by Alex Archer
Satisfied, she rode the elevator up to the ground floor. The museum had closed for the day and the halls were empty and silent around her. She paused for a moment at the entrance to a hall devoted to Egyptian artifacts, breathing in all the history that surrounded her, and was struck with the odd sense of being at home.
Yeah, and if you don’t get out and have a life one of these days, you’ll end up a stuffed mummy just like those in there, she thought wryly.
She’d been working straight through since leaving the dojo earlier that morning and only had a few more nights left to enjoy Paris, so it was time to get out and see the sights.
No sooner had she decided to take a break, however, than she found her thoughts returning to the whereabouts of the missing bullet. The gunshot wound had almost certainly killed Captain Parker and it should have been there with his remains. Not having the bullet irked her; it was like finishing a puzzle only to find out that you’re missing one last little piece. It was a tiny detail, she knew, but an important one, and she was just detail-oriented enough to want to put it to rest.
You’ve spent all day on this, she thought, what’s another hour or so?
The spent bullet was probably lying on the floor of the chamber near the wall against which Parker’s skeleton had been resting. It shouldn’t be all that hard to find.
Go on, take a quick look. If you find it, great, and if not, at least you’ll know you gave it a shot, she thought.
Decision made, she caught a cab over to the Metro station they’d used to gain access to the catacombs earlier that day. The trains were still being rerouted around the station due to the construction and so her footsteps echoed off the walls as she descended the steps.
A uniformed police officer was waiting for her at the turnstiles, alerted to her presence by the noise of her footsteps. Obviously bored with the duty he’d been assigned, he told her the station was closed and only looked up at her when she thrust the pass under his nose that she’d been given by Laroche.
“You’ll be wanting to go into the tunnels, then?” he asked.
“Yes, I shouldn’t be long.”
“But it’s after dark.”
Annja didn’t see how that was relevant. She was going underground, where it was always dark. What difference did it make that the sun had gone down?
Rather than get into it with him, though, she simply said, “Yes, it is,” and smiled sweetly at him, hoping her charm would get him to open the gate.
What she really wanted to do was to laugh at his superstitious attitude, for the things she’d faced since acquiring her sword made the idea of roaming around in the tunnels beneath the Paris city streets seem like child’s play, but she knew that doing so would kill any chance she had of getting through the gate.
Thankfully, her official pass seemed to be enough. He gave her a look that clearly said he thought she had a few screws loose upstairs but he didn’t say anything as he unlatched the gate and let her in.
She jogged through the station and down to the same platform where Laroche had taken her. Arming herself with a lantern just as they had earlier in the day, she climbed down onto the tracks and set off toward the break in the tunnel that marked the entrance to the catacombs.
More sawhorses had been set out at the site since she’d been there earlier, their blinking orange lights bouncing down the tunnel and letting her know she was getting close. She followed the glow like a trail of bread crumbs until she reached the spot where the workers had broken through into the older passageway inside the catacombs.
She was relieved to see the ladder she’d used earlier was still in place and she quickly descended into the lower tunnel. At the bottom of the ladder she paused, glancing back up the way she had come. For a moment she thought she’d heard something, but the sound didn’t repeat itself.
Probably just a rat, she thought, and shuddered.
She brushed it off and continued on her way.
The cemented tunnel had given way at the bottom of the ladder to the smooth limestone of the catacombs themselves. The antechamber where they had found Parker’s remains was just ahead and she found herself hurrying the last few dozen feet to its entrance, eagerness spreading through her veins like a drug. As she entered the room the thousands of skulls stared back at her, eerie in their eternal silence, but her attention was solely focused on what she’d come here to find and she barely noticed.
She moved over to the spot where the skeleton had been found and got down on her hands and knees. Resting the flashlight on the floor so that its beam filtered across the area she intended to search, she began hunting for the missing bullet. When she’d gone over the entire area in one direction, she went back again in the other, crisscrossing her initial efforts so she could be assured that she hadn’t missed a spot.
When that failed to turn up what she was looking for, she moved her attention over to the wall against which Captain Parker’s remains had rested. Perhaps the shot that had killed him had actually passed through his body completely, even though they hadn’t found evidence of an exit wound. It was something that wasn’t completely outrageous if it had happened at close range. Perhaps the bullet had embedded itself in the wall instead of falling to the floor when the body decayed.
Searching the wall, however, proved to be much harder than the floor. Comprised as it was of hundreds of human skulls, there were too many nooks and crannies and shadowed surfaces that could be hiding the impact point of the bullet. With just the beam of her flashlight to illuminate the wall’s surface, there was no way she was going to find something that small amid all the stacked human bones.
Better to come back in the daytime with a team of grad students and a full bank of lights, she told herself, and decided to really call it quits for the night. The beam of her flashlight swept across the floor as she turned away and out of the corner of her eye she caught the glint of something reflecting back at her.
She turned in that direction and carefully made her way forward, shining the beam of her flashlight ahead of her, searching for whatever it was. When she reached the wall she slowly spun in a circle, still searching, knowing that whatever it was had to be here somewhere.
It couldn’t just get up and walk out on its own.
There!
It was a heavy gold signet ring set with a dark colored stone. It was lying on the floor near the wall directly across from where they had found Parker’s remains and it was partially obscured by the collapse of several loose bones, which explained why she and the rest of Bernard’s team had missed it.
She kept the flashlight beam trained on it as she walked over, not wanting to lose sight of it, and then bent to pick it up.
She turned as she straightened up, ring in hand, and she caught sight of the dark form standing behind her. He was so close and it was so unexpected that she flinched back in surprise.
The move saved her.
The fist that came hurtling out of the darkness struck her on the edge of the jaw rather than in the center of her throat, where it would have crushed her larynx. Instead, the force of the blow picked her up and flung her backward, tossing her against the carefully piled bones lining the wall behind her. The whole mess came tumbling down around her in a hard rain, bones bouncing off her head and shoulders in an unyielding waterfall that threatened to knock her unconscious.
She knew if that happened it was all over, so she fought back against the grayness threatening her sight and struggled to extricate herself from the jumbled pile of human bones.
The scrape of a shoe against the stone floor let her know her attacker was moving toward her. She had seconds at best, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her and the blow to the head had her thoughts ringing like a church bell in a steeple, messing with her concentration.
Get up! her mind screamed at her, but it was like swimming against the current, her body not quite obeying the commands her mind was giving.
In the darkness she sensed rather than saw a dark shape bending o
ver her and the sudden spike of adrenaline that poured into her system wiped away the haze.
Her right hand folded around the hilt of a sword that hadn’t been there seconds before as she willed it into existence from the otherwhere. She swung out with a savage yell like that of a falcon on the hunt. The sword slashed, almost with a mind of its own, and she felt it slice through the flesh of the man’s arm.
Blood splashed across her face and whoever it was howled in pain and drew back, giving Annja the time and space she needed to scramble to her feet. She kicked away the bones of some forgotten French citizens as she did so, wanting solid ground beneath her already shaky feet for the fight to come.
Ambushing a woman in the dark was one thing but fighting that same woman, now angry and armed with a sword she knew how to use with a finesse born of hours of practice, was something else. Rather than move in and press his advantage, her attacker turned and ran, his footfalls echoing off the stone around them.
Annja took off after him.
He only had a few seconds head start, and so she should have been able to catch up to him quickly, but her head was still pounding and the lack of a light source quickly had her steps faltering and slowing to a stop after only a few dozen yards. Getting lost in the dark was not something she wanted to experience, no matter how badly she wanted to know who it was that had followed her down here or why they’d attacked. Wandering for hours through pitch-dark tunnels until she fell down an unseen chasm or died of thirst was not on her list of happy endings.
In the distance, her attacker’s footfalls faded away to silence.
She took a moment to catch her breath and gather her thoughts. She realized, with no little surprise, that her left hand was still clenched tightly around the ring that she’d picked up off the floor.
Thank goodness for small favors, she thought.
Not wanting to lose it after all this, she slipped it into her pocket to look at later. With her hand against the wall to use as a guide, she made her way carefully back down the tunnel until she could see the thin beam of light from her flashlight spilling out of the entrance of the antechamber.
She stepped into the room, retrieved her flashlight and decided that she’d had enough excitement for one day. Sword still in hand, she cautiously retraced her steps back up to the subway tunnel and from there to the station itself. She kept on the lookout for any sign of her attacker, but didn’t see or hear anyone along the way. Before entering the station she released her sword back into the otherwhere, for coming out of a dark tunnel carrying a sword in hand didn’t seem like the safest way to reacquaint herself with the police officer on duty.
As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. The guard was nowhere in sight.
That’s not a good sign, she thought uneasily.
He wouldn’t have left on his own without being relieved; at least, she couldn’t imagine him doing that knowing full well that she was in the tunnels. That meant that something had happened to him.
He probably ran into the same bastard that I did.
If that was the case, he could be lying somewhere unconscious, perhaps even seriously injured. She couldn’t leave without looking for him.
It didn’t take very long. She found the police officer lying against the far side of the ticket booth, a thick trickle of blood leaking from the swollen lump on the side of his head. His breathing was steady enough, she was relieved to discover. Annja used his radio to make an Officer Down call to headquarters. When they asked her to identify herself, she broke the connection. The officer was starting to stir so she got up, and walked off without a backward glance. It wasn’t the most Good Samaritan–like thing to do, but all she wanted was to return to her hotel and take a hot bath to ease the aches and pains out of her muscles. She wouldn’t get that if she had to spend the next three hours downtown answering questions.
Back at her hotel, she had room service send up hot chocolate and some croissants. While she waited, she took the ring from the pocket of her jeans, cleaned it off and held it up to the light for a good look.
It was a man’s signet ring, just as she’d thought. The stone set in its face was a deep crimson in color that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. It had been gently cut, with a beveled face and eight short sides. The gold itself was unadorned. She suspected it was Parker’s, but it could also have belonged to whomever he had been meeting there. There was no way of telling at this point. She slipped the ring into a little glassine envelope and then tucked it inside one of the zippered pockets of her backpack.
Her snack arrived, so she signed the check, locked the door behind her and devoured the food. Then she headed into the bathroom where she had drawn a bath. She stripped off her clothes and climbed into the water for some relaxation. She’d been going nonstop ever since she’d left for the dojo that morning and her body was telling her to take it easy or else. The hot water soothed her tired limbs the same way the hot chocolate had her throat.
When she was clean and relaxed, she climbed into bed and was asleep in what felt like seconds.
9
Given the type of activity that went on at the Museum of Natural History on a daily basis, as well as the priceless nature of some of the artifacts that were cleaned and restored within its walls, the lab there had a highly sophisticated alarm system designed to prevent unauthorized entrance to the facility. The alarm was the pride of the museum’s director, for he had spent nearly two years on the research and testing that went into selecting the product they had finally decided to install. It was, the manufacturer said, the best of the best and perfect for protecting a facility such as this.
The three men who entered the lab at half past two that morning went through it like butter.
The fact that they had the sixteen-digit code that was needed to render the alarm system inoperable made things a bit easier.
Once inside the lab, one of the men moved to the drawer containing Captain Parker’s remains. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t pull out any of the other drawers looking for the right one, but went immediately to his intended target, like a man who knew precisely what it was he was looking for and where it could be found. He opened the canvas duffel bag he was carrying and started placing the captain’s remains into the sack.
As he was doing so, his two companions were carefully scouring the lab for any trace that the long-missing Confederate soldier’s remains had ever graced the building with its presence. Papers, thumb drives, video cards—if it could possibly contain any information about the discovery of the dead man’s remains it was picked up and dropped into a sack identical to the first. Within ten minutes the three men had searched the entire lab and removed everything that might possibly contain any information relative to the discovery of Captain Parker’s body. When they were finished the leader gave a quick nod to the other two and what had once been a carefully organized search-and-retrieval mission turned into a free-for-all as they set about ruthlessly destroying everything they could get their hands on. Computer monitors were thrown to the floor and then stomped under foot. Desks were overturned and the contents of their drawers scattered throughout the room. High-tech spectrometry equipment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars was covered with foam from the wall-mounted fire extinguishers and then smashed with what was left of the desk chairs.
It became like a game to them, seeing who could cause the most destruction in the shortest amount of time. It wasn’t long before the room was practically unrecognizable.
Finally, their energy spent and their job complete, the three men left the same way they came in, with no one the wiser.
10
When Annja arrived at the museum early the next morning, she was met with a scene of confusion. Several law enforcement vehicles were parked outside the entrance and when she tried to use the temporary pass Bernard had given her to gain access, she was politely informed by a uniformed officer that she would have to wait.
“It’s okay, I’m expected,” she told him.
The officer wasn’t impressed, and told her that they had a “situation” on their hands, and that all unnecessary personnel were to wait in the lobby.
The officer’s emphasis on the word unnecessary irked her enough that she let her irritation show. “Wait for what, exactly?” she asked.
“Wait for someone to come get you,” was the reply.
“Can you at least call down and let Dr. Reinhardt know I’m here waiting?”
“No. Sorry.”
Yeah, I’ll just bet you are, she thought.
It seemed that something was terribly wrong. There was no way she was just going to stand and wait; she’d be here all day. If the officer wouldn’t call down to the lab, she’d just have to do it herself. She pulled out her cell phone and called Bernard’s office.
The phone rang several times and then went to voice mail.
She hung up without leaving a message and tried again. “Come on, Bernard,” she coaxed beneath her breath as she waited for him to answer.
No luck.
Annja was trying to figure out what to do next when she caught sight of Commissaire Laroche crossing the lobby behind the police line.
“Commissaire!” she called. “Henri!”
He turned at the sound of his first name, recognized her and made his way across the room.
“What can I do for you, Miss Creed?”
Annja smiled, trying to ease the tension she could see on his face. Something must have happened to one of the museum’s pieces, she thought.
“I’m sure you have your hands full with whatever this all is,” she began, waving her hand to indicate the police officers milling about, “but I’m due to continue work on the Metro skeleton with Bernard and the officer on duty won’t let me past the police tape.”
Henri stared at her for a long moment, his expression inscrutable.