They thought she might have seen them the day before, because she’d suddenly gone crazy, sprinting down side streets and dashing across traffic. But when she stopped right next to Olivia, and didn’t realize that she was part of the surveillance team, they knew she must have caught wind of someone else. That was when they figured out they weren’t the only team on the job.

They had relayed the information to Henshaw before he’d left France and he’d given them explicit instructions what to do should they discover who, besides themselves, was following her.

As it turned out, it was a good thing he had.

He went into the kitchen where several of the team were congregating around a fast-food dinner. Pulling up a chair next to Marco, his team leader, he said, “Give me an update, please.”

Marco did. He took Henshaw through the entire evening’s operation, from when they had picked up Annja that morning outside her loft, all the way to their involvement in the confrontation between Annja and the Dragon’s hit team in the subway tunnels hours later.

“Where is she now?”

“She’s back in her apartment. You can see her from in there,” Marco said, nodding at the closed bedroom door on the other side of the living room.

“Who’s got the watch?” Henshaw asked, getting up.

“Jessi and Dave.”

“All right, good.” Henshaw addressed everyone around the table, and not just Marco, when he said, “Good job, everyone. Get some rest while you can, as I think things are going to start heating up and we want to be ready.”

With a chorus of “yes, sirs” at his back, Henshaw crossed the darkened living room, knocked once on the bedroom door and then slipped inside.

The lights in the room were off, to prevent what they were doing from being backlit and allowing someone outside to see in, but there was a little light coming in through the window, at least enough to see the shapes of Jessi and Dave over by the window.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

Jessi’s soft voice came floating out of the darkness and over to him. “That woman’s obsessed. You’d think she’d be exhausted after what happened down in the subway, but she acts as if it was just a walk in the park. She started practicing those crazy martial-arts moves she does the minute she returned and she hasn’t stopped since.”

Henshaw joined the two of them on the other side of the room. Without saying anything, Dave handed him the binoculars he’d been using to keep their charge in sight.

Annja’s building was across the street and one over from the one they occupied. They were on the fifth floor and she was on the fourth, giving them an excellent downward viewpoint into the loft she called home. She had the curtains open at the moment and through them Henshaw could see her working out in the large open space in the middle of the room. She was dressed in a white tank top and a pair of gray sweatpants, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail and her feet bare. In her hands she held her sword and even as he watched she threw herself into another sword kata with deadly concentration.

Henshaw remembered the way she’d handled it that night at Roux’s and for the first time he realized just how good with it she had become. It was like an extension of her body and as she twisted, turned and flowed around the room in the midst of her practice; he sometimes had a hard time recognizing where the sword ended and she began.

Keep it up, Annja, he told her silently. You might just need it.

And she did keep it up.

Long into the night.

With only her silent, watchful guardians to keep her company.

20

Switzerland, 2003

Shizu entered the room with more than a bit of trepidation. It had been several years since Toshiro had pronounced her ready to take her place in the world and she had used the time as she’d been instructed, traveling and learning. She had grown up considerably in those years, her core toughened and her edge sharpened by what she had seen and done, just like a sword that is tested again and again until it is pronounced ready.

Less than a week earlier she had received a message through the special channels that had been set up just for that purpose, a series of dead drops and hidden Internet communications. The message had asked her to travel to Switzerland. Sensei had a new mission for her. The summons had filled her with excitement, had shaken off the lethargy she’d been feeling for the past few months, and she quickly made the necessary arrangements.

The address turned out to be a small, private chateau in the Alps, hidden at the end of a long road that she would have missed if she hadn’t known what to look for to find the turnoff from the main road. She arrived late at night and had been met at the door by a manservant who led her to her room, stating that Sensei would see her in the morning.

After breakfast she’d been asked to join Sensei in the study. She entered the room to find him seated behind his desk, reading through a report. He pointed at a chair in front of the desk and went on reading without looking up.

Obedient to his wishes, Shizu sat.

After a few minutes he put the report down and looked at her.

“You are well, Shizu?’ Sensei asked, smiling in welcome.

Hearing his voice sent a thrill of delight through her body. It had been years since she had heard him speak to her aloud, but she heard his voice in her dreams each evening and knew she would never forget the sound of it.

“Yes, Sensei,” she replied. She did not ask how he was doing in return, as a Westerner might, for he was the master and she was the servant. He would tell her if he wanted her to know.

“Do you know why I have asked you here today?”

“No, Sensei.”

“I have a mission for you, Shizu.”

She remained silent, patient, content to sit there with him until he chose to tell her more or not. Either one would be okay with her, if that was what he decided to do.

It wasn’t hero worship; it was far beyond that. The man had saved her from slavery. He had given her purpose. Trained her, schooled her. He had made her into who she was today. He’d done it all from a distance, through a menagerie of teachers, but that didn’t matter. He was still the one who made it all happen, and long ago Shizu had pledged her heart and soul to him.

She would die for him.

In fact, she had no doubt that some day she would do just that. She couldn’t think of a more fitting way to end her life.

Sensei stood behind the desk, looming over her in his height. “As you no doubt have guessed, I have been preparing you for a specific purpose. Like clay in the potter’s hands, I have molded and shaped you to fit that purpose, to let you live the life that you were born to live.

“Now the time has come to set you on your way, to make you the light burning in the wilderness, the key for every lock, the whisper behind every door. To set you free so that you can become all that you are destined to become.”

He paused, and she could feel his eyes on her, looking her over. “Are you ready, Shizu?

“Only if you say I am, Sensei.”

“You are a weapon, Shizu, and it is time to point you at a target.”

Shizu’s heart raced and her blood sang. It was finally time to put all she had learned to the test.

“Come,” he said. “Let me show you your purpose.”