There were multiple different developments for Jay to process all at once, yet one thought screamed above the rest: Sebastian was bleeding.
“Fucking stupid,” Sebastian muttered to himself, leaning heavily against the wall as he slid down to sit on the floor. “Should’ve cleared the room properly …” He struggled out of his jacket as best he could with one arm not cooperating. Vivid red bloomed across the shirtsleeve beneath, rapidly spreading across white cloth.
“Sebastian.” The name was barely a whisper from Jay’s mouth. He couldn’t take his eyes off the growing stain.
There was a wobbly edge to the reassuring smile Sebastian gave him. “I don’t think he hit anything that’ll kill me right away. Hasn’t even started hurting yet.” His face twisted abruptly into a wince. “Ah. No, there it is.”
He tugged at the opening the bullet had ripped in his sleeve, widening it further to examine the wound. There was a ragged hole in the meat of his upper arm, slowly but inexorably dripping blood. Sebastian’s hand clamped over it—a clumsy, ineffective effort to stop the bleeding.
In the close space of the priest hole, it only took a step or two before Jay could kneel at his side. “Let me help.”
Sebastian nodded and fumbled one-handed for his knife. “I need you to cut the sleeve off my jacket.”
Jay took the knife, flicked it open, and snatched Sebastian’s jacket up off the floor. The seams holding the sleeve in place were severed easily enough, leaving Jay with a length of fabric he folded until it was small enough to hold in one hand.
Sebastian lifted his arm, bent back at the elbow so he could brace his fist against the wall behind him. “Put that over the wound and press down, hard and steady.”
Jay’s hand hovered uncertainly over Sebastian’s arm. “Won’t that hurt?”
“Yes,” Sebastian replied, flat and honest. “Do it anyway.”
Jay laid the folded-up sleeve over the bloody hole in Sebastian’s arm and pressed as hard as he could, holding Sebastian’s elbow with his other hand to keep it steady.
Sebastian grunted, eyes squeezing shut for a moment.
Jay took a slow breath. “Would it help if I called you a good boy while I did this?”
Sebastian barked a short, harsh laugh. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Maintaining the pressure on Sebastian’s arm, Jay said, “The other crew must’ve got to the drive just before we did.”
“But they were all using shotguns,” Sebastian pointed out. “The shooter had a handgun.”
“Does that mean there’s somebody else in play, here?”
“Maybe.”
The bleeding hadn’t stopped. It didn’t even look to be slowing down. Jay’s voice faltered a little as he said, “This isn’t working.”
Sebastian hooked his fingers into the knot of his tie, undoing it as best he could with one hand. “All right. Use this.”
He talked Jay through the process of wrapping a makeshift tourniquet around his arm; they tied the folded knife into the knot, using it as a windlass to twist it tighter. It felt wrong. It felt like Jay was making it worse. Sebastian breathed slowly and deliberately through his mouth, eyes screwing shut again as the tie dug sharply into the flesh of his arm—and the trickle of blood from the bullet wound slowed, then came to a stop.
A shivery noise of relief slipped past Jay’s lips.
Sebastian slumped back against the wall, resting for a moment. His blood was all over Jay’s hands. He’d seen his own blood often enough; he’d seen Sebastian’s, too, and yet the sight of it now was … affecting. Jay moved to wipe his hands on his trousers, but thought better of it; the remains of Sebastian’s jacket were right there, and already ruined.
Not that it did much. The blood had already sunk into the lines of Jay’s knuckles, into the grooves of his fingerprints.
“We shouldn’t have stayed.” Jay scraped a bit of drying blood out from under his fingernail. “Should’ve got out when we had the chance.”
Sebastian looked at him from beneath drooping eyelids. “You warned me this job had risks.”
“This was not supposed to be one of the risks!” The room was too small; Jay couldn’t get enough air. There was a tight sensation in his chest.
Sebastian’s uninjured arm snaked out, hooking the back of Jay’s neck to reel him in close until their foreheads touched. “I’ve put myself in front of bullets before,” he murmured, low and soothing. “They always told me it was for the good of the country.” His thumb stroked the hinge of Jay’s jaw. “I think I like it better when it’s for you.”
It was the most beautiful, terrifying thing Jay had ever heard.
“I did my job,” Sebastian went on, eyes intent on Jay’s. His hand was steady and warm against the nape of Jay’s neck. “Now I need you to do yours.”
Jay swallowed around the emotion in his throat. “You still trust me?”
“Always.”
Closing his eyes, Jay rested against Sebastian for a long moment. Then he leaned back and reached for his phone; still no signal. “The jammer is still on,” he reported. “The other crew must still be here—but if they’ve got the drive, there’s no reason to stay, is there?” He ran his teeth over his lower lip, thinking. “So they don’t have it.”
“And someone else does,” Sebastian said. “How’d they find it?”
“Same way we did?” Jay supposed. “Which means they had access to the cameras.” Details fell into place. “Then they shut them down, so they wouldn’t be seen taking the drive.”
“Someone on the hotel staff, then?”
“Maybe.” Another option presented itself: “Or it’s Cabot.”
Sebastian blinked, considering the possibility. “Makes a kind of sense. He knows Stoddard. If he’s skint, and Stoddard let slip he was bringing something valuable into the hotel …”
“One way to know for sure,” Jay said. “Everyone who was at the gala is supposed to be down in the courtyard. If Cabot isn’t there—”
“—then he’s the one who was up here, shooting at us.” Sebastian took a steadying breath and sat up, bracing himself against the wall as he moved to stand.
Jay stopped him with a hand against his chest. “The fuck are you doing?”
“Going to check—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Jay snapped, urging Sebastian back down to the floor. “Not like this. I’ll go.”
For the first time since they’d gotten into this mess, Sebastian actually looked afraid. “If you get in trouble—”
“I won’t.” Jay worked his fingers beneath the open collar of Sebastian’s shirt, rubbing a soothing circle over his collarbone. “I’ll be careful.”
Sebastian lunged forward, pulling Jay into a needy, frantic kiss. When they parted for air, Sebastian’s eyes were closed. “The long gallery’s just around the south-west corner,” he murmured. “You can see down into the courtyard from there.”
Jay nodded, then gently pushed Sebastian back and stood.
He listened for a moment at the exit; the room on the other side was utterly silent, and Jay risked cracking the door open. There were no shadowy figures lurking in the library, or in the doorway to the reading room. Jay pushed the door open a little wider and slipped out, closing the door behind him. The door out of the library hung slightly open; there was no sign of movement from the other side, and when Jay leaned out into the hall, he found it empty. He hurried down toward the south-west corner of the wing, keeping his steps as light as possible.
The long gallery was true to its name, hardwood floors and walls stretching ahead of him for at least thirty meters while a high, elaborately-carved gambrel ceiling arched overhead, lit by a series of crystal chandeliers. Paintings lined the walls; rows of pedestals held display cases for a variety of books, art pieces, and other antiques. The gallery’s drapes were tied back, revealing tall, lead-paned windows overlooking the courtyard.
As Jay sidled toward the windows, a voice echoed from the far end of the gallery: “Oi!”
He dove behind the nearest pedestal, heart hammering at the inside of his ribs.
“You find out where those gunshots came from?” continued the voice—not talking to Jay, but someone else.
“Not yet,” replied a man’s voice—deep, with an American accent. “It must’ve been around here, but I can’t find anybody. What about you?”
The woman made a disgruntled noise. “We’ve been through the whole place, top to bottom. I’m starting to think we’ve been stitched up.”
Heavy footsteps came down the gallery, creaking across the hardwood. Jay froze. Every breath, even the slightest movement, felt too loud. He couldn’t stay here, but couldn’t bolt for the door, either—not without being spotted.
“Where you going?” said the woman. “I’ve already been down that way. Nothing there.”
The footsteps paused—then began to retreat.
Relief shuddered through Jay’s body; he barely parsed whatever the two voices said to each other as they faded away. It was only once the gallery descended into complete silence that he dared to lean up and peer through the nearest window.
The hostages were still gathered in the courtyard. Most of them had elected to sit or lie down, although a few insisted on standing. It was starting to get properly dark, but all the stage lights were still on; even at this distance, Jay could make out most of the faces in the crowd.
Sebastian’s friend Bernadette Hurst wasn’t hard to spot in her bright pink gown; she was huddled at the centre of the group, speaking in hushed tones to a few of the other guests. One of them shifted with agitated energy, straining at the bit to do something drastic—but Hurst reached out and whispered something quick and harsh, and the man settled with a chastened look. Further toward the edge of the crowd, Freddie Clarke had his arm around the shoulders of a woman his own age, offering silent comfort as the two masked figures patrolled around them. Lucas Knox was keeping his head down, steadfastly refusing to look at Thomas Stoddard.
The distinctive bulk of Henry Jacob Cabot was nowhere to be seen.
Sebastian’s body had started to register its protests over the lack of blood in his system. Sweat trickled down his skin, leaving him chilled and clammy, and his stomach wouldn’t quite settle. In Jay’s absence he’d shifted to lie on the floor, which eased the worst of the light-headedness.
His heart jumped into his throat as the bookcase door swung open, and he hauled himself up to a sitting position just in time to see Jay slip back into the room.
“Cabot isn’t with the hostages,” Jay reported immediately, shutting the door behind him. “The other crew is still looking for the drive—which means they’ve got no idea it’s gone.”
Sebastian found it a bit hard to think through the dizzy relief—and actual dizziness—roiling through him. “So how’d Cabot avoid ending up with the hostages?”
Jay shuffled down and sat next to him on the floor; Sebastian tipped over slightly to rest against him.
“The one we talked to said they were all hired for this,” Jay mused aloud; his hand went unthinkingly to the back of Sebastian’s neck, fingers trailing up behind his ear. “And Cabot must’ve snuck away before they showed up. He knew they were coming.”
“Because he hired them,” Sebastian said; Jay nodded, reaching the same conclusion.
“Except he went for the drive himself,” Jay continued, then tipped his head to the side as he realised: “… which he wouldn’t have got the chance to do if everyone weren’t so preoccupied with the hostage situation downstairs. Maybe he just hired the other crew as cover.”
Something about that didn’t sit right with Sebastian. “All of this—it’s too big. Too loud. Cabot might have a clean getaway, but nobody else would. And you said the information on that drive is only valuable so long as nobody knows about it.”
Jay’s eyes were on Sebastian now, watching him keenly. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking … if Cabot was smart enough to come up with this whole plan, he’s not stupid enough to leave a hotel full of witnesses behind. Or a gang of criminals with connections back to him, or an intelligence agency recruiter who knows exactly what he stole.”
Jay hummed agreement. “What would you do?”
“Make it look like an accident,” Sebastian said plainly. “Burn down the building with everyone inside.”
“You mean the building we’re in?”
“… Yes.”
Jay groaned and rubbed both hands over his face. “We need to get out of here.”
Sebastian took stock of his faculties and didn’t particularly care for the results. “I can’t exactly climb out a window right now. And the other crew still has control of the hotel—I don’t like my chances against them, either.”
Jay’s hands dropped back into his lap. “Let’s say it was you burning this place down,” he said, thinking carefully. “How would you do it?”
“If I were in a rush? Open gas line and a match-book fuse. If I had time to plan …” Sebastian considered the logistics for a moment. “Firebomb. Something with a real detonator, so I could control when and where it went off.”
Jay wasn’t looking at him; his eyes were on his own hands, fingers twisting together as he scraped blood out from under his fingernails. Sebastian’s blood. “Can you walk?”
“For now,” Sebastian replied.
Jay nodded. “I need you to find that firebomb and disable it, if you can.”
It was theoretically doable—except that the other crew still had control of the hotel. “I might need a distraction.”
“You’ll have one.” Jay took a slow breath, his expression grim. “I’ll be trying to convince the people with guns to let us all out of here.”
Ever since a pair of muffled gunshots sounded from Medway Castle’s north wing, there’d been a persistent, building sense of panic amongst the hostages. They murmured to themselves and each other, casting fearful, rebellious glances at Paul whenever he passed by; one wrong move, and it could all fall apart.
If only they could leave. “You’re sure you looked everywhere?” he asked Ringo.
“Every room, at least in my half,” Ringo confirmed. “Can’t find your thingy anywhere.”
John appeared at the edge of the courtyard; the look on his face suggested he wasn’t bringing good news, either. “No sign of whoever was firing that gun,” he reported. “Couple of bullet holes in the library, but that’s it.”
“The one who fought you,” Paul said, thinking aloud. “Could it have been him?”
John shrugged. “No idea where he got a gun, if it was. He didn’t have one before.”
There was a murmur of alarm among the hostages; from the corner of his eye, Paul saw one of them—the woman in the pink gown—put both hands to her mouth and gasp. He turned quickly to see what had provoked them.
Yoko strode across the courtyard; ahead of her, at gunpoint, was a slight young man with his hands half-heartedly raised.
“That’s him!” Ringo nearly yelped.
John also had a look of recognition, although his was more wary. “Where’s the other one?”
The newcomer’s gaze flicked over John and Ringo in turn before zeroing in on Paul. “You’re the one in charge,” he said—a statement, not a question.
Paul didn’t bother to deny it. “Who are you, then?”
Defiance sparked in the stranger’s eyes. “You first.”
“No,” Paul said patiently; he couldn’t help but respect the kid’s brass. “We’re the ones with the guns. You first.”
The stranger’s jaw worked stubbornly for a moment, but he nodded. “My name’s Moriarty.”
“Moriarty?” George had drifted away from the hostages, toward where the rest of the crew was gathering tighter around the newcomer. “You’re Moriarty?”
“You know him?” Paul asked.
“I worked a job with John Clay,” she explained. “He said he got double-crossed once by some Russian mercenaries, but Moriarty sent them packing, all the way out of the country.” She levelled an incredulous look at the man himself. “He says you’re some kind of evil genius.”
Moriarty actually seemed thrown. “Clay said that?”
Paul didn’t have time for this. “So what the fuck are you doing here?”
With a shrug, Moriarty said, “Would you believe me if I said I was here on a date?”
Paul, certain his expression conveyed the appropriate level of scepticism, didn’t bother to answer.
“Look, you’re all wearing masks,” Moriarty said impatiently. “Which means you started this intending to leave witnesses behind. You just want to get what you came for and get out, right?”
There was a certainty in Moriarty’s voice that intrigued Paul. “And you know where it is?”
“I did,” Moriarty replied. “But those gunshots you heard? They were fired by someone who got to the drive first. Someone who knew you were coming.”
“Which would mean we’ve been set up.” Paul quashed the anxiety that came with that thought and studied Moriarty with a suspicious glare. “How do we know we can trust you?”
“You can’t,” Moriarty replied simply. “But if I’m telling the truth, you’re all in danger.” He scanned the circle of the crew around him, then looked back to Paul. “Sometimes the best a leader can do is cut his losses. I think you know that.”
It was too weary and haunted a statement to come from such a young man.
Paul turned to John. “Secure the door—make sure we can get out of here.” As John hurried off across the courtyard, Paul addressed the others: “Get the hostages moving. We’ll contain them in the great hall, then move out.”
They barely had time to get the hostages on their feet before John returned to the courtyard at a run. Careful to keep his voice low, he said, “There’s a problem.”
Paul ordered the rest of the crew to stay behind and followed John back out through the reception area to the front courtyard. The portcullis was down, blocking the archway that was their only exit through the gatehouse.
“It was like this when I got here,” John reported.
There was a small door leading to the interior of the gatehouse; Paul pushed it open and climbed a set of narrow stairs up to the first floor. A plain wooden door lay slightly open at the top of the stairs, revealing some kind of passage beyond.
The electric motor which controlled the portcullis’ pulley system was intact, but the rope leading to the pulleys had been cut.
There was no way to lift the portcullis, and no other escape from Medway Castle.
If one wanted to start a fire, the kitchen was the most natural place to do it. But Sebastian’s search had turned up no incendiary devices in the cupboards or behind the appliances, and all the gas lines were intact. The laundry room was next on his list, but despite the bountiful supply of dry linens and a dodgy-looking fuse box, nothing appeared to have been tampered with.
And that made a kind of sense; both the kitchen and laundry room were high-traffic areas, especially on a busy night like this. To go safely unnoticed, the firebomb would have to be somewhere more secluded.
It would also require an accelerant, the scent of which should’ve given its location away—except Sebastian had been a smoker for nearly twenty years, and his sense of smell wasn’t all that keen.
So he moved from room to room, taking particular interest whenever he spotted a surplus of flammable contents—such as the drawing room on the second floor he’d just entered. The ceiling was low and intimate, with a fireplace along one wall; long, thick drapes, plush rugs, upholstered furniture, pillows, throws …
Most of the furniture looked like it had been in place for at least a few decades, which made the deep set of indents in one of the rugs, along the wall, all the more conspicuous. There were faint drag marks leading toward an armchair a few feet away—someone had moved it. The wall where the armchair had been was panelled in wood; the seams on either side of one panel looked a bit looser than the others.
Sebastian leaned in close to one of he seams and just barely detected the scent of petrol.
Every once in a while someone remembered to point a gun at Jay. At this point he was fairly certain the big man and the crew’s leader had the only working weapons; the rest were deactivated decoys.
The hostages had been herded into the great hall, with the masked crew gathered in a loose knot outside the double doors—close enough to maintain some semblance of control, while far enough away to speak without being overheard. None of them could decide what to do with Jay, and so he hovered at the threshold; the crew kept him at bay with their guns, but clearly wanted him close enough to question.
“So we’re done,” said the one who, based on what Jay had picked up, was going by the name “Yoko.” “I mean, there’s really no way out of this—we’re nicked. We’re just waiting for the police at this point.”
“I suppose now’s the time to tell you,” Jay said, careful not to let the hostages hear him. “There might be a firebomb in the building.”
The other woman—George—reacted first, hissing a whispered, “There’s what?” moments before the others all started talking over each other.
“Fuck that,” Ringo spat. “I’ll take getting nicked over burning to death.”
The big man—John—made an uncertain noise, and the leader—Paul—didn’t seem to agree either.
“We could turn off the jammer,” George suggested. “Call 999 or something.”
Jay hovered thoughtfully at the edge of the debate. It was fully dark now; Cabot was surely long gone, and yet the firebomb hadn’t gone off. He wouldn’t risk the hotel going up in flames while he was still inside, which meant his device wouldn’t be on a timer—he’d use a remote detonator, instead. Except the signal from a remote would be blocked by the jammer, same as any other radio signal.
Paul gestured for the bickering members of his crew to shut up and turned to George. “Turn off the jammer,” he told her. “We need to call out.”
George unslung the backpack hanging off her shoulders and unzipped it, reaching inside for what was presumably the jammer’s power switch.
The implications caught up with Jay all at once. “No, wait—”
He was standing on George’s left side.
Sebastian had needed both arms to pry the wooden panel away from the wall. The wound in his arm felt hot and raw, and something was trickling down his sleeve; there was a good chance he was bleeding again.
Taped to the wall behind the panel were packs of gelatinized fuel—probably napalm—each with an igniter wired up to a central cable. Once detonated, the packs would flood the gap between the wooden panel and stone wall with thick, burning gel, spreading flames throughout the room—and then the ceiling would catch, and embers would land on all that flammable decor, and then the fire would keep spreading, all through the building.
No arson investigator with even half a brain would look at the aftermath of something like this and assume natural causes. But Cabot was clearly planning to be gone with whatever he made off the drive long before the realities of the situation came to light.
The central cable for all the igniters ran up the wall to a small black box with an antenna: a radio detonator. The system was brutally simple; all Sebastian needed to do was remove the detonator, and the device would be effectively neutralised.
As he reached for it, a red light along the side of the detonator switched on and began to blink.
Sebastian turned and bolted for the door. He was only a few meters down the hall when a wash of heat and flame billowed from the drawing room.
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