Rogue Angel 13 - Gabriel's Horn.pdf

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ROGUE
ANGEL ™
Alex Archer
GABRIEL’S
HORN
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Prague, Czech Republic
“He’s going to catch fire when the motorcycle hits the back of the
overturned car?” Annja Creed asked in disbelief.
“Yeah. But the real trick is when he catches fire.” Barney Yellowtail
calmly surveyed the wrecked cars in the middle of the narrow street
between a line of four-story buildings that had seen far better days.
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“When?” Annja asked, still trying to grasp the whole idea.
“When is important,” Barney continued. He was in his late forties,
twenty years older than Annja, and had been a stuntman for almost thirty
years. “If Roy catches on fire too late, we’ve hosed the gag.”
Gags, Annja had learned, were what stunt people called the death-
defying feats they did almost on a daily basis.
“And if you hose the gag,” Annja said, “you have to do it over and
risk Roy’s life again.”
Barney grinned. He claimed to be full-blood Choctaw Indian from
Oklahoma and looked it. His face was dark and seamed, creased by a
couple of scars under his left eye and under his right jawline. He wore
rimless glasses that darkened in the bright sunlight, and a straw cowboy
hat. His jeans and chambray work shirt were carefully pressed. His boots
were hand-tooled brown-and-white leather that Annja thought were to die
for.
Annja was five feet ten inches tall with chestnut hair and amber-
green eyes. She had an athlete’s build with smooth, rounded muscle. She
wore khaki pants, hiking boots, a lightweight white cotton tank under a
robin’s-egg-blue blouse, wraparound blue sunglasses and an Australian
Colly hat that she’d developed a fondness for to block the sun.
“That’s not the worst part,” Barney assured her.
“That’s not the worst part?” Annja echoed.
“Naw,” Barney replied, smiling wide enough to show a row of
perfect teeth. “The worst part is that the director will be mad.”
“Oh.”
Barney looked at her as if sensing that she wasn’t completely
convinced. “Mad directors mean slow checks. They also mean slow
work. If you can’t hit your marks on a gag, especially on a film that
Spielberg’s underwriting, your phone isn’t going to ring very often.”
Annja wondered if you had to be certifiable to be a stuntman.
“C’mon, Annja,” Barney said. “I’ve read about you in the
magazines, seen you on Letterman and kept up with what you’re doing on
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Chasing History’s Monsters. You know life isn’t worth living without a
little risk.”
Annja knew her life hadn’t exactly been risk free. Actually,
especially lately, it seemed to go the other way. As a working
archaeologist, she’d traveled to a number of dangerous places, and those
places were starting to multiply dramatically as she became more
recognized.
She thought about her job at Chasing History’s Monsters. Most days
she wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse. The syndicated show had
high enough ratings that the producers could send Annja a number of
places that she couldn’t have afforded on her own.
The drawback was that the stories she was asked to cover—historical
madmen, psychopaths, serial killers and even legendary monsters—were
usually less than stellar. Fans of the show couldn’t get enough of her, but
some of the people in her field of archaeology had grown somewhat
leery.
None of that, though, had come without risk.
“Okay,” Annja admitted. “I’ll give you that. But I’ve never set
myself on fire.”
“Roy’s not going to set himself on fire,” Barney said. “I’m going to
do that for him.”
“Oh.”
“It’s just that timing is critical.” Barney stepped to one side as his
cell phone rang. “Excuse me.”
Annja nodded and surveyed the street. The film crew had barricaded
three city blocks in Prague’s Old Town. A few streets over, the Vltava
River coursed slowly by and carried the river traffic to various
destinations.
Prague was a new experience for Annja, and she was thoroughly
enjoying it. Getting the job on the movie had been as unexpected as it
was welcome. She’d done a bit of work with props before, but never on a
motion picture of this magnitude.
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