by Alex Archer
It looked approximately eight feet lower than the summit of Mount Everest. It occurred to her, rather forcibly, that she’d never actually done this before.
“That’s the trouble with this whole sword of Joan of Arc thing,” she muttered. “It’s nothing but on-the-job training, all the time.”
She set off and, fit and agile, made it to the top without difficulty. She rolled over the railing onto the shadowed deck. Crouching, she took stock of her situation.
Ozymandias was an older carrier, elderly in fact, if Annja was any judge. Her experience and knowledge of full-sized ships, especially oceangoing craft, was largely restricted to watching them pass from the levees, up and down the Mississippi. But the ship showed obvious signs of aging—flaking paint and patches of roughness that hinted at much painted-over rust. It had a certain feel, a certain smell, as of layers of stale remnants of cargo and passengers and crew. Also the ship’s design struck her as outmoded. Its superstructure, which spanned the vessel from beam to beam, rose like an island amidship, instead of at the stern as was more common today. She was obviously designed to carry most of her cargo in the holds below decks, not riding stacked on the open deck, as many modern carriers did it.
Annja slipped forward. She was playing it by ear. Relatively small as Ozymandias was, it was still a cargo ship—a mostly empty one. There were likely to be plenty of shadowed, little-frequented places to hide out. With her light pack stuffed with bottled water and beef jerky, she knew she could survive for days. The ship was probably nearing its destination anyway. Hevelin and Sharshak had played it cagey as to who their opponents had been, but she suspected they probably hailed from Indonesia, Malaysia or the Philippines themselves.
Of course, the odds were she’d be caught, and sooner rather than later. She had plans for that contingency, too.
What she didn’t see herself as having was a choice.
Several yards ahead she saw a hatch cover. She crept up to it, tried the handle. It lifted.
She opened the hatch. Blackness lay below. She risked a quick flash from a penlight she carried in her right hand. The intense but localized LED gleam showed steel rungs leading down into indeterminate darkness. The warm heavy air that wafted up into her face smelled musty and vaguely oily. Slipping the light into her pocket, she got onto the ladder and climbed carefully down.
A tentatively extended corrugated rubber sole touched bare metal deck. Annja relaxed slightly. She’d had no way of knowing in advance whether it would be awash with unspeakably nasty bilge water. It wasn’t.
She got both feet down and turned away from the ladder. She reached for her shirt pocket again. She’d need the light to risk moving in the hold. It was black as the inside of a giant animal’s belly.
A sudden blue-white light stabbed into her eyes, jacklighting her like a deer.
THE LIEUTENANT, who had introduced himself as Mahmoud, looked at Annja across the table in the little galley with his smooth-skinned forehead rumpled in a frown more of puzzlement than anger. He was relatively tall, not much shorter than Annja, with large brown eyes and a bald spot blazing a trail through the curly black hair on his head. He wore a khaki uniform without badges of rank or nationality.
“Why do you spy on us, Ms. Creed?” he asked in English. They had relieved her of her possessions, including her passport. Mahmoud had it on the table before him. He tapped its jacket with his fingertips.
She could imagine Roux sighing exaggeratedly and rolling his eyes. Americans! she could hear him say in exasperation. Must you always lead with your chins? Discretion is not a four-letter word, you know!
“I’m not a spy,” she said, leaning forward and looking the lieutenant in the eye. “I’m an archaeologist.”
“We know,” said a commando who stood behind her. He was one of the squad who had apprehended her in the hold. “I am a very big fan of Chasing History’s Monsters on the satellite. Might I have your autograph later?”
Annja raised an eyebrow. “If you were planning on intimidating me, it looks as if you just weakened your cause, there,” she said.
Mahmoud sighed. “Bima, restrain your enthusiasm. These men really are professionals, Ms. Creed, no matter how starstruck some of the younger ones may be. Now, what might your being an archaeologist have to do with your sneaking aboard our vessel? Is trespassing a usual part of the repertoire of the archaeologist?”
She smiled thinly. “Sometimes the circumstances call for extreme measures,” she said. “Such as when we learn of illegal trafficking in stolen antiquities.”
That caused a murmur among the half-dozen commandos in the galley with the lieutenant and her. Evidently they all understood English. Or at least, several of them did, and were translating for the others.
Mahmoud leaned back. “Why do you suggest we are doing such a thing?”
“You have on board a crate,” she said. “A large crate of yellow pine wood. It contains a metal coffin. The coffin and its contents may be a relic discovered in the Holy Land some eight centuries ago. That’s one of the things I’m determined to find out.”
He stared. “What leads you to believe we carry any such thing?”
She took a chance. “I saw you bring it aboard this vessel from the island of Le Rêve, after a very nasty firefight.”
“You were there?” He seemed thunderstruck.
“That airplane!” another commando exclaimed. “The strange aircraft with propellers in front and back that touched down briefly toward the end. She must have come in on that.”
“But the aircraft didn’t land,” someone else said.
She shrugged. She tried to make it look more casual than she felt. She was still far from sure what payoff her gamble would receive. She dared not betray any uncertainty. That could guarantee disaster.
“I was on a cruise liner when it was hijacked off the coast of the Netherlands Antilles last week,” she said. Mahmoud blinked his big mahogany eyes at the apparent non sequitur but said nothing. “Innocent lives were put at risk. Lives were lost—fortunately, only those of some hijackers. But it was all a ruse, meant to cover the theft of the coffin now in your ship’s cargo hold.”
She heard multiple intakes of breath around her in the half-lit galley. It was close and smelled of old coffee grounds and some strong cleanser. And sweat.
“Since then the crate has left behind it quite a trail of dead bodies. That in itself has kept me in pursuit of it.”
“Exactly what is your intention in relation to this relic?” the lieutenant asked.
“As an archaeologist, it’s my professional responsibility to do whatever I can to ensure the relic is returned to its rightful owners.”
“A laudable aim,” Mahmoud said. “But whom might these rightful owners be?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know yet. I don’t even know for sure what the relic is. It will require investigation, once I’ve determined the nature of the artifact, and gleaned what clues I can about its origin.”
She hesitated. “The Knights of the Risen Savior claim to be the rightful owners.”
She heard someone hiss. “Dangerous fanatics,” a commando said in distaste.
“Do you not know that these Knights you speak of consider themselves modern-day Crusaders who believe the time is overdue for Jesus to judge the world in fire?” Mahmoud asked. “And who do their best to bring it about? They would use the relic to bring down Armageddon on us all.”
She looked at him hard. He seemed sincere.
“That doesn’t square with my experience of the Knights,” she said. “For that matter, your actions don’t bear much resemblance to the claims the Knights made about you. They say you’re the dangerous fanatics, Islamists who intend to use the relic to further your jihad.”
Mahmoud drew his head back. “Islamists? We are Muslims. That is true. But fanatics—no. In fact, as soldiers it is our primary mission to fight against Islamists. Our nation is torn by a brutal insurrection, led by madmen who call themselves Sword of the Fait
h. They hate and fear our Sultan Wira for his reforms.”
Annja tried to digest all that. “Has anyone considered that there might be a legitimate misunderstanding going on here?” she asked.
Mahmoud looked at her a moment in return. He shook his head.
“In any event we might argue in turn that the artifact was stolen from Islam. And that we might return it to our brothers, the real rightful owners. In fact such decisions are not ours to make. Our duty is to return the relic to our homeland. And to keep it from the hands of any and all irresponsible parties.”
He leaned forward onto his elbows. “Now, tell me, please. What made you think you could escape discovery?”
“What makes you think I thought I could?” she said.
“Wouldn’t it be polite to let me ask the questions, Ms. Creed? You sneaked over our stern railing like a common thief. Didn’t you think we would be on our guard?”
She shrugged. “I hoped you wouldn’t be. But it wasn’t vital to my plans.”
“Oh, no? Weren’t you afraid of the consequences of being discovered?”
“No,” she said with more confidence than she actually felt.
“Why not? Weren’t you afraid we might be terrorists, as your friends the Knights told you? Or at least ruthless enough to slit your throat and drop you overboard?”
“No,” she said. “I saw how you treated the Knights who surrendered to you on Le Rêve. You behaved like civilized men. Chivalrous, even. And the Knights are not my friends, by the way. They contacted me to ask me to help them get the coffin back.”
“Did they, now?” She felt a certain tension come into the room. “And what did you tell them?”
“What I told you—that I would do whatever I could to see the relic in the hands of the rightful owners. Whomever they turn out to be.”
Mahmoud sat back. He looked around at his men, who seemed to be very carefully keeping their dark faces impassive.
“Ms. Creed,” he said, shaking his head, “you are a remarkable woman.”
“Tell my producers,” she said. “Maybe they’ll give me a raise.”
She felt, more than heard, an almost subliminal rumble. Vibration rattled through the deck, up through the soles of her walking shoes and her tailbone on the chair. She sensed motion.
“Hey!” she exclaimed. “We’re getting under way!”
“Yes,” Mahmoud said. “We have completed repairs on our engine. We’ve an appointment to keep.”
He stood. “Bima, find a cabin to secure Ms. Creed in until we are well out to sea. And best make it a comfortable one. Otherwise you’ll have no chance of ever getting your autograph.”
“What are you going to do with me?” Annja asked.
“Turn you loose,” Mahmoud said, “as soon as we land. Until that time, we want to keep you out of further mischief.”
Then with a smile he said, “It’s gratifying to be able to surprise you for a change, Ms. Creed. I hope you will enjoy your journey to the Sultanate of Rimba Perak.”
TRUE TO THE lieutenant’s word, the door to her cabin was unlocked several hours later. At the slight metallic sound she snapped awake where she lay on her bunk, fully clothed atop the taut blanket. Just in case.
She waited tensely in the dark. The door did not open.
She rose, walked to the door, listened. She heard nothing. She yanked the door open.
The gangway outside was lit by dim and dingy bulbs. It was empty.
Annja stood a moment, looking up and down the corridor. Then she turned and went back into the cabin, closing the door behind her. She stripped to her panties, put on a T-shirt from her pack and got into the bed. She fell at once into a deep untroubled sleep.
ALMOST ANTICLIMACTICALLY, the Rimba Perak commandos proved as good as their word. The next morning was overcast, with squalls walking all around the ship and sometimes swirling them in sheets of rain. Her door remained unlocked. No one tried to stop her going up on deck.
A guard in a rain slicker paced the deck with an assault rifle. He nodded and greeted Annja politely. She returned the greeting.
She found the galley empty. The larder was amply, if not particularly imaginatively supplied. She made herself a breakfast of sorts out of ramen noodles heated in the microwave and corned beef from a can. It would never be a favorite, but it wasn’t rotten and it wasn’t moving. She was hungry, and ate with her usual appetite.
She spent the day exercising, which seemed to intrigue the commandos, and talking with them. They were surprised but pleased when she showed interest in their weapons. The rifles were called SAR-21s, 5.56 mm NATO weapons made by Singapore Technologies Kinetics. The machine guns also came from ST Kinetics, also in 5.56 mm. They were called Ultimax 100, after the hundred-round box magazines they used. The commandos seemed especially fascinated at how knowledgeably Annja handled the firearms, although she had never seen these particular designs before.
She was with a half dozen of the commandos, sheltering from the wind and spray on the aft deck close behind the superstructure. “We buy much of our equipment from Singapore,” said Bima, who seemed to have appointed himself her guide and watchdog. He had been absurdly pleased when she’d signed the promised autograph for him after he showed her to her cabin the night before. “It is very good. Most modern.”
He had a cheerful-puppy air to him. His eager youth reminded her of the American-born Knight, Sharshak, although Sharshak was a good deal more earnest. She harbored a vagrant wish the two might meet each other.
Maybe each one would see the other isn’t really an ogre after all, she thought.
“What about the swords?” she asked.
They looked at one another nervously. Then Bima unslung his scabbarded weapon from his back. Holding the scabbard, he presented its curved hilt to her. Slipping her fingers inside the slim knuckle-bow, she drew it out.
A curved weapon with a single edge, it resembled a scimitar. The blade, about two feet in length, widened steadily from guard to angled tip. Its balance was clearly intended for slashing. To her surprise the hilt was neoprene. The sword felt good to Annja’s experienced hand.
“It is the parang nabur,” Bima said. “It is the traditional weapon for Borneo.” Borneo, she had learned, was the island where the Sultanate of Rimba Perak was located. The Sultanate had broken away from Indonesia about a decade before.
She turned the weapon in her hand, then rolled her wrists, doing a slow-motion sort of figure-eight pattern favored for stick or sword play. The small, hard, smooth-faced men looked on with wide, appreciative eyes.
“A fine weapon,” she said. “A weapon for a warrior.” She slipped it back into the scabbard, still held in Bima’s hand, at a single smooth try.
“Ee!” the commandos cried. They grinned and laughed and slapped him on the back.
SHE ATE DINNER with several of the men, including Mahmoud and the inevitable Bima. Mahmoud told her he had a wife and two daughters. He wanted to take them to Disneyland in California. He was a pleasant, if somewhat harried, man in his early thirties. The commandos treated him with affectionate respect, but without much conventional military rigmarole.
From the ex-SAS man who had first taught her combat pistol craft, Annja had learned that was frequently the way of elite soldiers—they were easygoing, almost lax, behind the lines, but razor-sharp in battle. She had seen as much in her own later observations. She hadn’t had opportunity to confirm or deny his flip-side contention, that all too often soldiers who looked sharp in barracks and on the parade-ground proved limp in combat.
After they had finished a meal—much better than her self-made breakfast—of steamed fish and rice, with peanut sauce and fierce red chiles, prepared by one of their number, Annja entertained them with stories about shooting Chasing History’s Monsters in exotic locales. She excused herself early and went to bed.
She was surprisingly tired, given how little she had done. But she’d had a tense couple of weeks. The enforced ocean cruise—that seemed to be a
theme in her life, these days—actually gave her a welcome respite. It took her no time to fall into a comfortable sleep.
IT SEEMED SHE had just closed her eyes when a pounding at her door awakened her.
“Annja!” a muffled voice shouted through the door. “Ms. Creed!” It was Bima’s voice.
She clicked on the light. Pausing to pull on clothes and walking shoes, she went and opened the door.
The young commando stood in the gangway holding his SAR-21 by the pistol grip. His eyes were wild.
“Annja Creed, you must come with me. We are under atta—”
From down the corridor to her left a burst of gunfire erupted in noise and flickering light.
17
Bima grunted and sagged against Annja. Her left arm went around him. She felt wetness on her palm on his back.
She pulled him quickly into her small cabin, sat him gently on the deck, then lowered him to his back. He resisted briefly when she tried to pull the rifle away from him. She twisted it free, took hold of the pistol grip herself. She snapped off the safety as her new friends had shown her how that afternoon.
A man appeared in the door. He was smaller even than Bima and wore a dirty yellow rag tied around his head. He held a Kalashnikov leveled from the hip.
Instinctively she fired a burst into his chest. He fell over backward.
Holding the SAR-21 toward the open door she quickly knelt to examine Bima. The lower left front of his khaki uniform was maroon with blood. She guessed the slug had hit him in the lower back on that side and punched out through his belly. The good news was there was a distinct, small hole visible in the blood-soaked cloth. The bullet hadn’t tumbled through his viscera like a miniature circular saw.
If it had nicked his kidney, he’d probably be dead before he could get any kind of treatment that would do him any good. If it hadn’t, and if he was very lucky, he might not bleed to death.