Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask

by Alex Archer

  The man who’d been driving started toward him, swinging a semiautomatic by his side.

  There was no pointing, no shouting. No grandstanding. These men were professional, organized, disciplined. Roux’s first thought was ex-paramilitary. They were a team. A death squad.

  He’d been willing to think things weren’t as bad as they could be when he noticed the tattoo on the back of the man’s gun hand. It was the same tattoo Mateo had.

  The old man didn’t believe in coincidences.

  He turned slightly and in the corner of his eye saw that Mateo had climbed out of the car. So, five of them instead of four, not that it made a massive difference. The odds were stacked against him. The only thing in his favor was that he was Roux. They’d never encountered anyone as resourceful or stubbornly determined to stay alive as he was.

  “This isn’t for you. You’re not wanted, understood?” the man with the gun said.

  “Not wanted by who?” Roux asked. It was a straightforward question. He was buying time. Trying to think. Had he seen that tattoo before? What did it mean?

  “Doesn’t matter,” said the man.

  “I think it does. I think it goes right to the heart of the matter.”

  “You talk too much, old man. Don’t make me hurt you. Just turn around and go home.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You can. Mateo will drive you back to the airport. All you need to do is get back on your plane and we can all go on with our lives.”

  Roux shook his head. “There’s someone counting on me.”

  “And now I’m counting on you. Mateo’s counting on you. My friends here are counting on you. We don’t want this to become messy.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then it becomes messy. Go back to Paris.” The man was obviously well-informed, Roux realized. “Live out the rest of your life in peace. That sounds like a good deal to me.”

  “I’m sure it does,” Roux said. He thought about going along with their request. It had a lot going for it, truth be told. Garin was a big boy. He had Annja working hard to save his life. Roux had pretty much exhausted all avenues of inquiry here in Seville and, more importantly, got his findings out to Annja. She’d find the mask if it was here to be found. All things considered, it wouldn’t have been difficult to walk away. But the simple fact that these people wanted him to do that meant he wouldn’t. He wasn’t that kind of man. Garin always said he was an ornery bastard. He wasn’t wrong. That they didn’t want him here meant this was exactly where he wanted to be.

  “You want me gone, tell me what you’re so afraid of me finding. Then I’ll think about your offer.”

  “I’m not afraid at all, my friend, because there is nothing for you to find.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. We don’t like foreigners coming here and poking their noses in our business. Get back in the car and we’ll say no more about it. That is my final word.”

  Five against one.

  He could improve on those odds pretty quickly.

  Roux nodded and climbed back into the car without saying another word. He waited for Mateo to ease himself in behind the wheel.

  Before the driver could start the engine, though, Roux had the muzzle of his gun pressed against the back of his head. That was the joy of private jets, small private airports and lax security. He’d revised his opinion on the team he was facing—they weren’t professionals. They were fanatics. They were still dangerous, obviously, but the fact that they hadn’t patted him down was a dead giveaway that their history of violence was short, if it existed at all.

  “All right, Mateo, you are going to tell me what this is about, or I am going to put a bullet in your brain. It’ll be quick, it’ll be painless—you’ll be dead before your body realizes it. Then I’ll go after your friends. I am not a man to give second chances. This is a one-shot deal. I highly encourage you to take it.”

  The man tried to turn his head, but Roux pressed the gun harder, making sure he knew exactly what would happen if he continued to try to turn around. “Don’t.” He saw the fear in the man’s eyes through the rearview mirror. “All you need to do is tell me what this is all about.”

  “I can’t,” Mateo said.

  Roux drew in a sharp breath. “Can’t or won’t?” It didn’t really matter which it was. Even if the driver was afraid of him, he was more afraid of the men out there. Mateo didn’t say anything. “Okay, get us out of here.”

  “Where to?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just turn the car around and get out. I’ll decide where we’re going when I know myself.”

  Mateo didn’t need telling twice. He started the engine and pulled the car away from the curb. There were three other cars and a delivery van parked inside the dead-end alleyway. He swung the car into the parking space for an apartment block. As he did, he leaned forward and reached for something under his seat. “Idiot,” Roux grumbled and hit him hard on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol. “I said no second chances.” He shook his head as the driver slumped forward on the wheel, his foot still pressed down on the gas.

  The car lurched forward, hitting the back of the delivery van hard enough to deploy the air bag as the horn blared.

  Moving fast, Roux slid out of the far side of the car and hit the ground hard as gunfire strafed the Mercedes’s bodywork. The sound of bullets punching into metal was torturous. The fact he was still alive to hear it was wonderful.

  He rolled across the asphalt.

  Four against one.

  Twenty percent improvement in less than a minute. He intended to improve on that substantially in the next sixty seconds.

  Bullets rained down, ripping into the passenger door, shredding the metal as if it were cardboard. Glass shattered. A million tiny fragments rained down across the backseat and the street around the car. Roux had made it out by the skin of his teeth. In that moment, coming up on his elbows and knees, the years peeled away and he felt young.

  He felt alive.

  And he was going to stay that way.

  Unseen by the other gunmen—all of whom were out of their car again, looking for him—Roux scrambled behind the van, taking full advantage of the cover it offered. He watched as the leader barked out orders in Spanish, sending one man around the two cars to try to flank him while the others laid down covering fire. It was a basic maneuver. They had no idea where he was. That uncertainty bought him a few precious seconds. He used them to release a single shot of his own. The bullet caught the scout in the knee, taking him out. He went down screaming. Three against one. He had to admit, things were looking brighter all the time.

  Until a woman appeared at an upstairs window overlooking the scene. She let out a scream and hastily backed away. He didn’t need any superpowers to know what was going to happen now. She was going to call the police. It would only be a matter of minutes, and not very many of them at that, before the sirens would signal that the authorities were on their way.

  He needed to work fast. He needed a way out of this. He couldn’t be caught here.

  He heard sirens in the distance.

  It had taken less than twenty seconds for a response—which meant the first call couldn’t have come from the woman. Too soon even for a rapid-response unit.

  The leader of the gunmen ushered his team back to the car, abandoning their fallen comrades to their own fate. So much for no man left behind.

  Roux watched them run.

  Before the sixty seconds was out, he was the last man standing. Their car was surging out onto the main street, clipping the rear of the van as it fishtailed away and sending a trash can flying as it took the corner too tightly.

  The van rocked with the impact, pushing Roux back.

  Mateo hadn’t moved. He was still slumped behind the wheel of the
Mercedes and showed no signs of coming around soon. Roux had seen the same kind of absolute stillness several times before. He knew what it meant. He hoped the driver wasn’t dead because of him, but the signs weren’t good. He hadn’t intended to hit him so hard. Everything had happened so quickly. He couldn’t dwell on it. Mateo had made his own metaphorical bed, choosing to go for his gun rather than get them out of there as Roux had told him.

  The fallen gunman gave out another groan.

  He clutched at his knee, stubbornly trying to get to his feet. He wasn’t going anywhere. His kneecap was absolutely destroyed and his leg wouldn’t hold his weight. He was bleeding and in agony. It was only shock that had him half-standing, supporting himself against the bullet-riddled car.

  Roux ran to the Mercedes and started to pull Mateo from the driver’s seat. His body was heavy and it took Roux longer than he would have liked to heave the man out of the car. He didn’t so much as groan as Roux dumped him into the road.

  Roux gunned the engine, stepping hard on the gas. He wasn’t quick enough. Sirens screamed. Tires shrieked. Cars slewed across the alleyway, blocking him in. There wasn’t enough distance for him to get up to speed and ram his way through.

  Armed police officers moved into place behind the makeshift car barricade, their weapons trained on him. The odds had turned very much against him. He was good, but he wasn’t that good.

  He climbed out of the Mercedes, keeping his hands high above his head.

  “Hit the ground! Now! On your knees! Down!”

  He did as he was told.

  There was nothing else he could do.

  9

  19:15—Valladolid

  The flashlight’s beam, as intense as it was, barely penetrated the darkness.

  It was as if the blackness swallowed the light whole, and no matter how brightly it burned, the darkness was desperate to keep its secrets safe. Below her, a steep stairway led down into the crypts beneath the church. She couldn’t make out the bottom step from where she was. It didn’t make sense that this would be a hidden passage, yet still feed into the same crypt-space the cordoned-off staircase led to.

  Annja placed a foot on the first stone step—a step that almost certainly hadn’t been trodden on since the door was locked and hidden away behind the new chapel’s facade.

  She descended into history.

  With every step she took deeper down into the cold and damp, she became more certain that she’d found the remains of the Moorish palace.

  Much of the stonework was crumbling, the integrity of the stone itself fighting a losing battle against the all-pervading damp. When she reached the bottom, Annja allowed herself a little time to shine the light around her. She didn’t have long. Someone—most likely a tourist—would discover the panel she’d left open up there. She’d tried to ease it closed, but there was no obvious way of closing or locking it from the inside. The keyhole hadn’t been constructed with that intention.

  She was standing in a place where the Inquisition and the Moors had come together, just as they had in the intertwined pattern around the crucifix—two cultures existing one on top of the other. It was obvious that this space had been used long after the Moors had abandoned it. The beam of her flashlight illuminated intricate mosaics and plasterwork that had long decayed beyond the point of restoration, but as she worked her way around the room, she spotted more and more compelling evidence of Christians having been there before her. Crosses had been daubed on the walls to claim the place for the Church, as if ritual were enough to banish the religion of the foreigners, superimposing one belief system on top of the other.

  She caught her breath when the light finally reached the far end of the room.

  Hanging on the wall, trapped in the middle of the beam, was a life-size statue with its arms held wide.

  It was a sculpture of the crucifixion. The look of suffering on Christ’s carved face perfectly captured the agony of the moment. It was a work of art. Of all the images and iconography, this was the one object that claimed these remains for the Church above all else, just as the Church had claimed the ground above her head. She moved toward the statue. Most of the evidence from the first faith that had been observed here had long since been defiled, destroyed or simply left to disintegrate.

  Even the statue was showing signs of damage; a crack cut through one of Christ’s outstretched arms.

  Annja shone her flashlight around the rest of the room once more before she noticed that there was something off about the statue. She moved closer, running the light slowly over every inch of the Son of God’s body, not sure what it was about it that had called her back. She took another step toward it, raising the light to the crack that ran through the Savior’s arm. It was perfectly straight, which was peculiar enough, but it continued as a fissure through the background fresco.

  Sometimes a crack was just a crack. But it just felt too straight, too perfect.

  She placed her hands on one of Christ’s knees and pushed.

  The statue swung back a fraction, the split growing wider, leaving behind one arm still attached to the wall. A hidden space within a hidden space, perfect for keeping secrets from the world.

  Stone ground against stone.

  A shower of dust fell from the wall as the darkness opened up.

  Annja’s heart was thumping, excitement surging through her system. This was what she lived for, the thrill of discovery, that moment when she opened something that hadn’t been opened in centuries, bringing it back to life; that moment when it was just her and the past; that moment when she bridged the now and the then, bringing them together with her bare hands.

  Could this be where the Mask of Torquemada had lain hidden for so long?

  It had to be, didn’t it?

  She couldn’t believe it had only taken her a few hours to find something that had been lost for centuries.

  Doubt niggled at the back of her mind.

  It all seemed too easy.

  She pressed herself close to the narrow opening and directed the flashlight’s beam while she reached inside with her free hand.

  10

  18:30— Seville

  “I’m going to ask you again—who were they?” Roux’s interrogator asked.

  It wouldn’t be the last time the detective across the table asked it, either.

  Roux had been taken to a police station and bundled forcefully into an interview room. He’d taken a number of carefully disguised blows in the process—they’d delivered a couple rabbit punches to his kidneys, cracked his head against the doorframe of the car as they’d pushed him into the backseat and shoved him across the polished floor of the interview room, cuffed, so he couldn’t reach out to break his fall. It was all fair game as far as they were concerned. He had been left there to stew, the clock in the room ticking on. He assumed they were gathering information for the interrogation, but they weren’t going to learn anything useful from traditional sources. He’d always been careful about what information made it out into the public domain, even on back channels. They’d stumble into a Roux-shaped wall of silence. That in itself wouldn’t help much today. It’d just make him look guilty, where for once he was actually innocent. There was an irony to the whole thing he would have appreciated if it had been someone else taking the beating.

  So they asked their questions, and it was soon obvious they were on a fishing expedition. They didn’t have a clue who he was, who the gunmen were or how the two parties had ended up on a collision course. So he told the truth.

  “I have no idea.”

  It wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

  Roux could stall them here for as long as he wanted. It wasn’t as if the traditional interrogation techniques of the Inquisition were available to the men on the other side of the table, after all. But as much fun as a game of cat-and-mouse might have be
en, it was just wasting more time, and even if he wasn’t particularly worried about Garin, he was worried about Annja. He should be out there helping her, not in here staring at a Spanish cop with a bad complexion, feigning ignorance whenever they got close to asking something interesting.

  “So, what you are trying to say is your attackers came out of nowhere, started shooting at you for no reason and then ran away?”

  “More or less, yes.”

  “Which is it, more or less?”

  “I noticed that we were being followed. I instructed my driver to stop so that I could address whoever it was and square away whatever perceived problem they had. Then they started shooting. From that moment on, I was only interested in getting away from a potentially lethal situation.” Again, the truth. Unnuanced, perhaps, lacking context, but still the kind of thing that would pass a polygraph.

  “Why are you here? What is your business in Seville?”

  “Sightseeing,” he said. No point telling the whole truth. It wouldn’t help matters. “It truly is a beautiful city. So much history. Amazing architecture. Sometimes it’s good to just slow down for a minute and take a look at the world around you. Visit the galleries and monuments and experience all that a city like yours has to offer.”

  “And one of the men who tried to kill you was your driver?”

  “Yes. We’d never met before today. My people arranged for a car to pick me up from the airport, and he came as part of the package. I couldn’t even tell you which company provided the service. I have people for that. Still, he seemed like a good man.”

  “Tell me, do you hire a chauffeur wherever you go?”

  “I can afford it,” Roux said. “Wealth isn’t something I’m ashamed of.” He knew he was in danger of antagonizing the policemen, but his patience wasn’t limitless. Roux checked his watch against the clock on the wall, emphasizing how much time he was wasting. “Is this going to take much longer?”