22

Annja looked in on Jeff first. He was under the canvas next to a sifting table, on a cot that Jennifer said was the only other one the men hadn’t pitched on the bonfire.

“He’s in shock,” Annja said. She felt his forehead; he was cold, clammy and pale, and his lips had a slight bluish cast.

“Yeah, I know that.” This came from an archaeologist named Sulene. She was the youngest of the professional crew, a wisp of a woman with thin, wheat-blond hair. “I’ve had enough first-aid courses in my closet to tell me that. Not just from loss of blood, though. We pretty well have that stopped, though maybe he’s got some internal bleeding going on. He’s conscious, barely, but he’s not talking.”

Sulene pulled back the two blankets that were covering Jeff so Annja could see his bandaged leg. His clothing had been loosened to make him more comfortable. She quickly replaced the blankets and tucked him in again.

More blankets were draped over two bodies just outside the canopy. Annja didn’t need to look to know that Josie and Matthew were under them.

“He needs to be in a hospital,” Sulene continued, nodding to Jeff. “An ambo is coming, but it’s still awhile out, I’ll wager. Dr. Michaels got them all coming with one call to the emergency operator—NSW state police, local police, fire brigade probably and the ambo.” She nodded to her other patient, stretched out on the ground a few yards away. He had not been given a blanket, and two archaeologists stood over him, one with a gun pointed at his head. “He needs a hospital, too, but I could give a wombat’s ass if he gets one. I only made sure he was still alive and straightened him out a bit so he could breathe better. His neck might be broken.”

“Thank you for tending me.” Annja assumed it had been Sulene who had dressed her arm. She obviously hadn’t discovered Annja’s cracked ribs, but then there was no outward sign of that injury.

“You could do with an ambo yourself,” Sulene said. “Bullet went right through the fleshy part of your arm, but there could be infection. Ankle’s all swollen, too. But I didn’t do anything for that. Didn’t have time.” She stepped back from the cot. “You should take Dari with you, to the hospital. I’m out of bandages and alcohol. His face should be looked at. Probably needs at least a few stitches.”

Annja walked past Sulene, aware that most of the assembly was watching her. She stopped a few feet back from the man on the ground.

“Has he said anything?” She put her weight on her left leg, and glanced around for a chair. Probably all of them had been pitched on the fire.

Both archaeologists watching him shook their heads.

“But he will say something.” Jennifer came up, right hand in her pocket and a mean look on her face. “I can guarantee you he’ll talk.”

“We don’t even know if he speaks English.” This came from the archaeologist holding the pistol on him.

“He speaks English,” Annja said. “Or at least understands enough of it. Look at his eyes. He’s following our conversation.” She knelt next to him, glad to be off her sore ankle. She wasn’t worried he’d attack her; she’d noticed that his wrists and ankles had been tied with the wiry twine they used to secure packed crates. Not even his fingers were twitching. His neck might indeed be broken.

Jennifer squatted next to Annja, brandishing a pair of pliers that she’d been holding tight in her left hand. “I stuck the end in the fire,” she said. “It’s nice and hot like a brand. I’ve watched enough spy shows to know how to torture a man. Make him hurt enough and he’ll talk.”

“That might not be necessary,” Annja said.

Jennifer’s eyes narrowed and she clacked the pliers. “Josie’s dead, and one of those students. Josie and I went back twenty years. I don’t understand why they had to die, or why these men had to come here. I don’t understand why they wanted you so bad that—”

“Because I got a look at their boss, like I said. The Sword—Sayed Houssam—if that’s his real name. I suspect it’s not, too close to Saddam Hussein, probably picked it for that reason.” Annja made a huffing sound and fluttered her hair. She realized the night-vision goggles had been taken off her head. “Funny thing is, Oliver probably had no clue that he got a shot of a terrorist.”

Annja leaned so close to the man that she could smell the stink of him. Despite the cool weather, he’d been sweating, perhaps hadn’t changed clothes for a while, and there were blood spatters on his shirt, though it didn’t look to be his blood. She pulled back.

“If they hadn’t come after Oliver and me, no one would have known that the Sword was in Australia. We were only shooting a one-hour segment, and there wouldn’t have been any room for shots of the student dig and Sayed. Oliver just likes—liked—taking lots of pictures.” She brought her face inches from his. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Your cameraman?”

“He does speak English!” one of the archaeologists cut in. “Yes, my cameraman. Oliver.” One of the assassins on the ridge had told her that he’d been killed, but she wanted confirmation.

“He’s dead,” the man said. “The American with the blue eyes and expensive cameras.” His voice was raspy, perhaps naturally or because Dari had punched him in the throat. It sounded as if it was difficult to get the words out.

“Where is his body?”

“Gone. Nothing but ashes. Nothing to find, and nothing to bury. And you should have joined him.” He tried to spit at her, but he couldn’t work up the saliva, and apparently he couldn’t turn his head.

Jennifer leaned over him and clacked the pliers. “I want to know why you killed Josie and that student.” She leaned back and held her free hand to her mouth. The smell of him was intense.

“She told you,” he said, adding in a string of ugly-sounding foreign words. “The Sword did not wish to be seen in this place. No witnesses.”

“The world thinks he’s in England,” Annja said numbly.

“Yes,” the man answered. Again he seemed to struggle to get the words out. “Unfortunate that the Sword came to this desolate hole on a day when someone was shooting pictures.”

Unfortunate for Oliver and Josie and Matthew, Annja thought.

Jennifer choked back a sob and gripped the pliers so tight that even in the scant light Annja could see that her knuckles were white. The woman clearly wanted to hurt someone, she was so angry and distraught over Josie’s murder. Annja reached up and took the pliers from her.

“The Sword does not want Egyptian artifacts,” Annja said. She watched the man’s brow furrow. “What does the Sword want here?”

“His cause is just!”

Annja made a snarling sound. “I read the papers. The Sword rarely has a cause beyond money. He doesn’t bomb stadiums and blow up buses to make a political point. Someone pays him to do those things.”

The man snarled, but still his head did not turn. “The people he works for have causes. That is enough. Their cause becomes his cause!”

“For the right price.” Annja sat the pliers down; she noted that Jennifer’s eyes were fixed on them. “And what is Dr. Hamam’s cause?”

The man looked straight ahead, up into the face of the archeologist with the gun. He set his lips into a thin, defiant line.

“I can make him talk,” Jennifer said. Her words came out a whisper, no power behind them. She gulped in air and fought the tears that threatened the corners of her eyes.

Annja leaned forward again, put her hands on his shoulders and put all her weight on him. “You will tell us.”

His eyes seemed to fix on a spot far from the clearing in the forest preserve.

“What does Dr. Hamam want with the Sword?” For good measure she jabbed her knee into his side, noting that he didn’t even flinch. Annja detested the notion of torture, but Oliver’s face loomed large in the back of her mind. “What foul, foul thing is the Sword up to here?”

He remained silent. Sounds came to her, someone talking to Sulene, Jon talking to Cindy, Jennifer giving in to her sobs, the crackle of the still-burning fire. Faintly, she heard sirens.

“You’ll tell the police, then,” Annja said. She jabbed him again and then pushed off him to help her stand. “And I’ll tell them all about the Sword being in Sydney.”

“He is the wind, American,” the man said. “He cannot be caught.”

The archaeologist holding the gun lowered it and pulled back on the trigger. “I’m betting, mate, that everyone here will say I shot you in self-defense.”

“I don’t know what the Sword’s ultimate work here is,” he spit, “but it will be glorious and deadly.”

Annja turned away, disgusted and frustrated. “He probably doesn’t know,” she told Jennifer. “Lackeys like him are usually not let in on the prize. They’re merely brought along to help obtain it.”

Moments later, a police van drove into sight. There was another car behind it, back by where the archaeologists parked their vehicles, and a truck that looked like a SWAT wagon. Annja could see the flashing lights, and she heard someone talking loudly over a police radio.

There were more headlights coming through the trees, two more police cars judging by the height of the flashing lights, and after a moment, another truck. She heard the sound of a helicopter. It seemed that Dr. Michaels had been able to lure a small army of police.

The side of the van read Cessnock Correctional Centre. Two officers got out, guns holstered, but the snap off them so they could be pulled quickly. The taller one pushed his hat back and took a look around. Wes and Jennifer were quick to meet him.

Annja held back and listened.

“Not easy to find the road,” the tall officer said. “But your directions were good.”

“I used to drive cabs when I was in college,” Wes said. “I know how to give directions.” Then he started to explain what had happened at the site, Jennifer interjecting about the shootings.

“No ambo yet?” This came from Sulene, who continued to worry over Jeff.

“No, not yet,” Annja told her. “But the police are a start. The ambulance shouldn’t be far behind.”

“I hope not for Jeff’s sake,” Sulene said. She took a glance at the cops and then looked back at Jeff. “I wish that friend of yours—Dari—killed that son of a bitch rather than just cracked his neck.”

“There’s been enough killing. Besides, if his neck is broken, might that not be worse than death?” Annja yawned. Despite her nap in the Purple Pussycat, she was feeling the effects of the ordeal, and knew she could do with some more sleep. And maybe a trip to the hospital wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all, she thought. Grazed, shot, cracked ribs and a sprained ankle…a little professional mending might be a very good idea. “What a thoroughly rotten day this has been.”

Dari joined her, watching as four more officers, these state police, joined the two from the van. After a few moments, Jennifer led them to the injured killer and gestured at the two bodies.

The bald biker’s face looked much worse than Annja had realized. Close to the fire the flames revealed every cut. The gargoyle tattoo was obscured by a smear of blood, and the fleshy ridge above his right eye was torn where one of the men had ripped out his silver hoop. The diamond stud had likewise been ripped out of his nose.

“Where’s that sword you were swinging?” he asked her. “The one you found on the ridge?”

Annja shrugged. “I must have dropped it somewhere.”

“Pity. It was a beaut,” he said. “That would have been a souvenir worth keeping.”

A brief silence settled between them.

“Sorry about all of this,” she said. Annja didn’t know quite what else to say. She’d inadvertently dragged other innocents into her adventures before, but rarely did they get beat up so badly. “Sulene’s right—you need to go to a hospital.”

“I’m in better shape than you,” he returned. “At least I wasn’t shot.”

“At least we’re both alive.” Annja’s voice trailed off as two of the police officers looked under the blankets at the bodies. A third went to Jeff’s cot.

The remaining three continued to talk to Wes and Jennifer, all of them hovering around the intruder. Jennifer talked about the two jeeps filled with the men who drove away. Then she pointed to Annja, and the police looked her way.

“You going to talk to them?” Dari raised a bloody eyebrow. Annja could see where bruises were starting to form on his cheeks. They would be large and would cover most of his face.

“I guess I’m going to have to,” she said. “But they’re not the ones I need to talk to. Those guys are back in Sydney.”

“Where this Dr. Hamam teaches?”

Annja nodded and shuffled toward the three policemen.

“Those men were looking for Annja Creed,” Jennifer said, waggling her fingers. “The woman who was doing a television special about our dig.”

Annja heard more sirens, and hoped it was the ambulance.

“Ambo’s coming,” an officer announced. “And so’s a medi-evac chopper. It’s just trying to find a close place to land.”

Annja stood next to Jennifer and told her side of the story, leaving out her sword, but leaving nothing out about Sayed and Dr. Hamam.

The police listened, one of them taking notes, one of them asking questions, and the third appearing to keep an eye on the Arab, but carefully taking in her story. She was surprised that they seemed to believe her, and at the same time she was glad that none of them had heard of her before or had watched a single episode of Chasing History’s Monsters.

Somehow she’d expected at least one of them to accuse her of being partly responsible for the carnage; she would have accused herself if she were in their position. And she half expected to be asked to “come downtown with us, ma’am.” Instead, the lead officer told her simply to stick around the country a few more days and let them know where she would be staying. He passed her a card with his name and contact numbers on it.

“And contact the Sydney police first thing in the morning,” the lead officer said. “They’ll want to ask you about the incident at the hotel. State investigators are going to want to talk to you, too.”

“Of course,” Annja agreed.

“You really should have talked to the Sydney detectives right away, ma’am,” he said.

“I realize that now,” she said apologetically.

“Yeah, hindsight really is twenty-twenty. Take care of yourself ma’am.”

Then he left her to call in a preliminary report.

Annja breathed a sigh of relief. She knew she could well be wanted in the Sydney hotel matter, and word of it hadn’t trickled out to police forces in other towns.

Annja learned that not all of the area police had come from Cessnock, but it had a prison, and Wes had told them there were a lot of men who needed locking up—hence the Cessnock police were asked to bring a prisoner transport van. One of the officers looking at the bodies grumbled that they didn’t need to bring their van for one live prisoner, adding that instead the archaeologist should have called for multiple ambulances.

Moments later an ambulance arrived, and Sulene waved frantically to get the paramedics’ attention.

“Jeff should be going on the helicopter,” Sulene said. “You can put that bastard on a backboard and take him in the ambo. I want Jeff on the helicopter.”

Annja wandered back to Dari.

“You should go with them, Dari.”

“Look, Miss Cr—”

“Annja.”

“Are you going? You were shot.”

She didn’t answer. She stared at the flames.

“The ambo’s from Cessnock, Annja. You’ll like the town. They call it a city, but it’s a spit of a city next to Sydney. It’s not too far north of here. Don’t think it has more than twenty thousand folks. But you can’t call it a woop woop, either.” He crossed his arms. “Used to be a mining town, but the coalfields all closed down some years back. Now it produces wine. The Darkinjung tribe settled it a few thousand years ago, then the Europeans came and wiped out a lot of the indigenous folk with their diseases. A lot of history there, that’s what you’d like about it.”

“I might visit it when I come back for a vacation,” Annja said.

“So you’re not going in the ambulance?”

She shook her head.

“You’re going to see Dr. Hamam, aren’t you?” Dari asked.

Annja nodded sadly.

“Seems like you’re more than just a television archaeologist,” Dari said.

“And you’re more than just another bloke from the Cross,” she replied with a smile.

“You look me up next time you’re in Sydney. Easy enough to find me through one of my op shops,” he said.

“I promise.” Annja felt in her pocket for the keys to the SUV. She had her own ride to the university.