26

Sayed Houssam hadn’t died in the abandoned factory, Annja learned at the police station. And the man in the flannel shirt would recover—but indeed he had a broken sternum.

The Sword was under heavy guard in the emergency-care unit of St. Vincent’s Hospital, and the verdict was still out on whether he would pull through. For all the evil acts he’d perpetrated through the years, she hoped he would die. It had been a long time since she’d wished someone dead.

“Someone will probably give you a medal, Miss Creed. Some idiot out there will think you’re a hero.” The officer who sat across from Annja was pushing retirement age. He had more hairs showing on his arms than on his head, and he had liver spots on the backs of his hands. He had the bulbous, red-veined nose of a heavy drinker, and his eyes seemed too small for his round, ruddy face. But those eyes were clear and focused, and they stared at her as if to weigh and measure her and judge her mettle.

He didn’t say anything else for several moments. Annja had seen enough police procedures to understand; silence often made people uneasy, and cops employed the technique to get their targets to talk. However, Annja had nothing to say at the moment; all her body wanted to do was sleep.

It had been six hours since the police had stormed the abandoned factory. In those hours she’d learned that the authorities had managed to stop one more of the tanker trucks from disgorging its poison, but the other had emptied half of its load before the police arrived. Two men fled the latter scene and were still at large.

Chemists were hard at work isolating the toxin and finding a way to neutralize it, just as the terrorist had used an agent to neutralize the chlorine.

Bulletins had been issued not to drink the water or to bathe in it, as the toxin could splash in the eyes and mouth and be absorbed that way. One thing the chemists had learned was that the poison was terribly lethal.

Bottled water and soft drinks were flying off the shelves at supermarkets and convenience stores. In some places, riots had been sparked and the police called in.

Police shifts had been extended, and off-duty officers had been called in to help manage the panic. Several vacations had been nixed.

The roads were filled with people leaving the city, and as a result there were dozens of fender benders.

Hospitals and clinics were gearing up to treat poison victims—particularly those who did not hear the news alerts and were oblivious to the hysteria outside their doors.

The police had no clues to Oliver’s whereabouts, though more than one of the captured Arabs admitted to hearing that the cameraman was dead. A detective told Annja it was unlikely a body ever would be recovered.

“You certainly have the chest to pin it on, this medal they’ll want to give you,” the officer said, finally breaking the silence.

Maybe he thought the verbal jab would get a rise out of Annja. She just sat there, exhaustion tugging at her core.

Her ankle had been professionally wrapped by an ambulance crew at the abandoned factory, and her ribs checked. They didn’t wrap cracked ribs anymore, and she declined an X ray. Annja had gotten a look at her side in the mirror of the police station restroom, all blue and purple and ghastly—looking not quite as bad as it felt.

She’d taken a couple of painkillers with a soda an officer had offered. Water was off-limits for a while, and so her much needed and coveted shower would have to wait. She’d rubbed the makeup off her face with a dry paper towel, smearing it pitifully, but getting rid of most of it and leaving in its place more bruises and an ugly black eye.

“Yep, someone will want to give you a medal.” He tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. “Me? I just want to give you a nice cell. And I want to throw away the key.”

She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Annja was too exhausted to care just how uncomfortable the straight back wooden chair was.

THEY RELEASED HER three days later after extensive questioning, and after Wes and Jennifer Michaels, Dari and several members of the U.S. Embassy staff came forward to speak on her behalf.

“If it weren’t for the archaeologists, and that odd-looking bald bloke,” the bulbous-nosed officer told her, “and a pair of police sergeants from Cessnock, we might have found something to hold you on. At the very least we could have gotten you on a weapons charge for having an unregistered and unlicensed gun.”

Still she didn’t answer him; she simply had nothing to say.

“But it looks like you’re the hero in all of this, not the villain. Though you’re no avenging angel with a sword, like some of the folks at the hotel tried to make you out to be.”

Another officer had told her that after a few hours of study, the chemists discovered it wasn’t terribly difficult to neutralize the poison, though it was one of the most virulently toxic substances they’d seen—a bioengineered form of botulism. Quick acting and short-lived, it could have killed off a large portion of Sydney’s population before it was discovered—if it could have been detected by then. A very short life, the botulism strain had, they emphasized.

The terrorist was still breathing, with the aid of a ventilator, and still in emergency care and under the gaze of a cadre of police.

“Fortunate for the city that a freak heart attack felled him, this Sword fellow,” bulbous-nose said. “A bad ticker stopped the number-one man on Interpol’s list.”

Dr. Hamam could not be found; apparently he’d turned in his resignation to the university, citing family problems at home. He’d taken a red-eye out of Sydney the day of the attempted poisoning. The authorities hadn’t yet found anything to tie Hamam to the terrorist plot. None of the men they’d captured in the factory and questioned would link the professor to the acts. The Sword, still attached to a ventilator and under heavy sedation, could not comment.

The Egyptian museum at the university had been robbed, but so had two other museums in the city—apparently the well-planned act of a group of professional thieves. Again, Hamam could not be tied to any of it.

Annja didn’t intend to let the professor off. The law might not be able to touch him—yet—but nothing would prevent her. There was the matter of avenging Oliver, Josie and Matthew, and of seeing this mystery through. Annja felt a need to tie up loose ends.

“Why did Hamam want so many people to die?” she asked. The question was aimed at herself, not the policeman.

“Pardon me? I didn’t quite catch that.” The bulbous-nosed cop leaned in close.

“I said thank-you for getting my bags.” He’d told her earlier that her things had been gathered from the hotel, including her passport.

“And for keeping your money safe.” He passed her a plastic bag with the roll of money she’d taken from the dead thug. She almost didn’t take it.

“G’day, Miss Creed,” the cop said as he released her.

She left the station and caught a cab straight to the airport.

“I will find you, Dr. Hamam, and you will tell me what this is all about,” she vowed.

Less than an hour later she was standing in line at the ticket counter, using her celebrity and what was left of her charm to find out what flight Dr. Hamam had booked to Egypt. To Cairo, she was told, and she got the next available flight, which was only a three-hour wait.

“How fortunate is that?” The young woman at the counter beamed. “Your lucky day.”

I don’t feel all that lucky, Annja mused. I feel numb.

She drank two bottles of orange juice in a small restaurant just beyond ticketing and nibbled on a double-thick turkey-and-Swiss-cheese sandwich. There were still bulletins about water restrictions hanging everywhere, and though news reporters had interviewed police officers and chemists touting the safety, people still grabbed the bottled stuff.

She hadn’t called Doug Morrell, though she’d had several opportunities, including while she was being held at the police station. She’d call him from Cairo, maybe. She’d definitely call him after she’d found Hamam and settled whatever it was she was going to settle. And she’d make sure that she spoke to Oliver’s mother and fiancée personally.

Her lip crooked upward in a sad smile just as her flight number was called. She was living her television show, she thought. She was chasing history’s monsters—and Dr. Hamam could quite possibly be the worst monster of all.