The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  “Oh, yes,” the Chinese woman says, “you were very good.”

  “Couldn’t have been too good,” I say. “I haven’t had anything since.”

  “Well—” The Chinese woman smiles and blushes like a fan. “—I loved it.”

  “What movie?” the alcohol-flushed-cheek man asks.

  “It’s really not worth mentioning,” I say, acting embarrassed, which blessedly puts an end to the conversation as the elevator shutters to a stop.

  * * *

  “You’re an idiot,” I tell the Chinese woman.

  We’re standing alone at the edge of the dirt parking lot. The sky overhead is clear with sparkling stars blanketed over the passing hovercars, seemingly growing brighter in the cold October night.

  The Chinese woman bites her tongue and looks visibly frustrated with me. “No one would’ve overheard us—”

  “Oh, you’ve perfected acoustic cloaking?” I ask sarcastically.

  “No. The bar was—”

  “What?” I ask, stomping over her. “Is this your first time doing something like this?”

  She confirms it by blushing.

  “Freaking figures,” I say. Lord save us from incompetent boobery. “Well, out with it. What’s the offer?”

  The Chinese woman looks around, “Is it okay to speak here?”

  Puo says, “Yes.”

  “My employer used Kafarov as a middleman to distance nemself in case things went poorly—”

  “How do we know,” I ask, “that your employer is really the buyer?”

  She repeats back the details of the piano rolls as well as the amount paid for each roll and the amount of the deposit—including all five of the rolls.

  I nod that I accept that for the moment.

  “Ne would like to discuss another opportunity with you directly.”

  I think of the deal we just tentatively made with Kafarov, but decide there was no exclusivity to it. If the buyer wants to cut Kafarov out, Kafarov and company can take that up with the buyer.

  “When and where?” I ask.

  “Tomorrow—” The Chinese woman looks relieved that this is going better for her. “—at St. Mary’s in Oxford, England.”

  “Yes to tomorrow,” I say. “But we set the place.”

  The woman nods her head once. “I think that’ll be agreeable.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE LIBRARY of Birmingham in the center of downtown Birmingham, England is a massive, sprawling complex, alleged to be the largest library in England and the third-largest public gathering space. At least that’s what the glossy brochure tells me.

  Puo and I are leaning against the black metal railing on the third floor of the five-story book rotunda in the center of the sprawling twenty-first century post-modern monstrosity waiting for the buyer to show up. We got here early to watch the people below and see if we can identify the buyer before ne walks up.

  I hate the building. According to the handy-dandy brochure, it was quite the postmodernist darling when it debuted ninety-nine years ago. Now it looks like a drunk toddler stacked three rectangles on top of each other and coated them in a metal skin, and then topped it all off with a gold chéchia cap.

  Barf.

  When I come to Europe (and England is part of Europe, don’t let any hoity-toity smartass tell you otherwise), I want to see Gothic and neo-Gothic architecture. I want to see buildings several hundreds to thousands of years old—the stuff I can’t see in the States.

  Since the buyer is addressed with the gender-neutral pronoun ne, Puo and I are not sure what to expect. It could literally be anyone. Unlike the other pronouns, there’s no physical expectations attached to the pronoun, which I guess, is kinda the point.

  “Hey,” I say to Puo, “How come you use ‘he,’ and not ‘ne’?” Puo’s asexual. I’m not sure how other asexuals identify themselves.

  Puo gives me a sidelong glance before answering. “Because I identify as a man.”

  “Uh … right.” I say trying to search for the right way to ask my questions.

  Puo interlaces his fingers and answers my unspoken questions without looking at me. “Gender and sexuality are two separate things. You can identify as non-binary and be attracted only to women, or you can identify as a man and not be attracted to either. Or any of the other combinations. It’s fluid. And neither is it set once forever. It can change with time.”

  I look out over the rotunda and think about what Puo just said. It was never much of a thought for me. I’m a woman, and I like men. Done. “Seems awfully complicated,” I say.

  “Life’s like that,” Puo says with a little bit of snap.

  “You mad at me?” I ask.

  Puo looks over at me. “It’s complicated,” he says quietly.

  “Yes, it is,” a voice says from behind us.

  We both whirl around to see a Chinese person standing there observing us.

  Puo and I both give each other I-thought-you-were-watching-our-backs looks as ne eloquently says, “This place smells like a dump.”

  That’s the code phrase. Ne’s the buyer.

  I answer with the code reply, “That’s because Puo farted.”

  Puo scowls at me.

  Ne is shorter than me (I’m five-nine). Ne’s wearing a white blouse and a knee-length gray skirt. Nir skin is smooth and graceful looking, and nir long black hair is tied up in a crisp bun. Ne doesn’t look much older than me.

  Ne smiles a friendly smile with white teeth. “I am Shǐ Guìyīng. You may call me Shǐ.” Ne holds out nir hand.

  I shake it, though it’s limp, and Shǐ holds on a second longer than I’m used to. Ne then shakes Puo’s.

  “Shall we?” Ne gestures with nir palm down toward the left of where we’re standing to talk somewhere more private.

  “Yes,” I say. “But this way please.” I head off to the right, which really was where I was planning on going.

  We cut through some library stacks and emerge out on a long hallway that we stop halfway down in.

  I politely ask, “How can we help you?”

  Ne smiles again at us and looks up and down the hallway. “I will try to be as discrete as I can—and I am sorry for Chén the other night. She’s … new.”

  Puo and I wave it off.

  “The previous task was a trial run. We needed to make sure—”

  “We?” I ask.

  Ne smiles a small embarrassed smile at me again. “I work for a larger organization that would like to hire your services.”

  “Which one?” Puo asks.

  It could only be one of a handful of transnational organized crime syndicates. They’re the only ones with deep enough pockets and reach to go through a trial run like the one we went through in Amsterdam.

  “It would be premature,” Shǐ says, “at this point to reveal that information. We would like to first know if you’re interested and whether you think it can be done.”

  “And what specifically would that be?” I ask.

  Ne hands me a piece of paper.

  It’s a library call number. I show it to Puo.

  Ne says, “Pull the book. I will be in the Archives on the fourth floor if you’re interested.” Ne starts to move off.

  “Wait!” I call after nem. “We’re in one of the biggest libraries in the world. Perhaps a little hint of where we can find this?” So we don’t have to traipse all over the place.

  Ne points past us down the hallway opposite the way we had come. “At the end of this hallway.” Ne smiles a small smile again and turns away the way we had came.

  Damn it, did ne just play us? After Shǐ’s gone I ask Puo, “Coincidence?”

  “I don’t think so,” Puo says, sounding a touch worried.

  Well, that’s unsettling.

  Puo and I head in the opposite direction toward the end of the hallway. We emerge into a quiet, long rectangular room with regularly spaced floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There’s a waist-high, holoscreen self-help console near the entrance. We enter in the
call number and a map floats up to show us the exact location.

  We find the right bookshelf easily enough.

  “Oh, balls,” Puo says. He sees it before I do. He pulls it off the shelf and hands it to me.

  Oh, balls is right.

  It’s a book about the British Museum. One of the most protected underwater real estate sites in the world.

  * * *

  “Do you have a plan?” I ask Shǐ in the archives.

  We’re alone in the small, closed-off space. The air is cool, the humidity carefully controlled. Olive-green boxes line the bookshelves, each one carefully labeled.

  “No,” Shǐ says. “However, with your ingenuity and our resources, we’re sure you can think of something.”

  “We’ll have full access to your resources?” I ask for clarification.

  “Pending approval, yes.” Ne nods nir head.

  “Wait,” Puo says. “This doesn’t make sense.” Puo spent the entire time on the walk to the archives telling me how stupid hitting the British Museum would be. “That place has been evacuated clean. There’s nothing left.”

  A point Puo has already brought up with me. But if there’s nothing left, why is it so heavily guarded?

  “Are you going take the work?” Shǐ asks.

  “I’m very interested—” I say.

  Puo does his best not to scowl.

  “—But Puo’s right. We can’t say for sure until we know what it is you’re after.”

  Shǐ thinks to nemself for a brief second before saying, “It’s true. The display areas for the most part have been recovered by the British Government. But there are vaults underneath the museum, some of which are airtight, whose opening would destroy the contents. We would like certain objects in one of those vaults.”

  “What objects?” I ask.

  “Chinese jade,” Shǐ answers. “Enough to fill five trunks full.”

  “What about the other objects?” Puo asks. “The ones that would be destroyed.”

  Ne shrugs. “The vault only contains our jade, which the British Government stole in the first place and refuses to give back. If other vaults are destroyed in the process, what do we care what happens to their stolen goods?”

  “That’s a little self-righteous,” I say, “coming from an organization such as yourselves.”

  “We are not,” ne says, “without our national pride.”

  Puo and I just stare at nem.

  “But,” ne says, “the manner in which the jade has been kept out of Chinese hands has made it rather valuable.”

  “How much we talking?” I say.

  Shǐ doesn’t answer.

  “You know,” I say, “that the first thing we’re going to do is look up the value.” What I don’t say, but which the ensuing silence implies, is: then use that information to see if it’s worth skimming off the top. It’s an empty implied threat. Double-crosses aren’t worth the added hassle.

  “Yes, well,” ne says. “About that. There is one condition on taking the work. One of our agents will be assigned to your team and accompany you.”

  “No,” Puo and I both say at the same time.

  “Very well.” Ne extends nir hand. “Thank you for meeting with me. A small fee for this meeting has been deposited into the same account you gave Kafarov. We trust you to keep your silence.”

  When I don’t take nir hand, ne turns and walks away.

  Puo exhales. “Good riddance,” he mutters.

  “Wait!” I call out.

  Puo groans.

  Ne returns.

  “How much?” I ask. If it’s enough to cover the rest of the next payment to the Citizen Maker or more, we’re hitting that museum.

  Ne hands me another piece of paper—it better not be another library book.

  It’s not. It’s a math problem. It’s given as a percentage of the Chinese national GDP.

  Holy shit.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THREE WEEKS LATER Puo and I are in Hampstead Village, England, starting more serious preparations for, as Puo and I have taken to calling it, the BM job—which accounts for a considerable amount of snickering between us. Three weeks because that’s how long it took Shǐ’s organization to buy and close on a very squat, two-story dark-brick home here.

  Hampstead is a pretty little village that used to be in a northern London borough. Now it’s pretty much the closest piece of dry real estate to a submerged London. Before the mega-quake made Hampstead remote lakefront property to the Sea of London, it was some of the most expensive real estate in England. And it’s still damn high despite the capital being relocated to Birmingham. Puo and I never would’ve been able to secure a house here without first selling our Queen Anne home back in the Seattle Isles and having to take out a loan.

  The house itself isn’t bad. I just don’t like the exterior. The front of the brick house is flat, with a barely sloped roof that makes the house look squat, and the windows and door are off center. All that together makes the house look like it has a squished nose and flat hair with a dark-orange pimple door. Ugly.

  But it’s detached, and has a bare concrete-floored basement with cinder block walls that sits directly over what used to be the Northern Line running directly into London, right past the British Museum.

  And while I like the house, except for the exterior, I’m not as keen on the third occupant, Liáng Jūn. He just showed up fifteen minutes ago, and after he dropped off his bags and pocket tablet upstairs we immediately hustled him down to the basement to put him to work.

  Liáng’s taller than me, but not by much, and thick with muscle—but in an appealing, balanced way, not in the strutting I’m-so-thick-I-have-to-hold-my-arms-out kind of way. Normally, I’m a fan of the look, but he’s also covered in tattoos (which I don’t like—it’s like covering a nice piece of art with stickers), and I’m still not in a good place after Winn.

  All three of us are standing around a core drill, and there’s a power auger in the corner for the earth underneath.

  “After you,” I say to Liáng, and gesture toward the core drill.

  Liáng stands there with his arms crossed in front of his body, one hand propping his smooth face up. He looks at me through the finger-length black bangs hanging down in his eyes—I think he might spend more time grooming himself than I do. “Why me?” he asks. He sounds like a native English speaker, making me wonder about his true background.

  “Because,” I say, “you’re the strongest.” And we have to find something for you to do.

  “No—” He shakes his head without lifting his hand from his face, and indicates Puo. “—I think that honor goes to your friend here.”

  “And don’t you forget it,” Puo says. “But I have more important things to do. Can you write code?”

  Liáng scowls. “Fine.”

  Puo heads back upstairs, leaving me alone with Liáng.

  Liáng unbuttons his black- and dark-green-striped shirt and tosses it on a foldout table near the stairs. His well-defined muscles and “V” shape are hard to ignore in the tight white tank top he has on underneath.

  Lotus and dragon symbols are heavily featured on the tattoos covering both his arms. The tattoos mark him as a member of the Chang’an, a dangerous Chinese international gang.

  “Nice tattoos,” I lie, trying to draw him out and into conversation.

  He eyes me suspiciously, but then decides I pass his sincerity test, “Thanks.”

  Score one for my ability to lie. “How long did they take?”

  “Long enough,” he says dismissively.

  Grrr. If there’s one thing most tattoo people love to talk about, it’s their freaking tattoos. How long they took, how they chose the design, their meaning, their placement, blah, blah, blah. But Liáng is giving me none of it. Why so reticent?

  Liáng wheels the chest-high core drill over to the prescribed spot and fumbles around trying to set it up. His face starts to burn a little red after several minutes.

  I’m just enjoying th
e muscly show.

  The core drill looks like a drill press only much larger and with a fire-red pressurized air tank attached. The goal is to drill enough connected holes in a circle through the concrete to make a large enough hole for us to fit through.

  Liáng eventually says, “Do you know how to set this thing up?”

  Yes. “Nope,” I say with a shrug. But I come over anyway and pretend to look it over.

  After several more minutes of leading him by the nose, we have it set up.

  “All right,” Liáng says. “Ready?”

  “Let it rip,” I say.

  CA-CHUNK, CA-CHUNK, CA-CHUNK!

  Liáng cuts it off right away, but the horrible sound seems to bounce around the concrete basement.

  My ears are ringing.

  “We can’t,” I say my voice elevated from the ringing in my ears, “run that thing like that.” Even in a detached home, that sound is going to raise questions.

  The basement door flies open and Puo hurries down the steps.

  I repeat my assertion to Puo.

  “What d’you suggest?” Puo asks, his voice sounds distant, much too soft.

  “Make this place an anechoic chamber,” I say. Keep the sound from traveling out. A real anechoic chamber, not the electro-magnetic variety we just recently dealt with in Seattle.

  Puo nods a couple times. “That could work.”

  * * *

  “We need to be careful—” Puo says quietly in the way he always says be careful. Which is to say it as a matter of fact, like commenting on the weather when running out of conversation topics.

  Puo and I are standing in the small white kitchen on the first floor, upstairs from the basement, divvying up the Italian takeout food from Rotta’s Cucina, while Liáng’s in another room on the phone with his handlers okaying buying the materials needed to make the basement an anechoic chamber.

  Puo continues softly, “—You saw Liáng’s tattoos right?”

  “Yeah,” I say.