“No one seems to know who he was or where he came from. He just announced his availability for hire by assassinating the French Deputy Minister of Defense one evening in Paris, killing the man so quietly that his sleeping wife never even stirred in her sleep. The Dragon departed as silently as he had arrived, leaving the wife to wake up next to her dead husband several hours too late to save him.
“From that point, he seemed to be everywhere at once. The next decade was like the rest of us had stumbled onto his personal playing field. Diplomats. Ambassadors. Bankers and lawyers. Powerful people create powerful enemies and there is always someone willing to pay an exorbitant sum to keep others down. The Dragon didn’t care about their political affiliations or issues. He killed them all—every race, color, creed and political party—provided those hiring him could pay his price.”
Annja frowned. “You seem to know a lot about him,” she said.
He shrugged, unconcerned with her suspicions. “No more than anyone else in my position. For all I knew I could have been next on his list, as my unflinching approach to business has earned me more than a few enemies along the way.”
Unflinching, Annja thought, try bloodthirsty. And the idea that you’ve generated a “few” enemies has to be the understatement of the century.
“What made the Dragon so unusual was that he always killed his targets by hand, usually with a Japanese katana,and if the sword wasn’t strange enough he would also leave behind a token of his presence at every murder scene.”
“Let me guess,” Annja said. “An origami dragon.”
“Always said you were as intelligent as you are beautiful, Annja.”
She ignored his comment and took a moment to think over what he’d just told her. Something didn’t make sense. Why would an assassin renowned for killing with a sword suddenly decide to use explosives? “So what happened in 2003?”
Garin grinned. “I see I’m not the only one who knows a little something about the Dragon.”
Ignoring her scowl, he went on. “I’ve heard a hundred different theories over the years as to what happened that day and I don’t agree with any of them. Killing is an art form, particularly for a man like we’re talking about. For him to resort to a suitcase full of plastic explosives when every single one of his victims before that date were killed by his own hand is simply ludicrous.
“What happened in 2003 is that the Dragon, the real Dragon, had nothing to do with the attempted assassination of the British prime minister. It was someone else.”
The waiter came in with their meals at that point, giving Annja some time to digest what Garin had said. She barely noticed what she was eating as the implications of what he had just told her poured through her mind.
“You think the Dragon is still alive,” she said after a few minutes.
Again the shrug. “For the past year or so there have been rumors that the Dragon has returned. Nothing more solid than that, understand, just rumors. Given what you found at Roux’s, however, I’d say the possibility just grew a little more distinct.”
“Why would the Dragon be after Roux?”
“Who said he was?” Garin shot back, and that brought Annja up short.
“You think the Dragon is after you?” she asked.
“No.”
If not Roux, or Garin, then who?
“No,” she said flatly when she realized what he was suggesting.
He looked at her with a strange gleam in his eye. “Not Roux. Not me, though I must admit to being a bit concerned over that last one for a little while. No, I don’t think the Dragon is after either of us. I think he is after you.” He leaned forward, holding her gaze in his own. “And after what I’ve heard recently about the sword the Dragon always carries, I think I know why.”
Her frown deepened, her lunch all but forgotten. “You aregoing to tell me, right?”
He paused, gathering his thoughts, and Annja had the distinct impression that he was trying to figure out just what to tell her and what to keep close to the chest.
After a moment, he continued. “Everything has an opposite, a dark twin on the cosmic scale of balance, if you will. The world itself is built on duality. How could we recognize white without black? Laughter without sorrow? Goodness without evil?”
He looked at her, as if to gauge whether she was following the argument, and she nodded to show that she was.
“The sword that you now carry is a symbol of truth, of justice, of all that is good in the world. It emulates the moral and emotional qualities of the one who bore it into battle all those years ago. And because you represent those things, as well, the chain continues, like an heirloom passed down through the generations.
“You, me, Roux—we are all bound to that sword in one way or another. For Roux and me, our association with it, and with its original bearer, has resulted in a lifespan measured in centuries rather than decades. In your case, the sword has given you increased agility, speed, strength—even your senses are better than they once were.”
There was little there for her to argue with. It was true; the sword had certainly changed her in ways that she hadn’t thought possible. Knowing that Garin was aware of the changes as well, made her a little uneasy, but she buried the thought as he went on with his explanation.
“You know better than anyone else that the sword comes with a certain set of responsibilities. Defend the weak. Protect the innocent. Stand as a barrier against the evil in the world around you, just as its original bearer strove to do so many years ago.”
He was right again. Her life had become far more complicated since taking possession of the sword. Where she might have turned away from a difficult situation in the past, maybe even told herself that it wasn’t any of her business, now she practically leaped into the fray whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Garin continued. “So it stands to reason that if all things have an opposite, a yin to the yang, then there must be another weapon out there somewhere that represents the side of darkness as much as your weapon stands for the cause of light.”
Biting back her unease, she forced herself to follow his line of thought.
“You’re saying the Dragon has such a sword.”
Her companion shook his head. “No. I’m saying that there are rumors that the Dragon, if he is still alive, has such a weapon. I don’t know for sure.”
Annja thought back to the swordsman she had faced in the display room and the way his sword had suddenly seemed to appear in his hands, a sword she would have sworn he hadn’t had moments before.
Of how it mirrored the way she handled her own so perfectly.
“But you believe it, don’t you?” she pressed.
Garin thought about it for a moment, and then nodded at her. “Yes,” he said, “I do.”
His admission sent Annja’s pulse skyrocketing.
“Why?”
“For the past year or two I have been hearing rumors about a sword, one that is supposed to have considerable power, being carried by a man available for hire. Not just any man, but one with an impressive résumé, full of what has euphemistically been called ‘wetwork.’ At first I thought that the rumors were about you and the weapon you carry, that those who passed it along simply couldn’t imagine that it was a woman in such a role, but it only took a little bit of investigation to learn that the sword in question was not a broadsword, like your own, but a Japanese katana.
“After that, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. I think the Dragon is back. I think somewhere, somehow, he learned about you and the sword that you carry. And I think he is curious to discover whether you are like-minded individuals or incompatible opposites.”