One of the guards glanced at him, but what did he see? Just a brown-haired man with a trim moustache in a city of people with brown hair. They weren’t close enough to see the American shape of his face or the gun hidden at his side.
In this he miscalculated.
With a grunt to his companion, the guard ducked behind the van, letting off a shot. He’s using a silencer, Fred thought, even as he hit the cobblestones. The shot hurled into the building behind him. There were more whizzing shots and Fred answered them, trying in vain to make headway. One against three, minus the surprise. No longer very good odds. His upper right arm began to ache where he’d taken the bullet at Big Tommy’s.
Squealing tires caught Fred’s attention. He recognized Alberto’s car and knew the man was trying to either distract his opponents or get help. Poor, scared Alberto, who couldn’t stand the sight of a cabin full of dead men without losing his breakfast. Yet inside his heart, he was a hero.
As the car passed, the door jerked open and something landed in the road. Fred caught his breath. Sampson. The little fool! In his hands, the boy held the only weapon allotted to him: the tracking monitor. He threw it at the men as they turned their guns on him. Sampson fell, even as the monitor found its target.
Fred stood and shot repeatedly. One man joined Sampson sprawled on the street, but the others took cover. The shooting went on, a near silent struggle for dominance. Fred knew Alberto would get help. He knew also it would come too late. He jammed another magazine into his gun.
One of the men darted partway into the street and dragged Sampson to the van. Dare Fred hope he was still alive? Why else would they throw him inside the van? Or perhaps they recognized the child and wanted a death bonus from their boss.
Fred grimaced and eased closer. He felt a bullet graze his shoulder and ducked. Just a scratch, but it hurt. He had exposed himself too much, and would have to do it again to save Sampson. My fault, he thought. I was too confident of my surprise. But they had been expecting something. Perhaps Taggart . . .
Taggart. The thought helped Fred focus. If he had turned on them, Fred needed to make short work of these guards before Taggart showed up again. He also had to save Sampson. Likewise, the thugs couldn’t stand around waiting for Fred’s reinforcements. Things had to end soon—one way or the other.
The world around Fred spun suddenly. Perhaps his new wound was worse than he’d thought. He fell to his knees. He couldn’t shoot the men in this position, and he couldn’t rise. All was lost.
* * *
“AT LEAST GIVE US THE masks,” Jared said, stopping the vault door with his foot before it shut all the way.
Taggart grinned and shrugged off his backpack, slinging it toward him. “Now move your foot or I’ll blow it off.”
Jared took his foot away and the door shut tight. At once the lights began flashing, and a voice filled the vault, sounding eerie in the enclosed, airtight space: “Put your thumbs on the pad now. Hurry, or a poison gas will enter the vault.”
“This is getting old fast,” Jared growled. He opened Taggart’s backpack and found nothing but a rope inside. Sighing, he let it fall to the marble floor of the vault.
“Five seconds,” said Laranda’s voice.
“Put your thumb on the plate.” Cassi put her own on it as she spoke. With no other option, Jared jabbed his thumb down.
“Closure complete,” announced the recorded voice. “Thank you, Jared. I’m sure you understand that you have to do exactly what I want. It’s a lesson you haven’t learned very well, I’m afraid.”
“If she weren’t dead, I’d kill her myself,” Jared grated. The rage and helplessness in him mounted.
“I guess you’re wondering why you’re here,” continued the voice. It was soft and sweet now, hinting at innocence. What a joke. Laranda had been a lot of things, but never innocent. “Take a look around, and see my treasures.”
Jared had to admit he was curious. Already Cassi and the Laranda imposter were peeking under sheets, revealing rare paintings, statues, and vases. “This stuff is worth a fortune. Or more like several fortunes,” Cassi said as she lifted an edge of the sheet covering the forty million dollar Van Gogh they had heard about from Taggart. “Where’d she get it all?”
“Probably a lot of it from Big Tommy,” Jared guessed. “That guy was big-time, not like her. Hey, this painting’s a Monet, if I’m not mistaken. I’d say at auction it’d go for an easy twenty, maybe even thirty million.”
“More like thirty,” Cassi agreed.
“It’s mine. Leave it alone,” ordered the Laranda imposter.
Jared raised his eyes from the painting. “Who are you, really? Why are you here?”
“I’m Laranda.” But the woman seemed less sure.
“Laranda?” asked the recorded voice. “Do you hear me?”
The woman jerked her face around the vault. “Yes.”
“Do not be alarmed. I am you. You recorded this, but there has been an accident and you do not remember. But Jared must pay for his sins. Are you willing to help?”
The woman’s chest heaved in her fitted jacket, and her gaze was wild. “Yes. Yes,” she gasped.
“Jared,” Cassi whispered. “I think she’s hypnotized or drugged or something. Look at her eyes.”
“In the back of the vault there is a little safe,” continued the velvet recording. “Inside is something for you. You will remember the video and know what to do with it.” Pause. “And Jared, only she knows the codes to the safe, so stay back.”
Jared wasn’t about to obey. He darted around the woman and made it to the safe before she did. “I’m not letting you open it. Tell me the code.”
“No.”
Jared stepped closer to her, saw fury build in her eyes. Her resemblance to Laranda was still striking, but this woman’s face was fuller, more gentle. Hollows had been painted on her cheeks and around her nose to make her resemble Laranda. She even wore green contacts. “You are not Laranda,” he said, his voice gentle. “You are being used. Look at me. Do you really know me? Do you want to kill me?”
Her mouth opened, but she didn’t speak. The anger in her eyes faded. He took hold of her arms, felt her tremble. “Laranda was cold and mean and vicious. You’re not. Please give me the code.” He didn’t know what the safe held, but maybe it would help them escape.
“No. Let me get the gun. I have to shoot—” Her eyes flickered to Cassi, and Jared knew what Laranda had planned—for the imposter to kill Cassi or for Jared to die saving her. Or even for him to harm this pitiful woman in order to save them both.
“No,” he said. “We’re not your enemies.”
“You married her!”
“I love her.”
“You should love me.”
“I don’t even know you. Who are you?”
Her head began to jerk, and suddenly she gasped and collapsed into Jared’s arms. Cassi helped him lay her gently on the floor. “The poor woman.” Cassi’s voice was full of sympathy.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jared said. “Quick. Let’s find something we can use against Taggart.”
Minutes ticked by in silence as they searched the vault. They uncovered many more statues and valuable art objects, but nothing that would be of any use against a gun. Even so, they set the heaviest objects by the door. “I’d hate to ruin one of these on him,” Cassi said, fingering a statue of the Madonna.
“I can’t believe he’s a double agent. And we fell into his trap so easily. I should have listened to you.”
“Well, he didn’t find the tracking transmitter. That’s something. Maybe Fred will follow us in time.”
Jared moved to the door. “Come on, put your thumb here. Let’s try to get out.”
No sooner had they done so than a soft, mocking laughter began in the vault. The volume increased until their ears rang. “So, you both survived. I thought you might. How does it feel, Jared, to have had to hurt an innocent woman to save your beloved Cassi? Did you have to kill
her? Or did you hit her? Break her arm? Either way, you used your strength to harm a poor, innocent woman.” The laughter reverberated from the walls again.
“How—” Cassi began. “Oh, I see. When we put our thumbs on the pad, it told the computer which of her recordings to run.”
“That’s got to be it.” Jared glanced at the unconscious woman on the floor. “At least we didn’t have to hurt her. Maybe if we—”
“Test two is coming up now, Jared,” came Laranda’s voice. “Are you ready? I don’t think so. But here goes. This vault is in the bottom floor of a building with people living overhead, and a place of worship in the other half of the bottom floor. Now, this is what I’ve planned. A poisonous gas derived from the Cortinarius mushroom family has been rigged to leak throughout this whole building, except for in this half of the bottom floor. This is a nasty little gas that just happens to cause acute kidney failure. It will permeate everywhere and seep into the pores of everyone in the building. By the time symptoms show up—sometimes not for a week after exposure—the kidney and other organs are too damaged for survival. There is no known cure. At best, people die in three days; at worst, they’ll linger for three weeks.”
Laranda hesitated several heartbeats before adding in a cheerful tone, “Think of it, Jared—mothers, babies, fathers, big brothers, and little sisters. Some of them live here in this building, and some of them come only to pray. A few will likely escape—those who are not faithful enough to come often to pray.” There was a fervent laugh. “Such is my justice. The faithful and the innocent will die. Those of harder hearts live. It is the way of the real world. My world.”
The voice stopped, and Jared met Cassi’s eyes in horror. How many people lived in this building? Judging from its size, there were probably four apartments per floor, with perhaps four or five people to each family. Multiply that by three or four stories, and add the people who might come for meetings during the week. For all he knew, the gas could stick around until Sunday meetings. Jared felt weak and horrified. All those people dying. The authorities would be called in and might even find the cause. But it would be too late for most of them.
“Meanwhile, another gas will be released into this room that will make you sleep for a few days. While you sleep, my friends will remove my treasure to a more useful location. They won’t harm you, and I’m sure your FBI friends will be around soon enough to find and revive you—after the mushroom gas has penetrated the rest of the building. If they come fast enough, you will escape any effects. Of course you’ll live knowing you could have saved all those other innocent lives.”
This was cruel, even for Laranda. Jared wondered how long she’d been insane and how she had hidden it from the world. From him.
“There is a way to stop the gas.” Laranda’s voice sounded sorry now, but Jared knew it was an act. “You and Cassi can stop it by pressing your thumbprints again on the plate. That will stop all those people from dying needlessly.” Pause. “Unfortunately, it will also release a more quick-acting poison into this vault. You won’t suffer too much.”
A long pause and then, “So what will it be? You or them? Are you willing to sacrifice your lives to save others? Now is the test. You have five minutes to decide. If you do choose to live, do nothing and the computer will automatically begin leaking the mushroom gas into the rest of the building. Otherwise place your thumbs on the pad. So, my friends, the decision is yours. You now have four and a half minutes.”
“What are we going to do?” Cassi’s brow scrunched tightly in thought. Jared loved it when she did that, and he wanted to see her doing that every day until they grew old.
“Either way, we’re dead,” he said. “Taggart’s out there waiting for this to be over so he can come in and get the goods.”
“He has a gas mask.”
“No doubt there are more in the van. I’ll bet at least one of those guards will come in and help load things up.”
“Jared, we can’t let those people die.”
He frowned. “I know that, but how can I put my thumb on that plate, knowing you will die?”
“I’m not afraid of dying, if it will save them.” Her voice shook, but was resolute.
“What about her?” Jared pointed at the woman on the floor. “According to Laranda, she’s an innocent, too. If we save those people, she dies with us.”
Tears sparkled in Cassi’s eyes. “We have to choose the greater good.” The words were a whisper.
Jared admired her for the decision she seemed prepared to make, but he knew Laranda too well. “Cassi, listen to me. I doubt Laranda will spare those people even if we choose to let them live. The last thing we hear will be the sound of the gas—and her laughter as she tells us it was all a hoax, and that they’re all going to die anyway. That is who she is.”
Cassi’s face was stricken. “Oh, Jared, you’re right. And I bet if we choose to save ourselves, that mushroom gas will probably still get us, too.”
He held her. “This is all my fault.”
“It’s Laranda’s fault, not ours.”
“There has to be a way out.”
“Then let’s find it.” Cassi began tearing sheets from the art objects. Jared took the other side of the vault.
“Hey, look at this!” Cassi held up a thin, jeweled dagger that had probably been stolen or purchased from some important collection.
Jared didn’t recognize the maker, but the large jewels were likely genuine. She ran to the fingerprint plate near the door and began working at the screws. At any other time, Jared would have been appalled to see such a treasure being used as a screwdriver, but now he mentally urged her on.
He kept searching. If he could find something to help her, maybe they could destroy the computer before it let out any gas. Or at least get out in time to evacuate the building. Was that even a possibility?
“Three minutes left,” sang Laranda’s voice.
Jared moved faster. He knew that when the time was up, he would have no choice but to put his thumb on the plate, hastening his and Cassi’s death, though he doubted the sacrifice would help the people in the apartments above.
His hand closed on something solid. He pulled it out. A Japanese samurai sword.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SAMPSON DIDN’T WANT TO open his eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out again. His stomach hurt, but not as badly as he expected for a bullet wound. Maybe he was dead.
Then he remembered the two extra battery packs for the tracking monitor. He had stuck them in the waist of his pants before jumping out of the car, thinking to also throw them at the guards. Had they actually saved his life?
Alberto will be mad that I jumped, he thought. Fred will, too.
Fred.
Sampson forced open his eyes, experiencing a terrible urgency. He struggled to sit up, felt the bulk of the battery packs at his waist. Sure enough, one of them had been hit by a bullet, and his stomach behind that pack was sore and swollen. He almost couldn’t breathe.
At least he was alive.
He peeked out the window and saw the two men still shooting. Why did no one come for them? Had it only been minutes since Fred had left the car? Sampson crawled to the opposite window in the van. From that vantage point, he could see Fred kneeling on the cobblestones next to a car, bright red covering his shirt. The color shocked Sampson, made him recall how his uncle had jumped in front of him and saved his life.
He had to do something. But what?
He spied a box with gas masks inside and remembered his father’s death. If he’d had one of those in prison, he wouldn’t have died. Sampson wondered if Cassi and Jared were going to be poisoned inside the building, and if that was why the bad men carried the masks. He couldn’t take them to Cassi and Jared now, but he had to do something—anything. The answer came all at once to his mind: move the van.
Sampson crawled to the front of the van. There were no keys in sight, but he saw a lady’s red purse in the passenger’s seat. Searching it, he found no keys,
only makeup. Next, he looked in the glove compartment and finally behind the visor on the driver’s side. Along with rental papers, he discovered an extra key.
The van started smoothly, and Sampson felt a leap of joy as he shoved it into gear. He knew how to drive in principle, and had even convinced the butler to let him drive slowly around the estate when his father was out of town, but it had been a long time ago and this reality was far more frightening. The men outside the van noticed what he was doing and jumped for the door. Sampson locked it and punched on the gas. He fell back against the seat as the vehicle accelerated.
“Yee haw!” he screamed in a mix of triumph and terror as the van barreled down the street. He would only go so far and then turn around and come back to see if he could do something more. Please be okay, Fred.
* * *
JARED GRABBED THE SWORD’S hilt and pulled it from the worn wooden scabbard. The raven-black shakudo metal was formed of oxidized copper and gold, and it felt solid in his hands. Though it wasn’t his speciality, he knew if the samurai sword was in Laranda’s collection, it must be rare or in good enough condition to make it worth tens of thousands—at least.
Oh, well.
He jumped to Cassi’s side. She had loosened the screws enough for him to jab the blade inside and force off the rest of the plate. Inside was a mass of wires and blinking lights. He began cutting the wires at random.
A stuttering sound filled his ears, and then Laranda’s voice was back. “I’m disappointed with you, Jared. Can’t you make even one clean decision? But that’s okay. I’ll choose for you. In exactly two minutes, gas will fill this room and you will die. Shortly after, every chamber in this building will be permeated with the previously explained mushroom poison—less immediate, but just as fatal. You will all die, including the innocent little children sleeping in their cribs, and anyone who enters your church or this building in the next few days. It’s your fault they’re going to die, Jared. Take that to your grave and rot in it.”
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