by Alex Archer
“We don’t even know who took the crystal.” Sabre made himself remain polite.
“You’ll figure it out, though, right? ’Cause you have people who can find stuff?”
Sabre did have people looking into the identities of the men who had attacked Krauzer, but the police weren’t being forthcoming with information. He was here now to find out more information about the crystal. The Merovingian stories danced around inside his head. So much of his family’s history was tied up in that time period. “I do.”
“Then you should know who those guys were at any time, right?”
“Hopefully.”
Krauzer’s phone rang. He checked caller ID, then reached for the handset. “I gotta take this. Media people.”
Sabre nodded.
Krauzer punched the speaker function. “This is Steven Krauzer. Who am I speaking with?”
As soon as the caller identified herself as an entertainment reporter and started gushing about the kidnapping and gunplay, Sabre tuned her out. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He stood up from the plush chair and walked to the side of the office that looked out over the movie lots.
Outside, studio groups were already in motion. Electricians and carpenters stood out in front of sets and warehouses where various television shows were shot. One of those housed the set that Krauzer and his people were currently working on. Luckily, whoever the mercenaries were, they hadn’t struck while Krauzer and the film crew were on set.
The hit came after the crystal was stolen by Melanie Harp and the Creed woman had circulated pictures of it on the internet. That had drawn out the kidnapper-thieves. Sabre made a mental note to have Saadiya and her people check up on that. Maybe they could establish a trail.
Sabre tapped his Bluetooth earpiece and answered the call. “Yeah.”
“Annja Creed is on the move.” Meszoly sounded tired, but Sabre knew he could depend on the man.
“Where’s she going?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You’re not the only one following her, are you?”
“No. I’ve got three others helping me watch. I was impressed with the way she handled herself. Considering how she dealt with those men, I’m wondering where she got her training and if maybe you should be offering her a job.”
As far as Sabre knew, Annja Creed had never been military or covert ops. From the background Saadiya had turned up on the woman, she was just what she appeared to be: a television host and an archaeologist. However, she’d been to a lot of places around the world and dealt with a lot of conflict. Sabre was also sure not all of Annja Creed’s brushes with criminals showed up. Despite her fame on the internet and social media, she was quite private. He understood and liked that about her because he was the same way.
“Good. Let me know if anything changes.”
“I will. I’ve still got a team on the professor in the hospital, too. We’re not the only ones watching Creed, though.”
That didn’t surprise Sabre. Only two paths remained open to anyone searching for the crystal: the thieves, who were in the wind, and Annja Creed. “I’m sure she’s continuing to draw interest from the local police.”
“She is, but I haven’t identified all of the players yet. We’ve got some local law enforcement on the scene, but there are some bogeys, as well.”
“Some of the men from last night?”
“We don’t know yet.”
That was going to be a problem. So far Sabre had kept his people on the right side of the LAPD. Over the years, he’d earned some goodwill, but he’d never had a situation go as ballistic as the one had the previous night.
“If there’s a chance you can pick up one of the bogeys—quietly—maybe you should do that.”
“Oh, I’ve got my eye out in case that opportunity presents itself. I’d like to find out who we’re up against. Have you learned anything from Krauzer?”
Sabre checked the director’s reflection in the window. Krauzer was talking enthusiastically to the entertainment reporter, and the story had grown since the last time he’d told it. Now Krauzer described how he’d taken up a weapon and blasted the helicopter out of the sky. Sabre was going to let the director stick with the story. That way the university people could come to Krauzer for reparations.
“I’m still working on that, but I’m beginning to get the feeling that he doesn’t know anything more than he’s telling.”
12
“Ms. Creed, your taxi is here.”
“Thank you.” Annja tipped the concierge as he held open the cab’s door so she could slide in. She got settled and belted in, then gave the driver instructions to take her to Good Samaritan Hospital, where Orta was currently laid up recovering. The driver pulled smoothly into traffic.
Although she’d managed only two hours of sleep, Annja felt somewhat rejuvenated after the long bath and the nap. She’d dressed in jeans, a tank top and a baggy sweater to break the chill coming in off the harbor. Her backpack rested in the seat beside her.
Connecting to her satellite internet on her tablet during the slow traffic, she checked some of the alt.history and alt.archaeology sites she visited when researching various projects for posts she’d entered about the Merovingian kings. She flicked through the entries quickly, not happy with the results because most of them had to do with Steven Krauzer and his movie more than historical whispers and rumors about the crystal. Slightly frustrated, she powered down the tablet PC and put it away, then slipped on a pair of sunglasses to keep the bright sunlight at bay. Taking a band from her backpack, she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Excitement continued to thrum through her, a constant undercurrent because she knew the chase was still on.
* * *
“I TOLD THEM you were my girlfriend.” Vincent Orta winced in embarrassment as he lay in the hospital bed surrounded by a phalanx of beeping and humming machinery. He looked small in the whiteness of the bed and his color hadn’t yet come back. “That was the only way they would let you in. I apologize if I’ve discomfited you in any way.”
Annja approached the bed and smiled. “Not a problem. I think it’s flattering.” She placed a vase of orchids on the small table beside the bed and sat in the nearby chair. “How are you feeling?”
Orta gestured toward the IV hanging above his head. “I’m pain-free and riding a great buzz. This stuff should be illegal.”
Annja laughed even though the joke was old, remembering that it was probably Orta’s first chance to use the line—and he was under the influence anyway.
“I brought you a care package.” She held up the small bag she’d put together before leaving the hotel. “A deck of playing cards. A handful of thriller and science-fiction novels, in case you want the quiet instead of television. I took a guess at snacks and treats and settled on trail mix.” She set the bag on the side table.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I kind of did.” Annja smiled. “I’m the reason you’re in the hospital. If I hadn’t brought the crystal to you for help, you wouldn’t have ended up getting shot.”
“I wanted to see the crystal. I had my manuscript mystery to solve.” Orta struggled to push himself up in the bed. “If there is any fault, it would be on both of us. But neither of us had a clue someone would be so interested in Krauzer’s crystal.”
“You see, that’s where I am to blame. I put images up on the web and drew those people out.”
Shoving with his hand again, Orta tried to find a more comfortable spot.
Annja gave him the bed controls and waited until he managed a sitting position that caused only a little wincing. She put a pillow behind his back to help him.
“Thanks. The meds help a lot, but I’m still weak and a little shaky.” Orta sighed in relief. “I saw in the news that those guys who shot me got away with the
crystal.”
“They did.”
“But you stayed with me. Thank you for that.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you.”
Orta shook his head in disgust. “I also found out the police don’t know who those men were.”
“Detectives Bishop and Connolly have identified a few of them as international mercenaries. That isn’t for media consumption yet, and I don’t think they were exactly happy sharing the information with me, but they had to ask questions about what I knew. I made sure I was getting information, too.”
Grimacing, Orta waited a beat. “Those were mercenaries? Like, take-over-third-world-countries mercenaries?”
“We didn’t get into their history, but that’s definitely the vibe I got from the detectives.”
“Why are they so interested in the crystal? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“If they’re mercenaries, they were probably hired.”
“So someone had to hire them.”
Annja smiled. “That’s how these things would work.”
“None of them have told the police who hired them?”
For a moment, Annja hesitated. “The police didn’t recover any of those men alive.”
“Oh.” That news took away some of Orta’s devil-may-care attitude even with the painkillers. “I didn’t know the police had let you go. I called over there, to let them know you were one of the good guys, and was surprised you were released.”
“They let me go because I didn’t know what they want to know.” Annja settled back in her chair. “I still don’t.”
“But you’d like to find out.”
“I’d like to find out more about the crystal and those pages you found.”
Orta sighed. “Me, too. Only it looks like I’m going to be on bed rest for a few days. And if I wasn’t doing that, I’d be teaching class.”
“How badly are you injured?”
“The surgeon told me the bullet didn’t hit anything vital, nothing that’s going to need reconstruction or will do any permanent damage, but I’ll have to do some rehab, and I’ll never wear a bikini again.”
He chuckled and Annja smiled, impressed by the way he was conducting himself. The fear still showed in his eyes, though, and she knew part of his feigned resiliency was because she was a woman and he was there. Guys could be foolish at times. Getting shot was a big deal.
A uniformed police officer poked his head into the room, gave the surroundings a once-over and retreated.
“My guard.” Orta shrugged and winced. “Evidently, the police believe I might still be in some danger.”
“I don’t think you are, but it’s better to have protection and not need it than to need protection and not have it.”
“True. And the police officer doesn’t seem to mind being here. But I don’t think he’s getting anywhere with the nurses.” Orta grinned, then looked more somber. “Do you still want to follow this up? The mystery mentioned in the manuscript?”
“Yes. You said you had something that might help?”
“A lead at most, I’m afraid, but I have to admit that I’m reluctant to give it to you because I don’t know how much danger you’re going to be in.”
“Maybe those men were just after the crystal.” Annja looked at Orta, hoping he wouldn’t hold back, because she didn’t have a definite direction to go in yet.
“Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know, but I do know that I’m not ready to let this go. With or without whatever you have, I’m going to look for answers. And the more I know...well, the more I know.”
Orta nodded. “The manuscript we decoded mentions the Bibliotheca Corviniana. How familiar are you with that library?”
“I wasn’t until this morning.” While in the bath, Annja had used her tablet PC to consult her sources to bring her up to speed on the work listed in the hidden message.
“Ah, well, let me tell you what I know.” Orta shifted on the bed again. “Matthias Corvinus put the library together sometime between 1458 and 1490. That’s a thirty-two-year gap of uncertainty, and that lets you know how little we actually know of the library. The collection is rumored to have started earlier, but most scholars agree that Matthias declared the library in 1460. Agents of the king scoured the surrounding lands and picked up works written during the Greek and Roman empires and as many books written during the Renaissance as they were able. It was meant to assemble all the knowledge known to man.”
“Like the Library of Alexandria.”
“Exactly. People just assume so much knowledge is known, but they don’t realize how hard civilizations and forward-thinking men and women have fought to hold on to it. They think since knowledge has always been there, that it always will be, and they don’t realize how much learning slips through our fingers every day when records get destroyed. It is so frustrating how casually this younger generation just simply lets go of everything that has gone before. Even in our field. They develop tunnel vision and look for answers instead of learning the big picture or how to properly question something.”
“That argument has probably been around since education was formalized.” Annja felt the professor’s pain, though. “I’ve seen the same kind of thing in the lectures and workshops I’ve been part of. Students grasp the idea of the fact there was a before, even nail down some of the details to regurgitate on a test, but they don’t immerse themselves in those worlds.”
“So you do know.” Orta lay back. “What do you know about Matthias Corvinus?”
Leaning back in the chair, Annja got more comfortable. “He was king of Hungary and Croatia, and his whole reign was filled with battles and wars against Czech mercenaries and the Ottoman Empire. When Serbia and Bosnia fell, Matthias set aside his struggles against Frederick III, who was the Holy Roman Emperor at that time and the king of Germany.”
“The first of the Hapsburg kings, yes.”
“After Serbia and Bosnia were lost to the Ottoman Empire, Matthias made a deal with Frederick III to become king of Hungary, setting aside Frederick’s claims to the Hungarian throne in 1463 after Matthias paid a fortune in ransom.”
“Some call it blackmail.” Orta grinned. “In any case, Matthias wasn’t satisfied with his position and wasted no time beginning aggressive campaigns that netted his kingdom more lands. But that growth was difficult, and controlling all the conquered people and holding his borders against other encroaching countries was strenuous.”
“He had more enemies without than friends with.”
“Exactly, so he took steps to remedy that by hiring mercenaries of his own. His father, John Hunyadi, formed the core of that army in the early 1440s, hiring fighting men from other countries, but Matthias built upon that idea. As a boy, he’d fallen in love with stories about Julius Caesar’s legions and military prowess. From 1458 until a few years after Matthias’s death, those mercenary troops grew until they were the largest permanent army in the world at that time.”
“The only other monarch to have a professional army during those years was Louis XIV of France.” Annja warmed to the subject as she started spinning threads to connect everything she knew and could guess at. “As I recall, both Louis XIV and Matthias Corvinus insisted on permanent billets for their warriors.”
“Precisely. Until that time, kings and royalty simply took men from their lands as they needed to. Those men worked at normal jobs until they were called into battle. There was no training, no practice and no drilling before they fought for their lives on a battlefield. Matthias’s tactics and support of his army changed war and tactics in those areas for decades.”
“His men also used firearms more readily than any other army at the time.” Annja vaguely remembered that from her reading that morning.
“They used harquebuses, so primitive compared to today’s rifles
, but they were lethally effective at the time. A man had to train steadily and for years to use a longbow, which was the most dangerous ranged weapon on the battlefield in those days, but a man could become very effective with a harquebus in a matter of months. And at close range he was deadly.”
Annja sat and listened, letting Orta speak because he was in his element.
“Of course, to raise and support such an army, Corvinus also had to find funding. That meant increased taxes, which no one wanted to pay, but he didn’t give people a choice. There was a rebellion in Transylvania, but he quickly put that down, then started declaring wars for major land grabs. By that time, the Black Army, also called the Black Legion, was a well-honed fighting machine. Every fourth man was armed with a harquebus. Gunpowder was hard to come by and horribly expensive, but Corvinus kept his troops well supplied. As a result, his empire flourished.”
Orta took another sip of water. “The military action at that time is fascinating, but that’s not what you’re interested in.”
“I wouldn’t say I wasn’t interested.” Annja grinned. “Military actions have shaped a lot of our history and provided numerous records and archives.”
Orta smiled in return. “But we need to prioritize. The library grew as much as Corvinus’s army. He guided his country into being the first to embrace the Renaissance that was only then taking place in Italy. Corvinus knew a new world was coming and he wanted to stay in step with it.
“No one knows for sure every book his library contained. There are no master lists. The National Széchényi Library in Budapest hopes to digitize what they know of the books. It’s a colossal undertaking. The Turkish invasion lasted for decades, and Corvinus held out against them. After his death, though, it was a different matter. His successor, Vladislaus II, wasn’t able to raise the necessary monies to keep the Black Legion together. They gradually went away and left the kingdom vulnerable. Somewhere in there, the library was ransacked and the surviving books scattered.”
“We know a lot, but we don’t know enough to figure out what Julio Gris was writing about in his papers.”