This time there was nothing between her and the ground.

13.

When Annja came to, she found herself lying on the couch in the library where they'd been celebrating shortly before, an ice pack resting across the side of her face and head. The last thing she remembered was her opponent's feet striking her in the chest, knocking her backward and over the balcony railing. After that, there was nothing but darkness.

"You fell off the roof," a voice said, and she turned slightly to see Mason sitting in a chair a short distance away, watching her.

"Not my most graceful moment, apparently," she replied, wincing at the pain as she lifted herself into a sitting position. "Besides, it wasn't the roof, it was just the balcony." All told, she was in pretty good shape. A few bruises, a serious headache, but otherwise she was intact. "I'm guessing they got away?"

"Unfortunately, yes. My fault. I should have antic.i.p.ated he would try something like this," Mason muttered.

Before she could ask what he meant, John Davenport came through the door, flanked by two of Mason's security team. Despite the fact that Davenport hadn't been the primary target, they were obviously not taking any chances. Annja thought it was a bit like trying to put the horses away after the barn had burned down, but then again, it wasn't her job and so she didn't say anything.

Davenport, it seemed, was far more concerned with her welfare than his own. He hurried over to her side.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine. Just sorry that I couldn't keep them from taking the journal."

He waved his hand in dismissal and turned to face Mason. "Was it Ransom?"

His security chief nodded. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d even left you a note." He handed the other man a small white card, like those used as thank-you notes. Davenport read it and then pa.s.sed it on to Annja for a look.

There was only a single sentence written on its face.

May the best man win-and we both know who that is.

Sounds like a real fun guy, Annja thought.

Mason went on with his report. "Katter is going to be okay; they hit him with enough trank to put down a rhino, but the doc says the worst of it will be the ma.s.sive hangover he'll wake up with. Davis, unfortunately, is dead. We think they messed up his trank dose and had no other option but to take him out when they realized that he was going to warn us about the a.s.sault."

"And the enemy forces?" Davenport asked.

"Not sure. We found blood trails in the trees and evidence that we might have tagged one or two of them, but we can't be sure. They apparently had vehicles waiting for them a bit farther down the street and hightailed it out of here once they'd gotten what they came for."

"Which was the journal?" Davenport asked angrily.

"Yes, sir. Nothing else seems to be missing."

"That son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

Mason nodded. "My sentiments exactly. Though right about now I'm feeling the same way about you."

Davenport turned to him, surprise flowing across his face. "What?"

Mason shook his finger at his employer. "What were you told to do when the alarm sounded?"

"I-"

"Go to the safe room, right?"

Davenport struggled to find his voice. "But...Annja didn't..."

"This isn't about Annja," Mason said sharply, then turned to her and said, "No offense."

"None taken," she replied, still watching in fascination as this man chewed out Davenport, never mind the fact that not only was Davenport his employer but also the third richest man in the world, according to most sources.

"I told you to go to the safe room. I ordered Watkins to accompany you there and to keep you safe. By ignoring that order, you put not only his but your own life at risk."

"Well, yes, but I didn't think-"

"Exactly," Mason said, overriding him again. "You didn't think. And now Watkins is dead because of it."

Silence fell.

The two men stared at each other, with Annja looking back and forth between them as if watching a tennis match.

At last Davenport mustered his dignity, looked Mason in the eye and said, "I'm sorry. You are entirely correct. It won't happen again."

"d.a.m.n right it won't," Mason muttered, but he turned away, his anger spent, and the tension slowly eased out of the room.

To help get things back on track, Annja stepped into the silence with a question she'd been wondering about since waking up.

"Okay," she said. "Time for somebody to bring me up to speed. Who is this guy, Ransom?"

Davenport sighed. "Trevor Ransom is a lowlife thug who happened to strike it rich during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. Unfortunately, he also happens to be my ex-business partner."

He went on to explain how the two of them had been involved in a series of commercial development projects early in their careers that had been extremely lucrative but that had also exposed Ransom's true nature. When Davenport had discovered that Ransom had been using substandard building materials and bilking the clients for the difference, he'd severed the relationship. Ransom, however, hadn't been happy with that result and the two had been bitter compet.i.tors ever since. They'd spent the past ten years fighting over everything from mineral rights in Siberia to a chain of grocery stores in Bird's Eye, Pennsylvania. More often than not, Davenport came out on top, which only served to fuel Ransom's rivalry.

Somehow, Ransom had learned about the journal and decided to take matters into his own hands.

Literally.

The information put a whole new light on what had happened to Annja that morning and provided one possible way for Ransom to have known about the journal. She told them about the feeling she'd had that morning, that certain sense that someone had been in her room while she was out on her run. At the time, she'd written if off as just having been the hotel staff, but now she wasn't so sure. If Ransom's men had bugged her room, or even put a listening device on her clothing, all they would have had to do was eavesdrop on her conversations all day to discover what she and Davenport were up to.

Apparently Ransom hadn't wasted a moment in planning to secure the find for himself once he had known what it truly was.

"So what do we do now? Wait for the cops to get the journal back?" Annja asked.

Mason shook his head. "The cops are next to useless around here. Ransom bought them all off years ago. Why do you think we maintain our own security force? We'll just have to handle this problem ourselves."

Annja frowned. "You can't be serious. What are you going to do? Stage a raid of your own and try to take it back again?"

Davenport smiled, and this time there was definitely something predatory about it. "Actually, we don't need the journal at all. Ransom can have it, for all I care. We already have everything we need right here."

Annja must still have been groggy from her fall, for it took her a moment or two to figure out what he meant. Then her eyes lit up with understanding.

"We don't need the actual journal. We've got the whole thing imaged on my laptop!"