by Alex Archer
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get your chance soon enough. He trusts her to do his dirty work. If you trust someone that much, you want to keep them close. With Cauchon’s two thugs sitting in cells in Carcassonne, out of contact, we know he’ll fall back on her soon enough. If he hasn’t already.”
“Good. I’m going to enjoy our second date far more than she does,” Garin promised. “So, come on, you’ve obviously got an idea of what’s going on here, certainly more than you’re letting on. Time to ’fess up, old man. What has he got against Annja? Or me for that matter.”
“You? Nothing. Annja, I’m not so sure about. But I think his problem is with me, and you are the collateral damage. He’s just using people to get what he wants.”
“Just like I do, you mean?”
“I didn’t say that,” Roux protested, though in truth he couldn’t deny the similarity. It had been the first thought that had crossed his mind.
“You didn’t have to,” Garin replied.
His phone rang almost as soon as he had finished speaking. He checked the caller ID before answering.
“What have you got for me?” he asked, then listened with the phone pressed to his ear, nodding.
He started the engine but made no effort to pull away.
Whatever the voice on the other end had to say was worth listening to.
“I think we just hit pay dirt,” Garin said. “I told you my guy was monitoring that phone number? It seems Cauchon just made his second mistake. He used the same number to call you that he used for his heavies in Carcassonne. We’ve got a fix on the point where the call was made.”
“Then we’ve got him.” Roux smiled. He could barely believe their luck. “Time to make a surprise visit.”
“Oh yes, and you’re going to appreciate this. He hasn’t turned the phone off. We’re still picking up a signal. He’s on the move at the moment, but at least we should be able to keep track of him. Assuming he heads home, we should be able to turn up on his doorstep before daylight.”
47
It was daylight when Annja woke with a start.
She looked around, disorientated, lost. For a moment she couldn’t get a fix on her surroundings. They didn’t fit with what she remembered. She was lying on a real bed with a comforter thrown over her, still dressed. What she remembered was stumbling down the mountainside, struggling to stay on her feet in the ice and snow, stumbling every few feet, each step sapping another ounce of strength from her body. Even with her superhuman reserves of strength, she couldn’t go on forever. Close. But when it came right down to it, not close enough when that kind of frozen death was on the line.
All she could remember was the absolute bone-chilling cold. And then all she had wanted was to sleep. It didn’t matter how hard she drove herself, how determined she was to keep going. As her knees buckled and her thoughts became jumbled and confused, all that remained was the promise of warmth if she just lay down. And that was when she’d drawn the sword, wanting it there with her, needing it.
But now?
Nothing made sense.
The air was warm.
She tried to move, noticing the great sword was on the bed beside her, and she still had one hand gripping it tightly.
“Ah, so you’re back in the land of the living,” a man’s voice said. “I must admit, I was rather worried for a while that you wouldn’t make it.”
Annja tried to say something as she rolled over, but her lips were numb, her throat raw. Every muscle in her body ached. She saw an elderly man edging closer to the bed, a mug of something hot in hand. He offered it to her as she sat up.
The steam warmed her skin as she held it close to her face.
“When I saw your truck go over the side I headed out, hoping there’d be someone left to help. It was a mess. And, I’m delighted to say, I got lucky,” he said, settling back into his chair. “But nowhere near as lucky as you were. You wouldn’t have made it through the night out there. Even if the cold didn’t get you, I’ve known people to suffocate, getting caught in snowfalls on this mountain. It’s not a safe place to venture out on foot, especially when you’re not properly equipped. I couldn’t get you to a doctor. Not tonight. So I made a judgment call to bring you here and try to warm you up.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said quietly, knowing that simple words would always feel inadequate.
“No need to. I only did what any decent person would have done. However, I must admit I’m rather impressed with your makeshift walking stick. That couldn’t have been easy to carry. Even when you were dead on your feet you simply wouldn’t let go of it.”
Annja smiled ruefully.
“I can only imagine how precious it must be for you to have risked your life to salvage it from the wreckage,” he said, peering over his own mug.
Annja nodded. “It’s an old family heirloom,” she lied. The best lies were always close to the truth. This was as honest as she could be and still be believable. The man nodded as if that made perfect sense, then took a sip of his drink. Maybe he believed her, maybe he didn’t.
“Not that it’s my business what you were doing on the mountain, but there’s only one house that track leads up to,” he said.
“You know them?”
“Not really. I’ve seen them drive up and down but they don’t get many visitors, and they keep to themselves. The wife has waved a couple of times when she’s driven past, but that’s about it.”
“Sister,” she corrected him, but it only caused more confusion on his face. “They are brother and sister.”
“Ah, I had no idea. Like I said, they keep to themselves. Anyway, I can give you a lift the rest of the way down into the village when you feel up to it, as long as the road isn’t too bad.”
“Do you have a phone I could borrow? I need to let someone know I’m okay.”
“Sorry.”
“No phone?”
“No phone, no television, no electricity,” he said.
She glanced around the room and realized that it was an oil lamp at the side of the bed, the glass chimney stained with smoke.
“Do you live here alone?” She was asking questions just to save any uncomfortable silence. It was hard to understand why anyone would choose to live like this. But part of the rationale behind the questions was that maybe if she understood why he did, she could better understand Cauchon’s motivations behind choosing such an isolated place to make his home.
“I only live here for a few months of the year. I come here to get away from the world.”
“You don’t think it’s a little…bleak?”
“Bleak?” He laughed. His smile was kind. “My dear, this is one of the most beautiful places in the world. This is the kind of place you don’t want to spoil by having to share it.”
She wanted to ask how he filled up his time here, but the edge of sadness in his voice stopped her. Perhaps not so long ago there had been a Mrs. Good Samaritan and now he was hiding from the world that no longer had her in it?
She needed to get in touch with Roux, at the very least to warn him he was walking into a trap.
But even warned, she wasn’t sure that would stop him.
She finished the coffee and put the mug on the nightstand, then rose unsteadily to her feet. She left the sword on the bed.
“How are you feeling?” the man asked, though he made no attempt to get up to support her. Annja stretched her joints, feeling her muscles complain from the exertions of the previous night. He made no comment about the makeshift bandages around her wrists. She realized how it had to have looked to him. Did he think she’d escaped from some distant asylum by brandishing an ancient broadsword?
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty resilient.”
“I’m sure you are, but believe me, the cold can take a lot out of you.”
“I’ve been in worse,” she said. He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t ask where she might have been that could have been colder than
midnight in the midst of a blizzard on a lonely mountaintop.
“I’m sure you have,” he offered instead. “I’ll venture outside to see how bad it is.”
And with that, she realized the elderly man had probably been in that chair all night, watching over her.
Annja saw her boots resting beside a fireplace where the remnants of burned-down coal remained in the hearth, still casting its heat into the room.
She’d definitely had a lucky escape.
“How far is the village?”
“A couple of miles. Too far to walk in this weather, if that was what you were thinking. Especially if you’re trying to carry that thing.”
“Oh, the sword? That’s no burden at all. There’s a trick to it.”
“Well, then, at least let me pretend to be a good host and offer you some breakfast before we argue about you going outside again.”
She smiled, and didn’t object. To borrow a favorite line of one of the nuns at the orphanage, her stomach felt as if her throat had been cut. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. It felt like forever since Philippe had been moaning about food. Toast and another mug of coffee sounded too good to be true.
“You really don’t have to, but I’m starving so I won’t say no,” she said, reaching down for her boots. They’d dried out in front of the fire.
“When we’re in the village we can call mountain rescue about your car, but whatever was in there is gone now. Those things burn pretty hot.” The way he said it made Annja realize it wasn’t the first time he’d seen a car go over the edge. Again, she didn’t want to ask. “You are a very lucky young lady.”
“I know,” she said, not for the first time feeling that she was living a charmed life.
48
Roux and Garin drove through the night, taking turns at the wheel to allow the other man the chance to take a break from the hypnotic rhythm of the windshield wipers and the glare of oncoming headlights.
The roads were fairly clear once they had dropped below the permanent snow line, even the fresh snow turning to slush when it met the gritted asphalt.
Roux was able to rest his eyes when Garin was at the wheel, but managed no more than that.
Garin on the other hand seemed to slip into a deep sleep without any difficulty. Obviously he didn’t have a care in the world.
Roux saw several cars abandoned at the side of the road while they drove through areas in the clutches of heavier snow, high-performance cars that simply couldn’t perform in the stormy conditions.
Garin was convinced they’d have no trouble tracking Cauchon to his lair. That the technology he was using was like a noose he’d put around his neck and was drawing tighter and tighter by the hour. During the drive, Garin took two updates from his contact, one detailing Cauchon’s simple journey down into the village, and included a pause of no more than a couple of minutes, before returning back the way he had come. Messages had then started to come through while Garin slept. Roux hadn’t woken him. When he was sleeping Roux felt that he could almost pretend that he wasn’t there.
Beside him, Garin stretched, working the kinks out of his muscles. “My turn?” he asked.
Roux had kept the radio on low so that any road traffic warnings would be heard. The drone of a late-night radio host was the same in whatever language it was spoken, the soft understated tones that were barely enough to keep the listener awake, but smooth enough to wash the world away.
“Next service station,” Roux said. “No point pulling over when the roads are like this.”
Garin looked at his phone. “You should have woken me,” he said without glancing up from the screen. The backlight haunted his face. “These might have been important.”
“I’m not your social secretary,” Roux said. “Are they?”
“Important, yes. Urgent, no.”
“Then there’s no harm done.”
“My guy has not only managed to pinpoint the signal, he’s even nailed it down to the house in question, which means we know where he’s holding Annja.”
“Directions?”
“Better than that. Pictures.”
“How did he manage that?”
“Technology, my friend. Technology. Everything is out there. You just need to know where to look, and be determined to look pretty hard. The aerials will be from satellite feeds, easy enough to track down. It’s not like the old days when you needed to hack into a military satellite to get at the good stuff. The floor plans, however, took a little ingenuity. The place was on the market five years ago. The real estate agents put up stylized layouts, not strictly accurate to the inch, but more than good enough for us to know exactly what we’re walking into. You should think about going back to college, do a course, before the world leaves you behind.”
“I’ve got you for that.”
“I’m sure you’d find another use for me.”
“True. I could set you up into the property recovery game.”
Garin fell silent.
Roux concentrated on the road ahead.
The glow of lights appeared a short distance ahead. He signaled to pull over. The car was running on fumes. He’d been counting down the miles to the next rest stop hoping they’d make it all the way. He checked the clock on the dash. It was a little after six in the morning. If he hadn’t known, he’d have been able to guess reasonably close to the hour because the traffic was already starting to pick up, the early birds off to work to make sure that they still managed to get into the office despite the conditions.
“How much farther?”
“An hour or so. I’ll drive the rest of the way,” Garin said.
He released his seat belt, but made no effort to get out.
Roux knew Garin was happy to sit back and let Roux fill the tank. After all, the world waited on him, hanging on his every word, so why should the old man be any different?
Right now Roux was focused on making sure Annja was safe. After that he’d reassess his relationship with Garin.
The forecourt was strewed with sand and grit. Snow stood in heaps around the perimeter where it had been shoveled clear of the pumps.
Roux walked around the car. His boots crunched with every step.
The counter ticked over quickly as the gas pumped, filling the seemingly bottomless tank.
A full tank should mean they wouldn’t need to stop if things went wrong at the farmhouse just outside Pau. Not that he intended to run away. This was going to end here, today. He wasn’t going to let a threat hang over his head and live out the remainder of his days looking over his shoulder for Cauchon. He had no idea what, in reality, they’d find waiting for them in Pau. A small army? It didn’t seem reasonable, but very little of what Cauchon was doing was reasonable. Not so very long ago it had felt as if the future stretched out forever before him, but that had changed the moment Annja had pieced the shards of Joan’s sword together. It was as though a clock had started ticking inside him at that precise moment, counting down the seconds, measuring out the rest of his days in precise ticks and tocks like everyone else in the world. And now he simply felt old. Garin could behave like a teenager, chasing women, drugs, money and whatever hedonistic pleasure crossed his mind.
There was nothing fair about the world.
A car pulled up at the next pump.
Roux’s heart leaped. In the briefest of glimpses he imagined he’d seen Annja at the wheel only to be brought crashing back to earth as a pretty young woman climbed out. She gave Roux a smile; she wasn’t Annja.
The cashier at the checkout offered Roux the kind of look that was part sympathy, part disbelief, but then, they were out at an ungodly hour, in poor driving conditions. Who in their right mind would do that willingly? Roux ignored him, paid quickly, and headed back to the car.
Garin had moved over to the driver’s seat.
When Roux opened the passenger door, he saw that the box on the backseat was open.
“Couldn’t resist,” Garin said, offering a what-are
-you-gonna-do? shrug as he ran his fingers over the breastplate.
Roux said nothing.
He raged inwardly, but he refused to let his emotions show.
Instead, he leaned into the back and replaced the silk covering before closing the box. It was no one’s fault but his own. He should have known that Garin wouldn’t be able to resist temptation.
“So, is that what I think it is?” Garin asked, breaking the silence as he pulled out into the road again.
“I’d say that rather depends on what you think it is, wouldn’t you? I mean, if you think it has anything to do with you, you’re sadly mistaken. Likewise, if you were laboring under the misapprehension that it was a bacon sandwich, you’d have clearly lost your mind.”
“Funny guy. The only person’s armor I can imagine you having stashed anywhere would be a certain martyred maiden.”
“Then why ask a stupid question?”
“Don’t play games with me, Roux. This is serious. Why do you think Cauchon wants a piece of Joan’s armor? Something that’s been close to her skin?”
“He’s a collector…” Roux began.
“There’s more to it. And you know it. You’re lying to me. If you believe that story, you’re only lying to yourself, old man. Normal people don’t go to the extremes of kidnap just to add something to their collection.”
“Normal people?”
“People who aren’t psycho crazy.”
“Then I guess you have your answer, don’t you? We’re dealing with someone who’s unstable.”
“I’m not buying it.”
“What more do you need? We are dealing with a crazy man who has got it into his head that he wants to possess everything that still exists that is connected with Joan in some way.”
“Don’t try to con me, Roux. I know a con when I hear it. That doesn’t explain why he wanted the Gui papers, does it? Hell, it doesn’t even explain how he knows that the armor still exists. I didn’t even know you had it, so how could he?”