Mystic Warrior

“Wait.” Krauzer held his hands up. “Just hold on. You’re throwing too much information out too fast. Who are the Merovingian kings?”

Before Annja could answer, the room’s main door opened and two armed men strode inside. They wore black clothing with abbreviated Kevlar armor and carried H&K MP5 machine pistols with thick sound suppressors. Dark eyed, the men looked related, but one of them was easily ten years older than the other. He was clean shaven with a well-kept mustache, while the other man had deliberate scruff. Both moved economically, spacing themselves out so they commanded the room.

“Put your hands in the air,” the older man commanded. His accent echoed faintly of French.

Not having any options, Annja did as she was told.

6

“Fox Leader, this is Fox Six.”

Moving quickly through the dim college hallways, Ligier de Cerceau carried his machine pistol in both hands. Adrenaline surged through him as he waited for his companion to unlock the classroom door they stood in front of.

“You have Fox Leader.”

“I have the packages in sight.”

De Cerceau stepped into the empty classroom, flicked on the bright light attached to the machine pistol and surveyed the space. Only tables and chairs occupied the space other than a lectern at the front of the room.

“Are the packages in good shape?” De Cerceau pulled back out into the hallway and took his smartphone from inside his jacket. The Kevlar body armor made the task more difficult, but he managed. He pressed the friend app and watched as the red pins popped up onto the screen to mark the locations of his men.

Twelve of his men roamed through the college of history, and all of them were dangerous, hard men. He’d handpicked each man for his core unit.

“The packages are in excellent shape,” Georges Dipre answered.

“Keep them that way.” De Cerceau gestured to the man beside him to proceed. “I’m on my way to your location now.”

He followed the other man, both of them as quiet as shadows as they drifted through the silent halls.

* * *

STANDING BESIDE ORTA, Annja watched the two men who were holding them prisoner. Their movements were precise and methodical. Professional soldiers, she realized.

“What do they want?” Krauzer whispered.

“The crystal,” Orta answered. Either he spoke French, too, or his native language was close enough that he had no problem following the rapid-fire conversations between the men and the person they were talking to at the other end of their communication units.

Annja had already discerned their interest and hated her helplessness.

“You can’t have the crystal!” Krauzer took a step toward the men. “I need that in my movie.”

“Stay back,” the older man commanded. He squeezed a quick burst from his machine pistol and, while the thick suppressor on the end of the weapon kept the noise quieted, the bullets ripped into the wall at the other end of the room, tearing divots and smashing through framed pictures.

“Okay, okay!” Krauzer dropped to his knees on the floor and held his hands up in surrender.

“Deal with that idiot,” the older man said in French.

The younger man put a knee in Krauzer’s back, pushing the movie director forward as he pulled a zip tie from a thigh pocket.

For a moment, the older man’s attention was diverted as he watched his companion and talked to other members of his group. Partially blocked from the man’s sight and standing to the right of the man handling Krauzer, Annja reached for the thick ceramic plates Orta had brought for their dinner. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the top plate and hurled it in a discus throw, spinning and getting her weight into the effort.

The older gunman brought his weapon to bear and fired a short burst that sliced through the air above Annja’s head as she ducked. Spinning, the heavy plate struck the gunman in the throat and knocked him backward.

Shifting his attention from Krauzer to Annja, the second gunman tried to spin to cover her. Balanced on both hands and one foot, Annja shot her other foot out and caught the gunman in the chest and arm, driving him back toward the table. His head struck the table’s edge with a hollow thump and his eyes slid up so that only the whites showed as he toppled to the floor.

Still in motion, aware that the older gunman had been only momentarily put off, Annja stood and reached for the second plate. She held the plate at the end of her arm like a tennis racket and swung it into the surviving gunman’s face in a backhand swing as she spun.

The plate shattered across the man’s grizzled features and shards exploded in all directions. Blood streamed from the man’s broken nose and a deep cut on one of his cheeks. Unconscious, certainly concussed, the man sank to the floor.

Annja knelt over the man and quickly went through his pockets but found nothing that identified him. A demanding voice spoke over the walkie-talkie the man wore over his shoulder.

She looked at Krauzer and Orta, both of whom stared at her in shock. “There are more coming,” she told them.

“For my crystal?” Krauzer sounded amazed.

“Get it and get moving,” Annja ordered as she took the man’s machine pistol and recognized it as one she was familiar with. She dumped the partially expended magazine and shoved in a fresh one taken from the man’s tactical gear.

Krauzer stood slowly, moving as if he was in a daze. He started at the blood pooling around the gunman’s head. “Is he dead?”

“No.” Annja stood and slung the machine pistol over her shoulder. She listened for footsteps out in the corridor. She didn’t hear anything, but she’d noticed the thick soles on the gunmen’s boots. The team would be moving quietly.

“This is stupid crazy,” Krauzer announced. He wiped his face.

Annja shoved him into motion. “Grab the crystal. Let’s go.” She was happy to see that Orta was already putting the manuscript sheets back in their protective case. Grabbing her backpack, Annja quickly packed her gear into it and pulled it on. She tried to think of how much time had passed and knew that she had no clue.

Orta looked at her. “There are more of these men?”

“Yes.” Annja pulled the ear-throat mic into place and clipped the walkie-talkie to the ammo belt. A deep, controlled voice spoke at the other end, demanding that Fox Six reply. She ignored the command and nodded to Orta. “You know the campus layout. Which way is the quickest way out?”

“Follow me.” Orta headed to the back door.

Krauzer had the crystal wrapped in one arm like an oversize football and was reaching for the other machine pistol lying on the floor.

Taking a quick step, Annja kicked the weapon under the table and out of Krauzer’s reach.

He whirled on her, his features taut with rage and fear. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to keep us alive,” Annja said. “You’re a director, not a commando.”

“And you think you’re some kind of action hero?”

Annja glanced at the two unconscious attackers. “I’ve got experience with this sort of thing.”

“I can shoot! Two guns are better than one.”

“Are you coming?” Annja asked as she jogged toward Orta at the back door.

Krauzer started to go around the table, but another gunman slid into place out in the hallway.

The radio came to life in Annja’s ear. “Fox Leader, Fox Six is down. The woman has a weapon.”

“Kill them,” the deep voice ordered. “Do not harm the crystal.”

Annja lifted the machine pistol and aimed. Then she fired off three short bursts. Bullets hammered the door frame, throwing splinters out into the hallway, and they struck the gunman, knocking him down. Annja didn’t know where the man was hit and knew she didn’t have time to confirm his condition.

After fumbling with the back door, Orta opened it and stuck his head outside. Then he yelped and pulled back inside the room just ahead of a salvo of bullets that ripped into the doorway and outside wall.

Grabbing the man’s arm, Annja pulled him back from the door, squatted and snaked around the door frame. Two men held the hallway, one positioned on either side, with their machine pistols at the ready. As Annja leaned out, one of the gunmen broke cover and rushed toward them.

Annja brought up the machine pistol and fired at almost point-blank range. The gunman managed to get off another burst that burned the air beside her. Her bullets stitched the man from his chest to his face.

She forced herself not to think about what she’d just done. She didn’t have time. She stepped into the guy and gripped his bloodstained tactical vest with her free hand.

Leaning into him, guiding his slow fall by partially supporting his weight as he went down, Annja aimed at the other gunman in the hallway and fired a burst that scored the wall above his head. She corrected her aim as the dead man sagged on her, careful not to let his weight trap her.

The other gunman fired his weapon, either knowing his partner was dead from the blood pooling on the floor or not caring if the other man survived. Bullets thudded into the corpse, some of them burrowing into the tactical armor and some biting into flesh.

Ignoring the vibration of the bullets’ impacts and the grisly weight of the dead man, Annja fired again, emptying her weapon in two short bursts. Tossing the weapon away, she scrambled from beneath the falling dead man, slipped in his blood and recovered as she stripped his weapon from his hand.

Landing on her knees, Annja brought up the new weapon and hoped that the dead gunman hadn’t emptied it during his charge. As she centered the machine pistol on the surviving attacker, the gunman collapsed to the floor. She was on her feet immediately.

When she paused over the second man, Annja dumped the magazine in her weapon and grabbed a fresh one from his gear. She glanced back at Orta and waved him on.

“Fox Nine,” the deep voice called over the radio. “Report. Report!”

The tinny echoes of tactical gear jangling in the hallway reached Annja’s ears and her pulse accelerated. Orta reached her, looking pale.

“Where?” Annja asked as she stood.

Behind the professor, Krauzer spoke rapidly on a cell phone.

“Two corridors ahead, there’s a door that will let us out of the building,” Orta said.

“We can’t leave the building,” Annja replied. “Not yet. Whoever’s after us, you can bet they have someone watching the exterior of the building.” From the professionalism of the gunmen, she suspected there would be snipers.

What was it about the crystal that had drawn attention like this? She had no clue. Yet.

“We need somewhere we can hide,” Annja said, focusing on Orta. “Somewhere safe.”

“Sure, sure.” Orta nodded. He glanced at the elevator farther down the hallway. “The elevator’s there.” He pointed.

“Stairs,” Annja said.

“Next to the elevator.”

Annja took the lead, sprinting down the hallway and reaching the doorway. She paused long enough to peer through the safety glass and saw no one in the dark stairwell. As soon as she stepped through, the lights came on. She pulled the machine pistol into position and stared up the steps.

“It’s automatic,” Orta said. “They’re on timers to conserve electricity.”

The lack of lighting until now also meant that no one was in the stairwell. Annja felt a little safer because of that and led the way up the stairs. At the landing, pausing to make certain the way was clear, she checked on her charges and saw Krauzer putting away his phone.

“Did you get hold of the police?” Annja asked.

“Better than that,” the director said. “I’ve got a package plan with Sabre Race.”

“What’s that?”

“Not what. Who. He’s the best protection guy there is in Hollywood. And I’ve got him on speed dial. He’ll be here in minutes.”

Anger rushed through Annja. Calling in an outsider was only going to complicate things.

The doorway on the floor below was just starting to open. Setting aside her feelings, she leveled the machine pistol and waited as she waved Orta and Krauzer forward.

7

“You have beautiful hands, Sabre. Strong hands. With so much history in them.” The woman clung possessively to Sabre Race’s hand, pulling it close to her breast.

She was five feet nine inches tall, six inches shorter than Sabre, with coal-black hair cut in a bob that hung to her sharply defined jawline. Her bangs hung over her plucked eyebrows and shadowed her violet eyes. The black dress left her toned shoulders bare, showing off her dark brown skin and a hint of cleavage.

“You simply must let me tell your fortune one day.” Her voice carried the spice of the Caribbean in her words. Seated at a private table inside the club, she drew the attention of every male in the room and a good number of the females.

“I would love to,” Sabre said, “but tonight is not the night. I have to leave.”

She released his hand and drew back with a pouty smile. Her name was Tessanne Evora and she was reputed to be one of the best fortune-tellers in LA.

“Are you playing hard to get?” she asked him with hooded eyes.

Enjoying the game, Sabre gave her a small smile that he knew was charming because he’d worked on it. He was fit and in his early thirties. He worked hard on his look. Everyone in LA did. It was all part of the package, and presentation was everything. “Another time,” Sabre promised, “and I would be all yours.”

“Who is claiming your attention this evening?”

“A client in Santa Barbara. But I will definitely see you again.” He palmed a business card from his jacket sleeve, held up his empty hand and flicked the card into view with a flourish. “Soon.”

Tessanne smiled in delight as she took the proffered card. “You do magic, as well.”

“Small things. I lack the skills that you have.” Sabre’s smartphone rang. Only important calls came through to that phone, so he took it out of his jacket pocket and glanced at the screen.

STEVEN KRAUZER CODE RED

I’M OUT FRONT

“Is there a problem?” Tessanne asked.

“A pressing matter,” he replied as he put the phone back inside his jacket. He stood and tapped the business card she was still holding. It held only his name and his private cell. “Not everyone has that number. Call me.”

“I will.”

Sabre nodded and headed for the door, sweeping effortlessly between the club clientele and the servers.

Out on the street, Lajos Meszoly sat at the wheel of a black Mercedes G-Class SUV. Sabre sprinted through the valet lines, dodging new arrivals, departing guests and parking attendants. When he reached the vehicle, he slid into the passenger seat. Meszoly punched the accelerator and sped through the traffic.

“What have we got?” Sabre shucked off his suit and tossed the clothes into the back, where two other armed men sat. He pulled on the combat suit that hung at the ready in the vehicle. Tucking the black pants inside calf-high military boots, he tugged a fitted black sweatshirt over his head. He straped on the Molle tactical gear.

“Krauzer says he’s trapped inside USC campus,” Meszoly replied calmly as he blared his horn and rolled through an intersection on a red light. Traffic on both sides of the intersection halted and honked back at him.

“College?”

“Yeah.” Meszoly was a thickset man in his early thirties. He and Sabre had been together for the past six years, both of them having been contractors in Afghanistan before starting up the protection business in Hollywood. Meszoly’s head was shaved and he kept his face clean, as well. Except for his size, he was instantly forgettable, and he knew how to dress that down, too. That skill made him valuable in close-cover situations. This night he was outfitted with body armor and weaponry.

“Wouldn’t have figured Krauzer for college,” Sabre said. “Is he shooting there?”

“He didn’t say. What he did say was that guys with guns were chasing him down. Him and his elf-witch crystal.”

Sabre shoved an FN Five-seveN pistol into the holster at his hip. “Elf-witch crystal?”

Meszoly shrugged and said, “Hold on,” right before he performed a rubber-shredding left turn. “I don’t think he’s being chased by elf witches.”

“Good, because I forgot my fairy dust.” Sabre glanced at the GPS screen at the center of the console. “Did he mention who was chasing him?”

“Says he doesn’t know.”

“Krauzer is there alone?”

“He has two people with him. A professor and a woman named Creed.”

“Should I know her?” Sabre made an effort to keep up with rising stars in the city, but that was difficult.

“She does cable television.”

“How many people are on-site?”

“The way Krauzer tells it, a small army.”

“Right.”

“Krauzer had a run-in with a biker earlier in the day,” Dyson spoke up from the back.

Sabre glanced into the mirror on the back of the sun visor in front of him. Dyson was one of the young guys, a Marine veteran of Afghanistan.

“The guys hunting Krauzer are bikers?”

“I don’t know. I caught the story on the internet. Krauzer didn’t call, so I didn’t follow up. He usually only has us out when he’s got a new release.”

“And this is over an elf-witch crystal.” Sabre shook his head.

“Krauzer also mentioned something about Merovingian kings,” Meszoly said, “but that got garbled up in gunfire, so maybe I’m wrong about that.”

The mention of the Merovingians sent a jolt of electricity through Sabre. All of the old stories his father had told him came pouring out of his memory, the stories that had been handed down for generations.

Bottling his excitement with the professionalism he’d learned over the years, Sabre looked at the GPS screen again and the red line to USC that had gotten drastically shorter. “How far out are we?”

“Two minutes.”

“Other teams are en route?”

“Two other cars. Eight more guys. If we pull any more, we’ll be leaning out other ops. Want me to do that?”

“No. Twelve of us are a small army.” Sabre reached to the back of the vehicle and Dyson slid an M4A1 into his hands.

How could Krauzer have gotten involved in the Merovingian legends?

8

“Give me an update.” Ligier de Cerceau skidded to a stop at the doorway to the stairwell his quarry had entered. One of his men lay across the doorway threshold, holding the door partially open. Bullet holes showed in the glass viewing section and shards lay scattered in the hallway, telling him at once the bullets had come from within.

“We don’t have access to the security cameras, Colonel,” Gerard Malouel said. He’d remained with the vehicle out in the parking lot so he could monitor the insertion and capture. “I’ve got two helicopters in the air.”

As he leaned against the wall near the stairwell doorway, de Cerceau heard the drumbeat of one of the helicopters’ rotors overhead.

“They’re searching the building, lighting it up with spotlights,” Gerard went on. “One of them is switching over to thermographic systems. We should know more in another minute or two.”

“Have the police been alerted?” De Cerceau hadn’t detected any alarms that had been set off inside the building, but there could be a silent warning system.

“Affirmative. They’re en route.”

De Cerceau cursed, knowing they were running out of time. “If we’re not done here soon, we’ll need to slow them down.”

“We’re already preparing for that. This is going to get messy.” Gerard’s tone remained neutral, but he was unhappy. He wouldn’t have mentioned the potential problem if he hadn’t been disconcerted.

De Cerceau gazed down at the dead man in the doorway. “It’s already gotten messy. We’ve got four dead and one wounded. Almost half the team down.” Because of one lone woman. That was something he couldn’t believe. The first man might have been careless in approaching the people they were after, and perhaps even the second man. But there was no way this many would have been lost through carelessness. Reading the combat situations they’d been engaged in, de Cerceau knew that someone with Krauzer was used to military operations. He cursed.

“Yes, sir.”

Two men closed on de Cerceau’s position, stepped into position against the wall and waited for his orders. The remaining three gunmen held the other end of the building and were advancing up the stairwell there.

Holding the machine pistol tight against his shoulder and aiming it up the stairs, de Cerceau stepped across the dead man and into the stairwell. The enclosed space trapped the stench of death and cordite. He held his position and listened.

Farther up the stairwell, footsteps and quiet voices echoed for just a moment. Then a closing door shut them away. De Cerceau headed up the stairs with the machine pistol leading the way. The dead man behind him had been caught unaware. De Cerceau didn’t intend for that to happen to him. He took the stairs two at a time, his forefinger resting on his weapon’s trigger.

* * *

AS SOON AS he stepped through the stairwell doorway, Krauzer took off down the hallway to the left. The lights came on just behind him as the automatic systems cut in, making him look as if he was leading the charge against the darkness.

Annja kept pace with Orta. “What rooms are this way?” She slid a fresh magazine into the machine pistol.

“Classrooms.” Orta sounded out of breath. He was in good shape, but adrenaline had to be wreaking havoc on him. “Alcoves for the graduate assistants. A research archive. The graduate dean’s office.”

“The research archive sounds big enough to hide in.” She matched Orta stride for stride as they followed Krauzer down the hallway. Glancing at the windows, she realized that the lights reflected from the large windows along the hallway made seeing outside difficult.

Still, she was able to spot the helicopter’s red running lights as it dropped to hover just outside the building. Shoving a leg out, Annja tripped Orta and grabbed his shirtsleeve, pulling him to the ground hard and falling on top of him. As they skidded along the marble tiles, a burst of heavy machine-gun fire chewed through the windows in a ragged line.

Annja threw her arm over her head to protect herself. The helicopter’s whirling rotor noise suddenly rose to a deafening roar inside the hallway.

“Stay down,” she told Orta as she slithered along the hallway through the spray of broken glass. Once she was past the line of destruction, she rose to her knees, pointed the machine pistol at the helicopter’s nose and pulled the trigger.

Bullets tore through the window, blowing shards outside the building. The light made it impossible for her to see where the rounds struck the helicopter, but she thought she saw a jagged line stitched along the pilot’s door.

The helicopter fell away, dodging to put distance between itself and the building. The machine gunner in the cargo area fired, trying to vector in on Annja’s position, but the helicopter’s sudden movement jerked the gunman’s aim off and tracers stabbed into the night.

Shaking the broken glass from her clothes as best as she could, Annja rose to a crouched position and returned to Orta’s side. “Let’s go.”

He pushed himself up on trembling arms and looked at her.

“The archives,” Annja reminded him. “Let’s go there.”

Numbly, Orta nodded, pointed down the hallway and stumbled in that direction.

Annja followed him and only then realized she’d lost track of Krauzer. She struggled to make sense of the sheer magnitude of the assault made by their attackers and what they thought they had to gain by their efforts. She had no answers.

* * *

SABRE STARED UP at the two helicopters circling the USC campus like buzzards eyeing roadkill. “Are those birds ours?”

“Negative.” Gerard pulled on the wheel and guided them over the low curb separating the parking area from the street. The Mercedes’s large wheels climbed the curb easily and the high-tuned suspension smoothed out the bump.