The Spirit Banner

“You’re certain?”

The operative didn’t need to be told what would happen to him if he turned out to be wrong; the implied threat in the man’s tone was somehow more frightening than if he’d come right out and said something.

Swallowing hard to clear his throat, the operative said, “Yes. I’m certain.”

He listened for a moment, nodding in agreement with what was said even though there was no one there to see him do it, and then lifted the business card he’d found among the woman’s personal effects.

“Creed,” he said into the phone in answer to his employer’s question. “Annja. A-n-n-j-a . Annja Creed.”

He listened for another moment and then closed the phone. There was no need to say goodbye; his employer had already hung up.

The operative took one last look around to make certain he hadn’t left anything out of place and then slipped out of the room as quietly as he had entered.

A NNJA ENTERED HER HOTEL ROOM in a rush, knowing she had very little time left to get cleaned up before Davenport’s car arrived to take her to the estate. She’d only gotten halfway across the living room, however, when she stopped abruptly, her senses screaming.

Someone had been in her room.

Nothing was disturbed; everything looked as if it was right where it had been when she’d left for her run half an hour earlier.

Yet she had the definite sense that someone had been there in her absence. Call it a gut hunch, a sixth sense, whatever. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.

She stood still and listened, trying to determine if anyone was hiding in the bedroom just beyond, but all she could hear was the low hum of the air conditioner she’d left running earlier.

She reached out with her right hand and drew her sword out of the otherwhere. Having the weapon in hand made her feel more confident to face whoever might have invaded her space.

Cautiously, she walked forward and peeked around the door frame into the bedroom, ready to pull her head back at a moment’s notice if there was anyone there.

The room was empty.

You’re getting paranoid, she told herself. No one even knows you’re in Mexico City.

Still, she checked the bathroom and the closets, just to be safe. When they turned out to be as empty as the bedroom, she at last allowed herself to relax and released the sword back into the otherwhere. Probably just the maid, she told herself, and turned her attention to getting out of her sweaty clothes and into something more suitable for a long afternoon of doing what she loved best.

M ASON WAS WAITING when she arrived at the estate, and after a quick hello, he led her upstairs to a room on the second floor where Davenport was waiting. A long table stood in the center of the room, surrounded by a variety of scientific equipment. Annja glanced at them and then made a beeline for the glass case sitting in the middle of the table.

Inside was a small, leather-bound book, with yellowed pages and a cracked and faded cover.

“Is this it?” she asked, turning and acknowledging her employer for the first time since entering the room.

“And a good-morning to you, too, Annja,” Davenport said with a laugh. “And yes, that is it , as you say. That little volume is going to lead us to the treasure of the centuries.”

She smiled at his enthusiasm. “If it’s authentic,” she said. “What can you tell me about it?”

Davenport’s tone became a bit more formal, as if he were reciting information he’d just learned and wanted to be sure to get it correct.

“In 1245, Pope Innocent IV, suspicious of the lingering power of the Mongols, sent a diplomatic party to the court of Guyuk, Genghis Khan’s grandson, at Karakorum. Leading that party was a friar by the name of Giovanni di Plano Carpini.”

Annja nodded. She was aware of Carpini’s journey and the book he’d written upon his return, The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars. It was one of the first European accounts of life in the Mongol Empire, and though it was later relegated to a secondary position when Marco Polo published the accounts of his own journey among the people of the steppes, it was still considered an important historical document.

“With Carpini went a priest by the name of Father Michael Curran. Curran was a rising star, one of the Vatican’s inner circle, if you will, and was there at the direct order of the pope himself.”

“To do what?” Annja asked.

Davenport grinned. “Spy on the Mongols, of course. Remember, it had been less than twenty-five years since Genghis Khan’s army had turned back at the Mohi River rather than continue his conquest of Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe. I’m sure more than just the pope was wondering when, or if, Guyuk was going to try again.”

“So this book—?”

“It is Curran’s personal account of his time among the Mongols,” Davenport said.

Annja frowned. “If Curran reported what he learned to the pope, why has the tomb remained undiscovered all this time?”

“That’s just it. Curran never had the chance to tell anyone what he learned, least of all the pope. He never made it out of Mongolia,” Davenport said.

Mason took up the story from there. “Apparently the group Curran was traveling with was attacked by a rival clan while deep within the Forbidden Zone, an area deep in the heart of the empire that the relatives of Genghis Khan had set aside forever as a monument to his glory. Curran managed to survive the attack itself, along with one other man. Badly wounded and left for dead, the two of them sought shelter in a mountain cave. That’s where Curran learned the location of the Khan’s tomb from his dying companion. Unfortunately for Curran, a winter storm trapped them in the cave for several weeks and he eventually succumbed from his wounds before he could make his way back to Karakorum.” Mason gestured at the diary. “It’s all in there—his impressions of Karakorum, his audience with Guyuk, the attack on the convoy, his ruminations as he lay dying all but alone in that cave.”

Knowing that the little book in the case before her contained the last thoughts of a man who had died cold and in a place far from home made her view it with even more respect than she had before. Still, something about Mason’s story bothered her.

“How do you know Curran’s companion wasn’t lying? That it wasn’t all some fever dream brought on by his impending death?” she asked.

Out came the hallmark Davenport grin. “Actually, I don’t. But nor do I have to prove that, at least not yet. All I need to know right now is whether or not the diary is the right age to actually be Curran’s. Once we determine that, we can worry about the rest. First things first.”

Annja thought about it for a moment. “Fair enough,” she replied. “I guess that means I’d best get to work.”

With the two men watching, Annja placed her backpack on the table next to the case and unzipped it. Inside were a digital SLR camera and a laptop computer. Both pieces of equipment had seen their fair share of adventures at her side and she’d come to rely on them in more ways than one.

She took out the laptop and started it up, then connected the camera to it. She fired off a few shots of the lab around her, just to test the connection. Satisfied that all was working the way it should, she put the camera down and turned back to her pack.

Annja fished out a pair of white cotton gloves from a side pocket of the bag and pulled them on. The soft material would protect the brittleness of the pages, as well as provide a barrier between them and her skin, keeping the damaging oil from her fingertips from doing the journal any harm. She might think it was a fake, but she’d treat it as authentic until she could prove otherwise. For the same reason, she laid out a wide piece of silk on the tabletop in front of her.

“May I?” she asked Davenport.

“Be my guest.”

She opened the small brass clasp holding the case closed and lifted the lid. Reaching inside, she drew out the slim volume and set it down in the area she had prepared.

Just like that, she was lost in the work. She might be a minor television celebrity—and a fierce adventurer, thanks to Joan’s sword—but that didn’t mean she’d lost her love of archaeology and the mystery and suspense that came with it. Discovering a new artifact, tracing its lineage, verifying its authenticity—it still moved and inspired her in ways that few other things could. Her awareness of the other people in the room faded as she gave herself completely to the task in front of her.

Annja picked up the camera and used it to take a full-size color photo of every single page in the book. She did the same with the inside and outside cover pages, both front and back. The pictures were immediately downloaded on to the laptop and organized sequentially. This would allow her to view the entire work without the need to handle the book itself, eliminating the possibility, no matter how slim, of it being damaged in the process. It would also let her magnify various sections, something she couldn’t do if she were working solely from the original.

Once she was finished, she put the camera away and replaced the journal in its protective case. Pulling up a chair, she settled in front of the laptop and began reading.

8

Annja was quickly engrossed in her work, so much so that she never even noticed when Davenport gestured to Mason and the two of them slipped out of the room behind her back.

The book had been handwritten in Latin in a thin, spidery script. The pages were faded and, in some cases, heavily stained, making it difficult to understand certain passages, but for a seven-hundred-year-old book it was remarkably well preserved.

She began to read.