The Third Caliph

by Alex Archer

  Garin hit the man in the throat with two fingers, pulling the blow just enough to keep from crushing the trachea and killing him. Choking and gasping for breath, the man dropped to his knees. Garin caught the abandoned baton before it hit the ground. The man’s partner, stunned for a moment, moved too slowly to do more than set up in a defensive position. By that time Garin had brought the baton up between the man’s legs, then shoved him aside as he collapsed and threw up.

  Still in motion, Garin opened the door and dropped the baton at his feet.

  The inside of the club looked like hell. Digitized flames cascaded around the walls as laser lighting flickered out over the gyrating crowd. Spinning spheres that resembled flaming asteroids swung from the ceiling and projected the lasers. Garin was surprised the repeat clientele hadn’t gone deaf from the high-decibel death-metal music.

  Cocktail waitresses wearing shimmering red camisoles, tiny thong shorts, high heels and horns circulated through the crowd. Bars occupied both sides of the club. At the other end of the expansive dance floor, a DJ dressed as a young Dracula ran the sound. Every so often he took a drink of something, then spat flames into the air above the crowd.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” A young waitress stood to Garin’s left.

  Garin laid a hundred-euro note on her serving tray. “No. Thank you.” He strode past her, knowing without asking that Eniko would be in the back of the club holding court.

  The dancers on the floor parted ahead of him as he crossed. A few of the men frowned, but the women gazed at him with interest. He ignored them all, watching for shifting that went against the grain of the whirling bodies.

  Eniko was expecting him. She had to be.

  Three men converged on Garin before he reached the other end of the club. Cameras mounted on the flaming asteroids captured video of the crowd and mixed it with the fiery footage on the walls. He saw himself, and he also saw the aggressors coming for him. They cut through the dancers like sharks through an ocean.

  Evidently the security crew at the front had radioed ahead. Tracking their movement, Garin saw that they came from the left. That was where Eniko would be, back in the area cut off from the dance floor by one-way glass.

  The first man to reach Garin was nearly seven feet tall, a steroid-induced giant that would have intimidated a lesser man. Garin had stood against armored knights as well as British Mark I tanks during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette in World War I. The giant threw a straight punch, whipping his other hand back to his hip in a martial-arts swivel. Garin slipped the blow, feeling the wind of the man’s fist passing his cheek, and threw his right arm up at the same time he lifted his right leg. Pivoting and shifting his weight, Garin drove his right foot against the side of the man’s right leg, snapping the knee. He also trapped the man’s right arm before his opponent could recover it, then slammed his left forearm into the man’s elbow, shattering that joint, as well.

  Crying out in pain, the man tried to stay erect. Garin spun him long enough to use him as a human shield against the second attacker, a black man only slightly smaller than the first, then shoved him forward. Although the second man tried to escape the first, the giant caught his comrade in a one-armed bear hug that effectively put him in a straitjacket.

  Mercilessly, Garin stepped in behind the second man before he could turn and clapped both hands over the man’s ears. The twin blows ruptured the man’s eardrums. Fighting vertigo, he stumbled and went down with the first man clinging desperately to him.

  Garin had lost track of the third man, but as he started to turn, the Asian’s fist exploded against his jaw. The blow had been aimed at Garin’s throat. If it had landed, it would have disrupted the blood flowing from his carotid or possibly broken his larynx. As it was, the force split his cheek. Warm blood trickled into his goatee.

  Taking a step back as the dancers fled the floor, Garin grinned at his opponent. “Try that again. When I’m looking this time.”

  The man launched another flurry of blows, all of them capable, and all of them coming within millimeters of striking home. Garin had to move quickly to escape. Nearly five hundred years of battling, brawling and banging heads stood him in good stead. He didn’t think about fighting. He simply reacted. Just as a pebble was worn smooth in a river, Garin’s fighting prowess had matured, becoming effortless. It was a combination of instinct and experience, a concoction that left him incredibly lethal.

  Keeping his elbows in so as not to telegraph his blows, Garin used a combination of krav maga punches, snapping jabs and elbows into the man’s face. When the man staggered back, Garin followed with a fist into the man’s face, pulling the power up from his toes and through his body, twisting his hip to get everything lined up.

  Unconscious, the man fell backward and sprawled to the floor. Garin stepped over him and headed toward the small room at the back of the club.

  Security personnel boiled out from behind the bar.

  Garin reached under his jacket and took out the nickel-plated Desert Eagle .50. The laser strobe lights glinted rainbow-colored fire from the pistol’s shiny finish. He

  pointed the big muzzle at the approaching men.

  They froze where they were.

  A woman emerged from the darkness of the back room. She was tall, statuesque, with a face that had been emblazoned on the covers of magazines and tabloids around the world. Sultry and contemptuous, her brilliant red hair a stunning alchemy from a hairdresser’s palette and barely reaching her shoulders, Eniko was in her early thirties but looked ten years younger with her pale skin. Contact lenses turned her eyes a wicked acid-yellow, electric in the darkness of the club as they reflected the light. Curved horns jutted out from her forehead, expertly placed by a makeup artist.

  Eniko waved the security away as she regarded Garin. She wore a shimmering emerald dress that barely covered the full breasts and threatened to become immodest around her hips at any moment. Calf-high boots almost the exact shade of green sheathed her long legs.

  “Garin.” She smiled.

  He didn’t put the pistol away, but he did lower it to his side. He ran a hand through his hair, pushing a few errant strands back into place. “I came for the amulet you stole from me.”

  “Stole?” She raised an eyebrow. “Such a harsh word between friends.”

  “I said harsher ones a few hours ago when I discovered you’d switched out the amulet. And there were a few others while I tracked you down. Then there were more on the way over here.”

  “Are you certain the amulet is a fake?”

  Garin stared at her.

  Crossing her arms over her impressive cleavage, Eniko shrugged. “Well, I suppose you would.”

  Garin lifted his hand to her face and thought how easy it would be to smash her beauty. That was the thing about him that Annja Creed didn’t understand. He was capable of doing whatever he needed to or wanted to. She was bound up in her own morality. Roux, to a lesser degree, was, as well.

  But pain had set Garin free when he was a boy. His father, the man who had raised him, had insisted that Garin was a bastard, born to his mother from some other man. Garin had never known the truth of that, but he favored what he remembered of the man. Sometimes Garin wondered if his father would have changed his mind if he had seen him grown into adulthood.

  That wasn’t how things had worked out, though.

  Today, he was the man all those yesterdays had built, and he had been betrayed.

  Instead of hitting the woman, Garin leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. He pulled back and looked into those acid-yellow eyes. “You are lucky I have decided to let you live.”

  She smiled at him, still secure in her own fantasy. The light caught her horns and they glinted. “You could never kill me.”

  Garin rested the Desert Eagle’s barrel in her cleavage. “Don’t bet on that.”r />
  Eniko almost lost her grin then. But she clung to the mask of self-satisfaction fiercely. He knew her own upbringing and personal tragedies would allow her to do nothing less. She searched his face. Finally she lifted her hand and touched the blood on his cheek, then licked it off her fingers.

  “Is there no one you love, Garin Braden?”

  “No.”

  “A man shouldn’t live without love.”

  “Where’s my amulet?”

  “In here.” She turned and he let her go, then followed her.

  The room was small, filled with couches and comfortable chairs. The wall with the one-way glass looked out over the dance floor. Another wall held several monitors, many of them trained on the club’s interior and some of them showing various television channels.

  A half-dozen young men and women, Eniko’s playthings, sat frozen, like prey before the predator. A central table held several bottles of wine and liquor, and a smorgasbord of elegant finger foods.

  Eniko walked to a couch, shooed a couple young women away and reached into her purse. Garin took a slow breath and readied himself to lift the Desert Eagle if it came to that.

  Keeping her movements in view, Eniko pulled a small jewelry box out of her purse. With a tight smile, she opened the box to show him the contents.

  The amulet, a design dug deeply into the gold, revealed an ankh with blue sapphires at the four points. Egyptian hieroglyphics Garin had barely translated were on the obverse. The object roughly measured three inches by two inches.

  Eniko offered the box to Garin. He plucked the amulet from the soft bed and felt the weight of it, heavier than it looked because of the gold. This was real. He couldn’t explain how he knew that, but he did. It was some shadow of the gift Roux had for sniffing out such things.

  “What is the amulet?” Some of her composure back now, Eniko gazed at Garin with a small amount of belligerence.

  “Mine.” Garin pocketed it but didn’t put the pistol away.

  “What’s so important about it? You had me go to the trouble of getting it for you.”

  Only because having Eniko get the amulet was the easiest path. If she hadn’t done it, Garin could have gotten it himself. But there would have been a lot more bloodshed. Eniko had played on another man’s emotions, the same way she’d tried to play on his.

  “Nothing you’d be interested in.”

  “Then tell me why you’re so interested in it.”

  “No.” The amulet was actually a key to something else that he hadn’t found. For the moment all that mattered was that he had the amulet. It would lead him to the next thing. He gazed around the room.

  “Looking for the back way out?”

  “No. I’m walking out the way I came in, and if any of your little friends show up, I’m going to put a bullet in their heads and let you explain it to the police.”

  “They’ll arrest you.”

  “No, they won’t. And you know that.” He took her by the arm and led her back toward the dance floor. He had barely started across when his phone rang. When he glanced at caller ID, he saw that it was Annja.

  He answered the phone but swept his gaze over the club crowd. Most of the people stood back, warily watching him. “Yes.”

  “Are you busy?” Annja sounded distracted.

  “Not terribly. What do you need?” Garin kept moving.

  “Have you heard of the Melek Taus?”

  “The angels of destruction?”

  “Those are the ones.”

  Garin gazed around the club at all the men and women in their make-believe demon costumes and vampire dress. He couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Something funny?”

  “It’s a location joke. What do you want to know about the Melek Taus?”

  “Everything. There’s a new angle on this dig that might require further exploration.”

  “Can’t you do that yourself?”

  “Normally I could, but we’re about to stage a rescue and my time is limited. Especially since we could be running for our lives shortly. I thought maybe you could take a minute and have some of your research people send me a background portfolio.”

  “I don’t live to serve at your beck and call.”

  “We’ll chalk it up as a favor. I’ll owe you one.”

  Garin thought of the curious amulet and the secrets it protected, and he thought having Annja owe him one might not be such a bad thing. “All right.” He was almost to the front door. “Call me when you’re ready.”

  “I will. I have to go.”

  “Keep safe.” The phone clicked dead in Garin’s ear. He pocketed it and headed through the door, his hand once more around Eniko’s upper arm.

  The bouncers gave Garin a wide berth.

  Garin used the key fob to open the Melkus RS 2000’s door before he reached the vehicle.

  “Nice car,” Eniko said calmly.

  At the door, Garin turned to her and leaned down to kiss her. She turned her face up to meet him. They had been lovers recently, and he felt she was expecting to be again. Instead of kissing her lips, though, he kissed her on the forehead.

  She looked at him in shock and spoke in a whisper. “What was that?”

  “Goodbye.” Garin slid into the car and closed the gullwing door.

  “Goodbye?”

  Garin thumbed down the window. “You betrayed me.”

  “I was going to give you the amulet after I figured out what it was and what it meant to you.”

  Shaking his head, Garin started the car’s powerful engine. “What it meant to me was that I can’t trust you.”

  “This was a test?” She wrapped her arms around herself.

  “No. An unfortunate circumstance.” Garin paused. “I liked you well enough, but sometimes these things don’t work out.”

  “Garin...wait. You can trust me. I swear.”

  “No. Never again.” Garin raised the window, and put the transmission into first gear. Pressing the accelerator, he let out the clutch and roared into the street. He left her standing in the past.

  He pressed a button on the dash as he whipped through the streets.

  “Mr. Braden, how are you this evening?”

  “I’m fine, Sepp. And you?”

  Sepp Welker was one of Garin’s primary researchers. The young man had a way with computers and the internet that was decidedly criminal. He was involved with several of the contracts Garin’s international black ops teams dealt with.

  “Actually, I was about to call you. In the past you’ve professed an interest in Annja Creed.”

  “Yes.”

  “One of the search and seizure assets we’ve used in the past gave me news about her. A tip he only just received from one of his contacts in the Middle East.”

  Traffic passed in a blur around Garin. “What news?”

  “Apparently Creed is involved with some clandestine CIA operation in Morocco springing from repercussions in Algeria. Maybe you knew that?”

  “I know she’s in Morocco.” Garin always played things close to the vest.

  “Well, if this man is correct, Creed is heading for an ambush there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s working with a mercenary. The man she’s currently with—”

  “Rafael MacKenzie.”

  “Yes.” Sepp sounded surprised, but only a little. “MacKenzie is being tracked by a Habib ibn Thabit, who is also being sought by the CIA for an ambush that took place in Algeria and resulted in the deaths of several CIA agents. Thabit has men following Creed and MacKenzie, and there’s a Bedouin named Mustafa waiting for her.”

  Grimly, Garin held on to his temper. “Find out all you can about her, and also an organization called the Melek Taus. This comes first
. Do you understand?”

  “Of course.”

  Garin hung up and immediately dialed the number Annja had called from. The phone rang and rang.

  There was no answer.

  Chapter 23

  North of Marrakech

  Atlas Mountains

  Kingdom of Morocco

  Annja moved silently through the darkness only a few steps behind MacKenzie. The three-quarter moon hung overhead, but it was dimmed by scudding clouds. Still, even then their shadows were sharply defined and dark against the ground, letting her know they were more visible than any of them would have liked.

  They had left the camels back at the abandoned fort. If things went badly, it was a long run back to an escape route.

  The weight of the AK-47 across her shoulders was a grim reminder that things were definitely going to get worse before they got better. MacKenzie had insisted that she take the assault rifle and she hadn’t argued. She carried extra magazines for the weapon in the tactical Kevlar vest she wore.

  They crept through the mountainous land and took advantage of the boulders and stunted trees that grew in sparse patches. Mustafa would have sentries posted. MacKenzie hoped to spot those men before they were spotted. The fact that there were so few mercenaries was both an asset and a liability. There was less likelihood of being seen, but there was also considerably less manpower.

  The minutes passed as Annja counted the steps they took. She was up over a thousand. They should be coming up on the Bedouin camp soon. The GPS locators were still working and had remained fixed.

  They crested a ridge and she spotted a soft bubble of light to the west of their position. Her heart lifted and filled with dread at the same time. They were going to know shortly if Smythe and the others were alive.

  If they had been sold and were still alive, she’d find a way to go after them.

  MacKenzie turned to the team and waved them into position.

  Lying on her stomach, Annja took her microbinoculars and focused on the glowing light bubble only a little more than a hundred yards away. The images blurred for a moment as she adjusted the magnification, then she brought the camp into focus.