by Alex Archer
“You and I are going to have a little chat, all right?”
Dr. Laurent nodded.
“If you answer my questions, you’ll be fine. If you do not answer them, I’m going to have to hurt you. Do you understand?”
With tears streaming down her face, the doctor nodded.
“Good.”
The Dragon instructed her to get up off the floor and to take a seat in one of the nearby chairs. Dr. Laurent immediately did so. That was a good sign; a submissive attitude was much better than the defiance that had been expected.
Taking out a photograph of Annja, the Dragon handed it to Dr. Laurent.
“The woman in the photo was in here earlier this morning. What did you talk about?”
A little bit of the doctor’s uncertainty came back at the idea of breaching her client’s privacy. “I can’t possibly give you that information. It is covered by doctor-client confidentiality and—”
Still smiling, the Dragon reached out, grabbed the doctor’s left pinkie and brutally snapped it.
Dr. Laurent let out a short, sharp yelp of pain that was quickly cut off as the Dragon slapped a hand over her mouth.
Leaning close to her ear, the Dragon said, “Next time I’ll break all of the fingers on that hand. And then I’ll go to work with my knife. Now answer the question!”
The doctor’s bluster seemed to have fled in the wake of the violence and she answered the best she could around her sobs of pain.
“Ms. Creed came in for a consultation. She’s been having the same dream for several nights and she…she wanted to understand just what it was trying to tell her.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” the Dragon asked. “What kind of dream?”
“A man…attacking her with a sword.”
“Did she describe this person?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Because all she could see was the swordsman’s eyes. The rest was covered up with some kind of mask.” Dr. Laurent cradled her injured hand in her other one and glared at the Dragon.
In response, the Dragon smiled and then nearly laughed aloud as Dr. Laurent recoiled in fear, pulling her hands against her body as if that would protect them from harm.
Little good that will do when the time comes, the Dragon thought.
“What else can you tell me?”
Dr. Laurent explained how her patient had been focused on identifying the swordsman and had even drawn images of the sword that he carried in the dream. When asked if she had these drawings in her possession, the doctor admitted that she did; there were copies in the file with her written notes.
“And the file is here, in the office?” the Dragon asked.
Dr. Laurent sighed at this further violation of a client’s privacy but had learned her lesson the first time and didn’t object. Instead, she showed the Dragon where she kept the file.
The images were well done, surprisingly so since they had been created while the artist was in the midst of a hypnotic trance. The Dragon stared at the face in the picture; it was an excellent likeness.
The image of the sword, however, was more disturbing.
There wasn’t enough detail in the portrait for the Dragon to be worried about being identified through it. But the image of the sword was another story. It was close enough to the real etching and signature that Annja Creed might be able to trace it back to the Dragon’s master and that would never do.
“Is this the only copy of the drawing?” the Dragon asked.
Dr. Laurent nodded.
Something passed between them, a feeling, a premonition, maybe. Whatever it was, the doctor suddenly realized the purpose of the question, her eyes going wide with the recognition of what was to come. She gave a frightened little squeal and tried to run, bolting from her chair and heading for the door.
The Dragon let her get close to the door, let her hope rise as she realized freedom was only a few steps away, and then bounded across the room, seizing the doctor by her hair and spinning her around to face the interior of the room. With a flick of the wrist a blade appeared in the Dragon’s hand, a blade that was used seconds later to slash the doctor’s throat.
It happened so fast that the doctor never had time to scream.
Blood fountained up from the wound and the Dragon shoved the body away to avoid being splashed.
Dr. Laurent tumbled forward, collapsing across the sofa, her hands going to her throat as she tried to staunch the flow of blood.
It took less than a minute for her to die.
Messy, but unavoidable, the Dragon thought.
Being careful to avoid the splatters of blood across the floor, the Dragon walked to the desk and picked up the photocopies of the drawings the Creed woman had made, as well as the file containing the doctor’s impressions about the patient and her condition. The doctor’s final few patients would automatically come under suspicion if the police followed their normal procedures, and the last thing the Dragon wanted was to have the police trailing the target. By taking the materials the Dragon hoped to eliminate any connection between the doctor and the target, which, in turn, would throw the police off the track.
Just to be certain that all traces of the Creed woman’s appointment had been dealt with accordingly, the Dragon stole the doctor’s appointment book and erased the tape on the answering machine.
Stepping over to the window to be certain of better reception, the Dragon took out a cell phone and dialed a number. When it was answered, the Dragon said, “I need some men. A combination of muscle and general surveillance experience would be best. I’ll meet them in the location we discussed previously.”
With that, the Dragon hung up, took one last glance around and then left the office behind, carefully locking the door with the doctor’s own set of keys.
THE MEN ASSEMBLED AT THE warehouse two hours later.
The Dragon looked all six of them over. They were average looking, nondescript. Several had short haircuts that suggested prior military service. A few had prison tattoos. None of them would stand out in a crowd and even the tallest among them wasn’t so tall as to be memorable.
It was a good group.
“This is your target,” the Dragon said, handing them each a photograph of Annja, taken as she came out of her apartment building. It was a good shot, with a clear view of her features, and they would have no trouble identifying her from it.
The Dragon gave them a minute to look it over, and then said, “There are two addresses on the back. One for her home, the other for her place of employment. I want her watched. I need to know where she goes, who she sees and what she does.”
The men nodded. One of them had the audacity to make suggestive comments regarding what he’d like to do to her. That wouldn’t do. The Dragon walked over and without warning slammed the blunt side of one hand into the man’s throat.
His eyes bulged; his hands went to his neck as he realized his windpipe had been crushed and his air supply cut off. He reached out in his panic, but the Dragon stepped back and let him fall to the floor, calmly watching as he suffocated to death.
It took several minutes.
The rest of the men looked on in silence.
When it was over, the Dragon turned to the group and asked, “Anyone else like to offer their opinion of the target?”
No one said anything.
The Dragon knew that men like this were influenced by two things—fear and money. With the first established, it was time to move onto the second.
Stepping over the dead man’s body, the Dragon walked back up the row, examining each man in turn. “If the opportunity presents itself, or if you are made and she knows you are following her, I want you to stage a confrontation. She is in possession of a certain sword, one that is worth a hefty sum of money. If any of you get the location of that weapon, or the sword itself, I will provide you with a reward above and beyond the fee for the job itself.”
There were murmurs of apprecia
tion.
The Dragon looked them over. “Do you understand?”
There was a chorus of agreements.
The Dragon handed them all a slip of paper.
“Here is a cell number. Memorize it. When you have completed the assignment, call me.”
After a moment, the Dragon collected the slips of paper and then dismissed the men.
The plan had been set in motion. It was time to wait to see if it bore any fruit.
18
Between the events in Dr. Laurent’s office and the encounter at the café, Annja had had enough excitement for one day. She caught a cab and headed home, but not until she’d had the driver make a few sudden turns and run a red light or two. At this point, it made sense to be cautious.
Just because you can’t see them, Annja thought, doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.
She had the cabbie drop her off a block from her loft and ducked into a local Chinese restaurant for some takeout. Once back at home, she sat down and looked at the drawings, trying to make some sense of them.
She stared again at the face of the swordsman, searching her memory for a familiar face, trying to determine if she had ever seen him before. With only the eyes and the upper half of the nose to work from, it was like trying to find a needle in a field of haystacks. It could be anybody, really.
She turned her attention to the images of Joan of Arc’s execution. Recalling her thought that she might have been reproducing a painting or an image she’d seen somewhere before, she turned to her laptop. A search turned up nearly ninety thousand images.
It would take days to go through them all.
Still, she glanced through the first few pages of images, looking for something that resembled her drawing. But, aside from the fact that they all showed a young woman being burned at the stake, none of them were a match.
The mystery remained and Annja decided to leave it that way.
Later that night, while she was trying to get organized for the work she needed to do in the studio the next day, her phone rang.
Answering it, Annja said, “Hello?”
Only silence greeted her.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” she asked.
Still nothing.
Assuming it was a wrong number, she hung up.
A few minutes later the phone rang again.
A feeling of unease swept over her as she stared at the receiver. It rang twice, and then a third time. On the fourth ring she overcame her reluctance and snatched it up.
“Hello?”
Silence greeted her a second time, but this time it was different. This time there was a depth to it, a sense that someone was there, even if they weren’t answering her.
That silence angered her.
“I know you can hear me. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I’m not the type of person you want to mess around with. I suggest you leave me alone.”
When she still didn’t get an answer, Annja hung up the phone.
No sooner had she done so, then it rang again.
Grabbing the phone for the third time, she snarled, “Now you are asking for trouble.”
A man’s laugh echoed down the line. “And here I thought you just didn’t understand me, Annja.”
“Garin?” Finding him unexpectedly on the line startled her.
“I’m headed out of town for a week and thought I’d check in before I left. You returned to the U.S. rather abruptly, after all.”
It took Annja a moment to focus on what he was saying; the prior calls had unnerved her more than she had expected. Finally she said, “After your little altercation with Roux I saw no sense in staying, not when I had work that needed to be done here.”
“And does that work pertain to the information we discussed before you left?”
Annja was about to say yes, but bit her tongue at the last minute to keep from doing so. If there really was an international assassin after either her or Roux, she suddenly didn’t want Garin to know about it.
“No, nothing like that. Just some editing for the show that needed to be done.” She tried to change the subject. “So where did you say you were going?” she asked.
Garin answered with a laugh. “I didn’t say, actually, but if you must know I’m visiting some of my electronic plants in Japan for the next few days. No luck tracking down the Dragon, then?”
So much for her change of subject.
“I spent a day or two looking into it, but I haven’t found anything solid. Why? Have you learned something new?”
Garin shouted something unintelligible to someone on his end, then said to Annja, “No, nothing new. Just thought you might have. You’re so good at that kind of thing, after all.”
Another shout, though this time he covered the mouthpiece of his receiver so that it came out muffled.
“Sorry, Annja, gotta run. They’re holding the plane for me. Best of luck and let me know if you find anything.”
Before she had a chance to say anything back, he hung up.
She stared at the receiver in her hand for a minute, muttered, “Idiot,” and hung up.
Garin’s call made her uneasy for a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and she lay in bed wondering about it long into the night.
THE NEXT MORNING SHE ROSE early and prepared for her day at the studio. Doug Morrell was counting on her and the editing team to cut nineteen hours of video down to a thirty-minute segment, a task that was never easy for Annja. She wanted her viewers to get as much information as possible and there was only so much she could jam into a lousy half hour.
Still, it had to be done and she didn’t trust anyone else to work on her shows if she was available to do so. The few times she’d let Doug handle the chore, he’d stuffed so much garbage into the show that it had looked like one of Kristie’s episodes. And if there was one person in the world Annja couldn’t stand, it was her cohost, Kristie.
While she would just normally take the subway over to Manhattan, today she decided to splurge on a cab. Along the way she tried to shake any tail she might have picked up by having the cabbie make half a dozen turns at the last minute and double back a time or two down the same streets. When she was at last satisfied that no one was following them, she let him take her the rest of the way to her destination by a more direct route.
The editing team was already assembled in the cutting room when she arrived and for the rest of the day Annja threw herself into the work in front of her. She didn’t think about the Dragon. She didn’t think about a mystical sword, hers or anyone else’s. All she did was focus on making her next episode of Chasing History’s Monsters the best it could be. They had less than an hour of work to go when quitting time arrived, and Annja convinced the others to stay around and finish up so they wouldn’t have to come back in the next morning. To make the decision easier for them, she offered to have pizza and beer brought in for dinner.
That did the trick.
By seven o’clock they were finished. The video had been cut, the still shots selected and Annja had even recorded the necessary voice-overs that were needed to pull the whole thing together as a cohesive unit.
When Doug came into work the next morning, he’d find the entire package on his desk, ready to go down to production for the final assembly.
Not bad for a day’s work, Annja thought.
Perhaps more importantly, it left her next day free so she could look into a few of the details she’d uncovered earlier that morning, which had been the entire point of the exercise in the first place.
She said goodbye to the three technicians, grabbed her backpack and the precious drawings it contained and headed down the street toward the subway station where she intended to catch a train back to Brooklyn.
She had only walked a few blocks before she felt a stranger’s eyes upon her again, just as she had the other day. In the middle of the block she abruptly stopped and bent down to tie her shoe, glancing backward as she did so. Maybe it was because it was getting dark
and they didn’t think they’d be seen or maybe they just didn’t expect her to be as aware of her surroundings as she was, Annja didn’t know, but whatever the reason, her little stunt worked.
About a block and a half back, two men abruptly stopped and turned away from her. One pretended to be examining a magazine stand and the other pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and acted as if he was answering a call.
Annja knew the truth, though. She’d seen how intent they were on watching her in those first few seconds before they’d turned away.
She was being followed. There was no doubt about it.
The man in front was short and thick, with shoulders that looked as if they belonged on an NFL linebacker. His shaved head gleamed in the streetlights. His partner was taller and thinner, with a thick head of wavy hair and a goatee. Both were dressed in dark pants, shirts and jackets.
Annja stood and continued walking, but this time she glanced back over her shoulder a few times, watching the men behind her.
They clearly weren’t from New York, as they hadn’t yet developed a New Yorker’s odd talent for moving through a crowded sidewalk without disturbing the slower pedestrian traffic moving around them. Where Annja slipped through the crowd, moving easily with the changing patterns of those around her, her pursuers plowed their own path and it was this disturbance in the natural flow that had caught her eye and let her know that they were still back there.
Even as she watched, the two men quickened their pace, obviously trying to close the distance between themselves and Annja.
She wasn’t about to let that happen.
Let’s see if I can flush the foxes out of the henhouse, she thought, and then broke into a run. Her sudden move caught them off guard and her long legs allowed her to widen the distance between them in those first few seconds, giving her some precious lead time.
She raced across the traffic against the light. Horns blared, people shouted, but she didn’t stop, counting on a little bit of luck and a lot of divine provenance to get her through. She barged through the crowd standing on the opposite corner and shot down the street perpendicular to the direction she’d been traveling in, headed for the subway station on Broadway a block and a half away.