Rogue Angel 51: The Pretender's Gambit (25 page)

His men spread out, moving quickly along both sides of the street. Their vehicles waited at either end of the block. They had already started to draw attention. Sequeira knew it wouldn’t be long before police officials came to inquire as to what their business was.

“Sir? I’ve found something.”

Sequeira spotted one of his men kneeling in the street. The man picked up a small object and held it out. He was too far away for Sequeira to see the object clearly, but Sequeira felt certain he knew what it was.

“She found the tracking device. She’s in the wind.”

Cursing, driving away pedestrians through the sole strength of his anger, Sequeira spun and searched helplessly for any sign of Annja Creed. Many people walked along the shop-lined street. None of them were Annja Creed or her companions. Sequeira felt helpless.

He’d lost. She had the Elephant, the Maze and her freedom.

His phone buzzed for attention. He peered at the screen, seeing the text from Brisa.

THORN HAS BREACHED THE MONKS’ COMPUTERS IN PHNOM PENH. WHEN NGUYEN TALKS TO THEM AGAIIN, AND HE WILL, WE CAN TRACK HIM. WE CAN STILL FIND THEM.

Sequeira smiled, and the deep hunger to kill ignited within him again. The hunt was back on.

Chapter 38

Behind the wheel of the Land Rover, Annja followed the tenuous, seldom-traveled trail through the verdant growth atop the Damrei Mountains. The range ran along the western shoreline of Cambodia. Annja and Klykov had traveled to Phnom Penh with Rao and been greeted by the monks of the temple Rao served.

While they had stayed there, the monks had been kind, giving their guests rooms to stay in and delicious meals to eat. Discovering the region where the temple was believed to be located had taken three days. Three days of hard searching through hundreds of maps by nearly forty monks and the hunt had become more tense.

Annja had guessed that Rao was forced to make a case for herself and Klykov to continue pursuing the temple because the elder monks hadn’t wanted them to be allowed involvement. Rao had reluctantly affirmed that when they had talked the night before they had left.

“They do not fault you, Annja,” Rao had told her. “They recognize your efforts and your cooperation with us, but the elders do not trust many people.”

Annja couldn’t blame the monks, either, but she had been happily relieved to know they were allowing her to participate in the rest of the search.

Rao had grinned at her then. “They also know that you will not simply walk away at this point, and that you would search for the temple on your own if you had no other choice. They would rather you were somewhere they could watch over you.”

“
Somewhere
being with you?”

“That was my suggestion.”

As suggestions went, being with Rao was a good one. Of course, there was the matter of the nine other monks that had accompanied them from Phnom Penh. Two of the monks rode with Annja, Rao and Klykov—who had refused to be left behind or go home, and who was proving to have an indomitable constitution.

The other seven monks rode in two more Land Rovers with the camping gear and supplies. They had come fully equipped and armed with ancient as well as modern weapons. As it turned out, Rao’s temple beliefs revered life, but they had no problems fiercely protecting their own when threatened.

Steadily, the caravan rolled into the dank heart of the mountains. So close to the coastline, the climate remained temperate and muggy.

Annja drove because she was more skilled with the Land Rover than Rao, and she led the expedition because she was a better judge of the terrain. The monk drivers had reluctantly learned that lesson when both of them had gotten their vehicles stuck while attempting to lead, causing the expedition delays that had added hours on to the trip.

As the grade grew steeper, Annja downshifted and the transmission groaned in protest. Even with four-wheel-drive, the tires occasionally grabbed hold of loose ground and spun out, throwing dirt and rock in vicious sprays. Klykov clung to his seat belt with white knuckles but didn’t speak. With wide eyes, he stared out over the broken countryside that plunged on the western side of the mountain ridge. Farther west, the Gulf of Siam gleamed in the afternoon sunlight.

Finally, after several instances of churning tires and grinding gears, Annja coaxed the Land Rover to the summit and pulled ahead to allow the other two vehicles to slide in behind them. She let the engine idle for a moment as she reached for the water canteen between the seats next to her backpack. The hot tropical climate drained moisture from them like a sauna. She drank deeply and searched the surrounding jungle for the landmarks they’d found in the Maze.

The histories kept by the monks were amazingly complete. Still, finding the right maps had taken prodigious effort. Matching them up against satellite imagery hadn’t taken quite as long to accomplish, but that had required a different skill set and they’d been aided by computer programs. The monks proved surprisingly proficient with technology.

Annja felt confident they were in the right area.

After she finished drinking her fill, she capped the canteen and put it back between the seats. Then she picked up the binoculars from her backpack and started searching out the next route.

“I think I see the mountain.” Rao sat in the passenger seat with another pair of binoculars.

“Where?” Annja asked.

Rao pointed and Annja followed his direction, spotting a familiar-looking mountain peak perhaps three miles away. The land looked much different than the Maze had portrayed it, but the tall precipice appeared pretty much as it had been depicted on the Maze model.

But the distance between looked almost impossible to cross, like landscape from another world. The jungle was an impenetrable wall of overflowing growth. Miles away in the distance, Phnom Bokor, the tallest mountain of the Damrei range, stood above the other spires.

“Is this the mountain we are searching for?” Klykov asked as he bent foward between the seats.

“I think so.” Annja pulled her hair back from her face and banded it into a ponytail. She put the Land Rover in gear again. “We’ll know soon enough.”

* * *

W
HAT
THEY
HAD
been calling a
road
played out over a mile from the mountain, growing steadily less apparent till at times Annja hadn’t been certain she was actually following it. But her navigation had been good and they’d picked up remnants of it short distances later on till it finally just became nonexistent. The going had been made harder by intermittent streams and muddy ground that remained almost invisible till they’d arrived in the middle of them.

Annja got out and saw to her gear and Klykov’s, while Rao and the monks divvied out what they considered to be necessary supplies. What they couldn’t carry, they left with the Land Rovers. In addition to her backpack, Annja carried a small bedroll and two-man tent, a chest pack with a week’s rations, water canteens, a medical kit and water purification tablets.

Klykov carried his own bedroll and supplies. He also packed two pistols and a Dragunov sniper rifle, a Russian weapon he swore he put faith in. He hadn’t had a munitions contact in Phnom Penh, but he’d had a friend of a friend who had.

Annja carried a 9mm Sig-Sauer and AK-47 because Klykov had gotten the weapons for her and insisted she carry them. She’d hesitated until Klykov had reminded her how dangerous Sequeira had been so far, and that the country they were in sometimes had bandit trouble.

Rao and his temple brothers hadn’t hesitated about carrying weapons either, though Rao didn’t seem as comfortable being armed. He was obviously competent with the rifle and pistol he was given, just not relaxed. The pith helmet he wore looked somewhat ridiculous, but it provided shade and a modicum of comfort.

Once everyone was set, they marched into the jungle with Annja in the lead.

* * *

S
EQUEIRA
LOUNGED
IN
short-tempered impatience in the air-conditioned comfort of the Eurocopter Super Puma. On the laptop he watched footage of the jungle expedition winding through the Damrei Mountains only a few miles away. The Super Puma was one of three that Sequeira had hired for transport to the site when he was certain Annja Creed had discovered the lost temple.

Each of Sequeira’s leased helicopters carried two pilots and twelve men, giving him a small army of gunmen ready to venture into the jungle to claim whatever lay in the lost temple. The drones used to watch over Annja Creed’s progress had been easy to procure, as well. Brisa continued to have amazing connections.

The hardest part for Sequeira was the waiting. The helicopter sat in a clearing near the Bokor Hill Station. The French had built the Bokor Palace Hotel & Casino on the site, flanked it with a small town to provide a necessary labor pool, then abandoned the whole lot during the First Indochina War in the 1940s, then left the site permanently when the Khmer Rouge took control of the area in 1972.

Had the casino still been operational, the waiting might have been tolerable, but the cramped space aboard the helicopter was claustrophobic. And the anger Sequeira felt over the way Annja Creed had managed to escape him time and time again churned through his guts.

Not this time
, he promised himself.
This time there will be no escape.

All they needed was the exact location of the temple.

He drank a chilled glass of champagne, never completely giving up the creature comforts he insisted on, and watched Annja Creed closing in on the mountain that appeared to be her destination.

Her final destination
. Sequeira intended to carve that on Annja Creed’s headstone and kick dirt over her body. Her death and the location of her grave would be one of those mysteries her viewers fawned over.

* * *

T
HE
STEEP
AND
treacherous grade of the mountain prevented a straightforward ascent. Annja followed the ridges carved into the face by wind and water, zig-zagging back and forth. She also insisted that they use ropes to keep the climb safe.

The monks were sure-footed, but not used to vertical ascents. Strangely, Klykov seemed to have less difficulty than the younger men because he made no assumption about the worthiness of a prospective step without first testing it.

Drenched in sweat, Annja worked steadily, pausing to hydrate and watch over the monks and Klykov, who all trailed in her wake. She checked the time on her sat phone against the approaching sunset.

“We only have a couple hours of light left,” she told Klykov and Rao. “We’ll travel another hour, then set up camp.”

Both men nodded in agreement.

Annja went back to the climb, searching for any signs of the hidden temple, but it looked as if no one had come by here in a long time. She chose to view that as a positive thing.

* * *

T
HREE
HOURS
LATER
, they sat in groups at the campsite around fires that burned low in the darkness. Protected behind brush and boulders situated to hide the glow of the flames, Annja sat with Klykov and Rao. The monks gathered in two groups around other fires and talked among themselves in voices that sounded more like songs than conversation. Annja envied them their language. She was good at languages, but she hadn’t learned much of the Cambodian dialects.

Although they had brought MREs in their packs, the monks had foraged as they’d walked to the jungle. The result was a nice collection of wild vegetables they’d used to make a hearty soup, also flavored with spices they’d taken from the local flora. Klykov had taken the soup, but he had wanted meat, as well. Annja had reminded him that the MREs weren’t known for their tasty choices and pointed out that the soup was fresh and hot. He’d eaten his fill.

Finished with her second helping, Annja scrubbed her bowl and spoon clean with a towelette and set them aside to dry. She cleaned Klykov’s and Rao’s bowls and silverware as well, then burned the towelettes in the fire.

With her back against a rock, Annja positioned herself so the glow coming from the fire played over her journal. She detailed the trip through the jungle in shorthand she’d learned and created for herself over the years.

“What are you writing?” Klykov asked. He capped the ibuprophen bottle he’d just taken capsules from.

“Notes, mainly.”

“About what?”

“Our trip. What I’ve seen of the mountain.”

“You’ve also been sketching.” Klykov extended a hand. “May I see?”

Reluctantly, Annja handed the journal over. She didn’t let many people look at her private thoughts, but Klykov had come a long way with her and been through a lot to be with her.

Klykov flipped slowly through the pages, taking his time with the ones that had images. “Why do you draw things if you carry a camera?”

“Because when I draw something, I feel it more than I do when I simply take a picture. Drawing is more…intimate.” That was the best she could explain it. She also liked to have two different views of important sites and artifacts.

“That is a very good likeness of you,” Rao said, nodding at a sketch of Klykov standing at the Seventh-Kilometer Market. The other page had a drawing of Fedotov. The man appeared even more bear-like in the image she’d drawn.

“I look old.” Klykov frowned for a moment, then he smiled up at Annja. “I am joking. I know I am old.” He laughed. “This is a very good picture of Fedotov. You should send him a copy.”

“When this is over, maybe I will.”

“
Da.
He would be very proud of such a thing.” Klykov returned the journal and lay back with his hands behind his head. His latest pistol lay beside him on a towel.

Annja worked for a little while longer on her journal, letting her mind wander. Even though it was dark, it was still early for her. Apparently it wasn’t too early for Klykov, though. The man was asleep within minutes and softly snoring.

Rao smiled. “He is tired.”

“We’ve been on the run since New York.” Annja put her journal away. “I suppose you have been, too.”

“Yes.”

“Are the monks posting guards?”

“Throughout the night, yes. We do not wish to be…surprised.”

“I’ve had enough surprises.”

“Sequeira is not a man to give up on something he wants. If we have not lost him, he will be here.” Rao fed small sticks to the fire.

“I think so, too. I can help with the guard detail.”

Rao shook his head. “The monks will not allow it. You are to be watched.”

“They’re still having trust issues?” Annja grinned to show she had no hard feelings.

“If you watch, you do not have to trust.” Rao folded his arms around his knees and looked relaxed. “This temple is important to them.”

“And to you?”

“Yes, but not as important as it is to them. They have been looking for it much longer than I have. I only hope that we are fortunate enough to find it.”

“We’ll find it,” Annja replied. “It’s out here.”

“How do you know?”

Annja paused, trying to think of the best way to put her thoughts into words. “I just feel it, Rao. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Then I hope in the morning you will feel your way to where the temple lies. The longer we take, the more time Sequeira or someone like him has to catch up to us.”