Solomon's Jar Read Free Page A

ridge. Using such cover as scrub and rock outcrops offered, she climbed the slope, senses stretched tight as a guyline. She paused in the deep shade of the broad-leaved trees at the crest. A hill across from her still hid the sun. Below her the ravine was a slash in gloom crossed by a pale blur—a rope-and-plank footbridge common in the erstwhile Incan empire.
    She drew a deep breath. Almost out of here, she thought. She walked down the slope.
    A nasty crack sounded beside her left ear. She felt something sting her cheek. By uncomprehending reflex she turned to look back up the hill.
    A yellow star appeared in the brush at the foot of the trees, not far from the point where she’d left them. It flickered. She heard more cracking sounds.
    She turned and raced for the bridge. The short, steep slope gave no cover. The bridge gave less. But the only chance she saw was to make it across and lose herself in the night and far hills. Her pursuers might have night-vision equipment but she’d just have to chance it.
    She zigged right and zagged left, running flat out. The grayed, splintery-dry planks were bouncing beneath her feet with a peculiar muted timbre as she darted out onto the bridge.
    It had not occurred to her to wonder why these hardmen, who seemed to know their business had gotten a clear, close shot at her back—and missed.
    But then a pair of men rose up from the bushes clustered on the far side and walked onto the bridge to meet her. Men in mottled brown-and-khaki camouflage. Each carried a rifle with an unmistakable Kalashnikov banana magazine slanted in patrol position before his waist.
    Feeling sick, she grabbed the wooly guide rope with one hand and turned. Another pair of men strolled almost casually down the hill behind her, likewise holding their weapons muzzle down. Their crumpled boonie hats were pulled low, making their faces shadows.
    â€œMight as well give it up here, miss,” a man called from the bridge’s far end in a New England accent. “Only way out is down. And it’s a long step.”
    â€œWhat do you think you’re doing?” a nervous voice asked from behind her.
    â€œWhat do you think?” the New Englander called out with a nasty sneer. “The first white woman we see in weeks, and she’s a babe with legs up to here . You want to let that go to waste?”
    â€œPlenty of time to waste her later,” the big merc added. “Sorry, lady. Nothing personal. Life’s just a bitch sometimes, ain’t she?”
    Annja let her head hang forward with a loose strand of hair hanging before it like a banner from a defeatedarmy. Her shoulders slumped. She sat back against the guide rope heedless of the way it swayed over emptiness.
    â€œThat’s more like it, honey,” the trooper said. “You’ve got a good sense of the inevitable.”
    He was close now. Holding his weapon warily in a gloved right hand, he reached for her with his left.
    Her face hidden, she frowned in sudden concentration. She reached with her will into a pocket in space, into a different place, always near her but always infinitely far away.
    Suddenly a sword was in her hand, a huge broadsword with an unadorned cross hilt. She swept it whistling before her.
    The hand reaching for her pulled back. Blood shot out from the arm, more black than red in the twilight. It sprayed hot across her face.
    The mercenary staggered back, shouting more in astonishment than pain. That would come later.
    But he had no later.
    Annja dropped to the planks, catching herself with her hands, her right still wrapped around the sword’s hilt, ignoring the agonizing pressure on her knuckles. She could see the stream meandering more than three hundred feet below, visible between wide-spaced planks as a pale ribbon through shadow.
    Gunfire rapped from the bridge’s far end. The flash and vertical flare-spike from the muzzle brake lit thecanyon like a spastic bonfire. The bridge