Death Mask

Less than a minute later, a battered and bloody Garin Braden was secure in the helicopter, the last of the team clambering in to join him; another thirty seconds and they were airborne.

They were more than half a mile away before they heard the sirens of the first responders.

All the money in the world hadn’t been able to keep Garin Braden safe.

The clock was ticking.

1 (#u1c5f033e-aa37-5642-bed7-bc2054a075c0)

24:00—Madrid

The drumming vibration of her cell phone on the nightstand dragged Annja Creed out of sleep. For a moment the noise had been part of the surreal landscape of her imagination, but as she opened her eyes she completely forgot what she’d been dreaming. Annja had been in Valencia for a week working on a piece on gargoyles for Chasing History’s Monsters, and now she was in Madrid, recharging her batteries. There was nothing like the mix of modernity and history as a backdrop for a little R & R. She looked at the alarm clock and saw it was ungodly early, for a vacation day. Who in their right mind would be calling? Then she realized it was probably Doug Morrell, completely forgetting she’d booked the next few days off. Her producer could be a pain when she was overseas, always wanting an update, querying her expense claim or just reminding her the show needed to be sexy. That was the nature of the beast, after all. Sexy television. Sexy history. Sexy monsters. Sexy claims of links between the two. She’d just turned the latest segment in. Doug could wait. She rolled over and closed her eyes again, but a second and a third call came in quick succession.

She gave in and picked up.

“What do you want, Doug? It’s the middle of the night.”

That wasn’t quite true. The morning sun filtered through the too-thin hotel curtains, picking out the cigarette-smoke discolorations on the fabric.

It wasn’t Doug. “Check your email. Click on the link. I will wait,” the voice said. She couldn’t place it.

“Who is this?” Annja heard another voice in the background but couldn’t catch what was being said. The line went dead. She checked her recent calls, but the number had been blocked. Annja pushed the covers back and sat up. It was almost seven, and the cleaners were already moving around outside her room, no doubt wishing she’d go down for breakfast so they could do their jobs.

She got out of bed reluctantly and headed through to the bathroom. She’d check her email, but not before taking a hot shower to help wake her up.

When she emerged, one towel wrapped around her and another making a turban around her wet hair, she crossed the floor to her laptop on the dressing table and powered it up.

She had a single new email.

The subject line said Urgent, and the sender was Garin Braden.

But it hadn’t been Garin’s voice on the phone.

If you want to see Mr. Braden alive again, follow this link.

Annja clicked.

A window opened on her screen and a few seconds later the image resolved into what looked like a live video feed. The sole image on the screen was a digital clock that read 23:52:27. It took her a couple seconds to realize it was counting backward from 24:00:00.

“Hello, Annja, so glad you could finally join us,” a voice said. It sounded different through the tinny speakers than it had on the phone. There was no sign of the male speaker on the screen.“Time is precious. You have already wasted seven and a half minutes of it.”

Wasted?

She didn’t know what was going on, and the steaming-hot water had only dragged her so far from sleep. “Stop messing around, Garin. I’m tired and in no mood for your stupid jokes.”

The camera zoomed out, gradually revealing that the clock was in the middle of a man’s chest. He was slumped in a chair, his hands tied behind his back. He was breathing, but he was bloodied and bruised, and Annja couldn’t tell if he was conscious. Wires ran from the clock to a box beneath the chair he was tied to. Water was thrown from off camera, soaking his blood-streaked shirt. The man lifted his head slowly, staring at the camera through one swollen eye. His mouth was smeared with red. Still, he was immediately recognizable.

“Garin!” Annja said, his name catching in her throat.

His eyes didn’t seem to register his name or Annja’s voice. He was dazed and confused and clearly had no idea what was going on.

“What do you want?” Annja asked.

“I like that,” said the off-camera voice. “Straight down to business. No pretense of bargaining. No bluster or demands that I let him go. We can work together, Miss Creed.”

“What do you want?” Annja repeated.

“The Mask of Torquemada.”

“The what?” She knew exactly what the voice had said, and had a good idea what it had meant. But that didn’t mean she’d be able to meet this person’s demands.

“Do you really want to waste time pretending you don’t know what I am talking about, Miss Creed?” the voice said. “Nine minutes. Ticktock. Ticktock. The more time you waste now, the less you will have to save your friend. Find the mask or your friend dies. Is that incentive enough for you? Twenty-three hours, fifty-one minutes.”

“You can’t expect me to find something that’s been lost for centuries in a single day. That’s impossible.”

“You better hope not, for Mr. Braden’s sake.”

“This is insane! I don’t have the first idea where to start looking...or what I’m even looking for. You can’t just say ‘Find it.’ I’m not a miracle worker!”

“Well, there’s one man here who is desperately hoping you are, Miss Creed. His life depends upon it. I will call you again in a few hours to see how you’re getting on. Godspeed, Annja Creed. Ticktock. Ticktock.” The camera zoomed in to focus on the clock in the middle of Garin’s chest, then panned up to his face. “Just in case you need reminding.”

Annja couldn’t look away.

Garin looked at her with dead eyes.

She wondered if he had been drugged or just beaten so badly he couldn’t focus.

His head slumped forward again. This time it stayed down.

Annja watched as the clock ticked down another minute. She had less than a day to save Garin, with no idea where to begin, no clue as to where he might be. Normally there was one man she’d turn to if she needed technology to help her find someone—Garin. He wasn’t going to be able to help her now.

She continued to stare at the screen, trying to learn as much as she could about the place he was being held, but there was precious little to be gleaned from it. The light was artificial, the walls behind him were bare brick. It could have been, quite literally, anywhere in the world.

Another minute passed by and she knew she had to do something; anything.

She’d wasted ten minutes of his life already.

Ticktock. Ticktock.

2 (#u1c5f033e-aa37-5642-bed7-bc2054a075c0)

23:45—Madrid

“Annja? As much as I adore you, my dear, I adore my sleep much more.”

“This is work,” Annja said.

“A four-letter word,” Roux said. She could imagine the smile playing across his lips as he grumbled. He could be a crank at the best of times. “And not one of the more amusing ones.”