“If not this then that day will be your last, Hayden. Oh and don’t forget — I’m watching you. Always.”
The line died. Silence fell like a ton of lead. Hayden stared at the offending phone and then at her friends and colleagues. “What now?”
Dahl gestured at the library door about ten meters ahead. “We go forward. It’s what we always do.”
He advanced and stepped on something hidden beneath the carpet. An ominous click sounded in the half-darkness, but from the roof above their heads.
Drake knew that sound. “Bomb!” he cried and turned to run.
As one, the team spun and fled, heading away from the library. In retrospect Drake realized they should have bolted in the other direction — Webb would never destroy the treasures of Saint Germain. As the clicks sounded and death neared, he made the fastest and hardest decision of his life.
“Wait!” he screamed above the noise. “We’re going the wrong fucking way!”
“Oh, shit.” Even Dahl vacillated.
Drake took their lives in his hands, grabbed Alicia, and hustled back past the detonation device. As he passed, a deep booming began; a resounding shockwave that stunned his senses and battered his ears. Above, he saw the entire length of the corridor’s ceiling heave up and then collapse back down, swelled and shattered by the blast. He ran faster and lower, pulling Alicia and hearing the rest of the team racing behind.
Straight into the blast.
The corridor’s walls bulged, bowed by the initial convulsion. Wooden panels smashed and shattered, some zipping across the corridor like deadly poisoned darts, passing between the runners and striking their body armor. Drake hid his face as they ran the gauntlet, grunting as objects abused his body.
Then the ceiling started to fall.
Plaster rained down, and concrete blocks. Drake hurdled one. A cloud of dust screened the way ahead.
“Drake!” Alicia cried out, and a heavy lump of masonry crashed down inches from his head. Behind, Smyth shielded Lauren, his arm constantly bombarded by falling shrapnel. Kinimaka plowed through the debris, kicking up almost as much rubble as fell around him. Dahl spun in mid-flight, seeing a descending jagged chunk and knowing instinctively that it would strike Hayden. He caught it momentarily in two hands, still running, then redirected its flight with a quick flick of the wrist. Beau twisted between collapsing curtains of wreckage, struck more times than he’d ever tell. Mai and Kenzie hugged opposite sides of the ruined walls, trusting that there would be no third explosion.
Drake staggered as a thick timber spar glanced off his shoulders, sprawling headlong, then rolling, still keeping up the speed. His body screamed, his nerves alight with pain. Dust filled his nose and eyes. They couldn’t be sure what was happening up ahead and all the walls were destroyed, bristling with serrated wood and rough plasterboard edges. Beau kicked a ragged pole of wood aside. Mai used rubble the size of a boulder to leap off to avoid a hole in the floor. Kinimaka barged aside a cascading heap so the others could move quicker.
Drake gained his feet once more, using Alicia and Dahl as they reached arms down to him. The dust was clearing, the noise all but abated. Ahead, the library door appeared intact.
Dahl kicked it off its hinges, anxious to get out of the plaster dust and smoke and into what should be a safe haven. Quickly the team filed through, coughing and hanging their heads, staring at one another and seeing a ragged crew: white haired, white clothed and holding arms and legs where projectiles had struck.
“We all okay?” Drake panted. “Anyone badly hurt?”
All were fine, and then Hayden’s cell rang again. She held it up so all could see the big screen.
Webb again.
“Don’t answer,” Dahl said. “Keep the bastard guessing.”
“You know,” Smyth said, holding his right arm extremely gingerly. “He could have killed us all back there. Wiped us off the map. What gives?”
“Impossible to say,” Hayden said. “Lack of resources. Not enough time. Mistake. Design. Drake’s quick thinking. My call is that the asshole thinks of this as a game, loves it more than family or power. Gets off on it.”
“You think it gives him a boner?” Alicia wondered.
Drake and Dahl choked simultaneously, and not only on dust. “Jeez, Myles, tone it down to PG 13 wouldya? We don’t need to hear that.”
“It’s what you were thinking.”
Dahl blinked. “No actually, it wasn’t at all.”
“What about you, Yorgi? I bet you were wondering.”
The Russian ignored her, which did the trick and stopped her conjectures.
Hayden pocketed her phone and took a three-sixty gander around the library. Stacks of hardbacks rose from floor to ceiling, all sizes, all colors, with no clear labelling system.
“Whatever he found here,” she said. “Will probably stay secret.”
Drake hated to, but tended to agree. “So that leaves us… fucked. We don’t know what he’s searching for. What he finds. Or why. Or where he’s going to next. Fucked.”
“Not yet.” The words came surprisingly from Lauren. “I do have one idea.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Drake sipped strong coffee whilst they all crowded around the two-way mirror, staring at Sabrina Balboni as the master thief stared back at them. Trying to read her was an impossibility. Drake wondered what it took to become one of the world’s greatest burglars whilst also adorning yourself in anonymity. How deep the demands, how desperate the craving.
How overwhelming the guilt.
Balboni had chosen a profession that, by necessity, forced her to become a shadow, a true wraith of society. He wondered how her position now, facing prison, would sway her decisions in the next few hours.
Toward the good guys, he hoped. She was their last hope. After this, they were down to good fortune and a trip to Dubai.
Could be worse. He found his lips were curling up into a private smile, then realized he was staring straight at Mai. The Japanese woman noticed and returned it with warmth. He was caught, wedged between two stormy seas, the future an impenetrable cloud of impossibility. Thankfully, Hayden began to speak and he turned toward her.
“I will go in again. Reiterate the hard line. Then we’ll let Lauren come in and propose the deal.”
Drake listened as Hayden repeated the bleak future Sabrina had to look forward to and, try as she might, the thief just couldn’t keep the horror from her eyes. Alicia took the time to rib Yorgi just a little.
“So what’s it like, Yogi? To stand so close to a real thief?”
“What you mean?” The Russian looked suitably annoyed. “I am also real.”
“Not on the same level, dude.” Alicia pointed through the window. “That’s a master. A genius. A light-fingered virtuoso with real-world expertise.”
“I am master thief too!”
Dahl glanced down the passageway. “Hey, keep it down. We’re in a police station.”
“Well, you’re good at impersonating a female, I’ll give you that.” Alicia turned the screw.
“I have proven my skills.” Yorgi sulked.
“Yeah. Your eyebrows are amazing.”
“I think you should leave him alone.” Mai shifted slightly. “There is no time for this.”
“Oh, and the Sprite leaps across the screen to the rescue! No time? Why not? Lauren hasn’t even taught the thief how to do a proper Full Monty yet.”
Mai blinked. “I don’t know what you—”
“I do,” Lauren said. “It is a stripping reference. And that’s not what I’m doing here.”
“Great film, great ending.” Alicia was elsewhere. “And Robert Carlyle.” She sighed. “Just leave me alone for a while.”