He jumped ten or so stairs and landed with a resounding thud on the landing. Ignoring the pain that surged up his legs and spine, he turned and leapt down the next flight. A sign read Second Floor. They would expect him to go all the way down to the ground floor. He slipped through the door and hurried down another glistening white hallway, similar to the one above.
A middle-aged nurse with graying brown hair and a smudge of chocolate frosting on her cheek stood up and peered with alarm over the nurse’s station desk as he ran by.
“Big mess upstairs,” he huffed. “No nurse on duty, either. You might want to get up there.”
“But I’m not…”
He was gone before she could finish her sentence.
Bones tightened his grip on the .22 he held hidden under his sleeve. He really didn’t want to shoot anybody. Under any circumstance it would be difficult to explain why he was kidnapping a patient. Considering the political clout the Domain apparently wielded, it would be doubly hard to justify putting a bullet in anyone.
He made a right turn and dashed down the empty hallway to the back of the building where he came to a break room with a huge plate glass window overlooking the back parking lot. Amanda sat parked directly under the window in the old van she had borrowed from her uncle. The magnetic “Patton Plumbing” sign Bones had stolen off a parked vehicle they passed along the way completed the ruse nicely. They’d mail the sign back to the rightful owners, and have the rental company pick up the car in which they had arrived. They’d rented it under a false name so it wouldn’t trace back to either of them.
He was about to head to the back exit when he heard footsteps in the hallway. He had not bought himself as much time as he’d hoped. He took a long look at the window.
“Oh, what the heck?” he whispered. “Let’s just hope it’s not heavy-duty safety glass.”
He picked up one of the break tables, a heavy, round job with a Formica top and black metal trestle, and heaved it into the window. The table rebounded with a crack and a thud, crashing to the tile floor, but the damage was done. A hole gaped in the middle of the window and a web of cracks spreading three feet all around. Hoping he’d judged the distance correctly, he got a running start and leaped, shielding his face as he smashed through the glass.
There was a moment of groin-tingling free-fall, and then he crashed with a metallic thud onto the roof of the van. Amanda yelped and stuck her head out the driver’s window.
“Where did you…”
“Just drive!” he yelled. He grabbed the front edge of the van roof as Amanda hit the gas. The van surged forward, then sputtered and lurched to a halt. Bones tried to dig the toes of his boots into the pitted, dented surface, but to no avail. He slid forward and tumbled down the windshield and over the hood. He slowed enough to get his feet under him as he dropped to the asphalt.
“Sorry!” Amanda said. “I forgot the transmission on this thing sometimes…” The staccato crackling of gunfire rang out, and bullets whizzed past the front end of the van.
Bones returned fire, sending two well-aimed shots through the remains of the second-floor window. The van had rolled forward far enough to make for a difficult angle, and he had no idea if he’d hit his target, but it bought sufficient time for him to take the wheel from Amanda and hit the road.
“You have to baby the gas a little or else it stalls,” Amanda said.
“Yeah, I sort of figured that out.” He checked the rear-view and side mirrors and saw no pursuit. He doubted it would last.
He was right.
Headlights appeared behind them, growing fast as the vehicle sped toward them. Bones had no doubt it was their pursuers. He cut off the van’s headlights and hung a right down the nearest street, careful not to tap on the brakes, lest the brake lights give them away. He stood on the gas, praying no one would pull or walk out in front of him. The odds were slim this time of night. He took another right, this time the van felt like it was going up on two wheels. Orley, lying on the back floorboard, groaned as he rolled over.
As they zoomed down another deserted street, Bones spotted an old white van nearly the twin of the one they drove. He slammed on the brakes, bringing the van to a halt.
“Why are we stopping? Are you nuts?” Amanda shouted.
“Here,” Bones said, reaching out the window and yanking the magnetic sign off the door. “Slap this baby on that van. With any luck it’ll slow them down.” When she was finished he whipped the van around the next corner just in time to see headlights from the direction they had come. He sped up, hoping they had not been spotted. They flew down the darkened street with no sign of pursuit. The false trail had apparently bought them some time.
Bones made three more turns before he was satisfied they had left their pursuers behind. He slowed the van and turned the headlights back on.
“Can I breathe now?” Amanda asked, releasing her vise grip on the armrest. “I’ve never been shot at before.”
“I think we’re good,” Bones said, still keeping a wary eye out for pursuit. “How’s Orley?”
“Still doped. It isn’t safe to take him home. Where should we go?”
“Considering we’re both probably on hospital security video,” Bones said, “I vote we get out of town.”
Chapter 14
So your friend Bones is on his way here and he’s bringing what?” Jade’s attention was fixed on the e-mail they had received from Dane’s friend, computer geek Jimmy Letson, and she was only halfway paying attention to what he’d told her.
“He says he’s found a gold disc with some kind of weird writing. He also has a bunch of pictures he took of cave paintings. He thinks you might be able to help him out.”
“Did you tell him we’re kind of busy here?” she asked, turning over another page. “Jimmy says the writing is something like Hebrew, but not quite. As if it’s an older form that grew out of something else. He’s identified a few phrases, and thinks given enough time he’ll be able to make some sense of it.”
“What do you make of the two artifacts we’ve found so far?” Dane turned the new piece over. It was almost the twin of the first one they’d found. Put together they made a quarter of a sphere. He wasn’t certain, but the writing seemed to flow across from one to the other — they seemed to be a match. “Do you think maybe there are eight of them, so it makes a sphere?”
“I don’t know,” Jade said, still focusing her attention on the papers. “There are only six symbols on the shield, which makes me think there are six pieces.”
“Six pieces, but seven cities,” Dane mused. He stroked his chin, feeling the stubble of a day’s growth. “Yucca House was quite ordinary, and not even a city. Chaco Canyon qualifies as a city, but not golden.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Just wondering what’s at the end of the rainbow.”
“Meaning?”
“I mean that obviously all seven ‘cities’ are not cities of gold or treasure. If your theory is correct, and all six locations point to a seventh, then is that where we find whatever it is Fray Marcos was hiding? And if so, what is it?”
“I wonder that myself,” Jade said. “The only legend I’ve uncovered is that of the Moorish treasure and the religious artifacts, although the idea of an eighth-century crossing of the Atlantic, followed by going halfway across America to hide something seems a bit far-fetched.”
“I’ve seen crazier. Trust me,” Dane said. “What do you…”
“Hey! It’s another e-mail from Jimmy,” Jade said. She took a moment to read the contents, printed it off, and handed it to Dane. “He’s managed to get what he thinks is a translation of the writing on the first piece.” She handed him the paper from his computer guru friend and stood back with her arms folded across her chest and watched him read.