Текст книги "Cradle of Solitude"
Автор книги: Алекс Арчер
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
39
Annja found herself standing beside the Cadillac in the all-but-empty parking lot at the Tallulah Gorge State Park just over an hour and a half later. After speaking to Michaels, she had passed the rest of the journey in contemplative silence until her driver had indicated that they had reached the outskirts of Clayton, which was just north of Tallulah Falls. He drove to the local Greyhound station, where he got out, turned the car over to Annja and then purchased a bus ticket back to Richmond.
Annja made the rest of the journey on her own.
When she came up with her plan earlier that morning, she’d expected the parking lot at the Gorge to be full of eager tourists. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other ideas. The blue skies had given way to stone gray and a light drizzle had begun to fall in the early afternoon. By the time Annja arrived, the park was mostly deserted.
So much for making the exchange in public.
Nothing in the past day had changed her view that Michaels would kill both her and Garin once he had the coordinates. Her only chance to pull this off was to get Garin out in the open where they had a possibility of getting away from Michaels and his men before she was forced to give up the location of the treasure.
How she was going to do that, she still wasn’t certain.
Great time not to have a plan, the nagging little voice in the back of her mind told her as she saw Michaels and his entourage approach.
Three black SUVs drove into the parking lot and parked a short distance away from her car. Four men got out of each of the two lead vehicles and took up positions around the third, though what they thought they were guarding against, Annja had no idea. Once the team leader was apparently satisfied with the situation, he knocked on the glass of the final vehicle with the knuckles of one hand.
The doors opened. Blaine Michaels emerged from the front passenger seat, while Garin and two more thugs got out of the rear.
Eleven against two. Not the best odds, but she’d deal with it.
Leaving the vast majority of his men behind him with the vehicles, Michaels strode toward her. Garin came along, as well, escorted on either side by two guards. She could see from the way he held himself that Garin’s arms were secured behind his back. She knew the guards, and perhaps even Michaels, would be armed, but none of their firearms were in evidence at the moment, which was a point in her favor.
It wasn’t much but at least it was something.
Now if she could just get Garin into the proper position.
She’d chosen her current location with care. The car was parked lengthwise across several parking spaces at the back of the lot. Just beyond it, hidden by the bulk of the vehicle, at least at a distance, was a trailhead leading into the dense Georgia forest at her back. If she and Garin could get into the thick of the trees, they stood a chance of getting away from their pursuers before any serious damage could be done.
Michaels stopped within arm’s reach, facing her, his long trench coat hiding any weapons he might be carrying.
“I believe you have something for me,” he said.
Annja ignored him, looking over his shoulder at Garin instead. “Are you all right?”
“Peachy,” he replied, and then, ever so slightly, nodded his head.
It was a signal and one that didn’t take a lot of brain-power to understand.
Garin was ready for whatever she had planned for getting them out of this mess.
His faith in her was reassuring.
Her lack of a specific plan was not.
Michaels was tired of waiting. “The treasure, Miss Creed.”
She shook her head. “Not until you release him.”
Expecting him to argue, she was surprised when he turned, studied Garin for a moment and then nodded at the guard standing beside his captive.
The guard drew a clasp knife out of his pocket, opened it and stepped up behind Garin.
“Don’t even think about it…” Annja warned, the tone of her voice dark and deadly. Her concern was misplaced, however. The guard simply used the knife to slash Garin’s bonds.
Garin brought his arms up in front of his chest, using his hands to rub each of his wrists in turn where the zip tie had dug into the skin. While the movement looked perfectly natural, Annja knew better. Garin was preparing for action.
“I won’t ask again,” Michaels said in an icy tone, one hand reaching inside his coat.
Annja held up her hands in front of her in a gesture of surrender. “No need for anger. I have what you need,” she told him, smiling at the same time to help reinforce the idea that she wasn’t a threat.
When she saw Michaels relax slightly as a result, she made her move.
She lashed out with a savage front kick, catching Michaels square between the legs with one booted foot. As the pain slammed into him a half second after the strike he dropped to his knees and toppled to the ground, groaning in agony.
Annja wasn’t waiting around to see the results, however. She was already in motion, driving forward toward the guard on Garin’s left. The man was just reaching inside his coat for his weapon when Annja called her sword to hand and ran him through. He looked down at the length of steel sticking out of his gut, tried to say something through the blood that was suddenly filling his throat and then collapsed.
Garin moved in the same instant as Annja. He smashed his elbow into the face of the guard on the other side of him and followed it up with several short, sharp punches that sent the man reeling to the ground.
“Follow me!” Annja shouted as she slid over the hood of the Cadillac, glancing back at the rest of Michaels’s men as she did so.
It was not a pretty sight. The guards were charging toward them, guns in hand, and even as Garin bent over to grab the pistol out of the hand of the guard he’d knocked over, the bullets started flying.
“Come on, Garin! Move!” she roared.
She felt useless standing there with her sword in hand, but there wasn’t anything she could do. They had to get under cover of the trees before the rest of the guards caught up with them or they would be killed.
Garin threw himself over the hood of the car, rolled to his feet and spun back around. He snapped off three quick shots, sending the gunmen diving for cover, then grinned at her.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
She turned and ran for the trailhead, Garin at her heels.
They were almost within the trees when the gunfire started again. She could hear bullets striking the Cadillac behind them and was grateful for her foresight in setting it up as a barrier. She was just about convinced they could make a clean getaway when she heard a grunt of pain and felt Garin stumble into her.
She caught him before he could fall and helped him stumble forward into the dense protection of the trees. His right hand was clasped to his left shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers, and the gun he’d risked himself to retrieve was nowhere to be seen.
“How bad?” she asked as he righted himself and continued under his own power.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Went clean through.”
The pain in his voice told her differently, though.
Their chances of escape had just been cut in half.
Without any idea where the trail actually went, they were stuck just following it, hoping it would lead them somewhere safe. Annja could hear Michaels shouting at his men to find them and knew their pursuers wouldn’t be slow in doing as instructed.
Suddenly they burst free of the tree line and found themselves standing on a promontory that jutted out into the canyon. In front of them, a sagging old bridge connected their side of the canyon to the other.
The bridge was essentially just two parallel strains of braided steel cable to which slats of wood had been secured at six-inch intervals. The cables were less than an inch in diameter and painted red with rust. The slats weren’t in much better shape. In more than a handful of places they had been eaten clear through by the elements. Only the rope railings that stretched the length of the bridge’s span appeared to be in decent shape.
Annja did not want to cross that bridge. She looked frantically about, searching for some other way out of their predicament. About a quarter of a mile up the canyon from where they stood she could see the modern bridge, a graceful span of iron and steel, but there was no way for them to get to it. They’d have to backtrack the way they’d come to get off the promontory and somehow manage to elude their pursuers while doing so.
A glance behind let her know that wasn’t possible; she could see forms approaching through the trees and knew it was Michaels’s thugs closing in on them. It would only be a matter of moments before they were within shooting distance.
No choice, then.
“Come on!” she shouted, grabbing Garin’s arm and literally dragging him out onto the bridge in her wake.
The sagging old structure jerked and swayed with their every step but Annja didn’t care. All she wanted to do was make it to the other side. She kept her doubts to herself.
Garin, on the other hand, wasn’t shy about voicing his concerns.
“Are you nuts, Annja? We’re sitting ducks out here!” he shouted as he made his way along as best he could with only one arm to steady himself. “The minute they reach the clearing, it will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Annja shook her head. “They won’t shoot,” she told him as she carefully stepped across an opening where a pair of slats had rotted through. She could see the river rushing past a hundred feet beneath them, the water churned into a white froth from the boulders strewn about its path. She helped Garin across and then continued forward.
“Says who?” he asked, already out of breath from the exertion of keeping his balance on the shifting platform beneath his feet.
“I’m telling you, they won’t shoot. Michaels wants the location of the gold. If they shoot us, they won’t have any way of getting it.”
They were halfway across when they felt the bridge suddenly lurch violently. Annja wrapped her arm around the rope railing next to her to steady her balance and to keep from sliding off, then chanced a look back.
Two of their pursuers had stepped out onto the bridge behind them. They were slowly making their way forward, but each step they took made the bridge sway dangerously to either side, creaking and groaning like an old rocking chair as it did. Annja had a sudden vision of the bridge giving way, plunging them all into the gorge below.
Apparently their pursuers must have imagined the same thing, for after another few steps they decided discretion was the better part of valor and retreated back the way they had come.
Garin suddenly swore beneath his breath.
Annja turned forward only to find the source of his distress. Michaels and several more of his henchmen were standing on the far side of the chasm. They must have found another trail and circled around ahead of them. We’re done, she thought.
As if he’d heard her, Michaels shouted, “Now what, Miss Creed? Intending to sprout wings and fly away like a little bird?”
Several choice replies sprang to mind, but she managed to keep her temper and not let them free. She was getting so tired of this, though. Why couldn’t something go their way for a change?
“I want that location, Creed!” Michaels shouted.
“So come and get it!” she shouted back.
Beside her, she felt Garin stiffen. “What are you doing, Annja?” he asked.
“If the bastard wants the treasure, he can come out here and get the location. If he’s dumb enough to do so, we’ll use him as a hostage to force them to let us go.”
It was a crazy plan, but she was all out of ideas. They couldn’t go forward, they couldn’t go back, and she had little hope that the bridge would support them indefinitely. Something was going to have to change if they were going to get out of this alive.
“How about I just shoot you instead?” Michaels threatened, raising his arm and pointing the pistol he held in his hand directly at them.
Annja tapped her head with one finger. “Go ahead and shoot! Be awfully damn hard to get the coordinates at that point, since they’re all up here!”
Michaels frowned, then lowered his weapon. He seemed undecided about his next course of action.
In the space of a few seconds the game had turned and she now held the upper hand. Annja was as surprised as Michaels that it had turned out this way, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
If Michaels shot the two of them where they stood, he’d lose out on the coordinates and, in turn, the treasure. If he sent a group of his men across the bridge after them, from this side or from the other, the decaying structure was likely to come apart and plunge the whole lot of them into the rapids below, with the end result being the same. He couldn’t even wait them out; the fact that they were on the bridge in the first place was sure to bring the park rangers running sooner or later. Someone had to have heard the gunshots and maybe have seen them by now, and even hikers carried cell phones these days.
If he wanted the treasure, he really didn’t have much choice, she thought.
Michaels turned his back on her and began issuing instructions to the men with him. Since he was no longer shouting, the distance was too great for Annja to hear any of what he said, but she had little doubt it couldn’t be good.
The bridge swayed as Garin tried to find some relief for his tiring limbs.
“You all right?” she asked, not daring to take her gaze off Michaels.
“For now,” he replied. He was quiet for a moment and then asked, “Do you really know where it is?”
She answered without thinking. “It’s right here in the gorge somewhere. Inside the old Genoa Mine.”
Garin laughed. “I told him you’d find it.”
Before she could ask what he meant, she was distracted by the sight of Michaels walking to the bridge and then striding out onto it, heading in their direction. She watched him approach until there was only about ten feet between them.
Rather than addressing her, however, Michaels looked past her to Garin instead.
“Time to live up to your side of the bargain,” Michaels said, gesturing at Annja.
“What’s he talking about, Garin?” she asked, without taking her gaze off Michaels. He still had a gun in his right hand and it would only take a moment’s distraction for him to shoot.
“I don’t have any idea,” Garin replied.
Even as he said it, though, she felt the bridge sway slightly beneath his weight and heard the sound of a gun’s slide being worked.
Her blood ran cold at the sound. Garin hadn’t dropped the gun somewhere, after all, he’d just hidden it in his coat. Why would he do that? Could he have really cut a deal with Michaels? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d disappointed her, but then again, why go through the charade of trying to escape if he only intended to double-cross her in the end? That was just too low, even for Garin. It didn’t make sense.
Michaels, however, was more than happy to explain it to her. “Your friend Mr. Braden has a decided interest in the treasure, Miss Creed,” he said, over his shark-tooth smile. “And I’m afraid it doesn’t involve giving a share to you.”
Annja felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention as she heard the truth in Michaels’s voice. Behind her, Garin shifted positions, causing the bridge to rock a bit more wildly than before.
What the hell was he doing?
Still, she didn’t dare turn around.
“The treasure’s in the old Genoa Mine,” Garin said. “She told me herself not two minutes ago.”
Annja couldn’t believe her ears. Garin had just given up their one bargaining chip, the one piece of information she’d been risking her life to protect!
Her dismay must have shown on her face for Michaels suddenly threw back his head and laughed. “Did you think I was just going to let you walk away?” he asked.
As Annja groped for an answer, Michaels looked at Garin over her shoulder. “Get rid of her,” he said.
There was no way she could summon her sword, turn and deal with Garin before he shot her. She knew him, knew how fast he was with a handgun. He’d be watching for the sword and wouldn’t hesitate to fire the second she moved.
He had her dead to rights.
She was trapped.
She wasn’t the type to go down without a fight, however, and even though she thought it was futile she was still going to do her best to survive to fight another day.
With a shout she called her sword from the otherwhere, the cold steel blade flashing into existence in the space of a heartbeat. Time seemed to slow as she felt her fingers close tightly around the well-worn hilt, felt the bridge reacting to her sudden motion, shifting and rolling beneath her feet, watched as Michaels’s eyes went wide at the sudden appearance of the weapon.
She had barely started her turn when she felt, and then heard, the gun going off behind her.
The bullet, the one she thought was destined to put an end to her time as the bearer of Joan’s mystical sword, shot past her shoulder so closely that she felt the heat of its passage.
She watched in amazement as a bright red flower blossomed on the front of Michaels’s shirt. She realized at the same moment that Michaels’s expression of surprise didn’t have anything to do with the appearance of her sword at all, but was rather a reaction to the sight of the muzzle of the gun held in Garin’s hand being pointed in his direction.
Garin hadn’t betrayed her at all!
The shot knocked Michaels backward a few feet into the rope railing and for a moment Annja thought he was going to tip right over it. But he managed to grab hold of the rope with his free hand and arrest his fall.
The gun in his other hand began to come up.
Behind her, she heard Garin give a wordless grunt of victory as he pulled the trigger a second time, intending to end this once and for all.
The hammer gave a dry click as it fell on an empty chamber.
In the space of a heartbeat Annja realized that she was too far away to reach Michaels, even with her sword, and they had only a split second in which to react before he fired his own weapon.
This close, the bullet was sure to hit one or the other of them.
Annja didn’t stop to think, she just reacted, stepping backward into Garin and covering him with her body.
The muzzle of Michaels’s gun loomed large before her.
A shot rang out, echoing through the gorge, and it took Annja a moment to realize she wasn’t injured.
She hadn’t, in fact, been shot as she’d fully expected to be.
Her gaze flicked to Michaels and she was just in time to see him drop to his knees on the bridge, his hands covering the eruption of blood that was now spilling from the hole in his throat.
He turned to face her, perhaps to plead for help, perhaps to curse her name with his dying breath, but never got the chance for either.
The wood he was kneeling on chose that moment to decide it had had enough and gave way with a loud crack.
One moment Michaels was kneeling before her, the next he was plunging into the seething waters below.
If he screamed as he fell, Annja didn’t hear it, for the gorge was suddenly filled with the rhythmic sound of a helicopter’s rotors. As she and Garin looked on, the black fuselage of a Dragontech Security helicopter came swooping down from above, armed gunmen leaning out the open doors on either side. The hail of bullets the gunmen sent slamming into the ground on either side of the bridge forced Michaels’s thugs to run for their lives.
A glance upstream showed a dark-suited figure standing on the new bridge with what looked like a long-barreled rifle in his hands. He lifted a hand in greeting and a relieved Annja waved back.
For now at least, the threat was over.
40
“No, not that camera, you idiot! The other one!”
Annja watched Doug Morrell as he stalked over to the intern he’d been addressing and made short work of swapping out the video camera the young man had been holding with another one from the pile of equipment in the back of the van Chasing History’s Monstershad rented to transport their gear. Normally it was Annja who got exasperated from Doug’s undying eagerness and it was nice to see the tables turned for a change.
It had been two months since her rescue from the bridge over Tallulah Gorge by the operatives of Dragontech Security. Of course, they would probably still be searching aimlessly for their boss, Garin Braden, if they hadn’t put two and two together after their systems alerted them to Annja’s phone call with Doug and realizing she was trying to save Garin by finding the location of the treasure. Since Annja had given Doug the coordinates she’d discovered marking the location of the missing Confederate treasury, Dragontech’s senior commander, Matthew Griggs, had quickly put a plan in motion and help had been on the way.
Of course, Annja hadn’t known that at the time, so she’d been convinced that it was all going to end on that lonely windswept bridge.
Several times during the past two weeks she’d almost wished it had. The police investigation into the death of Blaine Michaels had been nothing short of grueling. Annja had spent hours being interviewed by law enforcement personnel from both sides of the Atlantic. Fortunately, her story was backed up not only by Garin himself, but also by several of Michaels’s former henchmen, all eager to avoid harsher sentences by giving up their comrades in plea bargain after plea bargain. The deaths of Jimmy Mitchell, Bernard Reinhardt and Catherine Daley were laid at the feet of Blaine Michaels. In France, his former empire was reeling from revelation after revelation of the activities Michaels and his associates had been involved in. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
In the United States, Annja’s own illegal activities, including the desecration of a federal cemetery, not to mention failure to report a crime and fleeing across state lines, were all determined to be either self-defense or carried out under duress and with the intent of saving lives. Despite some pressure from various police agencies, and with the help of Garin’s considerable influence, Annja was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing.
At last, they had returned to Tallulah Gorge in an effort to locate the final resting place of the missing Confederate treasury. And they were going to film it, as part of a special segment of the Chasing History’s Monstersepisode that Annja had started all those weeks before. She had tried to talk Doug out of it but he reminded her that she owed him so she went along with it.
Doug finally got the intern straightened out and wandered back to where Annja was waiting. With her was Steve Southwood, the park guide they had hired to help them with the day’s shoot. It would be Southwood’s job to lead them into the depths of the Genoa Mine to the coordinates that Captain Parker had indicated in his final message to his partner-in-crime, Jonathan Sykes.
It was a beautiful spring day. Annja was curious to see what it would bring. Southwood had informed them that the Genoa Mine had been sealed up by the parks commission more than fifty years earlier and he thought the chances were good that Parker’s hiding place remained untouched, all these years later.
“Are we ready, Annja?” Doug asked.
She glanced at Southwood, got a nod of agreement and said, “Ready as we’ll ever be.”
“All right, then, let’s get the show on the road.”
Annja winked at Southwood, then stepped over to where the cameraman was waiting. She took the microphone from his hand, and set herself up in the spot they had chosen, with the mountains rising in the distance behind her. The cameraman counted down and gave her the signal to begin. Annja looked directly at the camera, smiled and began talking.
“Welcome once again to Chasing History’s Monsters. Today we’re in search of a monster of a different kind, a treasure of legendary proportions and, if all goes well, we hope to share the rediscovery of this important historical find with you as it happens.”
Annja let the familiar rhythms of the show wash over her and gradually the smile she’d put on her face for theatrical purposes shifted into something more genuine. She’d worked hard to follow the clues Captain Parker had left behind and even though she knew they wouldn’t find anything, with the fruition of her quest close at hand, she couldn’t help but be excited to see it through to the end.
Annja thought about the note she’d received from Garin Braden after he’d flown back to Europe.
Thanks for the adventure! I’ll consider the gold as payment for the expense I went to in order to rescue you. Until next time.
G.
She’d been angry at first but then she realized she’d never cared about the treasure for its monetary value, only for its historical value. And she had been able to find it, even if she didn’t get to keep it or share her discovery with the rest of the world. She’d just have to add it to the list of secrets she tried to keep about herself, Roux and Garin.
But even as she struck out on the trail following Southwood toward the hidden location of the Genoa Mine, Annja couldn’t help but wonder where her next adventure might take her and what dangerous activities might be lying in wait for her there, as well.
