gun immobile in
the other, I made it to the house before anyone knew I was
gone.

Sebastian Shaw

I shouted over the sound of the rotors,
voice straining with the effort. Though the chopper had already
landed, it was taking too long for the damn thing to wind down, and
I needed to get their attention. So rather than shout till my lungs
were empty and my throat cracked and dry, I pulled open the pilot's
door.

“
Hello to you too,” said Garry, a giant
with a baritone voice and a distinctive South African accent so
resonant it could have been heard over a jet engine.

“
No time,” I shouted, “She's done a runner.
I've got a heavily armed team in the drawing room – left of the
front door when you come in.” I sliced a hand towards the large and
imposing front door to the manor ahead of us. The place was huge,
old, and judging by all the junk that had been in that drawing
room, a bloody death trap. But hey, it had treasure too, otherwise
I wouldn't damn well be here.

Maratova, his M-15 slung over his
shoulder, jumped out of the back of the bird, scuffed army boots
landing roughly on the loose stones of the turning circle. Hair
whipping back across his face from the still-dying rotors, he
reached down, pulled up his balaclava, and fixed it in place.
“We've got this, Shaw, you can go back to your books.”

I ignored him. Maratova liked to think a
real man was judged by the length of his rifle. I didn't give a
shit how long his gun was. All I wanted was to find those antiques
before one of the other teams got their hands on them. Oh, and
there was the fact I'd turned my back on her for one second and the
girl had done a runner with my gun and keys.

Shit, tonight couldn't get any worse.

Maratova cracked his neck, adjusted the
sight on his rifle, then slapped me on the back as he walked past.
He tapped his ear piece with one hand, cleared his nose, spat on
the ground, and grumbled a “Got it.”

The only thing he had was an ego the size of
Mars. To hell with it if I was going to let this idiot ruin my
find.

Shit, if I'd known they were going to bring
Maratova along, I would have called the boys in blue instead.

Rather than fight him on it, I shrugged,
shot Garry a look, and walked off around the side of the
chopper.

I had real intel on the targets inside, but
Maratova wasn't the kind of gunslinger to stop and get his
bearings. Shoot first and let someone else clean up was more his
style.

Garry shrugged, and the rest of the unit
jumped out of the chopper to follow their leader.

It wasn't as if they were going to face any
resistance: I'd taken down Romeo's boys in the drawing room.

“
Fuck,” I hissed as I remembered one tiny
fact: I'd given the girl my gun. The same girl was now holed up in
her house somewhere. Granted, I hadn't been dumb enough to leave it
loaded, but Maratova wouldn't know that. I could see the woman,
frightened out of her wits, doing the first thing she could think
of with the gun and point it at the heavily-armed men smashing
through her house.

She'd been attacked by a unit of
mercenaries. In her current state I doubted she could tell the
difference between the good balaclava-wearing, gun-toting guys and
the bad ones.

So I turned on my foot, scattering stones as
I went, and bolted towards the front door.

If she was smart (and I doubted that,
considering how she'd announced to a room full of mercenaries,
antiques dealers, shady Government agents, and plain old crooks
that she had a set of the rarest treasure maps out there) she would
have taken my keys and headed for my car.

Amanda didn't strike me as smart. Amanda
seemed ditsy, unkempt, and unlikely to be able to deal with a
full-scale incursion into her country manor.

She'd be hiding under her bed – I'd bet a
tenner on it.

Amanda Stanton

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried the back
door again. I offered a silent swearword as I realized it was
locked. The click it gave as it resisted my desperate attempt to
open it sounded like a gunshot.

I heard the front door open.

My heart in my throat, my hand shaking as I
clutched the door handle, I stared around wildly.

I’d made it to the kitchen. It was right at
the back of the first floor, and it had a door that led out onto
the back of the property. There was a garden path outside that led
into the woods, with a shortcut down to the laneway beyond. There
was an old bicycle tied up to a tree on that laneway; a quaint
vestige of my great-uncle's estate.

The guy – Sebastian Shaw, the extremely
good-looking lawyer who’d turned out to be an extremely-good
looking mercenary/spy/criminal – had offered me the keys to his
car. I wasn't stupid. There was no way I was going to get in his
car. It was probably stuffed full of weapons, dead guys, and stolen
goods. I was going to take the bike, stick to the old country road,
and cycle like a woman possessed, still in my pajamas, until I
reached the local town.

But the door
meant to lead me to my brilliant escape was the
door that wouldn’t open for me. It was locked, the key all the way
back near my front door in one of the drawers of a side
dresser.