Clockwork Doomsday

by Alex Archer

  Eyuboglu cursed. He didn’t look at the other man in the seat with him. “What do you want?”

  “Where did you find the clockwork butterfly?”

  Leaning back in the seat, Eyuboglu sat silent.

  Garin pulled the Ferrari onto the sidewalk for a moment and narrowly missed a small group of diners on the patio of a café. They got up from their chairs and hurried inside. “If you don’t tell me where you got the butterfly, I’m going to have my associate shoot you and dump your body out of the car.”

  “You’re going to kill me, anyway.”

  Stepping on the brake, Garin downshifted and reduced speed, briefly dropping into a sideways skid. They stopped inches from colliding with a bus in the intersection. As soon as the bus cleared the space, he floored the accelerator and the tires barked as they grabbed traction.

  “Actually, I have no intention of killing you.” Garin calmly shifted gears. “You found the device and I applaud you for that. Over the years, you’ve been quite good at finding things. That’s valuable to me. You don’t come across people with such an ability every day. You tried to gouge me on the price—”

  “That device is priceless.”

  “Nevertheless, you put a price on it.”

  “You only paid me half.”

  “True, but if I had paid full you would still have gone back on me to try to get more. I want to cut out the middleman.”

  “Then what use am I to you?”

  Garin looked into the rearview mirror and shook his head. “That remains to be seen. There are still a great many things I would like to see found. I don’t even know what some of them are. You have worth.”

  Eyuboglu cursed again.

  “You’re becoming repetitive.” Garin glanced at the iPad strapped in the passenger seat. During his inspection of the briefcase, he had dropped a small tracking device under the foam. His car was a blue dot on the online street map. The vehicle he was pursuing was a green dot.

  The distance between them had diminished, and he was now convinced he knew where his quarry was headed, but that destination didn’t make sense. The Arno River ran through the heart of Florence, but at this time of year only the occasional small tourist boat navigated the river.

  “There’s a salvager in Genoa. He found the piece.”

  “Where?” Garin powered down, slipped the clutch and threw the Ferrari into another sideways skid that left them pointed toward a street that allowed him to cut over and shave off one more block in his pursuit.

  “Off the coast of Rome. On a deep dive.”

  “How did he find it?”

  “I don’t know. He was reticent with the information. He’s not a very trusting sort.”

  Not giving in to the impulse to ask if Eyuboglu had given the man cause not to trust him, Garin glanced once more at the tracking screen. He’d pulled to within a hundred yards of the target vehicle. Impatient, pressing his luck, he laid on his horn and cut through the morning traffic.

  “What is the man’s name?”

  Eyuboglu remained defiantly silent.

  Garin glanced at Klotz. “Emil, please.”

  Quick as a striking snake, Klotz rapped his pistol but against Eyuboglu’s nose, breaking it. Eyuboglu yelped in pain and surprise as blood gushed over his mouth and chin.

  “The name. At this point, we don’t have a lot of time.” On the tracking screen, the blue dot slid in behind the green dot. Looking ahead, Garin spotted a sleek silver Alfa Romeo 159 cutting through the traffic. The woman from the flower shop sat in the front passenger seat.

  Two men in the backseat turned to look back when Garin suddenly rammed the other car’s back bumper. The Alfa Romeo twisted, crashing broadside into a parked maintenance truck with a screech of metal, and showering debris from the side and part of the rear bumper, but it kept moving. So did Garin.

  “The name.”

  “Sebastiano Troiai.” Eyuboglu slumped back and braced himself against the back of Garin’s seat.

  The name meant nothing to Garin. He tapped his earwig. “Amalia?”

  “I heard. I’m researching him now.” Amalia Hirschvogel worked as a DragonTech researcher. Today she was managing the recovery of the clockwork.

  The two men in the Alfa unlimbered pistols and pointed them at the Ferrari.

  Jerking the wheel to the left, Garin narrowly missed a taxi in the oncoming lane. The surprised driver didn’t veer until the last minute and ended up clipping the Ferrari in the side.

  Garin sped up, intending to cross lanes again ahead of the Alfa, but the driver cut to the right down a narrow alley. Garin had a brief impression of the vehicle plowing through garbage bins, then he was looking for the next right turn. Downshifting again, he cut the wheels hard and smacked a cart selling gelato, sending colorful iced treats sluicing forward along the sidewalk. But he made the turn.

  At the end of the alley, he had to hit the brakes again to avoid an older couple, then swung by them and roared out onto Via Por Santa Maria only a couple blocks from Ponte Vecchio. The vehicle and pedestrian traffic in the narrow street made escape and pursuit almost impossible.

  Fifty yards from the river, the Alfa driver pulled to the side and the doors flew open. The two men in the back got out and opened fire with machine pistols. The bullets chopped into the Ferrari and burst through the windshield.

  Garin threw the car into a skid and pulled the pistol from between the seats. Sitting up, he lifted the pistol and took aim at the nearest of the gunmen as the Ferrari slid toward the parked car. He squeezed the trigger three times, shattering the glass on the passenger’s side, and put all the rounds into the man’s hands and chest. The machine pistol dropped and so did pieces of the man’s hands.

  The Ferrari slammed into the Alfa’s rear and came to a sudden stop. Powder from the deployed air bags blended with the smell of gunpowder. The seat belt tightened across Garin’s chest with bruising force. Trying to recover his breath, he shoved the pistol into the air bag and pulled the trigger. The air bag deflated and the spent bullet ended up somewhere in the engine compartment.

  The door was jammed, but Garin cleared it by throwing his shoulder against it. Metal screeched as he shoved the door open farther, then he was outside, taking cover behind the wrecked Ferrari, scouting for the other man.

  “Emil?”

  “I’m fine.”

  The back door opened with another screech. Eyuboglu toppled out onto the street, his lower face a mask of blood. He remained prone, cursing loudly. Klotz stepped over the man with his pistol in his fist.

  “There’s another one.”

  “You got him with the car.” Klotz rose with the pistol in both hands and peered over the rear of the Ferrari.

  Rising, as well, Garin saw the second man pinned between the two cars. Blood ran down his chin and dripped onto his chest as he panted for breath. The machine pistol dropped from his nerveless fingers. The impact had come close to cutting the man in half and he wouldn’t survive his injuries, so Garin put a bullet through his brain.

  Thirty yards away, the driver and the woman from the flower shop sprinted for the river. Pedestrians got out of the way as the driver brandished his pistol.

  Garin took up the chase and Klotz matched him stride for stride. They gained on the fleeing pair immediately, but there was no clear shot to put either of them down.

  At the bridge, the driver turned suddenly and brought up his weapon. Pedestrians who had already been backing away from the pair dove for cover. Garin didn’t know whether he or Klotz hit the pavement first. They both came up firing and their bullets struck the driver in the chest, turning his white shirt bloody.

  The driver fell in a loose sprawl. Behind him, the woman ran along the bridge. The briefcase only slowed her slightly.

  Garin ran after her, leaping over
the pedestrians that cowered on the street. “Amalia.”

  “Yes.”

  “I left an iPad in the rental car.”

  “Wiping it and crashing the drive now.”

  As he approached the bridge, Garin lengthened his stride. He wasn’t worried about the police picking up his trail. He knew how to disappear, and there were no fingerprints or DNA left to track him. Eyuboglu didn’t know his real name even if this Melina did, and the bank account wouldn’t track back to Garin even if the police were able to get past the Swiss bankers.

  All he had to do was disappear, and after hundreds of years of practice, he was good at that.

  He’d do that immediately after he had the device.

  Ahead of them, the woman evidently realized she’d never make it across the bridge because she halted halfway out. Then she glanced into the sky.

  That’s when he saw it. A small, four-passenger Cessna airplane with pontoons rapidly descended toward the Arno River. The river wasn’t deep enough at this time of year for a powerboat to get far, but it was plenty deep enough to provide a landing strip for an amphibious aircraft.

  The plane plunged down with full flaps and dropped like a swan toward the river as the woman threw herself over the bridge. The jump wasn’t far and she hit the water feetfirst cleanly.

  Without hesitation, Garin threw himself over, as well, followed instantly by Klotz. They struck the river only a short distance behind the woman. Garin held his breath as he sank and scanned for her, then his feet lightly touched the shallow river bottom and he pushed himself up. He swam with strong strokes, gaining ground rapidly.

  The Cessna landed and came to a relative halt in the river as the pilot used the propeller thrust against the slow current. A man shoved his head and shoulders through the open door and fired an assault rifle. The bullets ripped through the water, missing Garin by inches.

  “Emil, take the gunner.”

  Klotz pulled up, treaded water and lifted his pistol. The sharp cracks echoed across the river and the gunman toppled into the water.

  Garin clasped the woman’s ankle and yanked her under. The Cessna could hold a pilot and three passengers, so the possibility of another gunner remained, and the pilot would probably also be armed.

  It made him wonder who was behind this effort to secure the device away from him. Not many would have known of its history.

  The woman clearly thought he intended to drown her and fought like a tiger. Instead, Garin eased his grip on her and flicked through the briefcase lock’s combination to retrieve the mechanical butterfly. Keeping himself turned away from the still-struggling woman, he closed the briefcase and abruptly turned and let her land a kick to his face, falling away as if she had stunned him.

  She grabbed the briefcase and swam toward the plane with renewed vigor as Garin surfaced beside Klotz. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Let her go, Emil.”

  Klotz lowered his pistol.

  Garin began to swim away from the plane. Another gunman was indeed aboard and a line of bullets stitched the river.

  Together, Garin and Klotz dove beneath the surface. When they came back up ten yards away, the woman had already boarded the plane and the aircraft was taxiing back toward the Ponte Vecchio. Nearly a thousand feet of river lay between the old bridge and the Ponte alle Grazie, the next bridge to the southeast. A good pilot could get a four-seater airborne in that time.

  The Cessna’s pilot was good. The aircraft was climbing steadily into the sky after narrowly missing the Ponte alle Grazie when Garin took out the detonator they had recovered from Eyuboglu’s man. He armed the detonator, then pressed the button.

  Instantly, the Cessna turned into a roiling ball of orange and black flame as debris rained down over the Arno River and the surrounding city.

  Still clutching his prize, Garin swam to the other side of the river. He had to get out of the city, then he’d find out what he and his mysterious competitor had fought so hard to acquire.

  6

  “Well, go ahead. Do something.”

  Sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, her arms crossed, Annja studied the large black woman lying on one of the few benches in the general lockup who’d just spoken to her. What had she gotten herself into?

  As pleasant as Captain Hiram King had been to talk to, he hadn’t been understanding of Annja’s situation. He wanted the sword found. He wanted more answers. And maybe he was a little suspicious of how Annja had turned up in the cemetery in time to intercept the Russians.

  Closing in on three hundred pounds, the woman with her in lockup looked like a Sumo wrestler squeezed into a bright, lime-green spandex outfit. She might have been a jogger, but her garish makeup suggested otherwise. One of her front teeth was missing. Another was capped with gold.

  “You gonna say something?” A threatening tone underscored the woman’s question.

  Another half dozen scantily clad women of different races filled the remaining benches. Colleen was curled up in the corner of the cell, hugging her knees.

  Uneasy at being singled out, Annja looked at the woman. “Are you talking to me?”

  The large woman knitted her brow, which caused her multihued eye shadow to bunch up in pools of neon color. “‘Are you talking to me?’” she minced. “Don’t go all DeNiro on me. I’ll pull your hair out. Oh, yeah, I’ll get real all over you.”

  Annja paused, thinking it was still a long time till morning if Doug didn’t get a lawyer out of bed to spring her. “What is it you want me to do?” She couldn’t want her space on the cold tile floor.

  “Little Miss Thang over there said you were a television star.” The woman’s accent wasn’t quite Bostonian, but she’d been in the region long enough to flatten out her Rs.

  “Do I look like a television star?”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Annja leaned her head back against the wall and hoped that the big woman had made her point.

  “So you tellin’ me Little Miss Thang was lyin’ to me?”

  In the corner, Colleen glanced up. She caught Annja’s gaze and shook her head, pleading with her wide-eyed.

  “Cause if she’s lyin’ to me, I’m gonna pull that black straw right outta her head.”

  Annja couldn’t help wondering if the woman had some kind of hair fetish. “No. She’s not lying. I’m on a television show.”

  “What are you? Like one of them girls that shows prizes on The Price Is Right?” The large woman glanced at the others and smiled. “Over here we got a brand-new car!” She mimed pointing to a showcase with a theatrical flourish.

  On cue, the other women all smiled and nodded. “That’s right, JuJu Bee. You tell her.”

  Annja didn’t see why she needed to be told anything, or what—exactly—was being told. All in all, her stay in jail was becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

  “Is that it, then? You some kinda game show hostess?” Juju Bee demanded.

  “No.”

  “Weather girl, then?”

  “No.”

  Juju Bee huffed. “I’m gettin’ bored. You don’t wanna see Juju Bee when she’s bored.”

  “Archaeology.”

  For a long moment, Juju Bee thought about that, obviously stumped. She even checked with her peanut gallery, but nobody had any answers for her. Reluctantly, she looked back at Annja.

  “It’s a history show. I dig up stuff.” Her professors would groan in collective unhappiness at her calling Chasing History’s Monsters a history program.

  Colleen chose that moment to speak up. “She looks for ghosts.”

  Juju Bee shifted her attention to the small Goth girl. “Who pulled your string, Bony?”

  Colleen looked away.

  “Ghosts, huh?” Juju Bee spoke to Colleen, who didn’t know it because she
was busy staring at her feet. “I’m talking to you now.”

  “Oh.” Colleen smoothed the hair from her face with a shaking hand. “Okay. Yeah, she came up to see Horrible Hannah.”

  Juju Bee frowned in derision. “That old story? No truth in that. Story to scare kids.” She looked back at Annja. “Take more’n some old ghost story to scare me. I’ve had a .45 shoved up into my face, an’ I pounded the guy who done it.” Juju Bee curled one massive fist and shook it. “That’s power right there. That’s what that is. Power.”

  The other women nodded.

  “What they lock you up for?” she asked Annja.

  Colleen spoke up excitedly. “She got in a fight with Russian gangsters.”

  Juju Bee treated Annja to a glare that was equal parts doubt and disdain. “That right?”

  Tired of the woman, Annja just smiled. “They locked me up because I didn’t answer questions the way they wanted me to.”

  The peanut gallery drew back in shock.

  “That right?” Juju Bee sat up on the bench, which creaked under her weight. “You tired of answerin’ my questions?”

  “If you had interesting questions, answering them might help while away the time, since you’re not going to be quiet and let anyone sleep. But you don’t have anything interesting to say.”

  Juju Bee got up ponderously and flexed her big hands. Stepping forward, she closed on Annja.

  Annja rolled to the side and got to her feet. Even though she’d known Juju Bee was tall, she was surprised to learn that the woman was a full head taller than she was. Annja backed away, staying just out of reach.

  “Don’t make me chase you.” Juju Bee kept advancing.

  Not about to get hammered by an Amazon in neon-green spandex, she took another step back and felt the bars behind her. Immediately, Juju Bee swung a big fist at her head. Annja chop-blocked the woman’s wrist and knocked her hand aside. Juju Bee’s fist thudded against the bars. The woman yelped and drew back her bloody knuckles. She sucked on them, and Annja hoped that the woman would think again before continuing her attack.