The Diamond Thief (17 page)

Rémy pulled herself out of his grasp, shaking her head. From beneath them came a rumble like thunder, but deep below the earth. The ground began to shake.

“I have to help them,” she shouted. “Thaddeus – J – all those people. I have to get them out!”

The Professor shook his head again. “You won’t make it, Rémy,” he told her. “You’d never rescue them all before the tunnels flood!”

Nineteen

Come Hell or High Water

Rémy stared at the Professor as the rumbling around them continued. She could feel her eyes filling with tears.

“I can’t save them,” she said. “I can’t – I can’t save them.”

The Professor shook his head, genuine sadness darkening his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. Believe me, I – I am.”

Rémy drew in a breath and for a moment, Thaddeus’ face loomed large in her mind, frozen like a picture from the last time she had seen him. His eyes had been full of pain, and her heart almost broke in two at the memory. She’d done that to him. She’d hurt him deliberately because she couldn’t bear the hugeness of what else she was feeling, couldn’t cope with the idea that part of her might already be tied to him forever, without her even realizing it had happened. And then she’d left him there, when all he’d ever wanted was to help people. To help her. To save her. She’d left him there. And now he would die alone.

She shook her head as the tears ran down her cheeks. “Thaddeus… Thaddeus would try to stop him. Abernathy. Wouldn’t he? No matter what. No matter… what he had to leave behind.”

The Professor nodded sadly. “Of course he would. What a good, good man.”

Rémy swiped a hand across her face, angrily flicking away the tears. “Give me the map. I have to get to the diamond. I have to stop this.”

The Professor shook his head, “Rémy… It’s too late…”

“Just give it to me!” she snapped, her heart exploding in an inferno of fury. She lunged towards the table and ripped the yellowed pages of the map from his notebook. “If you will not help me, so be it. But I can’t – I can’t just do nothing.”

There was a noise behind them as the door opened and the two red-robed guards strode in. They looked as forbidding as ever, but Rémy could see fear in their eyes.

“Did you not hear Lord Abernathy’s command, Professor?” one rumbled, his voice deep with a foreign accent. “We must go. The tunnels are already flooding. The first level has gone and in five minutes the submarines will be sealed for launch.”

The Professor turned to gather up his papers again, catching Rémy’s eye. “Of – of course,” he said. “I am just – trying to save some of my plans. They are for Phase Two, you see. Help me, please.”

Rémy backed away as the two men moved forwards. One of the men glanced towards her, frowning at what she held in her hand.

“What do you have there?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, putting the papers behind her back.

“Let me see…”

He loomed closer, twice as tall as Rémy and at least three times heavier. She darted past him, heading for the door, but he was on to her at once. She felt his heavy hand on her shoulder, spinning her around to face him. His face was as hard as iron – but then came a sound. It was a heavy clunk, something solid hitting something immovable. The guard’s face blanked suddenly, his features sagging all at once. He dropped his hand as his eyes closed and the next moment he was on his knees.

Rémy looked at the Professor. His arms were raised. Then she saw the heavy book that had smashed into the guard’s head, lying beside the fallen man, tainted with his blood.

The second guard yelled a short word of rage and lunged for the Professor.

“Go!” the Professor cried, as the huge man’s hands closed around his throat. “Go now!”

Rémy hesitated a second more, watching as the Professor sank beneath the weight of his opponent. He was struggling, but weakly, no match for the massive guard.

“Go,” he croaked again, his voice fading. “Rémy – just go!”

She turned her back and fled through the door, the map held tightly in her hand. Outside, the sound of rumbling was louder. The ground was shifting, moving slightly under her feet.

* * *

They tried everything, but it was no good. Abernathy’s cell was sealed tight. The bars seemed to have no end, plunging too deep into the compacted earth for them to dig their way out, and the titanium was relentlessly strong.

Thaddeus stepped away from his latest attempt to force them apart and threw his hands into the air in frustration.

“This is useless! We’re never going to get out of here!”

He turned away from Desai and rubbed his face with his hands. God only knew what Abernathy and his men were up to right at this moment.

“There is something I have not tried,” Desai said quietly, after a moment. “Though I am not sure –”

Thaddeus spun on his heel. “Whatever it is, Desai, it’s our last option! Tell me!”

Desai shook his head. His skin was still pale from his recent ordeal, and their efforts at jailbreaking had weakened him further. “It is something I have not attempted for a long, long time, Thaddeus. I am warning you now that it may come to nothing.”

Thaddeus nodded. “It is all the hope we have, Desai. What can I do?”

The Indian man glanced towards the cell door at the lock that secured their prison. “This is down to me alone. Stand back please.”

He went to the lock, bending over it as Thaddeus backed himself against the far wall. For a long time it seemed as if Desai were doing nothing at all. He gripped the bars of the door and bent his head. To Thaddeus it looked as if he were merely praying, or else meditating in a peculiar pose. Thaddeus was beginning to wonder if he should speak into the silence, when something began to happen.

At first, he wasn’t even sure what he was seeing. Desai tensed, his dark knuckles fading white where he gripped the silver bars, his shoulders hunched and rigid, his head dipped. Thaddeus could see that the man was shaking, a myriad of tremors wracking his body.

Then, without warning, a blue flame burned bright in the dull cell. Thaddeus jumped, uttering a cry, as the flame fizzed and cracked beside Desai’s hand. It seemed to have come from Desai himself, but Thaddeus had not seen him strike a match. Slowly, it engulfed the lock, dancing around and through it like a veil of fire.

There was a tinny creak, the sound of metal shearing against metal – and then the lock sprang open and Desai fell back to the floor, motionless. The door swung on its hinges as the blue flame licked its way up the bars and vanished in a dense puff of smoke.

“Desai!” Thaddeus rushed to the fallen man, taking in his ashen face and shaking hands. But at least his eyes were open. “Are you all right?”

Desai nodded with evident difficulty. “Just weakened still more, I fear. I have not performed that trick for many, many years.”

Thaddeus looked over his shoulder at the broken prison. “That was amazing. What – how did you –”

His question was cut short by a deep, low noise that shook the ground. It began with a whump, like the sound of air being let out of a long-sealed room, but much, much louder. Then came the first rumble, somehow both far away and very near. It sounded like thunder, but unlike thunder, it did not roll away into silence.

“What was that?” Thaddeus asked.

“I do not know,” Desai said quietly. “But I do not think we should stay to find out. You must help me up.”

Thaddeus helped Desai to his feet. He could feel the man trembling beneath his voluminous robes, and had to put an arm beneath his shoulders so that he could walk.

“This must be the start of Abernathy’s plans,” Desai said as they slowly set off down the stone corridor.

“We have to go after him,” Thaddeus said as the thunder below them continued. “Whatever Abernathy’s up to, we have to stop it.”

Desai improved as they went on, gradually moving faster. Thaddeus kept thinking about the sight of Rémy’s retreating back, following in Abernathy’s footsteps. He had to find her. He had to tell her that he wasn’t afraid – not of the curse she carried, not of her past life, or indeed whatever life she chose. He just wanted her to be safe. He just wanted her to be happy. He just wanted… her.

Thaddeus’ thoughts were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps. He thought at first that somehow their escape had been discovered but, instead, the group of Abernathy’s thugs that came thundering towards them seemed intent on another purpose. The first man neared and Thaddeus realized that what showed on his face was not fury, but fear. He wasn’t looking at Thaddeus, either, but past him.

“Out of the way,” this man growled, as Thaddeus stood in his path. “For god’s sake, man, let me through!”

Thaddeus barely had time to move before the thug was past him and away down the corridor without even a pause. The others were the same – huge men with terror on their faces and nothing in their minds but to flee. But from what?

“What’s happening?” Thaddeus shouted, as the men continued to stream past him. “What are you running from?”

None of them answered. Thaddeus reached out, trying to catch one by the arm, but his hand was shaken off and the man he had tried to stop did not even look back at him.

“These are the men from the mine,” Desai told him, raising his voice over the sound of heavy running feet and the rumble all around them. “Abernathy’s slave masters.”

Thaddeus looked around. The last man was large and fat, too heavy to run fast. The policeman recognised him.

“Jonesy!”

The man glanced in his direction as he puffed after his friends, but made no signs of stopping. “Get out of my way, boy.”

Thaddeus stood in front of him. “What’s going on? Where are you going? What’s happening, Jonesy?”

Jonesy might have been podgy and red in the face, but he was still strong enough to push Thaddeus out of the way. Thaddeus stumbled, but kept his balance. He lunged after the fleeing man, catching him by his dirty shirt, the momentum enough to spin Jonesy around and slam him against the wall with a jaw-juddering crash as his head hit the hard rock. Jonesy dropped to his knees with an angry roar, grabbing Thaddeus around the stomach and pulling him down, too.

They scuffled in the dirt, and although Jonesy was heavier, Thaddeus was quicker. He scrambled around until he had the man on his knees, his neck crushed into the bend of his arm.

“Just tell me,” Thaddeus said, out of breath, “what is going on. Tell me, and I’ll let you go.”

“It’s Abernathy, you fool,” Jonesy puffed. “He’s only gone and blown the river wall. This place is flooding, and fast! We’ve all got to get out. We’ve got to get out now! The lower level has already gone. This one’s next.”

Thaddeus frowned. “You mean the Thames?”

“Of course not, you half-wit. The Black Ditch. It’s pouring in here, right now. The mine’ll go, I’m telling you. We’ve got to get out. Let me go, will ya’? I’ve got to get out, man!”

Thaddeus gritted his teeth and squeezed the pleading man’s neck harder. “What about the miners? The slaves? I don’t see them running. Where are they?”

“Oh, come on – you must be joking!” Jonesy managed, around Thaddeus’ chokehold. “There wasn’t time to unlock ‘em!”

Thaddeus let Jonesy go, spinning him around again.

“You left them there? You just – left them there?”

Jonesy shrugged, reaching up to rub his fat fingers against his sore neck. “None of ‘em have got much life left in ‘em, anyway.”

Thaddeus managed to reign in his anger, but only just. “Where’s Abernathy?” he asked.

“Tucked up nice and cosy in one of them fancy subs of his,” Jonesy spat. “He don’t care about the likes of us.”

“Where?” Thaddeus rasped again. “Tell us where.”

Jonesy nodded down the corridor in the direction that he’d just come from. “You go that way and just keep going up. There’ll be no way out, though, not once the water comes. You’re best following me.”

Thaddeus stood, hauling Jonesy to his feet. “I wouldn’t follow you if you were the last man on Earth. I’ll take these, you filthy coward,” he spat, ripping the keys from Jonesy’s belt.

“Coward I may be. But dying I ain’t.” Jonesy shouted as he began to run again, his bulk receding along the darkened tunnel.

“Go for Abernathy,” Thaddeus said to Desai. “I’ve got to try and free the slaves.”

Desai shook his head, his dark eyes troubled. “If what he says is true – if the lower level is gone already… there is no time left. Even if you reach the mine…”

Thaddeus looked up at him. “I know. But I have to try. I at least have to try.”

Desai paused again for a moment and then nodded, resting a hand on Thaddeus’ shoulder. “You are a brave man, Thaddeus Rec. I wish I could have had longer to know you.”

Thaddeus smiled thinly. “And I you, Desai.”

* * *

Around her, distant shouts echoed against the walls, but they seemed to be fading. With every minute the rumbling grew. The ground was shaking more than ever. Rémy stumbled, the loose pebbles beneath her feet beginning to jump as if they were alive. Time was running out.

The map was rough, but it showed Rémy that the only way to Abernathy’s chambers was through the launch bays themselves – the room where Abernathy had shown her the submarines. The door she had seen on the opposite side of the wooden walkway must have led to his private quarters. The passageway leading to the room had fallen dark. The guards had vanished. She ran to the wooden door, wrenching it open a crack and peering into the cavern beyond.

The vast room was lit, not by gaslight but by an eerie, supernatural glow. It rose from the four underwater vessels, shining blue in the otherwise dark space, and the noise they made was unlike any Rémy had ever heard before. It was loud and yet somehow empty, a booming echo that filled her head and even drowned out the incessant rumble of approaching water. Inside each vessel, she could see men, all hard at work, evidently preparing for action, and on the floor of the cavern the suits were no longer still and silent. Every one had a man inside and each carried two weapons, a dangerous-looking curved scimitar and one of the Professor’s gas rifles. Abernathy’s army was complete.

Abernathy himself was nowhere to be seen, but then Rémy didn’t pause to look too hard. She ran for the opening on the other side of the room, hoping to reach it before anyone even saw her in the gloom – the platform was deserted, all the men apparently occupied below.

A movement caught her eye and she glanced down between the planks of the walkway to see one of Abernathy’s red-robed men, not yet inside his metal suit, shouting and gesturing at her frantically. None of the other men seemed to be taking any notice, though. They were all too intent on their tasks, on making sure they were prepared for the flood. The lone guard ran up the steps that led from the walkway to the cavern floor, heading straight for Rémy.