NATIONAL TREASURE by Barry Faulkner (life books to read .TXT) 📗

the newspapers and social media for anything about me, most actors have – so I asked them to delve into James Randall. Told them I was up for a part in a true crime series that involved him.’

‘I bet you got a surprise.’

‘Didn’t I just! God, no wonder mum ditched him – why she ever got involved with him in the beginning I just don’t know.’

‘Well, the bottom line is that the Bogdans think she is still involved with him, or was up until his death, and they think your mum has their money.’

‘Which is why I am sitting in the back of a car in Romania.’

‘Yes. With ten intact fingers.’

‘What?’

‘That would have been next if we hadn’t got you out – another note to your mum for the money, neatly wrapped around one of your fingers.’

Gold added, ‘Or ear.’

Janie was visibly shocked. ‘What do we do?’

‘You do nothing –when we get back you disappear with mum, go to a hotel somewhere far away whilst I find where the money went. I’ve got some leads.’

Gold gave me a sideways glance that said, ‘Really?’ I didn’t respond. I wanted to know one more thing. ‘What happened on the day you were kidnapped?’

‘Window cleaners.’

‘Window cleaners? They came in through your windows?’

She gave a small laugh. ‘No, the landlord has a contract with a cleaning company to clean the outside of the windows. There was a buzz on the intercom and the man said he was from a company taking over the contract for the landlord, and could he come and take a look from the inside. I had no reason not to let him, and when I opened the door there were two of them. One gave me their flyer, and when I let them in and shut the door, that was it. I was bundled into the lounge, made to drink a small glass of water from the kitchen, and that’s all I remember.’

Gold exchanged a glance with me. ‘Rohypnol.’

I nodded agreement.

‘What?’ Janie asked.

‘They probably gave you the drug Rohypnol,’ I told her. ‘Known as the date-rape drug – knocks you out. How long were you unconscious?’

‘I don’t know. I woke up in the back of a big lorry, bound and gagged with sacks of animal feed all around me. I hadn’t been raped. It seemed hours I was in it, then I was taken out at the building where you found me and chained in that room.’

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We travelled on, keeping a look out behind us, but the other traffic seemed normal; none moving up close with a gun held pointing our way from the passenger window. Well, that’s how they do it in the movies, so it must be true.

‘That’s not right.’ Gold slowed down and slipped into a short layby at the side of the road. Ahead of us the Romanian-Hungarian border post had a queue of cars waiting to go through. It shouldn’t have. Hungary and Romania are part of the European Union Shengen agreement, a pact between all twenty-six European countries to officially abolish passport control and all other types of border control at their mutual borders. The traffic should be driving straight through; it wasn’t. Each car was being stopped and searched.

‘Stay here until you hear from me,’ I said to Gold as I got out of the car and put my night visions on and switched on my comms.

‘Okay.’ Gold reached for her comms battery pack and switched on too.

I waited until no cars were coming and then jumped the low fence into the farmer’s field that ran alongside the road. It was pasture, not a ploughed field, which made running through it quite easy. I moved a good fifty metres into the field where passing headlights wouldn’t pick me out and went towards the non-existent border, which seemed to be a hedgerow leading alongside the field down to the border post. I turned and keeping down made it quickly to the back of the concrete border post building. Gold had been right; something here was wrong. The cars leaving Romania were being stopped and searched by civilians, not uniformed border guards.

I took out my gun, slipped the safety catch off and moved around the dark side of the building away from the queuing cars and their lights. Through the side window I could see two Border Control guards tied and gagged on the floor, with a civilian with a gun standing in the front doorway watching, as another three searched the cars one by one before letting them pass through; all carried guns. Bogdan’s goons had taken over the post; how the Hell had they got here so quickly. I scoured the area through the night visions and there it was: a four-seater helicopter sitting in the dark fifty metres into the next field. I moved over to it and using a handy rock smashed all the dials and switches, before making my way back to the side of the post. I called Gold.

‘Okay, join the queue. There’s four of Bogdan’s men, they’ve taken over the post. Put Janie in the passenger seat and when you get here take out the one who comes to your side of the car – I’ll take the other three.’

‘Okay.’

I moved back into the darkness and waited; I could see the Range Rover in the queue twenty cars back. It didn’t take long for it to be three cars back as the goons were looking for a man and a woman; their search was a quick look at who was in each vehicle and the inside of the boot if the car had one. I waited by the corner of the building in the dark, and as Gold drew up to the goon standing in front of her and holding his hand up to stop the car, I