by Alex Archer
So many things had changed since she'd met Mario.
****
"Well," Annja whispered, looking at the hood raised on the SUV, "we're not going to be driving out of here."
Roux looked up at her. Even though she couldn't see his lower face due to the mask, Annja sensed he was grinning.
"You didn't want to just drive away now," Roux said. "Not when things have gotten so interesting." He nodded toward the men and the woman moving down toward the ruins. "And someone down there is responsible for the death of your friend."
That was true. Annja took a fresh grip on the sword hilt. Watching the big man moving so effortlessly through the night, she thought about Mario's note, about how a big man claiming to be an international bounty hunter had told him of Erene Skujans's past.
"Do we want to wait until they find the Viking treasure?" Roux asked.
"No," Annja answered.
They started through the night together.
****
While Roux waited to cover her from a dozen paces away, Annja came up behind one of the men without a sound. Still, the man must have somehow sensed her and started to turn at the last moment. She hit him with the sword hilt, crashing it against the back of his skull.
The sound was muffled but it traveled, alerting the man farther to the right.
Annja caught the unconscious man as he fell, lowering him more gently to the ground. She stayed low, moving slowly to take advantage of the brush as she closed on the next man.
The second man called out to his friend twice, then Annja was on him, wrapping her left arm around the man's throat to keep him from crying out and to shut down the blood flow to his brain. She stomped the back of his right leg, causing the man to collapse, and rode him down to the ground. By the time they hit the ground, the lack of blood carrying oxygen to the brain rendered him senseless.
Pushing herself up, Annja nodded at Roux. He held up a circular shape and made a tossing motion. Annja caught it one-handed, then realized he'd thrown her a roll of military friction tape. She used it to quickly bind and gag the unconscious man.
As she stood, she saw lights fill the horizon to the west. In another moment, the lights separated and became the headlights of four distinct vehicles, all traveling at the same speed in a straight line along the narrow, twisting road that led to the village and the ruins.
"It appears," Roux said grimly as he knelt to pick up the AK-47 the unconscious man had dropped, "that our timing tonight lacks."
Around the catacombs, Erene Skujans and her party went to ground, taking cover where they could.
The four SUVs pulled off the road together and charged across the patches of snow, frozen mud and frost. They flared out with military precision, swooping in like predatory birds.
Annja searched the unconscious man's pack and found a pair of night-vision binoculars. She pulled them to her eyes and scanned the arriving vehicles.
Wolfram Schluter got out of the first SUV. Garin Braden followed. Both of them were clad in military combat harnesses.
"Schluter?" Roux asked.
"Yes," Annja said. "And Garin."
Schluter's men advanced cautiously.
"It appears we're about to witness a bloodbath," Roux said. "That could be a good thing. At least that way the odds would be cut down."
Instead of a bloodbath, though, the big man with Erene Skujans suddenly stepped out of hiding. He held a pistol to the woman's head as he walked over to Schluter, calling out a greeting.
Erene was forced to her knees between the two men in the full light of the SUVs.
"That was unexpected," Roux commented dryly.
Schluter and the big man talked for a while. The big man pointed toward the surrounding forest.
"Do you think they'll kill her?" Annja asked.
"I don't know," Roux answered. "Nor is it our problem." He looked at her in the darkness. "We've come as far as we can with this one, Annja. We need to let it go."
Regret washed over Annja. She'd come this far and she wasn't going to be able to find what she'd set out for.
"We can't stay here," she told Roux.
Roux visibly relaxed. "At least we're in agreement on that. Going up against these odds isn't a pleasant prospect. Perhaps they'll claim the treasure, but they're known to us. And it wasn't treasure you were after anyway, is it?"
"No," Annja replied. But she had wanted Mario's killers brought to justice if possible. More than that, though, if some bit of history – important history – existed in those catacombs, she wanted Mario to get the recognition he'd always craved.
Schluter stood beside the lead SUV, taking cover there. He raised his voice. "Annja Creed!"
"Ignore him," Roux said. "We're leaving. Erene Skujans and her friends came by some vehicle. Even if we can't find it, we can always walk out of here." He started to slide away. "Come on."
Schluter stepped away from the SUV and reached inside. He hauled out a struggling figure and threw him on the ground in the light pools.
Stanley Younts, his hands cuffed behind his back, flopped weakly on the ground. Blood smeared his face.
Roux cursed.
Schluter pointed an assault rifle at Stanley. "Come out, Miss Creed. You and the old man, or I'm going to kill this man."
"That puts things in a different light," Roux said. "I liked Stanley, and I'll miss reading his novels." He shrugged as he looked at Annja. "Admittedly, it'll be a little harder to walk away from this, but it's still the safest – "
"I can't leave him like that." Annja stood up and started down the hill.
"You're a fool," Roux called after her. Harsh anger stained his accusation.
Annja listened, but she didn't hear him coming down after her. She was on her own. She tried to tell herself that she wasn't disappointed to be abandoned. She'd been abandoned most of her life.
And she couldn't fault Roux for wanting to save himself. She let the sword fade from her hand just before the adjustable searchlights on the SUVs threw her into sharp relief.
Chapter 36
"She's beautiful," Kikka Schluter told Garin as Annja Creed walked down the hill.
"She is," Garin agreed as he watched her. And so foolishly brave, he thought.
Schluter never took his eyes from the approaching woman, but he asked Garin, "Where's the old man?"
"If he's here, he's up in the hills," Garin said.
"Why didn't he come down?"
"Because Roux isn't going to put his neck on the line for anyone." Garin grinned at that. It was one of the things he respected about Roux.
"What if I threaten to kill the woman?"
"He still won't come."
Schluter stepped toward the cringing man on the ground. "I can shoot this man to show him I mean business."
"He already knows you mean business," Garin said. "He got that when you tried to have him killed in Venice."
Schluter looked at Garin then, obviously surprised that Garin knew as much as he did.
"And if you kill that man, after Annja has put her life on the line to save him," Garin added, "she won't cooperate with you." It was going to be interesting to see how things worked out.
Annja halted twenty yards away. "Let him up."
Cursing, Schluter took the rifle off the man and nodded to one of his guards. The man yanked Stanley Younts to his feet.
"What do you want?" Annja made no move to come closer.
"I know the Viking treasure is inside those catacombs," Schluter said. "Your friend here told us everything."
"I didn't have a choice, Annja," Stanley said shamefully.
"It's okay," Annja replied. "Just stay calm. We're going to be all right. All they want is the treasure. Once they get that, they'll leave."
Garin knew that wasn't the truth. Schluter liked killing. He'd seen it that night in the club. Garin felt certain that Schluter would leave their bodies in the caves once the treasure was secure.
"That's right," Schluter said.
"What about Erene?" the big man holding the dark-haired woman asked.
Garin knew Schluter considered ordering her death. But he didn't.
"Bring her," Schluter said.
The big man yanked the woman to her feet, keeping the pistol pressed against the back of her head.
"Bind Annja's wrists," Garin said, knowing she couldn't draw the sword if her hands were bound.
Schluter ordered it done. Then the men pulled Annja over to their leader.
"Now," Schluter announced with a smile, "let's see about that treasure."
****
Two of Schluter's men used crowbars to break the lock on the doors sealing the catacombs. They switched on powerful flashlights and started down the carved stone steps.
Hands bound behind her, the sword out of reach, Annja stumbled as she was pushed into motion. She went down the steps carefully because they were too narrow and steep to be negotiated with any real speed. The fetid stink of death clung to the place.
The stairs sloped but quickly led into the catacombs. The burial area was twenty feet wide and forty feet long. The dead were long gone.
Nearly two thousand years earlier, Roman legionnaires had been laid to rest in small holes dug into the cave walls. Without benefit of caskets or crypts, they'd been left on the bare rock to decompose naturally.
Annja knew they wouldn't have been buried with much. Perhaps a few personal possessions and a few coins to pay for passage with the ferryman across the River Styx. Whatever had been left had long ago been stripped. Now it was only a place where death had once held court.
Schluter commanded his men to look for the entrance to the other cave system.
"There may not be one," Annja said.
"You came here to find it," Schluter said.
"I came here to look," Annja admitted. "There were no guarantees that the entrance was here. Or that the treasure even existed."
"You came here for a reason."
Knowing it was a waste of time to argue with the man, Annja kept quiet. She couldn't help looking at the woman with Garin. The woman held on to Garin's arm for support. She was so old it was hard to imagine the two of them being in love.
Erene Skujans stood at Annja's side. Like Annja, her hands had been tied behind her.
"You are Mario's friend? The archaeologist?" Erene asked.
"Yes." Even with the woman standing bound beside her, obviously betrayed by someone she'd trusted, Annja couldn't find any sympathy in her heart for the woman. She'd used Mario to get a shot at the treasure.
"You knew about me?"
"Only after Mario was killed." Annja made her voice harsh, thinking of Mario's family and other people who would miss him.
Pain glinted in the woman's dark blue eyes. "I had nothing to do with his death. I didn't know he was leaving the village until he was gone. If I had known, I would have talked him out of it or gone with him. He wasn't trained to deal with men like these."
"Your friend seems to have caught you by surprise," Annja said.
"I was weak," Erene replied. "I thought I could trust him. Dalton Hyde trusted me."
"To be a thief?"
Erene took in a short, angry breath, then said, "Yes. I had no skills. Dalton offered to train me. All I wanted was a chance to live my life and be able to take care of myself. Thieving is a trade. You don't have to hurt individuals with it. I didn't prey on the weak or unfortunate."
For a moment, Annja's resolve was shaken. She wondered what her life would have been like without the training and education she'd received.
The men searched the room, shining their lights in all directions.
"Being a thief has its uses." Erene smiled at Annja in the darkness. "For instance, I practiced getting out of handcuffs all my life, though I never once had to. But tonight? That's a different story. Let me have your hands."
Annja turned slowly, giving the woman access to her cuffs. Everyone in the room was involved with the search.
"Dalton is so obsessed with the treasure that he forgot about my ability with restraints."
The woman's fingers, quick and sure, held a piece of metal that briefly touched Annja's wrists. In the next minute, almost as though she had a key, the cuffs opened.
"Hold them closed until we're ready to make a move," Erene advised.
Looking up, Annja discovered that Garin was watching her with interest. She didn't know if he suspected what was going on. Before he could act or say anything, one of Schluter's men called, "Over here."
He'd lit one of the torches that had been left in one of the crypts. Annja suspected the torches were used during tours, to give a more authentic lighting for how it would have been all those years ago.
The man held the torch up to where the low ceiling met the wall. Gently but insistently, something pulled at the flame. Soot gathered there from the exposure and revealed a hairline fracture in the stone. He continued trailing the flame over the fissure, following it down the wall. When he was finished, he'd outlined a square section almost five feet high.
Given the relative height of the Romans at the time, Annja knew it could have been used as a door. She could also understand how it could have been overlooked. The Romans had buried their dead inside the catacombs and never allowed anyone in. Later, when the graves were robbed, there had been little to take. Most tomb raiders only grabbed what was immediately discernible.
The door, if that was what it was, had remained virtually invisible.
Schluter turned to Annja. "How does this open?"
"Do you see a handle or any kind of release lever?" she asked sarcastically.
"No," one of the men said.
"Then you push." The lack of any way of pulling the block back into place told Annja something more. If the rock had to be pushed back into place, then men on the other side had to do it. That meant that the cave system had a way out.
She thought about it. The Romans had been stationed there to protect the Amber Road
. Bandits had often attacked the caravans, and could have attacked the outpost. Having an escape route from the catacombs was strategic.
Three of Schluter's men put their shoulders against the rock and shoved. Grudgingly, the massive stone block slid forward.
A breeze carried into the room from the opening. The smell of dank earth grew stronger inside the catacombs.
One of the men went forward with a lantern. He looked back, the bright orange glow playing across his face. "It's another cave. A bigger one."
Schluter entered the cave, then waved everyone else through.
On the other side of the makeshift door, Annja stared out across the cave. A six-foot ledge ran along the wall. Beyond it was a gaping crevice. The cave ended to the right, but it continued on well past the reach of the lanterns to the left.
Schluter's frustration showed. He shone his light into Annja's face. "Does this cave lead to the treasure?"
"I don't know," Annja replied.
"You knew this cave was here."
"That's all I knew."
"Liar!" Schluter screamed like a spoiled child and crossed the distance separating them. "What did Mario Fellini tell you about the treasure?"
Annja eyed the man levelly. "I'm telling you the truth."
"Where is the treasure?"
"There may not be a treasure," Annja insisted. "It could all be a story."
"Do you have the book?" the old woman asked.
Annja looked at Kikka Schluter standing behind Garin. Her face was grim and severe.
"Do you have the book?" she repeated in a sterner voice.
"The one that describes Baron Frederick of Schluter's torture and murder of peasants in villages in this area?" Annja asked.
Kikka Schluter grimaced and cursed. "My family name means something."
"I can see that. It's why your grandson has turned out to be the same kind of upstanding individual."
The woman's attention turned to her grandson. "Kill this cow and be done with her. She doesn't know an
y more than she's told you."
Schluter raised his pistol and took aim.
****
Garin moved before he'd even thought about it. Roux had always chided him for leaping first and then looking. But he had a pistol in his hand and was pointing it at Wolfram Schluter – intending to prevent Schluter from killing Annja for no good reason that he could think of – when it felt like a sledgehammer hit him in the back three times in quick succession.
The sound of the gunshots rolled through the cave.
Incredulous, he looked down and saw that blood was spreading across the front of his shirt. One of the bullets had gone all the way through.
His arm went numb. Panic filled him when he realized he couldn't breathe. The weapon dropped from his fingertips. In stunned disbelief, he turned to Kikka Schluter and stared at her.
She stood with a smoking pistol in her hand.
He wanted to ask her why, but he couldn't speak.
"No one harms my family," she said almost tenderly. "I'm sorry. You reminded me very much of your father."
Blackness swirled over Garin's vision. The cave floor felt as if it were tilting underfoot. He tried to remain on his feet, but it was impossible. He fell, but he never felt the impact against the ground.
Chapter 37
Annja was in motion even as Garin shoved his pistol in Wolfram Schluter's direction. She slid her hands free of the handcuffs as Kikka Schluter shot Garin in the back.
Schluter stared at his grandmother. As Garin dropped to the ground, Annja had the sword in her hands.
Turning, she saw that Erene was moving, as well. The woman struck Dalton Hyde with a short punch to the jaw and drew his pistol from his shoulder holster before he fell. By the time the big man caught himself on the ground, Erene had the pistol behind his ear. Without a word, she pulled the trigger.
Grabbing Stanley by the shoulder, Annja shoved the writer back through the open hole into the crypt area. He caromed off one of the walls but went quickly enough. For a moment it looked as though he was going to fall, but he kept his feet under him and started running.