Thieves Till We Die by Stephen Cole Page B

You stick it into that hole in the lock case there, see?’
    â€˜And you have the special key, right?’
    â€˜Nope.’ Catching the murderous look in Motti’s eyes, Patch moved on swiftly. ‘But I do have a fibreoptic scope. I can stick
that
into the lock case and read the correct positioning of the wheels on thecombination dial that’ll free the bolt.’
    â€˜Sounds clever.’
    â€˜It’s bloody genius, mate.’
    â€˜Get on with it.’
    Patch got out his scope and set to work.
    Jonah rebooted the server in Coldhardt’s data centre. ‘OK. Firewall should be up and running now.’ He glanced over at Coldhardt. ‘If you restart, you should be able to access all your shared files.’
    The old man did not acknowledge him, staring into space with a gaze as blank as the screen in front of him. Jonah’s eyes lingered on the small, unsettling statue upon his desk; it depicted a man in combat with some squat, demonic figure. It was a theme common to many of the artworks Coldhardt put on display, and every variation gave Jonah the same shivers.
    â€˜Thank you, Jonah.’ Coldhardt snapped suddenly back into life. ‘A timely announcement. I need to check some aerial maps of the area.’
    â€˜What area?’
    â€˜Colorado Springs.’ He paused. ‘That Black House address I found mentioned in Kabacra’s records – it cannot be found on any official maps.’
    Jonah frowned as he finished checking the proxy server was up and running – a further protective barrier between Coldhardt’s network and any possible attack from over the Internet. ‘Could it have been a bogus address? Or maybe encoded in some way?’
    â€˜Possibly,’ Coldhardt conceded. ‘Once you have hacked into a certain satellite scanner in low orbit over the area and secured us a live feed, we can becertain.’ He fixed Jonah with those unnerving blue eyes. ‘Something’s existence may be denied. But that’s not to say it doesn’t exist.’
    For some reason, Jonah found his eyes drawn to the statue of the man and demon again.
    He blinked. ‘I, uh … I know that in the UK some American military bases aren’t marked on the maps. Could Black House be something like that?’
    â€˜Possibly. There’s a good deal hidden in this world from all but the most prying of eyes.’
    â€˜Like your treasure vault down in the wine cellar?’ asked Jonah lightly.
    Coldhardt looked at him stonily.
    â€˜If you have to kill me ’cause I know too much,’ said Jonah apologetically, ‘I figured I should tell you
before
I blow my last hours hacking into that low-orbit satellite.’
    â€˜I had hoped you would live long enough to outgrow this flippant streak, Jonah. How do
you
come to know of the vault?’
    â€˜Tye found that big hidden door down there. She showed it to me.’
    â€˜And you believe I store my treasures behind it?’
    â€˜I haven’t told any of the others.’ Jonah shrugged. ‘I just figured you should know that Tye knew about it. Because if Sixth Sun manage to make her talk, well … then they’ll have found out about it too.’
And if that doesn’t get you more fired up about doing something to rescue her
, he thought,
what the hell will?
    But Coldhardt simply got up from his desk and walked calmly away. ‘Perhaps, for the time being, you’d restrict your curiosity to the spy satellite’s IPaddress, and the relevant co-ordinates. I want to know more about this Black House.’
    Subject closed
, Jonah surmised.
For the time being
.
    Tye lay on the bed in her dressing gown, still and quiet in the darkness, listening to Ramez breathe beside her. They’d had the lights down low, soft music playing. Then the lights had suddenly flicked off into blackness, the hi-fi went dead. And yet in the darkness Tye had felt suddenly exposed. It came down