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He went down without a sound.
Three down, three to go, she thought.
Gunfire sounded from downstairs, indicating that Roux and the others had encountered the enemy themselves, but Annja couldn’t worry about them right now; she had her hands full.
Seeing how well their comrades had done against her, the two attackers now facing her chose a different strategy. With a sudden shout they rushed her as one, blades out and ready to strike from either side.
Annja waited until they were nearly upon her and then jumped upward with one powerful shove of her muscular legs.
The swords passed harmlessly beneath her as she somersaulted over their heads, twisting in midair to land behind them, facing their exposed backs. Her sword was already in motion as she landed on catlike feet and she slashed the backs of their legs without a second thought, taking them out of the fight.
One more…
She whirled, expecting her final opponent to be closing the distance between them while her attention was elsewhere.
That wasn’t the case.
The other man hadn’t moved.
He stood watching her, his hands held calmly together behind his back, like an instructor evaluating her performance.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Annja asked and was surprised at the depth of anger she heard in her voice.
Her opponent said nothing.
“I’ll give you one last—”
She never finished the sentence.
One second her opponent was standing in front of her with both hands behind his back and in the next he was leaping forward, a Japanese katana suddenly appearing in his hands. He lashed out in a vicious strike even before he landed, using his forward momentum to add force to the blow.
Annja just barely managed to deflect the strike as she brought her sword up, backpedaling as she did to give her some much-needed room, her mind grappling all the while at what she thought she’d just seen.
One minute his hands were empty and the next…
Where the hell had that sword come from? It was almost as if he’d conjured the thing out of midair….
The very notion was unthinkable.
She didn’t have time to dwell on it as her opponent pushed his attack forward, the ferocity and force of his blows driving her backward across the floor as she sought to defend herself.
She had faced off against talented swordsmen before, but this guy was in another league. It was all she could do to protect herself from harm as she twisted and turned, keeping her weapon between her body and her opponent’s deadly blade. Several times he managed to get the tip of his weapon past her defenses, leaving minor wounds in its wake. It didn’t take her long to realize that he was toying with her; that, had he chosen to do so, he could have dispatched her more than once during their engagement. In no time at all she found herself backed into a corner, fighting for her life.
She could see several of the fighters she had already dispatched getting back to their feet and she knew it wouldn’t be long before she was again horribly outnumbered.
If you’re going to do something, Annja, you’d better do it now, she thought.
She gave a shout, putting everything she had into it. It distracted her opponent for the split second she needed to duck his current blow and strike out with her own.
For a moment she thought she’d done it, that she’d punctured his defenses and would score a strike against him, perhaps even a fatal one, but then his weapon came around impossibly fast and caught the hilt of her own. Annja was left watching in dismay as her sword spun out of her hands and away from her, tumbling through the air to clatter against the floor several yards to one side.
As soon as the sword struck the ground that it vanished into the otherwhere.
But even as Annja called it to hand once more, she realized that her assailant’s strike was already inside her defenses and time seemed to slow as she caught sight of that shining steel blade arcing toward her.
The gleaming blade grew in her vision, descending in a lightning-quick strike aimed at her exposed neck. But rather than take her head off at the shoulders, as Annja fully expected it to do, the sword was diverted at the last second so that it merely cut free a lock of her hair.
For a moment Annja’s gaze met that of her opponent and she could have sworn the other was silently laughing at her. I could have taken you at any time, those eyes said. And for the first time since taking up Joan’s sword, Annja felt outclassed.
Then Garin was looming in the doorway, pistols in hand, and gunfire filled the room. He mercilessly cut down those Annja had been unwilling to slay only moments before, their bodies twisting and jerking like marionettes as the bullets thundered into them. He was firing with both hands, so he wasn’t as accurate as usual and a few stray shots whined in Annja’s direction, forcing her to dive to the floor to avoid being hit.
When she looked up again, her attacker had turned from her and was already halfway across the room, headed for an open casement window that she had failed to notice when she’d first arrived.
So that’s how they got inside, she thought. And apparently that’s how they intended to get out again. But not if she could help it.
“Garin! The window!” she shouted.
Garin spun in her direction and brought his arms up, the guns roaring in the small confines of the room. Bullets split the air and slammed into the area all around the window, but Annja’s attacker managed to slip through the opening without being hit.
Annja wasn’t ready to let him get away that easily.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said through gritted teeth, angry at having been bested so handily. With her sword in hand she ran for the window herself, trusting Garin to stop firing when he saw her move.
Garin shouted something at her, but Annja didn’t hear. She was almost to the window itself when a hand appeared from outside and tossed something dark into the room in front of her.
It hit the floor and rolled toward her.
She had a split second to think, Grenade! and throw herself to the side before the explosive device went off.
4
It felt as if a giant hand picked her up and threw her against the floor, the concussion hammering her senses until her head reeled. She bounded off the marble floor and slid into the wall with enough force to nearly knock her senseless.
Only the fact that it had been a concussion grenade, rather than an explosive one, saved her life. She was still trying to figure out which way was up when Garin rushed to her side.
“Annja! Are you all right?” he asked, his voice seeming to come from miles away as the roaring in her ears continued.
She nodded, still too caught up in the emotion of the moment to speak. Her heart was beating like crazy and she fought to get her breathing under control as Garin helped her into a sitting position.
At last she found her voice.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m all right.”
Using his arm for support she pulled herself all the way to her feet and then stood on still-wobbling legs. Her gaze landed on the lock of hair that the intruder’s sword had cut from her head.
Too close.
She glanced over at the intruders. Or rather, what was left of them. Garin hadn’t spared any ammunition it seemed; every body was riddled with bullet holes and blood leaked across the marble floor beneath them.
“Did you have to kill them all?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Now why didn’t that surprise her? “But if you had managed to only wound one or two, we might have been able to question them. Learn who they were and why they were here.”
Garin grunted. “Or they might have managed to kill us both. Thank you, but I’ll take the safer way out every time, particularly where my life is concerned.”
Annja did not doubt that in the slightest. When it came to protecting his long life, Garin was exceedingly ruthless.
At any rate, it was too late now to argue about it.
Garin stepped over to the window and cautiously looked out, but the intruder must have been long gone for he turned away, shaking his head. He was on his way back to Annja’s side when Roux and Henshaw arrived.
“Is everyone all right?” Roux asked as he stepped into the room, surveying the death and destruction before him.
“We’re fine,” Annja replied as Garin nodded in assent.
“What happened up here?” Roux asked.
Annja explained how she’d arrived to find the intruders already in the room and what had happened after that. She didn’t mention her near defeat at the hands of the final swordsman; that was for her and her alone. No one was too surprised at the realization that Annja had held off six attackers on her own; they had all seen her wield Joan’s sword at one time or another in the past and they knew just how deadly she could be with the weapon in hand.
“Did they say anything? Do anything that gave you some idea what they might have been after?”
Annja shook her head.
“I don’t get it,” Roux said. He glanced around the room, a puzzled expression on his face. “The assault force at the front of the house seems to have been a diversion. They made no attempt to take the manor itself and only put up just enough of a fight to keep the security force occupied.”
“Given what we know at this point, I’d say the whole thing was a diversion to allow this group to enter the house from the back,” Henshaw suggested.
“A logical assumption, I agree, but why? What was it they were after?” Roux glanced at the weapons decorating the walls and Annja could see him silently cataloging each one, gauging whether there was something valuable enough among them to warrant such an attempt. By the confused look on his face she could guess that the answer to that question was a solid no.
As the others looked on, Garin squatted next to one of the bodies. Reaching out, he pulled off the dead man’s ninja mask and hood, revealing his face.
The man was Asian. Somewhere in his thirties or so, was Annja’s guess. He was dressed in a dark blue coverall, similar to those worn by special forces units all around the world, with dark combat boots on his feet. A quick check showed that any identifying tags or markings had been stripped from the uniform.
“Recognize him?” Annja asked, only half-jokingly.
Garin scowled at her, annoyed by the comment apparently. “No, I don’t recognize him,” he replied. “Do you?”
Annja snorted. She wasn’t the one who dealt in the shadow world of dirty tricks and ruthless competition.
Neither Roux nor Henshaw had ever seen the man. With Henshaw’s help, Garin lined the bodies up next to one another and then he began to methodically search them for information while the other three looked on. He stripped them of their masks and pulled back their hoods, gazing at each face as if it might be able to tell him something. He went through their pockets, checked the labels on their clothing and even looked inside the boots they all wore.
Finally he stood, a disgusted look on his face.
“Nothing,” he said. “They’re as clean as a whistle.”
“Professionals, eh?” Henshaw asked, and the expression on his face told Annja how he felt about that revelation. A random break-in was one thing, but the knowledge that this had been planned and executed to within a fair chance of success was something else entirely.
Garin nodded. “Seems to be,” he replied. “Though that doesn’t tell us what they were after.”
“Or whom,” Roux added.
Annja had been content to listen in on the exchange but broke in at this point. “What do you mean ‘whom’?”
“Seems rather obvious, doesn’t it?” Garin answered for him. “They slip a group in the back door while the security team is otherwise occupied dealing with the assault out in front. With all of our attention in that direction, the second group would have had the opportunity to move through the house at will. Probably could have ambushed any one of us before we even knew they were there.”
Henshaw glanced over at Annja. “Seems you saved the day, Ms. Creed.”
“But that still doesn’t tell us what they were after.” Roux scowled down at the bodies in front of him. From his expression Annja knew he would have killed them himself had they lived through the assault.
She caught Garin staring at their host and recognized that mischievous expression in his eye.
Uh-oh.
“Pissed anyone off lately, Roux?” he asked, perhaps with a bit more force than he’d intended.
The damage was done, however. Roux noticeably stiffened, then shot back with, “No more than usual. Perhaps they were after someone with a bit less scrupulous business dealings.”
Now it was Garin’s turn to bristle. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. You have a far greater capacity for annoying others than I do! Maybe they were here to settle a debt with you.”
The younger man threw up his hands in annoyance and took a step toward his former companion. “Oh, I get it. It is your home that is attacked, your security that is penetrated, but suddenly I’m the one to blame.”
Rather than back down, Roux moved to meet him. “You’re right—it is my home that was attacked, my security that was penetrated. And I suppose it is just a strange coincidence that it happened on the evening that you planned a surprise party for me, now, isn’t it?”
Annja watched as Garin’s face grew red with anger. “You think I had something to do with this? That I would stoop so low as that? To try and kill you in your own home?” He was shouting now, and Roux was shouting right back, throwing accusations back and forth like some misguided game of catch.
Henshaw stepped between the two men, hands up, holding them back, trying to dissipate the anger before the two went after each other with more than words. The goodwill generated earlier in the evening was gone. If she didn’t do something quickly, Annja realized, there would be blood on the floor soon.
“Stop it, both of you!” she said sharply, and much to her surprise, they actually did.
“Given the incredible number of artifacts and pieces of art inside this house, the most reasonable assumption is that this was nothing more than a well-staged robbery. Lucky for us and unlucky for them, they just happened to choose the wrong night.”
Both men backed off but it was clear that no one was happy with the situation. After a few minutes of angry silence, Roux pulled Henshaw aside and spoke to him quietly, occasionally casting glances in Garin’s direction.
Garin, on the other hand, pretended to ignore him, then announced that he was returning to the study downstairs. Annja went with him. It was a good ten minutes before Roux joined them, which was probably for the best as it gave both men some time to cool down.
Within minutes of his arrival it was clear that the night was over. What had made the evening enjoyable was gone and the chances were slim that they would be able to recapture it. It wasn’t so much the armed assault on Roux’s home, though that would normally be enough to put anyone off their game, but the suspicions that had been tossed around afterward that made their continued conversations strained and uncomfortable. After a short period of time Garin excused himself, claiming a business engagement early in the morning, and offered to give Annja a ride back to her hotel.
When she refused, he said, “Suit yourself,” and left the estate without even a goodbye to their host.
What had started so well had ended badly and Annja couldn’t help but wonder how many times over the years the same thing had happened.
No wonder the two of them were reluctant to spend any time together, she thought.
To fill the silence after Garin’s departure, Annja asked Roux whether he had called the local authorities or those in Paris. “Detectives from the city would probably be better equipped to handle this kind of thing,” she reasoned.
