Restless Soul by Alex Archer Page A

doubted it.
    The images had to be soldiers from the Vietnam War. The jungle and paint from the vision, and their location, made her fairly certain.
    She felt a sense of relief and an even greater sense of peace. She’d done whatever it was she was supposed to do simply by taking the lid off the skull bowl. She’d somehow freed the spirits.
    Had the soldiers the tags once belonged to been captured? Killed? Were they MIAs?
    Annja knew a soldier wore two tags on a chain; if he died one tag was removed and brought back with the men who discovered the body. Often the other was placed in his mouth so he could be identified when his body was returned home.
    Could she find records of these men?
    “We take nothing,” she’d told Luartaro and Zakkarat of the treasure chamber. But she was taking this bowl and the dog tags.
    In taking the skull she was taking a nightmare thing, not a glittering relic, and somehow that seemed to make it okay.
    Annja retrieved her pack, which Zakkarat was eyeing as if he was about to fill it. She removed the last few pitons, and placed the bowl inside. It wouldn’t break, though the ceramic lid might. She had nothing to pad it with, so she cut off one of her pant legs from the knee down and used it to wrap the lid. It would suffice, and she would travel carefully.
    She took the dog tags out of the bowl, thinking that she should keep them separate from the skull.
    “What is it?” she asked again of the skull. She’d seen hundreds of artifacts through her years as an archaeologist. She was normally less judgmental of antiquities, but this piece seemed sinister. She would get to town—Mae Hong Son or Chiang Mai—by whatever means available and contact some of her internet resources as soon as possible.
    Then she would find a way to come back to this chamber with a camera crew, laptop computer, maybe some local archaeologists to help document everything. She remembered Zakkarat mentioning an archaeological team from Bangkok working in the range by Tham Lod Cave. Surely they would want to come here.
    They’d spirit everything off to museums. Document it all.
    Everything except the sinister bowl—that was for Annja to study.
    She noticed that Zakkarat, Luartaro or both of them working together had opened some of the larger crates. They seemed to be filled with a lot more packing material and more antiquities. Luartaro took a few pictures, nudged Zakkarat back and then resealed one of the crates.
    She briefly thought about searching for more skull bowls, but she’d heard no more voices in her head, and the chill that had gripped her earlier was gone.
    Instinct told her there were no more such bowls.
    She walked around the chamber, surveying the piles of treasure. Pieces stood out—embossments, vessels, jars, axes, rings, earrings. They were made of ceramic, gold, wood, stone and silver. Some things were impossibly smooth, like a river had worn away many of the imperfections and most of the details.
    “Whoever put this stuff here will be back for it,” Luartaro said. “Maybe they’re waiting for buyers, or for a way to transport it. This certainly is not the intended final destination.”
    “It’s all illegal,” Annja said. “Whatever is going on here is highly illegal. If this was an honest operation, these antiquities would be in a warehouse or someplace else, protected and dry—not in a damp cavern in the mountains that we found in desperation and by accident. There would be guards and security, maybe sensors and definitely cameras.”
    “So we will find the police or whatever authority polices this mountain,” Luartaro said. “We’ll get somebody out here, and they’ll take care of it.”
    At least one thing has been taken care of, Annja thought, considering the bowl in her backpack. She suspected Luartaro had seen her take the bowl. Certainly he’d noticed that she was missing part of the leg of her pants. But he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he didn’t mind that she’d taken a