The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  Puo barks a laugh. “I don’t know, Queen Bee,” Puo says. “How about Dainty Dragon, Dowdy Dragon; or Distraught Dragon, Doddering Dragon—”

  “Neither of you,” Liáng says, abandoning his calm voice, “have adjectives attached to your name.”

  “Whoa,” I mock, pretending to keep the peace, “take it easy with the grammar there fella. We’re all friends here—” Well, two friends, and one pawn who I’m pretty sure his handler is going to try and screw us with later. “—Believe me, I know there’s nothing ‘plump’ about you.”

  Liáng goes awkwardly silent.

  Puo doesn’t pile on, no doubt enjoying the unexpected awkwardness.

  I feel my cheeks burn inside my helmet. “I mean—we know you’re lean. It’s just—with your muscles—that’s why it’s funny …”

  Puo snorts. “Are you explaining why something’s funny? It’s not funny if you have to explain why it’s funny—”

  “Shut up, Chameleon!” I warn.

  Why did it have to get so awkward?

  “Shutting up, boss,” Puo says.

  I can hear the damn, smug smile on his round Samoan face.

  Puo announces, “FYI: HiDARs are in the water. Hold up here, while I go scout ahead.”

  Good to know. But unless they’re in the museum itself, we should be fine.

  Liáng and I stop at the door to the Great Court. Puo’s squiddie swims out in the great open space and quickly disappears around the circular edge of the Reading Room that takes up a large portion in the middle of the Great Court.

  And now Liáng and I are alone together. Quietly. In silence. Where normal people would say something.

  My mind is suddenly and stupidly blank. Asking Liáng how he’s doing seems … lame. So lame.

  So I say nothing. Annnd it gets more awkward.

  What? Is it something about the water pressure that does this to me? This happened with Winn too on our first time out over the sunken state of Florida.

  Puo starts humming “The K-i-s-s-i-n-g Song.”

  “Okay, Toady, that’s it!” I snap.

  “Hey—!” Puo starts, but I barrel on.

  “No! If you can’t play nice, then you’re demoted back to Toady.”

  Puo’s silent on the other end for a second before saying, “Ribbet.” He then adds, “It was totally worth it.”

  Freaking Puo. And toads don’t say ribbet.

  “I will never understand you two,” Liáng finally says.

  “Well,” Puo says, “it’s good to keep a little bit of mystery in … in a …”

  My building frustration at where Puo was headed switches gears quickly to curiosity. “You find the hole?”

  “Yeah,” but his voice is heavy, no excitement. “The cruisers are dispatching.”

  Shit. “How many?”

  “All of them.”

  * * *

  All of them?

  How the hell are they mobilizing so quickly? It’s storming to high hell out there. Damn it, we’re not even in the vault yet.

  “We need to move,” I helpfully tell Liáng. To Puo I ask, “Toady, where are you?”

  “Turn left out of the door,” Puo says, “can’t miss it.”

  My DPV whirs to life and pulls me along, gently accelerating out into the Great Court . Riders—the devices I used back in Amsterdam—these gentle sea cows are not. They really lack the pep that the urgency of the situation demands.

  I lead Liáng left out the door. There’s a light layer of blue pixels floating all over the place—a cloud of silt from several thousand-pound panels smashing into the Great Court. The rain pelting the stormy surface is louder in the Great Court, but still distant.

  We specifically targeted three panels to land in the Great Court. Two right in the same path. The third to throw the authorities off from what we were doing.

  So, why isn’t the silt cloud as bad? I can see the rising, circular walls of the Reading Room to my right. The once-external, Greco-Revivalist façade of the East Wing is just visible to my left. Distant alarms continue their nee-eu! nee-eu! The thin water washes over me as the DPV drags me toward the gaping hole in the floor, my internal suit-heater keeps me mostly immune from the cold—best invention evah.

  The hole is jagged. Huge chunks of concrete and rebar are twisted downward around the edge. The thin veneer of marble hangs off in slabs, waiting to break free.

  I ride straight up to the edge.

  What lies in the hole itself is much more opaque. Silt clouds billow and move down below. There’s no telling how deep it is.

  Puo’s squiddie shoots down ahead of me to make sure Liáng and I don’t dive headfirst into brick or concrete.

  “Down the rabbit hole we go,” I say and direct my DPV down into the hole. “ETA on the cruisers?” I ask Puo.

  Puo’s quick with the answer, “Two to three minutes. All three are headed straight for us.”

  Fuck. They know we’re here. “Did the HiDARs see us?”

  “I don’t know,” Puo answers.

  And why the hell aren’t they sending in the squiddies? The British Museum is a large place that they have to first find us in—do they know where to look?

  “Toady,” I say, “I am becoming very concerned with the lack of company.”

  “Company?” Liáng asks.

  “Squiddies,” I say. “Where the hell are they? Why aren’t they being used as scouts, and pulled out after the wet team hits the water?”

  Puo mumbles back his concern as well, but doesn’t actually say anything useful.

  The obfuscation from the silt continues as we descend through the jagged hole. There’s little to see except random glimpses of the caved-in bricked edges. The water “feels” colder as we get deeper—not sure I can actually feel it, but my internal thermometer power consumption readout indicates it’s self-adjusting. The sound of rain is louder in the hole, probably from the direct path to the surface.

  “Well, where are they?” Liáng asks.

  “That’s the question,” I answer.

  “No,” Liáng says. “I mean—before, you could track them. So if you can’t detect them now, then where could they be physically in the water to accomplish that?”

  My mouth drops open in my helmet from a range of horrible thoughts. The worst being they figured out how to cloak the bastards from us.

  “Toady?” I ask.

  “I’m not reading any right now,” Puo says. “Any.”

  Shit. I force myself to take a deep breath and think. “We haven’t seen any squiddies,” I start thinking out loud. “But the three cruisers are making a bee line for us.” Where the hell are the squiddies?

  I keep pace with the four mechanical tips of Puo’s squiddie’s appendages visible in the silt cloud ahead of me.

  “But,” I keep thinking out loud. “They have to be somewhere as Plump Panda so helpfully pointed out. So what situations would arise to hide the whole damn squiddie navy? They’re not cloaked are they?”

  I follow the tips of the squiddie appendages that curve down and to the left, exiting the hole that continues down deeper.

  Puo says, “Leveling out in the vault floor.” He then continues about the missing squiddies, “It’s unlikely they’re cloaked. I’m not sure how they would physically pull that off. And why sandbag with them?”

  “So what does that leave?” Liáng asks.

  “That they’re hiding,” I blurt out. If they’re not showing up on our scanners, and they haven’t developed cloaking technology, then they’re physically hidden. “But where?” I ask in a low voice.

  I keep the tips of the squiddie’s appendages in front of me and level out. It’s so freaking murky down here I can’t see jack shit. Hunh.

  “What, hunh?” Puo suddenly asks.

  I hadn’t realized I’d said anything, but I take the opportunity to work some moisture back in my mouth. Apparently I’ve been thinking with my mouth hanging open too much in the dry air environment of the closed scuba suit.


  “I was just thinking—” I start.

  “You know where the squiddies are?” Puo asks.

  “What? No.” That is what we were talking about wasn’t it? “The silt clouds. I can’t see anything. How far can you see?” I ask Puo.

  “Uh … eight maybe twelve feet,” Puo answers.

  So the squiddie sonar can’t see very far either.

  Liáng asks, “You think the squiddies are hiding in the silt clouds?”

  I consider that for a moment, but then answer, “No. But it is one hell of a confuser to hide within.”

  Puo’s silent at first and then says slowly, “Yeah—” I can imagine his head bobbing up and down. “—I see where you’re going, but we can’t do anything about that right now.”

  “Well you asked about my hunh,” I say with a little bit of snap. I wasn’t going to share, because Puo’s right. If I had thought of this before we got started on the job we might have been able to exploit it more. “And why do I have to think of everything?”

  “It’s clearing up ahead,” is Puo’s response.

  The thought that the squiddies are hiding, coupled with three cruisers heading straight for us, sparks another disturbing thought. I switch the comm-link to just Puo. “Toady, this place could be a sty.” Code talk for an inside job. Shǐ might have sold us out, trying to do the same thing they did to Liáng.

  Puo exhales slowly over the comm-link. “If it is a sty, there’s little we can do to clean it at the moment.”

  “Once we get to the vault, I’ll order you to go greet our guests. Once that’s done, quietly scout ahead to our exit route and look for any surprises.”

  “Roger, that,” Puo says.

  The silt cloud thins some, and the brick-walled edges of the rounded tunnel start to emerge.

  “Switching over to the party line,” I say. I switch over so that Liáng is back on the line.

  “Increase power on helmet lights,” I order.

  Six beams of white light lance out through the water column ahead of us, two per person/squiddie. The water is undisturbed, almost crystal clear ahead of us. Brown and gray silt coats the floor. Little strings of algae covered in silt hang off the brick.

  Silt billows up below and behind us as we pass down the hallway.

  The rectangular vault doors are set into their arched brick entryways. Ocean crud and little strings of algae hang off the once gleaming silver-metal doors. The crud-covered black oval sign announces the vault’s designation. Alarm sounds pierce the otherwise silent hallway.

  “Damn,” I say, once I see two vaults’ designations in a row.

  “What?” both Puo and Liáng ask at the same time.

  “We’re moving in the wrong direction.”

  “Ah, poo,” Puo says. “You’re right. We need to turn around.”

  “Where are those cruisers?” I ask annoyed at the delay.

  “One to one-and-a-half minutes away,” Puo says.

  As I pass the last vault door before heading back into the silt cloud, I see the black, starfish-shaped air-gap sensor sitting above the vault door in a silvery, shimmery pool of collected air. Sweet.

  “Looks like the runners have been through,” I say to Puo.

  “Yeah,” Puo says, “I saw that too.”

  “But I said it first,” I say. “So no credit for you.” I try to say it lightly, but fail.

  Several of the runners have been outfitted with bubble jets. Running through the halls streaming air bubbles to set off the air-gap sensors. The idea was to set off as many alarms as possible. But if Shǐ tipped the Brits off, they’ll know right where to go.

  “Uh, guys—” Liáng says.

  “I am not a guy!” I snap, both at the verbiage and at the thought that Liáng may be in on it. I hate that phrase. Not a guy. No penis here. And I’m the boss. Only slightly worse is when some stoner moron refers to me as “Dude.”

  “Ohhh,” Puo says. “Faux pax, Plump Panda. No good, no good.” Puo does a better job at keeping the tension out of his voice.

  “Squiddies!” Liáng shouts back. “What about the squiddies? Did you two forget about them? We were discussing—”

  “I didn’t forget about the squiddies,” I say, still annoyed. “Did you forget about the squiddies, Toady?”

  “No,” Puo says. “I didn’t forget about the squiddies. Did you forget about the squiddies, Queen Bee?”

  “No,” I say. “I didn’t forget about the squiddies. Did you forget about the squiddies, Plump Panda?”

  Pretty sure if it were possible to hear Liáng giving us a dirty look over the comm-link we would. Instead there’s a loaded silence.

  We’re back in the center of the hole the panels carved through. The silt is heavy, swallowing our headlights. I can barely see the trailing appendage tips of Puo’s squiddie.

  “Uh-oh,” Puo says. His squiddie stops in its tracks.

  “What?” Liáng and I ask.

  “Uh … I think we’re in the vault,” Puo says.

  “What?” Liáng and I repeat again. I’m randomly tempted to yell “jinx” at Liáng and tell him he owes me a Coke, but I’m still irritated at him and I’m not sure he’d get it.

  The panels were supposed to hit near the vault to provide an easy entry point. Once we arrived the plan was to drill some holes around the vault door and fill them with explosives and detonate. Then stand back and let the pressure difference take care of the rest—no need to be subtle on this one.

  “The panel smashed through the vault?” I say just to be absolutely clear.

  “Yeah,” Puo says.

  Whoops.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DROPPING THE panels was never supposed to be super-accurate. The most smarts we put into them was for precision, to follow one another for a repeated pounding in some cases.

  We talked about trying to drop a panel directly through the vault, but Liáng understandably didn’t like that idea, and we weren’t sure we could do it on purpose. On accident (in hindsight), no problem.

  “Direct hit?” I ask Puo, “Or … what?”

  “Checking—” Puo starts, but suddenly cuts off. “The wet teams are in the water.”

  “Teams?” A spike of adrenaline hits me. I almost twist my head up with my helmet lights to look up near the surface.

  “Yeah,” Puo says. “Two.”

  “Vault,” I say to Puo. “Talk to me about the vault. Then go greet them. Make a fucking mess, Toady. Sprint around and kick up as much silt all over the damn place as you can.”

  “Right,” Puo says. “The vault. It looks like the panel sheared off the northwest corner, taking the door with it.” Puo’s squiddie emerges from the swirling silt cloud very close to me. “It’s to your left. Head straight. Can’t miss it.”

  “Good,” I say. “Go,” I order him.

  Puo’s squiddie shoots upward. “Gone.”

  I direct my DPV to the left and accelerate slowly to make sure I don’t smash into anything. Out of the drifting silt cloud I see the edges of the vault. Smashed and broken brick hang off the edges like dry flaking pieces of skin.

  “Panda, you with me?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Liáng says tightly.

  Liáng vehemently spoke against the smash-a-panel-through-the-vault-as-a-way-to-open-it idea. Somehow, destroying some jade to recover the rest of it was a big no-no. Oh, well. Foolish nationalistic sensibilities.

  Past the jagged, rendered edges of the vault lies the interior. It’s cloudy and murky; visibility is two, maybe three feet. I see the top edge of a toppled wood and glass case. The glass is shattered, broken. The wood looks fresh, like it hasn’t been sitting in water at all—which, of course, up until the last hour, it hasn’t.

  And there, inside the top shelf: jade. Hello, my lovelies.

  This shelf is full of bracelets. Wrist-sized solid rings of jade from a deep green to a pale almost white stone. Some are plain, but most are carved on the outside in intricate patterns with dragons, Chinese lions and fish.


  I whip the equipment bag off my back and dig out the first of several balloon bags—they’re a riff off the leech bags. The balloon bags are designed to hold a bunch of stuff and then inflate/deflate to maintain neutral buoyancy, which makes moving them around in the water like pushing puffs of air.

  “Found the goods,” I tell Puo and Liáng. “I’m starting to pack it up now. Panda, look down at your feet.”

  Something heavy somewhere up in the museum goes ka-thunk!

  “Roger, that,” Puo says. “I’m working on the party decorations.”

  “Don’t pull the place down on us,” Liáng says. “We still need to get out of here.”

  “Agreed,” I say. “Did you hear that Toady?”

  “Loud and clear,” Puo answers. Our escape route is down, not up. But Liáng doesn’t know that yet. It was strategically safer to assume Shǐ was going to try and screw us over and not let Liáng in on everything—which, given how the night is going so far, was the prudent choice.

  “Keep an eye on the wet teams,” I tell Puo. “We’ll need to know when to bolt.”

  “Roger, that,” Puo responds in a tone that screams duh!

  Freaking Puo.

  “Panda,” I say. “Pack up as much as you quickly can.”

  I’ve already shoved a handful of pieces in the balloon bag and I’m working my way down the toppled wooden and glass case (more bracelets and now some pedants). “Don’t bother wrapping individual pieces. There isn’t time.”

  “They could be damaged,” Liáng says defensively.

  “Yes, they could,” I conceded. “Blame it on the Brits. But it’s your choice,” I say. “Either go for a few, preciously wrapped pieces. Or go for a lot. Once we leave, the Brits are going to come back and pick up the rest.”

  Me? I’m going for a lot. A lot of slightly (if at all) damaged jade is going to be bring in more cash than a few pristine pieces.

  “The agreement—” Liáng starts.

  “The agreement didn’t specify the quality of the delivered jade!” I snap at him. “Only the contents of the vault. Which I am currently bagging up and you are not.”

  “Our patron is not going to like this,” Liáng says.

  “Our patron can shove it,” I snarl. “Now shut up and bag it.”