Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask Read online

  The face of evil.

  And the face of greed...

  The video showed a nearly naked man bloodied and beaten. Even as archaeologist and TV presenter Annja Creed watched, the clock on his suicide vest ticked down, and precious seconds were lost. But this was no stranger. Garin was her friend. Their fates had been bound by the secrets of Joan of Arc’s sword. And Annja had less than twenty-four hours to save his life...

  The price for Garin’s life was the lost mask of Torquemada, rumored to have been cast by the Grand Inquisitor himself, five hundred years ago during the Spanish Inquisition. Abandoned crypts, lost palaces and a cruel and ancient brotherhood: all clues to the mask’s complicated and deadly mystery that Annja, and her mentor, Roux—using all of their considerable resources and cunning—must solve before Garin runs out of time.

  Annja Creed is facing her greatest trial. And not even the holy sword of Joan of Arc can spare her from the final judgment.

  “It’s rather a plain church, don’t you think?”

  Annja glanced around, looking for someone who stood out, someone who was obviously watching her, who had a phone to his ear. The street was quiet. She couldn’t see anyone. But they knew where she was.

  “Is this a social call?” she said into the phone, still looking up and down the street.

  “No. Definitely not. I like to think of it as incentivizing.” The man on the other end laughed. In the background, she heard a cry of pain. Garin. Why were they doing this to him? Why torture him? If he knew where the mask was, he would have told them. He wasn’t a hero. There was only one thing Garin Braden valued above and beyond the possession of beautiful things, and that was

  self-preservation. “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you,” he said.

  There was a pause. A second. Two. It felt like forever.

  A weak and mumbling voice spoke. “Don’t do it...don’t give them what they want. Even if you find it...”

  It was Garin. The phone was snatched away before he could finish speaking. The next thing she heard was a grunt and the sound of flesh slapping flesh.

  “Garin!” Annja called, unable to stop herself.

  “You’ve wasted four hours, Miss Creed. Don’t waste any more.” The kidnapper killed the connection.

  Titles in this series:

  Destiny

  Solomon’s Jar

  The Spider Stone

  The Chosen

  Forbidden City

  The Lost Scrolls

  God of Thunder

  Secret of the Slaves

  Warrior Spirit

  Serpent’s Kiss

  Provenance

  The Soul Stealer

  Gabriel’s Horn

  The Golden Elephant

  Swordsman’s Legacy

  Polar Quest

  Eternal Journey

  Sacrifice

  Seeker’s Curse

  Footprints

  Paradox

  The Spirit Banner

  Sacred Ground

  The Bone Conjurer

  Tribal Ways

  The Dragon’s Mark

  Phantom Prospect

  Restless Soul

  False Horizon

  The Other Crowd

  Tear of the Gods

  The Oracle’s Message

  Cradle of Solitude

  Labyrinth

  Fury’s Goddess

  Magic Lantern

  Library of Gold

  The Matador’s Crown

  City of Swords

  The Third Caliph

  Staff of Judea

  The Vanishing Tribe

  Clockwork Doomsday

  Blood Cursed

  Sunken Pyramid

  Treasure of Lima

  River of Nightmares

  Grendel’s Curse

  The Devil’s Chord

  Celtic Fire

  The Pretender’s Gambit

  Death Mask

  DEATH MASK

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  Late-night traffic roared along Madrid’s Gran Vía. These cars were status symbols driven by men in the throes of their midlife crises. Overpowered engines strained in the chassis of superlight metal. Beautiful people stumbled in and out of bars. There was no room for ugliness or poverty in this make-believe world that pretended not to be in turmoil. They partied hard and loud, the constant babble of noise disguising the rotors of the approaching helicopter.

  It was a quarter to midnight, not quite the magical hour when the luxury sports cars would turn into pumpkins and the men behind the wheel into the rats they were deep down.

  The men on board the helicopter paid no attention to the world below. They had their mission objectives and wouldn’t be distracted from them by little black dresses. They had the job timed down to the second. They had covered every possible parameter and were prepared for every eventuality. They would be long gone before the first alarm sounded.

  The helicopter circled what passed for one of the only skyscrapers in the downtown area, giving the six men on board time to confirm they were good to go, and then they pulled ski masks down over their faces. This was a well-drilled team, used to dealing with high-risk ops, infiltrations and extractions, scenarios which could turn on a dime. That killed complacency before it could get a foothold in their ranks. Every op carried danger. Planning minimized the risk but never truly took it away.

  The first man jumped out seconds before the skids had settled on the roof of the office block. Head down, he ran hard, arms and legs pumping, toward the infiltration point. The arrogance of money had made their job so much easier. A helipad on the roof of an office block? It was like taking candy from a baby.

  Nine seconds after the initial breach lines were tethered to the building, the first three men stepped off the edge of the roof, beginning to rappel down the side. The second trio was nine seconds behind them. The building’s panoramic windows were made from high-tensile glass, essentially bulletproof. The men drew level with the target’s floor, pulling off to pause on either side of his office. The front three men attached devices right, left and top-center on the huge window. Bullets were one thing, concentrated explosives quite anothe
r. A hand went up, each finger closing one second after the other, counting down to the detonation. Noise-reduction earbuds saved their hearing as the charges blew, and the men turned their faces away to protect their eyes as the glass shattered.

  The window blew inward, showering the three men deadlocked in a late-night meeting in the Rojo International offices with deadly rain that cut through their designer threads as if they were paper.

  Less than a minute had passed since the team had rolled out of the helicopter. Fifty-five seconds, to be precise.

  All six team members swung inside the gaping wound in the side of the skyscraper before the last glass fragments had started their downward spiral to the street below.

  A hail of gunfire tore into the ceiling, meant purely to terrify.

  It had the desired effect.

  A second volley of gunfire had two of the suits dancing in jerky rhythm as their bodies were riddled with bullets. Blood spattered the wall behind them, leaving silhouettes of the dying clearly visible.

  The third man sat motionless in the midst of the carnage. Well, not quite motionless, the team leader realized, seeing the man’s eyes dart to the Mark Rothko painting on the wall that had caught some of the blood spray. The arc of red was incongruous with the blocks of color. The man seemed more concerned about the damage to his painting than he was about the two men bleeding out on the expensive silk rug.

  He said nothing.

  The boardroom door burst open and another man—broad, burly and dead before he took his first step inside the room—managed a single shot before a hail of bullets took him down. The bullets cut through his torso, the impact driving him back through the doorway.

  “Two more,” the leader said, motioning left and right for two of his men to go on the hunt while the other three followed him.

  The man at the table didn’t so much as flinch as cable ties were slipped around his wrists and cinched so tightly they drew blood. He looked up at the security camera high in the corner of the room, making sure it saw everything. The red light winked back. It was recording.

  “You,” the leader said to one of his men, who crossed the room quickly and blacked out the lens with spray paint.

  Ninety seconds had passed since the helicopter had touched down.

  Everything was on schedule. Clockwork precision. The silent alarm would have been tripped the second the window shattered. Police response times were fast when it was big money they were protecting, but there was no sign of any kind of armed response yet. The leader had it timed to two minutes twenty-five for the first siren. Anything after that was sloppy, and he wasn’t about to let sloppiness carry the day. He’d planned for two twenty-five; he’d stick with the plan. More gunfire ripped through the office, followed by the crash of furniture being tipped over.

  There was a single shot after that, then silence.

  The two men sent on patrol returned to the boardroom as a harness was being strapped to their target’s chest. One of them gave a single nod, confirming that everything had been taken care of.

  No one had imagined an “unbreakable” window on the thirty-second floor posed a substantial security risk. Not the architects. Not the men who had taken up residence in the high castle of Rojo International’s offices. And most importantly, not the man being strapped into the harness by his team.

  “Move,” the team’s Number Two barked, hauling their captive to his feet.

  The man resisted, but that only resulted in pain as Number Two delivered a punishing blow to his gut that doubled him up, and as his head came down, a crunching right uppercut that sent him staggering sideways. “Move,” Number Two repeated, and this time the man did as he was told.

  “You are going to pay for this,” he snarled. Rather than another blow, his defiance was paid back with silence—a wad of tissues forced into his mouth and a strip of gaffer tape slapped across it. Number Two dragged him to the window and stood only inches from the edge, grabbing a fistful of his hair and forcing him to look down.

  The drop was dizzying.

  “A spectacular view, I’m sure you’ll agree, Mr. Braden?” the team leader said, bracing himself against the window frame. “An entire city quite literally at your feet. Look at it. Drink it in. It could well be the last thing you ever see. I’d hate for you to forget it.”

  * * *

  GARIN BRADEN WASN’T used to people treating him like this. He wasn’t a victim. He’d lived his entire long life by one simple credo: “Do unto others before they can do unto you.” A man didn’t get to Garin’s age by being a victim. He pushed back against the hand on his head, but the man didn’t relinquish his grip. Garin felt the air rush into his face. It was all too easy to imagine the sidewalk rushing toward him. He swallowed. He wasn’t in control. He didn’t like that. He tried to run through his options, but with the harness pinning his arms, and the assassin’s fingers tangled in his hair, there was little he could do. Sadly, learning how to fly wasn’t possible, though it was looking increasingly like a necessity. Lacking wings, Garin felt hands on the center of his spine and then he was kicking against nothing, falling.

  For a second—the silence between terrified heartbeats—he was suspended in the air thirty-two stories above the Madrid streets before the line hooked through his harness snapped taut and stopped his plunging descent. And then he was rising as he was hoisted toward the roof.

  Less than a minute later, a battered and bloody Garin Braden was secure in the helicopter, the last of the team clambering in to join him; another thirty seconds and they were airborne.

  They were more than half a mile away before they heard the sirens of the first responders.

  All the money in the world hadn’t been able to keep Garin Braden safe.

  The clock was ticking.

  1

  24:00—Madrid

  The drumming vibration of her cell phone on the nightstand dragged Annja Creed out of sleep. For a moment the noise had been part of the surreal landscape of her imagination, but as she opened her eyes she completely forgot what she’d been dreaming. Annja had been in Valencia for a week working on a piece on gargoyles for Chasing History’s Monsters, and now she was in Madrid, recharging her batteries. There was nothing like the mix of modernity and history as a backdrop for a little R & R. She looked at the alarm clock and saw it was ungodly early, for a vacation day. Who in their right mind would be calling? Then she realized it was probably Doug Morrell, completely forgetting she’d booked the next few days off. Her producer could be a pain when she was overseas, always wanting an update, querying her expense claim or just reminding her the show needed to be sexy. That was the nature of the beast, after all. Sexy television. Sexy history. Sexy monsters. Sexy claims of links between the two. She’d just turned the latest segment in. Doug could wait. She rolled over and closed her eyes again, but a second and a third call came in quick succession.

  She gave in and picked up.

  “What do you want, Doug? It’s the middle of the night.”

  That wasn’t quite true. The morning sun filtered through the too-thin hotel curtains, picking out the cigarette-smoke discolorations on the fabric.

  It wasn’t Doug. “Check your email. Click on the link. I will wait,” the voice said. She couldn’t place it.

  “Who is this?” Annja heard another voice in the background but couldn’t catch what was being said. The line went dead. She checked her recent calls, but the number had been blocked. Annja pushed the covers back and sat up. It was almost seven, and the cleaners were already moving around outside her room, no doubt wishing she’d go down for breakfast so they could do their jobs.

  She got out of bed reluctantly and headed through to the bathroom. She’d check her email, but not before taking a hot shower to help wake her up.

  When she emerged, one towel wrapped around her and another making a turban arou
nd her wet hair, she crossed the floor to her laptop on the dressing table and powered it up.

  She had a single new email.

  The subject line said Urgent, and the sender was Garin Braden.

  But it hadn’t been Garin’s voice on the phone.

  If you want to see Mr. Braden alive again, follow this link.

  Annja clicked.

  A window opened on her screen and a few seconds later the image resolved into what looked like a live video feed. The sole image on the screen was a digital clock that read 23:52:27. It took her a couple seconds to realize it was counting backward from 24:00:00.

  “Hello, Annja, so glad you could finally join us,” a voice said. It sounded different through the tinny speakers than it had on the phone. There was no sign of the male speaker on the screen.“Time is precious. You have already wasted seven and a half minutes of it.”

  Wasted?

  She didn’t know what was going on, and the steaming-hot water had only dragged her so far from sleep. “Stop messing around, Garin. I’m tired and in no mood for your stupid jokes.”

  The camera zoomed out, gradually revealing that the clock was in the middle of a man’s chest. He was slumped in a chair, his hands tied behind his back. He was breathing, but he was bloodied and bruised, and Annja couldn’t tell if he was conscious. Wires ran from the clock to a box beneath the chair he was tied to. Water was thrown from off camera, soaking his blood-streaked shirt. The man lifted his head slowly, staring at the camera through one swollen eye. His mouth was smeared with red. Still, he was immediately recognizable.

  “Garin!” Annja said, his name catching in her throat.

  His eyes didn’t seem to register his name or Annja’s voice. He was dazed and confused and clearly had no idea what was going on.

  “What do you want?” Annja asked.

  “I like that,” said the off-camera voice. “Straight down to business. No pretense of bargaining. No bluster or demands that I let him go. We can work together, Miss Creed.”

  “What do you want?” Annja repeated.

  “The Mask of Torquemada.”

  “The what?” She knew exactly what the voice had said, and had a good idea what it had meant. But that didn’t mean she’d be able to meet this person’s demands.