Rogue Angel 51: The Pretender's Gambit

by Alex Archer

  Fedotov pushed Onoprienko toward Klykov. “Is okay. Is how we agreed, da?”

  “Will there be any trouble for you?” Klykov took Onoprienko by the arm and pulled him toward the exit.

  “It will be nothing I have not handled before. The right money in the right pockets, this will be no problem.” Fedotov smiled at Annja. “It has been most good to meet you, Annja Creed.”

  “Likewise,” Annja replied. “I’ll have to visit again, when things aren’t so hectic.”

  Fedotov smiled broadly. “Let me know. I will set up signing. You have many fans here.”

  Annja started out the door and spotted the group of men walking deliberately toward her. They were dark and swarthy, not Russian looking at all. She turned back to Klykov and Fedotov. “We have a problem.”

  * * *

  SEQUEIRA ACCOMPANIED the mercenaries he’d hired for the recovery. He carried pistols in both of his jacket pockets. The screaming police sirens rattled in his ears, but he felt certain that he could be in and out of the Mad Russian’s Emporium in minutes.

  In the doorway, Annja Creed retreated inside. She had seen them. Sequeira didn’t believe that mattered. There was nowhere for her to run. His mercenaries surrounded the cargo container in the back as well, and there didn’t appear to be another door.

  His team advanced on the container with their weapons pointing at the ground, then they raised them as they entered the shop.

  “No one’s here, sir,” the lead mercenary said.

  “What do you mean?” Sequeira advanced up to the man and peered over his shoulder.

  The inside of the shop was empty of people. Three dead men lay on the bloody floor.

  Sequeira pushed the transmit button on the comm headset he wore. “Does anyone have eyes on Annja Creed?”

  A chorus of nos answered.

  Sequeira stared hard at the mercenary leader. “Get in there and find her. She can’t have gone anywhere.”

  Before he could move, bullets hammered the top of the second floor of the shop. Following the mercenary’s line of vision, Sequeira spotted Annja Creed sprinting across the top of the cargo container. The rapid bursts of autofire nipped at her heels, chopping into the metal edge of the shop and ripping triangular flags from the lines.

  Sequeira pointed a pistol in the mercenary’s face. “Shoot again and I will put a bullet through your head.”

  Reluctantly, the man stood down. “She’s getting away.”

  Sequeira didn’t move his pistol. “I don’t want that artifact harmed. It may not be any good to me damaged.”

  The man nodded and looked away.

  Turning to the rest of the men, Sequeira pointed to the shop’s rooftop. Bent over, taking shelter along the rooftop from the angle of fire, Annja Creed was still running deeper into the market.

  “Get up there,” Sequeira ordered. “Get her.”

  In less than a minute, five men pursued the fleeing archaeologist across the container rooftops. She reached the end of one container and jumped ten feet to land on the next.

  Sequeira turned and trotted back to his car, intending to pursue her from the ground. He could see her plainly. As long as he could see her, he could follow her. He opened the door and slid in beside the driver while some of the mercenaries piled into the rear seat.

  “Go!” Sequeira commanded. “What are you waiting for?”

  The driver put his foot down hard on the accelerator and the big sedan lurched into motion. Several shoppers and merchants had cautiously entered the street to see what was going on.

  Sequeira rolled down his window and fired a half-dozen shots into the air. Everyone scattered.

  Gazing through the window, Sequeira watched as Annja Creed ran, then remembered that she was alone. He glanced back at the car following him and keyed his comm, only realizing then that she might not have taken the elephant. “She is alone. Find out what happened to Onoprienko and the man who was with her. They didn’t just disappear.”

  Sequeira was torn over what to do. It was possible that Annja Creed had left the elephant with someone and merely ran to be a decoy. Then he dissuaded himself of that idea. She was like him. She liked the hunt.

  She would have the elephant.

  He shouted at the driver. “Faster! Go faster!”

  * * *

  “I FEAR FOR ANNJA,” Fedotov said as he shifted slightly. He stood with one foot resting in the middle of Onoprienko’s back while they all hid in the secret room at the back of his shop. “No one can outrun a bullet, and those men are not hesitating about shooting.”

  Klykov nodded glumly. Over the past couple of days, he had come to like Annja Creed very much. She was courageous and brave, and now he was afraid that she would be dead in the next few minutes.

  Of course, that might happen to them all. Klykov tightened his grip on his pistol and waited.

  “To be honest,” Fedotov said, “I fear for us, as well. Soon those men will realize Annja left this building on her own and they will wonder what has become of us.”

  Klykov stood in the darkness of the small hideaway Fedotov had created for contraband he did not keep on the public shelves. The space was barely large enough for the two girls, Onoprienko lying on the floor, Emil, Fedotov, and Klykov. Emil had armed himself with a machine pistol and Fedotov had reloaded the shotgun.

  Footsteps sounded outside the fake wall. The hiding space was cleverly hidden, so it would take time to find. Klykov, however, did not wish to wait to be found. He leaned into the fisheye peephole Fedotov had equipped the secret room with to watch anyone who might be outside.

  Three men searched Fedotov’s office, quickly spotting the spiral staircase that led to the second floor. One of them started up the staircase, which was within arm’s reach of the door of the secret room.

  Klykov watched, telling himself to remain calm. He took regular breaths.

  Onoprienko, from his position on the floor, raised his foot and started kicking the wall.

  Knowing they were dead if he did not move fast enough, Klykov pushed open the door and came out firing on the fly. He targeted the man standing in the office, stitching a three-round burst from the man’s chest to his head. Perhaps the man’s body armor stopped the first round, but the next two ripped into his throat and face. The man went down.

  Swiveling, not even bothering to try to take cover, Klykov raised the pistol and fired at the two men who were almost close enough to reach out and touch. Both of them fired their weapons in an effort to kill Klykov, but none of them hit their target. Some of the bullets got deflected by the spiral stairs, and others cleared Klykov’s head. One of them hit him in the left shoulder, causing the arm to go numb.

  One of the men was wounded but not out of commission. Klykov struggled to lift his pistol again but knew he was not going to be able to manage that in time.

  Fedotov strode through the doorway on Klykov’s heels and finished the man off with a shotgun blast. Even as the man fell, Fedotov broke open the shotgun’s action, popped the spent shells out and pushed in fresh ones.

  Glancing back at Fedotov and the others, Klykov waved them forward. “Come. The way is safe for the moment.”

  Fedotov reached back into the hidden room and yanked Onoprienko out. Onoprienko stumbled and then bounced off the wall when Fedotov slammed the shotgun into his face. Onoprienko staggered and nearly fell, blood leaking from a ragged split over his right eye.

  “No, no, no,” Fedotov growled. “You will walk out of this place. Annja Creed wished for you to live to face a trial in her country, so you will live. But if you do not walk, I will break your legs and drag you out of this place. Understand?”

  Dazed but comprehending, Onoprienko nodded.

  Taking the lead, Klykov guided them out of the building and looked out the front door. Many people were interested in what was going on in the shop, but none of them were brave enough to come ask or even to venture close.

  “Let’s go.” Klykov was first to the rental vehicle h
e’d claimed at the airport. No more armed men showed interest in them.

  Klykov managed to get the keys from his pocket with his wounded arm and unlock the SUV’s rear hatch. Fedotov opened the hatch, hoisted Onoprienko inside and took a moment longer to strap a plastic band around the man’s ankles to secure him.

  “Is nice car,” Fedotov said as he came around to the front with Klykov. “Too bad now will have blood in it.”

  “Is okay,” Klykov said as he opened the driver’s side door. “Is rented and I bought the insurance.”

  “Can you manage Onoprienko by yourself, my friend? I could send Emil.”

  “I am good. Thank you. You will have to answer for shooting those men in your shop. It will be better if Emil is there to offer testimony. Which reminds me.” Klykov handed over the pistol he’d been using. “You will need to wipe this down and put your fingerprints on it so you can explain how you shot those men in your office.”

  Fedotov nodded and took the pistol. “You will need another weapon to replace this one.” He reached under his jacket and took out a Russian Tokarev. “Not so fine a gun as the one you give me, but lethal nonetheless. Until you arrange to have another.”

  “Thank you, Viktor. I will owe you.”

  “And I will collect. We will drink vodka.” Fedotov slapped a big hand against the SUV. “Now go. You must see if Annja Creed yet lives, and give her assistance if she needs it. She must come back and sign more DVDs.”

  Klykov nodded and pulled away, glancing along the rooftops. Annja’s plan had been sketchy at best, but if she managed to escape her pursuers, she was going to double back around to the market’s entrance. Klykov hoped that the young woman yet lived.

  Chapter 27

  Annja ran to the end of the latest cargo container she was on and threw herself across a fifteen-foot wide space between that shop and the next. She landed hard and rolled, hoping that the distance was enough to give pause to the men following at her heels like hounds on a scent. She protected the elephant in her cupped right hand and rolled on her left shoulder, coming dangerously close to the two-story drop. The fall wouldn’t have killed her, but if she’d landed wrong she could have broken something.

  Including the elephant.

  She came to her feet as bullets drummed the metal roof of the cargo container next to her. Her backpack jerked and made it hard to get her rhythm back.

  “Stop!” someone shouted. “Stop and we will not kill you!”

  Annja already knew they weren’t going to kill her. They weren’t shooting their weapons enough to be taken seriously, and when they did fire them, the shots went wide enough that Annja knew they weren’t trying to hit her. If she’d thought they were still gunning for her, she would have dived from the shop rooftops and taken her chances on the ground. The only reason she hadn’t done that was because she didn’t want to put the shoppers at risk.

  She ran and leaped again, noticing that the group running along the ground trying to keep up with her had fallen behind, mostly due to portable tables that had been placed out to expand some of the shops’ visible inventory.

  The men atop of the roofs had fallen behind, too, but they weren’t giving up the chase.

  When the current container car she was running along stopped and other container cars branched off in ninety-degree angles to both sides, she stayed to the right. Her backpack thumped against her and cut down on her speed, but in case she got separated from Klykov, she wanted her tools with her. Working quickly, she stowed the elephant in her backpack, tucking it into a T-shirt she had tucked away in there.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she spotted the sedan that had been keeping pace with her suddenly swerve off to the side and speed up, obviously intending to get around the line of shops in front of it. That car had been one of the reasons she had chosen to go to the right.

  Another salvo of bullets cut the air around Annja just as another alley between shops opened up. Instead of leaping to the next shop, she turned to the right again, let her feet go out from under her and slid toward the roof’s edge. She pressed her palms against the metal just hard enough to create friction to keep from skidding out of control over the side.

  She dangled for just a second on the roof’s edge, hanging full length from her extended arms, then dropped to the ground. Bending her knees, she absorbed the shock and glanced around as the guys on the ground closed in on her. It was a chance she’d had to take if she was going to still have time to turn back and reach the front of the market where Klykov was hopefully waiting for her.

  She pushed herself up and ran, exploding through a group of tables with barely any room to spare. The men on the ground charged after her, knocking over tables, shopkeepers and shoppers. The physical contact barely slowed them.

  Annja got her bearings and angled away from them. She sprinted past three shops and almost saw the man lurking behind the fourth one in time to avoid him, but her speed kept her from moving away fast enough.

  The man reached out and caught her around the throat before she had a chance to defend herself. Her momentum tore the man from his hiding place, but he kept his grip locked around her throat, shutting off her air supply and very nearly her blood flow.

  Thrown off balance, Annja became tangled with the man when they hit the ground. The man was fast, and the backpack made her awkward. He thrust the muzzle of a gun up under her jaw and spoke in English.

  “Stop struggling and I will not hurt you.”

  Two other men jockeyed for positions to try to help the first man secure her. Annja lashed out with a foot and caught one of them in the groin, causing him to double over and hobble away. She slapped the first man’s pistol away with her hand and the weapon went off, missing her by inches but close enough to singe flesh.

  Following up the slap, taking advantage of the man’s closeness, Annja kept driving her arm forward, bent it, then slammed her elbow into the man’s jaw.

  He grunted in pain and sagged to the side. Annja rolled and pushed herself up, grimly aware that the third man had his weapon pointed at her.

  “Stop!” he ordered. She understood him even though the command was in Portuguese. His knuckles whitened on the pistol.

  Lunging forward, Annja reached into the otherwhere and brought out the sword. She swept it forward quickly and hammered the pistol in a side stroke that knocked it from the man’s hand. While he stood there gaping at her, she swung the sword again and caught him with the flat of the blade against his head. He dropped to the ground.

  Before Annja could get clear of the area, her pursuers from the chase across the cargo container rooftops joined the battle. Annja stood there and gathered her courage. She was outnumbered and definitely outgunned. She held the sword in both hands, weighing her chances and not liking any of them.

  A shadow stepped from a nearby alley between two of the container cars. Dressed in street casual, Annja didn’t recognize Nguyen Rao until the man slammed his staff into the back of the nearest man’s head. Reversing the staff, he took a two-handed grip on it and swung, connecting with the forehead of the man to the left of the first man he’d felled. The gunman’s eyes glazed and he fell backward, out on his feet.

  Rao’s arrival threw the capture team off guard and they tried to set themselves to address the new threat. He whirled the staff, spinning it in his hands, then knocked one man’s front foot from under him, reversed the staff again and smashed him in the face. Nose broken and streaming blood, the man slumped backward, unconscious before he hit the ground.

  Annja now worried for the museum curator, despite his amazing martial arts skills, as her attackers turned to face Rao.

  She swung the sword to disarm the men first, not wanting to kill unless that was forced on her, unfortunately, bullets thudded into the unconscious man’s body and sprayed over the nearby shops, knocking a woman to the ground.

  Knowing that hesitation on her part was going to get more people killed and she was not going to surrender either the elephant or herself,
Annja stepped forward. As the man with the machine pistol spun toward her, Annja thrust with the sword and pierced his heart.

  The man froze, eyes wide, and the pistol quivered there in his hands but didn’t fire.

  Annja yanked her blade free and shifted her attention to two other men as they swiveled toward her with their weapons. Lifting the sword, she sliced through one man’s leg, then spun again as bullets ripped into the ground near her. One-handed, she threw the sword into the second man’s chest, taking him just under the throat and driving him backward.

  Willing the sword to return to the otherwhere, Annja drew the weapon again on the run and took it in both hands, cutting deeply into a man as he fired his weapon indiscriminately. Blood flew and he slid into pieces.

  In the rhythm of the close-quarters battle now, Annja let instinct and training take over. She cut another man’s hand, taking off a couple of fingers, but causing him to release his stuttering weapon. Moving forward, she drove the sword hilt against the man’s forehead, putting him out of his misery, then slashed another man in the side, shearing through his ribs. Dropping his weapon, screaming in fear and pain, the man fell, and yet tried to get up. He failed.

  Only Nguyen Rao stood in front of her. Blood leaked down into one of the monk’s eyes as he held his staff ready to swing. His breathing was elevated, but Annja’s was, too. Frustration filled her from the deaths and injuries she had caused, but there had been no choice if she was going to save herself and the innocents standing around her.

  “What have you done?” Rao looked horrified as he took in the carnage Annja had wrought.

  “I’ve saved my life,” Annja replied, telling herself that as much as she was telling him. “Probably saved yours, too.”

  “Killing is not good.”

  “Getting killed is worse.”

  The police sirens seemed closer.

  Rao focused on her. “Give me the elephant.”

  “Why?”

  “You do not need to know.”

  “I want to know.”

  “This is not your concern, Miss Creed.”