The Oracle's Message (20 page)

She saw a thin trail of oxygen bubbles far off in the distance. Annja raced toward them, aware that the spear jutting out of her leg hurt her far more than she wanted to admit. Plus, the trail of blood that dribbled from it was of concern, as well. She might have hitched a ride with a great white a few minutes before, but blood in the water meant it’d likely be back to see just what the deal was.

Fortunately, it had a lot of potential meals to choose from, not just Annja. Heinkel, Mueller, Gottlieb and Hans were all out there somewhere, surrounded by lots of blood. The odds seemed decent that if the great white was going to attack anyone, it would opt for them first.

Annja saw a flash of movement.

Spier was swimming about a hundred yards away from her. In his arms, she saw something large and round.

The pearl.

He’d managed to locate it even after Annja sent it sprawling to the seabed. She frowned. He was determined to see this thing exploded one way or another.

I guess that rules out talking him into surrendering, she thought.

Annja swam faster, fighting the lancing pain in her leg. Sooner or later, she was going to have to remove the spear, but there was no time at the moment. Fortunately, it had gone in at the top part of her quadriceps muscle. She just had to be careful she didn’t catch the leg on anything and make the wound a lot worse.

She kept the sword in her hands, unaware if Spier had any weapons he could throw her way when she drew closer to him.

But Spier seemed oblivious to her presence. Perhaps he thought that his men would have been more than a match for the television-host-cum-archaeologist, or maybe he went even further, thinking that there was no way a mere woman could defeat four highly trained commandos.

Whatever the case, Spier showed no sign that he even knew she was around and seemed intent to deliver the pearl to the area roughly one hundred yards offshore.

Annja felt the seabed rising sharply as they got closer to the coastline. Part of her grew worried that if the snipers hidden in the bluffs above spotted them offshore, they’d fire down on them. She’d have to remain underwater the entire time.

This didn’t seem to bother Spier, who had found what he was looking for. He approached a rocky outcropping on the stony seabed. Spier slowed and allowed the pearl to come to rest nestled in a shallow grove that seemed almost made for receiving it.

He made a few final adjustments and then started to swim away.

Then he saw Annja.

His eyes went from her face to the spear jutting out of her leg. Annja saw the pleasure in his eyes as he regarded the thing that was causing her an extreme amount of pain.

Annja steeled herself. He’ll attack me now, she thought. I’ve got to be ready.

But Spier, who seemed to have made an entire life out of defying convention, turned and swam off toward deeper water.

Annja frowned. The choice was plain—either try to disarm the pearl or go after Spier.

But she couldn’t do both.

She took one final look at Spier as his fins drove him farther away and then made her decision.

Annja dove deeper to get to the rocky outcropping, but even as she closed in on it, she could see the digital readout swiftly counting back down from two minutes.

Annja examined the housing, which Spier had apparently built to encase the pearl itself. She tried to recall what she knew about nuclear detonation, but quickly shrugged that train of thought off and concentrated instead on how she could disconnect the wires from the bomb itself.

She saw a number of colored wires going to and from the different parts of the casement, but nothing seemed to be connected directly to the pearl.

Annja’s fingers felt as thick as sausages as she tried to make sense of the assembly. It was almost seamless metal surrounding the pearl itself. Even in the cool waters of the Atlantic, Annja could feel the heat the pearl gave off.

Incredible power, she realized.

She decided it was time to act, no matter what. She grabbed the red wire and yanked it out away from the pearl.

Annja waited to see what would happen.

The digital readout continued.

Annja’s heart raced and she sucked oxygen faster than she should have dared.

There were five wires left. Any one of them might set the bomb off. Or they might disarm the bomb.

Which one?

She’d been in front of bombs before. She knew trust and confidence were the only things that would get her out of this alive.

She felt the sword in her right hand.

She brought the blade up and watched the digital readout continue to spiral down toward zero.

It has to be now, she thought.

There’s not enough time to try to work this out logically. Disarm it and then let the experts come in and recover the device.

The clock shot down.

Thirty seconds.

Annja felt herself sucking too much oxygen. She felt dizzy, like she was going to pass out.

She brought the sword up and positioned the blade under the wires. She pressed the steel of its blade against them all.

She held her breath and cut.

T
HE DIGITAL READOUT FROZE
at three seconds.

Annja almost collapsed into the midst of the ocean.

Her sword dropped to the seafloor, coming to rest on the sand and smooth rocks.

She felt her shoulders droop and she slowed her breathing to keep herself from blacking out.

She’d done it.

The pearl, its shiny black surface, lay resting still in its enclosure, but there was no detonation. And the German chancellor was safe.

Annja looked closely at the pearl and she could see her reflection in it. She looked like she’d aged ten years over the past day.

She certainly felt like that was the case. But in the end, things had worked out. But what to do about the pearl?

Where would it go now? Who would take possession of it? If this was some new type of nuclear material that originated in nature, did that really belong to anyone? Would it make people go crazy over this stuff again? Regular nuclear weapons were bad enough, Annja thought. And the world had come close to the brink of nuclear annihilation too many times before to ever make such an object as the pearl a safe thing to possess.

After all, Spier had gone hunting for it to take over his homeland and then perhaps the entire planet.

How could it ever rest in any one government’s hands without attracting jealousy, rage and indignation from others?

Annja picked up her sword and used the blade to pry apart the enclosure that surrounded it.

The metal and plastic bits came apart easily enough and then the pearl lolled over into the sand.

Annja found herself strangely attracted to it. Despite its power, she no longer felt sick from being so close to it. Perhaps the seawater nullified its radioactive components? She had no idea. Nor did she really want to find out. If it wasn’t affecting her any longer, that was good.

Annja released her sword and reached for the pearl.

She caught an unusual reflection in it and turned just as a knife blade cut through the water where she’d been a split second before.

Annja rolled in the water and came to face the threat behind her.

Heinkel and Mueller had found her. They still wore their weight belts but they’d shucked their oxygen tanks.

And they came at her too quickly to retrieve her sword.

Mueller attacked from the right and Heinkel the left. They tried to trap her between them, cutting and jabbing with their knives.

Annja pivoted in the water and evaded the blows, but then she felt the most agonizing sensation.

She glanced down and saw that Heinkel had grabbed the spear still jutting out of her leg and had wrenched it around inside her thigh.

Annja felt the wound growing and saw more blood spilling into the water. She wanted to scream. Sweat broke out under her mask.

Annja chopped down on Heinkel’s hand and broke his contact with the spear.

But that gave Mueller the opening he needed and he drove in, plunging the knife in between Annja’s ribs.

Annja sucked air and water and screeched despite the mouthpiece.

More blood poured into the water.

Annja smashed an elbow into Mueller’s face and he pulled away. She’d broken his nose.

Annja willed the sword back into her hands.

The blade appeared between Mueller and Heinkel.

Their expressions changed and Annja could see the looks of fear.

But fear wasn’t enough to stop men like this.

They both drove in again at her. Slashing and hacking with their knives.

Annja was injured and the water around them became a fuzzy mix of salt water and blood.

She did her best to block their attacks, but she was growing dizzy from fatigue and the loss of blood.

She brought the sword up and swung out at Mueller, who was driving in toward her face again.

She caught him on the underside of his arms, biting into his flesh. He grimaced and fought to get to the surface. How he and Heinkel had managed to hold their breath for so long amazed her.

Mueller was swimming away but Heinkel was still with her.

He came in so hard that Annja felt herself forced back from his onslaught. The flashing steel of his blade bit at her again and again and Annja had only a moment to bring the sword blade up as Heinkel tried to drag her down toward the seabed.

Annja felt her strength slipping. She sucked on her mouthpiece and tried to flush her muscles with the badly needed oxygen.

And in that split second, she found her last bit of strength. She stabbed Heinkel in the stomach, cutting back and forth, tearing him open.

Heinkel clutched at his stomach, and then he was rolling over, drifting up and away.

Annja saw a flash shoot through the bloody water and realized that the great white shark had returned.

Or maybe, she thought on the fringe of consciousness, it was a different great white on patrol.

Either way, Heinkel’s body disappeared in a split second as the shark devoured him.

Annja succumbed to the weightless sensation of drifting and falling into the abyss.

Annja awoke surrounded by white light.

But she wasn’t in the water.

She tried to shift and found that she was unable to move. A searing pain bit into her side.

“Easy, Annja. Don’t go tearing those stitches out now.”

She opened her eyes and blinked repeatedly as she tried to adjust to her bright surroundings. “I’m guessing this isn’t heaven.”

She heard laughter. “Hardly. But it might be as close as people like you and me ever get to it.”

She turned her head and saw Vic lying in a bed next to her. His face was bandaged and she saw a lot of tubes going into his body. “Man, do I look as bad as you do?” she asked.

He chuckled. “I’m not going to answer that question, Annja. It might mean I don’t get another chance to take you out for a meal.”

“Uh, I thought that was my line,” another voice said.

Annja smiled as she recognized it. “Hello, George.”

“She still remembers me. I suppose that’s a good thing.”

Annja shook her head. “What the hell happened?” She glanced at Vic again. “I thought you were killed when they stormed the hotel.”

Vic patted his side. “They fished three slugs out of me. Eating solid food might be a problem for a while. But I’ll manage. I’m a survivor. Sorta like you, Annja.”

George peered closer at her. “What the hell were you doing thinking you could take them all on like that?”

Annja tried to shrug but it hurt too much. “No choice. There wasn’t any time left. And I thought that if Vic was dead, the guy they put in charge probably wouldn’t believe me. I had to do it myself.”

George glanced at Vic. “Damned stubborn woman.”

Vic nodded. “And thank God she is. Otherwise, none of us would probably be here right now.”

Annja closed her eyes. She saw flashing images of the last few moments when she thought she was dying in the ocean. “How did they find me?”

She heard Vic’s voice explaining things. “The Coast Guard put some patrols on the water once they found the wreck of the boat you’d been on. They skirted the coast for a while, and then they saw a commotion in the surf ahead of them. They tracked you down to just offshore of the chancellor’s place.”

George’s voice continued the story. “Coast Guard says there were sharks in the water. Did you see any?”

Annja smiled. “You could say that.”

“You could have been killed.”

“Yeah, well, sharks were sort of the least of my worries about that time. I had to stop Spier and his men. They were occupying more of my attention than the sharks were.”

“You were very lucky, Annja,” Vic said.

“We all were,” Annja said. “Did they find Spier?”

“No.”

Annja frowned. “I could have stopped him, but I had to disarm the pearl. I chose the pearl. I had to let Spier go.” She sighed.

“You did the right thing, Annja,” George said. “If that thing had gone off, there’s no telling what sort of damage it would have caused.”

“Did they find the bodies of Spier’s men?”

“Yeah. What’s left of them. Those sharks did a fair number on them before letting the pieces go.”

Annja nodded. “I guess they didn’t much care for the taste of scum.”

“I guess not.”

Annja felt her side. “How bad am I wounded?” She opened her eyes and looked at Vic. “Don’t sugarcoat it, either.”

“You almost lost your spleen. If the knife had gone in a few millimeters farther south, you’d be prone to infection for the rest of your life.” Vic shrugged. “Otherwise, they patched up your thigh, cleaned the wound, which wasn’t bad to begin with thanks to the salt water. You probably feel a helluva lot worse than you actually are, if that helps any.”

“Not really,” Annja said. “So the chancellor is safe?”

“Completely. She left the island this morning, as a matter of fact. Word is you’ll get a commendation.”

Annja sniffed. “Nice of her to stop by and offer it herself.”

Vic laughed. “Yeah, well, don’t count on a politician ever stopping by in person to say thank-you. People like us exist to serve, Annja. Just the way it is.”

“Easy for you to say,” Annja said. “You’re used to that kind of crap. Me? I don’t save politicians’ lives every day.” She shrugged. “Don’t think I’ll make a habit of it, either.”

“Good plan,” Vic said.

Annja looked down to the foot of the bed. George’s face showed epic amounts of concern. “How long until I can get the hell out of here? I’m allergic to hospitals,” she said.

“A week,” George said. “And don’t you dare try to leave any sooner. Or else I’ll get mad.”

Annja smiled. “I wouldn’t want that.”

George waved. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Get some sleep.”

She watched him walk out of the door and then glanced back at Vic. “So, we’re roomies?”

“Yep.”

“How’d you work that?”

“Advantages of being in charge and wounded,” Vic said. “It’s amazing what people will do when you’re still alive after being shot three times.”

Annja sighed. “Did they recover the pearl?”

Vic cleared his throat. “Funny you should mention that. No. They didn’t. They sent a bunch of divers down there, but they never found anything resembling the pearl.”

“That’s not good.”

Vic shrugged. “Nothing we can do about it from here, Annja. Trust me. It was all I could do to stay put while they dug that lead out of me when I knew you were still out there on your own.”

“What happened to Roux?”

Vic frowned. “Uh, I don’t know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. When we went to interrogate Gottlieb, he and George were left behind. George tells me that Roux suddenly said he had to go to the bathroom. The guy got up, walked out and just disappeared.”

Annja sighed. “I’m not surprised.” She glanced at her bedside table. A fresh vase of flowers sat there. “You got me flowers?”

Vic shook his head. “Not from me, sorry.”

Annja saw a card next to the vase. She reached for it and picked it up.

“Glad you made it in one piece—R.”

“Who’s it from?” Vic asked.

Annja looked at the note one last time and then crumpled it up. “No one.”

I
T TURNED OUT
to be a full week that Annja needed for recovery. She felt like she could have gone home earlier, but George was having none of it. He’d practically stood guard outside her room and took charge of visitors—who could see her and who couldn’t. He’d already run off one of Annja’s colleagues from
Chasing History’s Monsters.
Annja had finally convinced him that he couldn’t keep her sheltered forever.

“I’ll be going home soon, George. I need to get back to my life.”

“Just remember that you’ve got one,” George said. “And I still intend to collect on our agreement.”

“All right,” Annja said.

Vic left a day before Annja. When he’d finished packing his bags, he came over and sat next to her on the bed. “It was wonderful seeing you again, Annja.”

“You, too.”

Vic smiled. “If you ever manage to get George to stop paying attention to you, I’d like a chance to take you out to dinner myself.”

“Would you, now?”

“Yes. I would.”

Annja nodded. “I’ll keep it in mind. Try not to get yourself killed for the wrong politician. You’re a good man, Vic. You don’t deserve to be expendable just because of someone else’s agenda.”

Vic nudged her. “Neither do you, Annja. We might work for different people, but the game’s pretty much the same.”

Annja sighed. “You won’t get an argument out of me on that one.”

Vic stood and grabbed his bag. “You take care of yourself. I’ll drop you an email with all my contact information. Don’t make me come after you for that date, all right?”

Annja smiled. “Likewise.”

And then he was gone. Back to the shadow world he inhabited. Annja saw a lot of similarities between her world and his. But at least Vic knew who he worked for better than Annja did.

George showed up a few minutes later and Annja knew he’d been good enough to give her and Vic a few moments alone to say goodbye. George might have a mad crush on her, but he was always polite and respectful. Plus, Vic had told her all about how George had assumed command when Vic had been shot.

“He’s got some real good leadership qualities there,” he’d told her. “That guy’s destined for greater things than he knows.”

“Just don’t get him killed,” Annja said.

The next day George helped her pack her bags. “You happy to be going home?”

Annja nodded. “I don’t like hospitals. The sooner I can get out, the better.”

“Been in a lot of them, have you?”

Annja smiled. “More times than I care to recollect. For me, the best care comes from a nice bath back at my loft in Brooklyn. There’s no place like home, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Annja zipped up her bag. “I’m booked on a flight in a couple of hours. Where are you headed?”

“Back to D.C.,” George said. “I used some vacation staying here to make sure you were okay.”

“You did?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to be here in case you needed anything.”

Annja smiled at him. “Tell me something, George.”

“Anything.”

“What have I done to deserve such nice treatment from you? I’ve constantly rebuffed your advances, and yet you’re still so good to me. Why?”

George was quiet for a moment. “Why not? We all need someone, Annja. What good is life if you go through it alone and cold and empty inside? I don’t call that much of a life at all. And trust me, I ought to know. I’ve spent so much time with my machines that I forgot how to interact with people.”

“Seems to me you’re doing a great job.”

George shrugged. “It’s been a struggle. But you know what? You inspired me to keep going. You don’t let anyone’s expectations keep you from living a life that most people simply wouldn’t have the courage to face.”

Annja hefted her bag, aware of the dull ache in her leg. “Thanks, George. I really mean that.”

George eyed her. “Dinner. Don’t forget, okay? I won’t bother you with it now, but once you fully recuperate…”

“I won’t forget,” Annja said. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I promise.”

They walked out of the hospital together.