Restless Soul - Alex Archer [102]
Annja wouldn’t be returning to Chiang Mai right away, as she’d told Pete. She would stay in Hue a day or two, call the American consulate and embassy, contact Doug and beg him to send a second film crew here and call the various experts she knew in the field of ancient Vietnamese relics. She wouldn’t be able to see everything through, but she could put things in motion, and that would give her a better sense of accomplishment and closure. She’d done nothing illegal, save drive a Jeep from Chiang Mai that didn’t belong to her…and temporarily force Nang to accompany her. She would talk her way out of trouble—she was good at that.
Annja glided down the next aisle, seeing bronze jewelry dully gleam in her flashlight beam. She wanted pictures! She reached to her fanny pack as she heard an engine roar and gravel crunch. Someone had arrived out back. The pictures would have to wait.
She summoned the sword and hurried to the back of the shop, leaving her flashlight on a shelf. She’d meet them outside, refusing to risk even one relic being ruined in the fight that was to come.
And Annja knew there would be a fight. It wasn’t the police she slipped through the office to meet. Either Nang had summoned Lanh’s thugs or the alarm she’d tripped upstairs had called them. She stepped out the back door and clung to the shadows up against the wall.
Two men got out of a dark SUV, and a van pulled up behind it, turning off its headlights and disgorging four more men. Neither driver door had opened, so there were at least two more people that she couldn’t see.
The only light in the alley filtered down from a lamppost at the far end. It was nearly as dark as a cave. She couldn’t make out any details regarding the men, though her instincts told her they were well armed. They looked like moving splotches of black against the gray of the walls and the vehicles—shadows upon shadows. She stared at the man heading to the door she’d just exited. All she could tell was that he was bigger than her.
The man behind him started up the steps to Lanh’s dwelling.
Common sense told her she should creep along the wall and get out of there. The odds were too great and the visibility too poor. Alive and away, she could report what she’d seen and retell what had happened in the past few days.
But common sense was rarely Annja’s friend, and so she angled the blade so the flat of it was out, pivoting slightly. Her feet made a sound against the gravel that alerted the closest man. He stopped and stared at the wall, and she wondered if his eyes were more acute than hers and he could actually see her. But then the moment passed and he reached for the doorknob, and she swung the blade up with all her strength behind it.
Annja drove the flat of the blade against his neck, and he collapsed on the stoop, dropping something that made a metallic sound. He grabbed at his throat, hacking. She hit him again just as the man who’d started up the stairs retreated and called to the others.
Annja had managed to take one out without spilling blood, but she’d alerted the rest to her presence. The odds were five-to-one now, plus the two drivers and hopefully no more. Seven-to-one, she decided. She’d faced worse.
They shouted to one another in Vietnamese, one word in English ringing out and making her heart jump. Sandman. The van’s lights snapped back on and caught Annja in a midleap kick at the man who’d just come off the stairs. The heel of her right foot landed solidly against the small of his back and sent him forward into another of his fellows.
Though the light wasn’t bright, it momentarily blinded Annja, and she slammed her eyes shut as she planted her right foot and spun with a roundhouse kick that connected with the same man. She kicked him one more time and heard him drop, and then she opened her eyes to see two men pointing guns at her.
Her eyes better adjusted, she