“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “It sounds like a good plan to me.”
That earned him another smack from Callum. At this rate, Ryan would have brain damage by the time they got back to the UK.
“That’s because you haven’t heard Julia’s plan.” Joe rubbed the inside of her wrist. “Tell them.”
Plan? Was the man insane? She didn’t have a plan. She didn’t have anything. Most days she didn’t have the will to get out of bed, let alone solve a mess like this.
“Julia?” Callum’s voice brought her eyes around to him. “What’s the plan?”
“Joe?” she whispered.
“I saw it in your notes,” he whispered back.
Julia’s eyes went to her iPad and she flicked through the notes she’d made. Page after page of them, all neatly organised.
Ryan whistled as the pages appeared on the screen. “That is seriously impressive, Julia.”
Her heart stuttered when she hit the page Joe was talking about. “This is the plan.”
The team were quiet as they read her detailed notes.
“It could work.” Ryan sounded impressed.
“It will work,” Joe said. “If we find the treasure first, Esteban will lose interest in Patricia, and that eliminates her from the threat of kidnapping. Which only leaves Alice to worry about, and we can trade the gold for her safe return.”
“I like this idea,” Ed said. “I’d be much happier if we had the treasure instead of letting Esteban get his hands on it. Gives us more options. Plus,” he grinned, “maybe we can skim something off the haul to make this worth our while.”
Patricia frowned at him. “There will be no skimming. That treasure belongs in a museum.” She looked at Joe. “I can see the merits of this plan, but what if Esteban kills Alice once he realises we have the treasure?”
“He won’t,” Julia said. “Otherwise we go public with the find and he gets nothing.” At least, that was the theory. Julia’s hands began to tremble as the consequences of her being wrong sank in. She was taking such a huge risk with Alice’s life. “Everything I’ve read about him suggests he’ll take the deal. It also suggests that he will probably try to kill all of us once the trade has been made. He doesn’t like losing, and he’ll see letting Alice go as a loss. Even after we get her back safely, we’ll all still be at risk. I haven’t thought of a solution for that part yet.”
“That’s because that part is our part.” Joe looked over at Callum. “We know what to do, don’t we?”
“Aye,” Callum said. “Elle, get me a name for our buyer. I’m going to bed.” He stood, and Julia realised he must have been wearing his prosthetics for far too long. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was in pain. She felt guilty, having put him through this.
“He must be in pain,” Julia whispered.
“He’s a big guy. He can look after himself. It was his choice to come here,” Joe told her as Callum strode from the room. Thanks to Patricia hiring the team and covering their expenses, they’d booked another suite on the same floor.
As soon as the meeting broke up, Julia scrambled off Joe’s knee.
“Where you going?” Joe said as he hooked her hand.
“Bed. It’s been a long day.” She kept her eyes on the floor.
“You’re sharing my room tonight.”
Julia jerked her hand out of his and looked him in the eye. “No.” Didn’t he realise that things couldn’t work between them? Didn’t Ryan’s revelations make him see how flawed she was?
She’d been foolish to hope, even for a minute, that she could give in to the pull she felt towards Joe. But she couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t bear to look at him one day and see the disappointment he felt over her in his eyes. To feel his disgust when she didn’t fit him. His anger when she failed to live up to his expectations. It would happen. It always happened.
“I’m going to bed.” She turned from him and headed towards the room she shared with her gran.
When Julia looked over her shoulder, she saw his eyes on her and could almost hear his voice in her head.
You can run, but you can’t hide.
He was about to learn that she was very good at both. She’d had a lifetime of practice.
Chapter 15
Thomas Hayes. That was the name of the British expat who’d bought the mummy. Elle had dug up the information before breakfast and woken everyone with the news. Not that Joe had been sleeping. Nope. He’d being lying in bed wondering why Julia wasn’t there with him and trying to figure out what he could do to fix things. So far, he hadn’t come up with anything yet.
“Who the hell is this guy again?” Joe said to Ryan, who was by his side, but also to the rest of the team through his comm device.
Ryan and Joe were sauntering down the street in front of Hayes’ mini-mansion. They were decked out as tourists—small backpacks, easy-wash casual clothing, large cameras. Joe used his camera to snap photos of the glass and concrete monstrosity Hayes called home.
“I told you,” Elle said through the audio link in his ear. “He oversees the South American representatives of the British Council.”
“Like an area manager?” Ryan said.
“Exactly. His job is to see that British art and culture is promoted in other countries. It’s a public-relations type job,” Elle said.
“It’s also a great position if you want to build your own collection of illegal artefacts,” Joe pointed out.
“Yeah,” Elle said. “The guy has a serious obsession with building his own collection.”
“I don’t get it.” Joe pointed the camera, zoomed and snapped away. “What’s the point in collecting stuff you can never show anyone because all of it’s stolen?”
“Greed?” There was a snap in his ear, and he got a mental picture of Elle popping gum. “A sense of self-importance? A deflection from other things that are wrong with him, as in ‘my art collection is big enough to make up for the fact I have a really small penis’?”
Ryan almost choked on the bag of chips he was shovelling down.
Joe spotted a white van coming up the empty street. “Got eyes on Ed.”
He watched the van as he wandered along the street. There were no people walking or hanging around. After the crowded chaos of central La Paz, the wealthy suburb of Alto Florida was a little eerie. The houses were huge, if a little close together for Joe’s taste, and there were manicured trees at regular intervals along the sidewalk. Every house was cut off from the street by a high wall or a spike-topped fence, but unlike Lima, there weren’t any guards visible. It seemed the homeowners relied on their walls and security systems to keep the riffraff out.
The van stopped in front of Hayes’ house and Ed climbed out. He was dressed in overalls with a clipboard in his hand. He nodded at Joe and Ryan as though they were strangers, before producing a ladder from the back of the van and propping it against the pole beside the walled house. According to Elle, that pole ran wires for everything from power to internet connection.
Joe and Ryan sauntered past Ed as he attached the disrupter boxes Elle had furnished him with, to the lines leading into Hayes’ house.
“Tell me again why I came with you lot to La Paz?” Ed grumbled.
“You volunteered,” Joe said. “You practically begged. You kept going on about wanting to find the treasure. No one twisted your arm to get you to tag along.”
“That was before I got to play the workman because I’m the only South American in the group,” Ed said in Joe’s ear while he worked. “This is racist bullshit.”
“Be grateful you aren’t a woman,” Patricia said. “If you were a South American woman, we wouldn’t even let you do that much—we’d send you into the house as a maid. So please, don’t talk to me about racial stereotyping.”
Ryan thought that was funny. “Can you even comment on this, Patty? You’re white, upper class and rich. You’re a walking, talking example of privilege.”
“And that means I can’t have an opinion? Th
at I can’t stand up for my fellow woman?” Patricia asked coolly.
“Women of the world unite!” Elle called.
Joe groaned. “Can we focus on the job and start a march for equality later?”
“See?” Patricia said. “The fact you can say something like that as a throwaway statement shows how far we still have to go. Honestly, when I was marching for equality in the seventies, I didn’t think I’d still be fighting for it over forty years later. Do any of you young people realise how pathetic that is? You’re dropping the ball on this issue. You need to make more of an effort to put things right.”
“Done,” Ed said, and Joe almost kissed the man for stopping Patricia’s rant.
“Elle,” Joe said, “you in?”
“Give me a minute, Mr. No-patience.”
Joe glanced back into the van as he passed, and saw Julia and Patricia sitting behind the work equipment. He kept his face blank when he really wanted to start shouting all over again that they shouldn’t be in the field. He’d lost the argument because Patricia had pointed out that she was the only one who knew what the mummy looked like. And Julia had said that where her gran went, she went too. Then Ryan had argued that the mummy would be easy to spot because it was a dried-up dead body, and how many of them could be in the house? At which point Elle ruined that argument by saying, “Thomas Hayes is known to collect them. There could be dozens in there.”
So Joe had lost the argument and the women were back in the field.
“Okay,” Elle said. “I’m in. His security system was good, top of the line, but nothing fancy. He’s only worried about burglars. Not people like us.”
Joe shared a look with Ryan.
“Elle,” Ryan said, “we’re here to steal something, what does that make us?”
“Huh,” Elle said, and then there was silence.
Joe scanned the area. It was quiet. “There’s activity in the house on the left. Ed, you see anything from up there?”
Ed turned and waved at the neighbouring house. “It’s a maid.”
“You see anything else?”
“Are there any cameras on neighbouring houses, ones pointing at our house?” Elle asked.
“No,” Ed said. “They’re all focusing on their own properties.”
“Will the maid be a problem?” Joe said.
“If she is, I’ll handle it,” Ed said.
“And how will you do that?” Patricia’s tone was icy.
“Why, I’ll use my considerable charm.”
“Can we please, for once, focus on the job?” Callum snapped over everyone else. “No more talk unless it’s to do with the operation. Keep your petty crap for your free time.”
“Yes, sir,” Elle said. It was unclear if she meant it sarcastically.
“The maid’s gone,” Ed said.
“The gates will open on my mark,” Elle said.
“Out of the van,” Joe told the women, and they scrambled out.
Joe and Ryan took up positions on either side of them, blocking them from view as they kept an eye on the quiet street.
“Three, two, one,” Elle said, and then there was a clanking as the electronic gates opened.
“You sure this guy doesn’t have any staff?” Joe asked as they rushed towards the front door and the gates clanked shut behind them.
“Doesn’t trust them,” Elle said. “They only come in when he’s home.”
“Street is clear and quiet,” Ed said.
Ryan had his tools out and was busy picking the lock on the door. Joe kept his eyes peeled for trouble, all the while aware that Julia was back to avoiding eye contact again. It was a huge step backwards. One he couldn’t afford to think about during an op. He needed to focus on keeping them safe and getting them out of there.
“We’re in,” Ryan said. The door opened and they piled into the house, closing it behind them.
The building was even uglier on the inside than the outside. The walls were whitewashed cement or exposed brick. The furniture was minimal, to the point of there being rooms with only the odd, uncomfortable chair. The rest of the space was dominated by Thomas Hayes’ art collection.
Ryan whistled as Patricia’s mouth hung open. Julia’s eyes were so wide that she looked like a meerkat. They were inside a private museum. There were huge contemporary paintings on the walls, and sculptures dotted everywhere. His taste ran from ancient artefacts to contemporary art.
“That’s a Paula Rego,” Julia said with awe. She looked at her gran. “I don’t think he could afford that. I think it was probably intended to hang in the British Embassy.”
Patricia pointed at the far wall. “That tapestry went missing from a Colombian museum two years ago. I wrote a paper on it when I was a grad student. It’s worth a fortune. A unique piece of South American history.”
“And Thomas Hayes has it.” Julia pointed at some of the pieces in turn. “Antony Gormley, Jenny Saville, Rachel Whiteread, David Hockney. He’s filled the house with work by famous British artists. This collection is worth millions, and I’d say most of it has been appropriated through his job or attained on the black market.”
“By appropriated, you mean he stole it from the British Council?” Ryan said. “I don’t know anything about art—you might as well be listing made-up names for all I know. But I recognise money when I see it in action.”
There was a horrible pause. Joe and Ryan were suddenly very focused on the wires running from the artwork.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Ryan flattened his face to the wall and peered behind the painting next to him.
“Fuck.” Joe’s eyes shot to the corners of the room.
“I’ll take that as an affirmative,” Ryan said.
“Joe,” Julia said, “there are other words.”
For once he didn’t soften at her gentle reprimand. “Elle. We’ve screwed up. Our information was wrong. There’s a second security system inside the house. It’s seriously high-tech and it’s monitoring the artwork. I’m betting we’ve already triggered a silent alarm.”
They could hear Elle tapping furiously. “No police callout. Must be a private security firm. See if you can get me a company name.”
“I’ll look for one. The rest of you scatter,” Joe shouted. “Find the mummy. We don’t have much time. Minutes at best.”
The women ran.
Joe followed the wiring, looking for a name, for anything at all that would tell them who’d installed the system and who was monitoring it. “Whoever this is, they’re good,” he told Elle. “Ryan, you got anything?”
“No.”
He heard running. Doors slamming.
“I’ve got it!” Patricia shouted, no longer caring if anyone heard.
“Ryan, go help them. I’ll keep looking.” Ryan ran after the women. “Ed? Any activity out there?”
“Nothing. I’m going to get the van running and make friends with the neighbour.”
“You think we can use their house to hide out until this is over?”
“It’s an option, and we don’t have many. I’ll look into it.”
“Callum?” Joe said.
“I’m on my way. I’m heading for the back of the property. There’s a driveway leading up to the house next door.”
Over his comm, Joe heard a car swerve. “Same house as Ed’s flirty maid?”
“Yeah.”
“Joe,” Ryan said, “we’ve got a problem.”
Joe started running. “I can’t look for a name, Elle. We’ll just need to see who turns up.”
“I’ll keep digging,” she replied. “There are other things I can do. The clinic at the end of the street is about to have a fire alarm problem. I’m hoping it will cause enough chaos to hide your getaway.”
Sure enough, Joe heard the wailing alarm as soon as Elle finished telling him her plan. He ran up a few short stairs to a mezzanine level that backed onto the manicured garden and endless pool. The wall at the back of the property was high, cutting them off from the neighbo
urs and making sure the garden wasn’t overlooked.
“What is it?” He skidded to a halt in the middle of a room full of dead people.
There were pedestals everywhere. Each had a large glass dome on top, and under the domes sat the curled figures of mummified bodies, each one with its knees up to its chest and its arms wrapped around it. Twelve—there were twelve bodies. Their time-leathered skin had taken on the colours of the desert, and looked tight, wrinkled and brittle over their bones. It was hard to believe the husks had once been walking, talking people. Now they looked more like the contemporary art dotted throughout the building.
Around the mummy cases, the walls were filled with vibrant contemporary paintings of nudes, as though Hayes was trying to contrast life and death. It was a strange art exhibition. Made even more disturbing because it had only ever been intended for an audience of one.
“The pedestal is embedded in the concrete floor,” Ryan said. “The dome is sealed onto the pedestal with this welded bar.” He pointed at the metal rim that encircled the dome.
“Smash it,” Joe said without hesitation.
“We tried,” Ryan said grimly. “Reinforced glass.”
“We can’t shoot it. It’ll take several bullets, and someone would call the cops,” Joe said.
As if on cue, there were sirens.
“Ed?” Joe said.
“Fire trucks,” Ed said. “They’re blocking off the west entrance to the street. The firemen are clearing the area. Wait a minute.” They heard him enter into a fast exchange in Spanish. “The cordon ends at the other end of this street. I’ve been told to back off and clear the road.”
“What about the maid next door?” Ryan asked, obviously looking for another way out.
“She won’t open the door.”
“So much for your charm,” Patricia said.
Ed ignored her. “A black SUV just pulled into the east end of the street.” They heard an engine rev. “I’m going to drive down and block them. See if I can buy you a couple more minutes—if it’s the security company.”
“Give me the plate number. I’ll see if I can dig anything up on the car,” Elle told Ed.
Julia suddenly placed a hand on Joe’s forearm. “Inside the front door, there’s a small sculpture. The Anthony Caro. It’s concrete and iron.”
Relentless (Benson's Boys Book 2) Page 12