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them, as oblivious to them as to the world s turmoil.
But maybe less to them. Both continued to attract plenty of attention from
male passersby. Since Annja and Easy were legal for once, fully documented
under their real names and everything, they could afford to ignore the fact
they made an arresting picture the tall, slender white woman and the short,
buxom black one.
I won t say goodbye, Annja, Easy said. I suspect our paths will cross
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again. And I shall keep in touch.
Annja regarded her. Cocky, impudent, a strange mixture of ageless wisdom and
early-adolescent immaturity.
You realize we re still on opposite sides of the law, she said sternly.
I ll put you out of business if I can.
You ll try, Easy said, laughing.
She looked up. Well, there s my flight.
She hugged Annja, as fervently as a child. Annja returned the embrace warmly,
if not so tight.
Easy raised her face toward Annja s ear. To Annja s amazement the girl s huge
brown eyes gleamed with moisture.
Thank you, my sister, Easy whispered.
Thank you, too, Annja said.
OKAY, ANNJA SAID, returning her thoughts to the present. The morning sun
warmed her face. This won t get easier from being put off.
The first time had been hard. Though he had other children, Master Chen had
lost his eldest son. His heir. The boy he had raised, sternly and lovingly,
from babyhood, the man he expected to take his place in the world. He showed
little emotion at hearing the news. Annja knew he would grieve later, as any
parent would who must commit the unthinkable burying a child.
The second had been, surprisingly, not as hard. Patricia Ruhle s older sister
was a Realtor in Connecticut. She had received Annja s news at a coffee shop
in Mystic with a sad headshake.
It was inevitable, she said. We knew that all along. We meaning the rest
of the family, whom Sarah Kingman would now have to inform. Including a young
army Ranger somewhere in Afghanistan.
Patty was an adrenaline junkie, Sarah said matter-of-factly. She admitted
it. She wouldn t have been a crisis photojournalist otherwise. And she always
told us up front she knew that one day, like any addiction, hers would kill
her.
The woman looked down at her cup of green tea, untasted. And now it has, she
said quietly, and dabbed at her eyes with a napkin.
But this
Annja supposed she shouldn t have been surprised, especially given what she
had seen of the world that few others did. She already knew there existed
firms, not altogether legal, that specialized in the covert recovery of loved
ones from troubled developing nations. What she never realized was that some
specialized in bringing back the dead. If not to life, at least to their
families.
It was actually easier in a way, a few moments reflection had told her.
Nobody had to spring a corpse from a fortresslike jail guarded by
trigger-happy thugs with machine guns.
It surprised her rather less that Easy knew of such companies. And quite a bit
more that Easy paid to recover the remains of the late Dr. Philip Kennedy from
a Shan Plateau village.
It seems only fair, Easy had said with a shrug. You ll do the right thing,
of course. Because you re Annja Creed. But to speak practically, you re
considerably out of pocket on this whole enterprise already. And these
services don t come cheap.
She shrugged. And as I said, money s not that important to me. But please
don t mistake this for altruism. I feel I owe you for the pain I put you
through, even though the better part was entirely unwitting. And for your help
in aiding the Protectors.
You really cared about them, Annja observed. She had smiled a little then.
Isn t that altruism?
Not at all, Easy said with a big grin. As I told you, I identify to a high
degree with tribal peoples. And I harbor a hatred of injustice of unfairness.
Just as you do.
Okay. But how is that not altruistic?
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Easy laughed. It gratifies me hugely to aid the victims of bullying, she
said. And if I get to smite the bullies in the process, so much the better!
All right, Annja said now, on the Hawaiian roadside with her rented car
pinging at her as its engine cooled in the shade of a palm tree. No more
delay.
She had no more excuses. She had to march right up to the door, ring the bell,
and then tell a little girl she would never see her father again.
She reached into a pocket of her khaki trousers and took out a piece of paper.
On it was printed a digital photograph.
She gazed down at it. Taken by Easy, using Patty Ruhle s camera, it showed
Annja standing beside the object of the long and bloody quest the Golden
Elephant.
The two-story-tall Golden Elephant. Even though it had been cast hollow it
must, according to Easy s calculations, weigh at least ten metric tons.
An object of incalculable worth, to be sure. However, it wasn t going
anywhere.
The photo was all the mystery patron who had commissioned Annja was ever going
to get of the fabled treasure that so obsessed him. Given that he or she had
seen fit to likewise commission E. C. Ngwenya and the charming, treacherous,
sociopathic Giancarlo Scarlatti to compete with her in the hunt, it was more
than the anonymous patron deserved. To Annja, anyway.
One thing was certain she would not be e-mailing the image to Roux.
She wanted to be there in person to see the look on his smug, bearded,
immortal face when he saw it.
Smiling, she tucked the photo back in the pocket and buttoned it again. Then,
drawing a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and set off along the
lava-graveled path to the door.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2216-2
ab02
THE GOLDEN ELEPHANT
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Victor Milán for his contribution to this
work.
Copyright © 2008 by Worldwide Library.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or
utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic,
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