Alex Archer - The Matador's Crown

Wandering around the south side of the tent, she caught sight of Garin’s bulky figure out of the corner of her eye. He leaned against the Jeep’s hood, ankles crossed, head tilted back to take in the sun.

“Some backup.”

Not that she expected anyone to jump out from behind a rocky outcrop with guns blazing. On the other hand, experience had taught her to never presume any situation was safe.

Where had Crockett gone? He wouldn’t abandon the site without leaving an assistant to watch over the supplies and finds.

Her instincts suddenly flared. Tensing, she slowly tracked along the side of the tent. The smell of dirt-dusted canvas material was like perfume to Annja’s soul, but the buzz of flies nearby made her suspicious. Odd. Crockett kept a tidy site.

A rancid odor grew as she turned the back corner of the tent and stepped into a pool of congealed blood. She quickly took in the blood spatter that had dried to brown across the tent canvas.

“Garin!”

She tracked the path of blood until she came to the edge of the pitoned-off dig square. A body had been rolled into the four-foot-deep area, which measured about sixteen by twenty feet. Earth had been hastily shoveled over it, but the booted feet, hands and the back of a dark-haired head showed.

“That is not good,” Garin said as he sidled up to her and looked over the scene. “You think it’s the dig supervisor you wanted to talk to?”

“Someone looking for me?”

They turned in unison, Garin with pistol extended, to find Jonathan Crockett standing behind them. Holding an AK-47.

4

“I believe my Kalashnikov trumps your Glock,” Crockett said to Garin.

Annja felt Garin’s elbow twitch against her arm. He was the last man Crockett—any man—should issue a challenge like that to.

“You think so?” Garin held the pistol barrel skyward and finger off the trigger.

Crockett gestured with the machine gun for Garin to toss the pistol aside. Annja knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Before Garin could react, Annja reached into the otherwhere, felt the sword’s power tingle in her fingers and clasped the grip. She swung out, sweeping the blade across Crockett’s wrist and taking him by surprise. The man yelped. The machine gun dropped to the dusty ground. In an agile move, Garin bent to claim it.

Crockett clutched his bleeding wrist. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he winced with the pain. He looked to Annja, but she’d released Joan of Arc’s sword back to where she’d found it.

“Nice,” Garin said. He hooked the Kalashnikov under his arm and held both guns on the whimpering professor. “She’s my backup,” he said with a nod toward her. “Who would have thought I’d need her in such an innocuous place? Pothunters shouldn’t play with guns.”

“Pothunter is a derogatory term,” Annja corrected him. Had Crockett turned into a merciless pothunter? Had he killed the man in the pit for his own gain?

James Harlow had intimated he didn’t trust Crockett, yet she’d brushed if off as all-too-common collegiate rivalry.

“I was trying to protect myself.” Crockett sank to his knees, clutching his wrist against his chest. Blood soaked into his white shirt. “They came so quickly. Yesterday evening. Hours after you left, Annja.” He gasped. “Took everything. When I heard the vehicle drive up just now I thought they’d returned to finish me off, so I hid in the gorse.”

“You didn’t kill this man,” Annja stated.

Crockett shook his head. “No, they did. Yesterday.”

And the body was still lying out in the open? Annja winced. Why hadn’t Crockett contacted the authorities? And for that matter, why was he still here?

“Who are they?” Garin demanded. “Did they take your field phone with them, too?”

“Let’s move him inside the tent for some first aid. We need to bandage your wrist before you lose too much blood,” she said to Crockett, then with a glance in the direction they had come from, added, “We should take him to the hospital.”

She met Garin’s fierce stare, leaving her in no doubt that he thought her suggestion a bad one. Cleaning up the mess by taking out the professor with a bullet to his heart would probably be his suggestion. Joan of Arc wasn’t into vigilante justice. Neither was she.

“No hospitals,” Crockett said as Annja led him into the tent.

“Why? You got something against hospitals?”

“My sister died five years ago when she caught an infection following surgery.”

“I’m sorry. But we do need to alert the authorities to the dead man. He’s been lying in the pit since yesterday?”

“No police, either,” Crockett pleaded as she helped him settle onto the cot, and then grabbed the water flask and a towel. She had cut him on the side of his wrist and hadn’t severed an artery, so the injury shouldn’t prove life-threatening. “I think I’ve done a very bad thing.”

“Murder is a bad thing,” Garin commented matter-of-factly, tilting back a swig of whiskey from the bottle on the professor’s bedside table. “But it is sometimes necessary.”

Crockett screwed up his face in disbelief at that comment, but then he winced again, leaning forward over his arm. “You think I killed that man out there? I didn’t. I swear it to you. Who are you?”

“A friend of mine,” Annja quickly said. “Trustworthy.” For the moment. “Did the man out there attack you?” she asked while inspecting Crockett’s wrist. The battle sword had cut neatly to the bone, but she was able to close the flesh with liquid bandage and figured it shouldn’t get infected thanks to the whiskey. She wrapped a tight bandage around it. It would serve until he could get medical attention.

“Attack me?” Crockett was starting to hyperventilate and sweat beaded on his forehead. “Didn’t you see who that was?”

“His face was covered with dirt. Who dragged him into the pit?”

“I panicked. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Call the authorities?”

“I...” The professor tugged away from Annja’s hold. “I didn’t kill Simon.”

Annja stilled. “That’s Simon Klosky out there?”

He’d arrived on the morning of her last day at the dig. Annja had only worked with him half the day before leaving for Cádiz to meet James Harlow. Nice guy. Young. But either the Spanish sun or—her strongest suspicion—extracurricular drugs had made Simon a little loopy and gregarious. He’d had a habit of singing random lines from gospel songs.

“Who did kill him? And why are you still alive, Jonathan? Has this to do with the stolen artifacts?”

Crockett wiped the sweat from his eyes and studied her. “You know about the theft?”

“I saw the very same bronze bull statue I unearthed yesterday in a dead man’s room this morning.”

His jaw dropped. “Dead?”

“Do you know Diego Montera, Jonathan?”

His unwounded hand shook badly, but from the bits and pieces Annja was cobbling together, maybe he had been defending himself against robbers. Maybe. If there had been robbers.

“I haven’t heard the name,” Crockett offered. “He had the bull? I didn’t have a chance to research it, but was beginning to think it was newer than we’d suspected. Maybe medieval or even seventeenth century. Whoever stole our artifacts certainly circulated them quickly. But you took pictures, right?”

“Yes.” Which had all been erased from her camera, except for the ones she had transferred to her laptop. “So you were robbed?”

“Of course! Why else do you think I’d come after you with a bloody machine gun? I thought you were them.”

“Why are you alive?” Garin asked carefully. Pacing the small tent, he still held the Kalashnikov ready to fire. “Makes no sense. Surely the top man in charge of the dig would be considered a target. Criminals don’t generally leave a man behind to tell tales of their notorious escapades.”