Dreamwalker (27 page)

The door opened silently, thanks to freshly oiled hinges. Soft clicks suggested that the person in the next room was occupied.

No time like the present. She slipped to the dimly lit stairs, fast but silent. Voices drifted to her ears, thin and ghostly, a reminder that men walked the halls even at this late an hour.

Four flights down, voices suddenly filled the stairwell, a heated discussion of the merits of various weapons. Rory leaped for the wall, twisting to brace her hands on the opposite face. Shimmying to the ceiling, she held herself there by the strength of her arms and legs.

The door opened, admitting two guards into the narrow space. Luckily, the conversation held their attention and they didn’t notice her wedged between the walls above their heads.

She dropped down after their voices faded into echoing whispers, landing with a soft thud. Hopefully, no one watching the cameras noticed the emergence of those two from a supposedly empty stairwell; the loop would have hidden their entry as well as hers.

All it would take was one man on the ball, and the jig would be up.

With time running down, Rory peeked into the corridor. Clear in both directions. No doors open. She glided out, heading for the target area with her heightened senses filtering for danger.

As expected, the lighting was dim, in keeping with the night, pools of shadow dividing the hall. The high ceiling disappeared in the darkness above the wall-mount lamps. Dry air cycled around her, stale with a hint of yesterday’s cigar and warm compared to the storm winds she’d left. Fans throbbed in the distance, the mechanical heart of central air-conditioning.

Nothing else.

Not even her footsteps as she reached the door that was her goal. A single glance identified the simple lock. A thrust of a master key, a love tap, and less than a second later, she was inside and resetting the lock, safe from the security cameras.

It was an armory. The suite of rooms apparently served as storage for inventory in stock, an Aladdin’s cave for someone as gun happy as her Fed.

Ingrained wariness and Felix’s training prevented Rory from assuming she faced smooth sailing. Each room she searched had to be treated as fresh. Each entry could spell disaster. All it would take was for one person to walk in at the wrong moment and the job was over. It was a challenge she never tired of.

She lost count of the number and types of high-power weapons she found, though Damon probably could have named them all. None of it, however, looked like the nuke.

More than an hour of futile searching later, Rory came face-to-face with a wall where there shouldn’t have been one. Having searched the room beyond, she knew its measurements and they didn’t account for the wall’s presence.

She played her penlight across its face. Though it looked as solid as the walls of the other rooms, there had to be a way in— unless it was merely an architectural dead end. But her gut told her she was headed in the right direction. None of the walls surrounding the missing space had the look of newer construction.

A sensor scan didn’t pick up any electronics; the lock had to be mechanical, then. Rory searched the surrounding area, conscious of time running out. It had already taken her too long to get this far.

Careful scrutiny revealed a hairline crack that encompassed several stones. Logically, the unlocking mechanism would be nearby for convenience and secrecy. As she swept the narrow beam of her penlight along the wall, a dark spot at shoulder height to a middling tall man gleamed, rubbed smooth by use.

After double-checking for traps and decoys, she pressed the stone.

The crack gaped open; then part of the wall swung aside on silent hinges to reveal a large, steel door of what appeared to be a vault.
Voilà.
Surely Karadzic would stash something as important as a nuke in there.

She studied the door, the combination lock with its two dials and thick handle. Old Soviet technology. Strong but noisy. Quite possibly original installation predating the regime of its current owner. And familiar from her prep work for Peć.

Fishing earbuds from her tool belt, Rory got to work. With her cell phone laid flush to the vault’s face, she turned the upper dial, instinct and long training guiding her hand. Amplified by the device’s internal microphone, the cascade of rolling tumblers filled her ears, seductive as the rattling dance of the white ball on a roulette wheel.
Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, before it’s too late.

Karadzic was running late, and Damon didn’t have the luxury of waiting longer. Despite the volatile atmosphere, the situation had yet to reach flash point. Though paranoia rode the air, the terrorists jockeying for advantage managed to keep things under control. Conscious of the danger his master thief faced, Damon decided to give the situation a nudge.

A spike of fear bordering on panic helped him locate his next target. Gerhardt Schiesser, a Venezuelan despite his name and Aryan looks, the moneyman of a South American group— and currently out of his depth behind a wall of bodyguards. Stout and white-faced, the object of his interest stood out in the roomful of jackals in more ways than one.

Damon directed his gaze at the nervy man, a stare of intent, unswerving and unblinking.

Like most prey, Schiesser felt it. He turned tense eyes in Damon’s direction.

Now certain of his target’s attention, Damon leaned back, allowing light from a shaded lamp beside him to briefly play over his features. Then he slid behind Ahmad, returning to the shadows. He had been cultivating the Venezuelan, haunting his dreams, for precisely this moment. He was betting that the rumors flying about an angel of Death would work to his advantage—especially given the nature of his prey.

Schiesser gasped, fear tipping into panic. He grabbed the arm of one of his bodyguards, who drew a pistol. That was all it took to set off a chain reaction of violence.

The pub dissolved into chaos as jackals on hair triggers reacted to an unknown threat with all their pent-up anger. Like a spark on dry tinder, several fights broke out spontaneously as restraint snapped.

Just as Karadzic’s aura registered on his mental antennae.

Dame Fortune was working overtime.

As Damon withdrew to the sidelines with the aid of a chair leg to clear his way, he could only hope that the diversion wasn’t too late for his master thief.

The last tumbler clicked into place, like drawing that last card to fill an inside straight—as Felix would say. Not inclined toward poker, Rory could only take her father’s word for it.

Holding her breath, she pushed the handle down. The door swung back ponderously, its thick armor designed to shrug off high explosives. She stepped inside with due caution, making sure she wouldn’t be locked in, before pulling the false wall shut behind her.

The vault was a weird amalgam of a walk-in closet and a locker room. Steel cabinetry lined three sides, rising three-quarters of the height of the stone walls. Unfortunately, the doors didn’t have anything as helpful as a sign saying Nuke Stored Here to make her life easier.

Behind the first door on her right was a stack of drawers, none of which looked large enough to hold a suitcase, but unable to rein in her curiosity, Rory had to investigate. Starting with the topmost, she found CD and DVD storage cases, stacks of euros and bearer bonds. She riffled through the bills, her brows rising involuntarily at the results. There had to be over a million euros in just one drawer. Karadzic obviously did very well with guns, drugs, and sex slaves.

But that wasn’t why she was here.

Continuing her search, she eventually found a suitcase stashed in one of the other cabinets, alongside what looked like brand-new, factory-fresh explosives. It looked almost exactly as the nuke had been described: outwardly a small, hard-sided suitcase, perhaps a bit more battered, dings and scratches marking the gray plastic, but essentially the same.

She tried not to get her hopes up. It could be a decoy. In her line of work, fakes weren’t unheard of.

A thorough examination showed nothing out of place, with no traps or alarms attached. Still wary, Rory gingerly pulled the case out of the cabinet. A glance at her watch told her she was running late, but she couldn’t afford to cut corners. There’d be no second chances with this job. If she stole a fake, the nuke would fall into the wrong hands. She tried not to think of what could happen to her family if she made a mistake.

The lock opened to the combination Damon had provided her. Further proof that it was the bomb . . . or, if it was a decoy, that whoever had prepared it was as anal as all get-out.

Maybe someone like her?

Professional respect had Rory using a multitool to raise the lid. She held her breath, alert for tension where none should be.

Still nothing.

Quiescent electronics met her eyes. They filled the case, blank faces labeled with square Cyrillic letters. Another glance at her watch showed over ten minutes had passed since she’d begun her search; she had less than a half hour to get out before the guards did their rounds—which might include a peek into the vault. Still, she performed more checks to confirm it was what it seemed to be.

Finally, Rory sat back, satisfied with its authenticity. Now to get out with the booty.

Something made her pause. She had what she’d come for and time was tight, but . . .

Her eyes darted to the drawers.

The outrage she couldn’t stifle froze her in place. She couldn’t leave without doing something about it.

With a moue of disgust at her weakness, Rory pulled the block of plastique from her pack and got to work. She placated the conscience berating her in her father’s voice for taking this risk with the job only half-done by telling herself that what she was doing would serve as a distraction as well as lighten her load. Better to get on with it than waste time with indecision.

Every second counted.

Damon ducked a knife a split second before it slashed his neck open. Snapping a punch to his attacker’s arm, he buried his other fist in his enemy’s throat, cartilage breaking from the force of the blow. He spun away, leaving the idiot to choke to death.

The conflict had devolved into a free-for-all and rioting in the streets. Some storefronts were already broken and burning, looters running off with anything they could carry.

Ahmad had disappeared into the melee, last seen stabbing someone in the back. Good luck to him. If more terrorists were taken out tonight, that was fine with Damon.

Confusion and liberating rage battered his mental sense, an invisible cloud of raw emotion that threatened to sweep him up in the violence. It would be so easy to give in. He struggled for sanity, the adrenaline pumping through him making it more difficult to remember the mission.

He had to get to her.

Keeping one eye on the time, Rory strung out the detonation cord, making sure it was tucked out of sight. Based on surveillance, she had less than ten minutes left in her window, then a change of shifts would make it dangerous to use the loop she’d inserted in the system to cover her departure—at least until enough time had lapsed for the new team to have settled in.

She froze, detonator in hand.

The rattle of a doorknob was followed by squeaking hinges and voices. “—do not like it. All this talk about an angel of Death. Feh!”

Rory looked around for their source. Small holes near the ceiling, now visible as ribbons of yellow light, carried the sounds into the vault.

“You cannot deny ibn Turki is dead, and the Basque, and Ivanoff—him in a locked room surrounded by bodyguards.” Heavy heels thudded on the stone floor, punctuating the heated discussion. The men were moving deeper into the suite, coming nearer with each word. “Malek said he saw the angel in the Leather Market, from the corner of his eye, you know.”

“Feh. Might as well say a
shtriga
killed them,” the first speaker countered mockingly.

She felt her lips tilt up on their own. The local belief in witches that could suck the life force from their sleeping victims did have similarities with Damon’s hits.

“Don’t joke about that.” The voices came to a halt right outside her hiding place.

Adrenaline set Rory’s heart racing. Would they enter?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Hurry up! Why is that door not open yet?” A new voice boomed farther away, the speaker clearly having just arrived. “We need it now.”

Sharp pain recalled Rory to herself, the hard edges of the detonator biting into her fingers. Stashing the nuke back where she found it, she eyed the cabinets, scanning for the fastest—and most discreet—route up. There was enough space above them to hide in, but the steel could creak under her weight; she had no way to test its strength without risking giving herself away. But if they came in, she shouldn’t be out in the open.

A clatter of heels suggested the entry of more men than she could evade.

Taking advantage of the noise, she leaped for the vault door, caught one of its massive hinges, and swung onto the nearest cabinet. Metal creaked, the soft shrill lost under the oncoming rush. Decades worth of dust stirred beneath her, making her want to sneeze, even behind her ski mask.

Up there, the sounds from outside came clearer. Feet slowing. Mutters of anger and anxiety. Then the air was filled with the clink of metal and the rattle of hard plastic.

Nothing else.

No alarm.

No exclamations on finding the vault’s door unlocked.

What was happening?

“Go, go, go! Quickly!”

They were leaving?

As though in answer to her question, feet pounded stone once more, rushing away.