False Horizon (19 page)

Annja rolled out from under Hsu Xiao and stared at the lifeless body of an enemy who had very nearly killed her. The sword hung heavy in her right hand and she closed her eyes and returned it to the otherwhere.

When she opened her eyes again, Hsu Xiao’s stared into hers and, for just a moment, a spasm of fear rolled through Annja’s stomach, but she looked again and knew that Hsu Xiao’s lifeless cold orbs would never again hold life in them.

Her body ached and she struggled to get to her feet. She was weak from the loss of blood. Annja said a silent prayer of thanks for the skill and help in defeating Hsu Xiao and then she started to climb the stairs.

“Annja!”

Tuk raced down and helped her stagger up the stone steps. Annja kept her eyes focused on the walk ahead, but each step seemed to exacerbate the intense pain she felt riddling her body.

At the top of the stairs, she saw that Mike had a gun trained on the now-conscious Tsing. Tsing looked at her and smiled. “I see you persevered over a very adept enemy.”

“She was incredibly skilled,” Annja said. And then she felt her world tumble sideways. Tuk was there to catch her and he lowered her to the stone floor, wiping some of the sweat and blood away from her eyes.

“So what happens now?” asked Tsing. “Do you all go home riding off into the proverbial sunset? And what about me?”

Annja frowned and glanced at Mike, who had the gun trained on Tsing and looked as though he wanted to use it. “What do you think, Mike?”

“Damned if I know, Annja. A big part of me wants to shoot this guy and be done with him. But I’ve never murdered a man in cold blood before. Even someone like this turd, who clearly deserves it.”

Annja tried to smile but groaned instead. Next to her, Tuk nursed some of her wounds.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Tuk said quietly. “I’ve never seen a fight like that.”

“I’ve never had a fight like that,” Annja said. “And for a while there, I thought I was actually going to die.”

Tuk grinned. “It looked that way. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do if Hsu Xiao beat you and came running back up those steps. Mike and I were simply going to shoot her down with as many bullets as possible. It didn’t look like anything could stop her.”

“I wasn’t sure anything could,” Annja said. “But she made a mistake and I saw it. Sometimes, that’s all it is. There’s nothing amazing or significant about the victory. It’s just a small thing that reveals itself in a blink in the action. You either take the opportunity or you lose it and die.”

“And you took it.”

“Fortunately,” Annja said. “But I almost missed it. And if I had, that would be me down there at the foot of those stairs instead of her.”

“She was terrifying and incredible,” Tuk said. “I know it seems silly, but I almost respected her for her ability.”

“It’s not silly,” Annja said. “She should be respected. God knows I sure as hell do. I’ve faced a lot of foes and I remember only a few of the highly skilled ones. Hsu Xiao goes to the top of the list as far as I’m concerned.”

Tsing cleared his throat. “I hate to break up this precious bonding moment and all, but according to your friend Mike, we only have two minutes to make our escape.”

Annja looked up at Mike. “Is that true?”

Mike nodded gravely. “I’m afraid it is.”

Annja glanced at Tuk. “Help me to my feet, would you?”

“Sure.” Tuk got behind Annja and helped her up.

Annja wobbled once but then took a breath and got her heart beating steadily. “All right, let’s go.”

Tsing stood. “What about me?”

Annja looked at him. “What about you?”

“You’re not going to kill me?”

“Tsing, I don’t give a damn about you right now. All I care about is getting the hell out of here. You can come with us or you can stay. But no one’s going to help you. You live or die by your own hand. Not mine or anyone else’s.”

Mike led the way toward the corridor and Tuk and Annja followed. From deep below them, there came a rumbling sound. All of them paused and then Mike waved them on.

“It’s starting! We have to run!”

Tsing shoved Tuk out of the way. “Let me through, you pathetic people!” He dashed for the corridor ahead of them and disappeared from view.

Mike leveled the gun on him but Annja called out, “No!”

Mike stopped. “Why?”

“Let him go. If he gets himself out of this, we’ll worry about him on the other side.”

“You’re being merciful,” Tuk said.

Annja shook her head. “No, it’s just I don’t care about him anymore.”

Another rumble caused the stone floor to shake and start to break apart. It was like being in the middle of an earthquake. From above, rocks and stones tumbled loose and cascaded down.

“Get inside the temple!” Mike shouted. “It’s all going to come down around us!”

Tuk helped get Annja into the corridor. Behind them, the pavilion started to cave in and the floor buckled. As they ran past the statues, the closest one toppled over and then there was a terrific explosion.

Annja felt herself knocked clear off her feet and she crumbled to the floor as bits of stone came showering down around them.

“Annja!”

She felt Tuk’s hand clutch at her own. He pulled her free of the debris, masonry dust caking his face. He coughed and brought her to her feet.

Annja tried to breathe but coughed on the dusty air, too.

“We’ve got to keep moving!” Mike said.

Annja could barely see Mike in front of them. He was struggling to stay upright and Annja realized that the floor was slanting. Like being on a listing ship, the entire surface was heaving as the facility beneath them started to explode and crumble in upon itself.

Another tremor rocked the temple and more rocks and stone came flying at them. Tuk steered Annja around some of the larger boulders.

From someplace ahead of them they heard a scream.

They hurried on and found Mike standing over Tsing. A large section of stone lay atop Tsing’s body, but he was still conscious.

“Hurry! You’ve got to get this off of me!” he pleaded.

Mike looked at Annja and shook his head. “There’s no way we can lift it. It must weight a ton or more.”

Tsing’s face showed terror. “No! You cannot leave me here to die. You’ve got to help me!”

“We’re out of time, Annja,” Mike said.

Annja looked down at Tsing. “I told you that you were free to help yourself. But by your own hand. Not by ours.”

“But surely you don’t mean that! Help me, Annja Creed! Help me!”

Annja looked at Tuk. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Tuk nodded and they pressed on. Behind them they could still hear Tsing crying for help. “Don’t leave me!”

Another rumble sounded and the room behind them crumpled and caved in, drowning out any more of Tsing’s pleas for mercy or help.

Dust clouds followed them as they pressed toward the prison cell that had held Tuk. And then the doorway to freedom stood before them at long last.

Mike reached it first and waved them through. “Come on! We’re almost there!”

Annja pushed Tuk ahead of her. “I’ll make it. Just get yourself out.”

Tuk looked at her once and then rushed ahead. Annja smiled and knew he’d survive. She urged her feet to keep moving.

Another tremor rocked the room she stood in and then she heard an incredible sound of something being torn wide-open. The floor behind her started to yawn and a gaping hole erupted beneath her feet.

“Annja!”

She turned back and saw Mike waving her on. Tuk screamed for her to jump.

Annja saw the fissure growing wider and she knew she would have one chance to make the jump.

As the fissure spread, Annja dug deep and felt her heart thundering in her chest as the last bits of her adrenaline gave her a sudden turbo boost of power. She leaped through the air as the floor fell away, finally reaching out for the doorway.

Her hands found the doorjamb of stone and she felt the floor give way beneath her. She found herself dangling in open space as the stone fell into a seething mass of angry greens and yellows a hundred feet below.

All of the nuclear waste that had been stored in the facility was churning like a boiling cesspool of hell.

Annja felt her grip slipping.

She had no more strength anywhere in her body.

And just as she was about to lose it all—just as she was about to topple backward and fall into the swirling nuclear mists—she felt two hands clutch her and pull her through the doorway.

She fell into Tuk and Mike and they dragged her toward the staircase.

More explosions thundered around them as they clambered up the stairs toward the trapdoor.

Mike made it through the trapdoor first. Annja felt herself lifted up and then Tuk’s face appeared behind her.

“Quickly, Tuk, shut the door,” Mike said.

Annja managed to pull herself clear and then she heard Tuk slamming the stone trapdoor behind them.

Cold winds pounded them as the cave itself started to crumble.

“It’s not safe here!” Mike said. “The whole mountain is going to give way.”

“Outside!” yelled Tuk. “We’ve got to get outside!”

Mike and Tuk eased Annja through the opening in the cave and then followed her out. Blinding sunlight greeted her and the numbing cold bit at every pore of her body. Annja felt pain like she’d never experienced before in her life. Every fiber of her soul seemed like it was on fire.

She bled and sweated and froze as the mountain rumbled around her like an angry volcano.

“This way!”

Mike pointed down the slope toward the crash site of the plane. Tuk helped Annja up. “We’ve got to keep going!”

Annja shook her head. “I can’t.”

“You must! Don’t give up on me now, Annja Creed!”

Mike came back and tried to scoop Annja up in his arms. He took two steps forward and then fell into the snow. It was too deep and he was still too weak himself to carry Annja.

“You’ve got to walk! We’ll help you!”

Miniavalanches started breaking loose from the ice sheets and tons of snow and ice started rocketing down from the peak toward them. “Run!”

Annja felt like her legs were lead but she pushed herself further than she ever had before. She had to get down the slope.

Tuk ran along beside her, his legs still pumping like mad pistons.

Mike’s big arms tried to lift Annja along when he could and the three of them kept stumbling along.

“Look out!”

A snow boulder rumbled past them, barely missing them all by mere inches. They kept trying to run through the waist-deep snows back toward the plane.

Annja wanted to tell Tuk to use his cell phone, but if she did he would have stopped and that would have been the end of them all. They had to keep moving. They had to make it back down the mountain.

And then Annja heard an incredible sound amid the thundering rumbles and cracks of rocks tumbling loose from their millennia-old perches.

A helicopter.

At first she thought she was imagining it, but then she saw the chopper appear overhead, its rotors beating the sky around it.

“It’s Garin!” shouted Tuk. “He’s found us!”

Annja tried to smile, but only took two more steps toward the helicopter before she tumbled and fell facefirst into the white snow.

A gray, cloying mist surrounded Annja as she floated with no sense of time or space. She could feel her strength returning slowly, and yet a big part of her had no desire to relinquish the peace she felt in this strange limbo world. It was easier here, she thought, than to have to go back to the real world.

But something needled at her persistently, poking its way into her dreamworld consciousness. It refused to leave her alone. And finally, after trying to ignore it for a long while, Annja succumbed.

“Annja!”

She heard the voices calling her, but resisted opening her eyes until the very last moment, hoping against hope that this was all part of a dream. That when she opened her eyes, it would be dark outside, she’d stare at the clock and see it was only three in the morning, heave a grateful sigh and then roll over to go back to sleep.

“Annja!”

Not this time.

She groaned and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Tuk’s face roughly an inch from hers.

She nearly jerked herself right out of bed. “Tuk! Jeez, give a woman some room, would you?”

Tuk pulled back, his eyes moist with tears. “Oh, thank God you’re back. The doctors, they said you were going to be fine, but I worried. I’ve never seen anyone take the abuse you took and live to tell the tale. I was worried. I sure was. But you’re back now. Everything’s great.”

Annja pushed herself to sit up in the bed.

Tuk smiled, wiping his tears. “I’ve been keeping a watch over you every day just to make sure the doctors don’t screw up.”

Annja laughed. “Second-guessing all of their decisions? That must make you the most popular person in the hospital right now.” Annja glanced around. The walls were the standard antiseptic hospital white that she hated. Something about being in the hospital always made her feel sick. “Where am I, anyway?”

“Katmandu. Garin and his crew brought you straight here. We didn’t even land in Jomsom to refuel, just flew straight in. He was well and truly worried, that one was. But he kept saying to us that if anyone could survive, it would be you. Seems as though he’s quite fond of you.”

“Oh, really? That would be news to me.” Annja saw the vase of fresh flowers on the nightstand. “Are those from you?”

Tuk shook his head. “No. Those are from Garin. He said it was important to make sure you saw them when you woke up. Something about how flowers always bring us back to the goodness of God’s earth. Some religious thing or something. I don’t know.”

Annja looked at the flowers. They were fresh orchids and she wondered where he might have had them flown in from. They were beautiful.

“So, where is everyone?” she asked.

“Garin’s gone to get something to eat, but I think he was really more interested in chasing down the nurse who was in here a few minutes back.”

“That sounds just about right,” Annja said.

“Mike is upstairs having a second opinion about his head.”

“What do you mean?”

“He says he hasn’t had any headaches since we got out of that place. He wanted to know what was going on.”

Annja frowned. “Are they even set up for that kind of diagnosis here? I mean, no offense, but third-world medical care isn’t always the best.”

Tuk frowned. “Well, they do a pretty good job here. I’ve been very impressed with the care you’ve received.”

“Well, thank you. It’s nice to know someone is looking out for my best interests.”

“Absolutely. If you hadn’t saved my life, I wouldn’t even be here right now.”

Annja shook her head. “It’s you who should be thanked, Tuk. If Garin hadn’t hired you to watch over me, none of us would have reached this point. I’m indebted to you for the rest of my life—however long that happens to be.”

“Just doing my job.”

“And you did a damned good job of it,” Annja said.

Tuk eased himself off the corner of the bed and set about smoothing the wrinkles in the sheets he’d left behind. “Well, my days of working are now at an end, so it’s nice I was able to go out on such a high note.”

“You’re retiring?”

“Garin paid me handsomely for all my hard work. I’ve got more than enough to retire to the countryside and get a small place. I can sleep as long as I want, eat when I want and never have to worry about anything until I get bored.”

“Well, if you ever do get bored, you’re welcome to look me up. I’m sure I can find some sort of excitement for you to get mixed up in. Seems I attract the stuff like nobody’s business.”

Tuk nodded. “Yes, well, thanks for the offer, but I don’t know if I should. Things get more dangerous around you than I’m comfortable with. I mean, a little danger is fine, but fully automatic weapons, assassins and nuclear waste are too much for me.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“Yes, but you know how to deal with it. I don’t. I’m not some globe-trotting superhero who can take down enemies and save the world.”

“Neither am I, Tuk,” Annja said. “I try to get out of bed in the morning and see where the day takes me. I’ve got this part of me I’m trying to make sense of. Some kind of destiny that I can’t always come to terms with, and yet I’ve got to. The danger, the near-death experiences, they’re all a part of it. But I don’t ever look in the mirror and think that I’m something amazing. The day I do that, I think will probably be my last.”

“You’re modest, too, aren’t you?” Tuk asked.

“I don’t know about that,” Annja said. “I’m just me.”

Tuk nodded. “Well, I’ve got to head out. I’m going to see about a house up the hills.”

“Hills?”

Tuk shrugged. “Mountains, I guess you’d call them.”

“You’re buying there even with all of that snow?”

“I love the snow,” Tuk said. “It’s just dying in it that I can’t stand.”

Annja grabbed him and gave him a hug. “Anytime you want to come to the States, give me a call and we’ll hang out. You’re a good man, Tuk, and I’m happy to have known you.”

Tuk pulled back and brushed his hands across his eyes. “You’re going to make me cry. Stop that.” He blinked back tears and smiled at her. “I’m happy to have made your acquaintance, too, Annja Creed. You really are an amazing woman.”

“Thank you.”

Tuk waved at her one last time and then ducked out of the door quickly. Annja listened to it hiss shut and closed her eyes.

She thought about it for a few minutes and decided that if she could just lie in this reasonably comfortable bed for about a month, she might honestly start feeling pretty good again.

She could sleep the days away and just concentrate on getting herself back to normal. She stretched her limbs and felt her muscles expand and then contract. A yawn came over her and she sank back into the bed, allowing her spine to lengthen, and she heard a few muffled pops as it relaxed even more.

The phone on the bedside table rang. Annja opened her eyes and stared at it. “So much for peace and quiet.”

She reached for the phone and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Annja? It’s Doug.”

Annja groaned. Doug Morrell was her producer on
Chasing History’s Monsters.
“Doug, what are you doing calling me here? Did you hear that I was close to death?”

“Of course I did. But since you answered the phone, it can’t be all that bad, can it?”

“I suppose not. I haven’t seen the doctors yet, though—”

“Well, there’s no time. Listen, I need you to get to Scotland. A whole rash of new Nessie sightings have just sparked up over there. We’re talking some crazy stuff. People running into the monster on boats, cars and someone even claims they stumbled upon it on a path in the woods.”

“Sounds delightful. Why don’t you send Miss Lose-My-Top on this one so I can take a much-needed vacation?”

“Annja, your vacations are what tend to get you into trouble in the first place. Need I remind you that this trip to Nepal was supposedly a vacation? And we nearly lost you! No way. I need you back to work as soon as humanly possible.”

“I’ll ask my doctors how soon I can get out of here. Is that satisfactory to you, Doug?”

“As long as they say you can leave tomorrow, then, yeah, absolutely.”

“I’ll be sure to tell them that.”

“Call me when you’re released.” The phone disconnected and Annja slumped back into the bed.

The Loch Ness Monster? Again? Hadn’t she already run that story down before? And yet here it was again.

Annja took a series of deep breaths and willed herself to relax. Doug could wait if need be. She wasn’t in a hurry to go anywhere or do anything until she had rested enough to truly regain her strength.

There were only a few times when she’d felt as totally drained as she had back on the mountain. And each of those times had meant a longer than normal recovery time for her.

No, someone else could run down the Loch Ness story if Doug wanted it so badly. Annja wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, but traipsing through a cold lake district in Scotland.

A trip to a spa would fit the bill nicely, though, she thought. A long series of massages, hot baths, aromatherapy and good meals. Now that might be something worth looking into.

She wondered if Garin had succeeded in chasing down the nurse he was apparently after. Annja frowned. Here she was, lying near death in a hospital, and all he could think about was another notch on his bedpost.

Way to show me that you care, Garin, she thought. Thank God Tuk was here.

She thought about Mike. What did it mean that his head didn’t hurt him anymore? Was there a chance that his tumor was in remission? Could it mean that he would have more years of his life to live out rather than some quick death sentence?

Annja hoped it would mean he’d be able to enjoy his life again. Although she wondered how the cancer could have gone into remission. Was it due to something they’d been exposed to back at the facility? Did radiation exposure kill cancer cells? Annja wasn’t sure how the whole chemotherapy thing worked, but if Mike had explored the facility and possibly gotten himself some exposure to radiation, then maybe that had affected his tumor.

So, some good comes out of all of this, after all, she thought.

She took another deep breath and exhaled slowly, willing herself to fall asleep. She felt certain that at any moment Garin would no doubt burst through the door and disturb her peaceful atmosphere.

The door hissed open. “You have the worst timing,” she said.

She opened her eyes.

But Garin wasn’t standing there. A Nepali nurse had come in and stood next to her bed, smiling at her.

“Oh,” Annja said. “Sorry, I thought you were somebody else.”

The nurse nodded and Annja looked at her again. It couldn’t be. Not her.

“You’re dead,” she started to say.

But then the nurse’s hand clamped down over Annja’s nose and mouth, trying to smother her.