Restless Soul - Alex Archer [75]
Just for a minute, she told herself. I’ll just close them for a minute and maybe this headache will go away. Her temples throbbed, and her legs ached, but the pain wasn’t so bad that it prevented her from drifting off. She was roused by the harsh click of shoes against the tile floor.
“Miss Creed?” Peter Schwartz said.
She sat up straight.
“Here’s a computer you can use. We’re wireless here. The battery should have enough charge, but if you have any problems, just give me a holler and I’ll find the plug and an extension cord. I’ll be in my office.” Pete pointed to the open door behind her.
“Thanks, Pete. I’ll make a copy of everything for you. Provided there’s something salvageable to make a copy of.” She knew they’d access the computer when she was done, anyway, and retrieve whatever she sent and received. She didn’t care; she wasn’t doing anything illegal or questionable. She had no secrets surrounding this. They were probably watching her, too. A place like this would have cameras scattered throughout. And she could probably spot the cameras…if she cared.
“I’m interested in seeing pictures of this treasure you talked about.” He gave her a tired smile. “I suppose lots of people will be interested in that. Coffee? I’ve put a pot on.”
“Coffee? Definitely.” She nudged the only empty cup she spotted toward him. Annja opened up the laptop, a Toshiba with a good-size screen. Well used, the letters J, F, T and H were worn off. She was a touch typist and didn’t need them.
“You needn’t worry about all of this, Miss Creed. From what we can tell, you were the hero. Probably wouldn’t have had a problem going straight to the police department. But you were wise to take our advice and stop here first.”
“Just in case,” she said.
Pete grabbed the cup and walked away as the floor overhead creaked; people were walking around. Music filtered down the stairwell, a jazzy instrumental piece. After a moment she recognized Maynard Ferguson’s jazz-infused version of “Summertime.” She gingerly took her digital camera out of her pocket. Definitely ruined. Too much water, too much jostling around, and the bullet it had stopped had finished it for good.
She released a shallow breath, opened the catch and carefully extracted the memory card. “Please be good,” she said. She held it up to the light. It didn’t look damaged. “Here goes.” The card fit snugly in the appropriate laptop slot. Nothing happened for a moment, and she slumped forward and rested her chin in her hand. Then the screen blinked and a square appeared, asking if she wanted to download all the images, and if she wanted to delete them from the source when she was finished.
Yes to the first question, she clicked. No to the second.
The screen filled with postage-stamp-size images of her Thailand trip. The first were of the sky-blue bus she and Luartaro took to the lodge, then outside shots of their cabin and one of him picking at a local dish that room service had brought. She needed to call him—as soon as she sent some images of the skull bowl to the archaeology world. The next pictures were of the cave Zakkarat had taken them to, some dim because the lighting was so low and the shadows so deep. But several pictures of the teak coffins turned out remarkably well, showing the intricacies of the carving. Later pictures showed the ancient remains and the intact pots. Finally came the pictures of the treasure. Because the lighting was much brighter in that cavern, all of the shots looked good, though a few had hot spots where the flash bounced off the shiny gold.
“Summertime” ended and a new track began— “Conquistador,” a hard-driving, slightly shrieking piece that Ferguson had cowritten. Annja had a few of his CDs at her apartment in New York and was particularly fond of “Conquistador.” She had to concentrate on the pictures to keep herself from humming along.
“Buddha, Buddha, Buddha, crate, jewelry, Luartaro, skull bowl,” she said. She’d taken seven shots of the bowl from various angles, and these she enlarged