Текст книги "Cradle of Solitude"

Автор книги: Алекс Арчер

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

13

The fall was a good couple of hundred feet and Annja knew that in order to survive it she was going to have to control how she entered the water. Crisp and clean was the order of the day. If she was even the slightest bit off center, she’d bounce off the surface just as if it were fashioned of six feet of solid cement.

Her arms and legs pinwheeled for a moment and then gravity took over, hauling her downward. The fall might feel like it was taking forever, but Annja knew she had only a few seconds in which to prepare herself for the impact at the bottom. She brought the image of her sword to mind and did her best to emulate its long, sleek form with her own body, tucking her arms flat against her sides and squeezing her legs together tightly, her toes pointed. From somewhere in the distance came a shout and the echo of a gunshot, but she didn’t have time to think about either right now. She tucked her chin against her chest and hoped for the best.

The collision, when it came, was everything she expected it to be, a bone-jarring crash into the surface of the water followed by a swift plunge toward the bottom. She had no idea how deep the water was and found herself praying that she didn’t run out of room before she bled off all that downward momentum she’d picked up from the drop.

Thankfully, the river was deep and she felt herself slowing down before she struck the bottom. This presented her with a new set of difficulties, however, for no sooner had her downward momentum slowed that she felt the tug of the current trying to pull her along in its wake. Realizing the danger she was in, she began clawing her way toward the surface, driving herself upward with powerful kicks of her long legs.

But for every foot she rose upward, the river carried her two feet sideways and it wasn’t long before she began to feel herself tiring. Her lungs protested her treatment of them, as well, demanding fresh oxygen, but to open her mouth at this depth meant a sure death by drowning, so she clamped her mouth shut and fought for the surface as hard as she could.

The churning water kept her from being able to feel the natural buoyancy of her body and kept her from trying to open her eyes underwater, worried as she was about all the natural debris rushing along in the current with her.

Was she struggling so hard because she was headed for the bottom rather than climbing toward the surface? How could she tell?

The thought nearly paralyzed her, the fear it evoked overwhelming in its intensity. The animal side of her brain began screaming at her, telling her she was going in the wrong direction and that she was going to die if she didn’t do something about it now,and it took all of her concentration to force that monster back into the mental closet it had suddenly lurched out of. She fought to think clearly, rationally, but her burning lungs were demanding she take another breath and she felt her lips peeling back as her body disobeyed the commands her brain was giving it…

Annja broke through to the surface of the water with a tremendous gasp, surprised to feel the cool mountain air filling her lungs like a miracle from above. Her relief was short-lived, however, for the rush of the water swept over her head and forced her back underwater seconds later.

This time, though, she was prepared for it, her fear now firmly in check, and so she was able to swiftly fight her way back to the surface and keep her head above water as she sought a way out of the predicament her wild jump had gotten her into.

Looking around, she discovered that she was being swept downstream even faster than she’d thought. She was already quite far from where she’d entered the water and even as she looked back the way she had come she was carried around a bend in the river and the monastery was lost from view. Perhaps even more disconcerting, however, was her realization that the water itself was shockingly cold, so much so that staying in it for too long was not an option.

If I don’t do something, I’m either going to freeze to death or get swept all the way to the English Channel.

The right bank was closer, so with grim determination she turned toward it and began swimming perpendicular to the current, trying to make her way across. Thankfully, the river was reasonably free of jutting rocks and she didn’t have to worry about being slammed against them as she was swept along.

It was hard going, the current fighting her for every inch of progress and the cold leeching the energy from her limbs, but she didn’t have any choice but to continue pushing forward. Bit by bit, the shore drew closer, until at last she felt the river bottom beneath the soles of her shoes. After another ten minutes of grueling effort she broke free of the current and emerged into shallower depths at the river’s edge.

She dragged herself out of the water and up onto the shore, rolling onto her back and doing what she could to catch her breath after the ordeal she’d just been through. She didn’t lay there long, though, for once out of the water the coolness of the mountain air cut through her wet clothes like an Arctic wind and she quickly found herself shivering on the riverbank despite the afternoon sun above.

Annja knew that if she didn’t get out of her wet clothing soon she’d be in serious danger of hypothermia, especially once the sun went down.

I’ve got to get moving, she thought.

She climbed to her feet, only to have a bolt of pain shoot up her left ankle. It hurt enough that she promptly sat back down and gave it a look. She could move it in a slow circle, so she knew it wasn’t broken, and with her shoe on it didn’t seem to be overly swollen, but it was definitely tender to the touch and was already turning a deep shade of bluish black.

I must have twisted it when I hit the water, she thought.

She could see the road through the trees about a dozen yards away and knew she had to head in that direction. She was miles away from even the smallest town and didn’t remember passing a single house or homestead during the final part of her drive. The chances of a random motorist headed in the direction she was going were pretty slim, which meant she was going to have to make her way back up the mountain to the monastery on foot.

At least there she could find some dry clothes, check to see if there were any survivors and even call for help, if no one had done so already.

All she had to do was walk a couple of miles, uphill, on a sprained ankle.

14

Annja’s pace was even slower than she thought it would be. Her injured ankle bore her weight, but just barely, and she was forced to limp along at a pace made all the more frustrating by the fact that she knew there were people at the facility above who needed her help.

She spent the entire journey in a state of tension, listening for the sound of an engine, worried that the attackers would find her alone on the road after leaving the monastery above. She was constantly checking the undergrowth on either side of the road, picking out potential hiding places that she could reach quickly and with a minimum of fuss should the sound of an approaching vehicle reach her ears, but in the end she didn’t need any of them; not a single vehicle passed her going in either direction.

That meant the attackers had probably done what they had come to do and had left the monastery behind while she was still trying to save herself from the river’s current.

That wasn’t a good sign.

Step by step, teeth gritted against the pain, she made her way up to the monastery gates as quickly as she could.

The gates stood wide open, which wasn’t a good sign. As she hobbled through them, she caught sight of a brown-robed figure lying unmoving in the grass between the gates and the small guardhouse nearby. The dark stain that covered the front of his robe didn’t bode well for his chances, but she had to check to be sure before moving on. If he was only injured and she left him behind…

As she drew close enough to see his face, she recognized the silent monk who had let her into the complex earlier. From the looks of it, he’d been shot with a short burst from an automatic weapon. Kneeling down next to him, she checked for a pulse but, as she’d expected, didn’t find one. His eyes were open, staring at the sky above, and so she brushed her hand over them, and then got back to her feet.

Her car was still in the parking area, but the driver’s window had been smashed and the line of bullet holes stitched across the hood let her know that she wouldn’t be taking it anywhere in the near future. Since it wasn’t her car, she didn’t feel all that torn up about the damage; it wasn’t the first vehicle wrecked by those she’d been forced to confront since taking up the sword. No, what made her want to scream in anger and frustration was the fact that they’d gotten the chest, and therefore the puzzle box that it contained. When she’d returned to the complex and rushed back into the monastery, she’d left the chest on the rear seat of the car, easy pickings for anyone looking for it.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Of course, hindsight was twenty-twenty. There was nothing to do now but soldier on and see what she could make out of the mess.

There were two more bodies on the front steps to the main building and another just inside the door. Each of them had been gunned down in similar fashion. Farther inside she found more of the same. It appeared that the intruders, whoever they had been, had wanted to be certain there wasn’t anyone left to serve as a witness to what had happened here.

She kept up her search for survivors all the way to the cathedral, but she didn’t find a single one by the time she reached her destination.

Inside, she found the abbott lying on the floor in front of the altar, a bullet through the skull. Four of the fingers on his left hand were broken and horribly twisted, letting her know that there’d been a serious effort to get him to tell them something. Whether he’d divulged what they wanted or not was uncertain, for they could have executed him after he’d given up the information or when they’d decided that they didn’t have any more time to waste.

In the end, it hadn’t really mattered, she thought. They’d gotten what they’d come for, anyway—thanks to her carelessness.

Standing there, looking down at the body of the man who only hours before had helped her uncover a key clue to the mystery unfurling before her, Annja felt a rage begin to build inside her. She vowed that she’d bring the perpetrators to justice, no matter what.

She searched the rest of the complex, but didn’t find a single survivor. The monks living there had been slaughtered to a man.

No witnesses, she thought bitterly.

She did, however, find a phone on the abbot’s desk. It was the only one she’d seen so far in the entire monastery, so she was thankful that the intruders hadn’t torn it loose from the wall. It was an oversight that could have come back to haunt them, had any of the monks been quick enough to capitalize on it, and Annja was pleased to see it. It meant the enemy, whoever they were, made mistakes.

Mistakes could be exploited.

She punched in 1-1-2, the general emergency number throughout all of France, and explained to the operator that there had been a violent attack on the monks at the monastery. She identified herself when asked and stated that they could contact the American Embassy for confirmation of who she was so that they would know this was not a crank call of any kind. Given the nearest town was almost an hour away, and she didn’t remember seeing any kind of emergency response services when she’d driven through, Annja knew she had a long wait ahead of her.

Now that she had taken care of the most pressing issues, she realized that her teeth were chattering and that she was shivering violently. Her clothing was still wet despite the long walk and the chill mountain air hadn’t helped any. She suspected she might be slipping into hypothermia and knew she had to do something about it quickly.

But a search of the abbot’s quarters turned up nothing but boxers, socks and the long brown robes she’d been seeing on every monk she encountered. The same held true of the rest of the rooms she looked into at the other end of the hall.

The idea of meeting the authorities dressed like Friar Tuck didn’t appeal to her at all, but what choice did she have? She selected a robe that looked to be the closest fit, stripped out of her wet clothing and used a towel from a nearby bathroom to dry herself as best she could. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she pulled the robe on over her head. To her surprise, the fabric was much softer than she’d expected, and warm, as well. She might be stuck looking like an extra from Monty Python and the Holy Grail,but at least she’d be comfortable while doing so.

Only half an hour had gone by when the sound of a helicopter’s rotors caught her attention. She glanced out the window, saw it approaching in the distance and went out to meet it.

The aircraft came in over the trees, nose forward, so Annja didn’t get a good look at the aircraft until the pilot spun it around and lined up for landing. That’s when the insignia, a stylized dragon in midflight, became visible on the black fuselage.

Annja knew that logo.

It belonged to Dragontech Security Services, one of the many companies owned by her sometime-ally, sometime-nemesis Garin Braden.

“All-the-time pain-in-the-ass Garin Braden is more like it,” she said.

The helicopter landed on the grass beside the parking area. The door opened almost immediately and a squad of armed gunmen disembarked, moving with the kind of crisp efficiency that marked them as former military personnel. They fanned out in a half circle, the assault rifles in their hands pointing beyond her at the windows of the monastery.

Behind them came Garin Braden.

She’d met Garin at the same time she’d acquired her sword, the one that had once belonged to Joan of Arc. Whatever power had been imparted to the sword at the moment of Joan’s death had also affected Garin and his former mentor, Roux. Both of them had been her failed protectors. Both of them had been there to witness Joan’s execution. Both of them had subsequently discovered that they no longer aged as other men did, that unless they were killed by injury or violence, it seemed they would most likely live forever.

Over the years they’d gone from being squire and master to equal competitors to deadly enemies. Only the arrival of Annja, and the reforming of the sword that had been broken, had brought them grudgingly back together again.

At first, Garin had been convinced that the sword controlled his destiny, that by possessing it Annja could threaten his very existence. He’d schemed to take it from her on more than one occasion, but thus far without success. Lately his overt activities toward that end had seemed to have been put on hold, but she was still wary around him.

Even knowing he often didn’t have her best interests at heart, Annja found it hard to simply dismiss Garin Braden. The fact that he was terribly handsome, with his black hair and immaculately trimmed goatee, didn’t help. He was also one of those larger than life personalities and being in his presence made her forget some of what she’d experienced with him. She constantly had to remind herself that he had a devil’s heart to go with his devilishly good looks.

Even that didn’t dampen her attraction to him, however.

He had a habit of turning up unexpectedly but just what the hell was he doing here?

Annja waited for him at the base of the front steps as he strode across the lawn. He was dressed beautifully, as always, in a suit that was tailored to show off his muscular frame. It was only as he drew closer that she remembered she was barefoot and naked beneath the monk’s robe. She wanted to sink right into the stone beneath her feet.

“Hello, I’m looking for… Annja, is that you?”

She used irritation to try and hide her embarrassment. “What are you doing here, Garin? Did you get lost on your way home?”

He ignored her jibe, focusing instead on what she was wearing.

“I must say you look ravishing in mud brown, Annja. And the way it accents your curves—”

“Cut the crap. What are you doing here? What do you want?”

A pained expression crossed his face. “Must I always want something?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Well, you have me there,” he replied, grinning.

Annja tried not to think about how that grin made her feel.

Garin surveyed the scene behind her, taking in bodies just inside the open door. When he looked at her again his expression had gone serious. “Any survivors?”

“I haven’t checked the entire grounds, but inside, no.”

He nodded, acknowledging her remark, and then waved to one of his men, summoning him over. They had a brief conversation outside of Annja’s earshot and then the first man was joined by two others as they fanned out to search the grounds.

“Come on,” Garin said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

Annja snorted. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Garin. The authorities will be here soon. Do you just expect me to leave all these bodies behind because you say so?”

The only person who knew where she was going was Bernard and she had no reason to believe the two men even knew each other. The more she thought about it, the more Garin’s sudden appearance wasn’t making any sense.

Garin’s joking manner abruptly disappeared. “Yes, that’s exactly what I expect. Every minute you stay puts you in more danger. We need to leave.”

“I told you, I’m not leaving. I called this in. I have a responsibility to be here when the authorities arrive.”

“That’s exactly what they are counting on!” He clenched his fists in frustration. “Do you think I came out here just to see you looking like a reject from the local Renaissance faire?”

Garin’s insistence, and his single-mindedness, had her worried.

“What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me, Garin?”

“For heaven’s sake, woman, we don’t have time for that—”

“You’ll make time,” she cut in, “or I’m not going with you. Now out with it.”

But rather than say anything more himself, he pulled a digital recorder out of his pocket and hit the play button.

“The Creed woman apparently survived the fall from the roof. She needs to be eliminated before she speaks to the police. Get back up there and get rid of her before she becomes more of a nuisance.”

Annja didn’t recognize the voice, but it was clear that whoever he was, he had intimate knowledge of what had happened at the monastery.

Garin wasn’t kidding around.

“How did you get that?” she asked.

“I’d be happy to explain everything, but right now I think it’s better if we got out of here, don’t you?”

As Annja opened her mouth to answer, the sound of a racing engine reached their ears. They turned to see a dark model Mercedes bounce through the iron gates less than three hundred yards away and rush toward them. Even as they watched, the front passenger window rolled down and a man’s head and shoulders appeared.

In his hands was an automatic weapon.

“Run!” Garin shouted as the bullets began to fly.

15

Annja didn’t need any further encouragement. She turned and ran for the helicopter…only to fall flat on her face as the hem of the robe got tangled in her feet and spilled her to the ground.

The sound of gunfire joined the growl of the car engine, both of which were suddenly drowned out in the rhythmic beat of the helicopter rotors as the pilot saw what was going on and prepared to get his aircraft out of there.

Annja glanced back to see the Mercedes change direction and head right for her.

She scrambled to her feet.

Bullets whip-cracked through the air as Annja frantically glanced around looking for some protective cover, but there was none to be found. She could make a run for the helicopter over open ground or she could turn around and head back inside the monastery, hope to find a different way out before the gunmen caught up to her.

She was wavering between the two actions when the choice was decided for her.

A hand with a grip like steel grabbed her arm.

“Come on!” Garin shouted, half carrying her along beside him as he ran for the chopper.

This time Annja used her hands to hike up the hem of the robe, not wanting to trip on it again. There wasn’t anything she could do about the gravel slicing into the bottoms of her feet, though, so she just ignored it. She’d been through worse and it was a damn sight better than getting a bullet in the head.

Garin’s security team had finally gotten into the act, sending a blistering hail of gunfire at the Mercedes as they raced forward to plant themselves between the enemy and their employer, protecting him as they had been trained to do.

The open door of the helicopter loomed ahead of them.

Garin’s longer stride put him out ahead of Annja by a few feet, so he reached the helicopter before she did. He jumped inside the open doorway and then turned to face her, ready to lend a hand.

She was looking right at him when the bullet took him high in the right side of his chest, tossing him backward into the darkness inside the helicopter.

“Garin!” she screamed.

She covered the last few feet and then leaped inside the helicopter as bullets slammed into the metal fuselage around her. She barely had time to grab hold of a nearby seat before the pilot took them up, arcing away from the gunfire as quickly as he could.

Annja spent an anxious minute holding on for dear life as the pilot leveled out and then she scrambled over to where Garin was lying against the opposite bulkhead.

She ripped open his suit coat, desperately afraid of what she’d find. Whatever mysticism gave Garin his extended lifespan also helped him heal more quickly than the average individual, but a sucking chest wound was serious even for him.

The black face of a bulletproof vest stared back at her.

“Thank God,” she said.

“Can’t keep your hands off me, huh?”

Annja glanced up to find Garin watching her with an amused look on his face.

“You bastard!” she said, backing up to give him some room. “I thought you were shot.”

He coughed, grimaced and said, “I was. That’s how I ended up on the floor, remember?” He pulled himself up into a nearby chair, then indicated Annja should put on one of the headsets hanging off the nearby bulkhead as he reached to do the same.

She did as instructed and she heard him telling the pilot to head for his Frankfurt house.

“What about your men?” she asked.

“They’ll be fine. They’ll neutralize the threat and then disperse as necessary. Don’t worry, they know what they are doing.”

The flight lasted about half an hour. Annja was too worn out to say much and Garin kept his thoughts to himself, which was fine with her. She was still surprised at his sudden appearance and previous experience had her wondering what else he was keeping from her.

As was typical of both Garin and Roux, the “house” could more accurately be labeled a mansion, with two large wings extending off the main building. The pilot set them down on a helipad atop the roof without issue.

Once inside, Garin led Annja to a private suite in the west wing of the house and suggested that she meet him in the den after showering and changing into more practical clothes.

She was all too happy to oblige.

The suite was beautifully decorated, with a luxurious king-size bed and a sunken tub that one could probably swim in. She eyed it enviously for a moment and then decided that a hot shower might be more practical.

She looked around for the clothes Garin had mentioned and found an array of styles and sizes in the wardrobe and the walk-in closet. She stared at all of them for a moment, wondering just who they belonged to. The styles were all quite current, so it couldn’t have been one of Garin’s lovers from ages past. Perhaps he just kept a well-stocked wardrobe of women’s clothing available for whenever one of his companions might need it?

She wouldn’t put it past him.

Annja sought out the most practical outfit she could, which wasn’t easy given most of the clothing was designed to be skintight or extremely revealing. In one of the drawers, however, she found a pair of cargo pants and paired them with a black T-shirt.

She took a hot shower, scrubbing the last of the river grime from her body, and then dressed in the clothes she’d found. They fit her as if they had been custom tailored. That made her speculate that perhaps they actually had been, which took her down all kinds of roads she didn’t want to think about. She found socks in the wardrobe drawers and saw more shoes than she’d ever seen anywhere outside of a shoe store in the closet, including a pair of hiking boots that looked like they’d fit reasonably well. She decided to pad around shoeless for the moment.

Feeling pretty much back to her usual self, she wandered out of the bedroom suite and went in search of Garin.

She found him in the den, dressed casually in jeans and a loose-fitting shirt.

Annja didn’t bother with pleasantries. She’d been patient; now it was time to get to the bottom of things.

“What were you doing at Berceau de solitude?”

Garin stared at her.

Misinterpreting his silence, she said, “The monastery, Garin, the monastery.”

His reply was in perfect French. “I understood you perfectly, Annja. I was simply distracted by the notion that I think you looked better in that brown robe of yours.”

Typical Garin.

In the same language, she replied. “And that’s just about what I’d expect from a bore like yourself. Shall we do this all night?”

Garin laughed, a deep baritone that filled the room with his pleasure.

“Always the feisty one,” he said, switching back to English. He held up his hands, palms out. “I surrender, Annja. You win. Please, sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”

She did as he asked, taking a seat on the couch opposite where he sat and curled her legs up underneath her. The room was furnished in post-modern minimalist, it seemed—all black and chrome functionality with little that wasn’t absolutely needed. The couch, however, proved to be surprisingly comfortable.

Garin gave her a frank look for a long moment and then answered her original question. “I was at the Cradle of Solitude because of you, Annja.”

She raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything, waiting for him to expand on his remark.

“As I’m sure you realize, information is power and much of Dragontech’s success comes from the fact that we have greater access to more detailed information than our competitors.”

Or your enemies, she thought.

“We monitor a wide variety of communication channels through several different processes, looking for certain words or phrases that can give us a leg up in our business dealings. After you came along and claimed the sword, your name was one of the terms I asked our monitors to watch for. As the emergency response lines are one of the frequencies we monitor, when you gave your name to the 1-1-2 operator this afternoon, the call was flagged and sent to my attention.”

So that’s how he always seems to keep tabs on me, she thought.

“No sooner had word of your call been relayed to me than we intercepted another transmission, this one from a cell phone tower in Paris, which also mentioned you by name. That was a tape of that call I played for you earlier.”

Annja suddenly had an image of Garin sitting amid a bank of computer monitors, listening to signals bounced down from satellites all around the world. Shades of Big Brother. It was just a bit creepy to think that a man with Garin Braden’s resources was intentionally keeping regular watch over her.

Garin went on. “I tried to reach you by cell phone to warn you of the problem, but was unable to do so. As my team and I were already here in Frankfurt, I made the decision to attempt to warn you in person. It would seem I arrived just in time.”

His story had the ring of truth to it. He hadn’t been able to reach her on her cell because by then it was lying at the bottom of the river somewhere; she’d had it in her pocket when she made the leap off the roof. The distance from Frankfurt to the monastery was about half an hour air time, which would have put his arrival in the right time frame for him to have intercepted and then reacted to her emergency call.

Given what they’d been through in the past, it wasn’t a big surprise that she hadn’t trusted him right off the bat. In the early days, he’d tried to kill her on more than one occasion. Lately, though, he seemed to have come to peace with the fact that she wasn’t going to surrender the sword to his control willingly and had gone from being a threat to an occasional ally and, dare she say it, even a friend.

One thing was for certain, no one could ever say her life wasn’t complicated.

“What, exactly, are you caught up in this time, Annja?” he asked.

Deciding to take him into her confidence, she told him everything that had happened to her since leaving the dojo the morning before.

He listened silently until she got around to describing the note Parker had left for Sykes, then interrupted.

“The FotS? You’re certain that’s what it said?”

She was. She no longer had the letter, but her recall of anything she’d read was quite good and she was certain she had it down word for word.

“That’s interesting. I wonder…?”

Before she could ask what it was he was wondering about, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the speed dial key.

“Griggs? Dig up whatever we have on the Friends of the South and bring it to me, please.”

He closed the phone and gave her his attention once more. “Go on.”

She finished out the rest of the tale, describing the letter the puzzle box had contained and her belief that it led to the missing Confederate treasure.

In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought. She’d trusted him this far so letting him know her ultimate objective—recovery of the treasure—wasn’t all that big a risk. Besides, Garin knew her pretty well and would sense that there was a bigger motive behind it all than just identifying the remains.

His next comment showed that was true.