Restless Soul (14 page)

“You wonder how I know your name,” the man said.

Vietnamese or Laotian, Annja placed him in his early forties. He had a cruel look about him, with fleshy pock-marked cheeks, as if he’d suffered a disease in earlier years. He had intense, unblinking eyes that were hard like river stones.

“No,” she said. “I do not wonder. You tortured Zakkarat. He gave you my name.”

A thin smile cracked his face. “Zakkarat Tak-sin did not deal well with pain. He called you ‘Annjacreed,’ a name that meant nothing to me until he said you and your companion, Lou Ardo, were archaeologists who wanted to explore some caves. He had a handful of baht in his pocket that you’d given him. He said you wanted to bring a film crew back with you later and put the caves on television. I deduced that you must be
the
Annja Creed, the famous archaeologist who chases history’s monsters.” His laugh was forced. “Even in my country your silly, worthless program airs.”

“And what country is that?”

“Actually, I have two. America and Vietnam. Educated in the first, I have embraced the latter. Vietnam is home now. I have no use for Americans.”

It was Annja’s turn to smile, having gained a measure of information. It explained why he was so fluent in English, and his accent sounded far more East Coast than Vietnamese. Boston, perhaps?

“Is Lou Ardo with you? Hiding in the bushes?” He stared into the foliage. “Come out, Lou Ardo, or I will kill Annja Creed.”

Lou Ardo?
If she got out of this, she would tell Lu how badly the villain butchered his name.

“And you are?”

“My name is of no consequence to someone who will die soon…and who will die forever and never find heaven or hell.” He dropped his shoulder and the bag slid down, the straps catching against his forearm. “The old one taught me how to capture souls.” He balanced the machine gun against his hip with one hand and used the other to place the bag at his feet. “I will kill you, Annja Creed, and I will cause your soul to rot for eternity.”

A shiver raced down her spine at the notion.

“Then kill me, you thief,” she taunted, trying to get him to act in anger. She readied to spring into the tall grass. “Kill me and be done with this. Come on, get it over with.”

His fingers played against the machine-gun stock. “I’ve no reason to hate you. So quickly, yes, I will kill you, and likely without too much pain. Not as much pain as Zakkarat felt, I can assure you. Quickly…if you will cooperate first.”

“Cooperate? And if I don’t?”

“Then your death will be agonizing and very, very slow.” He grinned wider, showing uneven ivory-colored teeth, one of them with a gold edge. “The manner of your demise matters not to me, Annja Creed. Your slow death would amuse me.”

“Cooperate? So I can more quickly rot for eternity?”

In the silence that stretched between them Annja measured him. His hands were calloused and dirt was thick under his fingernails. That gave him the look of a laborer, though she suspected he wasn’t. He acted more like a thug who had dirtied himself hauling treasure—that was how he gained all the calluses, from his skin rubbing against the crates. Only a hint of stubble on his face, his hair was short and styled, though it was greasy from not being washed recently. Perhaps he was a businessman who worked in an office…when he wasn’t smuggling. Like the others he wore dark clothes, but his were green, so deep that at a distance they had appeared black. His shoes looked expensive.

She listened to his breathing, which was loud and had a slight rattle to it. A smoker? The one who’d left behind the crumpled cigarette packs? She heard movement in the cavern behind and below her.

“Yes, cooperate, the famous Annja Creed. Perhaps I will only let your soul rot for a decade or two.” Again the forced laugh. It sounded like nails dragging against a blackboard.

She took a step back, her heel bumping up against one of the stakes that held the rope ladder.

“I want to know where you went, Annja Creed, after you left my trove and ran down the mountain yesterday. Where did you go? And who did you tell about my…acquisitions? And where is Lou Ardo?”

“He is where you won’t find him,” she answered.

“I am a resourceful man.”

“Resourceful enough to stash your ill-gotten wealth in a mountain,” she said. “And resourceful enough to get some vehicles here fast to retrieve it.” She paused. “Since you intend to kill me, anyway, why not tell me what this is all about. Where did all of the gold come from?”

“And where is it going?” he said.

She nodded.

“I told you I was educated in America. I grew up on James Bond films.” He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. “All the villains revealed their plans, lording it over James Bond, who was trussed up to some torture device. He always escaped.”

“You worry that I’ll escape?” She gave him a petulant expression. “You’ve got a gun on me.”

“I am not a James Bond villain. I am not a villain at all—just a businessman, an opportunist, who made fortunate alliances so he could make a fortune. I do not need to explain my plans to an archaeologist who stars in a silly television program.” He steadied the stock of the gun against his stomach. “And no, I do not worry that you will escape. Now tell me, Annja Creed, where did you go yesterday? Who did you talk to?” He made an exaggerated motion of laying his finger farther across the trigger. “Where is Lou Ardo?”

“He’s beyond your reach.” She took another step back and dropped into the opening, knees bent and hands forward at waist height, calling for the sword and feeling its pommel form against her palms before her feet hit the stone. Bullets sprayed the air where she’d stood a moment ago. The impact on her sandaled feet was jarring, as if she’d jammed her heels against red-hot thumbtacks. She clamped her mouth shut to keep from crying out and whirled, sword leading and slicing into a man who’d been darting forward, pistol raised.

The flat of the blade hit his hand, sending the gun careering off a crate.

“Drop it!” Annja barked at a second man she spotted. She leaped out from under the opening in the ceiling, worried that she’d be as good as a sitting duck for the man up top.

The second man reluctantly lowered his machine gun, his gaze darting between her and his companion. Bullets rained down through the opening, and Annja edged farther into the chamber, all the while keeping her eyes on the two men. They stank so strongly of sweat and cigarettes that she nearly gagged. The light was better than on her previous visit—a tall battery-operated lamp was responsible, casting a fluorescent glow everywhere and making the beads of sweat on the men’s faces glisten.

“Drop it now!” she repeated. “Drop…the…machine gun…now.”

The man—the younger of the two—made a move to do just that. But it was a feint. As more bullets came down from above, he instead raised his machine gun, firing straight ahead and missing Annja by inches, but only because she’d sprung toward the cenotelike pool in the center.

“Idiot,” she growled as she circled around behind him, quick as a cat. She raised the sword high and brought it down, biting into his shoulder with enough strength behind it to break his collarbone. A second slash ended his scream and sent the other man to his knees, arms up in surrender.

“Annja Creed!” came a shout from above. “Show yourself!”

“So you can shoot me?” Annja laughed.

He muttered a string of expletives in English and Vietnamese.

“Where is Lou Ardo? Who have you told about this place?” He shuffled around the opening, poking his head down and cussing again when he was unable to see her because Annja had moved behind a stack of crates. “I’ll let you live if you cooperate, Annja Creed. I’ll lower this ladder and you can climb out.”

“You think I believe that?” she called back. “You probably have a bridge somewhere you want to sell me, too.”

The man who’d surrendered hollered something that Annja couldn’t understand. He shuffled on his knees toward the opening, and she guessed that he’d asked his boss to be let up. He hollered again.

“Shut up,” Annja told him. “And stay put.”

He seemed not to understand her and called up once more. Annja dismissed the sword, slipped out from behind the crate and reached for the dropped machine gun. She cocked it, and the man stopped shuffling.

“You might not understand my language,” she said. “But you understand this well enough.” She swung the machine gun to the left, as a gesture that he should move away from the opening.

He shook his head, spittle flying from his lips and his eyes wide with uncertainty. She gestured again, and he complied, though he kept looking up.

“Annja Creed,” the man up top said. “I could torture the information out of you. But torture is rather messy. Why not just tell me who you talked to? This is your last warning.”

Silence was her response.

“I don’t need to shoot you,” he continued. “You can starve down there. You can die of exposure at night when the temperature drops. No one comes up to this part of the mountain. No one will find you. Just tell me what I want to know.”

Again, she said nothing.

His venomous string of expletives echoed down through the opening. He fired another burst, rock fragments from the stone lip showering down and biting into the man who’d surrendered. He scooted farther away from the opening. Then it was quiet.

Annja heard a bird cry. A moment later a monkey screeched. But there was nothing else from the man above. An engine started, the sound faint because of the distance and the intervening rock.

“The Jeep,” she said. “He’s starting the Jeep.” But why not leave in the truck? It was filled with crates of treasure. She’d ruined the back two tires of the Jeep. The truck was probably big enough to bull its way past the Jeep, knock it out of the way and down the mountain. Maybe he was just moving the Jeep to make things easier. “Unless he doesn’t have the keys to the truck. And doesn’t know how to hot-wire it.”

She looked to the surrendered man and the body of the man she’d killed. On the latter’s belt was a clip with several keys.

“Your boss isn’t going to get far in that Jeep,” Annja said. From the blank look on his face she knew he couldn’t understand her. “But you understand the gun. Thugs always understand guns.” She pointed the muzzle at him, then at a crate and then to a spot beneath the opening. “Move!”

He looked puzzled for only an instant, and then he clambered to his feet and stepped around the body of his dead companion, eyes lingering on the blood.

“Move!” Annja figured the other man would be back soon when he gave up on the Jeep. “Hurry!”

If he didn’t understand the words, he understood her intent. The crate was roughly a meter cubed, and he strained to push it under the opening. He looked to the dozen crates remaining and picked a smaller one to set on top.

There had been five or six times the number of crates when Annja was there before. They’d worked at a steady pace to move the goods. But move them where? At the far side of the cavern the teak coffins stood undisturbed. Fortunately, they’d not cared about those treasures, which Annja considered every bit as valuable as the gold Buddhas—more valuable in an archaeological sense.

He had a hard time lifting the crate and looked to her for help.

She shook her head. “I’m not dropping the gun,” she told him. Again, a blank look met her steady stare. “Try again. You can do it.”

While he struggled with it, she bent and retrieved the keys from the dead man’s belt, and then patted his pockets, pulling out a few business cards and a folded piece of paper. She stuck these inside her shirt, intending to look at them later when she was out of here. His other pocket was empty. No wallet or ID or any sort of a passport that would facilitate traveling across borders.

The man grunted as he arranged the second crate so it could serve as a ladder. Annja gestured for him to step back.

“What to do with you…what to do.” She sucked in her lower lip. “If I let you go up first, you might try to kick me or do something else to cause problems. You might holler and bring your boss back. If I go first, you might grab my leg.” She slipped close to him and lifted the gun. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth just as she brought the stock down against the side of his head.

Annja didn’t want to kill another one of them. She wanted them alive for the authorities to question. Eyes flitting around the chamber, she spotted a length of rope around a crate. She dropped the machine gun and unfastened the rope, and then used a length of it to tie up her prisoner. Adept at knots, she felt certain he wouldn’t be getting out of this anytime soon.

She checked his pockets, finding no ID, but pulling out a few business cards and a pack of cigarettes. The latter she dropped with disgust. Spotting the pistol, she snapped it up and thrust it in her waistband.

“Can’t afford to leave you a weapon,” she said. Then she struggled to prop him up against a wall near the lamp, and took a moment to examine the head wound she’d given him. His chest rose and fell regularly.

“I think you’ll be all right,” she pronounced. “Fit enough to serve a prison sentence.” A last look around the chamber and a moment more to disable the machine gun, then she started toward the coffins, wanting to see if the pottery was still inside them, but she heard the engine again. She climbed up the crates. Her legs ached, the right one still sore from where Doc had removed the bullets. She felt the stitches pull. The impact of jumping into the cavern hadn’t helped, and she wished she had taken the time to locate her boots before she’d left the Thins village.

She pulled herself halfway out of the hole and grabbed at the rope ladder bunched up at the top. “Lovely.”

The man who’d taken off in the Jeep had returned on foot, his machine gun again pointed at her.

He didn’t bother to ask questions this time, no doubt realizing she wasn’t about to give up Lu or any other information. He aimed the machine gun, snarled at her and pulled the trigger.

She dipped her head below the rim, feeling the bits of earth and rock pelt the top of her head from where the bullets chewed up the ground. One end of the rope ladder came loose, shot through, and she hung on the other side as it swayed precariously. The firing continued, the bullets ripping into the ground furiously, as if they were as angry as the man who fired them.

When they stopped, Annja didn’t pause. Quick as lightning she lifted herself up over the lip again and rolled toward him, seeing that he was jamming in another magazine. Vaulting to her feet, she put her head down and barreled into him.

Annja drew her right hand back into a fist and punched him in the face. Blood spurted from his nose as he fell back.

She followed, knees on his chest, left hand reaching for the pistol she’d stuffed in her waistband, drawing it and shoving the barrel under his chin.

He made a move to shove her off, and she clocked him again with her fist.

“You’re the one who needs to cooperate now…if you want to live.” She pushed the gun against his throat. Annja didn’t intend to kill him—despite everything he’d done, including admitting to torturing and killing Zakkarat. But she didn’t need him to know that. She dug her knees in harder, inadvertently cracking at least one of his ribs. She almost apologized.

“Tell me what this is about—the treasure…the trucks.” Some part of her realized that she didn’t need the information. She’d stopped the relic smuggling and captured the villains, salvaging a happy ending amid the tragedy of her Thai guide’s murder and the deaths of two Thins villagers. She could leave the questioning to the Thai authorities—let them track the treasure already hauled away. It was their country and their problem. Let them interrogate this foul man.

But another part of Annja needed to know. That part wanted everything tied up with a neat little ribbon. “I…said…talk.”

He groaned when she dug her knee into his side and pushed the gun against him with more force. She eased up only a little so he could speak.

“You are more than a television archaeologist, it seems.” His words were strained from her weight and his broken ribs. He coughed and grimaced. “Talk.”

“I’m only a part of this, Annja Creed.” He smiled then, the malevolent expression sending a shiver through her. “A sizable part, yes, but only a part. You have cut the tail off the snake, not its head.”

He said nothing else, despite her repeated questions and jabs with the gun.

“The skull bowl. Tell me about that.”

He shook his head and grinned wider.

“Damn it!” Annja pushed herself off him, further injuring his ribs, and again forced back an apology. She waved the gun at him, but he made no move to get up.

Bending over him, gun still threatening, she tugged a pistol from a holster at his side and flung it with such anger that it arced out of sight down the slope. Next, she rifled through his pockets.

No wallet. No ID. Nothing.

“Who are you?”

He kept smiling, blood from his broken nose spilling over his lip. He stuck the tip of his tongue out and licked at the blood.

She fumed and dug the ball of her foot into the ground, ran her free hand through her hair and got a good whiff of herself. God, but she stank, from the mud and the river and from the sweat. She needed a long, hot bath.

Had Luartaro reached the authorities? Were they on their way? Should she wait for them?

“No,” she said out loud.

He looked at her quizzically.

“I can’t wait.”

Maybe Luartaro was still groggy from the ox tranquilizer the retired veterinarian had used on him. Maybe he hadn’t reached the authorities yet.

She would take that task on herself, just to be sure.

Annja gestured with the pistol, and the man got to his feet slowly. She gestured toward the hole. He showed no emotion, but he kept his eyes on her.

“The authorities are on their way,” she told him.

Still no reaction on his face. Could he tell she was bluffing?

The authorities will be on their way if they aren’t already, she told herself. A quick glance at the truck showed that the front tire that had been shot had not gone flat, and with luck it wouldn’t.

“Sit.”

After a moment, he complied.

She pulled up the rope ladder and practically cocooned him in it, tying him up. She made sure the knots were tight; he wouldn’t be freeing himself. She used the cable from the winch to secure the men up top she’d subdued earlier. One of them was groggy, but a quick tap to the side of his head sent him unconscious again.

“Let’s get some mug shots,” she said, going to the side of the trail where she’d dropped the net bag containing her digital camera. She came back to the cocooned man and wiped the blood away from his nose. “Say cheese.”

Annja unwrapped it from the plastic. “Nuts.” She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but the camera had been ruined sometime during her mad dash yesterday. A bullet was lodged near the lens, spiderweb cracks radiating from it. She tried to thumb it on, just in case. “Nuts. Nuts. Nuts.”

She made a move to heave it down the mountainside, but stopped herself. The memory card might be all right, meaning all the pictures she took yesterday could be saved, or maybe someone could fix the camera. She wrapped the camera in the plastic and the net bag again. Then she leaned over the hole, taking another look at the crates and craning her neck so she could see her captive. Testing the cable and rope on the men up top, she pronounced them as secure as she could make them.

She climbed up to the truck, pleased to see her backpack sitting on the passenger seat. Opening the door took a bit of muscle, as it was dented and did not fit properly. It took two yanks before it whined and relented. So the man had driven the Jeep out of the truck’s way and had come back to take the truck, dropping her pack in it. But he hadn’t possessed the keys—or else she suspected he would have roared away and left her in the cavern. Annja jangled the keys she’d taken from the man in the cavern and on her first guess found the one that fit in the ignition. Despite the rust and the age of the vehicle, the engine purred.

“On second thought—” She left it running and slipped out, leaving the door open and marching straight to the man cocooned in the rope ladder. Her muscles grew sore as she tugged him to his feet and shuffled him to the back of the truck. Opening the tailgate and lifting him inside was almost impossible, but Annja was nothing if not determined and finally heaved him in. Then she latched the tailgate and climbed back into the cab.

Annja practiced with the clutch, gas and brake pedals, which were stiff. She had to move the seat forward and adjust the rearview and side mirrors, all of which were covered with a dirty film. The stink of cigarettes permeated the cab, but her own bad odor overpowered it. She fought the bile rising in her throat and stuck her head out the window to suck down some better air.

“Let’s get out of here. But first, let’s see where here is.” In her net bag was the map one of the villagers had drawn for her. Though pretty and well rendered, it wasn’t terribly useful. She leaned over and thumbed the glove box. “That’s better.” Several maps were stuffed inside, and she got lucky with the first one. It even had a faint blue circle drawn on it that she guessed approximated the location of the treasure cavern. “The lodge would be here.” She tapped her finger at a spot that didn’t look terribly far away. That’s where she intended to go first.

She would see if Luartaro had made it back and then head to the nearest city to contact the authorities…likely the city she and Luartaro had taken the bus from to reach the lodge. Annja nudged her pack to the side and spread the map on the passenger seat and studied it.

She reached for the backpack, unfastened it and dipped inside. Her fingers found the dog tags immediately. The lid she’d padded with a piece of her pant leg was intact. But the skull itself was in four pieces. Her heart sank.