Thieves Till We Die

by Stephen Cole

  ‘Neither,’ came a familiar voice behind him. ‘You come with us.’

  ‘Tye!’ Jonah felt weak with relief. ‘God, it’s good to see you.’

  She opened her mouth to reply, but it was Con who spoke, running up behind her. ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ she said. ‘Now.’

  ‘Situation?’ snapped Motti, helping himself to more antique silverware.

  ‘The car’s been parked at the main exit,’ said Con. ‘Gates are open, one guard to take care of.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Still searching the grounds, but could come back any time. If they do, their leader will detail them to the turbine end of the complex, nicely out the way.’

  ‘But it won’t take them long to find there’s no intruders there,’ Tye added. ‘Have you got what Coldhardt wanted?’

  ‘It’s not here,’ said Patch miserably.

  ‘So we’re taking the other swords,’ added Motti. ‘C’mon.’

  Tye started forwards, but Con didn’t move. She was too busy staring at the computer screen, her striking face caught somewhere between horror and amusement. ‘Ugh! Whose spotty butt is that?’

  ‘Even my virtual bum gets kicked,’ Patch muttered, his cheeks glowing crimson, crossly snatching daggers from the wall.

  Tye led the way as they moved out, weighed down with their antique trophies, and stole across the moonlit compound. She signalled the others to stop as they came into view of the car. It was parked facing the open exit, thoughtfully pointing the way they wanted to go. The guard was sat at the wheel, listening quietly to the radio, having a smoke.

  ‘A rare moment of peaceful reflection in the life of a low-rent mercenary,’ Jonah observed.

  ‘Almost a shame to disturb him, isn’t it?’ Tye agreed.

  ‘Let’s just nail the sucker and get out of here,’ said Motti.

  ‘Nail him how?’ asked Con practically.

  Motti hefted the stack of steel in his arms. ‘Biggest damn nails I ever saw.’

  ‘You’re not seriously thinking of using one of those things?’ Tye hissed, swapping a worried look with Jonah. But Motti only winked at her, crouched down and swiftly sidled towards the 4x4, clanking a little as he went. Stealthily he crept towards the passenger door …

  ‘What the hell is he up to?’ Jonah muttered.

  Motti dumped the swords down on the concrete as hard as he could. The sudden noise was deafening. Even at this distance Tye saw the guard jump so high in the driver’s seat he must have whumped his head on the roof. And before he could recover his wits, Motti threw open the passenger door and socked him with a scabbard.

  ‘He’s crazy!’ hissed Jonah. ‘A noise like that will have carried for miles!’

  ‘So let’s move it!’ said Patch.

  Tye led the charge over to the car. Motti was already throwing the back doors open for the others to dump their stolen arsenal inside. Tye got rid of her bundle, flexed her aching arms and opened the driver’s door. The guard flopped out to the ground, bloody mouthed – she stepped over him and jumped inside. The key was in the ignition and she clutched for it; the engine turned over with a rich growl.

  The car lurched as the others finished loading up and launched themselves inside, Motti, Patch and Jonah in the back and finally Con in the front.

  ‘Great plan, Mot,’ said Jonah coldly. ‘Wake up the whole neighbourhood, why don’t you –’

  ‘I think we’ve got company,’ Con shouted, checking the wing mirror. Then she swore as the back of the car took a fierce smack of bullets. The rear windows shattered under the onslaught.

  ‘Jesus, Tye, get us out of here!’ Motti yelled, as Jonah roughly bundled him and Patch forwards to the floor before they got their heads blown off.

  ‘Guess they worked out we weren’t hiding in the turbine block, then,’ called Patch weakly.

  Tye stamped down on the accelerator as she eased up on the clutch, and with a screech of tyres the car sped away. She steered in a crazy zigzag, felt the bullets pumping into the bodywork, the steering wheel twitching with each hit. If just one of the tyres burst …

  But the car held it together as she steered out on to the bumpy dirt road that would take them back to the highway. She was about to let out a cry of relief when two more guards came sprinting out of the thick foliage ahead of them, raising their automatic weapons. ‘Hang on,’ Tye shouted, yanked up the handbrake and tugged the wheel round hard left. The car tore into a screeching 360-degree spin, and its rear end broadsided the guards before they could open fire. Sticking the gearstick into first, Tye pumped the accelerator and they lurched off again, careering down the track, bumping round the bends, until finally the broad grey strip of the highway came into sight and they roared away into the night’s thin traffic.

  They’d gone a full half-mile before Tye realised she was gripping the wheel so tight she had lost all sensation in her fingers.

  ‘Am I still alive?’ Patch wondered weakly.

  ‘You feel this?’ Motti pinched his arm.

  ‘Ow! Yeah!’

  ‘Then you’re still alive.’

  ‘No thanks to you,’ snapped Jonah. ‘That drop-the-swords trick was stupid.’

  Motti climbed shakily back into his seat. His long dark hair had scraped loose from its habitual ponytail and gusted in the wind through the broken windows. ‘Got the armed hood out of our transport, didn’t it?’

  ‘And brought another three running!’ Jonah stared at him angrily. ‘You could have got us all killed!’

  ‘Oh, get the new boy, ticking me off like he knows it all!’

  ‘I’m just saying maybe you should have told us what you were –’

  Motti leaned forwards and shouted in Jonah’s face. ‘There wasn’t time for a debate!’

  ‘The important thing is, we got out unharmed,’ said Con diplomatically. ‘We may not have got the main prize, but I think Coldhardt will be very happy with the rest of our little haul, yes?’

  ‘Quantity, not quality,’ said Patch with a sigh.

  ‘Just pray those jokers didn’t hole the fuel tank,’ said Tye. ‘Or we’ll be carrying that “little haul” on foot, fifty miles cross-country.’

  ‘Maybe we’d better stop at a drive-through on the way, then,’ Patch suggested. ‘They gotta have ’em even in Guatemala, right? A Big Mac might help keep our strength up.’

  ‘Filet-o-Fish,’ Con corrected him. ‘And I’m having two.’

  ‘Beanburger, Jonah?’ Tye asked lightly.

  He forced a small smile. ‘Sure. Nothing like dodging bullets to give you an appetite.’

  Tye kept glancing expectantly at Motti, hoping he would join in the banter and the bickering and make things more normal. But he just sat there brooding, the moody look only let down a little by the way his glasses were perched wonkily on his nose.

  Chapter Three

  It was ten in the morning when Jonah dumped his heavy holdall on the spotless marble floor of Livingston’s finest hotel. He rubbed his gritty eyes and wished he could just keep them closed. Tye was on the phone, bypassing the posh receptionists, trying to get through to Coldhardt to see if a) the big man was up and b) he was ready for an audience with his employees.

  The luxury resort certainly seemed a million miles from the filthy, impoverished town where they’d dumped the 4x4. Seeing just how many bullets had churned up the bodywork made him feel sick, and the others had looked pretty shaky too. Even Motti had kept his usual smart comments to himself.

  While Patch had gone scouring the town for rucksacks so they could shift the swords a little more discreetly, Tye had bought them a battered Subaru from a dealership – refusing to let Con ‘persuade’ the owner to give them one for nothing. ‘She has no idea what it’s like, living some place like this,’ she’d said. ‘To be so trapped.’

  Jonah hadn’t answered. Sure, Con had been educated in the best schools all over Europe, but only because she’d been shunted round from relative to uncaring relative after he
r mum and dad died in a car crash. Maybe she’d felt just as trapped in her own way. Why else would she have split at fifteen and turned to conning dirty old men out of their cash to survive?

  He watched Con now, taking a long swig from a can of Seven Up. She glanced at Motti, who was slumped against an ornate pillar beside her, and offered him the can. He just shook his head. He’d barely said a word since they’d got away, and Jonah found himself feeling bad for bawling him out. God knew Motti had been ready enough to forgive in the past when Jonah messed up. And despite the brown-trousers getaway, things had worked out. Hadn’t they?

  It was funny. Jonah knew that Patch had lived rough round London from the age of nine when his mum had finally flipped out for good, knew that Tye had been forced into smuggling as a kid to support her drunken father. Their stories made Jonah’s spur-of-the-moment decision to divert funds to his foster mum’s bank account so they could escape her cheating, manipulative husband seem a bit lame. But Motti’s hard-luck story was a little different. He used to design elite security systems for different companies in his native Minnesota – until he was caught exploiting hidden weaknesses he’d built in so he could rip them off himself. Was it greed or boredom that had driven him to steal and first brought him to Coldhardt’s attention? Or something more?

  ‘Coldhardt will see us now,’ Tye announced, jolting him from his thoughts. She slipped her mobile back into her jeans pocket and led the way over to the lifts.

  Hastily Jonah picked up the holdall and fell into step with Motti, who was last in line. ‘Hey. I’m sorry about having a go, before,’ he said.

  ‘S’OK,’ said Motti, looking straight ahead. ‘I’m sorry you’re a pussy.’

  Jonah decided to leave it there.

  The lift whooshed them up to, where else, the penthouse. The doors opened on to a large air-conditioned room, done out in black suede and calico. The sudden dip in temperature brought Jonah’s skin out in gooseflesh.

  Who was he kidding? He got shivers every time he was summoned to the presence of Nathaniel Coldhardt.

  The boss man was maybe in his early sixties. He sat in the dead centre of the room in a high-backed chair, watching as they filed in to face him, deathly pale in a dark, tailored suit. A mane of white hair framed the craggy features, lined more with experience than the years. And age had done nothing to diminish the rogue’s sparkle in his piercing blue eyes.

  Coldhardt sat and watched them, as if daring them to fill the chilly silence. He could easily be taken for a big businessman, Jonah decided, a mover and shaker. You might put his arrogant half-smile down to decades of deal clinching, or assume his easy confidence and charm was simply the badge of someone at the top of his game.

  And in a way, you’d be right.

  Coldhardt was a crook. A master-planner. Getting too old to pull off heists himself, he’d recruited kids to act for him, all from the wrong side of the tracks and all experts in the fields he needed. One by one Coldhardt’s ageing hands had scooped them out from their dead-end situations and into a life their peers could only dream about: luxurious homes, the coolest creature comforts, fast cars, bikes, yachts, even a plane, for God’s sake … Pools, gyms, amusement arcades, they had them all in half a dozen homes all around the world.

  The only thing they didn’t have was the option to turn him down. Whatever they were told to do, they did, trading their lives and skills for 10 per cent of Coldhardt’s net profits. And with the kind of capers the boss man set up, those profits could easily roll into millions.

  ‘I understand from Tye you encountered trouble.’ The Irish lilt in Coldhardt’s deep voice held a gently mocking edge.

  ‘We encountered guards armed with automatic weapons,’ said Con coolly.

  ‘AK74s by the looks of it,’ Motti added. ‘That’s Russian issue, right?’

  ‘Kabacra’s an arms dealer who operates all over the world,’ said Coldhardt, rising to his full imposing height of well over six feet. ‘He’ll locate, acquire and sell on anything to anyone, from a crate of assault rifles to weapons-grade plutonium.’

  Patch piped up, ‘But not made at that nuclear power plant, right?’

  Coldhardt shook his head. ‘He bought the Guatemalan complex when it was decommissioned fifteen years ago, stripped it bare and made it into a strongroom to hold his personal collection of weapons. Weapons that are allegedly not for sale at any price.’

  ‘Well, Cortes’s sword ain’t there, man,’ said Motti sourly. ‘May have been once, but not now.’

  Coldhardt stared hard at him. ‘You’re certain?’

  ‘You told me what to look for. There was a whole lot of metal in that containment chamber, but not the blade you want.’

  ‘The information came from a most reliable source.’ Coldhardt took a thoughtful sip of his drink. ‘An unknown collector has recently made it known that he – or she – is willing to pay an incredible sum for Cortes’s sword, and I had reason to believe it might be found in Kabacra’s collection.’

  ‘Which is why you decided to rip him off before he could flog it to them,’ Jonah realised.

  ‘There was this space on the wall,’ said Patch cautiously. ‘The mounting screws were there, but … Well, maybe that was where this Cortes geezer’s sword used to hang, and Kabacra’s already got rid.’

  Jonah tapped his holdall with his foot. ‘We brought most of his collection back with us if you want to check it for anything else you might like.’

  An unfathomable look came into the old man’s eyes and he slowly shook his head. ‘It must be Cortes’s,’ he said quietly, and a faint chill ran down Jonah’s spine. Coldhardt specialised in the theft of artefacts, both ancient and arcane – fabled relics that were near priceless on their own, but which more often than not held the key to secret, spooky mysteries smothered by the centuries. And Jonah got the feeling that this was the real treasure in Coldhardt’s eyes. Not just acquiring dark knowledge for its own sake, but because he knew of some way to use it. Though to what end Jonah didn’t like to think about.

  Abruptly Coldhardt chuckled out loud. ‘I shall enjoy going through your little haul,’ he told them, like an indulgent uncle, ‘and I believe it will prove most valuable to us.’

  Con’s eyes brightened. ‘You are going to sell the swords, yes?’

  ‘No.’ That cryptic half-smile was back on his lips. ‘I am going to give them right back.’

  Jonah lay down on a sunlounger, cradling a beer. The job was done; typically that was the cue to relax and party. But there was an air of unease about the guys as they gathered by the hotel’s private pool. Glad it’s not just me, he thought.

  ‘Thank God we’re out of there,’ said Tye quietly, angling a parasol to keep the sun out of her eyes.

  Patch nodded, rocking back in his chair. ‘We nearly got ourselves killed to get those swords, and now Coldhardt’s just gonna …’ He trailed off as Con undid her towelling robe to reveal a tiny blue bikini. ‘Hey. That’s new.’

  She glared at him. ‘Someone stole my red one.’

  Patch grinned. ‘Who would do a thing like that?’

  ‘Someone who’s gonna go blind in his other eye if he don’t watch out,’ said Motti. As usual he was making no concession to the sunshine, lying on a lounger in black grungy gear and flicking through Manga. ‘Told you before, Con, you wanna pay me to secure your pantie drawer, I’m open to offers.’

  ‘I’ll pay you to take pictures while you’re in there, Mot,’ Patch suggested.

  Con walked slowly up to him, slipped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him to his feet. But his dreamy smile vanished as she pinched him hard. ‘Patch, why are you so disgusting?’

  ‘Would you notice me if I wasn’t?’

  She twisted round and threw Patch into the pool. He made a splash like a depth charge. ‘Filthy little boy.’

  ‘He’s got a point, though,’ said Jonah, earning him raised eyebrows from Con and Tye. ‘About the swords, I mean,’ he added hastily. ‘To find out
that after all that, Coldhardt’s going to give the swords straight back to Kabacra …’

  ‘What is that about?’ Con muttered.

  ‘Guess we’ll know what’s going down when Coldhardt says, not before,’ said Motti.

  ‘Interesting point of view, Mot,’ said Patch from the pool. ‘But me, I got a better one. Butt me – get it?’

  Con glanced behind her to find Patch staring up at her ass. She sighed wearily, trod on his head and used it as a springboard for a perfect dive that barely rippled the water.

  Motti laughed as Patch bobbed back up, spluttering. ‘Hey, can anyone have a go, cyclops?’

  Jonah smiled, while Tye shook her head in mock-weariness and lay back down on her sunbed. But as the hot sun climbed higher into the sky, the mood seemed a little lighter.

  * * *

  In the end, the summons to Coldhardt came at six that evening – for Tye and Jonah at least. It turned out they weren’t needed for the next stage of Coldhardt’s plan – a face-to-face meet with Kabacra. Tye shuddered, happy to leave that little pleasure to Motti, Patch and Con.

  An hour later, Tye was back in the plane’s cockpit with Jonah bumping along the runway as she took them up. Soon Guatemala’s lush landscape was dwindling to a green smear through the windows.

  ‘Looks so peaceful from the air, doesn’t it?’ said Jonah, looking down over the hills and inlets of Puerto Barrios.

  ‘I guess.’ Tye let her mind drift back to her smuggling days there, when nothing was peaceful. No big funding and clever friends to fall back on when she was thirteen. Just her and a boy.

  A boy who’d promised her the world, then brought it crashing down around her ears.

  She glanced across at Jonah as she levelled out the plane. What would this boy wind up doing? It felt so weird, there just being the two of them on board. And what was weirder, now she actually had the time and space to talk to him in private, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  ‘So have you often come up against armed guards trying to fill your back full of bullets?’ asked Jonah conversationally.