Restless Soul - Alex Archer [65]
The flat of the blade hit his hand, sending the gun careering off a crate.
“Drop it!” Annja barked at a second man she spotted. She leaped out from under the opening in the ceiling, worried that she’d be as good as a sitting duck for the man up top.
The second man reluctantly lowered his machine gun, his gaze darting between her and his companion. Bullets rained down through the opening, and Annja edged farther into the chamber, all the while keeping her eyes on the two men. They stank so strongly of sweat and cigarettes that she nearly gagged. The light was better than on her previous visit—a tall battery-operated lamp was responsible, casting a fluorescent glow everywhere and making the beads of sweat on the men’s faces glisten.
“Drop it now!” she repeated. “Drop…the…machine gun…now.”
The man—the younger of the two—made a move to do just that. But it was a feint. As more bullets came down from above, he instead raised his machine gun, firing straight ahead and missing Annja by inches, but only because she’d sprung toward the cenotelike pool in the center.
“Idiot,” she growled as she circled around behind him, quick as a cat. She raised the sword high and brought it down, biting into his shoulder with enough strength behind it to break his collarbone. A second slash ended his scream and sent the other man to his knees, arms up in surrender.
“Annja Creed!” came a shout from above. “Show yourself!”
“So you can shoot me?” Annja laughed.
He muttered a string of expletives in English and Vietnamese.
“Where is Lou Ardo? Who have you told about this place?” He shuffled around the opening, poking his head down and cussing again when he was unable to see her because Annja had moved behind a stack of crates. “I’ll let you live if you cooperate, Annja Creed. I’ll lower this ladder and you can climb out.”
“You think I believe that?” she called back. “You probably have a bridge somewhere you want to sell me, too.”
The man who’d surrendered hollered something that Annja couldn’t understand. He shuffled on his knees toward the opening, and she guessed that he’d asked his boss to be let up. He hollered again.
“Shut up,” Annja told him. “And stay put.”
He seemed not to understand her and called up once more. Annja dismissed the sword, slipped out from behind the crate and reached for the dropped machine gun. She cocked it, and the man stopped shuffling.
“You might not understand my language,” she said. “But you understand this well enough.” She swung the machine gun to the left, as a gesture that he should move away from the opening.
He shook his head, spittle flying from his lips and his eyes wide with uncertainty. She gestured again, and he complied, though he kept looking up.
“Annja Creed,” the man up top said. “I could torture the information out of you. But torture is rather messy. Why not just tell me who you talked to? This is your last warning.”
Silence was her response.
“I don’t need to shoot you,” he continued. “You can starve down there. You can die of exposure at night when the temperature drops. No one comes up to this part of the mountain. No one will find you. Just tell me what I want to know.”
Again, she said nothing.
His venomous string of expletives echoed down through the opening. He fired another burst, rock fragments from the stone lip showering down and biting into the man who’d surrendered. He scooted farther away from the opening. Then it was quiet.
Annja heard a bird cry. A moment later a monkey screeched. But there was nothing else from the man above. An engine started, the sound faint because of the distance and the intervening rock.
“The Jeep,” she said. “He’s starting the Jeep.” But why not leave