“Doug,” Annja interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“I figured you were just leading me on. That’s okay. You’ve got a few shots coming. I don’t hold it against you.” Doug cleared his throat. “We’re gonna have to deal with the computer-generated shark. It’s going to happen. But I’d like to save as much as we can of what you want to show.”
“This really stinks.”
“It’s a fact of life. Gigantic killer sharks are a lot more interesting than Caboosa Indians.”
“Calusa.”
“That proves my point. People will remember the shark. I remember the shark more than I remember the Indians.”
“You know,” Annja said sarcastically, “maybe you should tell the marketing guys the shark was really an alien robot that disguised itself as a shark.”
“And it can take other forms? Like a Transformer?” Doug perked up and Annja knew she’d made a mistake. “That’s totally cool. Man, they’d go crazy over that.”
“Doug?”
“Yeah?”
“No Transformers.”
“I’m telling you, you should rethink that.”
“No.”
“All right. Are you coming in tomorrow?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t, Editing will do the cuts without you.”
Annja didn’t want to deal with that. It would just be an exercise in frustration. She focused on Mario Fellini. “Did Mario leave a number where he could be reached?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I couldn’t understand his message.”
“He sent you a message? I thought you talked to him.”
“I did talk to him. He spoke English when he talked to me. When he left a message on your answering service here at the—”
Annja broke the connection and dialed the studio number, quickly going through the electronic filters to get to her voice mail. She should have remembered it, but she never used it.
Only occasionally did she even go through the messages. Usually they were spam. Most of the people she had contact with, including fans of the show, used her e-mail addresses.
A few exchanges later, she had the message and triggered the playback.
5
“Hey, Annja. This is Mario Fellini. Don’t know if you remember me, but we worked Hadrian’s Wall together a few years ago.” Fellini spoke his native Italian.
Despite the tension of the situation, Annja couldn’t help smiling as she thought of him. Mario had always carried boyish charm with him and he wasn’t forgettable.
Then Annja remembered the woman who had called. She wondered who Erene Skujans was to Mario.
“I got your number from a professional list,” Mario went on. “Seems you aren’t listed in the White Pages anymore.” He laughed at that.
There was a reason for that, Annja thought. Her life had been crazy dealing with the television show even before she’d inherited Joan of Arc’s sword.
“You’ve gone off and gotten famous.”
Despite the good-natured and relaxed tone Mario had in his voice, Annja also detected tension. It sounded as if he was calling from a street pay phone. She heard traffic in the background.
That meant that even if the studio had Caller ID on her line or kept track of the incoming calls, the number she got wouldn’t help.
But calling from a public pay phone didn’t make sense unless Mario was trying to hide.
From Agent Smith and his fun boys? Annja wondered. Or was someone else involved? Maybe a woman with a sexy voice?
“I see you all the time,” Mario said. “I ordered the Chasing History’s Monsters DVDs and I’ve started recording the show. It’s good stuff. I don’t know how you work under those conditions, though. And I have to admit, that other woman gets on my nerves.”
But do you have one of her posters? Annja wondered. She’d met professors of archaeology who had Kristie Chatham posters on their office walls. A few museum curators in Florida had them as screen savers on their computers.
“You’re probably surprised to hear from me,” Mario continued. “Or maybe now that you’re famous, you’re getting calls all the time from old associates.”
The traffic noise in the background shifted, and Annja imagined Mario looking around for anyone who might be watching him.
“I hate to bother you with this, but I think I’ve gotten myself in a bit of trouble.” Mario’s voice took on a more somber tone. “In this business of digging up the past, sometimes you find things other people would do anything to possess. But sometimes you find things that you aren’t supposed to find, and there are people who don’t want that, either.” He paused. “I’m afraid that’s what I’ve done.”
Remembering the men with the guns, Annja knew whatever it was had turned deadly. But where was Mario?
“Anyway, I mailed you something that I’d like you to take a look at. It got here a few days ago, ahead of me. I’ve been here two days, but I haven’t heard from you. I can’t give you a phone number, I’m afraid. I’m changing hotels every night. And I don’t have a cell phone with me. I’ve been told people can track you through those if they get hold of your records.” Mario took a breath. “The people involved in this, they can do things like that.”
Annja looked around the bar, feeling momentarily vulnerable. Following the two men to the hotel probably wasn’t the brightest thing she could have done. But it had felt right. If she’d called the police, she’d have been stuck answering questions for hours.
Call me, Bart, she thought. Bart McGilley could cut through the red tape. She hoped.
“Thinking back on this,” Mario went on, “maybe I shouldn’t have come. Erene didn’t want me to come. She felt it was too dangerous.”
Who is Erene? Annja wondered.
“Anyway, when you get the package, hold on to it until I call you. I’ll keep trying. In the meantime, take care of yourself. These are dangerous men.” The traffic noise in the background shifted again. “There’s one other thing. When you get the package and see what’s in there, just remember what happened to us at Hadrian’s Wall.”
Several things had happened to them at Hadrian’s Wall. A lot of them had been good.
“Goodbye, Annja. I hope to see you soon.”
A NNJA SAT BACK and stared at the television, watching the New York Yankees working out at spring training. They threw and batted and ran bases like they didn’t have a problem in the world. The sports reporters traded quips with them.
Real life wasn’t like that, Annja knew. People struggled every day. Some of them, like Mario now, struggled against deadly and dangerous forces.
In a way, it made sense that Mario had come to her. Annja didn’t think it was just because of the past friendship. She felt certain part of the reason Mario had come was because of the sword she carried.
Roux had told her that dealing with trouble was part of the legacy of the sword. The old man had been with her when she’d found the last broken piece of the sword and there again when she’d touched the