Текст книги "The Dragon's Mark"

Автор книги: Алекс Арчер

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Rather than convince him of her sincerity, her plea only made him laugh. “Now you sound like something out of a spy novel, Annja. Political killing? Contract work? It was a simple robbery, nothing more.”

“If that’s the case, then what were they after?” she asked hotly.

For just a second she thought she saw a triumphant gleam in Roux’s eye. It was there and gone again in less than a second, so she couldn’t be sure, but something deep down inside said she’d just played into his trap.

“While you were gone we were doing our homework, too, Annja. And we think we’ve found the answer to that very question.”

The older man rose and walked over to his desk. From behind its massive bulk, he lifted a sword box and carried it back to Annja. Handing it to her, he said, “Go on, open it.”

Annja did so, revealing the long curved blade of a U.S. cavalry saber, circa the late eighteen hundreds, with a leather-wrapped hilt and brass guard. It was pitted in a few places, but she could still make out the initials GACetched into the blade just above the guard.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The saber worn by General George Armstrong Custer the day he fell in battle at the Little Bighorn,” Roux answered proudly.

Annja winced. “I wouldn’t be so quick to defend that claim.”

“Nonsense,” Roux said, taking the box back from her and closing it up tight. “I can assure you that the provenance of this blade is without blemish. Custer carried this sword the day he died and it has hung on my wall in that display room ever since I acquired it at a very private auction. It was the only item of any serious value in that room last night.”

Roux’s idea of “serious value” was enough to bankroll a small country, but that didn’t mean he was right. Annja would have bet her left arm that no one had come looking for that sword, namely because it wasn’t worth the steel from which it was made. She knew Custer hadn’t worn a saber at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and neither had any of the other officers in the Seventh Cavalry. Popular art showed him holding his cutlass aloft as the Indians surrounded him, but eyewitness accounts from that terrible day told a different story.

She tried to point this out to Roux, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Nor did he accept her arguments that a single experienced thief would have had an easier time breaking into the display room to steal the sword than a group the size of the one she’d encountered there. He had convinced himself that there wasn’t any real danger and it seemed that nothing she said would sway him from that conclusion.

When she finally left, hours later, she had gotten exactly nowhere. Her instincts were telling her that Roux was in danger, but he refused to see it.

As she climbed into her rental car, she was already trying to figure out what to do next. One thing was for sure, she wouldn’t leave one of her friends in danger.

ROUX WATCHED THROUGH THE window as Annja descended the front steps, climbed into her rental car and drove off toward the gates. He heard someone enter the room behind him and without turning, he said, “You heard?”

“Yes, sir,” Henshaw said. He never would have dreamed of listening in on his own accord, but Roux had ordered him to do just that.

“And?”

“I’m not sure, sir. I don’t think we have enough information.”

“Even with the rumors we’ve been hearing about the Dragon’s interest in a certain sword?”

“Even so, sir. After all, as you say, they are just rumors. The Dragon, if that indeed was who it was, could have been here for an entirely different reason.”

Roux thought about that for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t see how. If the Dragon had been hired to kill me he wouldn’t have gone about it the way he had. The assault was staged and I think we both know why.”

“If you say so, sir.”

After a moment, Roux made up his mind and said, “I want her kept under surveillance twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Here and in the States, until I say otherwise. And she isn’t to know that you are there unless there is trouble.”

Henshaw nodded. “Understood—24/7, no interference unless her life is threatened.”

As Annja’s car finally disappeared from sight around a bend in the road, Roux turned to face his employee. “I want you to find me everything you can on the Dragon’s movements in the past two months. Use whatever resources are necessary. If he’s after Annja, I want to know how and why. In the meantime your people have authorization to do whatever needs to be done to keep her safe.”

“And you, sir?” Henshaw asked.

“Me?” Roux replied. “I’ll be perfectly fine, Henshaw. I’m not the target.”

Henshaw hoped those words wouldn’t come back to haunt either of them.

9

Kyoto, Japan

1993

Those who knew better disappeared like rats from a burning ship the moment the two men appeared at the mouth of the alley. Seen with the naked eye, there wasn’t anything noticeably strange about them, but those who had been on the street long enough developed senses different than the usual and something about the pair screamed danger like an air-raid siren.

It was a feeling that spread quickly, like a virus passed from one street hustler or teen runaway to another, and those who encountered it made themselves scarce if they knew what was good for them. Those who were too sick or stoned or weak to move on their own were grabbed, swiftly examined and then either tossed aside like garbage or trussed up like turkeys headed for slaughter and left where they lay for collection once the men were finished.

Most of them ran, but the girl near the end of the alley in the large cardboard box did not.

She’d only left home a few days before and already she was bone weary from all the hiding and running and scavenging. Life just shouldn’t be this hard, she’d told herself time and time again, and at last she had begun to believe it. Life that was this hard just wasn’t worth living, it seemed. When the owner of the box, a thick-faced Chinese boy named Wu, suddenly deserted his home, she wasted no time rushing in to get out of the rain. Flopping down among the discarded cushions and bags of trash that did double duty as Wu’s bed, Shizu sat there, waiting for the newcomers to get to her, too tired and worn out to care anymore.

It didn’t take them long.

Much to her surprise, when they reached into the box, seized her about the ankle and began to drag her back out into the rain, she discovered that she wasn’t so tired, after all.

Suddenly she wanted to live.

She kicked and screamed, fought them tooth and nail, threw everything she had into getting away, and none of it did the least amount of good.

When she got to be too much to handle, one of the men simply reared back and smashed her in the face with his huge, meaty fist, sending her plunging into the swirling darkness of unconsciousness.

SHIZU HAD BEEN IN THE cage for just shy of a week when the big man arrived to claim her. She didn’t know that yet, of course, being kept in a room all alone, without light, and inside a six-by-six-foot steel cage, but she would meet him soon enough as it turned out.

The guards came for her sometime after breakfast but before lunch, if you could call the cold gruel they fed them anything even close to the definitions of those words. Still, despite its horrible taste, she ate it when she could; every ounce of energy was important in a place like this. They dragged her out of the cell and stripped her clothes from her, an act which required several of them to hold her arms and legs down while they cut the material off her bucking form. If she had been a little older, if she had learned of such things at home the way most young girls do, she might have been afraid for her virtue, but these men were acting under orders and the thin, featureless body of a twelve-year-old girl did not excite them in any way.

When they were finished removing her clothes they dragged her into another room, still kicking and screaming, and left her on the floor in a heap.

They were gone only long enough to get the fire hose.

The water shot out of the nozzle, slashing across her body, pushing her about the floor like a discarded toy until she smashed into a nearby wall. She’d been through this once before, on the night she’d been brought here, and she understood what was happening enough to force herself to her feet and brace herself against the wall with her back to the water to keep from drowning. Her captors apparently took this as a good sign, for the force of the water eased off a little and she was scrubbed clean by the pounding water without too much difficulty.

When they were finished they gave her a light smock to wear over her naked form and led her down a series of hallways to another room. Inside were ten or twelve others girls who were dressed just like her in pale-colored smocks and bare feet. None of them said anything to her, their eyes cast dutifully downward as weeks of captivity had taught them was correct, and so Shizu didn’t bother speaking to them, either. Instead, she took the time to examine her surroundings and to wonder just why they were all gathered here.

She didn’t have long to wait to find out.

The guards came back a few minutes later and ordered the girls to line up shoulder to shoulder, facing one wall. From the door before them came an overweight man in his mid-fifties, surrounded by bodyguards. Shizu figured, rightly so, that this was the man in charge of kidnapping them in the first place.

With him was a tall gaijin, or foreigner, dressed like a sarimanin a gray suit the color of river rock. His hair was long and he wore it loose about his face, his eyes alight with curiosity and fire.

Shizu couldn’t stop looking at him.

She hadn’t seen many gaijin before and so for that reason alone he was a curiosity in her eyes, but it was the sense of power that emitted from him that truly caught her attention. This was a man used to being in control, used to having his every word obeyed without question; even Shizu’s young mind could figure that out quickly enough. This man was a predator, her instincts screamed, and all that was left to determine was the identity of the prey.

He sensed her interest, though he didn’t acknowledge it in any way. Instead, he walked with the fat man to the end of the line and slowly began to move along it, looking at each of the girls, in turn. Sometimes he would ask them to do simple things—stand on one foot, touch their fingers to their noses—and other times he would examine them the way a doctor might, turning them this way and that, looking into their eyes, asking them to open their mouths and feeling their teeth.

When he got to her, he stopped and looked her over, just as he had the others. But rather than ask her to do any of the things she’d seen so far, he spoke to her in passable Japanese instead.

“What is your name?” he asked.

Afraid, she did not speak.

“Come, come, girl. I’m not here to hurt you. What is your name?”

This time she told him. “Shizu.”

“Would you like to leave this place, Shizu?”

Daring to meet his gaze, she said, “Very much.”

“Would you like to go away with me, Shizu?” he asked, softly this time.

She felt tears welling up at his kindness, something she hadn’t experienced in a long time, and she could only nod.

When she had dried her eyes and dared look again, she found him still standing in front of her, waiting patiently. He smiled and extended his hand.

“Come, Shizu. It’s time to go.”

She let him lead her out of that place and off to a different life.

10

Now

Concerned that Roux wasn’t taking things seriously enough, Annja woke the next day determined to get some answers. She knew there was more going on than met the eye. If Roux didn’t want to talk, there was still one other person who might be able to tell her what she needed to know.

Garin Braden.

She had his cell number—or one of them, at least—and used it to call him that morning.

“I need to see you,” she told him when he answered the phone.

He laughed, a low, throaty chuckle. “Just how much of me would you like to see?”

He sounded like the cat who’d just eaten the canary, positively delighted that she’d chosen to call him and propose such an unusual request. She, however, didn’t have time for his antics.

“Cut the crap, Garin. Roux is in trouble and I need to talk to you about it immediately.”

As she snarled at him she did her best to ignore the mental image his response had called to mind. Seeing more of Garin wouldn’t be such a bad thing, at least in an aesthetic sense….

But Garin apparently didn’t hear her reprimand or he simply chose to ignore it. He was still laughing when he said, “I’m free for lunch, if that will suffice.”

It was good enough. They agreed on a place and time, with Garin suggesting he send a car and Annja firmly stating she’d get there on her own.

She had the concierge arrange a cab and she settled into the back, prepared to enjoy the ride. Paris had always been one of her favorite cities and it was particularly lovely on a spring day like this one. The streets and open-air cafes were full of Parisians enjoying the day, and the ride, short though it was, cheered her in a way that she hadn’t expected.

As it turned out, the restaurant Garin had chosen was only a few blocks from her hotel. It was also one of the most popular luncheon spots in all of Paris, judging by the line that waited at the door to get inside. She began scanning the crowd for a sign of her host even as she exited the cab.

“Ms. Creed?”

She turned to find a good-looking, curly haired man dressed in a sharply pressed gray suit standing nearby.

“I am Michel, the maître de’” he said. “If you would be so kind…” He indicated the entrance with the sweep of his hand.

Ignoring the daggerlike looks she received from those waiting in line, particularly the women, Annja walked to the front doors, stepped inside and then allowed Michel to take the lead.

“This way, please,” he said, and then headed across the dining room floor. He led her to a small, private dining room in the far corner of the building, opened the door and ushered her inside.

Garin was waiting for her at the room’s only table. He stood, a smile on his face, as she entered and took her seat, then he sat across from her.

“It’s good to see you again, Annja,” he said, after Michel left the room.

“The dining room would have been perfectly fine,” she replied, uncomfortable with the situation. This wasn’t a date, for heaven’s sake.

“Nonsense,” Garin replied. “You wanted to talk about Roux and this way we are free to do so without fear of being overheard.” He poured her a glass of wine from the bottle on the table, the red liquid a sharp contrast against the perfectly pressed white linen tablecloth.

“Now what’s on your mind?” he asked.

Annja looked at him over the top of her glass and spoke without preamble. “I’m worried about him.”

“Oh?” he said, leaning back and enjoying a sip from his own glass.

She told him everything she had told Roux the night before, from the discovery of the origami figure to her belief that the intruder at Roux’s estate had been none other than the Dragon himself. She brought it back to Roux, saying, “He’s acting like the attack on his estate was an afternoon lark, rather than a possible attempt on his life. He refuses to involve the authorities and ignores me when I try to discuss it with him.”

Garin laughed. “I’m surprised at you, Annja. The man’s home has been invaded, and with it his pride, and you act as if he should be happy to chat about it. With a woman, no less! That is not the Roux we know and love.”

He had a point; she knew that. But given the possibility that the intruder actually was the Dragon, Roux should’ve been able to set aside such things in favor of protecting himself and, by extension, those around him.

She said as much to Garin. “For an old soldier, he’s not acting with much tactical sense. If the intruder wasthe Dragon, Roux could be putting himself, and those around him, in serious danger,” she concluded.

Garin waved one hand in dismissal. “One does not need tactics to deal with a pack of common thieves,” he said, but Annja saw it for what it was—a poor attempt to distract her from the truth.

She’d seen him stiffen when she’d mentioned the Dragon, just as Roux had. They knew something, something she did not. This time she wouldn’t be distracted so easily.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

He tried to brush it off with a laugh. “I don’t have any idea what you are talking about, Annja.”

She wasn’t buying it. She had a sudden suspicion that Garin knew far more about what was going on than he wanted to admit. “That’s a load of bull and you know it. Spit it out, Garin, or so help me, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” he teased, still smiling. “Skewer me in a public restaurant?”

Without a second thought she called forth her sword and poked him with it beneath the table. “Damn right, I will. Now talk!”

He glanced down to where the tip of the blade rested against his thigh and shook his head at what she assumed was her audacity. She didn’t care, as long as he told her what she needed to know.

“All right, all right. Calm down and put away the pig-sticker. No need to get unfriendly.”

With a quick thought the sword was back in the otherwhere, where it would be ready when she needed it again. “What do you know about the Dragon?” she asked again.

Garin leaned back, staring at the wineglass in his hand, as if the answers they sought might be found in the depths of that ruby liquid.

“What do I know?” he repeated. “Nothing. I knownothing. But I do have certain suspicions that I am willing to share.”

The waiter came in at that moment and their talk was put on hold as Garin ordered for both of them. Normally this would have annoyed Annja to no end—she could order her own lunch, thank you very much—but she cared more about what Garin had to say than eating at this point and so she let it go.

When the waiter left the room, Garin continued. “A man in my position, a man with business interests as diverse as my own, is always conscious of security to one degree or another. Political leaders are not the only ones who get assassinated, you know.”

Annja rolled her eyes.

“Given that, I employ people to keep me abreast of developments in certain areas. And it was through them that I first learned of the Dragon.

“No one seems to know who he was or where he came from. He just announced his availability for hire by assassinating the French Deputy Minister of Defense one evening in Paris, killing the man so quietly that his sleeping wife never even stirred in her sleep. The Dragon departed as silently as he had arrived, leaving the wife to wake up next to her dead husband several hours too late to save him.

“From that point, he seemed to be everywhere at once. The next decade was like the rest of us had stumbled onto his personal playing field. Diplomats. Ambassadors. Bankers and lawyers. Powerful people create powerful enemies and there is always someone willing to pay an exorbitant sum to keep others down. The Dragon didn’t care about their political affiliations or issues. He killed them all—every race, color, creed and political party—provided those hiring him could pay his price.”

Annja frowned. “You seem to know a lot about him,” she said.

He shrugged, unconcerned with her suspicions. “No more than anyone else in my position. For all I knew I could have been next on his list, as my unflinching approach to business has earned me more than a few enemies along the way.”

Unflinching, Annja thought, try bloodthirsty. And the idea that you’ve generated a “few” enemies has to be the understatement of the century.

“What made the Dragon so unusual was that he always killed his targets by hand, usually with a Japanese katana,and if the sword wasn’t strange enough he would also leave behind a token of his presence at every murder scene.”

“Let me guess,” Annja said. “An origami dragon.”

“Always said you were as intelligent as you are beautiful, Annja.”

She ignored his comment and took a moment to think over what he’d just told her. Something didn’t make sense. Why would an assassin renowned for killing with a sword suddenly decide to use explosives? “So what happened in 2003?”

Garin grinned. “I see I’m not the only one who knows a little something about the Dragon.”

Ignoring her scowl, he went on. “I’ve heard a hundred different theories over the years as to what happened that day and I don’t agree with any of them. Killing is an art form, particularly for a man like we’re talking about. For him to resort to a suitcase full of plastic explosives when every single one of his victims before that date were killed by his own hand is simply ludicrous.

“What happened in 2003 is that the Dragon, the real Dragon, had nothing to do with the attempted assassination of the British prime minister. It was someone else.”

The waiter came in with their meals at that point, giving Annja some time to digest what Garin had said. She barely noticed what she was eating as the implications of what he had just told her poured through her mind.

“You think the Dragon is still alive,” she said after a few minutes.

Again the shrug. “For the past year or so there have been rumors that the Dragon has returned. Nothing more solid than that, understand, just rumors. Given what you found at Roux’s, however, I’d say the possibility just grew a little more distinct.”

“Why would the Dragon be after Roux?”

“Who said he was?” Garin shot back, and that brought Annja up short.

“You think the Dragon is after you?” she asked.

“No.”

If not Roux, or Garin, then who?

“No,” she said flatly when she realized what he was suggesting.

He looked at her with a strange gleam in his eye. “Not Roux. Not me, though I must admit to being a bit concerned over that last one for a little while. No, I don’t think the Dragon is after either of us. I think he is after you.” He leaned forward, holding her gaze in his own. “And after what I’ve heard recently about the sword the Dragon always carries, I think I know why.”

Her frown deepened, her lunch all but forgotten. “You aregoing to tell me, right?”

He paused, gathering his thoughts, and Annja had the distinct impression that he was trying to figure out just what to tell her and what to keep close to the chest.

After a moment, he continued. “Everything has an opposite, a dark twin on the cosmic scale of balance, if you will. The world itself is built on duality. How could we recognize white without black? Laughter without sorrow? Goodness without evil?”

He looked at her, as if to gauge whether she was following the argument, and she nodded to show that she was.

“The sword that you now carry is a symbol of truth, of justice, of all that is good in the world. It emulates the moral and emotional qualities of the one who bore it into battle all those years ago. And because you represent those things, as well, the chain continues, like an heirloom passed down through the generations.

“You, me, Roux—we are all bound to that sword in one way or another. For Roux and me, our association with it, and with its original bearer, has resulted in a lifespan measured in centuries rather than decades. In your case, the sword has given you increased agility, speed, strength—even your senses are better than they once were.”

There was little there for her to argue with. It was true; the sword had certainly changed her in ways that she hadn’t thought possible. Knowing that Garin was aware of the changes as well, made her a little uneasy, but she buried the thought as he went on with his explanation.

“You know better than anyone else that the sword comes with a certain set of responsibilities. Defend the weak. Protect the innocent. Stand as a barrier against the evil in the world around you, just as its original bearer strove to do so many years ago.”

He was right again. Her life had become far more complicated since taking possession of the sword. Where she might have turned away from a difficult situation in the past, maybe even told herself that it wasn’t any of her business, now she practically leaped into the fray whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Garin continued. “So it stands to reason that if all things have an opposite, a yin to the yang, then there must be another weapon out there somewhere that represents the side of darkness as much as your weapon stands for the cause of light.”

Biting back her unease, she forced herself to follow his line of thought.

“You’re saying the Dragon has such a sword.”

Her companion shook his head. “No. I’m saying that there are rumors that the Dragon, if he is still alive, has such a weapon. I don’t know for sure.”

Annja thought back to the swordsman she had faced in the display room and the way his sword had suddenly seemed to appear in his hands, a sword she would have sworn he hadn’t had moments before.

Of how it mirrored the way she handled her own so perfectly.

“But you believe it, don’t you?” she pressed.

Garin thought about it for a moment, and then nodded at her. “Yes,” he said, “I do.”

His admission sent Annja’s pulse skyrocketing.

“Why?”

“For the past year or two I have been hearing rumors about a sword, one that is supposed to have considerable power, being carried by a man available for hire. Not just any man, but one with an impressive résumé, full of what has euphemistically been called ‘wetwork.’ At first I thought that the rumors were about you and the weapon you carry, that those who passed it along simply couldn’t imagine that it was a woman in such a role, but it only took a little bit of investigation to learn that the sword in question was not a broadsword, like your own, but a Japanese katana.

“After that, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. I think the Dragon is back. I think somewhere, somehow, he learned about you and the sword that you carry. And I think he is curious to discover whether you are like-minded individuals or incompatible opposites.”

He took a long sip of his drink. “If the former, I suspect he just wants to talk with you. If the latter,” he said rather bluntly, “then I’m quite sure he won’t hesitate to kill you.”

ABOUT THE SAME TIME that Annja and Garin were sharing lunch, Henshaw was walking into a meeting in a pub along the docks by the Seine. It was a far cry from the restaurant that Garin had selected, but then again, the people that Henshaw was meeting were more concerned about anonymity than they were about how many varieties of wine were available to go with their meal.

Marco was already in the booth at the back when he arrived.

“It’s been a while,” Henshaw said when he reached the table.

“That it has, mate, that it has.” The two men eyed each other warily for a moment and then Henshaw abruptly laughed and wrapped the other man in a bear hug. Had Roux seen such a display of emotion from him, Henshaw was certain his employer would have assumed he’d suddenly lost his mind, but he and Marco went back quite a ways and had literally saved each other’s lives more than once over the years.

Of course, Henshaw didn’t talk about those days.

Marco hadn’t changed much since then; his hair was long, but his grip was still as strong as steel and his gaze never stayed in one place too long as he was constantly assessing the situation around him, alert for whatever was to come.

The two sat down at the booth opposite each other and waited a moment while the waitress brought them a couple of pints. Then they got down to business.

“So what’s this gig that you’ve got for us?” Marco asked.

Henshaw had thought long and hard about how to convince his old friend to take the job and had finally settled on playing it as straight as possible. “Executive protection,” he told him, slipping a photograph out of his coat pocket and passing it across the table.

The picture showed Annja striding across the street, her hair flowing back behind her in the slight breeze. The jeans and T-shirt she wore hugged her body in all the right places, which was one of the reasons Henshaw had specifically chosen this one. As he’d hoped, Marco’s eyes lit up at the sight of her.

“Good God, isn’t she gorgeous,” he said, pulling the photo up for a closer look. “Who is she? And what’s she do? Recording artist? Film star?”

“Her name is Annja Creed. And she is an archaeologist, actually.”

Henshaw met his gaze squarely when the other man glanced up to see if he was pulling his leg.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not at all.”

The photo was tossed back down on the table. “Okay, this I gotta hear. You wanna hire around-the-clock surveillance and executive protection for an archaeologist? What’d she do, piss off the Vatican by discovering the tomb of Jesus or something?”

Nothing like that, Henshaw thought. She’s just the current bearer of a mystical sword that once belonged to Joan of Arc and is now being pursued by one of the world’s most dangerous assassins.

But he couldn’t say that.

Instead, he explained that Annja’s work had made certain terrorist groups aware of her as a potential target of opportunity and that his employer was interested in protecting the investment he had made in her work without her knowing the extent of the danger she was in. As stories went, it was a decent one, and certainly good enough to pull Marco and his team into the mix. Henshaw felt bad about deceiving his old friend, but what else could he do? It wasn’t as though he could just come out and tell the man the truth.

They spent a few minutes discussing terms and pay rates and concluded the deal over a handshake. Both men knew the other was good for it.

When they were finished with their beers, Marco said, “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team.”

The left the pub, climbed into Marco’s old sedan and drove a few blocks deeper into the warehouse district, stopping at a small nondescript building to the west of the pub. Marco pulled out a set of keys, unlocked the door and ushered Henshaw inside.

This was where the rest of the team waited for them.

There were three women and four men. Marco introduced them to Henshaw one at a time—Dave, a cheery, good-natured sort who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five; Olivia, a dark-haired beauty with a background in demolitions; Jessi, a former SAS commando; Arthur, a quiet, unassuming man who was the group’s electronics expert; Clive, a former U.S. Marine who had turned his skills to the private sector; Glen, the team’s covert infiltration expert; and last, but not least, Sara, a short, pudgy woman who could shoot the cap off of a soda bottle at four hundred yards.