Everywhere else we’d considered were places everyone knew about.
So I guess that went back to Wes’ assumption.
Regardless, we just needed some guidance. Something to work with.
Anything.
“Xander.” Wes raised his shoulders. “I’m at a loss here man. At a damn loss. I don’t know what the hell to say to you. Other than the fact that you’re right and going back to the chamber tonight may be a waste of time. The fear of getting to the end and seeing nothing. That last vault you think has to contain what we want and seeing it empty. That is my fear and if that happens I swear to God I’ll kill someone or something. I told you the place looked like it had a million fucking vaults. There has to be another way bro. We’re too bad ass professional rogue hackers and thieves. We gotta come up with some kind of idea. Something more efficient man.”
I would be the first to agree that people of our expertise and specialty should be able to find anything hidden.
It was just that it became more difficult when dealing with people like Giovanni. People who knew how to hide their treasures well and how to hide them so that guys like me couldn’t get their dirty hands on the said treasure, and so that guys like the Ra had to sneak around in the shadows to either kill or steal information.
There was a difference.
A beeping noise caught my attention straight away.
I didn’t know what it was.
Then I saw the flicker of the icon on the computer Wes had set up.
I jumped up straight away when I realized the beeping noise was coming as a result of the motion sensors going off. The motion sensors that triggered off the cameras Wes had set up in the chamber.
Fucking hell, someone was down there, someone was actually down there.
Wes rushed over to join me and we both glared at the screen waiting for something to happen.
The lights came on in the chamber illuminating the place. Next we both saw Giovanni and The Chameleon walking together to the very place we’d been last night.
Giovanni pressed his hand to the wall near a vault and damn it, a section of the floor opened up. It opened up and the two men went down.
Just like that they went down and the floor covered back over.
Holy hell, that had to be the hiding place. We were never going to find it, not the way we’d been looking. We wouldn’t have found it at all.
Shit.
Wes looked at me wide-eyed.
“Thanks for the tip.” Came a rough voice from behind us.
Wes and I both snapped around to see two thuggish guys standing a few paces away. I couldn’t tell where they’d come from.
Smiles lit up their faces as they looked at the widescreen computer monitor and watched Giovanni coming out of the secret vault with The Chameleon.
I glanced at Wes.
It was all the guidance he needed.
No further communication was necessary.
I didn’t need to tell him we’d move on a count of three.
On the third count that sounded in my mind he moved to the left and I went right.
He pulled two guns from his back pocket and fired two shots. The men evaded the bullets but went into my line of attack, straight into my knives. My throwing knives, which went straight into guy number one’s neck, ending him.
A third guy leapt down from the skylight showing where they’d come from.
He fired shots at us that we were both able to dodge.
It was stuff like this that pissed me right the fuck off. I didn’t have time for shit like this. I didn’t have time nor patience for this at all.
I stepped into beast mode and did the unexpected by lunging my body toward them, both guns whipped up firing.
They didn’t stand a chance.
I took them out and landed in a tuck and roll, right past their crumpled, bloodied bodies.
“Fuck.” Wes winced. “Jesus…”
I looked back to him then over at the bodies of the men.
Three of them and I could take a guess on who they were but I’d rather do it the more fun way. I moved to the one closest to me and lifted the sleeve of his jacket to expose his forearm.
There it was - a tattoo of an ankh.
The Ankh. The Egyptian hieroglyph for life.
Members of The Ra, as in the Egyptian sun god, all had the tattoo. The group had started in Egypt. All members no matter what part of the world they came from wore the symbol so they would know each other.
These were just ordinary Ra guys. The Spades also had the Ankh tat but they had a spade tattooed on their cheeks too. You’d know straightaway who they were if ever you saw one.
Wes came over and looked too.
“So, do we think this has reached next level bad yet Xander?” he asked. “They’re fully fledged members of the Ra.”
“Fully fledged and spying on us. How the fuck did they know where to find us?”
He looked at me, eyes wide. “They came out when they saw the footage. Came to kill us.”
“Yeah, they sure did. They came to fucking kill us so they could get to the hiding place and we’d be too dead to try.”
Things were all taking shape. I didn’t know what shape they were taking just yet though.
One thing I knew however was to tread with extreme caution when shit like this was happening. An idea brewed in my mind.
Could be bad, could be good. It formed in my mind from experience. All from what I’d witnessed of the past.
“Don’t say anything,” I said to Wes quickly.
His eyes snapped wider at me. “What do you mean? We keep this quiet?”
“Yes. We keep this quiet and as far as we know we’re still looking for the right vault.”
“Xander…”
I looked over the men. “They came in at the same time we heard the beeping noise. It wouldn’t have been enough time to pass the message on. Right now we’re the only people who know the location of the prints.”
“Are you seriously saying to keep this from Ethan?”
I nodded. “It’s safer that way. If they’re watching us here, they’re watching us at the site too, everywhere. We do this our way.”
Our way. Wes and me.
That meant trying to figure out a way to get everything without anyone knowing. That included Ethan. The fewer people who knew the better.
It was safer.
If we were being watched. He was being watched too. Everyone was being watched.
This was a part of what happened next after seeing Balthazar Kane and I’d learned from past experience what happened when he took people he needed information or something from.
He was watching all of us.
Watching me. It was how he knew I was involved on this mission.
Those guys came to kill us. Ethan would be on the hit list too and worse if it was found that he knew the location of the prints.
I had to keep this under wraps and take charge. This was my part, time for me to redeem myself from my recklessness with Jia.
I could get into the chamber and get the blueprints, and only then, meet Ethan somewhere to hand them over. That would place us one step ahead of the game.
I worked on instinct.
I’d learned that sometimes it wasn’t about running back to report what you found. It was about taking charge and seeing how far you go to accomplish this goal.
That was what you did when time was of the essence and there were so many variables at play.
A plan was coming together in my mind. One that would keep Balthazar and friends in the dark about the whereabouts of the blueprints.