Thieves Till We Die (19 page)

Patch was looking a bit green after the journey, and Motti shoved him out of the cab quick. ‘Get busy with the locks, cyclops. Sooner we're away and done,
the better.'

Feeling he could use a bit of fresh air himself, Jonah went outside with him. The night was cloudy and moonless, the only light coming from a couple of dim streetlamps further down the road.

There was a heavy padlock and chain securing the lorry's back doors. Patch hoiked out his glass eye from beneath his scrap of leather and extracted his tools.

‘Should be a piece of cake, shouldn't it?' Jonah observed.

He shook his head. ‘That padlock's a tricky sod. Multiple combination type – twenty-five possible ways to turn the tumblers, but only one unlocks it. Get the wrong one, the inner workings collapse and you ain't getting in without serious cutting gear.' He approached the padlock. ‘G'is a bunk up, then.'

Jonah made a stirrup with his hands and took the boy's weight. Patch pressed his ear up against the lock and gently fed in his pick and torque wrench. A few seconds later, the padlock sprang open and he jumped down.

‘Wa-hey!' Jonah clapped his hands together, both applauding Patch and wiping them clean. ‘Thought you said it was tricky?'

Patch grinned and popped his eye back into place. ‘To anyone who's not a complete genius, yeah.'

Together they pulled the chains away from the doors. Tye came round the back to join them, followed by Motti. ‘What have we got, then?' she asked.

Jonah turned the stiff handles and opened up the doors. A pale white light flicked on, illuminating the spacious hold. Not that there was very much to see.

‘Oh God,' Tye breathed. ‘Don't tell me it's empty.'

Motti climbed up and went inside. ‘No. There's something here right at the back. A couple of metal boxes.'

Intrigued, Jonah scrambled up to see for himself. But he found Motti standing some way back from the two boxes, pointing, apparently speechless for once. ‘Geek, do those signs mean what I think they mean?'

He peered at the cases. Each was marked with lurid yellow stickers, a black circle flanked by three black triangles. Hazard warnings.

‘They're well shielded,' Jonah muttered. ‘This stuff must be radioactive or something.'

Motti nodded. ‘What the hell are we on to here? What would Sixth Sun want with crap like that?'

Tye had come up behind them. ‘Maybe it's a trick, meant to put us off opening them.'

‘It's working,' Jonah assured her.

‘She could be right.' Motti took a step closer to the boxes. ‘Kabacra's goodies are locked up in a shutdown nuclear plant, he's bound to have some old crates lying around.'

‘Yeah, but we also know he's dealt in plutonium and stuff.' Jonah wiped his sweaty palms through his hair. ‘This whole set-up is dodgy!'

Motti knelt in front of the cases to examine them more closely. ‘I'll bet it's a trick. Why the hell would anyone wanna go transporting nuclear rods in a eucalyptus truck?'

‘Uh, guys?' Patch was peering in worriedly. ‘We might have company. Chopper out here. With lights.'

Everyone fell quiet, and heard the approaching
drone. Jonah went to see, legs trembling, heart thumping.

‘Must be the cops,' said Motti, stomping back across the truck's hold to see. ‘I bet they picked up the driver.'

Tye's braids bounced about as she shook her head, peering up at the helicopter, which was dropping steadily from the sky. ‘Looks unmarked.'

‘Wait a sec.' Jonah swore. ‘Of course! Kabacra didn't give Sixth Sun the registration number of this truck because there was no point. They wouldn't have been able to see it – not from the air! That's why he gave them the colour and the brand name and stuff.'

Patch pointed at the helicopter, his one eye wide. ‘You think it's
them
?'

‘We know they got a chopper,' said Motti.

‘And we thought a big truck would mean a big cargo. But Traynor can snatch it and be away in minutes with that thing.' Tye slammed her fist against the side of the lorry. ‘The truck didn't pass the exit when it was meant to, so they've come looking.'

The helicopter's approach made a grinding, raucous din, shattering the quiet of the darkness as it came in to hover over the roof of the three-storey depot. A blinding white light shone down from its underside, bleaching the street. Motti, Jonah and Tye scrambled down from the back of the lorry and ran round to the far side where they were shielded from view.

‘Tye, get back in the cab and start her up,' Motti hissed. ‘Whatever's in these cases, we ain't letting those bastards get it.'

She made to go but Jonah caught hold of her arm.
‘I hate to point it out, but Sixth Sun must be prepared to hijack a moving lorry. They'll be ready for us!'

‘Then we'll have to get some place populated, where they won't dare try anything.' Tye pulled away from him, ran round and opened the cab door. ‘And fast.'

‘Go with her, cyclops,' Motti told Patch. ‘The two of you take off. Now.'

‘And what do the rest of us do, Mot?' Jonah demanded as Patch ran off. ‘Throw sticks and stones at the 'copter?'

‘Con's gotta be ready with the other truck by now. We leave in that, fast – and hope they think we've had time to switch the cargo. They won't know which of us to follow – and we can give them the slip.'

‘You ever driven a lorry before?'

‘Looks like there's gonna be a first time.'

The red truck's engine roared into life and Tye pulled away. Jonah and Motti were exposed again, swamped in blinding brightness as they sprinted towards the depot car park. The lorry they'd hired now stood in its centre. Con was cowering in its thick black shadow as the chopper swooped down overhead.

And suddenly the harsh rattle of gunfire added to the deafening din. The ground seemed to explode around Jonah's feet as bullets strafed the concrete, kicking up clouds of dust and shrapnel. Terrified, he ran still faster, pushing himself to the limit. He and Motti practically bounced off the side of the lorry as they reached Con and its cover at last.

‘What the hell are they playing at?' Jonah shouted.

‘We have to get out of here!' Con shouted, her
usual cool composure cracked wide open.

‘Working on it.' Motti was just reaching for the door of the cab when the whole lorry shuddered under the impact of a barrage of bullets. Two of its tyres blew out and the windscreen shattered.

‘We're not going anywhere in this thing,' shouted Jonah.

Then the chopper circled round to attack them again.

‘Get under!' Motti shouted, and the three of them ducked and rolled underneath the truck. More bullets raked the ground around them. Another tyre burst, and the underside of the lorry lurched down, grazing the back of Jonah's head. For a terrifying moment he thought they were going to be crushed beneath tons of metal.

Then the firing stopped, and the roaring drone of the helicopter picked up in pitch. The light began to lose some of its neon brightness as it shifted away.

‘They are leaving,' Con breathed. In the fading light, Jonah could see the tears streaking her face. He reached for her hand and she clutched hold of it tight. ‘I felt sure we were dead.'

Motti cautiously dragged himself from beneath the ruined truck. ‘Here's why we're not.'

Jonah wriggled out too and saw that the lorry's rear doors had swung open during the onslaught to reveal the bare interior. Shakily he helped Con stand up. ‘All they're after is the cargo.'

‘And now they've gone after Tye and Patch to get it.' Motti whumped his palm against the side of the lorry. ‘While we're stuck here.'

‘I told you this was a set-up,' Con shouted. ‘Tye must have told them –'

‘No.' Motti shook his head. ‘She couldn't have. Coldhardt was monitoring all signals in and out of the base. Anyway, Tye didn't come up with the hijack plan,
I
did. I never told her where this place was, and she never asked.'

‘When the lorry didn't show, they must have traced the route it took in reverse. Spotted us miles away!' Jonah pulled his mobile from his pocket, speed-dialled Tye's number. ‘We've got to warn them to get the hell out of that truck, fast!'

Tye was speeding around the industrial park, gritting her teeth against the pain in her side. Her first thought had been to try and reach Gallup along the Interstate before Sixth Sun could put whatever plan they had into operation – but it was a good six miles away and she didn't like their chances. Instead, she was looking out for some place they could park the truck, get it under cover and out of sight, throwing Sixth Sun off the scent. If they could only find a garage or something, and if Patch could get them inside and safe …

Her phone trilled into life, made her jump. Patch grabbed it and stabbed the OK button. ‘Jonah? Is everything – you
what
? Bleedin' Nora!'

‘What's happening?' Tye demanded.

‘Chopper's coming after us,' Patch reported, pale-faced. ‘Sounds like they'll shoot us full of holes the second they see us!' He spoke into the phone again. ‘All right, we'll clear out. Cheers, Jonah.' Patch hung up. ‘Tye, we gotta jump.'

‘No way.' She stepped on the accelerator and aimed the truck at the perimeter gates of some metalwork company.

‘But they're gonna kill us! If you don't kill us first –'

The truck slammed straight through the gates, the impact rocking the cab, almost jarring Tye's hands from the wheel. The cut burned red hot in her side. Wincing, she checked the rearview – just as the chopper swooped into sight from behind a building. She swore as its lights flooded on, dazzling her.

‘We gotta get out of here!' Patch pulled at her arm. ‘Please, Tye!'

Tye bit her lip, swinging the truck round a corner. She knew it was no good hiding the truck now they'd been spotted. But if they could only hide the cargo, make out it had been unloaded back in the depot somewhere…

Spinning the wheel round sharply, she sent the truck careening through a flowerbed, bringing it to a sudden halt. But as the growl of the engine died, the noise of the chopper soon rose to replace it. Tye threw open the door. ‘We've got to hide the cases.'

‘We've got to hide full stop!' Patch hissed back. ‘Come on, I'll do the locks on this warehouse, we can sneak inside –'

‘Get on with it!' Tye ran to the back of the truck and opened the doors. She could hear the thrum of the helicopter's rotors building, like angry bees swarming ever closer. She clambered inside the back, grabbed hold of one of the cases and started dragging it to the doors.

Too late. She saw the bright white light flooding down outside, the flowers and undergrowth whipping about in the wind from the screaming rotors. The judder of automatic gunfire tore through the night, the noise reverberating through her head.

‘Patch!' she shrieked.

But a second later he scrambled into the truck to join her, one eye clutched in his hand, the other wide and terrified. ‘I couldn't crack the door in time,' he shouted. He reached out and pulled the doors shut, then ran across and hugged her tight. She clung on to him. What else could she do? They both knew there was nowhere to hide. Not now.

The thrum of the rotors pitched down in intensity. The chopper had landed. Tye heard footfalls outside as people surrounded the truck, and the clatter and clicks of safeties disengaged.

‘This is it,' Patch whispered in Tye's ear. ‘We're dead meat.'

Jonah stared out at the New Mexico sunset, cold and alone. Over the mountains, the deepening red was the same colour as the stolen lorry.

He remembered when he, Con and Motti had found it, abandoned, all doors flung wide open as if in despair, bulletholes in the nearby walls. The image had haunted him on the long flight back – his first trip flying solo.

He could've wished for happier circumstances.

At least you know Tye and Patch aren't dead
, he told himself. The monitoring satellite had shown that much – the helicopter with its mysterious cargo had flown straight to the Black House in Colorado, and his friends along with it. There had been cars and trucks coming and going all day, and it was impossible to know if Tye and Patch were still there or if they'd been removed to another location.

Jonah imagined Tye would have been reunited with Ramez by now. And he'd want to keep Tye happy, so surely he'd insist on nothing happening to Patch. But the thought of them, surrounded by so many enemies, being marched off to face God knew what …

And what did Coldhardt have to say on the
subject? Not much below one hundred and twenty decibels. Jonah had never seen him lose it so noisily. He seemed more disappointed that his ‘children' had let him down than he was upset to hear of Tye and Patch, and had insisted that Jonah redouble his efforts to crack the meaning of the stubborn symbols.

Then he'd gone off by himself.

Jonah reckoned he knew where.

With a sudden, steely resolution, he made his way to the wine cellar and marched down the steps. The curtain was pulled away from the vault door, which stood wide open. It was bright inside. Coldhardt stood before the altar like some dark, silver-haired angel.

‘Is there news, Jonah?' he murmured, without turning round.

‘No. Only questions. And I want real answers.' ‘The truth can be disturbing.'

He glowered at the old man's back. ‘Just why is finding this temple so important to you?'

Coldhardt was silent, his fingers caressing the stone altar. Then, after a slow, weary sigh, softly he began to speak. ‘If we can only locate it ahead of Sixth Sun, I might stand a chance.'

‘A chance of trading the info for Patch and Tye's lives?' No answer. ‘Nah, I didn't think that was on your mind. So what
is
? And what's with the altar? It's not Aztec like everything else, doesn't even look like it's worth much.'