Rogue Angel 49: The Devil's Chord (19 page)

Chapter 28

Garin tossed the music box up to Roux. The old man caught it with ease.

“Careful!” Annja exclaimed.

“Yes, yes,” Roux muttered.

Annja dug around inside the chest for further treasures. She cleared away the rest of the tattered fabric from a few books, none of them notebooks similar to the one attributed to Leonardo. One was actually a shipping log. It would take patience and better light to decipher the tiny script, though.

A few more loose coins sat at the bottom of the trunk.
They must have fallen out of the box.
If she had a camera along, she’d snap a shot and make a note of the findings to report to the appropriate agency. But circumstances being what they were, she made a mental list of the contents.

“Roux!” Garin called. “I’ll toss Annja up and you grab her hand.”

“Toss me?” She snorted. “I don’t think so.”

“You know what I mean. I’ll give you a leg up.” Garin clasped his hands together and bent to show her that he’d give her a boost.

“What about one of those ladders?”

“Annja, don’t be ridiculous. They’re ancient—they’d never hold any weight.”

“Fine.”

She and Garin waited for Roux to come into view above and show that he was ready for Annja, but no helping hand appeared. Annja probably didn’t require a hand up, but it would make things easier.

“Where is that old man?” Garin asked, clearly irritated.

“Roux?” Annja called.

They both listened. Nothing.

“You think he left?” she asked.

“Of course he did. I didn’t see that one coming, or rather, I should have anticipated it. The wily coot. He’s probably halfway back to the car right now. Come on. Step up onto my hands. We’ll get you out of here.”

“Then how will you get out?”

“I’ll jump.”

Annja nodded. Stepping onto Garin’s hands, she then straightened her body and arrowed her arms over her head to make as narrow a form as she could. The target above seemed so small now.

“Ready?”

“Go!” she said.

Bending her knees as Garin lowered his hands, she straightened with the lift, and the boost he gave her sent her soaring just high enough to grip the opening and pull herself up and partly onto the floor. Kicking furiously, she launched herself forward to drag herself completely away from the hole. She coughed and sneezed violently from being so close to the dusty ground.

Garin’s hands immediately slapped the rough, broken edges of the floorboards. Wood creaked and he cursed, dropping back down into the depths. Annja coughed from the plume of dust and dirt that rose in his crashing wake.

“I’m going to need a wider opening!” he hollered.

“Will do!”

Setting to work, Annja tore away more of the busted floor. It gave easily and she was thankful. She hauled a few boards to the side of the room and could hear a chuckle from below.

“Just be thankful I don’t leave you down there,” she muttered.

“I’d find a way out and then hunt you down.”

“I know! Such a joy having you as a friend.”

Garin popped up through the opening in the floor, his arms reaching, and she helped drag him forward until he was able to roll onto his back. “A friend, eh?”

“Well...for today, anyway.” She waited for him to get to his feet and catch his breath.

“I know where the old man is headed.”

“Where’s that?”

“Rouen.”

Annja was not surprised. Rouen was the town the coordinates on the drawing had indicated. Rouen was the town in France where the English had burned Joan of Arc at the stake. And now with a time-shifting device in hand, apparently Roux had some history he felt compelled to adjust.

And hadn’t Evan mentioned Rouen to her earlier? She felt certain he had. If only she’d paid more attention... “Let’s go,” she said. “Maybe we’ll be able catch up with Roux at the airport.”

“If we’re lucky,” he said. “If we’re lucky.”

* * *

A
S
THEY
HEADED
away from Lake Como, Annja recalled something Roux had said to her a day or two earlier.
I don’t want to share it
. Meaning, he didn’t want to include anyone else in whatever was found, even Garin.

Should she be worried about Roux? About the music box? She should have thought twice before tossing the artifact into Roux’s clutches.

Chastising herself wouldn’t change things, though.

“How can we be sure Roux is headed toward Malpensa?” Annja asked as they drove the A8 toward the airport. The road, lined sporadically with tall trees, power lines and businesses, reminded her of a standard Midwestern freeway back in the States. Malpensa was the largest of three airports that served Milan.

“We can’t. But does it matter? We’ve got to take the quickest route to try to catch him. We’re just following at the moment.”

“You don’t strike me as a follower, Garin.”

He smiled and flashed her a look, his attention veering briefly from the road.

“So I seem to be on your team now?”

“You’re never on anyone’s team, Annja. Except maybe that of the tired and poor. The huddled masses—”

“I think you’ve spent too much time at the Statue of Liberty lately. I just like to do what’s right, when I can. And where a possible artifact such as this is concerned?”

“I’ll get the box back, Annja. I’m not going to let Roux get away with this one.”

A surprising act of selflessness. But Annja wouldn’t for one second buy that Garin didn’t have his own plans for the device.

“How long have you known about Roux’s quest for this artifact? Do you believe in time travel?”

“It’s a time shifter, Annja.”

“So I’ve been told. Numerous times. Huge difference from time traveling, I’m sure. Really? Why would you want to go back in time?”

“I don’t. And I don’t believe the thing works. But on the off chance that it does? It’s in the possession of the one man who could change history, Annja. I’ve known about his search since the day he met Scout Roberts, or Evan Merrick, or whoever he is. I keep tabs, you know.”

“You both do. It disturbs me, and then it doesn’t.”

“Yes, well, keeping tabs has been a lifesaver on more than a few occasions. This time? It could mean preventing a catastrophic change to history as we know it.”

“Such dramatics. Cue the ominous movie score.”

Garin frowned.

A shrug was the only appropriate response.

“With Roux headed to Rouen,” Garin said, “you know what that means.”

The landscape rushed by as Annja nodded and tapped the window. Did Roux believe he could stop Joan’s execution? Did he not understand the consequences if he actually managed it? He didn’t strike her as a man who was overly concerned with the nuances of things. And it must have been a horrid experience for him to have witnessed a person who was so special to him be burned at the stake. But to go back and change the course of everything that had happened afterward was mind-boggling.

Annja dismissed all of it; she knew what she believed. The notion of changing history was absurd. The same was true of time travel. At least the way they were considering it now.

She had to concede to time traveling a lot in the sense that when she was on a dig site, she would sit back and wonder about the origins of a mysterious skeleton or object she’d uncovered. What and who had that person been in his or her lifetime? A peasant? Merchant? King or queen?

“It is possible,” she felt the urge to say. “But only through history and science and the knowledge we gain by studying the past.”

“Works for me,” Garin said. He shifted gears and turned into the Milan Malpensa Airport terminal.

Annja used her phone and went online to check the schedule of outgoing flights.

The only flight to France had left ten minutes before they got to the airport.
Bad timing.
But Garin showed no signs of worry as he drove beyond the main parking lot, toward a smaller terminal where private jets waited. Of course the man would never fly with others, not even first-class.

“Roux didn’t take a private jet here?” she wondered.

“I don’t know. Not on our team, remember?”

“I’m not really on your team, Garin.”

“You don’t have to remind me. But just know, I’m the one you should be cheering for this time.”

Annja would reserve judgment on that. For the time being, she would stick with Garin because he knew Roux better than she did, and he had the insights to the music box and cross that could be their only advantage.

She thought back to where they had left Evan in the warehouse in Milan. Garin had taken the Lorraine cross and still had it now. Meanwhile, Roux had the notebook. And now Roux also had the music box. Without a piece on the board, would Evan now leave the game?

“Let me see the cross,” Annja asked.

Garin reached into his suit coat and then slapped the outside pockets. He swore.

“Don’t even tell me,” she said. “Sitting at the bottom of a hole on some Sheetrock?”

“I don’t think so. That old coot! We argued in the gardens.”

“What’s new?”

“He shoved me. I shoved back. We had a tussle. I think he stole it from me.”

“You’d better hope so. Otherwise we should go back to Lake Como right now.”

“He’s got it,” Garin decided and punctuated his anger with a growl.

Chapter 29

Roux disembarked from the domestic flight, which he had chosen specifically because Garin Braden would be trying to follow him. He’d only had a ten-minute head start, so he expected Braden to catch up. But by then, Roux wanted to have figured out the time-shifting device.

As he was looking for the exit, a fellow passenger bumped into him, but quickly apologized.

“Désolé,”
the man offered and straightened Roux’s jacket in an attempt to make nice.

Roux walked on, clutching the brown paper bag to his chest. The bag had been the quickest and easiest solution he could find to hold, if not hide, the music box and notebook.

And inside his pocket he had the cross that Garin hadn’t been the wiser—

“No!”

Roux spun around, trying to catch sight of the man who had bumped into him. He’d worn dark clothing, but Roux hadn’t paid much attention to his face. A good distance away, leading to the parking lot, he saw someone run through the sliding glass doors.

“Stop!” Roux’s shout served its purpose. The first face to turn toward him was the man running outside. Blond hair, square jaw and a glint at his ear that must be an earring.

Roux raced down the carpeted aisle, doing his best to dodge other travelers. Had Garin sent someone ahead to trouble him until Garin himself could get here? But why not also take the two artifacts—the music box and notebook? If not Garin, then Evan? He wouldn’t have known Roux was in possession of both artifacts....

“Should have ended that man when we had the chance,” he muttered, rushing through the open doors leading to the parking lot. He looked left and right.

The blond man hopped into the passenger side of a waiting dark blue sports car and it peeled away from the curb. Roux dashed toward the row of cabs, eyed a limo that was idling and its driver helping a customer with her bag.

No time for explanations.

Roux pulled open the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel, tossing the brown paper bag onto the seat next to him. The aggravated driver volleyed French curses at him as he sped away.

Roux shifted into gear and negotiated the labyrinth of vehicles ahead of him. He’d lost sight of the sports car, but it wouldn’t be headed out of town, so he veered onto the exit toward town.

The city of Rouen had changed, and it hadn’t. A man could still navigate merely by knowing the location of the Seine, which was to his right.

And ahead, he spied the navy blue sports car.

* * *

S
EATED
IN
A
COMFY
leather chair in the airport’s private lounge, outfitted with gourmet food and cocktails—she was surprised there were no sexy women to serve Garin’s every need—Annja dug out her laptop. She was pleased to have a Wi-Fi connection.

She’d been in Rouen on a few occasions. One particular time a nasty professor with a Charlemagne complex had been trying to steal her sword for his collection. He’d sought twelve swords to complete his plans to rule the world and had employed some deadly minions who hadn’t a care for human life to achieve his goal. Ultimately, though, cancer had beat him to world domination.

As the keep of Joan’s sword, she shouldn’t be surprised that her adventures would bring her back to the city over and over. Though it was not Joan of Arc’s birthplace—that was Domrémy—Rouen was steeped with the martyr’s memory, perhaps even her spirit.

“We’re headed for the Place du Vieux-Marché?” she asked Garin. It was the site of Joan of Arc’s pyre. A monument had been struck in her honor.

He nodded. “The Lorraine cross did have
Rouen
inscribed on it, yes?”

“Yes. And the coordinates are also for Rouen. Did you have an opportunity to look it over, uh, now or a few centuries ago?”

“Leonardo showed it to me, and I remember not being terribly impressed with it. Simple crosses that people wore around their necks or carried in a pocket were so common.”

She glanced around the lounge. It seemed unusually quiet. And Garin seemed to be in an oddly reflective mood. Maybe he was tired. Now that she thought of it, she was tired, too. She should try to catch a few winks before they got to Rouen. But she wanted to check the central square, where they guessed Roux would go, and familiarize herself with all the surrounding streets. Though she’d been there before, the layout may have changed.

At one end of the square stood the Joan of Arc church. It was beautiful. Annja had been inside it a few times. She could spend a lot of time losing herself in the architecture. Of any church, actually.

“Did Roux mention why Leonardo da Vinci had labeled him a thief in the notebook, Annja?”

“No. Will you tell me?”

Garin shrugged.

“Give me a clue, then. Has it anything to do with the Lorraine cross?”

“No. Actually, Leonardo once owned a piece of Joan’s sword.”

Her gaze met Garin’s brown eyes and her heartbeat spiked. Annja knew Roux had traversed the world to track down every piece of Joan’s sword, until he’d been drawn to the very last piece—and Annja—by destiny.

“Oh...” She paused, unsure what could be said.

She knew the story after that. Roux had gathered the sword pieces, yet nothing had happened. Until she had looked it over and suddenly she’d held Joan’s sword in her hand. And now it was hers, claimed only by her, called from the otherwhere to serve her bidding when she should need it.

Incredible.

“Just thought you’d like to know,” Garin said. He tilted his head back against the seat and closed his eyes.

Annja let her fingers fall slack on the keyboard. It was weird how the tidbits of history she gained from Garin or Roux directly correlated with her life. It never ceased to amaze her.

Glancing across the room, she saw Garin snoring. The man had his hands folded on his chest, and his feet up on the chair opposite where he sat. While thoroughly modern in every way, she could easily imagine him outfitted in armor and wielding a sword or halberd while riding siege on an enemy’s castle. He had that noble warrior appeal.

Not that he appealed to her, personally. But she could understand why it was easy for him to attract a lot of women. Add to that the private jet and a billionaire’s bank account.

“The centuries have been good to you,” she muttered.

Powering off the laptop, Annja slid it onto the chair next to hers, then reclined in her seat and closed her eyes. She might not sleep now, for remarkable memories kept her adrenaline racing.

* * *

T
HE
BLOND
MAN
from the airport had eluded Roux, even though he’d briefly caught up to him while entering the city. He’d lost him in a traffic jam detouring around construction on the Pont Mathilde near the river.

So instead of driving aimlessly in a random search, Roux headed to the one place he expected the Lorraine cross to show up. If Evan Merrick had any clue about how to operate the time-shifting device, he would arrive in the Place du Vieux-Marché.

Forgoing a more predictable watch point in the central square, Roux strode along the rooftop of a building that boasted cafés and clothing shops on the ground floor and apartments from the first to fifth floors. He marked the best angle to view entrance to the square from any street below.

From his position he had a direct view of the statue of Joan of Arc designed by Maxime Real del Sarte. It stood in a corner outside of the Church of Saint Joan of Arc. Put there in 1926, the simple stone statue depicted Joan praying, her eyes cast toward heaven as flames whipped up around her long skirts. Bright red flowers had been planted around the statue, but from this distance they appeared but a blur, almost flamelike.

Roux looked away.

Satisfied with this spot to watch the square, Roux sat and pulled the music box out from the paper bag. Running his thumb over the carved wood and bronze fixings, he closed his eyes and whispered a prayer that he had not uttered since the fifteenth century.