by Alex Archer
If she leaned forward, she could reach him with the sword. The blade was starting to materialize, a length of ghostly silver. Annja had gained much control over the sword’s coming and going over the past several months. Her mind still kept it from fully forming, but the air shimmered in anticipation. One more question, she thought.
“Where is Oliver’s body? My cameraman? At least give me that much.”
“Such knowledge would do you no good, as you will soon join him.”
He sprang forward then, and the sword materialized. She heard the wind gusting stronger still, heard his breath coming faster and louder, the scree trickling down the side of the ridge as he’d dislodged it. She heard her own heartbeat angrily in her ears, and she heard the sword whistle as she lunged.
“Where’s Oliver’s body?” she repeated, though she knew she’d get no answer. “Where, where, where?”
Annja swung wide and extended herself, slicing him across the chest, careful not to inflict a death blow. His blood speckled her face, and she drew the sword back in a reverse arc, lower this time.
“I’ll give you once last chance to tell me!”
He spit at her. “Where did the sword come from, kelbeh?” He held a hand to his chest, as if trying to keep the blood inside him. “No matter, I can kill you anyway.”
He reached to the small of his back and retrieved a gun. In response, she stepped in closer and lunged again, cutting deep through his belly. He fell dead at her feet and the gun clattered down the side of the ridge and out of sight.
Annja was fast, accurate and powerful, had been so before she inherited Joan of Arc’s mantle. But since she’d been passed the sword, all of her physical attributes had become even more honed. She could sense things most people would not notice.
She spun to face the second man. She’d heard him clawing his way up the ridge, trying to be silent so he could come at her from behind, but loose gravel had given him away. He had no doubt thought that she’d given all her attention to his companion. But he was about to find out how dead wrong that assumption was.
“Kelbeh,” he said, using the same derogatory term his fellow had favored. “In’al yomak!” He was dressed differently than the other man in that in place of a ski mask he wore a tightly wrapped turban and a pair of night-vision goggles.
He’d give her no more information than his friend had, she knew. In fact, he might not even speak English.
“In’al yomak!” he repeated. “Yin’al mayteenak!”
“I don’t even want to know what that means.” Annja let out a low breath and brought the sword up parallel to her torso.
His eyes on the blade, he skittered back, agile as a cat. He hissed at her and raised his hand, bringing it down in an instant on a slab of stone at his feet. It was a demonstration of his skill. He cracked the slab in half with one blow, looked up and met her eyes.
“Impressive,” she admitted. “A brick can withstand almost seven hundred pounds of static load. So you know how to split bricks like a good martial artist. I can do that, too, but I’ve no reason to show off and chip a nail for the likes of you,” she said.
His expression—all she could see was the lower half of his face—didn’t give a hint that he understood her. The goggles were aimed straight at her, as if the eyes behind them were measuring her mettle. His pants were tight, almost like a leotard, and so she could see his leg muscles quiver ever so slightly, the only suggestion she had that he was going to move.
He leaped at her, anticipating where she would swing and landing crouched under it, driving his elbow up into her abdomen and knocking the breath from her.
Annja managed to hold on to her sword, but she reeled from the blow. The elbow, almost all bone, could be a devastating weapon, and he employed it again before she could retaliate, this time striking higher and cracking a few of her ribs.
“Damn you,” she cursed under her breath. She brought the pommel of the sword down, intending to hit the top of his head and crack his skull, but instead landing the blow on his shoulder. He was moving again, coming at her from the side now.
It was a deadly dance they performed on the narrow ridge, the moonlight setting her sword to glimmering and revealing every move the two made.
He certainly was a more skilled opponent than his friend, and probably better than the ones she’d fought at the hotel. He was new to her, not being one of the men she’d spotted in the Cross or on the sidewalk this morning before she’d leaped onto the bus. She decided to leave the attacks to him, opting for defense to wear him down and to protect her throbbing ribs.
If he had a gun, he’d made no move to draw it. Guns were loud and could wake both camps, and she’d noted that his companion had only pulled his at the end in desperation.
So they don’t want to wake the camps, she thought. Maybe they had no plans to hurt any of the archaeologists. Or maybe they’d planned to kill them stealthily, slipping from tent to tent. The rest of her thoughts disappeared when he moved again.
He clearly respected her as an opponent, stepping in and then back, his gaze flitting between her eyes and the blade, careful not to get so close that she could skewer him. He said something to her, in a language she could not understand, and then he crouched and waited for her to come to him. When that didn’t happen, he took the offensive once more.
He raised a hand above his head, hoping to draw her eyes up. Annja knew better and kept watching his face. Then, just as she drew the sword above her head, he shot forward, right leg kicking and straight as a rod. She recognized it as a long-range power kick, a martial-arts move used for both defense and offense, a way to hurt your opponents while at the same time keeping them from you. She brought the sword down and stepped to the side just in time. His foot brushed her jacket, and her blade struck his leg and bounced off as if it had struck armor.
Next, she twisted and pulled the sword back again, brought it down, intending to cleave his leg off at the kneecap. But he was fast, perhaps faster than her. He’d moved out of her range and her sword whistled in the wind. Before she could raise it again, he put his weight on his uninjured leg and kicked out with the other, this time catching her hip and spinning her. Annja felt her right foot slip on the scree, and the dull ache in her ankle became a fiery brand that brought a cry from her lips.
She cursed as she regained her balance, raised the sword above her head again and watched him dart in so close she couldn’t effectively bring the sword down. He grabbed her arms with both hands, fingers digging in and with a surprising strength keeping her arms high. He brought his face in inches from hers, and she could smell his breath. It was foul and brought to mind the scent of rotting leaves.
He said something else, soft and muffled so that she couldn’t make it out, then he stepped to the side and tugged her arms down, raised his knee in a jackhammer movement and buried it in her stomach. She nearly lost her grip on the sword.
A small part of her admired the move. From her training she knew that a well-delivered knee strike could exert about two tons of force. This one had certainly been enough to make her gasp and set her cracked ribs on fire. She fought for air and distance. She needed to get her opponent back so he couldn’t neutralize her sword again. And yet she could not give him an opening for his long-range kicks.
She matched him for style, forcing the pain in her ribs and her ankle to the back of her mind. He employed Muay Thai, she recognized, a specialized mastery of martial arts taught in Thailand. She was reasonably familiar with the Hanuman technique and Chaiya forms. In the latter the arms drive the fists, and so she used them to drive the sword forward, making the blade an extension of herself.
She bobbed and weaved as he tried to get inside to use his knee strike again. All the while he avoided her blade.
“Yin’al mayteenak!”
Annja didn’t offer any retort, saving her energy for her swings. She finally landed a solid blow on his right arm, the blood arcing away. He didn’t cry out, but the pain and surprise regi
stered on his twitching lips. Though she’d drawn blood, he continued to fight as if nothing was wrong. She pressed her attack, and he brought up his wrists and elbows, blocking the pommel of her sword and keeping the blade from cutting him again. He was strong and pushed her back.
Her chest felt tight, from the trek through the woods and up the rise, and from the blows he’d landed against her, and her lungs felt as if they had become a well-stoked furnace. She sucked in breath after hot breath and kept sparring with him, waiting for an opening he was disinclined to give.
He was supremely skilled, she admitted, clearly able to master the pain from where she’d sliced him and able to avoid her well-aimed blows. He continued to use his wrists and elbows to keep the sword from reaching him, and she continued to keep him from getting inside. She had no idea how long the fight was taking, minutes probably, though it felt like hours, her legs and arms becoming lead weights that took considerable effort to move.
On your terms, she thought. I will try this on your terms. She took a deep breath and held it, willed the sword away and noted the astonishment on his face. Annja had learned the rudiments of Muay Thai from a man who’d fought in the Thailand arenas in his youth and who had opened a gym in New York with the proceeds from his winnings. A brutal sport that often led to serious injury and sometimes death, she normally avoided using it. The art left little room for her sword and was not as graceful as other forms.
This time she let the man in, using his own move against him. She grabbed the front of his heavy shirt and pulled him down with all her might, driving her knee up in the same motion and landing a solid strike to his chin. She heard his jaw snap and felt him sag momentarily against her. Then she pushed him back and brought up her leg, kicking him in the stomach and watching him sway on his feet.
To kill him? Annja preferred leaving her opponents alive if possible. But she doubted she’d get anything useful out of him, and hadn’t heard him speak one word of English—or of any other language she recognized. Killing him would keep him from coming after her, yet he hardly seemed a threat now.
He fought to keep his balance, face looking broken and deformed, wet with his blood. His eyes looked unfocused.
“We can stop this,” she said. She took in a few deep breaths and shifted her weight to her left leg. “I don’t have to kill you.”
“Yin’al mayteenak,” he repeated, though this time there was no power in the words, and it took effort to speak them. His chest rose and fell irregularly and he fought for breath.
“Yin’al yourself,” she retorted. Her mind reached for the sword again. She would make this quick like an execution.
But before it solidified in her hand, he rushed at her. Unsteady, he nevertheless tried to continue the fight. He’d appeared to make himself look more injured than he truly was. He spun and kicked, his foot hissing against the satin fabric of her jacket. He managed a second spin kick, this time slamming the toe of his hiking boot against her left thigh. A third kick and she reached down and grabbed his ankle with both hands. She pulled up, setting him completely off balance and pitching him to the ground.
She followed through by driving her heel into his chest. She felt his ribs cave in, and she kicked him again. With a deep breath and a step back, she lashed out at the side of his head with all the strength she could summon. His neck snapped.
Dropping to her knees, Annja reached behind her and grabbed her right ankle. It was swollen and pulsed with pain.
She sat and tugged off the shoe, then reached over to the man she’d just dropped. His tight-fighting pants were made of something similar to leotard material. She ripped them along the seam, and then tore off a strip. It wasn’t as good as a bandage, but it was better than nothing. She’d sprained her ankle a few times before and knew how to wrap it. She used a second strip to reinforce it, then she jimmied the shoe back on. It barely fit over the makeshift bandage and the tongue rode up and lolled out. She had just enough lace to tie it.
An Arab schooled in Muay Thai, she mused, and in Australia trying to kill me because of someone I saw. Interesting and awful.
She felt the lower part of his leg. There was no fat on it, and she could feel calluses from the knee down, strong like a length of iron pipe. She recalled her own Muay Thai instruction, where she kicked a padded pole to strengthen her shins. Her instructor said he’d been forced to kick bamboo trees until he could no longer stand.
“Who were you working for? And what did you do with Oliver’s body?” She gingerly prodded her ribs and decided that two were cracked for certain, and a third was likely. “A lot of pain and woe I’ve had for shooting a program on fringe archaeology.”
Still sitting, she leaned over and felt his pockets. “Nothing.” She turned him over and found one on the back of his pants. “No wallet. No ID. No gun, though your companion had that covered.” But there was a twenty-dollar Australian bill. “For emergencies maybe?” She nearly stuffed it back into his pocket, but then she put it in her jacket pocket instead. “You’re not going to need it anymore.”
She pulled off his goggles and scowled. He was a complete stranger to her, and she wondered how many goons this “master” had working for him. “How could you and your friend have followed us so quickly from the Cross?”
But maybe he hadn’t followed her, she thought. Maybe he’d simply come out here to wait for her or to wait for further instructions. Or maybe he and his partner had passed her and Dari on the highway or taken a different road, passed them when they were at the gas station or riding in the back of the painter’s truck. She looked at his hiking boots. The treads were caked with mud. She pushed herself up and gingerly tested her wrapped ankle, walked to the other man and looked at his boots, too. Annja wanted to make sure these were the two she’d tried to track through the soggy woods.
She turned this man over and searched his back pocket.
“Bingo.” She pulled out a thin wallet and leafed through it, holding it out so she could see in the moonlight. There was a driver’s license and three credit cards. “Finally some identification.” But the name would do her no good at the moment, and it might not even be the man’s real one. She put the wallet in her jacket pocket and then checked the pockets on his shirt. “Bingo again.” She found a set of keys, one obviously to the SUV, the other small, as if it fit a lockbox or padlock. These went in her jeans pocket.
Annja waited only another few minutes before starting down the western side of the ridge. From her vantage point the differences between the two sites were stark. Dr. Michaels’s staff had large tents with some of the comforts of home. The students’ tents—three of them in total—were much smaller and looked as if they’d been purchased from a used-sporting-goods store. There was also a canopy tent, and though Annja couldn’t see what was under it, she assumed it was for sifting tables and any artifacts they’d found. And where Michaels’s archaeologists had been working on a long section of midden that practically ran the length of this section of the ridge, the student excavation was much smaller.
She suspected there was no security, just students on a campout who had no doubt signed waivers to hold the university harmless should anything happen to them.
A light burned in one of the tents, and Annja could see two forms silhouetted. A man and a woman, sitting opposite each other, she noted, the woman small but well endowed. As Annja continued to pick her way down the ridge, she saw the woman lean forward and remove her shirt, then the man edged closer.
No security, and no staff supervision, she thought. While that made it easy for the archaeology students to have a tryst, it also made it easy for Annja to move about unnoticed.
In a handful of minutes she was at the base of the ridge. Okay, I’m here, she thought. What’s the next step?
Talking to the students, certainly, trying to figure out who the men were at the site yesterday, which one didn’t like his picture taken. Get some names, then get back to Sydney. She had transportation now, an SUV courtesy of the men on top o
f the ridge who would no longer be driving anywhere. She would contact the police and tie everything up in a neat little bow and fly back to New York. The skeletons of the giant penguin-things in South America could wait a few more days.
“If only things would turn out that easy,” she whispered.
Annja kept to the edge of the ridge. With the moon almost directly overhead, the shadows from the rock effectively cloaked her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want the students to know she was there, she just wanted to do a little exploring first before she made her presence known, make sure there were no more Arab assassins skulking around.
She crept to the canopy tent and noted that they had only one sifting table, and it was not nearly as well constructed as Dr. Michaels’s. A second table had shards of pots spread out, labels under some of them. She glided close and retrieved the small flashlight from her pocket. Using her body as a shield, she flicked it on and looked from one object to the next.
One pottery piece showed a rendering of what was clearly Anubis, an ankh held at his side. Another was of a kangaroo. Most of the pieces were so small and weathered that little could be made of them. No wonder the university was given free reign here; all of this was interesting, and should be recovered and documented, but it was not near the scope and value of Dr. Michaels’s find.
She retraced her steps to where she’d come down the ridge, traveled a little to the south and found three pieces of canvas stretched out on the ground and held in place by tent stakes. It only took a little effort to pull the stakes loose. She glanced behind her to the three tents.
What is so special about this site that would draw this man who wants me dead? Annja had to know.