Rogue Angel 55: Beneath Still Waters

by Alex Archer

  “Here, drink this,” a voice said, and a glass of water was placed against her lips.

  Suddenly realizing how thirsty she was, Annja tried to guzzle it down.

  “Easy, easy now,” the voice said, pulling the glass away. “Those tranqs play havoc on a person’s stomach. You don’t want to be spitting it all up again right away.”

  She turned her head to see Garin standing there with the glass of water.

  “More?”

  “Please,” she croaked.

  He gave her some and then let her take the glass herself.

  Annja looked around, saw Doug sitting on a couch nearby and asked, “Where are we?”

  “Locked up in a stateroom aboard Krugmann’s yacht. Son of a gun is probably as rich as I am, given the size of this thing.”

  “He wants more than the gold we already found for him.”

  Garin leaned in so that Doug couldn’t overhear. “I can guess. He wants the sword, too.”

  “Yeah. Well, he can’t have it.”

  No one was taking that sword away from her while she was still alive, that was for sure.

  “So he noticed. He thought he had you dead to rights in that closet, what with you standing there sword in hand and everything. As soon as those tranqs hit your system though, the sword vanished right in front of him as if it had never been there. Boy, was he angry.”

  Garin smiled at the memory.

  “Good,” Annja said. “Serves him right.”

  Garin walked away to stare out the window at Wolf Island. “Yes and no. Good because he doesn’t have the sword yet. Bad because he’s unlikely to give up until he gets it.”

  “We’ll just have to disabuse him of that notion, won’t we?”

  Garin nodded, but didn’t say anything more.

  When Annja felt a little better, she went over and talked to Doug a bit, asking how he was feeling and if he wanted to talk about what had happened. None of the story was particularly original as it turned out.

  He’d been heading to where he’d parked his car down the street from his office when a plain white van pulled up and asked if he could help with directions. Doug had stopped, the doors to the van opened and he’d found himself being hustled inside before he could even call for help. His captors had kept him in a safe house for a few days and then flown him halfway around the world, where they had finally boarded the boat to come here.

  That was all he’d seen or heard until his kidnapper had busted in a few hours ago, talking about a magical sword and what he could do if he had it in his control. Then he questioned Doug about it. Doug was punched around a bit when he told the man that he had no idea what he was talking about. That’s when his captor had mentioned Annja’s name and locked Doug in the storage closet, believing she would come for him.

  Which, as it turned out, he was right about.

  Now they were all stuck.

  “We’re not stuck. Trust me on that one,” she told him, approaching the door and trying the handle.

  Locked, as Garin had said.

  But she wasn’t Garin.

  “Hey!” she shouted, startling the other two in the room. “I want to talk with Krugmann!”

  She kept it up for five minutes until someone came to the door, told her to pipe down and promised that he’d tell the boss that she wanted to talk.

  Not too long after that the door was unlocked and a pair of guards stood outside. One pointed at Annja and said, “You, out. The major wants to see you.”

  “Now, hold on,” Garin began, stepping in front of Annja and blocking the way. “She’s not going anywhere alone.”

  The guards laughed. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing for us that he wants all of you, then.”

  Garin nodded as if he’d gotten them to change their plans and followed Annja and Doug out the door.

  The guards took them up another level and out to the bow, where there was a large open area that was sometimes used as a tennis court and sometimes as Krugmann’s personal training and practice area.

  Krugmann was there, dressed in a white fencing suit, a blade in his hand. Schnell was there as well, sitting in the shade under a sun umbrella, a fruity-looking drink in his hand. He was still dressed in his ancient SS uniform, with his foot bandaged, and looking decidedly out of place on the modern ship.

  The guards dragged Garin and Doug over to some folding chairs on the other side of the training area, and pushed Annja out in the center where Krugmann was.

  “Annja,” Paul said with a smile. “How good of you to join us.”

  “Whatever, Krugmann. I’m not in the mood for your games.”

  Paul chuckled. “Oh, but what fun those games have been these past few weeks. I must say, seeing you in action tonight was even more amazing than I imagined. I mean that with all sincerity. I stuck around, you know, to watch the fight with my men. You cannot imagine my complete surprise when that sword appeared from thin air.”

  Annja didn’t say anything.

  That didn’t seem to matter to Paul, who apparently wanted to gloat about how he had manipulated her.

  “I had heard the rumors that you had an almost mystical way of finding lost cities and hidden treasures. But I must admit I was more than a bit skeptical that you could pull it off. I needed to be sure that you had just the right motivation to keep pushing you forward.”

  Paul smirked. “That’s where I ran into some problems, you see. You don’t have any family. Don’t have any friends, either, not real ones. No one that I could snatch off the street and threaten in order to get you to do what needed to be done. No one except that pathetic individual seated over there.”

  He pointed to Doug.

  “I didn’t think it would work. Why would she care about him? I asked myself, and all of my answers were lacking. But I went through with the plan anyway. If it didn’t work, I knew I could always fall back on threatening a child or, even better, a whole school of them, to get you to cooperate.

  “But to my utter surprise my plan worked even better than I thought possible. You were like a mother bear protecting her cubs. And the way you went after the task at hand? Such focus! Such dedication! I applaud you.”

  And he did too, putting his épée under his arm and giving a couple of little claps in her direction.

  “How’d you do it?” Annja asked. It was the one question she wanted an answer to. She thought she knew how it was done, but she didn’t want to guess, she wanted answers.

  “Do what, exactly?”

  “Make the calls to me when you were sitting right there beside me the whole time. It wasn’t you, was it? Just one of your flunkies?”

  “Oh, the first time it was me, all right. After our afternoon escapade you wanted to clean up before dinner and that gave me plenty of time to make the call once I knew my team had picked up the bait back in New York. The sound of your voice when you realized it was all true…”

  Annja took a step toward him, her anger burning red hot.

  He eyed her from his standing position and suddenly she knew that was exactly what he wanted, for her to call the sword and attack. He stood on the balls of his feet, practically vibrating with anticipation.

  She stopped and threw out another question to distract him.

  “And the diver in the Alps? Was that you, too?”

  “No, someone I hired to do the job. I thought I might be able to continue from there on my own but, as it happened, that wasn’t the case and I was actually quite pleased it worked out that way after all.”

  Annja nodded. That was what she had expected.

  “And the night of the storm? You were signaling this boat, weren’t you?”

  She remembered the dark shape that she’d thought she saw gliding by in the midst of the storm. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but now, in hindsight…

  “That was my one mistake,” Krugmann admitted. “As you suspect, I was out on deck, signaling my team, when that stupid boom swung free and knocked me right off the boat. I found
it deliciously ironic later to think that if it hadn’t been for you and Garin, I would have drowned before finding the island. Fortunate that you both were there, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Annja answered dryly. “Very fortunate.”

  “So here we are at last,” Paul said. “At the end of our journey together.”

  “Is it now?” Annja said.

  Paul smiled, but there was nothing friendly in the expression. “I want that sword.”

  Annja didn’t bother to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. He’d seen. Once that particular secret was out of the bag there was no stuffing it back in again.

  “You can’t have it.”

  “Even if it costs your two friends over there their lives?”

  Annja didn’t blink. “Even then.”

  There was no way she was giving up the sword to a monster like the one standing in front of her. Garin knew that. Doug, well, she’d done what she could. Almost made it, too.

  Krugmann snapped his fingers and the guards pulled out their guns and pointed them at Garin’s and Doug’s heads.

  Garin didn’t say anything but Doug shot a tremulous, “Annja? What’s going on?” in her direction.

  She didn’t even look.

  Paul eyed her for several long minutes and then waved his hand again.

  The guns were withdrawn.

  “You really would sacrifice your friends to keep that blade from me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “It must be some special blade.”

  “It is.”

  Again, there was no use denying it.

  Paul sauntered over.

  “May I see it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not a toy to be trifled with.”

  He laughed. “Come, come, let’s at least be honest with each other, Annja. You used the sword to pop the lock on a linen closet. If that’s not trifling with it, then I don’t know what is.”

  “That was my using the sword to save the life of an innocent. That is never a trifling matter.”

  “Hmph.”

  Paul walked around her, watching her, enjoying his power over her. Annja knew that was what he was doing so she stayed perfectly still, not letting him rile her a second time.

  Eventually he’d grow tired of his game.

  It didn’t take long.

  “I’ll tell you what. I propose a little contest. Just you and me. The stakes will be your lives.”

  Here it comes, she thought. Wait for it. Let him think it is his idea.

  “Yes, let’s you and me have a little contest. Your swordmanship against mine. Winner takes all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “If I beat you, you relinquish the sword to me. If you beat me, I let the three of you go free.”

  Annja couldn’t lose, not really. Besting Paul would mean another threat to the world eliminated. If she herself was bested, the sword would vanish back into the otherwhere, never to be drawn again.

  Or, at least, she thought that was the case.

  So don’t lose, her inner voice told her.

  Good advice. It isn’t as if she had a choice, anyway. Not really.

  “Agreed.”

  Paul chortled, long and lustily. “At last we get to the good stuff,” he said with glee.

  Chapter 36

  Annja turned her back, and when she turned around again she had her sword in hand.

  Paul’s eyes widened, as did those of the aged Nazi seated behind him.

  That’s another snake that needs dealing with, she thought. But for now she’d take them one at a time.

  Paul snapped his fingers, and one of his flunkies walked over with a custom-made sword case. He laid it on the table, undid the clasps and opened it. He stepped back out of the way once he had done so.

  Paul walked over and drew a gleaming katana from within the case. He swished it through the air a few times, getting a feel for it, and then walked back toward Annja.

  “The only rules for this match,” he said, “are that there aren’t any rules!”

  On the last word he spun and leaped into the air, the leap designed to hide the direction of the sword strike after he switched the blade from one hand to the other.

  It was an impressive move. It might have worked on a lesser opponent. But Annja had been carrying her blade for a long time now, and she had learned to trust its instincts. She expected treachery from Paul, and so when he lashed out, fully expecting to end the fight with a single blow, Annja’s blade was there to meet his own.

  As their swords locked against each other with the two of them eye to eye, Annja did the one thing she’d been wanting to do since yesterday afternoon.

  She spit in his face.

  The look of outrage that crossed his features as she laughed and spun away was worth all the gold in Hitler’s little hideaway.

  “You’ll have to do much better than that if you want to beat me, Paul,” she goaded him from the other side of the practice area.

  He wiped his face and came after her with a vengeance.

  He attacked her with ferocious energy, sending strike after strike in her direction. Slashes and thrusts and cuts and jabs, he did everything he could to simply overpower her defenses with brute strength.

  Annja deflected them all.

  She was like a dervish herself, spinning and turning, jumping and leaping, using the blade in a purely defensive fashion to keep Paul from scoring a blow. He wanted to kill her, it was in his eyes if not his hands, and she could not, would not, allow him to succeed.

  Far more than her life was at stake.

  Despite Paul’s savage attacks, it was Annja who drew first blood. As he spun away from a series of brutal strikes, her blade seemed to dance on its own, slipping between the blows like a striking snake and leaving a thin cut along his cheek.

  He stopped, stepped back.

  He brought his other hand to his face and felt the blood there.

  The rage that overcame him when he realized he’d been struck was like a demon untamed. He lifted his head and screamed at the sky, one long ululating shriek.

  If Annja had been thinking clearly, she would have simply lunged forward and thrust her sword up to its hilt in his chest, but his strange behavior had her momentarily stymied and by the time she had her wits about her, he was on guard once more.

  “First blood to you,” he said, and saluted her with his sword.

  In the next instant the blade came down and his other hand rose.

  Annja threw herself to the side.

  The one-shot derringer hidden in the sleeve of his fencing jacket went off with a bang, the bullet slashing through the air quicker than any sword blade.

  Fortunately for Annja, Paul’s treachery was nothing new, and she was on guard for the slightest move. Her instant decision to throw herself to the side saved her life, for the shot from the derringer lashed across the outside of her thigh rather than finding a home in her chest as had been intended.

  She hit the ground, rolled and came back up again, finding that the leg hurt like hell but would still bear her weight.

  But for how long?

  Paul hadn’t moved since he fired the shot, and as Annja regained her feet he smiled across the practice area at the blood running down her leg.

  “Second blood to me.”

  He tossed the derringer aside and rushed forward again, brandishing his sword.

  Annja met him halfway.

  Slash and parry. Cut and jab. Around and around they went, neither of them gaining any significant advantage, their blades ringing as though they had voices of their own as they came in contact with each other.

  They broke apart, both of them breathing heavily now. Sweat mixed with blood on Paul’s face, giving his features an almost demonic cast. Annja was favoring her left leg, the blood flowing a little more freely from all the exertion.

  The adversaries slowly circled each other, watchin
g, waiting, looking for that perfect moment to strike.

  This time Annja struck first, dropping into a very low back stance, her blade lashing out at Krugmann’s knees. He in turn leaped upward, jumping over her blade and bringing his own down in a dazzling slash that embedded the tip of the blade in the wood of the deck. If Annja had still been there, she would have been carved in two.

  But she wasn’t, having spun away before her sword had even finished its horizontal cut, knowing that she’d already missed.

  They closed with each other again, blades ringing. Annja was concentrating so much on making sure his blade didn’t touch her skin that when they came in close, their blades locked together once more, she didn’t see his haymaker come swinging in past her defenses.

  His fist smashed into the same spot where his boot had landed the previous day.

  Pain exploded across Annja’s face, momentarily blinding her, and in that moment, as brief as it was, Paul struck.

  His sword lashed out, point first, and only Garin’s scream of “Left” allowed Annja to know the strike was coming.

  Trusting Garin implicitly, something she would deny vociferously if anyone ever suggested it in casual conversation, she twisted away as fast as she could.

  Rather than skewer her lung, the blade carved a furrow across her rib cage but did not sink home.

  Annja shook the pain and the tears out of her eyes, saw Paul coming in with another attack and threw herself out of the way of that one, too.

  She rolled as she came out of it, twisting her shoulder in the midst of the somersault so that she came back up in a crouch. Facing her opponent, she parried his strikes before he could force her back again.

  Annja was feeling the pain of her injuries now, was aware that she was starting to slow from the blood loss and knew that she had to end the contest quickly or face the very real chance that she might not survive.

  She exaggerated her weakness, dragging her leg behind her even more than she had been seconds before. When Paul came in again with another flashing dervish of strikes, Annja parried them all but let them look a little bit sloppy, a little slower than usual.

  He grinned at her through their blades and took the bait, driving in hard again, obviously thinking that at last he could overwhelm her effective defenses.