by Alex Archer
Had they been loading treasure all night? Had the torrential rain slowed them? How much had already been carted away? Annja would find out soon enough, and she would try to keep them from taking away any more. She left her camera in the bushes and crept toward the Jeep, crouching low and hunkering behind it. The men were around the truck and didn’t see her.
Stay quiet! she admonished herself as she carefully thrust the tip of her sword between the threads of the right rear tire. The rubber was thick, and it took some worrying at it, but she finally pierced it. She made two more holes in it and stretched her hand forward, feeling the air slowly escaping. Then she worked on the other rear tire. The truck would not be able to easily get around the Jeep…without pushing it out of the way, and the Jeep could not get far on only its front tires. For good measure, she punctured the spare that was affixed to the back.
Annja listened as she worked, hearing the men load another crate and groaning under its weight. None of them spoke English, or any other language she knew, and she promised herself that she would learn a few phrases of Vietnamese. She heard one of the men strike a match as another continued talking. Her eyes widened when she picked up the words Chiang Mai.
Peeking around the rear of the Jeep, she caught a good profile of one of the men. He was short, no more than five feet five inches, and he stood straight, shoulders back in seeming military posture. He brought his head forward when he sucked on his cigarette. She memorized his face. She couldn’t get a good look at the other two; they kept their heads down and they wore caps, one with an extralong brim. The one farthest away turned and walked out of sight; she shifted her position and watched him climb down into the treasure cavern.
Like a shadow, she slipped around the other side of the Jeep, edging to its front and poking her head up only briefly to see that the two men were still standing and talking at the back of the truck. It was half-filled with crates, and she saw the dark outline of a Buddha statue. Likely they hadn’t cleaned out the entire cavern before now because there’d simply been so many relics in it. Hauling away that much stuff required time and multiple vehicles, and no doubt multiple trips. The men were taking care with the goods and not hurrying.
She calculated how to take the pair out without killing them—she didn’t need their deaths to meet her revenge. She just needed to catch them.
A part of her knew this was something the Thai authorities should handle. But they weren’t here, and she worried that the men might not tarry long enough for the authorities to arrive…though her stopping the Jeep would help that matter. Stopping the truck would cement the deal.
Annja weighed the options and decided the authorities could deal with her prisoners. She would explain that the smuggling operation was being packed up and moved because she, Luartaro and Zakkarat accidentally stumbled across it, and so she had to act.
She crept closer and tightened the grip on her sword. The shorter man dropped his cigarette and ground it out with the ball of his foot. He was looking down, studying a turtle that had crawled out of the tall grass, and Annja chose that moment to strike. She sprang forward, sword pulled back, and she cleared the distance to the closest man in a heartbeat.
The shorter man looked up just as Annja rapped the pommel of her sword against the back of the other man’s head. He crumpled just as the shorter man drew the pistol from a holster at his side, brought it up and shouted.
It was a warning of some kind, she was certain, as she spun to her right when his first shot went off. The gun looked similar to the one she’d briefly used, and she counted herself fortunate that in his haste he was a bad aim. She closed the distance and brought the pommel down like a hammer on his hand. The gun dropped and he shouted again.
He fumbled for a knife at his waist and tried to back away from her, but the ground was still damp and he lost his balance. She brought her leg up and caught him hard in the thigh, then kicked him a second time.
As he dropped to his knees she thumped the pommel against the top of his head, cringing when she heard a cracking sound and praying she’d only knocked him out. No time to check, she vaulted over his body and whipped around the side of the truck, feet churning over the ground and heading toward the hole the winch sat in front of. A man was emerging from it, awkward in his climbing because he had a gun in his hand.
He fired it without aiming, and he struck a front tire of the truck. Annja smiled at that.
“Now shoot out the other one,” she said as she charged him.
He managed to climb all the way out by the time she reached him, and he squeezed off two more shots, one grazing her arm. It felt like fire, and she ground her teeth together. She swept the sword around, turning it so the flat of her blade would hit his side, but he was too fast for her. He leaped backward, across the hole, hollering to whoever was still inside.
“I definitely need to learn Vietnamese,” she said. She skirted the hole as shots were fired upward through it, spit rapid-fire from a machine gun. Then she whirled as the man up top fired again, this time at least one of the bullets striking the blade of the sword.
“No!” she hollered. The sword had been in pieces when it had come into her possession, and she could well imagine it breaking into pieces again.
She led with the sword again, darting toward him and spinning, making herself a difficult target. This time she let the edge of the blade cut through the air, fairly whistling as it cleaved the distance between her and the gunman. The blade bit into his arm, and he dropped the pistol.
He hollered in pain and shouted a string of words she couldn’t comprehend. Then she brought the sword around again, striking his arm a second time. Annja hadn’t wanted to maim another one of them, but she needed to take this one out of commission so she could deal with whoever was still below with the machine gun. She stepped to the side so she could keep an eye on the hole and the rope ladder.
“Down!” she barked at the injured man. He bent forward, cradling his sliced arm, blood flowing over his hand and his face etched with an expression of pain. “I…said…down!” She gestured with her free hand and he got the idea, gingerly getting to his knees. The rope ladder moved, and Annja clocked the wounded man on the side of his head with an elbow to knock him out.
Moving fast, she dismissed the sword so she could have both hands free, ran back to the hole and pulled at the ladder, ducking back just as more bullets came from below. Someone was climbing up it, but they backed off and she yanked the ladder up, stranding them.
“You can stay down there!” she shouted. Annja doubted they could leave the cavern via the way she’d come into it yesterday. All the rain would have thoroughly flooded the passageways, and there hadn’t been time for the water to recede. She knelt and tried to get a good look into the cavern. “Trapped like the rats you more than certainly are.” She allowed a rare smugness to creep into her voice.
An idea formed in her head; she could use the rope from the ladder to tie up the three unconscious men. Then she would wait for whatever authorities would be arriving. She’d use one of the dropped pistols, if necessary, to keep the men in the cavern under control.
“Oh, Luartaro, I hope you’ve contacted someone by now. I don’t want to sit up here all day. I hope—”
“Annja Creed. Put your hands to your sides and stand up.” The voice sounded brittle and hard, like ice shattering.
She glanced over her shoulder, seeing another black-clad man holding a machine gun pointed at her. He must have been in the back of the truck, hidden by the shadows, or maybe off to the side of the trail attending to something personal. Her lost backpack was slung over his shoulder.
“You took that from Zakkarat.” She pointed at the bag.
“I only took back what is mine. I assure you that I am a good shot, Annja Creed. And if you do not surrender now, I will kill you.”
Annja had no choice but to comply.
17
“You wonder how I know your name,” the man said.
Vietnamese
or Laotian, Annja placed him in his early forties. He had a cruel look about him, with fleshy pock-marked cheeks, as if he’d suffered a disease in earlier years. He had intense, unblinking eyes that were hard like river stones.
“No,” she said. “I do not wonder. You tortured Zakkarat. He gave you my name.”
A thin smile cracked his face. “Zakkarat Tak-sin did not deal well with pain. He called you ‘Annjacreed,’ a name that meant nothing to me until he said you and your companion, Lou Ardo, were archaeologists who wanted to explore some caves. He had a handful of baht in his pocket that you’d given him. He said you wanted to bring a film crew back with you later and put the caves on television. I deduced that you must be the Annja Creed, the famous archaeologist who chases history’s monsters.” His laugh was forced. “Even in my country your silly, worthless program airs.”
“And what country is that?”
“Actually, I have two. America and Vietnam. Educated in the first, I have embraced the latter. Vietnam is home now. I have no use for Americans.”
It was Annja’s turn to smile, having gained a measure of information. It explained why he was so fluent in English, and his accent sounded far more East Coast than Vietnamese. Boston, perhaps?
“Is Lou Ardo with you? Hiding in the bushes?” He stared into the foliage. “Come out, Lou Ardo, or I will kill Annja Creed.”
Lou Ardo? If she got out of this, she would tell Lu how badly the villain butchered his name.
“And you are?”
“My name is of no consequence to someone who will die soon…and who will die forever and never find heaven or hell.” He dropped his shoulder and the bag slid down, the straps catching against his forearm. “The old one taught me how to capture souls.” He balanced the machine gun against his hip with one hand and used the other to place the bag at his feet. “I will kill you, Annja Creed, and I will cause your soul to rot for eternity.”
A shiver raced down her spine at the notion.
“Then kill me, you thief,” she taunted, trying to get him to act in anger. She readied to spring into the tall grass. “Kill me and be done with this. Come on, get it over with.”
His fingers played against the machine-gun stock. “I’ve no reason to hate you. So quickly, yes, I will kill you, and likely without too much pain. Not as much pain as Zakkarat felt, I can assure you. Quickly…if you will cooperate first.”
“Cooperate? And if I don’t?”
“Then your death will be agonizing and very, very slow.” He grinned wider, showing uneven ivory-colored teeth, one of them with a gold edge. “The manner of your demise matters not to me, Annja Creed. Your slow death would amuse me.”
“Cooperate? So I can more quickly rot for eternity?”
In the silence that stretched between them Annja measured him. His hands were calloused and dirt was thick under his fingernails. That gave him the look of a laborer, though she suspected he wasn’t. He acted more like a thug who had dirtied himself hauling treasure—that was how he gained all the calluses, from his skin rubbing against the crates. Only a hint of stubble on his face, his hair was short and styled, though it was greasy from not being washed recently. Perhaps he was a businessman who worked in an office…when he wasn’t smuggling. Like the others he wore dark clothes, but his were green, so deep that at a distance they had appeared black. His shoes looked expensive.
She listened to his breathing, which was loud and had a slight rattle to it. A smoker? The one who’d left behind the crumpled cigarette packs? She heard movement in the cavern behind and below her.
“Yes, cooperate, the famous Annja Creed. Perhaps I will only let your soul rot for a decade or two.” Again the forced laugh. It sounded like nails dragging against a blackboard.
She took a step back, her heel bumping up against one of the stakes that held the rope ladder.
“I want to know where you went, Annja Creed, after you left my trove and ran down the mountain yesterday. Where did you go? And who did you tell about my…acquisitions? And where is Lou Ardo?”
“He is where you won’t find him,” she answered.
“I am a resourceful man.”
“Resourceful enough to stash your ill-gotten wealth in a mountain,” she said. “And resourceful enough to get some vehicles here fast to retrieve it.” She paused. “Since you intend to kill me, anyway, why not tell me what this is all about. Where did all of the gold come from?”
“And where is it going?” he said.
She nodded.
“I told you I was educated in America. I grew up on James Bond films.” He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. “All the villains revealed their plans, lording it over James Bond, who was trussed up to some torture device. He always escaped.”
“You worry that I’ll escape?” She gave him a petulant expression. “You’ve got a gun on me.”
“I am not a James Bond villain. I am not a villain at all—just a businessman, an opportunist, who made fortunate alliances so he could make a fortune. I do not need to explain my plans to an archaeologist who stars in a silly television program.” He steadied the stock of the gun against his stomach. “And no, I do not worry that you will escape. Now tell me, Annja Creed, where did you go yesterday? Who did you talk to?” He made an exaggerated motion of laying his finger farther across the trigger. “Where is Lou Ardo?”
“He’s beyond your reach.” She took another step back and dropped into the opening, knees bent and hands forward at waist height, calling for the sword and feeling its pommel form against her palms before her feet hit the stone. Bullets sprayed the air where she’d stood a moment ago. The impact on her sandaled feet was jarring, as if she’d jammed her heels against red-hot thumbtacks. She clamped her mouth shut to keep from crying out and whirled, sword leading and slicing into a man who’d been darting forward, pistol raised.
The flat of the blade hit his hand, sending the gun careering off a crate.
“Drop it!” Annja barked at a second man she spotted. She leaped out from under the opening in the ceiling, worried that she’d be as good as a sitting duck for the man up top.
The second man reluctantly lowered his machine gun, his gaze darting between her and his companion. Bullets rained down through the opening, and Annja edged farther into the chamber, all the while keeping her eyes on the two men. They stank so strongly of sweat and cigarettes that she nearly gagged. The light was better than on her previous visit—a tall battery-operated lamp was responsible, casting a fluorescent glow everywhere and making the beads of sweat on the men’s faces glisten.
“Drop it now!” she repeated. “Drop…the…machine gun…now.”
The man—the younger of the two—made a move to do just that. But it was a feint. As more bullets came down from above, he instead raised his machine gun, firing straight ahead and missing Annja by inches, but only because she’d sprung toward the cenotelike pool in the center.
“Idiot,” she growled as she circled around behind him, quick as a cat. She raised the sword high and brought it down, biting into his shoulder with enough strength behind it to break his collarbone. A second slash ended his scream and sent the other man to his knees, arms up in surrender.
“Annja Creed!” came a shout from above. “Show yourself!”
“So you can shoot me?” Annja laughed.
He muttered a string of expletives in English and Vietnamese.
“Where is Lou Ardo? Who have you told about this place?” He shuffled around the opening, poking his head down and cussing again when he was unable to see her because Annja had moved behind a stack of crates. “I’ll let you live if you cooperate, Annja Creed. I’ll lower this ladder and you can climb out.”
“You think I believe that?” she called back. “You probably have a bridge somewhere you want to sell me, too.”
The man who’d surrendered hollered something that Annja couldn’t understand. He shuffled on his knees toward the opening, and she guessed that he’d asked his boss to be let up. He hollered
again.
“Shut up,” Annja told him. “And stay put.”
He seemed not to understand her and called up once more. Annja dismissed the sword, slipped out from behind the crate and reached for the dropped machine gun. She cocked it, and the man stopped shuffling.
“You might not understand my language,” she said. “But you understand this well enough.” She swung the machine gun to the left, as a gesture that he should move away from the opening.
He shook his head, spittle flying from his lips and his eyes wide with uncertainty. She gestured again, and he complied, though he kept looking up.
“Annja Creed,” the man up top said. “I could torture the information out of you. But torture is rather messy. Why not just tell me who you talked to? This is your last warning.”
Silence was her response.
“I don’t need to shoot you,” he continued. “You can starve down there. You can die of exposure at night when the temperature drops. No one comes up to this part of the mountain. No one will find you. Just tell me what I want to know.”
Again, she said nothing.
His venomous string of expletives echoed down through the opening. He fired another burst, rock fragments from the stone lip showering down and biting into the man who’d surrendered. He scooted farther away from the opening. Then it was quiet.
Annja heard a bird cry. A moment later a monkey screeched. But there was nothing else from the man above. An engine started, the sound faint because of the distance and the intervening rock.
“The Jeep,” she said. “He’s starting the Jeep.” But why not leave in the truck? It was filled with crates of treasure. She’d ruined the back two tires of the Jeep. The truck was probably big enough to bull its way past the Jeep, knock it out of the way and down the mountain. Maybe he was just moving the Jeep to make things easier. “Unless he doesn’t have the keys to the truck. And doesn’t know how to hot-wire it.”
She looked to the surrendered man and the body of the man she’d killed. On the latter’s belt was a clip with several keys.