Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth

5



The High Line elevated park had started its life as a freight train track built above the city to keep the trains away from public streets. The elevated platform that ran through the Meatpacking District all the way to 34th Street had been converted to a long green oasis. Drake had never walked the park, but he had read an article about it in some in-flight magazine or other, describing it as a hidden gem of New York City. Someday he hoped to get a closer look at the High Line, but today he needed it only for cover.

He pulled the taxi to the curb on Little West 12th Street and let it roll into the shadows under the High Line. In the backseat, Jada was still shaking.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “What the hell are we going to do?”

Sully took her hand, forcing her to meet his eyes. “We’re gonna improvise, sweetheart. Don’t worry. If there’s one thing Nate and I know how to do, it’s improvise.”

Drake watched the rearview mirror for cars. The street was one way, so at least they had that going for them. He waited for a red Accord to buzz past them, hoping their shattered windows would earn no more than a quick glance. The Accord slowed and the driver gave him an odd look, but Drake glared at him and the guy accelerated, minding his own business. He might be on his cell phone to the cops in a second, but they had at least a couple of minutes.

He popped his door.

“Get out,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Sully opened the back door and climbed out, with Jada hurrying after him. As Drake stepped from the taxi, she looked at him and then bent to peer through the open driver’s door at the dead cabbie. His blood had started to pool on the seat.

“We can’t just leave him here,” Jada said.

“We sure as hell can’t take him with us,” Sully grumbled.

Drake glanced back at the dead man. “The police will take better care of him than we could. And if we stick around, they might end up burying us right next to him.”

He shut the cab door, then noticed Sully staring at him.

“What?” Drake asked.

Sully pointed at his chest. “There’s blood on your jacket.”

Drake stripped off the coat, but he couldn’t leave it in the cab. There was enough evidence of their presence already. If they were lucky, no one had gotten a good look at their faces and they would never be connected to the gunfire or the dead taxi driver, and so the police would never have a reason to test their DNA against any hair fibers found in the cab. He thought that probably would work out in their favor. His larger concern had to do with the museum. If Gretchen talked about them and helped the police make the connection between Dr. Cheney’s murder and the burning of Luka Hzujak’s apartment building, eventually he and Sully and Jada would get caught in the net.

They had to rely on Gretchen’s discretion, and Drake didn’t like that. Not that he didn’t trust strangers easily. He tended to go with his instincts; it was just that there had been times when his instincts had been dangerously wrong.

Drake turned the jacket inside out and used it to brush broken glass off Sully and Jada’s coats.

“Let’s move,” he said, carrying the coat bunched under his arm in a bundle.

They crossed the street and headed west, and by the time a battered gray Mercedes came growling along the road, they were far enough from the abandoned cab that no one would have made an instant connection between this trio of pedestrians and the damaged taxi. But Drake kept them moving at a swift pace, knowing that the police would not make any presumption of innocence.

They turned north, six short blocks from where the Chelsea Piers complex was situated. It was mostly sports and recreation now, though it still had a private marina. Despite the autumn chill and the lengthening shadows of the fading day, he felt a circle of heat in the center of his back, as if a target had been painted there.

“Jada, where’s the wicked stepmother right now?” Drake asked.

Sully shot him a glance. “You planning to pay her a visit? I’m not sure I like that plan. Or did you forget the guys with the guns and how eager they were to kill us?”

“It’s not a plan,” Drake said. “I have no plan. Well, not much of one, and the one I do have doesn’t involve Jada’s stepmother. I’d just like to know what we’re dealing with here.”

As they turned into a small oval park, cutting diagonally across from Tenth Avenue to Eleventh, Jada pulled out her cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Sully asked.

“Getting an answer to Nate’s question,” she said, punching a couple of buttons before she put the phone to her ear. She listened a moment, and then her eyes narrowed. “Hi, Brenda, it’s Jada Hzujak. Is Olivia there?”

Drake saw a momentary confusion furrow her brow.

“Sorry, Miranda,” Jada said, glancing down at her feet as she walked. “I expected Brenda to pick up, and I’m—well, I’ve got a lot on my mind. Listen, I know you’re just covering the desk, but I didn’t realize this was the week Olivia was going to be out of town, and I was hoping to take her out to lunch. Do you have any idea when she’ll be back?”

Jada smiled thinly, but there was no amusement in it. She thanked Miranda and ended the call, then immediately began placing another.

“What’s going on?” Drake asked.

“If Olivia’s regular assistant hadn’t been at lunch, we probably wouldn’t even know this, but my stepmother’s away on business. Yeah, in her grief, instead of planning her husband’s funeral, she’s skipped town. I gathered from the way Miranda was talking that she doesn’t even know my father’s dead. Olivia hasn’t told her coworkers that her husband’s been murdered.”

Sully grunted. “Yeah, that’s not weird or suspicious.”

“So where did she go?” Drake asked.

Jada held up a finger to forestall him, turning her attention to her current phone call. She gave her name and cell phone number and then answered a couple of other questions, and it quickly became plain that she was calling her cellular service provider.

“Yes, I hope you can help me,” she said once she had proved her identity to the satisfaction of the AT&T rep on the line. “I’m not at home, but I’m desperately seeking a phone number. Last month, my father was in Egypt and I called him several times at a hotel there. I know it’s a strange request, but I’m hoping you can just glance at my bill from late September and give me that number. I need to get in touch with him and it’ll be awhile before I’m home and I don’t remember the name of the—Yes, that’d be great. Thanks so much.”

She paused, waiting for the information.

As they emerged from the park, where they could see the river across several lanes of traffic, she covered the phone with her hand for a second and looked at Sully and Drake.

“I’ll give you two guesses where Olivia is right now.”

“She’s in Egypt?” Sully asked.

“Look at that,” Drake said. “You didn’t even need your second guess.”

Sully shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. “Guess that answers our question about whether or not Olivia’s in on it with Henriksen.”

“For me it was never a question,” Jada said.

Drake cocked an eyebrow. “You know we’re jumping to a lot of conclusions, right? Henriksen is chasing the same mystery Luka was working on, and it sure looks like Olivia’s been working behind her husband’s back, but none of this is proof that they killed him or sent those nice men with the guns after us.”

Jada waved him to silence, focused on her phone call again.

“Yes, I’m still here. That’s perfect, thanks.” She looked around and realized she had nothing to write with or on. “Actually, if you could do me one other small favor? Could you e-mail me that number? I know it’s probably not what you’re supposed to do, but—”

She paused again, listening, and then smiled. “Even better. Thanks again.”

Jada ended the call and slipped the phone into her pocket. “He’s just going to e-mail me the whole bill. Should’ve asked for that in the first place.” She glanced at Sully. “So now we know where to start when we get to Egypt—at the hotel where my father stayed. But how the hell are we going to get there?”

“One step at a time,” Sully said as they turned north again, the vast Chelsea Piers complex in view up ahead. “First we get a boat.”

“You’re just going to walk into the marina and take one?” she asked.

Drake gave a small shrug. “Maybe not walk so much as skulk. Or slink. Possibly just a good old-fashioned sneak. What we lack in stealth we make up for in brazen stupidity and desperation.”

“Come on,” Jada said, turning to Sully. “Is this really going to work?”

Sully grinned his most rakish grin. “Seriously, kid. You don’t think we’ve never stolen a boat before?”

Jada seemed to ponder that for a moment, then let out a breath. “Actually, after the past few hours, that doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Drake glanced at Sully. “You know, I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.”


They stole the boat on a Tuesday just as the sun was going down. As they walked onto the dock, a guard eyed them warily, trying to figure out if they were trespassers. Drake took Jada’s hand and then turned and gave her a radiant smile, and she went right along with the charade, snuggling up against him. They were pretending, but it was a nice sort of make-believe, and Drake had to remind himself that the girl was Sully’s goddaughter.

“Hey, there,” Sully said, sauntering up to the guard as if he belonged there.

The guard frowned at Sully, taking in the bomber jacket over the guayabera and the neatly trimmed mustache, clearly wondering if this was somebody he was supposed to know. Sully drew him aside, lowering his voice so that only the guard could hear, but Drake knew the gist of what he was saying. They had discussed it moments before, and it was a ruse they’d used more than once.

“Listen, amigo, here’s the deal. I’m working for Theresa Fonseca. I’m brokering the sale of some of the assets she’s received in her divorce settlement. I’ve got this couple on the hook, but they’re a little skittish because the divorce is turning ugly, and they’re looking for an excuse not to buy. They keep making noises about security down here, so what I need from you is to act like you’re busting my chops. Be a hardass—”

The guard looked confused, glanced at Drake and Jada, and then shook his head. “I don’t know any Theresa—what was the name?”

“Fonseca. She—”

“Nah,” the guard said. “No Fonseca down here.”

Sully turned to Drake and Jada and put his hands up in a see-what-I-mean gesture, as if trying to show them just how tight security was at the marina.

“That’s good, man. Perfect,” Sully said.

The guard narrowed his eyes. “I’m not playacting here, pal. There’s no one named Fonseca.”

Sully bopped his palm against the side of his head. “Right, right. Divorce, remember? Crap, what’s the husband’s name? Starts with a K, I think. Keller? Kramer?”

“Kurland?” the guard suggested.

Sully pointed a finger at him, pistol-style. “That’s it. Yeah. Look, I just need to walk them down and show them the boat and I’ll be out of your hair. If I do my job right, Miss Fonseca—Mrs. Kurland, I guess—gets a decent price for the thing, and it’ll serve the son of a bitch right for making babies with his girlfriend on the side.”

The guard’s face twisted in deep disapproval. “Babies?”

“I know. Awful stuff. Imagine finding out your husband was having an affair for, what, six years? Bad enough, right? But the guy fathered two children with the other woman. How does a lady pick herself up after getting kicked like that?”

By then the guard was nodding in agreement.

“What an ass,” the guard said.

“Fortunately, the judge agreed,” Sully said, smiling conspiratorially. “Now, look, do me a favor? Tell me we’ve got thirty minutes, no more. I have another appointment before I can go home tonight, so I don’t want to be hemming and hawing with these folks for hours.”

The guard did better than that. He walked Sully over to Drake and Jada, looking as though he were doing them a mighty favor.

“I’m sorry, but the marina has strict policies about visitors,” he said. “Without the owner present, I can only give you half an hour. You’ll have to sign in and show your ID. Please respect the privacy of the other owners and see me on your way out.”

Jada squeezed Drake’s arm, apparently concerned about having to show her ID.

“Not a problem,” he said. “We wouldn’t have it any other way, especially if we might be owners ourselves.”

“I—um—left my purse in the car,” Jada said.

The guard furrowed his brow.

Drake only smiled wider. “I’ve got it, sweetie. I’ll sign us in.”

The guard glanced at Sully, clearly trying to decide whether to push the ID issue, but then he let it go. Apparently, he didn’t want to make trouble for Mrs. Kurland, because he led the three of them to a small guard booth not far from the marina entrance and barely glanced at the false identification Drake and Sully showed him as they signed the guest book.

Drake still had his bloodstained coat folded under his arm, and the guard shot a quizzical glance at it as Drake signed in, as if he thought he might be hiding something inside.

“What’ve you got there?” the guard asked.

Drake sighed in regret. “Not a damn thing. I spilled juice all over myself like an idiot. Ruined my coat.”

Careful to show only the inside of the coat, he unfurled it to show that there was nothing wrapped inside it and then draped it carefully over his arm.

“Thanks, amigo,” Sully said, giving a private little nod to the guard that Jada and Drake weren’t supposed to see. “Say, what’s the slip number again?”

He patted at his pants pockets as if looking for the piece of paper where he’d written the number down.

“One forty-seven,” the guard replied.

Drake felt sorry for him. It wasn’t the guard’s fault he was dumb enough to fall for their hustle. He probably was going to get into serious trouble over this, maybe even lose his job. But if Drake had to choose between getting shot or thrown in jail and causing problems for this guy, well, it was really no choice at all.

Sully thanked the guard, pressing a twenty into his palm as they shook hands—a tiny fraction of the reward money Drake had brought back from South America. Then they were walking along the dock, the boats swaying on either side of them, rocked by the river.

Compared to some of the luxury crafts that were docked at the marina, the boat in the Kurlands’ slip wasn’t much to speak of—a thirty-five-foot Chris Craft with a fiberglass deep V-hull, maybe twelve feet at the beam—but that was all right. They didn’t want anything huge or ostentatious. Even better, the Chris Craft was moored in a slip at the outside edge of the marina.

They boarded as if they belonged there, Sully behaving as if he were giving them a tour. Then Sully ducked out of sight, working the key switch off the ignition and pulling at the wires, figuring out which ones were for the starter. Drake kept watch out of the corner of his eye until the guard got a phone call at the booth. He was one of those people who paced while they were on the phone, and as he talked, he strolled back and forth between his security booth and the walkway that led from the dock to the marina club.

The third time he strolled up the walk, Drake gave a nod and Sully twisted the wires together. The motor growled to life, and Sully grinned up at Drake.

“You guys are a little too good at this,” Jada said.

“Our line of work requires a lot of improvising,” Drake said.

Jada gave him a dubious smile. “Right.”

Sully backed the boat out of the slip. Just as he throttled forward, pulling away from the dock, the guard came running toward them, shouting and waving at them to pull back into the slip. Drake knew that even then the man wouldn’t know exactly what to make of it all. If he had believed Sully’s story—and it was clear he had—Mrs. Kurland might have just given her broker the key so he could take the prospective buyers for a spin. The guard would suspect, certainly. But he wouldn’t be sure, and he wouldn’t do anything drastic until he was.

As they sped upriver, the boat whipping over the water, Drake watched the guard growing smaller in the distance.

“That guy is having a bad day,” he said.

“Could be worse for him,” Jada said. “He could be with us.”

Drake and Sully both glanced at her, saw the sarcastic glint in her eyes, and laughed. She was right. Her father had been murdered, and they had encountered two other dead men today. Someone had sent men with guns to fire lots of bullets at them in hopes of making them very dead. Another someone—or maybe the same someone—had burned down Jada’s father’s apartment building.

They were having a day far worse than the guard’s.

“Still,” Drake said. “When we get back into the country, I’ll send him something. Wine of the month, maybe.”

“Cigars,” Sully said, as if wine had been the stupidest suggestion Drake could have made. “Maybe steaks.”

“Steaks?” Drake asked.

“Man’s gotta eat. And did you get a look at him? You don’t get that big eating Brussels sprouts.”

“You guys are unbelievable,” Jada said, raising her voice to be heard over the wind whipping past them as Sully throttled up and the boat went even faster.

Drake nodded. “That is actually not the first time we’ve heard that.”

Jada whacked his arm. “It wasn’t a compliment.”

But she couldn’t quite erase her smile, and Drake was glad. After all she had been through since the discovery of her father’s remains, she needed all the distraction she could get. Now that they had a moment’s respite, though, he watched her amusement quickly fade until she gazed at the city passing on their right—lights coming on as evening arrived—her expression solemn and somehow lost.

He hoped her stepmother wasn’t involved in her father’s death, but he had a terrible feeling that Olivia Hzujak was exactly as wicked a stepmother as Jada suspected.

Troubled, Drake reached into the inside pocket of his ruined coat and pulled out the slim leather case that held a good portion of the reward money he’d earned in Ecuador. There was more in his bags, which were safe in a locker at JFK, and some in his wallet. The rest had been put into an account he sometimes used in the Cayman Islands. For now, what he had on him would be all they had at their disposal, so it would have to be enough.

He dropped the coat overboard and watched it floating, soaking in the water as they swiftly left it far behind.

So far, so good. They would ditch the stolen Chris Craft just north of the 79th Street Boat Basin—Jada’s suggestion—and stop by the apartment where she’d been hiding out just long enough for her to pack a small bag. Drake and Sully would have to improvise. They would pick up a couple of go phones—cell phones that could be loaded with as many minutes as they wanted, used, and then thrown away, all without creating an account that could be traced. Sully had suggested they call the marina and let them know where the boat would be, and both Drake and Jada had given the idea a thumbs-up. If they were ever caught, they would still be arrested, but a joyride would go over a hell of a lot better with a judge than outright theft.

From the apartment, they would head north. They needed to get out of the city fast but as under the radar as they could manage. Grand Central was no good just in case there had been cameras that had picked up their faces at the marina. So they would take a cab to 125th Street station in Harlem and board a Metro North train to New Haven, Connecticut, where they could rent a car. The ID they had used at the marina would be no good now, but Drake was counting on Sully traveling with more than one set of false identification.

Once they were in a car, he thought they would be all right. Drake knew a guy in Boston who could whip up passports and other ID for all three of them. They would take the ferry to Nova Scotia and then a boat over to mainland New Brunswick rather than face the greater scrutiny of crossing the Canadian border in a car. From there, another rental car would bring them into Quebec. Montreal-Mirabel International Airport was used almost exclusively for cargo flights, and he and Sully had friends there. They had needed to sneak themselves—and various acquisitions—in and out of North America on numerous occasions. He expected that it would all go off without a hitch.

Even so, he knew he would be on edge until they were in the air and on their way to Egypt and the archaeological dig at the City of Crocodiles. In Drake’s experience, the closer he got to the source of a secret—or a treasure—the easier it became to sense an imminent threat or perceive an enemy. People tended to reveal their true colors when things as valuable as treasure and secrets were at stake. He didn’t like snipers taking shots at him from rooftops or thugs hiding behind dark windows.

If someone wanted to kill him, he liked to know who it was.

It made it a hell of a lot easier to fight back.


On Tuesday night none of them got more than a few hours’ sleep in the back of the rental car before they arrived in Boston, where the forger had Drake and Sully’s new identities waiting for them. The forger was a third-generation professional they called Charlie, though they all assumed it wasn’t really his name. He’d had Drake and Sully’s photos on file, which allowed him to prep their passports in advance, but he had to create Jada’s on the spot, along with various other items—everything from an American Express platinum card to a library ID.

On Wednesday morning they stopped in Portland, Maine, where Drake and Sully bought small duffel bags and several changes of clothes. By midnight they found themselves in a shabby motel near the cargo airport in Montreal, with one double bed for the three of them. Drake took an extra pillow and blanket from the closet and made a nest on the floor while Jada and her godfather took the bed.

They watched television, waiting to see if there might be some report of the violence in New York, but Montreal was a world away from Manhattan. That night Drake barely dozed, kept awake by the anticipation of the morning’s departure, after which he would finally feel like they had gotten away safely. Jada lay awake as well. Several times he noticed her curled up on her side, watching him with eyes that gleamed in the darkened room, but neither of them spoke.

Only Sully managed to sleep. He always seemed able to doze, no matter how terrible the circumstances. He snored deeply, sometimes exhaling loudly, his mustached upper lip trembling with the noise.

On Thursday morning, the flight they thought they had arranged left without them. Desperate hours passed before they were promised another. At last, late that afternoon, they were airborne, comfortably ensconced in a small compartment behind the cockpit.

Finally, Drake slept.

When he woke, with the muffled thump of Irish punk rock coming from the cockpit, he found Sully gone and knew his old friend must be up front with the crew. He lay quietly, watching Jada sleep. With the magenta streaks that framed her face, she usually had an air of confidence even in the middle of her grief. But now in the peace of sleep, she seemed vulnerable, and he had to wonder about the wisdom of their journey. Drake had known plenty of capable women—had had his ass kicked by more than one of them. They had been skilled fighters, survivors, totally able to take care of themselves.

Jada, in contrast, was a question mark. He hoped that she would prove just as tough and capable for her own sake and for Sully’s—and for his, as well. He didn’t want to see her hurt any more than she already had been. At the same time, he knew he would have to keep an eye out for Sully. The old man clearly thought it was his job to protect Jada instead of letting her protect herself. That kind of thinking could distract him enough to be fatal.

“What are you thinking?” she said, her voice a hush, barely audible over the loud airplane engines.

“Have you ever been in a fight?” he asked. “A real one, I mean.”

Jada frowned. “Not a real one, if you mean blood and bruises. Like a beatdown. But I hold my own in the dojo pretty well.” He arched an eyebrow. “Dojo? What do you study?”

“Aikido, mostly. Why?”

Drake smiled softly. Another woman who could kick his ass.

“You know, if we find it—this treasure, whatever it is—I already told Sully we can share it. Even split, three ways,” she said.

Drake would have been offended if the idea hadn’t appealed to him so much. Even so, he didn’t want her to think the potential for personal gain had been his motivation for helping her.

“Treasure’s always nice,” he said. “But that’s not why I’m along for this ride.”

“No?” She studied him as if trying to see behind his eyes. “Why, then?”

For the first time, it occurred to Drake how close they were. Reclined in their chairs, facing each other, only a couple of feet separated them. He could have reached out and touched her face. If he had been any closer, he could have felt her breath on his cheek.

“Your father was a good guy,” he said quickly. “I liked him. And Sully’s my best friend, so it’s not as if I could really say no.”

“You have before,” Jada reminded him. “Uncle Vic told me there was no guarantee.”

“Someone tried to shoot me. I take that personally. Historically, I’m not a fan of people who point guns at me, never mind pulling the trigger.”

“And that’s it?” she asked. “Those are the reasons you’re on this trip?”

Drake nodded, frowning. She was fishing for a different reply. What else did she want him to say?

“Pretty much,” he said.

Only when he saw the disappointment in her eyes did he realize where he’d gone wrong. Jada had been hoping he had also come along because of her—because he didn’t want to say goodbye to her just yet. The look in her eyes lasted for only a second before she hid her reaction from him, but he had seen it, and she knew he had seen it.

“Uncle Vic said you like the mystery, too,” she said.

“What do you mean, ‘the mystery’?”

“History. Digging up bits of the past that have been hidden for ages.”

Drake smiled. “Yeah. That, too. Archaeologists think they’ve got it all figured out. They write books and papers explaining the ancient world as if there’s nothing more to learn. It’s arrogant and foolish, and every time we find something that proves them wrong—proves there are things about the past they don’t understand or never imagined—that makes me happy.”

Jada curled up a bit tighter in her chair. “It is kind of exciting. I’ve been hearing this sort of thing from my father all my life. And it was his—well, his last mystery, really. I want to know what it was he discovered, and I like that you want to know almost as much as I do.”

This time Drake said nothing. The urge to touch her cheek, to push back her hair, was almost too much to resist, but he did. It wasn’t meant to be. He wasn’t here for that, and his life was way too complicated and unsettled to get involved with Jada Hzujak.

But damn, she was beautiful.

“Plus, there’s the treasure,” he said.

She narrowed her gaze, looking both amused and irritated all at once. He often had that effect on women.

“Yeah. The treasure. Whatever it is.”