Free The Dragon’s Mark by Alex Archer Page A

pointed out the things she’d done and the thought process she’d used to arrive at her conclusion.
    When she was finished, he sat quietly for a moment before speaking.
    “You can’t be serious,” he said at last.
    It was not the reaction Annja was hoping for.
    “Of course I’m serious! Did you think I would drive all the way out here to talk to you just for the heck of it?”
    “But, Annja, seriously. Do you really think an international assassin, this mysterious Dragon, a hired gun who specialized in political killings, is really trying to kill me? Whatever for? What possible reason could he have? And let’s not forget the fact that this Dragon is supposed to be dead.”
    “I don’t know what reason he might have. That’s what I was hoping you could tell me,” she answered.
    Roux scowled and waved his hand in dismissal. “Now you sound like Garin, for heaven’s sake. ‘Pissed anyone off lately, Roux?’” he mimicked, in a passable imitation of the other man’s voice. “I’m the least likely man ever to be involved in politics, Annja.”
    “I know that, Roux. But what if it’s something more? What if the Dragon is no longer interested in political killing but has decided to branch out, handle contract work, for instance?”
    Rather than convince him of her sincerity, her plea only made him laugh. “Now you sound like something out of a spy novel, Annja. Political killing? Contract work? It was a simple robbery, nothing more.”
    “If that’s the case, then what were they after?” she asked hotly.
    For just a second she thought she saw a triumphant gleam in Roux’s eye. It was there and gone again in less than a second, so she couldn’t be sure, but something deep down inside said she’d just played into his trap.
    “While you were gone we were doing our homework, too, Annja. And we think we’ve found the answer to that very question.”
    The older man rose and walked over to his desk. From behind its massive bulk, he lifted a sword box and carried it back to Annja. Handing it to her, he said, “Go on, open it.”
    Annja did so, revealing the long curved blade of a U.S. cavalry saber, circa the late eighteen hundreds, with a leather-wrapped hilt and brass guard. It was pitted in a few places, but she could still make out the initials GAC etched into the blade just above the guard.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    “The saber worn by General George Armstrong Custer the day he fell in battle at the Little Bighorn,” Roux answered proudly.
    Annja winced. “I wouldn’t be so quick to defend that claim.”
    “Nonsense,” Roux said, taking the box back from her and closing it up tight. “I can assure you that the provenance of this blade is without blemish. Custer carried this sword the day he died and it has hung on my wall in that display room ever since I acquired it at a very private auction. It was the only item of any serious value in that room last night.”
    Roux’s idea of “serious value” was enough to bankroll a small country, but that didn’t mean he was right. Annja would have bet her left arm that no one had come looking for that sword, namely because it wasn’t worth the steel from which it was made. She knew Custer hadn’t worn a saber at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and neither had any of the other officers in the Seventh Cavalry. Popular art showed him holding his cutlass aloft as the Indians surrounded him, but eyewitness accounts from that terrible day told a different story.
    She tried to point this out to Roux, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Nor did he accept her arguments that a single experienced thief would have had an easier time breaking into the display room to steal the sword than a group the size of the one she’d encountered there. He had convinced himself that there wasn’t any real danger and it seemed that nothing she said would sway him from that conclusion.
    When she finally left, hours later, she had gotten exactly nowhere. Her instincts