The Pretender's Gambit. Alex Archer

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СКАЧАТЬ would be a very powerful thing. Rao felt guilty for not believing in the Eye more. His temple had discovered the legend years ago, almost lost in their records because of all the strife that had run rampant through his country for so long, but there had been nothing discovered in those ancient texts that would lead the priests to the Lost Temple. The priests had spent years looking for it. Only when the elephant was found on the internet did they find another crumb of the trail that had been left. Even that discovery had been by chance, not by deliberate research.

      So much had been lost in all the years of upheaval and invaders. Even now, parts of Cambodia were not at peace, and the shadow of the Khmer Rouge continued to touch the country. A rough voice startled him from his thoughts.

      “Hey! What are you doing here? Spying on people? Is that what you’re doing?”

      Rao chose not to answer, though he stepped sideways to look at the speaker. As a Vietnamese man in this neighborhood, especially at this time of night, he stood out. He hoped that his silence could be mistaken for not understanding the language.

      The man who addressed him looked to be around thirty, about Rao’s age. But the man was big through the shoulders, and powerful looking. A reddish beard covered his face under a black knit cap that fit tightly to his head. He wore fingerless gloves and a bulky coat. Three other men trailed behind him, all of them about the same age and scruffy looking. All of them held a vulpine gleam to their eyes, predators gazing upon defenseless prey.

      “Did you hear me?” The man came closer. “You no speak English?”

      Rao actually spoke English quite well. Better than the man standing in front of him as a matter of fact. The man confronting him spoke with a thick Slavic accent.

      “I think he’s just ignoring you, Vladi,” one of the other men said with the same accent. The three of them circled around the bigger man like wolves preparing for a kill.

      Glancing up, Rao took in the fire escapes that zig-zagged up to the roofs.

      “Don’t look away when I’m talking to you.” Vladi thumped Rao in the chest with a thick, blunt forefinger. “If you think one of your gangs is going to muscle in on our territory, you got another think coming.” The big man grinned and the expression was pure hate. “We’re gonna send a message of our own back to your people.” He reached for Rao.

      Twisting, stepping back and giving ground before the bigger man’s hand, Rao avoided his opponent’s clumsy effort, caught his wrist and yanked just enough to pull the man off balance. Vladi staggered forward, fell and caught himself on his hands and knees.

      Taking advantage of the big man’s position, Rao leaped to Vladi’s back, used it to propel himself up to catch the railing on the nearest fire escape, and clambered up the other landings as quickly as a squirrel climbing a tree. At the top of the four-story building, he leaned over the edge and looked down.

      Vladi had gotten back to his feet. All of them stared at Rao in surprise, then one of them leaped up to pull down the access ladder with a loud clang that drew the attention of the police. Two of the uniformed police officers came over to the alley to investigate, turning on flashlights and holding their pistols in their holsters. Vladi and his cohorts scattered and ran back down the alley as the policemen’s flashlights picked them out of the darkness.

      Rao continued walking across the rooftop, intending to find a new spot to continue his surveillance. If the elephant was still attainable, he intended to have it. The priests at the temple would expect him to continue the hunt, and he was not prepared to give up on it.

Chapter 3

      “Hey, bro, you can’t just hold us here forever. We know our rights. You can’t arrest us if we didn’t do anything. And this is our home anyway. You can’t even be here if we don’t want you here. We could make you wait in the hallway.”

      The speaker was the younger of the two Russian men sitting on the ratty pale green couch that looked like it had been scooped up off the street. The rest of the furniture was ill-matched and just as unkempt, spreading across three different styles and at least thirty years. None of the pieces were collector’s items.

      Cigarette smoke hung like a cloud in the air. European symphonic heavy-metal tracks spun through the iPod dock on top of a television, showing a futuristic military video game paused in midaction. Something was blowing up but Annja wasn’t sure what it was.

      She stood behind Bart with her hands in her jacket pockets and didn’t say anything. Although a police investigation wasn’t something she regularly took part in, she’d seen plenty on television, and she’d watched Bart in action a few times. She felt safe, and she was definitely curious.

      The two Russians were obviously related and it showed in their features—the same eyes, the same facial structure. One of them was thin and lupine-faced and maybe twenty, wearing a concert T-shirt, and the other looked slightly older and was beefed up and overweight, like a martial arts fighter who’d been hitting the borscht and beer too often. The younger guy had long dark hair and a spotty beard while the older one was shaven bald and wore a dark beard with lime-green tints.

      Based on the look of their apartment, and the stench, and their lackadaisical nature, both of them were delinquents and probably a total waste of time.

      “You know your rights?” Bart looked impressed.

      The younger brother nodded and fist bumped his brother. They waggled their fingers like the fist bump had caused an explosion. “You bet we do, bro. We know our rights back and front, and you can’t just arrest us.”

      “What would I arrest you for?”

      “Nothing, bro.” The young one wiped his hands in front of him like he was cleaning a slate. “We ain’t done nothing. The police chick outside—” he pointed through the door, indicating the hallway “—she said she just wanted to ask us some questions. Next thing we know, bro, here you are.”

      “You mean Officer Falcone said she wanted to ask you questions?” Bart asked.

      “I didn’t get her name, bro. Maybe that was it.” His eyelids hung heavily and he moved too loosely to be completely sober. “It was that police chick out there.”

      “Call her Officer Falcone. She won’t be happy with ‘police chick.’ Trust me.”

      “Officer Police Chick called you down here, bro? That’s what you said, right? That’s why you’re here?”

      Annja didn’t know how Bart kept his composure. She was getting frustrated just listening, unable to get the memory of the murdered man out of her mind. Bart sighed in annoyed acceptance. “Yes. She did.”

      “Why?”

      “Why do you think?”

      The guy wrapped his arms around himself. “She said my uncle got killed.”

      “Great-uncle,” the brother said quietly. “You forget, Maurice was our great-uncle on Ma’s side. Her mother’s brother.”

      “Okay, then, our great-uncle. Only, if you ask me, he isn’t so great. He’s just this old guy. Kind of bossy. Too bossy. Likes to tell people what to do.” He looked at Bart. “That true, bro? Somebody killed our great-uncle?”

      “I’m СКАЧАТЬ