by Alex Archer
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Orta turned away from him and faced Annja.
“They’re after me.” Holding the crystal between his knees, Krauzer waved his free hand at Orta, keeping him away. “You’re leading them right to me.”
“They’re after all of us.”
“Really? Really? You’re here every day, so these guys just happen to show up tonight to get you and I’m unlucky enough to get caught in the middle of that? Do you even hear yourself?”
“They’re totally happy to kill all of us,” Orta stated. “They want the crystal.”
Krauzer wrapped his free arm around the crystal and turned his attention to the phone. “You need to get here. Now!”
“You know, if they get him, maybe they’ll leave us alone,” Orta said.
“Wait.” Krauzer wasted no time thinking about that. He grabbed hold of the desk and partially scuttled out from hiding. “You can’t just desert me. We need to stick together.”
Shaking his head, Orta looked back at Annja.
She slipped her miniflashlight from her backpack, switched it on and swept the high-intensity beam around the classroom. It was larger than she’d initially thought, actually built like a small auditorium with stadium seating. The only other door out of the room was on the same side of the wall.
Voices echoed outside in the hallway, and she knew they were out of running room.
9
“Get down.” Annja switched off the miniflashlight as she closed the door softly and locked it behind her. The barrier was too flimsy to put up much resistance, but maybe the men looking for them would hurry on by. On the other side of the door, police sirens screamed and the whop-whop-whop of the helicopter rotors was somewhat muted.
“Up there.” She pointed Orta to the highest seat. “Stay away from the windows and hide in the corner—otherwise you’ll be skylined against the outside lights.”
Clutching the manuscript case to his chest, Orta sprinted up the long steps and hunkered down behind the curved row of tables. He disappeared in the inky pools of shadows, and Annja hoped that he would be safe during the coming confrontation.
Sliding back under the desk, Krauzer drew his legs farther into the darkness, but the phone’s light illuminated his face.
“Turn off the phone.” Annja slid the machine pistol out of the backpack and readied it.
Reluctantly, with a last whispered command to whoever was listening, Krauzer broke the connection and pocketed the phone. He held on to the crystal with both arms, and Annja didn’t know if he was trying to protect the object or hide behind it.
Quietly, breathing evenly, Annja put her back to the front wall, where both doors were, staying away from the gleaming whiteboard behind her so she wouldn’t be easily seen. She waited, willing herself to be calm.
Out in the hallway, the voices quieted. Annja didn’t know if the men looking for them had passed or if they were listening on the other side of the locked doors. A moment later, the door handle on her right twisted with a soft metallic click.
The gunman pushed the door open with a foot, letting the light from the hallway into the room. His dark shadow shifted slightly.
Annja waited, resisting the impulse to shoot the man in the foot, even though he was dressed like the other men they’d encountered. Wounding the man while they were trapped in the room wouldn’t help. A wounded man could call out for reinforcements, and if he was the only man, once she put him down, they might be able to get free.
The other door opened more, letting Annja know the attack was going to come from two fronts by an unknown number of attackers. She kept calm, knowing everything was going to come down to split-second reaction time.
A whispered conversation she couldn’t make out took place in the hall. Then the first man shouldered his way into the room with his weapon tucked in close to his shoulder. The noise outside became louder immediately.
As soon as the gunman breached the entrance, Annja opened fire, aiming for the man’s shoulder and letting the machine pistol rise until the rounds hammered the man in the neck and the side of his head.
Dead, dying or unconscious, the man dropped as the second door exploded open.
Annja whirled, trying to cover the second entrance and knowing the gunman there had seen her muzzle flashes reflected in the dark windows on the other side of the room. He would know where she was standing. She whirled, but the man was already firing. At least one of his bullets struck her machine pistol and tore it from her hands, while the others dug into the wall behind her with jackhammer impacts.
Deserting her position against the wall, Annja slid and dropped behind the desk at the front of the room. As she came up again, she reached into the Otherwhere for the sword and instantly felt the hilt, sure and steady in her hand.
The sword looked plain and simple, three feet of double-edged steel forged in a simple cross pattern. The weapon was a warrior’s instrument, designed to kill and maim, meant to be carried onto a battlefield.
Annja rose on the other side of the desk while the gunman searched for her. His eyes hadn’t gotten used to the gloom trapped in the classroom, and he fired again, missing her by inches as she raced at him. The heat of the bullets burned across her cheek and the muzzle flashes lit up his hard face, hiding him in the sudden intense illumination.
Holding the leather-bound sword hilt in both hands, Annja slashed at the machine pistol as the gunman tried to correct his aim. The blade sliced through the weapon, cutting the suppressor and barrel from the machine pistol and knocking what was left from the man’s hand. He reached for the pistol at his hip but didn’t get to it before she put the sword’s point through his throat.
Bleeding, frantic, the man fell back into the hallway and tried to stem the wound in his neck.
“Annja, look out!” Orta called from the back of the room.
She’d already caught a peripheral glimpse of the third man coming through the door the first man had, and she took shelter in the door frame. Bullets drummed a lethal beat on the door, tearing through the wood.
The gunman, in a Kevlar mask and body armor, fired a couple bursts toward the back of the room. The windows there shattered and Orta cried out in pain. More of the outside pandemonium poured into the building.
“Get up, Krauzer!” The gunman kept his weapon pointed in Annja’s direction as he spoke to the director under the desk at the side of the room. Annja thought she detected a French accent, but her hearing was cottony from the noise in the room. “You can carry that crystal or I can take it out of your dead hands!”
“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Krauzer climbed out from under the desk on one hand and his knees. He carried the crystal in the other hand.
Annja glanced at the back of the room but she couldn’t see Orta. Frustrated, she watched as Krauzer joined the gunman in the hallway. She thought briefly of trying to reach the doorway but knew that she would be cut down by gunfire before she got to the man.
The gunman yanked Krauzer to one side. The director followed his captor’s snarled directions as they pulled back out of the room. Lifting the weapon in front of him, the gunman fired at the second door, driving Annja from her hiding place and back into the room.
Sliding into place beside the door, availing herself of the scant cover, Annja watched helplessly as the gunman pulled Krauzer farther down the hallway. Trusting that the director was safe for the moment, she turned her attention to Orta. The illumination from the open doors revealed where the machine pistol had landed after being ripped from her hands. She scooped up the weapon on her way back to the professor.
As Annja approached, Orta tried to raise himself from the floor, but his hand slipped in the blood that had gushed from the wound in his abdomen. His lips trembled and his eyes were wide with fear. He held his free hand to the wound.
“Lie
back.” Placing the machine pistol to one side and letting the sword return to the Otherwhere, Annja put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him back against the carpeted floor.
“They shot me.” Orta pulled his hand from his wound and tried to examine it, but blood soaked his shirt.
“It’ll be okay.” Annja ripped his shirt open, searching for the wound. She slipped her miniflashlight from her pocket and switched it on, then clamped it between her teeth as she angled the beam on the gunshot. “You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah.” Orta nodded, but he was shaking and his eyes unfocused and refocused as he fought the onset of shock.
“We’re going to stop this bleeding and the paramedics will be here soon.” The warm blood gushed over Annja’s fingers as she shrugged off her short-waisted jacket and the green pullover she was wearing. The jacket material was too coarse, but the pullover was soft enough to work as a compress.
“Sounds good.” He seemed to be on the verge of sleep.
“Stay with me, Vincent.”
“I will. I’m just going to close my eyes.”
“No. You need to stay awake. I’m going to roll you over for just a moment.”
“Sure.”
Putting her free arm under the man, Annja rolled him onto his unwounded side briefly. His back was whole, letting her know the bullet was still inside him. Having only one wound to control was better, but there was no way to know if the bullet had bounced around inside and torn through other blood vessels.
She hoped help arrived soon. Concentrating on her patient, she kept the compress in place and reached for her sat phone.
* * *
ON THE TOP FLOOR of the building, Sabre sprinted as fast as he dared, aware that a gunman could be around the next corner. So far, though, the only men he’d seen were dead. Someone with Krauzer knew how to shoot.
According to the GPS signal on Sabre’s phone, he was only forty-three meters from Krauzer, but that didn’t indicate which floor he was on. Sabre had followed the trail of violence to his current position.
At least two men lay sprawled in the hallway ahead of him, coming out of both doors. One man’s feet lay in the way of the door. Another man had fallen out into the hallway, visible from his head to his knees. He lay on his back and the slash in his throat no longer fountained blood, indicating that his heart had stopped pumping. Both of them were in the same uniforms and armor that the other men had been wearing.
“Watch out!” Meszoly’s hand fell heavily onto Sabre’s shoulder and drove him down.
They hit the ground just as a helicopter outside the building opened fire. Heavy 7.62 mm rounds chopped through the glass and left fist-size holes in the wall and tore the display cases to pieces, spilling books and artifacts across the tiles.
Rolling onto his side, Sabre brought up the machine pistol and aimed at the helicopter’s gunner, centering on the muzzle flashes spewing from the weapon. The machine gun fell silent almost immediately and Sabre pushed himself to his feet, his ears ringing.
Looking through the empty space where the window had been, boots crunching on shards, Sabre dropped the empty magazine from his weapon and reloaded. He knew without looking that Meszoly had his back. Holding the machine pistol steady, Sabre fired bursts into the pilot, watching the glass around the man flare out around him.
The helicopter went out of control, diving and listing, coming around in a slow semicircle into one of the buildings.
“Get down!” Sabre turned from the window an instant before the rotors struck the building.
Meszoly threw himself down and rolled toward the outer hallway wall, seeking shelter. When the rotors struck the building, they turned into a screaming cloud of shrapnel that peppered everything around them. The helicopter exploded in an orange-and-black fireball that cast wavering light into the hallway.
Getting to his feet, Sabre checked the doorways in the hallway and saw no new movement. He checked the GPS and saw that the distance separating him from Krauzer hadn’t changed. The movie director was either down or he was in the stairwell.
Not wanting to leave anything to chance, Sabre ran to the darkened room and halted at the wall beside the dead man. He flicked on the miniflashlight clipped to the side of the machine pistol’s barrel and scanned the room. He stopped on the half-naked woman pointing a machine pistol at him while on her knees in front of a man lying in the corner of the room.
The woman didn’t flinch and Sabre respected that about her. She held his gaze easily and looked capable.
“I’ve got a wounded man here who needs medical attention.” She spoke calmly without taking her eyes from Sabre.
For a moment, Sabre thought she was talking to him. Then he spotted the phone glowing on the floor beside her.
“He’s been shot in the stomach and is going into shock.” The woman described where she was.
“Are you in danger at the moment?” a man asked over the phone’s speaker.
The woman waited, staring at Sabre.
He lifted the machine pistol and held his other hand up, as well. “I’m looking for Krauzer.”
The woman shook her head. “He’s not here. If you’re not here to kill us and you have someone with medical experience, we need help.”
“I’m not your guy.” Sabre took a step back. “I’m looking for Krauzer.”
“I need help.” For the first time, the calm cracked and she sounded rattled.
“I’m sending someone. Saadiya, do you copy?”
“Affirmative.”
“I need a med team up here now.”
“Understood.”
Sabre pointed to the fallen man with his chin. “A team will be here soon. Don’t shoot them.”
“Tell them to let me know who they are.”
Grinning, Sabre tossed the woman a quick salute and whipped around the side of the doorway. He checked the GPS again and ran full tilt with Meszoly at his heels.
10
Trotting down the stairwell, de Cerceau cursed Krauzer for his slowness and he cursed whoever had shown up to interfere in the ongoing operation. The man who had hired him had mentioned nothing about the possibility of another team being involved. Especially not one that came so well equipped.
When he reached the first-floor door leading back into the building, de Cerceau yanked the entrance open and propelled Krauzer ahead of him in case anyone was lying in wait. When no shots were fired, he followed the man into the hallway.
Krauzer stood like a lemming, frozen in the hallway with his arms wrapped around the crystal. He was breathing hard and looked pale, as if he might pass out at any moment.
De Cerceau shoved Krauzer into motion again, driving him toward the nearest exit.
When de Cerceau reached the door, he tried the knob and discovered it was locked. He leveled the machine pistol and fired. Sparks jumped as the bullets shredded the locking mechanism. He pushed Krauzer through the doors and followed him, urging the man into a run while scanning the surroundings.
To the south, the debris of one of the helicopters lay scattered between buildings. Small fires clung to some of the pieces, and the main body lay canted to one side. Trapped in his seat harness, the dead pilot lay halfway out of the aircraft.
“Gerard.” De Cerceau spoke loudly, hoping his voice would be heard over the commotion.
“I’m here.” Gerard’s response was tense.
“Are you free?”
“Yes, but if we don’t get out of here now, we’re not going to escape the police.”
The police were the least of de Cerceau’s worries. The rival team concerned him more.
“I am outside the building now. I will meet you at the northeast corner.”
“I will be there.” A flurry of gunfire ripped into life at Gerard’
s end of the conversation.
Staying to the shadows as much as he was able, de Cerceau herded his prisoner in the direction they needed to go.
As de Cerceau and Krauzer cleared the last building and headed toward the street, Gerard’s car glided around the corner and slid to a stop. Behind them, de Cerceau spotted the men running from the building they’d just quit. Trusting that the men would not shoot for fear of hitting Krauzer, trusting that they wanted the man alive, de Cerceau swiveled and unleashed a burst that drove the two men on his heels into cover.
Beside him, the director yelped in fear, dropped the crystal he’d been carrying and ran toward the nearest oak tree.
Cursing the men behind him and Krauzer’s cowardice, de Cerceau grabbed the crystal from the ground as bullets tore into the landscaped bushes around him.
Having no choice, de Cerceau sprinted for all he was worth, heading for Gerard. Just before he reached the car, a salvo of bullets ripped into a tree as he ducked behind it.
Gerard pushed the passenger door open. De Cerceau tossed the crystal into the back of the vehicle and slid into the passenger seat. Gerard floored it and de Cerceau allowed the acceleration to slam the door shut while he scanned the college grounds.
The two men had reached Krauzer and were half-masked in shadows. Before Gerard cleared the area, one of the men dropped his machine pistol and drew his sidearm. De Cerceau sat comfortably behind the bullet-resistant glass and tried to recognize the man.
In the next instant, armor-piercing bullets holed the window and the car.
Gerard swore and pulled through the parking lot of a nearby restaurant, one of the many such places that ringed the campus. Panicked college students ducked out of the way as Gerard skidded for a moment before regaining traction on the side street.
Then they were rolling, gaining speed as they drove away from the college.
* * *
“CAN YOU HEAR ME, Vincent?” Annja kept the pressure on Orta’s wound, wondering if he’d lost too much blood, knowing he’d lost a lot because it was soaked into the carpet and the knees of her pants.
