Nina asked Caleb to wait for her by the pier with Waxman and Helen, telling them that since they had another half hour before the boat left she wanted to get a few more pictures first.
Quickly returning to the palace, Nina entered the south stairwell and, pretending to admire tapestries and framed royal crests, she blended in with the tourists, murmuring to a group of Americans about her favorite exhibits and commenting on the grandeur of the palace and the grounds. Eventually she made her way back to the lower levels, where she waited for her target to emerge from the lab.
Only a few minutes had passed before he appeared. Gregor Ullman. She sized him up in an instant: bald, hawk-faced and slightly overweight, rolled-up white sleeves and a new pair of Levi’s. He had a Bic pen behind his ear and a toothpick in his mouth. Nina smiled, but she was no one to judge. She only carried out the sentences.
“ Scusa, signore? ” She stepped into his path, interrupting what was either a trip to the restroom or his chance to call and update his colleagues.
“ Si? ” He stopped and smiled, admiring the frisky young woman moving in so close.
Nina licked her lips and set a hand on his chest, while her other hand swept up and around and plunged a hypodermic needle into his neck. Ullman staggered, gasped and shot her a look of dawning recognition. He tried to call out, but only whispered something indistinct, and collapsed at her feet. With a quick glance around to make sure no one was in sight, Nina took his legs and dragged him around the corner into a storage room.
Gregor Ullman awoke to find his wrists secured with duct tape, and the barrel of a Beretta pointed at his left eye. A dull pain registered in his legs, but in the drug’s aftereffects, he couldn’t quite place the source.
“Hello, Mr. Ullman.” Nina sat on an upside-down plastic bucket, with her legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. “You know me, I’m told, so I’ll skip the introductions and get down to it.”
Ullman grunted and coughed as a cloud of smoke rolled into his face. She didn’t tie my legs, he realized, and at once he sprang at the chance to escape. With a shout he tried to lunge forward, but only collapsed, howling in sudden, blinding pain. He rolled onto his back and looked down in horror to see the bright red slashes through the back of his pants.
She had severed his hamstrings.
Nina sighed. She hated this part of the job, and really didn’t like the sight of blood. At times like this, she reminded herself of the importance of the mission, the nobility of the cause. What they were doing, what she was a part of, would help preserve everything she cared about, everything she loved. All her life she had sought a way to stem the advance of time, to hang onto beauty and the perfection of youth; and when she had been singled out for this opportunity she knew it was her chance: an opportunity for a different sort of immortality.
Of course she had lied to Caleb, tossing him a sympathetic tale about her childhood home and orchards, a story to snare him in her web. It was a secondary mission, but in all likelihood the most important. Caleb, after all, was the key, and she and Waxman had to get him to realize it. They had to prod him, guide him, get him to see, truly see. But it had to be soon. And it would be, if she played her part perfectly.
She bent down and looked into Ullman’s straining eyes. “The morphine I mixed with your tranquilizer will help, but only for a few more minutes. I need you calm and able to answer questions.” She stood up and stepped toward him. “Tell me what I need to know, Keeper, and I’ll call for an ambulance on my way out.”
Ullman groaned and turned his face toward the cold floor. “What do you want?”
“Tell me,” she whispered, bending down and putting out her cigarette right in front of his face, “if Water is the first symbol.”
“What?”
“You heard me, and you know what I’m asking. Water. Is it the first symbol?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re mad.”
“And you’re dead if you don’t tell me the truth.” She stood and placed her spiked heel against his neck. “Is it Water? Or Fire?” Nina held her breath. She needed him to confirm the first symbol to validate what their other informant had given up. Torture was never perfectly reliable, but in that case her boss had felt reasonably certain of the information they had elicited. But not certain enough. He wanted a second confirmation.
“The first code…” she repeated, pushing down on his neck, “is it Fire? Is it Air? Earth?”
Ullman coughed. His legs twitched, his arms flayed about in his pooling blood. “I told you, I don’t-”
She increased the weight on his neck.
“Aaaaaah-all right, all right!” he hissed, bringing his hand to his throat as Nina eased the stifling pressure. “It’s Water… Water! But you won’t get in. You don’t know the rest of the sequence. No one does.”
“Don’t be coy,” Nina said. “Of course you know the sequence. What you don’t know is how to bypass the defenses.”
“And you do?”
“We will, soon.” Very soon, if Morpheus’s remote viewers continued with their hits, or if Caleb found his sight. But she guessed that the Keepers were in the same boat as far as the scroll’s recovery-hoping for a miracle. She tapped the barrel of her Beretta on the floor in front of his nose. “So you say it’s Water. What if I said I don’t believe you?”
“I would say I don’t care. I already know my fate.”
“Such pessimism.” Nina sat down again. “How long have you been here in Naples, Mr. Ullman? Well, not you, but you know what I mean-the Keepers. How long have you known?”
“About the scroll?” Ullman gave a wheezing chuckle. “Be serious. As soon as the Villa was rediscovered, we put a man on the inside.”
“All that time,” she clucked, “and nothing to show for it.” She sighed and shook her head in disappointment. Caleb probably had gotten closer to it in his one lifetime than six generations of Keepers. She checked her watch. “Well, Mr. Ullman, it’s been a pleasure. Your leader claims each of you has a successor lined up. In your case, I hope you haven’t delayed that obligation.”
Ullman laughed again as he looked up at her with a bland grimace. “See you soon.”
Nina frowned, tightened the silencer on her gun, aimed and fired, punching a hole through his forehead. She stood and contemplated the body, replaying the conversation, weighing his words, his gestures, debating whether his answer was reliable. In the end, she decided it didn’t matter. She was thorough in these matters of life and death. If a second independent confirmation was insufficient, she would simply seek another.