Rogue Angel 49: The Devil's Chord

by Alex Archer

  “Drop the niceties, Roux.” She slipped into the passenger seat and he shifted into gear. “What’s up with the cross and where are we headed?”

  “You know more about the location of the cross than I do. As for where we’re headed, the destination is not so important as the maneuvers and dexterity of your driver. We’re evading a tail.”

  Annja turned and spied the usual traffic one would expect at this time of day. Horns honked and buses cut off smaller vehicles. Bicyclists swerved between the harrowingly close jagged lines of traffic. A group of tourists attempting to cross the street with arms linked cast fearful gazes toward the oncoming traffic.

  Then she spotted the black SUV with the darkened windows. It was two cars behind Roux’s vehicle and she thought there were no plates, but she wasn’t certain.

  “Annja! I haven’t time to win your trust right this moment. You’ll just have to go along for now.”

  “I presume it’s not me they’re after,” she said, “since they must have been following you. And no one knew I was arriving in Milan except you. So, what did you do this time, Roux?”

  “Not fair, Annja.”

  “Completely fair, and you know it.”

  Roux swerved around a parked car and gained two car lengths on the SUV. “I believe the men in that car are under the false impression that I may have cheated at our poker game last night. I never cheat. I’m just that good.”

  “I make no judgments. I suspect you have centuries of experience behind your full house.”

  “Poker is a more recent game, Annja. I believe it emerged sometime in the early 1800s.”

  “That still gives you a couple centuries on the guys behind us.”

  “The guys won’t be a problem. What is a problem is that I haven’t got a better handle on the Lorraine cross. I’ve come to believe that I may have been duped.”

  “By Scout?”

  “Scout Roberts is dead, Annja.”

  “Right, but until we know his real identity... You know, I hadn’t pinned the guy as clever, but he did set me up nicely.”

  “He’s working for someone else. Someone who knows me all too well.”

  She swung a look at the man whose hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. He didn’t give her the answer she was waiting for, and her cell phone rang before she could ask him.

  Scout Roberts had the audacity to call her. “Sorry about that mix-up in Venice, Annja.”

  “Mix-up? Don’t you mean setup?”

  “Possibly. It’s all in how you define things. I didn’t see how to get you off my back. Had to be done.”

  “Because your employer insisted?”

  “Roux? Nah. I’ve moved on to a higher bidder. I thought you’d be en route to rendezvous with the old man right now. Did you tell him to take a hike?”

  She gritted her teeth, trying to maintain her control.

  “He’s greedy, Annja. I don’t believe Roux ever intended to return the museum’s cross once found. And you know, it’s not about the cross anyway.”

  “It’s not?” She glanced to Roux, who now whistled softly while keeping an eye on the rearview mirror. Classic avoidance technique. “Do tell.”

  “I’ve already told you, it’s a key. A key to the unimaginable.”

  “That’s how it always works in fairy tales and legends. Are you living in a fairy tale, Scout?”

  “That I am. And getting richer every second I have the cross.”

  “So you haven’t passed it on to your new employer? Good to know. Were you the man who intercepted the thief last night?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Creed.”

  “Right. You certainly recovered from that poisoning swiftly.”

  “I work out and eat right.”

  Garbage, all of it. “You in Milan?”

  “Er, yes—so, you are with Roux. Well, then, it’s a race. See you at the finish line.”

  The phone clicked off. Annja barely resisted screaming. But next time she saw that man...

  “What exactly is this cross, Roux? A key? To what?”

  She tucked her cell in her pocket and turned to Roux, who had stopped whistling and now held a keen interest on the rearview mirror.

  “We’ll talk later. Right now? Hang on,” he said and jerked the car sharply to the left.

  From what Annja could determine, they were still in the northeastern part of central Milan. They cruised past modern skyscrapers in a business district. Roux deftly avoided a pedestrian who stepped out on a red light. The SUV followed closely.

  “Do you have an intended destination?” she asked.

  “Not at the moment. Just trying to discourage our friends back there from following us. Watch your head.”

  At that warning Annja instinctively ducked. A bullet pinged the car’s passenger-side mirror.

  Roux tsk-tsked and at the nearest side street wrenched the wheel to the right. Alone apart from the vehicle still following, Roux produced a pistol from below his seat and handed it to her. “Do show those idiots who they are dealing with, will you?”

  She did not like to fire in the city, whether there weren’t any people visible or not. Still, when the next bullet shattered the back window, Annja turned to eye her target, using her seat as a shield. She aimed at the vehicle’s hood.

  Direct hit.

  But the bullet hadn’t done any real damage, since the vehicle kept advancing on them.

  One of the vehicle’s passengers leaned out the window, gun arm extended, and fired another round. Annja ducked low behind the seat. The bullet pierced her headrest.

  “He’s an excellent shot.”

  “They’re not trying to slow me down,” Roux said. “Which riles me. They want to kill me.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve no intention of bleeding all over your car today.”

  “Thoughtful of you. But don’t fret over it much. It’s a rental.”

  “Your compassion really touches me,” she replied.

  “I’m turning right...now.”

  As Roux swung the car around a corner, Annja aimed, both hands clasping the gun, at the SUV’s front tires. Firing twice, she succeeded in hitting the driver-side tire. The SUV swung out of control and crashed into a lamppost.

  “You hungry?” Roux asked casually as he turned onto another street. “I’m hungry. My hotel is nearby. Let’s go in for a nice meal.”

  “And then we’ll talk, yes?”

  He nodded, not verbally committing to a reply.

  “We’ll talk,” Annja said. “Or I walk.”

  Chapter 17

  The hotel Roux was staying in was a fifteenth-century convent that had been converted into a luxury respite in downtown Milan. The moment he handed the keys to the valet, Roux was treated like a king. A hotel employee escorted them into the restaurant and to a private table overlooking the luscious garden. The chef immediately arrived to introduce himself and describe the day’s special, which Roux opted for. Roux then ordered a four-hundred-euro bottle of wine.

  As Annja sipped the wine, she decided that the expensive stuff was definitely worth it. Much as her budget didn’t allow for such extravagances, she was grateful when it was on offer. Roux was well-off financially and sometimes she had the impression that he enjoyed spoiling her. On occasion they seemed like a father and daughter. However, she was always quick to correct the relationship. She never forgot that Roux could treat people ruthlessly at times, especially if his wants were under threat.

  The first course, featuring zucchini ricotta, was so creamy she thought she’d gone to heaven. But she wasn’t about to let the food distract her from finding out what she wanted to know.

  “You said you would tell me everything,” she prompted between bites. “So tell.”

  “Not going to allow me to enjoy my meal?”

  She shook her head, leveling a stern gaze on the old man who always knew how to manipulate a person.

  “I still don’t understand what it is we’re after,” she said. “Is it
something beyond the Lorraine cross?”

  “It is.”

  “Then what is it? Something supposedly invented by Leonardo da Vinci? Does it possess destroy-the-world power or is it a cozy painting to hang over the fireplace?”

  “Annja, I can’t believe you’d suggest hanging a da Vinci over a smoky hearth.” He mocked a shudder. “Sacrilege.”

  She smirked. There was the playful side to the man she enjoyed seeing. Though Roux could also appear as fierce and strong as a man thirty years younger. His ability to switch personas at the drop of a hat both comforted and bothered her.

  “Very well.” He finished his first goblet of wine and poured another. “The cross is a key.”

  “That’s what Scout said. A key to what?”

  “Why, a time-shifting device, of course.”

  Upon Roux’s casual announcement, Annja almost choked on her wine. Instead, she pressed the linen napkin to her mouth so she could awkwardly swallow.

  “When the key is placed in the device I seek—which is a music box, by the way—the user shifts in time with another person.”

  “Time travel?” she managed to gasp. “You are kidding me. Of all the crazy gadgets and things I’ve chased over the years, they have all, at the very least, been real.”

  “It’s not time travel but time shifting,” Roux insisted. “Big difference.”

  Annja couldn’t prevent a chuckle. “How so?”

  “Apparently when you place the key, which is the cross, in its lock in the music box—yes, supposedly designed by Leonardo—the bearer shifts places in time with another person.”

  Annja knew her jaw had dropped open, but she couldn’t find the words to counter that explanation. He’d spoken it so plainly. And with total belief.

  “Fine, Annja, it isn’t real. Time shifting is not real,” Roux admitted.

  “Glad we agree on something.”

  He promptly shook off her admonishment. “But the idea of shifting time is appealing, you have to admit that.”

  “More appealing than having a sword in the otherwhere? More appealing than being able to live through the centuries?”

  “Well, yes.”

  She wasn’t completely convinced by his reply. Still, he was more of a hopeful believer than she would ever be.

  “It is unique in its power. And a curiosity to me.”

  “How are you even sure what this device is and what it’s supposed to do?”

  “Annja, trust me when I say I know of what I speak.”

  “Did somebody show it to you? Demonstrate it? Have you already time shifted, Roux?”

  “No, no and no. Annja, really?”

  She shrugged and dragged her fork across the plate, cleaning up the last traces of food.

  “I saw the device,” Roux said. “And I saw the drawings in the notebook that detailed its use.”

  “Right.” Annja set aside her empty plate and immediately a server appeared to whisk it away. “So this is all speculation based on a drawing made by a man who is known for having sketched thousands of intricate and fantastical devices that were never built because of their impossibility?”

  “Exactly.” Roux’s glee added a lilt to his voice. And that worried Annja. Did she need to have the old man committed?

  “Let’s say a person really could shift places with someone from another time period—for example, you,” she said. “How would the person ever get back?”

  The man had no immediate reply to that one.

  “And would that person you’d switched with suddenly appear in this time to replace you? How would they return? Would your atoms collide in the process and destroy you both?”

  She waited for his eager response, but he only remained silent.

  “Exactly. And what’s to say there is a return lock and device in the other time period?” Annja chuckled. “Was more than one device created? There can’t be two at any given time. Or can there?”

  “Annja, all time revolves on a continuum.”

  “I’ve heard the theories. If you’re going to launch into hypothetical notions of imagined outcomes, then I’m out of here. But I will grant that the idea of someone having made a time-travel device is a good one.”

  “A time-shifting device.”

  “Semantics.”

  “We’ll never see eye to eye on this.”

  “And that makes me one happy skeptic.”

  “You could go back and meet Joan of Arc,” he encouraged, as if it was something easily arranged.

  “Swell...”

  “Sarcasm isn’t your forte, Annja.”

  The next course was delivered. A fancy plate of pasta, mushrooms and peppers. Annja stabbed a fork into the dish and tasted. Not bad.

  She leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Do you want to travel back through time to see Joan, Roux?”

  “I’ve already met her. Nice gal. Tragic ending.”

  “Then I don’t understand your quest for this device.”

  “It is a relic wrapped in a fascinating concept possibly constructed by one of the great Renaissance masters. Isn’t that enough?”

  It should be, but Annja sensed Roux’s reasons for obtaining it were more than mere fascination or historical significance. If it wasn’t at all related to Joan of Arc, would he have been even slightly interested in the far-out legend?

  “Don’t you want to discover if it holds an iota of truth?” he asked.

  “No, I—” She forced herself to stop the diatribe and blew out a long, relaxing breath. She took another few bites before she said, “If the cross wasn’t of some importance, I’d walk away from this project right now.”

  “That’s not the enterprising young archaeologist I know.”

  The man was right. Why was she having such a tough time with this? The idea of time travel was crazy. But merely finding the cross would be accomplishment enough for her. It was a link to Joan, after all.

  And it was stolen property. She’d been close to it. She was closer than most and gave herself good odds of finding it and returning it to the museum.

  “If and when the cross is located,” she said, “and whether or not it is a key to shift time...”

  “Leonardo knew man could fly. And he had the science to back it up. Do you think it’s so out there that we board tin canisters and soar across oceans nowadays?”

  Annja sighed.

  “I stand by what I’ve said about the device,” Roux huffed.

  “Which you got from whom?”

  “Personal knowledge,”

  “Well, someone else knows what it is, because Scout is hot on the trail, as well. He’s already got the cross—”

  “Unless,” Roux said.

  Annja set down the wine goblet. “Unless?”

  “Da Vinci kept extensive notes on everything. He always carried a notebook with him. Was scribbling in one on the night I first met him.”

  “And...someone out there has that notebook. It’s possible. And the only probable answer to some of our questions.”

  “Whoever has that notebook is a thief,” he said. “Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes. Unless they don’t know what they have.”

  “But what if they did? What if the notebook for the time-shifting device was paired with the cross?”

  “You think there was a notebook in the attaché case we brought up from the Venetian canal?”

  “Roberts must have the notebook and the cross.” Roux sounded half angry, half peeved. “Who is that man?”

  “And who is he working for now?”

  “You have to ask?” Roux smirked and raised his goblet to his lips for a swallow of wine. Finally, he said, “Garin Braden.”

  Chapter 18

  “There are only two people in the world who know exactly what the device may be capable of doing,” Roux said.

  “Two people?” Annja started to think about it, but she didn’t have to think long. He’d just told her the man’s name. “You and Garin. So you both saw the sketch for this mu
sic box back in the day?”

  “We did. And actually, Garin was the one who had a conversation with Leonardo about the box. He didn’t mention it to me until much later. Couple hundred years, maybe.”

  To exist in a world in which conversations were ordered by which century they had taken place stymied Annja.

  “As usual,” Annja commented.

  “What is that supposed to mean? We are not always at one another’s throats. We’ve worked together many a time.”

  “Then why not work together to locate this particular artifact?”

  “I don’t want to share, Annja. A man is allowed that right, isn’t he?”

  “You’ve moved beyond turning it in to the rightful authorities, haven’t you?”

  “I didn’t say that. I want to look at it. Hold it in my hands.”

  “Time travel?”

  He shrugged and quickly sipped more wine.

  The man actually thought he could travel through time? Perhaps the centuries had not been kind to his brain after all.

  “So you think Garin is the one who hired Scout away from you? Or maybe he hired Scout to press you into funding the dive?”

  Roux flashed her a look that told her he hadn’t considered that underhanded switch. He turned his attention to the windows that lined the restaurant and looked out over the sharply carved hedges and trees. “Anything is possible.”

  “Anything indeed. Did you and Garin spend a lot of time with Leonardo?”

  “I spoke to him on a few occasions.” He frowned. “Garin I can’t vouch for.”

  Annja read the man’s stiff, defensive body language with ease. This was a sore point between Roux and Garin. And that would make this quest all the more dangerous if they were pitted against one another. “So the two of you weren’t speaking at the time in history when this item was revealed to you both?”

  “Is that your best guess?”

  “Yes. It makes sense.”

  “It does?” He leaned his elbows on the table and gestured for her to continue.

  “What better reason to be on opposite sides now? Is there more to the lock on the music box besides the key?”