Eternal Journey

He grunted and tried to draw a bead on her, shooting the railing instead. Only one step below him now, she grabbed his raised leg and tugged, setting him off balance. Agile, he didn’t fall. He swept the gun at her, the barrel striking her face. He brought it back for a second strike and pulled the trigger in the same motion. Annja reacted with an inward parry, a kenpo blocking method. One hand wrapped around the hilt of her sword, she opened her other hand and redirected his next blow by riding with the force of his swing. He hadn’t anticipated that and scrambled to maintain his hold on the gun.

“Kiai!” Annja shouted, as she used her diaphragm to purge the air from her body. The kenpo technique fortified her body and clearly shook the man. She rammed the heel of her hand into his stomach and felt his breath rush out. “I don’t want to kill you,” she said to herself as much as to him. “Though that’s clearly what you intend for me.”

But why do you want to kill me?

“There’s one more shooter down there!” This came from well above her. “Call it in that one’s dead.”

Annja had to finish this quickly. Having the police here was all well and good, she thought, but they would tangle her up for hours in questioning. She needed to call Doug, alert the crew who took the red-eye that they might be in danger for God knows what reason and try to call Ollie again. She desperately wanted to sort all this out before letting the authorities commandeer her time.

“Kiai!” she repeated, following it this time with a swipe of her sword. The blade sheered into the man’s fingers, forcing him to release the gun.

He grabbed his injured hand with his good one and stared at her, his eyes angry daggers.

“Gahba!” he spat at her. “Kelbeh!”

“No doubt you’re calling me something terrible,” she said.

“Khanzeera al matina!” Clearly in pain, the man nonetheless refused to quit. He lashed out with one leg, and then the other, clipping Annja once but causing her no real harm.

She had been a superb athlete before acquiring the sword. She’d since become even better, drawing on its power and honing her skills to an almost unbelievable level. That she’d lived through all this so far—and so much more in other countries before this—was a testament to her training and determination.

“I…said…I…don’t…want…to…kill…you!” The words steamed out as if she were a kettle left too long on the stove. “But you’re not going to be able to answer my questions, are you? Know any English?”

The police nearing, she again dismissed the sword, in the same motion reaching up and grabbing her attacker’s shirt, pulling him toward her and finally setting him off balance.

She lifted him and spun him so he was on the step below her now. Then she pushed him and rode him down the rest of the steps like a bobsled, the back of his head cracking hard and making her wince. For a moment, she feared she might have indeed killed him, but he spit at her and feebly tried to knock her off him.

She jammed her knee into his stomach.

“Where is Oliver? What have you done with him?”

“He saw! You saw!” the man cried, finally speaking so she could understand him. She shook him, and his head rolled to the side.

“Saw what? What did we see?”

“I see them!” Again this came from above. “The woman and a man. The man might be dead. She’s throttling him!”

“He’s not dead.” Annja groaned and pushed herself off him and jumped down the last few steps and out the exit door, the footsteps of the police clacking behind her. A heartbeat later she was in the lobby. A heartbeat more and she was through the revolving doors and onto the sidewalk, sucking in the cool fall air.

I should stop and talk to the police right now, she thought. Clear this up, tell them about Oliver. She couldn’t get any more out of her attacker until he came to, and that would be under police guard in a local hospital—and that would be provided he could speak enough English to make sense. The police would take her in, too, as she was disheveled and bloodied, and no doubt they’d connect her to the reports of a woman in jeans and a bikini top swinging a sword. She’d work through it all; she had before. She’d done nothing wrong.

But it would take time.

Maybe the police would let her call her producer first, or try Oliver again.

Not likely.

But necessary, she decided as she ran, her bare feet striking the cool concrete and sending needles of pain into her because she’d scraped them raw against those metal strips. She had to tell Doug about the attack and ask him to check on the rest of the crew. He needs to know what’s going on. I need to figure out what’s going on.

What had she and Ollie seen?

I need to think! Leaving the scene of the crime wasn’t a good thing, she knew, but she needed space.

Annja spied a pay phone on the street corner. She sped toward it. Just past the hotel parking lot, it cast a shadow on the sidewalk that looked like the pendulum of a clock. She hoped she had enough coins to make it work.

The breeze was cool and tugged the bad scents from her as she ran, the smoke from Oliver’s hotel room, the cordite from the gunshots, the blood. The breeze carried the smell of car and bus exhaust and of redfish that was grilling in a restaurant nearby.

People on the sidewalk called out to her, most in concern, seeing blood run from her shoulder and from her face where the gun had struck her. But some called to the police, as much as telling her that at least one officer had come out of the hotel in search of her or anyone else involved in the mayhem.

“One phone call,” she said to herself. “Just one and then I’m yours until this is all resolved.”

Her hand closed on the receiver and she lifted it, reached for her wallet and cursed. The phone cord had been cut. Sydney had its vandals just like anywhere else. She dropped the receiver and whirled, expecting to see a police officer jogging up to her, but instead spying another dark-clad man cutting through the pedestrians.

He drew a gun, and the passersby screamed and parted, giving him a clear shot at Annja.

“How many of you?” she hollered as she dropped into a catlike pose. She mentally reached for her sword, but stopped herself. Too many spectators, and in broad daylight she couldn’t risk it. Her life was one big secret, and it didn’t need to be exposed on a sidewalk in downtown Sydney. “Just how blasted many of you are after me?”

A bullet whispered through the air from behind her, striking the side of the pay phone and letting her know another assailant was near. She sprung up, past the phone and off the sidewalk, over the curb and onto the street, where a bus was just pulling away.

The driver was closing the doors in a panic, not wanting his passengers endangered. She managed to squeeze on.

“A brass button,” he told her, oblivious to the fact that she’d been the target of the shooters. The door hissed closed behind her.

“We’re being shot at! Just get this bus moving for the love of God!” she shouted.

The bus lurched out into traffic as the wail of a multitude of sirens cut through the air.

She found a small coin in her wallet, tugged it out, held it up and then dropped it in the slot. The Australian dollar was about the size of a U.S. dime, but thicker, nicknamed a brass button.

“Here? Happy?” She mentally rebuked herself for being snide to the man.

“You’re hurt, miss?” The driver noted the blood, but didn’t keep his eyes on her; he was intent on speeding away from the scene.

“I’m fine. Really.” Annja threaded her way down the center of the bus to the back, sagging into an empty seat and avoiding the curious stares of the dozen passengers.

“Pig’s arse!” said an elderly woman who peered over the back of her seat to ogle Annja.

“You’re bleedin’,” another passenger pointed out. “And you’re in your underwear.”

“It’s a bikini top,” Annja fumed.

“Pig’s you’re fine,” the elderly woman persisted.

Annja closed her eyes and pictured Oliver. “I’ll wager I’m in better shape than my cameraman,” she said.

5

Annja heard the sirens’ wail subside as the bus moved farther from her hotel. She sensed the other passengers staring at her. She knew she certainly must be something to look at—a fright in jeans, a bikini top, blood spatters everywhere and filthy bare feet. She tucked her feet up under her and felt the bottoms with her fingers. The skin was practically shredded on the heels.