Rogue Angel 55: Beneath Still Waters

by Alex Archer

  Present Day

  With her heart pounding, Annja Creed stood balanced precariously on the edge of the cliff and stared at the gleaming water far below her.

  She could hear the shouts of those following her up the tunnel through the rocks and knew that they would catch up to her soon. She didn’t want to be here when they did. She had just a few minutes at best to decide what she was going to do.

  Not that I have all that many options, she thought. She couldn’t turn back; doing so would only bring her face-to-face with those coming up behind her, and there was no way she would be able to get through them in the narrow confines of the tunnel. Nor could she stay where she was, for the ledge was narrow and there would be no room for her once the others arrived. Their sheer numbers alone would force her over the edge.

  She glanced over the side of the cliff again; it certainly seemed like a long way down.

  Did she really want to do this?

  The voices were closer now, so close that they had to be just around the last bend in the tunnel. She knew that she had run out of time.

  Annja had to make a decision, and she had to make it now.

  Do or die, she thought. Paul did it. So can you.

  She glanced once more toward the water below her, crossed her fingers in the universal plea for good luck and, taking a deep breath, stepped off the edge just as the others emerged from the rocky tunnel.

  Annja’s stomach jumped into her throat as she plunged toward the water, but at the same time she felt the thrill of doing something she’d never done before rush through her frame. It wasn’t every day that she leapt off a fifty-foot cliff into the ocean below, and she relished the feeling of being so alive in the midst of that moment, even as she dropped like a stone. As the surface of the water loomed nearer, she pulled her legs together, pointed her feet downward and pressed her hands flat against her bare thighs, tucking her arms against her torso. By the time she hit the water, she was perfectly aligned to strike the surface and she did so with barely a splash, cleaving the water and disappearing into its depths as if she was born to be there.

  The crystal blue water was warm and inviting, and she felt invigorated by its touch. She let the fall carry her down until she began to slow, then with powerful kicks and strokes of her arms she headed back toward the sunlight above. When she broke the surface of the water she found her companion and new love interest, journalist and photographer Paul Krugmann, treading water nearby and waiting for her.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “We have to do that again!” she said, and his smile matched her own.

  They were in Jamaica, cliff diving at the world-famous limestone cliffs on Negril’s west side. They had had lunch at Rick’s, a cliff-side café that gave them a good view of the divers nearby, and a short time later had decided to try the jump themselves. Neither was a stranger to taking risks. If the locals could handle it, so could they.

  It turned out to be just as exciting and entertaining as they’d thought it would be. They made three more jumps together, each one as exhilarating as the last, before their dive “instructor” waved them aboard the waiting boat for the short ride back to their beachside resort on the other side of the island. Paul was in Jamaica on business, sent there to do a photo montage piece on the resort where they were staying. He’d asked her to join him, saying they’d make a holiday of it, and she’d agreed. It had sounded as if it would be fun, and that was something she was sorely in need of.

  Annja had just gotten back from a trip to Europe on behalf of Chasing History’s Monsters, the cable television show she co-hosted each week. The show focused on the point where history intersected with myth and legend, and had taken her all over the world as its status as a cult favorite among the intended audience grew. Annja wasn’t as popular as the show’s other host, Kristie Chatham—for she tended to be more serious, focusing on the historical and scientific issues behind each episode’s central theme, never mind that Annja had fewer “surprise” wardrobe malfunctions while filming—but that was just fine with her. She’d worked too hard to build her reputation to throw it away for ratings and other such nonsense, much to the continued disappointment of her producer, Doug Morrell.

  Chasing History’s Monsters had Annja on the road quite a bit during any given year, but she could live with that. She made use of the time on location to pursue her other major passion, archaeology. Just as her reputation as a television host had grown over the past few years, so, too, had her success as an archaeologist.

  She’d made some startling discoveries over the past few years, some so amazing that she had been forced to keep news of them to herself. Those that she could talk about had cemented her reputation as both an adventurer and a scholar. She’d developed a network of museum contacts the world over as a result and was often called in to assess the provenance and authenticity of items the museums had recently acquired or was intending to purchase. More than once she’d saved a museum director from falling victim to a clever forgery, and the good will she’d generated had come back to her twofold.

  But all work and no play made Annja very cranky, especially given her other, more esoteric duties as bearer of Joan of Arc’s sword, and she’d impulsively agreed to accompany Paul to the Caribbean.

  She and Paul had been dating for the past six months or so, which might not be much for him but was the longest stretch of time for any relationship she could remember in, well, forever it seemed. So far, things had been light and easy, which was probably the very reason it had been going so well. Annja’s job could take her away at a moment’s notice for weeks at a time, something few of her former boyfriends understood or wanted to deal with, but Paul was different. He lived the same sort of life, traveling at the whim of the clients who paid for his journalistic services, so he wasn’t the type who would begrudge her the time away when work came calling.

  Annja glanced over at him as the boat chugged toward the resort, admiring his sun-bleached hair and rugged good looks. He had a strong but wiry build and was deeply tanned from spending so much of his time outdoors. He wasn’t hard on the eyes, which didn’t hurt any, and so far had been both thoughtful and considerate in their time together.

  Who knew? Maybe she’d found one worth keeping this time around.

  She laughed aloud at the thought and, hearing her, Paul looked over and grinned in return.

  Yep. So far, so good.

  The boat took them around the island and up to the long wooden dock that stretched into the bay in front of the resort. They disembarked with the rest of the passengers, followed the group down the length of the dock to the shore, and then headed up the beach toward the entrance to the hotel. Annja’s long hair and slim, athletic, bikini-clad body caught the attention of more than a few of the men on the beach, but she barely noticed. She was used to people appreciating her for her beauty or simply recognizing her from the show, so being the focus of attention wasn’t all that novel anymore. In fact, sometimes it could be a real pain in the butt.

  They entered the lobby, the cool stone floor beneath their bare feet a welcome respite from the hot sun outside, and headed for the elevator. Once inside, Paul punched the buttons for the fourth and fifth floors, where their respective rooms were. Annja liked the fact that when planning the trip Paul hadn’t automatically assumed they would share a room, even though they were romantically attached. It was one of the things she appreciated about him—his willingness to give her room and let her take things at her own pace.

  As the numbers on the floor panel ticked upward, Paul turned to her and said, “An hour to rest and change and then dinner?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  The elevator stopped at his floor. As the doors opened he gave her a quick kiss and then stepped out into the hall as Annja continued upward.

  Paul had gotten her an oversized corner suite with an incredible ocean view. After arriving, she stood in front of the window for a short while, simply admiring the scenery, and then turned and
headed for the bathroom.

  Annja slipped out of her bathing suit and stepped into the shower, washing the salt from her skin and hair before getting out and toweling herself dry. She had just started brushing out her long hair when her cell phone rang.

  Thinking it was Paul, she snatched it up without looking at the number.

  Answering it, she said, “Don’t tell me you’re canceling dinner…”

  “Annja, get me out of here! He’s a freakin’ maniac and I can’t…”

  The connection was abruptly cut while the speaker was in midsentence, but she’d recognized the voice immediately. It would have been hard for her not to, for she’d heard it practically every day of her professional career for several years.

  It had been the voice of her producer in New York and the man behind the runaway success of Chasing History’s Monsters, Doug Morrell.

  She pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it, as if it might suddenly impart the necessary information for her to understand just what the heck was going on. She could feel her heart rate rising, the blood rushing through her veins in anticipation of what might come, and her hand itched to call her sword to her side.

  She found it funny that her body reacted to the situation as if there was real danger when intellectually she recognized it for what it was—one of Doug’s crazy little stunts to get her to call him while she was on vacation.

  He’d called and left messages several times over the past few days, begging her to call him in New York, but so far she’d managed to ignore them. She was on vacation, after all, and there wasn’t anything urgent enough on her current schedule to justify his pulling her away from that.

  He, of course, thought differently. In his early twenties, Doug ate, slept and breathed the program and its success. Nothing was more important to him than its continued success, and he’d been known to chase her down in the far corners of the globe to get answers to tiny little questions that weren’t important and could wait to be answered, if answering was necessary at all, when she returned from her time off.

  This was no doubt one of his more esoteric attempts to get her attention.

  Calling was one thing. Trying to scare her out of her wits with some crazy scheme was another.

  She knew of one way to put an end to that, at least.

  She checked her cell phone’s call log and found the number that the call had come in from. She didn’t recognize it as his cell number or his office phone, but that didn’t mean anything; Doug could have used someone else’s phone.

  Ignoring the faint feather of unease that was starting to unfurl in her gut, Annja hit redial.

  It rang once, twice and then was answered on the third ring.

  Annja didn’t give Doug a chance to say anything.

  “Listen up, Doug, because I’m only going to say this once. I. Am. On. Vacation. I can deal with the decisions about the show when I return, which will only be in a few days, so chill out with the sick jokes! Understood?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, and then a voice said, “This isn’t a joke.”

  It didn’t sound like Doug.

  The voice was too deep, too guttural. Doug also talked a mile a minute, and this guy was calm, rational, his speech seemed carefully measured even in so short a response.

  That’s what he wants you to think, she told herself, but don’t fall for it. It’s Doug. It has to be.

  She knew that he could have disguised his voice quite easily with the help of a voice modulator purchased from any halfway-decent electronics store. In fact, she thought she heard the slight echo behind his words that indicated that such a device was being used.

  The speaker wasn’t finished.

  “Do not attempt to trace this call. The signal has been scrambled through more countries than I can count. Just listen.”

  Trace the call?

  “I have your friend Doug. If you do as I ask, he will be returned to his home in good health. On the other hand, if you don’t do precisely what I ask, then you will never see him again. Rest assured, though, that if that happens, I will make certain that he suffers considerably before I kill him. Do we understand each other?”

  Annja felt the hairs on the back of her neck and arms stand at attention as the threat was delivered calmly and succinctly.

  It certainly sounded convincing.

  “Cut the crap. I know it’s you, Doug. You can’t fool me.”

  The voice chuckled. “Apparently, I can, because this is not Doug.”

  The chuckle caused Annja’s irritation, already smoldering, to grow into an open fire.

  “You’re not Doug, huh? Well, we’ll see about that.”

  Annja pulled the phone away from her ear and hit the disconnect button. She waited a beat and then immediately dialed Doug’s cell phone from memory.

  The phone rang and rang and rang.

  No answer.

  That flicker of unease she’d felt earlier came back and began threading its way up her spine like a snake moving through tall grass.

  Frowning, Annja tried again, this time calling Doug at his apartment in Brooklyn.

  No answer there, either.

  Of course not, dummy, she berated herself. He’s at the office, just as you thought. Try there.

  She did as her subconscious bid her, calling Doug’s office line and cursing herself for not doing that in the first place.

  The phone began ringing.

  Come on, come on, pick it up, she urged.

  His voice mail kicked in after the fifth ring.

  Now Annja was starting to worry. Doug was almost never out of contact; he even took his cell phone into the bathroom with him. The fact that she couldn’t reach him anywhere was starting to feel suspicious.

  He’s just on the other line, she told herself. Give him a minute and call him back.

  She did so, and this time the phone was answered on the third ring.

  “Doug! Thank heavens!”

  But it wasn’t him.

  “Annja?” a female voice asked tentatively.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Karen, Doug’s assistant.”

  Of course. Now that he had an assistant he was apparently too important to answer his own phone.

  “I need to speak to Doug, Karen. Is he in?”

  “No. I haven’t seen him since you left for vacation,” she said.

  What? Three days? Maybe longer?

  “Do you know where he is?” Annja asked.

  With a sudden feeling of dread, she knew what the answer was going to be before it even came out of Karen’s mouth.

  “No. That’s why I’m so glad you called. I was hoping you could help me find him.”

  It was a bad sign that Karen didn’t know where Doug was.

  A really bad sign.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go,” she told Karen, hanging up the phone before the other woman could say anything more and fighting the sense of panic that was quickly filling her as she frantically dialed the original number.

  Just as before, it rang three times and then was answered.

  “I’m listening,” Annja told the person on the other end.

  Chapter 4

  “Perhaps now you will take me seriously, yes?”

  Annja did her best to hang on to her temper. When she got scared, she had a tendency to get irritated and if this guy really had Doug she didn’t want to tick him off by blowing her cool.

  “Where’s Doug? What have you done to him?”

  “Done? I haven’t done anything,” the person said. “Yet.”

  It was just one word, but it had the power to freeze her blood in her veins.

  The kidnapper went on. “I have simply persuaded Mr. Morrell that it was in his best interests to get in touch with you to convey my desire to discuss a business arrangement. He had initially declined my request, but very quickly saw the error of his ways. I hear that you are on vacation. Are you enjoying Jamaica?”

  Annja sensed that time was
of the essence, and she had no interest in bantering with this guy. She ignored his question about Jamaica, choosing instead to demand, “Who are you and what do you want?”

  “Morrell was right about your temper, I see,” the man said, infuriating Annja even further. She didn’t like the position she was in, with all of the control in the kidnapper’s hands, but there was nothing she could do until she knew what he wanted. For now, she was going to have to grin and bear it, something she wasn’t very good at doing.

  Her right hand reached into thin air and plucked a broadsword seemingly out of nowhere. The blade had once belonged to Joan of Arc, had, in fact, been broken asunder on the day and hour of her execution. More than five hundred years later it had been miraculously re-formed in Annja’s presence and she had become the blade’s current bearer.

  The sword could appear or disappear at her will, and when she wasn’t using it, it rested in a mystical place just outside the bounds of reality that she called the otherwhere. It could not be taken from her against her will and over the years had seemed to impart some extra bit of strength, dexterity and speed to her physical movements when the situation demanded it. She had become an expert in its use and, quite literally, didn’t go anywhere without it.

  Having the blade in hand helped calm her and kept her from raging at the maniac who had snatched one of her friends. He didn’t know it yet, whoever he was, but having her as an enemy was not a good thing.

  “Let me worry about my temper,” she told the man, “and you can tell me what it is that you want. Clearly there’s something you need me to do, otherwise you wouldn’t have gone through the hassle of kidnapping my television producer.”

  “You are as perceptive as your reputation suggests, Miss Creed. That bodes well for your ability to carry out my requests.”

  Annja didn’t like the “s” on the end of that word, for it suggested the caller had multiple things for her to do in order to free Doug, but she kept her mouth shut and waited for him to continue.

  “There is a package waiting for you at the front desk. Retrieve it but do not open it until you are back in your room. When you have examined what is inside, call me back at the number I’m giving you.”