The Other Crowd

by Alex Archer

  “I think so,” he said. “Can’t be certain without a scope.”

  Neville’s jet-black hair sprouted thickly on his head. It was short and spiked straight out. A thick black goatee and soul patch covered his narrow chin. Armani in the Irish countryside seemed out of place, and the diamond cuff links screamed “outsider,” but he made it work. Slater had seen more eccentric studies walking the Russian tundra, so Neville didn’t really surprise him.

  Neville turned to his driver and snapped his fingers. “Hand me that rifle.”

  The driver handed over a Rangemaster .50 caliber.

  Neville lifted the rifle before him and sighted through the scope. The rifle was heavy, but he managed it easily enough.

  “Easy now, mate,” Slater said when Neville fingered the trigger.

  “I’m using it to see,” Neville said. “Dark hair, slender body, wearing cargo pants and T-shirt like the rest of the dig slaves usually wear. You said she’s a television host?”

  “I didn’t.” Slater wasn’t sure how Neville had gotten the information about Annja Creed being on-site. He hadn’t reported it to him. That sort of information would have only set Neville off. As was apparent from his presence. But so far Neville hadn’t mentioned the discrepancy on his part.

  “It’s a silly American show that talks about monsters. They’re filming an episode on faeries. She’s no worry,” Slater said.

  “And yet she’s still here. There’s no dig to film now. I asked you to get rid of her.”

  “You wanted me to clear out the other camp. I did so. She’s not officially aligned with the dig.” That Neville kept the rifle sighted and ready to aim made Slater’s muscles tic.

  “Wesley Pierce is still there.”

  “He’s packing up.”

  “Not fast enough.” Neville released the safety.

  “Settle down, Mr. Neville.”

  “Don’t bloody mother me, Slater.”

  “You can’t shoot him. The woman is standing right there.”

  “Yeah? Maybe the nosy bird will get the hint.”

  Neville pulled the trigger.

  “I CAN GIVE YOU a ride into town,” Wesley said as he approached Annja with a bucket in each hand. “Annja, what are you—”

  She turned to see the left lens of his sunglasses shatter. Wesley’s head jerked backward. He dropped the buckets. Blood poured from his eye socket. The man’s knees wobbled, buckled, then he went down. His body hit the dirt.

  29

  Annja didn’t have to press two fingers to Wesley Pierce’s carotid artery to check for signs of life, but she did. No pulse.

  Had he died for the rough diamond he had found?

  Slater’s camp couldn’t have discovered a diamond mine; it was impossible in this country. Either Neville wasn’t aware of those odds, or he was curious to see what more he could find—and he wasn’t about to let anyone get in his way.

  The rough Wesley found had to be from a long-lost cache. It was difficult, in Annja’s mind, to place it to the mid-nineteenth century, as Wesley had. This area had been ravaged by the potato famine. If someone had owned diamonds, they wouldn’t have stuck around to starve to death; they would have headed to Dublin or even traveled out of the country to America.

  Could Wesley’s theory about the rough diamond being sewn into the skirt of a nineteenth-century woman be true? It was very possible she could have died over near the peat bog. It was also possible she could have been attacked by wolves. How many more roughs were to be found?

  The where and when didn’t matter. But the what did fit into the puzzle Annja held.

  If Frank Neville was trading guns for diamonds—or vice versa as diamonds were a commonly accepted currency in the world of arms dealing—then it made sense he’d be trying to obtain more diamonds. If they found one on-site, they wouldn’t leave a stone unturned.

  Annja slid her fingers from Wesley’s neck. She avoided looking at the hole in his skull. The man was kind, and had done nothing to warrant such violence.

  Without considering she could be next to take a bullet, she marched across the packed-dirt clearing toward the opposing camp.

  A black SUV spun out in a cloud of dust from the enemy camp. The delivery truck she’d seen parked there daily followed close behind. Someone had rallied the troops, and after committing murder they were hightailing it out of there.

  Right hand twitching wanting to hold her sword, she kept it out of sight until she needed it—if she needed it. The camp looked deserted, but she wouldn’t let down her guard. Her best bet was to get as close as possible to the one who wanted her dead.

  But did they want her dead? Wesley had seemed to fit the bill. He could have been used as a warning. Otherwise, she’d have a bullet hole in her head, too.

  After the times Slater had threatened her to leave she should have gotten the hint. But she hadn’t realized the real danger until now. This had initially been a query into missing people. Now homicide had entered the mix.

  Annja jogged down the rise that edged the pitoned-off dig square. The loamy earth bounced under her fast footsteps. She eyed the excavation square; they hadn’t dug down any farther than Wesley’s camp. The skeleton had been lifted. Had they found diamonds near the skeleton? It was very possible. They could be from the same time period as the rough Wesley found.

  She still thought it was strange, though, that the roughs were separated by such distance. But again, an animal could have easily moved the bones, as well as gotten what it thought was a rock in its maw and taken that along, too.

  No one was around, that she could see. The scent of dust and engine oil hung in the air.

  Stalking around the site, Annja aimed for the tents. Someone had to still be here. They wouldn’t just abandon the tents and equipment, would they?

  A hard impact against her shoulder clacked her jaws together. Shoved hard from the side, Annja stepped quickly to avoid stumbling. She righted herself before completely losing her balance and falling onto the spoil heap. A steely hand gripped her throat. She couldn’t swallow.

  “You really do have a death wish.”

  She shoved Slater off her with both palms to his shoulders and a heel to his shin. “You killed Wesley!”

  “That was Neville.” The man paced before her, flexing his fingers into fists. Trapped, or more like uncaged and ready to strike. His neck muscles were as tight as his voice. “And if you think he’s going to continue to let you traipse around filming his actions, you’re out of your mind. The next time you won’t get a warning, Creed.”

  “You call a bullet through a man’s brain a warning?”

  “Standing in your shoes, I would call it lucky. Now take your pretty little head—the one without a bullet hole in it—away from here and get yourself on the next flight to the States.”

  “I’m calling the gardai.”

  Slater put himself right before her, his chest shoving up hard against hers, his right hand going around behind his hip for what Annja knew was his pistol. “Did you not hear what I said?”

  “Yes, you laid the blame on someone else. You’re not going to get away with murder. Was Wesley’s life worth a few chunks of rough diamond?”

  “You think you know what’s going on?”

  “I can put two and two together. Rough diamonds have been found. Frank Neville is greedy to buy more guns.”

  Slater lifted his head, shaking it as he chuckled without mirth.

  Annja matched his steps, defying him to step away from her. “If I’m wrong, then you tell me what is right.”

  “Can’t do that.”

  She lunged for Slater and shoved him hard. He didn’t stand down.

  “Neville is an arms dealer,” she said.

  “Is that your guess?” He wasn’t going to give her anything.

  “I’m right. He’s been shipping small arms down the Bandon River to the Kinsale harbor. And he thinks he can find more rough diamonds to either fund his trade or buy more weapons.”

 
“Listen.” He gripped her by the hair. She couldn’t wrangle free and instead put her hands to his shoulders to loosen the pull on her scalp. “Every moment I have to deal with your idiocy, you are blowing my cover. If I have to babysit you one more day, I’d rather shoot you now and call it collateral damage.”

  “Like Wesley?”

  “I had no idea Neville was going to shoot him. He was scanning the camp using the scope on a sniper rifle. If I’d stopped him, then the jig would have been up and the whole operation would have gone tits up.”

  He gave her head a shove, releasing her hair.

  Sure the man wasn’t going to kill her, and even more curious than her safety required, Annja did not back down. Slater had said something interesting. “What cover?”

  He forced her backward a few paces with his urgent lunge. His eyes stormed. Annja stumbled until her heels connected with the finds table outside of the tent. Slater drew out his gun and pressed it under her chin. “How fast can you get out of town?”

  “Apparently not fast enough for you.”

  “Work with me here, Creed. There’s nothing for you on this particular section of land on this big island in the Irish Sea. You want some stupid television spot to impress your boss? You’re not going to get it here.”

  Not unless the faeries were transporting AK-47s. “What cover am I causing you to risk?”

  The man’s narrowed eyes searched hers. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dirt was smeared on his face. He stood at the edge of some mental precipice that plunged into malice. And most people standing at the end of a Walther P99 would take a huge step back, turn and run.

  Annja was not like most people. For good or for ill, she could not simply stand aside and allow whatever events Frank Neville and Michael Slater had brewed to occur. She had a young man to find. She would not return to the United States without Eric.

  “Tell me,” she said again. “Because I’m not going anywhere until I know the truth.”

  Slater chuckled sharply. He waved the gun around as he spoke, disregarding her uneasy flinches, or maybe that was the point. “If I tell you, you become the one person who can bring me down. I’d sooner shoot you than have that happen.”

  “You’ve mentioned more than a few times the threat about shooting me, but I think when it comes down to it, you won’t be able to pull the trigger.”

  Annja found herself staring down the imposing barrel of the Walther.

  “What if I have a diamond?” she tried. If the man was greedy, he’d spare her life until she could produce the prize. If not, she’d be surprised.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Wesley found a rough diamond over in his camp. He was showing it to me before he was brutally murdered.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ve got a handful of roughs myself. Chump change, Creed. There’s no diamond mine here. I tried to tell Neville it was a coincidence. They were from some robbery or a historical cache that got lost.”

  “You know about the country’s minerals?”

  “A bit. I know Ireland has never pulled diamonds out of the ground. Gold and zinc, yes. I’ve been working this case for six months. This is just a sidebar to the big deal. A deal I’m never going to crack with you spooking my mark.”

  “Your mark? Frank Neville? Who are you?”

  Now Slater pressed the gun barrel along his forehead and exhaled. The wince was either from the sun or the headache he likely labeled Annja Creed. He obviously didn’t know how to react to her stubbornness. He glared at her, and for a moment Annja felt his anxiety. He was holding a secret close, and she was irritating his grip.

  “You’re British Intelligence,” she guessed. “I thought you were military. You stick out like a sore thumb on this dig.”

  “I’m MI-6.” The gun aimed for her forehead. “Information you will take to your grave if you’ve got a brain in that pretty little head.”

  Annja put up her palms in surrender. That he’d shared the information put her in an awkward position. But she wasn’t stupid. “I won’t tell, I promise.”

  “I believe your word is good,” he said. “So now that you know, you’ll leave. There are flights leaving from Dublin for the States a couple of times a day. I’ll even foot the bill. See how generous I can be?”

  He shoved her away and shouldered his gun. MI-6? So she’d stepped into an operation she’d be better off avoiding. Really should avoid.

  But it was too late.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Annja said.

  Slater shook his head at her, his grimace threatening to crack his face.

  “Not until I find Eric Kritz,” she said. “He’s my responsibility. He’s only eighteen years old. He hasn’t even graduated high school!”

  “Bloody hell. What are you doing traveling with a kid like that?”

  “It was a surprise to me. But he’s a good kid. If you have any sway with Neville, if you know anything about Eric’s disappearance, you have to help me.”

  “I don’t have to do anything for you.”

  “Just like you didn’t have to win that fight against Wesley?”

  He cast her a hesitant stare.

  “You had him beat, but you threw the fight,” she said. “You’re trying to hold things together, aren’t you? Keeping up a facade for Neville, yet protecting the innocents to preserve your own moral code.”

  Sighing heavily, Slater briefly dropped the hard exterior. Annja literally felt his attitude change. Like he was being released from a prison of lies. “Check the local hospitals,” he said. “Your cameraman may have gotten lost and wandered into the city.”

  “Is that a suggestion or do you know that for a fact?”

  “Just a suggestion.”

  “And will I find him high on LSD like Beth was?”

  “You’re getting in too deep, Annja.”

  “Yeah? Well, there’s a dead man lying not two hundred yards away from us, and the man I’m responsible for is missing. And I’m thinking if you’re not going to help me, then Beth is my best bet.”

  “Beth doesn’t know anything you don’t already know. She saw the trucks delivering guns to the river one night, same as you. And don’t think Neville will allow further conversation with her to happen.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Think about it.”

  She started, and knew immediately Beth was in danger. If Frank Neville thought she was snooping for information, he’d be sure to cover his tracks, as he’d done with Wesley.

  “Why didn’t he shoot me, too?”

  “I guess he thought I could handle getting you out of his hair.” Slater gestured toward the dismantled camp where Wesley’s body still lay. “I’ll call for someone to clean up the mess.”

  “He’s a human being, not a mess.”

  “Not in this game, Annja.” A grimace tugged his face. “See, that’s what separates you from the men. You think too much. You women, you always see with your heart.”

  Not always. In fact, she’d chided herself for the hard exterior that had grown around her heart since taking the sword in hand. Yet she knew a soft interior existed, or she wouldn’t be so determined to rescue Eric. He had a family who loved him, and would worry should he not check in soon.

  “And you can idly stand by and watch an innocent man be murdered,” she volleyed back at Slater.

  “Part of the job. Didn’t say I liked it. And now we’re getting too chatty. I intend to do what I promised Neville I’d do. I’ll take you into town to collect your cameraman and then see you to the airport. Please, Annja, can you do that for me?”

  The exasperation in his voice rapped against the hard shell about her heart. She didn’t want to interfere in an MI-6 operation. She had no right, and was smarter than that. If she could find Eric she’d gladly leave the dirty dealings to those more qualified.

  “Fine. But if Eric’s not at the hospital, I’m not leaving until I find him.”

  30

  Bit of a bustle going on about his neck of the humble woods la
tely, Daniel Collins thought as he scanned across the cleared dig sites. Both crews certainly did up and leave quick enough.

  But his thoughts were not focused on why the camps had left, and without so much as a goodbye or thank-you for the hospitality. His focus was currently on the helicopter landing in the field where the digs had been backfilled.

  The sleek white chopper looked like an alien insect as it landed between the two dig sites where once the imaginary line had been drawn. Plumes of dry dirt billowed and dispersed in the sky.

  One man stepped down from the helicopter and took a look around. He gestured to the pilot and stepped out and away to avoid the upsweep of dirt as the helicopter took off, leaving the stranger standing in the center of what had only recently been a busy archaeological dig.

  Even from his distance Daniel could tell the man was big, a good half a foot taller than him. He wore a dress shirt that stretched tightly over enough muscles to make him formidable. Daniel wouldn’t jump into the fight ring with that man, but he would certainly put his money on him.

  As the man approached, and Daniel could make out his dark goatee and square jaw, he suddenly recognized the face. He waved, and the man nodded, not willing to wave, and reserving judgment until he got close enough to Daniel.

  “Mr. Braden!” Daniel offered his hand and Garin shook it. “You do know how to make an entrance. What brings you to the land of Éire on a fine Monday afternoon?”

  Garin spread his arms to encompass the empty field. “I thought I’d be landing near a dig in progress. I had no idea the field was so close to your home, Collins. Do you know what’s going on here? Where is everyone?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I’m as surprised as you to find it completely cleared today. They must have vacated early this morning. I didn’t know you had an interest in archaeology, Mr. Braden.”

  With one hand resting at his hip—which inadvertently exposed the shoulder holster—Garin swept his gaze across the grounds, which had been swiftly dug back in and covered over with the sod removed weeks earlier. It was a shoddy job. Daniel was surprised the crew had not taken their time to return the land to its original condition. If not Slater, Wesley Pierce had certainly come off as more responsible.