The Infinity Bridge

Part 12

‘Sam, don’t shoot,’ Annie yelled. ‘It’s me—Annie!’

In a flurry of black and gold cloth, Annie raised her hands. Sam looked in astonishment at the burqa clad figure and gently pushed Ben’s outstretched arm down.

‘Annie? Umm, why are you dressed in that?’ Sam asked.

Very slowly Annie detached the veil and revealed her face. A sudden tingle ran through Sam—he had forgotten how pretty she was.

‘Given that you are dressed like someone from a musical about lumberjacks that’s a curious question,’ Annie replied. ‘It’s a disguise.’

Ben grimaced, nervously tapping the handgun against his leg. ‘How do you know this is really her, Sam I am?’

Sam looked befuddled. ‘Err, because it looks like and sounds like her?’

‘You only met her for five, five alive, minutes, little bro. She might be a shape-changing android.’

‘Can they do that?’ Sam asked Nick.

Nick shrugged and looked around the empty street anxiously. ‘Ask her something quickly. I’m feeling a bit freaked out here, in the street, with your brother and his gun.’

Sam scratched his neat brown hair. ‘All right. So... Annie... tell me something only you’d know about Saturday, by the river.’

Annie rolled her eyes. ‘I owe you a drink of cola.’

‘That’ll do,’ Sam sighed. ‘Your picture in the paper doesn’t do you justice. Nonetheless, Nick is spot on. We should get inside.’

Annie nodded and strode past Ben, who eyed her with suspicion. She proceeded down the side of the nightclub and to a grubby door. The three boys followed her. Just as she readied to knock, she regarded Nick and Ben in curiosity.

‘This is my brother Ben and my cousin Nick,’ Sam explained. ‘They’ve sort of got dragged into things after... well, after you dragged me into it on Saturday.’

‘I hardly dragged...’ Annie began when the door opened.

An automatic pistol protruded from the dingy doorway and aimed at Annie. She raised her hands once more with a sigh.

‘Will everyone stop pointing guns at me?’ she said. ‘The password is Gawain.’

A figure stepped from the doorway and into the light of the alley. He was slim, with pointed features and sunken eyes. His skin had a waxy pallor to it, like he had been locked away from the sunlight for too long.

‘Annie, I presume... and you’ve managed to pick up our couriers on the way, I see,’ he said.

‘I’m surmising that you are Michael Armitage?’ Annie asked.