by Alex Archer
He took it off her and with a thumbnail broke the seal, pulling a single sheet of paper from inside.
“What is it?” Annja asked after a while.
“An explanation,” he said. She didn’t press him on the matter. The letter was clearly personal, no doubt from the woman he had entrusted the safekeeping of the treasure to. He would tell Annja more if he wanted to, in his own time. Roux slipped the piece of paper back into the envelope and returned it to the glove compartment. “You’re welcome to read it for yourself later, when I’m not around. All I ask is you don’t judge me.”
Which guaranteed she would read it, of course. Curiosity was like that; bait it well enough and it couldn’t be resisted. Annja wondered why he thought she’d judge him. What could he have done? What could be so bad about his falling out with the mystery woman?
“And the mantle?”
“Who knows? Destroyed perhaps? Given so few people are aware of it, it is unlikely to fall into the wrong hands at least. That is a small mercy.”
“And you still think that Awena will try to kill the prince?”
“She has nothing to lose and everything to gain in her mind, so yes. I do. Both of her parents are dead and her brother appears to want to have nothing to do with her as long as she is on the same fool’s quest that consumed their father.”
“But she could still go home, couldn’t she? It could still end happily ever after. If we could take the sword from her, she could just go home. She hasn’t gone beyond the point of no return. Right now, she can turn back. She doesn’t need to be punished. There can be a positive ending for her.”
“The woman is troubled, but she isn’t a monster,” he agreed. “The sword has done this to her. It has turned her into something she is not, just like I suspect it did to her father.”
“But she stole the whetstone before she came into contact with the sword. Something drove her to that.”
“Simple. The need to please her father. There’s no arcane magic behind that. How many children live to please their parents? How many want to do things that prove they are praiseworthy?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Annja said. “I never lived to please the nuns.” Which of course wasn’t true. There were plenty of occasions she’d done something or hadn’t done something because she believed it would please one of the holy sisters who cared for her in the orphanage.
Roux raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“The break-in was reckless, but no one was ever in any danger.”
“The same couldn’t be said for Owen Llewellyn.”
“Indeed,” Roux mused. “But I doubt he had ever hurt anyone until after he took possession of the sword.”
“It sounds like you almost feel sorry for her.”
“I do. But more importantly, I think there is time to save her. If she tries to kill the prince, though, then it can only end badly.”
“Save the prince, save the girl,” Annja said, paraphrasing a television show slogan. Even just thinking about television made her feel guilty. She needed to check in with Doug and tell him there was nothing doing with this whole Wales research-vacation trip. What a disaster! It had turned out to be nothing like the quiet, relaxing trip she’d planned. The frown on her face deepened when she thought about the armed soldiers guarding the castle gates.
That had been prior to the prince’s arrival. Security would be tighter than her expense account once he was in residence. If Awena tried anything, then the men who fired first and asked questions later would be already at the question stage before Annja had parked the car.
Awena might think that the sword had saved her when she fell from the upstairs window. That was the kind of delusion that went hand in hand with ancient treasures and quests for birthrights, but it was wrongheaded thinking. A sword couldn’t stop a hail of automatic gunfire—well, a normal sword couldn’t. Annja had turned aside a few bullets with Joan’s blade, but that was different, wasn’t it?
They had to find Awena first and do everything they could to stop her.
Chapter 43
“Thank you for your call. Your call is important to us. Please hold on while we wait for our operative to get his head out of every stinking trunk in every stinking car on this godforsaken ferry.”
“Sorry,” Annja said. Garin was in a foul temper.
“Just tell me how long you’ve known he’s safe?”
“Half an hour. Maybe.”
“And in all that time you didn’t think to call me? Meanwhile I’ve been cavity searched by security and hauled off to Guantanamo as suspicious dude number one.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“Who says I’m exaggerating? I’ll be walking with a limp for a week.”
Annja couldn’t help it; she laughed. “Okay, look, I said I’m sorry.” They were back in the hotel and it was considerably longer than an hour that she’d known Roux was safe, but she wasn’t going to admit that. “Roux’s safe. That’s what counts. There was nothing you could have done.”
“Apart from avoid the strip search. What about the woman?”
“She gave us the slip.”
“So she still has the sword?”
“She still has the sword.”
“How is he?”
“Sore. Both of body and pride.”
“Ha! That won’t hurt him too much. So, any idea of where sword woman has gone?”
Annja glanced across to Roux before speaking. He nodded. “He’s made a pretty convincing argument for her being back in Caernarfon tomorrow.”
“Is being out of her tiny mind part of the argument?” Garin scoffed. She could hear him shaking his head. “Why would she ever go back there? The smart money’s on getting as far away as possible now that she knows the cloak of invisibility’s lost.” He paused a beat. “Unless she’s got another line of investigation... Does she know where it is?”
“Roux? You want to field that one?” Annja said.
“She won’t know where the mantle is,” he said confidently. “It’s gone. Off the table. Awena Llewellyn has no hidden knowledge about the Treasures of Britain, only what her father unearthed, and he never got as far as knowing who was watching the tower. Think it through—if she had known, she wouldn’t have been so adamant that Annja had the mantle.” That made sense.
“Okay, so what’s crazy lady’s next move?”
“She’s going to try to kill the Prince of Wales during his visit to the castle.”
“Uh, back up a second. I’m lost. Suddenly we’re not looking for some flaming sword but instead stopping an assassination? Why the hell would she go off the deep end like that?”
“Because Awena Llewellyn holds the English responsible for ancient wrongs done to her family,” Roux explained. “Suffice it to say, she believes that Llewellyn the Last was the last true prince of Wales and she is his heir.”
“Okay, so we’re definitely into the realm of crazy. Fine. I can handle that.”
“She’s not in her right mind,” Roux agreed. “Possession of the sword has changed her. The situation is this—we’ve got to stop her before she attempts to kill the prince. That’s our endgame. Fail and someone dies. I don’t need any more blood on my hands. How soon do you think you can get back here?”
“No problem, once I break out of Guantanamo, negotiate my freedom from the FBI watch lists and pray they let me back on the next ferry—that won’t be until dawn tomorrow. I could abandon my car and have the pilot bring the Gulfstream over to make the short hop if things are desperate. That being the case, probably five hours, give or take. Meaning the middle of the night. Oh, how I love night flying instead of sleeping.”
“Take your time,” Roux said. “I don’t think she’ll make her move tonight, so get here tomorrow, fresh.”
“Roger that, big guy.”
It was still only late afternoon. Roux wanted to take a walk through the town center to get his bearings. Preknowledge could be the difference here. It wasn’t that he expected or even hoped to encounter Awena. He just wanted local details. He wanted to know where she might run, where the procession would travel, where she could hide and where if she got that close she could make her move. The castle itself was always going to be tightly controlled, so what alternatives were open to her?
She wasn’t getting inside with a sword. That was obvious, unless she had some stupid idea about fighting through the cordon of soldiers defending the prince.
A few market stallholders were in the last throes of packing when she and Roux reached the square.
Two soldiers were once again on sentry duty. They kept a close eye on everything that was going on in the vicinity, but they’d become so much a part of the scenery over the past week, the stallholders were ignoring them.
As she and Roux strolled by a café, a waitress was clearing cups from one of the tables in the street, but she paused for a moment to give them a smile.
“Hi,” the girl said, clearly recognizing Roux. “Not got your friend with you today?”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Roux offered a rueful smile. “He’s taking an unexpected day trip,” Roux replied. “He’ll be here tomorrow.”
“Just in time for the fun and games, eh?”
Annja had been so wrapped up in thoughts of Awena that she’d forgotten that this was a big deal for the town itself. She forgot how gung ho the Brits could be about their royal family.
“I hope so,” Roux said.
Annja knew that the girl was almost certainly thinking the same thing, but for a very different reason. Garin had that effect on women. Well, some of them, anyway. And this one in particular, obviously.
“Why don’t we grab a couple of coffees?” Annja suggested.
They sat at a table while the girl disappeared inside.
“She’s pretty,” Annja said as she sat down.
“Aren’t they always?”
“Well, yes, I’ll give you that. But she’s a bit young for Garin.”
“Every woman alive is too young for him,” Roux said. She saw the smile on his face, but there was no laughter in his voice. It wasn’t like Roux to be maudlin, but clearly the past was weighing on his mind. She wondered what was in that letter, what explanation could have affected his mood so badly. She’d do as he asked, and read the letter in good time, but not yet. If he wanted her to know what it said he’d have told her himself. She could wait.
The girl returned with two coffees, all smiling and happy with herself.
“Busy day tomorrow, then?” Annja asked.
“For everyone except the stallholders,” she said. “They aren’t happy, but they’ve been shut down until the visit’s over. Busiest day the town has seen for years and they can’t trade.”
“My heart bleeds for them,” Roux said wickedly, earning a grin from the girl.
“They want to bring the cars through the town this way,” she explained.
Annja cast her gaze up and down the cobbled street. So now they knew which route the cavalcade was going to take and the direction the cars would approach the castle from.
“You expecting a lot of people?”
“For sure. This place will be packed. I remember getting a day off school the last time there was a visit like this. We made flags and banners and stood at the side of the road to wave as the car went past. Him and Lady Di—God rest her soul—stopped outside the school and got out to say hello. She was lovely...I’ll always remember that.”
Annja wanted to interrupt the girl and ask which school she was talking about, but Roux was a step ahead. “So, you’re not part of the anti-English brigade, then?”
“Me? Oh, dear, no. I bleed red, white and blue on my mother’s side.” She offered a smile. “But I grew up speaking Welsh at home and chat to the regulars like that. I know there was a time when the English tried to stop all that, but that was ages ago. Things have changed a lot since my grandmother’s day. Besides, it’s no better having people in charge in Cardiff than it was when they were in London. People are people.”
No matter where in the world Annja went, there were always people who wanted things to be exactly as they had been once upon a time; no matter how far back in their history they had to look, there was always some mythical better day and age. For some people, change wasn’t always for the better.
Annja’s mind was racing. Security would be tight in the town square, most likely sweeping the prince straight into the castle. But if they had a scheduled meet-and-greet at an earlier point along the route, surely that was the time to make a move?
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking,” Roux asked when the girl had finally left them to their coffee.
“Do you think she’s so far gone that she would make her attempt to kill the prince in front of a load of schoolchildren?”
Roux nodded. “It’s the perfect place for it. People will be expected to step out of the crowds, kids will be curtsying and delivering bouquets of flowers. They’ll be cheering. So much noise, so many distractions. The problem is that if we go to the school to stop her and we’re wrong...” He didn’t have to say any more than that: if they were wrong.
“So we have to ensure she makes her move where we want her to,” Annja said.
“And how do we make that happen?”
“I have an idea.”
“If anyone else had said that, I’d be worried. Because it’s you,” Roux said, “I’m terrified.” He was only partially joking.
Chapter 44
They were back in Annja’s room. Afternoon had moved on into evening. They had eaten. Then Roux called Garin on Annja’s phone, using the speaker.
His voice was faint; his answers rote. “Garin,” Roux said. “Do you have your laptop with you?”
“It’s surgically attached,” Garin replied.
“Good. I need you to do a few things for me. First, I need you to check to see if my cell phone is still in Awena’s car. If it is, track the signal tomorrow. I need to know where she is.”
“Easy enough, even if she’s turned it off. Only a problem if she pulls the battery out.”
“I doubt she’s even thought about turning it off, but I don’t want to spook her by calling it.”
“Okay. What else?”
It was Annja this time. “Leak some information to the local radio station. We need to make sure that they report that the prince’s party will be stopping at a high school just outside of town before they arrive at the castle.”
“Is he?”
“No idea. I don’t even know the names of any schools in the area. That’s up to you.”
“So you’re luring her into a trap? Nice. I approve. I take it the next thing on my roster of jobs for the day is to make sure the children are evacuated before the madwoman with a sword turns up?”
“Should keep you out of trouble for a while.”
“Okay, leave it with me. That it?”
“For now at least.”
Roux hung up but Annja had a question. “Why are we letting things take their course like this?”
“What’s on your mind, Annja?”
“I don’t like it. Garin can track her through your phone. We should find her tonight and end this while she’s asleep. No fuss, no bother.”
“Good in theory, but what if she slips away?”
“There are always ‘ifs.’”
“Here’s one for you. What if she realizes we are expecting her to try to kill the prince? What then? I’ll tell you what—she’ll realize there was only one way we could know where she is and she’ll get rid of it. We don’t want that.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Why drag it out? Why risk her
disappearing with the sword? She can try and kill the prince anytime. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, it doesn’t have to be here.”
“We need to try to control things. Get her alone. Get her away from her car. Get the sword away from her. That’s your job in all of this. You have to stop her.”
Annja had known that was his plan all along, one swordswoman against another.
It was always going to come down to that.
It was one thing to go into a situation knowing the risks, knowing you might have to fight for your life, but quite another going in knowing you were fighting for someone else’s. She wasn’t comfortable with that.
“You do realize I’m supposed to be on vacation, right?”
Her phone rang again before Roux could answer.
It was Garin.
She put him on speaker. “Just to let you know I got a ping from Roux’s cell phone. It’s moving. She’s still in the area, but the signal’s weak. She’s on the edge of tower range. Once she goes beyond that, she’s gone.”
“How’s the battery?” Roux asked.
“How could I possibly know that?” Garin fired back.
“I don’t know, you’re the tech wiz. I’m just an old man.”
“Just do what you can, Garin,” Annja said, putting herself between them.
Annja ended the call.
Tiredness lined Roux’s face. He couldn’t have slept much in the past few days, if at all. But the stubborn old fool would never have admitted he was close to exhaustion, even if he couldn’t stand on his own two feet. “We need to be fresh tomorrow. I’m hitting the sack.” It was for his benefit; she wasn’t that tired, but Roux didn’t need any further prodding. He nodded and headed to his own room.
Annja was glad of the time on her own, a chance to freshen up and clear her head before settling down to sleep. She understood Roux’s desire to bring the woman in without hurting her, but when it came right down to it there was every chance that trying to neutralize her was only going to make things so much more dangerous than they needed to be.
And it was Annja who was going to be on the pointy end of Awena’s sword, not him.
