Sunken Pyramid (Rogue Angel)

by Alex Archer

  “Rembert.”

  “Rembert Hayes. He went to the station this morning and identified her as the one who knifed Sully Stever. Holding her on two counts of attempted murder.”

  She’d killed Joe Stever and maybe others.

  “They’ll try her in juvie. She’s only a kid.” He shook his head and looked past her, out the widow. It was a sunny day. “Funny thing is, she’s acting like she doesn’t remember any of it, stabbing Sully Stever, going after you. Remembers going to the carnival, but only to buy a pink T-shirt. And if it don’t beat all, we can’t find her parents, any relatives for that matter. Seems she’s been living by herself in a trailer park on the lake. No sign of any adult there, except for pictures of a Menominee woman, probably her mother from the resemblance. Twinkie wrappers, soda cans, things a kid would eat. Looks like she’s been on her own a while.”

  From mother to daughter to daughter, Annja thought.

  “So juvie’s the best thing for her. Get her in the system. The system’s not always bad, you know.”

  Annja decided she wouldn’t tell the police about Joe, about the girl being the one who likely killed the potter. Being a twelve-year-old with attempted murder charges would keep her in the system long enough.

  “The knife, Manny. She had a green knife.”

  “Funny thing about that knife, Annja. The local officers found it. In pieces. It was under that Dragon Wagon ride that they’d pulled you and her out of. That’s what she got you with, that knife. Didn’t find anything else under there that could have cut you up like that. And Mr. Hayes identified the pieces, said it was the knife she’d stabbed Sully Stever with. Must’ve swung it at you and hit an axel under that truck bed is what we’re thinking. Shattered it.”

  “Makes sense,” Annja said, glad that no one had seen her sword. Edge to edge, she could have lost Joan’s blade. “Those pieces, Manny...”

  “They’ll stay in a box with the rest of the evidence. Her pink T-shirt, your shirt.”

  “Locked away.”

  “Yeah.” His bushy eyebrows arched. “The knife looked old, like she’d stolen it from a museum.”

  “So they won’t return it to her, the pieces.”

  The eyebrows arched higher. “No.”

  The mattress was feeling a little more comfortable.

  “I’m getting out of here tomorrow, Manny.”

  He chuckled. “I’m surprised you’re planning on staying that long.”

  “Have to appreciate the flowers, don’t I?” She tried to match his lopsided grin. And she had to dive the lake one more time before the week was out, get a last look at the Mayan temple that she wouldn’t tell another soul about. Leave Joe’s dive logs deep down inside where the lake water could disintegrate them. She’d call Bobby today and cancel Thursday’s dive.

  “Coming back for my party?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.” She’d be done with her Moroccan segment by then. They sat together for a while, looking out the window. The clatter of a nurse’s cart broke the silence. “Is Sully still in here?”

  “He is. He’ll be here through the end of the week, I’m betting. He might get himself cleaned up a little in the process. The local officers this morning showed him a picture of the girl. They said he was begging them to bring him some whiskey.”

  “Is Rembert out there?”

  Manny’s smile disappeared. “He left the station this morning after the cops finished with his report. I was there, checking in, you know, wanting to see how it all turned out. Said goodbye to him.”

  “Headed back to New York?”

  “Yeah, he kept talking about a guy who gave him a bad piece of advice, that the guy was wrong. Said it wasn’t safer being around you after all.”

  “I’ll see you at your party.”

  Chapter 36

  Three months later

  Stuttgart was not Garin’s favorite German city, but the capital of Baden-Württemberg in the south suited him better than any of the American cities he’d visited in the past year. It boasted a population of a mere six hundred thousand, making it Germany’s sixth-largest city, but that was a deception. The entire metropolitan section topped five million. Stuttgart was a city surrounded by a ring of small towns, a densely populated area that was easy to lose yourself in. Garin was not easily found, nor had his quarry been.

  Garin preferred the Rhine-Ruhr area or Berlin and Brandenburg. He fancied the nightclubs in those cities and preferred the museums...when he felt the need to indulge in something cultural. He’d just come from Brandenburg, where he played the part of a tourist visiting the castle, which he’d seen when the stone was not quite as worn. He’d spent a week at the Villa Contessa, eating fine food, reading and waiting.

  Stuttgart was not without its charms, however. Two days ago he spent hours walking through the City Center, a collection of buildings that were architectural marvels—the baroque New Palace, the medieval Old Palace, the Bauhaus-style Weisenhof estate and the Art Nouveau market hall. He’d lingered the longest at the Old Palace because it held so many memories that he couldn’t shake...and didn’t want to.

  He enjoyed his longevity, always fearful, though, that it would come to an end. In the mirror each morning, he checked to see if there were more lines on his face and wondered how tied to Annja and the sword his soul was. But his being around so long was a curse as well as a blessing, of memories anyway, and his remarkable mind held on to them with a vise grip that no amount of indulging could relax.

  History recorded that Duke Luitolf of Swabia used to graze horses at the Old Palace more than a thousand years back. Stuttgart derived its name from the old German word stutengarten, which meant a stud animal, and its coat of arms bore a rearing stallion. Appropriate. It was Austria when Garin first walked these grounds, only becoming a part of Germany after 1534. It then became a seat of government for the region and a self-administered county. Stuttgart had evolved because of major European trade routes. Garin was here now because the trade route he had been following was stopping in the city tonight.

  The city had spread across low hills and wrapped itself around vineyards, parks and valleys, adding to its sprawl with each century.

  He was fond of the Green U park, first planted by King William I of Württemberg. Considered an English-style garden, it featured many old trees. Garin had watched them at various stages as he’d visited every handful of decades.

  In a few hours, he would go to a program at the planetarium, escorting a young woman he’d met yesterday at the Wilhelma Zoo and Botanical Garden. Oddly, he’d gone to the zoo to see the penguins and had met her by accident. An attendant in the gift shop, Berdina fell for his smile and well-practiced lines, and spent the evening in his company. Not so inventive or athletic as Keiko had been, but she had the same look to her and the wide-eyed reaction to the world.

  Later tonight he would take another stroll through Green U park, to an art gallery where his quarry would be receiving guests. Garin didn’t have an invitation, but he would attend anyway.

  Tomorrow would be his last day in Stuttgart; he would have a long lunch with Berdina and then go to the airport...a business matter to attend to in Belgium. One of his identities owned a fine apartment in an old building in Bruges on a quaint cobblestoned street across from a renowned chocolate shop. Roux’s shield was on display there, hanging like a trophy on his study wall, a place of privilege.

  It was a little after ten when Garin entered via the back of the gallery. The auction had been going for an hour, but there were still several pieces remaining. He helped himself to a glass of Riesling. It was delicately sweet and preferable to the other offerings on the table. Some of Aeschelman’s guests were clearly not connoisseurs—several of them walked around with glasses of inferior blends.

  Aeschelman registered his surprise at seeing Garin, but quickly recovered. He pointed to the next object for sale, a full close helmet, French, dating back to 1530. It was elaborate, embossed and etched with three crosses on each sid
e, with an applied border to the faceplate and decorated by heat patination, and most importantly, it matched the shield in Garin’s cozy apartment.

  Aeschelman—who was known now as Dreschler—took a long swallow of wine, let the bidding commence and spoke in perfect German.

  Garin won the piece, paying forty thousand Euros, much more than he’d expected it to go for, although much less than other items had cost. There were other collectors here tonight, and so he’d had to compete. Among the buyers, there was no one Garin recognized from any of the previous sessions he’d been to, yet clearly they all had considerable resources. Aeschelman gravitated toward him when an associate of his stepped forward to take over proceedings for the next piece, a bronze sculpture of a rabbit’s head. Garin poured himself a second glass of Riesling.

  “I thought you’d never been to Germany and didn’t know the language, Mr. Dreschler.”

  “I thought you did not drink, Mr. Knight.”

  Garin watched as a middle-aged man in designer jeans and a thin gray turtleneck claimed the rabbit head at one million Euros.

  “I drink,” Garin admitted. “Usually when I am in the mood to celebrate something.” In fact, he’d come to the auction with a slight buzz, having shared a bottle of champagne with Berdina in the park after the planetarium show.

  He watched the same man buy the next two items: a bronze rat head that supposedly had been looted from China by the invading Anglo-French expedition in the nineteenth century and a bronze figure in good condition of Horus as a child, with an olive patina that was supposedly from the year 1000.

  Aeschelman...or whoever he really was...took control of the auction and finished selling the remainder of the items, Garin politely waiting until the entire affair had concluded before paying for the helmet. They conveniently and carefully packed it for him in a motorcycle-helmet carry bag.

  Then Garin quickly left.

  But he waited.

  He carefully selected a spot behind the gallery, more than a passageway and less than a street. It was clean and it smelled of old stone and rain; it had started to drizzle. Garin had never minded the rain. Aeschelman departed with two broad-shouldered men. Garin had watched the pair inside, the man’s security, glorified muscle who were packing guns.

  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.

  Copyright © 2013 by Worldwide Library All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.