The Bloodline Cipher (24 page)

‘Soon,' she told him. ‘Out.'

Tye looked out of the cabin window at the hulking silhouette of the
Aswang
against the purple sky. It looked just as ghoulish as its namesake.

Suddenly she heard something outside. A quiet rattle. The wind knocking something? An uneasy feeling took hold. She'd been distracted when Jonah called in – just for a few seconds, but it could've been enough for someone to get past their radar, just as she'd sneaked under the
Aswang
's.

There was a flare gun in the cabin, and Tye picked it up, cradled it in both hands. The night was warm but she felt cold and clammy as she edged out of the red-lit cabin and into the dark, trying to tell what was real and what was shadow.

Suddenly a hand clubbed down on her wrist and the flare gun clattered from her grip. Immediately, she spun round and jabbed with her other hand at face level; her knuckles cracked against bone. Her attacker was a man in a wetsuit, and a knife blade glinted in the moonlight. She kicked him in the stomach, danced back as he doubled up and smashed the knife from his grip. Then she delivered a high kick to his chest that propelled him overboard. Warm spray arched over her, but she knew from the sound of the splash her attacker had hit the water well, twisted in the air and dived. Which meant he would most likely come back for more.

Instinctively she stooped to snatch up the flare gun – without first checking the deck was clear. Another attacker came up from behind and grabbed her in a crushing bearhug. Tye felt the air driven from her lungs as struggled to free herself.

Then, she heard a quiet
phut
, and a sharp stab at her neck.

Her eyes widened as she saw a small fishing boat bobbing out of the dark towards her. Two people were rowing, and another figure stood behind them, but the night hid their features, and Tye's vision was already blurring.
Curare
, she thought fearfully,
maybe it's Sorin, he wasn't dead, he's come back
–

Desperately she tore the dart from her throat. Then she grabbed hold of one of the arms round her chest and heaved her body forward; using her attacker's weight and momentum against him she flipped him over her shoulder and he crashed down on his back.

She swore. Heidel's face was looking up at her. ‘You've let everybody down, Tye Chery,' he said, smiling. ‘Whatever would Coldhardt say?'

Tye stamped down hard on Heidel's sternum, stunning him. ‘For that he'd probably say “thanks”,' Tye hissed.

‘Just you wait, little girl,' Heidel said through gritted teeth.

Tye staggered backwards, almost overbalanced. She could feel the drug taking hold. It felt like a crowd of drowsy flies had flown inside her head. She straightened and saw how close the approaching rowboat was now as she blundered back to the cabin. She had to outrun them, had to fight off the drug.

But it's curare and it's going to kill you
. Tye felt a shard of terror knife through her insides.
How
can
you fight?

It seemed there were two cabin doors. She clutched for one and missed. Maybe this was best, though – the red light inside was burning blinding bright as hellfire now, and Tye didn't want to go to hell. Although she kind of doubted there was space in heaven for someone like her.

‘
Think of the chances we take
,' she'd told Patch. ‘
Our luck's going to run out
.'

She had to reach the radio, warn Jonah and the others. Couldn't let them down. Couldn't let
him
down. But a big wave bumped the boat and she stumbled, fell on her side. She rolled on to her back but couldn't get up again.

Tye looked up at the stars that had dared peep through the dark and terrible sky. They started to spin about, chasing their tails like Catherine wheels before erupting into comets, the original bad omens. As her eyes flickered shut, as the people came aboard and rough hands held her down,
I'll miss you, Jonah
, was the last thought to slip away.

Jonah watched the captain, back at his controls, smile over his shoulder at them as they headed down the steps. He called something after them.

‘That is sweet, no?' Con smiled demurely. ‘He wished us luck.'

‘We could use it,' said Jonah.

By the time they got back to the main deck, Patch had cracked the bulkhead door. Motti was holding one of the guards' M16s in one hand and a bunch of what looked to be slim lipsticks in the other.

‘The weapons have been converted to fire simulated ammo,' said Motti. ‘Wax bullets. Without protective clothing they'd hurt us bad but wouldn't kill us.'

‘Comforting,' said Jonah. ‘The captain might only have maimed me just now.'

‘They must want any intruders taken alive for questioning,' said Motti.

‘Interrogation?' Patch shuddered and held the door open. ‘Think I'd rather take the bullet. You lot coming?'

‘He's right, we should split,' said Motti, dropping the wax cartridges. ‘The crew ain't gonna need three guesses to work out where we're headed.'

Beyond the bulkhead was fetid, salty blackness with
a metallic reek. The floor beneath them was pooled with puddles and rust. Patch's torch cut slices from the dark, revealed the stairwell in pieces as he searched for a light switch. Then dim, low-watt light hummed into life, hardly enough to see by.

Motti jammed the M16 through the door handle, wedging the muzzle behind a pipe running vertically beside the frame. ‘Should slow 'em down anyway,' he muttered, facing the staircase. He was first down the steps, and Jonah brought up the rear. Their footprints echoed in slippery cascades, as they went down one level … two levels …

‘Vault's the other side of this bulkhead,' Motti whispered. He studied the door built into it and nodded as if it was familiar. ‘Three-part steel frame, internal rock-wool insulation. Not bad.'

‘Lucky we don't need to blow it open, then.' Patch had a couple of small tools in his hand and was setting about the entry-coder beside the door. ‘Just a bit of friendly persuasion …'

With an echoing clunk, the deadlocks keeping the door closed retracted. Patch grinned at the others – but Motti shoved him aside, carefully opening the door in case of other traps. It was dark inside, with a stench of dead fish.

‘How could anyone call this a shrine?' Con was breathing through her sleeve. ‘It stinks.'

‘Whoa,' said Patch, training his torch inside. ‘Tripwire there. See it?'

Jonah jostled with Motti to see. A gleaming thread of silver was pulled taut across a narrow access corridor.

‘Probably gas,' Motti noted. ‘Wouldn't want an explosion in here in case his collection went up in smoke.'

‘So do we just step over the wire?' Jonah asked. ‘Keep our eyes peeled?'

‘That would make sense. Too much sense.' Motti pulled a pair of weird-looking goggles with crimson lenses from inside his jacket and wore them carefully over his spectacles. ‘Uh-huh. We got us some infrared tripwires here too. You can bet the silver wire's just a dummy to get us to step over it and wade right through the real thing.'

He took off the goggles and offered them to Jonah. He could see a crazy criss-cross of red light beams stretching beyond the tripwire.

‘If any one beam's interrupted for more than a second,' said Motti, ‘game over.'

‘How do we get past them?' said Con tersely.

‘Defeat the trigger mechanism.' Motti snatched Patch's torch and played the beam on a black box with a dull metal capsule wired on top. A cable connected the box to a computer keyboard with built-in LCD, just inside the doorway at ankle height. ‘Being controlled from this thing. Know the type, geek?'

Jonah pulled off the goggles, squeezed into the narrow space and checked out the screen in the torchlight. His nerves were too frayed already to feel any extra apprehension. ‘Password override will be in Filipino,' he muttered. ‘But if I can hack into the clock mechanism and freeze it, we'll have the world's longest second. Then we can trip the beams as much as we like and the processor won't register a thing …'

Con smiled. ‘Amazing how something so clever can be so dumb.'

‘Don't talk about the geek like that,' Motti mock-chided.

Jonah concentrated. It didn't take long to hack in, isolate the code and disable it. ‘OK, fingers crossed we're clear.'

Motti pulled his baton from his belt and warily waved it into the invisible beams. Nothing happened.

‘Mate, you're a genius,' said Patch, as Jonah led the way through the access tunnel to the next door. There was seemingly nothing attached – no clever locks, no scanners. Nothing. Only a sign which Jonah couldn't read, except the number ‘one'.

‘This is the right cargo hold,' Con breathed.

‘Motti?' Jonah called back down the corridor. ‘What's keeping you?'

The torch beam showed him crouching beside the disabled computer, holding still. ‘It's OK, I just …' Motti straightened up. ‘Thought I heard something up above.'

‘Let's get going,' said Con. ‘At least we don't have to get out the same way.'

Patch tapped his eye patch. ‘Not when I can give you the best bang of your life,' he joked nervously.

Motti stalked towards them. ‘OK, open it up, Patch.'

Patch cautiously tried the handle. The door opened outwards a little. ‘It ain't even locked. They must never have thought anyone would get this far.'

‘Or there's a trap the other side,' Motti reasoned. ‘Stand clear.'

Jonah stood aside from the entrance, as Motti carefully opened the door.

Nothing happened. Jonah peered inside the cargo hold. The smell of salt and rust was even stronger, the darkness thicker still. He heard Patch fumble for a light switch.

‘Let there be light,' Patch proclaimed, as the dim orange lighting flickered into life, illuminating the vault, ‘and there was …'

‘Nothing,' Jonah whispered. He stared around in disbelief. It was just a dark, stained shell of a place. ‘There's nothing here at all. But Coldhardt gave us the exact details –'

‘Yeah,' said Motti, ‘the details he was given by the NO men.' A horrible silence fell, heavy as the dark around them. ‘It's a trap, guys. A goddamn frickin' trap.'

‘I said this was a stitch-up!' Patch shouted.

‘But all those barriers we passed,' Con protested. ‘Why put them in place if there's nothing to guard?'

Sudden fear scrabbled at Jonah's guts. ‘To keep us below decks while they spring something?'

‘OK, let's get down to the bilge pumps beneath this hunk o' crap,' Motti ordered, leading the way over to an open hatchway in one corner. ‘Jonah, radio Tye to come get us as arranged. Patch, get ready with the eye.'

‘Ten-second fuse,' said Patch, running after him. ‘Then BOOM.'

Jonah pulled out the radio. ‘Tye? We need pick-up.' Only static answered him. ‘Tye? Come on …'

‘Motti, Patch, come back,' Con shouted. Jonah saw
she was peering through a small rusty hole in the wall of the hold. ‘There's a boat outside but it's not Tye. Looks to be an assault craft.'

Motti hesitated by the hatch. ‘Navy?'

‘Unmarked. And it's waiting right where we're supposed to come out.'

‘How'd they know?' Patch wailed.

Motti swore and looked accusingly at Jonah. ‘You told Maya?'

‘No!' he protested. ‘I said nothing about the job.'

‘We gotta get out of here.' Motti was striding for the door, clutching his baton. ‘Where the hell is Tye?'

‘I can't reach her,' Jonah snapped, running to catch up.

‘Tye knew just where we were coming out,' said Con, bundling after them with Patch. ‘What if she –'

‘Tye would never sell us out,' said Jonah.

‘See if we can raise her above decks.' Motti started running through the access corridor, wet rust crunching beneath his feet. ‘If a boat's waiting out on the port side for us, maybe we can get away to starboard.'

Maybe
. The word jeered at Jonah as he scrambled back up the dimly lit stairwell in Motti's wake. He felt sick. His clothes and hair were soaked with sweat. Why wasn't Tye answering the radio? ‘Come on,' he hissed, banging his palm against the casing in frustration. ‘Come on!'

The rifle was still wedging the door shut. Motti strained to pull it out, but it was stuck tight. He swore, snatched off his glasses to wipe the condensation from them. Jonah took hold of the rifle handle and managed to yank it free. Con and Patch stood
back as he cautiously opened the door a crack. He saw two bodies lying on the deck outside just as they'd been left.

‘OK,' Jonah whispered to the others. ‘Looks like no one's figured we're here yet –'

They stole outside on to the moonlit deck, but then suddenly Con stopped. ‘The sound of the engine,' she whispered. ‘It's changed tone, it's –'

The air seemed suddenly torn apart by noise as a giant grey helicopter swung up over the side of the cargo ship like a huge and vengeful beast. Jonah was nearly knocked off his feet by the gale of the rotors beating down on him, by the sheer, deafening din. Bright search beams snapped on from the copter's belly, bleaching Jonah's view of the decks like floodlighting. Patch clutched hold of Jonah's arm, while Con stood behind Motti as if he could shield her as the helicopter came roaring down as if to crush them underneath. Jonah felt like a rabbit facing down a juggernaut.

‘Run under!' Motti bellowed in Jonah's face. ‘
Move!
'

Shocked out of his daze, Jonah ran, dragging Patch with him. The lights grew blinding as the howling metal continued its inexorable descent, and as he emerged the other side the rotor wash almost blasted him to his knees. He and Patch staggered and stumbled away, running for the cover of the storehouse. Con had already reached it. Seconds later Motti joined them, his hair whipped loose from its ponytail, as wild as his eyes. ‘I told you! This whole thing was a set-up!'