Restless Soul - Alex Archer [66]
She looked to the surrendered man and the body of the man she’d killed. On the latter’s belt was a clip with several keys.
“Your boss isn’t going to get far in that Jeep,” Annja said. From the blank look on his face she knew he couldn’t understand her. “But you understand the gun. Thugs always understand guns.” She pointed the muzzle at him, then at a crate and then to a spot beneath the opening. “Move!”
He looked puzzled for only an instant, and then he clambered to his feet and stepped around the body of his dead companion, eyes lingering on the blood.
“Move!” Annja figured the other man would be back soon when he gave up on the Jeep. “Hurry!”
If he didn’t understand the words, he understood her intent. The crate was roughly a meter cubed, and he strained to push it under the opening. He looked to the dozen crates remaining and picked a smaller one to set on top.
There had been five or six times the number of crates when Annja was there before. They’d worked at a steady pace to move the goods. But move them where? At the far side of the cavern the teak coffins stood undisturbed. Fortunately, they’d not cared about those treasures, which Annja considered every bit as valuable as the gold Buddhas—more valuable in an archaeological sense.
He had a hard time lifting the crate and looked to her for help.
She shook her head. “I’m not dropping the gun,” she told him. Again, a blank look met her steady stare. “Try again. You can do it.”
While he struggled with it, she bent and retrieved the keys from the dead man’s belt, and then patted his pockets, pulling out a few business cards and a folded piece of paper. She stuck these inside her shirt, intending to look at them later when she was out of here. His other pocket was empty. No wallet or ID or any sort of a passport that would facilitate traveling across borders.
The man grunted as he arranged the second crate so it could serve as a ladder. Annja gestured for him to step back.
“What to do with you…what to do.” She sucked in her lower lip. “If I let you go up first, you might try to kick me or do something else to cause problems. You might holler and bring your boss back. If I go first, you might grab my leg.” She slipped close to him and lifted the gun. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth just as she brought the stock down against the side of his head.
Annja didn’t want to kill another one of them. She wanted them alive for the authorities to question. Eyes flitting around the chamber, she spotted a length of rope around a crate. She dropped the machine gun and unfastened the rope, and then used a length of it to tie up her prisoner. Adept at knots, she felt certain he wouldn’t be getting out of this anytime soon.
She checked his pockets, finding no ID, but pulling out a few business cards and a pack of cigarettes. The latter she dropped with disgust. Spotting the pistol, she snapped it up and thrust it in her waistband.
“Can’t afford to leave you a weapon,” she said. Then she struggled to prop him up against a wall near the lamp, and took a moment to examine the head wound she’d given him. His chest rose and fell regularly.
“I think you’ll be all right,” she pronounced. “Fit enough to serve a prison sentence.” A last look around the chamber and a moment more to disable the machine gun, then she started toward the coffins, wanting to see if the pottery was still inside them, but she heard the engine again. She climbed up the crates. Her legs ached, the right one still sore from where Doc had removed the bullets. She felt the stitches pull. The impact of jumping into the cavern hadn’t helped, and she wished she had taken the time to locate her boots before she’d left the Thins village.
She pulled herself halfway