Lost Worlds (19 page)

‘I don’t suppose it comes with a saddle?’ Natalie asked.

Rhino raised an eyebrow. ‘Worried about a little exercise, Natalie?’

‘Not worried.’ She pouted. ‘I just don’t like it.’

Gecko raised a hand. ‘While we are here, should we check that the crates have made it off the aircraft OK? I mean, if there is a problem it is best that we find out now, rather than
tomorrow.’

‘Goodpoint.’ Rhino nodded. ‘OK, change of plan. Tara and Natalie, when we’ve got our luggage, you two stay in the arrivals hall. Gecko and I will go and check the
crates.’

Natalie groaned, but stopped when Rhino glanced over at her.

Passengers were disembarking from the aircraft now, and Rhino gestured to Natalie, Gecko and Tara to go ahead of him.

‘Can you believe this is happening?’ Gecko said over his shoulder to Tara.

‘I stopped believing in what’s happening a few days ago,’ she replied. ‘I just keep going so I can find out what’s going to happen next.’

Leaving the girls in the arrivals hall with the suitcases and bags, Rhino and Gecko headed towards the cargo unloading area. Glancing over his shoulder, Gecko noticed that
Natalie had pulled her blindfold on again and was stretched out across a trio of seats. Tara had slipped her tablet out of her rucksack and was searching for a free Wi-Fi service.

‘Are they going to be OK by themselves?’ he asked Rhino.

‘If anyone tries to mess with them, Natalie can freeze them out with her withering stare and Tara will kick them in the nuts,’ Rhino replied. ‘They’ll be fine. Besides,
there’s a visible police presence at the airport, and the Georgian police force is very good.’

They headed down a side corridor. Rhino stopped a passing uniformed security guard and asked him something. The man pointed at a swing door.

‘This way.’ Rhino pushed the door open and went through into a featureless, utilitarian corridor. Gecko followed. A sign hanging from the ceiling was labelled in flowing Georgian
script and also in English. It said
Cargo pickup – straight ahead.

‘Is there not supposed to be some kind of customs demarcation between passenger areas and the runway side of things?’ Gecko asked as they walked.

‘In theory, yes,’ Rhino said over his shoulder. ‘In practice, not so much. Besides, we’re customers, which means that we’re always in the right. Just keep with me
and you’ll be fine.’

Gecko wasn’t reassured. The corridor led them to a stairway, and the stairway led out into the open air. Gecko could smell the sweet aroma of the aviation fuel drifting across the tarmac.
The air was cold, but dry.

An airport cargo vehicle went past them, the orange light on its roof flashing. Behind it, like carriages on a kids’ toy train, followed a series of wheeled wire cages all connected
together. They were piled up with wooden crates.

‘That’s probably the cargo from our flight,’ Rhino observed. ‘I don’t think there is any other aircraft scheduled for a bit.’

Rhino and Gecko followed the airport cargo vehicle and its train of cages. It headed across a stretch of tarmac towards a hangar. The hangar’s doors were wide open and its interior was
brightly lit. There were men inside, working on a set of crates that had already been delivered by another airport cargo vehicle, which was just pulling away. At the back of the hangar Gecko
noticed a parked black van. Two men in dark windcheaters were taking crates from nearby wire cages and putting them into the back of the van. They didn’t look like normal airport personnel:
they weren’t wearing brightly coloured overalls, or carrying ear defenders, like the other people Gecko had seen around.

Rhino waved at the nearest overalled man. ‘Excuse me!’ he called. ‘Do you speak English?’

‘Yes, a little,’ the man said in a thickly accented voice. He was burly and hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. He was carrying a clipboard holding several sheets of paper.

‘I’m looking for my cargo.’

‘Cannot take cargo now,’ the man said, shaking his head. ‘It needs to be processed. Customs, you know? Paperwork needs to be checked.’

‘I just want to make sure that it’s made it from London all right. We had a change of planes at Frankfurt. I guess there’s a chance it got left behind.’ Rhino took a
sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it and held it in front of the airport worker’s face. ‘Here’s the reference number.’

The man glanced at it, and frowned. He checked the number against one on the clipboard he was carrying. ‘That cargo is not yours,’ he said, glancing suspiciously at the two of
them.

‘I’ve got the paperwork,’ Rhino said, frowning. ‘That proves it’s mine.’

‘The cargo is not yours,’ the cargo worker insisted.

‘Then whose is it?’

He pointed across to the back of the hangar, where the two men in dark windcheaters were loading the last of their crates into their van. ‘Is theirs,’ the cargo worker said.
‘They have customs exemption form. They have reference number. They take crates now.’

Rhino reached out and grabbed the man by the front of his overalls. ‘You gave
them
my cargo? How much did they pay you?’

‘They had paperwork!’ the man protested. He shrugged, avoiding Rhino’s fierce gaze. ‘And they paid me five hundred American dollars.’

Rhino released him, pushing him away. The man staggered back a few paces. Rhino turned towards where the two men with the van were just sliding the last crate in place. ‘Excuse me –
can I have a word?’

The men looked at each other, slammed the back door down and ran for the front of the van.

‘Hey!’ Rhino shouted. He broke into a run.

The van’s engine started. Tyres smoking as they spun against the tarmac, the van accelerated. There was no direct route to the exit – the van would have to manoeuvre around several
obstructions, and that meant they might just have a chance of stopping it.

Gecko glanced around, wondering what to do. He felt suddenly helpless.

The van slowed down to get past one of the airport cargo vehicles, almost giving Rhino time to catch up with it before it accelerated away from him again.

Gecko saw that there was an empty lone wire cage over near the hangar doors. It must have become detached from its cargo vehicle. Between him and it was a pyramidal pile of differently sized
crates that had been stacked up higgledy-piggledy, like a gigantic Tetris game gone wrong. The pile was four crates high. Without quite knowing what he was going to do, Gecko sprinted towards the
pile. As he was running, he was calculating angles and speeds in his mind. There was no time to go around the pile – the van would be out of the hangar by the time he got to the doors. He had
to go over.

Gecko vaulted on to the first crate and scrambled up on top of the second one. He could feel rough wood and splinters beneath his hands. Regardless, he pulled himself up on top of the third
crate. He could hear the van on the other side of the crates now, its engine revving hard as it tried to build up speed and drive out of the warehouse. He thudded his shoulder against the topmost
crate and pushed hard.

For a moment he thought the crate was going to stay exactly where it was, but then he felt it move. He pushed harder. With a grating of wood on wood, the crate slid forward.

Somewhere behind him, Gecko could hear the cargo workers shouting. Ignoring them, he put his entire weight into pushing the crate.

It got to the edge of the crate on which it was resting, teetered for a moment and then fell. Gecko’s momentum almost carried him with it. He flailed his arms, trying to shift his centre
of gravity backwards.

The crate toppled almost in slow motion. It hit the corner of a lower crate and spun. With it out of the way, Gecko was now on top of the pile. He saw the van heading towards the hangar doors
with Rhino in pursuit, and saw the crate fall directly in its path.

The driver spun his steering wheel at the last moment, and the van skidded into a turn. The crate hit the ground and smashed, spilling its contents all over the place. They looked like parts for
some industrial machine.

Rhino got to the van just as it was turning, but he was on the passenger side, not the driver’s side. He wrenched the door open and grabbed the passenger. The man lashed out with his hand,
catching Rhino on the forehead, but Rhino’s left hand was pulling the man out while his right hand was reaching across to slam down on the seat-belt release. The release gave way and the man
seemed to fly out of the van.

The driver must have put his foot on the accelerator because the van suddenly sprang forward, leaving Rhino behind but letting the unlocked rear door fly up. The vehicle skidded around the
fallen crate, straightened up and headed directly for the hangar doors.

Gecko glanced around, sizing up his options. Without really thinking, he leaped from the pile of crates to the cab of a stationary airport cargo vehicle. His foot caught on the orange roof
light, and he almost fell, but he leaped from the top of the cab to the bonnet and from the bonnet to the ground.

He was almost at the hangar’s exit now. The van was heading towards him from his left. He grabbed at the lone empty wire cage he had seen a few seconds ago. It was on wheels, and he pushed
it as hard as he could.

The wire cage rolled into the path of the van. Gecko leaped back out of the way as the van smashed into it. The driver threw his hands up to protect his face as the cage flipped into the air and
hit the windscreen. The van braked hard, the wire cage rolled past it and out of the way, and the driver pressed his foot on the accelerator again to send the vehicle springing forward. Gecko swore
in Brazilian, thinking that he had failed in his attempt to stop it from driving out of the hangar, but he had delayed it just long enough for Rhino to get to the back of the van. The door was
still hanging open, and Rhino jumped inside. As the van zoomed past Gecko, the Brazilian boy saw Rhino pulling himself hand over hand into the back. Rhino was trying to avoid the cargo crates as
they slid around and threatened to crush him.

Gecko watched in amazement as Rhino clambered over the last crate and got to the back of the driver’s seat. It was difficult to tell at that distance, but Gecko thought he saw Rhino lock
his right arm round the driver’s neck. The van slewed left, slowed down and came to a stop with its rear doors and passenger door flapping.

Gecko glanced back into the hangar. The cargo workers were watching in dumbfounded amazement. Fortunately, none of them were phoning for help.

He looked back towards the van just in time to see Rhino fly out of the open passenger door. There must have been some kind of fight going on in the cab, because the driver jumped out of the
other side and sprinted across the tarmac towards darkness and safety. He had blood on his face.

Gecko ran towards where Rhino was lying on the ground. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Strong punch,’ Rhino said as Gecko got to him. ‘I think he had a knuckleduster or something.’ He put a hand up to his forehead and touched it gingerly. When he took it
away, there was blood on his fingers. ‘Ouch.’

‘Stay there,’ Gecko said. ‘I’ll get medical help.’

‘Don’t do that,’ Rhino said. He climbed to his feet. ‘I’m just bruised and battered, not seriously injured. I’ve got worse injuries than this on a Friday
night in Hereford town centre.’ He glanced back into the warehouse. ‘What happened to the other guy?’

Gecko shrugged. ‘I did not see.’

‘OK.’ Rhino handed over the paper he had taken from his pocket earlier on and showed it to the cargo handler. ‘This is the cargo manifest for our stuff. You check the crates in
the back. I want to know if anything is missing. I’ll go and check on the passenger, and sort things out with the cargo guys.’

As Rhino limped off, Gecko climbed into the back of the van. It looked like a cross between a minibus and a cargo shifter.

He stared at the crates. Each one had a stencilled reference number on it, and – wonder of wonders – the crates had all been stacked with their reference numbers the right way up. He
set about cross-referencing the numbers on the crates with the numbers on the manifest.

He was just finishing when Rhino returned.

‘What’s the story?’ Rhino asked.

‘There are two crates missing, I think,’ Gecko replied.

‘It’s OK – I know where they are. The two thieves left them behind when they realized we’d rumbled them. They’re sitting back there in the hangar.’

Gecko glanced into the brightly lit interior of the hangar. ‘What about the second man?’

‘No sign of him. I think he decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and legged it as fast as he could.’

‘And the cargo handlers?’

‘I’ve explained the way things are to them. They’ll forget about everything they’ve seen if we don’t report to their superiors that they took a bribe to turn a
blind eye while someone tried to steal our stuff.’

‘Which does raise the question,’ Gecko said, ‘why were they stealing our stuff?’

Rhino shrugged. ‘Two options – either they didn’t know what it was and just decided to take a pile of crates away and see what they’d got, or they deliberately stole our
stuff
because
it was ours.’

‘They had a fake manifest with our reference number,’ Gecko pointed out, ‘and they had already faked a customs exemption form. They
knew
that our crates were going to be
there, and they deliberately chose to take them.’

Rhino nodded. ‘That’s right. And it does raise the question – why us?’

Gecko looked around. ‘We are not going to report this to the police, are we?’

‘That would cause more trouble than it would solve. We’d get tied up in witness statements and all kinds of paperwork that would just slow us down. Best thing is to just accept it
and move on.’ He patted the side of the van. ‘But look on the bright side – we don’t have to hire a van tomorrow. We’ve already got one!’

Gecko stared at the van, then at Rhino. ‘But it is not ours!’

‘Do you really think the current owners are going to come back for it?’

‘But – what if they stole it, and the police arrest us for stealing?’