by Alex Archer
“I do.” Still, could there really be a time-travel device? The skeptic in her shouted against it, but the other side of her brain toyed with the idea.
“Let’s suppose the device does exist and can work. Again I ask, what use have you for it? What is it about all this that’s pushing you so strongly?”
He turned right. The black SUV was no longer in sight, so Roux picked up speed.
“The historical significance, of course. Nothing more.”
“And is that Garin’s reason, as well?”
Roux didn’t answer, now focusing on the tail.
Annja sat back and closed her eyes. The historical significance? That didn’t feel right coming from a man who had lived the history. He wanted it for other reasons.
Could he possibly want to time travel, or “shift” through time? To when? Did he miss a certain period and wanted to go back and relive it? Supposing that a return trip to the present was impossible, he’d be trapping himself in the past. Forcing himself to relive decades, possibly centuries. And that wasn’t Roux. The man was too clever.
Too clever to believe in time-travel nonsense.
So there was something she was missing. And Annja was now determined to learn what it was.
Chapter 19
Milan, 1488
Roux ducked around the corner of a high mausoleum, pressing his shoulders to the stone wall. Though his pursuer was stealthy, the man couldn’t disguise the swish of his long leather coat as he made his way down the aisles among the tombstones and statues.
Resting his hand on the knife he kept at his belt, Roux knew it would serve no good. It would make the man angry, perhaps slow him down a bit, but it wouldn’t kill him.
This living through the centuries was quite the experience. He only wished he could live it alone and not with the added hassle of Garin Braden ever following as if his shadow. The man had been his squire and he’d taught him how to be a soldier. He’d been proud of Garin, of his strength, his learning, his ease with handling a broadsword. Roux had been like a father to him and at times even a friend.
But since Jeanne’s death? They’d been enemies more often than friends. Garin’s nefarious methods always bothered Roux. So, they would endure one another’s company, and yes, even work on the same side from time to time, but that was it.
Roux was aware that Garin did not hold his belief that if all the sword pieces were collected, something great would occur. Garin sought to thwart Roux. The bastard had almost dropped a piece in the ocean had Roux not been quick with the grab. That the man possessed such insolence!
Well, he was close now and he wasn’t about to let his young upstart get in his way this time.
Roux waited, listening to leaves nearby crinkling. His pulse raced and seconds later he leaped out from behind the mausoleum. His body collided with the brute strength of his larger and stronger pupil.
Taking an elbow to the rib cage, Roux huffed out a breath. Garin did not relent. He wrapped an arm about Roux’s neck and jerked his body downward, smashing his face into his knee, before shoving him to the rough ground.
As Garin lunged for him, Roux kicked out and caught his toe up under Garin’s jaw. The oaf grunted and stumbled away. He crashed into a mausoleum, and leaves and twigs sifted down to decorate Garin’s head.
Spitting away the refuse, Garin growled. As Roux stood and Garin followed, they met each other in a swift exchange of fists. The blows were expert and no energy was wasted, as each time Garin struck a vulnerable spot on Roux, Roux returned the favor with equal force.
Blood scented the air. Roux spat and swung hard, knocking Garin from his feet. Crouching on top of him, he gripped his tunic and smashed his head against the cobblestones.
A leg twisted about Roux’s, flipping him over to land on his back with arms splayed. The key he’d been holding clattered across the cobblestones.
Garin grabbed the key and rushed into the mausoleum. Roux rubbed at his jaw. The man had learned a few new tricks, he thought.
Inside the stone building, his former protégé grunted and cursed. “How does this stupid thing work, Roux?”
“It’s a key. You shove it in and turn it, idiot.” Roux propped up on an elbow and frowned. Were there no means to be rid of the man? Though best he was close to the prize when finally the safe was opened.
“Get in here.”
“Patience. I’m an old man, and the bones are creaky.”
“You’re agile, swift and dangerous. I know that better than most. Now, come help me before I get so angry I take down the whole place.”
Roux stood and wandered into the mausoleum. Garin bled at the eye and the corner of his mouth. Just so.
“I imagine should you beat down the walls, the safe would remain standing,” Roux said. “We’d be no closer to the prize. Or rather, I would be no closer. Why do you insist on thwarting my mission? It’s nothing to do with you.”
“It’s everything to do with me.”
“How so?”
The man paused and then gestured as if Roux already knew the reason and understood. Maybe he did, since there hadn’t been a feasible explanation thus far. Neither Roux nor Garin knew what awaited them should all the pieces of Joan’s sword be found. Would they go on? Would they suddenly dissipate to two piles of dust? Ashes to ashes and all that?
Garin feared the latter, Roux suspected. But Roux wasn’t so sure. He felt something grander awaited them when all the pieces had been reunited. And he would not rest until that moment had been delivered.
“Hand me the key.”
Garin slapped the needed item into Roux’s palm. In the darkness he could barely make out the lock and, using his fingers, fitted the key into the small port.
“I did that. Nothing happened,” Garin said.
“It probably requires a strong turn.” Roux tried to twist the key left and right but it didn’t budge.
“Uh-huh. Tried that too, old man.”
Roux bashed Garin under the jaw. The connection sent the burly man reeling, head rocking backward. He landed across the threshold, arms overhead and eyes closed, jaw open.
“That’ll grant me the silence I crave,” Roux said. “For less time than I desire, unfortunately.”
Bending over the stone safe, he wriggled the key in the lock, feeling if it would give in one direction or the other. The painter was known to experiment with devices of all sorts, so certainly this one could prove a puzzle.
He pushed the key upward and it moved. Downward, it slid as if on greased wheels. Then at an angle to the left and...right.
Some inner mechanism clicked. The safe door popped open.
“One of these days, old man,” Garin muttered as he came to.
“Stand back and give me some light,” Roux ordered. If only to get the brute as far out of the mausoleum as possible.
Garin complied and moonlight beamed in and highlighted the opened safe. Inside the safe were two notebooks, a curious wooden box fitted with metal parts, gears and arabesque designs, and a small silver chunk of steel. Roux grabbed the piece that looked as though it could have once been part of a blade that had melted under intense heat.
When he made to close the safe door, Garin’s hand clamped over his. “You got what you wanted. But what’s in it for me? What’s that?”
Lying before the box was also a small iron cross. It was in the style of the Lorraine cross Leonardo had once shown him.
“I am not a thief.” Roux struggled to close the safe door.
“You are, and you just proved it. I, on the other hand, will take whatever can fill my purse with coin. And what is that box? It looks like it’s bejeweled. Let me in there, old—”
He was fast tiring of knocking Garin out cold. And his knuckles ached. But persistence would not win the brute the prize this time. Cl
osing the door and moving the key in the opposite direction to relock it, Roux then carefully replaced the key in his purse, along with the steel. He stepped over Garin’s sprawled body and hurried away down an aisle of tombstones.
A quick stop into da Vinci’s studio to return the key and then on to claim his horse. He would ride out of Milan before sunrise.
Chapter 20
“You have a laptop?” Roux asked as he cruised Milan’s streets.
“Yes, thanks to you.” Annja kept all her documents and research records in a cloud account online, so she didn’t have to worry about losing data, but ultimately, having her laptop back in hand would be optimal. “What do you want me to look up?”
“I’m not familiar with modern-day Milan. I can’t recall where Leonardo’s studio once stood.”
“You think that’s where Scout is headed?” Annja nodded. “Give me a minute.”
She tugged the laptop out of her backpack and powered up. It wasn’t long before she had a Wi-Fi connection and typed in a search for Leonardo’s address while he’d stayed in fifteenth-century Milan. She thought it might be a good idea to check the location of the Duke of Milan’s—Ludovico Sforza’s—castle, or else very close by. Her eyes wandered over the search results. The plague had struck the town for three years during this era, and there was the start of work on the dome of the cathedral.
She repeated these details to Roux, who appeared annoyed.
“Are you looking for a location or getting lost in research?”
“Ahem.”
Annja read the last bits of a bio. After Sforza’s fall in 1499, Leonardo left Sforza’s court for Mantua and Venice. She clicked on to the next listed URL.
“Anything?” Roux asked.
“I’m not sure. Sforza’s court could place him in the actual castle or still possibly somewhere else. There are no addresses that I can find, but give me a minute.”
“I never went inside the castle,” Roux said. “His studio was not far from there. I remember a big, wide doorway opening to his studio. No stairs. Slabs of marble against the walls and canvases stretched on frames.”
“Yes, I know he had his own studio in Milan....” Annja spent another ten minutes searching online. “I’ve found nothing. There’s got to be— Hang on. I have an idea.”
She signed on to archaeology.net and posted a question in one of the forums on Renaissance art.
Currently in Milan and am looking for original site of Leonardo da Vinci’s studio. Anyone know the location or the vicinity? Thanks.
“I’ve posted about the location on an archaeology site. I usually get replies within twenty-four hours,” she explained, closing the laptop. “So what did you have in mind? You think the device was transferred from the safe in the cemetery back to his studio?”
“It’s only a guess. The music box could have been destroyed for all we know.”
“Certainly, if there were items left behind in Leonardo’s studio they’ve been cataloged and recorded. Maybe I can find out once I get settled somewhere. I assume we’re staying in Milan?”
“Until we figure things out, yes. Braden is likely staying here.”
Roux pointed out the window. Annja hadn’t realized he’d parked. The hotel was on the opposite side of the street. A liveried doorman helped a sophisticated-looking woman out the back of a limo.
“How do you know it’s this hotel?” she asked.
A black SUV pulled away from the drive in front of the parked limo.
“Scout just walked inside before that lady,” Roux said. “I’m inclined to believe Braden will know we followed his lackey and, as you said, expect us to drop in on him. So what do you say?”
“I’m in.”
“Excellent.” Roux adjusted the rearview mirror. “You go first. I’ll just park the car. I believe the entrance to the lot is behind the hotel, actually.”
“Sure.”
Annja got out, and Roux peeled away from the curb. Startled by his quick retreat, she spotted a new car, a sleek black sedan. Roux drove past the sedan and that car stopped, made a U-turn and followed him.
Annja shook her head. “That old man and his gambling.”
Once inside the hotel, Annja bypassed the sophisticated-looking woman who was chastising the bellman, and looked around the lobby. No sign of Scout.
Her reconnaissance was distracted by thoughts of Roux’s hasty escape. It had been an escape of sorts.
She tapped a valet on the shoulder and asked, “Which way to the parking garage?”
* * *
ANYONE WHO HAPPENED to see the old man with the white ponytail and beard would expect he was on his way home, where his lovely wife waited with a roast in the oven and an apron tied about her ample hips. Or perhaps he was off to spend some time with the grandchildren in the park.
Either assumption would be dead wrong.
Annja approached the scuffle in the parking garage with caution. Roux stood against three thugs. He was holding his own. And she expected him to. He wasn’t an old man. In years, he was, but in terms of the ability to fight, and to deliver a choking throat chop with blinding speed—ouch, that had to hurt—he had not wavered over the centuries.
She winced as the thug who’d taken the throat chop went down. She guessed from his lean build and the biceps his muscle shirt revealed that he wouldn’t be out of the fray for long.
With one man down and yet another reaching inside his jacket to produce what Annja suspected was a weapon, she decided now was a good time to make her presence known. Going straight for the man who flashed a gun, Annja gripped his wrist and directed the pistol downward, while using the heel of her opposite hand to smash up against the base of his jaw. His fingers loosened and she took away the gun and tossed it under a parked car.
“I can handle this, Annja. Thank you.” Just then the second man lunged at Roux, who easily deflected the incoming punch.
Meanwhile, Annja exchanged blows with her opponent. Dressed in a sleek black shirt unbuttoned to the waist to reveal tattooed abs, he was agile. He bent to avoid a right hook and went to kick out her legs from underneath her. She jumped high and used the momentum to inflict a roundhouse kick on him.
“You want me to leave?” Annja managed.
“Suit yourself! Watch his blade!”
Sure enough, she spotted the knife and dodged backward, feeling as though she was going to lose her balance. She immediately steadied herself and prepared for another onslaught. As he approached, she slammed into his chest, landing on top of his body. The blade clattered across the concrete floor, spinning within grabbing distance of the first thug Roux had left on the ground.
The opponent got a hand on the weapon.
“Sorry!” Annja said.
She leaped up and off the bruiser. Gripping the side mirror on the SUV behind her, she swung up and caught the man in the chest with a forceful kick. He stumbled backward, connecting with his buddy, who currently swung the knife toward Roux. His aim went skyward, missing Roux’s nose by inches.
Roux pressed his hands together and performed a grateful bow to Annja.
“De nada!” she called.
Now she gripped the collar of her thug and kneed him high in the kidney. Once, twice, she effectively moved around to pummel the blows directly to his side. He began to wobble. Arms reaching out before him, he huffed out a breath and spat blood. Annja continued the punishment until she felt his body grow heavy in her grip. She dropped him, but followed through with one more kick to the ribs.
Roux walked up behind her, dusting off his hands. “I think he’s down for the count.”
“He is now.” She stepped back to look over the three fallen men. “How much did you win off these guys, anyway?”
Roux smiled and moved on toward his vehicle. “One point two million,” he cal
led back. “And I’ve suddenly developed an extreme aversion to this hotel.”
“But we tracked Scout here. What if Braden is here, as well?”
“He’ll keep. You want to come along, or are you staying put?”
Annja turned back to the men lying on the concrete. They were out cold.
“Staying put. They weren’t after me. I think I’ll do some investigating.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll be in touch.”
“Wait!”
Roux slid behind the wheel and cast her a glance. Annja advanced and got her backpack from the car. Some online research was necessary before they could make another move.
“You don’t know for sure that Garin is staying here?”
He shook his head.
“Okay. I’ll wait for you to get in touch. I’ll check in and see if anyone replied regarding a possible location for da Vinci’s studio.”
“Excellent.” He revved the engine and Annja stepped aside as he backed out of the parking space and drove away.
She waved, but knew he wouldn’t bother to look back. “You’re welcome!”
Annja strode inside the hotel. The thugs wouldn’t complain about their rough treatment in the parking garage. And if there were security cameras, no one could blame her for jumping in to help out an old man, right?
* * *
ASKING AT RECEPTION for Scout Roberts didn’t merit recognition from the desk clerk. The man shook his head.
“He’s a friend. I was supposed to meet him here,” Annja tried. “He was just in here about twenty minutes ago?”
“Oh, that gentleman. American?”
“Yes. Blond hair. Killer smile?”
“Killer smile?” The desk clerk frowned.
“Uh, not like a killer.” Bad translation. “Kind of sexy in a charming— Forget it. Could you give me his room number?”
“He is not here with us, miss. He merely came by to pick up a package from one of our former guests. Sorry.”