Library of Gold

by Alex Archer

  Annja had had enough. Either this guy was a complete moron and didn’t recognize the sword in her hands for what it was—how do you miss something like that?—or else he didn’t think she would use it.

  She fully intended to disabuse him of that notion in a very painful fashion.

  But as she brought the sword up for that blow, she found that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t kill him like that. It just didn’t seem fair. He was carrying a pistol in the holster on his waist and he hadn’t gone for that when she’d come charging out of the darkness, had he? So how could she be so cavalier as to thrust a sword through his heart?

  Berating herself as an idiot, Annja reversed her grip on the sword and brought the weapon’s pommel slamming down on the top of the fool’s head.

  That was all it took. His limbs turned to rubber and he went down.

  Freed from his crushing grip, Annja took a couple of deep breaths to get the oxygen flowing and reminded herself not to take on men twice her size.

  After checking he’d be unconscious for some time, Annja stripped him of the goggles. They looked to be military-grade night-vision goggles, though she’d be the first to admit that her experience with them was limited. But she had had occasion to use them before this and had at least a working knowledge of how they operated. She knew the long lens-looking thing at the front gathered the ambient and infrared light, then sent it inside the device where some funky stuff with electrons and phosphors took place, and then sent the image with its characteristic green glow to the viewer. Either through the eye cups on the device itself or to an external computer monitor.

  She brought the eye cups of the device up to her face and looked through them.

  The space around her swam into focus in brilliant green and she had no trouble seeing a good way into the distance.

  Which was why she had no problem seeing the line of men advancing toward her through the darkness.

  Chapter 26

  Annja immediately crouched along the side of the house, worried that if she could see them, they could probably see her. They were coming down the same street she, Gianni and Vlad had been on just moments before. They were armed and at least two of them looked to be carrying rifles or possibly shotguns in their hands in addition to the handguns.

  Seeing that all of them were wearing the same type of goggles that she was now holding, she understood the reason they’d killed the lights. With the goggles, they had a distinct tactical advantage, never mind a psychological one, over Annja and her team.

  She watched them for a moment, trying to gather as much information as she could in case any of it proved useful later. She hadn’t seen the group that had attacked them in the tunnels the day before, but she suspected these were the same people. They looked fit and they moved with military precision, two things she wasn’t happy to see. She would have bet her next paycheck that they were agents of the FSS.

  Why the hell can’t we shake these guys?

  She stepped back around the side of the house, out of their line of sight, and took a minute to adjust the headgear. When she was finished she slipped it over her head and settled the goggles in place.

  The guy she’d coldcocked still hadn’t stirred so she bent and quickly searched him, pocketing the two spare magazines she found for his pistol as well as the handheld radio. A plan was forming in the back of her head, one in which she pushed back against those who had been pushing her for the past few days. And a little firepower was going to come in handy when it came time to carry out that plan.

  She glanced around the corner to double-check the position of the other gunmen, then turned and headed in the other direction.

  She needed to find the other two and let them know what was going on.

  * * *

  DANISLOV PUT THE RADIO to his lips and tried again. “Command to Subotin. Come in, Subotin.”

  Still no answer.

  He’d sent the man out ahead to act as their spotter and to give them advance warning if Creed and her companions headed off in the wrong direction. Subotin had done well at first, letting Danislov know when Creed had wandered into the bank and then McDonald’s. At one point he’d been so close he could have reached out and touched them; for all his size, Subotin could move swiftly and silently when he needed to. It was the reason Danislov had selected him for the duty in the first place.

  Then, a few minutes ago, he’d gone silent and dropped off the air.

  Danislov was growing worried. He’d seen how resourceful that Creed woman could be.

  He cursed himself for taking that shot. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, the kind of thing to startle them into action, force them forward without giving them too much time to think. Leading him to the treasure without realizing they were doing so. Now, however, he thought it might have had the opposite effect, bringing Miss Creed’s notoriously protective nature into the fray. Once riled, she rarely backed down, it seemed.

  He brought the tracking device out of his pocket and glanced down at the tiny screen. It was blank, which told him the locator tab hadn’t been activated yet.

  That, at least, was effectively idiot-proof. The device went live the minute the backing was torn off the tab, so all their inside man needed to do was tear off the little slip of paper and slap the tab on whatever it was they needed to track.

  In this case, one Annja Creed.

  * * *

  SHE STUMBLED ON GIANNI FIRST.

  Annja had just cut through several yards, trying to get ahead of the FSS agents she’d seen approaching down the main avenue, when she spotted three men coming down a side street toward her.

  There was a long wooden fence ahead of her, running parallel to the path the men were taking, and she ducked behind that.

  She found a spot where there was a reasonable gap between two of the fence slats, just enough room for her to observe the trio more closely. Something about the way the man in the middle moved reminded her of Gianni. Was he now a prisoner of the FSS? If that were the case, it wouldn’t be long before all of their plans, and everything they knew to date about the library, were in the FSS hands. She didn’t doubt for a second that they would be able to get him to talk.

  She shifted position, trying to get a better look.

  The trio walked beneath one of the streetlamps moments later and Annja had her confirmation.

  It was Gianni.

  He was walking with his head bowed, his hands out of sight within the depths of his jacket. Annja wondered if they were confined behind his back, but couldn’t get a good enough view to know for sure.

  On either side of him were armed FSS agents. One carried a rifle. The sight of the weapon sent Annja’s blood to boiling; twice now someone had tried to kill her from a distance with a long-range rifle shot and she was growing tired of it.

  It was time to teach someone a lesson.

  Rescuing Gianni at the same time was an added bonus.

  The fence ran perpendicular to the road for another thirty feet or so. She could see six, maybe eight cars—the angle made it hard to tell for sure—parked along the curb near the end of the fence. The one on the end was an oversize van.

  Perfect…

  She rose into a crouch and raced along the length of the fence, confident that it was high enough she wouldn’t be seen. When she reached the end she double-checked to be sure she wouldn’t be silhouetted by any lights at her back, and then cautiously peeked around the other side.

  Gianni and his captors were just reaching the first of the cars at the back of the line opposite her. For the next moment or two Annja would be shielded from view by the bulk of the vehicles.

  She dashed out from behind the fence and crouched next to the front tire on the passenger’s side. She checked the gun in her hand, then leaned against the vehicle and waited.

  She heard their voices first, a murmuring that carried in the still air. There was a quick sound of radio static, then a voice spoke out of the night, saying something over the airwaves in Ru
ssian. The men escorting Gianni laughed at whatever was said.

  Come on…

  Annja kept her head turned forward and her gaze focused on a spot about five feet past the front of the van. As soon as they passed into view…

  Another voice spoke, this time a little louder, again in Russian.

  Annja found that strange, because the voice had sounded an awful lot like Gianni’s.

  He doesn’t speak Russian.

  Then the first of his captors moved into view and Annja went into action.

  “Don’t move!” she said sharply, coming out from behind the van, swinging the barrel of the gun smoothly from one target to the other and back again. The night-vision goggles on her face allowing her to see them quite clearly even in the heavy shadows.

  They abruptly did as they were told and stopped short.

  The one on the far left started to move his right arm slightly and Annja took another step closer, the gun centering on his chest. “I said don’t move. I’ll put a bullet in your skull if you do it again.”

  She let some of her anger show in her voice, in case they didn’t understand English. She didn’t want there to be any confusion.

  It was all unfolding as she’d planned, which was why she should have known something would go wrong.

  That something was Gianni.

  “Annja? Is that you?” he asked, turning partially toward her and leaning forward. In doing so, for just a moment, his body blocked Annja’s line of sight toward the FSS agent on her left.

  It was what the gunman had been waiting for.

  His left hand came up, the gun in it gleaming wickedly in the green light of the night-vision goggles.

  If she wanted to live, Annja’s only option was to pull the trigger and damn the consequences.

  She did.

  The gun in her hand went off with a shout and the bullet whipped past Gianni’s cheek, missing him by a quarter of an inch. It punched a hole into the neck of the man behind Gianni, flinging him over backward with the force of the shot.

  Her muscles kicked in even before her head had time to process what her instincts were telling her. She spun to the right and dropped to one knee as her opponent’s finger tightened on the trigger. The rifle in his hands went off with a loud, flat crack.

  There’s no way he can miss at this range, Annja thought. And then he did just that, sending the bullet over her shoulder to disappear somewhere in the darkness behind her.

  Annja fired back.

  Unfortunately for him, she didn’t miss.

  When it was over, Gianni threw his arms around her in a hug. “Damn, but I thought I was a goner! Thanks for getting me out of that.”

  Annja shook her head. “We’re not out of anything yet. The others are going to hear those shots and we need to be long gone by then. Come on!”

  She ran to the nearest body and stripped the goggles off the man’s head. Flipping them on, she handed them to Gianni and told him to hold them up in front of his face so he could see in the dark. They’d worry about proper fit later. For now, she just wanted an even playing field if they came up against any of the enemy.

  Annja grabbed the rifle and headed down the nearest side street with Gianni in tow, wondering where on earth Vlad had gotten himself off to.

  Let’s hope he’s waiting for us at the Metro-2 station, she thought.

  Chapter 27

  The man in question was at that moment two hundred yards away and another twenty feet deeper underground, staring at the long silver train stretching out down the tracks in front of him.

  The fabled Metro-2 tracks.

  He almost couldn’t believe it.

  He’d been hearing about the existence of Stalin’s secret subway system all his life, but not once in the past ten years he’d spent crawling in the mud, muck and mystery of the underground had he ever seen actual evidence that it was real. He’d found tracks, sure, but then again, who hadn’t? But who had ever nailed down whether one set of tracks was a part of the mystery line or not?

  Now, after all this time, he was staring at one of the very trains that Party officials had used to hide their comings and goings from the ministry buildings downtown to the secret facility above him.

  He was almost giddy with excitement.

  Until he remembered why he’d come down here in the first place.

  He’d promised Annja he would get to her destination deep beneath the Kremlin and he fully intended to do that. He didn’t care if the FSS was after her; he’d been wanted by the organization a time or two himself. Most of the members of the Urban Underworld had. For them, being hounded by the FSS, and before them the KGB, was a mark of status. It meant you were getting closer to the secrets they sought to keep buried. It meant you were having an impact.

  Seems she’s certainly doing that.

  Which meant Vlad needed to keep up his end of the bargain if he was going to help her find Ivan’s lost library.

  The best way of doing that right now was to get this train running.

  He glanced worriedly toward the stairs. Before someone had taken a shot at them out of the darkness, he’d shown Annja the Metro-2 station’s location and he’d fully expected her to rendezvous with him here. Gianni, too. Except it had been at least ten minutes and neither of them had showed up yet. He was starting to think he needed to go back out and look for them.

  That would mean the train wouldn’t be ready to go when they needed it.

  It was a tough call. In the end he decided he’d give Annja another ten minutes. In the meantime, he could take a look at the train’s control system.

  The platform lights were on, giving him plenty of light to see by. The last engineer who’d driven the train had left it parked with the cab very close to the station platform. Vlad walked over and began to root around inside.

  * * *

  “I WANT YOU TO STAND right here and keep an eye out for any of those Russians,” Annja told Gianni as she positioned him at the back of the hardware store where he would be partially hidden by a Dumpster. From his vantage point he’d be able to see out across the parking lot toward the main road.

  They’d been headed for the far end of the training complex, the section that looked as if it had been designed to resemble a city and where Vlad had indicated they would find the Metro-2 station, when they’d passed the rear of the Ace Hardware store and Annja had gotten an idea.

  “What are you going to be doing in the meantime?” he asked, even as he settled into place.

  “I told you. I’m going to get us inside.”

  She went to the rear door and situated herself so that her back was to Gianni. She intended to break in and she didn’t want him seeing her tool of choice.

  They’d arrived to find the place locked up tighter than Fort Knox, both front and back. A thick iron chain had provided extra security to the front, but the owner had apparently decided that the rear door didn’t need the same consideration. It was secured with a basic lock.

  “What do we need from here, anyway?” Gianni asked.

  “I want to leave a few presents for our Russian friends to remember us by.”

  “Presents from a hardware store?”

  She glanced over at him, exasperated. “Just watch the street, will you?”

  “Fine, fine, but don’t blame me when…”

  Annja tuned him out. Keeping her back to Gianni, she called her sword. One minute her hands were empty, the next they held a broadsword with a storied pedigree. She marveled at it for a moment, then turned and jammed the blade between the twin doors, right above the lock mechanism. She slid it in a few inches then brought it downward sharply.

  The lock broke in two and the doors popped open.

  Annja held her breath. If an alarm was going to go off, it would be now… .

  Nothing happened.

  She let the sword vanish before calling over her shoulder to Gianni. “I’ll be out in a minute. If you see anyone, come get me.”

  “Get you. Right,” he sai
d from his vigil.

  She slipped inside.

  It took her a moment to orient herself, but once she had, she began to move briskly through the store, plucking what she needed off the shelves and stuffing it into a black nylon backpack she found hanging from a hook behind the cash register. She only needed a few items so it didn’t take long.

  When she came out the back door, Gianni was nowhere to be seen.

  For a moment she panicked, convinced the Russians had waited until she was out of sight before snatching him right out from under her nose. Then he emerged from behind one of the parked cars at the back of the lot, self-consciously tugging up his zipper, and Annja had to suppress a laugh.

  There was still no sign of their pursuers and that was starting to worry Annja. Had the FSS agents slipped ahead to cut them off from their destination, or had they pulled back to regroup now that she had shown she was a force to be reckoned with?

  There was only one way to find out.

  But first, she wanted to set up her surprise.

  * * *

  VLAD WAS KNEE-DEEP in the guts of the train’s control panel when he heard it.

  The scrape of boot leather on stone.

  He picked up the heavy wrench he’d been using—the one he’d found along with the rest of the tools in a long-abandoned toolbox in the driver’s compartment of the train—and prepared to defend his territory.

  “Vladimir?”

  His name was spoken barely above a whisper, but he recognized the voice.

  “Over here,” he said, leaning out of the cab to see Annja and Gianni standing on the platform.

  Annja ran over and gave him a hug, which both surprised and pleased him. “How did you know it was me in there?” he asked.

  Annja pointed over to where Vlad had left his trademark yellow fireman’s jacket draped over the charging console.

  Vlad grinned sheepishly.

  Annja waved her hand in the train’s direction. “Is that thing still running?”

  “Da. Nuclear powered.”

  Annja blinked. “Come again?”