Cradle Of Solitude

She turned in that direction and carefully made her way forward, shining the beam of her flashlight ahead of her, searching for whatever it was. When she reached the wall she slowly spun in a circle, still searching, knowing that whatever it was had to be here somewhere.

It couldn’t just get up and walk out on its own.

There!

It was a heavy gold signet ring set with a dark colored stone. It was lying on the floor near the wall directly across from where they had found Parker’s remains and it was partially obscured by the collapse of several loose bones, which explained why she and the rest of Bernard’s team had missed it.

She kept the flashlight beam trained on it as she walked over, not wanting to lose sight of it, and then bent to pick it up.

She turned as she straightened up, ring in hand, and she caught sight of the dark form standing behind her. He was so close and it was so unexpected that she flinched back in surprise.

The move saved her.

The fist that came hurtling out of the darkness struck her on the edge of the jaw rather than in the center of her throat, where it would have crushed her larynx. Instead, the force of the blow picked her up and flung her backward, tossing her against the carefully piled bones lining the wall behind her. The whole mess came tumbling down around her in a hard rain, bones bouncing off her head and shoulders in an unyielding waterfall that threatened to knock her unconscious.

She knew if that happened it was all over, so she fought back against the grayness threatening her sight and struggled to extricate herself from the jumbled pile of human bones.

The scrape of a shoe against the stone floor let her know her attacker was moving toward her. She had seconds at best, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her and the blow to the head had her thoughts ringing like a church bell in a steeple, messing with her concentration.

Get up! her mind screamed at her, but it was like swimming against the current, her body not quite obeying the commands her mind was giving.

In the darkness she sensed rather than saw a dark shape bending over her and the sudden spike of adrenaline that poured into her system wiped away the haze.

Her right hand folded around the hilt of a sword that hadn’t been there seconds before as she willed it into existence from the otherwhere. She swung out with a savage yell like that of a falcon on the hunt. The sword slashed, almost with a mind of its own, and she felt it slice through the flesh of the man’s arm.

Blood splashed across her face and whoever it was howled in pain and drew back, giving Annja the time and space she needed to scramble to her feet. She kicked away the bones of some forgotten French citizens as she did so, wanting solid ground beneath her already shaky feet for the fight to come.

Ambushing a woman in the dark was one thing but fighting that same woman, now angry and armed with a sword she knew how to use with a finesse born of hours of practice, was something else. Rather than move in and press his advantage, her attacker turned and ran, his footfalls echoing off the stone around them.

Annja took off after him.

He only had a few seconds head start, and so she should have been able to catch up to him quickly, but her head was still pounding and the lack of a light source quickly had her steps faltering and slowing to a stop after only a few dozen yards. Getting lost in the dark was not something she wanted to experience, no matter how badly she wanted to know who it was that had followed her down here or why they’d attacked. Wandering for hours through pitch-dark tunnels until she fell down an unseen chasm or died of thirst was not on her list of happy endings.

In the distance, her attacker’s footfalls faded away to silence.

She took a moment to catch her breath and gather her thoughts. She realized, with no little surprise, that her left hand was still clenched tightly around the ring that she’d picked up off the floor.

Thank goodness for small favors, she thought.

Not wanting to lose it after all this, she slipped it into her pocket to look at later. With her hand against the wall to use as a guide, she made her way carefully back down the tunnel until she could see the thin beam of light from her flashlight spilling out of the entrance of the antechamber.

She stepped into the room, retrieved her flashlight and decided that she’d had enough excitement for one day. Sword still in hand, she cautiously retraced her steps back up to the subway tunnel and from there to the station itself. She kept on the lookout for any sign of her attacker, but didn’t see or hear anyone along the way. Before entering the station she released her sword back into the otherwhere, for coming out of a dark tunnel carrying a sword in hand didn’t seem like the safest way to reacquaint herself with the police officer on duty.

As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. The guard was nowhere in sight.

That’s not a good sign, she thought uneasily.

He wouldn’t have left on his own without being relieved; at least, she couldn’t imagine him doing that knowing full well that she was in the tunnels. That meant that something had happened to him.

He probably ran into the same bastard that I did.

If that was the case, he could be lying somewhere unconscious, perhaps even seriously injured. She couldn’t leave without looking for him.

It didn’t take very long. She found the police officer lying against the far side of the ticket booth, a thick trickle of blood leaking from the swollen lump on the side of his head. His breathing was steady enough, she was relieved to discover. Annja used his radio to make an Officer Down call to headquarters. When they asked her to identify herself, she broke the connection. The officer was starting to stir so she got up, and walked off without a backward glance. It wasn’t the most Good Samaritan–like thing to do, but all she wanted was to return to her hotel and take a hot bath to ease the aches and pains out of her muscles. She wouldn’t get that if she had to spend the next three hours downtown answering questions.

Back at her hotel, she had room service send up hot chocolate and some croissants. While she waited, she took the ring from the pocket of her jeans, cleaned it off and held it up to the light for a good look.

It was a man’s signet ring, just as she’d thought. The stone set in its face was a deep crimson in color that seemed to absorb the light rather than reflect it. It had been gently cut, with a beveled face and eight short sides. The gold itself was unadorned. She suspected it was Parker’s, but it could also have belonged to whomever he had been meeting there. There was no way of telling at this point. She slipped the ring into a little glassine envelope and then tucked it inside one of the zippered pockets of her backpack.

Her snack arrived, so she signed the check, locked the door behind her and devoured the food. Then she headed into the bathroom where she had drawn a bath. She stripped off her clothes and climbed into the water for some relaxation. She’d been going nonstop ever since she’d left for the dojo that morning and her body was telling her to take it easy or else. The hot water soothed her tired limbs the same way the hot chocolate had her throat.

When she was clean and relaxed, she climbed into bed and was asleep in what felt like seconds.

9

Given the type of activity that went on at the Museum of Natural History on a daily basis, as well as the priceless nature of some of the artifacts that were cleaned and restored within its walls, the lab there had a highly sophisticated alarm system designed to prevent unauthorized entrance to the facility. The alarm was the pride of the museum’s director, for he had spent nearly two years on the research and testing that went into selecting the product they had finally decided to install. It was, the manufacturer said, the best of the best and perfect for protecting a facility such as this.

The three men who entered the lab at half past two that morning went through it like butter.

The fact that they had the sixteen-digit code that was needed to render the alarm system inoperable made things a bit easier.

Once inside the lab, one of the men moved to the drawer containing Captain Parker’s remains. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t pull out any of the other drawers looking for the right one, but went immediately to his intended target, like a man who knew precisely what it was he was looking for and where it could be found. He opened the canvas duffel bag he was carrying and started placing the captain’s remains into the sack.

As he was doing so, his two companions were carefully scouring the lab for any trace that the long-missing Confederate soldier’s remains had ever graced the building with its presence. Papers, thumb drives, video cards—if it could possibly contain any information about the discovery of the dead man’s remains it was picked up and dropped into a sack identical to the first. Within ten minutes the three men had searched the entire lab and removed everything that might possibly contain any information relative to the discovery of Captain Parker’s body. When they were finished the leader gave a quick nod to the other two and what had once been a carefully organized search-and-retrieval mission turned into a free-for-all as they set about ruthlessly destroying everything they could get their hands on. Computer monitors were thrown to the floor and then stomped under foot. Desks were overturned and the contents of their drawers scattered throughout the room. High-tech spectrometry equipment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars was covered with foam from the wall-mounted fire extinguishers and then smashed with what was left of the desk chairs.

It became like a game to them, seeing who could cause the most destruction in the shortest amount of time. It wasn’t long before the room was practically unrecognizable.

Finally, their energy spent and their job complete, the three men left the same way they came in, with no one the wiser.

10

When Annja arrived at the museum early the next morning, she was met with a scene of confusion. Several law enforcement vehicles were parked outside the entrance and when she tried to use the temporary pass Bernard had given her to gain access, she was politely informed by a uniformed officer that she would have to wait.

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