Seven of Swords

by Knight, JJ

  “Depends on what they’re using.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Another thunderous crash knocks a mirror off the wall. It breaks into a hundred jagged pieces.

  My grip on Jade’s arm is merciless. “This is your last chance to tell me. What the hell are you into?"

  The next crash brings about the screech of metal.

  “Are you just going to let them in?” she asks.

  “No choice. Last chance. What is your alliance?"

  Her eyes spark with fear or anger, I don’t know which.

  "You better figure out who's out there," she says. "Antony or my father.” She jerks her arm away.

  I let her go. She said she comes from a long line of thieves. I should know who at the Den sired this girl. My mind flashes to all the senior members who would be old enough to have a child of twenty-four. Oliver. No, the coloring was all wrong. Marco. No, he only had a son, already in the Den.

  Must be someone long retired.

  "Who is your father?" I ask.

  She laughs. "You know what, I'll take my chances about who’s out there.” She turns away.

  No, she won’t. I scoop her up in my arms and race with her out of the bedroom and through the living area to the control room. It’s the most secure area of my facility and contains the majority of my defenses.

  Once inside, I toss her in the cage and slam it shut. I head over to the console, flipping switches. Steel doors slam down, sealing this room off from the others. When they break in, it will appear as though the bunker is empty. I can't do anything about some of the evidence that we were here. An open wine bottle. Plates with food. The messy bed. But perhaps I can fool them into looking no further.

  Jade holds onto the bars. She laughs. The thuds from the mechanical battering ram are quieter in here, but audible nonetheless.

  If she screams she cannot be heard by human ears, but if they have equipment to listen, they will pick up on her. And I’m sure whoever it is will be fully prepared.

  I open the door below the console and lift out a gas mask. I place it on top of my head, ready to pull down.

  "Tell me who your father is so I can decide whether or not to put you to sleep temporarily or permanently," I say.

  Her eyes widen. That one is definitely fear.

  "You wouldn’t. You like me."

  “I like fucking you,” I say. I won’t admit to anything more, not now.

  “It’s more than that,” she insists. She gestures in the direction of the living quarters.

  “Good sex.”

  “Like you once knew?”

  My entire insides go cold, shocking me into saying something I shouldn’t. “That was a long time ago.”

  “And you never forgot her?”

  That’s enough of her guesswork. “This appears to be a plot against me. I'm not willing to believe that Antony is battering down the door of one of his top thieves when he could simply take my call. So I must assume it is some sort of exterior ring. Your father?"

  I put one hand on my mask, and another one hovers over the console.

  She looks at it, then at me. But her lips are pinched tight.

  My voice booms. “What are you doing in the Den? What is your mission?"

  She shakes her head. "I'd rather die than reveal my mission. That's the way I was trained."

  She sits cross-legged in the middle of the cage and closes her eyes. She really is prepared to die.

  Good enough. I pull the gas mask over my face and press the button.

  24

  Jade

  I recognize the way I’m waking up before I'm even fully conscious. It's the same chemical dream feeling I had when I found myself in the fake hotel room of Jacob’s bunker.

  Dammit. He did it again. Does he have any other party tricks other than rendering his opponent unconscious? I guess I should be glad I’m not dead.

  I can’t wait any longer. I’ll find him and tell him who I am. Who he is. Who we are to each other.

  My vision is blurry, but I blink a few times and it returns to clear. I'm back in the hotel room. That's weird. I try to brush my hair out of my eyes, but my hands are tied to the corners of the bed. I shake my head and look around. The room appears to be empty.

  "Jacob?" I call.

  I wait and listen. Nothing.

  I shout a little louder. "Jacob!"

  I sniff the air. There's still a distinct chemical smell.

  I don't know if it's from my clothes and hair or if it’s coming from somewhere else. Would the room sense my movement and gas me again? I have no doubt that this setup has the capability.

  My eyes dart in the corners, but I don’t spot anything obvious. I arch my back and look behind me at the headboard, searching for any small holes.

  They could be anywhere. Something like that is easy to hide.

  Dammit. I lie very still and close my eyes, listening for any sound. I still my breaths. At first the thud of my heartbeat obscures everything else, but as it slows down, I hear a faint crashing sound. A man's voice. A shout?

  They’re fighting out there. I haven’t been out long.

  If I can get free, I can reveal the slide again and go down to the control room.

  Now that I know where it goes, I can shift to the side during my descent and avoid being thrown back in the cage.

  More crashes. Jacob!

  I don't think this is about my father. He would have let me know in the car if something was awry. Antony was on our tail. Something made him follow us. But what? Was he on to me?

  I have to assume so.

  I struggle with renewed fervor at my bonds. I have to get out of these things fast.

  I realize that my legs aren’t tied down, so I kick off my shoes, lifting my ankles close to my head.

  This is a very particular sort of tie, one of the first ones you learn with Antony's training. And Jacob left my feet available to me, so that I could work on them.

  Interesting. He gave me a means to escape if I wanted it. I act fast. I grab the short end of the tie between my toes and jerk hard. The bonds are impossible to get out of with just one hand, but if you can grab the extra tie with another force and pull, it is possible to get enough wiggle room. I do so quickly, freeing my right hand and then my left.

  I shove on my shoes and throw myself to the floor in front of the rhododendron painting. The cameras follow me down. I quickly fingerspell Imelda, and the floor starts to drop.

  I roll this time, staying in control of my direction. Halfway down the ramp, I switch to a somersault so that I land to the left of the cage.

  The room is chaos and thick with smoke. Tables are overturned. The chair Jacob sat on earlier is in pieces. The chemical smell of a sleeping agent, or maybe worse, a nerve gas, fills the room. I cover my nose. I can't take a breath down here safely, and now I’ve opened the way to the fake hotel room, so this gas has made it up there. I’m stuck.

  Three men are collapsed on the floor. I do not see Antony among them.

  Where is Jacob?

  I dash through the haze and stumble upon another man. Unlike the others, he had a face mask at one point. His has been jerked off and lies beside him. I pick it up and thrust it on my head, quickly tightening the strap.

  Lying next to his open hand is a gun. I take it and check for bullets. Four. No telling when he discharged the others, today or on some other job.

  I check the safety, then stick the gun in the waistband of my leggings. I get down low. Four down, no telling how many more to go.

  I take a quick breath in through the gas mask, praying that whatever is in the air is something the mask will filter out.

  I seem to be fine, so I crawl along the floor. I hear a footstep—otherwise all is quiet.

  I turn just in time to see a man lifting the butt of a gun to bring it down on my head. I scoot away, then turn and sweep his legs so he falls.

  In a flash I grab the strap of his gas mask and yank it off. My legs flip around, a move I’
ve practiced a thousand times, and I sit on his neck.

  I’m not really combat trained. I only know the most basic of moves. But if the gas is still working, I won’t need to fight him.

  The man’s arms flail and rain blows on me, but he's already starting to lose his strength. His motions get weaker and weaker, and I don't bother to wait until he’s all the way out. I roll off him, take his gun, and search the room. I can't just sit here. What happened, and where is Jacob?

  I feel along the walls, wishing the smoke would clear, until I reach the side that would have opened into the living quarters, if the steel walls were up. Here there is a gaping, jagged hole in the metal.

  I peer through. A mechanical battering ram rests on the floor just on the other side, its metal jaws open and sharp. This room is less smoky.

  I step through the hole carefully, crouched down low, uncertain of what I'm going to find.

  But as I walk through the living room, bedroom, and kitchen, I realize that I am now very much alone. The guard who attacked me was the last man standing.

  Jacob and Antony are nowhere.

  A low beep draws my attention to a console on the wall. I approach it. The screen reads Sleeping Agent Complete. Beneath that it says Air Contamination 100%.

  It sounds like the system is finished dumping gas in the air.

  I turn away, searching the room again. Our wine bottle and glasses remain as they were. My mostly empty plate and Jacob’s partially finished one still sit on the dining room table. Big clues that we had been here. We practically wrote it in the sky.

  The console behind me beeps. Air Contamination 90%.

  I wonder what point will be low enough for the men in the control room to wake up. I can probably risk it to fifty percent. This gives me maybe a few minutes, probably less.

  I need a car. Surely there’s one here. We got here somehow. I try to think like Jacob. Where would he put essential items like keys?

  Certainly by the door. He would have weapons there, control mechanisms for the room. He would prepare for the possibility that someone would be inside, and he might need to instantly take control.

  I move to the wall that has been breached. That has to be the way out. I peer through the jagged hole that matches the one in the control room.

  Beyond it is a small room made of metal, outfitted with rusting electrical switch boxes, as if it is an abandoned service building. Clever. The outer door is open. Beyond it the afternoon burns bright. We’re in the middle of nowhere. I figured that.

  Antony must have tracked Jacob here after we left the armored car heist. I turn back to the bunker. To the left of the opening, I spy an unusual seam in the metal walls. I run my hands down it, and yes, there is a small rectangle of metal that is a slightly different temperature. I push on it and it clicks inward.

  A voice says, “Initiate exit sequence or a sleeping agent will fill the room.”

  Jacob sure likes to knock people out.

  I'm actually totally okay with more gas. It buys me a little more time.

  I have no idea what the exit sequence might be anyway. I don’t need it to get out. There’s a hole the size of a kiddie pool I can step right through.

  But I need to communicate with someone to come for me, or get a vehicle to escape.

  I turn to the small, decorative side table closest to the door.

  The top drawer opens easily. It’s filled with ammunition, but a quick check proves they are not for the gun in my hand. Of course not. I got it from one of Antony’s men.

  I stand with my back to the door. The console beeps and the screen changes. Exit sequence not initiated. Sleeping agent deployed. Air Contamination 100%.

  Good. I stand with my back to the wall, my left hand resting on the table. Jacob is not left-handed. I reach out with my right hand and fingerspell “Imelda.” Nothing happens. I try “Janice” like his Manhattan vault. Nothing.

  What would his most secret of secrets be? The keys to his most private bunker?

  I picture him saying the words I’d waited for. That he had once known a girl he could not forget.

  And I don’t dare think that I know the secret word.

  But I try it. I fingerspell the letters to Emerald.

  I hear a faint click, and I’m not sure what makes my heart more full, the knowledge that I was correct or the concealed metal drawer that slides out just to the right of the door.

  Inside is a handgun, a grenade, a dart gun with three darts, and a set of keys with an Aston Martin logo.

  Bingo. Now to just find the car that goes with these keys.

  25

  Jacob

  The limo bounces along the back country road as we head toward the highway.

  I’m body-shackled. The encasement is like a handcuff for your body, linking my ankles, knees, and thighs, and pinning my hands across my body like a straitjacket.

  It’s Antony’s personal baby, and he trains no one, not a soul on this planet, on how to get out of it.

  I should have seen this attack coming. There were signs. Antony tailing me on the job. I wonder about that girl, Jade's friend. Elena. I don't think she was in on it. I don't even know if Elliott was in on it. It's a huge double cross if he is.

  I have to reconsider everything in my life up until this point, my entire career with the thieves of the Den. I still have no idea who is involved in Jade’s so-called war.

  At least they didn’t locate her. She is safely sleeping off the tranquilizer in the fake hotel room. The bunker is not completely breached. They didn’t find that room, and once they had me, they believed she had already escaped.

  By the time she wakes, everyone should have cleared out.

  She knows how to get out of there. The bunker is in the middle of nowhere, buried in a hillside fronted by a fake electrical outbuilding. But an old woman lives in a solitary house about a mile away. It’s the first place Jade will come to if she sets out walking.

  The old woman is friendly, a retired Vigilante I met along the way. She will help Jade. She will recognize her for who she is. They spot the sort of training people like Jade and I have been through. She will believe even the most outlandish tale, or recognize the cover story for what it is.

  We hit another pothole, and I’m momentarily lifted off the seat.

  “Damn backcountry,” Antony growls. He’s sloshed his drink.

  His limo is the most tricked-out car I’ve ever seen. You could run a bank robbery out of it. No doubt it is fully bulletproof, probably as heavily armored as a tank.

  Antony brags about it often. He’s been trying to make it amphibious, although everyone on his team tells him it’s way too heavy to ever work on water.

  I have to play my cards carefully in the next few hours, figure out Antony's mission here and free myself from this odious man's circle. My career in the Den is over, but I have options. The most important priority will be to locate Jade.

  “You going to continue to protect that woman?” Antony asks.

  “If you don’t also believe that Jade is my public enemy number one, then there’s no getting through to you,” I say. “She has my swords.”

  “It didn’t take a black light to the sheets to know what was going on in that love-hole,” he says. “She’s got you strung on a line. Hell, I’d take a round with her. I just wouldn’t be so stupid as to trust her.”

  If it were humanly possible to bust his jaw through this human shackle, my fist would have found his face.

  As it is, I stare out the window at the landscape whirring by.

  Antony coughs into his hand. He sits across from me, next to the crystal bar. A glass of whiskey sounds pretty good right about now.

  “In my youth,” he says, “thieves knew their place. They stayed on their own turf and kept their loyalty to their own extended family.” He lets out a heavy sigh.

  This again. Anyone who has been trained by Antony has been subjected to his rants on the good ol’ days of simple crime. You’d think he’d bootlegged
moonshine during prohibition, the way he talked.

  Antony continues to bluster on, and I try to work out what my situation will be when we arrive at the Den. I can only assume that’s where we’re headed. I doubt Antony is taking me home for tea.

  “Jacob,” he says, and his tone has shifted from angry to more paternal. This makes me wary. I’m about to get a new brand of speech.

  “Just tell me where the girl went. We know that you incapacitated her in the van and took your car to that bunker. I can only assume that at some point you got her out of there.”

  He smacks his hands down on the leather seats. “I have men down over there. Do you know how hard it was to leave them?”

  “They’re asleep,” I growl. “You should dock their pay for napping on the job.”

  “Be that as it may, I have to downgrade them. Some of my best men. All this over a girl.”

  “Why is this girl so stuck in your craw?”

  “You don’t know who she is, do you?”

  My breath stills. “A third-rank thief trained by you.”

  He laughs. “So she’s really pulled the wool over your eyes.”

  “You didn’t mention anything special about her when I called you about the swords.”

  He leans forward. “I didn’t know it then. She’s pulled one over on all of us.” He sits back and takes another swig.

  “Well?” My heart clubs my rib cage as I wait to find out just how hard Jade has screwed me.

  “She’s an O’Donnell. Practically the O’Donnell. When you called about the swords, I wondered how a girl managed to outsmart one of my top thieves. We had to dig deep.”

  “What do you mean, the O’Donnell?”

  “His only daughter,” Antony says. “Flesh and blood. Out to undermine the Den.”

  My blood chills.

  The O’Donnells run the only crime ring that could rival ours. We compete for buyers, for heists, for everything.

  “So she’s not Jade or Marissa,” I say. God, and she hadn’t told me. Had she planned to, right before the breach? Was that the deal she wanted to make?

  “Her real name is Crystal O’Donnell,” Antony says. “Not Marissa. Certainly not Jade.”