22

There suddenly seemed to be more than twice as many eyes in the room than heads. All were staring at her, saucer-sized.

“You what, young lady?” Colonel Singh demanded.

Annja shrugged. “I slipped a miniature GPS transmitter inside the crate on Le Rêve when I peeked in at the coffin,” she said. “I knew before I went to the island I probably wasn’t going to be able to physically reclaim the artifact—I couldn’t even lift it by myself. And it was mostly by sheer luck I was able to trace it that far. So I decided to at least make sure I could follow it wherever it went from there.”

Wira laughed. His advisers stared at him.

“But this is splendid!” he exclaimed. “Why the long faces, gentlemen? It simplifies our task immensely. Admit it.” He turned to Annja. “Excellent, Ms. Creed! You continue to amaze me. I must say I’m pleased you’re on our side.”

Annja felt a twinge of guilt. Am I on your side? she asked herself. Is that good if I am? Or have I sold my principles for a handsome stipend and a handsome smile?

The Sikh scowled, his face clouding like an approaching typhoon. “Why did you not tell us this before, young woman?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I wasn’t sure how much I trusted you,” she said. “And I didn’t want to show all my cards at once.”

The Sikh drew himself up to his full height, which was considerable. He looked outraged.

Wira laughed. “I take it that means you’ve decided to trust us, then, Ms. Creed?”

“I guess it does,” she said.

ANNJA ALMOST CRINGED at the volley of camera flashes that greeted her as she entered the lobby of the Meriahpuri Hilton. The relative obscurity in which she labored as frequent talking head on Chasing History’s Monsters had actually suited her just fine.

Now that comforting anonymity seemed to be getting stripped away. She had acquired her own swarm of paparazzi. All because of a perceived romantic connection with one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, the young, handsome, charismatic, fabulously wealthy Sultan of Rimba Perak.

“There’s nothing to it,” she muttered between clenched teeth as hotel security men, mostly big Sikhs in dark suits with wires coming out of their ears, formed a cordon to hold the photographers back. She spoke low, not to be heard by her tormentors. After all, she thought bitterly, nothing is ever confirmed until it’s officially denied.

“Ms. Creed!” A pudgy Japanese man in a rumpled suit, with his necktie tossed over one shoulder, pushed his way clear of the Sikhs to run to her side. “Please. You have to use your influence to convince the Sultan to see me!”

She shook her head. “You and ten thousand others.” All were seeking investments, grants, stipends, appointments, all the fruits and vegetables and nuts of government largesse.

The elevator door opened. A pair of small but teak-hard Malay house detectives in plainclothes materialized from the potted palms to pin the supplicant’s arms and keep him out of the car. “Obviously you don’t care about the suffering poor, Annja Creed!” the man shouted, his glasses askew, his sweat-sheened face distorted with passions she couldn’t even guess at. “You’re just like the rest! You want to deny the world the benefits of abundant energy—free energy!”

She looked him in the eye. “My best advice to you, sir,” she said, “is don’t even open that can of worms. Or you’ll have worse problems than Sultan Wira to worry about.”

The elevator doors closed. She sighed. It took a major exertion of will to keep from just folding with that sigh, as if her whole body deflated. She laid her forehead against the cool brass-colored doors and squeezed her eyes shut.

What’s happening to me? she wondered. I’m trying to do the right thing, and the world is trying to make me the latest nine days’ wonder, as if I’m a calf born with two heads or a cloned sheep.

Plus, people were trying to kill her. Two attempts had been made in the last two days. That, at least, she could handle. Nothing new about it at all.

THE FIRST TIME, a little boxy blue Nissan subcompact slowed alongside her as she walked along a busy street a few blocks from her hotel. She was feeling good. She had eluded the paparazzi already sniffing around her, and may have even outdistanced her unseen internal-security escorts. Their very existence was notional, but she suspected Wira’s secret police would shadow her with or without the Sultan’s command, or even his knowledge.

The street was full of expensive stores, reflecting both the success the Meriahpuris had had in bringing themselves back from the devastation left by the tsunami and the increasing global interest in Rimba Perak’s abundant mineral wealth, already a major prize before oil was discovered. Annja, who liked nice things as much as the next woman, although she had never been much for shopping—probably because she’d never had much money to shop with—had been admiring the expensive watches, the fancy handbags she’d never carry, the designer shoes. Even though her feet still twinged in sympathy when she saw stiletto heels.

Experience had drawn Annja’s reflexes to hair-trigger tautness where her survival was concerned. When the faded blue Nissan began to brake she automatically launched herself for the cover of the base of a light standard, basically a truncated cement cone a yard across at the base, two feet at the top and four feet tall. It should stop most things that might be shot out of a car at her. And if nothing was, if the car really was slowing down right next to her for a harmless if not immediately obvious reason, she could always pick herself up, dust herself off and walk away. The locals all knew Western women were crazy. The tourists all knew Americans were crazy. Even the American ones.

In the corner of her eye she saw a reflection in the window of the fashionable boutique she was walking past—the unmistakable shape of a Kalashnikov rifle being wrestled out the open window of the little sedan. Noise exploded. The boutique window burst in a whirlwind of glass shards. Bullets and glass shrapnel shredded a little blue dress of some shiny material. The pink mannequin that wore it pirouetted madly away from the force of the burst.

Annja got her shoulder down, hit the ground hard and rolled behind the cement cone. Another burst clanged ineffectually off the cast-iron standard itself. Then with a petulant mosquito whine the Nissan accelerated away into traffic. It vanished from view in seconds as sirens began to wail.

THE SECOND ATTEMPT had come the previous morning as she sat in a sidewalk café near the hotel, finishing her light breakfast and coffee before heading to the palace for a day of research. A pair of young men approached. Something about the purposeful way they crossed the street through traffic straight for her put her on guard. One was a young man with long swept-back dark blond hair, who wore a beige jacket over an orange shirt and blue jeans. The other looked as if he might be a local. Like his partner he was around six feet tall. He had a dark, round face, and a cap of wild black hair. He wore a loose ill-fitting blue suit over a blue shirt with no tie, buttoned to the collar. The two walked up to the low ornamental wrought-iron rail around the outdoor eating area.

Annja saw them reach inside their jackets. Once again her survival reflexes kicked in. She hurled her half-full coffee cup at the blond man’s face. He flinched, discharging a handgun in the air as he raised his hand to ward off the cup. The dark young man extended his arm and fired deliberately.

His bullets cut the air where Annja sat a heartbeat before. It passed over her metal chair, which she had knocked on its back as she vacated it, and ricocheted from the base of the café’s brick facade. Annja scrambled on all fours to the door. More shots cracked behind her.

A stout man in a green tunic and a Nehru cap opened the door from the inside, emerging with a cardboard carrier full of cups of coffee. “Get down!” she shouted, as she dove past him into the café. She managed to avoid knocking him over, but he was so startled he shied like a horse, throwing his cardboard tray in the air.

Not looking back Annja rolled to her feet and sprinted toward the back, into the utility passageway, past the kitchen, past startled employees, out a door into a narrow evil-smelling alley. There she stood with her back to the wall and her sword upraised in her hand, breathing hard.

She heard more shots from the far side of the building. Glancing toward the mouth of the alley she saw people running.

The door opened. She tensed to swing—then opened her hand.

The face of a waiter turned toward her in astonishment a heartbeat after the sword vanished.

Within moments the alley filled up with armed Sultanate security men. They scooped Annja up and whisked her off to the palace, where a worried Krisna had plied her with green tea and disconnected bits of advice. She learned that internal security had in fact been tailing her. They had quickly converged on the scene, opening fire and killing the blond man as he tried to turn his weapon on them. The local-looking shooter had escaped into the crowd.

Fortunately, and amazingly, Annja escaped both times without any bystanders being hurt. She felt chagrined to have done nothing more than duck and flee. But with the Sultan’s internal-security types keeping close tabs on her she was glad not to have used the sword. She had no idea how Wira would react if he found out about it. She didn’t want to learn.

The rest of the day she had been left to her own devices, to use the palace’s extensive library and high-speed Internet connections for research. The Sultan himself stayed occupied in other business of state—as urgently as he treated the problem of the stolen artifact, it was only one of many confronting his small nation, some of them of far more overtly threatening nature. But he turned up to check on her, as if to confirm to himself that she had come through intact.

NOW, IN THE hotel elevator, Annja remembered the way Wira had looked into her eyes and took her by the upper arms. “I’m pleased you escaped harm, Annja,” he’d told her. “May the Gods continue to keep you safe.” She remembered it very well indeed.

She felt hot liquid on her cheeks, realized her eyes were leaking tears. “Oh, for God’s sake!” she exclaimed. She snapped her head up, stood bolt upright, throwing her shoulders defiantly back. Her eyes blazed.

“What’s wrong with you? Crying because the paparazzi are snapping their silly cameras at you? Or because every escaped doorknob with a cause or an itch for unearned wealth is running at you with his palm out? Suck it up.”

The elevator doors opened. A maid in a black-and-white uniform stood waiting patiently with a cart laden with fresh linens and cleaning supplies. The tiny birdlike woman cringed, her dark eyes wide in utter terror at the spectacle of Annja, a foot taller than she, standing there looking ferocious. She couldn’t have looked more overtly terrified had Annja held the sword raised in her hand.

Annja didn’t smile. She just nodded and said, “Sorry. I’m not mad at you,” and then strode rapidly past, to clear the unfortunate woman’s personal space as quickly as possible.

Great, she thought, now you’re scaring the life out of people, too. What’s next, kicking puppies?

She opened the door to her designated office and stormed in. Two men rose from the comfortable settee in the sitting-area to greet her.

“You!” she shouted. “Out!”

“But Ms. Creed,” Sharshak began. His eyes were wide.

The other man, Hevelin, older and steadier, smiled slightly through his grizzled beard. “Aren’t you even going to ask how we got in?”

“The first time I met you people you kicked in my skylight and dropped through it shooting at me,” she raged. “I’m way past caring about your means of ingress. It’s your egress I’m interested in seeing right now. Out. Out!”

“But won’t you at least tell us why you’ve betrayed us to the Sultan?” Sharshak almost wailed.

Annja glared at him through slitted eyes. Then she crossed to a leather-covered chair and fell into it with the grace of a sandbag.

“Let’s get some things straight,” she said, glowering at each man in turn. “First, I don’t owe you anything. Nothing. I refused Cedric Millstone’s attempts to hire me. I turned away yours.”

Hevelin rubbed his bristly cheek. “Still,” he said in his deep voice, “you did assure us you would not help our enemies to take possession of the relic.”

“And I’m not doing that,” Annja stated clearly.

“But aren’t you working with the Sultan?” Sharshak asked.

“I’ve agreed to help him recover the coffin from the pirates who stole it most recently,” she said. “They murdered two dozen of his men for it. They almost murdered one other commando. And me. They’ve murdered hundreds if not thousands of people over the years.”

She smiled unpleasantly. “Surely you don’t think it should be left in their hands, gentlemen,” she said. “Nor disagree with the idea of visiting a little old-fashioned retribution on them in the process. Unless you believe that vengeance belongs solely to the Lord?”

“We’d make a poor military order if we did, Ms. Creed,” Hevelin said, sitting back down and clasping his hands over his knees.

“What about these reports in the media,” Sharshak said, his voice high and agitated, “that you’re—that you’re dating the Sultan?”

Annja raised an eyebrow.

Hevelin flapped a hand at his young partner, who was practically vibrating. “Sit. You make me nervous. You generate more heat than light, like that.”

Sharshak sat.

“Listen to me,” Annja said. “I am becoming friends with Sultan Wira. Nothing more than that, no matter what the gossip columnists say. I’m just an archaeologist, a minor cable TV celebrity, if you can even call me that. He’s a Sultan, for goodness’ sake. Nothing’s going to develop between us. Things like that don’t happen in the real world.”

“And the fact that you are an extremely attractive young woman doesn’t enter into it, I suppose?” Hevelin said.

“Right,” Annja said sarcastically. “Like the Sultan can’t have supermodels throwing themselves at him anytime he cares to snap his fingers. They can’t all be dating ballplayers and drug-addled rock stars. And even if we are friendly that doesn’t mean I’ve agreed to let him keep the coffin once it’s recovered from the pirates.”

“You think he’ll hand it over to you,” Sharshak asked in apparent disbelief, “just like that?”

“He’s agreed to,” she said. “Yes.”

“And you believe he will honor such an undertaking?” Hevelin asked, arching a skeptical eyebrow of his own.

“I do. He appears to take honor as painfully seriously as—as you people do. As his commandos do, those who died facing you on that island, and who died—except for one man, badly wounded, whom I more or less kidnapped—to protect the relic.”

“Is that honor or fanaticism?” Hevelin asked.

“Where’s the fanaticism? The Sword of the Faith killed Wira’s father. They’ve spent the last ten years trying to kill him. It’s precisely because he won’t agree to turn the Sultanate over to them—especially with all this oil money pouring in.

“Meanwhile he had this equally silly notion of you as Christian nuts who want to help bring Jesus back to judge the world in fire.”

“Us?” Hevelin laughed. “Frederick the Second was our founder and patron. What would he have said to such a project?”

“He probably wouldn’t care for it any more than I do,” Annja said.

“He charged us with preserving the order of the world,” Sharshak said. “Isn’t that the opposite of bringing on a new Crusade? Much less Armageddon.”

“We are men of faith,” Hevelin said. “We are also men of science, and the modern world, after the spirit of our founder.”

“And that description perfectly fits what I’ve seen of the Sultan,” Annja informed them.

“And whom do you believe then, Ms. Creed?”

She rose. “Both of you. You boys need to get together and talk. What could be more in the spirit of your founder? He was best buds with the Sultan of Egypt.”

“Be that as it may,” Hevelin said, pushing himself to his feet, “we must regain possession of the relic. It is our holy quest. It is our penance for our sins.”

“When we have the coffin back,” she said, “I will arrange to have appropriate archaeological authorities adjudicate its proper ownership. The Sultan has already agreed to this. When that happens, you can put forward your claims. I’ll ensure they receive a fair hearing.”

“But—” Sharshak began.

“Peace, boy,” Hevelin said. “We are dealing with a woman of principle and of character. Contrary character, perhaps, but character. Hectoring her will only make matters worse.”

“Thank you,” Annja said.

“I only hope your judgment is the equal of your resolution,” Hevelin said. “The fate of the whole world could ride upon it.”