The Sacred Vault

Now she too was annoyed. ‘I was just, y’know, worried about my husband. Jeez!’

‘Okay, okay, sorry. I’m just tired, that’s all. Think I need another coffee or six.’ A further yawn. ‘I’ll let you go. I’ll either give you a call from the flight, or when I get in to JFK.’

‘Have a good trip,’ she said. ‘See you soon.’

‘You too. Bye.’

She ended the call and unsuccessfully tried to suppress another yawn, stretching in her chair. While her day had hardly been as physically exhausting as Eddie’s had unexpectedly become, she still felt drained by the meetings and bureaucracy, and desired nothing more than to collapse into bed.

She finished her last few items of paperwork, then headed out, taking the elevator to ground level and ambling across United Nations Plaza towards First Avenue. Normally she would walk the four blocks to Grand Central Terminal and take the subway, but tonight she just wanted to get home quickly. A cab, then. As usual, the streets around the UN were choked with yellow cabs, but finding one for hire was the tricky part . . .

The roof light on one parked nearby came on. That was a stroke of luck; the driver must have just finished his break. She walked towards it, increasing her pace when she realised she was in competition with a middle-aged man. He saw her speed up and broke into a clumsy jog, both of them reaching the cab simultaneously.

The man grabbed the rear door handle. ‘Sorry, lady.’

‘Hey!’ Nina protested. ‘I saw it first.’

‘Seeing it doesn’t count.’ He opened the door.

The driver rapped on the bulletproof screen between the front and rear seats. ‘The lady was here first.’ His accent was Eastern European, gravelly.

The man started to climb in. ‘Just take me to East 19th Street.’ ‘Hey!’ Another bang on the screen, this time with a clenched fist. ‘I said, the lady was here first. Get the next one, eh?’

After a moment’s hesitation, the man retreated. ‘I - I’ll have your medallion for this,’ he bleated, then huffed sarcastically at Nina. ‘Enjoy your ride.’

‘I’m sure I will,’ she replied with a little smile. She got in, nodding to the driver. ‘Thank you.’

She could see why her rival had backed off - the cabbie was imposing, hard-faced and heavily built, with hair shaved to a stubble. ‘No problem. So, where to?’

Nina gave him the address and sat back as the cab moved off, thinking. Could Pramesh and Vanita Khoil really be involved in the thefts? They certainly had the money to finance Fernandez and his men. But it would be a collection they could never show off to anybody - and how did the Talonor Codex fit into it? It was valuable, yes, and historically important, but hardly on the level of Michelangelo’s David . . .

A sudden wave of guilt washed over her. Thoughts of the Codex inevitably led to Rowan, not only bringing back her feelings of grief, but also the reminder that she had yet to speak to his father. She had been busy, sure . . . but had that just been a way to avoid something of which, she was forced to admit, she was afraid?

She had to talk to him, she knew, however much she dreaded it. She was about to take out her phone, then decided that a cab wasn’t the best place for what would undoubtedly be an emotional call. More procrastination, an accusing voice said inside her head, but she needed calm, quiet, time to gather her thoughts—

The cab braked sharply, jolting her back to the present. It had turned on to one of the crosstown streets - but there was no traffic ahead. So why were they stopping?

The door to her left opened, a huge bearded man squeezing in beside her.

Shit! She was being mugged!

Grabbing her bag, she slid across to the other side—

The right-hand door opened as well, a smaller, skinny man pushing her back. She was sandwiched between the two intruders. Both were dark-skinned - Indian? The cab set off again. The driver hadn’t reacted - he was in on it.

But if they thought she was going to surrender meekly, they were wrong.

One hand fumbling in her bag, she drove the point of her other elbow against the smaller man’s cheekbone, snapping his head back. The big guy reached for her with a rough, hairy hand - as she pulled out a can of pepper spray and squirted it in his face.

He recoiled, eyes clenching shut - but in more of an instinctive flinch than the agonised thrashing she expected. Her own eyes stung horribly as the vapour reached her in the confined space. She tried to move away, but the second man was still pressed against her. Another swipe with her elbow—

His hand clamped round it, stopping the motion as if Nina had just hit a brick wall. Startled, she tried to pull away, but the grip tightened and held her arm firmly in place. The smaller man was a lot stronger than he appeared. Fear rising, she looked round at him.

A shark’s mouth grinned back at her from below malevolent dark eyes. His front teeth were filed to ragged points. He opened his mouth wide, leaning closer—

Nina screamed as he bit deeply into her upper arm. She tried to blast him with the pepper spray, but the big guy had already recovered, barely affected by the hot capsaicin, and swallowed her hand in his own, squeezing hard until her joints crackled agonisingly against the can.

‘Don’t struggle, Dr Wilde,’ said the driver. They knew who she was! It wasn’t a mugging, but a kidnapping.

The shark-mouthed man opened his jaws, Nina’s blood running down his chin. ‘Jesus Christ !’ she gasped. ‘What do you want?’ The bearded man released her hand, and the dented can clattered to the floor. In the flickering light of passing streetlamps, she saw that his lips were heavily scarred by what looked like burns, his cheeks oddly hollow.

‘You’ll find out soon. Here.’ The driver pushed a paper bag through the cash slot in the screen. The big man took it and tore it open; Nina saw that it contained a small bottle of antiseptic and several Band-Aids. ‘I wouldn’t want you to get an infection.’

‘Thanks for caring,’ Nina growled bitterly, snatching the bag from her captor.

The cab headed north into upstate New York. The drive took well over an hour, Nina losing track of where they were once they left the main highway.

Their final destination was a private airfield. The cab stopped beside a business jet, its engines already whining. Her captors pulled her roughly from the taxi and took her to the plane’s steps.

A figure appeared in the hatch. Nina recognised him immediately. ‘Funny,’ she said defiantly. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

Pramesh Khoil’s smooth, bespectacled face was as blank as it had been in San Francisco. ‘Hello again, Dr Wilde.’ He looked to the larger of the two Indian men holding her. ‘Bring her aboard. Was she any trouble, Dhiren?’

She expected the big man to speak, but instead he responded with a gurgling grunt. Horrified, she realised the meaning of the facial scars and his sunken cheeks - he had no tongue. It had been burnt out of his mouth. The other man said something in Hindi, his filed teeth giving his voice a wet, lisping quality.

‘Thank you, Nahari,’ said Khoil. He stood back as they shoved Nina into the plane. She blinked at the change of lighting, looking down the luxuriously appointed cabin to see Vanita Khoil coldly regarding her from one of the plush seats. Another Indian man, square-jawed and wearing a black turtleneck, stood beside her, his alert stance that of a bodyguard.

‘What do you want me to do now?’ asked the cab driver from outside.

‘Follow the plan, Mr Zec,’ Khoil told him. ‘Dr Wilde, your keys.’

‘What? Hey!’ The sharp-toothed man rummaged in her bag and handed her keys to Khoil, who tossed them to the Slav.

‘Wait for Mr Chase at their home,’ said Khoil. ‘I am sure he will ask to speak to his wife.’

‘What do you want with Eddie?’ Nina demanded, covering her rising fear with anger.

‘Your husband is going to get something for us,’ said Vanita, voice as icy as her expression. ‘The Talonor Codex.’

Nina gave her a mocking look. ‘Dream on. You know that Interpol already figured out you were behind the robbery in San Francisco, don’t you?’