False Horizon - Alex Archer [81]
Vanya sighed. “Fine, fine. Go back to the statue room and continue to where your cell was. Beyond the doorway is a false wall. Press it and a door will open to a small staircase. Travel up the staircase and you’ll come to a trapdoor in the floor of the cave you and Annja were in when the yeti found you. That’s your way home.”
“A trapdoor in the floor of the cave? That was the big secret?” Annja said.
Vanya smiled. “No one ever checks the floor. All anyone thinks about is the wall having some type of contraption.” Her eyes flamed. “Now go before I change my mind and have Hsu Xiao kill you all.”
Annja gripped the sword. “That would be a grave mistake.”
Vanya nodded at Tuk. “He gets ten minutes. No more. If he’s not back on the other side by then, it will be his own fault.”
Annja looked at Tuk. “Run and don’t stop for anything. Understand?”
“I understand.” He smiled. “Goodbye, Annja.”
“Seeing you,” she said.
Tuk dashed back into the temple corridor and vanished from view. Vanya calmly glanced at her watch and then back at Annja. “Ten minutes from now. Are we agreed on that?”
“Sure.”
Hsu Xiao stayed stock-still. Annja could sense her desire to rush into the temple and strike Tuk down before he could get clear. “I think your dog wants off her leash,” Annja said.
Vanya smiled. “She does. Very much so, in fact. But she’s a good girl and she’ll do what I say. Besides, there will be time enough for her to kill Tuk once we’re done with you. Who knows, perhaps she’ll even use your sword to do it.”
“She’ll have to get the sword away from me first,” Annja said. “And the truth of the matter is, I don’t think she’ll be able to.”
“I suppose Guge told you our theory?”
“He did.”
Vanya shook her head. “He always did talk too much. I should have had him killed years ago.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told him,” Annja said. “It’s not going to work.”
“How do you know?”
Annja shrugged. “Well, considering it’s my sword now and I’m the one who’s been living with it for years, I think I have a better insight into how the sword behaves than you do.”
“That may be true for some things, but one might also argue that you lack the perspective to see a possible means to separate the two of you.”
Annja nodded. “I’ll give you that. But what happens if this grand old theory of yours turns out to be one big mistake? What then? I’ll be dead and you’ll lose the only chance you have of getting the sword.”
Vanya crossed her arms. “That’s a chance we’re willing to take.”
“Wonderful,” Annja said. “See, if I were you, I’d keep me alive and just try different ways to get the sword.”
“You’re too powerful to keep alive, Annja. Surely you must understand that. If you die giving us the sword or if you don’t give us the sword, either way you will at least be dead and gone and no longer a threat.”
“I find it difficult to believe that you consider me such a big danger to you or to your government.”
Vanya sniffed. “What makes you think I give a damn about my government and all it stands for? Hasn’t anyone ever told you that all disputes in the world boil down to the smallest common denominator? And that denominator is money and power. That’s it. Show me any despot, any religious zealot, any tyrant—they all want the same things. Money and power make the world go around.”
“And that’s all you want?” Annja said.
Vanya checked her watch. “Five minutes, Annja. Five minutes to go.”
“Answer the question. Is that why you’ve done everything here? So you can set yourself up as some sort of power mogul?”
Vanya sat on the low stone wall closest to them and stretched her arms. “I have existed in the inner circles of male dominance in China. As a woman, I’ve been told I’d never get anywhere of import and yet I rose to a position of great power within the intelligence service. And I’ve been able to keep an eye out for other promising women so I can help them along, school them in the ways in which we will take power, and then keep them by my side when I need them.”
Annja glanced at Hsu Xiao. “I assume she’s talking about you.”
Hsu Xiao gave