Rogue Angel 46: Treasure of Lima by Alex Archer Page B

have to find someplace else.
    But where?
    Her gaze fell upon a small maintenance hatch in the wall closest to the outer hull. Annja hurried over to it and, with a small amount of effort, managed to pry it open and look inside. The hatch led to what seemed like a very narrow maintenance corridor, between the inner bulkheads and the outer hull of the ship. A glance showed her that it ran both forward and aft, which would allow her to slip away from her current pursuit and emerge elsewhere when the time was right. She didn’t waste any time considering it, just climbed inside and pulled the hatch shut behind her.
    She was lucky.
    Through the steel mesh that made up the surface of the hatch, she saw three pirates burst into the room from the corridor outside.
    “She can’t be far,” one of them said. “Spread out and find her!”
    Annja didn’t wait around to hear anything more.
    As quietly as she could, she began to crawl through the shaft.

11
    Annja followed the maintenance shaft forward for several minutes. It was slow going; there was just enough space for her to creep along. There were too many obstacles in her way, like support beams, pipes and tubes for running electrical wires, for her to move very fast. She passed up the first and second hatches she came to, thinking they were too close to the one through which she’d entered, but by the time she reached the third, she figured she’d gone far enough.
    She pushed the steel mesh serving as a hatch outward until it popped free, and she slid out of the tunnel and into a storage room. A glance told her she was in the forward equipment locker. That put her about halfway down the length of the ship on the starboard side, if she remembered the quick tour Captain Vargas had given her earlier.
    She stepped quietly over to the door and put her ear against it, listening.
    She didn’t hear anything.
    Annja slowly opened the door a crack and peeked outside.
    All she saw was an empty hallway.
    Satisfied, she opened the door, stuck her head into the hallway and glanced in either direction. Not seeing anyone, she stepped out of the supply closet and shut the door behind her.
    So far, so good.
    That was when the loudspeakers all over the ship suddenly came on, broadcasting a message meant for only one person but heard by all.
    “I’m growing tired of this nonsense, Miss Creed,” the speaker began.
    Annja recognized Captain Vargas’s voice easily enough, though the happy-to-please persona he’d previously cloaked himself in was gone. Now he was all business.
    “Your friends are currently my guests here on the bridge. How long they remain so depends on whether or not you know how to follow orders. Can you do that, Miss Creed? Follow orders?”
    Annja preferred the old eager-to-please Vargas better, as men with overly large egos had a tendency to annoy her. Especially when they thought themselves to be smarter than she.
    “I have no intention of chasing you all around this ship, Creed,” Vargas continued. “You will surrender yourself to the next one of my people that you see and join us here on the bridge in the next ten minutes or I’m going to start shooting people, starting with the lovely Mrs. Knowles. I trust I’ve been clear.”
    Annja wanted to hit the bulkhead in frustration. She had no doubt that Vargas would do exactly what he said he would. His pirates hadn’t hesitated to kill Reyes and she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to kill the rest of Claire’s team, either. It didn’t take a genius IQ to know that Vargas didn’t require Annja for anything special; he just wanted them all in one place to make it easier for him and his men to get rid of them.
    Permanently.
    All the more reason she shouldn’t comply with his request, but that was precisely what she intended to do, anyway. It was, after all, the simplest way she could think of to get close to him.
    She’d figure out what to do after that when the time came.
    Annja continued down the corridor in the same