The Bloodline Cipher (3 page)

‘What is it, Jonah?' She put her palm to his chest. ‘How come you're back early?'

‘Don't say you're disappointed?'

‘Duh.' She leaned in and kissed him, wet and warm, on the lips. He responded a bit too eagerly, trying to slip his hand inside her towel.

‘Hey,' she whispered, pushing him back gently. ‘I'm glad you're back safe, but no one's meant to know we're more than friends, remember? Anyone could walk in.'

‘They're already in the hub. Me and Motti had to report straight to him, I've been let out to grab some air.'

‘But instead you're grabbing me.'

‘Tye …?' Jonah held out his arms. ‘Just … just hold me a few seconds longer, will you?'

She frowned. ‘Jonah, what happened out there?'

‘The men we went to meet …' He looked down at his shoes, his voice as blank as his eyes. ‘They were both murdered. Shot point blank with crossbow bolts, and set fire to, right there in front of me. And I was almost next.'

‘Shit,' Tye muttered, putting her arms back around him and pulling him close.

She'd been nine the first time she saw someone get killed, and had seen so much blood spilled since then that violence rarely shocked her. It was easy to forget Jonah's life had been so different. His teenage years were spent in foster homes around Britain, hiding out in darkened bedrooms making sense of codes and encryptions on borrowed computers, growing his talent. Sure, he'd gone to prison, but his crime had
been a one-off. He'd diverted funds into his foster mum's bank account, trying to help her start a new life – little realising that in doing so he'd actually started a new life for himself, outside the law: a life working for Coldhardt.

Since then, the blood had flowed a lot more freely. She went on holding him tightly.

‘I'm never gonna be cut out for this life.' Jonah rubbed his face against her neck. ‘Am I?'

She sighed. ‘It gets easier.'

‘But do I want it to?' Jonah's grip slackened and he pulled back.

‘Sometimes it doesn't matter whether we want things to happen or not,' she told him quietly, her eyes searching his. ‘You know that.'

Jonah didn't say anything.

She pulled him close again. ‘It'll be OK.' The words sounded empty to her, but he seemed comforted. For a long moment they hugged and then she felt him start to relax and his hand reached inside her towel again.

‘Hey!' She pulled back. ‘Stop that! We've got to go.'

‘You sure?' Jonah watched longingly as she started to dress.

‘Sure I'm sure.' She pulled on her blue top, pale against her dark skin. ‘We're late enough already.' But while she sounded firm, inside she was smiling. Despite everything she'd seen in her life, everything she knew about life, Jonah did sometimes make her feel like things
could
actually be OK. Maybe that was the reason why sometimes when she looked at him she felt …

No
. Tye hastily stopped her thoughts there. Life
was way too complicated as it was. She pulled her braids out of the back of her top and kissed him feather-light on the lips.

‘Come on,' she said, turning and heading for the exit. ‘Friendly workmates time again. Try to act normal.'

Jonah sighed as he set off after her. ‘Just tell me where to start.'

Everything seemed just a little too calm and tranquil as Jonah followed Tye through the quiet pathways of Coldhardt's rambling estate. The evening sunlight gleamed off sash windows and ornamental pools. The fresh green stripes of lawn looked as though Premiership groundsmen were flown in each day to tend them.

Coldhardt moved routinely between bases as and when his business dictated. Over the last twelve months Jonah had found himself living in a castle in Siena, a ranch in New Mexico, a plantation in Jamaica, a converted hotel in Bulgaria … But his adventures had begun here in Geneva after Motti, Tye and the others sprang him from the Young Offenders' Institution. Maybe that was why he had come to think of this place as his only real home.

The estate overlooked cornfields and hillside vineyards and, in the distance, postcard views of Alpine France. It was littered with old outbuildings; they seemed quaint and ramshackle on the outside, but most concealed flash facilities within. The state-of-the-art fitness centre was just a short walk from a giant indoor pool, an amusement arcade and games room,
the underground garage – and of course, the cavernous hangout where the Talent could chill or party all night long if they felt like it before staggering upstairs to crash in their luxurious personal suites …

No, working for Coldhardt wasn't all bad, Jonah reflected. And after the start he'd had in life, he hoped he would never take such luxury for granted.

Of course, there was nothing like knowing you might die at any moment on some dangerous, spooky mission to make you appreciate what you had.

Or
who
you had. Jonah's eyes lingered on Tye walking up the path to the chateau ahead of him, on the way her braided hair bobbed against the smooth dark skin at the nape of her neck. ‘Hey,' he called, ‘can you give me another driving lesson after this debrief?'

‘You need to rest,' she said lightly, pushing some ivy away from beside the front door to reveal a high-tech keypad. ‘Wouldn't want you to crash.'

He lowered his voice. ‘Not even round your place?'

She tapped out the entry code. ‘Down, boy.'

Certainly brought me to heel
, Jonah noted, as they entered the spacious marble hallway. He and Tye had acknowledged an attraction between them some months back, but she wanted to take things slowly, keep it secret. Jonah knew Coldhardt wouldn't approve of two of his operatives sharing a romance. Results depended on the Talent working as a team, each member having equal priority, judgements unclouded by messy emotions.

But secrets were hard to keep round here, particularly from Coldhardt, who had practically invented
the word. As they walked through the cloisters with their vaulted archways and stained-glass windows, he went through the tips Tye had given him on how to act and disguise his body language, so he wasn't so easy to read. But though he knew caution was sensible it was also driving him crazy. And last night had hammered home that life was all too short.

Here he was, about to relive those events in detail once again, for Coldhardt and the gang.

Tye opened the double doors at the end of the cloister and they stood together as a section of the stone floor lurched beneath them, descending to the secret underground world below.

Coldhardt's hub was a spacious chamber, part boardroom, part workplace, part spooky sci-fi bunker. A huge oval table dominated the space. A regimented row of black filing cabinets stood against one wall, enduring the blank glare of twelve plasma screens mounted opposite.

Motti, Con and Patch were already seated around the table in brushed-steel chairs. ‘Jonah!' Patch called, cheery as ever. ‘You made it!'

Jonah shrugged. ‘Just about.' Tye sat between Motti and Patch, smiling at them both, leaving Jonah to sit beside Con. ‘You picked a good job to miss,' he said.

‘And I usually miss so little,' she agreed, looking at him with those unsettling green eyes of hers. It was like she was trying to see through you and read what you were thinking. Trouble was, since Con was a self-proclaimed expert in neural-linguistic programming and mesmerism – or
hypnotism
to anyone else – she
could catch you off-guard and do exactly that. Jonah had heard people spill their deepest secrets to her under the 'fluence as casually as they would order a drink.

‘Pass us a coffee, Mot?' Jonah stretched.

Motti grunted at Patch, who filled a white porcelain cup with the dregs of the coffee jug. Tye slid it across to him.

‘Jeez.' Jonah looked at the dark oily liquid. ‘Concentrated caffeine. Should stop me sleeping on the job.'

‘None of us will be falling asleep on this particular job, Jonah.' The voice was rich, seasoned with age and with a slight Irish gravel to it.

Coldhardt's voice.

The boss man riveted Jonah's attention as always. Coldhardt had entered from his private office at the far end of the hub, a tall, gaunt figure crowned with a regal mane of white hair. Despite being well into his sixties he moved with the casual confidence of someone a good deal younger. But his pale blue eyes told a different story – that of a man haunted by the memory of something so bad he couldn't forget it for a second. And as he settled himself at the head of the table, his dark velvet jacket and crisp white shirt couldn't disguise how painfully thin he was. He had aged visibly this last year.

Jonah, like the others, waited for him to speak.

‘My apologies for convening this meeting a little earlier than intended,' Coldhardt began. ‘The problems Jonah and Motti encountered on what should have been a routine pick-up require our immediate attention.' He looked between them both. ‘Tell us what happened. Every detail.'

Between them, Motti and Jonah outlined their experiences, from arriving coolly in Van Nuys yesterday morning to their midnight race to LAX and mercifully uneventful flight home.

‘Sounds like Budd should've got a better Buddy-guard,' joked Patch nervously.

‘Coulda used some protection ourselves.' Motti wasn't smiling. ‘Hey, geek, maybe we shoulda asked that bitch with the bow if she had any friends.'

‘I'm glad she was alone,' said Jonah, turning to Coldhardt. ‘So was Budd right? Is this book you're after an occult text?'

‘It's a
grimoire
,' said Coldhardt. ‘An ancient book of supposedly magical beliefs and practices. The Guan Yin manuscript, to give it its full title.'

‘Guan Yin?' Patch frowned. ‘Sounds like it came out of a Chinese takeaway.'

‘She is the Chinese goddess of mercy,' Coldhardt explained patiently, ‘although her origins are in Buddhist mythology. The grimoire depicts her image on its title page.' He paused. ‘Believed to have been compiled in the fourteenth century, written in an unknown language, the Guan Yin manuscript is said to contain a most precious secret. Something that wise men from Europe to the Orient coveted fiercely. They called it the Bloodline Cipher.'

‘A fourteenth-century code?' Jonah straightened a little in his seat. ‘Things were just starting to hot up at that time, cipher-wise. The first cryptology manuals were published in 1379, mainly substitution alphabets –'

Motti yawned loudly. ‘Medieval cryptology manuals. Right. Remind me to get them out the library.'

‘Bloodline Cipher?' Con looked puzzled. ‘What does that even mean – some sort of scrambled family tree?'

‘Maybe it was written by a Buddhist, tracing all his different reincarnations,' said Motti flippantly. ‘You know, he starts as a bug, becomes a fish, then a cat, then a guy …'

‘Sounds like a real blockbuster,' said Tye, pulling a face.

‘Whatever the contents, bad luck allegedly dogged the Guan Yin manuscript's owners over the centuries.' Coldhardt's tone warned them the time for joking was past. ‘The book was believed lost for good after a Turkish museum displaying it caught fire in 1867. It is my hope we will know more about its contents after you have stolen it.'

‘It is worth a very good deal, yes?' asked Con, all but licking her lips.

‘A colossal amount. To me, its worth could be incalculable.'

Jonah shuddered. ‘The woman who killed Budd and Clyde – or whoever sent her – must know its value too.'

‘There must be lots of secrets on Morell's laptop, surely?' Tye wondered. ‘We don't know she was after the same info about how to find this grimoire thing.'

‘Except that Morell practically advertised the information's existence,' said Coldhardt drily. ‘He was a learned man but also naive. It seems he stumbled upon the location of this grimoire, and wanted to acquire it for his own collection. It wasn't for sale – apparently it had been acquired in secret, illegally – so he needed someone to steal it for him. Morell contacted several people – myself included, naturally – to get quotes for the job. I gave him a most reasonable estimate.'

Con smiled. ‘Because if he accepted and told you where the grimoire was, you could steal it yourself, yes?'

Coldhardt returned the smile without warmth. ‘My dear Con, how well you know me.'

‘I still don't get why anyone should twig he had the info on his laptop,' Patch complained.

‘From the moment he contacted me, I arranged for him to be watched – and it seems others had him under observation too.' Coldhardt steepled his fingers. ‘Morell was concerned about sending such compromising emails from his home address for fear they could be traced – either by the police or by … other authorities.' Again, that wintry smile. ‘He double-encrypted the messages, drove to a hotel with Wi-Fi access and sent them from the car park so they couldn't be traced back to him.'

Jonah tutted. ‘Piggybacking on someone else's wireless connection without consent?'

‘Gee, that's, like, breaking the law,' Motti dead-panned, and Patch sniggered.

Tye turned to Coldhardt. ‘So was Morell going to give us the job of stealing this grim-thing or not?'

‘No.' Coldhardt's eyes narrowed. ‘He intended to take his custom to one of my competitors – Karl Saitou, a competent if unimaginative criminal.'

‘How d'you know what Morell
intended
to do?' Tye pressed him.

‘Because Coldhardt got hold of the keys to decrypt the guy's mail,' Jonah explained. ‘That's how come I knew the encrypted files were really from Morell and not tampered with.'

‘And those I have read so far make for very interesting reading,' said Coldhardt. ‘In any case, before he could give the go-ahead to Saitou and arrange payment, Morell died. His body was too badly charred by the fire that consumed his house to be sure of exactly what killed him.' Abruptly he slammed his gnarled old fist down on the table, making them all jump. ‘Such a waste.'