Rogue Angel - Restless Soul Part 13

Annja felt herself go pale. "My skull bowl."

"Pardon?"

"Something very important to me was in that bag. Did she see which way Zakkarat went?"

There was another exchange in the Thins language.

"Som said he went west, back into the jungle the way the three of you had come."

Annja spun and dashed past the two women, sandaled feet slapping over the still-muddy ground. "Lu!" she hollered. "Trouble!"

15.

She raced to the small building, nearly bowling over a hunchbacked man who was trundling by with a bundle of soggy reeds.

"Lu!"

He was snoring gently, still propped up against the wall, a thin line of drool spilling over his lower lip and ending in a half-dollar-size wet spot on his borrowed shirt.

"Lu." She knelt by him, gently jostling him. "Lu, wake up. Enough tranquilizer to take out an ox, huh? Wonderful."

He mumbled something and kept snoring.

"Do you have my camera?" She'd just thought of it, praying that it hadn't been washed in her clothes. Plastic bag or no, it would be ruined, and all the pictures of the caves, treasure and skull bowl would be lost. She patted the bulging pockets of his trousers, finding it on the second try by its boxy shape. She unsnapped the pocket and pulled it out. "Thank G.o.d." It was still in the plastic bag and looked dry. She patted at more of his pockets, finding his camera and some extra batteries, the latter of which she palmed. Her own borrowed clothes did not have pockets, and so she would have to find some sort of pack or bag. She'd ask Doc to borrow something, and maybe get someone to pack her a lunch, too.

"Lu." She patted down all his pockets, though she couldn't say why she did this. Then she opened one, and then another, cursing when she discovered ancient gold coins and necklaces, one of which had a large sapphire dangling from it and that she remembered had hung around the neck of a Buddha statue. She rocked back on her heels, replaced the treasures in his pockets and snapped them closed. "d.a.m.n it, Lu. That's stealing. You're an archaeologist. A good one, I thought."

She shook her head, so disappointed with this man she thought she might eventually fall in love with. When had he taken these things? A fortune! He was the last to climb the rope ladder out of the cavern, and so he could have grabbed the treasures while she and Zakkarat were climbing. She'd been so preoccupied with the skull bowl and the teak coffins that he could have conducted his little raid then, stuffed things in the pockets of his pants and jacket, and transferred them to his borrowed clothes while she was unconscious.

So that's what Doc meant when he said of the Thins, "They're not interested in Lu's wealth or your celebrity." She felt a flush of anger rising in her face. But did she have a right to be upset? Annja stood and paced. The treasures had been stolen from somewhere, and certainly a good portion of them were being whisked away from the cavern now...if they hadn't already been carted off in the backs of the Jeeps. Luartaro had kept these few valuable pieces out of the thieves' hands. But this made him no better than a thief.

"Yet I took the skull bowl," she whispered. The line was so often blurred between good and evil, right and wrong. There'd been so much treasure...maybe it was just too tempting to Luartaro. It certainly had been too tempting for Zakkarat. Maybe Luartaro had never done such a thing before, snared antiquities for his personal gain, but she suddenly doubted that. He didn't seem at a loss for funds...not when she'd met him, and not when he agreed to this vacation and exchanged a stack of his money for Thai baht at the airport.

"d.a.m.n it, Lu." She stood ramrod straight and stared down at him, finding it difficult to hold on to her ire. "I took the skull bowl." And she meant to find Zakkarat and get it back. But if she couldn't, at least she had the digital camera and the pictures and could download the shots. Cradling the camera and batteries to her chest, she spun and headed to the door.

"Annja?"

She stopped and looked over her shoulder.

A groggy Luartaro looked up at her. He made a move to rise, but gave up on it, like a drunk whose muscles wouldn't cooperate.

"Annja? You all right?"

"Fine," she said, coming back to him. "Mending, anyway."

He blinked and twisted his head from side to side, the gesture looking comical. "You heal fast." He worked his lips and tongue. "You are remarkable, Annja. I'd been so worried, I-" He started to doze again.

She wanted to talk about the treasure he'd taken, but stayed silent on the matter.

"Lu?"

His eyes fluttered open and a loopy grin splayed across his face. He might as well have been drunk for all the motor coordination he had. Another line of drool spilled down.

She talked fast, wanting to get all the information out before he fell back asleep, and praying he could retain some of it. She explained about the two dead boys, about the one surviving gunman and about Zakkarat leaving last night on the motorcycle. As much as she wanted to go to the authorities right this very moment, her more immediate concern was Zakkarat...and after that the skull bowl.

"The authorities after I find Zakkarat," she said. "If I can find him. But maybe if you're feeling better, you could-"

"Get to a city?" His words were thick and slightly slurred. "I would do that, Annja. And I will meet you back at our cabin."

"Yes. Fine."

"About that sword..."

Her eyes went wide.

"I saw you with the sword again. On the side of the mountain, before we crossed the river. It had blood on it, and you used it to cut through vines. You obviously did not know I saw you with it. A beautiful, old sword. European?"

"You're mistaken-" she tried.

"I saw it again when you killed one of the gunmen yesterday. It was yesterday, was it not? Things are blurry." He blinked and tried to wipe away his drool. "A beautiful, old sword, though not so beautiful as you. Disappeared into thin air, I saw it. An invisible sword. A woman who heals amazingly fast and who carries an invisible sword. A magical woman."

Her shoulders slumped. "Listen, Lu. Yes, there is magic in the world. I suppose you could call it that. I heal quickly. I'm blessed." There was no other explanation for her ability to mend so rapidly. "There are just some things beyond the realm of normalcy. Yes, there is a sword. I can't explain it." I won't explain it, she thought. "Maybe later."

He nodded groggily. "Some things defy explanation, beautiful Annja. Your secret, whatever it is, tell me later. I will keep it."

"We've all seen things on digs that defy explanation," she said. "You have secrets. We all have secrets."

She backed toward the door, reluctant to leave him in this condition. "You're safe, Lu," she told herself. "Zakkarat isn't."

"You go find Zakkarat, my remarkable, beautiful Annja with the invisible sword." The loopy grin got wider. "I think I will have me a little more sleep. Just a few more minutes. Then I will go to the city and find the police and tell them all about the machine guns and the gold. I will-"

He was snoring again, a gentle, sonorous sound that Annja found pleasing.

"A little more sleep for you," she said. "And a lot more speed for me." She hurried to find Doc, who loaned her a net sling bag for her camera...and told her the bag was just like a few Zakkarat had borrowed the previous evening.

Doc had securely tied the gunman to the table.

"That foul man is not going anywhere," he told Annja. "And if he wiggles too much, I've got two or three more doses of tranquilizer left that I can give him. He'll stay put until your friend Lu brings the authorities-whatever authorities police this part of Thailand. I've got some stuff to rouse Lu and get him moving." He tipped his head. "I've never run afoul of the law, Annja, so I don't know much about such things, getting the police and all, don't you know."

"My boots, Doc. Do you know where they are?"

"Washed, I said. Where?" He shrugged. "I don't know about such things, either. Sorry. I was taking care of my patients. Not their belongings."

Annja thanked him and raced down the path that she'd taken into the village, thinking perhaps the retired veterinarian didn't at all mind administering ox tranquilizers to people. Had he dosed her with it, too?

It wasn't difficult to find the motorcycle tracks. It obviously had still been raining when Zakkarat left, but it hadn't been raining quite enough to obliterate the wheel marks. The depression was filled with water, but the edges of the tracks were drying under the warm sun. The tracks were narrow, hinting at an older dirt-bike model rather than anything recent.

"We will be known forever by the tracks we leave," she mused. It was one of the Native American proverbs she'd committed to memory. Another favorite came to mind. "We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." The Thins were taking good care of the land for their children, she thought, keeping it the same as they'd found it, perhaps keeping it nearly the same as it had been a thousand years ago. But she couldn't say the same for a lot of other people who lived in Thailand and some of the tourists who visited. They all but obliterated the cave paintings in Tham Lod, for example.

What sort of tracks am I leaving behind? she wondered.

Annja loved running-when she was running to to something and not being chased. She loved the feel of the gentle burn in her arm and leg muscles, her increased heart rate and the heat in her chest. She waited for the flush to find her face, the first sign of welcome exertion. She could have run a little faster, perhaps, in her boots, though they were thick-soled and a tad clunky. The sandals slipped and were probably birthing blisters, but they were serving well enough and she hadn't been willing to spend any more time in the village searching for her things. She listened to the regular slap-slap the sandals made against the still-damp ground and the swish her left arm made against the foliage along the side of the trail. It was music to her. While there was pain in her calf, she was able to cope with it. something and not being chased. She loved the feel of the gentle burn in her arm and leg muscles, her increased heart rate and the heat in her chest. She waited for the flush to find her face, the first sign of welcome exertion. She could have run a little faster, perhaps, in her boots, though they were thick-soled and a tad clunky. The sandals slipped and were probably birthing blisters, but they were serving well enough and she hadn't been willing to spend any more time in the village searching for her things. She listened to the regular slap-slap the sandals made against the still-damp ground and the swish her left arm made against the foliage along the side of the trail. It was music to her. While there was pain in her calf, she was able to cope with it.

She drew the humid air deep into her lungs, finding the earthy scent of the ground and the myriad flowers almost intoxicating; it made her think of groggy Lu. Annja quickly brushed thoughts of him away, as she didn't need that distraction.

The motorcycle, no matter how old, would have made better time than her running, and he had quite a head start on her. But the motorcycle couldn't have carried Zakkarat across the river. She expected to find the bike ditched there. He would have swum across to the base of the mountain, climbed and searched for the cavern, marked by the rare flower. And he might well be back in his own village by now-if he found the cavern quickly and managed to cart away enough relics to suit him. Or perhaps he was in the nearest city selling whatever he gained. This trip could well be futile; she might not find him. But she had to give it a try, both to recover the skull bowl and to make certain Zakkarat stayed safe and did not run afoul of any more smugglers.

She guessed she'd pa.s.sed about two miles when she noticed traces of the gunmen who'd come this way yesterday. There was a crumpled cigarette packet and broken branches, and several deep boot prints that had filled with water. They were obvious signs, and she suspected she would have found more if she'd been actively looking. She could tell where the gunmen had come upon the trail.

The trail of Zakkarat's borrowed bike kept going west, and so she continued to follow it.

She came upon the motorcycle several miles later, just as the swollen river loomed in sight. It was a faded red Bridgestone 65cc two-cycle dirt bike, vintage from the 1960s and with very little rust. It was canted on its side in a swath of mud, clumps of earth drying on the tires, and the front fender dented. The bike had been clumsily discarded, and she would have to return it to the Thins village later. Annja scowled; Zakkarat was not taking care of the earth for his children, and he was not leaving the best tracks in his wake in this world.

There was no wading this time. She had to swim. She took off her sandals and stuffed them inside her shirt to keep them from being washed away. She wanted to take her camera with her. Wrapping the plastic tighter around it, and then twisting the net bag around that, she held it in one hand and swam with her arm out of the water. It was awkward, but she managed. The current was strong and pushed her downriver, and so she emerged quite some distance from the motorcycle.

Her arms and legs ached from the river's buffeting, and she felt as if she'd been ten rounds in the ring by the time she emerged several minutes later, the sun directly overhead to signal noon.

Annja found Zakkarat on the rise just past the opposite bank, on a narrow game trail leading up the mountain. He'd been dead for at least a few hours, she could tell with a practiced glance, his legs riddled with bullets and a knife stuck in the middle of his chest.

16.

It was an older military knife, the leather-wrapped handle cracked from age and stained with oil. Annja stared at it, anger and sadness welling up.

"A senseless death."

She said a silent prayer and allowed herself only a few moments to grieve for Zakkarat and wonder how to find his family and deliver the news. The lodge, she decided, from which he gave tours, would be a good place to start. Someone there would know how to contact his wife. She tugged off his shirt, tried futilely to shoo away the flies with it and laid it across his chest and face. The pockets of it had been ripped, as had his pants pockets. The pieces of jewelry that he'd looped around his neck and stuck on his fingers were gone, too. It looked as if a few of his fingers had been broken in the process of recovering some of the pieces.

So the thieves took back their gains and left Zakkarat's body to rot. He'd had no weapons. They could have regained the gold without killing him. He was no threat, save for knowing the location of their treasure cavern.

Three empty net bags were strewn a few yards away-what Zakkarat had intended to put more treasure in. She didn't see the pack she'd put the skull bowl in and that he'd supposedly taken. So the thieves had probably grabbed that, too. She searched for it, though, combing through ferns and looking along the riverbank before finally giving up...and deciding to pursue the men who'd killed Zakkarat.

Annja would have gone after them regardless of whether they'd left behind the bowl. Partly a need for revenge, she recognized, but it was more of a need to stop them from killing anyone else who might chance to get in their way. She took a last look at Zakkarat's corpse, trying to memorize its location so she could direct the authorities to it. To help, she took one of his net bags and tied it to a tree branch that overhung his body.

Then she started up the mountainside, her feet slipping in the sandals and occasionally getting stuck in pockets of mud. The tracks the men left were easy to follow-their heavy boot prints distinct despite all the rain, and they'd been careless with the foliage, breaking branches and smashing flowering plants in their wake. Even someone without tracking skills could have followed the path they made.

Although Annja knew she might have had difficulty locating the cavern on her own, the terrain being too unfamiliar to her, the men were making it easy. She hoped Luartaro had recovered enough to go in search of the appropriate authorities, that he could either accompany them or give them good enough directions, and that they might be on their way there soon.

Her feet pressed spent bullet sh.e.l.ls into the ground as she climbed. She found the whole thing odd. A gun-the one she'd taken from one of the men and briefly used-was decades old, and an old-style military knife had been used on Zakkarat. She'd thought that men with so much treasure could have afforded more modern and expensive weapons. Perhaps they just favored things from the past.

Her mind touched the sword, and she called it into her hand before she had traveled very far up the side of the mountain. She heard or saw no evidence of the men being nearby, and therefore she had no immediate need for a weapon. But the sword's pommel felt good against her palm, and she wrapped her fingers tight around it as she drew her lips into a thin line.

"I might not have found the cavern again on my own," she said aloud. "At least not without quite a bit of searching. But you vile men are showing me the way. Might as well have put up a road sign, as clumsy as you idiots are. Please, still be there." She very much wanted to confront them-and despite her distaste of violence, she planned to make them pay.

She climbed slower than she would have liked, but she was still fatigued from yesterday's rigorous ordeal. The st.i.tches in her leg from where the retired veterinarian had cut out the bullets pulled. She guessed it was about an hour of steady climbing when she spotted the roof of a truck in a gap in the branches of a pair of acacia trees. The men indeed had not left. In fact, they'd managed to bring a truck up the narrow trail. They probably needed it because the Jeeps they'd had yesterday were not sufficient to haul away all of the treasure. She edged closer, staying low so she could get a good look at what was going on.

The truck seemed to have more rust showing than paint, and it had a high, boxy back. Its tires were thick and mud-crusted, and from the height of the axels it looked like a four-wheel-drive setup-no doubt necessary in this terrain. The truck was narrow, but barely fit on the overgrown trail, and it appeared to be a Howo design. Annja had seen several trucks made by the company during a trip to China. This model had quite some age to it, and she suspected it would haul a good bit of the treasure. There was a Jeep, too, several yards behind the truck and lower on the trail. No one was in either vehicle.

She waited, resting the sword flat against the ground and resisting the urge to brush away the gnats that were dancing around her face. Within minutes, two black-clad men pa.s.sed by her hiding spot and loaded a crate onto the back of the truck, struggling under its weight. The men she'd seen yesterday had also been dressed in black. They weren't wearing uniforms, however, as it didn't look as if any of the shirts and pants matched. One man had on jet-black jeans, the other work trousers; one wore a T-shirt, and the other a short-sleeved shirt with a patch on the pocket and beige b.u.t.tons. The shoes ranged from tennis shoes to heavy boots, to loafers on the third man who appeared, all caked with mud.

She watched for several more minutes, trying to gauge just how many men were involved. She only saw the three, but that didn't mean there weren't more in the cavern helping to bring up the goods. She heard a whirring, chugging sound, and smelled something acrid. They were using a gas-powered winch. She shifted her position and saw that they'd brought a c.u.mbersome contraption to replace the broken one she'd spotted yesterday. It wheezed and belched a small cloud of exhaust. So there was at least one more man down below attaching things to the cable.

Had they been loading treasure all night? Had the torrential rain slowed them? How much had already been carted away? Annja would find out soon enough, and she would try to keep them from taking away any more. She left her camera in the bushes and crept toward the Jeep, crouching low and hunkering behind it. The men were around the truck and didn't see her.

Stay quiet! she admonished herself as she carefully thrust the tip of her sword between the threads of the right rear tire. The rubber was thick, and it took some worrying at it, but she finally pierced it. She made two more holes in it and stretched her hand forward, feeling the air slowly escaping. Then she worked on the other rear tire. The truck would not be able to easily get around the Jeep...without pushing it out of the way, and the Jeep could not get far on only its front tires. For good measure, she punctured the spare that was affixed to the back.

Annja listened as she worked, hearing the men load another crate and groaning under its weight. None of them spoke English, or any other language she knew, and she promised herself that she would learn a few phrases of Vietnamese. She heard one of the men strike a match as another continued talking. Her eyes widened when she picked up the words Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai.

Peeking around the rear of the Jeep, she caught a good profile of one of the men. He was short, no more than five feet five inches, and he stood straight, shoulders back in seeming military posture. He brought his head forward when he sucked on his cigarette. She memorized his face. She couldn't get a good look at the other two; they kept their heads down and they wore caps, one with an extralong brim. The one farthest away turned and walked out of sight; she shifted her position and watched him climb down into the treasure cavern.

Like a shadow, she slipped around the other side of the Jeep, edging to its front and poking her head up only briefly to see that the two men were still standing and talking at the back of the truck. It was half-filled with crates, and she saw the dark outline of a Buddha statue. Likely they hadn't cleaned out the entire cavern before now because there'd simply been so many relics in it. Hauling away that much stuff required time and multiple vehicles, and no doubt multiple trips. The men were taking care with the goods and not hurrying.

She calculated how to take the pair out without killing them-she didn't need their deaths to meet her revenge. She just needed to catch them.

A part of her knew this was something the Thai authorities should handle. But they weren't here, and she worried that the men might not tarry long enough for the authorities to arrive...though her stopping the Jeep would help that matter. Stopping the truck would cement the deal.

Annja weighed the options and decided the authorities could deal with her prisoners. She would explain that the smuggling operation was being packed up and moved because she, Luartaro and Zakkarat accidentally stumbled across it, and so she had to act.

She crept closer and tightened the grip on her sword. The shorter man dropped his cigarette and ground it out with the ball of his foot. He was looking down, studying a turtle that had crawled out of the tall gra.s.s, and Annja chose that moment to strike. She sprang forward, sword pulled back, and she cleared the distance to the closest man in a heartbeat.

The shorter man looked up just as Annja rapped the pommel of her sword against the back of the other man's head. He crumpled just as the shorter man drew the pistol from a holster at his side, brought it up and shouted.

It was a warning of some kind, she was certain, as she spun to her right when his first shot went off. The gun looked similar to the one she'd briefly used, and she counted herself fortunate that in his haste he was a bad aim. She closed the distance and brought the pommel down like a hammer on his hand. The gun dropped and he shouted again.

He fumbled for a knife at his waist and tried to back away from her, but the ground was still damp and he lost his balance. She brought her leg up and caught him hard in the thigh, then kicked him a second time.

As he dropped to his knees she thumped the pommel against the top of his head, cringing when she heard a cracking sound and praying she'd only knocked him out. No time to check, she vaulted over his body and whipped around the side of the truck, feet churning over the ground and heading toward the hole the winch sat in front of. A man was emerging from it, awkward in his climbing because he had a gun in his hand.

He fired it without aiming, and he struck a front tire of the truck. Annja smiled at that.

"Now shoot out the other one," she said as she charged him.

He managed to climb all the way out by the time she reached him, and he squeezed off two more shots, one grazing her arm. It felt like fire, and she ground her teeth together. She swept the sword around, turning it so the flat of her blade would hit his side, but he was too fast for her. He leaped backward, across the hole, hollering to whoever was still inside.

"I definitely need to learn Vietnamese," she said. She skirted the hole as shots were fired upward through it, spit rapid-fire from a machine gun. Then she whirled as the man up top fired again, this time at least one of the bullets striking the blade of the sword.

"No!" she hollered. The sword had been in pieces when it had come into her possession, and she could well imagine it breaking into pieces again.