Restless Soul - Alex Archer [67]
The man who’d taken off in the Jeep had returned on foot, his machine gun again pointed at her.
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He didn’t bother to ask questions this time, no doubt realizing she wasn’t about to give up Lu or any other information. He aimed the machine gun, snarled at her and pulled the trigger.
She dipped her head below the rim, feeling the bits of earth and rock pelt the top of her head from where the bullets chewed up the ground. One end of the rope ladder came loose, shot through, and she hung on the other side as it swayed precariously. The firing continued, the bullets ripping into the ground furiously, as if they were as angry as the man who fired them.
When they stopped, Annja didn’t pause. Quick as lightning she lifted herself up over the lip again and rolled toward him, seeing that he was jamming in another magazine. Vaulting to her feet, she put her head down and barreled into him.
Annja drew her right hand back into a fist and punched him in the face. Blood spurted from his nose as he fell back.
She followed, knees on his chest, left hand reaching for the pistol she’d stuffed in her waistband, drawing it and shoving the barrel under his chin.
He made a move to shove her off, and she clocked him again with her fist.
“You’re the one who needs to cooperate now…if you want to live.” She pushed the gun against his throat. Annja didn’t intend to kill him—despite everything he’d done, including admitting to torturing and killing Zakkarat. But she didn’t need him to know that. She dug her knees in harder, inadvertently cracking at least one of his ribs. She almost apologized.
“Tell me what this is about—the treasure…the trucks.” Some part of her realized that she didn’t need the information. She’d stopped the relic smuggling and captured the villains, salvaging a happy ending amid the tragedy of her Thai guide’s murder and the deaths of two Thins villagers. She could leave the questioning to the Thai authorities—let them track the treasure already hauled away. It was their country and their problem. Let them interrogate this foul man.
But another part of Annja needed to know. That part wanted everything tied up with a neat little ribbon. “I…said…talk.”
He groaned when she dug her knee into his side and pushed the gun against him with more force. She eased up only a little so he could speak.
“You are more than a television archaeologist, it seems.” His words were strained from her weight and his broken ribs. He coughed and grimaced. “Talk.”
“I’m only a part of this, Annja Creed.” He smiled then, the malevolent expression sending a shiver through her. “A sizable part, yes, but only a part. You have cut the tail off the snake, not its head.”
He said nothing else, despite her repeated questions and jabs with the gun.
“The skull bowl. Tell me about that.”
He shook his head and grinned wider.
“Damn it!” Annja pushed herself off him, further injuring his ribs, and again forced back an apology. She waved the gun at him, but he made no move to get up.
Bending over him, gun still threatening, she tugged a pistol from a holster at his side and flung it with such anger that it arced out of sight down the slope. Next, she rifled through his pockets.
No wallet. No ID. Nothing.
“Who are you?”
He kept smiling, blood from his broken nose spilling over his lip. He stuck the tip of his tongue out and licked at the blood.
She fumed and dug the ball of her foot into the ground, ran her free hand through her hair and got a good whiff of herself. God, but she stank, from the mud and the river and from the sweat. She needed a long, hot bath.
Had Luartaro reached the authorities? Were they on their way? Should she wait for them?
“No,” she said out loud.
He looked at her quizzically.
“I can’t wait.”
Maybe Luartaro was still groggy from the ox tranquilizer the retired veterinarian had used on him. Maybe he hadn’t reached the authorities yet.
She would take that task on herself, just to be sure.
Annja gestured with the pistol, and the man got