The sword appeared in Annja’s hand as she swung it toward the demolitions man’s chest pack. The man was caught flat-footed.
Three feet of naked double-bladed steel, honed to razor-sharp edges, whipped through the air. The sword was inelegant, a tool designed for bloody work, not a showpiece to be kept on a mantel somewhere. It was the sword of a warrior.
The sword tip sliced through the chest pack and nicked the flesh beneath. Annja could have killed the man where he stood. Instead, she whirled and caught the tumbling remote control in her free hand, folding her right leg into her chest, then driving it forward in a side kick.
The man flew backward three or four yards, landing in a heap. He didn’t move again.
Annja was fairly certain she’d rendered him unconscious but hadn’t killed him. She made it a point not to kill unless she had to.
She turned, too fast for any of the surprised men to stop her, though they tried. She shook off one man’s hand, then swept the sword forward and blocked the sniper’s attempt to shoot her. Metal grated on metal.
Professor Hallinger and the others had burst free of the warehouse. The shouting on the ground quickly escalated into mass confusion.
The man who’d taken her hostage took aim at Annja as she ran to the roof access door. She dodged, feeling a bullet scald the air close to her cheek. From the corner of her eye, she spotted the masked man taking aim again.
She dived forward, tucking the sword and the detonator in close, rolling to the side as bullets thudded into the rooftop behind her. Coming to her feet immediately, she raced for the access door and took shelter behind it just as a fusillade of bullets raked the front of the structure.
The screaming detonation of automatic fire told Annja the thieves no longer favored silence.
“Up there!” someone shouted.
Dropping to her knees, Annja glanced at the remote control and saw a panel on the back. Laying the sword aside for a moment, she opened the back and popped the batteries out. Placing the detonator on the ground, she picked up the sword and smashed the device with the hilt.
Footsteps sounded to her right.
The moon was behind the man. Evidently he hadn’t noticed because his shadow stretched out before him, arriving well before he did.
Annja broke to her left. The roof’s edge wasn’t far away. Close enough, she thought, that she could make it. If she had to, she could probably jump to street level to escape.
But she didn’t want to escape. These men had gone into the warehouse, and one of them had callously shot a student as if it were nothing.
Annja didn’t intend to let them simply walk away. That hadn’t been her way before she’d found the sword, and it definitely wasn’t her way now.
On the other side of the roof-access structure, she could see that the other men were now in full flight. They headed north across the rooftops, away from the warehouse, leaping the distance between the close-set buildings. They’d left behind the man she’d kicked. He still lay prone on the roof.
Moving quickly, Annja vaulted on top of the access structure and scrambled forward. On the other side, the shadowy man advanced around the corner, both hands supporting his pistol as he spun to face where he believed Annja was hiding.
Her shadow, caught by the moon, shot out ahead of the structure’s shadow on the rooftop. The sudden appearance must have caught the man’s attention. He tried to turn and bring his weapon up, stepping back to give himself room to work.
Gripping the structure with one hand, Annja swung down, angling her body so that her left foot caught the man in the face. He went down, falling backward and losing his grip on the pistol.
Annja landed on her feet, knees bent to absorb the shock. She slid naturally into a horse stance, then swung the sword and brought the flat of the blade hard against the side of the man’s head as he struggled to get to his feet. He slumped on the rooftop, unconscious.
Turning, Annja set off in pursuit of the fleeing men. Her stride was immediately long and sure, eating up the distance. She had no idea who had sent the men, but it was obvious that someone felt the stone was important.
She made the leap to the next building easily, lengthening her stride again. Ahead, the men disappeared over the side of one of the buildings. Annja ran faster.
WHEN SHE REACHED the edge of the last building, Annja peered down carefully. She caught sight of the gunman stationed below just as he fired the machine pistol he held. Annja barely yanked her head back in time to keep her face from getting shot off.
Bullets ripped through the air in front of her, then chipped into the stone side of the building as the gunner tried to correct his aim. The gunfire and whine of the bullets ricocheting from the wall rang in her ears.
Farther out, three of the men ran for a white van that skidded to a stop in front of the single police car blocking the alley from curious pedestrians. The policeman took cover behind his vehicle as he shouted on his radio. The radio squawks were overwhelmed by the sound of the gunfire.
Two gunmen slid free of the van. Both of them held fully automatic weapons that peppered the police car. The lone police officer tried to duckwalk away from his vehicle as bullets cored through the police car. Before he’d taken a half-dozen steps, he pirouetted and dropped, sprawling to the ground.
One of the gunners in the van turned his weapon on the rooftop where Annja stood. More bullets tore through brick and mortar where she took cover. Frustrated, she waited out the onslaught. She had no choice.
Rubber shrieked on the street as sirens shrilled on the other side of the warehouse.
Chancing a look down, Annja saw the white van speeding away. She also knew with the way the road curved along the warehouse district, coming back around in almost a 180-degree turn, that the thieves hadn’t gotten away cleanly. She still had a chance.
She ran to the side of the building that overlooked the street where the van would have to pass along. She charged down the metal fire escape, steps banging as she made the twists and turns. She reached the final ladder, grabbed hold of it with her free hand and jumped on to ride to the ground.
Taking cover in the shadows, Annja kept her hand around the sword hilt and watched as the van came sliding around the far turn. The bright lights played over her position, then kept on moving, coming closer.
Okay, Annja told herself, this is your last chance to rethink what you’re about to do. She kept picturing the innocent student the masked man had shot in cold blood. She knew that Professor Hallinger would feel responsible. She didn’t want the men to get away.
Annja stepped out of the darkness into the path of the speeding van. She held the sword in both hands, up high so she could sweep the blade down.
Roux had worked with her for a time on her swordcraft, then he’d ultimately found more pleasant pursuits after spending five hundred years looking for the pieces of the shattered sword. She still practiced with the sword every day, getting to know the weapon more and more intimately as she worked.
The van’s headlights fell across Annja. Shadows within the front seats moved. The passenger leaned out his window and took aim.
Annja ran toward the van, matching her speed and her stride, running toward the driver’s side to make it more difficult for the gunner to track her. Bullets cracked through the air as the muzzle-flashes appeared in sporadic bursts.
At the last moment, Annja leaped, placing one foot on the van’s hood and pushing off again. She arced up, twisting her body so that she flipped and landed on her feet on the van’s roof. She was sure that before she’d gotten the sword she could never have accomplished such a maneuver. Now it was almost child’s play.
The driver immediately took evasive action, swinging the steering wheel wildly. The van took out a line of trash cans, filling the air with the noise of tearing metal and grinding. Sparks shot out as trash cans remained stuck beneath the van.
Bullets tore through the thin metal of the van’s roof. They missed Annja, who dropped to one knee and reversed the sword so that she held it point down. Using all her strength, she plunged the sword down through the roof.
Annja missed the driver by inches. The sudden appearance of the sword slicing through the van’s top startled the driver. He pulled hard to the right, slamming the van into a wall in an effort to dislodge Annja.
Grimly, she hung on to the front of the van. She didn’t want to let the men escape, not only for wounding the college student, but also because she wanted to know the reasons for the attack in the first place. Why was the stone so important?
Sparks cascaded along the van’s side, coming in a deluge as the vehicle left scarred building walls in its wake. The grinding sound erased all but the shrill cries of the police sirens. The van gained speed.
Annja didn’t know if the men could manage to escape from the police. They seemed well organized, but she didn’t want to take any chances. Bullets ripped along the van’s rooftop, missing her by inches.
Moving quickly, she vaulted forward and landed on the hood in a crouch. On the other side of the cracked windshield, the driver and the passenger looked incredulous. The passenger finished reloading his machine pistol and leveled the weapon.
Annja struck first, shoving the sword’s point toward the driver and shattering the glass. The driver ducked, pulling hard on the steering wheel.
Already off balance from the impacts against the wall, the van slid to the left, then came up on two wheels in a slow roll. Annja jumped clear, hurling herself from the path of the sudden explosion of bullets.
Annja landed in a crouch, allowing her legs to absorb the shock of the landing. Surprise filled her for just a moment. Then she accepted what she’d just done by instinct. Having the sword or simply reforging the sword had changed her. She still wasn’t sure of everything that had occurred or would continue to occur. But it no longer shocked her or scared her.
The van careened over on its side and skidded along the street. Even before it slammed to a stop against one of the buildings, the rear cargo doors opened and three men rolled free. Annja ran toward them, catching up with the first one before he got to his feet. She swung the sword and brought the hilt down on the man’s head, knocking him unconscious with the blow.
Ducking the second man’s attempt to pull up his machine pistol, she swept his legs from beneath him with her own, then grabbed his hair through the mask and slammed his head against the street. He went limp and the gun clattered to the ground.
The third man snarled curses at her as he pointed his pistol. Before he could fire, Annja rolled and came to her feet. She swung the sword and knocked away the pistol. The bullet missed her by inches as the weapon went flying.
Recovering almost immediately, the man launched himself at her, punching and kicking. Annja recognized him at once as she stepped clear of his attack. He was the leader, the one who’d so coldly shot the college student.
Tossing her sword to the side, Annja felt its absence as it phased back into the otherwhere. Taking another quick step back, she set herself, left forearm raised in front of her and right hand clenched at her hip. She blocked the man’s attacks in rapid succession, turning aside a punch with her forearm, two kicks with her lead leg, then stepped in low to deliver a kidney blow as he tried to set himself.
He cried out in pain.
Savage satisfaction lit through Annja as she heard him. Still in motion, slipping to the man’s right, she reverse kicked, bringing her foot high enough to collide with the man’s face. Incredibly, he remained standing.
Okay, Annja thought, that’s not good. She bounced back on her toes, setting up with her right leg forward this time, changing strong sides so he’d have to adapt.
The man spit blood.
“That’s DNA evidence,” Annja taunted. “Even if you got away, which you won’t, the police would be able to track you down.”
He snarled, “You won’t know how that ends up.” He curled his hands and tucked them in close to the sides of his face, elbows out to block. “I’m going to kill you,” he said. Then he attacked.
Annja gave ground, knowing his weight was an advantage that she couldn’t meet head-on. Her hands and feet flew, blocking, parrying, turning. Despite her skill, the impacts would leave bruises.
She escalated her defense, still giving ground but circling now. Then the rhythm changed. His breath started coming faster, his lungs sounded like stressed bellows pumps. For every three punches or kicks he threw, she threw one back, each one placed with telling accuracy, thudding into his face, his chest or his legs. She patiently allowed him to exhaust himself.
When she saw his strength was flagging, she stepped in close and swept his legs. As he fell, Annja hammered him twice in the face. He tried to get up, but she grabbed the back of his head with her hands and kneed him in the face.
His nose broke with an audible crunch. Unconscious, he rolled over on his back.
Police sirens screamed as they closed in.
Annja didn’t want to be caught there. The police would have too many questions about how she had overcome a van full of armed men. She turned and ran into the night.
ANNJA LOOKED UP from the stone she’d been working on since the Kirktown Police Department had shut down all activity at the warehouse and brought everyone to the police station. Annja was seated at a borrowed desk in the detectives’ bullpen.
The man standing beside the desk looked as though he was in his early thirties, with curly brown hair, dark green eyes and a square face. He wore jeans and a white snap-button Western shirt, cowboy boots and a tan corduroy blazer with leather elbow patches. He dropped a black cowboy hat onto the desk beside the stone covered in Hausa writing.
“I’m Detective Andrew McIntosh.” He extended his hand.
Annja took it, feeling his flesh hot against hers in the semicooled office space. “You don’t look like a detective,” she said.
McIntosh reached into his back pocket and brought out a badge case. He flipped it open to reveal the badge and ID.
Annja kept her eyes on his face, studying him, but she read the ID from the corner of her eye. “It says you’re from Atlanta. Not Kirktown.”
McIntosh smiled. “Most people don’t see past the badge.”
“I do,” Annja said.
“Kirktown doesn’t usually find murder victims 150 years old. Or have running gun battles with terrorist weapons in their streets. Since both happened more or less on the same day and appear to be connected, the captain of detectives here in Kirktown asked for some help on this one. I volunteered.”
“Are things that boring in Atlanta?” Annja was responding to the cocky smoothness the man demonstrated. The overconfidence rankled her.
He smiled, and she could see the mischievous little boy he’d probably been twenty-something years ago. His cheeks dimpled.
“Actually, that’s a funny story. I’m on administrative leave.” McIntosh pointed to a chair beside the desk. “Mind if I sit?”
“The police station would seem to belong more to you than to me,” she said coolly.
“This is Georgia, Ms. Creed. Some of us still have manners. My momma always said it was impolite to sit with a lady without asking.”
He was a charmer, Annja was amused to discover. She wondered if the down-home good-ol’-boy routine was an act. If it is, it’s a good one. She was intrigued. She turned a hand toward the chair. “Please.”
McIntosh sat.
Around the bullpen, several of the students and Professor Hallinger sat with detectives while giving statements.
Annja waited until he was settled. “Why am I being interviewed again?”
“You’ve been interviewed before?” McIntosh seemed surprised by that.
“I have been. And you know that. I just saw you talking to the detective who interviewed me.”
McIntosh grinned like a kid who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I could have sworn you were totally involved in that rock.”
“I am. I could be more involved if I wasn’t trying to translate it while sitting in a police station filled with people.”
Leaning forward, McIntosh looked at the lettering and the pictographs. “You can read that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
McIntosh glanced at the notebook Annja had been working in.
Annja shifted just enough to shield the notebook.
Smiling easily, McIntosh leaned back in the chair. “You’re an interesting woman, Ms. Creed.”
“Thank you. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Actually, I did. I was asked to interview you again because you’re so interesting.”
“How interesting?”
“Well, it’s interesting that Professor Hallinger decided to call you in—”
“Because I have a little familiarity with the Hausa language,” Annja said.
McIntosh nodded. “It’s also interesting that the men tried to swipe that stone shortly after you arrived.”
“They waited till after it got dark. Otherwise the police officers would have spotted them entering the warehouse,” Annja said.
“Maybe.”
Annja arched an eyebrow. “Or maybe I arranged for them to be here?”
“Someone did.”
“It wasn’t me.”
McIntosh smiled at her. “I hope that’s true. You’re a good-looking woman, Ms. Creed. But you were also the one they decided to take with them when they fled the scene.”
“Because I could read some of what’s written on this stone.”
“How did they know that?”
“While they were taking us prisoner, they asked.”
McIntosh raised his eyebrows innocently. “So you just told them you could?”
“Like you, they saw my notes,” Annja said, no longer concealing her irritation.
McIntosh grinned. “See? That’s interesting, too.”
“I escaped from those men, Detective McIntosh.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Then what do we have to talk about?”
“Let’s see if we can come up with something,” he said. Reaching into his jacket pocket, McIntosh took out a small bound notebook and a half-dozen pens held together with a rubber band.
“Why are you on administrative leave?” Annja took a sip from the cup of coffee she’d been given. It had gotten cold, but long hours at her work had accustomed her to that.
“What?”
“You said you were on administrative leave.”
“I am.”
Placing her elbows on the desk, Annja leaned forward and looked into his eyes. “Tell me why.”
McIntosh sighed. “Are you really going to make me tell this story?”
“Yes.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I like stories. Otherwise I’m going to call a lawyer in and have him ask you and the Kirktown Police Department why my time is being wasted. Not only that, but I’m going to return my producer’s phone call. Maybe I can help increase the media attention you’re getting here.”
McIntosh feigned a frown, but Annja knew he was a natural-born storyteller. As an archaeologist, she’d learned to recognize people like that. Sometimes they helped on a dig site and sometimes they hindered. She needed to know what McIntosh was—a help or a hindrance.
“I was on stakeout,” McIntosh said. “My partner and I were working a serial burglar downtown. Guy was working hotels. For a city with a lot of tourists that come in, that’s not a good thing.”
“I can see that,” Annja said, sitting back.
“In addition to stealing valuables, the guy also had a pantie fetish.” McIntosh paused. “I don’t want to offend you.”
“Hey. I live in New York. Talking about underwear isn’t going to offend me.”
McIntosh appeared to relax. “I’m gonna remember you said that. Anyway, I got the idea to use a bloodhound to track the guy. The chief has one of the best at tracking men, but the dog is one of his favorites. I kind of borrowed him without telling the chief. I guessed that maybe the thief was someone staying at the hotel. Thunder—that’s the name of the chief’s dog—hit on a scent almost immediately.”
Annja grinned, enjoying the laconic way the detective spun the tale. The experience was even more amusing because she knew he was lying, probably making it up on the spot.
“Well, Thunder lit out. I did my best to keep up. But you have to imagine the scene. We’re talking a five-star hotel here. Thunder is racing down the hallway, hits the stairwell, and down we go. He’s baying to beat the band. You ever heard a bloodhound working a trail?”
Annja nodded, grinning wider now.
“I’m talking about those long, loud, mournful howls. If you don’t know what it is, you might think somebody was getting killed. Or maybe it was some kind of monster loose in the hotel. Well now, there were a lot of people in that hotel who hadn’t heard a bloodhound baying before.”
“Must have really gotten a lot of attention,” Annja said.
“We did. Way more than I ever wanted to. The chase ended up in the hotel lobby. The guy was there checking out when Thunder hit him. His bag popped open when it hit the floor. Jewelry, cash and panties scattered everywhere. The thief pulled a gun and shot Thunder before I had a chance to clear leather with my pistol.”
“Poor dog.”
“Nah. Thunder’s all right. Just grazed his scalp. But it was enough to leave him scarred and gun shy. The chief wasn’t happy about that.” McIntosh shrugged. “So that’s how I ended up on administrative leave.”
“And you were the first person the Kirktown Police Department thought to call when things got out of hand here.” Annja smiled in mock wonder. She started clapping, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
McIntosh had the decency to look embarrassed. Maybe he really was, she thought. He reached over and took Annja’s hands, stopping her from clapping.
Annja twisted her hands from his and leaned back, crossing her arms over her breasts. “That’s the most creative load of BS I’ve seen someone come up with on the spot in a long time.”
“What are you talking about?” McIntosh looked mystified.
“You’re a Fed, McIntosh. You’re using the Atlanta PD as a cover. No one around here would know you.”
Some of the easygoing demeanor dropped from McIntosh’s face. His features took on a distant hardness. “You are an interesting woman, Ms. Creed.”
“One that has a job to do, and I can’t do it here. So either cut to the chase or let me call my attorney.”
“I’m with Homeland Security. We have power you haven’t even seen. The attorney happens when I say it happens,” McIntosh said firmly.
“Great. There’s nothing more I like than being threatened by my own government. I get enough of government meddling when I’m on digs overseas.” Annja took a deep breath. “I’ve been on the phone with the producer of the television show I work for every thirty minutes since I’ve been here.” She wondered if her pseudo-celebrity status could actually be useful.
“I’m aware of your television presence,” McIntosh said, sounding unimpressed.
“I’ve talked him out of hiring a crew out of Atlanta to cover this.” Annja paused for dramatic effect. “So far. But one missed phone call, you can bet he’s going to send someone in.”
McIntosh reflected on the situation for a moment. “You get more interesting the more I know you.”
“You should see me in action with an attorney and a camera crew, then.”
“Have you had dinner, Ms. Creed?”
A glance at her watch told Annja it was almost two in the morning. “No.”
“Let’s get out of here and get something to eat. And I’ll tell you why Homeland Security is interested in this.”
“Can I bring the stone?” she asked.
McIntosh hesitated for just a second. “Sure.”