Eternal Journey

by Alex Archer

  Annja felt as if her stomach were rising into her throat. The men intended to execute them! She spun and grabbed cover near the body of the gunman she’d just dropped. Bullets whizzed into the ground near her.

  She far preferred her sword to a gun; she was simply better with it. But there was no time, and too much distance, and so she raised the rifle to her aching shoulder, stood to get a clear shot, and squeezed off three shots. She dropped the man who’d been moving toward her, and one of the others, hitting one in the head and one in the neck. But she missed the third.

  He’d fired at the same time.

  Screams erupted, just as Annja ran forward, aiming as she went and firing. The gun jammed and she tossed it, bringing up the pistol as he dropped to a crouch, obscured behind the bonfire.

  The archaeologists and students broke their line and huddled, one still screaming—Annja recognized Cindy’s voice. Others wailed and called to her. She didn’t hear any more shots, and so she knew the gunman was fleeing.

  Her mind whirled. She knew she needed to see to the people; from their cries she knew at least one of them had been hit. But she couldn’t afford to let the gunman get away. She swung around the fire, feeling its heat against her face, and registering that chairs and tables fueled it. She ignored Wes calling to her and kept running, seeing the man’s boot prints in the muddy ground and following them. He was running toward the trees.

  “I will come back,” she called to them.

  If I was him, I’d circle around and get to the jeep, Annja thought. Probably has a walkie-talkie or a satellite phone there and will call his buddies. And I can’t let him do that.

  His tracks ended where the grass began at the edge of the site, but Annja could hear him thrashing through the brush. She flipped her night-vision goggles down and followed him in, moving as quickly as she could. She realized her injuries were slowing her, and she brought to mind one of the martial-arts techniques she’d learned to help block out pain. It was difficult to concentrate on that and on pursuing the man, but she managed. And she closed the distance.

  The world was an intense mix of green and black in the woods, and she registered myriad small heat sources moving away—ground squirrels and mice, so many mice! She vaguely recalled watching a nature program about Australia’s problem with rodents, and then she shoved the errant thought aside and focused on her quarry.

  Finally she spotted him, just as he was swinging a pistol around to shoot at her. She fired first, missing him by several inches and shredding the bark on a small tree. She got off a second shot before he could get a good fix on her, and he fell. It wasn’t like in the movies, Annja had come to learn, people flying back when hit in the chest with a bullet.

  She kept the gun out and advanced, ready to shoot again if he so much as twitched. He was definitely dead, as she noted blood running from his mouth and chest, and he wasn’t breathing. She prodded him with her foot to be certain. Then she knelt and looked for identification, which she knew she wouldn’t find.

  “C’mon, I can’t just leave you out here. You’d be too hard to find, or some animal will come and eat you. You’re coming with me.”

  She fought a wave of dizziness and picked him up in a fireman’s carry, moving fast because she wanted to get back to Wes and the others. She managed to lug him a few hundred yards when the pain in her side and her ankle became too great and the dizzy sensation returned. She dropped him and started pulling him by his ankles, still not slowing, but when she reached the edge of the dig site she let him go. “Good enough,” she pronounced.

  Time to round everyone up and pass out the weapons, she thought. There were two more jeeps full of men who might be heading their way.

  She was halfway to the bonfire when she collapsed.

  21

  Annja blinked and woke suddenly.

  She was about ten feet from the bonfire, on a cot that someone had pulled out of a tent, a blanket draped over her. There was a cool rag on her forehead, which fell into her lap when she sat up. Instantly, she felt dizzy again.

  There was more gunfire, and she swung her legs over the side of the cot, getting them tangled in the blanket. She struggled with it for a moment, before she won and balled the blanket on the end of the cot. Then she stood, carefully, so the dizziness wouldn’t send her to the ground again.

  She saw the jeep she’d driven into the camp, and the tent next to it that she’d taken down with a tire. Dari, Cindy, Wes, Jennifer and two security guards were using the jeep and the collapsed tent as cover and were firing at something she couldn’t see. A quick look around the rest of the camp showed that the students and the rest of the archaeologists were near the canopy tent, on the other side of the bonfire.

  Annja started toward the jeep, setting her feet in time with her pounding heart. She must have collapsed earlier, and someone had put her on the cot and tried to take care of her. Her arm had been dressed. And then the rest of the hit squad must have shown up from the other dig site. That six people were shooting meant that they must have retrieved some guns from the jeep.

  And more than guns, she realized after a moment. Dari lobbed a grenade, which thundered and spit up chunks of dirt when it hit. Cindy cheered and kept firing, and Dari threw another one before Annja could reach them.

  “Dari’s got blood worth bottling!” Jennifer exclaimed. “He got one with that last throw.”

  “Let me toss one!” Cindy reached into the back of the jeep and pulled out a grenade, but Dari grabbed it from her.

  “I don’t want you blowing us all up,” he said.

  Cindy made a face and started firing again. It looked as if she actually knew how to use a pistol.

  Through the smoke from the grenades, Annja finally saw what they were shooting at—the men who had driven toward the student camp while she was driving away.

  “How long was I out?” Annja asked as she shouldered up between Cindy and Dari.

  No one answered, but Jennifer reached behind Cindy and passed Annja an M-16.

  “I used to target shoot when I was in college,” Jennifer said. “Haven’t lost my touch. I nailed one of the bastards!”

  Indeed, as Annja fitted the rifle to her sore shoulder, she saw two bodies. One was sprawled across the hood of a jeep, and the other one was on the ground in pieces from the grenades. She fired, shattering the windshield of the closest jeep. Not military grade, she thought.

  She fired again, just as tires squealed and the jeeps pulled back. The remaining men—three in each jeep that she could see, returned fire, but the archaeologists had excellent cover and knew when to duck. Within the passing of a few heartbeats the vehicles were roaring away.

  “Hated to throw those grenades,” Dari said. “I don’t want to hurt the preserve.”

  Dr. Michaels slapped him on the back. “Saved our necks, you did. The government can replant. And you kept them from entering our site.”

  For the first time Annja saw deep lines on his face, from worry and fatigue, and maybe from loss. She looked at him and met his sad gaze.

  “They killed Josie,” Wes said.

  “And Matthew,” Cindy said. Her eyes were puffy from crying. “They wanted to know where you were, and when we wouldn’t tell them—honestly because we didn’t know exactly—they shot Jeff, and then Matthew.” She dropped to her knees and put her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking from the force of her sobs. “How could something like this happen?”

  “Shot Josie for the same reason, mostly,” Wes said. He was the calmest of the bunch, but Annja suspected that was because he hadn’t let himself absorb the gravity of everything. “They shot her in the head like an execution. They wanted to know if we’d left the sites any time yesterday or today, or if we talked to anyone.”

  “Because one man didn’t want to be seen,” Annja said dully. “Or maybe two men didn’t want to be seen together.”

  “Dr. Hamam,” Jon said. The student had shuffled up behind them. He was white from fear, his eyes unnaturally wi
de. “Dr. Hamam was with that man with all the scars. I didn’t like that man.”

  “The man is called Sayed,” Annja added.

  Jon stroked his chin, his lip quivering nervously. “Sayed. That was the guy with Doc, right?” It looked as if Jon might topple at any moment, his legs trembling so much the fabric of his pants made a shooshing sound.

  “Creeped me out,” Cindy said. She raised her head, face a red mask of anger and disbelief. “Good reason why, I guess, if these were his men. But Doc wouldn’t’ve had anything to do with this. Just that creepy Sayed fellow. Bet Doc didn’t know he was a bad dude.” She started crying again.

  Annja didn’t blame her. It was as if the students and the archaeologists had been dropped in the middle of a skirmish, something they were all totally unprepared for.

  “God, please don’t let them come back,” Cindy said.

  Annja couldn’t hear the jeeps anymore; they were out of range. The sounds of the woods came back—owls and night birds mostly, and something that sounded like a cricket.

  “Sayed, huh?” Jon knelt next to Cindy and stroked her hair. “Name sounds familiar somehow.”

  “Sayed Houssam,” Annja whispered, as it suddenly came to her. “A very bad man.”

  Cindy continued babbling about how innocent Doc must be and that “this horrid Sayed person” must have duped him into thinking he was a grantor or investor who really only wanted to steal gold from the dig.

  “Sayed Houssam, the international terrorist. A murderer a hundred times over.” That’s what had been tickling the back of Annja’s thoughts. It wasn’t that she was well informed about everything going on in the world, but she did read newspapers online, and she had read several articles about bus and subway bombings in London. Who hadn’t been transfixed by all the terrorism reports? she thought. Sayed Houssam—the Sword—had come up amid the reports. He was an international terrorist whose name had been associated with bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and others of their ilk—someone for hire and who supposedly had his own agenda. She’d seen his picture in the online papers.

  Why hadn’t she recognized him when she looked through Oliver’s camera? Because they were far away and she didn’t get a good look at him, she reasoned. And because she certainly wasn’t expecting to see an international terrorist at a student dig in a forest preserve northwest of Sydney. Last she’d read he was in London, having bombed the bleachers at a soccer stadium.

  He certainly doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here, she thought. And either he doesn’t want to be connected to Dr. Hamam, or Dr. Hamam doesn’t want to be connected to him.

  “This isn’t just about Egyptian relics,” she said, talking to herself and not realizing at first that she was speaking aloud. “The Sword bombs things—he doesn’t steal artifacts. At least I don’t think he does.”

  “Then what’s it about?” Wes asked. “I’d bloody well like to know why Josie had to die.”

  “And Matthew.” Cindy started blubbering, and Jon put his arm around her. Both of them shook together.

  “I don’t know,” Annja answered. “But I will find out.”

  “And why Jeff had to get shot,” Jon put in. He looked up at Annja, tears coming down his face now, too.

  Jeff, they’d mentioned him before. “Shot? Someone’s hurt? They left someone alive? Jeff is alive?”

  “Yeah,” Jon replied. “They shot him in the knee. Said they were going to shoot him in the other knee and then cut off his fingers one by one if he didn’t tell them where you were.”

  “But then Matthew put himself between Jeff and that horrid man,” Cindy added. She stuffed her fist in her mouth and the tears came faster. “And Matthew took the next bullet.”

  “They shot Josie just after,” Wes said. “They were going to shoot Jennifer next, maybe shoot all of us. Hell, certainly shoot all of us, but you showed up.”

  Wes leaned against the jeep. He hadn’t let go of the pistol. He peered out into the darkness and sniffed. The air was thick with the smell of smoke from the grenades and had an acrid stench from all the gunfire.

  “They’re not coming back,” Annja told him. “We killed too many of them. They’re going back into whatever hole they crawled out of.”

  “So we’re safe,” Jennifer said, her shoulders slumping in relief. She hovered over Jon and Cindy, gently touching each one. “I’m afraid, too,” she whispered. Her hand shook visibly. “And so very, very angry.”

  “Safe?” Jon asked. “Really?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Annja cut back a little too sharply. “But those men won’t be back, at least for a while.” She turned to Wes, who still hadn’t moved from the jeep. “You did call the police?”

  He nodded. “And before this second wave of bastards showed up I also called for an ambo.”

  “For Jeff,” Annja said.

  Another nod. “And for that fellow Dari walloped the crap out of.”

  Annja’s eyebrows rose. “You have one of them? Alive?”

  Dari finally spoke. “They raced in here in their jeep, the first batch, jumping out and shouting at us. Well, one of them shouted anyway. Only one spoke English from what we could tell. Then another started waving a gun in my face, and I tackled him.”

  “And hit him in the throat!” Jennifer cut in. “I thought Dari killed him at first, broke his friggin’ neck.”

  Jon got up and tugged Cindy with him. He dug the ball of his foot into the ground. “That’s when they beat Dari up.” He pointed to the bald biker’s face. “Then they lined us up like we were gonna all be shot by a firing squad, shot Jeff in the knee.”

  “And killed Matthew and Josie,” Annja said. “And before that, Oliver.”

  She stepped away from the jeep and turned toward the bonfire. The blaze had died down a little, and she could no longer make out the outlines of furniture, only pieces of burning wood. She walked toward the cluster of people beyond it. Jeff would be there, no doubt tended to as someone had tended to her. And hopefully the man Dari had hit in the throat was there. Finally she had someone alive, and she intended to get some answers from him.

  22

  Annja looked in on Jeff first. He was under the canvas next to a sifting table, on a cot that Jennifer said was the only other one the men hadn’t pitched on the bonfire.

  “He’s in shock,” Annja said. She felt his forehead; he was cold, clammy and pale, and his lips had a slight bluish cast.

  “Yeah, I know that.” This came from an archaeologist named Sulene. She was the youngest of the professional crew, a wisp of a woman with thin, wheat-blond hair. “I’ve had enough first-aid courses in my closet to tell me that. Not just from loss of blood, though. We pretty well have that stopped, though maybe he’s got some internal bleeding going on. He’s conscious, barely, but he’s not talking.”

  Sulene pulled back the two blankets that were covering Jeff so Annja could see his bandaged leg. His clothing had been loosened to make him more comfortable. She quickly replaced the blankets and tucked him in again.

  More blankets were draped over two bodies just outside the canopy. Annja didn’t need to look to know that Josie and Matthew were under them.

  “He needs to be in a hospital,” Sulene continued, nodding to Jeff. “An ambo is coming, but it’s still awhile out, I’ll wager. Dr. Michaels got them all coming with one call to the emergency operator—NSW state police, local police, fire brigade probably and the ambo.” She nodded to her other patient, stretched out on the ground a few yards away. He had not been given a blanket, and two archaeologists stood over him, one with a gun pointed at his head. “He needs a hospital, too, but I could give a wombat’s ass if he gets one. I only made sure he was still alive and straightened him out a bit so he could breathe better. His neck might be broken.”

  “Thank you for tending me.” Annja assumed it had been Sulene who had dressed her arm. She obviously hadn’t discovered Annja’s cracked ribs, but then there was no outward sign of that injury.

  “You could do
with an ambo yourself,” Sulene said. “Bullet went right through the fleshy part of your arm, but there could be infection. Ankle’s all swollen, too. But I didn’t do anything for that. Didn’t have time.” She stepped back from the cot. “You should take Dari with you, to the hospital. I’m out of bandages and alcohol. His face should be looked at. Probably needs at least a few stitches.”

  Annja walked past Sulene, aware that most of the assembly was watching her. She stopped a few feet back from the man on the ground.

  “Has he said anything?” She put her weight on her left leg, and glanced around for a chair. Probably all of them had been pitched on the fire.

  Both archaeologists watching him shook their heads.

  “But he will say something.” Jennifer came up, right hand in her pocket and a mean look on her face. “I can guarantee you he’ll talk.”

  “We don’t even know if he speaks English.” This came from the archaeologist holding the pistol on him.

  “He speaks English,” Annja said. “Or at least understands enough of it. Look at his eyes. He’s following our conversation.” She knelt next to him, glad to be off her sore ankle. She wasn’t worried he’d attack her; she’d noticed that his wrists and ankles had been tied with the wiry twine they used to secure packed crates. Not even his fingers were twitching. His neck might indeed be broken.

  Jennifer squatted next to Annja, brandishing a pair of pliers that she’d been holding tight in her left hand. “I stuck the end in the fire,” she said. “It’s nice and hot like a brand. I’ve watched enough spy shows to know how to torture a man. Make him hurt enough and he’ll talk.”

  “That might not be necessary,” Annja said.

  Jennifer’s eyes narrowed and she clacked the pliers. “Josie’s dead, and one of those students. Josie and I went back twenty years. I don’t understand why they had to die, or why these men had to come here. I don’t understand why they wanted you so bad that—”