Hit List (15 page)

Do-it-yourself ramp, Ash thought. You will need: one broom, one rooftop, and several thousand dollars’ worth of solar panels.

“What in God’s name...”

Ash whirled around. There was a security guard standing in the doorway to the stairs, boggling at the mess she’d made.

“What...” he said. “What are you
doing
?”

Ash didn’t answer. She threw herself onto the top panel, landing on her back, and immediately started sliding away from the rooftop, hurtling head first down the row of panels towards the
pool.

It was like a water slide, but a million times more dangerous – there was nothing to stop her falling over the side and breaking her neck on the path below. She held her arms out sideways,
keeping the panels between her elbows so she’d stay in the centre. She looked back the way she’d come, and saw the guard peering over the edge of the roof at her, astonished.

The sun blinded her, and she turned her eyes away. Trees were already appearing in her peripheral vision. I’m going to land head first, she thought. Got to slow down!

She squeezed the sides of the panels as she slid past, the hot metal burning her palms. She lost a little speed. Not enough.

She tried to swivel around so as she was falling feet first. But the panels were too slippery, and soon she was sliding sideways towards the edge. She was going to fall off.

“No!” she cried. She had to get back to the centre, or—

Splash!
Suddenly she was underwater.

She’d made it. She was in the pool.

Choking, she fought the artificial current, and managed to plant her feet on the bottom. Her head breached the surface, and she gasped for air.

Blinking water out of her eyes, she turned around to see the security guard on the roof of Building 41, yelling into his radio.

No time to waste, she thought.

She clambered over the side and ran for the stairs, leaving damp shoe-prints on the concrete. She dashed down them three at a time. There was a rack of bikes nearby – she grabbed one and
ran alongside it, gaining momentum, and then jumped on and pedalled towards the car park.

Now that she had no students to blend in with, the wet school uniform had outlived its usefulness as a disguise. Some of the employees wandering around the campus were already looking at her
strangely, wondering why she was away from the group and riding a bike. And if security saw her, she was screwed. She had to get her clothes back.

She could see the school bus at the far end of the car park. The bicycle tyres hummed across the bitumen.

As she got close, she dismounted, dropped the bike, and ran around to the far side of the bus. Karen Sloven was standing in the shade, wearing Ash’s clothes, and sucking on a
cigarette.

“Where’s the other half?” Karen asked.

For an alarming moment Ash thought she meant Benjamin, and wondered how she knew about him. Then she remembered the money.

“I want my clothes back first,” she said.

“Why are you wet?”

“I went swimming. Clothes, please.”

Karen shrugged, dropped her cigarette, stomped on it, and started undressing. Ash took off the green skirt and blazer, and passed them over. Karen handed her the jeans, shirt and jacket, which
all now stank of cheap tobacco. Better wash that top, Ash thought, before Dad smells it.

She was annoyed at the inconvenience, but it wasn’t a surprise. She had picked Karen because she was a smoker – a square bulge in her purse, teeth and fingernails slightly yellowed,
gnawing on a pungent lump of gum. When the school group had just arrived and was still milling around the bus, Ash had approached her, figuring a poster girl for teenage rebellion was most likely
to respond to her bizarre request.
I’ll give you a hundred bucks to change clothes with me for an hour.

Karen grimaced at the wet clothes. “I think I should get extra for this.”

Ash pulled her clothes on, took a fifty and a twenty from the secret pocket inside the jacket’s lining, and held them out. Karen took the money, and said, “Pleasure doing business
with you,” before taking another cigarette out of her purse and lighting it.

“Don’t stay here too long,” Ash said. “Go onto the campus and try to look lost. Otherwise they might realize you were never with the group.”

“Unless you’re offering me more money,” Karen said, “I’ll do what I want, thanks.”

Ash rolled her eyes. She’d been trying to help, but if Karen wanted to get herself in more trouble, it really wasn’t her problem. The worst Karen could tell anyone is that
she’d met a teenage girl who wanted to see the inside of the Googleplex – no one would guess she was planning a rescue. They’d assume she was just a prankster, or a vandal.

Her phone was ringing. She turned away from the bus and started walking towards the road as she answered it.

A security guard saw her, looked her up and down, and moved on. He would be looking for a girl in uniform – she was safe.

“Yes?” she said.

“It’s Hammond.”

“Hi, Mr. Buckland. I’ve planted the bag—”

“We have to go,” Buckland said. “Right now.”

“What? Why?”

“Someone’s made a new post on the Ghost’s website. Something they want him to steal.”

Ash frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s Benjamin. Someone has sent the Ghost after Benjamin.”

An icy fist closed around Ash’s heart. Benjamin, she thought. Targeted by the Ghost.

“Why?” she demanded. “Why would somebody do that?”

“I’m not sure,” Buckland said. “But the post is already an hour old. He could be very close already. We have to find somewhere for Benjamin to hide.”

Ash grabbed her bike, the one she’d left outside the Googleplex when she arrived. She jumped on and started pumping the pedals, headed for the hotel they’d checked into. She said,
“And then what? Just wait for him to give up?”

“He won’t give up.” Buckland’s voice was grim. “He always gets what he wants.”

“Then what can we do? How do we stop him?”

“We make sure we’re the highest bidders.”

Sweat erupted along Ash’s brow. “Have you got enough?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“You don’t
know
?”

“I can beat the current price, but it depends who wants him, and how badly.”

This is crazy, Ash thought. People bidding on the life of my best friend.

“And if we win,” she said, “then what? We just let the Ghost take him, and trust that he’ll be returned alive?”

“The Ghost’s smart. If he knows the buyer and the target are already together, he’ll do nothing. It’s not the first time something like this has happened.”

“We need a safe house,” Ash said. “We can’t just wait on the street and hope that you’ve got the money to save us.”

“There’s an HBS International Bank on Castro Street,” Buckland said. “I don’t control it any more, since I’m legally dead, but I still know how to get you in.
You can hide in the safe-deposit box vault – he’ll never find you there. You’ll be protected, at least until they unlock the vault in the morning.”

“And what then?”

“I don’t know, Ash! I’m thinking.”

“How do I get to the bank from the Googleplex?”

“Um, head east on the Amphitheatre Parkway,” Buckland said, “then south along North Shoreline Boulevard until you cross the Central Expressway, and then you’re on Castro
Street. It’s about twenty minutes by bike.”

“I’ll see you in ten,” Ash said, pedalling harder.

Eight minutes later she was screeching to a halt in front of HBS International, where Buckland was waiting with two large suitcases. He’d changed disguises – he now wore a pair of
rimless glasses and a stick-on goatee. The bank loomed behind him, looking reassuringly solid.

I saw the guards vanish in the blink of an eye, the Ghost walk towards the wall, walk through it, and walk back out.

Ash shivered. “Where’s Benjamin?” she asked.

“Hi, Ash,” Benjamin whispered.

Ash looked around. “Where are—” Her gaze fell on one of the suitcases, which looked more full than the other. “Oh, I get it.”

“Don’t look at it,” Buckland said. “I don’t think he could have found us yet, but we can’t be too careful.”

Ash raised her eyes. “And how is Benjamin being in there going to protect him? Is that a bulletproof suitcase?”

“It’s going to get you two into the vault for the night.” Buckland lifted the empty suitcase. “This one’s yours.”

“Damn, Benjamin,” Ash said. “How did you get us into this?”

“I have no idea,” he said miserably.

They walked to a secluded park around the corner, Buckland dragging Benjamin’s suitcase behind him. The wheels rumbled along the pavement.

They stood in the shade of a sprawling tree, invisible to anybody behind the windows of the surrounding skyscrapers, or watching through one of the hundreds of satellites that whirled around the
earth. Ash looked around. There were a few people in the park, but no one appeared to be looking her way.

She dropped the suitcase, unzipped it, stepped in, and curled into a ball. She felt Buckland shut the lid above her and zip it closed. Claustrophobia arose immediately, despite the flexibility
and porousness of the material. She sucked in a few deep breaths and felt a little better.

There was something large and hard and flat inside the lid, shaped like a small tabletop. Maybe Ash’s guess about bulletproof suitcases hadn’t been too far off.

The case lurched up, and started to roll across the grass. Ash realized that Buckland must be dragging both her and Benjamin, and felt a rush of gratitude. The original agreement had been that
he would give them the hit list, and they would give him ten per cent of the rewards. Flying them both to California, purchasing Benjamin from a thief, and lugging them both around in suitcases was
more than he’d signed on for.

Assuming, of course, that that was what he was doing. Ash felt her chest tighten. Would Buckland really spend all his money saving Benjamin from the Ghost? What if he was just saying he would?
What if he saw an opportunity in this? He could sell Benjamin to the Ghost, or to the buyer, or use him as bait to lure the Ghost out and get his emerald back...

Where was he taking them? Surely the bank wasn’t this far away.

Ash wondered if she could get out of the suitcase. The tag for the zip was on the outside, but maybe she could get a pin out of her watch and use that, or just stretch the fabric until it tore.
Buckland could probably overpower her, but they were still on Castro Street, where there’d be lots of people to hear her scream.

The angle changed; the suitcase was rolling up a ramp. Ash tried to remember if HBS International had had stairs. Where are we going? she thought.

She heard some automatic doors slide open and closed. A voice said, “How can I help you today?”

“Hi, my name’s Henry Bridges,” Buckland said. “I called earlier about opening a safe-deposit box? I know the bank’s about to close, but—”

“Certainly, sir,” the woman said. “I’ll just need to see some ID.”

“No problem.”

Ash felt relieved, then guilty. Her faith in Hammond Buckland had collapsed after only minutes of discomfort.

Maybe he’s trapping us here so the Ghost can get us, she thought. And then she realized that was hardly reassuring.

“Right this way, sir.”

“Thank you.”

The suitcase started to move again. Ash had been in several HBS banks since Buckland’s “death”, and each one had had a framed picture of Buckland on the wall next to the
counter. It’s impressive, she thought, that a pair of glasses and a fake beard is enough to stop the receptionist from recognizing him.

“Just here, Mr. Bridges. Push the buzzer when you’re done.”

“Thank you.”

Ash heard something large and heavy clank closed, and then Buckland unzipped the suitcases. Light poured in. “Okay, guys, you can come out now.”

Ash sat up, tilting her head from side to side, loosening her neck and joints. Most safe-deposit box vaults she’d been in had resembled post offices, the walls gridded with safes the size
of shoeboxes. But this vault looked more like a high-school locker room. The boxes were tall and wide, designed to hold art as well as cash.

There must be so much money in this room, she thought. Then she caught herself. Most of it was probably where it belonged.

“Aren’t there cameras?” she asked.

“We’re in a blind spot,” Buckland said. “But it’s visible from the door, so you’ll have to set up those mirrors before the woman comes back.”

The flat object in the suitcase made sense now. Ash unzipped a compartment in the lid to reveal a mirror, brand new, the surface dulled by protective plastic. Ash stood it up in the corner at a
forty-five degree angle between two perpendicular rows of boxes.

“It’s not tall enough,” she said.

“I’ve got one too,” Benjamin said, removing an identical mirror from his suitcase. “We can put one on top of the other.”

Seeing him for the first time since learning of the threat, Ash noticed how shaken he looked. He kept rubbing his sweaty hands on his jeans, and the tiny mole on his cheek, normally a cheery
pink, had gone white.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said.

They propped up the two mirrors, creating a triangle of floor space in which they would be invisible, and huddled behind them.

“I’ll come back for you in the morning,” Buckland said. “Hopefully I’ll have managed to outbid everyone else by then.”

“What if you haven’t?” Ash asked.

There was a dark look in Buckland’s eyes. “Then we’ll have to find another way out,” he said. “Maybe we can find the top bidder and...
persuade
him or her to
contribute to our bid.”

“So what do Ash and I do?” Benjamin asked. “Just sit here?”

“If I were you,” Buckland said, “I’d spend the time figuring out who wants you, and why.”

“I’ve been trying,” Benjamin said. “I don’t know!”

“Try harder,” Buckland said, and pushed the buzzer.

Ash heard the door unlock and the woman come in. “Is everything to your satisfaction, Mr. Bridges?” she asked.