The Manhattan Puzzle (37 page)

Li spoke quietly.

‘This is also the pride of the Chinese people.’

‘You have kept it in your care,’ said Bidoner.

Isabel raised her eyes. What were they on about?

‘Do not try to release your husband, Mrs Ryan.’ Li glared at her.

‘What the hell is that statue and what’s in it?’ she said. She had to keep them talking. There was no way they were going to let her, Sean and Alek go. She had solved their puzzle, but that didn’t mean they were going to stop their sick ritual.

‘The first Emperor of the Chinese, Qin Shi Huang, the man who brought us together, had this commissioned as the symbol of a unified China. It contains a mythical power – so the ancient stories say. See the wavy lines on it?’ Li didn’t wait for a reply.

‘These symbolise the three unruly dragons being unified. For as long as this was in China we were the most powerful nation in the world. And now I will take it back. And all will come and bow before us again.’

He stroked the head. He was smiling, as if he had been reborn.

‘So what’s it doing buried down here?’ said Isabel. It was hard to believe that the statue held such significance. It needed a polish. She could imagine it in a museum, but the symbol of China? And what did Bidoner mean about something being inside it?

‘This was stolen from the Summer Palace in Beijing when it was looted in the Second Opium War,’ said Li. ‘The Qing Emperor said that losing this was worse than the burning of a thousand acres of his palaces.’

‘So how did it end up here?’

‘It was taken to Hong Kong by British mercenaries,’ said Bidoner. He seemed captivated by the statue. ‘The bank it was lodged in was taken over by BXH a hundred years ago, in an arranged financial crisis in the colony.’

Li stroked it again. ‘We guessed it might be secreted somewhere in this building,’ he said.

‘Which one of you gets it?’ said Isabel.

‘Now we are part of the takeover of BXH the statue is ours, again.’ Li looked at Bidoner. ‘And what’s inside it will be shared.’

Lord Bidoner smiled.

‘They thought there was nothing of value down here,’ said Li. ‘Just a long-lost mausoleum to past presidents. They know nothing about real value. The value of what people believe in. This will change everything.’ He reached forward with both hands and grabbed the statue.

Bidoner put his out to steady the urn, but it was too late.

As Li lifted the statue, a crack sounded. When he released it with a swift upward motion the sides of the urn fell outwards and smashed into fragments with a noise that filled the two rooms with a roll of sound.

Isabel went closer to the wall again and looked into the chamber with the urn. In the place of the urn there was a jagged-edged hole a foot across. There was a dark space below where the urn had been, a deep hole.

And then she heard something. A far away rustling, like leaves on a path being scrunched by walkers.

An ominous feeling swept over her, making her jerk away from the wall. Li was clutching the jade statue to his chest, as if it was a baby. That was when Isabel heard the rustling noise again, only louder.

‘No!’ Bidoner shouted.

He stepped back from the hole, as if he’d seen something horrible. Then he turned to Isabel. She saw wide-eyed fear in his face.

‘Run!’ he yelled.

Li was scrambling over the low wall that separated them from the main room.

The sight she saw next sent a shout to her lips.

‘Sean!’

Pale rats, giant rats, were streaming out of the hole in the ground where the urn had been. They were leaping in the air and even from twenty feet away, she knew what they had to do.

‘We have to go,’ she screamed.

Li glanced back, letting out an odd high-pitched yelp.

The rats were like the ones they’d seen up above. And within a few seconds a group of them had attacked Bidoner, who was only then reaching for the wall that Li had just scrambled over.

He screamed. It was a chilling scream of terror. Isabel felt pleased and shocked at the same time. Li didn’t make any effort to go back for Bidoner. He was almost at the gate out of the chapel already. His assistant, looking terrified, was with him.

There was no one guarding them. Isabel put Alek down by Sean and went to undo Sean’s manacles. They came free after a few of the longest seconds she’d ever experienced.

‘Take Alek, Sean. Run as fast as you can. Don’t worry about me. Get him out of here.’

Xena was the only one who tried to do something about the rats. Bidoner screamed as about five of them, like small dogs, bit into him as he tried to exit the inner chamber. Two were on his arm, one was on the other arm and one was near his neck.

Xena had a knife in her hand and she lashed out at the rats as they swarmed, sending two, then a third, into the air, blood flowing. But there were too many and as she flailed with them, Sean took hold of Alek.

Then Isabel saw the gun in Bidoner’s hand. It was facing the rats coming out of the hole. It went off, with an echoing thud as he shouted a curse she didn’t understand. Then, as his arm flailed, the gun fell and slid across the floor. Xena hadn’t seen it fall. She was trying to pick rats off Bidoner. Isabel picked up the gun and went after Sean and Alek.

She turned as she passed through the gate and saw more rats jumping on Bidoner. There were more and more of them piling their teeth into him. Then she heard a gnawing sound and saw Xena stepping back from the rats at their feasting. She had a squirming rat in each hand. She threw them at the wall.

Isabel raced on. She never saw Bidoner again.

Sean, with Alek in his arms, and Li and his colleague were all running back to the elevator.

Sean was behind the others, but gaining on them.

As she raced after them Isabel stumbled, almost fell. She looked back. Xena was not far behind. Then she was coming up on Li. Sean was ahead, even though he was carrying Alek. Li was weighed down with the statue. The elevator was still a hundred feet away. Isabel looked over her shoulder again, fear filling her mind. Were the rats coming?

They were!

They had been delayed by their feasting in the chapel, but there must have been more rats who were still hungry.

And now there was a pack running after them.

Her heart pounded. She thought about using the gun on Sean and Alek if the rats caught them.

Li shouted and his colleague, who had been running near him, responded. Isabel turned just in time to see the man holding his gun out to Li, passing it to him. Isabel looked forward again.

Then she heard a shot.

Had the rats reached Li already?

She turned, but only Li was following her. And there was a hand behind him, near the ground, waving in the air. Then she realised. He had shot his assistant.

She turned her head and kept running, determination and fear pushing her on.

Every muscle was straining now. Her feet were pounding rhythmically on the stone. The hairs on her arms and on her back were standing up. She was running as fast as she’d ever run. Her breath was coming in thick gulps. Her thigh muscles were aching. Then she turned. The rats were on Li’s assistant. She glimpsed white fangs and claws.

Li was wheezing, and still behind. ‘Drop the statue!’ she shouted.

He shook his head furiously. Xena was off to the left, far enough away that she couldn’t be shot easily by Li.

The squealing behind them was getting louder again.

‘Come on, Isabel,’ Sean shouted. He was waving her forward.

Her legs were aching, her lungs burning. She turned her head and gasped.

Li had fallen. The rats were on him. He was screaming. They formed a little hill and were swarming all over him. His hand was raised high and lashing about. She slowed, Sean shouted at her.

She glanced back again. A large rat had jumped up to bite Li’s hand. It held on tight as he swung it around in a despairing movement.

A strangled shout twisted in her throat. Fear and revulsion gripped her.

And then, as she watched, she saw Xena heading for Li. She slowed, kept watching. There was no doubting Xena’s courage. But she didn’t engage with the rats this time, she bent and picked the statue up, which was behind Li, and ran off, fast, towards the wall of the cavern on the right. Was there another way out?

‘Come on,’ shouted Sean. The rats had been distracted, but who knew for how long.

They reached the elevator.

Sean pressed the button, banged on the elevator doors. Then he tried to pull the doors open. They wouldn’t budge.

They turned to watch the final act of Li being eaten. Alek was resting on Sean’s shoulder, still knocked out, oblivious. There was blood all down Alek’s arms and legs. It was all over Sean’s shirt now and on his trousers too.

Li’s body jerked and the whole hill of rats moved as blood fired a few feet up into the air, then sprayed the white rats in a mist that died quickly. Sean banged on the doors again.

It wouldn’t be long before the rats realised there was more to eat than Li and his colleague.

And then the elevator doors pinged.

Isabel felt a great rising wave of relief.

But inside was Adar and her relief fled. He had a purple bruise on the side of his face and a sour expression. He had a black gun too. It was pointing at them.

He stepped out of the elevator and waved his gun at Sean and Isabel. ‘You two. What happened to the others?’ He glanced across the cavern and his mouth opened. His eyes widened.

Isabel turned away from Adar and pulled the gun from her waistband, slowly. She would get only one shot. But she wasn’t afraid. She’d been top of her class in pistol drill in the Foreign Office the year she’d joined. She swung the gun up. She took a deep breath and shifted fast down onto one knee.

Adar was moving too, turning. The barrel of his gun was coming around. Everything slowed as she watched it coming to face her.

He was too fast.

She heard an echoing crack. Something punched her shoulder, swinging her around. She’d been hit!

She fell. Sean shouted.

But her arm was still in front of her and she was still holding the gun. She sighted along the barrel, and pulled the trigger. The force of the shot sent her shoulder back with an agonising jerk.

And then Sean was pulling her up.

‘We gotta go!’ He shouted.

She could hear the rats squealing again as she passed Adar. The sound they made was the growl of a hungry pack. She saw a pulsing red hole in Adar’s chest as they passed him. He was twitching, his eyes blinking, as if he was trying to get up, but the flow of blood made it clear that he had no chance.

The last thing she saw as the elevator doors closed were the rats jumping high as they reached Adar. He was still alive as they began their meal. His arms flailed and then they were all over him, covering him in a seething whiteness.

The elevator doors closed.

But something was in it with them. She heard Sean screaming. She was leaning against the back wall, dizzy. Then she heard a thud and the squealing stopped.

‘What’s the code start with?’ shouted Sean.

‘A hash … a …’ Her voice trailed off.

She could hear him tapping at the keys. He tapped twice. Then they were moving.

The elevator creaked a few times, but she didn’t care. Sean had his shirt off. He was tearing it into strips. There was a horrible bone-deep thumping coming from her shoulder.

‘Is Alek okay?’ she said.

‘Sit down,’ he shouted at her.

She sat on the wooden floor. There was something warm dripping down the side of her body. Was she under a leak? Then her head was emptying, swirling. It had become light.

There was a voice calling. It was far away.

‘Is Alek okay?’ she was saying, again and again.

Then
there was a buzzing, voices.

But she couldn’t understand the words. And everything was dark.

It was a month before Henry Mowlam finished his report on what had happened at BXH.

No redundancies had been announced yet at the bank. BXH, and its regulators, were still assessing the damage. The riot that had occurred outside the BXH building in Manhattan had evaporated after the National Guard had turned up, but the shockwaves had taken days to pass in the US.

What happened in the secret mausoleums under the bank didn’t come out in anything even approximating the truth. One newspaper claimed the bones discovered in the underground cave had been there for centuries. Another tried to start a panic about commuters being at risk from rats. Then it was revealed that thousands of rats had been killed by a team of specialists in the hours after the cavern was opened up.

The SEC suspended the takeover and BXH’s shares as an investigation was carried out into all matters surrounding the events at the bank.

It was unlikely, but not impossible, that the takeover would still go ahead. The other members of the board of the Ebony Dragon hedge fund had disowned Lord Bidoner.

And the Chinese authorities had made clear they had no part in any murders or illegal activity. They denied all know-ledge of what Li and his assistant had been up to.

The Vaughanns were charged with a series of offences within days.

Sean, during an interview back in London, blamed himself for what had happened to his family.

Sean had proved that he was waiting at City Airport in the east end of London while the BXH jet was readied for departure, when the dancer was murdered in Soho. Security camera evidence had backed him up.

‘You should have gone straight to the police when you discovered Alek was being threatened,’ said Henry, softly.

‘I know,’ said Sean.

‘Are you still at BXH?’ said Henry.

‘No, they terminated the facial recognition project.’

‘How’s Alek these days,’ said Henry.

‘He’s okay. It’s amazing, considering what happened.’

‘Kids are very resilient,’ said Henry.

‘He still has nightmares, though.’

‘And Rose Suchard is all right?’

‘She’s still a bit shaky, but she’s very grateful to the Metropolitan police. She says the officers who traced her phone call deserve a medal from the Queen.’