The Atlantis Code (52 page)

“Why would he do that?”

“To drum up some additional publicity for Leslie and you.”

“Where does she live?” Lourds asked.

BOOKMAN HOUSE
CENTRAL LONDON
SEPTEMBER 13, 2009

Patrizio Gallardo sat tensely in the van across the street from the Bookman House. The neighborhood was average for the area, small homes and close access to the tube stations. It was the kind of place a young professional woman of modest means trying to make it on her own would live. The streets were dark enough to make it dangerous, though.

They had gotten Leslie Crane’s address from her personnel files at work. After they discovered she’d checked out of the Hempel Hotel, Gallardo now hoped she would put in an appearance at home.

After all, how many places would she be welcomed?

“I see her,” Cimino declared. He sat behind the steering wheel and watched the street through night-vision goggles. He nodded in the direction of the tube station.

Gallardo took Cimino’s word that it was the woman. In the darkness, Gallardo couldn’t be certain. She looked the right shape. He wondered if Lourds would still feel anything for her after the way she’d screwed him with the CNN interview. Murani was still fit to be tied over that. Time was moving inexorably against them.

Even Murani could not stop time.

“All right,” Gallardo replied. He tapped the radio headset he wore. “Do you have her in sight?”

DiBenedetto answered immediately. “Yes.”

“Then bring her in.” Gallardo watched through the window as Farok and DiBenedetto stepped out of the shadows and flanked Leslie Crane while she worked the locks on the door.

The woman froze for a moment. Then she nodded. DiBenedetto took her by the elbow and guided her toward the waiting van. Anyone who saw them would probably mistake them for lovers out for a late walk.

Gallardo checked his watch. It was 12:06 A.M. A new day had begun. He felt satisfied. Now there was only one more deal to make. Fortunately, he was holding all the cards.

DiBenedetto opened the van door and escorted Leslie inside. Then he roughly shoved her back into a seat.

“Good evening, Miss Crane,” Gallardo said in English.

“What do you want with me?” Leslie tried to act defiant, but Gallardo saw her lip tremble.

“You,” Gallardo said good-naturedly, “are going to make a phone call for me.” He turned in his seat and looked back at her. “Then we’ll let you go.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?”

Gallardo gave her a hard look and put menace in his voice. “If you don’t make that call, I’m going to gut you and throw you in the Thames. Do you believe me now?”

“Yes.” Her voice broke. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she somehow held them back.

“Your little stunt on television has angered my employer,” Gallardo said. “The only way you’re going to live is to cooperate.” He took out his cell phone and handed it over. “Call Lourds.”

Leslie’s hand was shaking so badly, she almost dropped the phone. “He’s not going to talk to me.”

“You’d better hope he does.”

Lourds was in his hotel room just zipping his backpack up when the phone rang. He debated answering it but finally gave in. Dean Wither wouldn’t be calling again tonight.

He rounded the bed and lifted the receiver. “Hello.”

“Thomas.”

Lourds recognized Leslie’s voice immediately. Anger blazed through him in a white-hot flash. “Leslie, have you any idea—”

“Please. Listen.”

The near-hysteria in her choked voice held Lourds. His door opened as Natasha let herself into the room with the keycard he’d given her. She looked at him with mild irritation. She was obviously ready to go.

“They’ve got me, Thomas,” Leslie whispered hoarsely. “Gallardo and his people. They kidnapped me.”

Lourds felt as though the floor tilted out from under him. He sat on the edge of the bed because his knees suddenly felt like they would no longer support him.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

That caught Natasha’s attention. She approached him and mouthed,
Leslie?

Lourds nodded. He asked Leslie, “Are you all right?”

“They haven’t hurt me.”

Who has her?
Natasha asked.

Gallardo
, Lourds mouthed back.

“What do they want?” Lourds asked.

“I don’t know. Thomas, I just want you to know that I didn’t have anything to do with that CNN coverage. That wasn’t my idea. I got—”

A moment later, a man’s voice came on the line. “Professor Lourds, I’m in the position to make you an offer.”

“I’m listening.”

“My employer wants the three instruments you’ve located.”

“I don’t have—”

The sound of flesh striking flesh cut Lourds off. Leslie yelped in shock and pain; then she started crying.

“I know you know where those instruments are,” the man said. “Every time you lie to me, I’m going to cut off one of her fingers. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.” Lourds barely heard himself because his voice was so tight. He repeated his answer.

“Good. Act fast and you can save Miss Crane’s life. You have one hour to get the instruments and meet one of my associates in front of your hotel.”

“That’s not enough time,” Lourds protested.

The phone clicked dead in his ear.

“What?” Natasha asked.

Lourds cradled the handset. “Gallardo just gave me one hour to get the instruments to him or he’s going to kill Leslie.”

Anger darkened Natasha’s face. For a moment Lourds feared that she’d tell him to let them kill Leslie. He’d learned that Natasha could be very forceful in her opinions. He didn’t know what he was going to do if that happened.

“We’ll get the instruments,” Natasha said.

Lourds knocked on Adebayo’s hotel door. He had to repeat the knock. The whole time he stood in the hallway and thought he was going to throw up. It helped that Natasha stood beside him and was so calm and—

Adebayo answered the door. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to barge in on you,” Lourds started.

Beside him, Natasha sighed in disgust. “We don’t have time for this.”

“What has happened?” the old man asked.

“Gallardo. The man who’s been chasing us has kidnapped Leslie. He’s threatening to kill her if I don’t give him the instruments.”

“That is too bad,” Adebayo lamented. His big eyes looked sorrowful. “But you can’t give him the instruments.”

Lourds watched in disbelief as the old man started to shut the door. “What? You can’t just let them kill—”

Natasha stepped forward and jammed her foot into the door before it could close. She put the barrel of her pistol between the old man’s eyes.

“Open the door,” she ordered.

“You would shoot me?” the old man asked.

“If I have to, yes. I don’t have to kill you, but getting shot is very uncomfortable.”

Adebayo backed away from the door. He looked at Lourds. “You can’t let her do this.”

Natasha spoke to him without looking at him. “Do you want to try to save Leslie or not?”

Her harsh tone broke Lourds out of his frozen state. “Of course.”

“Then let’s do it.” Natasha tossed him a roll of tape. “Put him on the bed. The least we can do is make him comfortable.”

“Sorry about this,” Lourds apologized as he taped the old man’s hands after climbing onto the bed.

Adebayo said nothing. He just collapsed there and made Lourds feel guilty the whole time.

Forty-seven minutes later, Lourds left the hotel with all three musical instruments. He rolled them on a luggage cart because it had gotten too awkward trying to carry them all.

Personally he felt he needed an even bigger cart for the guilt he was feeling. Jesse Blackfox had fought to resist. He’d even gotten a punch into Lourds’s eye that had partially swelled it closed. After that, Natasha had dropped Blackfox with a chokehold. No one had come to investigate the sounds made during the struggle.

Vang had cried when they took the flute he’d protected for so long. The Keeper had received the instrument when he was hardly more than a boy. His father had gotten killed and his grandfather had died young. That had been the hardest for Lourds. He had broken Vang’s heart as well as taken his flute.

“Can I help you with that, sir?” a skycap asked as Lourds waited at the street.

“No, I’m good,” Lourds replied. “Thanks, anyway.”

The young man returned to the stand.

Only a few moments later, a van pulled to the curb. The driver reached across and pushed the passenger door open.

“Professor Lourds,” the man said. “You will come with me.”

“Where’s Leslie?” Lourds asked.

“Alive for the moment.”

“I want her released.”

The man lifted a pistol from between the seats and pointed it at Lourds. “Get in. Otherwise I shoot you and hope those cases you bring have what I’m looking for. You have been irritating. It would be good to shoot you.”

Another man leaned into view from the cargo area of the van. He also had a pistol. “I’ll take the instruments.”

Lourds almost glanced over his shoulder. He knew Natasha was there somewhere. But she couldn’t stop the man from shooting him.

Without a word, Lourds handed the instruments to the man in the van’s cargo area. When he was finished, he expected the van to simply pull away and leave him standing there like an idiot.

Only it didn’t.

The driver moved the pistol slightly. “Get in, Professor Lourds. I was told to bring you as well.”

“Why?”

“So I don’t have to kill you right here. Would you not rather come quietly than die in the street?”

Reluctantly, Lourds climbed into the vehicle. The man in back reached around with a length of rope and tied Lourds’s arms to his sides and his body to the seat as the driver pulled into traffic. In seconds, Lourds was unable to move.

“Is Leslie still alive?” Lourds asked.

“Sit back and try to enjoy the drive, Professor Lourds. You’ll have the answers to your questions soon enough.”

______

Lourds stared blearily through the bug-smeared window. He was so tired and adrenaline-charged by now that he saw words and symbols in the insect detritus. He’d glanced occasionally into the rearview mirror for any sign that Natasha might be following him. They didn’t have a rental car, but she’d always seemed resourceful.

The headlights gradually faded away as they left London behind. Lourds’s hope for rescue faded as well. He was also pretty sure that Gallardo had killed Leslie and dumped her in the first convenient alley. The thought made him almost physically ill.

But no matter what, his mind kept turning again and again to the final inscription on the five instruments that he hadn’t been able to fully translate. He had most of it. He was convinced of that.

A few moments later, the van turned off a highway and drove down a pothole-filled road under massive oak trees. Then they stopped and the sound of crickets filled the van.

“What are we doing?” Lourds asked.

“Shut up,” the man instructed. He shook out a cigarette and lit up.

A short time later, a helicopter descended from the black sky and landed in the nearby field. The two men who had taken him captive climbed from the van, cut Lourds free, and marched him through the tall grass to the waiting helicopter.

Lourds recognized Gallardo at once. The brutish crook sat in the rear compartment of the helicopter. Another man handcuffed Lourds and shoved him into a seat.

“Where’s Leslie?” Lourds demanded.

Gallardo laughed mirthlessly. “You and that little witch have been a problem since the beginning. The only good that’s come of it is that you found all the instruments for me.”

Pain lanced Lourds’s heart. He’d enjoyed Leslie’s company, and it hurt him to think something awful had happened to her.

“We had a deal,” Lourds croaked as the helicopter powered up and leaped into the sky.

Gallardo spoke more loudly. “I give you part of the deal. She’s still alive.” He shifted and revealed Leslie collapsed on the seat beside him. She was handcuffed as well, but fast asleep. He saw her pulse beating at her throat.

Thank God
, Lourds thought.
She really is alive.

“But how long she stays alive depends on your cooperation.”

Lourds shivered with fear all over again when he realized the implications of what Gallardo had said. “Why do you need my cooperation?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Gallardo nodded.

The man beside Lourds leaned in with a large hypodermic. The needle sank into his neck. He felt the prickling pain for only a moment; then warmth gushed through his head and he fell through himself.