Holy Terror by Graham Masterton Page B

said, ‘The Mexican guy – what was his name, Perez? – he was carrying a large bag. They must have hypnotized me into opening up the strongroom and emptied out all the safety deposit boxes they took a fancy to.’
    â€˜But how would they know which boxes to choose?’ asked Sebastian.
    â€˜I don’t know. We have a list of who rents which box. It’s stored in the company’s database, but it’s strictly confidential and it’s encrypted.’
    â€˜They might have gotten you to download it for them,’ Ric suggested. ‘After all, they had plenty of time.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t have done anything like that, I’m sure, even if I was hypnotized. I
couldn’t
have. It’s so much against my training.’
    â€˜I told you, Conor: Hypnos and Hetti can make people do
anything
. They can even make people kill themselves, if they want to. Hypnos always used to boast that he hypnotized Sonny Bono into skiing into a tree.’
    â€˜Why the hell would he want to do a thing like that, even if he could?’
    â€˜Oh, there was supposed to be some mob connection. Bono trod on too many influential toes, and that was the cleanest way to get rid of him. Hypnos said there were others, too – really big names. And the beauty was that nobody could ever prove if he was lying or not.’
    â€˜All right, then,’ said Conor. ‘Supposing for the sake of argument that I
did
download the list for them … how come the other robbers had a list, too? And a list which sounds as if it was substantially the same as Hypnos and Hetti’s list?’
    â€˜Maybe somebody hacked into your computer and sold it to them on the black market.’
    â€˜That’s a possibility, I guess. But it doesn’t explain why they were two separate attempts to rob Spurr’s strongroom literally within hours of each other.’
    â€˜Coincidence,’ Sebastian suggested. ‘I was mugged twice on the same block once. Do you know what I said to the second mugger? “If you want my money it’s no good threatening me. Go and chase after that scumbag down there.”’
    Conor said, ‘I don’t think it was a coincidence at all. I think there’s a whole lot more to this than meets the eye.’
    â€˜Well, the two robberies couldn’t have been connected. Why storm into a store to steal a whole lot of safety deposit boxes if you know that they’re already empty?’
    â€˜Exactly. But none of this really makes any difference, not to the cops. They’re convinced that
I
cleared out those boxes and I don’t have any way of proving them wrong. My only witness is in a coma and he can’t remember what Hypnos and Hetti did to him, either.’
    â€˜In other words, you’re up your neck in very deep doodoo.’
    â€˜There’s only one way out of this. I have to find Hypnos and Hetti – preferably with some of the stuff still in their possession.’
    â€˜So what kind of stuff are we talking about?’
    â€˜I don’t have any idea. It could be emeralds, it could be dope, it could be title deeds. What customers keep in their safety deposit boxes is their own business.’
    â€˜Supposing they
don’t
have the stuff on them? Or supposing they do, but you can’t prove that it came from Spurr’s? I mean, nobody’s going to put up their hand and say, “Oh, yes – that three-pound package of Colombia’s purest, that’s mine!”’
    â€˜In that case, I’ll have to find a way to make them confess.’
    Ric smiled and shook his head. ‘Ooh no, I don’t think so. Not those two. They’d have you in a trance before you even got to the first question.’
    â€˜Beat them with rubber hoses, that’s what I say,’ put in Sebastian. ‘How about another drink, Conor? You look terrible. You’re going to have two gorgeous black eyes