The Traitor's Gold, page 3
Sally’s eyes flashed. ‘I like the sound of that.’
‘So did she. They cut you two from the same cloth. Luciane is fascinated by ancient relics and treasure.’
Sally nodded. ‘That’s me, too. So the casino is associated with some great treasure?’
‘Luciane told me it vanished after an earthquake but, during those times, it would have been packed to the rafters. We’re talking thousands and thousands of coins and jewels and other priceless items. Imagine finding it now.’
Sally leaned back. ‘It would be quite a coup.’
‘That’s what Luciane thought.’
‘But what got her so excited?’ Mason asked. ‘Enough to tell you all about it? Did she explain?’
‘She definitely found something,’ Quaid said. ‘She was eager to the point of being agitated.’
‘But she didn’t tell you what it was.’ Mason pursed his lips. ‘Could Luciane have been the victim of a robbery, a home invasion? Maybe the cops are already working on it.’
‘I don’t think so. She didn’t sound like she was just getting robbed. Not the way she spoke.’
Mason wondered how to broach the big issue here – the issue that Luciane might actually be dead. He looked Quaid in the eye.
‘Paul…’ he began.
‘Don’t.’ Quaid shook his head. ‘I know what you’re thinking. I refuse to believe it. In fact, I think there’s only one thing we can do. Something that will answer all our questions.’
‘And what’s that?’ Hassell asked.
‘Follow me.’ Quaid rose, left the table and started for the exit.
Chapter 3
Quaid led them straight to Luciane Harlow’s apartment.
It wasn’t a long drive. Quaid had chosen the coffee shop because it was situated relatively near Luciane’s apartment. He hadn’t gone in earlier because he’d decided to wait for the full team to investigate once he heard they were just a few hours away. He had watched the apartment from afar, just in case, but had seen no movement. As they were driven in the back seats of a large Uber, Quaid told them a little more of his history with Luciane.
‘Met her whilst I was in the army,’ he told them. ‘She was one of those Garda who were actually helpful, not pissed off that I was hanging around, sticking my nose in. She led us in quite a few good directions, following her nose, and helped prevent several attacks. She put herself out there, which was more than you could say for most. We hit it off almost immediately.’
‘And when you say “hit it off”?’ Roxy was interested.
‘Yeah, yeah, we were really close. And we’ve stayed close-ish ever since.’
‘Do you love her?’ Roxy pushed.
Quaid swallowed heavily. ‘You know, in my small way, I probably do.’
Mason didn’t say, Then I hope she’s still alive. It was a thought close to all their hearts, but not something they should voice. The vehicle drove them through mid-afternoon traffic, finally pulling over to the side of the road down a narrow street with shops and pubs on both sides.
‘She lives around here?’ Sally peered out the window.
‘Yes,’ Quaid nodded. ‘Luciane really likes to immerse herself in the excitement, the culture and the diversity of Dublin. She loves the city. In the heart of all the fun is where she wants to be.’
They stepped out onto the pavement, immediately surrounded by a sea of people and their loud conversations. Mason, at first, didn’t dare move for fear of stepping on someone. From his left there was the jangle of a shop bell as someone entered the establishment. From further down the road, the faint strains of a guitar and singing. A car with a loud exhaust rumbled by. Mason could smell a bakery and tasty treats and, perhaps, on the edge of the wind, fried food, maybe bacon.
Hassell was standing beside Quaid, but still had to raise his voice. ‘Where does she live?’
Quaid smiled. ‘Typically,’ he shouted, ‘above that pub over there.’
Mason studied it. He saw two curtained windows above a colourful façade. Bay windows jutted out into the pavement. The sign above the door read Kearney’s. The pub itself was painted red and had overflowing hanging baskets and other paraphernalia outside, and a low shelf running along its front. Signs for tobacco and Guinness covered the walls. Quaid was already focused on the single open door.
Inside, the bar was dingy, the headroom rather low. The floors were wooden and a little sticky. There was a stage to the right and a bar to the left, on which many people were leaning. A male/female duo stood next to the mic, strumming their guitars and singing a powerful song that the entire bar tapped their feet and clapped their hands to. The space was loud and chaotic and Quaid lost no time cutting right across the middle of it and heading for a far double door.
‘You know your way?’ Roxy yelled above the din.
Quaid nodded. ‘Obviously,’ he said.
Mason followed Quaid through the door and into a narrow corridor lined with paintings of Dublin from one era or another. To their right was a carpeted flight of stairs.
‘Up,’ Quaid said. ‘Second floor.’
They climbed the flight and then another, coming out onto a wide landing where there were three doors. Up here, the music was a little muted, allowing them to think more clearly. Quaid pointed out Luciane’s door and Mason turned to Hassell.
‘You’re the expert,’ he said. ‘Lead the way.’
Luke Hassell was an infiltration specialist. When they came across him, he was working for the enemy, but soon switched to their side, sick and upset with what the criminal boss was making him do. The criminal boss, a man named Gido, befriended Hassell after he quit the police department, after his girl Chloe was murdered by lowlifes, and gave Hassell purpose, a will to live. It was only years later that Hassell found out it was Gido who sent the lowlifes. He had then killed Gido in a savage act of vengeance. This was what Hassell brooded over, day and night, trying to decide what kind of person a man who’d operated on every side of the tracks actually was.
Now, the man who’d once helped plan a break-in of the Vatican secret archives pulled a set of carbon fibre lock picks from his pocket. Without a sound, he inserted them into Luciane’s lock and started twiddling. Less than half a minute later, he turned the round silver handle and let the door ease itself open.
Quaid pushed to the front, ready to go into the room first. Mason laid a steadying hand on the man’s shoulder.
‘Maybe I should—’
‘It’s okay. I’m okay. She’s okay.’
Quaid went through the door and switched on a light. The others were quick to follow. Mason found himself in a typical living room with a two-seater blue sofa, a large television and a low black coffee table. There was a silver lamp on the table made of two curling leaves, which must have cost a pretty penny. Mason saw rugs on the floor and prints on the walls and a chandelier-type light fitting in the centre of the ceiling of the front room, all arranged precisely and neatly. The apartment had the effect of an orderly, lived-in place – and it was empty.
Quaid strode to the centre as Hassell and Roxy went over to the curtains, tweaking them apart to take a look at the street below. Mason knew it was inbuilt for them, instinct, a result of their training, that they had to inspect their perimeters.
‘Luciane is a journal kind of woman,’ Quaid told them. ‘She’d use the computer to streamline her research, but she’d record it all in a journal, a folder maybe. That’s where we’ll start.’
They spread out. Quaid went immediately and unapologetically straight into her bedroom. Mason took the front room and Sally found a little niche on one side where a computer desk stood. Mason went across to the coffee table and started leafing through a few magazines that lay there, then reached in between the pages. He rummaged through a sheaf of papers on the lower shelf but found nothing and then started shaking the magazines to see what might fall out.
Roxy drifted into the kitchen. Hassell stayed by the window, watching.
They rifled through the place. The muted roar of banging music filtered up through the floorboards and in the double-glazed window. It was around 3.15 p.m. by now and the afternoon festivities down below were in full swing. Mason had counted at least two other pubs nearby, all advertising live music, either folk or rock.
They searched for some time, safe knowing that no one knew they were here. At least, they hoped so. The first thing Mason noticed was that there were no signs of a struggle in the apartment, and, obviously, no dead bodies.
It was a step forward.
Sally sat in front of the small, open laptop and booted it up. Luckily, it opened straight onto the desktop screen with no need to enter a password. Unfortunately, though, it offered nothing. No personal files, no notes, no documents.
‘Clearly, she uses this just for entertainment,’ she said.
‘I have something,’ Quaid said at that moment. ‘There’s a proper computer thing in here and a few notepads.’
‘I would call that a desktop PC,’ Mason said, walking in behind the older man. ‘Something, like the paddle-shift gear change, that doesn’t interest you. But then, it’s not fifty years old, I guess.’
‘Nothing wrong with older models.’ Quaid puffed his chest out. ‘They’re more sturdy and reliable. Experienced too.’
Right then, Roxy pushed past Mason, followed by Sally. There was quite a crowd in Luciane’s bedroom, all situated around the king-size bed with its yellow duvet and lone furry toy nestled next to the pillow. It was a big bedroom and in its far corner there sat another computer desk with a large PC. Quaid had switched it on only to be confronted by a password screen and had then turned his attention to the pile of notepads heaped to its left. He sat before them now, flicking through the pages.
‘They’re dated,’ he said. ‘I’ve gone back to just before she told me about the casino. Looks like she’s been researching it for a while, though.’
‘Any clues?’ Sally asked.
‘Well, yes, there are a lot. It’s gonna take some scouring.’ He opened one book at an early page. ‘Look here, for instance. She writes of China and the Chinese culture, and their love of gambling and casinos. But then she switches her attention as though she happened upon something else. And this is bad. She mentions the dreaded SED here.’
Mason racked his brain to no avail. ‘The SED?’
‘You never came across them in your army days? Lucky you. The SED, made up of mercenaries, is the Special Exercise Division. They’re kind of like our SAS, but a secret division of a shadowy militant group called the Shadow Kings. They’re covert, low-key, probably do business through the Dark Web. I remember our SAS used to have a covert offshoot called the Ninth Division, sent out only on super-secret missions that couldn’t be disclosed to anyone. The SED are like that, but with one glaring difference.’
Mason narrowed his eyes. ‘Which is?’
‘It ties in with Luciane and what she does.’
Sally walked over to the desktop. Roxy cleared her throat. ‘Give us a clue,’ she said.
Quaid scrunched his face up, thinking hard. ‘Well, do you recall the stories about Hitler and Himmler, back in the Nazi days, where they encouraged the field of pseudo-archaeology? Basically, they directed everyone from normal citizens to specially formed units to search through Germany’s archaeological past to find quantifiable verification of an advanced Aryan ancestry. But it wasn’t just that they were researching. They were looking for artefacts, all relics from the world’s ancient history, hoping to find some supernatural slant or maybe just enrich themselves.’
‘You’re telling me these Shadow Kings have some secret relic-hunting army?’ Mason said with surprise in his voice.
‘Damn right, I am. But you make it sound crazier than it really is. The SED are chiefly tasked with finding, looting, buying and generally procuring any ancient relics and treasures and either selling them for a vast profit on the black market or taking them back to the Shadow Kings where they will be placed in private vaults.’
‘Who are these Shadow Kings?’ Mason asked.
‘Anonymous figureheads,’ Quaid said. ‘Fronted by the SED.’
‘And what does Luciane tell of them?’ Sally asked.
‘There are several pages but, basically, she’s saying that they’re involved in the search for the casino.’
Mason looked uneasily around the room, thinking of the living room and the manic bar downstairs. Had deadly, secret soldiers cut through there, climbed the stairs and forced their way into Luciane Harlow’s apartment to abduct her?
And why?
Was she that close to some mysterious truth?
Mason put a hand on Quaid’s shoulder. ‘Can you find any reason they may have taken her?’
‘All of her research for the past few months revolves around that casino. She’s put all her time into it and has made a tonne of enquiries. The SED could have taken her to find out what she knows or to shut her up because they want to keep all knowledge of the casino to themselves. They’re cutting investigations off at the source. Maybe.’ He shrugged.
‘The SED operating in Ireland?’ Sally asked dubiously. ‘Really?’
‘It happens more often than you might think,’ Quaid said. ‘What’s stopping them from sending out operatives? The Russians do it. Why not the Shadow Kings?’
‘Okay,’ Mason said. ‘But this Chinese casino has been buried out there in the sand for centuries. My question is – why now? What has prompted this recent interest?’
‘That’s where it gets really interesting,’ Quaid said, leafing through a few pages, still reading and taking in the information. ‘According to Luciane, several coins have turned up that date back to the period. And not just a few. Bags full. And one story told by the men who are trying to sell these coins is that they’re from the old casino.’
‘It’s been found?’
‘Not officially, it says here. But maybe. Maybe by a single person or a group. They could be drip-feeding the coins onto the market so as not to make waves. They could be creating interest, getting people excited. Unfortunately, now they’ve caught the attention of the Shadow Kings and thus the SED.’
‘I have to ask,’ Roxy said. ‘What’s so special about this casino? Special enough to get these Shadow Kings all hot and bothered?’
‘Anything to do with ancient, priceless relics is easily enough,’ Sally said. ‘It’s their bread and butter, how they thrive, how they exist. They have their noses in everything. And don’t forget, if they do choose to sell a relic, it will be lost for ever to some secret, private collector. . And because we’re artefact hunters, preservers of history, protectors of antiquity, we don’t agree with that kind of attitude. We think it should be there for all to enjoy. And add to that, this might be the oldest proper casino ever found.’
Just then, the apartment’s front door was flung open. The hulking shadow of a man stood there. In a heavily accented voice, he said, ‘What are you doing here?’
And in his right hand, the blade of a knife glistened.
Chapter 4
Mason came alert in an instant. He moved towards the man, seeing the heavyset shoulders, his mind instantly making the connection between the SED, this apartment and the missing woman.
‘We’re friends of Luciane,’ he said evenly. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘What are you doing here?’ Quaid returned the question.
Without replying, the big man walked into the room. He wore cargo trousers, a black padded jacket and an incongruous baseball cap that read ‘I heart Dublin’. Overall, his behaviour was passive, but the face and the eyes told quite the opposite tale.
Mason watched the blade. ‘Where’s Luciane?’
Behind the man, in the doorway, more figures appeared. Roxy moved to Mason’s shoulder. The first guy ran his thumb up and down the handle of the knife.
‘You are the girl’s friends?’ he asked in accented English.
Mason didn’t answer. He saw no reason to continue the conversation. He knew what was about to happen and was already preparing his mind and body for it. He knew also that the other members of his team were shifting into position too, even Sally, whom they’d all been training lately but who still had a long way to go.
The first man exploded into action. The blade came up sharply as he lunged at Mason, who let it pass between his ribcage and his arm and then trapped it, twisted, drawing the man inward. With his free arm, he then delivered a solid uppercut to the man’s chin, a blow practised thousands of times in the boxing gym, striking perfectly. The enemy’s eyes rolled up into his head. He flew backwards, and then he collapsed to the floor, flat out. The knife clattered across the bare wood.
Now Mason turned his attention to the oncoming figures. There were eight of them, all crowding through the door, all similarly attired. They all carried exposed knives, and Mason instantly knew why. It wouldn’t work for an elite squad of special soldiers to walk down a busy Dublin street and then through a crowded, overexcited bar carrying their proper weapons, their guns. They couldn’t risk the exposure. So, instead, they improvised.
And carrying knives didn’t make them any less deadly. Mason would rather be in a gun battle than a knife fight.
The room was becoming crowded, but Mason didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. The SED mercenaries moved fast, brandishing their weapons, asking questions in passable English. Mason ignored them all, waited for the attack he knew was coming.
He didn’t have to wait long. A man dived in, knife swinging down towards Mason’s chest. At the same time, others attacked. Roxy met one; Hassell met another, blocking knife strikes left and right. Mason caught the wrist of his attacker, tried to break it, but the man twisted away and then came again, this time with an underhand thrust. Mason darted sideways, out of the way.
