Restless Soul - Alex Archer [64]
Lou Ardo? If she got out of this, she would tell Lu how badly the villain butchered his name.
“And you are?”
“My name is of no consequence to someone who will die soon…and who will die forever and never find heaven or hell.” He dropped his shoulder and the bag slid down, the straps catching against his forearm. “The old one taught me how to capture souls.” He balanced the machine gun against his hip with one hand and used the other to place the bag at his feet. “I will kill you, Annja Creed, and I will cause your soul to rot for eternity.”
A shiver raced down her spine at the notion.
“Then kill me, you thief,” she taunted, trying to get him to act in anger. She readied to spring into the tall grass. “Kill me and be done with this. Come on, get it over with.”
His fingers played against the machine-gun stock. “I’ve no reason to hate you. So quickly, yes, I will kill you, and likely without too much pain. Not as much pain as Zakkarat felt, I can assure you. Quickly…if you will cooperate first.”
“Cooperate? And if I don’t?”
“Then your death will be agonizing and very, very slow.” He grinned wider, showing uneven ivory-colored teeth, one of them with a gold edge. “The manner of your demise matters not to me, Annja Creed. Your slow death would amuse me.”
“Cooperate? So I can more quickly rot for eternity?”
In the silence that stretched between them Annja measured him. His hands were calloused and dirt was thick under his fingernails. That gave him the look of a laborer, though she suspected he wasn’t. He acted more like a thug who had dirtied himself hauling treasure—that was how he gained all the calluses, from his skin rubbing against the crates. Only a hint of stubble on his face, his hair was short and styled, though it was greasy from not being washed recently. Perhaps he was a businessman who worked in an office…when he wasn’t smuggling. Like the others he wore dark clothes, but his were green, so deep that at a distance they had appeared black. His shoes looked expensive.
She listened to his breathing, which was loud and had a slight rattle to it. A smoker? The one who’d left behind the crumpled cigarette packs? She heard movement in the cavern behind and below her.
“Yes, cooperate, the famous Annja Creed. Perhaps I will only let your soul rot for a decade or two.” Again the forced laugh. It sounded like nails dragging against a blackboard.
She took a step back, her heel bumping up against one of the stakes that held the rope ladder.
“I want to know where you went, Annja Creed, after you left my trove and ran down the mountain yesterday. Where did you go? And who did you tell about my…acquisitions? And where is Lou Ardo?”
“He is where you won’t find him,” she answered.
“I am a resourceful man.”
“Resourceful enough to stash your ill-gotten wealth in a mountain,” she said. “And resourceful enough to get some vehicles here fast to retrieve it.” She paused. “Since you intend to kill me, anyway, why not tell me what this is all about. Where did all of the gold come from?”
“And where is it going?” he said.
She nodded.
“I told you I was educated in America. I grew up on James Bond films.” He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. “All the villains revealed their plans, lording it over James Bond, who was trussed up to some torture device. He always escaped.”
“You worry that I’ll escape?” She gave him a petulant expression. “You’ve got a gun on me.”
“I am not a James Bond villain. I am not a villain at all—just a businessman, an opportunist, who made fortunate alliances so he could make a fortune. I do not need to explain my plans to an archaeologist who stars in a silly television program.” He steadied the stock of the gun against his stomach. “And no, I do not worry that you will escape. Now tell me, Annja Creed, where did you go yesterday? Who did you talk to?” He made an exaggerated motion of laying his finger farther across the trigger. “Where is Lou Ardo?”
“He’s beyond your reach.” She took another step back and dropped into the opening, knees bent and hands forward at waist height,