The Mortality Principle

by Alex Archer

  “Talk to me,” she said. “Anything, just stay with me. We’ll get you out of here, then we’ll have to regroup and think. This changes everything.”

  “No,” he said. “Just…give me a few…”

  “Your leg’s a mess. It’s broken. Badly. It’ll need splinting. Setting. It’s going to be a while before you’re fit for the fight.”

  Roux shook his head. He looked ghastly in the pale light, groggy, but he was hanging in there. “Just get me to the air. Then…set the bone. I’m walking out of here…under my own…steam.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Don’t argue with me, girl.”

  It took a minute to work her way back to the shaft. She gently set Roux down, leaning his back against the wall, then tore the strips of cloth away from the bloody mess where the bone had pierced the skin. “I’m going to need something to splint it.”

  “No. Just pull the bone. Get it back into place.”

  It was going to be agony. And she had nothing he could bite down on. “But—”

  “Just do as I say.”

  Annja crouched in front of Roux, placing her hands on either side of the jagged end of the bone. It was a bad break. It would almost certainly need pinning, and he’d be walking with a limp for a long time—if not the rest of his life.

  She nodded. “Ready? On three. One…” Then she pulled down hard, twisting the bone until the edges locked back into place. Roux’s screams were unbearable. Raw. Broken. He gasped, panting hard, sweating, when she was done.

  “Now…we…wait.”

  “I can’t. Garin’s still out there.”

  “Then help me stand.”

  “Are you insane? Your leg is broken. It’ll never hold your weight.”

  “Then we wait. That is the choice.”

  “I can’t,” she said helplessly.

  Roux reached up, his hand closing around the pitted iron of the bottom rung on the ladder, and with colossal effort and willpower, he began to draw himself upward, careful to put no weight on his damaged leg. Annja stared at him like he was out of his mind. Roux twisted, then reached up with his other hand for the rung above, and began to climb without using his feet, lifting himself toward the light one rung at a time.

  Annja kept herself a few rungs behind him, ready to catch him if he fell.

  As he approached the top, a hand reached over the edge and helped haul him out.

  A few moments later the same hand reached down toward Annja, and she was glad to accept it.

  Lars stepped back to give her space to climb from the shaft. From the low angle she saw Roux’s leg. The skin had already healed around the wound, and the blood had dried into rusty brown flakes. The scar tissue was raw and pink. She looked up at the old man standing there, trying to understand how he could possibly be on his own two feet after what had just happened to him.

  His trousers were in a worse state than his leg.

  Annja shook her head. She knew her own metabolism was capable of crazy things when it came to recovery, but she’d never seen anything like this. The bone and tissue had meshed, essentially healing itself, if not as good as new, then more than adequately, in just a few minutes.

  “Can you walk?” she asked, feeling stupid as she posed the question.

  “The bone will be weak for a while.”

  “Okay, then lean on me. We need to get you somewhere you can sit. We need to take stock.”

  The old man nodded.

  “Hell of a show you put on,” the cameraman said, grinning approvingly.

  Annja kicked the grille back into place and dusted herself down. It was going to take a lot more than that to make her feel clean.

  “You didn’t find Garin?”

  “No. But I found something in the observatory—the killer’s coat. It was draped over the back of a chair. There was nothing else in the room except for a bunch of tools spread out over a bench.”

  “Then where has he gone?” Roux asked, leaning on her as they walked back down the bank to the main road.

  “He’s got to be in there,” Annja said. “He didn’t go out past you, did he, Lars?”

  “No,” the cameraman confirmed. “No one came out through the main gates when I was watching.”

  “So that means he’s got to still be inside the castle,” Annja said, as if the absence of one thing proved the presence of the other.

  “No,” Roux said categorically. “He’s not in there.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because cars don’t drive themselves.”

  He was right. There was an empty space in the row of parked cars where Garin’s sports car had been.

  40

  Had it been there when she’d gone underground after Roux?

  She didn’t know and couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed before, but now that she had, it stood out like a raw wound in the heart of the street.

  “I guess I missed him,” Lars admitted, shrugging. “But I could have sworn he didn’t come out this way. It was chaos out here, though, and I wasn’t checking the cars. I didn’t even know which one was his.”

  “But you were recording?” Roux asked.

  “Absolutely. Primed to get some footage of the panic. Most of the shots covered the castle, the crowd, the emergency vehicles as they arrived. That sort of stuff.”

  “And the street?” Annja interrupted. “You must have got some shots that would have included the car, or lack of. We might get lucky.”

  It took them only a matter of minutes to make their way to Annja’s car, even with Roux leaning heavily on Annja every step of the way. Lars hooked the camera up to a portable monitor and spooled through the footage, slowing only when the street was in the frame.

  “There it is,” Annja said when they caught the first sight of Garin’s car still parked a short walk away from the café. She checked the time stamp. It was only a few minutes before the explosion-driven exodus. “Keep going.”

  They watched as people moved at double speed and triple speed.

  A crowd began to form as if in stop-motion animation.

  The camera panned across the street, following the fire truck now as it moved quickly toward the cameraman’s position, coming to a shuddering halt at the gates, then disappearing through the gates after they opened with almost comic timing.

  An instant later a blur of red pulled away from the curb, barely caught in the motion of the camera.

  “Stop,” Annja said. Lars froze the frame, then spooled back so that they could take a closer look at it. Slowly he moved the image forward a couple of frames at a time until the Ferrari was in the center of the screen. He froze it again.

  Like it or not, that was Garin in the driver’s seat.

  “I’m going to finish him this time,” Roux said, shaking his head.

  She thought he meant Garin, but looking at the face of the passenger he could just as easily have meant him. She didn’t want to ask.

  “That’s…” Lars said. “That face… That’s the thing from your phone, isn’t it?”

  He was right.

  Two people in the car. Garin and the killer.

  There was nothing to suggest Garin was a prisoner or victim in all of this.

  “I’m through with him, Annja. This is it. It ends here. No forgiveness. No wheedling his way back pretending to be friends. I’m done.”

  Had Roux been right all along? The thought made her feel sick. She’d believed in him. Even against all the evidence, she’d been absolutely sure Garin wouldn’t betray them again.

  “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” she said, and she meant it.

  “We find one, we find the other,” Roux said flatly.

  “Where, though? All we know is they went that way.” She pointed the way that the Ferrari had gone. From the end of the street the road connected with every possible destination in the world. Garin had a head start on them and a faster car. She checked the time stamp. He had the best part of an hour’s h
ead start. The top speed on the Ferrari was a little over two hundred miles per hour, but there was no way he could hit that kind of speed on tight country roads. But when they got to the freeways, he could be out of the country before they’d even started chasing him.

  “We’ll take a leaf out of that duplicitous bastard’s book,” Roux said.

  He fished his cell phone from his pocket and made a call, wincing at the stab of pain the movement drew. “Owen?” He nodded as though expecting the man on the other end of the line to see the gesture, then said, “I need you to track a car for me… Yes, it’s a sports car. I don’t know the model or the license plate… Yes, I understand there are a lot of sports cars in the world, and yes, I understand that I’m not giving you a lot to work with. I’m aware that a VIN would be helpful, but it’s not my job to be helpful. I’m paying you so that I don’t need to be. The car is either registered to Garin Braden, or one of the shell companies he has a holding in, or hired by him from one of the international brokers around Prague and the surrounds… Yes, I am aware that it’s like looking for the proverbial needle, but you’re an industrious guy, and I’m sure you can do it. I believe Ferrari uses onboard trackers to help with finding vehicles after they have been stolen… GPS and GMS tracking? CobraTrak? I’m sure you are right, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. Get back to me when you have found it.”

  Roux killed the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “He moaned a lot, said it would take as long as it takes, but that he’d find it if it was there to be found, so now we wait.”

  “I’m impressed,” Annja said. “He’d expect us to track his phone, not the Ferrari’s security. That was smart.”

  “I’ve lived a long time, Annja. You learn some tricks when you get to be a gray beard. What do you say we hit this road and see where it leads?”

  Annja didn’t need to be asked twice.

  In her rearview mirror she could see the castle’s manager standing in the street, gesticulating animatedly as he talked with a police officer. She could guess what he was complaining about. Time to get out of there. Turek wouldn’t be happy, turning up to find them already gone, but there was nothing she could do about that. He was a big boy. Annja keyed the ignition, then gunned the engine into life. She pulled away without using the blinker, throwing a backward glance at the castle as she peeled away from the curb.

  She might never learn the rest of the Benátky castle’s secrets, but they had a killer to catch, and that took precedence.

  It took a thief to catch a thief—that was the old saying. Did that mean it took a killer to catch a killer? Was that what Garin was doing? Putting himself in harm’s way in order to bring down the killer? It was better than the alternative, but that wasn’t as comforting as it might have been.

  41

  The call came through as she was driving.

  Roux put his phone on speaker so she could hear what Owen had to say.

  “It wasn’t easy,” the hacker said, his voice a tinny crackle. “But because I’m a genius and specialize in making the impossible possible, I’ve got him.” Annja knew the voice. She couldn’t say for sure who it belonged to, but she got the distinct impression she’d talked to the guy before—almost certainly on Garin’s behalf. Roux had used one of Garin’s hackers to track Garin. Not only was Roux using his own tricks against Garin, he was using his own people. This was a more devious Roux than she was used to. “I’ll send you a package. All you need to do is click on it. It’ll self-install and execute, giving you access to the Cobra system. You can follow him to your heart’s content, and if you really want to mess with him, you can isolate his engine.”

  “As in disable it?”

  “As in exactly that. Did you know a few years ago there was even talk about putting thin metal threads in the seat fabric so you could theoretically send an electric pulse through the seat if someone stole the car?”

  “You mean electrocute the car thief?”

  “Yep, and get this, the doors would be on autolock so they’d keep getting shocked until the cops turned up.”

  “That’s twisted,” Annja said.

  “I thought it was quite clever,” the hacker replied.

  “We keep this between ourselves,” Roux stated.

  “Absolutely, business is business. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Isn’t that what they say?”

  “That depends if you have rats that need getting rid of,” Roux said, and ended the call.

  Annja had no idea if the other man had heard, or if Roux had intended for him to hear. Roux had called Garin a lot worse than a rat, but mention of getting rid of him reinforced the bad feeling she’d had earlier when he’d promised to finish him. She couldn’t believe Roux really meant it. She knew they’d had their issues—issues that had lasted centuries and had culminated in duels and assassination attempts and a personal war that had raged all across the Theater of Europe, but neither man had actually gone through with it all the way to delivering the killing blow.

  Would Roux do it now?

  She didn’t want to believe that he was capable of it.

  The problem was that she knew he was.

  The notion frightened her.

  Annja kept her eyes on the road while Roux fiddled with his phone. There was a soft ping when the package came through. A minute later, Roux said, “Got him.”

  “Where?”

  “A long way from here. He’s driving like the devil’s on his heels. He’s already out on the other side of Prague.”

  “Where the hell is he going?” Annja asked, earning a smile from Lars.

  “Hell sounds pretty appropriate if it’s the devil chasing him.” Roux grunted. “But it looks like Turek was on the money.”

  “How? He went to the Polish border? That’s the opposite direction.”

  “He went to the border,” Lars said. “He just went to the wrong one.” He was looking at the red dot on Roux’s phone. “If he stays on that road, it’ll take him out of the country.”

  “Germany? Or does it go south into Austria?” Her sudden grasp of European geography was due to the fact that she’d taken a glance at a map back at the hotel.

  “Germany,” Lars said. “He’ll cross the border at Waidhaus, and judging by the speed he’s clocking, he’ll be there inside the hour. The way Granny Annie here is driving, we’ll be there in about three.”

  That earned the Swede a withering look, but Annja took the point and pushed her foot flat to the floor.

  “We have a problem, though. I don’t have my passport with me,” the cameraman said. “We’ll need to stop by the hotel so I can grab it.”

  “No time,” Roux told him. “Whatever he’s up to, he’s got an hour on us and is making more time with every passing mile. Once he hits the autobahn, he can go twice as fast as us. We can’t afford to give him any more of an advantage, sorry.”

  “We can’t just throw him out of the car,” Annja protested.

  “Of course not,” Roux said. “I’m not suggesting that. We’ll drop him where he can hitch a ride back to the city. He doesn’t look like a serial killer. He should be just fine.”

  “I am here, you know,” the cameraman said. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

  “Call Turek,” Annja told Lars. “Let him know what’s happening. Get him to pick you up on the way. Stop off at your hotel and stay in touch. I’ll text you directions.”

  Lars sulked. “That’s better than being tossed in the gutter. Marginally.”

  “Don’t be a drama queen,” Roux said. “You’re not helpless. And this isn’t a DMZ. You’ll be fine.”

  Annja eyed Lars in the rearview mirror. He didn’t seem thrilled with Roux’s idea, but there was no logical alternative. He was unhappy that he hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring his passport to Benátky. That was amateurish. He’d worked with Annja enough to know exactly what the job entailed. The watchwords were Go with the flow.

  “I used to like you, you know,” he said, shaking his head a
s he slumped back in his seat. He rested one hand on the camera case that sat beside him.

  Annja gave him a warm smile, and then concentrated on the road.

  A signpost indicated an upcoming tram stop.

  It was as good a place as any to drop him.

  Annja pulled over. Lars didn’t try particularly hard to hide the sulk when he got out of the car. He hauled the camera case out after him.

  “You’ll miss me when I’m gone,” he said. “Keep me in the loop. We need everything we can get for the show. Remember that when you’re off saving the world or whatever it is you do when I’m not looking.”

  He patted the case before he closed the car door and waved her off.

  Lars was right. She needed him if this segment was going to save the show, but short of someone dying live on air she couldn’t see anything saving the show. It was defeatist, she knew, but that was just how she felt right now. Maybe she should have listened to Doug and put on the bikini once in a while.

  She barked out a short sharp laugh, earning a frown from Roux. “Let’s go catch us a killer.”

  She pulled away from the curbside and worked her way back to the road she had come off, putting her foot down as soon as they merged with the faster moving traffic.

  “We’ve lost time,” Roux said bluntly.

  Everyone in her life had suddenly become so wise.

  “We couldn’t have left him at the border when he couldn’t produce his passport.”

  “The Czech Republic is part of the European Union. Germany’s part of the union. I doubt there’s even a border patrol.”

  “Then why make the fuss about dropping him off at the border?”

  “I wanted him out of the car. This is about us. You, me and Garin. I don’t want to be worrying about strangers getting in the way. This isn’t going to end well, Annja. You know that, don’t you?”

  “What if you’re wrong? What if Garin’s not in on this whole thing?”

  “You’re too sentimental,” Roux said. “But then that’s always been your problem. It’s why you’ve never reached your full potential.”