by Alex Archer
Aeschelman had sold Garin the name of a man who supposedly owned the helmet he now held. The man did not exist. Aeschelman had told lies and...more lies.
Garin didn’t hate him for the lies or that he’d taken payment for the name under false pretenses. Everyone spoke lies...except dear Joan; she’d never lied to Garin or Roux, or to any of the other knights who had marched with her. Annja, who held her sword, she lied. Garin lied frequently—to the women he shared time with, to business associates, to himself.
No, he didn’t hate Aeschelman because of his lies or the advantage he took when he saw it.
He hated him for what happened to Keiko.
Garin used a specially made silencer for his semi-automatic pistol, the kind often favored by the prime minister of India’s bodyguards and used in the Afghanistan War. Garin liked guns, and this was one of his favorites. It had a range of fifty meters, but it could shoot accurately up to one and a half kilometers. He took Aeschelman down with a bullet to the back of his head from a mere two blocks away.
One of the man’s thugs fled, and so Garin let him live. But the other remained, kneeling over the body—not to see if Aeschelman might be alive, but to pick up the valise he’d been carrying, probably filled with money and bank account numbers and transactions from this evening’s sale. Garin assassinated this man, too. He approached them, listening intently.
He heard traffic on a nearby street, light at this hour and unhurried. No sirens. Windows opened onto this small side street, but apparently no one had heard.
Garin checked both bodies, a perfect shot each time. No doubt they’d died instantly, though he wished Aeschelman had felt it coming. He gripped the handle of the valise. No reason to let it lay here for a stranger to find and possibly profit by. He used the tip of his boot to turn Aeschelman over, and then he stretched down to the man’s neck, feeling for the thin chain he knew would be there. One tug and the Mayan medallion was free. No use someone profiting by it, either.
It faintly glowed under the streetlight, as if it had some inner energy source. The disk was shiny and smooth, meticulously cared for, and the image of a Central American bird, a quetzal, had been deeply etched into the center of it. On the reverse side was a Mayan sun and in the middle of it an etched half man/half badger. The disk had a comfortable weight to it, and it was pleasantly warm against the palm of his hand.
Pleasantly warm and at the same time a little off-putting.
Garin took a last look at Aeschelman. “I wanted to be rid of you,” he said. He pocketed the medallion and carried the motorcycle-helmet bag in one hand and the valise in the other.
He let the shadows of the Stuttgart neighborhood swallow him.
Chapter 37
Six months later
Vista Verde Memorial Park was located off Sara Road in Sandoval County not far from Edgar’s Rio Rancho home.
All the grave markers, though of various sizes, were flat against the earth, the only raised structure a chapel that had compartments, looking not unlike gym lockers, on the outside walls where the cremated had been placed.
Edgar’s grave, it turned out, had been purchased many years ago. It featured two plots; evidently, he thought he’d stay married and that his wife would join him in eternity.
Annja knelt in front of the marker, tracing the raised bronze letters and looking up. In the distance the mountains filled the horizon—purple-blue this early morning, tinged with snow. Breathtaking. No wonder Edgar had chosen this place.
She’d brought a small shovel and she now dug at the edge of his stone. Annja seemed to be the only visitor around. It was smack in the middle of the week, with cemetery workers busy nearby, preparing a grave. She gently but persistently made a small hole in the earth. The ground was hard-packed and initially resisted her efforts.
When she had the hole about eight inches deep, she reached into her fanny pack and pulled out a piece of flannel, opening it up. The disk was smooth and reflected the light of the glowing sun. It had a good weight to it, and any museum would have welcomed it for a pre-Columbian display. Annja had nearly donated it; it was worth thousands.
The medallion had arrived last week in the mail, in a plain brown shipping envelope, insured and metered from Dairago, Italy. There was no return address and no name. But she knew, or rather suspected, it had come from Garin. The handwriting looked familiar.
The image of a Central American bird, a quetzal, was deeply and intricately etched into the center of it, beak open as if calling out. On the reverse side was a Mayan sun, and in the middle of that was an etched half man/half badger, like she had seen on the walls of the pyramid deep in Rock Lake.
The disk was unpleasantly warm against the palm of her hand and made her skin itch. As she held it, the image of Joan’s sword came to the forefront of her mind and the sensation of its pommel against her hand tried to assert itself. The medallion, like the jade knife Annja had broken at the carnival, did not belong to the present-day world. They were things of ancient power, touched by dark spirits.
She’d wanted to be rid of it.
The medallion would be safe here with Edgar.
She set it in the bottom of the hole, which she filled in with dirt, pressing the brittle grass overtop it.
“Indeed, you had quite the monster for me to chase, dear friend.” She wished she could have caught Aeschelman, the man behind all the murders. But someone would find him, the police or the Feds. There would be justice for Edgar and Papa.
A large colorful bird flew at the edge of the cemetery, circling once on an updraft and then moving on toward the mountains. Annja swore it was an intense, iridescent green and blue, with a tail two feet long that shimmered in the early light and a spot of bright crimson on its belly.
“Impossible.”
She blinked and saw that it was only a common ferruginous hawk.
A moment later, it was gone.
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460321744
SUNKEN PYRAMID
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Jean Rabe for her contribution to this work.
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