“There is something I should mention,” Ellen whispered, making her way through the empty Broad Arrow mine site at one a.m. in the morning. She moved aside, avoiding some stacked boxes and followed Nick as he led the way to the hangar. She noticed his eyes lit up at the sight of it.
“You boys are all the same,” she shook her head. “Mitch was beside himself when he found your hangar and the hidden plane.”
“I bet he was. Boring without it here.” He squatted to lift up the door on the floor of the hangar and peered down into the mineshaft.
“Been down here?” he asked.
“Yep, they’re all still functional; plenty of tunnels and rabbit warrens. I thought you knew this place?”
“I cased it for our needs, but didn’t venture down into the tunnels. No point really. Come on.” He lowered himself down the stairs, drawing a torch from his black vest. Ellen followed behind him, bumping into him when he stopped.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “Just listening for any movement.”
They continued along the shaft by torchlight. Ellen shone her torch up side tunnels, opening and closing the occasional entrance and inspecting them as they came along.
Breathe slowly in, wait, breathe out, she coached herself as the tunnels went deeper.
“Hey, what did you want to tell me?” Nick remembered.
He looked back at Ellen, shining the torch towards her.
“I’m a little claustrophobic,” she said.
Nick rolled his eyes.
“Fine time to tell me. You’re scared of flying and claustrophobic! Anything else?”
“I don’t like rats,” Ellen said as a huge one ran past her feet.
“Yeah, me either,” Nick moved aside as it scurried past. “Are you going to be able to do this? I can’t carry you out while holding back the others on my own.”
“Of course I can do it,” she took a deep breath, “or I wouldn’t be here. I thought I’d mention it, so if you saw me hyperventilating you didn’t panic.”
“OK, now I’m panicking,” he grimaced.
Mitch, Samantha and Adam sat in the hotel suite surrounded by the floor plans for Lawrence’s building.
“Thanks for getting these, Adam,” Mitch pored over them.
“Easy one,” Adam said.
Mitch’s phone rang. He looked at the screen.
“What’s up, Nick?” he answered.
“Did you know she’s claustrophobic?” Nick whispered. “We’re down in the mine shafts with my brilliant combat strategy and I’ve got Ellen hyperventilating on me!”
“Yeah, I knew she was a little cagey in tight spaces. She’s great in water, a divemaster actually.”
“That’s going to be real useful here,” Nick cut in.
“She managed before; keep her distracted. Besides, she’s great with a gun, remember?” he ragged him.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nick took the badgering. “Got to go.”
“Wait, what do you mean you’re down in the mines?” Mitch looked at his watch. “It’s got to be midnight there. What are you doing?”
“Couldn’t sleep, doing a pre-rendezvous. Speak to you later.” Nick said hanging up.
Mitch stared at the phone.
“Dramas?” Samantha asked.
“Potentially.” Mitch returned to the maps, his brow creased with concern.
Daniel waited at the airport for Colby and Westwood to arrive. He looked at their schedule; they weren’t coming from the U.K., but from a job in Shanghai, arriving at nine p.m.
He read the dossier Lawrence sent him on the two security men: Wayne J. Colby served in Beirut, Afghanistan and Iraq. He took a payout after a potential court-martial came to light over inappropriate behavior with women prisoners.
That’d be right, Daniel thought. He’d be pretty happy to take up Lawrence’s offer to come on board.
He scanned the profile for Aaron P. Westwood: Raised in Brooklyn, fought wherever a war was raging. Retired but missed the life. On-call for special emergencies. I guess this is one of those situations. Daniel sighed. He turned the page and looked at their photos. Scary guys! Not two people you’d want to take on.
Nick had been in bed for an hour when he heard the sound of a car’s engine idling outside his room.
“Keep the noise down,” he grumbled with a glance to his watch. Three-fifteen. He rolled over. The noise of car doors slamming and people talking drifted into his room.
Wake up the neighborhood for God’s sake!
He got out of bed, pulled his jeans on, grabbed his sweater, and went outside. He cupped his hands around a cigarette and lit it.
That’ll be around eleven a.m. in London. Wonder what the boss is up to, Nick thought. He looked around. Lights were on in three rooms from the newly arrived guests. Then, he saw the sports utility.
Shit! Three rooms, a sports utility hire car! It’s got to be Daniel. We need to move now and get to Broad Arrow so we’re on site at first light! Otherwise we’re sitting ducks, especially if he shows my photo to the manager.
Nick put out his cigarette and turned to go. A door on the upstairs veranda opened and Nick looked up. Daniel stepped out onto the landing. Their eyes locked. Nick broke off and bolted to his room.
“Look, I know this techno stuff excites you,” Mitch yawned as he sat next to Samantha waiting for her verdict on the security installed in Lawrence’s building, “but can you give it to me in ten words or less?”
He heard Adam laugh as he placed a call to room service for sandwiches and Cokes.
“No, Mitch,” Samantha turned to him. “It’s complex. On the first floor, Lawrence’s building has a security officer at the front door; all other commercial occupants of the building organized their own security initiatives.”
“Lawrence will know better than to rely on human security,” Adam said, rejoining them around the table.
Samantha agreed, “He’s installed a sophisticated motion sensor system. He’s got a different system for each of his nine floors.”
“That’s a chronic pain in the ass,” Mitch frowned.
“I need to find the main server,” Samantha continued, picking up one floor plan after another. “Logically, it should be on their Information Technology floor, but hey, who’s logical these days.”
Mitch closed his eyes as Samantha rifled through the diagrams.
“Here it is!” she announced, making Mitch jump. “On the eighth floor. The I.T. room has a motion sensor beam about one foot up from the floor, running in a perfect square around the room,” she grabbed another plan from the table, “There is a different security system on floor nine. I haven’t seen this type before.”
“Can you shut it down?” Mitch asked.
“It should be manageable. However,” she bit her lip, “he’s got a variety of sensors in place. The top floors are more complex; they house I.T. and the mainframe area. My guess is that floor nine is his office,” she looked at the grid. “We want the eighth floor in order to access the computers and mainframe.”
Mitch pulled the plans closer and studied them. “Won’t the different security systems on each floor be linked through the mainframe, so if one floor is cut, all other floors are on alert? I’m assuming that’s what those markings mean?” Mitch pointed to a number of figures and lines.
“Damn, I didn’t see those,” Samantha took the plans off him.
The room buzzer sounded and Mitch glanced at Adam with a relieved look. He noticed Samantha remained oblivious, burying her head in security plans for the lower floors.
Nick ran into the room, grabbed his bag and vest and headed straight out again, pulling the door closed behind him. He ran to Ellen’s room, swearing under his breath.
“Ellen, quick,” he knocked, speaking in a hushed tone.
He heard her stir and within seconds she was at the door. Nick rushed past her into the room.
“Get dressed, hurry!”
“What’s happened?”
“I’ll tell you on the way, leave everything, let’s go.”
Ellen grabbed her bag and phone. They raced out of the door.
“Hurry,” Nick led the way to the car park, leaping over the iron banister. He rounded the corner and stopped suddenly. A Smith and Wesson was pointed at his head.
“Nicholas Everett,” Daniel appeared behind the man holding the gun. “What a surprise. Going somewhere?”
Ellen stopped dead beside Nick. He glanced over at her, scanning the area for an escape route.
Ellen and Nick sat, hands tied behind them, in the back seat of Daniel’s hire car, surrounded by Lawrence’s men. Daniel drove.
“I never thought it would be that easy,” Daniel grinned at Nick in the rear view mirror.
“Listen you’re only after me so let the girl go,” Nick said.
Nick felt a strong blow to his eye socket. His head jolted backwards with the impact. He heard Ellen scream and everything went momentarily black.
“Bloody hell, Colby, don’t kill him yet,” Daniel barked.
Nick pulled himself forward in the seat. He looked at Colby.
“Was that really necessary?” he squinted with the pain.
Colby sniggered.
Nick turned his attention back to Daniel.
“What do you want?” he persisted, the pain rushing from his eye to a dull ache at the back of his head.
“To finish off a mistake,” Daniel said.
“What mistake? So we didn’t pull it off, so what? It’s not like I’m on the run with the gold. None of us got anything.”
“No, but you’re on the run from me. Why is that?”
Nick felt like he had hit the ground with a thud.
Shit. I’m an idiot! I wasn’t supposed to recognize Daniel given I’m not supposed to know anything about Mastermind – Johan was the point of contact. Shit … shit!
“I assume Maria Diaz knows as well?” Daniel asked.
“No,” Nick looked at Daniel in the rear view mirror. “I know it’s somehow connected to the Mastermind Internet game; Johan let it slip. She doesn’t know anything.”
“I find that hard to swallow, since they were bed friends. But she’s safe while she’s in prison. For now anyway.”
Nick stared out the window. When will it stop? First Ana, now I’ve signed Maria’s death warrant, he thought.
He glanced at Ellen, bile rising in his throat. And Ellen’s going to pay the price as well.