Just as she had the night before, she searched through the entire hotel suite, looking for an intruder. No one was there, not now, but the big smiley face with the Xdrawn through it in red lipstick on her bathroom mirror was enough to show that the Dragon had been in there, as well.

She stared at it, momentarily numb, and then, making up her mind, swung into action.

13

Annja packed as quickly as possible, throwing what little clothing she had with her into her bag and jamming her computer into her backpack. She made sure to keep a low profile and not stand in front of any of the windows or the French doors while moving about the room. Just because the Dragon had never used a high-powered rifle before didn’t mean he couldn’t suddenly change his mind. She had no interest in being taken out before the fight had actually begun.

Rather than grab a cab at the taxi stand outside her hotel, she slipped out a side door and hustled down the street, cutting down the occasional alley, until she reached the main thoroughfare one block over. Then and only then did she flag down a passing cab and ask him to take her to the airport. The front door of the hotel was sure to be watched, but maybe she had avoided giving herself away by taking the alternate route.

She went straight to Terminal One at Charles de Gaulle International Airport and traded in her first-class seat to New York on the next day’s flight for the first available seat that morning. She ended up riding coach, and paying a hundred-dollar change fee, but it was all Garin’s money, anyway, and there was no way she was staying in Paris given the Dragon’s interest in her. She hoped the sudden flight back home would throw him off her track, at least for a little while. That should give her time to figure out just what she intended to do about the whole mess. If she could discover more information about the sword he carried, maybe she could divine his intent or at least find a way to neutralize his abilities.

She grabbed her cell phone and called her producer, Doug Morrell, while she waited for her flight to be called. She wasn’t worried about him being busy or asleep. It was a Tuesday, the show was his life and, without her finishing off the edits for the episode slated to run later that week, he was sure to be at home panicking.

Right, she was.

“Annja!” he said when he recognized her number on his caller ID. “Tell me you’re finished and the show’s ready to go.”

“Not yet, Doug, but it’s close.” The truth was she hadn’t even thought about it, but what was a little hedging between friends? “But I’m stuck and need some help.”

“Are you having trouble with the editing boys again? Need me to come down there and knock some sense into them?”

For his young age, Doug took his authority pretty seriously—or at least, challenges to his authority—and he didn’t like folks in other departments giving his hosts a hassle. Not that he’d ever actually leave his office to deal with the troublemakers, but it was the thought that counted, Annja told herself with a sigh.

“No, Doug,” she said. “I’m just fine and the editing team is great.”

“Aren’t they, though? You should have seen how they handled that Jamaican zombie stuff last week. Totally class act, I tell ya.” A bright thought suddenly hit him. “Hey, any chance of zombies in this one? We could do a two-part special, you know? Zombies from…”

“No, Doug, no zombies.” She cut him off before he could go any further. Doug was her friend, but still, sometimes it took a bit more patience than she had to listen to him when he got on a roll.

“But I need your help in getting me in to see a hypnotist ASAP.”

“A hypnotist? Whatever for?”

Annja winced; she hadn’t thought of a decent excuse. She went for the mystery line. “I can’t tell you that yet.”

“Can’t tell me? Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure if I can use it or not. I have to talk to the hypnotist first.”

Doug was silent for a minute. “All right. I think I can line somebody up. There was this guy we used for the office party last year who might work. Lenny the Magnificent or something.”

If she’d been in the same room she would have reached out and swatted him across the back of the head. It served her right for trying to pull a fast one, she thought, but she was in too deep to back out now.

“No, Doug. I need a real hypnotist. Preferably a doctor or at least a licensed therapist.”

“Lenny won’t work?”

“Definitely not. No Lenny.”

She could hear him flipping through some paper, maybe an address book or even the yellow pages. She didn’t care as long as he came through.

“All right, all right. Let me think. This might take me a little bit. How about I call you back when I have something?”

“I’m just about to catch a flight so can you leave me a message on the voice mail?”

“Catch a flight? Annja, where are you?”

Oops.

“They’re calling me, gotta run! Thanks, Doug!” she said, and hung up before he could ask her anything further. Just to be safe, she also turned off her cell phone.

She had more than an hour to kill before they boarded her flight and she spent the entire time holed up in a corner of the waiting area with her back to the wall, watching everyone who came even remotely close or showed the slightest interest in her. Was that man in the janitor outfit watching her too intently? How about that woman with the stroller? Was that even a real baby? Maybe it was just a doll, designed to throw her off the scent? Or how about that businessman two rows over who kept looking in her direction and smiling? Was that smile a little too forced? His gaze a little too intent?

Every loud noise made her jump, every person she saw was a potential enemy, and it kept ratcheting her anxiety level higher and higher until she realized that the flight crew and gate attendant were constantly looking her way.

If you want to get on this flight, you’d better relax, she told herself. Closing her eyes, she tried to do just that.

When at last she got on the plane, Annja settled into her seat and then carefully scrutinized each and every passenger who had gotten on behind her. She had no idea what she was checking for; she just expected to know it when she saw it. She was still looking when the flight attendants gave the all clear and shutting the main door, prepared for takeoff.

Finally she managed to calm down.

BACK AT THE GATE IN Paris, the watcher approached the attendant, looking anxious and concerned.

“Excuse me? That wasn’t the plane to Chicago, was it?”

The attendant smiled. “No worry, love. That was New York, not Chicago.”

The watcher pretended to be relieved. “Oh, thank goodness, for a moment there I thought I’d missed it.”

Turning away, the watcher wandered back down the concourse and over to the ticket counters.

New York, it is, then. Now when is the next flight?

ANNJA SPENT MOST OF THE flight either dozing fitfully or watching the people around her, trying to find one who was watching her, in turn, but she had no luck.

By the time she got off the flight in New York, she was nearly numb with fatigue.

She was too exhausted to take the train, so she splurged for a cab, asking the driver to take her to her address in Brooklyn. A long fare was a good thing and the cabbie, a tall, thin, bald fellow with a Ukrainian accent, was more than happy to oblige.

Annja lived in a run-down neighborhood in the heart of Brooklyn. She liked to think of it as lived-in, but that kind of rationalization was also what made die-hard Manhattanites call an apartment the size of a postage stamp a one-bedroom studio. Still, it was home and when the cabbie pulled up in front of her four-story building, one of the oldest on the block, she breathed a sigh of relief.