Adela told us they never go to the ruins after 11pm, so we decide to go around midnight. We all spend some time sleeping for a while, just in case we stay up all night. I am still trying to figure out who is after us and how we can possibly protect ourselves from them. Maybe Baldwin is right and we should go into hiding for a time, but what happens when we come out of hiding? Too much thinking and no sleep for me, and I notice that Annelie stays on her laptop the whole time. Suddenly she waves for me to come over to her.

“Here is the man that wants us dead,” she said confidently, “it took a while to find out, but my sources came up with him. He is General Liu Wei. And the main man he uses is this man, whose name is “Vinny”, no one knows his last name. He is a very evil man Steve, he has no conscience, he has done some atrocious things. He is friends with “Mr. Bowman”, a top man in the underworld and also very dangerous.” “Hmm, we must be very important to have these men after us,” I said, “it obviously is because of our last case. But now, how do we avoid these men, or at least avoid getting killed by them?”

“That is not going to be easy,” said Annelie. I woke up Kat, Jennifer and the cats and explained what Annelie just found out. Then it was time to leave for the ruins so Kat woke up the other two and off we went. Just as we got there, Meow=Chop, chop coming. M.C. has amazing hearing for certain things, even better than Muffin at times, so we quickly hid from view, then we could all hear the helicopter coming. “That will be Whip coming back for us,” said Kristina. Annelie and Jennifer offered their vests to the two girls, but I said no to that.

“We are their only hope to get out of here,” I said, “so it is important for us to stay alive so they will too.” “Steve is right,” said Kristina, “Adela and I do not have a chance without you.” The others then agreed. “Can either of you shoot?”, I asked. They both shook their heads. I gave them each a gun anyway. “Just aim towards wherever they are shooting from, you don’t have to hit anything, it is just to make them think there are more guns up here. Hold the gun like this, with both hands.” I hope we don’t have to fight, but you never know. Then a second helicopter came along.

“That will likely be Mr. Bowman, he is the leader,” said Adela, “but he only shows up now and then when they are having an important meeting. Another man sometimes comes with him, named Vinny, he doesn’t say much, but there is something about him that terrifies me, he just seems evil.” Well, that fits what Annelie found out tonight, so I guess than means they are here to get all of us. “Let’s get into the ruins and find out what is going on, before these men come looking for us,” I said. Adela led the way down a closed corridor and to a room with a large steel door.

Looks like they made themselves a vault here and we have to get in. Kat holds M.C. close while I start turning the dial and he told me when to stop. That was the easy part, now there is another digital lock besides, and how can we figure out the combination for that? Meow.=Only have one chance, we not get it right then it lock up until password entered over here. Great, I thought, so now what? Kat held M.C. up to the numbers and he pushed each one in order and there was a nice click. He did it, the door was unlocked. I must ask him how he knew what to do, he is getting amazing at unlocking things. “Can we disable the lock so they cannot lock us in here?”, I ask him.

Meow.=Yep, push lever to right until click, then go left all the way, then take out that thingy there. I did what he said and sure enough, that gizmo came out nicely. We followed along another corridor and another door, but this one was not locked. Inside there was a lot of gold bars, metal boxes with money and one large metal box filled with jewels. “That is why they are offering a reward of 1 million euros,” said Annelie. “Okay,” I said, “now we have to take this and hide it somewhere.” Meow,meow.=No time, people coming. We all ran to the entrance and sure enough, Marik was leading the others up this way. I told Kristina and Adela to go over to the left where they will have more shelter. “You cats go with them and protect them,” I said, “and when I meow, send up a flare over those men.” Meow,meow.=Me can do that. Meow.=And we guard good too. So off they went.

To Be Continued.

©2021 Steve McLeod.