Part 4 (1/2)

The pa.s.sage then went on to talk about rubber production in Hanoi Province, in what was now Vietnam.

”Wait,” Annja said aloud, drawing glares from other researchers in the reading room. She glared back until they dropped their eyes back to tomes and computer screens.

Of course she felt bad about it at once. It's not their fault, she reminded herself sternly.

Isn't there more? she wondered.

She returned her attention to the book.

The crisp evening air felt good and smelled of roasting chestnuts. Annja was hungry, walking the summit of Montmartre with her hands jammed in her jacket pockets and her chin sunk into the collar. Over her left shoulder loomed the white domes of the Sacre Coeur Basilica. From somewhere in the middle distance skirled North African music. From nearer at hand came the thud and clank of what she considered mediocre techno music. The days of the Moulin Rouge and other noted, or notorious, cabarets were long gone. The fas.h.i.+onable night spots had long since migrated down across the river to the Left Bank and city center. Nowadays the area was given over to generic discos, artists' studios and souvenir and antique shops, most of which were closed in the early evening.

Annja had found a fairly deserted section of the windy, narrow streets winding gradually down the hill. That suited her mood.

The one reference to the 1913 German expedition had been it. Not just for the book. For such as she'd been able to check of the University of Paris collection until they booted her out of the reading room at seven-thirty.

The good news was that she now knew stories of a golden elephant statue in a vast lost temple emanated from a German expedition to Southeast Asia in 1913. The bad news was that wasn't much to go on.

It hadn't been enough to lead to any more information, at least so far. The various archaeological reviews and journals from the period she had read stayed resolutely mute concerning any such expedition. She would have thought there'd be some mention.

Walking along in air just too warm for her breath to be visible, with fallen dry leaves skittering before her like small frightened mammals, she wondered if chauvinism might have come into play. The Great War, as it was then naively known-and for a few years afterward, until an even greater one happened along-broke out a year or so after the expedition. Indeed, if it set forth in 1913 the expedition might well have still been in progress when the First World War began. And in 1913 the French were still grumpy over the Franco-Prussian War.

So it struck her as possible that mention of German expeditions might've been embargoed in French journals. But scientists of the day still would have considered themselves above such political disputes, cataclysmic as they might be. Wars came and went-science endured. So the Germanophobe angle might mean much or little.

I see two main possibilities, Annja told herself as she turned down a quaintly cobbled alley between steel-shuttered storefronts that reminded her of home in Brooklyn. One, that the expedition simply got lost in the shuffle of World War I. It was easy enough to see how that would happen.

And two, she thought, the frown etching itself deeper into her forehead, that it was all just rumor.

That made her bare her teeth in dismay. It was possible. Probable, even. Scientific anthropology and archaeology were rife with such speculations in the wake of Schliemann's discovery of Troy-or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

So the whole Golden Elephant yarn could just be hyperactive imagination.

”There's a third possibility,” she said quietly to herself. ”Or make it a subset of the first possibility,” she said with a certain deliberateness. ”That there was such an expedition-and the only mention of it that still exists anywhere on Earth is the sentence you read in that book today.”

She knew that was an all-too-real likelihood. The priceless ceramic relics Schliemann had sent back to Berlin had been busted in some kind of grotesque drunken Prussian marriage ritual. The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt had been lost when the Allies bombed the museum where they were stored. Paris had famously been spared the ravages of WWII. But the expedition, of course, was German. That was not so good, from a preservation point of view. The whole country had been handled pretty roughly. And most artifacts went through Berlin-which, between relentless bombing and the Red Army's European tour, had pretty much been destroyed.

Every last journal or other sc.r.a.p of writing relating to the 1913 expedition stood a really excellent chance of having been burned up, sh.e.l.led to fine gray powder.

She sighed again. ”Great,” she said. She decided she'd give it at lest one more try in the University of Paris system. If that came up dry- From behind she heard a masculine voice call out, ”There she is!”

7.

Annja stopped. She set her mouth. She sensed at least two men behind her. She braced to run. Then from the shadowed brickwork arch of an entry into a small garden courtyard she hadn't even noticed before, a third man strolled out into the starlight before her.

She'd wandered, eyes wide open, into a cla.s.sic trap.

Annja scolded herself furiously. Walking around like that and not paying attention to your surroundings! she thought. Doing a perfect impression of a perfect victim. What were you thinking?

Unfortunately, thinking thinking was what she had been doing. In contrast to maintaining situational awareness. It was an unfortunate propensity of hers. And what really annoyed her was that she knew better. was what she had been doing. In contrast to maintaining situational awareness. It was an unfortunate propensity of hers. And what really annoyed her was that she knew better.

”What have we here?” the man who had appeared in front of her said in nasal, slangy Parisian French. He was a bit shorter than Annja, wearing a knit cap and a long dark cloth coat against the autumn chill.

Annja looked around. The other two men came up on her left and right, winging out to the side. They were positioned to catch her no matter which way she might bolt.

”Careful,” one said in an Algerian accent. ”She has long legs, this one. She could run fast.”

She was in a tight spot, she knew. They were very smooth, very tactical, coming on her from three directions, allowing her no options to escape. They radiated hardness, both in att.i.tude and physically. Each one of them would be stronger than she was. Her skill in martial arts, not to mention real fighting experience, gave her an edge on a single man, if he underestimated her. These men almost certainly did. To them she was another American woman, a tourist or student, spoiled, soft and foolish.

Foolish enough to wander dark, deserted city streets with head down and eyes turned inward. A perfect victim, she thought again with a wave of self-disgust.

The first man stopped two yards from her. He seemed aware of the possibility of a long-legged kick.

”Not a good thing for you, missy, being out alone like this,” he said.

”Nice talking to you,” she said. ”Now, if you'll kindly step aside, I'll be on my way.”

He pulled his head back on his neck like a turtle starting a retreat into its sh.e.l.l and blinked at her with slightly bulbous pale eyes. Then he laughed. ”It's a spirited one we've got here.”

”Yeah,” said the third man. ”It's a d.a.m.ned shame.”

”Shut up,” said the Algerian.

Annja's blood chilled as the men flanking her each grabbed one of her arms.

She had been caught in a dilemma. She knew many people, even self-defense consultants, advised not resisting street robbery attempts. ”Your watch won't die for you,” the line ran. ”Why die for your watch?”

But she had a practical objection to giving violent criminals what they wanted-rewarding their behavior. If you let them succeed, they'd just do it again and again. And next time their victim might not have the option of resisting-and next time they might want more than a wallet....

She was certain this was no mugging.

Whoever these bad boys were, and they were certainly bad, they weren't common criminals. They were talent, Annja thought.

All these ideas flashed through her mind as her neuromuscular system more than her conscious mind evaluated her opponents. They were lax. They underestimated her, right enough, or they would have slammed her to the ground straightaway. They figured sheer masculinity would control her as effectively as physical techniques. Which was true of most people.

Annja waited for her moment.

The movements of the man on her right suggested he was about to press a knife to her neck to complete her submission. She sagged away from him, letting the guy on her left suddenly take almost her whole body weight.

The man on her left grunted in annoyance. The other, the Algerian, was pulled way off balance hanging on to her.

She thrust her right leg straight out behind his. With a powerful twist of her hips she swept his legs from under him. She used his own grip on her arm, still firm, as a handle to slam him to his back on the pavement.