London Escape (10 page)

6. BREAKDOWN

T
aking a taxi to the airport I feel like I’m moving backward in time. It’s hard for me to believe I had landed there only two days ago. So much has happened since then. Finding Jason’s apartment ransacked, the keys, the old man from the café, sneaking into an impound lot and breaking the code in the book.

Considering all I have been through already, I should be feeling confident about finding Jason’s next clue, the one presumably waiting for me at the airport. Instead I just feel confused and a little lost. Even if I manage to find the clue, I have a feeling it will be incomplete. He clearly has a habit of only giving me half the pieces of the puzzle to work with. With Alexa’s help I’d managed so far, but the clues seem to be evolving as I find them, growing more and more difficult to figure out. And I’m beginning to doubt my ability to keep up.

The days and hours seem to be growing shorter as I feel my time running out. If I don’t move quickly, there is a strong possibility that Mr. V and his men would find another way to get what they want from Jason. I can’t let that happen.

As the taxi pulls up the curb I’m left with one resounding question. Why has Jason gone to all this trouble? Either he has a much stronger moral code than I know, or the jewels are more than just a valuable antique.

It doesn’t matter now, I tell myself as I pay the driver and step out onto the bustling sidewalk. All that matters is following the clues. Hopefully they will lead me to Jason, and to the answers I’m searching for. Looking up at the airport I take a deep breath to focus my thoughts and plunge into the crowd.

Heathrow is a massive airport, and within fifteen minutes I’m reminded of the fact I have such little information to go off of. The message from the book plays in my head like a mantra: “Beware of the men, V, B. Next clue. Airport. Be strong.”

I give it my best shot, searching through the crowds for familiar faces and looking for something that might be my next clue. Unfortunately there’s not a whole lot of the airport accessible to me without buying a ticket and passing though security. After an hour or so of wandering around somewhat aimlessly I’m frustrated and hungry. And no closer to finding what I’m looking for than I had been when I got here.

 There’s nothing else for me to do, so I decide to take a break for some lunch. I order a muffin and grande latte from a coffee shop for the caffeine boost. I sit at a table where I can see a good portion of the airport clearly and watch the people pass by. I take the red book out one more time and begin to scan the pages I now know by heart, wondering if it’s possible I missed something.

I fan through the pages quickly and on the very last page I spot something, just a speck at first. I turn the book sideways and part the page from the back cover as much as I can. Bringing it up right to my nose I can just barely see it, but there’s definitely something written there. A single letter and number, scribbled in pencil, E5. It isn’t much, but it is something. Normally I never would have noticed such a minute detail. But little by little my brain is beginning to work differently. The only question remaining is what the letter and number correspond to.

 Without realizing what I’m doing I find my gaze drawn toward every brown-haired man that passes. I don’t know if it’s from the extra caffeine in my system, but the suddenly the possibility of Jason being here now rushes to my mind. Maybe E5 is a gate number. Maybe he’s there waiting for me now and we can go home together and forget all this. I try to shake the idea out of my head, but still, the fantasy won’t quite fade.

Tossing away my trash I head back out and find one of the screens where departures and arrivals are listed. The letter and number combination E5 doesn’t appear anywhere, even after I’ve watched the screen for several minutes.

I’m just about to give up, or at least call Alexa for backup, when I spot him. He’s so far ahead of me in the crowd I have to hurry to catch up. I can just barely see the back of his head, but there’s something about the way his hair curls up at his collar and the way he walks that catches my attention. I’m a little embarrassed by the way my heart begins to pound in my chest and I force my feet move quicker to try and catch him. It’s all I can do not to call out his name, but I don’t want to draw attention to us, even if it is him. I’m practically running to reach him as the crowd surges around me and I nearly lose him. After pushing past a family and vaulting over a suitcase the brown-haired man is in my sight once again. I open my mouth to say his name just as he turns around a corner and I get a better look at his face.

My body comes to a screeching halt right in the middle of the airport, people bumping into me as they now busily push past. My shoulders sag when I realize it’s not Jason. For a moment I really thought I had found him at last. It takes me a minute to recover from my disappointment and I notice I’m just standing and staring blankly in the middle of a bustling terminal.

 Looking around to gather my bearings I see rows and rows of luggage lockers. People are stuffing suitcases and backpacks in so they can come back for them later. Instantly my eyes dart to the small numbers on them. Moving closer I see that each one has a single letter and a single number stamped on it. It takes me thirty seconds to find one labeled E5 on the bottom row. I drop to my knees before it, my palms sweating. I look up and down the rows and see that all the other lockers have standard numbered padlocks. But not this one, it has a padlock with a key instead of a combination. With a grin I pull out the set of keys I rescued from Jason’s apartment. Sure enough, the small key fits into the lock. My heart rate soars with excitement for the second time in less than five minutes.

I know better by now not to get my hopes up too much. But as I swing the door open and spot yet another red book inside and nothing else it’s enough to make me want to bang my head against the locker. I take the book out, make sure that’s all there is in the locker, and slam the door shut a little louder than necessary. I’m still sitting there on my knees when I get that unmistakable feeling: my spidey sense is tingling. All at once the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up and an involuntary shiver runs down my spine.

Slowly I look up and to my right, but there’s only a woman trying to stuff a suitcase inside a locker while balancing a squirming baby on her hip. Holding my breath I turn my head in the other direction and see a tall, strange-looking man fiddling with one of the lockers. Instantly I know, just like I know when someone is lying to me, that he’s not really interested in that locker, but me. My fear is confirmed when I see his eyes dart slightly in my direction.

Quickly and quietly I tuck the red book inside my backpack and get up from my knees. I hazard a brief glance over my shoulder as I walk away, he’s following me. Thinking quickly now of how I can possibly slip away, I try to get lost in the crowd, which should be easy since the airport is so crowded. After about a minute of walking with my gaze straight ahead, pretending I don’t know he’s there, I throw a glance over my left shoulder. He’s still there, but now he’s even closer.

Now that he’s closer to me I can see he’s more than weird looking, he’s somehow completely terrifying with his closely cropped pale hair and equally colorless eyes. His face is unchanging, unemotional and he appears to not even notice me, though I know he’s following me. I force my eyes straight ahead and hasten my pace. My eyes shift through the crowd and I nearly jump when I spot him again, closer this time and on my right. I glance back to my left but he’s still there. That’s when it hits me that there are two of them. Brothers, maybe even twins. My breath seems to catch in my throat and my feet falter. It’s all I can do not to break out into a full run in the direction of the exit. I want nothing more than to run as quickly as my feet will carry me. The only problem is I’m not sure exactly where the exits are right now, and I’m positive I will get tackled by TSA before I make it to the door. They don’t exactly appreciate people running full-tilt in an international airport.

I keep moving, with my head down and my thoughts reeling. Another glance over my shoulder tells me they’re beginning to close the gap, herding me away from the crowd. I don’t even need to wonder who they are and why they’re following me. It’s clear they somehow knew about the locker and were after whatever was in it. I try not to think about how they might have gotten that information. Besides me, Jason had to be the only one who knew about it.

I spot a entrance to my immediate right. It looks like a hallway containing bathrooms or a service entrance of some sort. My hope is that it’s an emergency exit. Either way, I try to take them by surprise as I make a break for it, cutting quickly to my right and dashing down the long hallway.

They’re paying more attention than they let on, and I can feel more than hear their heavy footsteps thundering behind me as they follow me down the hall. My hope for an exit fades and to my dismay the hallway is a dead end. With my back pressed against the wall I turn to face my pursuers. I had hoped we might have caught the attention of a curious passer-by, but the hallway remains empty behind the two figures looming ever closer to me. There’s nothing between me and the two massive goons who are heading my way and no possible way of escaping. Suddenly all the moments of fear and panic I have felt so far in this journey seem like mere twinges. What I feel now is nothing less than utter, bone-shaking terror.

As they step closer I start to notice the differences in their appearances. One is tall and lean, while the other is shorter and stockier. Both have deep set, pale eyes that are too close together and heavy, jutting foreheads. The effect is they look equally unintelligent and frightening.

 I flinch as one of them reaches for me. He grabs a hold of me, spins me around and presses me up against the wall roughly. My scream is silent in my throat, I’m far too afraid to open my mouth. Next he snatches my backpack roughly from my shoulder. Turning my face to the side I see him unzip it, dump the entire contents onto the floor and begin to sift through it all. His brother keeps me pinned to the wall, unmoving, with a firm hand to my back.

The shorter brother shoves my clothing and toiletries aside and begins to paw through the books, the two red volumes and my journal. He thumbs through one of the red books and tosses it aside with a grunt. I’m still looking around the second man, whose massive frame blocks my view, frantically looking for someone to come down the hallway. But there is no one in sight. Meanwhile the shorter brother is still riffling through my things. He picks up the second red book and examines it as well. I know my journal is next, where I’ve scribbled all the clues and codes Jason has left me so far. These guys don’t seem too smart, considering they’re probably just hired muscle, but the last thing I want is them figuring out that Jason is leaving messages for me. I wonder for a second if they actually think I have the jewels, assuming I might have found them inside the locker. Either way, I don’t want them picking up that journal.

So when he drops the second red book and reaches for it, I summon all my courage and speak up. “What’s the matter? Can’t read?”

Instantly the brother closest to me shoves me again, harder this time and my forehead smashes into the wall. For a moment I see stars and I’m forced to remain silent. I had hoped to provoke him enough to make him drop and forget about the journal, but it doesn’t work. He picks it up anyway and flips through just like he had the red books. He doesn’t seem to spot anything of interest because he tosses it aside with the rest. Or maybe I’m right, maybe he can’t read.

I’m wondering what’s going to happen next, now that they’ve discovered nothing of interest in my bag. But an object in the pile catches the attention of the brother searching through my things. He stoops to retrieve it and then laughs as he holds it out for his partner to see.

My pulse quickens. It’s the picture frame. The glass is now shattered, but our faces are still recognizable. They speak to one another in what sounds like German, and the tone makes me more than a little nervous. They seem self-satisfied, as though they are just putting together the pieces of who I am and what I’m doing here. Worst of all, they seem to recognize Jason and I’m pretty sure I hear the name Barron in their conversation.

I had been hoping they would just let me go when they realized I didn’t have the jewels, but now my hopes fade. Not only that, my worst fears have now been realized, if they recognized Jason that could only mean one thing, they had him.

They’re both turning away from the picture now, tossing it aside with the rest of my stuff and stepping back toward me.

“What have you done with him?” I demand, more out of desperation than courage. But they just chuckle ominously as they take hold of my arms and spin me in the direction of the bustling crowd at the other end of the hall.

“Why don’t we take you to your boyfriend so you can see for yourself,” one hisses in heavily-accented English.

As they lead me down the hall I feel a surge of hope. Surely there is no way these two savage-looking men will get away with kidnapping me in broad daylight. If it came down to it I would kick and scream until someone noticed. Besides, I’d rather be tackled by a group of TSA agents then let these two take me. The brother on my right seems to read my mind. Tightening his grip on my arm he shakes his head and pulls back his jacket, revealing a gun tucked into the waist of his jeans. My chances of getting away have just dwindled to nothing.

 As we near the end of the hallway I realize suddenly there is someone standing there. Because of the relative darkness of the hallway, and the brightness of the airport beyond, all I can see is a silhouette. But I recognize the shape of his hat immediately. As quickly as my hopes soar, they quickly crash to the ground. I was hoping for a rescuer, and the kindly old man from the café isn’t exactly who I had in mind. Then again he had helped me break into an impound lot. In my current situation he’s better than nothing.