by Alex Archer
She risked a quick peek and saw that two of the men had stopped to reload their pistols. She leaped toward them, feet churning over the mud-slick ground.
The other two were a little farther back and to the south.
Even as she homed in on the men, she felt reluctance. She didn’t want to kill. All life was sacred to her, even that of villainous souls. And while a man breathed, there remained a chance for redemption.
But she couldn’t dare take the chance that these men might redeem themselves at some point in the future. There were too many men, too many guns. She needed to cut their numbers.
She raised the sword above her head. Rain pinged against the blade.
One of the men saw her. He rammed the clip into his pistol and brought it up.
He fired just as she rushed in and swept her sword down, slicing into his collarbone and then through it. He screamed as she pulled the blade free and brought it down again. The scream stopped.
She dropped to her knees, grabbed his gun, brought it up and fired at his companion. It was one smooth, automatic motion, and though she hadn’t taken the time to aim, she shot him in the chest.
He didn’t even have time to scream. He collapsed.
She dropped the gun. She hated guns.
A phrase flitted through her mind, one she’d heard somewhere before. “It is trying to kill a man that you do not even know well enough to hate…”
Annja allowed herself a few quick breaths before she rose and barreled toward the two men with machine guns. She spotted them through a break in the foliage.
They were both running toward their fallen companions.
She planted herself against a tree, her shoulders against the trunk, her backpack pressing against the small of her back.
She spared a thought for the skull bowl, hoping it hadn’t been damaged by the carnival ride in the mud and all the jumping and running. No time to check now.
She glanced around the tree and yanked her head back.
No sign of the men.
She held her breath. There were no sounds of them, either.
Another few beats passed. She peeked the other way.
One man was easing through a tangle of vines, leading with his machine gun. The second man was behind him.
“Two down, two to go,” she whispered. And that was given that no more men from the Jeeps had come down the mountainside after her. They’d probably gone back to the cavern to check on their treasure. In Annja’s experience, greed almost always trumped common sense.
The southern third of Thailand was open to the Andaman Sea on the west and the South China Sea on the east. But the northern part was sandwiched between Myanmar, once called Burma, to the west, and Laos and Cambodia. Vietnam was not far away, particularly considering the narrow section of Laos. So the men might have come from Vietnam, through Laos and to these mountains.
But why? Normally Annja reveled in puzzles, but only when she had time to contemplate all the components.
She heard the slide on one of the machine guns snap back. Bullets suddenly whizzed past her.
She dropped down tight against the roots of the tree, hoping to be a smaller target. They weren’t giving her time for solving puzzles.
The two men shouted, obviously trying to be heard up the mountainside.
She couldn’t hear their words, only the bullets biting into the tree she hid behind.
Then one of the guns quieted, and she heard the metallic ratcheting sound of a magazine being pulled out.
She pushed away from the tree and, somersaulting down the slope, jumped up at the last instant as she reached the safety of another thick trunk.
More shots. More shouting.
Her breath was fast and ragged. Her chest heaved and her thighs burned with the exertion.
“Some vacation,” she muttered. “Some wonderful vacation.”
She sprang away again, to the southeast, slipping and falling just as bullets cut through the air where her head had been a heartbeat before.
She rolled behind a clump of ferns and crawled toward the men.
Stupid! Stupid! She cursed herself for throwing away the gun.
She hadn’t been thinking straight since she got on the plane in Argentina to come here, and certainly not since she went in pursuit of the voice in her head begging for freedom.
The pommel of her sword was so wet from her sweat and the rain she almost dropped it. Everything was so terribly slippery. It was proving to be a slippery vacation.
Why did danger always manage to find her? Why couldn’t this vacation have been simply a break away from her other life? Would she ever have a normal life?
Not if she didn’t stop her attackers, she admonished herself. Focus!
The men slogged closer, sweeping their weapons in a waist-level arc and firing blindly.
But as long as they were firing so wildly, it meant they didn’t know where she was.
She stopped crawling and lay flat. The pack and its skull bowl were heavy against her back. The rain was pattering against everything around her, masking footsteps and words. She strained to hear what the two men were saying. That they were talking meant they were confident in their ability over hers.
She could understand nothing, other than that the words had an edge of anger to them. She didn’t have to translate anything to know that the men were intent on separating her from her life.
They passed her, not noticing her among the ferns, and she silently rose up behind them, slipping the pack from her back so she could move more fluidly. One step, two, sword raised over a shoulder and holding her breath.
Lightning flashed. Her blade glittered as it came down and cut through the back of the lagging man’s neck.
His head lolled to the side and he staggered forward then fell.
She rushed toward the last man, who had spun to face her.
He’d moved too quickly, however, and lost his footing in the mud. A burst from his machine gun went wild and struck his fallen comrade’s body.
She charged him, leading with the pommel of her sword and slamming it hard against his chest. She kicked out and knocked the machine gun from his grasp.
Annja shoved him, and with the ground so slick, he couldn’t keep his balance.
He fell back and she dropped on top of him, planting her knees on his chest and hands on his shoulders.
She dismissed the sword and dug her fingers into his flesh.
He struggled to push her off, but she raised him up by his shoulders and slammed the back of his head against the ground. He went limp.
She let out a great sigh of relief. She hadn’t been forced to kill all of them.
She straightened and tipped her face up to the rain.
Somewhere she’d lost the helmet that Zakkarat had provided. She supposed he’d be annoyed. She stuck out her tongue and took in drops of cool rain. Her hair was plastered to her skull.
Funny that she’d even worry about losing a helmet, considering all that had happened. Zakkarat would have plenty of money to buy whatever caving equipment he wanted.
She focused until her breath became steady, and at the same time she concentrated, listening for traces of more men coming down the side of the mountain.
Some would surely come in search of their missing comrades, but they would find only bodies and this one unconscious man.
Annja summoned up her strength to break the trigger sear, ruining the machine gun. She tossed it into the brush, then rose and did the same to the dead man’s machine gun. She took a holstered pistol from the unconscious one’s waist.
It was an unusual model, a Tokyo Marui Colt, manufactured in Japan. It had a gas blowback release and was well maintained, though not a particularly good choice of pistol for any kind of marksman. She tugged free an extra clip and put it in her pocket.
She preferred using her sword, but it was no good at a distance. The Marui would be for just in case…just in case more men came down the side of the mountain. Saving one of the machi
ne guns would have given her a better edge, but in her mind that was not an option. Machine guns were remarkable and simple in their engineering, and the military considered them one of the most important technologies—if not the most important—from the past century. They let a single soldier fire hundreds of rounds a minute, laying low an entire enemy company. Too many bullets, as far as Annja was concerned.
Working quickly, Annja retrieved the pistols from the other two men, removed the clips and tossed them away.
Annja slung her pack gently over her shoulders, again feeling the skull bowl rest against her back. Surely if it was broken, it wouldn’t feel so solid.
She briefly considered climbing back up to the trail to assess the number of men and take some pictures. But she had Luartaro and Zakkarat to think about.
She started off in search of them.
10
Annja heard men shouting, but their voices were growing fainter as she put more distance between herself and the Jeeps that were higher up on the mountain trail. How long did she have before they discovered the bodies of their fellows and managed to track her? And would she have enough time to find Luartaro and Zakkarat and get them to safety before reinforcements came looking?
Annja knew a good scout would have little trouble tracking her, even given the storm. In her haste she was leaving signs behind. And she also knew that the gunmen couldn’t afford to let her and her companions escape—not if they wanted to keep their treasure chamber a secret. In the gunmen’s desperation, there was no doubt that they would come looking for her.
It was all a matter of how many minutes she had.
Annja searched for the path that Luartaro and Zakkarat had slipped down. She guessed it was a little to the north, and so she angled that way, moving as fast as possible in the tangle of jungle growth, doing her best not to get caught in the ground plants. The foliage was thick where she traveled, and she had to come to a complete stop a couple of times to squeeze through a tight weave of plants. What was proving to be obstacles could also work to her advantage, she hoped, making her more difficult to be spotted from above.
“Damn!” Annja caught her hair in some low branches and with a vicious yank tugged it free. She pulled at a vine and ripped a length off, using it like a piece of yarn and tying her hair into a ponytail so it wouldn’t get in the way. She wanted to holler out to Luartaro and Zakkarat to get an idea where they were and to let them know that she was safe, but that would benefit the gunmen as much as her. So she tried to move as quietly as possible. Branches tore at her clothes and scratched her bare leg and face.
She let out a hissing breath and summoned the sword. Slashing branches might not be as quiet as she wanted, but perhaps they wouldn’t hear it over the storm. Lightning continued to flash overhead, sending bright yellow-and-white fingers through the thick iron-colored cloud bank, and thunder reverberated all around her. She started hacking in time with her heartbeat, using the sword like a machete and making a little better headway.
Annja couldn’t tell how far she’d traveled since emerging from the treasure chamber, or how far she had to go to reach the bottom; the jungle was so thick that all she saw was a blur of green and brown. Listening provided no clues. She heard nothing but the rain and her thrashing. She didn’t hear the men’s shouts anymore. The incline was steep one moment, gradual the next, and so she had to watch her footing on top of concentrating on everything else.
The sword was impossibly sharp, and not for the first time she wondered if someone had wielded it before Joan of Arc. Had Joan been able to call it as she did? Had it ever been tucked away in a closet in the heroine’s mind? Or had it always been with her? And could Joan see her this very moment and watch how the famous weapon was being used to slice through the Thai jungle?
“Stop it,” Annja whispered, forcing herself to focus on moving ever faster and looking for a hint that Luartaro and Zakkarat had passed this way. “Where are you, Lu? Where—”
At the edge of her vision she saw a slick patch of mud and tamped-down grass, evidence that her companions had caromed down it in their accidental mad dash. She’d almost missed it and gone too far north. But she picked her way back to the spot, careful not to step in the gush of muddy water that ran like a stream in a furrow it had created. Following the slick, she spotted broken branches and smashed ferns—more evidence of their passage. The gunmen, if they happened this way, would spot the signs, too.
Annja considered slowing her pace and trying to cover up the evidence, but quickly rejected the notion and instead cautiously increased her speed and tried again to listen for Luartaro. Once more she heard shouting, but it was from above and in a foreign tongue.
“Hurry,” she told herself. “Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.”
She continued to hack with her sword when she came to a tight weave of plants and a twist of branches that threatened to block her way.
“Annja!”
She recognized Luartaro’s voice.
“Annja! You’re all right!” His voice rose in excitement and she cringed, practically running down the slope and releasing the sword when she pitched forward, slipping in the mud. She rolled several yards before crashing into a trunk and getting the wind knocked out of her. She scrambled to her feet, wincing at her sore ribs and glancing furiously around for the backpack that had came loose.
Luartaro grabbed her from behind and held her close, pressing his face into her neck. “Annja, I was afraid they’d shot you. I was—”
“Shhh!” she admonished him as she spun around in his embrace. She tipped her face up and meant to tell him more about the gunmen, but he kissed her hard and held her even tighter. After a moment, she extricated herself.
“There are several men left,” she said, keeping her voice low. “And—”
“Left? What did you—”
Annja patted the gun she’d stuck in her waistband. “One of the men fell, Lu.” Not a complete lie. “I got his gun, fired and—”
“Killed him? You really are amazing, Annja,” Luartaro gushed.
“I had to do something. It was a lucky shot, was all.” That was a lie. The lies were coming easier for her, and she hated that.
“I’m so glad you’re all right.”
Despite his embrace, there was something in his eyes and tone that bothered her, something he wasn’t saying but was obviously thinking about.
Was it the gun?
Did it bother him that she’d used one of the men’s guns and taken a life?
She’d press him later, now she tugged him into the thicker growth where it would be more difficult to be spotted.
“Where’s Zakkarat, Lu?”
Now he tugged her. “At the bottom,” he said. “He’s hurt a little, twisted his ankle pretty bad when we went for a mud ride. I told him to just sit tight while I went looking for you, and—” Luartaro fell silent and cocked his head. “Do you—”
“Hear them?” Annja’s voice was so soft Luartaro had to strain to hear her. “Yes, they’re coming down, looking for us. I can’t tell how many.” She spotted the pack she’d dropped and pulled away from him to retrieve it. The canvas was slick with mud, but she was, too. She slung it over her shoulders, her ribs protesting the motion, and she rejoined him. She wanted to check on the skull bowl, but decided that would wait; its condition was immaterial given the greater concern of the gunmen.
“Too many men,” he whispered. “However many there are of those men, there are too many.” He moved slower than she would have liked, but he was being careful to pick his way across roots that looked like thick black snakes, so much of the earth around them having washed away. The slower speed gave her a better opportunity to listen for signs of pursuit.
“Hell of a storm, yes?” Luartaro said. They’d reached the bottom of the mountain, and an expanse of water stretched before them. “That little river? It’s not as little as before. There—”
On the other side, Zakkarat sat on a flat piece of rock, the umbrella-like leaves of a weepin
g tree sheltering him from the brunt of the storm.
“It’s just wide,” Luartaro continued, pointing to the water. “And fast, but not terribly deep. I got Zak across without too much trouble. Let’s go. Let’s hurry.”
She passed by him, taking the lead and edging out into the water. It tugged her and for an instant she thought about letting herself go with its current. It would be easier than dealing with the gunmen and the storm and whatever else God and Thailand wanted to throw at her. Let the river take her where it wanted. But it was against her nature to simply give up, and so she forged across, leg muscles burning from the day’s ordeal.
The water swirled around her hips, and she reached a hand to her waistband, pulling out the mud-caked gun and holding it up with one hand, taking the camera out of her breast pocket and holding it high with the other. She didn’t want to risk the river ruining either. She especially didn’t want to lose the camera, with all of its pictures of the coffins and the treasure. Annja heard Luartaro sloshing behind her. He was talking softly, but his words were lost in the water and the rain.
The water was up to her shoulders in the middle of the river, the current more insistent there. But Annja was determined and reached the other side, climbing out and plodding to Zakkarat and then looking over her shoulder to spot Luartaro doing the same.
“The treasure would not have mattered, Annjacreed,” Zakkarat said, his sad eyes locking on to hers. “The pack I filled would not have made it down the mountain with me.”
“But at least you made it down,” she returned, kneeling by him and looking out across the river for signs of the gunmen. She glanced at his foot. He’d taken his left boot off, and the ankle was terribly swollen and discolored. She suspected it was broken, rather than sprained, and she knew he would not be able to get the boot back on. “I know you should rest. We all could do with a little rest. But we have to keep going, Zakkarat. Those men—”
“Will be after us because of what we saw,” he finished. “I know.”
“Can you—”