The CIA agent bobbed her head. “I see what you’re thinking, but I can’t say. Didn’t see anyone apart from young, confident, capable men with weapons exposed.”
Cassidy stared then blinked. “And you want to run away? ’Kinell, girl. Sounds like Hollywood all over again.”
“Guns, girl. Their guns.”
“Ah.”
“We need another way out,” Bodie said. “The Hoods clearly don’t know we’re in here. All we need is…”
He spun, heading back toward the door.
The team stared after him. “What?”
He beckoned for them to follow him, not raising his voice. If the Hoods were checking the parking area they would be turning their attention toward the museum next. He estimated they had a minute, no more.
“Where are we going?” Heidi demanded, running at his shoulder.
Bodie entered the museum once more, slowed and walked briskly to the right. The door to the interior stood open, tourists milling about.
“Guy?” Cassidy asked.
He didn’t stop, just walked straight through, not wanting to take the time to explain. Every second was precious. Without turning around he said, “Cross. Check our rear.”
“Already on it, boss. No sign of ’em yet.”
Good; that gives us…
“Shit, here they come.”
Bollocks.
Bodie sped up to a fast walk, turned a corner and spied the museum guide. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, there must be another way out of here, right?”
The guide stared through his thick lenses, eyes blinking and magnified. “Than the exit? Umm, no.”
Heidi had already caught on. “Don’t give us that. There must be another way.”
“Well, yes, we have fire exits,” the guide said. “Alarmed, of course. And leading back to the front which,” he made a point of staring over their shoulders, “I assume you wish to avoid?”
The man didn’t look scared, just bored. Bodie felt the seconds counting down. The Hoods would be approaching the entrance.
“CIA it,” he said to Heidi.
The agent knew what he meant, took out her badge and shoved it into the guide’s face. “We need your help.”
An expression of interest crossed the man’s face. “This day gets better and better,” he said. “But the information is accurate. You can’t get away from the museum without circling around to the front. Unless you can climb an eight-foot-high chain link fence with ease.”
Bodie refrained from revealing that was exactly what his team were trained to do. Jeff would struggle, and perhaps Heidi.
“This is a museum, once an old university,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a basement. And to be fair, we know who Adam Weishaupt was, the secrets he kept. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a private way out of here.”
The guide looked from Heidi’s badge to Bodie and then down the corridor toward the front entrance. He would surely know a CIA identification meant nothing here, but he was also blessed with a good quantity of common sense, which helped him gauge the situation with an open honesty.
“We’re in trouble, yes?”
Bodie nodded. “Everyone. If they find us.”
The guide made a swift decision and led them away, toward the rear of the building. They passed Weishaupt’s room and entered the one next door. The guide closed the door behind them and turned.
“It was found over a hundred years ago, but it has no value. Just a dusty old tunnel so the museum forgot about it. Guides and guards need to know for obvious reasons but—” he shrugged “—no one else.”
Cassidy stared at the oak paneling. “Where?”
“Here.”
The guide motioned at a heavy bookcase. Cassidy was the first to it, getting a good grip and shuffling the bottom edges away from the wall. Bodie squeezed into the back and helped push it clear.
“Gonna be a bit obvious when they check the room,” Cross said critically, eyeing the angled bookcase.
“Well, sorry,” Cassidy said. “I left my secret-passage-bookcase-tugging-hook at home.”
Gunn shook his head. “Bit daft of you.”
“Move,” Bodie said. “Priority is to get out of the museum. We’ll worry about pursuit later.”
“I can cover the passage,” the guide said. “It is my job, after all.”
Heidi looked worried. “I don’t want to leave you with them. Believe me when I say: they’re evil little bastards.”
“They wouldn’t kill everyone in the museum,” the guide said with huge naivety.
Heidi clammed up. Bodie shoved Cross, Jemma and Gunn into the passage. “Your biggest asset here is your inexperience,” he said. “Use it. You never saw us.”
They filed into the narrow passage, leaving the guide to ease the bookcase back into place. Bodie closed the door behind them by the light of Heidi’s small flashlight. Cross was already leading the way.
“No talking,” Bodie said. “In case it travels or the walls are thin.”
They moved steadily, carefully, not unused to creeping around in the dark through secret byways. There were times in the past when Bodie had done more tunnel-creeping than your average rat. Cross took it steady, either by design or necessity, but it didn’t matter. There was only one way. And that way led down.
Handholds helped steady them. Cross soon held up a hand which Bodie saw in the shifting beam of the flashlight. A sense of constricted space came over them as they paused, the walls a snug fit to their shoulders and the ceiling inches above their heads. The passage was rough-hewn, merely a fast means of moving about unseen.
For Bodie and his team it felt like home.
Cross found the handle and twisted, opening the door. They filed out to find themselves inside a dark and dusty basement, three meters high and approximately ten wide. Cobwebs covered every corner and hung from the ceiling. On the floor lay half a dozen chests and cases, all closed, all untouched for many years.
Heidi paused as Cross started to cross the floor. “You think these chests may be connected to Weishaupt? The Illuminati? If they are—”
“No time for that.” Bodie hurried her along. “We don’t know where we’ll come out yet.”
“Just wait a moment,” Heidi said a bit indignantly. “I’m in charge—”
“Not the point,” Cassidy said. “Different mission. Send someone else.”
Bodie had been taught time and time again to stick exclusively with the operation you had planned. Diversions led to mistakes and capture.
“And to be fair,” Cross said, his voice echoing a little in the space. “You induced us into this op for a reason. For our expertise.”
“Induced?” Cassidy repeated. “Are we pregnant?”
“Goaded. Exhorted. Forced.”
Heidi let it go. “C’mon, forced? Really?”
Cross reached the other side and another door. This one creaked open, years-old dust and debris falling from the hinges and the edges. Cross stepped back, coughing. Cassidy patted his back.
“Want me to go in front, Granddad?”
“I’m… good,” Cross hacked.
Another passage, this one leading up at an angle that strained their calf muscles. Jemma made a comment about the Illuminati being fit and lean, and Cross seconded it. Soon though they reached another door and everyone smelled the change in the air.
Fresh on the other side.
Cross cracked it open, held it steady. The team crowded at his back, drawing weapons and taking a moment to allow their eyes to adjust to the glimmer of daylight that shone through. Cross then allowed the door to open further and they saw they were inside a mound of earth, a mossy overhang hiding the entrance.
“Still inside the museum grounds?” Jemma asked.
“Just outside,” Cross said. “I see no fence through the overhang.”
“No Hoods?”