Thieves Till We Die (7 page)

The sat-nav suddenly spoke up, making her jump, warning the chauffeur to turn left at a turning two hundred metres ahead. A chequered flag had appeared on the display, telling them their long journey would soon be over. Quickly Con checked her long, dark wig in the vanity mirror, and put on a pair of chic sunglasses. Being recognised by some random guard as the bogus backpacker from the nuclear power station was something she could live without. Although considering the men had spent more time looking at her legs than her face, she was probably safe so long as she didn't lose her jeans.

The turn was well hidden by straggly, overgrown bushes, but the Range Rover pushed through and on to a track crowded by dense vegetation.

‘We there yet?' asked Patch, not looking up from the Game Boy.

‘Almost. But keep playing.' He got car sick, and from bitter past experience Con knew that he was prone to throwing up the moment he lost concentration. She allowed herself a weary smile. That would certainly wake Coldhardt up with a jolt.

As they rounded a sharp corner she saw two armed sentries come into view. They both raised their rifles, ready to fire. The chauffeur stamped on the brakes and the car slewed to an awkward halt.

The hum of an electric window broke the tense silence. ‘Let us pass,' rapped Coldhardt from the back. Con turned to see he was sat bolt upright, looking alert and confident, a changed man from just a few moments ago. ‘Kabacra is expecting us.'

One of the men fished a radio from his pocket and spoke into it. After a brief exchange he nodded to the other guard and they stood aside to allow the car through.

The chauffeur started speaking angrily in Spanish as he pulled away again. Con translated for the others. ‘He says he'll wait for us outside for one hour. After that he's driving straight back to Livingston, no matter what we're paying him.'

Coldhardt dabbed at his forehead with a black handkerchief. ‘Tell him one hour is all we shall need.'

They were greeted at Kabacra's gate by more armed sentries. Patch buzzed his window open and noisily threw up down the side of the car. The guards stared at him with disgust.

‘You'd think they'd be used to people throwing up at the sight of them,' Patch muttered as Con gingerly helped him out.

Once they'd been frisked for anything antisocial, Con, Patch and Coldhardt were ushered inside a large, modern mansion. White and bare with a black carpet, the entrance hall held about as much charm as the stairwells at the nuclear power station. The heavy wooden door creaked like a coffin lid as it was shut behind them.

Coldhardt was carrying the holdall with the swords. One of the guards snatched it from him and
disappeared through a doorway without a word. Two more guards remained to watch them.

‘They are checking the swords are genuine, yes?' Con said quietly.

‘For surveillance devices and signs of damage too, I imagine,' Coldhardt murmured. ‘Which is why I brought only those eight that survived the journey to Livingston entirely without harm. Like I say, I want Kabacra in a generous mood.'

‘So he might not shoot us the second he sees us,' Patch muttered, still looking green.

A good ten minutes later, the door opened again and Kabacra appeared. Con tried not to grimace, but he was strikingly ugly – thin and bony, with a face like scarred chicken skin stretched over a skull. His sunken eyes were as black and shiny as his lank hair.

‘So you're Coldhardt,' Kabacra said in grave, accented English. ‘You brought your kids?'

Coldhardt smiled. ‘My associates. Con and Patch.'

Kabacra did not acknowledge them. ‘I've heard a lot about you.'

‘Likewise, Señor Kabacra.'

‘Enough to make me want to kill you.'

The guards released the safeties on their weapons, the metallic clatter echoing around the hall. Con held herself absolutely still, and Patch closed his eye.

Coldhardt simply smiled. ‘Is that any way to show your gratitude? You have seen for yourself I have recovered certain merchandise that was stolen from you recently.'

‘And very swiftly, too.' Kabacra folded his arms. ‘Perhaps because you were the one who stole it in the
first place?'

‘Oh, I hardly think I'm the only suspect. What about Sixth Sun?'

Con wished Tye was here to study Kabacra's reaction to the name – or rather, lack of reaction.

‘Sixth Sun?' he inquired.

‘News reached me – through my usual secret sources – that they were seeking a particular relic in your possession,' Coldhardt said amiably. ‘The sword of Hernando Cortes.'

‘Is that so?'

‘I had believed it lost for ever. And I imagine the purchase price is very high.' Coldhardt smiled. ‘I was concerned that perhaps Sixth Sun's agents might try to steal it and not pay you a damn.'

Kabacra looked no prettier when he smiled. ‘And this is why you have tracked me to my private home?'

Coldhardt nodded. ‘I am here to make you a better offer.'

‘You have come a long way for nothing, Coldhardt.' Kabacra said. ‘The deal is struck. You will have to approach the sword's new owners.'

‘Really? And how do I set about that?'

‘I am afraid I must respect my clients' confidentiality. But thank you for safely returning my swords. For that, I will not use them against you.' His scarred skin puckered further as he bared his teeth in a jackal's grin. ‘And I shall allow you to leave here with your arms and legs intact.'

Coldhardt looked unruffled. ‘How gracious. But I'm not ready to leave, Kabacra.'

‘That is unfortunate.' Kabacra took a threatening
step towards him. ‘But consider how much
more
unfortunate if the boy here found his good eye speared on the end of a rapier.'

‘Yeah, that'd be well clumsy of me,' Patch squeaked.

‘Or if charming Connie here needed stitches in those pretty cheeks of hers.'

‘My name is
Con
,' she told him quietly, looking into his blazing eyes. ‘Call me Connie again and
you
will be the one needing stitches, yes?'

Kabacra's eyes narrowed, but then Coldhardt calmly stepped between the two of them. ‘Since you're so fond of threats, Kabacra, perhaps I should mention that I have also recovered the other swords stolen from your collection – the cavalry sabre, the Civil War cutlass –'

‘I want them back, Coldhardt.'

‘Should my associates and I suffer so much as a scratch in your company, they will be melted down for scrap and dropped on your head from a great height.'

Kabacra leaned up close to Coldhardt and spoke in a low, dangerous voice. ‘You test my patience.'

‘I'd sooner test a dry Martini while we talk business,' said Coldhardt. ‘I'm willing to pay, and pay well, for information that will get me the sword of Cortes.'

Kabacra held himself still for a few seconds. Then he straightened and gave his grisly smile. ‘You know, I deal with so few people who truly live up to their reputation. Just be careful you don't die because of yours.'

‘Oh, I'll be careful,' Coldhardt agreed. ‘For a start,
I'll fix my own drink.'

‘Your associates will remain here, under guard.' Kabacra ushered Coldhardt through the door and into a large living room done out in purples and crimson, like the whole space was bruised and bleeding. One of the guards followed them inside and closed the door behind.

Patch looked nervously at Con. ‘Well, that went well, then.'

‘Let's just hope Coldhardt keeps him occupied for long enough.'

‘Shut up,' said their guard.

‘Sorry, was that too loud?' Con smiled, lowered her voice, fixing him with those incredible pale blue eyes of hers. ‘How about I speak softly. I don't want to be any trouble to you.'

‘
No hablo inglés
,' he said grouchily – Con imagined that ‘shut up' was as cosmopolitan as he got.

At once she switched to Spanish. ‘You must be tired, no? You are tired. So sleepy …' She smiled as he nodded, staring back at her, unblinking. ‘And you would like to help me, I think. Yes, of course you would …'

Patch looked on as Con did her hypnotism trick. He had no idea what she was saying, but her accent sounded so mindblowingly sexy it actually distracted him from wanting to hurl again for a few minutes. And he felt better still when the guard lowered his gun, a glazed, restful look in his eyes.

‘OK, he's under,' Con announced. ‘The stupid ones take no time.'

Patch nodded. ‘But does he know where Kabacra keeps his client list?'

She asked the guard in Spanish and he answered dreamily, pointing to a flight of stairs. Then, when Con prompted him with another question, he spoke in halting English: ‘We tie you up.'

‘What's he on about?' said Patch warily.

Con set off for the stairs. ‘Up here and second door on the right. The room is locked but not guarded.'

‘OK, but what does he mean, “We tie you up”?' Patch bounded lightly after her up the stairs and on to a long landing. ‘Is he into bondage or something?'

‘He thinks it's the password for Kabacra's computer. Seems the other guard has hacked in before now, looking for scraps of information to sell.'

‘Why use an English password if you're Spanish?'

‘To make it harder for others to crack?' She shrugged. ‘How should I know? Just thought I should ask. I doubt there's a hard-copy of the client list.'

Con stopped outside a hefty wooden door carved with skulls, swords and shields. Two large locks were crafted into the design.

‘Bollocks,' said Patch. ‘Got us a pair of tubulars.'

‘They're hard to pick?'

‘God, yeah. The pins are placed all the way round the edge of the cylinder plug.'

‘I love our little talks, Patch.'

He lifted up his eyepatch, teased out the glass ball inside and unscrewed it at the middle. Inside nestled a collection of extendible picks and a telescopic tension wrench. He grabbed the wrench, selected a pick and got to work. ‘Easy, now …' He listened to the soft
click of the pins as he probed with the pick, analysing them, trying to predict the way they should rise and fall.

There was a loud click as the first bolt gave way, and Patch beamed at her. ‘How's that, then?'

‘Not bad.' Con smiled back, put her hands on her hips. ‘Crack the second one inside twenty seconds and I'll show you my bra.'

‘Deal!' Patch pounced on the next lock, let the tools in his fingers twist and cajole and lightly spring until … ‘Yes!' he hissed, as with a satisfying clunk the second bolt eased back. Patch opened the door and they both pushed inside a small, drab office. Con raced over to an intricately carved desk and started rifling through the drawers while Patch stood guard.

‘Come on, then,' he said, looking back at her over his shoulder. ‘That was loads less than twenty seconds. What about the bra!'

She smiled like an angel. ‘I'm not wearing a bra today, Patch.'

With a tortured sigh, Patch turned back to the chink in the door and kept his eye on the empty landing while Con started up Kabacra's computer. ‘If Scarface comes out of that room and finds we've gone,' he whispered, ‘do you realise how dead we are? Why'd you think Coldhardt even wants this sword so much?'

‘It must be worth a fortune.'

‘I reckon it's more than that. It's like he needs it for something. Something we don't know about.' Her fingers clicked over the computer keyboard – then she swore. ‘There's only room for eight characters in the
password field. “We tie you up” is ten characters, doesn't fit. The guard must have heard wrong.'

Patch joined her by the computer keyboard. He'd never understood why they didn't put all the letters in alphabetical order. A-B-C made a lot more sense than Q-W-E-R …

‘Qwertyuiop,' Patch read the top line of keys aloud, and some of the letters leaped out at him. ‘Wer Ty. Where Tye?' He sighed. It was a good question, even if the spelling was bad.

Hang on a sec …

‘Wer Ty U Iop.' Patch stared at Con. ‘That's almost the password, innit?'

‘What?'

‘The guards ain't English, right?' Patch hissed. ‘So what if the password's just letters from the top line of keys, and they're saying it as it sounds!'

‘Kabacra's being funny, you mean?' Con typed in W-E-T-Y-U-U-P and hit return.

INVALID PASSWORD.

Patch sighed. ‘Stick to lock-breaking, shall I?'

‘Wait.' Con tried again, but this time changed U-P to
O
-P. ‘That way it's spelled with all different letters but still in sequence along the line of keys, yes?'

‘You sound like Jonah.'

‘Pity
you
don't look like him.' She smiled sweetly and hit return.

And this time, they were in.

‘Yes!' breathed Con, eyes glittering.

‘You can snog me to say thanks if you want,' said Patch, before flinching at the look she gave him. ‘How're you gonna find the client list?'

‘I'm not,' she said, removing two memory sticks from the chunky buckle of her leather belt. ‘We have five gigabytes of storage on each of these. I'm going to copy his hard drive across so we can go through it later.'

The minutes crawled by as she copied the files and changed sticks. Patch chewed his lip and checked his watch.

‘Done.' Con yanked out the second memory stick, tucked it with the other one back behind her belt buckle and shut down the computer. ‘We must leave everything just as we found it. And you must lock the door again.'

‘Tell you what, extra incentive. If I do it in less than a minute, you have to show me your pants.'

Con raised one eyebrow coyly.

Patch almost whimpered. ‘No pants either?'

‘You should get out more, Patch,' Con mused, striding primly to the door. ‘No?'