Serpent's Kiss

by Alex Archer

  In spite of her situation, Annja couldn’t help looking at the book and figurines and wanting to find out the truth of the story.

  “How do you know all this?” she asked.

  “Because the princess, Jyotsna, lived through the tsunami that wiped out most of the city. She and her children were sold into slavery. She never thought to escape because she was too afraid to brave the jungle by herself and she didn’t know the way. But she told the story to her children, and those children told it to their children.” Shivaji paused. “Now only Goraksh remains of the bloodline that knows the truth of where they came from.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Annja asked.

  “According to the stories, the treasure is hidden somewhere in the city.”

  “The book and the story don’t mention where it is?” You really shouldn’t be entertaining ideas of helping him, Annja told herself. But she knew she was. She couldn’t help herself. It was a puzzle and a bit of lost lore and history that she could bring back into the world.

  “No,” he said.

  Annja leaned back. “If I help you, what do I get out of it?”

  Rajiv grinned. “Miss Creed, don’t misinterpret what’s going on here. If you choose not to aid me in this, I’ll kill you and wall up your body behind those stones you so conveniently pulled down.”

  As she looked into the man’s eyes, Annja knew Rajiv Shivaji would do exactly as he said he would.

  “If you do help me, I’ll set you free in the jungle after I’ve made arrangements to take that treasure out of there. By the time you get back to civilization—if you make it out of the jungle—I’ll be long gone.”

  “How can I believe you?” Annja asked.

  “Do you believe that I’ll kill you here and now?”

  Annja didn’t answer.

  “If you believe one promise, you can believe both,” Rajiv said. “I’ve nothing left to lose in Kanyakumari. The die is cast. The coast guard and the navy will be looking for me.”

  Annja stared at the book and the figurines. There’s something wrong with you, she thought. You’re looking forward to this.

  When she glanced back at Rajiv, she said, “All right. Do you know how to get to this city?”

  With a smile, Rajiv opened the book to the back end paper. “There is a map, though Sahadeva wasn’t skilled in that. But such as it is, with the details of the story and some of the illustrations and information from the book, I think we can find it.”

  Annja studied the worn piece of parchment. It was a loose map and there was no key. If they found the city, it was going to be a miracle.

  “When do we leave?” she asked.

  33

  They left immediately in the dead of night, which Annja thought was an auspicious time to begin a journey into the unknown. Rajiv had a large group of men and four large trucks that pulled Zodiac boats. The rigid-hulled inflatable boats were capable of deep-water and shallow-water performance. They were perfect for the kind of river terrain Rajiv expected they’d have to traverse.

  Annja was kept handcuffed and under watch, so there was no opportunity for escape.

  Bide your time, she told herself.

  TWO DAYS LATER, after hard traveling through the jungle down earthen roads, trails and finally along the Vaigai River until they couldn’t take the trucks any farther, Rajiv gave orders to put the Zodiacs into the water. Within minutes the boats were inflated, the engines mounted, and they were under way.

  Annja sat, still cuffed, in the middle of the second boat. The ride was rough because the river flattened out in places and there was a lot of debris to be negotiated.

  The branches of teak and mountain ebony trees spanned the river in most places. Below them, even the water looked green. Monkeys and brightly colored birds erupted from the trees at the approach of the Zodiacs.

  “Do you want something to eat?” Goraksh sat in front of Annja. During the past few days he hadn’t talked to her much, but she’d seen the fearful way he’d acted around his father.

  “Please,” Annja said. It never hurt to show good manners to the only person she thought might be sympathetic to her situation.

  “What would you like?” Goraksh opened one of the food containers.

  “Yogurt, an apple and a bottle of water.”

  Goraksh got the items and passed them over to her.

  It was difficult managing the yogurt cup and a spoon, but Annja made it work.

  “I’m sorry,” Goraksh said.

  Annja looked at the young man.

  “That you’re here. Like this.” Goraksh spoke quietly.

  “This isn’t your fault,” Annja said. She spoke quietly, as well, but she knew the men in the boat with them were listening.

  “He’s my father,” Goraksh said. “But I didn’t know about all of—” He stopped, unable to go on.

  One of the men turned to address Goraksh in Hindi. Scars covered the man’s face, mute testimony of his past battles. His voice was hard and flat. He spoke quickly, then turned back to watch the river.

  “I’m sorry,” Goraksh said. “I can’t talk to you. If I do, it’ll go harder on you.”

  “I understand.” Annja finished her yogurt in silence.

  THEY STOPPED to camp early that evening. When Annja was walked to privacy among the trees for a bathroom break, the scar-faced man and two others accompanied her.

  After they were out of sight of the camp, the man grabbed Annja by the hair. He thrust his face into hers and breathed his foul breath over her.

  “Don’t play games with the boy,” the man threatened, “or I’m going to lose you in the river. Do you understand me?”

  Annja tried to pull away, but he yanked her back as she’d thought he would. Her body slammed against his and she stood two inches taller than him.

  “Don’t disrespect me,” he said. “Otherwise I could tell Rajiv that you tried to escape.”

  A tremor of fear passed through Annja. She made herself meet his gaze. “I understand,” she said. She tried to look afraid. It was easy to do because she was partially fearful that he would notice she’d slipped the small knife from his hip. She hid the blade in her hands and turned toward the bushes.

  “Quickly,” the man ordered.

  “All right.” Annja stepped behind the brush and flipped the knife around. The disposable plastic handcuffs parted easily.

  She reached for her sword and found it ready and waiting.

  On the other side of the brush, the man slapped at his hip and quickly scanned the ground around him. Then he spoke to the other two men and charged after Annja.

  Already in motion, Annja spun behind a tree. Everything had to go down fast because she knew any gunshots or even a cry for help would bring the other men from the boats.

  The scar-faced man spotted her. He raised his machine pistol and squeezed the trigger. Bullets raced up the side of the tree and chewed through the bark.

  The vibrations echoed at Annja’s back. As she whirled around the tree, she dropped into a crouch and gripped the sword in both hands. During the past two days, she’d had a chance to observe the men Rajiv had hired for the expedition. All of them were killers.

  Except Goraksh.

  She knew none of them would hesitate to track her into the jungle and kill her if they got the chance. You have to make them fear you, she told herself as she came around the other side of the tree.

  The scar-faced man saw her at the last moment and tried to bring around the machine pistol. Bullets ripped through the branches and brush above Annja’s head as she stepped forward and shoved the sword through the man’s heart.

  The man froze and looked down at the weapon that pierced him. He let the machine pistol drop from his fingers as he reached for the sword with his other hand.

  Shouts echoed from the camp. Monkeys screamed and birds cried out in the trees overhead.

  Annja tried to pull the sword free, but the man had a death grip on it. One of the other men fired his weapon. Bullets
stitched up the dead man’s side and ripped through his scarred face.

  Unable to free the sword, Annja grabbed the phone the man carried at his hip. Then she turned and fled into the brush. The men followed her. She held her arms crossed over her face as she ran, but branches still stung her face and neck. A half-buried root tripped her and she sprawled forward. She caught herself on her palms, skidded painfully and pushed herself back to her feet.

  Footsteps pounded the earth behind her. Bullets zipped through the growing darkness and dug small craters in the hill ahead of her.

  Pausing behind another tree, she reached out for the sword. It filled her hand and she pulled it to her. After checking for her pursuers and discovering they were closing on her position, she willed the sword away again and broke free of cover. She ran away from the Vaigai River. She wasn’t worried about getting lost. Finding the river again would be easy enough once she evaded Shivaji’s men.

  More than that, she knew where they were headed. She intended to follow. But she needed an army at her back.

  JAMES FLEET SAT in the office he’d borrowed from Inspector Ranga. He sifted through the digital images Annja Creed had taken. There were a lot of them. He concentrated on the ones of the book that Professor Rai had said was the object of Rajiv Shivaji’s assault on the Casablanca Moon.

  Despite going over the images for two days, he couldn’t understand why Rajiv Shivaji would be interested in the book. So far, no one he had found could read it.

  His phone rang. His eye flicked to his watch and he logged the time automatically.

  “Fleet,” he said.

  “Where are you?” Captain Mahendra asked.

  “At the police station. Where are you?”

  “At the base. We just had an interesting phone call from an even more interesting woman.”

  “Annja Creed.” Fleet’s pulse sped up. He’d looked through the information Interpol and the New York Police Department had on her. In addition to the work she did in archaeology and on the sensationalist television show, she’d been involved in a number of interesting situations.

  If anyone could survive being taken hostage by a pirate and turn the situation around, Fleet had been hoping it would be Annja Creed.

  “You’ve spoiled my surprise,” the Captain said.

  “She’s a pretty amazing woman, all told,” Fleet responded. “Where is she?”

  “In the interior. Traveling along the Vaigai River.”

  Fleet got up from the desk and walked over to the wall. Besides a map of the city, Ranga also had one of the country on his wall. Fleet scanned the map and was frustrated when he couldn’t immediately find the river.

  “Where is that?” Fleet asked.

  “As the crow flies, probably a couple of hours.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “She managed to escape Shivaji.”

  “What’s Shivaji doing in the middle of the jungle? He should be running for Europe or Africa at this point. Someplace that won’t extradite to India or Britain.”

  “Believe it or not, he’s looking for a lost city,” Mahendra said.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “But Annja Creed insists that’s what Shivaji is after.”

  “Is there a lost city out there?” Fleet asked.

  “I suggest this to you, my friend. If a lost city was out there and people knew about it, then it wouldn’t be so lost, would it?”

  “No, it wouldn’t. Can you locate her?” Fleet asked.

  “The techs were able to lock in on her GPS coordinates through the satellite phone she was using.”

  “What’s going to be done about it?”

  “The military is putting together a special-forces team to go in and get her.”

  Fleet stared hard at the computer. He hated being left out of the action.

  “I pointed out that this began as your investigation,” Mahendra said. “I told the people who put the insertion together that the International Maritime Bureau needed a representative to look out for their interests. They agreed. If you’re willing.”

  “I’m willing,” Fleet said. “Just tell me where I have to be.”

  ANNJA TRUDGED along the bank of the slow-moving river. Walking in the dark was hard work, and she didn’t have a flashlight. Escape wasn’t always a convenient thing. It would have been much simpler to escape and be in a city. A cab around the corner, a trip to a bodega, and she would have been set.

  Not that she could have used a flashlight anyway. She figured Rajiv and his men were probably still camped somewhere ahead of her. She’d ended up covering more ground than she’d thought.

  Now she was tired and hungry. But she couldn’t get the idea of the relocated Kumari Kandam city out of her mind. The jungle hid a lot of things. She couldn’t help wondering if it still existed. Twenty-five hundred years had passed since anyone had heard of it.

  That you know of, she reminded herself. There can be other stories that you haven’t come across.

  But surely something would be left. Sahadeva had described a large city of carved stone built into the side of a mountain. History had a way of losing things, though, and one simple earthquake could have lost the city again, forever.

  She wanted to rest. She wanted a hot meal. And she wanted a bath and a warm bed. Most of all, though, she wanted to see what was at the other end of the map.

  The satellite phone vibrated in her hand. She took shelter beside a tree and hunkered down.

  “Hello?”

  “Miss Creed? I’m Major Anil Patel of the Kumaon Parachute Regiment. I’ll be in charge of your rescue this morning.”

  Despite her fatigue, Annja couldn’t help smiling. “Good to hear you, Major. You said parachute regiment?”

  “I did. If you’ll just hold the line for a moment, my tech tells me he can locate you.” Patel was quiet only for a short time. “Ah. There you are. We’re coming in now.”

  Annja held the line as she looked up at the sky. A plane flew overhead. Tiny black spots dropped from it, then blossomed into parachutes.

  “You’ll want to be careful here, Major,” Annja said. “There’s a river close by.”

  “We see the river. My lads won’t be landing in the river, I promise you. We’ll be there in a moment.”

  The phone connection clicked dead.

  As she watched the parachutes drop toward the jungle, she wondered if Rajiv or his men could see them, too. If they could, it was going to be a footrace from this point on. She also wondered if they were bringing food. She’d missed dinner by escaping.

  34

  James Fleet narrowly missed hanging his parachute in a tree. He would have been mortified if that had happened. The paratroopers hit their marks like circus performers even though there was precious little open space in back of the immediate riverbanks. Abundant tree and brush growth covered most of the available terrain.

  The inflatable boat cargoes did get caught up in the trees. Without a word, prearranged teams set up a perimeter around the landing area and others went for the equipment.

  Out of habit, Fleet pulled the parachute to him and wadded it up. He adjusted his equipment and walked over to Major Patel and the woman.

  Annja Creed’s pictures hadn’t done her justice. Even after days of being a hostage and hours of wandering around in the dark while the rescue effort was arranged, he thought she was strikingly beautiful. More than that, she was composed, as if everything she’d been through were just another day at the office.

  Fleet had to admit that after researching her before and after her abduction by Rajiv he had felt a stirring of interest. She was definitely a woman, but one who could obviously take care of herself.

  “Do you have any needs, Miss Creed?” the major was asking. He was stocky and powerful-looking.

  “Food,” Annja replied. “Water. When I escaped, I didn’t have time to steal provisions, and foraging in the jungle for edible plants and lizards hasn’t become appealing yet.”

  Patel
smiled. “Of course.” He reached into his chest pack and took out an energy bar.

  “Miss Creed,” Fleet said. “I’m James Fleet with the International Maritime Bureau. You might not have heard of the agency, but—”

  “I know of the agency,” Annja said. She peeled the energy bar open and took a bite. “Who’s in charge here? The IMB or the Indian military?”

  Fleet smiled in pleasant surprise. “Major Patel is in charge of the rescue operation. I’m here to apprehend Rajiv Shivaji. With the major’s assistance, of course.”

  “Rajiv has a well-armed group of mercenaries with him,” Annja said. “You’ll need help.”

  “Right,” Fleet said, and decided that she hadn’t meant any disrespect. She was just being forthright. “So where is Shivaji?” he asked.

  “If I haven’t gotten totally lost, he should be just ahead of us.”

  ANNJA SAT in one of the inflatable boats the Indian paratroopers had brought. They chose not to use the outboard motors and pulled through the river with paddles instead. The men moved in unison, their movements as smooth as clockwork, and they went up the river steadily.

  Less than an hour later, with the sun lightening the sky in the east, they came up on Rajiv Shivaji’s campsite. The lead boat pulled over to the bank of the river on the side where the campsite was. The other two boats pulled over to the opposite bank while snipers took up positions and other paratroopers got set up to provide covering fire.

  After taking cover herself, Annja watched as the shoreline team closed on the campsite. She wore one of the radio earbuds that linked the strike force team. Within minutes she heard the scout leader break radio silence. He spoke in Hindi.

  Patel, standing a little ahead of Annja, dropped his rifle from his shoulder and turned to face Annja. “No one is there. Judging from the coals of the fire, they’ve been gone for a few hours.”