by Alex Archer
They hadn’t traveled more than another dozen yards when she lost the tracks. The game trail disappeared, and thick ground cover spread out in all directions. She pressed on, angling toward where her inner direction sense suggested the dig was. Their footfalls were almost silent with only the occasional shush of thick, wet leaves moving as they passed through. The moss was soft and springy; she could tell that even through the soles of her tennis shoes. And it was slippery. She had to move a little slower than she’d like just to keep her balance.
Through gaps in the ironwoods to her right, she could see a stream, the moonlight glinting off its surface and making it shimmer like molten silver. Something splashed in the water, and she stopped and listened. A fish or a frog, she decided, finally continuing on.
Eventually, she came to a bend in the stream. It was wider and the current fast. More like a small river, she thought, the banks swollen slightly from the night’s downpour. A log stretched across it, and from scrapes in the bark, it looked as if something, or someone, had used it as a bridge. Maybe the men from the SUV. A search of the bank confirmed that; she spotted two sets of boot prints.
“Still want to come along?” she asked, noting Dari’s uneasy expression as he stared at the water.
“No worries. I’ll go first.” He removed his leather boots and held one in each hand, as if using them to balance him. “A mite cold, this is.” He put one foot in front of the other. “Slippery, too. Wish my bike hadn’t gone cactus. We’d have found a friendlier way to go.”
In the moonlight she could see his toes curl around the wood, as if he’d had some gymnastics training in his youth. Dari certainly is an interesting soul, she mused. Yet for all his smoothness, the log swayed beneath him. He took a half-dozen steps and stopped, steadying himself and waiting for the log to stop quivering before he took another half dozen.
She waited until he was nearly across before she took her turn, keeping her shoes on. Indeed it was slippery, and for a heartbeat she expected to fall into the churning water. But she slowed her breathing, as she’d learned in her martial-arts training, and she closed her eyes and relied on her feet alone to carry her across. Annja felt the log wobble, too, and at the same time sag; it was rotting from all the moisture.
Once on the other side, she waited for Dari to put on his boots. Then she was quick to find the tracks again and follow them. The ground was uneven, and roots from the stringybarks poked up here and there as if they were trying to purposely trip her. There were gullies hidden by the ground cover, one of which sent Annja to the ground. She picked herself up before Dari could help, and she tested her ankles—the right one was sore. Sprained maybe—she’d be able to tell after she’d walked on it some more.
In some places the ground cover was so thick and high that Annja had to push her way through it. The men had come this way, too—she found prints in the rare bare spots of ground.
“They’re going to Dr. Michaels’s camp,” she said.
“Should’ve brought guns along,” Dari said. “Nate told me I should buy one for the op shops, for when I take the money to deposit. I think I’ll buy one when I get back,” he said quietly.
Ahead the trees thinned and mist rose from the clearing like a cloud come to ground, the earth warmer than the air. Tendrils swirled with the breeze, and Annja imagined ghosts dancing. She paused only a moment to appreciate the serenity of it, and then she walked faster, feeling a slight burn in her leg muscles from the exertion, and a stronger burn at her right ankle. She checked for tracks on this side of the fog, and then looked for them again after she had passed through.
“Nothing.” She’d lost them.
There were pieces of moss-covered shale, and in the moonlight she’d expected to see where patches had been smeared from someone walking over them. Clearly the men she’d been following had done nothing to hide their tracks; someone with no training at all could have followed them—up until this point.
Dari studied her as she followed the edge of the fog bank, looking for scraped moss, broken twigs, heel imprints.
“Nothing,” she said again.
It was as if the two men had vanished, but she knew that wasn’t the case. It was simply night, and she’d reached a stretch of the forest that was so littered with rock shards that finding boot prints was difficult.
Annja considered redoubling her efforts, and asking Dari for his flashlight. But it would take a considerable amount of time, and reaching Dr. Michaels was more pressing. She got her bearings and pointed toward a tall copse of white stringybarks.
“I’m pretty sure the camp is over there. It shouldn’t be much farther.”
“Hope not,” Dari said. “Not used to all this walking. My feet hurt. My legs hurt. Hell, I’m aching all over.” He dropped his voice again when he caught her scowl. “I can’t turn back, though. I’m not tin arsed. I’d get myself lost. Besides, I might miss all the good stuff, eh?”
It niggled at the back of her mind that she’d lost the tracks. Annja didn’t like that she had enemies around and couldn’t tell where they were. She knew with certainty the men were up to no good, or else they wouldn’t be here on this sodden night.
An hour later they saw a light. The forest spread away to the north and south, as if the trees had come upon an imaginary line that they were not allowed to cross. It was a natural break in the woods, Michaels had explained to her on the first day of her visit. There’d been a few trees cut down for the site, but only a few. This extensive clearing hadn’t had anything grow in it for centuries, he’d said. “Since perhaps the Egyptians had come.”
The tents were large and elaborate. There were five of them, one more of a canopy than anything, with tables under it for sifting and arranging artifacts. A dying fire burned in front of the nearest tent, and that was the light Annja had spotted. She stared at the fire, caught up in a memory that wasn’t hers, and a shiver traveled down her back.
Dari nudged her. “I think we took a few wrong turns out there. I think we could’ve gotten here quicker and with less wear on the feet if we’d not gone through that fog patch.”
Annja didn’t reply. She glanced away from the fire and to the ridge behind the dig, which separated the tertiary site from this one. The moonlight created shadows in the rock, making it look like the cracked and leathery face of an old, old man. There were no lights on in the tents.
“Everyone’s sleeping.” Dari stated the obvious.
“Not for long,” Annja said.
Moments later she and Dari were inside the Michaels’s tent, Annja rapidly telling them about the assault at the hotel.
“So you think we saw something?” Wes Michaels sat cross-legged on his cot, unmindful that he was dressed only in pajama bottoms. His wife had thrown on a robe before allowing company in. “Or uncovered something so valuable someone would kill for it?” He rubbed his hands together as he thought.
The tent was large enough to contain two cots, a small table and four folding camp chairs. There was a trunk that likely held clothes and such, a refrigerator—the size that might fit in a college dorm room—and a small generator that powered the fridge and the light that hung above the table. Close and homey, Annja thought, just like the tents on the television show M*A*S*H that she’d watched as a child.
Dari had a hard time folding himself into one of the camp chairs. He’d selected the one facing Wes, so his back would be to Jennifer.
It was dry inside, save for right around the tent flap where the breeze still gusted and sent a little water onto the rug. Annja took off her jacket and hung it on the back of one of the chairs. She crouched at the foot of the cot, her ankle throbbing and letting her know it was indeed sprained.
“That jade ankh,” Jennifer said. “It’s the most valuable piece we found. I wouldn’t want to guess at what it’s worth. But it’s not here. It was crated up yesterday and sent to the city. If thieves come looking for it, they’ll be disappointed.”
“But maybe the men who shot at you don’
t know it’s not here,” Dari said.
Annja closed her eyes and pictured Sute again. She remembered being on the ridge with Oliver, looking through his camera and seeing Sute and the others.
“No. The more I think about it,” Annja said, “the more it seems that it’s not what I saw—what Oliver and I saw—but who we saw. I can’t shake that notion.”
Dr. Michaels uncurled his legs and set his feet into moccasins conveniently placed by his cot. “And you think maybe Jenn and me, and the others, saw this person, too?” He shook his head. “We’ve not had many visitors lately, Miss Creed. You and your crew. Our funder checks in from time to time. Sometimes we have a man bring supplies in, but more often Jenn goes into the city to get what we need.”
“Gives me a break from Wes,” she said. Jennifer yawned and rubbed at her eyes. “Can’t imagine us seeing anyone who didn’t want to be seen. Least of all anyone who’d want to kill us for seeing him.” She waggled her fingers as if trying to dismiss Annja’s notion.
“No one came out here tonight?” Annja persisted.
“Just you, Miss Creed, and…” Wes looked to the dripping biker.
“Darioush,” he said. “I own three op shops in Sydney.” He paused then added, “And I’m thinking about building another one.”
Wes raised both eyebrows.
“I gave her a lift out here,” Dari explained. “Well, part of the way. Painter hauled us most of the rest.”
Jennifer slapped her hand against her knee and yawned again. “That sounds like a story.” She stretched to a camp stool that served as a nightstand and looked at the clock. “It’s almost midnight. How about we bunk the two of you in with—”
“I can’t even think about sleeping.” Annja rose and reached for her jacket, seeing that it was snagged and the embroidery ripped—no doubt from the tree limbs and bushes of the preserve. Strings of seed beads had come loose, and there were paint speckles on the back of the right arm. She put it on. “I’m going to check the other camp.”
“The uni’s?” Jennifer’s voice rose in disbelief. “Girl, it’s almost midnight, and that’s a good trek up that rise and over even in broad daylight. Not that it’s all that far. The rocks just aren’t all that friendly.”
Annja offered them a slight smile. “You have a satellite phone here, right?”
Wes nodded.
“Keep it close, in case you need to call someone if there’s trouble. And you’ve two security men, right? That your funder’s supplied?”
“In the small tent by the sifting trays,” Wes said.
“I’d wake them up,” Annja continued. “Put them on alert. They’ve got guns, right?”
Wes nodded slowly.
“Good. The men who were after me weren’t terribly good shots, but they had plenty of guns between them.”
Jennifer paled, truly frightened now. “Wes, maybe we better call someone, get some police out here.”
Wes shook his head. “Sat phone’s been out of juice for most of two days now. I was going to pick up another charger. Should’ve. I’m always putting off trips into the city. But this all might be nothing, right, Miss Creed?”
Annja bit her lower lip. “I don’t know. I’ll be back after I check on the university site.”
Dari made a move to rise, but Annja shook her head. “Stay here,” she ordered.
“I don’t need protection,” Dari protested.
“But maybe they do.” She nodded to Wes and Jennifer and parted the tent flap.
“Here.” Dari reached in his pocket and tossed her his flashlight. “Not much, but it might help.”
She left the tent, hurrying toward the ridge.
Annja did not look back. Otherwise she might have seen two dark-clad men in hiking boots skirt the camp and head toward the far southern tent.
13
Annja enjoyed climbing, and the ridge that stretched like the spiny backbone of some beast between the two dig sites provided little challenge—despite the absence of even rudimentary climbing equipment. Still, the slick rocks made her cautious, and so she paid attention to selecting her hand-and footholds and kept her mind strictly on the task. There was an easier way up the ridge—one she and Oliver had taken yesterday, but that would not give her as high a vantage point as she wanted this night.
She knew there was a path some way to the north, which cut through a low section of the ridge. The students and the Michaels crew traveled it once in a while to visit each other’s dig. But for some reason she didn’t want to take that route, either; it would take her too long, and she preferred this unanticipated, untraveled way.
Her fingers wedged into a narrow horizontal crevice and she pulled herself up. The shoulder where she’d been grazed stung; she’d opened up the wound that had been attempting to heal. Her ankle bothered her more than a little, too, and she was careful to put most of her weight on her left foot as she pushed herself up to the next crevice.
A chunk of stone snapped off in her right hand, and the muscles bunched in her left arm to keep herself steady. Her lungs were warm and her throat was growing tight from the exertion, but she welcomed the sensations, and she looked forward to the exhilarated way she would feel when she reached the top and rested a moment.
Halfway up, she thought she’d heard something below her. Dari? she wondered. The tall, bald biker had fancied himself something of her protector, refusing to leave her when the painter had dropped them off at the service road. Too bad about his bike, she thought. It would have gotten them here faster and by a better route, and she wouldn’t have sprained her ankle traipsing through the soggy woods.
She heard a noise again, and she looked down, the moonlight showing nothing but upthrusts of rocks and at the edge of her vision the tops of the archaeologists’ tents. The tent canopy that covered the artifacts and sifting tables looked like some giant bird with its wings spread, water pooling and making part of it sag. She couldn’t see anyone moving about, but despite the moon it was too dark to see much directly around the tents.
She climbed higher, hoping Dari hadn’t decided to come protect her. He seemed athletic enough, but unless he had climbing experience, tackling this section of the wet rocky ridge would be a bad idea. Looking over her shoulder again, she saw only the light and shadows of the ridge, and she no longer heard any noise.
It wasn’t until she’d nearly reached the top a few minutes later that she heard a sound again, scree shifting and gravel falling below. She knew she hadn’t been responsible for it.
“Dari?” she called out.
No answer.
“Dari! Wes?”
Annja scrambled to the top and waited. Someone was following her, and she would meet whoever it was up here. A part of her hoped it was Dari, that he’d ignored her request to stay with the Michaelses. She fervently hoped it wasn’t Wes coming to help; he did not strike her as terribly agile, and she worried that he might fall.
A heartbeat later, she learned it was neither man. A dark-clad stranger pulled himself up on the ridge a few yards south of her position and crouched, arms to his sides to balance himself. He had on something like a ski mask, so that only his eyes and part of his nose showed. He didn’t blink as he regarded her.
There was little sound up here; the breeze was still strong and stirred the leaves on the trees below, causing them to rustle with a faint noise like children whispering. But Annja’s senses were so acute that she could hear the stranger’s breath, steady and slow despite the climb.
“What is this about?” She knew she would fight him, had already touched her sword with her mind. But she prayed he would talk to her first. She desperately wanted answers.
“What is this about? It is about your death, American fool.” His voice was slow and soft and heavily accented. Arabic, she guessed, or some other Middle Eastern dialect. “Kelbeh, it is about your painful and quick death.” He made no move to approach her, wanting the advance to be hers.
“Why must I die?” Annja sensed the sword just be
yond her reach. She was anxious to call it, but she held back, knowing that when it appeared the time for talking to this man would be done. “Why do you need to kill me?” she asked.
“Because my master commands it, kelbeh, because you saw—” He stopped, eyes flickering for a moment.
“Saw him?” A flash of the stranger’s eyes confirmed to Annja that it was a who not a what that she’d seen. The jade ankh, though immeasurably valuable, was not behind this. “And he didn’t want to be seen, your master,” she continued, still keeping the sword in limbo. “At least not by a television crew that could inadvertently send his picture into people’s living rooms. That’s it, isn’t it? All of this is about Oliver taking a man’s picture,” Annja said, hoping her guess was correct.
“My master prefers…” The man trailed off, and Annja could tell he was having difficulty searching for the English words. “Secrecy.” He paused. “To be as one anonymous, pretty kelbeh.” He spit out the last word as if it were a rotten piece of meat. “You are khanzeera al matina to him,” he hissed.
“Charming, you are,” Annja whispered. “What about the students? Do they have to die, too?” she asked loudly.
“Everyone dies, kelbeh. No one escapes such a fate. You, however, will sooner than them.”
“Did you follow me from the Cross?” Still she kept the sword from appearing.
His answer was an unseen grin that tweaked the fabric of his ski mask into a crooked fold.
“Wasn’t it enough that you killed Oliver and took his cameras? No one else can see your master now. You have all the evidence.”
He shifted from his left foot to his right when the breeze gusted stronger. The top of the ridge was not wide, and he was being careful to keep his balance.
“Wasn’t it enough?” Annja repeated. Her anger was showing, something she tried to keep in check. The sensation of the hilt teasing her hand was becoming more pronounced, but still she kept the sword at bay.
“He begged for his life, I was told, the American with the big cameras and the blue eyes,” the man replied. His voice was even and without emotion. “He did not suffer much, I was also told. There was no need for undue pain. There was only the need for his eternal silence.” The man finally shuffled toward her a few steps, anxious that she was not coming to meet him. “You do not need to suffer, either. You need only to die.”