There was a short flurry of discreet short-range strikes.
After a brief, grunting exchange, barely visible to the high-mounted camera, Easy Ngwenya sidestepped a short punch, reached with her right hand and caught Annja behind the left elbow. She squeezed.
The younger woman was chunkily muscular. Annja had noticed in some of her photographs that she had short, square hands, large for her height. Practical, practiced hands. Even in glamour shots the exiled African princess disdained long nails, even paste-on fakes.
But even her exceptional hand strength couldn’t account for the lightning that shot through Annja’s body.
She could barely even gasp. It wasn’t the pain. There was pain, to be sure; it felt as if a giant spike had been driven up her arm and at the same time right through the middle of her body. The problem was, literally, the shock. It was as if a jolt of electricity had clenched her whole body in a spasm, dropped her to her knees and left her there, lungs empty of breath and unable to draw one. Her vision swam.
“Oh, dear,” Easy’s voice rang, clear with false concern. “Are you quite all right, miss? I’ll go and get help.” She trotted away up the stairs with rapid clacks of her elegant but practical low-heeled shoes.
Annja rocked back and forth. Darkness crowded in around the edges of her vision. What’s wrong with me? she wondered in near panic. It was as if she was suffering a giant whole-body cramp.
An unbreakable one.
But slowly, as if molecule by molecule, oxygen infiltrated back into her lungs and permeated her bloodstream. Slowly the awful muscle spasm began to relax. She slumped.
She was just regaining control of herself when two uniformed guards, a man and a woman in caps with little bills, came pattering down the steps for her.
“Oh, dear, miss,” the man said in a lilting Jamaican accent. “Are you all right?”
She nodded and let them help her to her feet. She didn’t have much choice. She still didn’t have the muscular strength to stand on her own.
“I-I’m fine,” she said. “I get these spells. Epilepsy. Petit mal. Had it since childhood. Really, thank you, it’s passed now.”
The two exchanged a look. “We don’t want you suing us,” said the blond woman.
“No. I’m fine. Did you see which way my friend went?”
“No,” the man said. “She seemed very determined that we help you right away.” He shook his head. “She was quite the little package. It was too bad we had to rush away—”
“Oi!” the woman exclaimed. “That’s so sexist! I’ve half a mind to report you for that.”
“Now, now,” he said, “don’t go flying off here like—”
“Like what? Were you going to make another demanding sexist statement, then?”
“Don’t you mean demeaning? ” the male guard said.
Annja set off at what she hoped was a steady-looking pace, up the stairs to the next level. She made it through the door before she wobbled and had to lean back against it for a moment to gather herself.
The Korean exhibit was nearly empty. It was totally empty of any rogue archaeologist Zulu princesses. Annja drew a deep abdominal breath. It steadied her stomach and cleared her brain. Her vision expanded slowly but steadily. She no longer felt as if she were passing through a tunnel toward a white light.
She managed to walk briskly, with barely a wobble, through a door into a wider hall. Another set of stairs led down. Annja set her jaw.
The stairs descended to the ground level, and then to the north exit. She found herself outside on broad steps with Montague Place in front of her and the colonnaded pseudoclassical facade of the White Wing behind. It was called that not because it was white, but because it was named after the benefactor whose bequest made it possible to build.
The cool air seemed to envelop her. She sucked in a deep breath. The moist draft was so refreshing she scarcely noticed the heavy diesel tang.
A light rain began to tickle Annja’s face. She grunted, stamping one foot. Passersby glanced at her, then walked quickly on.
Calm down! she told herself savagely. This doesn’t always happen. She’s got the better of you twice. That’s not statistically significant.
She walked on as fast as she dared. She didn’t want some kind of behavior-monitoring software routine on the video surveillance to decide she was acting suspiciously. But she wanted to get away from the museum.
For a time she walked at random, lost in thoughts that whirled amid the noise of the city center. She stopped at a little café inside a glass front of some looming office building for a cup of hot tea.
Sitting on an uncomfortable metal chair, she gulped it as quickly as she could without scalding her lips. Outside she was surprised to see that twilight was well along. Gloom just coalesced atom by atom out of the gray that pervaded the cold heart of the city.
Setting the cup down, she strode out into the early autumn evening. The rain had abated. She headed toward Sir Sidney’s, a dozen or so blocks away. Maybe he’d turned something up.
I T ALWAYS AMAZED A NNJA how many little alcoves and culs-de-sac, surprisingly quiet even in the evening rush, could be stumbled upon in downtown London. Sir Sidney lived on a little half-block street, narrow and lined with trees whose leaves had already turned gray-brown and dead. It was so tiny and insignificant, barely more than a posh alley, it didn’t seem to rate its own spy cameras.
Trotting up the steps to the door of Sir Sidney’s redbrick flat, Annja wondered how his aging knees held up to them. Before she could carry the thought any further, she noticed the white door with the shiny brass knob stood slightly ajar.
She stopped in midstep. Her body seemed to lose twenty quick degrees. Foreboding numbness crept into her cheeks and belly.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “He’s old. He might be getting absentminded. Just nipped out and forgot to fully close the door—”
Trying not to act like a burglar, she went on up the steps. She knocked quickly. “Sir Sidney?” she called. She was trying to make herself heard if he was within earshot inside without drawing attention to herself from outside.
She did not want to be seen.
Putting a hand in the pocket of her windbreaker, she pushed the door open and stepped quickly inside.
The entrance hallway was dark. As was the sitting room to her right. Nonetheless, the last gloom of day through the door and filtering in through curtained windows showed her the shape of Sir Sidney lying on his back on the floor.
The rich burgundy of the throw rug on which he had fallen had been overtaken by a deeper, spreading stain.
5
Annja knelt briefly at the old man’s side. The skin of his neck was cold. She felt no pulse.
She almost felt relief. If he was still alive with half his head battered in like that—
She shook her head and straightened. She would rather die than persist in such a state. She hoped Sir Sidney had felt the same way.
One way or another, he felt nothing now.
Moving as if through a fog that anesthetized her extremities and emotions, Annja took stock of the sitting room. The gloom was as thick as the cloying combination smell of old age, potpourri and recent death. She didn’t want to turn on a light, though. She wanted to draw no attention to her presence, nor leave any more signs of her presence than she had to.
Than I already have, she thought glumly. Irrationally if unsurprisingly, she regretted the earlier carelessness with which she had handled her teacup and saucer, the careless abandon