“Mansfield? Here in Gibraltar?” Summer asked.
“Yes, and the woman, too. They took Charles away . . .” He waved an arm at the tunnel passage and stepped in that direction. Moving warily, he led the trio around the bend, then hesitated at a snorting noise. “Quick, the light!”
Summer passed him her flashlight and he shined it ahead. There was Trehorne, hog-tied on the ground but with no sign of blood.
“Charles?” Perlmutter said.
Trehorne’s eyes popped open and he blinked rapidly. “I must have slumbered off. Can you please take that blasted light out of my eyes?”
Perlmutter and Summer ran over and untied him.
“We thought they shot you,” Hawker said, helping him to his feet.
“I feared as much, for a moment.” Trehorne rubbed his head. “The fool fired his gun right next to my ear. I can’t believe they tracked us in here.” He gave the others an apologetic look. “I’m afraid they took the Sentinel’s cargo letter. I had a copy in my pocket.”
“They won’t get out of the country with it,” Hawker promised.
“The letter doesn’t matter. They know everything we do now.”
“And, so far, that hasn’t earned us any great benefit,” Perlmutter said, rubbing his wrists.
“True,” Trehorne said, gazing down the dark tunnel. “What bothers me is what they know about the gold—that we don’t.”
78
Hawker found them at an outdoor Spanish café next to their hotel, licking their wounds with afternoon tapas and drinks. Perlmutter and Trehorne were on their third Scotch, while Dirk and Summer felt too defeated to move past a single sangria. Summer tried to lose herself in Trehorne’s Gibraltar guidebook, which she had picked up in the tunnel.
“Some encouraging news,” Hawker said, pulling up a chair. “The Royal Gibraltar Police are now on the hunt for the two Russians. The airport and the commercial ship docks are on alert and every major hotel will be canvassed by evening. Gibraltar is not an easy place to hide. We’ll find them.”
“Good of you to help, Major,” Perlmutter said, “but there’s little point in apprehending them now.”
“After they assaulted you and Charles and tried to leave us all for dead?”
“Julien’s right,” Trehorne said. “It was an unpleasant tussle, but, at the end of the day, no harm was done.” He stared at his half-empty glass, disillusionment in his eyes. “We came to Gibraltar to find the gold and beat them to it. It would seem there is no gold to be found.”
“Still, it doesn’t make sense,” Dirk said. “There’s no evidence it was shipped to England or returned to the Russians.”
“All we have to go on is Captain Marsh’s letter from the Sentinel.” Perlmutter looked at his Scotch. “We followed its lead, and there was nothing to show for it.”
“But what if we looked in the wrong place?” Summer lowered the guidebook to reveal a hopeful smile.
“What are you getting at?” Trehorne asked.
“There’s a chapter in your book about historic caves of Gibraltar. It mentions one called La Bóveda—which was also known as Nelson’s Cave, for a time, in the nineteenth century.”
“Nelson’s Cave, you say?” Perlmutter regained his booming voice.
“Yes. The only problem is, the book says the cave was sealed up in 1888.”
Hawker stared at the ground, searching his memory. “La Bóveda. That’s Spanish for The Vault. There must have been a church on the site, at one point. I’ve heard the name, but I can’t recall the location.”
“The book says it was formerly accessed at Number 12, Lime Kiln Steps.”
“That’s just a few blocks from here.” Hawker turned pale. “Oh, my. Number 12, Lime Kiln Steps. Oh, my.” He reached over and took a healthy slug of Trehorne’s Scotch.
“What
’s come over you, Cecil?” Trehorne asked.