Operation Trinity

by Clifford, Riley

  “Pas op stop!” a deep voice echoed from a loudspeaker.

  “Oh no,” Natalie gasped. Her feet stopped moving and she slid down the last few steps before crashing into Ian on the landing. “It’s the police.”

  This was not good. A security guard, they could fight off easily. But a trained police force was a different story. Ian spun on his heel and started heading back up. “We need to get to the roof.”

  They raced up the stairs, rounding the corner past the landing for the sixth floor. Sixteen more to go. With their head start, they wouldn’t have a problem getting there before the police. But then why were the shouts getting louder?

  “They’ll be . . . waiting . . . for . . . us, right?” Natalie gasped, grabbing on to the railing to haul herself up onto the landing of the eleventh floor. She paused like she was going to stop and catch her breath, but there wasn’t any time. Ian yanked her forward.

  “Yes, of course,” Ian said, forcing the words out through his burning lungs. The muscles in the backs of his legs felt like they were about to snap. But they had to keep going. The backup team would have been monitoring the alarms and would know that Ian and Natalie were in trouble. The helicopter would be there.

  As they careened past the entrance to the seventeenth floor, the echo of approaching footsteps grew stronger. They police were gaining on them. He and Natalie couldn’t get arrested on their first mission. If there was one thing Vikram and Isabel despised most, it was failure.

  By the time they reached the top floor, Ian’s wobbly legs seemed to be moving on their own, and his feet felt strangely numb. Natalie’s face was bright red and she was breathing in fast, shallow gasps. He had to get her out of there.

  Ian grabbed on to her small, sweaty hand and burst into the sunlight, bracing himself for the roar of the helicopter.

  But the roof was completely silent.

  The sky was a stunning mix of pinks and yellows, but he didn’t have time to think about how picturesque the medieval towers looked in the dawn light, or how the building next door sparkled under the rising sun. All he cared about was finding the helicopter.

  Ian scanned the horizon, searching for the familiar shape of the Lucian chopper, but there was nothing moving in the early-morning sky.

  Someone had made a terrible mistake.

  Ian could hear the stomp of police boots through the open door. They were trapped.

  Unless . . .

  He flung his backpack on the ground, plunged his hand inside, and removed a metal grappling hook attached to a long rope.

  Natalie’s eyes widened. “Oh no, no, no, no.” She took a step back. “Ian, you can’t. You’re going to get us killed.”

  The door opened, releasing a stream of blue uniforms and black boots.

  Natalie shrieked and clung to Ian. He raised the grappling hook over his head, swung it in a few circles, and then hurled it into the air. There was a satisfying clank as it caught on to the balcony jutting out from the adjacent building.

  Ian twisted the end of the rope around his forearm and then wrapped his other arm around Natalie. “Come on!” They ran for the ledge. Ian felt Natalie hesitate, but she was no match for the momentum of his body weight. He leaned forward, and they tumbled over the edge.

  It felt like free fall. Like they weren’t attached to anything at all. Natalie screamed but Ian felt his chest cave in, as if all the air had been sucked out of him.

  This had been a foolish decision.

  They were going to die.

  But then the rope tightened. They gained speed, but were moving sideways instead of down.

  Ian felt a brief moment of relief before they slammed into a wall. This time, he yelled as a jolt of pain shook every bone in his body. The impact sent them back into the air but then they swung forward and hit the building a second time, just to the left of a large window.

  He groaned and felt his body go slack. Natalie began to slide down. “Ian!” she screamed. He gasped and tightened his grip, hoisting her just under her arms. He wouldn’t be able to hold her for long. They needed to get inside the building.

  “We have to break the window,” he said, struggling to speak with the effort of holding on to his sister and the rope. “Push off with your legs.”

  Natalie shrieked. “Ian, I’m slipping. I’m slipping!” Her voice grew hysterical.

  Sweat was pouring down his arm and he felt her slide farther down. He groaned as he strained to tighten his grip. A few more inches, and she’d plummet down twenty-two stories. “Hold on!”

  He kicked off from the building at an angle so that he’d hit the window on his return. But there wasn’t enough force and they bounced right back off.

  His arms were burning, and he could almost feel the muscle fibers breaking down. The rope cut into his hand like a knife, and the arm holding Natalie began to shake. With a groan, he pushed off the window with all this strength. They flew into the air, picking up speed on the way back. He stuck his heel out and jammed it into the glass.

  Ian felt another explosion of pain as he and Natalie tumbled through the window, landing in a heap of glass on a linoleum floor. He moaned and rolled over onto his side. Natalie lay in a crumpled heap, her hair sprinkled with glass. A trickle of blood ran down her forehead.

  He pushed his hands against the floor and forced himself to sit up. “Natalie.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Natalie!”

  His vision grew blurry and hot tears collected in his eyes, burning a path through the sweat and grime as they wound down his cheeks. “Natalie,” he said, choking on the syllables.

  She moaned softly and rolled over. Her eyelids twitched and then fluttered open.

  “Thank God,” Ian whispered.

  Natalie raised herself onto her elbows and looked around. They were in another university building — some sort of administrative department. The walls were painted an uninspiring gray and ugly orange plastic chairs were arranged in clusters.

  Ian helped Natalie to her feet. Although there weren’t any alarms going off in this building, they needed to get out. “Let’s go,” he said. “The police will be here any moment.”

  Natalie took a step forward and winced. He knelt down and lifted her onto his back. The police had probably already surrounded the main entrances. They had to find another way out.

  As he jogged down the hall, a rancid smell made him wrinkle his nose. He turned and saw a metal rubbish chute. He lowered Natalie and pulled on the handle. It looked just wide enough for them to slide down.

  “Are you joking?” Natalie asked, her eyes wide with horror.

  “No,” he said, angling his leg so it fit inside. “Now, come on. Mum will be worried.” And probably nauseated when she saw them, but that didn’t matter.

  Their first mission was going to be a success, even if it almost killed them.

  Ian and Natalie snuck out of the rubbish room, and into the alley, then cut through a garden that looked like it led to their designated rendezvous point. Ian took his sister’s hand and they limped through the gate, turning onto a quiet, tree-lined street.

  It was empty. No black car was waiting for them.

  Ian pulled his phone out to call Isabel. She didn’t pick up. Natalie tried calling from her phone, but that didn’t work, either. She left a vague message and then hung up.

  “Where is she?” Natalie asked. “She said she’d be waiting here.” She scanned the empty street. “Didn’t she notice all the police?”

  Ian closed his eyes as a rush of thoughts flooded his overworked brain. It had to be a mistake. A misunderstanding. They must not have heard Isabel correctly when they left the car. They’d probably been too nervous to pay proper attention. “I think she’s meeting us . . . somewhere else,” he said, opening his eyes.

  “What?” Natalie’s blood-streaked brow furrowed with worry. “That’s not what she said.”

  The conversation from last night’s dinner replayed through his head, sending his heart into a faster gear. And then the ans
wer came to him. There had been something else his mother had been interested in. He pressed his lips together as he opened a web browser on his phone and typed in Ghent altarpiece. The first search result on the map was Saint Bavo Cathedral, about three miles away. He closed his eyes in a futile attempt to silence the thoughts rushing through his brain. “I think I know where she is.”

  Ian used the GPS on his phone to navigate to the cathedral. It was still early enough that the streets were mostly empty. There were no pedestrians and hardly any cars. If some of the motorists noticed the two children trudging along the twisty roads, their clothes covered in rubbish and dried blood, none of them thought to stop.

  As they got closer, a mix of confusion and concern flowed through him, churning Ian’s stomach like discount caviar. Part of him hoped his mother would be in the cathedral so they could all just go home. But another part of him dreaded finding her there. He couldn’t accept the possibility that she had set them up.

  Ian led Natalie around a corner and found himself in the middle of a vast square dominated by an enormous Gothic cathedral. Ian had seen countless churches, but nothing as impressive — or intimidating — as Saint Bavo. The central tower was so high Ian had to crane his neck to see the top, but the glare of the early-morning sun blocked his view.

  According to his phone, it was only 6:23 Ghent time, but the enormous front door was open a crack. With a glance at Natalie, they shuffled over to the entrance and slipped through the gap, then stepped into a dim vestibule.

  The air was heavy with dust and the distinct scent of old stone. Ian and Natalie scurried under a low archway and entered the main sanctuary.

  For a moment, Ian could do nothing but stare in wonder. The soaring columns seemed impossibly high, supporting an arched ceiling under which shadows gathered like a perpetual twilight. Yet sunshine streamed in through the stained glass widows, dappling the floor with puddles of soft color. Ian and Natalie moved noiselessly down the black-and-white center aisle, passing dark, narrow alcoves in which various altars and sculptures glinted softly. He wasn’t sure whether he was being quiet to avoid detection, or because it felt wrong to disturb the silence. It was hard to imagine the cathedral full of worshippers, let alone tourists. The stillness itself felt ancient — as if the light and the dust and the scent of the stones had been mingling together for millennia.

  But then a sound broke through the quiet like a mallet, shattering the silence. A low moan that Ian felt in his bones as much as he heard it in his ears. He and Natalie followed the noise into one of the shadowy alcoves, but then jumped back, startled. Two uniformed guards were sitting back-to-back on the floor, tied together. A silk scarf had been used to gag one of them, who looked at Ian and Natalie with frantic eyes. The other man seemed unconscious.

  Ian placed his hand on Natalie’s shoulder and backed away slowly. A knot had begun to harden in his stomach, collecting particles of dread from throughout his body.

  They made their way back up the center aisle and had almost reached the front vestibule when Ian stopped short. “What’s going —” Natalie started to say, but Ian clasped his hand over her mouth.

  “Shh,” he whispered, and then pointed toward one of the other alcoves.

  Isabel was standing in front of an enormous painting. Or, rather, a series of paintings, each depicting something vaguely religious. But Ian couldn’t focus on any of the images. His brain refused to process the mass of shapes and colors. All he could see was his mother.

  She wasn’t on her phone, making frantic calls to the backup team. She wasn’t e-mailing the British foreign secretary, placing him on a high alert.

  She was examining the paintings.

  Her gaze was trained on the panel in the lower left corner. Ian took a step forward, and the images snapped into focus. The painting showed a group of bald monks wearing brightly colored robes.

  She reached into her purse and produced a long silver knife.

  “Mum,” he said, flinching as his voice echoed through the empty sanctuary, making it sound like hundreds of boys calling for their mothers.

  Isabel whirled around without lowering the knife. Her skin looked pale in the ecclesiastical gloom, yet her eyes gleamed as brightly as the silver blade.

  When Isabel saw their frightened faces, she brought her arm down to her side, but her expression did not soften. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a voice Ian had never heard before.

  Ian felt Natalie stiffen next to him, and he knew it was up to him to explain. “Something went wrong. The code you gave us, I mean, the code we had set off an alarm. But we got the files.” He reached into his pocket and removed the flash drive, holding it in his outstretched palm.

  Isabel didn’t seem to notice. “Where are the police? Did they follow you here?”

  “At the university. They don’t know we escaped.”

  She exhaled audibly. “Brilliant. Well done, darlings.”

  Ian took another step forward. “Don’t you want the files?”

  Isabel smiled, and suddenly, Ian felt like a child who’d just offered his mother the damp remainder of his half-chewed biscuit. “You hold on to them for now, sweetheart. I have to take care of something here before the police arrive.”

  “It’s rubbish, isn’t it?” he said, his voice fluttering up to the ceiling. “You didn’t need these at all. We were just supposed to create a diversion, weren’t we?” The knot in his stomach became a black hole, sucking every feeling out of him, leaving nothing behind but anger.

  “Yes, and you did splendidly. I’m so proud of you.” Her cool tone only infuriated him more.

  “Natalie and I were almost arrested.” The heat from his face trickled down his windpipe, creating a pool of smoldering rage in his chest. “We came close to killing ourselves trying to escape.”

  “Stop being so dramatic, darling, you look fine to me. Now, go run outside and wait in the car. I’ll just be a moment.” Isabel turned back to face the panel she’d been examining before. The monks were almost life-sized, and their individual faces were so distinct it looked like they were about to speak.

  Isabel raised her arm so that the blade of the knife pointed toward the face of one of the monks. Ian felt his stomach twist. He knew it was only a painting, but it still looked like his mother was about to pierce real flesh.

  The image of the unconscious guard flashed in his mind, followed by the terrified face of Mr. Pringle.

  “No!” he shouted, lunging forward.

  Isabel stepped to the side, sending Ian stumbling. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. “Have you gone mad?”

  “I think he might be the only one of your family who hasn’t gone mad.”

  They all spun around to see a woman standing at the edge of the alcove. The light illuminated her from behind, so all they could see was her tall silhouette. Her voice was slow and resonant. If Ian hadn’t known better, he might have thought she’d just stepped out of one of the stained glass windows.

  The woman stepped forward. Ian recognized her mass of gray hair and penetrating blue eyes. It was Amy’s grandmother Grace Cahill.

  Ian glanced back at his mother. Her jaw was clenched and she was gripping the knife so tightly her entire hand had turned white. But then she smiled, and her face transformed. “Grace,” she said with exaggerated warmth, as if she were greeting a guest at a party. “What a lovely surprise. How wonderful to see you looking so . . . alive.”

  At first, Ian wasn’t sure what Isabel was talking about, but then Grace took a few steps closer and he noticed that she was thinner than he’d ever seen her. There were deep hollows under her eyes, and her cheekbones protruded so sharply they looked like they were about to poke out through her skin. He remembered a conversation he’d overheard between his parents a few weeks ago. Something about Grace only having a few months left to live.

  Yet despite her gaunt appearance, she stood just as erect as always. “Yes, well, stopping a Lucian from defacing ‘The Adoration of
the Mystic Lamb’ was on my bucket list, so I thought I’d take a chance and pop over to Belgium.” She smiled and, for a moment, the old Grace flickered into focus. “And look, here you are. Such a fortunate coincidence.”

  Isabel took a step toward Grace, letting the hand with the knife swing back and forth. “I knew I should have waited until after you died. The doctors gave you, what, another few weeks?”

  Grace shrugged. “I’ve never really been one for schedules.”

  “Well, I was raised to believe in the importance of punctuality. And unless you turn around right now, I’m going to make sure your final departure is well on time.”

  Ian waited for his mother to smile, to show that she was joking, but her face remained the same. She couldn’t possibly be serious. It was one thing to have someone fired or — his stomach clenched as he thought about Mr. Pringle — use other “persuasive techniques,” but surely his mother wouldn’t threaten to kill someone.

  “I’m not so concerned about that,” Grace said airily. “But I wouldn’t advise you to get any closer to that painting. I have four snipers just waiting for my order to shoot.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Isabel said. Ian could tell she was trying to sound confident, but there was still an unfamiliar waver in her voice.

  “I may be a lot of things, Isabel, but you know I’m not a liar.”

  Isabel smirked. “For all I know, those cancer drugs have addled your brain. From what I’ve heard, you’re practically delusional.”

  Grace’s face hardened. “That won’t keep me from telling people what you really are.”

  Isabel took a step forward, but when her stiletto hit the tile, the click it made was too loud. They all jumped. It sounded exactly like a gun being cocked.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Grace asked. “It seems like an awfully big risk to take, especially with Ian and Natalie here.”

  Isabel stared at her for what felt like an eternity before she finally spoke. “You’re wasting your time, Grace,” she said, slipping the knife back in her purse. “I can always come back. I know you’re well connected, but even you won’t be able to do anything from six feet underground.”