God Of Thunder

Checking the reflections in the windows of the nearby coffee shop, Annja watched the four men attempt to lose themselves in the crowd of pedestrians. If she hadn’t already made them, she knew she wouldn’t have noticed them.

“So tell me,” Annja invited.

“A man came into the store,” Nikolai said. “He showed me government credentials and claimed that he needed a package that was supposed to be delivered to you.”

The newsstand owner dealt with his clientele quickly. The line shrank faster than Annja wanted.

“What kind of credentials?” Annja asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look. They tried to intimidate me. Something with a photograph and badge.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Agent Smith.” Nikolai cackled. “I thought it was very humorous. I asked him if he’d seen The Matrix. ”

Nikolai was a die-hard science fiction fan. He spoke Klingon and was constantly trying to teach phrases to Annja.

“What did he do?” Annja asked.

“He was not amused. Then he threatened me. So I told him he had to have a court order before I gave any package to him. He didn’t produce a court order,” Nikolai said. “So I called the police.”

“You called the police?”

“Sure. I’m not going to play around with them. You get expensive things here, Annja, but you’re not the only client I have that does.”

“Right. So what did Agent Smith do?”

“What did he do? He left is what he did.”

“Did the police come?”

“An hour or so later, sure. Evidently my call wasn’t very important.”

“Did you file a report?”

“I did. But I kept your name out of it. I just told them that someone using government ID wanted to go through the packages.”

“What did the police say?” Only two people separated Annja from the newsstand vendor.

“Just to let them know if the guy showed up again. They really don’t like people jacking around with official identification and pretending to be police officers.”

“Have you seen him today?” Only one person remained in front of Annja.

“No. Why?”

The last customer moved off after buying copies of Time and Newsweek.

“Hang on a second.” Annja asked for copies of Cosmopolitan, Wired, National Geographic and People. If she ended up in some government agency’s interview room, it would be nice to have reading material while she waited for her attorney to arrive.

“Are you at the newsstand?” Nikolai asked.

Annja paid for the magazines and said thanks. Then she returned to the phone conversation. “Yes.”

Across the street, Nikolai peered through the Mailboxes & Stuff window. He had shoulder-length dark hair, beard stubble, a checked shirt under a sleeveless sweater and deep blue eyes.

“Do you see Agent Smith?” Annja slid the magazines into her backpack, two on either side of her notebook computer to provide extra cushioning. The backpack was built around an impact-resistant core case, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Nikolai scanned the crowd waiting for the light. “Maybe. He’s wearing different clothes today.”

Annja was aware of the four men closing in on her. “Who was the package from?”

“Mario Fellini.”

The name surprised Annja and took her back a few years. When she’d finished school, she’d worked at a dig at Hadrian’s Wall in England. The Romans had built the eighty-mile-long wall to cut the country in half, walling out the Picts.

Mario Fellini had been on the dig after completing a double major in fine arts and archaeology. He was Italian, from a large family in Florence, with four older sisters determined to marry him off.

During her time there, Annja had struck up a close friendship with Mario but it hadn’t gone any further than that.

Annja didn’t know why he would send her something. They hadn’t been in touch in years.

“Annja?” Nikolai said.

“Yes?”

“The light is green.”

Annja became aware of the pedestrians flowing around her, crossing the street. She stepped off the curb and continued across.

“Do you know this Fellini?” Nikolai asked.

“Yes. At least, I did. We haven’t talked in years.” Annja’s pulse quickened.

“Would he send you anything illegal? Like contraband, maybe?”

“If he’s still the same guy I knew, then no, he wouldn’t.”

“This is good,” Nikolai said. “Some of my customers, I’m not so sure. I try to stay away from trouble.”

“I know. I’m sorry you’re caught up in this.”

“You’re more caught up in it than I am. That is Agent Smith behind you and to your right.”

Great, Annja thought. She took a deep breath. “Is the package there at the store?”

“No. With all the interest in it, I thought perhaps I could arrange a more private delivery. I’ve got it put away for safekeeping.”

Annja smiled. “Thank you.”

“Is no problem, Annja. For you, anything. If you hadn’t gotten so famous doing that show, maybe you wouldn’t attract strange people, you know?”

Annja knew Nikolai was referring to Chasing History’s Monsters, the syndicated show she cohosted. During the trip to Florida she’d worked the dig site involving Calusa Indians. Although now extinct, the Calusa had been Glades culture American Indians who had lived on shell mounds.

Doug Morrell, Annja’s producer on Chasing History’s Monsters, had turned up a story of a ghost shark that protected the sunken remnants of Calusa villages. Annja had covered the legend of the ghost shark—which, as it turned out, most of the local people hadn’t even heard of—while she’d been on-site.

As a result of the television show, Annja had ended up being known by a lot of strange people around the world. Sometimes they sent her things.

“You remember the shrunken head the Filipino headhunter sent you?” Nikolai asked.

“Yes.” There was no way Annja was going to forget that. It wasn’t the shrunken head. She’d seen those before. The troublesome part was that it turned out to be evidence in a murder case against a serial murderer who had liked the show. That had involved days spent with interviewers from several law-enforcement agencies.

To make matters worse, in the end the investigators found out that the head shrinker had intended to send the head to Kristie Chatham, the other star of the television show. Kristie was known for her physical attributes rather than her intellect. Annja had to admit Kristie’s enormous popularity sometimes bothered her.

“That was a mess,” Nikolai sighed. “I thought I would never get the smell out.”

“I’m sure it’s not another shrunken head,” Annja said.

“I hope you’re right.”

Annja’s mind was racing. She was usually a quick thinker even under pressure. “Can you make a fake package about the same size as the one I was sent?”

“Yes, but why?” Nikolai asked.

“I want you to give it to me when I get inside.”

“Wouldn’t it be smarter to go to the police?”

“The police would drive these guys away,” Annja replied.

“That seems like a desirable thing to me.”

“They’ve made me curious.”

“You know what that did for the cat,” Nikolai pointed out.

“Cats are also great hunters. I intend to be a great hunter. I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.”

“Okay. I’ll get the package ready.”

“Make me wait on it for a few minutes,” Annja said. “I’ve got a phone call I want to make.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and put something in the box.” It wouldn’t do to lug around an empty box.

“What should I put in it?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Papers?”

“No. Something with some weight.”

“I don’t know—”

“Anything that feels heavy, Nikolai. I just want to fool them for a minute or two.”

“Okay. I’ll find something.”

Annja broke the connection and dialed another number from memory as she went through the door to Mailboxes & Stuff. The reflection in the door glass showed that the four men were close behind her.

They split up into two teams of two. Annja knew then that they were going to try to take the package inside the store.

She was curious and they were impatient. She knew it could prove to be a recipe for disaster.

2

“You’ve reached the desk of Detective Bart McGilley. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you. If you need immediate attention, please call Detective Manuel Delgado.” The recording gave Delgado’s number.

Standing at the counter in Mailboxes & Stuff while Nikolai went into the back to “check” for her mail, Annja dialed Delgado’s number.

Two of the men trailing Annja, one of them Agent Smith, entered the store and started looking through racks of mailing supplies. Nikolai kept an assortment of boxes, envelopes and mailing labels. Annja wondered what they would have used for cover if the accessories hadn’t been there.

Both men were intense looking. Their winter clothing could have concealed an arsenal. They never appeared to look at her.

“Detective Delgado.” The voice was smooth and Hispanic.

Annja switched to Spanish to make it harder for the men to listen to the conversation. “Hi. This is Annja Creed. I’m a friend of Detective McGilley’s.”

“I know who you are,” Delgado said. “Didn’t know you were a friend of McGilley’s, though. I catch the show every week.”

Terrific, Annja thought, a fan. She figured that could cost her a big chunk of believability.

“Seems like McGilley would have mentioned he knew you,” Delgado continued.

Maybe he’s not exactly proud of it, she thought. That gave her pause for just an instant. She couldn’t imagine Bart being embarrassed about knowing her. Then again, she couldn’t blame him, either. If Chasing History’s Monsters hadn’t opened so many doors for archaeological exploration for her, she would never have done the show.

Annja chose to ignore Delgado’s statement. “Do you know where I can find Detective McGilley? I called his cell phone number but got his answering service by mistake.”

“That wasn’t a mistake,” Delgado said. “Detective McGilley is in court today. He always switches his cell phone to his answering service when he’s on the stand.”

“Is he in trouble?” Annja thought back to the last conversation she’d had with Bart. They’d caught lunch at Tito’s and chatted briefly. Bart’s fiancée was pressing him to set a date for the wedding.

“No,” Delgado answered. “He’s testifying in a murder case. Should be a slam dunk, but the assistant district attorney wanted McGilley there. The ADA is one of the new batch of wonder kids the law school keeps churning out. She just needed a little hand-holding.”

“Do you know when you expect him back?”

“Soon. More than that, I can’t tell you.”

“All right. Can you give him a message?”

“I can.”

“Ask him to call me as soon as he has a chance.”

Delgado said he would.

Annja pocketed the cell phone. She’d exhausted the number of people she could call for help. In a way, that was sad. But then again, she didn’t usually ask for help.

A moment later, Nikolai came back with a package. It was about the size of a hardbound book. The address on the front was written in Nikolai’s hand, but Annja doubted the two men inside the store would know that.

“Thank you,” Annja said.

“Of course.” Nikolai gave her one of his patented friendly smiles. “Be careful out there.”

“I will.”

“The potato soup at Cheever’s Diner is good today,” Nikolai added as she walked toward the door.

Looking back at Nikolai, Annja couldn’t help thinking that the announcement sounded like some kind of spy code. She couldn’t believe Nikolai had just blurted that out. All that was missing was a big conspiratorial wink.

At the counter, Nikolai shrugged and looked embarrassed. “It’s warm, you know. It’ll take some of the winter chill off. That’s all I mean.”

Annja shoved the package under one arm, then walked toward the door. That was when Agent Smith made his move.

T HE MAN WAS SMOOTH —Annja gave him that. But he was working on the presumption that he was dealing with someone unused to violence. Most people would have frozen when a strange man grabbed them by the arm. An uninvited touch in polite society usually elicited a blistering look of disdain, followed by a command to release the arm or a demand to know what was going on.

By the time all that happened, it was usually too late for the person who was accosted.

Annja had expected the touch, had desired it, in fact, because it made everything easier. The move put the man in reach.

Gripping her backpack straps with her left hand, Annja turned inside the man’s grip. He stood flat-footed, never expecting her to turn like that. Or, at least, not expecting what followed.

Agent Smith opened his mouth to speak. Annja didn’t know what he was going to say. Maybe he was going to say her name, or maybe he was going to give her his fake name.

Before he could utter a word, Annja jerked a knee up into his crotch as hard as she could. He wasn’t totally unprepared, though. She felt the hard surface of a protective cup jar her knee with bruising force. Despite the presence of the cup, there was a certain amount of force that still communicated through the protective gear.

The man froze, not certain how badly he was hurt. Annja knotted her right hand in his coat and pulled him close. She head-butted him in the nose and heard it break with a loud pop. As he stumbled back, his coat fell open and revealed the pistol holstered on his hip.

Okay, Annja thought, that’s good to know. It was better to have the bad news up front. She stuck her foot between Agent Smith’s legs to hook a foot behind his, then put her shoulder in the middle of his chest. Agent Smith smashed backward into his partner.

“Help!” Nikolai shouted, going to cover behind the counter. “Help! Police!”

“Try using the phone,” Annja urged as she turned back to the door.

Nikolai’s hand came up and began feeling around for the phone handset while she bolted through the door. Agent Smith and his partner were already getting to their feet and grabbing for their weapons.

Outside, Annja turned right and ran. She knew the area well. Not only did she frequently walk to Mailboxes & Stuff, but she also jogged in the neighborhood and did most of her shopping there.

She took a firmer hold on the ersatz package as she lengthened her stride. “Excuse me. Out of the way. Coming through.” She pushed herself down the crowded sidewalk, jostling the pedestrians.

Most of the men and women shot her looks of indignation. A few of them cursed at her as only a native New Yorker could, and it would have taken a master linguist to sort out all the variations of the single-syllable word they used most.

Then they saw the pistols in the hands of the men pursuing her. Trained by the post-9/11 world, the pedestrians hit the sidewalk and wrapped their hands over their heads.

They also shouted, and the shouts caught up to Annja and passed her. In seconds, the pedestrians in front of Annja had hit the ground, as well. The sidewalk became treacherous with bodies, and there was no way she could lose herself in a crowd.

A gypsy cab with a Buddha swinging from the mirror and blaring Eminem braked to a halt at the curb. The driver hit his horn repeatedly, cursing at the traffic congestion that had gridlocked him.

Annja threw herself across the cab’s hood, sliding on her hip in a move made famous on The Dukes of Hazard television show. She hit the street on the other side of the cab and managed one step before she leaped again.

This time she sprinted across the next car. Horns blared behind her. The gypsy cabdriver shrilled curses at her, but shut up when he saw the men with guns. Annja used that sudden silence to mark the progress of the two men following her.

The other two men were across the street and tried to set themselves up on an interception course, running along the sidewalk.

By that time Annja was dealing with the oncoming traffic. It wasn’t as congested. The flow wasn’t moving quickly, but it was moving. Tires shrieked as the drivers in the inside lane tried to halt, but a New York City transit bus advertising the Late Show with David Letterman blocked her path.

Annja got her free arm up and used it to cushion her impact against the bus, slamming up against the Letterman photo. The bus never even slowed.

Whirling, Annja ran to the left. She figured the two men trying to intercept her would expect her to run to the rear of the bus and try to get around. Instead, she trusted herself to outrun the bus and the other two pursers.

She ran, breathing quickly, hoping she didn’t get a muscle cramp from the cold weather. A quick glance at Agent Smith and his partner showed them trying to negotiate the first lane of traffic that wasn’t stalled. Horns blared all around them.

Smith, his nose streaming blood, stopped long enough to yell to the other two men. He waved them back in the direction Annja had gone.

Annja’s thoughts ran rampant. Cold air hit her lungs like a fist. She’d gotten acclimated to Florida over the past few weeks, and the weather there hadn’t been anything like Brooklyn’s.

Going back to the loft is a bad idea, she told herself. She kept running. Then the side mirror of a flower-delivery van in front of her shattered. Pieces of glass scattered across the street. The sound of the gunshot followed immediately.

Panic spread over the street as some of the motorists tried to lock down their vehicles while others searched for a gap to make their getaway.

A limousine ahead of Annja plowed into the back of an older sedan. Immediately a man in a black business suit and wraparound sunglasses got out of the limo and dropped into a crouch. His hand snaked under his jacket.

Annja was pretty sure he was going for a shoulder holster. A shoot-out in the middle of the street was the last thing that needed to happen.

She jumped up in a flying kick just as the man’s hand cleared his jacket. The large pistol had a shiny nickel finish.

Swinging her left foot out, Annja caught the man in the forehead. His head snapped back and bounced off the car. He went boneless and dropped, out cold.

Thankfully, the impact didn’t throw Annja off much. She caught herself on her hands, prone on her stomach on the street.

Two car lengths behind her, Agent Smith and his friend had gone to cover, ducking behind the florist van. Seeing the unconscious bodyguard sprawled in the street beside Annja, they grew brave enough to shove their pistols around the van.

Annja vaulted to her feet and ran across the back end of the limousine. At least two rounds smashed the vehicle’s bulletproof rear window, leaving spiderwebbed cracks in the reinforced glass. The front glass of a coffee shop shattered. Patrons inside screamed and threw themselves to the floor.

Okay, Annja thought as she leaped for the curb. Now we know these guys aren’t afraid to use those guns.

She hit the pavement with both feet and stumbled forward. Knowing she had to get off the street and out of the sights of the two men, she raced for a nearby theater.

T HE THEATER WAS small, with an upper and lower screen. Decked out in yellow and red, the theater looked as if it were still in the 1950s when it had shown first-run movies instead of hand-me-downs that came out on DVD the same week.

The marquee advertised a couple of movies—one a horror picture and the other a new fantasy picture about a dragon. A line had formed at the ticket window.

Annja ran past them, slamming through one of the front doors. The box she carried absorbed some of the impact.

She was inside the building. A crew of early-twenty-somethings and a few teens worked the counter. The heavy scent of buttered popcorn hung on the air, mixing with the sharp stink of a cherry air freshener. Movie posters of the movies that were currently showing hung on the wall between the two bathrooms.

Barely breaking stride, Annja headed for the theater at the back of building. An usher in a red vest stood at the small podium reading a comic book. He looked up at Annja’s approach, then looked as if he was going to say something. By that time she was already past him, and the four armed men came through the door. People began screaming.

Annja ran inside the dark theater, cut around the corner that blocked the light from entering the viewing area and ran down the steps toward the emergency door at the back. She halted, framed by the screen as a band of warriors gathered on a rocky cliff. She looked back at the protective wall.

She knew she hadn’t left her pursuers, but she didn’t want them to lose her now. The idea of the four men searching through the theater crowd left her chilled. They needed to know where she was.

“Hey, lady!” someone yelled. “Down in front! Some of us are here to see the movie!”

The four men came around the protective wall, briefly backlit by the closing door. Agent Smith pointed his gun and fired. The shot rang out in the enclosed space, but it was quickly drowned out by the dragon’s roar on the film. On-screen, the warriors screamed and ran for their lives. Anyone watching would have thought the film was interactive, because the moviegoers did the same.

Annja turned and ran toward the lighted emergency exit as a line of bullets chopped into the wall behind her. Evidently the emergency factor compelling the men to seize the package was escalating. She couldn’t keep up the chase or an innocent bystander was going to get hurt.

3

Plunging through the emergency door, Annja ran out into the alley behind the theater. Potholes lined the street. Battered Dumpsters filled to overflowing stood resolute as old soldiers against the wall. She spotted some fire escape stairs to her right and headed for them.

Under the retractable ladder leading up to the fire escape, she leaped up and caught the chain, pulling the ladder down. The ladder clanked through the gears, then halted with a clang that echoed through the alley.

The noise drew the attention of the four men exiting the theater. As they turned toward her, Annja dropped the package she’d been carrying and climbed the ladder. She crunched her body from side to side, taking the rungs three and four at a time, one side pulling and pushing while the other reached for new hand-and footholds. Her backpack thumped against her back.

Agent Smith fired at her, and his aim had improved. One of the bullets hit the rung in front of Annja’s face. The round ricocheted with a shrill screech. Two more bullets jackhammered brick splinters that pelted her face and coat.

Annja didn’t look down. She looked up, focusing on where she wanted to go. Looking back or anywhere else would have divided her attention and slowed her.

Reaching the rooftop, Annja heaved herself over as a new salvo of shots chopped into the side of the building. She dropped to a squatting position, keeping her head below the edge of the roof.

The gunfire stopped.

Annja forced herself to wait. She reached into the otherwhere for her sword and felt the familiar hilt against her palm. All she had to do was pull and it would be there with her.

But she didn’t do that. The sword was only an option when she was out of all other options. Even Joan of Arc, who had first carried the sword into battle, hadn’t relied on the sword as anything more than a last resort. Joan’s words and actions had brought countries, kings and churches to heel at different times in her young life. Now that the sword belonged to Annja, she knew it carried with it a heavy responsibility.

Not hearing any sounds on the fire escape, Annja relaxed her hand and the sword faded away. Duckwalking farther down the roof, she cautiously peered over the edge into the alley.

Agent Smith had the package. He used a small knife to slit it open. Reaching inside, he brought out a Star Wars collector plate that featured Yoda.