Tear of the Gods (22 page)

“Look!”

Annja followed Garin’s pointing finger. On the far side of the room she could see a red Exit sign. The door beneath it was sliding closed, but through the gap she caught a quick glimpse of Jackson and Shaw, and a metal case being carried by one of them, though she wasn’t quite sure who.

Garin moved closer, so she could hear him over the noise of all the gunfire. “If we circle around,” he said, “we should be able reach the stairs.”

It was either that or let Shaw get away while they were pinned down by his security team. Nowhere near ready to admit defeat, Annja nodded in agreement.

She fired several shots at the other side, forcing them to keep their heads down. When she did, Garin slid out of position and disappeared amid the maze of cubicles behind them.

She waited a moment, joined the others in firing off another blast and then followed suit, slipping into the cubicle behind her, then into the one after that, moving in a wide circle around the edge of the firefight until she could see the door.

Garin was about ten feet in front of her, peering out from beneath a nearby desk. In the cubicle just beyond him, Annja could see a Vanguard security officer standing and looking around, as if he’d heard something.

Annja watched the other man, and when he turned the opposite way she waved a hand signal at Garin.

Right on cue, he popped out from beneath the desk and put a bullet into the man from just a few feet away.

With the way clear, the two of them dashed the last few feet to the exit door and slipped through.

They found themselves in a stairwell identical to the one they’d used to gain access to their current floor, with the steps going both up and down.

“Which way?” Annja asked.

As if in answer, bullets came flying down at them from somewhere up above. The shots missed, though one bullet ricocheted off the nearby wall and carved a furrow in Garin’s calf.

Annja waited for a lull in the shooting, then stepped out and fired off a few snap shots upward between the switchbacks of the staircase.

To her surprise, she heard a cry of pain and something came clattering down, bouncing off the railings to land a few steps below her.

A glance told her it was a pistol.

When no more fire came from above, they cautiously made their way up the stairs to the next floor.

Garin went through the door at a rush, Annja close behind, the two of them counting on the fact that Shaw and Jackson would be more concerned with getting away than lying in ambush. Thankfully their guess was right. They found themselves in a long corridor with doors to either side, but they were saved from having to check each one of them by the sight of Shaw disappearing through the door at the far end.

If Annja remembered correctly, that was the staircase they’d used to come down from the roof, which meant Shaw was going for the helicopter they’d seen on the helipad.

If he reached it before they did…

Garin must have come to the same conclusion, for he sprinted off down the corridor after Shaw.

Annja followed.

Halfway down the hall a figure stepped out of one of the side rooms and clotheslined her across the throat with his extended forearm.

The blow knocked Annja right off her feet. The impact with the floor sent her gun skittering from her hand. It disappeared through the open doorway of the room off to her right. She was left flat on her back, staring up at her attacker.

It was Jackson.

He glared at her with hatred in his eyes and drew a dangerous-looking combat knife from his belt. The blade was at least half a foot long and changed from a smooth to a serrated edge closer to the hilt.

As Annja scrambled to her feet, she saw past Jackson to where Garin was hesitating, trying to decide whether he should return to help her or continue after their man.

She made the decision for him.

“Go after Shaw!” she shouted, hoping he would listen to her for once, and then turned her attention back to the opponent in front of her without waiting to see if Garin complied.

Jackson was bleeding from a wound in one shoulder, she noted, and a smile stitched across her face when she realized that her shot in the stairwell had taken a bite out of him. It must have been his gun that fell, she thought, otherwise he would have shot us as we ran past.

“You again,” Jackson said, his disgust evident. “What the hell does it take to kill you?”

“More than you’ve got, apparently,” she replied.

He didn’t care to be taunted. “We’ll see about that, you bitch.”

He stalked toward her, a look of expectation on his face.

Annja didn’t flinch. She stood her ground, waiting.

“You should run, little girl,” he told her, his voice growing rough with whatever twisted images he was seeing in his mind’s eye—images of what he intended to do to her, she had no doubt.

But Annja was imagining an entirely different end to the confrontation and she let it show on her face, along with her hunger to pay him back for what he’d done to Craig and the rest of the crew at the dig site.

“I don’t think so,” she replied.

Maybe it was the look, or the tone of her voice. Either way it was enough to cause him to hesitate for a moment, uncertain.

She pressed her advantage, trying to enrage him and force him to do something stupid.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Afraid of a little girl?”

That did it. He moved forward eagerly, waving the knife back and forth in front of him.

She considered drawing her sword. With it, she could end the confrontation quickly and its length would keep her out of harm’s reach, but she forced down the urge, trusting in her abilities to handle Jackson without it. She wanted to make him pay for what he’d done, to make him suffer for all the harm he’d caused.

The sword was there if she needed it; for now, though, she’d use just her hands and feet.

It will be more satisfying that way, she thought.

He rushed the last few steps, trying to overpower her with his size and a sudden jab of the knife.

Jackson telegraphed his attack with a quick glance before he struck and that was all Annja needed to evade it. She spun to her left, her right arm coming across the front of her body in a vicious strike to the inside of his forearm, stopping his attack cold. Then she let her momentum carry her around as she landed an elbow strike to the side of his face.

The blow staggered him, forcing him back a few steps, and Annja moved to close the distance, but he’d learned his lesson the first time and was ready for her. He parried the various strikes she threw in his direction and lashed out with the knife, carving a furrow along the outside of her right arm when she didn’t pull it back quickly enough.

They moved along the corridor, trading blows, neither one managing to get the upper hand. Annja could feel herself slowing down, however—a result of what her body had recently been subjected to—and she knew she had to gain the advantage or things could spin out of control.

The next time Jackson jabbed at her with the knife, she stepped in close and trapped his arm in a vicious wrist lock. He yelped in pain as she forced his hand backward, the knife falling to clatter on the floor.

So intent was she on her success in disarming him that she didn’t realize he’d allowed it to happen until it was too late.

The punch slammed into her injured rib cage with what felt like the force of a charging rhino. Pain exploded through her body and for a moment all she could see was stars.

A moment was all Jackson needed.

He followed the first blow with several others, slamming his fists into her face, stomach and rib cage, blow after blow landing against her unprotected flesh as she fought against the darkness to keep from blacking out.

She stumbled and then fell, landing on her hands and knees, gasping for breath.

Jackson stepped back and for a moment she thought he was going to give her a reprieve, but seconds later she found out how wrong she was when he landed a vicious kick to her rib cage and followed it up with another to her face.

The latter literally lifted her off the ground and flopped her down on her back, her head lolling.

She was in serious trouble and she knew it. Her mind was shrieking at her to protect herself, to get up and fight, but she couldn’t seem to make her arms or legs work the way she wanted them to; it was as if all her muscles had turned to jelly.

“This time, I’ll be sure to finish the job,” he said as he delivered another kick to her ribs, then turned around, looking for his knife.

Get up! a voice screamed in the back of her mind, but she could barely focus on it. Everything was swimming around her—the floor, the walls, the ceiling. She didn’t know which way was up.

Still, she tried.

She rolled partially on her side and tried to draw her legs up under her, but even that little effort took nearly all her strength.

Darkness threatened at the edges of her vision.

“I’m gonna cut you up!” Jackson snarled as he picked up his knife and started back toward her.

There was something she could do to save herself, she knew, but she couldn’t seem to focus on what it was. Something she could use to keep him away from her, something…

Jackson loomed over her, knife in hand.

“Time to join the rest of your friends,” he said. He bent over, grabbed her hair and hauled her up by it so that she was kneeling there in front of him, her throat exposed to his blade.

The pain from her scalp where he tugged on her hair cleared her head.

As Jackson drew his knife back, intending to slash open her throat, Annja called her sword to hand.

It slipped into her fist like it was made for it, materializing out of the otherwhere without warning.

She saw Jackson’s eyes go wide at the sight of it.

Sword in hand, she thrust upward, impaling him on the weapon before his arm had even begun its downward arc.

He died with a surprised expression on his face, as if he couldn’t understand what had happened to him.

Releasing the sword, Annja slumped forward onto her hands and crawled away from the body, gasping for breath.

She heard footsteps approaching and turned in time to see Griggs and two of his men rushing down the corridor toward her. He helped her to her feet, asking, “Where’s Garin?”

Annja lifted her head toward the door at the end of the hall. “He chased Shaw through there.”

“Go!” he told the other two, then, taking her elbow in his hand, he helped her along after them.

Behind the door was a stairwell. The sound of gunfire from somewhere above let them know that the men they were pursuing had gone up instead of down and they followed suit.

The stairs led up to the roof and they emerged into the night air on the far side.

Annja took it all in with a glance.

The case containing the old Soviet RA-115 lay a few feet away, as if tossed aside when Shaw had emerged from the stairwell.

Shaw was leaning out of the rear door of the Vanguard helicopter, gun in hand, firing at Garin Braden, who stood midway between Annja and the helicopter.

Garin was in the open, completely exposed, but that wasn’t stopping him from returning fire, intent on preventing Shaw’s escape.

There wasn’t anything Annja could do; her only weapon was her sword and a fat lot of good that was going to do against a helicopter.

That didn’t mean Griggs and his companions were helpless, however.

The three men added their gunfire to Garin’s, unleashing a wave of bullets that sprayed across the open doorway where Shaw was crouched. As the helicopter lifted up off the pad and swung itself ponderously around in midair, intending to make a clean getaway, Annja thought she saw Shaw flung backward by the force of a shot, but she couldn’t be sure.

He can’t get away!

The helicopter was several yards above the building, the sound of the rotors winding to a higher speed as the pilot tried to get them out of there.

“We have to stop him!” Annja shouted over the noise, her fists clenched at her side in impotent fury.

As if in answer to her cry, a bullet from one of the guns finally found a vulnerable target, puncturing the fuel reservoir in the rear of the fuselage, which touched off a spark at the same time.

With a thunderous boom, the helicopter exploded in midair.

Griggs threw himself over Annja, taking them both to the ground, as shrapnel and other larger parts of the aircraft came whizzing back toward them, carried by the force of the explosion.

Thankfully none of them were hurt.

Griggs helped her up and the two of them were dusting themselves off when Garin walked over to join them.

“What happened?” Annja asked.

Garin explained how he’d caught Shaw at the top of the steps and how they’d fought over possession of the device. Apparently deciding that escaping was more important than retaining control of the suitcase bomb, Shaw cast it aside and ran for the helicopter.

While listening to Garin, Annja stepped over to the battered steel case and looked inside.

“It’s not here,” she said.

“What’s not?”

“The torc.”

Garin frowned. “Shaw must have had it with him in the chopper.”

It was about the last thing Annja wanted to hear, but she couldn’t ignore the logic. Obtaining another suitcase nuke, while difficult, wouldn’t be impossible, she knew. But gaining control of enough plutonium to activate it? That was something else entirely. Annja knew that Shaw likely would not have let something as precious as the torc out of his sight.

They’d search his office, but she didn’t expect to find anything.

The torc was gone.

Two nights later, Annja was recovering at Roux’s estate outside of Paris when Henshaw informed her that she had a phone call from Detective Inspector Beresford.

“How are you, Miss Creed?” he asked, once she got on the line.

“Doing better, Inspector. And you? I take it you survived the fallout surrounding the events of the other night?”

“Just barely,” he said, but there was no disguising his satisfied tone. “I called to let you know that Shaw left behind a mountain of evidence regarding his work as leader of the Red Hand Defenders, more than enough to condemn him in any court of law three or four times over. We can tie him, and his henchman Jackson, to several car bombs and kidnappings over the past few years, never mind the attacks at Arkholme and against Sebastian Cartier. Given what we have, they’ll probably cancel the inquest next week.”

“That’s great, Inspector.” Annja hadn’t been looking forward to having to explain it all over again to a group of magistrates; having done so for Beresford’s final report was more than enough, in her view. Now it appeared she wouldn’t have to.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” she told him, “and it’s driving me nuts. How did Shaw know that the torc was plutonium in the first place?”

Beresford laughed. “I wouldn’t want you to go crazy now, so let me answer that for you.

“Based on his journals, it appears he was aware of the legends behind the torc, about how the material from which it had been fashioned supposedly came from outside this world. He had men like Paolo Novick on his payroll searching for anything resembling the torc. When it surfaced, it was a simple matter for Novick to run a Geiger counter over it to determine that it was radioactive.”

Annja wasn’t surprised to hear there had been a spy in their midst at the dig site; it was the only way anyone outside of those present could have known they’d uncovered anything of value. She was dismayed, however, to learn that the spy had been Novick.

The loss of the torc in the explosion still pained her, but she supposed it was for the best. Having it loose in the world might just tempt someone else to try the same thing Shaw had.

They spoke for a few more minutes and then hung up. In a few days, Annja would be returning to the U.S. to get back to work on a new episode for
Chasing History’s Monsters
and for once, she was actually happy to be leaving Europe behind.

It was time to go home, she thought.

Munich

T
HE MAN ENTERED
the study with the swift sure strides of one who had done it a hundred, nay, a thousand times before. Despite the fact that there was only a thin slice of illumination coming in through the open doorway, he didn’t trip over any of the furniture, nor did he hesitate as he made his way to the oak cabinet on the far side of the room.

He opened it, pressed six digits on a keypad set against the back of the cabinet and then waited patiently as the wall closest to him swung silently open, revealing another room behind.

The biometric lights came on as he stepped inside, closing the false panel behind him. The room wasn’t large, not by modern standards, but it was fair-sized and comfortable. Shelves lined the walls and on them were displayed a number of valuable treasures. Artwork that was supposed to have vanished during the fall of Berlin, recovered from a warehouse in Argentina. A selection of ancient weaponry, each item more valuable than the last, not the least of which was a samurai sword known to some as Jucchi Yosamu, Ten Thousand Cold Nights. An illustrated Bible said to have been penned by the hand of an angel. A strangely shaped skull kept in a glass case, the three empty eye sockets staring out in silent accusation. The room was a veritable storehouse of some of the most valuable finds ever made.

The man ignored what was collected there, however. He’d seen it all before, many times. Instead he moved to a wooden cabinet against the far wall and opened one of its many drawers.

The drawer was lined with velvet and stood empty, just as the man knew it would be.

He removed a thin, slender box from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and open it gently.

Inside, on a bed of cotton, lay a black necklace with carved eagle heads as clasps.

He knew the legends surrounding it.

Fashioned from the tears of a goddess.

Carried by the warrior queen, Boudica, in her rebellion against Rome.

Rumored to provide the wearer with invincibility in battle.

As he transferred the Tear of the Gods to the storage drawer he’d selected to house it in, Garin Braden laughed.

To hell with the bomb! he thought. In the end, he’d come away with the only treasure that had been worth having.