Sean stretched his hand out again to retrieve his identification when he noticed a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye on the other end of the barbican. It only took him a second to realize the policeman was squarely between him and the long barrel of a sound suppressor.
“Get down,” he ordered sharply.
Sean reached out and grabbed the cop by the shoulder boards, yanking him to the stone surface with a crash. He’d made the move just in time. A piece of the ramparts behind his back exploded into dusty fragments.
“You might want to use that radio now, Martin,” Sean spoke evenly.
The old man appeared overwhelmed and panicked. Another bullet found the middle of the wall behind them and ricocheted off with a spark.
“Are they American too?” the cop said as he dragged himself onto his hands and knees.
Sean shook his head. “No. And they are not friends of ours in case you were thinking of asking.” He pulled on Martin’s jacket to help him move faster, and tugged him around the interior corner of the barbican to temporary safety.
Tommy and Adriana looked to Sean for an answer. “Are they really shooting at us up here? In broad daylight?” Tommy asked in disbelief.
A million smart aleck answers flashed through Sean’s head, but none of them would help them escape this situation.
“Where is the other one?” Adriana asked.
Sean was already wondering the same thing. If he’d been the Russian, he would have gone up one flight of stairs and sent the other guy up the other, effectively blocking all exits. For the moment, there was no sign of the other guy. That probably wouldn’t last long though. They needed to move fast.
“This way,” he ordered, leading the way back down the walkway as fast as he could go.
Martin slowed their progress, but they still made the crossing back to the staircase in short order. As soon as they reached the upper door, it started to creak open. Sean held up his hand for the others to stop. He let the door ease out a little farther then barged hard into it with his shoulder. The heavy wood stopped against something semisolid with a thud. This was followed by the sound of a tumbling body accompanied by several grunts of pain.
The Russian was hurrying around the front of the barbican’s walkway. He saw what happened and slowed down to squeeze off another three shots. Sean ducked safely out of the way, the rounds pounding into the door’s oak planks. He didn’t hesitate, instinctively flying down the stairs two at a time. He reached the other man halfway down the spiral staircase. The guy was wedged up against the wall, moaning in agony. One hand covered his bleeding nose, his eyes half-closed. Sean noticed the man’s weapon lying on a step as he approached and scooped it up en route.
Sean shoved the gun into the back of his belt, and in the next motion, grabbed the hit man by his pants and heaved him downward. The immediate look on the henchman’s face was panic as he tumbled into the dark toward the exit below. Sean and the others followed behind, reaching the bottom where the Russian’s assistant lay in an unconscious heap against the wall.
As soon as the four cleared the doorway, Sean grabbed the unconscious man under the armpits and dragged him outside.
The policeman didn’t understand what Sean’s plan was. “What are you doing?”
Sean dropped the body and slammed the door shut, then rolled the hit man over and pressed him against the wooden entrance. “It’s the only way we can bar the door. But it won’t keep him long.”
Martin got on his radio and called for backup. When he’d finished his request, he turned to Sean with a serious look on his face. “What are you three up to, and why are these men trying to kill you?”
A bump on the door told them that the Russian had reached the ground floor.
“I wish I had time to explain, but you’re going to have to trust us, Martin. We’re the good guys.”
The officer searched Sean’s eyes for a few seconds. The door heaved under the weight of the Russian trying to force his way through.
Martin glanced back at it, then turned to Sean and the others. “Best be on your way. We’ll take care of these boys. No more trespassing in the future, eh, Mr. Wyatt?”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Sean said and took off running across the plaza with Tommy and Adriana in tow.
They weaved their way through the mass of pedestrians like football players running through a defense, cutting left, juking right, trying not to run over anyone. Sean considered grabbing the phone from his pocket as they continued their sprint back to the car. Jim could probably use the heads-up. A sickening though occurred to Sean. What if Jim had stepped out to grab a cup of tea or something? He’d have to risk it and worry about that when the time came.
The three ran across the street, fortunate to not have any cars coming by at the moment. The distinctly British sound of sirens whined in the distance. Sean figured they had about sixty seconds until the police arrived. Even if the cops weren’t coming after them, they needed to put as much distance between themselves and the Russian as possible.
They reached the car and opened the doors in a rush. Jim was sitting in the driver’s seat, reading a book on his phone when they jumped in and slammed the doors shut.
“Time to go,” Tommy said in a nervous tone. “We should probably hurry.”
Jim didn’t ask why. He could see the urgency in his passengers’ faces. He started up the vehicle and backed out of the parking space, whipping the SUV around to face the street. Once they hit the asphalt, Jim floored it, pressing the gas pedal all the way to the bottom. The tires screeched for a half second before they sped away down the village street.
“Are those police sirens for you?” he asked.
Jim steered the car onto a residential street filled with quaint nineteenth century homes surrounded by lush gardens, low hanging trees, and green lawns.
“Technically?” Sean responded. “No. They’re here for someone else. But we may have had something to do with causing their arrival.”
Jim glanced into the rearview mirror and read Sean’s facial expression. He offered a nervous laugh to the driver, who still seemed perplexed. “What kind of archaeologists are you people?”
Tommy corrected him. “To be fair, she’s not actually an archaeologist. And Sean is retired, so…it’s complicated.”
“Right. Well, if we’re going to be having the police involved, I’d like to know just what it is you all are up to.”
He jerked the car to the right and slowed down. They could no longer hear the sound of the sirens and were clear of the danger, at least momentarily.
Tommy looked at Sean as if asking for permission.
“We didn’t lie to you, Jim. We don’t actually know what it is we’re looking for,” Sean said. Then he relayed the story of how they’d come to discover the golden coin, the diary, and the reason they were in Southampton.
“So you’re treasure hunters?” Jim tried to make the connection with what they were doing and how they went about things.
“I am,” Adriana confessed. “I hunt down expensive things that were stolen from people and get them back to the proper owners.”
“She specializes in priceless art the Nazis stole during the war,” Sean added.
“But we aren’t really treasure hunters,” Tommy explained. “Treasure hunters do it for the money. We’re in it for the historical value of the things we find.”
Jim was still trying to understand, but he decided to figure it out on his own. “You’re not treasure hunters, but you hunt for things that are valuable. And you don’t do it for the money, though considering how much it costs to rent me for the day, and the hotel you’re staying in, I’d say you aren’t exactly poor. That can only mean you must be drug dealers.”