by Alex Archer
Annja whirled, the world slowing down around her, and turned to face the second man by the bathroom door. He was only then registering surprise that he'd shot his compatriot instead of Annja. Or maybe he was surprised about the sword she wielded with such deadly skill.
Either way, his surprise didn't last long.
Annja lunged with the sword, bringing it up as she ducked beneath the man's outstretched arm. She heard the pistol cough twice before the sword pierced the man's chest.
The man sagged immediately. He dropped his machete and grabbed Annja's wrists. Dying, he tried to bring the pistol in line with her head.
Annja kicked her attacker backward. Still transfixed by the sword, he stumbled toward the other two men. The remaining invaders abandoned their search of the suitcases and reached for their weapons.
The suite was large, providing some room to maneuver.
Annja ran toward the only light on in the room. Jumping up, she delivered a high kick to the lamp, shattering the lightbulb in a shower of sparks.
She landed in a crouch, one hand on the floor to maintain her balance. Pistols coughed behind her, and muzzle-flashes marked the locations of the two men. They had remained close together.
The darkness inside the room was almost complete. Only a sliver of moonlight penetrated the heavy drapes and fell across the floor.
Annja gripped the sword and rose, standing straight and making for the wall, working from memory. Her bare feet made no sound as she moved.
The two men spoke in nervous voices. They spoke a dialect Annja didn't understand, but their anxiety and anger were easy to read.
Annja knew she could have headed for the door, but she couldn't be sure they hadn't locked it behind them. And fumbling with the lock in the darkness, making all that noise, would draw a hail of bullets.
The second bedside lamp winked on, unleashing a pool of dim yellow light. The man who had turned it on was squatted down behind the bed, on the other side from Annja. His partner was across the room.
Both men started firing, but Annja had already leaped forward, the sword in both hands. She brought the blade down, splitting the gunman's head and turning the sheets crimson. As she vaulted over the dead man, she kicked the light, plunging the room into darkness again.
For a moment she held her position, listening intently. The traffic noises in the street reached her ears.
"Stay back!" the man warned in heavily accented English. "Stay back or I will kill you!"
Annja tracked the man's voice, realizing he was making his way toward the door. Moonlight fell across his back for just a moment, outlining his upper body and blinking against the gun.
"Who sent you?" Annja asked, and moved to the side immediately.
Muzzle-flashes tore holes in the darkness.
"Did Tafari send you for the Spider Stone?" Annja whipped back to the other side of the room and advanced in long strides.
The man fired again, and this time the pistol blew back empty, the sound sharp and distinct. He turned and fled, his feet slapping against the floor.
Annja pursued, knowing that none of the other men were alive. She wanted at least one witness who could talk.
The door opened and the light from the hallway hurt Annja's eyes. She blinked but never broke stride, managing to grab the door before it closed.
The man broke to the right, running hard. He still carried his machete in his left hand.
Annja ran after him, driving her legs like pistons, quickly closing in on the man. Ahead, a young couple turned the corner from the bank of elevators. They saw the man with the machete and froze like deer in headlights.
The man lifted his machete, his intent clear.
Releasing the sword, Annja felt it fade away as she threw herself forward in a feet-first baseball slide. The carpet bit into her skin, promising abrasions and burns, but she collided with the back of the man's legs before he could bring down the machete.
As the man buckled under her onslaught, Annja reached up and caught his arm, controlling the machete. The young man managed to get the woman out of the way as Annja and her prey skidded into the wall.
Off balance, Annja hit the wall hard enough to drive the wind from her lungs. Dazed for a second, she held on to the man's arm, then struggled to her knees as her opponent tried to fight his way free. Annja closed her free hand into a fist and hit the man in the jaw. His eyes rolled back and he slumped over.
Breathing raggedly, her breath just coming back to her, Annja looked up at the young couple. "Do you speak English?"
"That," the young man whispered hoarsely, "was incredible! I thought he was going to kill us!"
"Yes," the young woman at his side said. "We speak English."
Annja thought she detected a German accent but wasn't certain. "Do you have a cell phone?"
"He just came out of nowhere!" the man said. "I felt like I was in one of those American slasher movies!"
Great, Annja thought, feeling the aches and pains seeping into her again and wrecking all that the bath had accomplished.
"I have a cell phone." The young woman held it up.
"Please call the hotel and ask for security." Annja started going through the unconscious man's pockets, looking for identification. "Tell them what happened."
"I saw my life flash before my eyes!" the man said. Then he held his head. "I've got to sit down. I'm going to be sick." He swayed unsteadily and sat against the opposite wall. He stared at the unconscious man. "He really was going to kill us, wasn't he?"
Annja didn't answer. The young man was going into shock. But the woman with him was clear and concise as she dealt with the hotel staff.
A shadow fell across Annja. Startled because she'd sensed no approach, she reached for the machete lying nearby. She had the wooden hilt in her hand when she saw the old woman standing before her.
The woman wore a dark red dress that almost reached the ground. A scarf of a similar color held her cotton-white hair back from her lined face. Annja guessed that the woman was seventy, with a lot of hard years behind her, but she could have been even older. She carried a gnarled wooden staff in one hand.
"You have finally come," the old woman said in accented English. "I knew that you would. My prophecies are never wrong."
Prophecies? Annja stared at the old woman.
Then hotel security arrived in force and things really got crazy.
****
Tafari walked into the village with impunity. He carried pistols in each hand. They were the Glocks that his nephew had sent him, with extended magazines and fully automatic function. He used them to cut down two Hausa warriors who challenged him.
Neither of the men carried firearms. One had a tribal spear that was probably more heirloom than weapon, and the other had an ax used for chopping firewood. The bullets smashed into them and drove them backward.
The cries of women and children pierced the chatter of automatic weapons. Those silenced, one by one, as the raiders cut them down.
Tafari had given orders that there were to be no survivors. He kept walking, picking out targets as they appeared, changing magazines in the pistols as he needed to.
"I am Tafari!" he yelled at the villagers. "I am the death-bringer!"
He knew he looked the part. Naked except for a loincloth, his body was covered in painted tribal markings. White paint lifted his face out of the darkness and made it a skull.
His men flared around him, many of them dressed and marked as he was. Two of them carried military flamethrowers and sent streams of liquid fire rolling into the thatched huts. The wood caught instantly and burned incredibly fast.
Gray smoke poured across the sky, giving the illusion of chasing back the night.
Four jeeps circled the village deep in the savanna. Machine gunners on the rear decks executed anyone who tried to escape the slaughter at the village.
"I am Tafari!" he howled. "Beloved of the gods! I speak the words of the gods! You chose to ignore my warnings! You chose to di
sobey me! Now you will all die!"
In only a few minutes, the village was filled with the dead and the dying. The stink of burned flesh mixed with the acrid smoke.
His weapons recharged, Tafari led the hunt for the survivors. They killed them where they lay one by one.
When they were finished, Tafari gave orders to bring the chief and his grandson to him. Tafari stood waiting in the center of the village. He had sent men into the village to capture the two before they had begun the killing.
The chief and his grandson, a boy of nine or ten, were forced to their knees in front of Tafari. Fear strained the old man's gray-stubbled face though he tried not to show it.
"You are an abomination," the chief declared. His voice was hoarse with emotion and from the smoke. Tears leaked down his withered cheeks.
Tafari struck the old man with one of his pistols, breaking the teeth down to yellow stumps. The chief cried out in pain and collapsed to the ground. Blood pooled from his split lips.
The boy cried out and reached for his grandfather, hugging him around the waist.
Holstering his pistols, Tafari reached over his shoulder for the machete in the leather sheath and drew the weapon clear. Firelight gleamed along the blade's keen edge.
The old man looked up as Tafari swung the machete. He barely had time to get a hand up and whisper, "No!"
Then the blade sliced through the old man's hand, dropping his fingers to the ground, and cut deeply into his neck. Blood spattered Tafari's face and chest at the impact. It took Tafari two more swings to hack the head free of the skinny body.
The boy screamed in fear and backed away from the corpse. He tried to get up and run, but Zifa backhanded him to the ground.
"Don't kill him," Tafari ordered. "Someone has to carry the message."
Zifa nodded. Instead, he stepped on the boy's shin and broke the bone with a snap. The boy wept almost silently, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.
Grabbing the old man's head, Tafari squatted and held it in the terrified boy's face.
The boy closed his eyes, shivering in fear.
Tafari relished the fear. Fear was indelible. Once someone was marked by fear, that emotion left permanent scars. He reached out and slapped the boy's face. "Open your eyes," he screamed.
The boy tried to turn his head away. Zifa caught his head and forced it against the ground.
Slapping the boy again, Tafari said, "Open your eyes or I will kill you like I killed your grandfather."
The boy opened his eyes, almost convulsing in fright.
"I am Tafari. Tell everyone who did this to your grandfather. To your people. And to your village. Do you understand?"
The boy nodded.
"Say my name."
"Tafari."
"Good. Tell all that you talk to that they will not listen to Jaineba anymore. Tell them that they will not attack the refinery trucks and equipment anymore. Those things are now under my protection. Tell me that you understand."
"I understand."
"Then you may live." Tafari stood and nodded at Zifa.
Stepping back, Zifa yanked the boy to his feet. He stood awkwardly on his broken leg, lip trembling and eyes watering.
"Go," Tafari said. "Before I change my mind."
Limping, the boy made his way through the burning remnants of the village. He disappeared into the night.
"He might not live to see morning," Zifa said. "There are many creatures in the night."
Tafari caught movement from the corner of his eye. When he glanced up, he saw the pharaoh-eagle owl gliding above the treetops, skirting the flames that licked at the huts. He took heart in the omen of good fortune.
"If he does not," Tafari said, "the message will still be sent. These people will obey me."
Scanning the immediate area, Tafari found a pole about four feet long and used his machete to sharpen both ends. He thrust one end into the ground, then shoved the chief's head on top of the other end. The pole wavered for a moment, but held up under the weight.
Tafari stood back and admired his handiwork. Even if the boy died somewhere in the night, daybreak would still see his message written for all to see.
The sound of a roaring engine drew near.
Sheathing his machete, Tafari again drew the pistols. He stood waiting.
Four men rode in the jeep. They were from the communications camp and had been instructed to bring him word of the capture of the Spider Stone.
"The team failed," a slim warrior with an eye patch told Tafari.
"How?"
"They went after the woman. They thought she would be the easiest to capture. Instead, she killed three of them."
Tafari digested that. It wasn't easy. He hadn't expected the woman to be much of a problem. The way his nephew had explained what had happened in Georgia was that the police had intercepted them.
"She killed three men?" Tafari asked.
"Yes."
That put things in a different light. "What about the other archaeologist?"
"They never got to him."
Tafari waved the man away. Turning, he looked at the head mounted on the pole. It was a temporary setback. Nothing more. He wouldn't let it be anything more.
"Send more men," he told Zifa. "Tell them to kill the woman if they have to. I want the Spider Stone."
"It will be done."
Tafari gazed out across the carnage that remained of the village. The flames leaped high into the night sky, illuminating the face of the village chief. His adversaries didn't know whom they were dealing with, but he would show them.
Chapter 17
"They killed themselves?"
Seated on a chair outside her hotel room, Annja returned the Dakar police inspector's gaze. "Yes," she replied, keeping a straight face.
The inspector's name was Oumar Mbaye. Short and stout, he wore the khaki uniform and red beret of the local police. He was in his early forties and had served on the Senegalese police department for twenty of those years. He'd expressed that to Annja in an effort to keep her calm, and maybe to intimidate her a little.
Annja was calm, but she wasn't intimidated. The only thing that had unnerved her was the old woman who stood just down the hallway.
Lurked down the hallway, Annja thought irritably. That's definitely a lurk. She glanced at the woman standing there so patiently and calmly, as if she had all night. It was beginning to look as if Mbaye's investigation was going to take all night.
"They killed each other with knives?" Mbaye's eyebrows were raised in disbelief.
"Machetes," Annja corrected. "Those were machetes that I saw. Guns and machetes. If they had knives, I didn't see them."
"But they had guns!" Mbaye almost spluttered.
"I know they had guns. They shot at me with them."
"And they missed."
Annja thought about that for a moment. "Perhaps that's why they brought the machetes."
"Because they were such terrible shots with the guns?"
Annja gave him a winning smile. "That sounds good, don't you think?"
Mbaye frowned at her. "No, I don't think that sounds good. Not good at all."
"Do you have another explanation?"
Pointing a finger at her, Mbaye said, "You killed them."
"Why would I do that?"
"Because they were in your room."
"Just for clarification, we are in agreement that the hotel room those men are lying in is mine?"
Mbaye huffed.
"And the lock was tampered with?"
"Yes, yes, yes. All of that is true. But you can't go around killing people in Dakar, Miss Creed, no matter what the provocation."
Annja agreed. "But I didn't kill anybody," she said.
Mbaye sighed.
"What's he saying?" McIntosh stood at Annja's side. He didn't speak French so he was locked out of the conversation. "He's not happy. I can tell just from looking that he's not happy."
"He's not happy," Annja agreed.
&n
bsp; "Why isn't he happy? Are you telling him something you shouldn't be?" McIntosh had sent for a French interpreter from the embassy but no one had arrived yet.
"He has three dead men in my hotel room to explain," Annja replied. "That's a lot of explaining to do, even in Dakar."
The city was known as a crime capital and had a lot of trouble with student demonstrations. The American Embassy had issued warnings to American tourists not to gather near protesting students or in dangerous parts of the city.
"Are you cooperating?" McIntosh asked.
"He wants me to admit to killing those men."
McIntosh considered that. "Well, don't cooperate that much. I mean, if you killed those guys, don't tell him that."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"It's not like this would be your first time to kill somebody. You killed those guys back in Georgia."
Mbaye smiled broadly. Then he reached inside a pocket and brought out a cigarette pack and a lighter. He lit up and smiled again.
McIntosh leaned back against the wall with a look of helpless frustration. "He understands English, doesn't he?"
"Yes," Annja said.
McIntosh cursed.
"Well, now," Mbaye said in English, "it seems we're all in agreement that Miss Creed killed the men in her room."
"He speaks English pretty well, too, don't you think?" Annja asked McIntosh.
"Why didn't you tell him you only spoke English?" McIntosh griped.
"Because the police officer who first arrived on the scene couldn't speak English. He could only speak French and an African dialect that I couldn't speak. I didn't want to get shot, so I spoke to him in French."
"It's a shame for an educated person to hide the fact that he or she has an education," Mbaye observed. "We are living in enlightened times."
"Enlightened times don't include letting hired killers go after a hotel guest," McIntosh replied.
"Americans have made a lot of enemies overseas of late." Mbaye breathed smoke out. "We can't be held accountable for the enemies your country makes."
"This doesn't look like something my country is responsible for."
"Really?" Mbaye lifted his eyebrows. "Then what does this look like?"