Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask

by Alex Archer

  30

  Annja ran.

  She’d spent far too many of the past twenty-four hours hunched over the handlebars of the bike, in a car and—as luxurious as it was—Roux’s jet. Her muscles were cramped, her joints stiff. Still, considering she’d just fallen thirty feet from the runners of a helicopter and landed on her back, she felt brilliant. Alive. She powered across the dusty desert, eyes always on the prize: the V in the mountains that marked the Pass of the Moor’s Sigh.

  Her phone vibrated against her side.

  Annja fished it out of her pocket.

  It was the professor; obviously, he was every bit as much an insomniac as she was. She didn’t answer, assuming he’d leave a message. She’d check it at the top. She didn’t want him to think the heavy breathing was for his benefit.

  The gradient increased.

  Annja had to dig a little deeper to maintain momentum as the path rose sharply.

  Sheep grazing on the mountainside watched her progress with detached interest. Their stares were disconcerting, but they didn’t dip their heads in preparation to charge her, which was a plus. The absolute silence out here was eerie, but it felt good. Special. Almost magical. It was the kind of silence you could never hear in a city. But she couldn’t afford to savor it. She gritted her teeth and pushed on, feeling the burn as she raced up the mountainside.

  Dead earth crunched beneath her feet.

  Overhead, she saw the first birds of the morning. They were big, wheeling in the sky and scattering, only to re-form into a solid, seething mass of wings and settle in the high branches of a distant tree.

  Her cell phone vibrated again, one short, sharp shiver. Zanetti had left a message. She spotted a path that wound around the mountain. It was a well-worn shepherds’ trail, and it promised to be the easiest route up to the pass. Annja pushed on. She wasn’t slowing down.

  Gradually, the going became easier as the terrain leveled out. Her stride lengthened and she began to cover the ground more quickly until she was running freely into the morning red sky.

  She pulled the phone from her pocket without breaking her stride.

  “Hi, Annja,” the message began. “Aldo Zanetti here. You’re going to want to hear this, I think. I’ve had a breakthrough. There was a piece of the map that I was struggling to decipher, where the metal was bent out of shape.” He sounded breathless, as though he were the one running up a mountain. “I think I’ve managed to work out what it means. Everything I suspected about the secret being hidden in the Pass of the Moor’s Sigh still stands, but the extra information from the buckled segment of the mask seems to suggest that the opening will only be revealed at the start of the day. I’m not entirely sure how this will work, but it says that you must face the doorway, then turn to face Mecca, say the prophet’s name three times, then turn back to the door. I know, it’s probably hokum, but do what it says. The door’s supposed to open then. There are also some fairly dire warnings about traps or challenges lying beyond. The language is nowhere near as precise as modern ones, though, so I can’t be sure which. You’ll need to overcome these once the door opens. Okay, that’s everything I’ve got. I don’t know if that helps, but without the mask itself, it’s the best I can do. I’m afraid I remain skeptical as to there being any actual treasure to find, but I’d love to be proven wrong. Maybe there still are mysteries left to be solved in this world. If so, I hope you’re the woman to solve this one, at least. Give me a call sometime and tell me how it went. And if you’re ever in Rome, lunch is on me. It’s been a pleasure.”

  The message ended.

  Only at the start of the day.

  Annja’s mind was filled with questions. How could a door be hidden? It had to be shadow, she thought, the angle of the sun at sunrise revealing the door for a brief moment. In that case, the entrance—whatever it was—faced east. That didn’t help much, but every little bit of knowledge she could gain before trying to find a way into the mountain was a good thing. The sky was growing lighter. She lowered her head and leaned into the sprint.

  The helicopter had dropped out of sight, but she could still hear its rotors.

  Annja glanced to her left. The narrow track rose up from the main road and wound up into the highest points of the hills. In the gloom that still clung to these last few moments before dawn, Annja could see the lights of a single car. Roux. She did a quick mental calculation, trying to work out how far behind her he was and how quickly she’d have backup. Not soon enough. She’d have much rather done this next bit with the old man at her side. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. She crested a ridge and saw two men duck low and hurry away from the blur of rotor blades. The helicopter hovered a couple of feet above the uneven ground, rocking slightly in the air before the engine sound changed and the chopper rose, peeling away from the peaks. There wasn’t a good place to set down. That didn’t mean that the pilot wouldn’t be returning as reinforcement once he’d found a spot, though.

  Always consider the worst-case scenario, expect it to happen and avoid disappointment when it does. That was one of the old man’s many rules to live by. Normal people might have added: and be grateful if it doesn’t. Not Roux. He expected the worst because, when he was around, the worst had a habit of happening.

  But despite that, it was hard to believe Garin was behind all of this, no matter what Roux said about him switching out the painting in the office before the kidnappers smashed through his windows. He was a jerk some of the time, sure, but he was Garin. He was one of the good guys. It had to be the curator. Maffrici. She didn’t know anything about him, so it was easy to blame him. She couldn’t be sure what she’d seen back in the courtyard. When she thought about it, Garin had looked...what? Scared? Had he seemed scared when he saw her up there on the roof? She wanted to believe that he did. Because that would mean the seed Roux had planted in her mind was right, that there was another explanation for what was going on. He was caught up in this; that was impossible to deny. He might even be responsible for some of it. But Annja wasn’t ready to accept that he was the instigator. And she remembered his bruises. He’d taken a battering. Garin wasn’t the kind of guy who’d subject his body to that type of punishment willingly. He was too vain for that. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome? His abusers had treated him so badly he’d come to see any little kindness as a kind of salvation. Maybe that was why he’d led Francesco Maffrici into the helicopter. That would explain why he wasn’t acting like a captive.

  Annja heard birds chirping nearby. It would only be a matter of minutes before the sun rose above the hills. And if Zanetti was right about what was engraved on the mask, then the hiding place of the Moors’ treasure would be visible, and anyone who turned to Mecca and said the prophet Muhammad’s name three times would open the door. She needed to hurry. She scrambled up the loose shale, skidding as she climbed toward the V in the skyline above her. There was no catching Garin and the curator. They’d reach the doorway before her. Assuming they could find it. Zanetti’s information might give her a badly needed advantage.

  She slowed down as she reached the V, knowing she was completely exposed. She kept low, almost on her hands and knees, as she reached the Pass of the Moor’s Sigh, trying not to be spotted from below.

  The helicopter was long gone.

  The ground was strewn with boulders that had fallen down the hillside over generations. There were hundreds of them, all different shapes and sizes, offering countless places to hide and throwing shadows across the terrain as the sun came up. She turned. Through the mountain pass she saw the majesty of the Alhambra as it must have been centuries ago. The first light of the sun struck the incredible gold ornamentation on the building, transmuting it into an almost molten form. It came alive in the sun. Annja understood in that single moment why the Moor had sighed when he had looked back at what he had abandoned. The loss must have been visceral.

  She turned her ba
ck on the Alhambra and scanned the mountainside for Garin.

  There was no sign of him or Maffrici.

  Panic overtook her. They had to be close by. But she couldn’t see them. If they’d found the way into the mountain, she might never find them, not in time. She had to think. They could not have left this narrow valley without her knowing—it was impossible. That meant they were still here somewhere. She scoured the eastern-facing hillside, still half-bathed in shadow, searching for something that would show where they had gone, some darker shadow or bare cleft in the rock. The slope was covered in rocks and boulders, many of which were precariously balanced and threatened to come tumbling down at the slightest breeze. But nothing seemed even remotely out of place.

  She tried to think like Garin.

  What would he have done?

  If nothing was out of place, she had to look for the obvious, something that didn’t belong...but what?

  Something in the shadows?

  A shape?

  She scanned the slopes again, shading her eyes. This time she saw a flash of light, barely above the shadow line. It hadn’t been there a second ago. It glinted again. The newly risen sun was reflecting off something—or someone. Maybe it was a gun, a pair of sunglasses, a cigarette lighter, a watch face, even a belt buckle. It didn’t matter. There was definitely someone in the shadows between rocks, and they were moving. Could it be Garin trying to tell her where he was being taken? Giving her a bread-crumb trail to follow?

  Or was it a goon waiting at the doorway, intent on stopping her from getting inside the mountain?

  31

  Roux picked out the silhouette of a woman running along the ridge, the light of the rising sun behind her. She was vulnerable out there. A hostile sniper could have brought her down without difficulty. He didn’t like it. But she was moving fast. She streaked across the horizon, a primal force at one with the world, her powerful stride eating up the ground much more swiftly than his could, even though she’d been running for miles already and he’d had the luxury of a sports car at his disposal. The woman was incredible. He never ceased to marvel at the sheer physical strength she possessed, or the mental fortitude that accompanied it. She didn’t think twice about racing headlong into danger if it was the right thing to do. She truly was a worthy heir of Joan’s sword. That made the twist of the knife that was Garin’s exploitation all the more painful.

  She dropped out of sight as she moved between two hills. This V carved into the peaks had to be Puerto del Suspiro del Moro. Nothing else around here fit its description. Roux had heard the story of the last emir, who had deserted his beautiful city rather than stand up to the demands of the Catholic monarchs. It was a beautiful place for a coward to come to terms with his failings. Even now, Roux couldn’t help but be cowed by the natural gravitas of this spot. No man could ever compete.

  The only sign of the modern world was the distant hum of the helicopter. The sound of the engine echoed through the narrow valley in the stillness of the morning.

  For the second time in a few hours, Roux found himself transported back to a much simpler time, when he and Garin had been so much younger, before the bitterness between them had really had a chance to develop. Roux wanted to believe they had both been good men once, before life shaped them. But sometimes it was hard to remember what they had been, though.

  The hacker had sent him an email, providing details of financial transactions. Roux studied the documents for a moment, trying to make sense of them. There were a lot of numbers, but when he stripped them away, what he held in his hands proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Garin Braden was not an innocent victim in this mess. He was linked to the activity in ways that Roux had desperately hoped he wouldn’t be. These were Garin’s financials, and they exposed everything he’d been doing. Everything. The amount of information Oscar had uncovered was overwhelming—and deeply disturbing. There was no way this had all come from the server at the Alhambra. The kid had gone to town, tearing into every company and shell corp that Garin was tied to, no matter how loosely, looking for anything incriminating. And he’d found it in spades. Most telling were a couple of documents he’d singled out for Roux’s attention: details of a helicopter lease, payments for a pilot’s contract, invoices for his Gulfstream for bays in Granada, shipping details, car rental. It just went on and on. He didn’t have the time now to study the paper trail in detail, but he would. He’d pore over it all. He’d digest everything. And he’d act on it. For now, the important thing was that this was irrefutable proof. Garin was a self-serving son of a bitch, and he was no one’s victim. That was all Roux needed to know. Garin had cost those men their lives. There would be a reckoning.

  Roux shook his head. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t expected it. He’d known somewhere deep down since all of this began that something was rotten. But having it spelled out to him so bluntly...well, it undermined so many of the inroads he thought they’d made over the past few years. He should have known better than to trust his young apprentice. So what was the end game here? What did Garin want out of this? Surely it wasn’t just money? He had accumulated enough of that over the centuries. He always had a deeper plan. That was one reason he’d always been so much more successful in modern business than Roux had. He was ruthless. He was made for this cutthroat world. It was a long time since he’d stopped being Roux’s apprentice, that was for sure. He was his own man. Garin only did what Garin wanted to do. And he had grown very rich with that philosophy.

  The sounds of the helicopter changed.

  A moment later it was rising into the air again, cresting the hillside less than twenty feet above Roux’s head and banking away. Roux caught the briefest of glances inside the cabin before he felt the force of the downdraft from the rotor blades. There was only one man inside, and that was the pilot. He’d left Garin and his coconspirator on the mountain. Roux crouched, hands flat against the dusty ground to maintain his balance while he struggled to catch his breath. I’m getting too old for this, he thought bitterly, tempted to take a shot at the helicopter as it passed overhead, just to put a spanner in Garin’s plans. But unlike his former apprentice, he did think about the collateral damage his actions caused. It would have been different if Garin Braden had been on board, though. Then he wouldn’t have hesitated.

  As Roux crested the hill, he looked into the pass. They’d all come to the right place. More than that, though, he was struck by a sense of déjà vu. He’d been here before. He couldn’t remember when. That was one of the drawbacks of living six centuries. They all started to blur into one another. The changes were subtle—the wind had eroded a sliver of the mountain, the rain had washed stone into dust and the valley floor had gathered more rocks and boulders. But he wasn’t seeing it for the first time, he was certain. He’d been here before.

  He scanned the slope, hoping to catch a sign of either Annja or Garin.

  There was no sign of Garin or any of the men he likely had out here with him. He wouldn’t have risked going it alone. He wasn’t that kind of man. No doubt their pay stubs were in the bundle of files Oscar had sent him. They hadn’t disappeared into thin air, he was damned sure of that. Garin was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a magician.

  Roux spotted Annja. She was climbing up the side of the narrow valley, gradually moving across his line of sight until she swung down into shadows again and disappeared. One second she was there, the next she wasn’t. She’d found a way into the mountain. He resisted the urge to yell at her to wait; he didn’t want to show their hand too early. Any shout loud enough for Annja to hear would be loud enough for Garin to hear, too.

  Likewise, he could call her cell, but without knowing how close she was to Garin’s crew, he couldn’t risk betraying her presence with a ringtone. The last thing he wanted was to let Garin know just how close they were to stopping him.

  Annja was smart. She would have seen the Alfa’s lights as he
made his approach, so she would know he wasn’t too far behind her. She wouldn’t do anything reckless in the meantime.

  At least he hoped not.

  32

  Annja skirted around the crack in the rocks, doing her utmost to remain out of the sight line of the guard Garin had left at the entrance to the underworld.

  Actually, it was more of a fold than a crack.

  The guard stood just inside the opening, almost completely in shadow. The glint she’d seen earlier hadn’t been Garin or Maffrici, but this man. Which was lucky; she never would have found the fold otherwise. It was so subtle, almost invisible to the untrained eye, that it was no wonder it had gone undetected for so many years.

  The sun drifted lazily into the sky, turning night to day in its own sweet time. She edged along, keeping boulders between her and the guard. The broken stones were large enough to offer cover and break up the monotony of the landscape, meaning there was less chance of him spotting her movement as long as she kept herself out of his eye line. She’d be in trouble if he emerged from the fold, though. Then she’d be on her own, exposed. But like any good soldier, he wasn’t moving from his post. Sometimes discipline could be someone’s undoing.

  She dashed from boulder to boulder and more than once lost sight of the fold in the rock face and ended up drawing closer to it than she had intended. The natural camouflage was incredibly effective. Stones skittered down the mountain as her boots caught on the loose ground. More than once she had to grasp scrubby clumps of grass to stop herself from sliding down after them.

  In the stillness of the morning, even that soft sound of shifting scree could be enough to rouse the guard’s suspicion. She worked her way closer, holding her breath when she reached a ledge above the opening. She’d managed to circle up and around the fold to a point almost directly above it without alerting the guard to her presence. She adjusted her feet, scuffing up a shower of dust and grit. Granules fell in front of the opening, a fine, dry rain.