The Bloodline Cipher

by Stephen Cole

  All we ever manage is snatched moments here and there, she thought as she wearily put on the smile expected of her.

  ‘What’d I miss?’ Jonah called, hurrying down the staircase. ‘D’you get the stuff?’

  ‘We almost got stuffed,’ said Patch, showing off his purple eye.

  Tye let the others speak for her, watching Jonah as he listened tensely to all that had happened. She could see the concern large in his eyes as he looked at her. ‘I’m fine,’ she said patiently as Patch reached the bloody conclusion of events. ‘Really.’

  ‘She’s super fine,’ Motti added, reaching into his pocket. ‘Look what she got back from the bitch with the bow …’

  ‘Coldhardt’s ring!’ Jonah grinned and snatched it. ‘Fantastic, Tye. God, when she was waving it in my face at Blackland’s like a trophy, I wished …’

  You’re always wishing, thought Tye. She didn’t want to enjoy his praise just yet. ‘Yeah, well … I just hope the British police can handle her now.’

  ‘Coldhardt should let you keep that ring,’ said Motti. ‘You earned it.’

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t even tell him you got it back,’ Jonah suggested.

  ‘You can’t do that!’ said Con, snatching the ring away and gazing at it herself. ‘That would be immoral!’

  Tye couldn’t help but laugh at that, and the others joined in.

  ‘What’s immoral is that you weren’t there in that barn with us, geek,’ said Motti, his smile fading. ‘Getting a shotgun rammed up your ass.’

  ‘Well, you know it wasn’t all plain sailing this end, either,’ Jonah told them, itching a livid red spot on his neck.

  Con raised her eyebrows. ‘You got acne?’

  ‘What happened with Sorin?’ Patch asked eagerly.

  Jonah took a deep breath. ‘He broke into the safe house, poisoned me and Maya, then he was killed by a pair of freaks from Nomen Oblitum, right in front of our eyes.’

  ‘What the hell …?’ Tye’s fears and anxieties slunk off to the back burner. ‘Are you OK?’

  He used the phrase she had used a minute before, and meant it about as much as she did. ‘I’m fine. Really.’

  ‘Wanna fill in some of the details here?’ Motti pressed him.

  Tye and the others listened to Jonah in silence. No light relief or laughter now.

  ‘… and Coldhardt took care of the clean-up and the corpse this afternoon,’ Jonah concluded. ‘Sorin’s dead, me and Maya are alive, and we’ve got the same people to thank.’

  ‘They sound like blokes you don’t mess with,’ said Patch with feeling.

  Con looked troubled. ‘And you really think Coldhardt’s going to deal with them?’

  Jonah shrugged. ‘Depends if you’ve come back with hard proof that Heidel’s back from the dead, only thirty years older.’

  ‘Thirty years older?’ Patch handed Jonah the same battered photograph he’d shown to Tye on the plane. ‘Uh-uh. Check this out.’

  Tye watched the frown etch itself into Jonah’s face as he stared at the young man and the old, together.

  ‘Mental, innit?’ Patch murmured. ‘You think of Coldhardt and you think he’s been old all his life …’

  Con nodded. ‘And there’s Heidel proving it’s an option!’

  Jonah laid the photo down flat on the baize, clearly weirded out. ‘If this picture’s for real, then surely the Heidel we met has got to be just a lookalike.’

  ‘Maybe he is the genuine geezer,’ Patch argued. ‘If these NO men are as tasty with their fingers as you say …’

  Jonah looked at him. ‘You really think some freaks in fancy dress can magically program your DNA to make you live longer?’

  ‘Doesn’t really matter what we think,’ said Tye. ‘We’ve got plenty of evidence now for Coldhardt to decide what’s real. He’s the only one who’ll know for sure …’

  ‘About any of it,’ Motti agreed, picking up a snooker cue. ‘Still, it looks like your geeky Russian girlfriend was right about one thing.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Jonah snapped, as Tye shifted uncomfortably. ‘What thing?’

  ‘Coldhardt stole the idea of employing a hip, young taskforce to help him out in his twilight years from his old boss, all right,’ Motti went on. ‘But what he forgot to tell us, was that the boss man in question just happened to be Heidel.’

  ‘So Coldhardt turned on his boss …?’ Jonah stared down at the rest of the briefcase booty laid out on the table, and Tye watched as his discomfort became confusion. ‘What is all this stuff?’

  ‘The crap Heidel was carrying round in his briefcase,’ said Motti. ‘Rigged to go up in smoke if anyone forced open the case.’

  ‘Any un-mega-talented person, anyway,’ Patch chipped in proudly.

  Jonah made to rifle through a small pile of manila wallets. ‘OK, so what’re these?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Con slapped his fingers lightly. ‘We need to preserve fingerprints, yes?’

  ‘They’re Heidel’s personnel files,’ said Tye. ‘Past and present.’

  ‘And they make pretty good reading.’ Motti looked at Jonah. ‘D’you remember Coldhardt namechecking Karl Saitou when we got back from LA?’

  ‘He was the competition, wasn’t he?’ Jonah nodded. ‘Morell was all set to give Saitou the job of stealing the manuscript.’

  ‘Let’s flashback a little further … to the time that style forgot.’ Motti flicked open the cover of the top file with the tip of the cue to reveal a photograph. It showed a young Asian man in his mid-twenties, with neat, straight features and a mop of dark hair. The collars on his blue shirt looked long and sharp enough to stab his navel.

  ‘Here’s Saitou as he used to be,’ said Con. ‘Weapons and security expert, former prizefighter and authority on ancient civilisations.’

  Jonah nodded. ‘Your typical combination.’

  ‘“A competent if unimaginative criminal”, Coldhardt called him – but he must have worked alongside him as part of Heidel’s team in the seventies.’

  ‘Saitou joined the outfit in 1971,’ Tye added. ‘There’s no file on Coldhardt, so we don’t know when he came in … But judging by the freaky outfits in that photo of Coldhardt and Heidel together, it has to be around the same time.’

  ‘So Heidel was to Coldhardt what Coldhardt is to us …’ Jonah looked lost in thought. ‘But did Coldhardt turn on his friends as well as the boss, or were they all in on it?’

  ‘If only we’d known this sooner, we could’ve asked someone who was there – then and now.’ Motti slid Saitou’s file from the top of the pile and used the cue to flip open the next. ‘This is a guy called David Street, another gang member from the class of seventy-one.’ The photo showed a tall, aristocratic-looking dark-haired man with a bad moustache. ‘He was their expert on electronics and computer systems, as well as an old-style cat burglar and safecracker. Meant to have been best in the business.’

  ‘And it turns out our mate Davy was in London yesterday, keeping an eye on Heidel like we were.’ Patch produced the camcorder tape. ‘Seems we accidentally got him on tape – he saw us, and sent his boys round.’

  ‘They must’ve found you pretty quickly,’ said Jonah, as Patch led the way over to the TV room.

  ‘I reckon Street must have followed us himself and arranged back-up in transit,’ said Tye, falling into step beside Jonah. It felt good just to push away the love stuff for a bit; at least they could still function professionally, and –

  Love?

  Oh shit.

  ‘Question is,’ said Jonah, oblivious beside her, ‘did Street realise you were working for Coldhardt?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Con. ‘Surely he would take more than just a camcorder tape if he did?’

  Patch quickly loaded up the mini-DV player, and soon was fast-forwarding past his little butt montage to tuts from Con and Motti. Tye sat by herself, trying to get her thoughts on track. Later, she told herself. Deal with it later when you’re alone.

  She glanced a
t Jonah. He chanced a smile, and she pretended not to see.

  Or maybe just run and hide.

  She forced her eyes to focus on the screen, on Heidel and Bree hailing their black cab – and in the background, stood behind a vintage Merc, was a better-dressed, clean-shaven but still recognisable David Street. He stood watching Heidel as he entered the cab, his face unreadable. Then he glanced towards the camera, frowned and turned back to watch the cab pull away.

  Patch sighed. ‘If the viewfinder was home-cinema-sized I might’ve spotted him.’

  ‘If it was home-cinema-sized and if he’d been wearing a short skirt,’ Motti corrected him.

  Street took out a phone from his pocket. Then the camera swung off him, favouring Heidel and Bree as their taxi turned the corner and out of sight.

  Patch sighed. ‘For that he nearly kills us.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got a big heist in the offing,’ Jonah reasoned. ‘Might’ve thought you’d been following him for weeks …’

  ‘Maybe.’ Motti flicked off the TV. ‘What the hell was he was doing there at the auction house, anyway?’

  ‘Checking out his former boss the same way we were?’ Con suggested. ‘If Coldhardt knew that the auction would be a draw for Heidel, Street would too.’

  Jonah agreed. ‘And when your old boss comes back from the dead and starts pulling jobs, you’re going to be curious …’

  ‘Not to mention head-buggered,’ Patch added.

  Motti threw a cushion at him. ‘Who the hell would ever mention “head-buggered” ’cept you, dumb freak?’

  Tye hugged herself as the swapping of insults, clues and ideas went on. Private thoughts aside, she felt a weird mix of unease and excitement, discussing this stuff without even telling Coldhardt what they’d found. It felt wrong, but kind of a rush; like finding out your parents kept a secret diary, and sneaking a read before they could –

  ‘You’re back.’

  – catch you.

  Pale and grave as a vampire, Coldhardt was watching them from the doorway, his stony glare sweeping over each of them in turn.

  ‘It appears we have things to discuss,’ he said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tye, Con, Motti and Patch sat beside Jonah on the sofas, like they had done a thousand times before. Only now the atmosphere wasn’t so much the kind you could cut with a knife, but one you might smash to bits with a sledgehammer. As the post-dawn skies began to blush blue through the windows of the hangout, Jonah found he had to keep pinching himself – to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

  It was the sight of Coldhardt, here in the hangout.

  In the usual chic austerity of the hub the boss seemed completely at home, the big spider in his brushed-steel web. But there in the TV room, watching the Heidel footage on a squashy sofa in a sea of beer cans and sweet wrappers, he was more of a fish out of water. In a whole year, Jonah had never known him come here once. It was a special space for his ‘children’ alone, and now suddenly it was as if Dad had come to visit the playhouse. None of them knew quite how to react.

  He wished Tye would catch his eye. How angry could she be with him? Maybe she was just tired …

  God knows I am, he thought, scratching at his sore neck.

  ‘This is totally freaking me out,’ Patch whispered.

  ‘Gee, really, Cyclops?’ Motti glowered at him. ‘We’re taking it all in our stride.’

  Con sighed. ‘We should have told Coldhardt what we’d found straight away.’

  ‘And let the old bastard keep us in the dark?’ Motti shook his head. ‘No way. Not this time.’

  ‘You will tell him that, yes?’

  ‘Watch me.’

  Patch scoffed quietly. ‘I’m watching your trousers turn brown, mate.’

  Jonah wondered why Coldhardt hadn’t blown his top at them, railed and raged at them for going through Heidel’s stuff without him. Perhaps because he had seen the photographs from the briefcase, and the files lying open. A window had been opened on to his past, and he was still staring into it, right now, watching Heidel large as life on the huge TV screen.

  ‘Would anyone like coffee?’

  Maya’s voice rang out from the top of the staircase, and everyone jumped about half a mile.

  ‘Sod the coffee, I need a man’s drink after a scare like that,’ said Patch weakly.

  Motti snorted. ‘Maybe Red will go fix you some Sunny D.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Maya, running lightly down the stairs. ‘Jonah?’

  Jonah pointed to the TV room and held a finger to his lips. He heard the traffic noise cut out suddenly as if the tape had been stopped, braced himself for Coldhardt to reappear. But then the long, timeless moment passed and the noises resumed as the old man started to watch the footage over again.

  ‘How many more times?’ Tye muttered, curled up with her eyes closed in the corner of the sofa.

  ‘You found proof, didn’t you?’ Maya asked slowly. ‘Proof that Heidel’s who he says he is.’

  Patch brought her up to speed on all they had been through and all they had gained. ‘Coldhardt didn’t say much, just flicked through the stuff from the case and went in to watch the footage we got. Now we’re just waiting for him to come out and give us a bollocking.’

  Maya looked puzzled. ‘For bringing him what he wanted?’

  ‘For sticking our noses in,’ said Motti. ‘For acting like we’re more than just his personal slaves.’

  ‘But you are much more than that.’ Maya looked at them. ‘You are his family. The course he is set upon may involve him leaving you for many years; naturally you want to be sure of what he is getting into.’ She paused. ‘You do not wish him to walk into a trap.’

  ‘And we do not wish to find ourselves unemployed,’ said Con. ‘Very good, Maya. When put like that, our case sounds quite reasonable, no?’

  ‘That mushy crap might work if Coldhardt weren’t so big on living up to his name,’ Motti rumbled.

  ‘Then maybe it’s time we broke the ice.’ Jonah stood up. ‘Maya’s making coffee. I’m going to ask Coldhardt if he wants one. Seems only fair, since he paid for the coffee bar.’

  Turning his back on their frowns and surprised looks, and before he could change his mind, Jonah walked quickly and quietly over to the TV room. He hovered in the doorway, opened his mouth to speak, to break the silence so that –

  ‘It could be him,’ Coldhardt said softly as he watched, in a voice half wondering, half afraid; a voice surely not meant for others to overhear. ‘It really could be him.’

  And Jonah realised: That’s why he hasn’t lost his rag with us. We’re the last things on his mind right now.

  We don’t matter.

  He left Coldhardt mumbling on the sofa and rejoined the others. It felt as though he was kicking his heart a little further on with every step.

  ‘I don’t think the boss wants a coffee,’ Jonah said.

  Con was pointing past him discreetly, mouthing: ‘Behind you.’

  Jonah turned to find Coldhardt suddenly recovered and standing in the doorway of the TV room, watching them. Maya left them to it, heading for the countertop.

  ‘I’ll summon you all when I need you,’ said Coldhardt stiffly. He turned to Heidel’s belongings on the tabletop and the suitcase beside it. ‘Box up these and take them to the gate. They will be couriered for fingerprint matching and DNA analysis later this morning. Motti, the audio data …?’

  Motti practically jumped to attention. ‘The MacBook’s there by the phone. The recording’s all loaded up, just hit play.’

  Coldhardt nodded vaguely. Then he turned, collected the laptop and left the hangout.

  ‘No, really, it was no trouble,’ Tye called after him – very quietly.

  ‘We were well-paid, weren’t we?’ said Con, making out she wasn’t bothered.

  Tye shot her a look. ‘And who’s going to pay you when he’s gone?’

  ‘He ain’t gone yet,’ said Motti.

  ‘Only ’cause he g
ot off on you kissing his arse so nicely,’ Patch retorted. He put on a camp American accent: “Recording’s all loaded up, big boy, just hit play!”’

  ‘How about I hit a dumb mutant buttwipe?’

  ‘Ow!’

  But Jonah was only half-listening. He could still hear Coldhardt’s voice, so grave and frail. ‘It could be him. It really could be him …’

  Heidel’s belongings were soon crated up and dumped by the main gates. Then, after grabbing some cereal while the others trooped off to bed, Jonah decided to catch up on some sleep himself. Maya was impatient to get on with cracking the cipher and needed his computer, so he let her take over his bedroom while he crashed in one of the guest rooms.

  Good cover story, he thought, as he had to pass Tye’s room to get to them.

  And as he did so, Jonah knocked on her door.

  She opened it in her dressing gown. Her skin hid bruises well but he could see indigo-black smudges on the skin around her collarbone. She looked tired. ‘Hey,’ she said.

  Jonah smiled. ‘Nice opening gambit. I just wanted to check we were friends?’

  Tye gave a smile that looked like it tasted bitter. ‘What else could we be?’

  ‘I don’t know … These last days, ever since I first heard about that bloody grimoire …’ He shrugged, itched the lump on his neck. ‘Nothing seems right.’

  ‘Maybe after tonight it’ll seem straighter. One way or another.’

  The two of them stood there. Jonah wondered if Tye was waiting for him to say what surely had to be on both their minds.

  ‘Can I come in and lie down with you?’

  She smiled but looked away again. ‘I know what your “lie downs” are like. I want to, but I really am killer tired …’

  ‘Me too. We could really just lie down and –’

  ‘I need a little time right now, ’K?’

  Jonah shrugged. ‘And a little space? Fine. You got it.’ He stomped away down the corridor. That was sensitive, you doofus, he told himself. He paused, turned back round – in time to hear the quiet click of Tye’s door closing.

  He lay on the unmade bed in the first room he came to, turning and fidgeting till sleep reluctantly came and tugged him under.