Rogue Angel 53: Bathed in Blood

by Alex Archer

  An hour.

  She’d have to move quickly. Čachtice wasn’t very far away—she could make the trip in less than fifteen minutes—but finding a cab in this neighborhood at this hour was going to be tricky.

  She was already dressed, so all she had to do was pull on her shoes. It occurred to her that all she had left were a few bucks, her phone and the clothes on her back. Everything else—including her camera equipment—was either locked in the safe at her first hotel or stored in the trunk of the car she’d abandoned at the scene of the fire.

  It was a depressing thought, but she shrugged it off with a reminder that Radecki, the man she was going to meet, was also a cop. If anyone could get the police off her back and help her collect her belongings, never mind the rental car itself, he was the one.

  She took the stairs to the lobby and banged on the bell sitting on the check-in counter until the pimply-faced kid who worked the night shift sauntered in from the back room. He looked her up and down, as if he was evaluating a piece of meat, and then licked his lips.

  “You might want to ring that again,” he said in English, indicating the bell with a nod of his head. “I’m not sure I heard you the first fifty times.”

  Annja ignored both his stare and his attitude.

  “I need a cab. With a driver who speaks English.”

  He nodded. “You need a cab. Huh. Well, good for you.”

  Then he just stood there, making no move to help her.

  Annja counted to five—no way she was getting to ten—and then said calmly, “Perhaps you misunderstood. I need a cab and I need you to call one for me.”

  He gave her the head-to-toe look again and said, “What’s in it for me?”

  It was two o’clock in the morning on a day when her hotel room had been invaded, her belongings stolen and her partner in a serial killer investigation horribly murdered for what he knew about the case. And now this punk was leering at her.

  Maybe she was overtired. Maybe she was stressed over the day’s events. Maybe she’d just reached her limit when it came to idiots trying to make the world more miserable for the rest of us.

  Whatever the trigger, she’d had enough.

  With a cold smile, Annja stepped closer to the front desk. When her hands were hidden behind the counter, she reached into the otherwhere and drew forth her sword. Then she walked around the front desk, keeping the man in her sights. Before the desk clerk could say another word, she had him backed up against the wall, the point of the weapon pressed tightly against his bare throat.

  Calmly, Annja, calmly, she reminded herself.

  “I’ve had a really long day and it’s going to be even longer before it’s done. I would like you to call a cab for me. I’ve asked nicely, but you’ve chosen not to respond in the proper fashion, leaving me no choice but to be more forceful in my request.”

  She pressed down ever so slightly on the hilt of the sword.

  The clerk went very still, his eyes wide and locked on Annja’s face.

  “Do we understand each other?” she asked, turning the blade one way and then the other.

  He winced and very carefully nodded his head.

  “Good. Call the cab, please.”

  Annja stepped back and lowered her sword, freeing the clerk to do as she’d asked.

  He turned his back to Annja and reached for the phone.

  Annja released the sword back into the otherwhere.

  The clerk dialed a number and spoke rapidly in Slovak when someone answered. Then he hung up.

  “Done,” he said. “Ten minutes.”

  “You know what’s going to happen if you called the police instead of a cab company, right?”

  The clerk nodded vigorously as he reached up to rub the spot where the sword had pressed against his throat. Then he looked around frantically.

  “Where did the sword go?”

  Annja smiled sweetly at him. “What sword?”

  “The one you were just...”

  Seeing the expression in Annja’s eyes, he stopped talking.

  “Ten minutes, then,” Annja said, and made a show of checking her phone for the time.

  The clerk grew paler and kept a worried eye on the clock while they waited.

  The cabbie was true to his word, arriving nine minutes after the call had been made. The clerk had such a look of relief on his face as the cab pulled to the curb outside that Annja couldn’t resist one final jab as she stepped out the door.

  Looking back over her shoulder, she said, “Tell anyone what you’ve seen or heard today and I’ll be back to pay you a little visit. And this time I won’t be so easy on you.”

  The clerk went paler still and looked as if he were about to pass out.

  He won’t tell a soul, Annja thought, and left him to his own devices.

  Annja got into the cab, told the driver where she wanted to go and then settled back as he pulled away from the curb and headed out of Nové Mesto.

  21

  The tavern was shuttered and dark when she arrived. She had the cabbie drive past the building and let her out up the block. Once he’d driven off, she walked back.

  The street was quiet.

  Deserted.

  As Annja strode toward her destination, it occurred to her that she didn’t have any way of knowing if the person she’d spoken to on the phone had actually been Radecki. After all, he’d never identified himself directly; he’d just mentioned that he was Novack’s friend. He could have been anyone, really. He didn’t even have to disguise his voice, as she’d never spoken to Radecki before and wouldn’t know what he sounded like.

  In short, she might be walking into a trap.

  At least she wouldn’t be going in there unarmed.

  Annja crossed the parking lot and walked over to the front door. She tensed, expecting security lights to come on, but the area remained dark. Reaching out, she tried the door.

  Locked.

  She checked her phone and saw that she was five minutes early.

  Rather than standing at the front entrance, where anyone driving by could see her, Annja decided to wander around and see if the back door was unlocked.

  Out back she found a large Dumpster that hadn’t been emptied in a while, a stack of cardboard boxes that were waiting to be broken down and added to the trash and the aforementioned door, standing unadorned beneath a dim lightbulb. When she tried the knob, she found it unlocked.

  She glanced around, didn’t see anyone and decided to go inside.

  Annja found herself inside the kitchen, just as she’d expected. The door leading into the main dining area was propped open and a few lights were on over the bar. Her attention was still focused in that direction when the barrel of a gun was pressed against her head from the shadows next to her.

  “Don’t move,” a male voice said.

  For a split second Annja thought about doing the very thing she’d just been ordered not to. The guy was standing too close, the gun pressed directly against her head, and as a result she felt she stood a fair chance of getting out from under the muzzle before he could pull the trigger. But she’d come here to learn something, so she decided she might as well see it through. If he was going to shoot, he would have done it already.

  She did as she was told.

  A hand came out of the shadows and quickly frisked her. It was neatly and professionally done, and when it was over the gun was withdrawn.

  “Sorry, had to be sure,” the voice said, and then the lights over the cooking ranges came on, pushing back the darkness.

  Annja blinked, letting her eyes adjust, and she then turned to look at the man standing a few feet away.

  He was tall and dark haired. His face was all hard planes and angles, with scars that told of a childhood bout with chicken pox or something similar. He had intelligent eyes and a warm smile, which took away some of the harshness of his appearance. He was dressed in a dark jacket over a T-shirt and jeans, with thick-soled boots on his feet.

  He holstered hi
s pistol and then put out his hand. “Martin Radecki.”

  Annja smiled. “Annja Creed,” she said as she reached to take his hand in her own.

  The moment their palms touched Annja sprang into action, twisting his hand around and down while grabbing his elbow and leveraging it up with her other hand. She knew from personal experience that the pain at his wrist was excruciating in that position. To escape it, he had no choice but to drop to his knees and turn in whatever direction she wanted him to turn, which put him in her complete control. She held his wrist with one hand and removed the pistol from the holster on his belt with the other.

  “I don’t take kindly to having guns held against my head,” she said in his ear.

  “Aaagh! Okay, okay.”

  Annja knew her point had been made, so she released him and stepped back, holding the pistol down at her side. She watched him closely as he climbed to his feet, rubbing his wrist as he did so, but he made no move to advance on her.

  He was clearly ticked that she’d gotten the drop on him, but he was also wise enough to know that he’d had it coming. He muttered something, took a deep breath and put his hands up in surrender.

  “Look, I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to get us off on the wrong foot. Just needed to be careful given all that’s going on.”

  Annja could understand that; she needed to be careful, too. She held the gun loosely in her hand as she asked, “Do you have some identification?”

  Radecki nodded. “In the left breast pocket of my coat.”

  “Take it out. Slowly, please.”

  He did as he was told, pulling a billfold from inside his coat and opening it to show her his badge and ID card.

  Satisfied, Annja waved at him to put it away. She nodded her head toward the other room. “Why don’t we go sit down and talk?”

  Radecki led the way.

  He motioned for her to take a seat at the bar while he slipped behind it. “My cousin owns the place,” he said. “No one will bother us here. Get you a drink?”

  Annja saw that the light on the coffee machine was on and there was a fresh pot sitting on the burner. “Coffee’s fine,” she said. She would have preferred a hot chocolate, but she needed the caffeine to make up for the sleep she’d lost. She had a feeling this was going to be another long day.

  “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Both, please.”

  He turned his back to her for a few moments while he set about making them both a cup of coffee. Annja put the pistol on the bar next to her where Radecki could see it. She wasn’t ready to give it back yet, but he might be less anxious if it was in plain sight. She was going to need his help moving forward and didn’t want to antagonize him more than she already had.

  If Radecki noticed it when he turned around and put their coffee cups on the bar, he didn’t say anything.

  “Here you go.” He put the cream and sugar on the bar, as well. “Just in case you like it lighter or sweeter than I made it.”

  For someone who had just stuck a gun against her head, he was trying awfully hard to clear the air.

  She could appreciate a man who admitted when he was wrong.

  The coffee was stronger than she liked, with a slightly bitter aftertaste, but she drank it anyway, knowing it would help kick-start her system.

  She must have made a face because Radecki said, “It’s Arabica coffee, from the Sidikalang region of Indonesia. My cousin discovered it while traveling a number of years ago and it’s the only coffee he serves now. It’s definitely an acquired taste—sorry about that.”

  “It’s fine,” she said as she added another spoonful of sugar to diminish the aftertaste.

  They were silent a moment, and then Radecki said, “They found Novack’s body in the ruins of his house this morning. They’ll do an autopsy, of course, but right now they’re saying he got drunk and fell asleep with a cigarette in hand.”

  Annja glanced at him. “Did he smoke?”

  “No.”

  She thought about that one for a moment. “And yet that’s the official story?”

  “Yeah. They’re saying his drinking got worse after he left the force and he probably took up smoking as a result.”

  “Who’s the primary?” Annja asked.

  “Alexej Tamás.”

  That wasn’t surprising, she thought.

  “How much do you know about what Novack’s been working on?”

  “Pretty much everything. I’ve been trying to help him from the inside where I can, but it’s hard to know who to trust.”

  That she could understand. She was certainly feeling the same way.

  “I’m afraid I have some more bad news,” she said.

  She told him about the thieves breaking into her room last night and stealing Novack’s files. “Did he have other copies?”

  Radecki shrugged. “I don’t know. If he did, I would think they would have been in his home, and if they were...”

  He didn’t really need to say anything more.

  “I have a pretty good memory,” Annja said. “I think I can...”

  She didn’t get any further. A wave of dizziness suddenly washed over her, so unexpected that it cut her off in midsentence.

  She sat there, head down, until it passed.

  “Are you all right?” Radecki asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” she answered, but when she looked up at him the room seemed to tilt and shift a second time. She grabbed the edge of the bar to steady herself.

  “You don’t look so good,” the cop said, but his voice sounded as if it was coming from across the room instead of across the bar.

  Something wasn’t right.

  She shook her head, waiting for her sight to clear.

  What the heck was going on?

  She looked up and saw Radecki watching her closely. He didn’t appear all that concerned. He just calmly took another sip of his coffee and glanced at the clock.

  The coffee...

  She looked down at her drink as a third wave of dizziness tried to drown her. Her head was spinning wildly now. The cup seemed to lurch to the left and then to the right. She was starting to have trouble putting her thoughts together.

  “What...”

  She tried to move the coffee away from her and ended up pushing it right across the bar and over the edge. The sound of the cup shattering seemed to echo in her ears.

  “...did you...”

  Annja looked to where the gun had been seconds before only to find it wasn’t there. A glance in Radecki’s direction showed it sitting on the bar directly in front of him.

  “...do?”

  Radecki didn’t answer.

  Her vision was starting to tunnel, a dark gray haze creeping in on all sides, and Annja knew she was in trouble. She pushed away from the bar, wobbling a few steps on unsteady legs before crashing to the floor.

  The sound of her heart hammering in her ears was almost overwhelming. She knew she had to get away, but she was finding it difficult to remember what she was running away from. Her instinct for self-preservation took over in the absence of logical thought, and she managed to force herself to her hands and knees.

  As her head lolled about, she caught one dizzying glimpse of Radecki as he came out from behind the bar, walking toward her, pistol in hand.

  Move! her mind screamed.

  Annja began clawing her way forward, pulling with her arms and kicking with her legs, fighting for every inch.

  She barely got a third of the way across the floor before she ran out of strength, the haze having all but overwhelmed her. She knew she had only seconds before she succumbed to unconsciousness.

  Too late, the notion of her sword occurred to her.

  She rolled over, staring up at Radecki looming above her, gun in hand.

  With a supreme effort of will, Annja reached into the otherwhere for her sword.

  As her fingers closed around the hilt, she finally lost the struggle, the blade vanishing into darkness along with her consciousness.

 
* * *

  RADECKI STOOD OVER the woman, staring down at her unconscious form. He didn’t see her beauty; all he saw was a threat to the enterprise he’d worked so hard and so long to build.

  A threat to his future prosperity.

  His finger itched on his weapon’s trigger.

  He wanted nothing more than to raise his gun and put a bullet through the woman’s skull. End it, here and now.

  The muzzle began drifting upward, an inch at a time.

  It would be so easy...

  His finger slipped around the trigger guard.

  He could say it was an accident. That she had discovered the truth and tried to kill him. Just a few pounds of pressure...

  Abruptly he turned away, lowering the gun to his side.

  She wanted Creed taken alive. She’d been quite clear in that. If he disobeyed her now, she was sure to exact some kind of retribution. The last thing he wanted at this stage of the game was to face punishment at her hands; she was the most merciless woman he’d ever met, and woe to the one who found himself helpless in her control.

  This time, he would do as he was told.

  Even if it went against his every instinct.

  Holstering his gun, he took a few deep breaths. When he was in control of himself once more, he stepped back over to the now-unconscious Creed and nudged her with his foot. When she didn’t respond, he drew his boot back and kicked her, hard, in the ribs.

  Still no response.

  Good.

  He bent down beside her and checked her pulse.

  It was steady and strong.

  Even better.

  He rose to his feet and took his cell phone out of his pocket. He hit a quick-dial key and listened to the phone ringing on the other end.

  In only a moment she answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Our problem is taken care of.”

  “And the other package?”

  “Right here at my feet.”

  There was a pause. “Intact, I take it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Bring it to me.”

  “On my way.”

  22

  Deep in her drugged sleep, Annja dreamed.

  They were not pretty dreams.