The Elgin Deceptions (Sunken City Capers Book 2)

by Jeffrey A. Ballard

  “I don’t want to hear it, Toady,” I say, climbing onto the same appendage that Liáng is holding onto. The other appendages are picking up and cradling the motionless frogman.

  “Well you’re going to, damn it!” Puo plows on anyway. “This is nuts! Nuts! You’re going to bring one of them into the house? How long will it take them to track us down after that?”

  “We can’t leave him behind,” I say. Besides, they were going to find the house in Hampstead eventually. “And lighting the candle will provide the best escape—”

  “Falcon—! Falcon!” Puo sputters. Falcon is Winn’s codename on the comm-links. “This is all about Falcon again!”

  “No it’s not!” I shout back.

  “Then why restore the frogman’s power back in the museum?” Puo brings up again. “His friends were coming! You gave our position away. And now, why not pull this frogman out of the building and alert his friends, and not blow up the building? There are alternatives, Queen Bee!”

  “Blow the building, Toady!” I yell at him. The squiddie pulling all three of us moves into the curved underground tunnel.

  “It’s like you’re incapable of compromising—!” Puo says.

  “Blow the building!” both Liáng and I shout—well there’s an unexpected ally.

  “Arrggh!” Puo growls.

  Booom! Booom! Booom! The successive sounds are deep seated and distant, but there’s no mistaking them. For several seconds the boooms! carry through the underground tunnel.

  By the time the initial explosions settle, a deep rumbling fills the tunnel, shaking its sides.

  Silt shakes free from the roof overhead.

  The low classical music (violin this time) cuts off suddenly.

  “Toady—?” I ask.

  “I’m here,” Puo answers. “I just can’t listen to that crap anymore.” Puo falls into a silence on the comm-link that cackles with a pissy tension.

  I start to say, “You need to turn—” the music back on.

  “No,” Puo says.

  I can picture his arms across his body perfectly, not looking at me. I toss out my first two responses to this petulance. Freaking Puo. I swear I’m going to—

  Liáng diplomatically interjects, “What’s done is done. For better or worse, given Queen Bee’s decisions, blowing the building was the only decision—”

  “Funny,” Puo bitches, “how she often only leaves us with an ‘only’ decision.”

  I bite off any response—I’m going to keep my mouth shut. Keep the peace.

  “She only ever thinks about herself,” Puo starts. “She doesn’t compromise or think of others—”

  Fucking Puo! “You know the rule!” I scream at him. Asshole! “You know it existed long before Falcon—”

  “There are other options, Queen Bee!” Puo yells back.

  “What other options!” I shout right back.

  But Liáng cuts both off, “Enough! Toady, prepare for our arrival.”

  Puo waits a heartbeat before saying, “Roger, that.” His tone says anything but.

  This has nothing to do with Winn.

  Nothing.

  * * *

  The journey through the flooded underground tunnels back to the hole in the basement in the house in Hampstead is uneventful, our route clear of ploppers—the fruit of Puo’s prep work. No unexpected opposition.

  Except Puo’s moodiness.

  The progress is slow with three of us weighing down the squiddie. And quiet.

  Puo has petulantly kept the music off.

  I unhook my balloon bags and push them up through the hole to the basement first, before pulling myself through. Water spills out along the sides of the hole, spreading out on the concrete floor of the basement.

  Damn, it feels good to be out of the water, back into a more familiar arena. A floodlight set up in the corner lights up the basement. I slip my flippers off from my feet, not quite the same as slipping off a pair of heels, but close.

  Liáng pushes his balloon bags up through the hole. I grab them and set them to the side.

  “Double check that the frogman’s power is off,” I tell Liáng still in the water. We don’t want to take the chance he has a homing beacon that will give us away when he gets out of the water.

  Liáng does as told, and a minute later, out comes the frogman. I try to grab him under the arms to drag him out of the hole but the bastard starts twisting and turning like a sweaty child trying to avoid a bath.

  I drop him back in the watery hole. As the dark water splashes over the sides of the hole, I say to Liáng, “Cut his air tubes. If the bastard wants to be difficult, he can suck water until he wishes to be compliant.”

  “As you wish.” Liáng does as instructed.

  I wait a slow count of fifteen. “Let’s try this again.”

  It takes one more try before the frogman finally gets tired of cold water rushing into his suit and cutting off his airway supply.

  I fireman-drag him out of the hole to rest on the floor. He lays there with his hands and legs zip-tied together.

  I kneel down and unhook the frogman’s helmet, slipping it off over his head. “Oww,” he complains as it rubs against his thick forehead.

  Liáng pulls himself out of the hole. He smartly keeps his helmet on to keep his face hidden from the frogman. “Where’s Toady?” he asks me over the comm-link.

  The basement’s empty. No tables. No computers. No Puo. Just a pile of dirt in the corner. And Liáng hasn’t even seen the rest of the house yet.

  Where indeed?

  I ignore Liáng’s question for the moment.

  The frogman is a middle-aged black British guy, with a huge head. The kind of head that looks like he took too many steroids for too long. And he’s definitely British, judging by how he’s shouting at us that we’re “under arrest” and “cock-up,” and “barmy” this and “bloody” that.

  I tap my helmet over the ear and act like I can’t hear him.

  He starts barking even louder. If he were a dog, he’d be frothing at the mouth. And he really doesn’t like it when I flick him off and point to the acoustic tiling on the wall we installed to dampen the sound of our drilling through the concrete floor almost nine weeks ago. Alpha-male pricks really don’t like to be tied up and have someone get the better of them, judging by how much he’s yelling and struggling. Once Liáng and I clear out, we’ll tip off his friends to come collect him.

  “Where’s Toady?” Liáng asks again over the comm-link, alarm growing in his voice.

  “Somewhere safe,” I say. I square off toward Liáng.

  “What’s going on?” Liáng asks.

  “You tell me, Wei Jing,” I answer back, and take a step to the side to get a better position on him.

  Liáng keeps his helmet face toward me as he grabs one of the balloon bags and picks it up much too easily. Alarmed he drops to his knees and opens it. Empty.

  He grasps for the next balloon bag. Empty. “What the fuck is going on!”

  “You work for a snake,” I say. “And we have no intention of being eaten.” I switched my balloon bags with the forlorn minions watching me back when I was attaching distractions to auto-riders. And Puo switched Liáng’s when Liáng so helpfully left his behind in the security office—it’s nice when things unexpectedly fall your way.

  “What!” Liáng jumps up, two hundred pounds of pure muscle suddenly looms toward me. “We need it! Where the fuck is it!”

  It’s in a coastal cottage, where Puo is holed up at the end of the line, with two of those “distraction” riders with escort squiddies.

  Liáng doesn’t make it even two steps before he convulses and falls to the ground.

  “Good to know you’re still on my side,” I tell Puo.

  “I am always on your side,” Puo says over the comm-link still petulant. “Always.” Which is why Puo suggested adding that small detail of tasers to the inside of Liáng’s dry suit.

  “Need it?” I ask Liáng on the ground. And why “we
”?

  Liáng doesn’t answer me, and we don’t have time to dick around. “Fine. Here’s the deal,” I say to Liáng, “we have the jade. And we are willing to honor our original agreement with one small modification—”

  “Modification?” Liáng says through clenched teeth.

  “We control the jade at an undisclosed location. If you want it—as per our original agreement—Shǐ will meet us alone at a location and time specified by a third party.”

  “Third party?” Liáng asks.

  “Yup,” I answer. This isn’t about avoiding a potential double cross. It’s about avoiding what happened to Liáng and not becoming pawns to the Chinese government. And the best way to deal with that: inject a third player into the mix to change the dynamics.

  Liáng pauses only for a second before biting off, “Where?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  THE LIBRARY of Birmingham really is a gold-plated rats’ nest. I’m back in the library, sans Puo, two days after the lift.

  It may have been a bit of an understatement to say the British would be royally fucking pissed. They immediately locked down all transportation around the Sea of London (which only opened up again this morning). Uniformed police officers are all over the damn place, and the cops are turning the screws on all the old felons to try to sniff out leads.

  And that’s just the stuff we can see. Puo insists on staying as quiet as we can digitally.

  The Greek government has publicly denied any involvement and has offered to send help, while British public opinion on the matter is split. There’s some real vitriol that makes me sick to my stomach coming out in some corners toward the Greeks—a number of Greek businesses have been vandalized, and there’s been at least one publicized beating in relation to it. It’s not quite what I had in my mind when I created my Elgin deceptions.

  I take yet another uneasy deep breath as I walk through the rows of library books on the fourth floor off the rotunda toward my meeting.

  There are always Neanderthals out there who only need an excuse to act out out violently. Still, I provided them that excuse.

  I try to shake off the feeling before my confrontation with Shǐ.

  The British authorities haven’t publicly stated what contents were stolen yet, but it’s not lost on us that the Chinese government has come out quickly (for them) and condemned the acts of vandalism and offered whatever support the Brits needed. As in, ‘give us the jade that we haven’t already stolen.’

  The library is too warm in November; blasts of warm, hot air fall down on me from the interspersed vents above. I keep my navy-blue, fur-lined trench coat on all the same.

  I find the right library call number: the title of the fiction book is Double Cross. Cute.

  Shǐ walks up purposefully, nir long black hair is down and swaying behind nem. Nir dark eyes are narrowed on me, while nir black knee-high boots over charcoal slacks thump on the carpeted floor.

  Ne folds nir arms over nir chest, the fabric of nir thin black coat rustling—for some reason ne reminds me of a horse rider about to go out for a ride. “This was unnecessary,” ne says.

  “Not from our point of view,” I say.

  “Their fee comes from your cut,” ne insists.

  I shrug in response. If it keeps our asses out of jail or becoming pawns for the Chinese government to use whenever they want, then it’s well worth it. It’s still enough to pay off the Citizen Maker once and for all. There’ll be hardly anything left over, but we’ll finally be out of debt.

  Buzzed chestnut hair moves between gaps in the library shelves announcing Kafarov’s arrival. He steps around the corner and gives us both a smile. I had forgotten that he was shorter than me.

  “Hello, Ladies—” he says in his accented English.

  “Ne’s not a lady,” I say. And then freeze, my cheeks burning. Ne’s not a lady, but how is ne supposed to be referenced here?

  Shǐ seems to understand my predicament and says, “I identify as non-binary and prefer non-binary pronouns. However, I’d rather conclude our business quickly than educate you. So, if you please.”

  “All right,” Kafarov says, eyeing me. “This is relatively easy. You—” He points to Shǐ. “—send the money to us, and we hold it. Once she—” He points at me. “—is safely out of the country, I tell you where to find your merchandise. The money is then wired to you—” He points at Shǐ again. “—minus a small fee, of course.” He smiles.

  Small, my ass. I need to get into his business. Easy money—so long as everyone plays by the rules.

  “How do I know,” Shǐ asks, “that my merchandise is all there? I’ve never seen it.”

  “Liáng,” I say, “can verify it.”

  I feel a slight pang about Liáng. He was definitely a good asset to the team, despite his penchant for verbalizing my ideas a half step before me. I would’ve offered him a permanent spot if he weren’t in Shǐ’s pocket so much. As it was, we didn’t leave on the best of terms with Puo and I hiding the jade on him and tasering him. But I left him a golden carrot as a thanks though—it’ll be interesting to see if he takes it.

  “Liáng,” Shǐ says, “doesn’t know the totality of the merchandise.”

  “No,” I admit. He doesn’t know what I shoved into my balloon bags. “But he does know his half. And these guys—” I gesture at Kafarov who is smiling like a high-school student who’s suddenly found himself in a graduate-level physics class. “—don’t know whose is whose. Liáng will be able to tell you if anything is missing from his half. That should be good enough.”

  Shǐ considers this for several seconds and then says, “Very well.” To Kafarov ne asks, “Where do I wire the money?”

  Kafarov gives nir the necessary information.

  “Are we finished?” Shǐ says, and then adds snidely, “Seems hardly worth dragging me out—”

  “No,” I say. “We are not finished.” A flash of anger burns in me that this little non-binary bitch likely tried to sell us out to MI5 and the Muppies. And ne was definitely going to try and turn us into pawns. I take a step closer, “Our friends here are also holding a friendly recording of a conversation in a warehouse bathroom with some rather unfortunate retching sounds—”

  Shǐ’s dark eyes widen.

  “—But that’s not all they’re holding,” I say. “See, radio signals don’t just magically leave communicators.” I flutter my fingers in an imitation of Puo. “They have to pass through antennas and relays before they reach their destination. And every time they touch a new piece of hardware is an opportunity to record them for posterity’s sake. So, say, when a person requests the funds to buy acoustic tiling for a basement in Hampstead, a record is made.”

  “Those messages are encrypted,” Shǐ says.

  “Yes, they are,” I say. “But encryptions aren’t difficult to recover when the pocket tablet with the encryption card is left lying unattended upstairs while the owner is trying to use a core drill in the basement.” There was always a plan to mirror Liáng’s encryption card, but when he presented us the opportunity when he first showed up, we took it immediately.

  Shǐ’s face drains in color. That’s enough for me; ne was planning something.

  “If you ever fuck with us,” I say, “their instructions are not only to deliver this to every British agency in existence, but also the Americans, the Russians, the Japanese and every news agency in the world that might be remotely interested in it.”

  Shǐ just stares at me, nir lips clenched shut in tight red lines.

  I make a gagging gesture at nem to say goodbye.

  Nir eyes narrow into severe hatred.

  Kafarov nods at me, and I walk away without looking back.

  This is not our first fucking rodeo.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “THINK THAT’S the last we heard of nem?” Puo asks me diplomatically.

  “I hope so,” I say quietly. If they do approach us again, it’s going to be damn well polite and respectful, that’s for s
ure.

  Puo and I sit in a private cabin on one of the first air transports back to the States once the Brits opened up transportation out of the Sea of London again.

  Things have been a bit tense between Puo and me since our screaming at each other over the comm-links about Winn and blowing St. Pancras. Puo’s apologized, and so have I. But that doesn’t mean Puo was necessarily wrong.

  I stare out the window; the coast of Greenland is coming into view. It looks like a mountainous wasteland, pretty from forty thousand feet up.

  Puo plays with the tan cotton fabric of his pants; the rustling carries over the hum of the transport’s engines.

  I save him the trouble and say, while still looking out the window, “We were lucky this time.”

  The reflection of Puo in the window runs his tongue over his teeth, before saying, “We get lucky a lot.”

  Heh. That’s my line. “Well,” I say, “if we’re going to switch roles, then I suppose I should accuse you of mooning over Winn and making terrible decisions.”

  “Not terrible decisions,” Puo says, “just not optimal ones.”

  I turn toward him and quirk an eyebrow. “The two words I’ve heard more than any others lately are ‘reckless’ and ‘stupid.’ ”

  “Yeah,” Puo says, fighting a smile, “your decisions have been pretty stupid.”

  I give a weak smile back.

  “Do you miss him?” Puo asks me point blank.

  Winn was something different—right from the very beginning. He didn’t have that cynical take on life that all criminals have. And he wasn’t just interested in what I could do for him, or sex. He was normal. It’s so very hard to find normal in my line of work.

  Puo already knows the answer, but I confirm it for him anyway and nod.

  Winn and I were having a lot of fun together. Even the stupid stuff was more fun with him around, like running errands or doing chores. It wasn’t perfect, but at times it felt close. Then things went and got real.

  And Winn bailed. No word. No warning. Just gone.

  “Are you going to leave me too?” I ask quietly, not able to look directly at Puo.