Secret of the Slaves Read Online Free

did their hard-rocking music.
    Annja was intrigued. He seemed wholly aboveboard. Despite the unsolicited contact his manner was correct and friendly. Charisma emanated from him like heat from a forge.
    â€œWhat exactly did you whisk me here for, Sir Iain?”
    He offered a lopsided smile and bobbed his head once. “Fair enough question,” he said. “Permit me to answer with one. How would you like to save the world?”
    â€œThat’s not an offer an archaeologist hears very often,” she said. “But I’m afraid I can’t contribute much to any of your causes.”
    â€œIt’s not money we want,” he said. “But your courage, your skills—your soul.”
    She looked at him and he grinned.
    â€œHow would you like to see an authentic cursed tome?” he asked.
    She grinned back. “You do know the way to a lady’s heart, sir,” she said. “Lead on.”

    â€œI T’S IMPRESSIVE ,” she said.
    With his two shadows drifting along behind—making little more noise than shadows—Moran had squired her down into the skyscraper and to a window he assured her was bulletproof polycarbonate, double paned.
    It looked out, and down, on a cold room. In the middle of the sterile white floor, twelve feet below them, stood a large cylinder with what looked like a mirror-polished brass base and a similar cap. The cylinder itself was clear.
    â€œIt’s Lexan, as well,” Sir Iain said. “Treated with a special coating inside and out that resists corrosion.”
    On a gleaming chrome pedestal within the cylinder rested a book. It was certainly grand enough—the approximate size and shape of an unabridged dictionary. The cover was thick and cracked from what she could see on the open book. The pages were brown. She could just make out faded, crabbed brown writing on them.
    â€œNitrogen environment?” she asked.
    â€œOf course.”
    She tried not to thrill at that rolling deep baritone.
    She turned a raised brow to him. “I’m surprised you’re interested in rare books.”
    â€œYou think all rock ’n’ rollers are illiterate, hell-raising dopers?” He shrugged. His shoulders rolled impressively inside his immaculately tailored coat. “I’ve been clean and sober since my well-publicized overdose. I’ve had to find something to do with my time since other than read the Bible.”

    I N A ROOM down a flight of stairs he gestured toward a large flat-screen monitor, hung above a modern workstation of stainless steel. Several other computers were set up at other stations. On the big screen two pages were represented many times larger than life. Here the ink looked purplish rather than brown.
    â€œIt’s the journal of an eighteenth-century Portuguese Jesuit,” Moran said, “recounting his journey up the far Amazon.”
    â€œA lot of Jesuits made the trip in those days,” Annja said.
    â€œIndeed. I rather suppose they did. Would you care to read it?”
    â€œI generally prefer to read the original document when it’s available,” she said. “The camera so seldom catches everything”
    She was a hands-on sort of woman where historical artifacts were concerned. It was a major reason she’d chosen to be an archaeologist as opposed to a historian. She didn’t just want to study history. She wanted to feel history. To see where it had taken place, to hold in her hands implements—or documents—that had changed the world. She wanted to breathe the same air the heroes and heroines of history—unknown and world famous—had breathed when they performed their great deeds. She wanted to be part of history.
    And I am, she thought. A lot more literally than I’m comfortable with.
    â€œNot possible, I fear,” he said.
    â€œI understand,” she said, unable to repress a little sigh of frustration. “Obviously it’s in an