Tear Of The Gods

They broke reluctantly for lunch and were back at it again within the hour. More artifacts were turning up as Craig and Paolo continued the slow but steady process of freeing Big Red’s earthly remains from the peat that surrounded them. A beaded necklace was first, followed by a pair of chain-mail gauntlets and an assortment of coins, their faces blackened from the tannic acid of the bog. As each one was unearthed, they were passed over to Annja for cataloging and cleaning.

Throughout it all, Craig and Paolo shared with Annja stories of prior digs they’d been on and she, in turn, told them about some of the remote places and legends the cable show had sent her to investigate. It was a companionable afternoon and Annja thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Late in the day they heard several shouts coming from the center of camp. The occasional raised voice was common in camp—friends shouting after friends, that kind of thing—but this went on for several minutes, which was unusual and caught their attention.

Craig frowned, then got up from his stool, setting the tools he’d been working with down on the table in front of him. “What’s the heck’s going on out there?” he said, though it was clear he wasn’t expecting an answer from either Paolo or Annja.

He crossed the tent and disappeared through the flap, apparently intent on finding out. Paolo followed him a moment later.

Annja ignored the interruption and kept working, at least for a few minutes. But when the others didn’t return, she began to get worried. The sense that something was seriously wrong stole over her, like a chill wind blowing through an open door, and she shivered in response. The shouting had stopped, but the silence that had replaced it only made her more concerned.

Something was clearly wrong.

She could feel it in her bones, like that sense of unease just before a sharp summer storm.

Annja stepped away from the worktable, intending to go and see what was happening for herself, when her gaze fell upon the torc. Something told her that leaving it behind would be asking for trouble, so she snatched it up and slipped it into her pocket before leaving the tent. On any other day she would have been appalled to treat an artifact so cavalierly, but she was somehow convinced that it was the right thing to do.

She could always put it back afterward, if it turned out to be nothing.

She drew back the flap of the tent, intending to step outside, but stopped short when a man with a pistol in hand stepped into view, leading two of the dig workers forward at gunpoint. They were headed for the center of camp, just as Craig and Paolo had done, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there was probably more than one of the intruders in camp at that very moment. That realization kept her from immediately going to her coworkers aid; she didn’t want to draw attention to herself until she knew exactly what was going on.

She waited for them to move out of sight, then slipped out and looked around. There didn’t seem to be anyone else about. Even if she hadn’t seen the gunman, that in itself would have been unusual. People were always moving about the camp. Now that she was outside and the tent walls were no longer acting as a sound baffle, she could hear several angry voices coming from the center of the camp. She cautiously made her way in that direction, slipping in and out between the tents rather than walking openly down the main path. As she drew closer to the center of camp, she crouched down beside one of the tents and peered around the corner.

From where she crouched she could see that most of the dig team had been herded into the open area in front of the mess tent. Craig stood alone in front of the group, facing a bearded man in dark fatigues who was pointing a pistol at Craig’s head. Behind the newcomer were several more men, all dressed the same way and all holding firearms of their own, pointing them indiscriminately at the rest of the dig team. Annja recognized the guns as MP-5s, the stubby machine pistols that in recent years had become the weapons of choice for more than a few special-operations units across the world. They were effective little things, capable of firing eight hundred rounds per minute on full auto.

If the armed men opened fire, the archaeologists would be cut down in seconds.

Craig glared at the men in front of him.

“What do you want?” he asked.

The leader looked past Craig as if he didn’t matter and addressed his words to the rest of the dig team huddled behind him. “I’m looking for a necklace. A black one. Surrender it now and there won’t be any trouble.”

Annja couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How did they know about the torc? Craig hadn’t even reported it to the trustees from Oxford overseeing the dig yet, never mind to anyone else.

Craig stepped forward, causing the gunman to turn his attention back to him rather than the others.

“I don’t know what anyone has told you, but we haven’t uncovered anything of value here. There’s no gold. No treasure. Certainly nothing to make you rich.”

The man laughed. “I want the torc,” he said. “We can do it the easy way or we can do it the hard way. I don’t really care. Now where is it?”

There was a look in the gunman’s eyes that Annja didn’t like. Almost as if he was eager for a confrontation.

Tell him, Craig, Annja thought. Tell him what he wants to know.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Craig replied.

The man shrugged. “That’s too bad,” he said.

Then he pulled the trigger.

The shot took Craig in the forehead, knocking him over backward to the ground. He was dead before the sound of the gunshot had finished echoing over the campsite.

Silence fell as the rest of the dig team stared in stunned horror at the body in front of them.

The gunman seemed to drink in their fear and terror like a fine wine. A slow smile spilled across his face as he watched them stare at the dead body in front of them and then, almost casually, he said, “Okay. Now that we’ve established that I’m not screwing around, I’ll ask again. Where is the torc?”

The need to charge out and avenge her friend screamed through Annja’s bones, but she fought the urge back down, knowing that to do so right now would be tantamount to suicide. Running out into the open and confronting the mercenary leader—for that is what she guessed them to be, mercenaries—would only get her killed. That would serve no one, least of all the people she needed to help. If she was going to get the rest of the team out of this alive, the next few minutes were crucial. She would need all her wits about her if she was going to succeed.

She slipped slowly backward until she was out of sight behind the nearest tent and then reached into the otherwhere, summoning her sword to hand. It slid smoothly into existence, appearing with the speed of thought, fully formed and ready for use, the hilt fitting her palm as if it had been made for her and her alone.

Sometimes she even thought that it had.

Her life hadn’t been the same since that fateful day when she’d brought the broken, scattered pieces of the sword together again for the first time since their original owner, Joan of Arc, had been burned at the stake centuries earlier. The sword had miraculously reformed in a flash of power right before her very eyes and, in some strange way she still didn’t quite understand, had chosen her to be its next bearer.

The role came with its own unique set of responsibilities, protecting the innocent seemingly first and foremost among them. Her own innate sense of justice seemed amplified when she carried the sword and she’d found herself forced into any number of situations that others would have simply walked away from as a result. Numbers didn’t matter, nor did the odds, only that she acted whenever possible to defend those who couldn’t defend themselves.

Like now.

Craig’s death made the intentions of the intruders quite clear. There was no way they were going to let the other dig workers live after witnessing Craig being killed in cold blood. That meant it was up to Annja to get them out of this alive.

Despite knowing that they would never get there in time, Annja pulled out her BlackBerry with her free hand and placed an emergency call to the regional police. She told the sergeant who answered her name and that the archaeological dig just north of Arkholme was under attack by armed insurgents. When he began to ask questions she hung up. She didn’t have time to sit there and chat with him; people’s lives hung in the balance.

As she slipped the phone back into her pocket, her fingers touched the torc. Something told her that it wouldn’t be safe there; if she was caught, her captors would find it in seconds. She took it out of her pocket and slipped it inside her sports bra instead. That way, at least it would pass a casual search.

Then she took a moment to consider her next move.

Clearly she couldn’t take them all on at once. But if she could even up the odds a bit, she’d have a better chance of succeeding in the end.

With that in mind, she faded back into the shadows, waiting for her chance at vengeance.

8

The gunman ordered his men to herd the rest of the dig workers into the mess tent behind them, and as they began doing so, Annja slipped around behind it and found a place to crouch down out of sight near one of the windows. From this position she could see and hear most of what was going on inside the tent, while potentially being ready to do something to help if an opportunity presented herself.

The lead mercenary stood facing the group, his gun still in hand.

“Where is Professor Novick?” he asked.

No one would look at one another, for fear of giving Novick away. They had seen what had happened to Dr. Stevens; it didn’t take too much imagination to figure out what was likely to happen to Paolo.

For a moment, Annja didn’t see him and she began to hope that he had slipped away in the initial confusion, but it was not to be.

“I am Novick,” a man said from the back of the crowd and Annja watched as Paolo stepped forward.

“You,” the man said, pointing at Novick, “come with me.” He turned and faced the two guards who had entered the tent with him. “If they try to escape,” he said, nodding back over his shoulder at the prisoners, “kill them.”

Paolo and the mercenary leader walked out of the tent, leaving the entire workforce guarded by only two men.