The Dragon’s Mark

by Alex Archer

  But so far, the target hadn’t done anything but play tourist, something the Dragon found rather annoying.

  Why would anyone waste time on such ridiculousness? Time was too precious to be squandered away in fruitless pursuits; every moment wasted here could have been spent accomplishing something of value.

  Still, there was something intriguing about the woman and when Annja at last reached the stairwell to the upper level, the Dragon headed in that direction, as well.

  HALFWAY UP THE STEPS Annja felt a chill wash over her. Bone deep, it seared her with its intensity. It felt as if Death himself had suddenly taken a particular interest, his gaze pausing on her for a heartbeat too long, letting some of the coldness of the grave seep into her flesh as a result, and instinct told her to run, to get away as fast as she could.

  She shuddered, trying to shake off both the uncomfortable feeling as well as the solution that it had evoked, and then she casually turned to look back down the stairs behind her. She let her gaze travel across the floor of the lower chapel, searching for the source of that feeling, but as far as she could tell no one was looking at her and nothing seemed out of place. The interior of the church was just as it had been moments before, full of tourists taking in the sights and spending their money on souvenirs and cheap baubles.

  Her hand twitched and the image of the sword formed in her mind, but she quickly banished it away, disturbed that her first thoughts had been of violence. Equally disturbing, however, was the persistent feeling that she was in danger, and she had learned to trust those feelings. They had saved her life on more than one occasion.

  Annja reached the top of the stairwell and moved to the side in order to let those behind her continue forward into the upper chapel. As they did, she watched their faces, but she didn’t see anyone who looked even vaguely familiar.

  Shrugging it off, she went back to enjoying her visit.

  The upper chapel was far more ornate than the lower one; after all, this had practically been the king’s private worship area. Supported by slender piers, the ceiling seemed to float high above the collection of magnificent stained-glass windows, giving the whole place a feeling of fragile beauty. The brochure she had been given along with her entrance ticket told Annja that there was more than six and a half thousand feet of stained glass around her, and within the deep reds and blues of the glass were some eleven hundred illustrated figures from the Bible.

  Annja spun in a circle, drinking it all in. It was truly beautiful, there was no doubt about that, and her only regret was that she hadn’t come to see it in the late afternoon when the setting sun would have been blazing through the colored glass, setting the room alight with its glow.

  The huge rose-shaped window at the back of the church drew her attention and she was headed in that direction when that cold, uncomfortable feeling from several minutes before swept over her again, making her skin tingle.

  Determined to get to the bottom of it, Annja stopped where she was and spun in another slow circle, ostensibly drinking in the view but actually checking out the area on all sides.

  Across the chapel, in the shadow of one of the pillars that lined the walls, someone stood watching her.

  Whoever it was—and from this distance she couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman—wore a gray sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. The hood on the sweatshirt was pulled up, hiding the person’s face, but even through the shadows Annja could feel the other’s eyes upon her.

  As if sensing her attention, the watcher suddenly stepped back and disappeared behind the column.

  Almost before she’d thought about it, Annja found herself in motion, headed across the church at an angle, trying to intercept whoever it was that she had seen. There was only one exit from the upper level, the stairs by which she’d entered, and so she knew if she could reach them first she’d have a chance.

  The gray sweatshirt flashed into view again. Her watcher was hugging the rear wall, headed for the stairs just as she’d suspected, and she quickened her own pace, trying not to lose sight of her quarry in the process.

  She was almost upon him when a group of tourists spilled out of the stairwell onto the main floor, obscuring her view and making it difficult to move forward as quickly as she had been. She pushed her way through, ignoring the looks she was getting in return. No way was she letting him get away at this point!

  But when she reached the stairs she was alone.

  Her quarry was nowhere to be seen.

  She turned slowly about, searching through the crowd, ignoring the stares and the resentful looks as she tried to figure out just where he could have gone.

  She saw a flash of gray slipping between two tourists and rushed to catch up.

  “Hey!” she shouted, startling those around her. “Hold it right there!”

  Annja pushed her way through the crowd, determined not to let him get away a second time. She was going to get to the bottom of this right now!

  She could see him, just a few people in front of her. He had not once looked back, which in itself was suspicious to her. Didn’t he hear her calling? If he was innocent, wouldn’t he look back and see what she was shouting about, just like so many of the others around them were now doing?

  They were only a few steps away from the staircase when Annja put on a little extra burst of speed, pushed past a family of four who suddenly froze directly in her path like a bunch of deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car and reached out.

  “Hey!” she said, grabbing his arm and spinning him around. “I said, hold it!”

  She had been expecting resistance and so was surprised when the other person turned suddenly toward her, nearly throwing them both off balance. A kid of about eighteen stared out at her in bewilderment from under the hood of the sweatshirt he wore. He shrugged her off and let out a stream of rapid-fire French. Although fluent in French Annja didn’t need to know the language to understand what he was saying. “What the hell is wrong with you?” sounded pretty much the same in any dialect, given the tone and the look that went along with it.

  Annja stepped back, holding her hands up as if to show they were empty and that she wasn’t a threat. Clearly she had made a mistake. This wasn’t the guy.

  “Uh, sorry,” she said, and then repeated it in French. “Pardon, pardon. I thought you were someone else.”

  A male voice spoke up immediately behind her. “Mademoiselle? Is there something wrong?”

  Annja jumped at the sound, not having seen anyone approach, and turned to find a gendarme standing nearby, his gaze on both of them. The officer’s hand was uncomfortably close to his pistol and it didn’t seem to be the kid who had him upset.

  She smiled and tried to look embarrassed, which wasn’t hard to do, considering. “I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s no problem. None at all. I thought I saw an old friend and was trying to get his attention. I didn’t mean to make anyone upset.”

  The kid spouted off an angry stream of French, determined to tell his side of the story. As the gendarme listened to the kid’s explanation of what had happened, which included more than one reference to the “crazy American lady,” Annja stared over their heads at the crowd, searching for the person she had seen.

  But aside from a number of bewildered tourists, there wasn’t anyone there.

  DUMPING THE SWEATSHIRT INTO a nearby trash bin was all it took to transform the Dragon into someone else. Disguises work best if they are simple and this was as simple as it got. Looking like a completely different individual now, the Dragon was even able to walk directly past the Creed woman without her being the slightest bit the wiser.

  With that kind of anonymity, the Dragon could have stepped right up and slipped a knife into her back without her even suspecting that anything was wrong until the cold blade pierced her flesh. It gave the Dragon a certain sense of heady power and it was only the orders that precluded the woman’s death that prevented it from happening.

  Another time, the Dragon thought, and
reveled in the superior feeling all the way down the stairs, across the complex and out into the street.

  Exiting the tourist attraction, the Dragon hailed a cab and went directly back to the Creed woman’s hotel, intending to take a good look around the room while she was still dealing with the gendarme.

  The Dragon had long ago learned that looking as though you belonged allowed you to get away with being somewhere you didn’t almost ninety percent of the time. It was all about acting the part and having the right attitude. The employees at the hotel where the Creed woman was staying were no different than those anywhere else in the world; the Dragon marched straight through the lobby and into the elevator as if it were the most natural thing in the world and no one said a word.

  Once inside the hotel, it was a simple matter to “accidentally” bump into a maid and pick the passkey right out of the pocket of her uniform. A quick trip up the stairs, a knock on the door to be certain no one was in the room and not ten minutes after entering the hotel the Dragon was standing inside the Creed woman’s suite, just as easily as the night before.

  This time, however, the Dragon didn’t waste any time pondering the situation but set to work immediately to try to find the sword. The weapon had been described as a plain, unadorned broadsword and something like that could only be hidden in a few areas. The safe was out of the question; it was far too short and shallow. The shelf above the safe, on the other hand, was long enough and that was where the Dragon began.

  From there the search progressed through the room. Under the bed. Under the mattress. Behind the curtains in the corner of the room. Under the cushions of the sofa. Inside the entertainment center. Behind the bathroom door.

  The Dragon looked everywhere that made sense, even taking the time to stand on a chair and look inside the heating vent, but it was no use.

  The sword was nowhere to be found.

  A glance at the clock said it was time to get out of there; almost half an hour had already passed and the Creed woman might return at any moment.

  But still the question nagged.

  What had she done with the sword?

  ANNJA SAT IN THE BACK of a cab, trying to decide what to do next. The misunderstanding in the chapel had put her on edge, that was for sure, but Annja was determined not to let it ruin the rest of her day. She’d have enough tension once she had the opportunity to speak with Roux, she knew; for now, she needed to stop being so paranoid and enjoy herself. It wasn’t as if the Dragon was after her, anyway; it was Roux who should be worried.

  Having satisfied her need for architecture, she decided to take in some of the city’s art. She directed the cabbie to take her to the Musée d’Orsay, overlooking the Louvre along the left bank of the River Seine. The building itself had once been a railway station serving Paris-Orléans, so she hadn’t fully escaped the tug of form and design, but it now housed one of the more formidable displays of art in all of Paris, short of the Louvre itself. Once there she spent hours wandering up and down the long rows of displays, drinking in the creative talents of Renoir, Degas, Monet and van Gogh, just to name a few.

  Her visit was marred, however, by the memory of the figure she’d seen in the chapel and the now-constant feeling that she was under observation. More than once she tried to catch someone in the act, but each time she looked, she was unable to see anything or anyone out of the ordinary. No one turned away too quickly. No one let their gaze linger too long. The museum was full of patrons and they had their eyes on the paintings, not on her. Yet the feeling persisted and made her uncomfortable enough that she eventually decided to call it a day.

  She returned to the hotel around sunset, took some time to freshen up and to calm her nerves and then, after picking up her rental car, she headed out of the city for her rendezvous with Roux.

  The drive south passed without incident and it wasn’t too long before she was pulling up in front of the massive gates that guarded the entrance into the estate.

  As usual, once inside the house, Henshaw led her to the study, where she found Roux seated in the leather chair behind his desk, reading the day’s copy of Le Monde.

  Seeing her, he rose and smiled. “Annja, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  She had already decided to play it straight. “I wanted to talk to you about last night.”

  “Of course.” Roux ushered her over to a pair of leather armchairs and offered one to her while settling into the other one himself. “Before you say anything else, let me apologize for my boorish behavior at the end of the evening. My remarks were totally uncalled for and I hope you let them pass as the angry grumblings of a man whose home had just been invaded by thieves.”

  He smiled pleasantly and Annja realized that he was being sincere; he really did feel bad for the things he had said to her. She gracefully accepted his apology and moved quickly past it to the reason she’d made the drive all the way out here.

  Reaching into her backpack she withdrew a cardboard box in which she had safely tucked away the paper dragon, then withdrew the latter from inside the box. She stood the little paper dragon on the table between herself and her host.

  “What’s this?” Roux asked, picking up the dragon and turning it over in his hands. “What a marvelous specimen. I didn’t know that you did origami.”

  “I don’t,” Annja replied. “I discovered it in the display room last night while helping to clean up in the wake of the attack.”

  Roux stopped looking at the figure and turned his head in her direction instead. She wasn’t surprised by his carefully blank expression—after all, he was a world-class poker player—but the very fact that it was there told her what she needed to know.

  Roux understood the significance of what he was holding.

  He wasn’t going to make it easy, though. “I’m sorry?” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.

  She relayed the tale as quickly as possible—how she’d gone back to the display room looking for something, she didn’t know what; how she’d found the paper dragon and what she’d done afterward to try and understand just what the simple figure might mean. She told him of her suspicion that it had been left there intentionally, as a type of calling card, to let them know that this wasn’t yet over and that they were up against a foe who made your typical hired gunman look like a schoolboy compared to the skills the other could bring to bear.

  “I think your life is in great danger,” she told him finally, and then sat back to await his reaction.

  Roux had been silent throughout, had let her get her facts on the table and had patiently waited through her explanation as she pointed out the things she’d done and the thought process she’d used to arrive at her conclusion.

  When she was finished, he sat quietly for a moment before speaking.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said at last.

  It was not the reaction Annja was hoping for.

  “Of course I’m serious! Did you think I would drive all the way out here to talk to you just for the heck of it?”

  “But, Annja, seriously. Do you really think an international assassin, this mysterious Dragon, a hired gun who specialized in political killings, is really trying to kill me? Whatever for? What possible reason could he have? And let’s not forget the fact that this Dragon is supposed to be dead.”

  “I don’t know what reason he might have. That’s what I was hoping you could tell me,” she answered.

  Roux scowled and waved his hand in dismissal. “Now you sound like Garin, for heaven’s sake. ‘Pissed anyone off lately, Roux?’” he mimicked, in a passable imitation of the other man’s voice. “I’m the least likely man ever to be involved in politics, Annja.”

  “I know that, Roux. But what if it’s something more? What if the Dragon is no longer interested in political killing but has decided to branch out, handle contract work, for instance?”

  Rather than convince him of her sincerity, her plea only made him laugh. “Now you sound like something out of a spy novel, Annja.
Political killing? Contract work? It was a simple robbery, nothing more.”

  “If that’s the case, then what were they after?” she asked hotly.

  For just a second she thought she saw a triumphant gleam in Roux’s eye. It was there and gone again in less than a second, so she couldn’t be sure, but something deep down inside said she’d just played into his trap.

  “While you were gone we were doing our homework, too, Annja. And we think we’ve found the answer to that very question.”

  The older man rose and walked over to his desk. From behind its massive bulk, he lifted a sword box and carried it back to Annja. Handing it to her, he said, “Go on, open it.”

  Annja did so, revealing the long curved blade of a U.S. cavalry saber, circa the late eighteen hundreds, with a leather-wrapped hilt and brass guard. It was pitted in a few places, but she could still make out the initials GAC etched into the blade just above the guard.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The saber worn by General George Armstrong Custer the day he fell in battle at the Little Bighorn,” Roux answered proudly.

  Annja winced. “I wouldn’t be so quick to defend that claim.”

  “Nonsense,” Roux said, taking the box back from her and closing it up tight. “I can assure you that the provenance of this blade is without blemish. Custer carried this sword the day he died and it has hung on my wall in that display room ever since I acquired it at a very private auction. It was the only item of any serious value in that room last night.”

  Roux’s idea of “serious value” was enough to bankroll a small country, but that didn’t mean he was right. Annja would have bet her left arm that no one had come looking for that sword, namely because it wasn’t worth the steel from which it was made. She knew Custer hadn’t worn a saber at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and neither had any of the other officers in the Seventh Cavalry. Popular art showed him holding his cutlass aloft as the Indians surrounded him, but eyewitness accounts from that terrible day told a different story.