The Lazarus Trap (37 page)

WHEN THEY ARRIVED UPSTAIRS, THE BANKER'S SECRETARY WAS waiting to show Val back into the banker's office. Her eyes widened at the sight of Bert. Most likely she did not often see bruisers with arms larger than her waist come waltzing in, wanting to talk about two million dollars in cash. Val said simply, “He's with me.”

“Of course, sir.” She scurried to stay well ahead of them. “Right this way.”

When they arrived back in Richards's office, the cash was still there on the desk. Richards's gaze rounded at their entry. But less so than the secretary's. He was too busy with his mental games, playing out what he could do with over two million dollars.

Val said, “This is my associate. I have to leave. He will remain here through the telephone conversation, then depart. He knows what you need to say.”

Richards rocked back in his seat. “And if I don't?”

Bert warned, “A deal's a deal, mate.”

Whatever Richards saw in Bert's face was enough to drain his own features of blood.

“No, none of that,” Val said sharply. “You agreed. But if you decide to change your mind, we'll just take the cash and leave.”

“A little late for that.” Bert punched the air between them, causing the banker to flinch. “We've already set things in motion because of him.”

“Bert.” Val waited until the big man stopped glaring at the banker and turned around to say, “Audrey wouldn't go for that.”

Bert's shoulders slumped. “What a thing to be telling me now.”

Richards cleared his throat. “Audrey?”

Val kept his eyes on Bert. “We do this right, or we don't do it at all.”

“The right thing for the wrong reason is just adding to the problem,” Bert mumbled to his feet.

“Is that from Audrey?”

“Sure didn't come from me, mate.” Bert nodded once. “Okay, then.”

“You're sure?”

“Yeah, I'm right as rain.”

Val turned to the banker, who was watching with wide-eyed confusion. “It would help us to know now what you're going to do. A woman's life may hang in the balance.”

Bert covered his eyes.

Richards's gaze went from one man to the other. “Something's happened?”

“The man who is about to call you is holding her against her will. We don't think he will hold to his side of the bargain and let her go. You're part of our insurance policy.”

“I-I'm not quite sure I understand.”

“You don't need to,” Val replied, and waited.

Richards touched the knot of his tie, rubbed his jaw, patted his foppish hair. “Well, naturally, if we're intending to help a damsel in distress, who am I to refuse?”

“Then you'll do it?”

“Certainly. For a good cause, and all that.”

“And two million two in cash, free and clear.”

“Well, yes.” His gaze swiveled back to the money. “There most certainly is that.”

Val pulled the final sheet of paper from his pocket, inspected it carefully, and said, “There's just one small thing more.”

Richards blanched. “I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing complicated. Just a straight transfer, for which I do have clearance.” Val handed over the page. “Can you handle that while you're waiting for the call?”

Richards had difficulty bringing his computer records into focus. “Oh. Yes. Of course. I see no problem here.”

“Great.” Val rose from his chair. “Is there a back door? If I can, I'd like to slip out unobserved.”

“There's the employees' entrance at the rear.” Richards saw nothing beyond the cash on his desk. “I'll have my assistant show you the way.”

“Ask her to bring my associate in from your front porch before she does. His name is Gerald.” Val patted Bert on the shoulder. “We'll call as soon as we've got something to report.”

Bert did not look up. “You just make ruddy sure things go to plan, mate.”

“I'll try.”

“And when you see her, tell the lass Bert says hello.”

Matt leapt from the chair. “I don't believe this!”

“What is it now?”

“They've all disappeared!”

Jocko pressed in beside him. “They can't have.”

“They did, I'm telling you. One comes out, two go in, now a lady shows up and the third does like smoke.”

“You think they made us?”

“How am I supposed to know that?”

Jocko leaned out the window and was drenched by the rain. “It's like they never were there.”

“The boss hears about this and we're good as dead.” Matt pounded the windowsill. “What do we do now?”

Jocko ducked inside and wiped his face. “You want me to go have a look?”

Matt let his hand drop to his side. “What good would that do?”

“You're asking me?”

“Wait, let me think.” Matt's face glistened with the same fear churning through Jocko's gut. “Okay. Here's the deal. You go have a quiet look around the outside. I'll keep watch. First sign it's really our man, we call like we just spotted him, right?”

Jocko swiped his own face clear of the fear-sweat. “But what if they don't show, Matt? What if we sit here all ruddy day and the bank closes and we still don't get another look? The guy's scarpered, we've let him go, what then?”

Matt's features were green. “Then
we
scarper.”

“What?”

“Morocco. Or the Philippines, maybe. Someplace far away.”

“Leave England?”

“We've already left England, you dolt.”

“This is different.”

“Too right it is. This time we're never coming back.”

GERALD PHONED THE AIRFIELD FROM THE TAXI AND PROMISED A huge tip if the plane was fueled and ready to go. When they arrived, the mechanic was there to unhook the wings.

The mechanic slipped Gerald's cash into his coveralls and asked, “Where are you headed in such a rush?”

“England.”

“In this?” Rain dripped off the hood of his jacket, causing him to squint. “Better you than me, mate.”

Gerald powered up the engines before Val had his seatbelt fastened. The wind mocked them with its force, rocking the plane before they were even moving. Now that he was once more behind the controls, Gerald's features adopted the same grim cast as before.

He taxied them out to the runway, rogered his take-off to the tower, then glanced at Val. “You ready?”

“Just remember,” Val replied. “If we crash and burn, this whole thing goes to pot.”

The roller coaster started as soon as their wheels left the ground. The plane yawed furiously, swept up by a sudden gust, tilted sharply, and the engine howled in protest. Val took white-knuckle grips on the edge of his seat and the roof. The cliffs swept by beneath them, to be replaced by raging whitecaps stretching out to where everything became lost in the rain and wind.

An hour and a bit into the flight, however, everything changed. One moment they were flying through grey skyborne froth, surrounded by a dismal noonday twilight. The next, they entered a vastly different realm.

The storm peeled away as though ripped from the earth. The wind calmed.

They entered a placid universe, so different Val doubted his own senses. Even the motor was comforted into a softer purr.

Val looked at Gerald. “What is this, the Twilight Zone?”

Gerald released his death's grip on the stick. “Just your basic schizophrenic English spring.”

The sky stretched blue-black ahead of them, washed sparkling clear. Below and to Val's right, two freighters carved white streamers from a jewellike English Channel. Up ahead he could just glimpse the white coastal teeth and the emerald fields beyond.

Gerald asked, “Do you think we might take this as a sign?”

Val refused to answer.

The phone chimed just as Gerald began his initial approach to the Brighton airfield. “Get that, will you? Right jacket pocket.”

Val pulled it out. “Haines.”

It was Dillon. “Can you believe this ruddy weather?”

“I understand why you talk about it all the time. It never ceases to amaze.”

“Where's Gerald?”

“Landing us.”

“I'm sitting at the entrance to Alders Way. Ask him does he know where that is.”

Gerald replied, “Tell him yes.”

“You lads get over here right sharp. I found the house they're using.”

“You're sure?”

“Pretty much.”

“We can't be wrong on this.”

“Just don't hang about. We'll see what we see when you get here.”

Fifty-five minutes later, Val and Gerald pulled into the entrance of a cul-de-sac jammed hard against the base of a steep hill. The mound grew out of nowhere, punching up into the impossibly blue sky like a grass-covered block. A pair of trails crawled up the side, probably where kids climbed and played over the flat top. The houses ringing the base were nondescript clones, ten in all. White stone bases rose to red mock-Victorian fronts, three linked together, then a tight space, then three more. Only the middle house stood alone. Opposite the cul-de-sac's entrance, the sea sparkled between rooftops and Hastings's narrow lanes. A few sailboats were already leaving port and putting tentatively to sea. The morning's storm was merely a fading memory.

Dillon rose from Audrey's grey Rover at their approach. He had his phone plastered to his ear. He wore an open-neck shirt and jeans wrinkled below the knees by the rain. He waved them around the corner. Gerald halted his van behind a house, blocking them from view. Dillon walked over and nodded a tight welcome. “Everything go right in Jersey?”

“Far as we know. Where's Audrey?”

“Hang on a sec.” He tapped one hand nervously on the van's roof. “The house is in the middle, the only one standing all by itself. Inside that little wall there, see it? Number eight. Three toughs came tearing out of there and jammed into a car. Black beemer.”

“When was that?”

“An hour back.”

Which meant they were gathering forces before Arthur's arrival at the hotel.

“I ducked down as they came roaring past, but not before I got a good look,” Dillon went on. “Audrey wasn't with them. So I phoned for some backup. Here she comes now.”

The woman could have been forty or sixty. She turned the corner and approached the van with a balanced limp, as though both feet hurt her equally. She wore a buttoned cardigan and a flowered dress and reading glasses draped around her neck. She carried a rolled umbrella in one hand and a metal clipboard in the other. She bussed Dillon on the cheek. “All right, love?”

“Yeah, not bad.” Dillon slid open the van's rear door. “Lads, this is Doris. Doris, these are the mates I told you about.”

“Help me in, that's a dear.” Her features held the dignified sternness of someone who bore much in silence. Her hair was a chemically induced shade of copper. When Dillon slipped in beside her and shut the door, she asked, “Staying out of trouble, love?”