Rogue Angel - The Lost Scrolls Part 16

"China?"

"Just inland from Hong Kong, I think. It's sort of a boomtown. There wasn't much there but farming villages twenty years ago. Now it's a big city with a lot of high-tech manufacturing." Jadzia nodded. "They wanted us to send some of our scrolls to them for processing. But there was some kind of trouble, tension with the U.S." Annja knew the United States was a major subsidizer of the governments of both Poland and Egypt, which in turn jointly sponsored the Alexandrian library project. "Some kind of stupid politics."

"I'm with you there," Annja said. She was starting to feel as if they just might have a shot. Not a good one, perhaps but better than the blank nothing of a future she had seen like a wall ahead a moment before. She thought out loud. "So with China and the U.S. mad at each other and with China a rival with the big Western companies for oil, with their big boom going on the Chinese'd be pretty unlikely to be in bed with Euro Petro, wouldn't they?"

Jadzia nodded solemnly. "Sometimes you are not so stupid after all." She upended her soda bottle and took a hefty swig.

"Uh, thanks."

Jadzia was frowning when she lowered the big plastic bottle. "But we have a problem," she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "It takes forever to get visas for the People's Republic."

Annja's face lit up in a great big smile. "Not necessarily," she said. "The network has a good working relationship with the national government, as well as GuangdongProvince's. The Communist party bosses, too. And by that I mean, ma.s.sive bribery."

"The universal language," Jadzia said.

"It does seem to clear up one thing that was bothering me," Annja said, studying the ancient text on the screen of the third-floor laboratory in Shenzhen.

"What's that?" Jadzia asked.

"How the Athenians could possibly have defeated Atlantis, if the Atlanteans really had all that marvelous high-tech stuff. No matter how brave or resourceful you are, energy-beam weapons are going to confer a pretty decisive advantage over your bronze swords and bull-hide shields. But if the Greeks managed to get hold of some of those weapons "

"It's what guerrillas always do," Jadzia said. "I need to pee now." And with that bit of over-sharing she turned and walked out of the lab.

Chapter 22.

"Annja, we have to go."

She looked up in surprise as Jadzia entered the room in a burble of noise from the corridor outside. There must have been a cla.s.s change. There seemed to be a huge amount of traffic, moving both ways with unhurried speed. n.o.body raised his or her voice but everybody seemed to be talking at once, very intensely. The PA emitted what sounded more like music than intelligible speech to Annja's uneducated ears. The soundproofing in the lab was so good she'd been unaware of the racket.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

But Jadzia only shook her head so hard her pigtails whipped her round cheeks. "No time." She walked over and grabbed the satchel of scrolls and ran the strap over her shoulder.

The local technicians paid no attention to either foreign woman. Yet another page of text extracted from a burned scroll had just appeared on the big screen. They were high-fiving and chirping and carrying on as if they'd just scored a touchdown.

Jadzia never even glanced at the monitor. She just turned and walked toward Annja.

"But there's a scroll missing," Annja said, belaboring the obvious. She meant the one being run through the multispectral imager.

"Leave it," Jadzia said. "We have to go."

Annja followed her into the hall. "What's going on?" Annja realized the students were moving along the hallway with a more set purpose than seemed normal.

"You and Tex," Jadzia said incongruously. "You made me realize I could die." Her voice sounded more clotted than tense.

"Huh?" Annja was getting annoyed by Jadzia's behavior.

"Hear that announcement?" Jadzia said. They were halfway to the stairs nearest the computer lab. "They're saying a terrorist threat has been made against this building. Students are to report to designated evacuation points while ant.i.terror forces secure the place."

Annja felt as if a cold hand had clamped down on her. "Euro Petro?"

Jadzia's face crinkled with fury and disgust. "Who else? Bribery really is the universal language, I guess."

Though she was still loath to admit to herself the possibility there might be something to the Atlantis myths, Annja had to accept that someone at Euro Petro was a true believer.

"You're right," she said tautly. "We have to go."

"Where?" Jadzia asked. Her eyes were openly fearful now.

"Somewhere they don't expect."

The cla.s.srooms on the right faced the back of the building. Annja grabbed the latch of the nearest door.

She opened the cla.s.sroom door, stepped quickly inside.

Jadzia followed tentatively. "We're on the second floor," she pointed out.

"Yep," Annja said.

The room was dimly lit with morning light through half-drawn shades. Moving swiftly between the desks, she reached the line of windows on the far side and examined them. They were built to angle open a handspan to permit airflow but no farther. One or two were open, allowing the smells of humid subtropical greenery to eddy in.

"This low down they shouldn't be shatterproof or anything," she said, thinking aloud. She went to the head of the small cla.s.sroom. The professor's desk was large and heavy. A swivel chair rested just behind it.

Annja hoisted the chair over her head and threw it through the nearest window. The whole cas.e.m.e.nt failed and fell away with a crash.

She stuck her head out into the humid air and looked quickly around. Below her lay a parking lot with a scatter of boxy cars of unfamiliar makes parked near the building. The far side was bordered by a taller-than-head-high hedge. It marked the northern edge of the campus. Beyond rose the blocky buildings of an industrial park. The sound of traffic was like the rush of a nearby river. On the west end of the lot stood a copse of lychee trees. To the east, Annja's right, a sheltered walkway with soaring, curving concrete pillars holding up an eccentrically angled roof led to a lot exit. She saw no one.

"What now?" Jadzia asked.

"Simple," Annja said, and jumped.

She struck a perfect three-point landing. She hit a bit harder than she'd expected but her powerful legs easily absorbed the impact of the fall.

"Annja!" she heard Jadzia scream.

A strand of hair fell before her eyes as she raised her head. Through the chestnut screen, turned auburn at the edges by the morning sun, she saw a squad of six soldiers in bulky camouflaged battledress trot into view, three to the left side of the parking lot, three to the right, machine pistols angled before them.

She looked up just in time to see the heavy bag of scrolls plummet down on her. She just managed to raise her hands to field the well-scuffed green-and-purple bag. It slammed into her chest and forced her back a couple of steps.

"You might want to warn me next time," she called up to Jadzia's pale pigtail-framed face.

"What about me?" the girl called back, ignoring the remark.

Annja dropped the satchel to the sidewalk. "Same way as the bag," she said. "I'll catch you."

One thing Annja had to give Jadzia. She didn't allow common sense to hold her back from much. The next thing Annja knew 110 pounds or so of lanky young woman was falling with all the skill and grace of a sock monkey.

She caught the girl and they fell in a heap.

"Are you all right?" Jadzia asked.

"Probably not," Annja said fuzzily. One of Jadzia's extremities had clocked her in the right eye. She stirred her limbs to prove to herself she could. She felt very feeble. "But that won't stop me."

She wondered in pa.s.sing if Jadzia was showing actual concern for another person or simple dread at the prospect of being stranded all alone in a parking lot in the People's Republic of China with fifty pounds of hot artifacts and a ant.i.terror unit plus a probable multinational army of corporate thugs about to land on her like an imploded tower.

She realized she couldn't breathe. "Will you...please...get off?"

"Oh." Jadzia scrambled to her feet.

Annja arched her back and jumped up to her feet in an acrobatic recovery. Immediately she swayed and would've fallen flat down had Jadzia, either deliberately helpful or accidentally in the way, not propped her up.

"Okay, that wasn't bright," Annja muttered. "Let's go."

It was sheer bravado. But it worked. She engaged her will. And that, she knew, was a pretty powerful thing.

She took the scrolls from Jadzia. They'd move quicker that way. She led across the lot at a trot for the exits. The soldiers opened fire but were still too far away to do any harm.

Surprisingly the street beyond the hedge was not full of traffic. What there was ran to a lot more cars and a lot fewer bicycles than Annja had expected.

"What now?" Jadzia asked.

A white-and-red taxi approached from the left. Annja walked right out in its path, faced it squarely and held her right hand out in a stop gesture.

The driver locked up the brakes. The tires squealed. It shuddered to a halt with the chrome of the b.u.mper all but brushing Annja's shins. The stink of burned rubber rose up about Annja, momentarily drowning out the exhaust fumes. Reaction-dizzy, Annja toppled forward. She caught herself with a hand with a thump on the hood. The metal was hot as a stovetop.

"Okay," she said. "Not a good idea."

The driver stuck his head out the window. He had a kind of pushed-in face with somewhat extruded lips that made him look like a cartoon duck, prominent ears that didn't and immense industrial-framed gla.s.ses that inspired little confidence in his visual acuity. "What matter you, crazy Western-devil girl? You wan' die?"

"We need a ride," she said.

"You pay American dollar?" he asked without hesitation.

"If you want," she said.

His manner changed immediately. "You crazy girls, need crazy ride. You come to right man. Hop in!"

They did. Annja shoved Jadzia in first, then the scrolls. As she leaned down to follow, Jadzia vented a squeal that went through Annja's head like a red-hot railroad spike.

"Annja! Behind us!"

From a pillared exit two blocks behind the cab, a glossy blue Mercedes sedan was howling through a turn. Despite the violence of the maneuver, not to mention a score of cars in between, a man hung halfway out the front pa.s.senger window. The muzzle-flash of his a.s.sault rifle was a brilliant dancing spark.

Chapter 23.

Annja dived in headfirst on top of the bag of scrolls. "Drive," she said.

The driver didn't move. Instead he turned around. "You no pay combat pay," he declared firmly.

Annja's hand slid into her pants pocket. She writhed on top of the gym bag and a startled Jadzia, cursing the vanity that made her wear her tight jeans instead of the baggier cargo pants she often wore. After a contortion or two she squeezed out her wallet. Lying fully across Jadzia's lap she fished in it, grabbing some bills. She came out with at least two hundred dollars and thrust it at the cabbie.

"The same if you get us safe to the Hong Kong airport!" she shouted.

His hand s.n.a.t.c.hed the bills like a mongoose taking a striking cobra. "I your man!" he declared, turning and shifting into Drive. "You call me Rambo now!"

Annja sat up and looked out the back window. The bad news was a second big sedan full of hitmen had blasted out of the gates. The good news was both pursuers were at least momentarily locked up in traffic. Even Shenzhen drivers tended to lose their composure when random full-automatic gunfire sprayed over their heads.

The cab took off as if it had a jet a.s.sist. Annja, Jadzia and satchel got jumbled into a heap of synthetic fabric and long, lean feminine limbs. After a few confused, squirming moments they got themselves sorted out, though Annja's left eye socket now throbbed from having gotten Jadzia's elbow in it. At least they'll match, she thought.

Annja looked back again. Their pursuers had sorted themselves out and accelerated, weaving in and out of traffic. Annja had the satchel dumped on her again as their cabdriver did the same thing. She heard the blare of a horn and a big flat-nosed panel truck rushed by the other way, so close the cab actually rocked to its pa.s.sage.

Traffic actually picked up as they exited the industrial area by the university. But the pursuing vehicles were gaining by dint of truly demented recklessness. For the moment they had quit shooting, anyway.

"What about the army?" Jadzia asked as the cab's darting for position tossed them from side to side. They had finally managed to get their seat belts fastened, which prevented them from crashing into each other at each wild swerve.

"Why aren't they chasing us?"

"They may not even know we got away," Annja said. "And having announced the security sweep through the building, I suspect they have to carry through with it."

A sudden crack made them both cringe. They looked back to see a hole in the rear windshield with a white spider of fractured gla.s.s around it. The bullet had apparently pa.s.sed out the open front pa.s.senger window. Somehow it had missed all three occupants.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h must pay!" the driver screamed in English. He leaned out his own window to throw a finger back at their pursuers, one of whom had pulled momentarily into the opposing traffic lane for a clear shot at them. He turned forward just in time to keep the cab from veering into the front b.u.mper of a cement truck, which pa.s.sed with the now almost obligatory blare of a horn.

They crossed a bridge over the river that formed the eastern border of the university. The slow water was bright green, with a sort of iridescent sheen to it, like radiator fluid. "It looks just like what Hollywood thinks toxic waste looks like," Annja said.

"Cool," Jadzia said. "Maybe there are mutants."

"Pollution just temporary problem of growth!" cried their cabbie over his shoulder. He glanced in his side mirror as they came off the bridge. "Uh-oh. Bad guys gaining."

They were. The second Mercedes was just a few cars back in the pack.

"Do something," Jadzia hissed urgently.

The cabbie fumbled around in the front seat and shocked Annja when he hauled out a submachine gun. Its cylindrical see-through magazine showed it was mostly full of cartridges.