Christopher Golden - Uncharted - The Fourth Labyrinth

“Or to keep Luka from getting there first,” Sully said, turning to Drake.

“Henriksen?” Drake said. “He was already our best guess.”

The security guards’ radios crackled with voices and static. The police were on their way up. They would be upstairs in moments.

“We need to go,” Sully said, looking at Jada.

“Gretchen, listen,” Drake said, staring at her intently. “You said your brother’s working on that dig in Egypt. If we can get there, can you put in a word for us? We need access to that site.”

“What?” Jada asked. “Egypt?”

But Sully was nodding, looking at Gretchen expectantly. “It’s the only way we’re going to find out who’s really behind this.”

Gretchen glanced at the corpse of Dr. Cheney. Then she nodded. “I’ll call him.”

“Good,” Sully said. “I’m sorry, but we’ve got to go. When this is all over, you’ll hear from me. We’ll make sure you get the truth.”

“Thank you,” she said, her expression crumbling as they walked away and she was forced to contend once more with the murder of a man she so obviously had admired and loved.

“Where do you think you’re going?” one of the security guards asked.

“The police are coming up, aren’t they?” Drake said in the most reasonable tone he could muster. “They’ll never find their way through all of this. We’re gonna meet them and guide them through.”

“Right,” the guard said. “Should’ve thought of that.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Sully replied. “None of us is thinking straight right now. What a horrible day.”

“Exactly,” the guard said.

As soon as Drake, Jada, and Sully were through the crouching passage, they bolted along the twisting corridor to the Minotaur’s alcove. They could hear voices and the crackling of police radios coming their way as they slipped silently through the door at the back of the alcove and then hurried along the narrow “backstage” hallway to the staff exit.

“How the hell are we going to get to Egypt?” Sully asked Drake.

“We’ll figure it out.”

“We can’t go yet,” Jada said as they raced down the employee stairwell. “Not until after my father’s funeral.”

Sully stopped and turned to her, taking her by the hands. “Jada, listen. The way he died-it’s going to be days before the coroner releases his body for burial. If Henriksen is behind this, he’s been working on it for a while. Whatever secrets Luka discovered, Henriksen either knows them or he’s trying to crack them right now. If we’re gonna get to the bottom of it, we can’t let him beat us to them.”

Jada looked frustrated and confused. “What if they’re ready to release him and I’m not back?”

“We’ll leave word,” Drake promised. “We’ll make sure either someone is there to claim him or the coroner’s office holds on to his remains until you can do it yourself. But the other problem is that if your father’s killers really are looking for you, a funeral would put you out in public, make you vulnerable.”

Jada narrowed her eyes. “Once they find out you’re helping me, you guys will be targets, too.”

“Nah,” Drake said, smiling. “Who’d want to hurt a guy as charming as me?”

“Sometimes I do,” Sully said. “Come on.”

They hurried down to the first floor, took a moment to compose themselves, and opened the door. No one tried to stop them. Drake had considered security cameras, but he figured that if these staff doors were under video surveillance, either the killer had disabled them to avoid being seen-in which case they had nothing to worry about-or the cops would scan the video as far as the killer and stop there. He hoped.

They had to answer a few questions and be patted down by police officers as they were leaving the museum and provide their names. Then they were on the street again and walking back toward the apartment where Jada had been staying.

“We need to go to Luka’s place,” Drake said.

Sully shot him a look. “Not a good idea.”

“The cops will already have searched it,” Drake argued. “And they won’t be looking for the same things we’ll be looking for. If there are any notes or computer files about this stuff, we want them. We need all the information we can get on this. Until we find out what Henriksen is really after and get our hands on it-”

“And expose him,” Jada put in.

“-Jada will never be safe.”

“I don’t know,” Sully said. “Maybe we should talk to Olivia.”

Jada flipped her hair back and stared at him. “No way. That bitch is involved in this somehow. I know it. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“You can’t really know that,” Sully replied.

“But I do,” Jada insisted, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her slim red cell phone. She flipped it open and turned it on, waiting a moment while it powered up. “Huh, look at that. No messages. The cops had to have told her hours ago that they found her husband murdered and-” Her voice broke. “-and stuffed into an old trunk. But she hasn’t tried to get in touch with me? His daughter? Her stepdaughter?”

“You’re right,” Sully said, throwing up his hands. “I’ll buy it. We’ll go to Luka’s place. But we’ve gotta watch our asses. If it is Henriksen, he’s likely to have people watching the place.”

“We have to risk it,” Drake said. “And if they come after us, maybe we can grab one of them and confirm what we’re all thinking about Phoenix Innovations.”

In agreement, they walked in silence for more than a block before Sully flagged down a taxi, preparing themselves for whatever trouble awaited them at Luka Hzujak’s apartment.

By the time they got there, the whole building was in flames.

Before someone had decapitated and mutilated him and put most of his pieces in an old steamer trunk that smelled of low tide and mothballs, Professor Luka Hzujak had lived in a four-story brick building on 12th Street, just west of Abingdon Square Park, in the West Village. Slender trees grew from slots in the narrow sidewalk. With the stone lintels above the windows, the dormers on top, and the small smokestacks on the roof, the building might have looked like something out of Oliver Twist if not for the fact that it was on fire.

Drake spotted the smoke out the window of the taxi from several blocks away. A few seconds later, Sully frowned, sniffing the air. The smell of a fire that large never presaged anything positive.

“Pull over here,” Drake said.

The cabbie obliged, and Sully and Jada climbed out while Drake paid the man, including a generous tip mostly because he didn’t have time to wait for his change. He slammed the door and shoved his hands in his pockets as he hurried along the sidewalk after Sully and Jada. None of them had said anything as yet, but he felt sure they all knew which building was on fire.

When they reached the corner of West 12th Street, there were no surprises awaiting them, but Jada looked like she had been punched in the gut. She hugged herself tightly and took a step back from the sight of her father’s burning apartment building.

Sirens wailed, and a police car pulled up at the other end of the street. The firemen were already at work, hoses twisting along the pavement and over the curb. An old woman sat on a gurney behind an ambulance, staring at the building in shock as an EMT put an oxygen mask over her face. Several other people-apparently residents-stood across from the building in various stages of undress, most of them at the very least shoeless, while a pair of police officers questioned them.

Drake wondered how long Luka had lived there and if there were remnants of his life stored anywhere else. Otherwise, Jada had lost not only her father but all of his papers and photographs, all of the mementos of his life. He watched her cover her mouth with shaking hands, and his heart broke for her. She looked like she wanted to scream or run or hit someone, but she didn’t know what to do next.