The Matador's Crown

She shrugged. “Maybe he stole it, but if that was the case, I suspect it wasn’t planned. Although, if he wasn’t crew, someone had to have smuggled the bull off-site. I don’t know. Its value is questionable. It was small, a simple piece.”

“Sounds like a delicious mystery. Too bad you’re not a homicide detective.”

“No, I’m not. Doesn’t mean I don’t have an interest.”

“In the objects a dead man was carrying?”

“Archaeology is all about deciphering the objects people carried, wore, used, lived in. I’m an object detective.”

This area of Spain had been gone over by archaeologists many times in the past century, but a recent chunk of mountain had been dislodged and had changed the landscape, prompting new discoveries.

The dig supervisor, Jonathan Crockett, was a laid-back Englishman who had never aspired to anything but squatting in the sun all day, his hands in the dirt. And he had a trust fund to make it happen. He was a hard-core archaeologist. Quiet, he never bragged about his finds or elaborated overmuch. He measured his words, and Annja had been fine with that. The sun had toasted his skin nicely and enhanced the distinguished lines at the corners of his eyes and temples. His sun-streaked brown hair never did stay in the ponytail he tied at the back of his head, and as dirty as he got, his clothing always looked freshly pressed. A well-seasoned man, he was movie-star fodder, without the ego or need for fame.

That James Harlow had suspected him of underhanded dealings didn’t feel right, but Annja would reserve judgment until after she’d talked to him.

Garin pulled the Jeep outside the main—and only—tent, dirt billowing up from the tires in a cloud. The soil was a fertile mix of gravel, sand and silt in the southern areas of Spain, ideal for viticulture.

Annja jumped out into the dirt cloud. “You stay here,” she told Garin.

“Don’t think so.” He patted the linen jacket over his heart. The man, who now made his home Germany, tended to favor semiautomatic pistols manufactured there or in Austria. “I’ll be your backup.”

“Don’t go all alpha on me, now. The villagers are not going to attack with trowels and buckets.”

“If someone here is selling artifacts to people who apparently kill to obtain them, you want to be safe.”

“I don’t know Crockett is selling artifacts. I highly doubt he is. Ambition is not one of his finer points.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be inconspicuous.”

Garin got out and stood beside the Jeep. With his height, broad shoulders and chiseled square jawline, he looked the medieval warrior trying to masquerade as a regular Joe. The man would never achieve subtlety.

“Inconspicuous. Bang-up job.” Annja stabbed him with a look, then strode toward the tent, leaving the misplaced warrior to guard the battlements.

The dig area was quiet. The excavation unit marked off with stakes and string before she’d arrived days earlier looked like the pit to hell, blackened by the shadows. It was only four feet deep. Crockett had gotten a lot done with the few college students who had occasion to drop in for a day at a time. No one except Crockett stayed on-site overnight, so either they had all taken a day off or had decided to start late. Really late. It was after noon.

She called out, but no one replied. Crockett’s tent door was untied and flapping in the breeze. She peered inside. Empty, except for two tables used to sort out artifacts, and bag and catalog them in a field notebook. Toward the back stood an old army-issue cot and dressing table with water canisters, basin and towels, and a hand-crank radio.

Wandering around the south side of the tent, she caught sight of Garin’s bulky figure out of the corner of her eye. He leaned against the Jeep’s hood, ankles crossed, head tilted back to take in the sun.

“Some backup.”

Not that she expected anyone to jump out from behind a rocky outcrop with guns blazing. On the other hand, experience had taught her to never presume any situation was safe.

Where had Crockett gone? He wouldn’t abandon the site without leaving an assistant to watch over the supplies and finds.

Her instincts suddenly flared. Tensing, she slowly tracked along the side of the tent. The smell of dirt-dusted canvas material was like perfume to Annja’s soul, but the buzz of flies nearby made her suspicious. Odd. Crockett kept a tidy site.

A rancid odor grew as she turned the back corner of the tent and stepped into a pool of congealed blood. She quickly took in the blood spatter that had dried to brown across the tent canvas.

“Garin!”

She tracked the path of blood until she came to the edge of the pitoned-off dig square. A body had been rolled into the four-foot-deep area, which measured about sixteen by twenty feet. Earth had been hastily shoveled over it, but the booted feet, hands and the back of a dark-haired head showed.

“That is not good,” Garin said as he sidled up to her and looked over the scene. “You think it’s the dig supervisor you wanted to talk to?”

“Someone looking for me?”

They turned in unison, Garin with pistol extended, to find Jonathan Crockett standing behind them. Holding an AK-47.

4

“I believe my Kalashnikov trumps your Glock,” Crockett said to Garin.

Annja felt Garin’s elbow twitch against her arm. He was the last man Crockett—any man—should issue a challenge like that to.

“You think so?” Garin held the pistol barrel skyward and finger off the trigger.

Crockett gestured with the machine gun for Garin to toss the pistol aside. Annja knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Before Garin could react, Annja reached into the otherwhere, felt the sword’s power tingle in her fingers and clasped the grip. She swung out, sweeping the blade across Crockett’s wrist and taking him by surprise. The man yelped. The machine gun dropped to the dusty ground. In an agile move, Garin bent to claim it.

Crockett clutched his bleeding wrist. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he winced with the pain. He looked to Annja, but she’d released Joan of Arc’s sword back to where she’d found it.

“Nice,” Garin said. He hooked the Kalashnikov under his arm and held both guns on the whimpering professor. “She’s my backup,” he said with a nod toward her. “Who would have thought I’d need her in such an innocuous place? Pothunters shouldn’t play with guns.”

“Pothunter is a derogatory term,” Annja corrected him. Had Crockett turned into a merciless pothunter? Had he killed the man in the pit for his own gain?

James Harlow had intimated he didn’t trust Crockett, yet she’d brushed if off as all-too-common collegiate rivalry.

“I was trying to protect myself.” Crockett sank to his knees, clutching his wrist against his chest. Blood soaked into his white shirt. “They came so quickly. Yesterday evening. Hours after you left, Annja.” He gasped. “Took everything. When I heard the vehicle drive up just now I thought they’d returned to finish me off, so I hid in the gorse.”

“You didn’t kill this man,” Annja stated.

Crockett shook his head. “No, they did. Yesterday.”

And the body was still lying out in the open? Annja winced. Why hadn’t Crockett contacted the authorities? And for that matter, why was he still here?

“Who are they?” Garin demanded. “Did they take your field phone with them, too?”

“Let’s move him inside the tent for some first aid. We need to bandage your wrist before you lose too much blood,” she said to Crockett, then with a glance in the direction they had come from, added, “We should take him to the hospital.”

She met Garin’s fierce stare, leaving her in no doubt that he thought her suggestion a bad one. Cleaning up the mess by taking out the professor with a bullet to his heart would probably be his suggestion. Joan of Arc wasn’t into vigilante justice. Neither was she.

“No hospitals,” Crockett said as Annja led him into the tent.

“Why? You got something against hospitals?”

“My sister died five years ago when she caught an infection following surgery.”