Thieves Till We Die (15 page)

‘Use that on me and Ramez will never willingly go through with what you want him to do,' she said quickly. ‘Don't you think your Aztec goddess will be kind of offended when you have to drag her Perfect Sacrifice kicking and screaming to the knife?'

Again, she was testing him. He should be saying,
What are you, crazy? You think I really believe in that Coatlicue crap?
But instead he was just sitting back down, his anger smouldering away like a smoking match near gunpowder. Still dangerous.

‘I asked how you knew these things,' he said at last.

‘I'll trade the information,' Tye told him with a coolness she wished she felt. ‘But only if you'll let Ramez go. Find another sacrifice.'

Traynor smiled indulgently, like she'd tried to be funny. ‘I'll get the answers I want,' he assured her. ‘Remember – we choose how Ramez dies. How slowly
we make the incision in his chest. How long we stretch out his death agonies.' His eyes held a hard, fanatical gleam that chilled Tye as much as his words. ‘Yeah, I think you'll tell me what I want to know.'

There was a knock at the front door. The bruisers slipped out of the room to answer it, and Tye found she felt more intimidated now she was alone with this weirdo sadist.

Distantly, she caught a harsh, accented voice from behind the front door. ‘It's Kabacra, open up.' Her heart lurched and she looked down at her hands, fighting to keep her reaction muted, like the name meant nothing to her.

Traynor rose quickly and turned for the door. ‘We'll pick up where we left off shortly, Tye.'

She heard the key turn in the lock behind him, and an exchange of cordial greetings followed as they went next door into the living room. What the hell was Kabacra doing here, so far from home turf? Motti had said the arms dealer had already sold Sixth Sun the sword – what had brought him here in person? Tye pressed her ear up to the wall and strained to listen in.

‘The consignment will be ready for collection the day after tomorrow,' Kabacra was saying. ‘A dark red freight truck, marked Pomarico Eucalyptus, will be heading east on Interstate 40. Cargo's untraceable, with no serious security. The truck will pass exit 85 around 23.30 hours.'

‘Excellent,' drawled Traynor.

She frowned. The I-40 ran through north-western New Mexico. But what was this cargo?

‘So is everything set for the demonstration?' Tye
could hear the eagerness in Kabacra's voice. He sounded like a little boy who couldn't wait to pull the wings off a fly.

‘The agent at the Black House is almost ready for the final tests,' Traynor replied. ‘We'll leave for Colorado midday tomorrow.'

‘Excellent.' A pause. ‘What happened to the lights around here?'

‘Just a fault in the power supply.'

‘Right,' Tye whispered to herself. Clearly Traynor didn't want Kabacra knowing there had been trouble here. But who was this agent they were talking about – a secret operative of some kind? If so, maybe Coatlicue
was
a codename. And yet Traynor hadn't given away a flicker of confirmation when she'd suggested that – quite the reverse, in fact. He'd acted as if he really believed in a pagan goddess with dominion over life, death and rebirth …

As her head crowded with thoughts of cargoes and demonstrations, of gods and secret agents, Tye knew one thing for certain – she had to get out of here, get help for Ramez before his time was up. He would be safe for now – Traynor couldn't kill him twice.

She had to go and get Coldhardt.

Tye slipped into the en suite bathroom and locked the door behind her. The window was split into two – a solid pane of frosted glass beneath a smaller one that opened on a hinge, too small for her to get through. Smashing the larger pane was her only option, but the sound of the glass breaking would surely bring Traynor or the bodyguards running.

Quickly she grabbed a bottle of shower gel and
slathered the scented goo all over the glass. Then she grabbed yesterday's
Santa Fe Tribune
from beside the toilet, doused it in water in the sink and squelched it into place against the pane. She flushed the toilet, and while it gurgled noisily she grabbed the chrome toilet brush holder and swung it against the window with all her strength.

There was a dull crack as the glass broke – but at least the newspaper held it in place, stopping it from shattering everywhere. Wrapping each of her hands in a thick layer of toilet roll, Tye managed to pull the newspaper away complete with the broken glass, then set about removing the largest, most lethal shards still lining the frame. If she could clear a good space before the thirsty, hissing cistern stopped filling –

She jumped to hear a bang at the door. ‘What's going on in there?'

It was one of the bodyguards; of course, Traynor wouldn't come himself – why alarm Kabacra if he could help it? ‘Nothing,' she shouted back.

‘What was the noise?'

‘I knocked a stack of shampoo and stuff into the shower screen,' she called, still pulling at the glass. ‘Now could you let me use the toilet in peace?'

She listened for the sound of footsteps moving away. Nothing. He was waiting for her right outside.

Tye flushed the toilet again, ran the taps as fast as they'd go, and punched out the remaining glass. Wrapping a towel around her midriff for protection she swung herself through the broken window feet first. She gasped as jagged edges cut into her ribs even through the thick fluffy fabric, and arched her back.
The evening was gusty; it prickled her bare legs as they dangled down, as she tried to get a foothold.

Twisting lithely round, she balanced on the narrow ledge beneath the window. The wind whipped at the towel. She pulled it away, felt a rush of nausea at the thick crimson stripe left on the white cotton, and stuffed it back through the window. She was afraid to look and see just how much she was bleeding. Below to her right was the balcony outside the living room – if she dropped down, Traynor and Kabacra would surely see her. And yet what else could she do?

The decision was made for her when she heard a crash from the bathroom. The bodyguard knew something was up and he was trying to kick the door down. Tye jumped and landed lightly, pressed herself flat against the balcony floor and scuttled along commando-style to the far side, praying she wouldn't be seen.

But the only person up there listening was Ramez on the roof – and he'd sure seen her.

‘Tye!' he shouted. ‘No way. Don't you dare leave me!'

She climbed up on to the balcony rail. She wanted to yell at him, ‘I'm not leaving! I'll be back for you!' But if she advertised the fact to Traynor and co …

‘She's on the balcony!' Ramez yelled. ‘Someone stop her!'

Swearing, Tye leaped across the divide and hit the ground running. He must honestly believe she was running out on him – that the only way he could keep her was by force. The gash in her ribs was still pouring blood; her pale green top and the waistband of her
shorts were sodden. But no time to think about that. It wouldn't take Traynor long to work out she'd jumped across to the penthouse next door.

Especially once she'd kicked in the French windows.

Gritting her teeth she swung her hips round in a circular motion, snapped her knee upwards so her kicking leg was parallel to the ground, pivoted on her supporting foot and struck the glass with all her strength. The ball of her foot jarred with the impact, but the crash of the pane exploding was like applause in her ears. She recoiled and recovered, then gasped as her ribs flared white hot with pain.
Get going
. Clutching her sticky side she ran through into the dark penthouse and threw open the front door.

Just as the biggest bodyguard burst out on to the landing.

He threw a punch at her but she feinted back, swung herself round and used her other leg this time to snap-kick him where it hurt – where it
really
hurt, judging by the way he squeaked and fell with a thundering crash to the floor. Tye was already sprinting for the stairwell. She threw open the door, and by the time it had crashed against the wall she was halfway down the first stack of steps, taking them three at a time. A knifeblade of pain jabbed between her ribs with every footfall – but adrenalin was sweeping her on as she swung herself round flight after flight, faster and faster, pounding down the steps.

And then suddenly she was out in the lobby, tearing across the marble, exploding out through the revolving doors. She looked all round, clutched the stitch in
her side and gasped as her fingers closed on the sticky wound there. Her head was tingling, pins and needles were creeping into her arms and legs. She forced herself to breathe more deeply but it was so hard when she was running again, across the street, trying to get out of sight.

The other bodyguard would soon be after her, no question. But she knew Traynor wouldn't stop there. Who knew what resources he could put on her tail with a single call?

One thing was sure – she couldn't have long to get the hell out of here and back to Coldhardt's base. Either Traynor would get her back, or she would black out from blood loss.

Feeling sick and scared and close to tears, Tye forced herself onwards. She risked just one look back over her shoulder at the penthouse that had been both her palace and prison for days now. She could see no sign of Ramez up there. But still his last frantic shouts echoed on in her ears.

Echoes hard enough to bruise.

‘Screen break.' Jonah looked up at the hub's dark ceiling and moved his head all around to ease his stiff neck. ‘My eyes are killing me.' The rush of euphoria that maybe he and the others were about to solve the statuette's enigma had long since passed. The ugly thing was clinging on to its secrets with all the strength in its obsidian claws.

‘No delays,' Motti complained, turning the angle-poise lamp he held so it shone into Jonah's face. ‘Let's just get this crap over and done with.'

‘I wish!' said Jonah. ‘Don't forget I'll still be here long after you've packed up and gone to bed.'

‘Aww.' Motti put the lamp back in its carefully marked position on the table. ‘I think the world's smallest tear just rolled down my cheek.'

Truth was, Jonah could cry with frustration himself. The night was not going well.

His discovery of the shadow-symbols had got Coldhardt fired up, and everyone else had welcomed the apparent breakthrough too. It helped clear the air of awkwardness that still lingered from the night before – though sadly for Patch, his hangover was a lot harder to shift.

Con had located a plan of the Great Temple where the little idol had been discovered, and recreated the layout on top of the meeting table. Coldhardt had calculated the position of the sun as seen through the various temple windows, and it soon became clear there were only two likely places in which the statuette could have caught direct sunlight. Now Motti was training an anglepoise desk lamp on the statuette a careful distance away, while Patch feebly manned the camera phone mounted on the table. He was capturing images of the silvery veins that rose in the shadows of the special symbols.

In turn, these were Bluetoothed in batches over to Jonah at Coldhardt's PC. He was tracing the patterns in Photoshop each time and rearranging them to see if they formed any recognisable shapes or symbols. But of course the shadows – and so the shape of the veins – varied depending on the time of day. Motti had started by simulating sunrise through the eastern window of the temple (a spice rack balanced on an encyclopaedia), and now he was shining his light through a square AM aerial balanced on a box of tissues, doing sunset. Jonah half-smiled.
And doing his nut too by the sound of it
.

‘This has gotta be the dullest day of my life,' Motti complained. ‘Most of the day searching through papers and pictures looking for symbols that don't mean nothing, and the rest doing my impression of a frickin' sunbeam.'

‘Stop shouting,' Patch mumbled, fumbling with the phone keys to catch another image. ‘Why's everyone gotta shout?'

‘We aren't,' said Con breezily, not bothering to look up from her catalogue of Aztec symbols. ‘Your hangover only makes you think we are.'

‘You know, Con, I once heard an old wives' tale that the sight of a pair of boobs heals a hangover just like that.'

‘So ask some old wives to flash their boobs at you,' Con recommended.

‘Just keep taking the snaps, cyclops,' Motti growled. ‘You wanna look at a nice rack, check out the east window of this dumb imaginary temple.'

Suddenly the computer chimed, and Jonah's attention was riveted back to the screen.

Con was by his side in a moment. ‘You have rearranged the silver lines into the new symbol, yes?'

‘No,' he admitted. ‘But I think we've got a result on the Nahuatl code. I patched the decryption program into this ancient languages database they use at Yale, right, and –'

‘Geek,' Motti burst in, ‘just tell us what it says, huh?'

Jonah shrugged and clicked on the dialogue box that had sprung up from the desktop. Con leaned in beside him and read aloud: ‘When the earth shakes the sun from the sky. When the bloodied sword is wiped clean. When Perfect Sacrifice is made. When her attendants reach into their hearts, Coatlicue will arise from her temple and feast on the poison in men.'

Silence hung a while in the air, till Motti broke it. ‘Well, that's nice to know.'

‘The bloodied sword,' Jonah muttered. ‘Cortes's sword?'

‘Yeah, but what's that stuff about the sun falling from the sky and reaching into hearts meant to mean?' Motti snorted. ‘Mystical crap.'

Jonah nodded. ‘And nothing about the temple's location.'

‘I wish I could say I was having more luck finding a match for the third pictogram on the codex,' Con added, straightening and stretching. ‘But there's nothing. I mean, it looks like a heart dripping blood into a box, but there's nothing like it anywhere else.'