The Golden Elephant

Checking her watch, Annja reckoned she had plenty of time for a turn through the Joseph E. Hotung Gallery, which held the Asian collections, before returning to her labors. She’d try the reading room next, and see if her luck improved.

The library jutted out to flank the main museum entrance from Great Russell Street. She emerged into the great court. It was like a time shift and somewhat jarring. The ceiling was high, translucent white, crisscrossed by what she took for a geodesic pattern of brace work, springing from a stout white cylindrical structure that dominated the center of the space. The cylinder housed the new reading room. The sterile style, which put her in mind of a seventies science-fiction movie, contrasted jarringly with the pseudo-Greek porticoed walls and their Dorian-capitaled pilasters.

The court wasn’t crowded. A few sullen gaggles of schoolchildren in drab uniforms; some tourists snapping enthusiastically with digital cameras were watched by security guards more sullen than the children. She was vaguely surprised photography was allowed.

She concentrated on movement, striding purposefully through milky light filtered from the cloudy sky above. She focused on the sensations of her body in motion, on being in the moment.

A sudden flurry of movement tugged at her peripheral vision. A female figure was walking, strutting more, through the room. Annja got the impression of a rounded, muscle-taut form in a dark blue jacket and knee-length skirt. Black hair jutted out in a kinky cloud behind the woman’s head, bound by an amber band.

Annja had never seen the woman in the flesh. But she had seen plenty of pictures on the Internet. Especially in the wake of her recent China adventure.

“Easy Ngwenya,” she said under her breath. She felt anger start to seethe. She turned to follow.

Without looking back, the young African woman continued through the hall, into the next room, which housed Indian artifacts. She moved purposefully. More, Annja thought, she moved almost with challenge. Her head was up, her broad shoulders back. She was shorter by a head than Annja, who nonetheless found herself pressed to keep pace.

Annja felt uncharacteristically unsure how to proceed. Her rival—she tried to think of her as quarry—could not have gotten her famous twin Sphinx autopistols through the Museum metal detectors, if she had even dared bring them into Britain. Although Annja suspected Easy would have smuggled the guns in. Great respect for the law didn’t seem to be one of her major traits.

So that was advantage Annja. No means known to modern science would detect her sword otherwise. Actually using it, with numerous witnesses and scarcely fewer security cameras everywhere, might prove a bit more problematic.

Easy Ngwenya made up Annja’s mind for her by stopping to peer into an exhibit case a few yards ahead of her. I’m practically committed now, anyway, Annja told herself.

The younger woman studied an exquisite jade carving of an elephant in an elaborate headdress, standing with trunk raised to bedangled forehead. Annja felt a jolt. Could she be here for the same reason I am? she thought with something akin to panic.

She dismissed the idea. A collector who came to Annja, even anonymously, would know of her reputation for honesty and integrity, even if she was willing to operate under the radar. Somebody so discerning would hardly recruit a tomb robber as notorious as Ngwenya. Would they? Anyway, elephants weren’t exactly an uncommon motif in Asian art, and Ngwenya might be forgiven a special interest in them, given she was named for one. Also it wasn’t gold.

Annja came up on Easy’s left.

“Annja Creed,” the younger woman said without looking around. Annja realized Easy must have seen her approach in the glass. “What a delightful surprise to encounter you here.”

“A surprise, anyway,” Annja said through gritted teeth, “after the way you marooned me on that tomb mound in the middle of a rising lake.”

“Did the boat I sent back for you not reach you?” Ngwenya asked. “You must have had an unpleasant swim. Not my intention, I assure you.”

“The boat came,” Annja admitted grudgingly. “That’s not the point. I’m…placing you under citizen’s arrest.”

Ngwenya’s laugh was musical and entirely unconcerned. “Why, whatever for?”

She turned to look up at Annja. Annja was struck by just how young the international adventuress looked. She was in her twenties, having gotten an early start at a life of adventure. Or crime. She looked fifteen.

Annja was also struck by just how pretty Easy was. She had a big rounded forehead, a broad snubbed nose, full lips, a small round chin. That should have been less of a surprise—despite the currently unfashionable fullness of her figure, Ngwenya occasionally did modeling, not always fully dressed. The curves, Annja knew from the pictures she’d seen online, did not come from excess body fat.

“You have committed countless violations of international law regarding traffic in antiquities. As you well know,” Annja said.

The girl batted her eyes at her. Annja wished she wouldn’t. They were huge eyes, the color of dark chocolate, with long lashes. Annja suddenly suspected why she was named “elephant calf.” She had eyes like one.

“You’d already looted the seal from the feet of Mad Emperor Lu,” Ngwenya pointed out. “Congratulations on getting past the booby traps, by the way.”

“I had official permission, if you must know,” Annja said. Whether it was the Museum’s cathedral atmosphere or her own desire to remain as unobtrusive as possible, she kept her voice low. She only hoped she wasn’t hissing like a king snake having a hissy fit. “I had all the proper paperwork.”

Ngwenya laughed loudly. “And so did I! Remarkable how easy such things are to come by for those willing to be generous to underappreciated civil servants. One is tempted to ascribe that to the customary blind Communist lust for money, but honestly, I wonder if it was any different back in dear old mad Lu’s day.”

“It’s not like it was an isolated incident. So come with me,” Annja said.

“You can’t be serious. There are people here. Behave yourself, Ms. Creed.”

“I told you—you’re under citizen’s arrest.”

The young woman laughed again. “Do you think such a legal archaism still has force? This is a country where someone who successfully resists a violent assault is likely to face brisker prosecution and longer jail terms than their attacker. Do you really think they’ll give weight to a citizen’s arrest? Especially by someone who isn’t a citizen? Or were you forgetting that little dust-up of a couple of centuries past? So many of your countrymen seem to have done.”

“When Scotland Yard gets your Interpol file,” Annja said, “they probably won’t be too concerned with the niceties of how you wound up in their custody, then, will they?”

“Oh, this is entirely absurd.” To Annja’s astonishment the young woman turned and walked away. Before Annja could respond, Easy had pushed through into a stairway to the upper level.

Frowning, Annja followed. She expected to find the stairwell empty. But instead of sprinting to the second level and through the door into the Korean exhibit Easy trotted upstairs. Her pace was brisk. But it definitely wasn’t flight.

You cocky little thing, Annja thought.

She caught her up just shy of the upper-floor landing. She grabbed Easy’s right arm from behind. It felt impressively solid. “Not so fast, there.”

Using hips and legs, Easy turned counterclockwise. She effortlessly torqued her arm out of Annja’s grasp. Her left elbow came around to knock Annja’s right arm away as if inadvertently. She thrust a short right spear hand straight for Annja’s solar plexus.

Annja anticipated the attack. Just. She couldn’t do anything about Easy fouling her right hand. But she bent forward slightly, functionally blocking the sensitive nerve junction with the notch of her rib cage while turning slightly to her right. Instead of blasting all the air from her lungs in one involuntary whoosh, the shorter woman’s stiffened fingers jabbed ribs on Annja’s left side.

Annja had no doubts about why they called that strike a spear hand. She felt as if she’d been stabbed for a fact. But that was just pain: she wasn’t incapacitated.

Knowing the omnipresent eyes of the surveillance cameras constrained her Annja straightened, trying at the same time to deliver a short shovel hook upward with her right fist into Ngwenya’s ribs. The woman’s short stature defeated her. The blow bounced off the pot hunter’s left elbow and sent another white spike of pain up Annja’s arm.

Ngwenya frowned at her. “Really, Ms. Creed,” she said primly, “this is most unseemly.”

There was a short flurry of discreet short-range strikes.

After a brief, grunting exchange, barely visible to the high-mounted camera, Easy Ngwenya sidestepped a short punch, reached with her right hand and caught Annja behind the left elbow. She squeezed.

The younger woman was chunkily muscular. Annja had noticed in some of her photographs that she had short, square hands, large for her height. Practical, practiced hands. Even in glamour shots the exiled African princess disdained long nails, even paste-on fakes.

But even her exceptional hand strength couldn’t account for the lightning that shot through Annja’s body.

She could barely even gasp. It wasn’t the pain. There was pain, to be sure; it felt as if a giant spike had been driven up her arm and at the same time right through the middle of her body. The problem was, literally, the shock. It was as if a jolt of electricity had clenched her whole body in a spasm, dropped her to her knees and left her there, lungs empty of breath and unable to draw one. Her vision swam.

“Oh, dear,” Easy’s voice rang, clear with false concern. “Are you quite all right, miss? I’ll go and get help.” She trotted away up the stairs with rapid clacks of her elegant but practical low-heeled shoes.

Annja rocked back and forth. Darkness crowded in around the edges of her vision. What’s wrong with me? she wondered in near panic. It was as if she was suffering a giant whole-body cramp.

An unbreakable one.

But slowly, as if molecule by molecule, oxygen infiltrated back into her lungs and permeated her bloodstream. Slowly the awful muscle spasm began to relax. She slumped.

She was just regaining control of herself when two uniformed guards, a man and a woman in caps with little bills, came pattering down the steps for her.