by Alex Archer
More doors clanged opened and closed from floors above, and more shouts followed. Two guns discharged, these without silencers. The police, Annja was certain, hoping they would nail one of the men pursuing her.
But only shoot one, she prayed; she wanted one alive to question.
Halfway down to the first floor, she stopped and whirled as more gunfire erupted. It was followed by the sound of a body tumbling down the stairs. A heartbeat later, only one dark-clad man appeared on the steps above her, one hand on the railing to balance himself, the other holding a gun—a Glock 17. Odd that something like that would register, Annja thought, given the dire situation.
She feinted to her right, toward the outer wall of the stairwell, then dipped and pivoted to her left. He fired at where’d she’d stood a breath before. Pushing off the step, she flew up at him, executing a hammering block when his leg came out to defend himself.
“What is this about?” she shouted. “What have you done with Oliver?”
He grunted and tried to draw a bead on her, shooting the railing instead. Only one step below him now, she grabbed his raised leg and tugged, setting him off balance. Agile, he didn’t fall. He swept the gun at her, the barrel striking her face. He brought it back for a second strike and pulled the trigger in the same motion. Annja reacted with an inward parry, a kenpo blocking method. One hand wrapped around the hilt of her sword, she opened her other hand and redirected his next blow by riding with the force of his swing. He hadn’t anticipated that and scrambled to maintain his hold on the gun.
“Kiai!” Annja shouted, as she used her diaphragm to purge the air from her body. The kenpo technique fortified her body and clearly shook the man. She rammed the heel of her hand into his stomach and felt his breath rush out. “I don’t want to kill you,” she said to herself as much as to him. “Though that’s clearly what you intend for me.”
But why do you want to kill me?
“There’s one more shooter down there!” This came from well above her. “Call it in that one’s dead.”
Annja had to finish this quickly. Having the police here was all well and good, she thought, but they would tangle her up for hours in questioning. She needed to call Doug, alert the crew who took the red-eye that they might be in danger for God knows what reason and try to call Ollie again. She desperately wanted to sort all this out before letting the authorities commandeer her time.
“Kiai!” she repeated, following it this time with a swipe of her sword. The blade sheered into the man’s fingers, forcing him to release the gun.
He grabbed his injured hand with his good one and stared at her, his eyes angry daggers.
“Gahba!” he spat at her. “Kelbeh!”
“No doubt you’re calling me something terrible,” she said.
“Khanzeera al matina!” Clearly in pain, the man nonetheless refused to quit. He lashed out with one leg, and then the other, clipping Annja once but causing her no real harm.
She had been a superb athlete before acquiring the sword. She’d since become even better, drawing on its power and honing her skills to an almost unbelievable level. That she’d lived through all this so far—and so much more in other countries before this—was a testament to her training and determination.
“I…said…I…don’t…want…to…kill…you!” The words steamed out as if she were a kettle left too long on the stove. “But you’re not going to be able to answer my questions, are you? Know any English?”
The police nearing, she again dismissed the sword, in the same motion reaching up and grabbing her attacker’s shirt, pulling him toward her and finally setting him off balance.
She lifted him and spun him so he was on the step below her now. Then she pushed him and rode him down the rest of the steps like a bobsled, the back of his head cracking hard and making her wince. For a moment, she feared she might have indeed killed him, but he spit at her and feebly tried to knock her off him.
She jammed her knee into his stomach.
“Where is Oliver? What have you done with him?”
“He saw! You saw!” the man cried, finally speaking so she could understand him. She shook him, and his head rolled to the side.
“Saw what? What did we see?”
“I see them!” Again this came from above. “The woman and a man. The man might be dead. She’s throttling him!”
“He’s not dead.” Annja groaned and pushed herself off him and jumped down the last few steps and out the exit door, the footsteps of the police clacking behind her. A heartbeat later she was in the lobby. A heartbeat more and she was through the revolving doors and onto the sidewalk, sucking in the cool fall air.
I should stop and talk to the police right now, she thought. Clear this up, tell them about Oliver. She couldn’t get any more out of her attacker until he came to, and that would be under police guard in a local hospital—and that would be provided he could speak enough English to make sense. The police would take her in, too, as she was disheveled and bloodied, and no doubt they’d connect her to the reports of a woman in jeans and a bikini top swinging a sword. She’d work through it all; she had before. She’d done nothing wrong.
But it would take time.
Maybe the police would let her call her producer first, or try Oliver again.
Not likely.
But necessary, she decided as she ran, her bare feet striking the cool concrete and sending needles of pain into her because she’d scraped them raw against those metal strips. She had to tell Doug about the attack and ask him to check on the rest of the crew. He needs to know what’s going on. I need to figure out what’s going on.
What had she and Ollie seen?
I need to think! Leaving the scene of the crime wasn’t a good thing, she knew, but she needed space.
Annja spied a pay phone on the street corner. She sped toward it. Just past the hotel parking lot, it cast a shadow on the sidewalk that looked like the pendulum of a clock. She hoped she had enough coins to make it work.
The breeze was cool and tugged the bad scents from her as she ran, the smoke from Oliver’s hotel room, the cordite from the gunshots, the blood. The breeze carried the smell of car and bus exhaust and of redfish that was grilling in a restaurant nearby.
People on the sidewalk called out to her, most in concern, seeing blood run from her shoulder and from her face where the gun had struck her. But some called to the police, as much as telling her that at least one officer had come out of the hotel in search of her or anyone else involved in the mayhem.
“One phone call,” she said to herself. “Just one and then I’m yours until this is all resolved.”
Her hand closed on the receiver and she lifted it, reached for her wallet and cursed. The phone cord had been cut. Sydney had its vandals just like anywhere else. She dropped the receiver and whirled, expecting to see a police officer jogging up to her, but instead spying another dark-clad man cutting through the pedestrians.
He drew a gun, and the passersby screamed and parted, giving him a clear shot at Annja.
“How many of you?” she hollered as she dropped into a catlike pose. She mentally reached for her sword, but stopped herself. Too many spectators, and in broad daylight she couldn’t risk it. Her life was one big secret, and it didn’t need to be exposed on a sidewalk in downtown Sydney. “Just how blasted many of you are after me?”
A bullet whispered through the air from behind her, striking the side of the pay phone and letting her know another assailant was near. She sprung up, past the phone and off the sidewalk, over the curb and onto the street, where a bus was just pulling away.
The driver was closing the doors in a panic, not wanting his passengers endangered. She managed to squeeze on.
“A brass button,” he told her, oblivious to the fact that she’d been the target of the shooters. The door hissed closed behind her.
“We’re being shot at! Just get this bus moving for the love of God!” she shouted.
The bus lurched out into traffic
as the wail of a multitude of sirens cut through the air.
She found a small coin in her wallet, tugged it out, held it up and then dropped it in the slot. The Australian dollar was about the size of a U.S. dime, but thicker, nicknamed a brass button.
“Here? Happy?” She mentally rebuked herself for being snide to the man.
“You’re hurt, miss?” The driver noted the blood, but didn’t keep his eyes on her; he was intent on speeding away from the scene.
“I’m fine. Really.” Annja threaded her way down the center of the bus to the back, sagging into an empty seat and avoiding the curious stares of the dozen passengers.
“Pig’s arse!” said an elderly woman who peered over the back of her seat to ogle Annja.
“You’re bleedin’,” another passenger pointed out. “And you’re in your underwear.”
“It’s a bikini top,” Annja fumed.
“Pig’s you’re fine,” the elderly woman persisted.
Annja closed her eyes and pictured Oliver. “I’ll wager I’m in better shape than my cameraman,” she said.
5
Annja heard the sirens’ wail subside as the bus moved farther from her hotel. She sensed the other passengers staring at her. She knew she certainly must be something to look at—a fright in jeans, a bikini top, blood spatters everywhere and filthy bare feet. She tucked her feet up under her and felt the bottoms with her fingers. The skin was practically shredded on the heels.
Shoes, she needed shoes and socks, she thought, a long-sleeved shirt and maybe a sweater. And her cell phone—any phone—so she could call Doug and try Oliver again. She needed to call the police, too.
She needed to think.
Annja let the bus rock her, hoping it would relax her, but instead she felt more anxious. In her mind’s eye she saw Oliver’s empty room and the spot of blood. She saw the faces of the men who’d attacked her, their hard, cold eyes, and then the lifeless bodies of the ones she’d killed. The tall one called Sute loomed large in her memory. Something about him bothered her—beyond her killing him. She didn’t regret what she’d done. She’d had no choice. Sadly, killing had become somewhat commonplace in her life. At least she hadn’t become so inured to it that she didn’t feel anything. She felt sorry for the dead men’s families. And she was sorry she had not been able to capture one and ask him questions.
She focused on the sounds around her and tried to clear her mind. The spot of blood faded, and instead she called up the image of Hathor on the piece of pottery Wes Michaels had passed to her. Smooth and warm, she remembered the shard feeling, somehow, comforting.
The sirens had receded completely now.
She heard someone on the street hollering for a cab, heard a vendor calling to passersby, “Avos! Ripe avos here.” A car horn was honking, music spilling out a window. The roar of a piece of construction equipment was the loudest; on the shuttle to the hotel a few days ago she’d noted a parking garage going up and an old furniture store being torn down. They must be passing that spot, she thought.
A few moments later the bus slowed, then squeaked and belched exhaust before shuddering to a stop. She could tell they were at a traffic light from the clacking of heels and chattering of all the people crossing the street.
The smells of the city intensified. From herself, the scents of blood and sweat hung heavy in her nostrils. There were warring perfumes from the women in the seats ahead of her. Added to that were the acrid aromas of the bus’s fumes and those from other cars, and the general miasma of any big city’s pollution. She thought she might have picked up a tinge of salt from the ocean, as Sydney was on the coast, but she suspected that was her imagination.
What have I done? Leaving a crime scene? she wondered. She respected the authorities, had certainly dealt with them in many foreign countries, and if she’d stayed in the hotel she wouldn’t have encountered the two thugs on the sidewalk. Seven in total, all dressed in black, all foreign and all wanting to kill her.
Again she saw the face of the tall one.
They probably killed Oliver because of whatever he’d seen. And they’d dumped his body somewhere.
“And they think I saw it, too,” she whispered. “Saw what he did. But just what did we see?”
She dismissed the etched image of the goddess Hathor and her missing arm where the shard was broken, and Annja tried to replay the past several days in her mind, focusing on what Wes Michaels had uncovered at the dig.
There was nothing extraordinarily valuable, she thought, although extraordinary in the fact there were Egyptian relics on Australian soil. Nothing on the scale of Nefertiti’s resting place, she thought, or King Tut’s tomb.
Nothing worth killing over, certainly.
“I’m missing something,” she mused. “Something important, obviously. What did I see?”
One of the bus’s rear wheels hit a pothole and bounced her harshly against the seat.
“Got a bingle over there!” This came from the elderly woman two seats ahead.
Annja opened her eyes just as the bus found another pothole, this one even deeper. Her teeth clacked together, and she managed to bite both the inside of her cheek and her tongue.
Something else to add to the list of aches, she thought.
“Yep, it’s a big bingle, all right!” This came from another passenger, a middle-aged man who got up out of his seat and pressed his face to the window for a better look. “Someone’s goin’ to the hospital, I’ll bet.”
“A bingle?” Annja asked.
“An accident.” A young woman with a streak of pink in a shock of otherwise jet-black hair had sidled back to sit across the aisle from Annja. She was dressed in tight green leather pants and a purple shirt that was a little too short for her long arms, and red tennis shoes without laces—everything clashing. She pointed out the window at a late-model station wagon that had plowed into the back of something that looked like a Mini Cooper. “Probably some tourist not used to driving on the left. Both cars are cactus.”
Cactus? Dead, Annja guessed. The bus had slowed, no doubt so the driver could get a good look, too. Steam was pouring out of the station wagon, the hood crumpled and the left front tire caved under, and the driver of what was left of the little car held his head in his hands. There was a man in black on the corner, staring at the bus.
One of the men who’d chased her? One of their associates? Or was it her imagination taking a vivid turn?
Annja turned so she could get a better look at him. No, he didn’t look anything like the others. Blond hair and a pale complexion, listening to something on an iPod, nothing to worry over, she told herself. She let out a sigh of relief, and then froze. Running along the sidewalk and pushing his way through the people watching the bingle, was a swarthy-looking man dressed in black. She made a move to rise, intending to jump off the bus and confront him. But the bus wheezed away into traffic, and she lost sight of him.
A loud cough startled her. “I said, you’re a tourist, too, ain’tcha?” the woman with the pink streak asked.
“Yes.” Annja gave a slight smile and nodded. The gesture hurt; her face was sore from where the gun had struck her, and a headache was starting to crescendo behind her eyes. She wanted to get a look in the mirror to assess the damage, especially to check out her shoulder wound. Her skin felt tight and warm there. Again she cursed herself for bolting instead of speaking with the police and getting a little medical attention.
“Get in a fight?” Pink Streak persisted. “A car accident?”
No, I always look like this, Annja mentally retorted. “Some men chased me.”
“Oh! Yeah, I saw.” She popped a stick of gum in her mouth and started chewing noisily, grabbing the seat back when the bus lurched around a corner a little too sharply.
Annja had no trouble balancing herself.
“Guy on the sidewalk, shooting at you. I saw him just before the bus left the stop. All Die Hard and Lethal Weapon like. Wow, you know. None of my bizzo, really, but why was he af
ter you? I mean, you look pretty spunk and all. Was he wanting to have a go at you? Did you pinch something of his?”
Annja shook her head. “I didn’t steal anything. And I don’t know why they were after me,” she said honestly.
“Yeah, you don’t look like the pinching type. Where you from?” Pink Streak was looking Annja up and down more closely. “You look familiar.”
“New York.” Again Annja was honest.
“Never been there.” Pink Streak smacked her gum, made a face at the old woman two seats up, said, “Mind your bizzo,” then slapped her palm against her leg. “TV. That’s it. I’ve seen you on TV.”
Annja inwardly groaned. She’d not expected the punk girl to have watched something like Chasing History’s Monsters.
“A model, I bet, a tall poppy, you! Got the body for it, you have, and…”
Annja opened her mouth to reply, but the hiss of the bus drowned her out. It eased to the curb and the doors opened.
“Darlinghurst!” the driver called out.
Annja got up and hurried down the aisle.
“Watch yourself!” Pink Streak called after her. “Keep to Potts Point!”
Potts Point? Annja had no idea what that was, or where. However, within a heartbeat she did know where she stood.
Kings Cross. Annja realized it the moment she stepped onto the sidewalk and looked down the street. She’d grabbed a stack of pamphlets the first morning she ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant—something to look at while she waited for her food. The first pamphlet she’d skimmed was about Kings Cross. She recognized some of the buildings pictured in the advertisement. The waiter told her the Cross was painted by the Australian media as the drug and red light district of the entire continent, but that it had cleaned up its image in the past two decades. The waiter also said it was a must-see spot, one of the most densely populated areas on the continent, and was admittedly a bit of a tourist trap.