“How bad?” she asked as he righted himself and continued under his own power.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Went clean through.”

The pain in his voice told her differently, though.

Their chances of escape had just been cut in half.

Without any idea where the trail actually went, they were stuck just following it, hoping it would lead them somewhere safe. Annja could hear Michaels shouting at his men to find them and knew their pursuers wouldn’t be slow in doing as instructed.

Suddenly they burst free of the tree line and found themselves standing on a promontory that jutted out into the canyon. In front of them, a sagging old bridge connected their side of the canyon to the other.

The bridge was essentially just two parallel strains of braided steel cable to which slats of wood had been secured at six-inch intervals. The cables were less than an inch in diameter and painted red with rust. The slats weren’t in much better shape. In more than a handful of places they had been eaten clear through by the elements. Only the rope railings that stretched the length of the bridge’s span appeared to be in decent shape.

Annja did not want to cross that bridge. She looked frantically about, searching for some other way out of their predicament. About a quarter of a mile up the canyon from where they stood she could see the modern bridge, a graceful span of iron and steel, but there was no way for them to get to it. They’d have to backtrack the way they’d come to get off the promontory and somehow manage to elude their pursuers while doing so.

A glance behind let her know that wasn’t possible; she could see forms approaching through the trees and knew it was Michaels’s thugs closing in on them. It would only be a matter of moments before they were within shooting distance.

No choice, then.

“Come on!” she shouted, grabbing Garin’s arm and literally dragging him out onto the bridge in her wake.

The sagging old structure jerked and swayed with their every step but Annja didn’t care. All she wanted to do was make it to the other side. She kept her doubts to herself.

Garin, on the other hand, wasn’t shy about voicing his concerns.

“Are you nuts, Annja? We’re sitting ducks out here!” he shouted as he made his way along as best he could with only one arm to steady himself. “The minute they reach the clearing, it will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Annja shook her head. “They won’t shoot,” she told him as she carefully stepped across an opening where a pair of slats had rotted through. She could see the river rushing past a hundred feet beneath them, the water churned into a white froth from the boulders strewn about its path. She helped Garin across and then continued forward.

“Says who?” he asked, already out of breath from the exertion of keeping his balance on the shifting platform beneath his feet.

“I’m telling you, they won’t shoot. Michaels wants the location of the gold. If they shoot us, they won’t have any way of getting it.”

They were halfway across when they felt the bridge suddenly lurch violently. Annja wrapped her arm around the rope railing next to her to steady her balance and to keep from sliding off, then chanced a look back.

Two of their pursuers had stepped out onto the bridge behind them. They were slowly making their way forward, but each step they took made the bridge sway dangerously to either side, creaking and groaning like an old rocking chair as it did. Annja had a sudden vision of the bridge giving way, plunging them all into the gorge below.

Apparently their pursuers must have imagined the same thing, for after another few steps they decided discretion was the better part of valor and retreated back the way they had come.

Garin suddenly swore beneath his breath.

Annja turned forward only to find the source of his distress. Michaels and several more of his henchmen were standing on the far side of the chasm. They must have found another trail and circled around ahead of them. We’re done, she thought.

As if he’d heard her, Michaels shouted, “Now what, Miss Creed? Intending to sprout wings and fly away like a little bird?”

Several choice replies sprang to mind, but she managed to keep her temper and not let them free. She was getting so tired of this, though. Why couldn’t something go their way for a change?

“I want that location, Creed!” Michaels shouted.

“So come and get it!” she shouted back.

Beside her, she felt Garin stiffen. “What are you doing, Annja?” he asked.

“If the bastard wants the treasure, he can come out here and get the location. If he’s dumb enough to do so, we’ll use him as a hostage to force them to let us go.”

It was a crazy plan, but she was all out of ideas. They couldn’t go forward, they couldn’t go back, and she had little hope that the bridge would support them indefinitely. Something was going to have to change if they were going to get out of this alive.

“How about I just shoot you instead?” Michaels threatened, raising his arm and pointing the pistol he held in his hand directly at them.

Annja tapped her head with one finger. “Go ahead and shoot! Be awfully damn hard to get the coordinates at that point, since they’re all up here!”

Michaels frowned, then lowered his weapon. He seemed undecided about his next course of action.

In the space of a few seconds the game had turned and she now held the upper hand. Annja was as surprised as Michaels that it had turned out this way, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

If Michaels shot the two of them where they stood, he’d lose out on the coordinates and, in turn, the treasure. If he sent a group of his men across the bridge after them, from this side or from the other, the decaying structure was likely to come apart and plunge the whole lot of them into the rapids below, with the end result being the same. He couldn’t even wait them out; the fact that they were on the bridge in the first place was sure to bring the park rangers running sooner or later. Someone had to have heard the gunshots and maybe have seen them by now, and even hikers carried cell phones these days.

If he wanted the treasure, he really didn’t have much choice, she thought.

Michaels turned his back on her and began issuing instructions to the men with him. Since he was no longer shouting, the distance was too great for Annja to hear any of what he said, but she had little doubt it couldn’t be good.

The bridge swayed as Garin tried to find some relief for his tiring limbs.

“You all right?” she asked, not daring to take her gaze off Michaels.

“For now,” he replied. He was quiet for a moment and then asked, “Do you really know where it is?”

She answered without thinking. “It’s right here in the gorge somewhere. Inside the old Genoa Mine.”

Garin laughed. “I told him you’d find it.”

Before she could ask what he meant, she was distracted by the sight of Michaels walking to the bridge and then striding out onto it, heading in their direction. She watched him approach until there was only about ten feet between them.

Rather than addressing her, however, Michaels looked past her to Garin instead.

“Time to live up to your side of the bargain,” Michaels said, gesturing at Annja.

“What’s he talking about, Garin?” she asked, without taking her gaze off Michaels. He still had a gun in his right hand and it would only take a moment’s distraction for him to shoot.

“I don’t have any idea,” Garin replied.

Even as he said it, though, she felt the bridge sway slightly beneath his weight and heard the sound of a gun’s slide being worked.

Her blood ran cold at the sound. Garin hadn’t dropped the gun somewhere, after all, he’d just hidden it in his coat. Why would he do that? Could he have really cut a deal with Michaels? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d disappointed her, but then again, why go through the charade of trying to escape if he only intended to double-cross her in the end? That was just too low, even for Garin. It didn’t make sense.