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Annja stepped to her left. She released the sword. It vanished. Blood spurted from the assassin’s wounds as he fell.
Annja walked away with hands in her jacket pockets as if nothing had happened.
She hoped no one had witnessed the events. But experience had taught her that didn’t necessarily matter. Telling skeptical and generally short-fused police they had seen a female American tourist pull a broadsword out of nowhere and kill two gun-armed terrorists, then made the lengthy weapon utterly vanish wasn’t a good move.
Cops the world around had ways of dealing with people who told stories like that. None of them was pleasant. And Greek cops weren’t renowned for their restraint or regard for human rights.
Annja’s heart raced. So did her mind. She was trying to sort out what had just happened—or what lay behind what just happened, and what that meant for her future survival.
Clearly, Enver Bajraktari was highly vexed with Annja.
It was possible, she thought, the carload of newbies had been sacrifices. Pawns chosen to noisily and splashily die, attracting the attention of everyone, most especially their intended victim, to give the real kill team a clear shot at her.
It was a good plan, too, she had to admit. It would’ve worked if Annja’s recent life experiences hadn’t given her the awareness and paranoid suspicion of an alley cat.
She came to a wider street, filled with tourists and locals far enough from the Exarcheia plaza not to have noticed the commotion yet, although sirens had started to go off and a pillar of black smoked undulated up into the sky. Those events were remote enough that most of them shrugged and went about their business.
Gratefully, Annja joined them.
6
“There was some excitement down in Exarcheia today,” Pan Katramados said across a spoonful of soup he was raising to his lips. The candle in its bronze bowl in the middle of the table underlit his face in such a way as to make him look quite ferocious. It contrasted crazily with his mild conversational tone. But it served to remind Annja he was a highly trained and seasoned special-forces warrior, and that nobody sane wanted to see him angry.
“Yes,” Annja said. “I saw reports on CNN in my room this afternoon. It looked awful.”
They were in a small uncrowded restaurant in Piraeus. The food was superb and the view, of lights twinkling on the water and white boats bobbing at anchor in the harbor, was lovely.
Pan grimaced and shook his head. “Well, perhaps. And perhaps not so awful. Some bystanders were hurt, and property destroyed, which is to be regretted. Yet the passersby were not badly injured, and are recovering nicely in hospital.”
“The news said four people were killed,” Annja said.
“Indeed,” Pan said, nodding. “Four terrorists.”
“Terrorists?”
Again he nodded. “Albanians. Or, rather, ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Two were burned beyond recognition, and the other two fatalities carried papers falsely identifying them as Krasnovar Serbs from Croatia. But we have an injured survivor under guard in hospital, with third-degree burns over fifty percent of his body and badly broken ribs. He is expected to survive to face trial. He has confessed. It appears he was the racketeer and was unwise enough to fire his launcher inside a small imported sedan, apparently in ignorance that the rocket exhaust produced a substantial fiery backblast.”
“That’s a terrible thing to go through,” she said. “Not that they didn’t have it coming, I guess. And from the way you’re looking at me—”
He laughed softly. “Can’t I just enjoy looking at you?”
“Do you?” she asked, surprised.
“What man would not?”
“Well—a man who was mainly interested in looking at me wouldn’t look at me in that particular way. At least I hope not,” she said.
“I suppose not.”
“So they were Bajraktari’s men?”
He nodded.
“I don’t suppose any of them happened to be Bajraktari? Or Duka?” she asked.
“Don’t you know?”
“Don’t I know? How on earth should I?”
“Well, to start with, you know full well Enver Bajraktari is a cagey fox. Would he let anybody on an operation he commanded in person do anything so foolish as to fire an RPG inside a car? Unless he meant to produce a diversion to allow the real killers to strike.”
Annja struggled to keep her face impassive. Fortunately she had had lots of practice. “The real killers?” she asked.
“We suspect the other two dead men were the real hit team. We found them several blocks away.”
“I thought you had a confession,” Annja said with a sinking sensation.
Pan shrugged. “The burn victim has confessed to taking part in a terrorist attack. He claims it was merely to strike a blow for independence of all ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia. That seems unlikely. Bajraktari isn’t the sort to indulge in violence for mere political posturing. He takes his violence far too seriously for that.”
“And the others?” Annja asked.
“Our suspect disclaims all knowledge of them.” Pan sipped his ouzo. “He may be telling the truth. In fact, he may be telling the whole truth. As he knows it.”
Annja knew otherwise, but she wasn’t going to tell him how.
“But it smells like an assassination. The two dead men had Skorpion machine pistols in their hands. Nasty pieces of work. You know them?”
She realized she was nodding. “I’ve read about them. I have to admit I’m mildly interested in firearms.”
Comfortable as she was coming to feel in his presence, she knew she had to tread carefully. She didn’t dare play dumb with him—he knew her background too well for that. She’d already shown Pan ample evidence she knew how to react in combat simply by getting out of that Kastoria warehouse alive. So she reckoned being up-front about a familiarity with guns would make him least suspicious.
“The two on foot would seem to have been closing in on a target,” Pan said.
“What happened to them?”
“They were killed by someone wielding a weapon with a long, double-edged, sharp blade. Exceedingly sharp. One of them was almost decapitated at a single blow. Although the position in which his body was found indicated he was running, which would add his own momentum to the force of his blow, that is…unusual, to say the least.”
“Didn’t you find similar wounds in the warehouse?” It’s coming out anyway, she thought.
He sat back from her, turning slightly sideways in his chair and crossing one long lean leg over the other. “Exactly.”
She took a bite of her stuffed grape leaves. “I guess they went after the wrong person.”
Pan’s chuckle had an edge like broken glass. “It would certainly appear so. The other man was stabbed clean through the torso. Our medical examiner says both entrance and exit wounds had the cleanest edges of any stab wounds he had ever encountered.”
“Seriously,” Annja said faintly, laying down her fork. She hoped he’d think such a detailed postmortem made her feel appropriately squeamish.
His eyes were intense as a falcon’s as they gazed at her. “The most obvious person for Bajraktari to expend such effort to target,” he said, “is you, Annja. And you were at the warehouse.”
She laughed weakly. “Somebody else must’ve been, too,” she said. “Or do I look like Conan the Barbarian to you?”
He laughed. “You are an exceedingly strong and fit woman,” he said after a moment. “And you clearly know how to handle yourself in dangerous situations. But no—” he shook his head “—I can’t see a woman delivering a decapitating blow. Call me a male chauvinist if you will. And there is of course the astonishing fact that the weapon, which the medical examiner judged must have been nothing less than a broadsword, is unwieldy and most inconvenient to carry. Much less conceal. Especially on a frame as spare as yours.”
“Are you saying I’m skinny?”
He held up his hands defensively and laughed. “I didn’t say that. I just mean you’d have to be built like an ox and dressed in a tent to have a hope to hide such a weapon.”
“That’s not my style,” she said.
“Of course not.” He shook his head. “It’s a mystery. It preys on my mind. Yet rationally it cannot concern you. So let’s put it aside and enjoy our meal, yes?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have news, anyway. I found something fantastic today.”
He turned forward and leaned closer. “And what is that?”
“At the museum I found a remarkable story in a Medieval Latin translation of a Byzantine manuscript. It told of how Alexander faced increasing discontent from his Macedonian soldiers, worn out by marching so far and fighting so much. His treasury was getting low. Then from an informant he learned of a cave shrine high up in the mountains of Nepal that contained a vast treasure. He sent a general from his bodyguards with a small handpicked force to seize it. And guess what?”
“I’m all ears.”
“The general’s name was Pantheras. Isn’t that strange?”
Pan went still. Then he leaned back slowly until his face was shadowed in the darkness of the restaurant. Outside a patrol boat putted across the harbor, probing left and right with a blue-white spotlight.
“So how did the mission turn out?” he asked after a moment of silence.
“I don’t know. The fragment ended there.”
She could see a smile play over his lips. “That’s too bad,” he said.
A S THEY WALKED along the base of the brightly lit hill their arms had become interlinked. Annja felt disinclined to disengage, somehow.
“I’ve started to have the dreams again,” Pan said. “You know, the ones from my childhood. About actually being an ancient Macedonian general.”
“I can see why it might come out again now, with the ancient Macedonia-Nepal connection coming to the fore. Although it’s still an interesting coincidence, given what I found out about that earlier Pantheras today,” Annja said.
“Interesting. Yes.”
They walked a while along an old stone retaining wall. The traffic was sparse. Flute music played from somewhere.
“I have to leave soon,” Annja said. “I hope you and your superiors are all right with that.”
“Well, much as I might regret the fact of your going, our investigations have turned up no evidence your involvement in the case is other than you have described. Which is perhaps unwise enough in its nature that I should be rather relieved to see you go.”
“Really? You’ll regret my going away?”
“Well…you make life interesting, let us say.” He laughed softly.
She laughed, too. But she felt an unexpected pang that she would soon have to say goodbye to the handsome police officer.
Pantheras Katramados was clearly as strong in character as in body, but without the blustering machismo so common in Mediterranean cultures. Rather he had the confidence that comes from being truly competent and knowing it, overlaid with wry good humor. His interests were as broad and deep as Annja’s own, and his wit as quick. They found much to talk about. Much to laugh about. He reminded her, in many ways, of her dear friend Bart McGilley.
“Where will you go now?” he asked.
“Nepal. It’s where my real job begins.” She had been getting polite e-mails from the Japan Buddhist Federation hoping she would soon be able to go to Nepal. Apparently the political situation there was rapidly deteriorating. Whether full-scale civil war was in the offing Annja couldn’t tell from the news online, but lawlessness was clearly rising in the countryside.
He stopped and turned to face her. “Don’t let your guard down.”
“Bajraktari won’t have any reason to suspect where I’ve gone,” she said.
“He has contacts in Nepal, quite obviously,” Pan said. “Don’t get complacent.”
Annja grinned. “Thanks. But I think I can promise you, that’s one thing I’m not. ”
He took her in his arms and kissed her. Almost despite herself she responded.
Too soon he broke away. His face looked troubled.
“Was it that bad?” she asked shakily.
“As an experience? Certainly not,” he said. “As a thing for a policeman on a case to do—perhaps.”
He turned and walked quickly away. She made no move to follow. She felt a combination of sadness and relief.
And she couldn’t help wondering how much of his interest in her was really romantic—and how much was special-forces cop?
7
“Lumbini is a foremost shrine of Buddhism,” said the smiling man in the saffron robe. He walked beside Annja along a paved path next to a square pool sunk into worn gray stone. “Here Siddhartha Gautama was born to Queen Mayadeva. The fig tree you see before us closely resembles the one under which he later received enlightenment, thus becoming the Buddha.”
His smile widened. “Or rather, the most famous Buddha. Others have come before and since.”
“Really?” Annja said.
“Oh, yes.”
The morning sky was bright blue, with a wash of thin white clouds away off to the west over northern India. In south Nepal the sun shone unimpeded from the east. It was surprisingly warm. The long sleeves and pants she wore out of respect for her host weren’t optimally comfortable.
Away to the north, blue with distance, the low wall of the Himalayas rose from the horizon. Annja felt a minor thrill at knowing she’d soon be among those legendary stratosphere-scraping peaks.
The lama Omprakash was a stout man whose round body seemed to taper directly to the shaved crown of his head. Though his broad face was un-lined he claimed to be in his eighties.
“I thought the Buddha was born in India,” Annja said. The sacred site lay just across the Indian border, although Annja had reached it by flying into Kathmandu in the east of the country, then taking a feeder flight on an alarming Russian-built two-prop plane to Sunauli, the town nearest Lumbini. A taxi had brought her the rest of the way. Though high up near the foothills of the Himalayas, the surroundings were a wide, well-forested river valley just greening into spring. The valley of the Upper Ganges, in fact.
“The distinctions were not so clearly drawn in those days,” Omprakash said. His name, he told her, meant “Sacred Light.” “Certainly this land was claimed by the great Maurya king, Ashoka. Some believe it was he who brought the doctrine of Buddhism to Nepal. Great proselytizer that he was, that is not so. He did make a pilgrimage here in 249 B.C ., after he had reclaimed north India from the successors of Alexander of Macedonia.”
Ah, she thought, that name. She didn’t press. She was here to listen. It was easy enough. Omprakash was a pleasant old gentleman who spoke beautiful English, with a liquid Hindi accent and a perpetual twinkle in his anthracite eyes. The Japan Buddhist Federation had sent her specifically to speak to the rotund monk. She badly needed background. This was way off the map of her previous studies and experience. She had decided to let the old man tell her whatever he wanted, and try to soak it up as best she could.
“King Ashoka did erect here a sandstone pillar to signify the great spiritual significance of the spot,” Omprakash said.
