Hatch, page 18
“Right, so okay. … That makes sense. I’m just wondering if we need to keep a watch on this place to see if anybody else knows about it.”
“Well, since we’ve found it,” the stranger replied, “I’ve had men posted to watch it, and nobody has come or gone.”
“Well, that’s good,” the boss agreed. “Okay, let’s just make arrangements to get everything out of here as quickly as possible. Then we’ll put a new lock back on it and leave it empty. Meanwhile we can also hire somebody to come set up security cameras,” the boss added. “That way we’ll see if anybody else is interested in this place. If so, … we’ll take them out, just to be sure.”
“That’s fine,” the stranger said. “Where do you want to set up the new warehouse?”
“Well, closer would be better, but not so close that anybody can track it back to us. We really don’t want to be in the same area.”
“No, of course not,” he agreed.
“And we’ll need a trucking company in to move it all.”
“Yeah? How quickly can we make that happen?” the stranger asked.
“As soon as we settle on a location, so probably forty-eight hours at most,” the boss estimated.
“Make it twenty-four. There are big warehouses over near the commercial line,” he noted. “Let’s pick one of those.”
“Let me see what’s available.” The boss stepped off a few steps and started making phone calls.
Hatch took a chance and peered around the corner, studied the first man, getting a good visual on him, who even now was eyeing one of the open crates with a look of greed on his face.
The stranger muttered under his breath, “This stuff will bring us a fortune.”
As Hatch watched, the boss man, who was supposedly making phone calls, lifted a sledgehammer and swung it hard, taking out his partner without any warning.
Hatch was in shock himself, but the stranger went down without a whimper. His head was clearly smashed open by the sledge, and now an ever-widening puddle of blood covered the packing material he had fallen on. The boss quickly bundled it all together, using plastic, packing paper, and duct tape.
Before long, a completely packaged mummy lay on the ground.
Hatch stared at it, wondering at the efficiency that went into something like that. He quickly backed away and, in the process, bumped into an aisle. Even then, as he tried to step back, something wobbled behind him.
The boss stopped immediately and searched in the darkness around him.
Quickly avoiding whatever it was that wobbled, Hatch shifted, moving as soundlessly as possible.
“Well, I don’t know who you are,” the boss man called out, his voice calm, “but I can tell you that you’re never getting out of here. I don’t like people spying on me.”
Hatch didn’t say anything but moved in the darkness and then crouched down low on one of the empty shelves. The killer had a flashlight, and he moved swiftly through the warehouse, heading toward Hatch.
“I don’t know who the hell you are,” the boss yelled, his voice getting angrier and angrier, “or what you want, but you’re just pissing me off.”
Pissed off or not, no way the killing boss would let some interloper live when he found Hatch.
“I may not know you, but, but this? … This is my gig. Not yours. You hear me? It’s all mine. It doesn’t happen too often that you get a plum like this dropped into your lap. Besides, that other guy deserved to die. Do you have any idea how many men he had killed?” he snapped.
Hatch didn’t say anything again, and he wasn’t sure he had anything to say. The boss was obviously up for killing anybody who interfered in his life, so Hatch’s lack of words wouldn’t make a bit of difference to the boss man. Hatch waited until the guy came along on the far side, his flashlight sweeping through.
Then the boss started to swear. “Jesus Christ. I don’t even know for a fact if somebody is in here.” The flashlight moved with a rapid precision but didn’t pick up anything.
Finally he calmed down and gave half a laugh. “Man, I’m losing it.” He went back over to the body and gave it a hard kick. “Asshole,” he muttered. “You have no idea how good it feels to know that you’re dead as a doornail and won’t be ordering me around anymore. Now …” he said to himself, “it is time for you to get the hell out of here.”
At that, he walked over and hopped onto the forklift, then picked the body up using the forks, took it over to an open crate, and dumped in the mummified body. After that, he used a whole pile of packing material to cover it up. He added some packing beads, probably the ones that took away moisture to stop anything from molding on the inside, and then he picked up the lid and very securely put it on the top.
Hatch quickly noted exactly which crate it was, taking a picture of it, as the boss secured it shut. Then slowly Hatch stepped back. He was one more step away, when the boss turned and looked in Hatch’s direction.
“Somebody is there,” he stated with conviction; then, moving as fast as he could, he raced forward.
Hatch stepped against the shelving and waited until the boss came around the corner because this had to come to an end.
As soon as the boss appeared, Hatch screamed at the top of his voice.
The boss bolted sideways, and Hatch reached out with a hard right and knocked him down. At that, the boss jumped forward, and the fight was on. Unfortunately the boss seemed to be just about as much of a street fighter as Hatch was. They went several rounds, until a shot was fired over their heads.
Hatch immediately froze and stared at the boss man, who had a big grin on his face.
“Look at that,” the boss crowed, pointing to the back door. “Good timing, Morris.”
And, with that, both Corbin and Millie were pushed forward toward the light in the center. Hatch stepped back ever-so-slightly to see Morris, the newcomer, standing there, holding a gun on Corbin.
“Looks like I did some very efficient hiring after all,” the boss man stated.
Hatch looked over at him. “What is killing your partner even worth?”
“A lot …”
“You murdered your boss and stuck him in that crate over there. Does Morris know that he’s next?”
“You did what?” Morris asked in shock. “Where’s Henrique?”
“He’s in that crate.” Hatch pointed. “This guy killed him with a sledgehammer.”
“No way,” the boss man argued. “Henrique is my boss. I work for him.”
Morris turned the gun on the boss, and things got intense. “Did you kill him?”
“Come on. Come on, Morris. You know it had to happen. We even talked about it.”
“Like hell we talked about it,” he spat. “You think I would double-cross my boss? I just hadn’t had a chance to talk to him because we’ve been so damn busy.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t warn him in time, so now he’s gone. Decide quickly what you’ll do about it,” the killer sneered.
Not one moment of thinking lapsed, before Morris fired a bullet right into the killer’s chest.
The killer stared in shock, as he went down in a pool of his own blood.
Corbin was already on Morris, even as Hatch ran toward Millie. Then Hatch heard Morris’s gun firing again and again, and Corbin took a bullet in the shoulder. Hatch heard Millie shrieking in the distance, and then came a sudden hard crack. As Hatch neared Millie, she stood there, with a broken piece of pottery, standing over Morris, who now was on the floor.
Still woozy, Corbin dropped to the ground and checked Morris’s pulse. “He’s alive.” He looked over at Hatch.
Hatch raced to Millie’s side, noting her shocked look, and took the piece of pottery from her hands. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You did good. Let it go now.”
She stared at him. “My God. What the hell is going on here?”
“Well, an awful lot is going on,” Hatch noted, “but I think, at the moment, we might have got down to finally figuring out the truth.” He smiled at her, wrapped her up in his arms. “Not only did you do good”—he gave her a big smile—“you did great!”
She looked over at Corbin. “But he’s been shot.”
Corbin held up a hand. “It’s nothing. Just a minor flesh wound.” And he showed her. “I’ve had a lot worse.”
She winced at the burn on his shoulder, then took in the implications of what he said. “My God.” Then she turned into Hatch’s embrace again, as his arms closed securely around her.
Hatch looked over at Corbin. “You okay?”
Corbin nodded. “Yeah, but we’ll need to get a team in here pronto, and, like it or not, it’s got to be MI6.”
Hatch winced at that. “They’re really not our friends at this point.”
“I’m not sure we have any real friends in law enforcement around the world,” Corbin replied, “but this is bigger than us.”
“I know,” Hatch agreed.
“I’ll make the call,” Corbin stated.
“Get yourself some medical attention too,” Millie added, turning to look at Corbin.
“No,” he argued, “not now. We’ll need to talk to you about everything in here.”
She nodded slowly. “I get that. I’m not happy at what I’m seeing, but trust me. I get it.”
Hatch called out to Corbin, “Make the calls, and then we’ll have a talk about whatever the hell is going on here.”
She looked up at Hatch. “Are you okay?” She reached her hand to his swollen jaw. “You took a huge risk.”
“Somebody had to,” he said cheerfully. “I wouldn’t let you deal with these guys.”
“Did you know they were in here?”
“No, but I had to assume that they were or that they would be soon,” he noted. “We had to prepare for that. Anything less would add even more risk of getting into even more trouble. I was uncomfortable without more intel to go on.”
She nodded slowly, then she looked up at him. “Well, we’re one step closer.”
“We’re multiple steps closer now,” he confirmed.
She smiled, “I meant, … when this is all over, maybe having some time, … like, together. And maybe we can get to know each other better, like you said earlier.”
He grinned. “We are definitely closer to that now too.”
Chapter 13
Millie sighed. As it was, it all took a whole lot longer than expected. MI6 arrived with somebody they called Jonas. They all spoke as if they knew each other well. Jonas didn’t appear to be pleased to see the bodies, and, when he took note of the warehouse full of antiquities, he turned to study her intently.
“What do you know about this stockpile?” he asked her.
She shrugged. “I know this was my father’s warehouse, but had never been inside here and didn’t know what was being stored here.”
“Are these stolen?”
“To the best of my knowledge, no,” she replied, “but I haven’t had a chance to even look to see what is here.”
He nodded. “Well, I need you to look now.”
She winced. “Great,” she murmured. “Any chance that you won’t jump to conclusions and base it on appearances, without giving me a chance to find out if it is stolen or not?”
“I’d love to,” he replied, “but, if you think that means you’ve got time to sort through all this, then the answer is no. Nothing goes in or out of this place without us recording it either.”
She gave him a flat stare. “Meaning, now you think that I’ll steal it?”
“I don’t even know if it’s stolen goods,” he replied, “so how could I think that? However, your attitude isn’t helpful.”
Immediately Hatch stepped up and said, “She’s only just found out about this herself, so stop being such a hard-ass.”
Jonas looked over at him and growled. “If you guys would stop filling my world with bodies, it might improve my mood immensely.”
“Looks like neither of us are likely to get what we want,” Hatch continued cheerfully.
“So you better stop bugging me.”
At that, Hatch just rolled his eyes, as he walked toward her. “I don’t know if you can even begin to identify anything here,” he murmured, “but, if you can quickly see or identify what is or isn’t stolen, that would help.”
She nodded. “I’ll take a look.” That would be better than turning around and spitting back at this Jonas person. She understood that they were all used to these life-and-death scenarios, but she wasn’t. What she’d been through these last few days had been traumatic and deadly, and it was all she could do to try to maintain some semblance of balance.
And the thought that Jonas wanted her to make a decision on all this stuff right now was crazy and nearly impossible. If only her father had left her some records of what was here. Then she stopped, walked back over to Hatch. “Have you seen any sign of an office here?”
He looked at her in surprise, turned around. “That would be a good thing to search for, wouldn’t it?”
She nodded. “There has to be a manifest, a list of some kind. There’s got to be a computer or something here.”
“Okay.” Hatch nodded. “I’ll go take a look. You wander about and take a look.”
And she did exactly that. She opened a few crates and determined that some of the stuff definitely hadn’t come from Egypt. For all she knew, it came from various other dig sites. What she didn’t know is why or how long her father had stockpiled these pieces.
She found no real dates on anything. Plenty of barcodes but not a whole lot else. She went to the dusty corners and found several other items that made her eyes pop.
Some of this stuff hadn’t seen the light of day in decades, but that didn’t mean that any of it was stolen. Although, if it came from other countries without the proper paperwork, then chances are it was. Had her mother known? And worse than that, had her mother been a part of this?
Millie had no real answers, when she heard Hatch calling out for her. She walked toward his voice. “What did you find?”
He held up some papers. “Found a computer, a manifest, and a set of books,” he replied.
“Good,” she murmured.
At that, Jonas said, “I’ll take the books.”
She glared at him. “You got a warrant?”
“I’ll get one,” he snapped, “and besides, you’ve got two bodies in here, so I have the upper hand. Any judge would grant my request in a minute.”
Not a whole lot she could do to argue about that. “You don’t get to have access to anything in here unless you can prove it is stolen.”
He glared at her. “You don’t get access to it until you can prove that it was your father’s, legally and rightfully aboveboard.”
“Well, if I get a chance to look at some of these manifests,” she explained, “I can tell you more.” She snatched the ledger from his hand, then walked over and sat down not too far away. At the front of the book, she immediately found a note addressed to her. With a shaking hand, she opened it.
Dear Millie, You know I love you, right?
“Yeah, sure,” she muttered under her breath. At that, Hatch sat down beside her. He saw what she had open in front of her, but he didn’t interfere and just let her read it.
The trouble is, just because I love you doesn’t mean it was easy to try to reform my ways. While your mother was alive, she kept me in check, but, with her loss, it seemed like I reverted to what I have always been, which is a grave robber. I’ve always loved these artifacts and this evidence of the past and felt like no government gave a damn about it.
The bureaucrats were always about tourist dollars and capitalizing on some of these beautiful and absolutely incredible antiquities. Somebody needed to care about them, and somebody needed to look after these items and ensure that they didn’t disappear into the black market. You have to understand that I’m not selling them, that I’m not giving them away. I’ve been preserving them for a time when the governments were ready to handle these treasures properly.
Unfortunately all I saw was that the governments were getting worse and worse, and the economy around me was getting worse and worse.
Some of what is here is from before your mother reformed me. And much of it is after she left us. I am sorry, but she was murdered, something that I don’t know if you even know about. It was something I couldn’t face because I felt like ultimately her death was caused by my grave-robbing work—something that she didn’t know about from before. Somebody is after this hoard. Somebody found out about it, which was my fault, through my overuse of liquid gold, … liquid courage. At some point, I became a hunted man. I thought I was fine, safe in Egypt, doing the work I’ve always done. But, once he found me, then there was really no hiding anymore.
My end was written in stone the moment I had spoken. I didn’t know how to get out of it. I didn’t know what to do about it, but I figured that, sure enough, I would be in this predicament at one time or another. I’ve sent this letter to a friend, who has put it inside the ledger for you to find. He was already elderly and dying, having spent a lifetime as my assistant over the years, mostly doing this for the same reasons as I do, … the love of the actual history involved.
He had nothing to do with the import-export of any of this collection. He doesn’t even know where this inventory came from, and, lucky for me, he didn’t ask me any questions. But I’ve asked him to put this with the rest of the products, knowing that you will be the one who is left to deal with what I’ve amassed here, for all the world to see.
She lifted her head and stared at Hatch. “He sent this letter back, probably from Egypt, as if knowing he was already in trouble and would get kidnapped or killed.”
Hatch nodded. “I read a little over your shoulder. I’m sorry for you, but it sounds like he already knew that his days were numbered.”
“Apparently he got drunk and talked one time too many.”
At that, Hatch winced. “That will do it.”
“He sent this letter back to a friend, who’s always accepted the receipt of the deliveries and has done the archiving. Somebody who absolutely loves these finds and didn’t ask any questions. He kept his solid reputation and didn’t have anything to do with the illegal aspects of it.”
