She took a red steel flashlight from her light backpack and turned it on. Its beam was narrow but intense. It gave her absurdly disproportionate comfort.
Get ahold of yourself! she admonished herself fiercely. She was tempted but did not summon the sword. It would only get in the way exploring the darkened house.
Annja rummaged in her pack again and brought out her Glock. Holding the compact flashlight in her mouth, she pulled the handgun's black slide back enough to see the confirming silver glint of a cartridge inside. The Triton high-velocity 135-grain hollowpoint bullets had proved themselves among the world's very most effective defensive rounds against human attackers.
She hoped not to have to test them on monsters.
Her training had not included handling flashlight and firearm together. Not feeling confident about using the crossed-wrist brace Godin had employed, she held the gun at arm's length before her. With her left hand she held the light out away from her hips. She knew the biggest consideration in using the two in concert was to keep her flashlight hand from straying into her own line of fire.
She moved forward, knees flexed, shuffling so as not to cross her legs or compromise her balance. She passed through the open doorway ahead of her. She found herself in a large room, longer before her than wide, with more black rectangles of doors on the three sides. She guessed it might have been a dining room.
She listened intently. She could hear nothing but the random creaking and low booming of wind of any old house in such a setting. She thought that she smelled less dust than she should if the place were truly derelict. She should be raising choking clouds of it no matter how carefully she walked.
Advancing into the room's center she felt a strange sense of dislocation ripple through her. She swayed, put hands out to her sides to steady herself. Have I been missing that much sleep? she wondered.
Something big dropped right behind her. It thumped loudly on the hardwood floorboards.
She spun, pointing the Glock. A blow struck it from her hand. A blue-white beam of light lanced directly into her dark-adjusted eyes, dazzling her.
Boots thumped all around her. She saw black forms looming with round, distorted skulls and weird, protuberant eyes. More blinding light beams converged upon her as if pinning her like an insect to a board.
"On your belly! Down-down-down!" a harsh masculine voice barked. In the glare she saw that the forms surrounding her, distorted as they were, were men in helmets, and masks and armor, all the shade of midnight. Their lights were clamped beneath the fat barrels of their assault rifles.
The flashlight was torqued from her hand as she went to her knees to obey. She was allowed to lower herself under her own power before knees descended on her shoulders to clamp her to the floorboards. The floor smelled of old wood and ancient varnish. Her arms were twisted behind her, not cruelly but without concern for her comfort. She felt plastic ties being fastened about her wrists. Then she was frisked with impersonal efficiency.
Captured!The word tolled like a bell in her brain. With a sick stirring in her stomach she recalled the fate of the previous sword bearer.
Annja was frog-marched down fifty yards of glass-walled tunnel with the occasional closed steel door to either side. She was escorted into an elevator. That they went down was all she could tell. She was marched in to face the rear, and hands on her arms prevented her turning to see any level indicators. She had no clue as to how far underground they'd descended.
She felt a slight jar beneath her feet as the door hissed open. She was marched backward and lifted bodily when she experimentally let her feet falter. She was deposited in another corridor identical to the one somewhere above. As the elevator door slid shut she was urged along at a brisk if by no means uncomfortable clip. Though no one spoke – and their faces were turned into weird, insectile shapes by their goggles and masks – their body language suggested that if she did not keep up they'd be more than happy to drag her.
She wasn't in immediate fear for her life. She knew if they wanted her dead, she'd already be there. That they took this much trouble with her meant that she was safe. For the moment.
The size of the men's backs, already wedge shaped from weight-room bulk if not steroids, were exaggerated by the flexible armor they obviously wore beneath their black uniforms. On every back was a panel that announced in big reflective white letters, Federal Agent. It was, she thought, indicative of arrogance. It announced to all mere civilians, including lesser law enforcers such as state and local cops, that these men could act as they wished, with impunity, and bulldoze through any resistance, while conveying no actual information about their identities or that of the entity they worked for.
She also knew enough to realize that the nicety of legalism meant the words federal agentdid not imply they were direct employees of any agency of the United States government. The words could refer to private contractors, as well. Although being driven along by them somewhere through the bowels of the Earth she couldn't see what difference it might conceivably make. They had the whip hand over her. What else mattered?
They led her to another steel door indistinguishable from the rest. Without any action on their part that she could see the door slid open as they reached it. Most fell out in the corridor as the two immediately behind her shoulders once more grasped her upper arms and steered her firmly inside.
The room was congruously paneled in glossy brown wood. Two walls were plastered baseboard to ceiling with pictures of a man whose crisply tailored suits, even with padded shoulders, could not conceal the slightness of his frame, which was in turn emphasized by the relative largeness of his head. He had thinning, slicked-back, light-colored hair and narrow features dominated by large eyeglasses. He was meeting rich and powerful men and the odd woman. The current President, the past President, the likely next one, senators and congressmen and movie stars and powerful business people smiled all around.
The man himself was standing and moving around a huge mahogany desk. In his dark-blue suit he looked even weedier and frailer than in the pictures, and his blue eyes were surrounded by bruise-colored bags behind his eyeglasses, as if he hadn't slept in days. But his smile was as large and patently phony as in his photos.
"Ah, Ms. Creed," he said. His voice was a bit high-pitched, but beautifully modulated, as if a great tenor had taught him to sing his words. "Believe me when I say it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. You prove yourself a most resourceful young woman."
He held out his hand.
"Stand down!" snapped the man who stood to the side of the landing-strip desk. He was a big, redfaced man in desert-camouflage battledress without decoration or rank markings she could see. He had a peculiar sort of Mohawk strip of somewhat unruly straw-colored hair on top of his head, an affectation meant, she supposed, to make him resemble a World War II paratrooper. In spite of the middle-aged paunch pushing the front of his mottled-brown-and-gray blouse out over a Ripstop belt, he showed an impressive rack of shoulder and chest. He was obviously fit and muscular even if not as trim as he could be.
Annja could not help wondering, If he's into speed, how does he maintain that much gut?
Her escorts released Annja's biceps. "Cut her loose," the big soldier-for-hire ordered. She heard a snap behind her, felt the plastic restraints drop from her wrists. Each began to tingle as long interrupted blood flow resumed.