Chapter 36

"She's beautiful," Kikka Schluter told Garin as Annja Creed walked down the hill.

"She is," Garin agreed as he watched her. And so foolishly brave, he thought.

Schluter never took his eyes from the approaching woman, but he asked Garin, "Where's the old man?"

"If he's here, he's up in the hills," Garin said.

"Why didn't he come down?"

"Because Roux isn't going to put his neck on the line for anyone." Garin grinned at that. It was one of the things he respected about Roux.

"What if I threaten to kill the woman?"

"He still won't come."

Schluter stepped toward the cringing man on the ground. "I can shoot this man to show him I mean business."

"He already knows you mean business," Garin said. "He got that when you tried to have him killed in Venice."

Schluter looked at Garin then, obviously surprised that Garin knew as much as he did.

"And if you kill that man, after Annja has put her life on the line to save him," Garin added, "she won't cooperate with you." It was going to be interesting to see how things worked out.

Annja halted twenty yards away. "Let him up."

Cursing, Schluter took the rifle off the man and nodded to one of his guards. The man yanked Stanley Younts to his feet.

"What do you want?" Annja made no move to come closer.

"I know the Viking treasure is inside those catacombs," Schluter said. "Your friend here told us everything."

"I didn't have a choice, Annja," Stanley said shamefully.

"It's okay," Annja replied. "Just stay calm. We're going to be all right. All they want is the treasure. Once they get that, they'll leave."

Garin knew that wasn't the truth. Schluter liked killing. He'd seen it that night in the club. Garin felt certain that Schluter would leave their bodies in the caves once the treasure was secure.

"That's right," Schluter said.

"What about Erene?" the big man holding the dark-haired woman asked.

Garin knew Schluter considered ordering her death. But he didn't.

"Bring her," Schluter said.

The big man yanked the woman to her feet, keeping the pistol pressed against the back of her head.

"Bind Annja's wrists," Garin said, knowing she couldn't draw the sword if her hands were bound.

Schluter ordered it done. Then the men pulled Annja over to their leader.

"Now," Schluter announced with a smile, "let's see about that treasure."

****

Two of Schluter's men used crowbars to break the lock on the doors sealing the catacombs. They switched on powerful flashlights and started down the carved stone steps.

Hands bound behind her, the sword out of reach, Annja stumbled as she was pushed into motion. She went down the steps carefully because they were too narrow and steep to be negotiated with any real speed. The fetid stink of death clung to the place.

The stairs sloped but quickly led into the catacombs. The burial area was twenty feet wide and forty feet long. The dead were long gone.

Nearly two thousand years earlier, Roman legionnaires had been laid to rest in small holes dug into the cave walls. Without benefit of caskets or crypts, they'd been left on the bare rock to decompose naturally.

Annja knew they wouldn't have been buried with much. Perhaps a few personal possessions and a few coins to pay for passage with the ferryman across the River Styx. Whatever had been left had long ago been stripped. Now it was only a place where death had once held court.

Schluter commanded his men to look for the entrance to the other cave system.

"There may not be one," Annja said.

"You came here to find it," Schluter said.

"I came here to look," Annja admitted. "There were no guarantees that the entrance was here. Or that the treasure even existed."

"You came here for a reason."

Knowing it was a waste of time to argue with the man, Annja kept quiet. She couldn't help looking at the woman with Garin. The woman held on to Garin's arm for support. She was so old it was hard to imagine the two of them being in love.

Erene Skujans stood at Annja's side. Like Annja, her hands had been tied behind her.

"You are Mario's friend? The archaeologist?" Erene asked.

"Yes." Even with the woman standing bound beside her, obviously betrayed by someone she'd trusted, Annja couldn't find any sympathy in her heart for the woman. She'd used Mario to get a shot at the treasure.

"You knew about me?"

"Only after Mario was killed." Annja made her voice harsh, thinking of Mario's family and other people who would miss him.

Pain glinted in the woman's dark blue eyes. "I had nothing to do with his death. I didn't know he was leaving the village until he was gone. If I had known, I would have talked him out of it or gone with him. He wasn't trained to deal with men like these."

"Your friend seems to have caught you by surprise," Annja said.

"I was weak," Erene replied. "I thought I could trust him. Dalton Hyde trusted me."

"To be a thief?"

Erene took in a short, angry breath, then said, "Yes. I had no skills. Dalton offered to train me. All I wanted was a chance to live my life and be able to take care of myself. Thieving is a trade. You don't have to hurt individuals with it. I didn't prey on the weak or unfortunate."

For a moment, Annja's resolve was shaken. She wondered what her life would have been like without the training and education she'd received.

The men searched the room, shining their lights in all directions.

"Being a thief has its uses." Erene smiled at Annja in the darkness. "For instance, I practiced getting out of handcuffs all my life, though I never once had to. But tonight? That's a different story. Let me have your hands."

Annja turned slowly, giving the woman access to her cuffs. Everyone in the room was involved with the search.

"Dalton is so obsessed with the treasure that he forgot about my ability with restraints."

The woman's fingers, quick and sure, held a piece of metal that briefly touched Annja's wrists. In the next minute, almost as though she had a key, the cuffs opened.

"Hold them closed until we're ready to make a move," Erene advised.

Looking up, Annja discovered that Garin was watching her with interest. She didn't know if he suspected what was going on. Before he could act or say anything, one of Schluter's men called, "Over here."

He'd lit one of the torches that had been left in one of the crypts. Annja suspected the torches were used during tours, to give a more authentic lighting for how it would have been all those years ago.

The man held the torch up to where the low ceiling met the wall. Gently but insistently, something pulled at the flame. Soot gathered there from the exposure and revealed a hairline fracture in the stone. He continued trailing the flame over the fissure, following it down the wall. When he was finished, he'd outlined a square section almost five feet high.

Given the relative height of the Romans at the time, Annja knew it could have been used as a door. She could also understand how it could have been overlooked. The Romans had buried their dead inside the catacombs and never allowed anyone in. Later, when the graves were robbed, there had been little to take. Most tomb raiders only grabbed what was immediately discernible.

The door, if that was what it was, had remained virtually invisible.

Schluter turned to Annja. "How does this open?"

"Do you see a handle or any kind of release lever?" she asked sarcastically.

"No," one of the men said.

"Then you push." The lack of any way of pulling the block back into place told Annja something more. If the rock had to be pushed back into place, then men on the other side had to do it. That meant that the cave system had a way out.

She thought about it. The Romans had been stationed there to protect the

Three of Schluter's men put their shoulders against the rock and shoved. Grudgingly, the massive stone block slid forward.

A breeze carried into the room from the opening. The smell of dank earth grew stronger inside the catacombs.

One of the men went forward with a lantern. He looked back, the bright orange glow playing across his face. "It's another cave. A bigger one."

Schluter entered the cave, then waved everyone else through.

On the other side of the makeshift door, Annja stared out across the cave. A six-foot ledge ran along the wall. Beyond it was a gaping crevice. The cave ended to the right, but it continued on well past the reach of the lanterns to the left.

Schluter's frustration showed. He shone his light into Annja's face. "Does this cave lead to the treasure?"

"I don't know," Annja replied.

"You knew this cave was here."

"That's all I knew."

"Liar!" Schluter screamed like a spoiled child and crossed the distance separating them. "What did Mario Fellini tell you about the treasure?"

Annja eyed the man levelly. "I'm telling you the truth."

"Where is the treasure?"

"There may not be a treasure," Annja insisted. "It could all be a story."

"Do you have the book?" the old woman asked.

Annja looked at Kikka Schluter standing behind Garin. Her face was grim and severe.

"Do you have the book?" she repeated in a sterner voice.

"The one that describes Baron Frederick of Schluter's torture and murder of peasants in villages in this area?" Annja asked.

Kikka Schluter grimaced and cursed. "My family name means something."

"I can see that. It's why your grandson has turned out to be the same kind of upstanding individual."

The woman's attention turned to her grandson. "Kill this cow and be done with her. She doesn't know any more than she's told you."

Schluter raised his pistol and took aim.

****

Garin moved before he'd even thought about it. Roux had always chided him for leaping first and then looking. But he had a pistol in his hand and was pointing it at Wolfram Schluter – intending to prevent Schluter from killing Annja for no good reason that he could think of – when it felt like a sledgehammer hit him in the back three times in quick succession.

The sound of the gunshots rolled through the cave.

Incredulous, he looked down and saw that blood was spreading across the front of his shirt. One of the bullets had gone all the way through.

His arm went numb. Panic filled him when he realized he couldn't breathe. The weapon dropped from his fingertips. In stunned disbelief, he turned to Kikka Schluter and stared at her.

She stood with a smoking pistol in her hand.

He wanted to ask her why, but he couldn't speak.

"No one harms my family," she said almost tenderly. "I'm sorry. You reminded me very much of your father."

Blackness swirled over Garin's vision. The cave floor felt as if it were tilting underfoot. He tried to remain on his feet, but it was impossible. He fell, but he never felt the impact against the ground.