Read Online The Bloodline Cipher by Stephen Cole - Free Book Online Page B

loaded.’
    â€˜As if,’ Bree sneered.
    â€˜No loud noises, please.’ Jonah glanced at Patch, who was holding his false eye in one hand; now he flipped up his eye patch to reveal the empty socket. ‘Patch has got his eye on you. And since you know so much about us, I’m assuming you’re aware of how he keeps all kinds of stuff in that insulated glass. Tonight it’s stuffed full of plastic explosive – enough, we reckoned, to take out the radio mast that Blackland uses to keep tabs on his books.’
    â€˜The arming device is in the pupil,’ Con explained, as Patch showed around the fake eyeball like a magician’s assistant. ‘You press on it once to arm it – then, when you take your finger off, you’ve got maybe five seconds before it blows.’
    â€˜I’d show you,’ said Patch, looking pale and sweaty, ‘but I’ve
already
armed it. If I take my finger off the pupil I’ll blow up the whole bleedin’ lot of us.’
    â€˜You’re bluffing,’ said the old man calmly.
    â€˜No, Heidel.’ Sorin shook his head. ‘We saw him arm the mechanism. Or else we’d have taken them.’
    â€˜Kendall wouldn’t harm his friends,’ Bree stated.
    â€˜I don’t want to hurt anyone,’ said Patch, waggling the eyeball. ‘And I get bloody nervous at times like this, so no one make my hands any shakier, yeah?’
    â€˜Give me my gun back,’ said Tye.
    Bree weighed the gun in her hand, then held it out to Tye. But as Tye reached for it she tossed it out of the open window. ‘It’s useless, remember?’ She smirked at Patch. ‘Well, Kendall? Going to blow us allsky high for my disobedience?’
    Jonah tutted. ‘You want to keep your gang under control, Heidel. Any more surprises, we could all wind up dead.’
    â€˜Now stand in the far corner, all of you,’ Con snapped. ‘No tricks.’
    Heidel stared at her for a few moments. Then he signalled to his gang and slowly, dutifully, they backed away.
    Jonah crossed to Tye and knelt beside her. ‘You OK? Is Motti all right?’
    Tye shot a poisonous look at Heidel. ‘He’s breathing.’
    â€˜For now,’ said Bree casually.
    â€˜Unlike that poor old sod on the floor,’ said Jonah, straining as Tye helped him half carry, half drag Motti over to where Con and Patch waited. ‘Is that Blackland?’
    â€˜Yes, it’s him.’ The red-haired girl under the desk had poked her bruised face out. ‘They killed him.’
    â€˜And for what, my dear Maya?’ Heidel produced a small, brown book from his pocket. ‘Ah yes, for this. Blackland’s greatest treasure. The Guan Yin manuscript.’
    â€˜Give that to us,’ Con demanded. ‘Throw it on the floor and –’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t think so.’ Heidel smiled faintly. ‘That’s the problem when one’s only weapon is mass destruction – it offers little finesse when negotiating.’
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜You won’t detonate that explosive if I don’t comply with your demands, Con. In a confined spacelike this you risk killing yourselves at the same time.’ He walked slowly towards them, pausing with his back to the window, holding up the book just as Patch was holding the eyeball. ‘Besides, I know just how valuable the Bloodline Cipher is to Coldhardt. I know what depends on it, what’s at stake. You
daren’t
destroy this manuscript.’
    â€˜You’re insane,’ Maya piped up quietly. ‘All of you.’
    Jonah remembered Coldhardt’s warning back in the hub:
That manuscript is of paramount importance. Take no chances with its welfare … damaged it is of no use to me
.
    â€˜Coldhardt wouldn’t need to know
we
destroyed it,’ said Con icily. ‘You wouldn’t be alive to breathe a word.’
    â€˜So you would betray your master, eh,