Sunken Pyramid (Rogue Angel) (7 page)

Chapter 11

Detective Rizzo spoke louder into the mic again as thunder boomed. “I’m on I-94. We’re...oh, hell, I can’t read the mile marker for all this rain.... I’m approaching the Marshall exit. Copy?” He thumbed the mic again. “Copy? I’m in a blue Impala.” He put the mic back, placed both hands on the wheel and changed lanes again. “Don’t know if she heard me. Nearly out of radio range here.”

Annja tried to decipher the chatter on the radio, but it sounded like static. She shut the folder, slid it under her seat and craned her neck to see out the back window.

The Ford Explorer was the shade of gunmetal. There were two men inside, the driver tall, his head brushing the roof of the SUV, the passenger shorter, his face fully visible but the features barely discernable because of the rain and the wipers. He had on sunglasses—despite the gloom—and a Milwaukee Brewers baseball cap; she could see the logo because the Explorer was so close it rode the Impala’s bumper. The men had to be connected to all of this, right? The image of her sword appeared in her mind and again she almost had the sensation of the pommel in her hand. A warning? Intuition? She thought of Edgar, Gregor, Mrs. Hapgood, and her throat tightened. And the presence of Garin...that was disturbing, too.

“I don’t have enough of the pieces yet.” Annja hadn’t meant to say that aloud, thinking of a giant jigsaw puzzle. She needed more information to get a better idea of what the puzzle should look like when completed.

“Well, either they—or we—are going to be in pieces,” Detective Rizzo spat. “Unless the sheriff or state police get some units here fast.” He flipped on the Impala’s sirens, the light on the dashboard pulsing with an eerie bounce against the torrent of water. “If nothing else, this should get traffic out of our way. Don’t need anyone getting hurt.”

The Explorer’s front bumper slid up over the top of the Impala’s rear one and gave it a violent shove.

“Damn it,” Detective Rizzo cursed. He reached for the mic again. “Dispatch, I need those units ten-thirty-three. Copy?”

There was a squelching sound.

“Copy?”

“Oh, for...” He put the mic back.

Annja saw the Explorer driver smiling, big white teeth under a dark mustache; a shiver danced down her spine. She was about to offer the detective a driving suggestion, but then realized she didn’t need to.

The detective veered to the right, breaking free of the Explorer, and floored it. There was a stretch of highway ahead with no cars on it. There were, however, cars pulled over on the shoulder, the drivers waiting out the worst of the storm and observing the siren and lights.

Annja knew that driving in weather like this was treacherous, magnified tenfold by the Explorer’s maniac driver.

“They’re faster. Those SUVs,” he said. “Higher center of gravity. I should’ve taken one of the Crown Vics. I like a heavier car.” He jogged to his right, then left, the car spinning sideways, doing a one-eighty before he turned it around and headed straight east again. The Explorer slowed to keep the Impala in front of it. “Not enough fast, these sedans.” He slapped his hand on the steering wheel, cranking it right when there was a long gap between cars. “Not letting me get behind her, either. If I could get behind her...”

The Impala slid, water spraying up on the passenger’s side as if they were taking it through a car wash. Annja couldn’t see out the back anymore, just a glow from the Explorer’s headlights, and she barely made anything out through the front. She wasn’t immortal. She could bleed and die...and could very well do that here on a highway in Wisconsin. Again she saw the sword hanging suspended in her mind. But Joan of Arc’s blade couldn’t save her from this hellish car chase. What would happen to the sword if she perished here?

The Explorer rammed the Impala again. Annja’s head whipped forward, her chin hitting her breastbone and the seat belt digging into her chest.

“Good thing the air bags haven’t popped yet. We’d be toast.” The Impala roared forward, sending water flying in all directions, the tires barely holding to the pavement. Manny was as far forward as the seat belt and steering wheel allowed. The fingers of Annja’s hands gripped the dashboard, knuckles bone-white. She’d been frightened before so very many times, but this time she wasn’t in control of the situation. She could do nothing but sit back and worry. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and it felt as if her stomach had jumped up into her throat. Annja realized what an expert driver the detective was. She would be doing no better under these horrid conditions.

Actually, she was quite certain she would be doing worse and that she and the Impala would be scattered bits being washed away by the pounding rain on I-94.

He let up on the gas as they approached a low spot on the highway that looked as if it had a river running across it. Once through the deep puddle of water, he accelerated again.

“Where’s the damn sheriff’s department?” The detective reached a hand toward the mic and then stopped. The Explorer bumped the Impala again. He grabbed the wheel with both hands, but the Impala skidded at an angle, slipping off the highway and hitting the shoulder, gravel spitting against the undercarriage. He fought with the car and got it straightened out again and brought it back up onto the road. “Do you hear sirens?” he asked Annja. He flipped off the Impala’s siren. “Other than ours?”

“No.” She ground her teeth together. This time when the Explorer struck them, the Impala veered toward the left.

He turned his siren back on. “You got a gun, Annja?”

Why would the detective think that? “No!” Annja shouted to be certain he could hear her.

“Can you shoot?”

“Yes!”

“Well?”

“What?”

“Can you shoot well?”

“Yes!”

“Behind the seat. There’s a rifle. Can you shoot a rifle?”

He banked the Impala right and drew the Explorer into the left lane and away from the cars parked on the right shoulder. Annja undid her seat belt, twisted and reached behind the seat, fingers searching and finding a case. She twisted farther; her knees on the cushion, she reached over the back and unzipped the case, tugging out the rifle carefully.

She rolled down the window, the rain angrily hitting her face like hundreds of pinpricks, and leaned out, leading with the rifle and trying to get a bead on the Explorer.

“No cars here! Go for it!” the detective shouted, still pressed as far forward as he could manage. He took the Impala into the left lane now, drawing the Explorer to Annja’s side. “Shoot out a tire! Try not to shoot them. Too damn much paperwork if you shoot them! A tire!”

Annja took aim, holding the gun tightly, and fired. She held steady as the rifle bucked. Missed, but close. A spark of light showed she’d hit the bumper.

“Damn it all to St. Louis!” the detective spat as he struggled to keep the car on the road. At the same time he tapped the brakes, and the Explorer shot past them. “Finally,” he said. “Finally we’re behind her. Don’t drop that gun!”

Annja heard a siren. “There’s a—”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear it. Old, not deaf,” he quipped. “Oh, will you look at that—”

The Explorer had cut across the median and was swinging around to come up behind the Impala once more. So fast and reckless a U-turn the detective elected not to try to stay on its tail.

Annja regained her purchase out the window as the detective steered the protesting Impala far into the left lane. If the Explorer wanted to run them off the road, it would have to come up on Annja’s side again.

She was soaked, and her eyes were mere slits against the rain and wind. Still, she managed to focus just enough. One shot, the recoil and the wind nearly making her lose her perch. The second shot hit a front tire, but again she saw the wide white smile.

And the Explorer kept coming. Annja was ready for it, and despite wet fingers, kept a firm grip on the gun. She fired at the same tire. The Explorer came up farther on the Impala’s right. The detective turned the wheel hard into the SUV, and Annja fired one more time—on the mark. Its tire finally blew, pieces of rubber stripping away from the rim like snakes flailing madly.

The Explorer rocketed out of control across the lanes and vaulted over the shoulder toward the guardrail. The Impala slowed and slid to the side of the road, the detective pumping the brakes.

Annja heard the metal guardrail scream before it snapped and gave way to the crashing SUV. She leaned farther out the window to watch the vehicle carom down the small, steep embankment, the front end striking the bottom and causing it to flip at an odd angle, like a child’s toy tipped onto its side. The detective drove onto the shoulder and put on his flashers, the police lights continuing to pulse.

“Sheriff or troopers should find us now,” he said.

The sirens were louder and she caught a glimpse of flashing lights coming up behind them through the sheet of rain. Annja pulled herself back into the car just long enough so she could reach down and open her door. The detective grabbed the rifle from her and tossed it into the back.

“You never fired this,” he told her. “Understand?”

She was outside before him and sliding fast down the embankment, heading toward the Explorer, sword appearing in her hand. Had she called Joan’s legendary blade? Or was it reflex? No matter. Racing into trouble, it had joined her. The pommel felt good against her skin, the blade hidden in all this rain; she didn’t worry that the detective would see it.

The Explorer was lying silent. There was no sound, no movement. It took only a second before Annja smelled the gasoline.

“The fuel line!” she hollered, not bothering to look behind her to see where the detective was. The busted fuel-injection system must be pumping gas onto the hot engine. Spirals of smoke rose in the rain. “Stay back, Manny! Stay back!” In spite of the downpour a fire began. “Stay back!”

She ran what she judged to be a safe distance away and dropped to a crouch, mud oozing up around her ankles. From her vantage spot she saw the Explorer explode, the driver’s side door flying up as if it had been shot out of a canon. Pieces of glass flew through the air, glittering red with blood. Chunks of metal also flew, propelled like deadly shrapnel as the fire fought against the storm to eat through what remained of the SUV.

Annja had expected screams from the men trapped inside the fireball, but the crash and explosion had happened so fast. She hoped they had perished before the flames got them, though at the same time she was furious that she couldn’t get a close look at them, that she couldn’t have saved them and demanded they tell her what this was about.

She dismissed the sword. Her fingers fluttered over the tall plants and grass. There was something oddly pleasant in the sensation. She watched the flames lick at the metal husk, the rain batter everything. In the back of her mind she pictured Joan of Arc burning in fire.

Steam rose from the car and spread out over the field like a blanket of early-morning fog. She listened to crackles and pops, hisses, the tat-a-tat of the storm, to the siren...two sirens, three, four...that grew louder still and then stopped. In fact, it hadn’t taken the sheriff’s deputies and state patrol long to get here. Everything had happened so quickly.

Two lives snuffed out in a handful of minutes. She stood, the mud grabbing at her feet. Detective Rizzo huffed up beside her. Out of breath, he leaned forward and put his big hands on his knees.

“Too old for this,” he said. “Forget what I said about the sheriff being able to find us now. Aliens from space could see this fire. Too damn old for all of this.”

“But at least we’re going to get older,” Annja told him. “You’re a great driver, Manny. I thought we were going to get plastered on the highway.”

He nodded toward the burning car. “It’s going to be some time before we find out who they were. Dental records, stolen plates, all of it black.” He turned and slogged back toward the highway, his breath coming out ragged.

Annja watched the fire for a few more minutes. The rain was slowly winning out. She looked over her shoulder and saw the detective struggle up the embankment, pulling himself by grabbing onto vines and weeds. She waited several minutes more while he talked to the sheriff’s deputies and state troopers. Another state police car pulled up; six cars total had lights bouncing around through the gloom. Then, satisfied that gaining any information right now from the Explorer and the charred bodies was useless, she returned to the highway.

Surprisingly, the Impala hadn’t suffered a lot of damage.

She scraped her feet against a piece of guardrail to pry off the mud.

“I suppose we’re headed back into Madison,” she said.

“Yeah,” Manny replied. “Medical examiner is on the way. This is a crime scene, and that means we’re actually not going anywhere until we’ve answered a whole lot of questions.”

Annja overheard a state trooper on a cell phone talking to the Madison Police Department. “One of your officers, a Detective Manolito Rizzo, has been involved in a lethal-force incident outside his jurisdiction.”

“Oh, hell,” Manny said. “We’re gonna be here forever. I hate paperwork.” He pointed to the thick scratches on the Impala and the crooked and dented rear bumper. “Gonna have paperwork for this, too. A big damn tree worth of paper for all of this.”

Annja’s stomach rumbled, but she knew no one could hear it over the radio chatter and rain.

Chapter 12

A reporter from the
Wisconsin State Journal
was the first to arrive. His photographer was in tow, a thirtysomething redhead Garin thought attractive enough to approach...were the circumstances a little different. The reporter was immediately shooed out of the ballroom, which had been divided by ceiling-high accordion panels into three lecture halls.

Garin was taking it all in and watching it unfold. The conference organizer had established the rules. He wouldn’t let any reporters into the seminars—unless they purchased a full conference membership, and then they were to observe a modicum of professionalism. But they were welcome to remain in the lobby, hallways, the restaurants and the sidewalk out front, interviewing whichever conference attendees were willing to give them the time of day. The organizer himself declined to comment.

The
Journal
reporter went to work, hitting up one after the next—anyone with a conference badge—and taking notes, indicating who he wanted the redhead to get shots of. Garin had not yet put his own badge back on, and therefore was apparently not a viable target.

As the minutes ticked by, he noticed an unusually large number of cars and vans pull up. Local television reporters from the look of them, making sure each hair was in place and that they got as little rain on them as possible.

The logo on the side of a VW Beetle that stopped out front was small,
Althouse,
and Garin almost missed it. He found out minutes later it was a local blogger, as was the woman from
The Critical Badger
who arrived soon after. Young, thickset and dressed in browns, he mused that she looked like her blog’s namesake.

Something must have hit the scanners about the deaths at the conference, or maybe an item had appeared on the police blotter that caught the media’s hungry eye. It didn’t matter what had drawn them— Garin considered the very presence of the media inconvenient...and wholly to be avoided on his part.

Garin noticed that most of the archaeologists looked put off by all the media attention, several of them grumbling that it was ruining the conference.

A television news reporter announced herself to a hawk-nosed woman, who had apparently emerged from one of the divided rooms to see what the commotion was.

“I am Katrina Jacoby here at the Great Lakes States Archaeological Conference in Madison, and I am speaking this afternoon with—” She put her recorder under the woman’s hawk nose.

“Dr. Olivia Rouse.”

Garin took the staircase up to the second floor, stepping past a fresh-faced, gangly-looking reporter trying to interview unsuspecting guests. The newsman looked young enough to be delivering papers rather than writing for them. Garin was both amused and irritated by all the activity, and hoped it would go away soon. Ahead of him, a prudish-looking woman in her late forties held a notebook. He couldn’t tell if she was a reporter or with the conference. She opened her mouth to say something to him, but he brushed by.

He went down the hall, found the room he was looking for, slipped inside and put on his badge. A few minutes late, he’d missed the start of the session. He selected a seat in the last row as far from the door as possible. There were two speakers: the program listed them as a husband-wife team from Milwaukee who had just returned from France, part of a dig team from a small site.

Joan of Arc had been burned within a few miles of their Rouen workplace. Garin pinched the bridge of his nose; another memory he tried to unsuccessfully push to the back of his mind.

“She remains a significant figure to all of Western civilization,” the woman lectured. “The French, from politicians to clergy to writers, all invoke her name. Even our own Mark Twain—”

Garin studied the other attendees. He thought he might see Annja here, the topic hitting close to home. Perhaps she thought it all old hat and that this pair could teach her nothing that she hadn’t already learned on her own or from Roux or himself.

There were only two dozen men and women in the chairs, though the room could hold easily three times that many. According to the revised program, this lecture was up against seminars about Native Americans, Early Mississippi River Culture and Technological Tools for Today’s Archaeologists—perhaps topics more appealing to the bulk of the attendees.

Garin moved up a row, directly behind someone he vaguely recognized.

“Yes, our own Mark Twain wrote about Joan of Arc,” the woman continued. She hit a few keys on her laptop, and a scene from their small dig appeared on the screen. “We had the pleasure of working with French archaeologists just outside Rouen, where Saint Joan was burned at the stake for being a heretic.”

The rest of the speaker’s words did not hold Garin’s attention. He had known Joan personally, had served under Roux to protect her, and no matter how deep historians and archaeologists dug and researched, they would never be able to paint a true picture of the Maid of Orleans.

Garin leaned forward, tapped the man’s shoulder and whispered. “Are you Annja Creed’s cameraman?”

Rembert turned and whispered back. “I’m
a
cameraman. I wouldn’t call myself ‘hers.’ She’s not here. She’s down at the police station. You’ll have to—”

“I don’t want to talk to Miss Creed,” Garin returned. “I’d like to talk to you. I’ll buy you a drink. In the bar downstairs.” He looked at his watch. “Say, in two hours. Actually, let’s make it an early dinner, an hour from now.” There shouldn’t be much of a crowd in the restaurant then.

“I saw you talking to Annja earlier. You are—” Rembert’s voice rose a little too much and he drew a “Shhhh!” from a man nearby and a stern look from the speakers.

Garin turned his badge so Rembert could read: Gary Knight.

“I may have quite the story for you,” Garin whispered. He leaned closer still, so he could read Rembert’s badge. “I have something far more interesting than what the media circus is trying to ferret out, Mr. Hayes.”

“One hour,” Rembert said. “Sure.” A pause. “You’re buying, right? Dinner and drinks?”

Garin nodded and left as the picture on the screen changed to broken pots the dig team had discovered.