“Damn it, your bunch told me that, back in London .”
She ignored the interruption. “Obviously, you also know the value of the package. And in order for you to come here, you must have received information about where to come. Leo must have told you that. Perhaps at the time of the helicopter crash? That detail is less important. Scouse wants to offer you a deal. We will pool the information, yours and ours, and look for the package together. You will share in the profits from its sale.”
“What makes you think that I have more information?” This conversation was not going the way that I had planned. Instead of convincing Zan to break with the gang, I was being recruited myself.
“When you left England , you disappeared for two weeks. You could have been travelling around India , but Scouse is convinced that you actually went to Leo’s house, the one we have never been able to locate.”
I felt a surge of satisfaction. At least one of my brother’s plans had worked out as he intended. His hideaway was still hidden.
“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions.”
“Scouse is an awfully intelligent man. Somewhere in that house there will be the evidence to show what your brother did with the Belur Package. He is convinced of that. You realize that the chips are worth hundreds of millions, and that we can hold a secret auction for them once we have them? So which is it to be — prompt cooperation, or agony for you and the girl until you agree to take us to the house?” She licked at her full lips and shivered a little as she spoke.
“Not much of a choice, is it?” I tried to sound calm. “But I’ll have to think about it for an hour or two.”
“No.” She shook her head firmly, as cool as though we were discussing the choice of dishes for a lunch menu. “You will decide at once. You were left here alone long enough to think about this situation. Decide now.”
She slapped her hand firmly on her thigh, and as she did so Ameera reappeared in the doorway with Dixie scowling behind her. He had no gun, but his knife blade was poised a couple of inches from her kidneys.
I sighed, and stood up slowly. Ameera and I could have used another few minutes alone, but that would be denied to us.
“All right. I know when I’m beaten. We’ll cooperate with you. But let’s do it upstairs, away from this damned room, and you can give us some food. We’re starving down here.”
I moved forward, slowly enough so that Dixie wouldn’t get the wrong idea, and stood in the middle of the room a step away from Ameera. Dixie and Zan moved to cover my back, knife and gun both ready for use.
“When can I start walking?” I asked, and as I spoke I lowered my hands a few inches towards my pockets.
“Stop that,” barked Dixie . “Get them hands up above your head, where we can see what you’re doin’ with ’em.”
“Oh, take it easy.” I looked over my shoulder at him. My pulse was up about a hundred and fifty, but some detached corner of my intellect controlled my actions and made them smooth and precise. “You know we’re not armed. What do you think we’re going to do, fly away?”
As I spoke I followed his orders and raised my arms high over my head. The light fixture was directly above me.
Now or never! Don’t stop to think about consequences. As my right hand went up I slid the short length of bedspring out of my sleeve and thrust it up hard into one of the empty light sockets in the ceiling bracket.
There was a sputter of hot sparks onto the back of my neck, and a tingling shock through the cloth that protected my hand. Then all the lights went out.
I had used the last moment before darkness came to fix my attention on Ameera’s position. As Dixie swore behind me, I grabbed her hand in mine and squeezed it hard. We had agreed that neither one of us would speak unless we were absolutely forced to. She turned and we began to run back along the corridor, as I allowed myself to be drawn in whatever direction she chose.
There was a flash as the gun went off behind us, and a shrill scream of fear from Dixie — I could see his point of view, he wasn’t holding the pistol. Then Ameera hissed “Stairs,” at me, and we were staggering up the long flight as fast as we could go. We had removed our shoes before Zan and Pudd’n arrived, so our run made little noise. One of my big fears was that Pudd’n would be waiting for us on the ground floor.
A turn, a mad dash scraping along the wall of a corridor, and then we were moving down another staircase. Another one of my fears was ready to be tested — it seemed certain to me that Belur’s lab would be on its own circuit, even if everything else in the house came through a single fuse. We might have to face the danger of a lighted corridor.
We came safely past that area. All the lab lights must have been turned off.
The dusty glass panel in the front door gave me my first sense of position. As Ameera ran towards it and halted, gasping and shivering two feet from the threshold, I squeezed her hand again.
“Me now, Ameera,” I panted — my first words since we had left the cellar. “Let me get past and open the door.”
Unlocked. Thank God for that. Dixie and Pudd’n had expected no surprises coming from outside. We slipped through as quietly as we could, and were suddenly together in the cool, moonlit midnight .
Ameera and I had made no plans past that point. In the gloom of the cellar it had seemed to need a miracle to take us this far. But now we needed another one to help us to the railway station.
This time I was the leader. We scurried around the big house, panting and frantic, our feet cut by the sharp stones and gravel. Surely the gang would have rented a car to get to and from the station? I couldn’t see Dixie doing much walking.
“Is there, Lee-yo-nel?” gasped Ameera. It was doubly hard for her, not able to look for the ways we might get away.
“Here, on this side of the house.” I led her to the shiny Toyota and opened the driver’s door.
Useless. There was no ignition key, and although Leo might have been up to hot-wiring the engine I knew it was beyond me. I left the door open and ran on farther around the house, guiding Ameera to run along the softer grass.
The second car was old and battered, a relic of the eighties, and it looked as though it would never see thirty miles an hour again. But to me it looked better than a Rolls — the key was sitting in the ignition, and the car was already pointing in the correct direction, towards Cuttack .
“Here. Inside.” I helped Ameera through the door and she lay down on the back seat. “If I am not back in a couple of minutes, don’t stay here. Get out and go, anywhere away from the house. Wait for daylight. When you meet people, show them your railway ticket and ask to be taken to the station.”
“Lee-yo-nel! Where are you going?”
“The other car is much faster — they will catch us easily. I must fix it so they cannot drive after us. It will take only a moment.”
“Lee-yo-nel!” Her cry was low-pitched, and she kept her head low on the seat.
I dashed back towards the other car, looking around me in the moonlight for something to put it out of action. The only thing remotely useful was a garden fork that stood upright against the wall. I felt the tines. With my weight behind it there was a pretty good chance it would slice through a tire.
The windows to my left suddenly came alight. That had been much too quick — either the fuse box was close to the cellar where we had been imprisoned, or there was an auxiliary circuit for some of the ground floor lights. I lined up the fork with the right front tire and leaned hard into it.
I had done my best, but I was too slow and too out of shape. While I was just getting started, the side door of the house opened and Dixie came running at me. He was still holding his knife. To my terrified eyes, the gleaming blade looked about four feet long.