Cradle of Solitude (19 page)

“You don't listen too good, do you, Miss Creed?”

Annja stared up at the speaker, a dark-haired man in his mid-forties standing next to the gunman, and resisted the urge to correct his grammar. No sense in antagonizing him, at least not yet.

Behind him she could see Jimmy Mitchell and Garin kneeling on the deck, a second gunman standing far enough away that he could keep his weapon trained on them without worrying about being jumped. Three other thugs stood nearby, guns in hand but not pointed at anyone. All around it was a good, tactical position and, seeing it, Annja knew they were dealing with professionals.

That was going to make things more difficult.

She turned her head slightly, taking in the large yacht that was tied up next to the smaller
Kelly May
. That explained where the men had come from. She could see several other men on board the other vessel, which told her they were vastly outnumbered.

It didn't look like there was an easy way out of this one.

“I thought I was quite clear,” the speaker said. “Or is there some other way of interpreting ‘stay out of my business'?”

Annja focused her attention back on him. “Who are you and what do you want?” she asked.

The man laughed. “Who am I? Oh, that's rich, Miss Creed. Truly. You're being held at gunpoint and the first thing you care about is being sure we're properly introduced.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “Reinhardt told me you were a little spitfire, but I must admit I didn't quite believe him. Now I know better.”

Annja's eyes narrowed at the mention of Bernard, but she didn't say anything, not yet. There would be time enough to deal with that. Right now she wanted to prevent them all from being killed.

“Let me introduce myself, then.” The man affected a little bow. “Blaine Michaels, at your service. As for what I want? I think we both know the answer to that.”

“You're after the treasure,” Annja said, stalling for time while trying to come up with a plan. With the gun pointed at her head, she didn't have many options. Diving back down beneath the surface was out of the question. She'd never make it deep enough quickly enough to avoid the gunfire that was sure to follow, and besides, that would leave Garin and Mitchell in their hands along with Bernard. Nor could she hope to climb aboard and free them before being cut down by gunfire.

“Out of the water, please.”

Somehow, Michaels made the word
please
sound anything but polite.

Annja swam the last few feet to the side of the boat. When no one moved to help her up, she pulled herself
up and over the stern. After fighting off an alligator and running out of air, that final effort nearly exhausted her. She sat with her back against the gunwale and panted to catch her breath.

“The rifle. Where is it?” Michaels said.

She looked up at him, feigning confusion. “The what? I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.”

In hindsight, she realized she should have expected it. After all, nothing Michaels had done so far gave her any reason to think he was anything but deadly serious.

Michaels didn't bother arguing with her. He didn't say anything at all, in fact. He just gave a little wave of his hand—nothing to it really, just a flick of the fingers—and the man holding the gun on Annja's companions pulled the trigger.

There was the crack of a gunshot and Jimmy Mitchell dropped to the deck, his sightless eyes staring in her direction as blood leaked from the hole in his forehead to mingle with the flow pouring out of what was left of the back of his skull after the bullet burst through it.

Annja came halfway off the deck, her hands clenched, adrenaline surging through her system. It took incredible force of will to keep from drawing her sword, but somehow she managed it. Michaels and his men were too far away for it to do her any good and drawing it now would only give away her one real advantage.

“You bastard,” she snarled.

“Tsk, tsk, Miss Creed. Such language. There's no need for it, really.” He took a couple of steps forward and stared down at her with contempt.

“I'll only ask you once more. Where is the rifle?”

She didn't see any option but to tell him. If she'd been
on her own, she might have taken a chance in drawing her sword and trying to get her hands on Michaels before his henchman could line up a shot, but with Garin still under gunpoint she didn't have that choice. Michaels had already shown he wouldn't hesitate to fire and she didn't want any more blood on her hands.

“It's in my dive bag,” she said.

He glared at her for a long moment and she could see in his expression that he was trying to work out how that was possible.

Not as smart as you think, are you? she thought.

Michaels turned and looked at one of the thugs watching from the sidelines. The man got the message without being told and moved swiftly to Annja's side.

For just a second she thought about grabbing him, using his body as a shield to keep from getting shot as she tried to maneuver into a better position, but something in Michaels's eyes told her it wouldn't matter. He'd simply shoot through his underling in order to get to her.

So she sat quietly instead, not doing anything as Michaels's henchman came over, knelt beside her and, producing a knife from somewhere inside his jacket, cut the dive bag from her belt. He carried it over to Michaels.

Annja watched as Michaels drew open the draw-strings and peered inside.

“What the hell is this?” he asked, looking back up at her.

“Ewell's Rifle,” she replied wearily.

If I can get them to think I've given up, they might make a mistake. And one mistake will be all I'll need, she thought.

Turning the bag over, Michaels poured the statue into his hand. He held it up for her to see.

“Does this look like a rifle to you?” he asked, and this time she could hear the anger in his voice.

“It does when you understand that the horse General Ewell rode into battle more than any other was named Rifle.”

He opened his mouth and then shut it again without saying anything. Clearly, he hadn't known. Annja watched as he processed that piece of information, imagining that she could almost see the information firing through the various synapses in his brain as he tried to make sense of all the angles that information generated.

“I see,” he said slowly.

“You've got the statue, now let us go!” Garin said angrily, speaking up for the first time.

Michaels didn't even bother looking in his direction, just inclined his head toward his man with the gun standing nearby.

“No!” Annja shouted, fearing the worse.

The gunman stepped forward and cracked Garin across the face with the stock of the automatic rifle in his hands.

Garin went down, hard, blood spraying from his mouth.

“If he says another word, kill him,” Michaels said matter-of-factly. Annja knew he meant it.

Across the deck, Garin shook his head, as if to clear it, spat blood on the deck and then pushed himself back up to his knees, glaring at the man who'd struck him.

The other man smirked and raised the stock of his weapon again, trying unsuccessfully to make his captive flinch, never noticing that the man he thought was helpless before him was now several feet closer than he'd been before.

Not yet, Garin, not yet, Annja thought, and prayed he wouldn't make a move before she was ready.

Unfortunately for them both, Blaine Michaels had just made several mental connections that would radically alter his plans for moving forward and rob the two of them of their opportunity to escape.

He hefted the horse, perhaps noticing the weight of it for the first time, and then looked at Annja.

“Let me guess. There's something inside it, isn't there?”

Annja shrugged.

That was apparently answer enough, though, for Michaels suddenly raised the statue and then dashed it against the hard surface of the deck between his feet, shattering it into several pieces.

From where she sat on the deck nearby, Annja could see a small metallic object lying amid the shattered porcelain.

In that second, everyone's attention was on the remains of the statue and nowhere else. Now, Annja thought, and she tensed, ready to move, but before she could do so things took another turn.

A pair of figures stepped out onto the deck of the other boat and Annja's gaze automatically flicked over in that direction. Bernard stood there, his hands tied in front of him, and a blindfold on his face. Beside him was another of Michaels's thugs, a gun stuck in Bernard's side.

As if reading her intentions, Michaels looked up from the debris at his feet and asked, “Going somewhere, Miss Creed?”

Annja bit back her reply and released the tension in her limbs. Whatever she'd hoped to do, it was too late now.

Over Michaels's shoulder, Annja could see Garin come to the same conclusion.

Michaels bent down, brushed aside the broken porcelain and picked up the object that had been hidden inside the statue.

“Bring me the professor,” he called out, and waited while Bernard was led across the deck and then helped across the gap between the boats.

When the professor was standing in front of him, Michaels ripped off the blindfold and held up the object he'd taken from inside the statue. “What is this?” he asked.

From where she sat on the deck, Annja could see that Michaels was holding a metal disk about twice the size of a half-dollar. Another piece of metal had been inserted in the center of the disk, this one in the shape of an eight-pointed star. As she watched, he spun the star so that it rotated within the confines of the disk, making an odd clicking sound as it did so.

Bernard was much closer to the object than she was, and therefore could get a better look at it, but it was clear from the expression on his face that he didn't recognize it.

Annja wasn't the only one who noticed, either.

“I'm getting the feeling you don't have any idea what this is, do you, Professor?”

“Of course I do,” Bernard said indignantly, his professional pride stung from the accusation. Or maybe it was just the muzzle of the pistol the guard jabbed him with when he seemed hesitant to answer. “It's a…well… I think…”

Michaels sighed and there was something downright menacing in the exaggerated way he did so. “Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you yet, Professor Reinhardt, but
your usefulness to me is severely limited if you can't give me the information I need.”

Bernard held up his hands in a placating gesture. “Just give me a minute… It's coming to me….”

“It's a Jeffersonian Key,” Annja said, coming to his rescue.

Michaels turned and looked at her. “Go on.”

“They were invented by Thomas Jefferson near the close of the American Revolution. The star on the disk acts as a primitive combination lock, releasing successive layers of the corresponding locking mechanism when inserted into the lock and turned in the proper direction.”

Michaels stared at her for a long moment without saying anything. “It would seem, Miss Creed, that you are better prepared to find the treasure than your colleague.”

Annja didn't say anything. She didn't know where Michaels was going with this and didn't want to do anything to tip the scales in the wrong direction. If Bernard was no longer seen as useful, then Michaels might be tempted to get rid of him. Permanently.

“In fact, I don't see any reason to keep floundering around, following the professor's instructions, while you beat us to the jackpot each time. I think it would be much better if you did the dirty work, found the treasure and then just turned it over to me.”

“Like hell I will,” Annja said quietly.

Michaels laughed. “That's precisely what I'd expect you to say, Miss Creed, which is why I'm glad I don't have to depend on your good-natured cooperation.”

Without looking away from her, he said, “Kill one of them. I don't care which one.”

“Wait!” Annja shouted, cursing inwardly. “Just wait a moment. I'm sure we can work this out.”

Michaels cocked his head to one side. “Work this out?” he asked. “What is there to work out? You'll either find the treasure for me or I'll shoot your friends. It's pretty simple.”

Annja's hand ached from her efforts to keep from calling the sword and charging forward. She wanted to wipe that annoying smile off the smug bastard's face, but knew the moment she made her move someone else would wind up dead and the chances that it would be herself or one of her friends was pretty damn high.

Patience, Grasshopper, patience, she told herself.

“Fine,” she said. “I'll do it.”

Michaels's grin widened. “See? That wasn't so difficult, now was it?”

He waited for her to shake her head, the very act acknowledging his control over her, and then, over his shoulder, he said to his henchman, “What are you waiting for? I told you to kill one of them.”

At first she thought she'd misheard him, but then the air was filled with the terrible sound of a gunshot and Annja watched in horror as Bernard's body slumped over on the deck in front of her.

“You son of a bitch!” she cried, surging to her feet, the blood pounding in her ears as she mentally reached for her sword…

…only to be struck in the face with the butt end of the assault rifle held in her guard's hands.

The blow was hard enough to knock her unconscious. As she tumbled backward, she thought she heard someone call her name and, over that, the sound
of the madman in front of her cackling like a particularly vicious little child, and then the darkness had her and she knew no more.

When Annja regained consciousness, she found herself lying on the deck of the
Kelly May
with the dead for company.

The bodies of Jimmy Mitchell and Bernard Reinhardt lay where they had fallen, their blood staining the wood beneath their still forms, their sightless eyes staring out at the world from which they'd been taken too soon.

Of the others, there was no sign.

Blaine Michaels and his henchmen were gone.

The boat that they had arrived in was gone, as well.

Garin was missing, too.

Annja pushed herself up into a sitting position and was nearly overwhelmed by a wave of dizziness that washed over her. She held still, waiting for it to pass. Her face hurt and her nose throbbed, but a gentle exploration of both with her fingertips told her that nothing seemed to be broken. Swollen, yes, but not broken.

When the dizziness had passed and she was reasonably sure she wouldn't vomit, she climbed to her feet.

“Hello?” she called, or tried to, at least. Her voice came out as more of a croak and she could taste the blood from her damaged nose at the back of her throat.

No one answered her.

Well, who did you expect? she asked herself. The Ghost of Christmas Past? You can see there's no one here.

She could, too. There really wasn't all that much more to the boat than she could see. Foredeck. Aft deck. And the wheelhouse. From where she stood she could observe both decks and everything above waist height in the wheelhouse, so unless someone was crouching on the floor of the latter, she was on her own.

An image of a wounded Garin lying bruised and bloody on the wheelhouse floor came to her, and though she didn't think it likely, she knew she wouldn't be able to put it out of her mind until she checked, just to be sure. She wobbled forward on unsteady legs, her equilibrium still out of whack from the blow to the head, and peered inside the wheelhouse.

There was no one there.

That didn't mean there wasn't anything of interest inside, however.

A black cell phone stood on the control panel right next to the throttle, plainly visible from the wheelhouse door. It was one of those disposable models that you could buy in just about any corner store these days. She didn't remember seeing Jimmy with a phone like that and she knew it wasn't hers or Garin's. It seemed it had been left there specifically for her.

Next to it was the Jeffersonian Key that had been secreted inside the porcelain horse.

She crossed over to the phone and picked it up. A quick examination showed her that there was a single
number stored in the device's memory. She called the number, listening to the line ring for a few moments before it was answered by Michaels.

“Welcome back, Miss Creed.”

Her fury rose at the sound of his voice. “I'm going to kill you for what you've done,” she told him, and meant every word of it.

“You can certainly try,” he replied, and then laughed at the very idea of it.

For a long moment all Annja could see was red. When she came back to herself she was clutching her sword in her hand, her fingers wrapped so tightly around the hilt that they were turning white. Michaels was speaking.

“Wait, what?” she asked, shaking her head to clear it while releasing her sword back into the otherwhere with a flick of her hand. She hadn't unconsciously called her sword before, and its appearance was a bit surprising, but she didn't have time then to puzzle it out.

“Pay attention, Miss Creed! Your friend's life depends on it.”

“What did you do with him?”

“Do? Why, nothing. I simply invited him to accompany us for a bit while you finished the task ahead of you.”

“If you harm him—”

“You'll do what, Miss Creed?” He laughed again, setting her teeth on edge. “You're not in a position to do anything but what I tell you to do. And I'm telling you to find the missing treasury if you want to see your friend again.”

Annja knew when she'd been backed into a corner. She'd have to figure out a way to get both herself and
Garin out of this mess, once she had the treasure in hand.

“Fine.”

His voice was practically dripping with satisfaction as he said, “Excellent. Take the phone with you. I'll expect a call from you inside of seventy-two hours at which point I'll tell you where to rendezvous with me to turn over the treasure.”

“Seventy-two hours? Are you crazy? I can't possibly find it in that kind of time frame.”

Michaels's tone was firm and brooked no disagreement. “You can and you will. Or you can say goodbye to your friend. Seventy-two hours, Miss Creed. That's all you get.”

There was a click and the line went dead.

Seventy-two hours? How the hell was she supposed to accomplish that?

By moving your ass, girl, she told herself. Stop whining and get to work!

She grabbed the key and the phone. Her gaze flicked across the pair of bodies on the aft deck. They were lying right out in the open, visible to anyone who happened to pass by, and Annja knew she couldn't leave them that way.

Something had to be done.

Routing around in the storage compartments at the rear of the boat, Annja found several large tarps and she used those as a temporary solution to cover the bodies of her friends. She weighed the edges of the tarps down in several places so that the wind wouldn't pick them up and blow them aside once they got under way.

Because that's exactly what she was going to have to do. Get under way. She couldn't just leave the boat here, in the middle of the river, no matter how badly
she might want to in order to avoid having to deal with the mess Michaels had dumped in her lap. Bernard deserved better than being left behind like some discarded piece of trash. Jimmy Mitchell did, too.

She was going to have to bring the boat back to the marina, put it in its proper slip and hope no one observed her when she made her departure.

The dive line and magnetometer were still being towed behind them, so she had to bring those aboard first and stow them. Despite not having seen another boat other than Michaels's the entire time they been on the river, she was still filled with anxiety as she worked, afraid another vessel was going to come along at any moment and notice something irregular.

Like the two corpses on the aft deck, she thought with a shudder.

Getting caught seemingly red-handed with the dead bodies of her friends with the deck beneath them covered in their congealing blood was not something she thought she had a chance of walking away from. She'd be locked up quicker than she could blink. If that happened, Garin would be left at the mercy of that psycho, Michaels.

So make sure it doesn't happen, she told herself. Get off the main river and out of sight for a bit while you figure out what to do.

With that in mind, she went into the wheelhouse and examined the controls after the dive line and magnetometer had been brought aboard and stowed away. The controls seemed fairly intuitive and the time she'd spent watching Mitchell maneuver the boat earlier that morning would likely be helpful, as well. With only a little trouble, she got the engines started and the boat turned
around, heading back in the direction from which they'd come.

She encountered only one other vessel while out on the open river, a small fishing boat with an outboard motor. As they passed by on the port side she was filled with a sense of impending doom. They were going to see the bundle and know exactly what was underneath it! Annja was sure of it.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. The other boat was far too low in the water to allow its passengers to see her deck, never mind figure out what was under the weighted tarp. They passed with a friendly nod and a quick wave, allowing Annja to get back to worrying needlessly.

Twenty minutes farther along, she spotted the mouth of a tributary large enough to handle the boat and turned in that direction. About a dozen yards down its length, the channel curved sharply to one side. Anything around the bend would be out of sight of the main waterway. It was just what she needed.

Once in position, she brought the boat to a stop and shut down the engine. She listened for the sound of another engine nearby, but all that came back to her was the gentle lapping of the water on the hull and the occasional cry of a hunting bird of prey.

She couldn't bring the boat into dock with two corpses under a tarp on the back deck, she reminded herself. They might not be noticed for a day, maybe two, but the minute they started smelling someone was bound to come aboard and investigate.

She needed somewhere that she could store them until this entire mess was sorted out. She felt terrible about it, but what choice did she have? If she called the police now they'd hold her for questioning, perhaps even
decide that she was the prime suspect and lock her up. She'd be condemning Garin to certain death.

As it turned out, the answer was right there behind her.

A pair of doors was set in the center of the aft deck a few feet forward of the stern gunwale. Opening them, Annja discovered the refrigerated fish hold. On a working trawler, the fish would be rinsed with high-powered hoses that would push them over the lip of the hatch into the hold below. The refrigeration unit built into the walls of the hold would then keep the fish fresh until the boat returned to dock and the catch was sorted, boxed and then iced for its journey to the preparation plant.

If she could get the bodies into the fish hold, they'd be out of sight and chilled enough to stop major decomposition for the time being.

The trouble was, she didn't want to handle them. Not because she was squeamish, she was a far cry from that, but because she didn't want to leave any trace evidence on them if she could help it. She was already going to have a hard enough time explaining things when she got the chance. She'd be a suspect in their deaths, for sure. Add that to the recent killings she'd been involved in overseas and she knew she'd be answering police questions for weeks, if not months. Giving the police evidence that she'd been in physical contact with the victims was not going to help her case, not at all.

The problem was partially alleviated, she realized, by the fact that she was still in her neoprene wetsuit. With the hood up and her neoprene dive gloves on, the only part of her body that wasn't completely covered was her face. Even her hair was secured beneath the tight-fitting hood. The fabric of the suit would help repel any blood that got on her, and since she had other
clothes to change into, she could always spray herself down with the high-powered hose and then dispose of the suit when she was finished.

Satisfied with her plan, or at least as much of a plan as she had, she got to work rigging the rest of the equipment she needed to pull this off.

She moved one of the booms into position over the doors to the fish hold and then attached a rope pulley to it. She dug around in the storage lockers until she found a medium-size net that would be large enough to hold both Jimmy's and Bernard's bodies and laid it out flat beside the hatch.

Then, donning her gloves, she took off the tarps and put them aside. She'd deal with them in a bit. Right now she needed to get the bodies into the net and then maneuver the net over the hatch so she could gently lower the whole contraption to the deck below.

She supposed it might have been easier to just roll them over the edge and into the hold, but she just couldn't bring herself to do that. Not so much earlier both men were laughing and joking with her and the idea of treating their earthly remains like, well, sacks of meat just wasn't going to cut it. She'd spend the extra time to lower them into the hold gently, and if someone came along while she was doing it she'd worry about it then.

She shifted the bodies one at a time and put them in the net. She then attached the hooks on the sides of the net to a sling and tied the sling off to the rope she'd threaded through the pulley earlier. She gave all the connections a few tugs, and found that they were secure.

Satisfied, she moved over to the other end of the rope, sat down on the deck with her back to the gunwale and,
taking the rope between, began to heave it backward. It went easily at first, for all they were doing was taking up the slack. But after that, when the weight of the two bodies was pulling against her, she was thankful that she had the pulley or it would have been all over before it began.

Annja managed to lift the net a few inches off the ground, then used the tip of her foot to maneuver it out over the open doors to the hold. The moment it was she let the rope slip through her hands and the bodies of the two men disappeared into the hold with nary a sound.

After that all the equipment, including the tarps and the pulley itself, were tossed down beside the bodies. She used the high-pressure hose to spray down the deck, flushing the bloodstains out as best she could and sending the water over the side into the river. She then turned the hose on herself. She changed the setting to low and rinsed every inch of herself. Satisfied that there was no blood on her, she flushed the deck of the boat a final time. She stripped out of her gloves and wetsuit, tossing them into the fish locker with everything else. Last but not least, she closed the hatch and locked it up tight with a padlock she found in the toolbox.

If somebody wanted into the fish locker, they were going to have to work at it.

Having already dug a change of clothing out of her backpack, Annja got dressed. Just being back in her jeans and sweatshirt made her feel better, made her feel more ready to take on the challenge ahead of her.

With the clock ticking down, she didn't have time to waste. She fired up
Kelly May
's engines and maneuvered her back into the main river channel. Once there, Annja opened up the throttle and headed for the marina as fast as she dared.

 

By the time she drove the boat into the narrow tributary that marked the only entrance to the marina where Mitchell had a slip, she was feeling fairly competent with the controls.