Ascher let out a yelp. His body clenched, but Annja held firm, not about to give Lambert a better target. He must have taken a bullet in the leg, from what she could determine.

"Stupid woman." Lambert gestured to his troops. "Kill him!"

Torn from Ascher's p.r.o.ne body, Annja kicked at her attacker's hands and managed to toe a pistol grip and send it flying.

The self-proclaimed pirate called out, "But not her!"

Though she'd been dragged off Ascher, Annja was free for a moment. She lunged backward, her body again landing across Ascher's back. Calling up the sword, she slashed at the first man who dived toward her. The blade tip hooked the edge of his goggles and tore them from his face.

A gun fired. The bullet ricocheted with a dull ping. One of the men hissed to be cautious, Lambert wanted her alive.

Lambert fled with two men in tow. That left four for Annja. She liked those odds.

"Play dead," she whispered in English to Ascher, and then flipped herself upright to stand before her challengers.

Four beams of light danced over her. Her sword glinted brightly. While they vacillated in a plan of action, Annja leaped forward, slicing across the upper thighs of two of the men who stood close together.

They went down, while another gunshot echoed in the close confines of the tunnel. An ancient skull near her feet took the bullet and shattered in a spray of bone and dust.

Another shot was fired. One of the thugs dropped.

Annja glanced to where Ascher lay, but he'd moved. He'd crawled to sit up along the wall. He had fired the shot from an abandoned pistol.

But now he'd brought attention to his position, and all light beams shifted to the wounded Frenchman by the wall.

Annja spun and, using an outstretched arm to torque up her speed, she hit the first man, who bled from the thighs. The impact was hard. She chuffed out her breath. The man toppled and his body plowed down the other two next to him.

"Always did have a knack for dominoes," Annja muttered.

The wounded man twisted at the waist and gripped Annja's ankle.

She drew her sword across his wrist, slicing to the bone. Another shot sounded and one of the headlamps blinked out. A shot for Ascher. Good aim. So the Gascon did have a knack for self-preservation.

The remaining unwounded thug ran down the pa.s.sageway in the direction they had come.

She knew she should go after him, but she was more concerned with Ascher's wound. Retrieving the pistol from the man who was still alive and sprawled at her feet, she checked the magazine. Empty. She tossed the gun into the nook where the box had been found.

At that moment, the headlamp on the fallen thug's helmet blinked out. The darkness held a lingering flash of gray until her eyes adjusted.

Annja looked in the direction of the pa.s.sage. She could still see the headlamp on their fleeing thug bobbing along the walls.

"We don't have much time," she said.

Remembering his position, she plunged to the floor where Ascher sat, and immediately found the wound, even in the blinding darkness.

Ascher swore.

A bullet had entered his thigh above his knee. And there, an exit wound. It was a clean shot. The small-caliber bullet hadn't torn up too much flesh. The knee was still functional. And it hadn't hit an artery, for the blood did not gush. But it still required immediate attention.

As the light swiftly faded, Annja tore at her T-shirt. It ripped up the center, which wasn't what she was going for. It was impossible to remove a strip from around the bottom. So she shucked off her jacket, and removed the shirt. The chill cave air tickled across her bare flesh.

"Are you getting naked for me?" Ascher wondered weakly.

"Not important right now, buddy."

She sensed his head nodded. Perhaps he was losing consciousness.

Tying the shirt tight over the wound would staunch the flow of blood. But in the dark, she could only fumble about and likely do more damage than good.

Tugging on her jacket and zipping it up, she then slapped Ascher's face. "Stay awake. We've got to move. Now. While I can still track the light. Ascher!"

The distant light blinked out. The man must have turned a corner.

Had Annja not been touching Ascher she might have panicked. Even the most experienced spelunkers and cave explorers cannot deny the feeling of doom that seems to squeeze their heart should they suddenly find themselves entombed in utter blackness.

Drawing in a breath through her nose, Annja pressed a palm over her heartbeats. Thudding like horse hooves on dirt.

"Do not panic," she said. The sound of her own voice pushed away some of the apprehension.

She dived for her backpack to Ascher's right, and shuffled through it. The digital camera chirped on, but switching it to view mode didn't provide the ambient light she had hoped for. Without a flashlight or headlamp they were in trouble.

"Annja..." Ascher moaned, the echoes bouncing off the curved stone walls.

"Are you okay?" Stupid question. "I've bandaged your leg. Doesn't feel like an artery was. .h.i.t. Can you walk? We need to move."

"Leave me. I'm...dying."

"You are so not dying." She pushed him up against the wall by the shoulder. "Did they stab you in the other kidney?"

"No."

"Then you're walking out of here."

"Annja, I'll slow you down. It hurts terribly. You. Go." He gripped her forearm, rather firmly for a dying man. But then, what did she know about stuff like that? "Just...come closer, Annja. I need...to say something."

"Say it." She leaned closer until she felt his huffing breaths upon her cheek. "Then we're out of here."

"Will you...kiss a man before he dies?"

Still flirting even when he may be bleeding out. This was one h.e.l.l of a Frenchman.

"You are not dying. And the faster we get you help, the more chance we have of saving the leg."

"Saving the-I'm hit?"

"You don't feel it?" Annja asked.

That meant he could be going into shock. Annja swung another open-palm slap through the darkness and connected with his skull. "Stay alert, Frenchman. And let me help you up. They've taken the flashlights, but I still have the camera."

"You want to photograph my death?"

"Don't be morbid, Vallois."

"No, you leave me. Go! It is far better than life, knowing I was not able to defend your honor."

"Now you're starting to sound like one of Dumas's musketeers."

"You see? I am delirious. Death creeps slowly over my eyelids."

"Give me a break. And don't touch the wound. Your hands are dirty. We need to keep it clean as possible."

"I will die before the infection kills me."

"I could pee on it," Annja said.

"You-what? Annja, I don't want you to-"

"That makes two of us. But urine is a great disinfectant. I'll leave that to you. You've got better aim, as it is. Don't worry, Ascher, you'll survive."

Because to confess that she wasn't sure about the wound-if he would bleed out, and not make it to the surface alive-just wasn't in the script.

She leaned in, not seeing his face, but she could smell his sea-breeze aftershave and the salty tang of perspiration. Touching his chin, she drew her fingers up, reading his bloodied and bruised features. They had worked him over while she'd been in the nook with Lambert.

"Annja, what are you doing?"

"If a kiss will get you on your feet, then I'll do it."

So she did. A fast, hard kiss right to his mouth. Any other time, and any other place...

"There. You feeing less death-like?"

Using Annja and the wall, Ascher pushed himself upright. He swayed, but slapped a hand onto her shoulder. "You have revived me. Another?"

"When we hit topside."

"Promise?"

She sighed and hooked an arm across his back to point him in the right direction. "Promise. Now move. I can get us down the path to the turn. From there, I'm hoping we'll see a light."

Annja supported Ascher as he shuffled along beside her. His body weight hung over her right shoulder. He bounced on his good left leg.

"Hurry!"

To his credit, Ascher did scramble. Rushing blindly through the darkness, Annja concentrated on keeping her path straight. The ground was uneven, pocked with cobblestones and loose pebbles, but it didn't trip her up. The camera strap was dangling about her wrist; she wouldn't attempt to use it for light and risk running the batteries low.

She judged the distance from the thug disappearing to be less than one hundred yards. She and Ascher had to have breached half that length. The chill atmosphere began to creep up the back of her neck. Without the clingy cotton T-shirt, the nylon brushing her skin raised goose b.u.mps. She didn't relish wandering about in the darkness. And to run into the rave again was not her idea of a rescue.

It was entirely feasible that a person-even without a grievous gunshot wound-could become disoriented and lost down here. For a very long time. And if lack of direction wasn't enough, total blackness didn't help, either. She figured it wouldn't take long for a person to go mad in such a predicament. Blindly stumbling about, the ruins of cemeteries and bones at their feet.

Slamming into a wall, she let go of Ascher and put up her palms to catch herself from wobbling backward. Ascher slid to the ground beside her, clutching her leg. She didn't step out of his grasp. They must keep contact.

A turn to the left and then the right did not reveal a light. The thug couldn't have gone far. Though it was very possible he could have slipped down a hole to a lower level.

The only way out demanded they go up. And unless an iron ladder leading up to a manhole was close by, the thug would have to trace the same path they'd originally followed. And how could he without a map or the digital pictures she'd held as a lifeline?

Annja closed her eyes, though it seemed pointless in this pitch darkness. She listened. Her heart raced. Breath came quickly.

But there.

Faint echoes of movement. Not a crowd. Maybe a single person.

She bent and felt for Ascher's face. Leaning against his ear, she whispered. "Sit still. Don't move. I'm going ahead. Not far."

"No," he said.

"I won't leave without you," she rea.s.sured. Slipping the camera into his hand, she closed his fingers over it. Then she stepped over his legs.

"Annja." His sorrowful cry almost made her turn back.

He'd be fine. With luck, he'd pa.s.s out. The pain must be excruciating. Her immediate fear was shock. He was cool, but not alarmingly so. His pulse raced, though. No time must be wasted. Once the body cooled and the victim began to shake-combined with blood loss-shock was not far off.

Stepping slowly, using her left hand to guide her along the cool stone wall, Annja moved through the darkness. It enveloped her so snugly she might be at the bottom of the sea. She recalled they had pa.s.sed through a few long tunnels before finally landing the treasure. So far she'd only traversed one.

Each step she marked carefully and painstakingly so as not to crunch any loose pebbles and alert anyone who may be listening. She could still hear Ascher's breathing, punctuated with intermittent moans.

Sensing a solid force loomed just ahead, she put out her hand, stopped and listened. No sound. Not breath. Not movement. It had to be a wall. She pressed her palm forward and her fingers splayed across rock dusted with crumbling bits of soil.

And then she heard it. A small click. Metal against metal. Just to her right. She was not alone.

24.

Drawing her semiclasped right hand before her, Annja willed the sword out from the otherwhere. It arrived, solid and rea.s.suring in her grip. But she did not draw it en garde en garde. Instead, she stood there in the utter darkness, head tilted down and to the right to listen. The sword she held blade pointed toward her feet, elbow slightly crooked.

She grew so silent her own heartbeat thudded loudly in her ears. No good. She had to hear everything.

Drawing in a breath cleared out the thunderous pound of her life, and in that moment, she drew up the sword. A glint of green light flashed on the blade. She ducked, curling her body down and to the right. A bullet just missed her shoulder.

Now the laser green headlight attached to a man's head bobbed wildly as he jumped into view. Annja lunged backward and slipped around the rough-hewn stone corner. He fired twice. Both bullets ricocheted off the wall two feet from her shoulder. Stone chips pinged her cheek.

To her left she heard Ascher swear.

Digging the toe of her rubber boot into the loose rubble, Annja pushed around the corner and slashed the blade once, but blindly. It met resistance. The slither of steel slicing through fabric preceded a cry of pain. Metal clattered across loose pebbles. He'd dropped the pistol.