Gabriel's Horn (17 page)

The man had time to give one startled yelp, then the MINI Cooper smashed over him. His fingers peeled away from Annja’s ankle.

She tripped and went down, then forced herself up on one elbow. The heat from the MINI Cooper’s engine blew over her.

“Oh, my God!” the male driver exclaimed as he got out of his vehicle. “I didn’t even see him! He ran out of nowhere!”

Annja pushed herself to her feet and ran for the nearest alley. Her pursuers hadn’t given up.

* * * *

Long minutes later, once she was certain she’d outdistanced the men chasing her, Annja finally slowed her pace to a walk. When she looked around, she got her bearings and aimed for a second-story cybercafé above a Vietnamese bodega. It operated twenty-four hours and was filled by hardcore gamers, crackers and scammers.

After checking and still not seeing any sign of her pursuers, Annja entered the small stairwell and went up to the cybercafé.

“Hey, Annja,” the guy behind the counter greeted. He was in his early thirties, short and dark haired, with round-lensed glasses and an innocent face. Tattoos featuring koi and dragons covered every square inch of his arms.

“Hey, Graham,” Annja replied. “Can I get a booth?”

“Always.” Graham turned his attention to the massive control panel and performed a few keystrokes.

Graham’s wife, Helen, worked the small kitchen area behind the main counter. The café didn’t offer much in the way of a menu, but the clientele wasn’t picky. Anything with cheese accompanied by anything with caffeine or sugar generally met their needs for marathon gaming binges.

“Do you have a window booth open?” Annja asked.

Graham checked. “Yep. You want that one?”

“Please.”

“Done.” Graham looked up at her and smiled. “Anything else?”

“Hot chocolate?”

“Sure.” Graham turned and called the order out to Helen. “It’ll be a minute. I’ll bring it out to you when it’s ready.”

Annja nodded and said thanks. She turned and started to head for the booth.

“You okay?” Concern showed on Graham’s face.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You look a little discombobulated.”

Annja smiled at him. It had always amazed her how many friends she’d made around the neighborhood. She was gone a lot, and she’d been raised in an orphanage. Either of those things was generally enough to kill any friendship potential in New York. But she’d still managed to get to know people.

“Mugger,” she said.

Graham frowned. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Annja said.

“She probably kicked the mugger’s butt,” Helen said from the kitchen.

“Actually,” Annja said, “I might have set a new record for the hundred-yard dash.”

“I’ve seen you make grown men want to beat their heads against a wall,” Helen said. “I’m disappointed.” But she was smiling.

“First rule of every fight,” Annja said. “If you can, run.”

“I know, but fighting just sounds so much cooler.”

“My wife,” Graham said, “the UFC wannabe.”

Helen grinned and suggested a physically debilitating procedure Graham could do to himself.

“I’ll bring that hot chocolate,” Graham promised.

* * * *

Saladin’s men didn’t give up easily. They cycled through the neighborhood in two-man groups.

As she took her seat in the booth, Annja glanced out the window and saw two men obviously walking a search pattern. She recognized one of them from Luigi’s, and that made her wonder what had happened at the restaurant.

She opened her backpack and took out her digital camera. A nearby streetlight illuminated the two men as they strolled down the sidewalk. There was enough light to shoot by, and Annja managed a half-dozen frames before they disappeared back into the night.

She took out her phone and called Luigi’s. The line was busy and she couldn’t get through. Anxiety chafed her. She was just about to call Bart when her phone rang and his number showed up on caller ID.

“Hey,” Annja answered.

“What’s going on, Annja?” Bart demanded. “I just got a call from central that you’d been involved in a gunfight at an Italian restaurant.” He sounded nearly apoplectic.

“It wasn’t a gunfight,” Annja said a little defensively. “A gunfight is when both parties have guns and they shoot at each other. I didn’t have a gun. They just shot at me.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

Bart cursed. Then he took a deep breath. “Where are you?”

“Do I need an attorney?”

“Why would you need an attorney?”

“I don’t feel like being arrested. I didn’t do anything wrong. They came into Luigi’s—”

“Luigi’s! Man, that was one of my favorite restaurants.”

Irritation filled Annja. “It was still standing when I left. You don’t have to refer to it in the past tense.”

“Who were the guys that came after you?”

Annja hesitated. Then she felt she owed him that at least. “I think they were part of the same group that attacked me in Prague.”

“You think?”

“I didn’t exactly want to stand around asking for bad-guy references.”

“What do they want?”

“Nothing I can give them.”

“Obviously they don’t know that or they wouldn’t be chasing you.”

Annja silently agreed. “Look, why don’t you call someone and find out if Luigi and his employees are okay. I don’t want to think any of them got hurt because of me.”

“I need to talk to you,” Bart said.

“You can. Just not at this moment. Find out about Luigi first.” Annja paused and knew that Bart was going to erupt at any moment. “Please.”

“All right,” Bart replied.

“And find out if Charlie is okay, too.”

“Charlie?”

Annja didn’t know how to finesse that one. “The homeless guy.”

“The homeless guy?” Bart’s voice went up a few notches again.

“Yes.”

“He was with you?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing with him? I told you to stay away from him.”

“It’s a long story, okay? Just find out about Luigi. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

For a moment Bart was silent. Annja felt certain he was going to argue with her again. But he surprised her when he spoke in a quiet, controlled voice.

“You realize that old man could have led these guys to you.”

“I don’t think so.” But Annja kept thinking about how Charlie had disappeared right before the arrival of Saladin’s men.

“One phone call from him, they’re all over you.”

“I don’t think he did that.”

“You just told me you don’t know what’s going on.”

“I don’t,” Annja agreed.

“Are you at home?”

“No.”

“Good. Don’t go there.”

“I hadn’t planned on it.” Annja didn’t know where she was going to go at the moment. She wasn’t sure how much information Saladin had about her. As a television personality and archaeologist, her secrets weren’t as impenetrable as Roux’s and Garin’s.

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” Bart promised.

“Thanks. And if Luigi is okay, tell him I didn’t mean to bring any of that there.” Annja broke the connection because she knew Bart wouldn’t want to let go.

Graham brought the hot chocolate and left without a word.

Annja gazed at her reflection in the window and thought about Roux and Garin. She hadn’t had any contact with them in two days. A lot, she told herself, could go wrong in two days.

25

One of the bullets struck Garin’s Kevlar vest high on the back of his right shoulder and nearly knocked him down. He stumbled but didn’t fall.

Muzzle-flashes marked the positions of the shooters within the main house. Garin reminded himself again that the men he’d brought with him were good, and that they’d get the job done.

He threw himself the last few feet across the ground, then popped up behind the trees.

“Sir,” the team leader said. “We confirm five men down inside. They won’t be getting back up again.”

Garin grinned at that. Despite the risk, there was nothing that made him relish life so much as potential death. For a while he’d thought maybe he’d gotten that trait from his father, through the blood that they shared. Then, over time, he’d realized that Roux was the same way. And Garin had thought he’d learned the recklessness that fired him.

He set himself. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Garin picked another spot, closer to the main house now, and broke cover again.

* * * *

Salome stood near one of the windows and watched as a man ran out of the darkness across a moonlit patch of ground. His destination was a stand of trees only thirty yards from the main house.

“Kill him,” Drake ordered. He stood over a man with a machine gun in the window. Drake held a bolt-action sniper rifle and used the window frame for protection.

The mercenary opened fire and unleashed a stream of bullets at the running man. Without warning, the mercenary jerked back into the room and sprawled on the floor.

Another bullet tore through the window frame and dusted Drake in splinters. He cursed and drew back. Grimly, he worked the bolt to chamber a new round.

Anger surged inside Salome. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. The painting wasn’t supposed to be a fake, and they weren’t supposed to get trapped in the house.

But Drake had prepared for that eventuality.

“It’s time to call in the air support, love,” Drake said. “And time for us to get gone from this place.”

Salome nodded. She didn’t trust her voice. She hated retreating. In frustration, she listened to Drake make the call and silently cursed Roux for all she was worth.

* * * *

Within minutes the snipers cleared the windows. Garin reached the front doors of the main house and stood guard while the rest of his team arrived. The two other teams breached the back side of the house.

Roux and Jennifer joined him, as well. The old man had picked up an assault rifle.

“Sir,” the team leader said.

“Yes.” Garin took point as they battered the doors open and went inside. Nothing moved in the great room.

“Comm has been listening in on the local police band frequencies. Cars—a lot of cars—are presently en route.”

“Understood. Pull in the exfiltration teams. We’re going to clear this area.” Garin had two helicopters waiting nearby. They were only minutes away from the coastline. If they ran hard and fast and stayed below radar, they could be gone before anyone could track them.

When the helicopter rotors sounded a moment later, Garin knew they didn’t belong to the aircraft he’d arranged. These had arrived far too quickly.

He ran up the stairs and avoided the bodies of the servants left strewed there. At the landing, he gazed out the window and saw a helicopter slide into view. The moonlight barely brought the wide black body out into relief as it coasted toward the rooftop. Then it was out of sight.

Garin cursed.

“That isn’t yours?” Roux asked.

“No.” Garin ran up the next flight of stairs and gave orders to shoot down the helicopter.

“You can’t do that,” Roux said. “The painting may be aboard.”

Garin immediately rescinded the order and told his snipers to take out any people they saw. His breath came hard and ragged in his lungs. Pain sliced at his side.

He followed the house design by instinct. Hundreds of years of dwelling in houses, many of them bigger than this house, gave him experience to draw on. He found the master bedroom easily. The information Jennifer had on the woman who had bought the Nephilim painting included the fact that they kept a safe on the premises.

When he shone his flashlight on the room’s interior, Garin saw the dead man on the bed and the bound woman on the floor. She’d been shot once in the head. Her mouth gaped open in a silent scream.

“Salome doesn’t leave any witnesses when she works,” Roux said. If the violence touched him, he didn’t show it.

The sight didn’t bother Garin much, either. For the past five hundred years he’d watched thousands die at the hands of others. Sometimes it had been during a war, but most of the time death had been close and personal. He no longer remembered how many people he’d killed.

“She’s headed for the roof,” Garin said. “We still have a chance to catch her.”

Roux entered the room and hunkered down beside a painting lying facedown on the floor. Cautiously, he turned it over. His light revealed the paint that had bubbled free of the canvas, but enough of the image remained that Garin easily identified it.

“Salome destroyed the painting?” Garin asked.

Roux touched the paint with a finger. “No. This was a fake.”

Garin didn’t question how the old man knew. It was enough that Roux did.

Sudden thunder erupted overhead. Garin knew the sound was heavy-duty machine guns.

“Sir,” the security team leader called over Garin’s headset, “their helicopter is at the back of the house. The snipers up front are blocked. I’ve got two men at the rear wall. They’re reporting heavy machine-gun fire. They’ve taken cover.”

“Understood.” When he gazed around the room, Garin ran the house design through his head. Where would a helicopter most likely be able to pick up people?

Then he remembered the widow’s walk at the back of the house. He looked at the back of the bedroom and saw a doorway that let onto the widow’s walk.

“Here,” Garin called, and led the way to the back of the bedroom. He held the machine pistol in both hands as he whirled around the doorway.

Only a sixth sense he’d developed from long years of combat saved his life from the gunman lying prone along the roof.

Garin spun back inside and looked up at the ceiling. After measuring where he thought the man was, Garin emptied a clip into the ceiling. Roux stared at him, but Jennifer stepped back and covered her head with an arm.

Deftly, Garin changed magazines in the weapon as he turned back to the widow’s walk. He stepped outside again just as the dead man rolled from the roof and dropped over the side.

The helicopter hung at the back of the house. Shadowy figures boarded through the cargo doors.

Garin lifted his weapon, but a door gunner mounted on the side opened up. Fifty-caliber bullets raked the widow’s walk and drove Garin back inside. Several more rounds chewed through the walls at the corner of the room. Fortunately the angle was too acute to allow the gunner to fire into the bedroom.