by Alex Archer
But the shark didn’t change course.
And then Annja reached out with her left hand and grasped the great white’s massive dorsal fin.
She felt the instant tug on her, surprised at how much faster the great white moved than she had. It was slowing down to keep pace with her before. But now, unburdened by the puny human’s attempt to keep up, the great white seemed to shrug and say, “Okay, hang on.”
Annja hung on.
They coursed through the water and Annja let her legs rest, grateful for the reprieve. Of course, there was still a chance the shark would be irritated when Annja finally let go, but she could cover a lot more distance at that moment by hitching a ride.
If that poor seal could see me now, she thought. It would probably be horrified at what I’ve done. Then she thought about her friend Cole, from whom she’d learned this trick, and was grateful that his passion for sharks had taught her to respect and understand them.
Annja kept her head forward, willing the shark to stay on the northern route direction they’d both been following when she was swimming with it. If it veered away or looked as if it was heading toward open ocean, she would have no choice but to disembark.
She figured they covered two more miles within about five minutes of travel. For its part, the great white seemed utterly unfazed by the passenger it had acquired. Annja could sense the terrific power of the fish; it was supremely designed for hunting and patrolling the oceans as its apex predator. And it was truly an incredible sight to behold, let alone be hitching a ride with.
Annja’s heart rate kicked up and she tried hugging the body of the great white a little closer. Ahead of them, she’d spotted the oxygen trails of the five divers she’d come to do battle with. Within minutes she could see the divers themselves.
They were maybe a hundred yards ahead of Annja. And she could see the large dark bag that two of them towed.
The pearl.
Only now, it was a bomb.
What are the odds I can induce this fellow to take a chunk out of Spier? she wondered.
But at that moment, she felt the great white start to change direction.
Annja got the message. Thus endeth the ride.
Reluctantly, she released the massive dorsal fin and allowed herself to bob in the water, her sword ready to handle the shark, if necessary.
The great white continued on its course, not seeming to notice she was no longer attached. She watched for a moment as the great beast swam away.
She turned in the water and looked ahead. The oxygen bubbles drifted up toward the surface and she could see that the five divers were arrayed in a pentagon pattern in the water.
Worse, they all seemed to have spear guns.
She swam ahead, cutting the distance between them. Her legs, rested during the five-minute trip on the shark, came to life and they churned the water behind her.
As she swam, she considered her options of attack. They had no idea she was there.
Take out the bomb first, she decided. If they couldn’t use it, then Spier would have to call off the attack on the politicians. Stopping the attack was the primary goal, Annja thought.
Annja watched the two divers towing the bag. They were holding on to its straps.
She could surprise them and cut the straps before they knew she was there.
But what if it exploded when it dropped to the seabed?
Annja had no way of knowing how volatile the pearl would be. Would Spier have rigged it to explode if it was jostled? Or would they leave it on a timer to do its work?
I’ll have to take the chance that Spier has it on a timer, she decided. If it could explode that easily, then Spier and his team could have been killed if something went wrong while they swam.
Annja had no doubt that Spier intended to come out of this alive. With his money, he could easily run for office in Germany and win. And with the former chancellor out of the way, Spier would have little opposition to his bigoted views.
And the rest of the world would have a genuine problem on their hands. A revitalized Reichstadt under Spier and his ex-KSK commandos.
Annja had cut the distance down to under twenty feet now. She kept her eyes on the seafloor, aware that men as highly trained in combat as Spier’s team would have the ability to sense when someone dangerous was approaching.
She waited until the very last moment, and then she surged forward, reached out with her sword and made two quick cuts. One on each strap.
The reaction was stunned surprise as the pearl suddenly dropped and then disappeared somewhere beneath them.
Annja would have to worry about that later.
The divers turned and Annja saw she faced Heinkel and Mueller. Their facial reactions behind their masks were of surprise followed by rage.
She saw the spear guns come up at almost the same time. She pivoted and cut down, slicing into Mueller’s gun first. The spear shot wide as Annja cut the elastic band. She backhanded Mueller in the face with the pommel of the sword and his mask cracked.
She heard the swish and felt the barbed head of Heinkel’s spear lance her side, but it only grazed her. Still, she winced in pain and then cut back with the sword, coming down on Heinkel’s air hose, slicing it open.
Oxygen immediately flooded the area around them with a swarm of bubbles. Heinkel was forced to ascend or risk drowning.
Mueller, however, had pulled out his diver’s knife and now faced Annja, bobbing in the ocean.
Annja closed with him.
He jabbed straight out at her, trying to go for an immediate kill shot at her heart, but Annja brought her elbow inside to block the blow, sliding her own blade between them.
Mueller retreated and then came at her again with an overhead thrust aimed at impaling her head.
Annja allowed a sudden swell of current to lift her to the side and she cut down on Mueller from behind. She watched her blade bite into the oxygen tanks and Mueller shot off into the deep, unable to free himself from the explosion of pressurized oxygen.
She heard a swish and ducked as another spear went over her head.
The surprise, it seemed, was over.
Gottlieb bobbed in the swells about fifty feet away. He was desperately trying to reload another spear to shoot.
Annja swam through the water to reach him.
Another spear shot past her. Farther away, she could make out Hans aiming at her.
Spier had vanished somewhere.
Probably went after the bomb, Annja thought as she continued to churn across the distance between her and Gottlieb.
He managed to get another spear loaded. Annja watched as the gun came up, level with her face.
She was too far away.
The spear shot and Annja brought the sword up. The spear bounced off the flat of the blade and spun away toward the bottom.
Annja charged toward Gottlieb and he barely had time to raise his arms to ward off her attack. But it was too late. Annja plunged the blade through his wet suit and into his chest.
Gottlieb’s mouthpiece flew out as blood exploded from his chest and mouth at the same time.
Annja spun him around and used her feet to anchor her as she pulled her blade free of him. Gottlieb’s eyes had already gone black and he drifted away in the current, dead.
Annja had little time to appreciate the win. As she turned back, she felt something impale her leg. She glanced down and saw the horrifying image of a spear jutting out of her thigh.
Had she been on land, Annja might have screamed out in pain. But instead, she gritted her teeth and saw that the spear was nowhere close to her femoral artery. Yeah, it hurt like hell, but it wasn’t a fatal wound.
Annja wasn’t about to give Hans time to ready another spear, however. Despite the waves of pain flooding her body, she swam right at him, willing her legs to work and get her there as fast as possible.
Hans gave up on the spear gun and drew his own knife. It wasn’t a regular diving knife. It had an angle in its blade that aid
ed its cutting ability. Underwater, she wasn’t sure what sort of advantage that would give Hans, but she certainly didn’t want to find out. Annja had seen that type of blade—a kukri knife like the kind the Nepali Gurkhas use—in action enough times to know it was indeed a formidable weapon.
So, this was how it was going to end, she thought with a frown. From lovers to haters.
Mortal enemies.
Annja held her sword in front of her as Hans eased himself closer to her with gentle kicks.
He’s trying to get closer so the sword isn’t as effective, Annja realized. She jabbed with the blade and kept him at bay.
Not this time, she thought. I might have liked you once. But that was a lifetime ago.
Hans smiled and then waved at her, trying his best to egg her on. Annja was having none of it. She held her position and waited for him to make his move.
When he did, it was so smooth Annja almost didn’t register it. But Hans came at her with a backhanded slash, aimed at slicing her neck wide open.
The leading edge of the blade slashed just millimeters from her. Annja jerked back and then shot her arms out.
Hans recoiled and let the kukri knock the sword off target. Then he cut back again, trying to score a line down the front of Annja’s body.
Again the kukri missed by a fractional distance. If they’d been on land, she might have met her match. Hans knew how to use that kukri, and the longer they sparred, the more dangerous it was going to get for her.
Time to end this, she thought.
Hans came in harder now, trying to stab her.
Annja waited until she was certain he’d committed himself and then brought her sword down following his arc. The blade bit into the tops of his arms and she simply let the blade bounce back up into his throat.
She heard the gasp even underwater as the sword cut his throat open.
Hans dropped the kukri and it flashed through the water as it sank.
Blood streamed away from Hans as he drifted away, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood from his neck.
Annja watched him for a moment longer before turning away to locate Spier.
36
She saw a thin trail of oxygen bubbles far off in the distance. Annja raced toward them, aware that the spear jutting out of her leg hurt her far more than she wanted to admit. Plus, the trail of blood that dribbled from it was of concern, as well. She might have hitched a ride with a great white a few minutes before, but blood in the water meant it’d likely be back to see just what the deal was.
Fortunately, it had a lot of potential meals to choose from, not just Annja. Heinkel, Mueller, Gottlieb and Hans were all out there somewhere, surrounded by lots of blood. The odds seemed decent that if the great white was going to attack anyone, it would opt for them first.
Annja saw a flash of movement.
Spier was swimming about a hundred yards away from her. In his arms, she saw something large and round.
The pearl.
He’d managed to locate it even after Annja sent it sprawling to the seabed. She frowned. He was determined to see this thing exploded one way or another.
I guess that rules out talking him into surrendering, she thought.
Annja swam faster, fighting the lancing pain in her leg. Sooner or later, she was going to have to remove the spear, but there was no time at the moment. Fortunately, it had gone in at the top part of her quadriceps muscle. She just had to be careful she didn’t catch the leg on anything and make the wound a lot worse.
She kept the sword in her hands, unaware if Spier had any weapons he could throw her way when she drew closer to him.
But Spier seemed oblivious to her presence. Perhaps he thought that his men would have been more than a match for the television-host-cum-archaeologist, or maybe he went even further, thinking that there was no way a mere woman could defeat four highly trained commandos.
Whatever the case, Spier showed no sign that he even knew she was around and seemed intent to deliver the pearl to the area roughly one hundred yards offshore.
Annja felt the seabed rising sharply as they got closer to the coastline. Part of her grew worried that if the snipers hidden in the bluffs above spotted them offshore, they’d fire down on them. She’d have to remain underwater the entire time.
This didn’t seem to bother Spier, who had found what he was looking for. He approached a rocky outcropping on the stony seabed. Spier slowed and allowed the pearl to come to rest nestled in a shallow grove that seemed almost made for receiving it.
He made a few final adjustments and then started to swim away.
Then he saw Annja.
His eyes went from her face to the spear jutting out of her leg. Annja saw the pleasure in his eyes as he regarded the thing that was causing her an extreme amount of pain.
Annja steeled herself. He’ll attack me now, she thought. I’ve got to be ready.
But Spier, who seemed to have made an entire life out of defying convention, turned and swam off toward deeper water.
Annja frowned. The choice was plain—either try to disarm the pearl or go after Spier.
But she couldn’t do both.
She took one final look at Spier as his fins drove him farther away and then made her decision.
Annja dove deeper to get to the rocky outcropping, but even as she closed in on it, she could see the digital readout swiftly counting back down from two minutes.
Annja examined the housing, which Spier had apparently built to encase the pearl itself. She tried to recall what she knew about nuclear detonation, but quickly shrugged that train of thought off and concentrated instead on how she could disconnect the wires from the bomb itself.
She saw a number of colored wires going to and from the different parts of the casement, but nothing seemed to be connected directly to the pearl.
Annja’s fingers felt as thick as sausages as she tried to make sense of the assembly. It was almost seamless metal surrounding the pearl itself. Even in the cool waters of the Atlantic, Annja could feel the heat the pearl gave off.
Incredible power, she realized.
She decided it was time to act, no matter what. She grabbed the red wire and yanked it out away from the pearl.
Annja waited to see what would happen.
The digital readout continued.
Annja’s heart raced and she sucked oxygen faster than she should have dared.
There were five wires left. Any one of them might set the bomb off. Or they might disarm the bomb.
Which one?
She’d been in front of bombs before. She knew trust and confidence were the only things that would get her out of this alive.
She felt the sword in her right hand.
She brought the blade up and watched the digital readout continue to spiral down toward zero.
It has to be now, she thought.
There’s not enough time to try to work this out logically. Disarm it and then let the experts come in and recover the device.
The clock shot down.
Thirty seconds.
Annja felt herself sucking too much oxygen. She felt dizzy, like she was going to pass out.
She brought the sword up and positioned the blade under the wires. She pressed the steel of its blade against them all.
She held her breath and cut.
THE DIGITAL READOUT FROZE at three seconds.
Annja almost collapsed into the midst of the ocean.
Her sword dropped to the seafloor, coming to rest on the sand and smooth rocks.
She felt her shoulders droop and she slowed her breathing to keep herself from blacking out.
She’d done it.
The pearl, its shiny black surface, lay resting still in its enclosure, but there was no detonation. And the German chancellor was safe.
Annja looked closely at the pearl and she could see her reflection in it. She looked like she’d aged ten years over the past day.
She certainly felt like that was the case. But in the e
nd, things had worked out. But what to do about the pearl?
Where would it go now? Who would take possession of it? If this was some new type of nuclear material that originated in nature, did that really belong to anyone? Would it make people go crazy over this stuff again? Regular nuclear weapons were bad enough, Annja thought. And the world had come close to the brink of nuclear annihilation too many times before to ever make such an object as the pearl a safe thing to possess.
After all, Spier had gone hunting for it to take over his homeland and then perhaps the entire planet.
How could it ever rest in any one government’s hands without attracting jealousy, rage and indignation from others?
Annja picked up her sword and used the blade to pry apart the enclosure that surrounded it.
The metal and plastic bits came apart easily enough and then the pearl lolled over into the sand.
Annja found herself strangely attracted to it. Despite its power, she no longer felt sick from being so close to it. Perhaps the seawater nullified its radioactive components? She had no idea. Nor did she really want to find out. If it wasn’t affecting her any longer, that was good.
Annja released her sword and reached for the pearl.
She caught an unusual reflection in it and turned just as a knife blade cut through the water where she’d been a split second before.
Annja rolled in the water and came to face the threat behind her.
Heinkel and Mueller had found her. They still wore their weight belts but they’d shucked their oxygen tanks.
And they came at her too quickly to retrieve her sword.
Mueller attacked from the right and Heinkel the left. They tried to trap her between them, cutting and jabbing with their knives.
Annja pivoted in the water and evaded the blows, but then she felt the most agonizing sensation.
She glanced down and saw that Heinkel had grabbed the spear still jutting out of her leg and had wrenched it around inside her thigh.