by Alex Archer
“The sword wasn’t in pieces when it disappeared,” Annja told them. “Aren’t you listening?”
“It was in pieces,” Roux growled. “I saw them.”
“I took the sword from the case—”
“Those pieces disappeared while they were still inside the case,” Roux snapped. “I watched them.”
“Then you didn’t see what happened.” Annja blew out her breath angrily. “The sword was whole.”
Roux turned to Henshaw. “What did you see?”
“The sword was fragmented when it disappeared, Mr. Roux,” Henshaw said. “Just as it was when you first showed it to me. Never in one piece.”
“There you have it,” Roux declared angrily. “All of us saw the sword in pieces.”
“No,” Annja said. “You didn’t see it properly.”
“You’re imagining things.” Roux sank into the huge chair behind the big desk. He regarded her intently. “Tell us what happened.”
“I reached into the case for the sword—”
“Why?” Garin asked.
“Because I wanted to feel the weight of the haft,” Annja answered. She didn’t feel comfortable talking about the compulsion that had moved her to action. “As I touched the sword hilt, the pieces fit themselves together.”
“By themselves?” Roux asked dubiously.
“I didn’t move them.”
“She didn’t have time to fit the pieces together,” Garin said. “You, on the other hand, have had time. And I’ll bet nothing like this happened while you were trying to put those pieces together.”
After a moment, Roux growled irritably, “No.”
“Something happened to the sword fragments,” Garin said.
“It was whole,” Annja said again. She could still see the sword in her mind’s eye. It felt as if she could almost touch it.
But neither of the men was listening to her.
“Five hundred years, Garin.” Roux leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “Over five hundred years. I searched everywhere for that sword, for those pieces. Now they’re all gone.”
Garin’s voice was gentle and kind. He didn’t sound like someone who had tried to kill Roux.
Of course, Annja decided, he didn’t sound insane, either, and he had to be. Both of them had to be.
Roux stared at the empty case.
“Once I had them all together, something should have happened,” Roux complained bitterly.
“It disappeared,” Garin said. He looked relieved.
“It wasn’t supposed to do that,” Roux argued.
“You said you didn’t know what it would do.”
“Wait.” Annja held her hands up and stepped between them. “Time out.”
They gave her their attention.
“Who told you to find the sword?” For the moment, Annja decided to go along with their delusion or outright lie that they had seen Joan of Arc carry the sword.
“I don’t know,” Roux said.
The old man shrugged. “Joan was one of God’s chosen. A champion of light and good. It was my duty.”
Annja breathed deeply and tried not to freak. The situation was getting even crazier.
An alarm erupted, dispelling the heavy silence that fell over the room.
Immediately, a section of the wall to the left of the computer desk split apart and revealed sixteen security monitors in four rows. Ghostly gray images sprinted across the landscaping outside the big house.
“Intruders,” Roux said.
The intruders wore familiar black robes and carried swords that flashed in the pale moonlight. They also came armed with assault rifles and pistols.
A security guard took up a position beside the house and fired at the monks. Almost immediately, a monk with an assault rifle chopped him down, then turned and came toward the house.
The new arrivals began targeting the security cameras. One by one, the monitors inside Roux’s study went dark.
Galvanized into action, the old man ran for the vault. “Who the hell are they?” he shouted.
“Monks,” Garin replied.
“Monks?” Roux took an H&K MP-5 submachine pistol from the vault, shoved a full magazine into it and released the receiver to set the first round under the firing pin.
Annja was familiar with the weapon from the training she’d received.
“Some kind of warrior monks from the looks of them,” Garin added. “Like the Jesuits. With better firepower.”
“What are monks doing attacking my home?” Roux asked.
“In Lozère, they were looking for the woman,” Garin said. After a brief glance at Roux’s armory, he took down a Mossberg semiautomatic shotgun with a pistol grip and smiled like a boy on Christmas morning. He shoved boxes of shells into his jacket pockets.
Roux turned his gaze on Annja, who stood panicked and confused.
“Do you prefer a short gun or long gun, Miss Creed?” Henshaw asked. He had two rifles slung over his shoulders and was buckling a pistol around his waist.
“Pistols,” Annja said, thinking that they would be more useful in the closed-in areas of the big house.
Henshaw handed her a SIG-Sauer .40-caliber semiautomatic with a black matte finish.
“I thought I saw another one in there,” Annja said.
For the first time that night, Henshaw smiled. “Bless your heart, dear lady.” He handed her a second pistol, then outfitted her with a bulletproof vest with pockets for extra magazines.
Roux buckled himself into a Kevlar vest, as well. “I don’t suppose they’re here to negotiate?” he asked rhetorically.
The lights went out. For a moment blackness filled the room. Then emergency generators kicked to life and some light returned.
Roux clapped on a Kevlar helmet. “What the bloody hell do these monks want?”
“Their mark was on the back of the charm,” Annja said. “What do you think the chances are?”
“I think I should have paid more attention to that damned charm. Giving it back to them before was merely out of the question. Now that option appears gone for good.”
“This house is pretty well fortified,” Garin said as he saw to his own protection.
“Thank you,” Roux said. “I tried to see that it was well-appointed.”
“Do you think they can get through the front door?”
A sudden explosion shuddered through the house with a deafening roar.
Roux touched a hidden button on his desk. The dark monitors, powered by generator, came back on. This time the views were from inside the house.
On one of the screens, a dozen monks poured through the shattered remains of the elegant front door. They opened fire at once.
“Yes,” Roux declared. “I believe they can.” He picked up the submachine pistol.
“Do you have an escape route?” Garin asked.
“I recall having escaped from your assassins on a number of occasions.”
Garin scowled. “This isn’t a good time to revisit past transgressions.”
“Then you’ll warn me before you transgress again?” Roux asked.
Garin remained silent.
“I didn’t think so,” Roux said. “Henshaw?”
“Yes, sir.” The butler stood only a short distance away, always positioned so that Garin couldn’t take him and his master out at one time with a single shotgun blast.
“You know what to do if this bastard shoots me,” Roux said.
“He won’t live to see the outcome, sir.”
“Right.” Roux smiled. He took the lead with Garin at his heels as if they’d done it for years.
At the wall beside the security monitors, the old man pushed against an inset decorative piece. A section of the wall yawned open and revealed a narrow stairwell lit by fluorescent tubes.
“Where does it go?” Garin asked.
“All the way up to the third floor. Once there, we can escape onto the hillside. I’ve got a jeep waiting there that should serve as an escape vehicle
.” Roux stepped into the stairwell and started up the steps.
Garin followed immediately, having to turn slightly because he was so broad.
Two monks dashed into the study and raised their rifles.
Calmly, Henshaw pulled the heavy British assault rifle to his shoulder and fired twice, seemingly without even taking the time to aim. Each round struck a monk in the head, splattering the priceless antiques behind them with gore.
Before the dead men could fall, Henshaw had a hand in the middle of Annja’s back. “Off you go, Miss Creed. Step lively, if you please.” He sounded as pleasant as if they were out for an evening stroll.
Annja went, stumbling over the first couple steps, then running for all she was worth. The door closed behind them. Her breath sounded loud in her ears as she rapidly caught up with Garin. Gunshots sounded behind her, muffled by the door, and she knew the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain was tearing up Roux’s study.
All of this over a charm? Annja couldn’t believe it. The charm was hiding something, but she had no clue what.
THE TUNNEL ENDED against the sloped side of the roof. Roux sprung some catches and shoved the hatch open.
Through the opening, Annja stood on the roof and gazed around. The pistols felt heavy in her hands. Cooled by the breeze skating along the trees behind the house, she surveyed the area. Shouts echoed from inside the tunnel as their pursuers followed.
“Here.” Roux ran toward the tree line where the house butted into the hill. There, barely lit by the moon, a trail whipsawed across the granite bones of the land. “Another two hundred yards and we’ll reach the jeep.”
At that moment, shadows separated from the trees and became black-robed monks.
Garin swore coarsely. “These guys are everywhere!” The shotgun came to his shoulder and he started firing at once, going forward after Roux all the same.
Annja fired, as well, but she didn’t know if she hit anything or just added to the general confusion. Bullets pocked the rooftop, tearing shingles away at her feet.
Another round hit her, slamming into her high on the shoulder. The Kevlar vest did its job and didn’t allow the bullet to penetrate, but the blunt trauma knocked her down all the same.
She fought her way back to her feet, stayed low and moved forward. When her second pistol fired dry, she whirled behind a tree, shoved the first one up under her arm to free her hand and reloaded the second. She was reloading the first when a monk leaped out of the shadows in front of her.
His face was dark and impassive. “We have come only for the charm,” he said in a quiet, deadly voice. “That’s all. You may live.”
“I don’t have it,” Annja said as she brought the pistols up.
He leaped at her, his sword held high for a killing stroke.
Crossing the pistol barrels over her head, hoping she wasn’t about to lose her fingers, Annja blocked the descending blade. When she was certain the sword had stopped short of splitting her skull and lopping her hands off, she snap-kicked the man in the groin, then again in the chest to knock him back from her.
Before Annja could get away, two more monks surrounded her. They didn’t intend to use swords, though. They held pistols.
“Move and you die,” one of them warned.
Annja froze.
“Drop the pistols.”
She did, but her mind was flying, looking for any escape route.
One of the monks spun suddenly, his face coming apart in crimson ruin. The bark of the gunshot followed almost immediately.
The surviving monks turned to face the new threat. Muzzle-flashes ripped at the night and lit their hard-planed faces.
Garin fired the shotgun again, aiming at the nearest target. The monk moved just ahead of the lethal hail of pellets that tore bark from the tree behind him.
While the attention was off her, Annja stooped and scooped up the pistols. Just as she lifted them, a monk rushed Garin from the rear, following his sword.
“Behind you!” Annja pointed the pistols toward the monk, but Garin swung around into her line of fire.
The sword sliced through Garin’s black leather jacket. Coins and the keys to his car glittered in the moonlight as they spilled out. Catching the man on the end of the shotgun’s barrel, Garin loosed a savage yell and fired.
Trapped against the body with nowhere for the expanding gases to go, the shotgun recoil was magnified. Caught while turning on the soft loam, Garin went down under the monk’s body. Carried by the forward momentum he’d built up, almost ripped in half by the shotgun blast, the dead man wrapped his arms around Garin’s upper body.
Shouting curses, Garin rolled out from under the corpse and pushed himself to his feet. Gunshots slapped against his chest. Another cut the side of his face and blood wept freely. He pulled the shotgun to his shoulder and tried to fire, but it was empty.
He looked at Annja. “Run!” Then he sped up the mountainside as fast as he could go.
Annja tried to follow. Before she went more than ten feet, the arriving monks turned on her. The escape route was cut off. She didn’t know if Garin was going to make it before he was overtaken.
Metal glinted on the ground only a few feet away. Even as she recognized what the object was, she was firing both pistols, chasing the monks back into hiding. It was a brief respite at best.
When both SIG-Sauers blasted empty, she dropped the pistol from her left hand and scooped up Garin’s keys amid the scattered change lying on the ground. Then she turned and ran back down the mountain. Garin’s car, almost as heavily armored as a tank, still sat out in front of the main house. If she could reach the car, she thought she had a chance.
18
“Stop her but do not kill her!”
As she ran, Annja knew the command gave her a slight edge over the monks pursuing her. She didn’t try running back onto the roof of the house. Monks were already taking up perimeter positions atop it.
Instead, Annja ran for the side of the house. When she was past the house’s edge, she put the car fob between her teeth, shifted the pistol to her left hand and used her right to drag against the house. Her fingers clutched and tore at ivy as she began the steep descent.
She ran faster and faster, gaining speed as gravity reached for her and she raced to keep up the pace by lengthening her stride. But in the end she didn’t have a stride long enough to remain in control.
Somewhere past the second story, Annja’s foot slipped on a rock, her hand tore through the clinging ivy and she grabbed a handful of air.
She fell.
Tumbling end over end, unable to control either her speed or her direction, Annja gathered a collection of bruises and scrapes. She landed with a force that left her breathless.
Get up! she willed herself. Somehow, her body obeyed, pushing, shoving, working even though she felt as if she’d been broken into pieces. Incredibly, her knees came up and she was driving her feet hard against the ground.
Bullets slammed into the house beside her and into the ground. A man stepped out of the darkness ahead of her. She brought her pistol up automatically and fired for the center of his body. The bullets hit him and drove him back.
She was around the house and running for all she was worth. Shadows closed in around her. She couldn’t help wondering how many members belonged to the Silent Rain monastery.
She thought of the sword in her hand. The look and feel of it, the weight, it was almost there. As if she could reach out and touch it.
Everyone around her seemed to be moving in slow motion. But she moved at full speed.
Bullets thudded into the ground where she’d been. She moved more quickly than the monks could compensate. When she saw Garin’s Mercedes, monks flanked it, standing at either end. One stood on the hood of the car and raised an assault rifle.
She didn’t hesitate; there was nowhere else to go. Pointing the pistol, never breaking stride, she found she’d fired it dry. Knowing that if she turned away she would only be an easier target, she ran straig
ht toward the monk and leaped, sliding across the car’s hood and knocking her opponent from his feet as he fired over her head.
Landing on the other side of the car in a confusing tangle of arms and legs, she fought free and stood. The man standing at the rear of the car tried to turn but he was too slow. She swung the empty pistol at the base of his skull and knocked him out.
As the man fell, she stepped forward and delivered a roundhouse kick to the monk in front of the car. Her foot caught him in the chest and knocked him backward several feet.
Annja was too scared to be amazed. Adrenaline, she told herself. She’d never kicked anyone that hard in her life.
She slid behind the wheel, keyed the ignition and heard the powerful engine roar to life, and shoved it into gear. The rear wheels spun and caught traction, then she was hurtling forward.
The front gates were still locked. Annja mentally crossed her fingers and hoped that the armored car was sufficient for the task. As she drove into the gate, she ducked her head behind her arms and hung on to the steering wheel.
For a moment, it sounded as if the world were coming to an end. An ugly image of her trapped and burning in the car filled her head. Fire had always been one of her greatest fears.
The car shuddered and jerked. Then, miraculously, it powered through the broken, sagging tangle of gates. Sparks flared around her as the car rode roughshod over the gates. She was on the other side, fighting the sudden fishtailing as the car lunged briefly out of control.
She cut the wheels just short of the trees at the side of the road and managed to keep the Mercedes pointed in the right direction. One of the headlights was broken—she could tell that from the monocular view of the road—but she could see well enough with the other.
She hoped Garin, Roux and Henshaw had made it to safety, but she had no intention of trying to find them. She’d had enough craziness for now.
Switching on the car’s GPS program, she quickly punched in directions to Paris. She was catching the first flight to New York she could find.
ANNJA BOUGHT a change of clothes—a pink I Love Paris sweatshirt and black sweatpants—a black cap she tucked her hair into and black wraparound sunglasses at a truck stop outside Paris. They were tourist clothes, overpriced and gaudy. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but wearing her own clothes was out of the question. Somewhere along the way she’d gotten someone’s blood on them. She left them in the trash in the bathroom.
