Rogue Angel 55: Beneath Still Waters
Page 23
Paul pushed her back beneath the tenacity of his onslaught, trying to beat her into submission. As he came in with a horizontal strike designed to cut her in two, Annja let go of her blade and tossed it straight up into the air, the sun glinting off the plain, unadorned hilt. As the blade went up, Annja went down, dropping below the slash of Paul’s sword, falling backward in a limbo-like maneuver to give room for the blade to pass by.
As Paul’s eye went up, watching her sword, the follow-up to his own strike forgotten in that instant, Annja caused the sword to vanish into the otherwhere.
In the space of the next heartbeat, she caused it to reappear in her hand, the hand that was already in midswing with a perfectly timed blow targeted at Paul’s midsection just below the rib cage.
He realized his mistake too late.
His gaze dropped in the split second before Annja’s sword found its target.
He tried to counter, tried to bring his blade down to intercept her strike, tried to get his torso out of the way of the incoming blow, but it was too little too late.
Annja’s sword cut him open from one side to the other.
Paul died with a surprised expression on his face, as if he couldn’t believe that he’d been bested by the woman he’d duped so cleverly for so long.
Annja stood over him, breathing heavily.
Looking down, she muttered, “Good riddance.”
Chapter 37
When their leader was cut down by her bladesword, Annja was relieved that the rest of the thugs aboard the yacht showed their true colors and surrendered like the cowards that they were. Only Colonel Schnell displayed a bit of fight, but he was just one man, and a ninety-five-year-old one at that, and he was quickly subdued and disarmed when he tried to use one of the guard’s guns before they surrendered.
The aircraft Annja and her team had lifted out of the lake was seized by the government in Berlin. Brandt’s and Adler’s remains were retrieved from the lake and also returned to Germany for appropriate burial.
The gold was identified as belonging to the Hungarian National Bank, as Annja had suspected. The bank, of course, laid claim to it as soon as word of its existence leaked, and was backed up by the court ruling that quickly followed. Annja did receive a five percent finder’s fee, which she promptly donated, not wanting to profit from something the Nazis had once stolen. In her subsequent conversations with the media, she didn’t mention Wolf Island or the gold that she suspected was hidden there, and neither did Garin. Krugmann’s boat, with his body aboard, had been quietly scuttled in deep water off Wolf Island, so no explanations were needed on that score, either.
That was how Annja wanted it and this time Garin was inclined to go along with her.
Matahi and his people were free of outside influence for the first time in more than seventy years. Both Annja and Garin thought they deserved every chance to restore the way of life they’d known before the Nazis had turned up.
One day she might return, she thought, just to explore the base fully, but as far as she was concerned the gold—which might or might not be there—could stay lost.
There was too much blood on it already.
* * * * *
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First edition July 2015
ISBN-13: 9781460384695
Beneath Still Waters
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Joe Nassise for his contribution to this work.
Copyright © 2015 by Worldwide Library
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