I raced away from him as fast as I could.
“Antoinette!” he shouted when I continued to run away from him.
“Yes, Granddad?” I heard her voice behind me, but it was starting to fade out with the distance.
Right. Left. Third on the right. In my mind, I mapped out the steps I had to follow to get back to the main entrance. Once I was in public, any guards who hunted me down would be less likely to shoot. At least, that was Toni’s assertion, and I had reason to accept her belief based on our practices back home in the States.
My heart pounded faster than my feet as I heard shouting, and the sound of movement spreading through the corridors that had been silent when I first arrived.
I pushed through the “Employees only” door and into the foyer of the hotel. My shoes squeaked against the polished wooden floor and the clerks at the desk looked up in alarm as I rushed past them, not even slowing in an attempt to reduce their suspicion. A stern-looking lady on the right side of the desk had a phone in her hand in an instant, and I was certain she was calling security.
My time was slipping away, and fast.
Shouts erupted behind me as I hit the entryway that led to the parking lot where we’d left the car. I half expected the glass automatic doors to remain firmly closed as I barreled up to them, having been turned off by one of the people shouting behind me. Miraculously, they slid open just seconds before I reached them, and I was able to slip through unhindered.
The car was in sight when a muffled gunshot rang out in the night—a warning to stop or the next one was going to be aimed at me.
So much for the theory they’d be less likely to shoot around guest areas. Then again, it was late at night, and the actual guest areas probably had double-glazed windows and thick, sound-deadening insulation, so a silenced gunshot was unlikely to wake anyone from their restful slumber in the former prison cells.
Just as we’d planned, the driver’s door was unlocked when I reached the car. Right when I pulled it open, the next shot rang out, smashing through the driver side mirror.
Fragments of glass and plastic went flying around me in a potentially deadly shower. I turned my face away from the cascade and, keeping my head ducked as low as I could, placed the bag full of artifacts into the passenger seat with as much care as I could afford given the gunshots aimed at me. I climbed into the car behind them.
Because the key was already in the ignition, I had the car started before I’d even fully settled into it. Relieved to be past the first hurdle, I slammed the car into drive and pushed it as fast as the tiny engine would go. The boom gate to exit the lot didn’t rise as I neared it, but I hadn’t really expected it to. I closed my eyes, muttered an apology that Toni would never hear, and then locked my foot against the accelerator to tear through the barrier as hard as I could—thankful it wasn’t a concrete bollard or something equally impenetrable.
With a loud crack, the gate shattered, and I sailed through, on my first step to freedom.
When I reached the countryside around Oxford, and was certain I hadn’t been followed, I fired off a quick text to Toni, a nonsense message we’d agreed on earlier, before tossing the phone from the window.
Then, I was on my own.
The first things I had to do, was sort the car to avoid easy capture. After another couple of miles, I pulled over to the side of the country lane I was on. Working with only the light of the moon and a small flashlight from the glove compartment, I unscrewed the license plates on the vehicle and swapped them out. It wouldn’t buy me lots of time, but it would hopefully keep the police off my tail for a little while. It would take almost no time for Charles to scramble up an APB for me and have every police department from Oxford to the very edges of England all out looking for me.
If I wasn’t careful, by morning I could be rotting in one of the oubliette’s Toni had mentioned.
I drove without stopping for two hours, following the directions Toni had punched into the GPS without fail. As I traveled, it became clearer that if she’d decided to betray me, I would be completely fucked. I had little choice but to trust her though. I didn’t know the countryside and hadn’t had time to study multiple escape routes outside the one she’d offered.
When I arrived in Weymouth, I found a quiet street a short walk from the dock and parked the car. Only then did I check the contents I’d managed to force into the bag. I grimaced when I noticed one of the plates had a new crack running across the surface, just a little right of the center. I frowned and issued a silent prayer that it would be salvageable. There was little I could do about it if it wasn’t.
Being as gentle as I could to avoid causing any further damage, I repacked the items into the two hardcover aluminum travel cases we’d purchased to keep the artefacts safe during my travels. Just as Zarita had instructed, I ensured the memory foam inserts were snuggly fitted around everything breakable. I tucked the camera containing the video and stills I’d hopefully managed to capture into a section specifically cut out for it. Lastly, I wrapped aluminum tape around the edges to seal the cases and make them watertight.
Once I was certain everything was as secure as it could be, I grabbed the pistol from the glove compartment and pushed it into the holster I wore under my clothes. Lastly, I threw the keys into the trunk, ready to lock them inside in the hope that Toni would eventually get her beloved car back, even if it was a little worse for wear after tangling with the boom gate.
Satisfied that I’d done what I could, I shut the trunk, slung my backpack full of clothes onto my back and picked up the cases to move on to the next phase of the plan.
The walk to the harbor was relatively easy, and under any other circumstances might have even been rather interesting because of the old buildings that lined the road, but I was just focused on reaching my rendezvous point as quickly as I could.
I skirted around the harbor buildings and hugged the shadows. Once I was clear of the buildings, I ran for the moorings. Although the bright moon threatened to give away my position, the darkness provided by the clouds hid me well enough. Once I was certain I was in the right place, I started to scan for the fishing boat I needed to find, the Soggy Deck.
When I found it, a dingy old boat that smelled of grease and fish guts and barely looked seaworthy, I greeted the skipper with a smile that was more grimace than anything else.
Shadier and more run down than his ancient boat, the guy appeared as underhanded as any I’d met. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the fishing charter business he owned was used for human trafficking on more than just this one occasion. It didn’t matter though. He was my ticket off the island and my own record was hardly blemish-free.
“Did you have any problems getting here?” I asked.
He looked me up and down. “Not as many as I suspect I’ll have on the return journey.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said, needing to hear the words out loud. “Let’s get going.”
Truthfully, I could have chartered a yacht and skippered it across the Channel by myself, especially with the array of equipment a new vessel was sure to have on board, but I needed someone else to do it because of the next part of the plan.
Plus, there was less of a paper trail with the Soggy Deck and her captain. It had also given me a few moments to myself to try to get some shut-eye before the marathon part of my escape.
A few hours later, the skipper informed me it was time to prepare. I unrolled an inflatable kayak and pumped it up. Using a rope, I secured the two aluminum cases to the kayak.
We were close enough to see the coastline of France, which meant I could be sure of my direction, but it was still a hell of a row to get back to it—especially fighting the waves along the way. I could’ve insisted on a larger motorized boat, but it would have meant a bigger risk of being detected. Plus, it would have been a potential environmental disaster to leave a motor full of gas hanging around the shore waiting for Toni’s cleanup crew.
A few minutes later, I zipped up t
he wetsuit and settled into the kayak, ready for my solo row the rest of the way to continental Europe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BY THE TIME I closed in on the shore, the sun had risen over the horizon.
I scanned the houses that lined the cliffs before me carefully to ensure there were no prying eyes watching me as I climbed out of the kayak and dragged the boat up the narrow beach. It took every remaining ounce of my energy.
After my row, fighting against the tide the whole way, I was shattered. My arms ached in protest as I forced them to keep moving. Despite the decent nutrition I’d been getting at the Dove, I still wasn’t as fit as I had once been—the months of being on the road before finding Zarita had taken their toll on my body.
As I moved, I tugged at the wetsuit, stripping it off to my waist, before stretching out my arms, and giving my tired body a much-needed break. Blood pumped through my veins, engorging my muscles until they were rock solid and it hurt to move. With some effort, I raked my hand through my hair, shaking loose the water that clung to me from the last leg of my journey—when I’d had to swim the boat to shore.
Taking a breath, I scratched my fingers across the stubble on my face as I considered my next step.
For a moment, I debated rolling up the kayak, but figured it wouldn’t matter much whether or not the thing was forced back into the tiny bag that accompanied it. Fighting it would just take more of my valuable time and energy. Instead, I used the ropes that had been around the aluminum cases to secure the bag inside the kayak and ensured the whole thing was far enough up the beach that the tide wouldn’t claim it back immediately. I tried jamming one end between two rocks and hoped it would be enough to hold it until Toni’s cleanup crew came to claim it. Whenever or whoever they were.
All I knew was they were due to arrive sometime after me and that they’d find the kayak wherever I left it. I figured the less I asked about exactly who would be coming and how they’d find it, the better, especially when I didn’t think the kayak would be found by any of her human contacts.
After digging around for the driest pair of jeans and a T-shirt in my bag, I ripped the last of the wetsuit off my body. My teeth chattered in the cold wind, and I did what I could to fight off the chill while I dressed. Tucking the wetsuit into the bottom of the kayak and grabbing the cases, I moved farther up the beach with escape on my mind.
When I reached the road, I stopped only temporarily to brush off my feet and put my shoes back on before choosing a direction. It didn’t matter which, all I needed was to find my way toward any town with the cases and backpack in hand.
It was amazing how quickly the couple of pounds in my hands began to feel like a couple of hundred without the benefit of a rest. After walking for almost an hour, with my already protesting arms screaming in agony at the weight they bore, I finally came across an area where the houses nestled closer together, dozens upon dozens of small homes with A-frame roofs.
The sight of so many houses cramped together gave me hope that I was nearing civilization and made my feet move faster.
I followed signs that directed me to Tourlaville and celebrated when, after another short walk that left the muscles in my arms and legs feeling like they’d been through a meat-grinder, I found a telephone box at an intersection.
I called Zarita collect on the number she’d given me when wishing me luck in the raid a few days earlier. She answered hesitantly and then relief flooded her voice as she discovered it was me.
“I’ve got something,” I said, the strain in my voice evident as I continued. I wasn’t sure how much I should say when the line wasn’t secure. “When can you be here?”
She didn’t press for details on what I had, instead asking for information about where I was before telling me she was staying in Caen waiting for my arrival. It meant she was only a little over an hour away. I gave her what information I had regarding my location as I watched the early risers already beginning to move lazily around the streets.
“I don’t really want to wait around here. I want to get as far from the coastline as I can.”
“I agree. Find your way to highway N13 and head south, I’ll meet you on the way.”
Once I’d hung up the phone, I took a moment to pause and take a quick breather.
When I felt I could move again, I picked up my luggage again. There was so much hope in those two small aluminum cases—and so much opportunity for heartache.
An unknown time, and so many miles, had passed before a lime-green Volkswagen Polo drove by me with the driver riding the horn. Knowing it could only be either some crazed lunatic or—more likely—Zarita, I rushed to catch up with the car as it pulled over to the side of the road.
Throwing open the passenger door, I placed the cases on the backseat, climbed inside and pulled the door shut behind me long before she had time to stop completely. “God, are you a sight for sore eyes!” I said. “I’m exhausted.”
Maneuvering the car back onto the freeway, she grinned and nodded. “You too. I was certain you’d be killed.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You can’t have been certain of your course either.” Without waiting for me to respond, she continued, “Is that them?” She indicated the cases I’d placed into the backseat while she drove back onto the roadway.
I nodded. “I hope it’s enough.”
Despite the bust that looked so similar to Evie, I couldn’t get my hopes up. It could have been a coincidence, or I might have just been seeing the thing I wanted to see. Either way, Zarita would find whatever answers I’d found during her analysis, and hopefully she’d do it without stumbling onto the truth of the existence of others.
“Young Master Clay, you astound me,” she said in a gentle, motherly tone. “You risk your life to acquire these items and you worry that it might not be enough.”
I hung my head and looked at my hands. “I just . . . I need to know.”
“I can understand that. I will help as much as I can. We’ll get started on them as soon as we return to Marseille.”
“No, I can’t come back with you. It’s too dangerous.”
“They’re not going to be looking for you here.”
“I’d be surprised if they hadn’t found Toni’s car by now. It won’t take them long to work out that I’ve sailed somewhere. The logical choice is France.”
“All the more reason for you to return to Marseille with me—at least it’s away from this coast.”
“You need to take me to the nearest deserted area, drop me off there and then forget about me for as long as you can.” Even though she’d never said exactly what had happened to her with her encounter with the Rain, it was clear she knew exactly how dangerous they could be. She had to know how quickly they’d catch up with me if I wasn’t careful. “Right now, they don’t know about you. When I called you the other night, it was from a payphone in the next town over. Toni only knows of the existence of a contact, but not what your specialty is. If I’m caught with you, it’ll just be asking for trouble that you don’t need.”
“I can’t—”
I wouldn’t argue with her on it. She was too vital. If the Rain caught her, it wouldn’t matter what was written on the artifacts. None of it would be translated. “They’re already looking for me. My instincts are screaming at me that the farther away from me you are, the safer you’ll be. I’ve secured the artifacts, and I’ve placed them into your care. That was my core objective. When the time comes, we’ll have to split up so you can perform yours.”
She continued to argue, but I refused to back down. With neither of us willing to concede, we fell into silence after a while. Despite the chill in the car, I broke the silence to instruct her to turn off the highway at the first chance we could, and she did. It was slower going but would hopefully be less likely to put us in the path of any French Rain operatives called in to hunt for me.
Because of her desire to spirit me to safety, Zarita drove a little faster than was pr
obably safe, and definitely faster than was legal. In my own distraction, I barely even noticed the speed until blue lights flashed us from behind.
I shifted in my seat so I could get a better look behind us. A motorcycle with the lights flashing at the front was close to our tail. “Shit, is that the police?”
Zarita cast a grim, apologetic look in my direction. It almost appeared that she was debating whether to try to outrun the lone officer. I glanced over into the backseat to ensure that the cases didn’t stand out as being something to be concerned about and then nodded to let her know to stop.
My heart pounded in my ears as she pulled over to the side of the road.
The officer climbed from his bike and rounded the car to Zarita’s window. I tried to focus on the road ahead as he spoke to her in fluent French. I knew a few words—I was conversational in a couple of languages but rarely needed to use them—but with his fluent tongue and fast speech, I couldn’t follow everything he said, so I wasn’t sure when to start worrying. At least, until he stopped talking mid-sentence and stared at me with an assessing gaze.
It was the look of someone trying to place a face he’d recently seen. Zarita followed his stare, and I knew if I let her, she’d try to make up some excuse for me, and we’d both be in strife as soon as he remembered where he’d seen me.
I tried to remember the little I had learned about the process of issuing APBs and the like in Europe and wondered whether it was possible Charles had called in a favor or two in order to make my life a little more difficult.
He would never release information that he’d been stolen from—Toni and I had both agreed that it was highly unlikely he would let that failure be known—but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t contact Interpol with details about a suspect smuggling art or drugs. I glanced sideways at the officer and saw that he had no gun, which boded well for me.
“It’s time,” I murmured, hoping Zarita would get the hint. “And I’m sorry.”
Before she had a chance to try to bail me out—and get herself into further trouble—I pulled out my gun and pressed it against her temple. Her eyes grew wide at the feel of cold steel against her skin.
Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2) Page 22