The Babel Codex (3 page)

Chapter Four

“Who are you?” Burris stepped toward the men with his hand raised authoritatively. “You can’t just walk in here. This is a closed set.”

Still kneeling, Annja looked at the three men and wondered if they had been hired by Burris to make the video more exciting. Because he wasn’t acting scared. If he had hired them, he’d cast well.

All three men looked rough, dressed in cheap cotton suits that made their black skin stand out even more. In their late twenties or early thirties, they were lean and hard.

Burris strode toward the men. “Get out of here.” He glanced over his shoulder at the cameramen. “Keep rolling on this. It’ll play great.”

Uncertainly, the cameramen filmed the encounter.

The man leading the group raised his pistol and fired a shot into the earthen ceiling. The harsh crack of the gunshot filled the room and deafened Annja. Dust drifted down from the baseball-size hole in the ceiling.

The gunman shifted his aim to Burris’s midsection. “I am Tadesse, American.” His accent was strong. “And if you value your life, you will stop where you are.”

Burris stopped and his hands slowly rose at his sides till he was holding them over his head. He swallowed hard, his bluster gone. “Sure. No problem. I value my life.”

Tadesse cut his gaze to her. “Woman, hand me that brick.”

Annja bristled. She stood with the brick in her hand, then walked toward him.

“You’re just going to give him my brick?” Burris sounded as though he couldn’t believe it.

“He has a gun.”

Burris cursed. “You can’t just take that brick. I paid for it. It’s
mine
.”

Obviously irritated with Burris—Annja could definitely understand that feeling—Tadesse again pointed the pistol at the big American. “I will not tell you again to shut your mouth.”

Taking advantage of the man’s distraction, Annja snap-kicked him in the crotch, pulled the brick into her chest to protect it, then caught the pistol in her free hand and twisted. She yanked the weapon free.

Tadesse squalled as his fingers cracked and cursed vehemently. He threw himself at her, reaching out with both hands. Annja ducked and slid to the side, spinning into a backward kick that caught Tadesse between the shoulder blades and propelled him forward. Off balance, he landed on his face with a smack.

Still moving, Annja flipped the pistol up, caught it in her hand and fired at the two remaining thugs as they opened fire. The pistol bounced in her fist as she squeezed off shots as fast as she could. She didn’t choose to kill when she
had
a choice, but these guys were clearly bent on murder.

Over a brick?
She still couldn’t figure that out.

The room filled with thunder and muzzle flashes. Bullets dug divots from the walls, floor and ceiling. The two men weren’t crack shots and now lay groaning in the hallway.

The cameramen were fleeing toward the main dig.

“Who are those guys?” Burris asked.

Left partially deaf from the gunshots, Annja could barely hear him even though he was obviously yelling. She tossed the empty pistol to the floor. “I don’t know. I thought you hired them to spice up the video.”

“Why would I hire them?” Burris gaped at her.

“Why did you hire the guy in the skeleton costume?”

“Skeleton Guy was fun.”

“No, he wasn’t.” Annja realized for the first time that Burris hadn’t abandoned her. She didn’t know if he was brave or had just forgotten to run. She suspected the latter.

“Who are these guys? Why do they want my brick?”

Annja opened her backpack and tucked the brick beside her tablet PC and camera, wrapping it in an extra T-shirt she’d packed in case. You never knew how dirty you’d get at a site.

“I don’t know.”

Footsteps echoed in the tunnel to the outside, rapidly approaching.

Annja pulled on the backpack and watched as flashlights appeared in the tunnel.

“Who’s that?” Burris squinted into the dark.

“Tadesse! Tadesse!” someone down the tunnel called out.

A shot cracked and a slug skipped across the ceiling before burying into a wall.

“Not your fan club. Come on.” Annja grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him into motion, almost yanking him off his feet. He sprinted after her, cursing as more shots
spanged
off the walls around them and kicked up small dust clouds.

Reaching up, she caught hold of the thick electrical cables that supplied power to the naked bulbs hanging along the wall. She yanked, staggering as she pulled herself off balance, then felt the cables come loose from the wall. The bulbs exploded with tiny
pops
when they struck the ground. Glass crunched under Annja’s boots. She was too deaf to hear it, but she felt it.

“I can’t see!” Burris yelled.

“Neither can they.” Annja dragged her left hand along the wall and fixed a map of the dig in her mind.

The darkness didn’t keep their pursuers from shooting as they shined their flashlights down the tunnel. Bullets slammed into the walls and a couple even whizzed by overhead, knocking loose dust that eddied in the shifting flashlight beams.

Annja felt the opening to the tunnel to the left rather than saw it. She reached back, caught hold of Burris again, and pulled him into the side tunnel with her.

Burris breathed raggedly in the darkness. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“This is a ventilation tunnel Dr. Sordi ordered dug.”

“I thought you had a flashlight.”

“I do. Want to hold it so those guys back there can see you better?”

Burris cursed but didn’t ask for the flashlight.

The narrow confines forced her to go more slowly. She kept hearing sounds of pursuit. Annja hoped Sordi and his students escaped without being hurt.

Twenty meters farther on, the tunnel came to an abrupt end. She held an arm in front of her face and was able to stop in time.

Burris wasn’t so lucky. He hit the end of the tunnel with a thud and a groan, and sank to his knees. He sucked in air. “What happened?”

“We reached the end of the tunnel.”

“You couldn’t warn me?”

“Look out.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I think I chipped a tooth.”

“Get up.”

“Why?”

“Those guys are still coming.”

In diluted light from some source she couldn’t place, Annja spotted another tunnel to the right. This one was part of the metro sewer system and led to the street.

Burris sat with his back to the wall, checking his teeth with a forefinger. “They missed us,” he whispered.

“Stay here if you want.” Annja stepped into the side tunnel just as their pursuers peered into the tunnel.

Burris cursed and pushed himself to his feet, crowding in behind Annja as bullets slapped into the wall where he’d been. Ahead, Annja could make out daylight seeping in around a manhole cover. She ran.

Chapter Five

Rafik Bhalla stood in the sweltering heat outside the
mercato.
Vendors hawking their wares to the
early-morning tourist crowd created a constant current of noise behind him.

Frustrated, Bhalla yanked back the cuff of his Italian jacket
and glanced at the Rolex on his wrist. Only minutes had passed since his men had
gone down into the dig site across the street, but he was certain too much time
had elapsed. They should have been back with the brick now.

The hotel above the dig site had been abandoned years ago by
all but a few freeloaders. Once the Italian archaeology team had gotten the
rights to excavate the World War I site below the hotel, police had removed the
vagabonds.

Ethiopia had been part of Benito Mussolini’s Africa Orientale
Italiana, which had also included the Italian colonies of Eritrea and Italian
Somaliland. Mussolini had been forced to invade twice after then-emperor Menelik
II had repulsed the Italian army the first time. It wasn’t until they’d invaded
with poison gas and other more modern weapons of war that the Second
Italo-Abyssinian War was successful.

Once in control of the country, Mussolini had set about
destroying the British supply lines through the Suez Canal.

Bhalla hadn’t been surprised to learn that the Italian army had
put in a secret barracks under the hotel. Even the discovery of the Aksumite
Empire trading post hadn’t been too surprising. Ethiopia was a country with a
long and varied history of conquerors and commerce.

No, the brick had been the surprising find. It hadn’t
originated in Ethiopia, and it had existed for thousands of years, just waiting
to tell its story.

Walking to the back of his sleek dark gray Jaguar XJ, Bhalla
nodded to the man standing guard there. Although the man was responsible for
Bhalla’s personal security, Bhalla stood half a head taller than him and looked
more powerful, like a water buffalo standing next to a cow. Bhalla liked that,
but he also liked knowing that the man—and the driver and the other guy at the
front of the Jaguar—was there to look after him.

“Open the boot,” Bhalla directed.

Discreetly, the guard opened the car’s trunk. People passed by
in the street and on the sidewalk, but no one paid much attention.

An old man lay inside on a plastic tarp with his hands and feet
tied behind him. The position looked very uncomfortable, but Bhalla had no
compassion for the man, who had tears leaking down a withered face that looked
like it had been chipped out of anthracite. His gray hair was in disarray and
stubble covered his chin around the gag in his mouth. His lips were parched and
cracked. His flesh was bruised dark purple, and there were numerous lacerations
from a scalpel. Bhalla had learned how to cut without killing.

Since the morning, the old man had fouled himself, and the odor
was almost more than Bhalla could bear. Bhalla put a forefinger to his lips. “Do
not yell or I will kill you, Dawit. Nod if you understand.”

Dawit trembled, squeezed his eyes shut, shedding more tears,
then opened them and looked at his tormentor.

“Good. Now I am going to ask you again about the stone. You
will not lie to me.”

Dawit shook his head and made noises against the gag.

“Quietly, old man. Quietly or you will die.”

Dawit nodded.

Bhalla took a surgical glove out of his pocket and pulled it
on, then reached down and took the gag from his prisoner’s mouth.

“Tell me about the stone. Where you found it.”

“I have told you. I swear by all that is holy, I did not lie to
you about this. An American relic hunter I was working for, a very bad man,
found the stone in a dig out on the coast. He thought it was worth a lot of
money. He contacted you because he knew you looked for such things.”

Bhalla nodded. The American was a man Bhalla did business with.
As Dawit had said, the American was a bad man. But he was also a professional,
someone Bhalla had done business with before.

“It is worth a lot of money, Dawit. I had promised to pay him
for the stone. Then you killed him and took it.”

Dawit closed his eyes and panted in panic. “This is true. I was
weak. I made a mistake.”

“I do not begrudge a man who tries to improve his lot in life.
If you had stuck to our deal—”

“You would have killed me the instant I handed you the
stone.”

“Yes, but you would have died quickly, painlessly. Now look at
all you have had to endure.”

Dawit shivered and wept. He whimpered unintelligible prayers
that held no belief.

Bhalla gazed around the street but saw no one worth his undue
attention. “Where is the stone, Dawit?”

“In the dig under the hotel as I told you. The big American,
the one from the radio, he was looking for things yesterday to play a prank on
the woman, Annja Creed. I sold him the stone.”

“The stone was still there this morning?”

“Yes. I was told I could pick it up this afternoon.”

“Mr. Bhalla?” The security man beside Bhalla tapped his
shoulder and pointed.

Bhalla watched as a manhole cover shifted to one side and a
woman with striking chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail clambered from
under the street. Passersby gave the new arrival a wide berth.

Bhalla recognized Annja Creed at once, though their paths had
never crossed. He knew her mostly from the scholarly work she did, the books and
articles, but he also knew her from
Chasing History’s
Monsters
. He had heard that she was at the Italian archaeology
site.

Did she have the stone? Or was she simply running for her
life?

The woman turned back to the manhole and offered her hand to a
man, helping him climb out of the manhole, as well. Almost immediately, some of
the men Bhalla had sent into the dig raced across the street with guns in their
hands, yelling as they shoved pedestrians aside to get through the crowd.

Bhalla turned to the man beside the car. “Go! Get her!”

The man launched himself in pursuit.

Turning his attention back to the old man, Bhalla fastened his
large hand around Dawit’s throat and choked the life from him. Then, satisfied
the man was dead, Bhalla stripped off the glove as the driver shut the trunk on
the corpse and got in the backseat of the Jaguar.

The driver slid behind the wheel as the other security man took
the passenger seat.

Bhalla looked into the rearview mirror, catching the driver’s
eye. “Follow the woman. She must not get away.”

Chapter Six

Burris Coronet, for all his surfer-boy good looks, wasn’t in shape. Annja listened to the man hoarsely breathing like a bellows as he struggled to keep up with her. He was also larger and less adroit, so he didn’t dart through the crowd as easily.

If he hadn’t been with her, Annja was certain she could have outdistanced her pursuers. But he was and they couldn’t.

She peered over the crowd, trying to find the path of least resistance. Once tourists and shoppers figured out that Burris was running at them, they tried to scatter and get out of the way.

Glancing over her shoulder to check his progress, Annja saw that five men had climbed out of the manhole and four more were joining those. Her peripheral vision barely picked up the man in the black suit as he closed on her with a gun in his fist.

Annja stopped and spun, turning to face the gunman as a bullet split the air where her head had been an instant before. She reached into the otherwhere for her sword and pulled it into her hand. The blade was three feet of razor-sharp, double-edged steel with an unadorned cross hilt. The sword should have been terribly heavy, but in Annja’s grip it felt just right, natural.

The sword had previously been carried by Joan of Arc against the British during the Hundred Years’ War. When Joan had been burned at the stake, the sword had been shattered. In some inexplicable way, the two men tasked with Joan’s safety had found unprecedented longevity in their failure and her death. One of them, Roux, had spent more than five hundred years in his quest to find all the fragments of her sword and put it back together again. The second man, Garin Braden—a former initiate of Roux’s—had tried to prevent his mentor from making the sword whole. But in that, he had also failed.

Annja had found the last piece of Joan of Arc’s sword, and somehow her hand had mended the shards into one, and she’d inherited a legacy she still didn’t understand. All she knew for certain was that since she had found the sword, her life had been filled with danger, like a lodestone that pulled her into battle, or brought battles to her.

The sword wasn’t something she could handle inconspicuously, but its appearance had been a surprise to the man trying to kill her. He tried to stop and swivel his weapon at her again.

Annja flicked the sword out, catching the man’s hand with the flat of the blade hard enough to slap the pistol from his fist. Bones snapped and she knew she’d broken most of his fingers. Desperate, he threw himself at her.

Moving forward to meet her opponent, Annja struck the man in the face with her hand around the hilt. His head popped back and he staggered, then she finished him off by driving the hilt into his temple. Unconscious, he crumpled to the ground.

Unfortunately, dealing with him had allowed the other pursuers to gain ground.

Burris looked at the guy on the ground, then back up at Annja. “Nice sword. Where did you get it?”

“One of the tables.”

Burris started to look around, but the closest thing to them was a wooden cart filled with fresh melons and cabbages. Bullets from the men chasing them split open the melons, shredded the cabbage and dug splinters from the cart.

Annja grabbed his shirt and jerked him into motion again, shoving him ahead of her. “Run!”

She shoved him, causing him to almost stumble and fall, as bullets ricocheted off the wall beside them and blew holes through shop windows. Burris pounded feverishly along the sidewalk toward an awning-covered market where an old man was scrambling out of the way.

Wooden barrels held half a dozen kinds of nuts, oranges, apples and pears. Racks of bright yellow bananas hung under the electric-blue awning that fluttered in the wind. Dried spices hung from strings, already tied off in bags or bundles for sale.

As Burris reached the end of the awning, a camel shambled from the nearby alley and into his path. Burris slammed into the big animal, which looked at him like he was the most annoying thing it had ever seen.

Even the camels understand Burris.

Squawking, Burris flailed in an effort to keep his balance. The camel’s rider reached down and popped Burris on the head with his riding crop. Covering his head with his arms, Burris stepped back and blocked Annja just as their pursuers reached the other end of the long awning.

Whirling around, Annja sliced through the wooden tent pole holding up the heavy awning. The bright blue fabric fell, pulled by the weight of the bananas and other goods tied to the frame. The men fired through the awning.

Understanding that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the camel driver urged his mount into motion. Frightened and motivated, the ungainly animal wobbled out into the street and immediately caused a utility van to veer into an oncoming taxi. The clangor of shrieking metal filled the street and marketplace for a moment, then people began yelling.

“Holy crap!” Burris stared out at the confusion as the camel waded through the stalled traffic.

Annja shoved him into motion again, heading him down the alley toward the next street over. They dodged garbage bins and reached a smaller alley that split off from the main one. The new alley led behind shops that fronted both streets at either end of the alley they’d just quit.

Burris sucked in air like he was about to die.

Knowing the man wasn’t going to make it much farther, Annja told him to stop. As he bent over double to catch his breath, she released the sword and it immediately vanished back to the otherwhere
.

“Stop? But they’re still chasing us.” He straightened and leaned against the wall in the narrow alley. If he’d seen her let the sword go, he didn’t mention it. “What are those guys? Track stars? Ethiopia’s next Olympic marathon team with guns?”

Annja didn’t answer. They were still a long way from their hotel, and she wasn’t certain that turning themselves over to the police was a good idea, either. She had no idea if the Ethiopian police force could be counted on. Ultimately, she didn’t know what was important about the brick that people were willing to kill her to get it. Killers were one thing, but as an archaeologist, she hated mysteries.

Actually, it was a love/hate kind of thing. She couldn’t imagine a day in her life when she wasn’t going to be trying to find out something. There was just too much to learn.

Burris’s breathing leveled off a little. “What are we going to do?”

A man with a broom in his hand leaned out the back door of one of the small shops. He asked them something, clearly concerned.

Burris immediately figured out what the guy wanted and lifted his shoulders with a smile. “No heart attack. I’m fine.” He then patted himself down and appeared slightly startled. “Hey! I
am
fine. All that shooting and not one bullet hole!” He grinned at Annja. “Man, you
cannot
beat luck.”

“Luck?” Annja wheeled on him angrily. “First you set me up with creepy Skeleton Guy, then you nearly get me killed for a brick that you found somewhere in the marketplace. You’re an idiot.”

Burris shrugged. “Hey. Gimme my brick.”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I’m not giving you the brick.”

Burris scowled. “You can’t just take my brick.”

“I nearly got killed over it—that makes it mine.”

“I nearly got killed over it, too.”

“You didn’t get killed. I saved you. You owe me your life, so I’m taking the brick.”

A smile flirted with Burris’s lips. “You think Doogie will approve of the way you’re strong-arming me?”

“Doogie—
Doug
isn’t here. He doesn’t get a vote.” Annja couldn’t believe the nerve of the guy.

Burris took his phone out of his pocket. “He can call in a vote.”

Annja snatched the phone from Burris’s hand before he had time to blink. She left him standing there as she walked into the shop the man with the broom had come from.

The shop catered to the tourist crowd. Racks of souvenir T-shirts and wicker baskets in all shapes and sizes hung on the walls. A stack of dog-eared paperbacks in a half dozen languages occupied a small table in the corner. The little man carried his broom back inside and hung it from a bracket behind the counter. Then he picked up a magazine and pretended to read it, all the while eavesdropping on Annja and Burris. Clearly he spoke English.

Burris joined Annja at one side of the window looking out on the street they’d just quit. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“You stand in front of that window, you’re gonna get yourself shot.” Burris took a couple steps away, then studied her. “Where’s the sword?”

“I dropped it. It’s not exactly something you can carry around.” During her time with the sword, she had acquired more street smarts.
Stay alive while people are trying to kill you
,
you learn stuff.
It was a rule she hadn’t picked up from the Catholic nuns in the orphanage or in college.

Violence had a rhythm. Those rhythms showed up in history, too, if a researcher knew where to look for them. Annja did, and she also knew how to look for them in the modern world.

When something terrible happened, everyone was a victim. People who got hurt, and the innocents who watched it happen. Even police officers and military personnel reacted to the horror of a violent event. Everybody lost it.

Except for the perpetrators. They either weren’t touched by it, or they enjoyed it.

Annja watched as the men she’d dropped the awning on spread out along the street. She took her camera out of her backpack and started snapping pictures of them, still standing to one side so she couldn’t be seen.

The men searched quickly, guns still in their hands, menacing everyone around them. At the end of the street, a black Jaguar sat idling, poised to spring into action like its feline namesake. The rear window was down and the man in the backseat sat watching. Anger tightened his features.

Annja swapped out for her telescopic lens, then refocused on the man in the back of the Jaguar. She snapped the picture.