by Alex Archer
The bartender pulled himself into a tight ball and gazed fearfully at Garin.
Garin swapped out magazines in the ensuing silence. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Nodding out of fear, not trust, the bartender eased away, putting more distance between him and Garin.
Leaving one of the pistols temporarily on the floor as he sat hunkered down, Garin tapped his phone and dialed Amalia.
“Hello.” She sounded bright and alert. “I’m guessing you’re the reason the hotel is blowing up the emergency services numbers?”
“Not directly. I need you to kill the camera feeds and eradicate the records over the past couple days.” That should get rid of any video footage of him arriving at the hotel.
“Already in progress. I’m downloading the files to my computers, though. You can have them later if you need them.”
Garin peered over the top of the bar but the redheaded woman was nowhere in sight. “Did you happen to notice which way Andrianou went?”
“Upstairs. She made a beeline when the action started.”
Across the lobby, the doors on two elevator cages dinged open. Garin watched as hotel guests stumbled out in confusion. “Not by the elevator?”
“The elevators are now shutting down. Emergency procedures are in place. However you want to go up in the building, it’s got to be the stairs. Andrianou took the stairs.”
“My room is on the twelfth floor.” Garin left the bar, holding pistols in both hands and moving into a comfortable jog.
“Yes, it is, so if you want your mysterious toy, you’d better hurry.”
A few hotel guests streamed down the stairs, either curious about what was going on or too scared to stay in their rooms. Word about the shooting had spread quickly. Garin felt like he was moving upstream even though most got out of his way.
The panicked mob thinned out on the third floor.
Garin pushed himself, hearing his lungs heaving like a bellows, but his legs remained strong. His ears still rang. He made the fourth-floor landing, turned and charged up the next flight of steps.
* * *
“HE IS COMING your way.”
Melina Andrianou raced up the stairs with a compact .45 gripped in her fist. Her thighs and calves burned from the effort, but she never missed a step. She wasn’t running full out because she needed her wind intact the rest of the way up. Her life depended on staying in shape.
“The surveillance cameras are still down?” She rounded the sixth-floor landing and heaved herself forward, throwing herself at the next flight of steps.
“Yes. We don’t know what happened to them.” The voice at the other end of her earbud sounded calm and unperturbed.
Her grandfather, Georgios, hardly ever lost his aplomb. He was as fierce and determined in his late seventies as he’d ever been when she was a girl. She pictured him standing in the nerve center of the family business, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to midforearm, and his white hair carefully brushed back, barely controlling the unruly curls that had once been black like her father’s. Lean and spare and bronzed, he’d always reminded her of a pirate. For a time, he had been.
“This man Garin Braden has many resources, kopela mou.”
Her grandfather had always called her my girl in Greek, though they usually spoke English when she was in the field. The mercenaries they employed came from all over the world because they hired the best, and English was the only common tongue among them because they mainly worked with European and American employers.
Melina kept charging up the stairs. She would have been better prepared for what had taken place in the bar if she’d known their quarry better. All she knew is that these men she pursued were her grandfather’s enemies, and they had killed her father.
At the next landing, a uniformed hotel security guard stepped through the door. When he saw Melina racing up the stairs toward him, he raised his hands and said in Italian, “No, miss. You must go the other way. It would be best if you return to your...”
She understood the language. She understood many languages. Like her physical prowess, her knowledge was also something she worked on.
Raising her pistol and firing by instinct, Melina put a bullet between the security man’s eyes. He fell backward, trapping the door open with his body. The body count on this particular operation had already been running high. Dropping civilians was going to run it higher. Her grandfather would not be pleased. Plans went better when she operated in the shadows.
A small crowd gathered at the door, staring down at the dead guard, then at Melina as she crested the steps. She shot into them and a man fell, crying out in surprise and agony, blood suddenly staining his light green shirt. The rest of the hotel guests scattered like mice before an owl.
Her grandfather’s computer teams had been working on hacking into the hotel. “Do we have the room number where Garin Braden is staying?” Melina reached the eighth floor, her wind still holding steady. She pushed herself harder, faster.
“Room 1236.”
“Location?”
“Southwest corner.”
Picturing the blueprints of the hotel in her mind, Melina oriented herself. When she reached the twelfth floor, she would need to turn left and follow the hallway to the end. “That is a suite.”
“Yes.”
“There will be a safe.” She raced up to the tenth-floor landing, no longer having to dodge guests. She assumed people staying in the top floors weren’t aware of the gun battle that had taken place below. For a brief instant, she wondered if Garin had killed Bolger. The man deserved it for letting the German get the upper hand. This should have gone easily.
“I have a demolitions team en route to you. They will reach the room ahead of you.”
Of course they will. Her grandfather was always planning, always thinking things through five and six moves ahead. He had been a chess grandmaster at an early age. Some said Melina got her intelligence from her grandfather.
She had been a good student in university for a time. Her father had wanted her to stay out of the family business, though Melina had been fascinated by the stories and legends her grandfather had told her when she was a little girl. Her father had accused her grandfather of luring her into their business, and maybe that was true. After her father was killed six years ago, Melina had been grateful for the chance to take revenge on the man who had killed him. This man Garin Braden would put her one step closer.
She considered the way she had shot the hotel security man down. There had been no reticence, no hesitation. Just a single trigger squeeze and the man had been blown out like a candle flame. She hadn’t cared if he had a wife and children. That didn’t matter. He’d almost gotten in her way, would have caused her to break stride if he’d taken another step. That wasn’t acceptable.
Her grandfather would have done the same thing. She had seen him do it. Her father, though, he would sometimes consider consequences before he took action, and some of those consequences bothered him. Iron will took a lot of focus. It wasn’t possible to consider others. That was weakness.
Her grandfather didn’t allow weakness, but hadn’t been able to weed it from her father. He’d been killed in front of Melina by the old man everyone had discounted, a man who had been—should have been—dead on his feet. She’d taken that as an object lesson. She had no such weaknesses.
Driving herself up the final flight of steps, Melina reached the twelfth floor and shoved through the doors into the hallway with the pistol extended before her. Her eyes were gunsights.
Three men stood at the door to room 1236. One of them knelt in front of the door and was hooking up a digital lockpick to the ecard reader. The other two held H&K MP5 submachine guns they’d taken from duffel bags at their feet.
They acknowledged her with nods.
/>
Melina raised her hands behind her neck, opening her lungs so she could bring her wind back under control faster. The man kneeling by the door stood and the electronic lock flashed from red to green. He gripped the knob, leveled his MP5 and entered the room.
Gun in both hands, Melina followed.
12
Annja’s cell phone rang.
Holding her breath underwater in the deep bath in her hotel room, she barely heard the ringing. She’d planned on staying under until just short of drowning. After spending most of the night in lockup, she’d felt certain that a long soak in scented bathwater was what it would take for her to feel clean.
The phone rang again.
Reluctantly, Annja rose from the water, swept her hair back from her face with her hands and blinked her eyes clear. She hadn’t bothered turning on the lights in the bathroom because she could see well enough in the ambient light that leaked in from the street outside. She was alone in the darkness with the lilac-steeped bathwater.
Her cell phone lay on a towel on the floor within reach of the bath. She snatched it as it rang again, then gazed at the too-bright light of the viewscreen.
The number was to Roux’s manor house outside Paris. Her heart beat a little faster, her imagination already fully engaged. Roux didn’t make a habit of calling her and it wasn’t yet 5:00 a.m. in Boston. She picked up as she did the math, figuring that it was 11:00 a.m. in France.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Creed?” The man’s voice was officious and very British. He didn’t sound stressed, but then Annja felt certain he never would. He was cool under fire and threat of imminent death. She’d seen him in both those instances.
“Henshaw.”
“Yes. Do you have time to talk?”
Annja relaxed a little. If anything had been wrong with Roux, Henshaw wouldn’t have asked the innocuous question. Or, on second thought, maybe he would have.
“Yes, I have time to talk.” She thought she detected the sound of a racing engine, but she wasn’t certain.
“Sorry to catch you at this ungodly hour.” Henshaw paused. “I assume, that wherever you are, it is an ungodly hour.”
“Boston.”
“Then, yes, it is quite an ungodly hour.”
Annja lay back in the water till the level rose nearly to her chin again. She loved the fragrance and warmth, but thought the water could stand a little more heat. She’d amend that when the call was ended. “I assume you called for a reason.”
Henshaw cleared his throat. “I was instructed by himself to alert you to a matter he requires your assistance in resolving.”
“Roux needs me?” That didn’t often happen.
“So it would appear.”
“Where is he?”
“In Paris.”
“Why isn’t he calling?”
“He’s...otherwise engaged.”
Annja frowned. Her relationship with Roux—and with Garin for that matter—was on a slippery slope. Nothing was simple with any of them. She still didn’t know if that had more to do with the sword or with their own abrasive natures. “Henshaw, meaning no disrespect, but if himself needs me, then himself needs to call me. Tell himself I’ll talk then.”
“I’m afraid things are not quite that simple, Ms. Creed. Himself is currently under duress and I’m not quite certain how he’s faring. I have lost contact with him.”
“Hold on a sec.” Annja pushed up from the water and stepped out of the bath, putting the cell on the counter. Taking one of thick, plush towels from the sink where she’d placed them, she quickly toweled off, then used another towel to wrap her hair. She pulled on a terry-cloth robe hanging on the bathroom door and picked up the phone as she walked into the bedroom.
She crossed to the window and pulled the drapes aside to peer out over the city. Cars threaded through the streets, headlights and brake lights gleaming. It was cold enough outside that her breath frosted on the glass.
“What kind of duress is Roux under?”
“Regretfully, I have no information for you concerning that. I wish that I did.”
Annja knew that was true. Now she finally heard the strain in Henshaw’s voice. Not for the first time, she wondered how Henshaw had become majordomo for Roux. There was a story there, and her curiosity wouldn’t allow her to ignore it. On occasion, she picked at the history between the two men, but both of them ignored her questions.
“Is Roux in trouble?”
“He seemed rather vexed when he called and insisted I get in touch with you.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how vexed?”
“Ms. Creed, I assure you, this is no whim on his part nor on mine. When he contacted me, he called me from his chauffeur’s phone. I believe he disposed of his own.”
That fired up Annja’s synapses. She released the drapes and turned to the bed where her backpack lay. She’d checked the contents back at the jail and had been relieved to find everything there.
“Does Roux need me to come?”
“No. I forwarded you the images of an object he was most interested in your seeing.”
Annja dug her Surface Pro tablet PC from her bag and powered it up. “An object, huh?” She took out the miniature satellite receiver she carried and powered it up, as well, connecting it to the PC through the USB port, quickly logging on to the internet.
“Yes.”
“Have you seen it?”
“The images, yes.”
Annja brought up her mail client and quickly flicked through the emails. Even discounting the obvious spam, there were a lot. She searched through the most recent.
“Butterfly?”
“That’s the one.”
“So this is a butterfly?” Annja almost felt disappointed. The subject line couldn’t have been more pedestrian. Well, it could have. Foot, for instance, could have been more pedestrian. Her Latin pun cheered her somewhat. “Did he say where he got it?”
“I’m afraid not. There didn’t appear to be time. We were...cut off rather unexpectedly.”
“Don’t you have a way of tracking the car?”
“I do. In fact, I’m doing that even as we speak.”
“Okay.”
“I should probably let you go. Traffic has gotten more severe and I think I’m nearing the trouble spot. There are several gendarmes on the scene and there appears to be some sort of running gun battle in play.”
Annja caught her breath. She hated being so far away when Roux was in trouble. He and Garin had their own lives, and she accepted that. As a matter of fact, they’d each had several lives before they’d ever met her. She wasn’t their keeper. Neither of them would have stood for it. She wouldn’t have wanted them prying into her life, either.
But they were the closest thing she’d ever had to family since the orphanage. No one had ever truly understood her the way Roux and Garin did, though those individual relationships were much different and sometimes caused problems she didn’t want in her life.
She double-tapped the image to magnify it. With the enhancement, she could see the small gears and wheels within what looked like a very ancient mechanical butterfly. The image instantly captivated her. She’d never seen anything quite like it.
“What is this?”
Henshaw’s unflappable demeanor started to slip. “I really don’t know, and I’m afraid I must end this call. The situation here is pressing.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“I was not told, Ms. Creed. As I said, my communication was rather truncated. I would assume that you should do what you do best—research and discover. Let himself know what you find out, provided that he survives whatever he now faces. If he does, I’m sure he will be in touch.” The phone clicked dead in Annja’s ear.
An
xious, wondering what was going on with Roux, Annja called the special number she had for Garin Braden. He had set it up so that no matter what phone he had on him, she was always patched through without interruption.
She paced back and forth, staring at the butterfly on the screen. Finally, just as she was convinced the connection was about to dump her into voice mail, Garin answered.
“Not a good time, Annja.” Garin was so preoccupied that he spoke in German, a barbaric version Annja could barely translate. Gunshots punctuated his words. “However, I do want to talk to you the moment it becomes convenient.”
Noticing the light shifting on the viewscreen, Annja looked at the phone, realizing that Garin had left his camera operational. She caught a glimpse of an empty hallway, then movement swept the perspective around a corner, briefly revealing a man with a submachine gun in front of what looked like a hotel room door. The man opened fire just as the perspective changed again. This time the phone connection switched off on the heels of a gunshot, like a bullet had ripped through the cell.
Annja hoped that it hadn’t ripped through Garin somewhere along the way.
Her anxiety through the roof, she felt utterly impotent. She didn’t even know where Garin was.... Taking a deep breath, she slowly turned her attention to the mechanical butterfly.
Several cultures had developed automatons, all seeking to duplicate the marvels of nature. The Renaissance inventors had been driven to create imitations of flesh-and-blood beings.
Pushing aside her worries, Annja brought up the alt.archaeology and alt.history sites she favored, then started a thread, introducing herself and framing the subject matter.
Looking for information about early automatons. Focus on mechanical insects.
Leaving the computer on, Annja got up and started to get dressed. She wasn’t going to be sleeping anytime soon.
13
Roux cursed as he struggled to release himself from the seat belt. The locking mechanism remained jammed despite his best efforts. The masked men came closer with their weapons in their fists. He didn’t know if they wanted him alive or dead, but they moved like professionals.