The Dragon's Mark. Alex Archer

      Now why didn’t that surprise her? “But if you had managed to only wound one or two, we might have been able to question them. Learn who they were and why they were here.”

      Garin grunted. “Or they might have managed to kill us both. Thank you, but I’ll take the safer way out every time, particularly where my life is concerned.”

      Annja did not doubt that in the slightest. When it came to protecting his long life, Garin was exceedingly ruthless.

      At any rate, it was too late now to argue about it.

      Garin stepped over to the window and cautiously looked out, but the intruder must have been long gone for he turned away, shaking his head. He was on his way back to Annja’s side when Roux and Henshaw arrived.

      “Is everyone all right?” Roux asked as he stepped into the room, surveying the death and destruction before him.

      “We’re fine,” Annja replied as Garin nodded in assent.

      “What happened up here?” Roux asked.

      Annja explained how she’d arrived to find the intruders already in the room and what had happened after that. She didn’t mention her near defeat at the hands of the final swordsman; that was for her and her alone. No one was too surprised at the realization that Annja had held off six attackers on her own; they had all seen her wield Joan’s sword at one time or another in the past and they knew just how deadly she could be with the weapon in hand.

      “Did they say anything? Do anything that gave you some idea what they might have been after?”

      Annja shook her head.

      “I don’t get it,” Roux said. He glanced around the room, a puzzled expression on his face. “The assault force at the front of the house seems to have been a diversion. They made no attempt to take the manor itself and only put up just enough of a fight to keep the security force occupied.”

      “Given what we know at this point, I’d say the whole thing was a diversion to allow this group to enter the house from the back,” Henshaw suggested.

      “A logical assumption, I agree, but why? What was it they were after?” Roux glanced at the weapons decorating the walls and Annja could see him silently cataloging each one, gauging whether there was something valuable enough among them to warrant such an attempt. By the confused look on his face she could guess that the answer to that question was a solid no.

      As the others looked on, Garin squatted next to one of the bodies. Reaching out, he pulled off the dead man’s ninja mask and hood, revealing his face.

      The man was Asian. Somewhere in his thirties or so, was Annja’s guess. He was dressed in a dark blue coverall, similar to those worn by special forces units all around the world, with dark combat boots on his feet. A quick check showed that any identifying tags or markings had been stripped from the uniform.

      “Recognize him?” Annja asked, only half-jokingly.

      Garin scowled at her, annoyed by the comment apparently. “No, I don’t recognize him,” he replied. “Do you?”

      Annja snorted. She wasn’t the one who dealt in the shadow world of dirty tricks and ruthless competition.

      Neither Roux nor Henshaw had ever seen the man. With Henshaw’s help, Garin lined the bodies up next to one another and then he began to methodically search them for information while the other three looked on. He stripped them of their masks and pulled back their hoods, gazing at each face as if it might be able to tell him something. He went through their pockets, checked the labels on their clothing and even looked inside the boots they all wore.

      Finally he stood, a disgusted look on his face.

      “Nothing,” he said. “They’re as clean as a whistle.”

      “Professionals, eh?” Henshaw asked, and the expression on his face told Annja how he felt about that revelation. A random break-in was one thing, but the knowledge that this had been planned and executed to within a fair chance of success was something else entirely.

      Garin nodded. “Seems to be,” he replied. “Though that doesn’t tell us what they were after.”

      “Or whom,” Roux added.

      Annja had been content to listen in on the exchange but broke in at this point. “What do you mean ‘whom’?”

      “Seems rather obvious, doesn’t it?” Garin answered for him. “They slip a group in the back door while the security team is otherwise occupied dealing with the assault out in front. With all of our attention in that direction, the second group would have had the opportunity to move through the house at will. Probably could have ambushed any one of us before we even knew they were there.”

      Henshaw glanced over at Annja. “Seems you saved the day, Ms. Creed.”

      “But that still doesn’t tell us what they were after.” Roux scowled down at the bodies in front of him. From his expression Annja knew he would have killed them himself had they lived through the assault.

      She caught Garin staring at their host and recognized that mischievous expression in his eye.

      Uh-oh.

      “Pissed anyone off lately, Roux?” he asked, perhaps with a bit more force than he’d intended.

      The damage was done, however. Roux noticeably stiffened, then shot back with, “No more than usual. Perhaps they were after someone with a bit less scrupulous business dealings.”

      Now it was Garin’s turn to bristle. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Just what I said. You have a far greater capacity for annoying others than I do! Maybe they were here to settle a debt with you.”

      The younger man threw up his hands in annoyance and took a step toward his former companion. “Oh, I get it. It is your home that is attacked, your security that is penetrated, but suddenly I’m the one to blame.”

      Rather than back down, Roux moved to meet him. “You’re right—it is my home that was attacked, my security that was penetrated. And I suppose it is just a strange coincidence that it happened on the evening that you planned a surprise party for me, now, isn’t it?”

      Annja watched as Garin’s face grew red with anger. “You think I had something to do with this? That I would stoop so low as that? To try and kill you in your own home?” He was shouting now, and Roux was shouting right back, throwing accusations back and forth like some misguided game of catch.

      Henshaw stepped between the two men, hands up, holding them back, trying to dissipate the anger before the two went after each other with more than words. The goodwill generated earlier in the evening was gone. If she didn’t do something quickly, Annja realized, there would be blood on the floor soon.

      “Stop it, both of you!” she said sharply, and much to her surprise, they actually did.

      “Given the incredible number of artifacts and pieces of art inside this house, the most reasonable assumption is that this was nothing more than a well-staged robbery. Lucky for us and unlucky for them, they just happened to choose the wrong night.”

      Both men backed off but it was clear that no one was happy with the situation. After a few minutes of angry silence, Roux pulled Henshaw aside and spoke to him quietly, occasionally casting glances in Garin’s direction.

      Garin, on the other hand, pretended to ignore him, then announced that he was returning to the study downstairs. Annja went with him. It was a good ten minutes before Roux joined them, which was probably for the best as it gave both men some time to cool down.

      Within minutes of his arrival it was clear that the night was over. What had made the evening enjoyable was gone and the chances were slim that they would be able to recapture it. It wasn’t so much the armed assault on Roux’s home, though that would normally be enough to put anyone off their game, but the suspicions that had