21

The Sultan’s palace walls were gleaming white stone, fifteen feet high and topped with black wrought-iron spear points that served substantially the same purpose as knife-wire—which Annja had gotten more than her fill of, in recent months—but made the place look less like a penitentiary.

The guards were trim little Malays in crisp khaki uniforms, with royal-blue turbans that were more head-wrappings than what Sikhs wore. They carried wavy-bladed kris daggers thrust through their web belts and SAR-21 machine carbines slung. They looked more spit-and-polish than the easygoing but fiercely, and fatally, brave commandos she had met on the Ozymandias. She guessed that was necessary. They formed part of the public persona of the Sultan, as it were. She suspected they would fight capably enough, if necessary, to protect their Sultan.

She hoped it wouldn’t be. She found she quite liked young Wira, the half-enthusiastic post-adolescent, half-seasoned elder statesman. He was remarkably handsome and charismatic. Maybe too much so, for her peace of mind. Developing a crush on a head of state was not a good move, in her mind. As friendly as he was, she was after all a foreign woman, of no great status.

The gate guards did not halt her or inspect ID. Instead they snapped to attention as the tall wrought-iron gates rolled open as of their own accord. After a brief hesitation Annja drove through, with a big smile and cheerful wave for both guards. It seemed the polite thing to do. She didn’t want to try returning their salutes, for fear of it being taken as mockery. She wasn’t hugely impressed with military ritual, but she did respect people doing their jobs.

“Hmm,” she said aloud as she drove up a long, broad, gently winding road up an emerald-grassy slope toward the gleaming Mughal-looking jumble of the palace itself. “That’s interesting.”

She had called down to the desk of the Rimba Perak Hilton that morning to ask for suggestions on a car rental. That would not be necessary, the cheerful young woman responded. A pearl-gray Lexus awaited her, compliments of the Sultan.

She guessed it carried a kind of transmitter that alerted the gate guards to her imminent arrival. Realizing that, she wondered if the car also had a means of monitoring how many passengers it actually carried, even who they might be. She knew all kinds of scary spy devices existed and were widely available. She also knew that the Pentagon’s rosy conviction that the U.S. had an insurmountable technological lead over the rest of the world was fiction—if it was even a footnote. She’d seen evidence of that herself.

And Rimba Perak’s near neighbors and guardian angels were Singapore and Malaysia, both self-conscious high-tech wonderlands, at least at their cores. Sultan Wira had a lot of money and was known to be a full-bore modernist. The sky could well be the limit.

Annja disapproved of that sort of thing. A full-surveillance society wasn’t compatible with liberty, so far as she could see. Still, she felt a degree of reassurance that it was deployed by what was shaping up to be her side. She had a feeling things could get ugly.

She also felt more than a passing twinge of guilt at being reassured by that. Am I willing to give up freedom for supposed security?

She shook her head. She had plenty to have misgivings about. To start with, playing ball with an absolute despot, no matter how personable, or apparently liberal.

TO ANNJA’S SURPRISE, after the afternoon chat in the gazebo the Sultan had told her she was free to go. He requested she return the next day to begin helping with the recovery of the artifact from the South China Sea pirates. They agreed that was a priority.

He told her a room had been reserved for her at the Hilton in Meriahpuri. She was to be the guest of the Sultanate. Indeed, as of now, she was an official consultant to his government. Contracts were being drawn up. If she found that satisfactory?

Given that she had come in a car with a huge, silent Sikh secret policeman sitting next to her, and no particular reassurance that she’d ever be leaving again, that was more than fine with her. Her knees had gotten shaky with relief.

Once Annja checked into her hotel she found Wira hadn’t been entirely candid with her. Her luggage was already in her room when an official Sultanate car dropped her off, the desk told her. Except it wasn’t a room. It was a penthouse suite, with a glorious view of the crescent-shaped natural harbor and city of Meriahpuri.

The contracts were slipped under her door while she soothed herself in a long bubble bath in the swimming-pool-size tub, complete with water jets and gilded fixtures. All that was needed was a handsome, well-muscled male attendant. Or even two. Except she was afraid to say anything about it within hearing of the hotel staff, even in jest. She’d be totally mortified if they actually showed up.

The contracts were lucrative. She might not have to take a commission from Roux after all. So far she’d gone into this on a flyer, and her special accounts had taken a pretty large hit. Island-hopping in the Pacific, especially on the shortest possible notice, wasn’t a cheap proposition. Even without having to bribe a pilot to do a touch-and-go drop-off through the middle of a firefight. But if this deal came across she was going to see a hefty increase in her balances.

Provided she survived, of course.

APPROACHING THE PALACE Annja noticed weird cement protrusions to either side of the road. They were overgrown with vines and had planters atop them. But each also had a funny little metal disk in the face pointed toward the road.

She guessed they were self-forging projectile launchers. Those little five-inch copper plates could turn in a microsecond or two into a sort of spear-head, at the tip of a jet of incandescent gas, courtesy of a shaped explosive charge. They could punch through a light armored vehicle like a blowtorch through butter, even kill a main battle tank from the right aspect.

She knew insurgents in Iraq had been using them against the occupation for years. She had actually known about them for years, courtesy of some of the special-ops buddies she had made even before she found the sword, or it found her. They all learned how to make them early on. The U.S. government had even published manuals explaining it all in easy-to-understand terms, with diagrams, for use by civilian guerrilla fighters.

But clearly these emplacements were anything but improvised explosive devices. She guessed they were intended primarily to discourage truck bombs. But Sultanate security, clearly, believed in taking no chances.

It was understandable, given that Sultan Rahim, Wira’s father, had been assassinated ten years earlier. Annja had done some research online the night before. She was pretty sure the hotel wireless net monitored her Internet activity, whether or not the hotel actually knew about it. It hadn’t slowed her much. She figured Wira, bright boy that he was, expected her to do her homework. Especially for what he was paying her.

There was one little thing she hadn’t done. Not yet. Nor had she made up her mind how to play it.

Her suspicions about the truck bomb defenses seemed confirmed by the odd insets in the pavement, just before the road curved under the gleaming white portico of the palace entrance. Her tires rattled ever so slightly as they passed over them. Pop-up cement barriers, she thought. Blast shields. And I have my suspicions about what lies beneath those neat linear flower beds, in front of the portico and along the whole front wall.

A solemn Sikh man with a sidearm in a flapped holster helped her out of the driver’s seat. Her place was taken at once by a skinny little adolescent in Sultanate livery, who grinned at her toothily, as if she’d just given him the gleaming luxury car as a birthday present. He wouldn’t have been her choice to trust for valet service. Then again, it wasn’t her car. And possibly even a teenager would think twice about putting his Sultan’s paint job at risk.

“Your car will await you on departure, Ms. Creed,” the Sikh said in crisp English. He had the air of someone who could face down a horde of howling foes with just his kirpan dagger and that ferociously splendid beard. “Will there be anything you require from it in the meantime?”

She shouldered her new daypack. “No. This is all I’ll need, thank you.”

The car engine revved. The Sikh gave the driver a pointed look.

The car purred off at about five miles an hour. Laughing silently, Annja followed the guard inside.

A tiny, neat man in a green-and-brown sarong stood waiting for her. His head was shaved. It was hard to read his exact age. He was clearly not young, to judge by the lines around eyes and mouth. He had the look of a statue carved of dark wood come to life.

“You are Dr. Annja Creed?” he said in accented but clear English.

“Yes,” she said. “Just Ms. though, or Annja. I haven’t finished a doctorate.”

He smiled and nodded. “Very well. I am Krisna. It is my honor and pleasure to serve our Sultan Wira as Grand Vizier, as I served his father before him.”

“Pleased to meet you, Your Excellency,” she said. If that was what one called a Grand Vizier. He was her first.

“I understand you have an appointment with the Sultan,” the small man said. Annja nodded. “Come, walk with me this way.”

Annja agreed. “You are American, I believe?” he asked, smiling broadly, as they moved into the palace.

“Yes.”

“You consider yourself a good citizen, yes?”

“Yes,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I agree with every action taken by the government of the United States. I don’t have much say in that.” Like any U.S. citizen abroad she had grown somewhat defensive on the subject.

“Ah, but is the U.S. not a famous democracy?”

“Sure,” she said. “And that gives me about a one-three-hundred-millionth of a voice in government affairs. That doesn’t add up to a lot of influence.”

“Ah,” he said again. They walked in silence for several steps through a cool hallway well-lit by tall narrow windows. “Well. What counts is your patriotism. Not that I would ever dream of questioning it. What I must ask is that you use your influence with the Sultan to encourage him to accommodate the United States to the greatest extent possible.”

“My influence?” She stopped and looked at him. “I’m a private citizen, a foreign national, and I just met the Sultan yesterday. He seems interested in engaging my professional services as an archaeologist, which is flattering. To derive any kind of influence from that seems pretty far-fetched, with all due respect. Except purely in the line of my profession, and even there it remains to be seen how much I can affect his decisions.”

The Grand Vizier smiled and bobbed his head. “To be sure. To be sure. Come, let us proceed. I have no wish to make you late for your appointment. It is only that the Sultan is a young man, for all that his experiences and circumstances have aged him far beyond his years. I had a role in that, I fear—the cruel murder of his father forced him to forgo much of his childhood.

“But he is still young, and still a man. And while I understand it might be considered politically incorrect in the West to do so, honesty compels me to point out that you are a young woman of considerable attractiveness.”

“Thank you,” she said as neutrally as possible. She tended to react defensively to perceived flattery. She was sure somebody with the title of Grand Vizier wouldn’t exactly be above manipulating people. It was like expecting an archaeologist to live totally in the present, with no interest in old things or bygone days.

He nodded as if she’d said something inestimably wise. “So it may be that you enjoy more influence with his Majesty than you might imagine. Not, of course, that I suggest you would ever do anything improper.”

“Of course not,” Annja said, a bit edgily. “If I might ask, why are you so interested in advancing the United States’ interests, Mr. Krisna?”

He laughed gaily. “Ah, although I have the greatest of respect and affection for your very great country, my interests are focused solely upon the welfare of Rimba Perak, her ruler and her people, who are, of course, as one. It is simply a matter of geometry.”

“Geometry?” Annja asked.

He laughed again. “Consider the map of the world, Ms. Creed,” he said. “Rimba Perak is a mere speck, oh, so hard to see. And America is large. These are frightening times. The small need all the help they can get to avoid being crushed. It is the mutual interest of our nations and peoples which I ask you to bear in mind.”

“I’ll certainly try,” she said.

He beamed and nodded. “Very well. I thank you, Ms. Creed.”

He stopped at the foot of a broad white stairway that curved up to the second floor. “I must leave you now. Just beyond the top of these stairs you will find the Sultan waiting in his office for you. I trust you will enjoy your stay in Rimba Perak.”

“I certainly hope so,” she said.

At the top of the stairs she found the antechamber with the potted plants and white leather sofa, just as it had been the previous day. But now a gorgeous dark-haired woman dressed in red was half-reclining on it. Beyond her stood the closed door of dark-stained native hardwood.

“The Sultan has no receptionist, if that’s what you’re thinking,” the woman said in a throaty alto voice. She rose. She did so as gracefully as a dancer. Or a serpent. “Those who are unexpected do not get this far.”

“I’m sure,” Annja said. “And I didn’t think you were a receptionist, for what that’s worth.” She was trying hard to step on an upsurge of jealousy concerning what she did think. Or suspect.

The woman smiled. She had olive skin, her hair was black, her eyes rimmed with what might be a bit much kohl for Annja’s taste. She was not fleshy by any means, but she carried a bit more body fat than most of the islanders Annja had seen, who generally had the wiry look of authentic poverty. That was emphasized by the fact that so much of her flesh was on display. She wore an off-the-shoulder top and a slit sarong that showed a lot of long, smooth-muscled leg and left her stomach bare. She had a ruby in her navel.

She extended a hand to Annja. Annja took it and shook. The woman’s grip was firm and surprisingly strong.

“I am Lestari,” the woman said. “I am a special adviser to Sultan Wira.”

Expression neutral, Annja ordered herself sharply. It evidently didn’t work. Letting go of her hand, the woman laughed from deep in her throat.

“Not the kind you may be suspecting,” she said. She may have had a tinge of regret to her voice, Annja thought.

Annja had a hard time believing she couldn’t be the kind of “consultant” Annja had reflexively suspected her of being, if she wanted to. She exuded a sort of smoldering sexuality that would have men swooning at her feet. Yet something about her suggested she possessed a deep and devious intelligence. And, just possibly, a subdued deadliness. Annja was reminded of an exotic serpent, its scales glittering like jewels in the tropical sun.

“I’m Annja Creed,” she said.

“I know,” Lestari said. Annja couldn’t entirely repress a sensation the entire contents of her brain had been downloaded into the woman’s through their briefly linked hands.

“What exactly do you do here, Ms. Lestari?” she asked.

“Many things,” the woman said. “Most of which concern looking out for the welfare of our young Sultan. He has before him a great destiny. He also has a choice—to use that destiny to work good, or ill.”

“Don’t we all possess such a choice, Ms. Lestari?” Annja asked, feeling unsettled.

The woman laughed softly. “Yes, we do. Not all of us have the potential to act on it that Sultan Wira does.” Did her eyes bore into Annja’s a little too long, a little too knowingly?

“You have unusual potential too, Ms. Creed,” she said. “I can read it in your aura.”

“Are you of a mystic turn of mind, Ms. Lestari?” Annja asked.

“Not at all,” she said. “I am a Sufi.”

“I thought Sufism was the Islamic mystic tradition?”

“Even a student of history and cultures as learned as yourself can harbor certain misconceptions, Ms. Creed. So much is human. We might discuss the matter more at another time.”

“You want to warn me, too, don’t you?” Annja asked.

Lestari smiled. “Of course. First, I will watch you most carefully. I say this not as a threat, since I do not as yet perceive any threat in you. Second, others will be watching you as well, and far from all with such neutral intent.”

“I figured that,” Annja said. “You seemed to leave that hanging. What’s three?”

Lestari laughed again. “You do have a certain skill at perception,” she said. “So few Americans do—or make use of it, anyway. Third, and most important, watch yourself at all times, Annja Creed. Especially your back.”

INSIDE HIS OFFICE Wira stood looking at a large high-density television screen. Annja realized she had taken it for a painting of a tiger hunt on her last visit. With him were another Sikh and a small wiry man in jeans and black T-shirt.

“Annja Creed,” the Sultan said, turning toward her as she opened the door. “So happy you could join us!”

His teeth were very bright in his dark face as he came to squire her forward with a hand behind her shoulder—chivalrously not quite touching her, yet somehow impelling her gently forward, as though by sheer personal magnetism. “I’d like you to meet Colonel Ranjit Singh, commander of our armed forces, and Mr. Purnoma, my chief of intelligence.”

The Sikh nodded gravely. Purnoma grinned. “Hi.” He had crew-cut black hair with a hint of gray at the temples and wore black Converse All-Stars. Ranjit Singh had a glass eye. Annja wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or not. It probably indicated he had extensive combat experience. It might also mean he was just unlucky.

“A pleasure,” Annja said.

“Purnoma tells me,” Wira said, turning back to the display, which showed a map of Rimba Perak and environs, “that we have discerned the pirate gang responsible for the attack was the one known as the Red Hand.”

“It is a bad sign,” Ranjit Singh said. “Eddie Cao Cao is the most ruthless pirate leader in the South China Sea, possibly all Asia. He is also the smartest. The Red Hand is large, and very powerful.”

“And its tentacles extend into every government of the region,” Purnoma said. “To a high level, I might add.”

“Including yours?” Annja asked the Sultan.

Purnoma looked to him. The Sultan’s chocolate eyes never left Annja’s. She felt a thrill at that soul-deep scrutiny and fought sternly to suppress it.

Wira seemed to sigh and looked away. “We have to presume so,” he said. “It is no reflection upon my security forces, but rather on the fallen nature of humans.”

Both advisers began to protest. He held up a hand. “I’m not excusing it, my friends. Allowing oneself to be suborned by a creature like Eddie Cao Cao is tantamount to treason, and I intend to treat it as such when it’s uncovered. I just have to face the fact of the enormous leverage he can bring to bear—not just bribery, but blackmail and extortion. We are speaking of a man who routinely sets his packs of human jackals loose on boats full of refugees or immigrants, to plunder and rape as they like, and then scuttle their boats beneath them—or simply fling them over the rail, should he find their vessels worth stealing.”

Annja felt her internal temperature drop a few degrees. It’s not as if I didn’t know such men existed, she thought. But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to being reminded of the fact.

“What can we do?” she asked.

“Well, I would like to have you see what further research you can do into the nature and real provenance of the coffin,” Wira said.

“Meanwhile,” he went on, and she flushed to realize he was scanning her face extra intently, having read some kind of reaction there, “we shall continue our efforts to pin down precisely where among the tens of thousands of islands in the immediate vicinity the Red Hand are hiding their newest acquisition.”

She looked at him a minute, considering quickly. Then she drew in a deep breath and sighed it out.

“I think I can help you with that,” she said.