VINCENTI STEPPED INTO HIS LIBRARY, CLOSED THE DOOR, AND poured himself a drink. Kumis. A local specialty he’d come to enjoy. Fermented mare’s milk. Not much alcohol but quite a buzz. He downed the shot in one swallow and savored its almond aftertaste.
He poured another.
His stomach growled. He was hungry. He should tell the chef what he wanted for dinner. A thick slab of teriyaki horse steak would be good. He’d come to like that local specialty, too.
He sipped more Kumis.
Everything was about to unfold. His intuition from all those years ago had proven correct. All that stood in the way was Irina Zovastina.
He stepped to his desk. The house was equipped with a sophisticated satellite communications system, with direct links to Samarkand and his corporate headquarters in Venice. Drink in hand, he saw an e-mail had arrived from Kamil Revin about a half hour ago. Unusual. Revin, for all his joviality, distrusted any form of communication save face-to-face, with him controlling the time and location.
He opened the file and read the message.
THE AMERICANS WERE HERE.
His tired mind snapped alert. Americans? He was about to hit “Reply” when the study door burst open and Peter O’Conner rushed in.
“Four helicopter gunships bearing down on us. Federation.”
He darted to the windows and gazed west. At the far end of the valley four dots pricked the bright sky, growing larger.
“They just appeared,” O’Conner said. “I’m assuming this is not a social call. You expecting anyone?”
He wasn’t.
He returned to the computer and deleted the e-mail.
“They’ll be on the ground in less than ten minutes,” O’Conner said.
Something was wrong.
“Is Zovastina coming for the woman?” O’Conner asked.
“It’s possible. But how would she know this fast?”
Zovastina would never have imagined what he was planning. True, she distrusted him as he distrusted her, but there was no reason for any show of force. Not now, anyway. Then there was Venice, and what happened when he’d moved on Stephanie Nelle. And the Americans?
What didn’t he know?
“They’re swinging around to land,” O’Conner said from the windows.
“Go get her.”
O’Conner dashed from the room.
Vincenti slid open one of the desk drawers and removed a pistol. They’d yet to hire the full security contingent the estate would ultimately require. That would all be done in the coming weeks, while Zovastina occupied herself preparing for war. He’d planned to use that diversion to its fullest.
Karyn Walde entered the library, wearing a bathrobe and slippers. Standing, on her own. O’Conner followed.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Better than I have in months. I can walk.”
Already, a doctor was en route from Venice who would treat her secondary infections. Lucky for her, they were remediable. “It’ll take a few days for your body to start a full recovery. But the virus is right now being assaulted by a predator against which it has no defense. As, by the way, are we.”
O’Conner assumed a position at the window. “They’re on the ground. Troops. Asians. Looks like they’re hers.”
He faced Walde. “Seems Irina may want you back. We’re not sure what’s happening.”
He stepped across the room to a built-in bookcase with ornate glass-fronted doors. The wood had come from China, along with the craftsman who’d made the piece. But O’Conner had added something extra. He pressed a button on a pocket controller and a spring-loaded mechanism above and below the cabinet released, allowing the heavy case to rotate one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond was a lighted passageway.
Walde was impressed. “Like in a damn horror movie.”
“Which is what this may become,” he said. “Peter, see what they want and express my regrets that I wasn’t here to greet them.” He motioned to Walde. “Follow me.”
STEPHANIE’S HANDS STILL SHOOK AS SHE WATCHED ELY DRAG THE body around to the rear of the cabin. She still did not like the fact that Zovastina knew they were in the Federation. Not particularly smart to alert a person with the kind of resources at her disposal. She had to trust that Thorvaldsen knew what he was doing, particularly since his butt was on the line, too.
Ely emerged from the cabin’s front door, followed by Thorvaldsen. He held an arm full of books and paper. “I’ll need these.”
She was watching the lane leading back to the highway. All seemed quiet. Thorvaldsen came up beside her. He noticed her shaking hand and calmly grasped it. Neither of them said a word. She still held the gun, her palm sweaty. Her mind needed to focus, so she asked, “What exactly are we going to do?”
“We know the location,” Ely said. “Klimax. So let’s go see what’s there. It’s worth a look.”
She fought to recall Ptolemy’s words and repeated them, “Climb the god-built walls. When you reach the attic, gaze into the tawny eye, and dare to find the distant refuge.”
“I remember the riddle,” Ely said. “I need to check some information, spur my memory, but I can do that along the way.”
She wanted to know, “Why did Zovastina go after the elephant medallions?”
“I pointed out a connection between a mark on the medallions and the riddle. A symbol, like two Bs joined to an A. It’s on one side of the medallion and in the riddle. They had to be significant. Since there were only eight known, she said she’d acquire them all for comparison. But she told me she was going to buy them.”
“Not hardly,” Stephanie said. “I’m still baffled. All of this is over two thousand years old. Wouldn’t anything that existed have been found by now?”
Ely shrugged. “Hard to say. Let’s face it, the clues have not been out in the open. It took X-ray fluorescence to find the important stuff.”
“But Zovastina wants it. Whatever it is.”
Ely nodded. “In her mind, which I always thought was a little weird, she’s Alexander, or Achilles, or some other epic hero. It’s a romantic vision she seems to enjoy. A quest. She believes there might be some sort of cure out there. She talked about that a lot. That was most important to her, but I don’t know why.” Ely paused. “I won’t say that it wasn’t important to me, too. Her enthusiasm became infectious. I actually started to believe there might be something to find.”
She could see he was troubled by all that had happened, so she offered, “You might be right.”
“That would be amazing, wouldn’t it?”
“But how could there be any connection between St. Mark and Alexander the Great?” Thorvaldsen asked.
“We know that Alexander’s body was in Alexandria up to 391 CE, when paganism was finally outlawed. But there’s no mention of it ever again, anywhere, after that. St. Mark’s body reappears in Alexandria around 400 CE. Remember, pagan relics were routinely adopted for Christian purposes.
“There are lots of examples I’ve read about from Alexandria. A bronze idol of Saturn in the Caesareum was melted down to cast a cross for the patriarch of Alexandria. The Caesareum itself became a Christian cathedral. My theory, from reading everything I could on St. Mark and Alexander, was that some fourth-century patriarch conceived a way to not only preserve the corpse of the city’s founder, but to furnish Christianity with a potent relic. A win/win. So Alexander simply became St. Mark. Who’d know the difference?”
“Sounds like a long shot,” she said.
“I don’t know. You tell me Ptolemy left something in that mummy in the basilica that led you straight here. I’d say theory is now firmly entrenched in reality.”
“He’s right,” Thorvaldsen said. “It’s worth going south to take a look.”
She didn’t necessarily agree, but any place was preferable to here. At least they’d be on the move. But something occurred to her. “You said the area where Klimax is located is now privately owned. We could have trouble gaining access.”
Ely smiled. “Maybe the new owner will let us have a look around.”
MALONE WAS TRAPPED. HE SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. VIKTOR HAD led him straight to Zovastina.
“Come to save Ms. Vitt?”
He still held the gun.
Zovastina motioned. “Who do you plan to kill? Choose between the three of us.” She pointed at her guardsmen. “One of them will shoot you before you can shoot the other.” She displayed her knife. “And then I’ll cut these ropes.”
All true. His options were limited.
“Take him,” she ordered the guards.
One of the men rushed forward, but a new sound captured Malone’s attention. Baying. Growing louder. The guard was ten feet away when goats rushed from the other path that led back to the buzkashi field. First a few, then the entire herd exploded into the clearing.
Hooves thumped the earth.
Malone spotted Viktor atop a horse, keeping the oversized animals bunched, trying not to break their advance. A lumbering pace increased into a rush, the rear shoving the front, forcing the confused goats forward. Their unexpected appearance seemed to generate the desired effect. The guards were momentarily confused and Malone used that instant to shoot the one in front of him.
Another pop and the second guard dropped to the ground.
Malone saw that Viktor had fired the shot.
The goats crowded the clearing, milling into one another, still baffled, slowly realizing the only way out was through the trees.
Dust stirred the air.
Malone spotted Zovastina and pushed his way through the stinking animals toward her and Cassiopeia.
The herd retreated into the woods.
He arrived just as Viktor slid from the saddle, gun in hand. Zovastina stood with her knife, but Viktor was holding her at bay, a few feet from the ropes that anchored the two bent trees.
“Drop the knife,” Viktor said.
Zovastina seemed shocked. “What are you doing?”
“Stopping you.” Viktor motioned with his head. “Free her, Malone.”
“Tell you what,” Malone said. “You free Cassiopeia and I’ll keep an eye on the minister.”
“Still don’t trust me?”
“Let’s just say I prefer to do this my way.” He raised his gun. “Like he said, drop the knife.”
“Or what?” Zovastina said. “You’ll shoot me?”
He fired into the ground, between her legs, and she recoiled. “The next one’s in your head.”
She released the knife.
“Kick it this way.”
She did.
“What are you doing here?” Cassiopeia asked him.
“I owed you. Goats?” he said to Viktor, as the other man untied Cassiopeia.
“You use what you have. Seemed like a good diversion.”
He couldn’t argue.
“You work for the Americans?” Zovastina asked Viktor.
“That’s right.”
Fire boiled in her eyes.
Cassiopeia shook the ropes free and lunged toward Zovastina, swinging her fist and catching the other woman square in the face. A kick to the knees and Zovastina stumbled back. Cassiopeia continued her attack, planting her foot into Zovastina’s stomach and slamming the woman’s head into the trunk of one of the trees.
Zovastina shrunk to the ground and lay still.
Malone had calmly watched the assault. “You get all that out of your system?”
Cassiopeia breathed hard. “I could have given her more.” She paused, rubbing her wrists from the ropes. “Ely’s alive. I talked to him on the phone. Stephanie and Henrik are with him. We need to go.”
Malone faced Viktor. “I thought Washington wanted your cover protected?”
“I had no choice.”
“You sent me into this trap.”
“Did I tell you to confront her? You didn’t give me a chance to do anything. When I saw your problem, I did what I had to.”
He didn’t agree, but there was no time to argue. “What do we do now?”
“We’re going to leave. We’ll have a little time. No one will disturb her back here.”
“What about the gunfire?” Malone asked.
“It won’t be noticed.” Viktor motioned around him. “This is her killing field. Many enemies have been eliminated back here.”
Cassiopeia was lifting Zovastina’s limp body from the ground.
“What are you doing?” Malone asked.
“Tying this bitch to those ropes, so she can see what it feels like.”
STEPHANIE DROVE WITH HENRIK IN THE FRONT SEAT AND ELY IN the rear. They’d had no choice but to commandeer the guard’s car since theirs had four flat tires. They quickly left the cabin, found the highway, and began the trek south, paralleling the Pamir foothills, heading toward what over two thousand years ago had been known as Mt. Klimax.
“This is amazing,” Ely said.
She saw in the rearview mirror that he was admiring the scytale.
“When I read Ptolemy’s riddle, I wondered how he would convey any message. It’s really clever.” Ely held up the scytale. “How did you figure it out?”
“A friend of ours did. Cotton Malone. He’s the one with Cassiopeia.”
“Shouldn’t we go see about her?”
She heard the anticipation in his question. “We have to trust that Malone will handle his end. Our problem’s here.” She was talking again like the dispassionate head of an intelligence agency, cool and indifferent, but she was still rattled from what happened at the cabin. “Cotton’s good. He’ll deal with it.”
Thorvaldsen seemed to sense Ely’s quandary. “And Cassiopeia is not helpless. She can take care of herself. Why don’t you tell us what we need to know to understand all this? We read in the manuscript about the draught, from the Scythians. What do you know about them?”
She watched as Ely carefully laid the scytale aside.
“A nomadic people who migrated from central Asia to southern Russia in the eighth and seventh centuries before Christ. Herodotus wrote about them. They were bloody and tribal. Feared. They’d cut off the heads of their enemies and make leather-bound drinking cups from the skulls.”
“I’d say that would build you a reputation,” Thorvaldsen said.
“What’s their connection to Alexander?” she asked.
“In the fourth and third centuries BCE, they settled in what became Kazakhstan. They successfully resisted Alexander, blocking his way east across the Syr Darya river. He fought them fiercely, was wounded several times, but eventually made a truce. I wouldn’t say Alexander feared the Scythians, but he respected them.”
“And the draught?” Thorvaldsen said. “It was theirs?”
Ely nodded. “They showed it to Alexander. Part of their peace with him. And he apparently used it to cure himself. From what I read, it appeared as some kind of natural potion. Alexander, Hephaestion, and that physician’s assistant mentioned in one of the manuscripts were all cured by it. Assuming the accounts are accurate.
“The Scythians were a strange people,” Ely said. “For example, in the midst of one fight with the Persians, they all abandoned the battlefield to chase a rabbit. Nobody knows why, but it’s noted in an official account.
“They were gold connoisseurs, using and wearing enormous amounts. Ornaments, belts, plates, even their weapons were gold adorned. Scythian burial mounds are full of gold artifacts. But their main problem was language. They were illiterate. No written record of them survives. Just pictures, fables, and accounts from others. Only a few of their words are even known, and that’s thanks to Herodotus.”
She could see his face in the rearview mirror and realized there was more. “What is it?”
“Like I said, only a few of their words survived. Pata meant kill. Spou, eye. Oior, man. Then there’s arima.” He shuffled through some of the papers he’d brought. “It didn’t mean much, until now. Remember the riddle. When you reach the attic. Ptolemy fought the Scythians with Alexander. He knew them. Arima means, roughly, place at the top.”
“Like an attic,” she said.
“Even more important. The place the Greeks once called Klimax, where we’re headed, the locals have always called Arima. I remember that from the last time I was there.”
“Too many coincidences?” Thorvaldsen asked.
“It seems all roads point here.”
“And what do we hope to find?” Stephanie asked.
“The Scythians used mounds to cover their kings’ tombs, but I’ve read that mountain locations were chosen for some of their most important leaders. This was the farthest reach of Alexander’s empire. Its eastern border. A long way from home. He would not have been disturbed here.”
“Maybe that’s why he chose it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. The whole thing seems odd.”
And she agreed.
ZOVASTINA OPENED HER EYES. SHE WAS LYING ON THE GROUND and immediately recalled Cassiopeia Vitt’s attack. She shook confusion from her brain and realized something was tightly gripping both wrists.
Then she realized. She was tied to the trees, just as Vitt had been. She shook her head. Humiliating.
She stood and stared out into the clearing.
The goats, Malone, Vitt, and Viktor were gone. One of the guardsmen lay dead. But the other was still alive, propped against a tree, bleeding from a shoulder wound.
“Can you move?” she asked.
The man nodded, but was clearly in pain. All of her Sacred Band were tough, disciplined souls. She’d made sure of that. Her modern incarnation was every bit as fearless as the original from Alexander’s time.
The guard struggled to his feet, his right hand clamped onto his left arm.
“The knife,” she said. “There, on the ground.”
Not a hint of pain seeped from the man’s mouth. She tried to remember his name, but could not. Viktor had hired each one of the Sacred Band, and she’d made a point not to become attached to any of them. They were objects. Tools to be used. That’s all.
The man staggered to the knife and managed to lift it from the ground.
He came close to the ropes, lost his balance, and fell to his knees.
“You can do it,” she said. “Fight the agony. Focus on your duty.”
The guard seemed to steel himself. Sweat poured down his brow and she noticed fresh blood oozing from the wound. Amazing he wasn’t in shock. But this burly soul seemed in superb physical shape.
He raised the knife, sucked a few breaths, then cut the bindings that held her right wrist. She steadied his shaking arm as he passed her the knife, and she freed herself from the other rope.
“You did well,” she said.
He smiled at her compliment, his breath labored, still on his knees.
“Lie down. Rest,” she said.
She heard him settle on the ground as she searched the forest floor. Near the other body she found a gun.
She returned to the injured guardsman.
He’d seen her vulnerable and, for the first time in a long while, she’d felt vulnerable.
The man lay on his back, still gripping his shoulder.
She stood over him. His dark eyes focused on her and, in them, she saw that he knew.
She smiled at his courage.
Then aimed the gun at his head and fired.
MALONE GLANCED DOWN AT THE ROUGH TERRAIN, A MIXTURE OF parched earth, greenlands, rolling hills, and trees. Viktor piloted the chopper, a Hind, which had been parked on a concrete pad a few miles from the palace. He knew the craft. Russian made, twin top-mounted turboshaft engines driving a main and tail rotors. The Soviets called it a flying tank. NATO dubbed the mean-looking thing the Crocodile, due to its camouflage color and distinct fuselage. All in all a formidable gunship, this one modified with a large rear compartment for low-capacity troop transport. Thankfully, they’d managed to leave both the palace and Samarkand with no problems.
“Where’d you learn to fly?” he asked Viktor.
“Bosnia. Croatia. That’s what I did in the military. Search and destroy.”
“Good place to build your nerves.”
“And get killed.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
“How far?” Cassiopeia asked through the headset.
They were flying east, at nearly three hundred kilometers an hour, toward Ely’s cabin in the Pamirs. Zovastina would soon be free, if not already, so he asked, “What about anyone coming after us?”
Viktor motioned ahead. “Those mountains will give us cover. Tough to track anything in there. We’ll be into them shortly, and we’re only minutes from the Chinese border. We can always escape there.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t hear me,” Cassiopeia said. “How far?”
Malone had intentionally avoided answering. She was anxious. He wanted to tell her he knew she was sick. Let her know somebody cared. That he understood her frustration. But he knew better. Instead, he said, “We’re moving as fast as we can.” He paused. “But this is probably better than being tied to trees.”
“I assume I’ll never live that one down.”
“Something like that.”
“Okay, Cotton, I’m a little upset. But you have to understand, I thought Ely was dead. I wanted him to be alive, but I knew-I thought-” She caught herself. “And now-”
He turned and saw excitement in her eyes, which both energized and saddened him. Then he caught himself and finished her thought, “And now he’s with Stephanie and Henrik. So calm down.”
She was seated alone in the rear compartment. He saw her tap Viktor on the shoulder. “Did you know about Ely being alive?”
Viktor shook his head. “I was taunting you on the boat in Venice when I told you he was dead. I had to say something. Truth is, I’m the one who saved Ely. Zovastina thought someone might move on him. He was her adviser and political murder is commonplace in the Federation. She wanted Ely protected. After that attempt on his life, she hid him. I haven’t had anything to do with him since. Though I was head of the guard, she was in charge. So I really don’t know what happened to him. I learned not to ask questions, just do what she said.”
Malone caught the past tense observation concerning Viktor’s job status. “She’ll kill you if she finds you.”
“I knew the rules before all this started.”
They continued flying smooth and straight. He’d never flown in a Hind. Its instrumentation was impressive, as was its firepower. Guided missiles. Multibarrel machine guns. Twin cannon pods.
“Cotton,” Cassiopeia said, “do you have a way of communicating with Stephanie?”
Not a question he wanted to answer at the moment, but he had no choice. “I do.”
“Give it to me.”
He found the world phone-Magellan Billet-issue, provided by Stephanie in Venice-and dialed the number, slipping off his headset. A few seconds were needed before a pulsating buzz confirmed a connection and Stephanie’s voice greeted him.
“We’re headed your way,” he said.
“We left the cabin,” she said. “We’re driving south on a highway marked M45 to what was once Mt. Klimax. Ely knows where it is. He says the locals call the place Arima.”
“Tell me more.”
He listened, then repeated the information to Viktor, who nodded. “I know where that is.”
Viktor banked the copter southeast and increased speed.
“We’re on our way,” he told Stephanie. “Everyone here is fine.”
He saw that Cassiopeia wanted the phone, but that wasn’t going to happen. He motioned no with his head, hoping she’d understand that now was not the time. But to comfort her, he asked Stephanie, “Ely okay?”
“Yeah, but anxious.”
“I know what you mean. We’ll be there before you. I’ll call. We can do some aerial recon until you get there.”
“Viktor any help?”
“Wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for him.”
He clicked off the phone and told Cassiopeia where Ely was headed.
An alarm sounded in the cabin.
His gaze found the radar display that indicated two targets approaching from the west.
“Black Sharks,” Viktor said, “coming straight for us.”
Malone knew those choppers, too. NATO called them Hokums. KA-50s. Fast, efficient, loaded with guided missiles and 30mm cannons. He saw that Viktor also realized the threat.
“They found us quick,” Malone said.
“There’s a base near here.”
“What do you plan to do?”
They started to climb, gaining altitude, changing course. Six thousand feet. Seven. Nine. Leveling at ten.
“You know how to use the guns?” Viktor asked.
He was sitting in the weapons officer’s seat, so he scanned the instrument panel. Luckily, he could read Russian. “I can manage.”
“Then get ready for a fight.”
SAMARKAND
ZOVASTINA WATCHED AS HER GENERALS CONSIDERED THE WAR plan. The men sitting around the conference table were her most trusted subordinates, though she tempered that trust with a realization that one or more of them could be a traitor. After the past twenty-four hours she could not be sure of anything. These men had all been with her from the beginning, rising as she rose, steadily building the Federation’s offensive strength, readying themselves for what was about to come.
“We’ll take Iran first,” she declared.
She knew the calculations. The current population of Pakistan was a hundred and seventy million. Afghanistan, thirty-two million. Iran, sixty-eight million. All three were targets. Originally, she’d planned a simultaneous assault, now she believed a strategic strike better. If infection points were chosen with care, places of maximum density, and the viruses planted with skill, the computer models predicted a population reduction of seventy percent or more would occur within fourteen days. She told the men what they already knew, then added, “We need a total panic. A crisis. The Iranians have to want our assistance. What do you have planned?”
“We’ll start with their military forces and government,” one of the generals said. “Most of the viral agents work in less than forty-eight hours. But we’ll vary which ones we use. They’ll identify a virus fairly quickly, but then they’ll have another to deal with. That should keep them off guard and prevent any productive medical response.”
She’d been concerned on that point, but not anymore. “The scientists tell me the viruses have all been modified, making their detection and prevention even more difficult.”
Eight men surrounded the table, all from her army and air force. Central Asia had long languished between China, the USSR, India, and the Middle East, not part of any of them, but desired by all. The Great Game had played itself out here two centuries ago when Russia and Britain battled each other for dominance, neither caring what the native populations wanted.
Not anymore.
Central Asia now spoke with unity through a democratically elected parliament, ministers, elections, courts, and a rule of law.
One voice.
Hers.
“What of the Europeans and the Americans?” a general asked. “How will they react to our aggression?”
“That’s what it cannot be,” she made clear. “No aggression. We’ll simply occupy and extend aid and relief to the embattled populations. They’ll be far too busy burying the dead to worry about us.”
She’d learned from history. The world’s most successful conquerors-the Greeks, Mongols, Huns, Romans, and Ottomans-all practiced tolerance over the lands they claimed. Hitler could have changed the course of World War II if he’d simply enlisted the aid of millions of Ukrainians, who hated the Soviets, instead of annihilating them. Her forces would enter Iran as savior, not oppressor, knowing that by the time her viruses finished there’d be no opposition left to challenge her. Then she’d annex the land. Repopulate. Move people from the Soviet-ruined regions of her nation into new locales. Blend the races. Do precisely what Alexander the Great had done with his Hellenistic revolution, only in reverse, migrating east to west.
“Can we be sure the Americans will not intervene?” one of the generals asked.
She understood the apprehension. “The Americans will not say or do a thing. Why will they care? After the Iraqi debacle, they won’t interfere, especially if we’re handling the load. They’ll actually be thrilled at the prospect of eliminating Iran.”
“Once we move on Afghanistan, there’ll be American deaths,” one of the men noted. “Their military is still present.”
“When that time comes, let’s try to minimize those,” she said. “We want the end result to be that the Americans withdraw from the country as we take control. I’m assuming that will be a popular decision in the United States. Use a virus there that’s containable. Strategic infections, targeted at specific groups and regions. The majority of the dead must be natives, especially Taliban, make sure U.S. personnel are only a consequence.”
She met the gaze of each of the men at the table. Not one of them said a word about the bruise on her face-leftover from her bout with Cassiopeia Vitt. Was her leak here? How had the Americans learned so much about her intentions?
“Millions are about to die,” one of the men said in a whisper.
“Millions of problems,” she made clear. “Iran is a harbinger of terrorists. A place governed by fools. That’s what the West says over and over. Time to end that problem, and we have the way. The people who survive will be better off. We will, too. We’ll have their oil and their gratitude. What we do with those will determine our success.”
She listened as troop strengths, contingency plans, and strategies were discussed. Squads of men had been trained in deploying the viruses and were ready to move south. She was pleased. Years of anticipation were finally over. She imagined how Alexander the Great must have felt when he crossed from Greece into Asia and began his global conquest. Like him, she, too, envisioned total success. Once she controlled Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, she’d move on to the rest of the Middle East. That dominance, though, would be more subtle, the viral rampages made to appear as simply a spread of the initial infections. If she’d read the West correctly, Europe, China, Russia, and America would withdraw into themselves. Restrict their borders. Minimize travel. Hope the public health disaster was contained in countries that, by and large, none of them cared about. Their inaction would give her time to claim more links in the chain of nations that stood between the Federation and Africa. Played right, she could conquer the entire Middle East in a matter of months and never fire a shot.
“Do we have control of the antiagents?” her chief of staff finally asked.
She’d been waiting for the question. “We will.” The uneasy peace that connected her and Vincenti was about to end.
“Philogen has not provided stockpiles to treat our population,” one of the men noted. “Nor do we have the quantities needed to stop the viral spread in the target nations, once victory is assured.”
“I’m aware of the problem,” she said.
A chopper was waiting.
She stood. “Gentlemen, we’re about to start the greatest conquest since ancient times. The Greeks came and defeated us, ushering in the Hellenistic Age, which eventually molded Western civilization. We will now begin a new dawn in human development. The Asiatic Age.”
CASSIOPEIA STRAPPED HERSELF ONTO THE STEEL BENCH IN THE rear compartment. The chopper lurched as Viktor began evasive maneuvers to elude their pursuers. She knew Malone was aware that she’d wanted to talk to Ely, but she also saw that now was not the time. She appreciated Malone risking his neck. How would she have escaped from Zovastina without him? Doubtful that she would have, even with Viktor there. Thorvaldsen had told her that Viktor was an ally, but he’d also warned about his limitations. His mission was to remain undetected, but apparently that directive had changed.
“They’re firing,” Viktor said through the headset.
The chopper banked left, knifing through the air. Her harness held her secure against the bulkhead. Her hands gripped the bench. She was fighting a rising nausea since, truth be told, she was prone to motion sickness. Boats she generally avoided and planes, as long as they flew straight, weren’t a problem. This, though, was a problem. Her stomach seemed to roll up into her throat as they constantly changed altitude, like an elevator out of control. Nothing she could do but hold on and hope to heaven Viktor knew what he was doing.
She saw Malone work the firing controls and heard cannon shots from both sides of the fuselage. She gazed ahead into the cockpit, through the windshield, and spotted mountain haunches lurching from the clouds on both sides.
“They still back there?” Malone asked.
“Coming fast,” Viktor said. “And trying to fire.”
“Missiles we don’t need.”
“I agree. But firing those in here would be tricky for us and them.”
They emerged into clearer skies. The helicopter angled right and plummeted in altitude.
“Do we have to do that?” she asked, trying to keep her stomach under control.
“Afraid so,” Malone answered. “We need to use these valleys to avoid them. In and out, like a maze.”
She knew Malone had once flown fighter jets and still held a pilot’s license. “Some of us don’t like this kind of thing.”
“You’re welcome to toss your cookies anytime.”
“I wouldn’t give you the pleasure.” Thank goodness she hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday on Torcello.
More sharp banks as they roared through the afternoon sky. The engine noise seemed deafening. She’d only flown on a few helicopters, never in a combat situation, the ride like a three dimensional roller coaster.
“Two more choppers within radar range,” Viktor said. “But they’re off to our north.”
“Where are we headed?” Malone asked.
The copter veered into another steep turn.
“South,” Viktor said.
MALONE STARED AT THE RADAR MONITOR. THE MOUNTAINS WERE both a shield and a problem that compounded tracking their pursuers. The targets steadily winked in and out. The American military relied more on satellites and AWACS planes to provide a clear picture. Luckily, the Central Asian Federation did not enjoy those high-tech amenities.
The radar screen cleared.
“Nothing behind us,” Malone said.
He had to admit, Viktor could fly. They were winding a path through the Pamirs, rotors dangerously close to steep gray precipices. He’d never learned to fly a helicopter, though he’d always wanted to, and he’d not been behind the controls of a supersonic fighter in ten years. He’d maintained his jet fighter proficiency for a few years after transferring to the Billet, but he’d let the certification slide. At the time he hadn’t minded. Now he wished he’d kept those skills current.
Viktor leveled the chopper off at six thousand feet and asked, “You hit anything?”
“Hard to say. I think we just forced them to keep their distance.”
“Where we’re headed is about a hundred and fifty kilometers south. I know Arima. I’ve been there before, but it’s been a while.”
“Mountains all the way?”
Viktor nodded. “And more valleys. I think I can stay beneath any radar. This area is not a security zone. The border with China has been open for years. Most of Zovastina’s resources are directed to the south, on the Afghan and Pakistani lines.”
Cassiopeia came up behind them. “That over?”
“Looks like it.”
“I’m going to take a roundabout way,” Viktor said, “to avoid any more encounters. It’ll take a little longer, but the farther east I go the safer we’ll be.”
“How long will that slow us up?” Cassiopeia asked.
“Maybe a half hour.”
Malone nodded and Cassiopeia did not offer any objections. Dodging bullets was one thing, but air-to-air missiles were another matter. Soviet offensive equipment, like their missiles, were top-notch. Viktor’s suggestion was a good one.
Malone settled into his seat and watched the naked rush of rounded spurs. In the distance, haze claimed a stadium of white-tipped peaks. A river cleaved purple veins through the foothills in a silty torrent. Both Alexander the Great and Marco Polo had walked that sooty earth-the whole place once a battleground. British dependencies to the south, Russian to the north, and the Chinese and Afghans to the east and west. For most of the twentieth century, Moscow and Peking fought for control, each testing the other, ultimately settling into an uneasy peace, only the Pamirs themselves emerging a victor.
Alexander the Great chose his last resting place wisely.
But he wondered.
Was he really down there?
Waiting?
2:00 P.M.
ZOVASTINA FLEW FROM SAMARKAND TO VINCENTI’S ESTATE IN A direct path aboard the fastest helicopter her air force owned.
Vincenti’s house loomed below. Excessive, expensive, and, like its owner, expendable. Allowing capitalism to flourish within the Federation may not be a smart idea. Changes would be needed. The Venetian League would have to be reined in.
But first things first.
The chopper touched down.
After Edwin Davis left the palace, she’d ordered Kamil Revin to contact Vincenti and alert him of the visit. But the warning had been delayed long enough to allow her troops time to arrive. She’d been told that the house was now secure, so she’d ordered her men to leave in the choppers that had brought them, save for nine soldiers. The house staff had also been evacuated. She possessed no quarrel with locals who were only trying to earn a living-her dispute was with Vincenti.
She stepped from the helicopter and marched across manicured grounds to a stone terrace where she entered the mansion. Though Vincenti thought she was disinterested in the estate, she’d closely followed its construction. Fifty-three rooms. Eleven bedrooms. Sixteen baths. Its architect had willingly provided her a set of plans. She knew of the regal dining hall, elaborate parlors, gourmet kitchen, and wine cellar. Staring firsthand at the decor it was easy to see why it carried an eight-figure price tag.
In the main foyer two of her troops guarded the front entrance. Two more men flanked a marble stairway. Everything here reminded her of Venice. And she’d never liked to recall failure.
She caught the attention of one of the sentinels, who motioned right with his rifle. She paraded down a short hall and entered what appeared to be a library. Three more armed men occupied the room along with another man. Though they’d never met, she knew his name and background.
“Mr. O’Conner, you have a decision to make.”
The man stood from a leather settee and faced her.
“You’ve worked for Vincenti a long time. He depends on you. And, frankly, without you he may not have made it so far.”
She allowed her compliment to be absorbed as she inspected the opulent room. “Vincenti lives well. I’m curious, does he share the wealth with you?”
O’Conner said nothing.
“Let me tell you some things you may or may not know. Last year, Vincenti netted over forty million euros from his company. He owns stock worth over a billion euros. What does he pay you?”
No answer.
“One hundred fifty thousand euros.” She saw the look on his face as the truth sank in. “You see, Mr. O’Conner, I know quite a lot. One hundred fifty thousand euros for all that you do for him. You’ve intimidated, coerced, even killed. He makes tens of millions and you received one hundred and fifty thousand euros. He lives like this and you,” she hesitated, “simply live.”
“I’ve never complained,” O’Conner said.
She stopped behind Vincenti’s desk. “No. You haven’t. Which is admirable.”
“What do you want?”
“Where’s Vincenti?”
“Gone. Left before your men arrived.”
She grinned. “There it is. Another thing you do so well. Lie.”
He shrugged. “Believe what you will. Surely your men have searched the house.”
“They have and, you’re right, Vincenti is not to be found. But you and I both know why that’s so.”
She noticed the lovely alabaster carvings that dotted the desk. Chinese figurines. She never really cared for Oriental art. She lifted one of the figurines. A contorted fat man, half-dressed. “During the construction of this obscene monstrosity, Vincenti incorporated back passages, ostensibly for servants’ use, but you and I know what they’re really used for. He also had a large underground room hewn from the rock beneath us. That’s probably where he is right now.”
O’Conner’s face never flinched.
“So, as I said, Mr. O’Conner, you have a choice. I’ll find Vincenti, with or without your assistance. But your aid will speed the process and, I must admit, time is of the essence. That’s why I’m willing to bargain. I could use a man like you. Resourceful.” She paused. “Without greed. So here’s your choice. Do you switch sides or stay with Vincenti?”
She’d offered the same alternative to others. Most were members of the national assembly, part of her government, or a rising opposition. Some weren’t worth recruiting, far easier to kill them and be done with it, but the majority had proven worthy converts. They’d all been either Asian or Russian or some combination. Here, she was dangling bait to an American and was curious how the lure would be received.
“I choose you,” O’Conner said. “What can I do for you?”
“Answer my question.”
O’Conner reached into his pocket and one of the troops instantly leveled a rifle. O’Conner quickly displayed empty hands. “I need something to answer your question.”
“Go ahead,” she said.
He retrieved a silver controller with three buttons. “Those rooms are accessed from doors throughout the house. But the underground room can only be entered from here.” He displayed the device. “One button opens every portal in case of a fire. The other activates the alarm. The third button,” he pointed across the room and pressed, “opens that.”
An eloquent Chinese cabinet rotated, revealing a dimly lit passage.
The warmth of victory filled her.
She approached one of her infantrymen and unholstered his Makarov 9mm.
She then turned and shot O’Conner in the head.
“Loyalty that shallow I don’t need.”
THINGS WERE WRONG AND VINCENTI KNEW IT. BUT IF HE SAT tight, kept calm, and was careful, this could play itself out. O’Conner would handle things, like always. But Karyn Walde and Grant Lyndsey were another matter.
Karyn was pacing the lab like a caged animal, her strength apparently returning, fueled by anticipation.
“You need to relax,” he said. “Zovastina needs me. She won’t be doing anything stupid.”
He knew the antiagents would keep her in line, which was precisely why he’d never allowed her to learn much about them.
“Grant, secure your computer. Password protect everything, like we discussed.”
He could see Lyndsey was even more anxious than Karyn, but where she seemed fueled by anger, Lyndsey was gripped with fear. He needed the man to think clearly, so he said, “We’re fine down here. Don’t sweat it.”
“She resented me from the start. Hated having to deal with me.”
“She may have hated you, but she needed you, and still does. Use that to your advantage.”
Lyndsey was not listening. He was pounding on a keyboard, muttering to himself in a panicked frenzy.
“Both of you,” he said, voice rising. “Calm down. We don’t even know if she’s here.”
Lyndsey stared up from the computer. “It’s been a long time. What are those troops doing here? What the hell’s going on?”
Good questions, but he had to rely on O’Conner.
“That woman she took from the lab the other day,” Lyndsey said. “I’m sure she never made it back to the Federation. I saw it in her eyes. Zovastina was going to kill her. For amusement. She’s ready to slaughter millions. What are we to her?”
“Her salvation.”
Or at least he hoped.
STEPHANIE TURNED OFF THE HIGHWAY ONTO A PAVED LANE guarded by tall poplars lined like sentries. They’d made good time, driving the hundred and fifty kilometers in less than two hours. Ely had commented on how travel had changed over the past few years, road quality being a top priority for the Federation, along with tunneling. A new system had been blasted through the mountains, greatly shortening the distances from north to south.
“This place is different,” Ely said from the rear seat. “It’s been two years since I was here. This road was rock and gravel.”
“This asphalt is recent,” she said.
A fertile valley floor, checkered with pastures, spread beyond the trees, ending at stark rolling foothills that steadily rose into highlands, then mountains. She spotted shepherds tending flocks of sheep and goats. Horses roamed freely. The road stretched straight between the trees, taking them due east toward a distant gallery of silver flanks.
“We came here on an exploratory mission,” Ely said. “Lots of chids. The local Pamiri house, built of stone and plaster with flat roofs. We stayed in one. There was a small village out there, in that valley. But it’s gone.”
She’d not heard any more from Malone, and she dare not try and reach him. She had no idea of his situation, other than that he’d apparently managed to free Cassiopeia and compromise Viktor. Edwin Davis and President Daniels would not be happy, but rarely did things go according to plan.
“Why is everything so green?” Henrik asked. “I always thought of the Pamirs as dry and barren.”
“Most of the valleys are, but where there’s water the valleys can be quite beautiful. Like a piece of Switzerland. We’ve been dry lately with warm temperatures. Way above normal for here.”
Up ahead, through the thin line of trees, she spotted a massive stone structure perched on a grassy promontory, backdropped by mountain spurs devoid of snow. The house rose in sharp verticals, broken by steep gables topped with black slate, the exterior a mosaic of flat stone in varying shades of brown, silver, and gold. Mullioned windows symmetrically broke the elegant facade, each outlined with thick cornices, reflecting ribbons of light from the afternoon sun. Three storeys. Four stone chimneys. Scaffolding wrapped one side. The whole thing reminded her of one of the many mansions that dotted north Atlanta, or something from Architectural Digest.
“That’s a house,” she said.
“Which was not here two years ago,” Ely noted.
Thorvaldsen stared out the windshield. “Apparently the new owner of all this is a person of means.”
The dwelling loomed about a half mile away, across a green valley that steadily rose toward the promontory. Ahead, an iron gate blocked the drive. Two stone pillars, like compact minarets, support a wrought-iron arch that displayed the word “Attico.”
“Italian for attic,” Thorvaldsen said. “Seems the new owner is attuned to the local designation.”
“Place names are sacred in this part of the world,” Ely said. “That’s one reason why the Asians hated the Soviets. They changed all of them. Of course, they were changed back when the Federation was created. Another reason Zovastina is so popular.”
Stephanie searched for a way to contact the house from the gate, a call box or a switch, but saw nothing. Instead, two men appeared from behind the minarets. Young, thin, dressed in camouflage fatigues, bearing AK-74s. One pointed his weapon while the other opened the gate.
“Interesting welcome,” Thorvaldsen said.
One of the men approached the car and motioned, yelling something in a language she did not understand.
But she didn’t need to.
She knew exactly what he wanted.
ZOVASTINA ENTERED THE PASSAGEWAY. SHE’D RETRIEVED THE controller from O’Conner’s dead grasp and used it to close the portal. A series of bulbs, linked by wire, hung inside iron brackets at periodic intervals. The narrow corridor ended ten meters ahead at a metal door.
She approached and listened.
No sound from the other side.
She tried the latch.
It opened.
The top of a stone staircase, chiseled from the bedrock, began on the other side and dropped steeply.
Impressive.
Her opponent had certainly thought ahead.
VINCENTI CHECKED HIS WATCH. HE SHOULD HAVE HEARD FROM O’Conner by now. The phone affixed to the wall provided a direct line upstairs. He’d resisted calling, not wanting to reveal himself. They’d been ensconced here now pushing three hours and he was starving, though his gut churned more from anxiety than hunger.
He’d occupied the time securing data on the lab’s two computers. He’d also brought to a conclusion a couple of experiments that he and Lyndsey had been running to verify that the archaea could be safely stored at room temperature, at least for the few months needed between production and sale. Concentrating on the experiments had helped with Lyndsey’s apprehension, but Walde remained agitated.
“Flush everything,” he said to Lyndsey. “All the liquids. The keeping solutions. Samples. Leave nothing.”
“What are you doing?” Karyn asked.
He didn’t feel like arguing with her. “We don’t need them.”
She rose from the chair where she’d been seated. “What about my treatment? Did you give me enough? Am I cured?”
“We’ll know tomorrow or the next day.”
“And if I’m not? What then?”
He appraised her with a calculating look. “You’re awful demanding for a woman who was dying.”
“Answer me. Am I cured?”
He ignored her question and concentrated on the computer screen. A few flicks of the mouse and he copied all of its data onto a flash drive. He then enabled the hard drive’s encryption.
Karyn grabbed his shirt. “You’re the one who came to me. You wanted my help. You wanted Irina. You gave me hope. Don’t let me hang.”
This woman may prove more trouble than she was worth. But he decided to be conciliatory. “We can make more,” he calmly said. “It’s easy. And if we need to, we can take you where the bacteria live and let you drink them. They work that way, too.”
But his assurance did not seem to satisfy her.
“You lying son of a bitch.” She released her hold. “I can’t believe I’m in this mess.”
Neither could he. But it was too late now.
“Everything done?” he asked Lyndsey.
The man nodded.
Glass shattering caught Vincenti’s attention. He turned to see Karyn holding the jagged remains of a flask and lunging toward him. She brought the improvised dagger close to his belly and stopped, her eyes alive with fire. “I need to know. Am I cured?”
“Answer her,” a new voice said.
He turned toward the lab’s exit.
Irina Zovastina stood in the doorway, with a gun. “Is she cured, Enrico?”
MALONE SPOTTED A HOUSE ABOUT TWO MILES AWAY. VIKTOR HAD flown them in from the north, after veering east and skirting the Chinese border. He assessed the structure and estimated forty or so thousand square feet spread over three levels. They faced its rear, the front overlooking a valley that scooped a cul-de-sac out of the mountains on three sides. The house seemed to have been situated intentionally on a flat, rocky hillock overlooking the broad plain. Scaffolding wrapped one side where, it appeared, masons had been working. He noticed a sand pile and a mortar mixer. Beyond the promontory, iron fencing was being erected, some already standing, more stacked nearby. No workers. No security. Nobody in sight.
A six-bay garage stood off to one side, the doors closed. A garden that showed evidence of careful tending sprouted between a terrace and the beginnings of a grove that ended at the base of one of the rising peaks. The trees sprouted brassy new spring leaves.
“Who owns that house?” Malone asked.
“I have no idea. The last time I was here, maybe two or three years ago, it wasn’t there.”
“Is this the place?” Cassiopeia asked, looking out over his shoulder.
“This is Arima.”
“Damn quiet down there,” Malone said.
“The mountains shielded our approach,” Viktor pointed out. “Radar’s clean. We’re alone.”
Malone noticed a defined trail that routed through a bushy grove, then worked a path up the rocky incline, disappearing into a shadowy cleft. He also saw what looked like a power conduit marching up the rock waste, parallel to the trail, fastened close to the ground. “Looks like somebody is interested in that mountain.”
“I saw that, too,” Cassiopeia said.
He said, “We need to find out who owns this place. But we also need to be prepared.” He still carried the gun that he’d brought with him into the country. But he’d used a few rounds. “You have weapons on board?”
Viktor nodded. “The cabinet in back.”
He looked at Cassiopeia. “Get us each one.”
ZOVASTINA ENJOYED THE SHOCK ON BOTH LYNDSEY AND VINCENTI’S faces. “Did you think me that stupid?”
“Damn you, Irina,” Karyn said.
“That’s enough.” Zovastina leveled her gun.
Karyn hesitated at the challenge, then retreated to the far side of one of the tables. Zovastina turned her attention back to Vincenti. “I warned you about the Americans. Told you they were watching. And this is how you show your gratitude?”
“You expect me to believe that? If it wasn’t for the antiagents, you’d have killed me long ago.”
“You and your League wanted a haven. I gave you one. You wanted financial freedom. You have it. You wanted land, markets, ways to clean your dirty money. I gave you all those. But that wasn’t enough, was it?”
Vincenti stared back at her, seemingly keeping a tight grip on his own expression.
“You apparently have a different agenda. Something, I assume, not even your League knows about. Something that involves Karyn.” She fully realized Vincenti would never admit any allegations. But Lyndsey. He was another matter. So she focused on him. “And you’re a part of this, too.”
The scientist watched her with undisguised terror.
“Get out of here, Irina,” Karyn said. “Leave him be. Leave them both be. They’re doing great things.”
Bewilderment attacked her. “Great things?”
“He’s cured me, Irina. Not you. Him. He cured me.”
Her curiosity rose as she sensed that Karyn may provide the information she lacked. “HIV is not curable.”
Karyn laughed. “That’s your problem, Irina. You think nothing is possible without you. The great Achilles on a hero’s journey to save his beloved. That’s you. A fantasy world that exists only in your mind.”
Her neck tensed and the hand that held the gun stiffened.
“I’m not some epic poem,” Karyn said. “This is real. It’s not about Homer or the Greeks or Alexander. It’s about life and death. My life. My death. And this man,” she clutched Vincenti by the arm, “this man has cured me.”
“What nonsense have you told her?” she asked Vincenti.
“Nonsense?” Karyn shot back. “He found it. The cure. One dose and I haven’t felt this good in years.”
What had Vincenti discovered?
“Don’t you see, Irina?” Karyn said. “You did nothing. He did it all. He has the cure.”
She stared at Karyn. A bundle of raw energy. A tangle of emotions. “Do you have any idea what I did to try and save you? The chances I took. You came back to me in need, and I helped you.”
“You did nothing for me. Only for yourself. You watched me suffer, you wanted me to die-”
“Modern medicine had nothing to offer. I was trying to find something that might help. You ungrateful whore.” Her voice rose with indignation.
Sadness clouded Karyn’s face. “You don’t get it, do you? You never got it. A possession. That’s all I was to you, Irina. Something you could control. That’s why I cheated on you. Why I sought other women, and men. To show you that I couldn’t be dominated. You never got it and still don’t.”
Her heart rebelled as her mind agreed with what Karyn said. She faced Vincenti. “You found the cure for AIDS?”
He glared at her, unresponsive.
“Tell me,” she shouted. She had to know. “Did you find Alexander’s draught. The place of the Scythians?”
“I have no idea what that is,” he said. “I know nothing about Alexander, the Scythians, or any draught. But she’s right. Long ago I found a cure in the mountain behind the house. A local healer told me about the place. He called it, in his language, Arima, the attic. It’s a natural substance that can make us all rich.”
“That’s what this is about? A way to make more money?”
“Your ambition will be the ruin of us all.”
“So you tried to have me killed? To stop me? Yet you warned me. Lost your nerve?”
He shook his head. “I decided on a better way.”
She heard again what Edwin Davis had told her and realized its truth. She motioned at Karyn. “You were going to use her to discredit me. Turn the people against me. First, cure her. Then, use her. Then, what, Enrico? Kill her?”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Karyn said. “He saved me.”
Zovastina was beyond caring. Taking Karyn back had been a mistake. Lots of foolish chances had been taken for her expense.
And all for nothing.
“Irina,” Karyn yelled, “if the people of this damned Federation knew what you really were no one would follow you. You’re a fraud. A murderous fraud. All you know is pain. That’s your pleasure. Pain. Yes, I wanted to destroy you. I wanted you to feel as small as I do.”
Karyn was the only one to whom she’d bared her soul, a closeness she’d never felt with another human being. Homer was right. Once harm has been done, even a fool understands it.
So she shot Karyn in the chest.
Then again, in the head.
VINCENTI HAD BEEN WAITING FOR ZOVASTINA TO ACT. HE STILL held the flash drive in his closed left hand. He kept that hand resting on the waist-high table, while his right hand slowly opened the top drawer.
The weapon he’d brought from upstairs lay inside.
Zovastina shot Karyn Walde a third time.
He gripped the gun.
ZOVASTINA’S ANGER SURGED WITH EACH PULL OF THE TRIGGER. Bullets ripped through Karyn’s emaciated frame, pinging off the block wall behind her. Her former lover never realized what happened, dying quickly, her body contorted on the floor, bleeding.
Grant Lyndsey had sat silent throughout their exchange. He was nothing. A weak soul. Useless. Vincenti, though, was different. He would not go down without a fight, and surely he realized he was about to die.
So she swung the gun in his direction.
His right hand came into view, holding a pistol.
She shot him four times, emptying the magazine of its remaining rounds.
Blood roses blossomed on Vincenti’s shirt.
Eyes rolled skyward and his grip on the gun released, clattering away as his bulky frame fell to the floor.
Two problems solved.
She stepped close to Lyndsey and pointed the empty weapon at his face. Horror stared back. It mattered not that the magazine was empty. The gun itself was more than sufficient to make her point.
“I warned you,” she said, “to stay in China.”
STEPHANIE, HENRIK, AND ELY WERE BEING HELD INSIDE THE house. They’d been driven from the gate to the mansion, their car stashed inside a separate garage. Nine infantrymen guarded the interior. Stephanie had seen no staff. They were standing in what appeared to be a library, the room spacious and elegant with towering windows that framed panoramic views of the lush valley beyond the house. Three men with AK-74s, their hair cropped into a utilitarian black brush, stood at the ready, one by the window, another by the door, and a third near an Oriental cabinet. A corpse lay on the floor. Caucasian, middle age, perhaps American, with a bullet to the head.
“None of this is good,” she whispered to Henrik.
“I can’t see an upside.”
Ely appeared calm. But he’d lived under a threat for the past couple months, probably still confused as to what was happening, but willing to trust Henrik. Or, more realistically, Cassiopeia, who he knew was nearby. It was obvious the younger man cared for her. But any reunion was not going to happen soon. Stephanie hoped Malone would be more careful than she’d been. Her cell phone remained in her pocket. Curiously, though she’d been searched, they’d allowed her to keep it.
A click attracted her attention.
She turned to see the Oriental cabinet rotate inward, stopping halfway and revealing a passageway. A small, impish man with balding hair and a worried face emerged from the darkness followed by Irina Zovastina, who held a gun. The guard gave his Supreme Minister a wide berth, retreating to the windows. Zovastina pressed a button on a controller and the cabinet closed. She then tossed the device onto the corpse.
Zovastina handed her gun to one of the guards and gripped the man’s AK-74. She walked straight to Thorvaldsen and rammed the butt into his stomach. The breath left the Dane as he doubled over and grabbed his gut.
Both Stephanie and Ely moved to help, but the other guards quickly aimed their weapons.
“I decided,” Zovastina said, “instead of calling you back, as you suggested earlier, to come in person.”
Thorvaldsen battled for breath and stood upright, fighting the pain. “Good to know…I made such…a strong impression…”
“Who are you?” Zovastina asked Stephanie.
She introduced herself and added, “U.S. Justice Department.”
“Malone works for you?”
She nodded and lied, “He does.”
Zovastina faced Ely. “What have these spies told you?”
“That you’re a liar. That you’ve been holding me against my will, without me even knowing.” He paused, perhaps to summon courage. “That you’re planning a war.”
ZOVASTINA WAS ANGRY WITH HERSELF. SHE’D ALLOWED EMOTION to rule. Killing Vincenti had been necessary. Karyn? She regretted killing her, though there was no choice. Had to be done. The cure for AIDS? How was that possible? Were they deceiving her? Or simply misleading? Vincenti had been up to something for sometime. She’d known that. That was why she’d recruited spies of her own, like Kamil Revin, who’d kept her informed.
She stared at her three prisoners and made clear to Thorvaldsen, “You may have been ahead of me in Venice, but you’re not anymore.”
She motioned with the rifle at Lyndsey. “Come here.”
The man stood rooted, his gaze locked on the gun. Zovastina gestured and one of the soldiers shoved Lyndsey toward her. He stumbled to the floor and tried to stand, but she cut him off as he came to one knee, nestling the barrel of the AK-74 into the bridge of his nose. “Tell me exactly what’s happening here. You have to the count of three. One.”
Silence.
“Two.”
More silence.
“Three.”
MALONE’S BAD FEELING WAS GROWING WORSE. THEY WERE STILL hovering a couple of miles from the house, using the mountains for cover. Still, no signs of activity either inside or out. Without question, the estate below cost tens of millions of dollars. It sat in a region of the world where there simply weren’t that many people who could afford such luxury, except perhaps Zovastina herself.
“That place needs checking,” he said.
He again noticed the trail leading up the stark mountain and the ground conduit. Afternoon heat danced in waves along the rock face. He thought again of Ptolemy’s riddle. Climb the god-built walls. When you reach the attic, gaze into the tawny eye, and dare to find the distant refuge.
God-built walls.
Mountains.
He decided they could not keep hovering.
So he slid off the headset and grabbed his phone.
STEPHANIE WATCHED THE MAN KNEELING ON THE FLOOR SOB UNCONTROLLABLY, as Zovastina counted to three.
“Please, God,” he said. “Don’t kill me.”
The rifle was still pointed at him and Zovastina said, “Tell me what I want to know.”
“Vincenti was right. What he said in the lab. They live in the mountain behind here, up the trail. In a green pool. He has power and lights there. He found them a long time ago.” He was speaking fast, the words blurring together in a frenzy of confession. “He told me everything. I helped him change them. I know how they work.”
“What are they?” she calmly asked.
“Bacteria. Archaea. A unique form of life.”
Stephanie heard a change in tone, as if the man sensed a new ally.
“They eat viruses. Destroy them, but they don’t hurt us. That’s why we did all those clinical trials. To see how they work on your viruses.”
Zovastina seemed to consider what she was hearing. Stephanie heard the reference to Vincenti and wondered if this house belonged to him.
“Lyndsey,” Zovastina said, “you’re talking nonsense. I don’t have time-”
“Vincenti lied to you about the antiagents.”
That interested her.
“You thought there was one for each zoonosis.” Lyndsey shook his head. “Not true. Only one.” He pointed in the opposite direction of the room’s windows, toward the back of the house. “Back there. The bacteria in the green pool. They were the antiagents to every virus we found. He lied to you. Made you think there were many countermeasures. There weren’t. Only one.”
Zovastina pressed the gun barrel harder into Lyndsey’s face. “If Vincenti lied to me. Then so did you.”
Stephanie’s cell phone jingled in her pocket.
Zovastina looked up. “Mr. Malone. Finally.” The gun swung her way. “Answer it.”
Stephanie hesitated.
Zovastina aimed her rifle at Thorvaldsen. “He’s of no use to me, except to get you to answer.”
Stephanie flipped open the phone. Zovastina came close and listened.
“Where are you?” Malone asked.
Zovastina shook her head.
“Not there yet,” Stephanie answered.
“How long?”
“Another half hour. Farther than I thought.”
Zovastina nodded her approval of the lie.
“We’re here,” Malone said. “Looking at one of the biggest damn houses I’ve ever seen, especially out in the middle of nowhere. Place looks deserted. There’s a paved lane, maybe a mile or so, that leads in from the highway. We’re hovering a couple miles behind the place. Can Ely offer any more information? There’s a trail leading up the mountain into a cleft. Should we check that out?”
“Let me ask.”
Zovastina nodded again.
“He says that’s a good idea.”
“We’ll have a look. Call me when you arrive.”
Stephanie clicked off the phone and Zovastina relieved her of it. “Now we’ll see how much Cotton Malone and Cassiopeia Vitt really know.”
CASSIOPEIA FOUND THREE GUNS IN THE WEAPONS CABINET. SHE knew the make. Makarovs. A little stubbier than a standard-issue military Beretta, but all in all a fairly good weapon.
The helicopter descended and she noticed the ground rising fast out the windows. Malone had been talking to Stephanie on the phone. They were apparently not here yet. She wanted to see Ely. Badly. To know he was all right. She’d grieved for him, but not fully, always doubting, always hoping. Not anymore. She’d been right to continue the quest for the elephant medallions. Right to zero in on Irina Zovastina. Right to kill the men in Venice. Even though she’d been wrong about Viktor, she felt no remorse about his partner. Zovastina, not she, had started this battle.
The copter touched ground and the turbine wound down. The motor’s roar was replaced with an eerie silence. She slid open the compartment door. Malone and Viktor started their exit. The afternoon was dry, the sun welcome, the air warm. She checked her watch-3:25 P.M. This had been a long day, and there was no end in sight. Her only sleep had been a couple of hours on the plane from Venice with Zovastina, but that had been an uneasy slumber.
She handed each man a gun.
Malone tossed his other pistol into the copter and stuffed the gun into his belt. Viktor did the same.
They were maybe one hundred fifty meters behind the house, just beyond the grove of trees. The trail leading up the mountain stretched to their right. Malone bent down and felt the thick electrical conduit that paralleled its course. “Humming. Somebody definitely wants power up there.”
“What’s there?” Viktor asked.
“Maybe what your former boss has been searching for.”
STEPHANIE CHECKED ON HENRIK AS ZOVASTINA ORDERED TWO OF the soldiers down into the lab.
“You all right?” she asked him.
He nodded. “I’ve taken worse.”
But she wondered. He was on the other side of sixty, with a crooked spine, and not in what she thought was the best physical condition.
“You should not listen to these people,” Zovastina said to Ely.
“Why not? You’re the one pointing guns at everyone. Striking old men. Want to try me?”
Zovastina chuckled. “An academician who likes a fight? No, my smart friend. You and I don’t need to battle. I need you helping me.”
“Then stop all this, let them go, and you got it.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“She’s right. It can’t be that simple,” Thorvaldsen said. “Not when she’s planning a biological war. A modern-day Alexander the Great, who will kill millions to reconquer all that he did and more.”
“Don’t mock me,” Zovastina warned.
Thorvaldsen seemed unfazed. “I’ll talk to you however I please.”
Zovastina raised the AK-74.
Ely jumped in front of Thorvaldsen. “If you want that tomb,” he made clear, “lower the gun.”
Stephanie wondered if this despot coveted that ancient treasure enough to be openly challenged in front of one of her men.
“Your usefulness is rapidly declining,” Zovastina made clear.
“That tomb could well be within walking distance of here,” Ely said.
Stephanie admired Ely’s determination. He was dangling a piece of meat to an uncaged lion, hoping an intense hunger overrode the instinctive desire to attack. But he seemed to have read Zovastina perfectly.
She lowered the gun.
The two soldiers returned with a computer mainframe cradled in each of their arms.
“It’s all on there,” Lyndsey said. “The experiments. Data. Methodology of dealing with the archaea. All encrypted. But I can undo that. Only me and Vincenti knew the passwords. He trusted me. Told me everything.”
“There are experts who can unencrypt anything. I don’t need you.”
“But it’ll take others time to duplicate the chemistry that’s needed to deal with the bacteria. Vincenti and I worked on that for the past three years. You don’t have that time. You won’t have the antiagent.”
Stephanie realized that the spineless fool was offering the only collateral he possessed.
Zovastina barked out something in a language Stephanie did not understand and the two men cradling the computers left the room. She then motioned with her gun and told them to follow the men out.
They walked down the hall into the main foyer and headed toward the ground floor rear. Another soldier appeared and Zovastina asked something in what sounded like Russian. The man nodded and pointed at a closed door.
They were halted before it, and after it was opened, she, Thorvaldsen, Ely, and Lyndsey were herded inside and the door closed behind them.
She surveyed their prison.
An empty storage closet, maybe eight feet by ten, paneled in unfinished wood. The air smelled of antiseptic.
Lyndsey lunged at the door and banged on the thick wood. “I can help you,” he screamed. “Let me out of here.”
“Shut up,” Stephanie spat out.
Lyndsey went quiet.
She studied their predicament, her mind racing. Zovastina seemed in a hurry. Preoccupied.
The door reopened.
“Thank God,” Lyndsey said.
Zovastina stood with the AK-74 still gripped tightly.
“Why are you doing-” Lyndsey started.
“I agree with her,” Zovastina said. “Shut up.” Zovastina set her gaze on Ely. “I need to know. Is this the place from the riddle?”
Ely did not immediately answer and Stephanie wondered if it was courage or foolishness that fueled his obstinance. Finally, he said, “How would I know? I’ve been locked away in that cabin.”
“You came straight here from that cabin,” Zovastina said.
“How do you know that?” Ely asked.
But Stephanie knew the answer. The pieces clicked into place and she realized the worst. They’d been played. “You ordered that guard to shoot out the tires on our car. You wanted us to take his car. It’s trackable.”
“Easiest way I could think of to see what you knew. I was alerted to your presence at the cabin by electronic surveillance I had installed around it.”
But Stephanie had killed the guard. “That man had no idea.”
Zovastina shrugged. “He did his job. If you got the better of him, that was his mistake.”
“But I killed him,” she said, her voice rising.
Zovastina seemed puzzled. “You worry far too much about something that means nothing.”
“He didn’t need to die.”
“That’s your problem. That’s the West’s problem. You can’t do what needs to be done.”
Stephanie now knew that their situation was worse than she imagined, and she suddenly realized something else. So was Malone’s and Cassiopeia’s. And she saw that Henrik read her bleak thoughts.
Behind Zovastina, several of the troops walked by, each carrying a strange-looking contraption. One was deposited on the floor beside Zovastina. A funnel extended from its top and she’d spotted wheels beneath.
“This is a big house. It will take a little while to prepare it.”
“For what?” she asked.
“To burn,” Thorvaldsen answered.
“Quite right,” Zovastina said. “In the meantime I’m going to visit Mr. Malone and Ms. Vitt. Don’t go away.”
And Zovastina slammed the door.
MALONE LED THE WAY UP THE INCLINE AND NOTICED, AT PLACES, that steps had been chipped from the rock recently. Cassiopeia and Viktor followed, both keeping a lookout behind. The distant house remained quiet and Ptolemy’s riddle kept playing through his mind. Climb the god-built walls. This certainly qualified, though he imagined the climb in Ptolemy’s time would have been much different.
The trail leveled off on a ledge.
The power conduit continued to snake a path into a dark cleft in the rock wall. Narrow, but passable.
When you reach the attic.
He led the way into the passage.
His eyes were not accustomed to the diminishing light and needed a few seconds to adjust. The path was short, maybe twenty feet, and he used the conduit as a guide. The corridor ended inside a larger chamber. Weak ambient light revealed that the power line hooked left and ended at a junction box. He stepped close and saw four flashlights piled on the floor. He flicked one on and used the bright beam to survey the room.
The chamber was maybe thirty feet long and that much or more wide, the ceiling a good twenty feet away. Then he noticed two pools about ten feet apart.
He heard a click and the room sprang to life with incandescent light.
He turned to see Viktor at the electrical box.
He switched off the flashlight. “I like to check things out before acting.”
“Since when?” Cassiopeia said.
“Take a look,” Viktor said, motioning at the pools.
Both were illuminated by underwater lights fed through ground cables. The one on the right was oblong shaped and carried a brown tint. The other was luminous with greenish phosphorescence.
“Gaze into the tawny eye,” Malone said.
He stepped close to the brown pool and noticed that the water was swimming-pool clear, its color coming from the tint of the rocks below the surface. He crouched down. Cassiopeia bent down beside him. He tested the water. “Warm, but not too bad. Like a hot tub. Must be thermal vented. These mountains are still active.”
Cassiopeia brought wet fingers to her lips. “No taste.”
“Look at the bottom.”
He watched as Cassiopeia registered what he’d just spotted. Maybe ten feet down in the crystalline water, carved from a slab of rock, lying flat, was the letter Z.
He walked to the green pool. Cassiopeia followed. More water clear as air, colored by tinted stone. At its bottom lay the letter H.
“From the medallion,” he said. “ZH. Life.”
“Seems this is the place.”
He noticed Viktor had stayed close to the electrical box, not all that concerned with their discovery. But there was something else. Now he knew what the last line of the riddle meant.
And dare to find the distant refuge.
He returned to the brown pool. “Remember on the medallion, and at the bottom of that manuscript Ely found. That odd symbol.” With his finger he traced its outline in the sandy topsoil.
“I couldn’t determine what it was. Letters? Like two B’s joined to an A? Now I know exactly what it is. There.” He pointed at the rock wall six feet beneath the brown pool’s surface. “See that opening. Look familiar?”
Cassiopeia focused on what he’d already noticed. The opening appeared like two B’s joined to an A. “It does look like it.”
“When you reach the attic, gaze into the tawny eye, and dare to find the distant refuge. You know what that means?”
“No, Malone. Tell us what that means.”
He turned.
Irina Zovastina stood just outside the exit.
STEPHANIE NESTLED CLOSE TO THE DOOR AND LISTENED FOR ANY sound on the other side. She heard the whine of an electrical motor, starting, stopping, then a bump to the door. A hesitation, then the mechanical hum began again.
“It’s canvassing,” Thorvaldsen said. “The robots spread the potion before exploding and setting everything off.”
She noticed an odor. Sickeningly sweet. Strongest at the bottom of the door. “Greek fire?” she asked.
Thorvaldsen nodded, then said to Ely, “Your discovery.”
“That crazy bitch is going to fry us all,” Lyndsey said. “We’re trapped in here.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Stephanie muttered.
“Did she kill anyone with it?” Ely asked.
“Not that I know of,” Thorvaldsen said. “We may have the honor of being first. Though Cassiopeia certainly used it to her advantage in Venice.” The older man hesitated. “She killed three men.”
Ely seemed shocked. “Why?
“To avenge you.”
The younger man’s amiable face hardened into a puzzled frown.
“She was hurt. Angry. Once she found out Zovastina was behind things, there was no stopping her.”
Stephanie examined the door. Steel hinges top and bottom. Bolts held their pins in place and no screwdriver in sight. She pounded her hand against the wood. “Does Vincenti own this monstrosity?” she asked Lyndsey.
“He did. She shot him.”
“She’s apparently consolidating her power,” Thorvaldsen said.
“She’s a fool,” Lyndsey said. “There’s so much more happening here. I could have had it all. The frickin’ golden rainbow. He offered it to me.”
“Vincenti?” she asked.
Lyndsey nodded.
“Don’t you get it?” Stephanie said. “Zovastina has those computers with the data. She has her viruses. And you even told her there’s only one antiagent and where they can be found. You’re useless to her.”
“But she does need me,” he spit out. “She knows.”
Her patience was wearing thin. “Knows what?”
“Those bacteria. They’re the cure for AIDS.”
VIKTOR HEARD ZOVASTINA’S DISTINCTIVE VOICE. HOW MANY times had she commanded him with the same brittle tone? He’d stayed near the exit, off to the side, out of Malone and Vitt’s way, listening. He was also out of Zovastina’s sight, as she’d yet to enter the lit chamber, staying in the shadowy passageway.
He watched as Malone and Vitt faced Zovastina. Neither of them betrayed his presence. Slowly, he inched closer to where the rock opened. He gripped the gun firmly in his right hand and waited for the moment Zovastina stepped inside to bring the weapon level with her head.
She stopped.
“My traitor. I wondered where you were.”
He noticed she’d come unarmed.
“Going to shoot me?” she asked.
“If you give me reason.”
“I have no weapon.”
That worried him. And a quick glance toward Malone saw he was concerned, too.
“I’ll have a look,” Cassiopeia said, moving toward the exit.
“You’ll regret attacking me,” Zovastina said to Cassiopeia.
“I’d be glad to give you the opportunity to get even.”
Zovastina smiled. “I doubt Mr. Malone, or my traitor here, would allow me the pleasure.”
Cassiopeia disappeared into the cleft. A few seconds later she reappeared. “Nobody out there. The house and grounds are still quiet.”
“Then where’d she come from?” Malone asked. “And how did she know to come here?”
“When you avoided my emissaries in the mountains,” Zovastina said, “we decided to back off and see where you were headed.”
“Who owns this place?” Malone asked.
“Enrico Vincenti. Or at least he did. I just killed him.”
“Good riddance,” Malone said. “If you hadn’t, I would have.”
“And the reason for your hatred?”
“He killed a friend of mine.”
“And you also came to save Ms. Vitt?”
“Actually, I came to stop you.”
“That may prove problematic.”
Her cavalier attitude worried him.
“May I examine the pools?” Zovastina asked.
He needed time to think. “Go ahead.”
Viktor lowered his gun, but kept the weapon ready. Malone wasn’t sure what was happening. But their situation posed problems. Only one way in and out. And that was never good.
Zovastina stepped to the brown pool and gazed down. She then walked to the green pool. “ZH. From the medallions. I wondered why Ptolemy had the letters added to the coins. He’s probably the one who laid those carvings at the bottom of the pools. Who else would have done that? Ingenious. It took a long time to decipher his riddle. Who do we have to thank? You, Mr. Malone?”
“Let’s say it was a team effort.”
“A modest man. A shame we didn’t meet sooner and under different circumstances. I’d love to have you working for me.”
“I have a job.”
“American agent.”
“Actually, I’m a bookseller.”
She laughed. “And a sense of humor.”
Viktor stood ready, on guard, behind Zovastina. Cassiopeia watched the exit.
“Tell me, Malone. Did you solve all of the riddle? Is Alexander the Great here? You were just about to explain something to Ms. Vitt when I interrupted.”
Malone still held the flashlight. Heavy duty. Seemed waterproof. “Vincenti wired this place with lights. Even lit the pools. Aren’t you curious why these were so important to him?”
“It looks like there’s nothing here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Malone laid the flashlight on the ground and removed his jacket and shirt.
“What are you doing?” Cassiopeia asked.
He slipped off his shoes and socks and emptied his trouser pockets of the phone and his wallet. “That symbol carved into the side of the pool. It leads to the distant refuge.”
“Cotton,” Cassiopeia said.
He eased himself into the water. Hot at first, but then its warmth soothed his tired limbs. “Keep an eye on her.”
He grabbed a breath and dove under.
“THE CURE FOR AIDS?” STEPHANIE ASKED LYNDSEY.
“A local healer showed Vincenti pools in the mountain years ago, when he worked for the Iraqis. He found out then that the bacteria destroy HIV.”
She saw that Ely was listening with a clear intensity.
“But he didn’t tell anybody,” Lyndsey said. “He held it.”
“For what?” Ely asked.
“The right time. He let the market build. Allowed the disease to spread. Waited.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ely said.
“He was about to spring it.”
Now Stephanie understood. “And you were going to share in the spoils?”
Lyndsey seemed to catch the reservation in her tone. “Don’t give me that sanctimonious crap. I’m not Vincenti. I didn’t know about any cure until today. He just told me.”
“And what were you going to do?” she asked.
“Help produce it. What’s wrong with that?”
“While Zovastina killed millions? You and Vincenti helped make that possible.”
Lyndsey shook his head. “Vincenti said he was going to stop her before she did anything. He held the antiagent. She couldn’t move without that.”
“But now she controls it. You’re both idiots.”
“You realize, Stephanie,” Thorvaldsen said, “that Vincenti had no idea there was anything else up there. He bought this place to preserve the bacteria source. He named it after the Asian designation. He apparently knew nothing about Alexander’s grave.”
She’d already connected those dots. “The draught and the tomb are together. Unfortunately, we’re trapped inside this closet.”
At least Zovastina had left the light on. She’d examined every inch of the unfinished walls and stone floor. No way out. And more of that nauseating odor seeped in from under the door.
“Do those two computers have all the data about the cure on them?” Ely asked Lyndsey.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Getting out of here is what matters. Before the bonfire begins.”
“It does matter,” Ely said. “We can’t let her have those.”
“Ely, look around you. What can we do about it?”
“Cassiopeia and Malone are out there.”
“True,” Thorvaldsen said. “But I’m afraid Zovastina may be a step ahead of them.”
Stephanie agreed, but that was Malone’s problem.
“There’s something she doesn’t know,” Lyndsey said.
She heard it in his tone and was not in the mood. “Don’t try and bargain with me.”
“Vincenti copied everything onto a flash drive just before Zovastina showed up. He was holding the drive when she shot him. It’s still down in the lab. With that drive and me, you’d have the antiagent for her bugs and the cure.”
“Believe me,” she said. “Even though you’re a slimy SOB, if I could get you out of here, I would.”
She banged again on the door.
“But it’s not to be.”
CASSIOPEIA KEPT ONE EYE ON ZOVASTINA, WHOM VIKTOR WAS holding at bay with his gun, and one eye on the pool. Malone had been gone nearly three minutes. No way he’d held his breath that long.
But then a shadow appeared underwater as Malone emerged from the odd-shaped opening and broke the surface, resting his arms on the rocky edge, one hand gripping the flashlight.
“You need to see this,” he said to her.
“And leave them? No way.”
“Viktor’s got the gun. He can handle her.”
She still hesitated. Something wasn’t right. Her mind may have been on Ely, but she wasn’t oblivious to reality. Viktor was still an unknown, albeit for the past few hours a helpful one. Parts of her would be hanging from two trees right now if not for him. But still.
“You need to see this,” Malone said again.
“Is it there?” Zovastina asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Cassiopeia still wore the tight-fitting leather suit from Venice. She removed the top and left the bottoms. She laid the gun down, out of reach of Zovastina, beside Malone’s. A black sports bra covered her chest and she noticed Viktor’s gaze. “Keep your eye on her,” she made clear.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
She slipped into the pool.
“Grab a good breath and follow me,” Malone said.
She saw him submerge and wedge himself into the opening. She followed a few feet behind, swimming through one of the B-shaped portals. Her eyes were open and she saw that they were navigating a rock tunnel, maybe a meter and a half wide. The pool sat about two meters from the chamber wall, so they were now swimming into the mountain. Malone’s flashlight beam danced across the tunnel and she wondered how much farther.
Then she saw Malone rise.
She emerged from the water right beside him.
His light revealed another enclosed chamber, this one dome-shaped, the naked limestone streaked with deep blue shadows. Niches cut into the walls held what looked like alabaster jars with finely sculpted lids. Overhead, the gaunt limestone was dotted with openings, rough-hewn and irregularly shaped. Cold silvery light seeped into the lofty hall from each portal, their dusty shafts dissolving into the rock.
“Those openings have to point downward,” Malone said. “It’s dry as hell in here. They’re to allow light, but not moisture. They also naturally ventilate.”
“Were they cut?” she asked.
“I doubt it. My guess is this place was chosen because they’re here.” He levered himself out of the pool. Water poured from his soaked pants. “We have to hurry.”
She climbed out.
“That tunnel is the only thing that connects this chamber to the other,” he said. “I took a quick look around to be sure.”
“Certainly explains why it’s never been found.”
Malone used the flashlight to trace the walls and she noticed faint paintings. Bits and pieces. A warrior in his chariot, holding a scepter and reins in one hand, clutching a woman around her waist in another. A stag hit by a javelin. A leafless tree. A man on foot with a spear. Another man moving toward what looked like a boar. What color remained seemed striking. The violet of the hunter’s mantle. Maroon of the chariot. Yellow for the animals. She noticed more scenes on the opposite wall. A young rider with a spear and a wreath in his hair, clearly in his prime, about to attack a lion already beset by dogs. A white background nearly faded with intermediate shades of orange-yellow, pale red, and brown mixed with cooler shades of green and blue.
“I’d say Asian and Greek influences,” Malone said. “But I’m no expert.”
He motioned with the light across stones squared like a parquet floor. A doorway bursting with Greek influence-fluted shafts and ornamented bases-emerged from the darkness. Cassiopeia, a student of ancient engineering, clearly recognized the Hellenistic flair.
Above spread a shallow-carved inscription in Greek letters.
“Through there,” he said.
VINCENTI FORCED HIS EYES OPEN. PAIN IN HIS CHEST RACKED HIS brain. Each breath seemed a labor. How many bullets had hit him? Three? Four? He didn’t remember. But somehow his heart still beat. Maybe it wasn’t all that bad to be fat. He recalled falling, then a deep blackness sweeping over him. He never fired a shot. Zovastina seemed to have anticipated his move. Almost like she’d wanted him to challenge her.
He forced himself to roll over and he clutched a table leg. Blood oozed from his chest and a new wave of pain drove electric nails through his spine. He struggled harder to breathe. The pistol was gone, but he realized he was holding something else. He brought his hand close and saw the flash drive.
Everything he’d worked for over the past ten years lay in his bloodied palm. How had Zovastina found him? Who had betrayed him? O’Conner? Was he still alive? Where was he? O’Conner had been the only other person with the ability to open the cabinet in the study.
Two controllers.
Where was his?
He struggled to focus and finally spotted the device lying on the tile floor.
Everything seemed lost.
But maybe not.
He was still alive and perhaps Zovastina was gone.
He gathered his strength and scooped the controller into his hand. He should have provided the house with full security before he abducted Karyn Walde. But he’d never thought Zovastina would link him to her disappearance-certainly not so quickly-and he’d never believed that she’d turn on him. Not with what she had planned.
She needed him.
Or did she?
Blood pooled in his throat and he spit out the sour taste. A lung must have been hit. More blood caused him to cough, which sent new bolts of agony through his body.
Maybe O’Conner could get to him?
He fumbled with the controller and could not decide which of the three buttons to push. One opened the door in the study. The other released all of the concealed doors throughout the house. The last activated the alarm.
No time to be right.
So he pushed all three.
ZOVASTINA STARED AT THE BROWN POOL. MALONE AND VITT HAD been submerged for several minutes.
“There must be another chamber,” she said.
Viktor stayed silent.
“Lower that gun.”
He did as ordered.
She faced him. “Did you enjoy tying me to those trees? Threatening me?”
“You wanted it to appear that I was one of them.”
Viktor had succeeded beyond her expectations, leading them straight to her goal. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“They seemed to know what they’re looking for.”
Viktor had been her double-agent ever since the Americans first reenlisted his aid. He’d come straight to her and told her of his predicament. For the past year she’d used him to funnel what she wanted the West to know. A dangerous balancing act, but one she’d been forced to maintain because of Washington’s renewed interest in her.
And everything had worked.
Until Amsterdam.
And until Vincenti decided to kill his American watchdog. She’d encouraged him to eliminate the spy, hoping Washington might focus its attention on him. But the subterfuge had not worked. Luckily, today’s deceptions had been more successful.
Viktor had promptly reported Malone’s presence within the palace and she’d quickly conceived how to take maximum advantage of the opportunity with an orchestrated palace escape. Edwin Davis had been the other side’s attempt to divert her attention but, knowing Malone was there, she’d seen through that ruse.
“There has to be another chamber,” she repeated, slipping off her shoes and removing her jacket. “Grab two of those flashlights and let’s go see.”
STEPHANIE HEARD A CLAXON REVERBERATE THROUGH THE HOUSE, the sound dulled by the thick walls that encased them. Movement caught her eye and she saw a panel swing open at the opposite end of the closet.
Ely quickly shifted out of its way.
“A frickin’ doorway,” Lyndsey exclaimed.
She moved toward the exit, suspicious, and examined its top. Electric bolts-connected to the alarm. Had to be. Beyond was a passageway lit by bulbs.
The alarm stopped.
They all stood in contemplative silence.
“What are we waiting for?” Thorvaldsen asked.
She stepped through the portal.
MALONE LED CASSIOPEIA THROUGH THE DOORWAY AND WATCHED as she gazed in wonder. His light revealed carvings that sprang with life from the rock walls. Most of the images were of a warrior in his prime-young, vigorous, a spear in hand, a wreath in his hair. One frieze showed what appeared to be kings paying homage. Another a lion hunt. Still another a fierce battle. In each, the human element-muscles, hands, face, legs, feet, toes-were all depicted with painstaking care. Not a hint of color. Only a silvery monochrome.
He focused the beam on the center of the wigwam-shaped chamber and two stone plinths that each supported a stone sarcophagus. The exterior of both were adorned with lotus and palmetto patterns, rosettes, tendrils, flowers, and leaves. He pointed to the coffin lids. “That’s a Macedonian star on each.”
Cassiopeia bent down before the tombs and examined the lettering. Her fingers traced the words on each with a gentle touch… “I can’t read this, but it has to be Alexander and Hephaestion.”
He understood her awe. But there was a more pressing matter. “That’ll have to wait. We have a bigger problem.”
She stood upright.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Take off those wet clothes and I’ll explain.”
ZOVASTINA LEAPED INTO THE POOL, FOLLOWED BY VIKTOR, AND swam through the opening that looked so similar to the symbol on the elephant medallion. She’d noticed the resemblance immediately.
Easy strokes propelled her forward. The water was soothing, like a dip in one of the saunas at her palace.
Ahead, the overhead rock wall gave way.
She surfaced.
She’d been correct. Another chamber. Smaller than the one on the other side. She shook the water from her eyes and saw that the high ceiling seemed backlit by ambient light that leaked in from openings high in the rock. Viktor emerged beside her and they both climbed out. She surveyed the room. Faded murals decorated the walls. Two portals opened into more darkness.
No one in sight.
No other beams of light.
Apparently, Cotton Malone was not as naive as she’d thought.
“All right, Malone,” she called out. “You have the advantage. But could I have a look first?”
Silence.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Her light studied the sandy floor, spangled with mica, and she spotted a moisture trail through the doorway to her right.
She entered the next chamber and spotted two funerary plinths. Both exteriors were adorned with carvings and letters, but she wasn’t fluent in Old Greek. That was why she’d recruited Ely Lund. One image caught her eye and she stepped close and gently blew away debris that clogged its outline. Bit by bit a horse was revealed. Maybe five centimeters long, with an upstanding mane and a lifted tail.
“Bucephalas,” she whispered.
She needed to see more so she said to the darkness, “Malone. I came here unarmed because I didn’t need a gun. Viktor was mine, as you apparently know. But I have your three friends. I was there when you called on the phone. They’re in the house, sealed away, about to be consumed by Greek fire. Just thought you’d like to know.”
Still silence.
“Keep an eye out,” she whispered to Viktor.
She’d come this far, wished too long, fought too hard, not to see. She laid her light atop one of the sarcophagi’s lid, the one with the horse, and pushed. After a moment of valiant tugging, the thick slab moved. A few more shoves and she cleared a pie-shaped opening.
She grabbed the light and, unlike in Venice, hoped she would not be disappointed.
A mummy lay inside.
Sheathed and masked in gold.
She wanted to touch it, to lift the mask away, but thought better. She did not want to do anything that might damage the remains.
But she wondered.
Was she the first in over twenty-three hundred years to gaze upon the remains of Alexander the Great? Had she found the conqueror, along with his draught? Seems she had. Best of all, she knew precisely what to do with both. The draught would be used to fulfill her conquests and, as she now knew, make her an unexpected windfall of profit. The mummy, from whom she could not remove her eyes, would symbolize all that she did. The possibilities seemed endless, but the danger that surrounded her brought her thoughts back to the reality.
Malone was playing his hand quite carefully.
She needed to do the same.
MALONE SAW THE ANTICIPATION ON CASSIOPEIA’S FACE. ELY, Stephanie, and Henrik were in trouble. They’d watched from the other doorway, the one Zovastina had avoided, as she and Viktor followed the water trail and entered the funerary chamber.
“How did you know Viktor was lying to us?” she whispered.
“Twelve years of dealing with random assets. That whole thing with you at the palace? Too easy. And something Stephanie told me. Viktor’s the one who fed them Vincenti. Why? Makes no sense. Except if Viktor was playing both sides.”
“I should have seen that.”
“How? You didn’t hear what Stephanie told me in Venice.”
They stood with bare shoulders scraping against oblique walls. They’d removed their pants and wrung the water from them so as not to leave any further trail. Once through the tomb’s other two rooms, filled with artifacts, they had quickly re-dressed and waited. The tomb consisted of only four interconnected rooms, none of which were large, two of which opened to the pool. Zovastina was most likely enjoying a moment of triumph. But the information about Stephanie, Ely, and Henrik had changed things. True or not, the possibility had grabbed his attention. Which was surely the idea.
He glanced out toward the pool. Light danced in the funerary room. He hoped the sight of Alexander the Great’s grave might buy them a few moments.
“You ready?” he asked Cassiopeia.
She nodded.
He led the way.
Viktor stepped from the other doorway.
STEPHANIE NOTICED THAT THE SICKENINGLY SWEET AROMA WAS not as strong in the back passages, but nonetheless lingered. At least they weren’t trapped any longer. Several turns had led them deeper into the house and she’d yet to see another open exit.
“I’ve seen how this concoction works,” Thorvaldsen said. “Once Greek fire ignites, these walls will burn quickly. We need to be out of here before that happens.”
She was aware of their dilemma, but their choices were limited. Lyndsey was still anxious, Ely amazingly calm. He had the countenance of an agent, not an academician, a coolness she admired considering their predicament. She wished she possessed more of his nerve.
“What do you mean by quickly?” Lyndsey asked Thorvaldsen. “How fast will this place burn?”
“Fast enough that we’ll be trapped.”
“So what are we doing in here?”
“You want to go back to that storage closet?” she asked.
They turned another corner, the dark hall reminding her of a corridor in a train. The path ended just ahead at the base of a steep stairway, leading up.
No choice.
They climbed.
MALONE STEADIED HIMSELF.
“Going somewhere?” Viktor asked.
Cassiopeia stood behind him. He wondered about Zovastina’s location. Was the dancing light merely a ploy to draw them out?
“Thought we’d leave.”
“Can’t let you do that.”
“If you think you can stop me, you’re welcome to-”
Viktor lunged forward. Malone sidestepped the move, then locked his attacker in a bear hug.
They dropped to the floor and rolled.
Malone found himself on top. Viktor struggled beneath him. He clamped a hand onto the other man’s throat and sank his knee deep into Viktor’s chest. Quickly, with both hands, he yanked Viktor upward and slammed the back of his skull into the rocky floor.
CASSIOPEIA READIED HERSELF TO LEAP INTO THE POOL AS SOON AS Malone broke free. At the same instant Viktor’s body went limp beneath Malone, movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention to the doorway where they’d been hiding.
“Malone,” she called out.
Zovastina rushed toward her.
Malone sprang off Viktor and found the water.
Cassiopeia dove in after him and swam hard for the tunnel.
STEPHANIE TOPPED THE STAIRS AND SAW THERE WAS A CHOICE OF routes. Left or right? She turned left. Ely headed right.
“Over here,” Ely called out.
They all rushed his way and saw an open doorway.
“Careful,” Thorvaldsen said. “Don’t let those things out there spray you. Avoid them.”
Ely nodded, then pointed at Lyndsey. “You and I are going after that flash drive.”
The scientist shook his head. “Not me.”
Stephanie agreed. “That’s not a good idea.”
“You’re not sick.”
“Those robots,” Thorvaldsen said, “are programmed to explode, and we don’t know when.”
“I don’t give a damn,” Ely said, his voice rising. “This man knows how to cure AIDS. His dead boss has known that for years, but let millions die. Zovastina has that cure now. I’m not going to let her manipulate it, too.” Ely grabbed Lyndsey by the shirt. “You and I are going to get that drive.”
“You’re nuts,” Lyndsey said. “Frickin’ nuts. Just go up to the green pool and drink the water. Vincenti said it worked that way. You don’t need me.”
Thorvaldsen watched the younger man closely. Stephanie realized that the Dane was perhaps seeing his own son standing before him, youth in all its glory, simultaneously defiant, brave, and foolish. Her own son, Mark, was the same way.
“Your butt,” Ely said, “is going with me into that lab.”
She realized something else. “Zovastina went after Cotton and Cassiopeia. She left us in this house for a reason. You heard her. She purposefully told us those machines would take a little time.”
“We’re insurance,” Thorvaldsen said.
“Bait. Probably for Cotton and Cassiopeia. But this guy,” she pointed at Lyndsey, “him, she wants. His babbling made sense. She doesn’t have time to be sure an antiagent works, or that he’s being truthful. Though she may not admit it, she needs him. She’ll be back for him before this place burns. You can count on it.”
ZOVASTINA LEAPED INTO THE POOL. MALONE HAD BESTED VIKTOR and Cassiopeia Vitt had managed to elude her.
If she swam fast she could catch Vitt in the tunnel.
MALONE PLANTED HIS PALMS AND PUSHED HIMSELF UP FROM THE pool. He felt a rush beneath him and saw Cassiopeia surface. She deftly sprang from the warm water and, dripping wet, grabbed one of the guns that lay a few feet away.
“Let’s go,” he said, retrieving his shoes and shirt.
Cassiopeia backed toward the exit, gun leveled at the pool.
A shadow clouded the water.
Zovastina’s head found air.
Cassiopeia fired.
THE FIRST EXPLOSION STARTLED ZOVASTINA MORE THAN FRIGHTENED her. Water cleared from her eyes and she saw Vitt aiming one of the guns straight at her.
Another bang. Unbearably loud.
She plunged beneath the surface.
CASSIOPEIA FIRED TWO TIMES AT THE ILLUMINATED POOL. THE gun seemed to jam so she worked the slide, ejecting a cartridge, loading a new round. Then she noticed something and faced Malone.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Blanks?” she asked.
“Of course. Rounds stuffed with wadding, I imagine, so there’d be enough kick to at least partially work the slide. But not enough, obviously. You don’t think Viktor would have given us bullets?”
“I never thought about it.”
“That’s the problem. You’re not thinking. Can we go now?”
She tossed the gun away. “You’re such a joy to work with.”
And they both fled the chamber.
VIKTOR RUBBED THE BACK OF HIS HEAD AND WAITED. ANOTHER few seconds and he’d roll into the pool, but Zovastina returned, breathing hard as she emerged from the water, and rested her arms on the rocky edge.
“I forgot about the guns. They have us trapped. The only way out is guarded.”
Viktor’s head hurt from the pounding and he fought an irritating dizziness. “Minister, the guns are loaded with blanks. I changed all the magazines before we escaped from the palace. I didn’t think it wise to give them loaded guns.”
“Nobody noticed?”
“Who checks rounds? They simply assumed the guns aboard a military chopper were loaded.”
“Good thinking, but you could have mentioned that to me.”
“Everything happened so fast. There wasn’t time and, unfortunately, Malone gave my skull a good pop on these rocks.”
“What about Malone’s gun from the palace? That was loaded. Where is it?”
“In the chopper. He changed it out for one of ours.”
He watched as her mind rolled through the possibilities.
“We need Lyndsey from the house. He’s all that’s left here now.”
“What about Malone and Vitt?”
“I have men waiting. And their guns are loaded.”
STEPHANIE STARED OUT THROUGH THE OPEN PANEL INTO ONE OF the mansion’s bedchambers. The room was elaborately furnished in an Italian style and quiet save for a mechanical whir from outside an open door, which led to the second-floor hall.
They stepped from the back passage.
One of the Greek fire machines whizzed passed in the hall, spewing mist. A pall hung heavy in the room, evidence that the robots had already visited.
“They’re quickly basting this house,” Thorvaldsen said as he moved to the hall door.
She was just about to caution him to stop when the Dane stepped out and a new voice-male, foreign-shouted.
Thorvaldsen froze, then slowly raised his arms.
Ely crept close to her ear. “One of the troops. He told Henrik to halt and raise his hands.”
Thorvaldsen kept his head toward the guard, who apparently was positioned to their right, without a way to see inside the room. She’d wondered about the troops, hoping that they’d been evacuated when the machines started their patrol.
More loud words.
“What now?” she whispered.
“He wants to know if he’s alone.”
MALONE AND CASSIOPEIA CLAMBERED DOWN THE INCLINE IN their wet clothes. Malone buttoned his shirt as they descended.
“You could have mentioned that the guns were duds,” Cassiopeia said to him.
“And when would I have done that?” He hopped over rocks and hastened down the steep slope.
Breaths came fast. He certainly wasn’t thirty years old anymore, but his forty-eight-year-old bones weren’t totally out of shape. “I didn’t want Viktor to even sense we knew anything.”
“We didn’t. Why’d you give up your gun?”
“Had to play his game.”
“You’re an odd bird,” she said to him, as they found level ground.
“I’ll take that as a compliment, coming from someone who traipsed around Venice with a bow and arrow.”
The house lay a football field away. He still saw no one roaming the exterior and no movement inside, past the windows.
“We need to check something.”
He raced toward the chopper and leaped into the rear compartment. He found the weapons locker. Four AK-74s stood upright, ammunition clips stacked beneath.
He examined them. “All blanks.” Barrel plugs had been carefully inserted to accommodate the phony rounds and allow the cartridges to be ejected. “Thorough little cuss. I’ll give him that.”
He found the gun he’d brought from Italy and checked the magazine. Five live rounds.
Cassiopeia grabbed an assault rifle and popped in a clip. “Nobody else knows these are useless. They’ll do for now.”
He reached for one of the AK-74s. “I agree. Perception is everything.”
ZOVASTINA AND VIKTOR EMERGED FROM THE POOL. MALONE AND Vitt were gone.
All the guns lay on the sandy floor.
“Malone’s a problem,” she made clear.
“Not to worry,” Viktor said. “I owe him.”
STEPHANIE LISTENED AS THE TROOPER IN THE HALL CONTINUED to bark orders at Thorvaldsen, the voice coming closer to the doorway. Lyndsey’s face froze in panic and Ely quickly clamped a hand over the man’s mouth and dragged him to the other side of a poster bed, where they crouched out of sight.
With a coolness that surprised her, she locked her gaze on a Chinese porcelain statuette resting on the dresser. She grabbed it and slipped behind the door.
Through the hinge crack she saw the guard enter the bedchamber. As he stepped clear, she planted the statue into the nape of his neck. He staggered and she finished him off with another head blow, then snatched the rifle.
Thorvaldsen darted close and retrieved the side arm. “I was hoping you’d improvise.”
“I was hoping these men were gone.”
Ely brought Lyndsey.
“Good job with him,” she told Ely.
“He has the backbone of a banana.”
She studied the AK-74. She’d learned about handguns, but assault rifles were another matter. She’d never fired one. Thorvaldsen seemed to sense her hesitation and offered her his gun. “Want to switch?”
She did not refuse. “You can handle one of those?”
“I’ve had a little experience.”
She made a mental note to inquire more about that later. She approached the doorway and carefully spied into the hall. No one in either direction. She led the way as they crept down the hall toward the second-floor foyer, where a staircase led down to the main entrance. Another of the Greek fire machines appeared behind them, darting from one room into another. Its sudden appearance drew her attention momentarily away from what lay ahead.
The wall to her left ended, replaced by a thick stone balustrade.
Movement below caught her gaze.
Two soldiers.
Who instantly reacted by leveling their rifles and firing.
CASSIOPEIA HEARD THE RAT-TAT-TAT OF AUTOMATIC WEAPON fire from inside the house.
Her first thought was Ely.
“Just remember,” he said. “We’ve only got five good rounds.”
They leaped from the chopper.
ZOVASTINA AND VIKTOR EMERGED FROM THE FISSURE AND STUDIED the scene a hundred meters below. Malone and Vitt were rushing from the helicopter carrying two assault rifles.
“Are those loaded?” she asked.
“No, Minister. Blanks.”
“Which Malone clearly knows, so they’re carrying them for show.”
Gunfire from inside the house caused her alarm.
“Those turtles will explode if damaged,” Viktor said.
She needed Lyndsey before that happened.
“I hid loaded magazines for the pistols and clips for the rifles on board,” Viktor said. “Just in case we needed them.”
She admired his preparedness. “You’ve done well. I might have to reward you.”
“First we need to finish this.”
She clasped his shoulder. “That we do.”
BULLETS RICOCHETED OFF THE THICK MARBLE RAILING. A WALL mirror shattered, then crashed to the floor. Stephanie sought cover past where the balustrade began, the others huddled behind her.
More bullets obliterated plaster to her right.
Luckily the angle gave them an element of protection. To obtain a clearer shot, the soldiers would have to climb the stairway, which would also give her an opportunity.
Thorvaldsen came close. “Let me.”
She stepped back and the Dane sent a salvo from the AK-74 down to the ground floor. The rounds produced the intended result. All shooting from below stopped.
A robot reappeared behind them from another of the bedchambers. She paid it no mind until the whine from its electric motor steadily increased in volume. She turned her head and spotted the mechanism approaching the spot where Ely and Lyndsey stood.
“Stop that thing,” she mouthed to Ely.
He stuck out his foot and halted the machine’s advance. It sensed an impediment, hesitated, then sprayed Ely’s pants with mist. She saw him wince from the odor, strong even from her vantage, six feet away.
The thing turned and headed in the opposite direction.
More shots rang out from below as the second floor was peppered with bullets. They needed to retreat and use the concealed passages, but before she could give the order, ahead, on the other side of the railing, one of the soldiers rounded a corner.
Thorvaldsen saw him, too, and before she could raise her gun, he chopped the man down with a burst from the AK-74.
MALONE APPROACHED THE HOUSE WITH CAUTION. HE GRIPPED the pistol in one hand, the assault rifle slung over the other shoulder. They entered through a rear terrace into an opulent salon.
A familiar smell greeted him.
Greek fire.
He saw Cassiopeia register the scent, too.
More gunfire.
From somewhere on the ground floor.
He headed toward the ruckus.
VIKTOR FOLLOWED ZOVASTINA AS THEY DREW CLOSER TO THE house. They’d stayed concealed and watched as Malone and Vitt entered. Lots of rounds being discharged from inside.
“There are nine militia inside,” Zovastina said. “I told them not to use their weapons. Six robots are trolling, set to go when I push this.”
She produced one of the remote controllers he’d many times used to detonate the turtles. He thought another warning in order. “A bullet into any one of those machines that disables it will trigger an explosion, regardless of that controller.”
He saw that she did not require a reminder, but also she did not react with her usual arrogance. “Then we’ll just have to be careful.”
“It’s not us I’m worried about.”
CASSIOPEIA WAS ANXIOUS. ELY WAS SOMEWHERE IN THIS HOUSE, probably trapped, with Greek fire everywhere. She’d seen its destructive force.
The layout was a problem. The ground floor wound around itself like a labyrinth. She heard voices. Straight ahead, beyond another parlor dotted with gilt-framed art.
Malone led the way.
She admired his courage. For someone who complained all the time about not wanting to play the game, he was a damn good player.
Into another room oozing baroque charm, Malone crouched behind a high-backed chair and motioned for her to head left. Beyond a wide archway, ten meters away, she saw shadows dance across the walls.
More voices, in a language she did not know.
“I need a diversion,” Malone whispered.
She understood. He had bullets. She didn’t.
“Just don’t shoot me,” she mouthed back as she assumed a position adjacent to the doorway.
Malone shifted quickly behind another chair that offered a clear view. She drew a breath, counted to three, and told her pounding heart to stay calm. This was foolish, but she should have a second or two of advantage. She leveled the rifle, swung around and planted her feet in the archway. Finger on the trigger, she let loose a volley of blank rounds. Two soldiers stood on the other side of the foyer, their guns pointed toward the second-floor railing, but her shots produced the desired effect.
Startled faces stared back at her.
She stopped firing and dropped to the ground.
Then came two new bangs, as Malone shot both men.
STEPHANIE HEARD THE PISTOL ROUNDS. SOMETHING NEW. HENRIK was crouched beside her, his finger ready on the rifle trigger.
Two more of the soldiers appeared on the second floor, beyond where their comrade lay dead.
Thorvaldsen instantly shot them both.
She was beginning to form a new opinion of this Dane. She’d known him to be conniving, with a disappearing conscience, but he was also cold-nerved, clearly prepared to do whatever needed to be done.
The soldiers’ bodies flew back as high-powered rounds ripped through flesh.
She saw the robot and heard the pings at the same time.
One of the machines had turned the corner, behind the two dying soldiers.
Bullets had pierced its casing. The motor stuttered and jerked, like a wounded animal. Its funnel retracted.
Then the whole thing erupted in flames.
MALONE HEARD SHOTS FROM ABOVE, THEN A SWOOSH, FOLLOWED by an intense rush of unnatural heat.
He realized what had happened and fled from behind the chair, darting to the archway as Cassiopeia sprang to her feet.
He glanced around.
Flames poured from the second floor, engulfing the marble railing and consuming the walls. Glass in the tall outer windows shattered from the fiery assault.
The floor ignited.
STEPHANIE SHIELDED HERSELF FROM THE WAVES OF HEAT THAT rushed past. The robot did not actually explode, more vaporized in an atomiclike flash. She lowered her arm to see fire stretching in all directions, like a tsunami-walls, ceiling, even the floor succumbing.
Fifty feet away and closing.
“Come on,” she said.
They fled the approaching maelstrom, running fast, but the flames were gaining ground. She realized the danger. Ely had been sprayed.
She glanced over her shoulder.
Ten feet away and closing.
The door to the bedchamber where they’d first exited the hidden passage was open just ahead. Lyndsey found it first. Ely next.
She and Thorvaldsen made it inside just as danger arrived.
“HE’S UP THERE,” CASSIOPEIA SAID TO THE SCENE OF THE SECOND floor burning, then she yelled, “Ely.”
Malone wrapped his arm around her neck and clamped her mouth shut.
“We’re not alone,” he whispered in her ear. “Think. More soldiers. And Zovastina and Viktor. They’re here. You can count on it.”
He released his hand.
“I’m going after him,” she made clear. “Those guards had to be shooting at them. Who else?”
“We have no way of knowing anything.”
“So where are they?” she asked the fire.
He motioned and they retreated into the parlor. He heard furniture crashing and more glass shattering from above. Luckily, none of the flames had descended the stairway, as in the Greco-Roman museum. But one of the priming mechanisms, as if sensing the heat, appeared across the foyer, which raised a concern.
If one exploded, more could, too.
ZOVASTINA HEARD SOMEONE CALL OUT ELY’S NAME, BUT SHE’D also felt the heat from the robot’s disintegration and smelled burning Greek fire.
“Fools,” she whispered to her troops, somewhere in the house.
“That was Vitt who shouted,” Viktor said.
“Find our men. I’ll find her and Malone.”
STEPHANIE SPOTTED THE CONCEALED DOOR, STILL OPEN, AND LED the way inside, quickly closing it behind them.
“Thank God,” Lyndsey said.
No smoke had yet accumulated in the hidden passage, but she heard fire trying to find its way through the walls.
They retreated to the stairway and scampered down to ground level.
She kept an eye out for the first available exit and saw an open door just ahead. Thorvaldsen saw it, too, and they exited into the mansion’s dining hall.
MALONE COULD NOT ANSWER CASSIOPEIA’S QUESTION ABOUT THE whereabouts of Stephanie, Henrik, and Ely, and he, too, was concerned.
“It’s time you back off,” Cassiopeia said to him.
That surliness from Copenhagen had returned. He thought a dose of reality might help. “We only have three bullets.”
“No, we don’t.”
She brushed past him, retrieved the assault rifles from the two dead guards, and checked the clips. “Plenty of rounds.” She handed him one. “Thanks, Cotton, for getting me here. But I have to do this.” She paused. “On my own.”
He saw that arguing with her was fruitless.
“There’s certainly another way up there,” she said. “I’ll find it.”
He was about to resign himself to follow her when movement to his left set off an alarm and he whirled, gun ready.
Viktor appeared in the doorway.
Malone fired a burst from the AK-74 and instantly sought cover in the foyer. He could not see if he hit the man but, looking around, one thing he knew for certain.
Cassiopeia was gone.
STEPHANIE HEARD SHOTS FROM SOMEWHERE ON THE GROUND floor. The dining hall spread out before her in an elaborate rectangle with towering walls, a vaulted ceiling, and leaded glass windows. A long table with a dozen chairs down each side dominated.
“We need to leave,” Thorvaldsen said.
Lyndsey bolted away, but Ely cut him off and slammed the scientist to the tabletop, jostling some of the chairs. “I told you we were going to the lab.”
“You can go to hell.”
Forty feet away, Cassiopeia appeared in the doorway. She was wet, looked tired, and carried a rifle. Stephanie watched as her friend spotted Ely. She’d taken a huge chance going with Zovastina from Venice, but the gamble had now paid off.
Ely spotted her, too, and released his grip on Lyndsey.
Behind Cassiopeia, Irina Zovastina materialized and nestled the barrel of a rifle against Cassiopeia’s spine.
Ely froze.
The Supreme Minister’s clothes and hair were also wet. Stephanie debated challenging her, but the odds shifted when Viktor and three soldiers appeared and leveled their weapons.
“Lower the guns,” Zovastina said. “Slowly.”
Stephanie locked her gaze on Cassiopeia and shook her head, signaling this was a battle they could not win. Thorvaldsen took the lead and laid his weapon on the table. She decided to do the same.
“Lyndsey,” Zovastina said. “Time for you to come with me.”
“No way.” He started to back away, toward Stephanie. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Zovastina said, and she motioned to one of the soldiers, who rushed toward Lyndsey, who was retreating back to where the concealed panel remained open.
Ely moved like he was going to grab the scientist, but when the soldier arrived, he shoved Lyndsey into him and slipped into the back passage, closing the door behind him.
Stephanie heard guns raised.
“No,” Zovastina yelled. “Let him go. I don’t need him and this place is about to burn to the ground.”
MALONE NAVIGATED THE MAZE OF ROOMS. ONE AFTER THE OTHER. Corridor to room to another corridor. He’d seen no one, but continued to smell fire burning on the upper stories. Most of the smoke seemed to have risen to the third floor, but it wouldn’t be long before the air here became tainted.
He needed to find Cassiopeia.
Where had she gone?
He passed a door that opened to what looked like an oversized storage closet. He glanced inside and noticed something unusual. Part of the unfinished paneled wall stood open, revealing a concealed passage. Beyond, bulbs tossed down stagnant pools of weak light.
He heard footsteps from inside the opening.
Approaching.
He gripped the rifle and flattened himself against the stinking wall, just outside the closet.
Fast steps kept coming.
He readied himself.
Someone emerged from the doorway.
With one hand he slammed the body into the wall, jamming the gun, his finger on the trigger, into the man’s jaw. Fierce blue eyes stared back at him, the face younger, handsome, without fear.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Ely Lund.”
ZOVASTINA WAS PLEASED. SHE CONTROLLED LYNDSEY, ALL OF VINCENTI’S data, Alexander’s tomb, the draught, and now Thorvaldsen, Cassiopeia Vitt, and Stephanie Nelle. She lacked only Cotton Malone and Ely Lund, neither one of which were of any real importance to her.
They were outside, heading for the chopper, two of her remaining soldiers parading the prisoners at gunpoint. Viktor had taken the other two militia and retrieved Vincenti’s computers and two of the robots they’d not used inside the house.
She needed to return to Samarkand and personally supervise the covert military offensive that would soon begin. Her tasks here had ended with total success. She’d long hoped that if Alexander’s tomb were ever found it would lie within her jurisdiction, and thanks be to the gods that it did.
Viktor approached, carrying the computer mainframes.
“Load them onto the chopper,” she said.
She watched as he deposited them into the rear compartment along with the two robots, both marvels of Asian engineering, developed by her engineers. The programmable bombs worked with near perfection, delivering Greek fire with an expert precision, then detonating on command. Expensive, too, so she was careful with her inventory and glad these two could be salvaged for reuse elsewhere.
She handed Viktor the controller for the machines still inside. “Take care of the house as soon as I’m away.” The upper floors were all ablaze, only a matter of a few minutes before the whole house became an inferno. “And kill them all.”
He nodded his consent.
“But before I go, I have a debt to repay.”
She gave Viktor her gun, stepped toward Cassiopeia Vitt, and said, “You made me an offer up at the pools. About giving me a chance to be even with you.”
“I’d love it.”
She smiled. “I thought you might.”
“WHERE ARE THE OTHERS?” MALONE ASKED ELY, AS HE LOWERED the rifle.
“Zovastina has them.”
“What are you doing?”
“I slipped away.” Ely hesitated. “There’s something I have to do.”
He waited for an explanation, which had better be good.
“The cure for AIDS is in this house. I have to get it.”
Not bad. He understood the urgency of that quest. For both Ely and Cassiopeia. To his left, one of the spewing dragons passed by at the intersection of two corridors. He was pushing it, hanging around inside the house. But he needed to know, “Where did the others go?”
“I don’t know. They were in the dining hall. Zovastina and her men had them. I managed to get inside the wall before they could follow.”
“Where’s the cure?”
“In a lab below the house. There’s an entrance in the library, where we were first held.”
The excitement in his voice could not be disguised. Foolishness, surely. But what the hell? That seemed to be the story of his life.
“Lead the way.”
CASSIOPEIA CIRCLED ZOVASTINA. STEPHANIE, HENRIK, AND LYNDSEY stood, at gunpoint, to one side. The Supreme Minister apparently wanted a show, a display of prowess before her men. Fine. She’d give her a fight.
Zovastina struck first, wrapping her arms around Cassiopeia’s neck and hinging her spine forward. The woman was strong. More than she’d anticipated. Zovastina deftly dropped and tossed Cassiopeia over her, through the air.
She hit hard.
Brushing off the pain, she sprang to her feet and planted her right foot into Zovastina’s chest, which staggered the other woman. She used the moment to shake the pain from her limbs, then lunged.
Her shoulder connected with rock-hard thighs and together the two women found the ground.
MALONE ENTERED THE LIBRARY. THEY’D SEEN NO SOLDIERS ON their careful trek across the ground floor. Smoke and heat were rising. Ely darted straight for a corpse that lay on the floor.
“Zovastina shot him. Vincenti’s man,” Ely said, as he found a silver controller. “She used this to open the panel.”
Ely pointed and pushed one of the buttons.
A Chinese wall cabinet rotated one hundred eighty degrees.
“Place is like an amusement park,” Malone said, and he followed Ely into the darkened passage.
ZOVASTINA’S ANGER BOILED. SHE WAS ACCUSTOMED TO WINNING. In buzkashi. In politics. In life. She’d challenged Vitt because she wanted this woman to know who was better. She also wanted her men to see that their leader was not afraid of anyone. True, there were only a few present, but tales of a few had long been the foundations of legends.
This entire site was now hers. Vincenti’s house would be razed and a proper memorial erected in honor of the conqueror who chose this spot as his final resting place. He may have been Greek by birth, but he was Asian at heart, and that was what mattered.
She pivoted her legs and again threw Vitt off her, but maintained a savage grip on one arm, which she used to yank the woman upward.
Her knee met Vitt’s chin. A blow she knew would send shock waves through the brain. She’d felt that agony herself. She slammed a fist hard into Vitt’s face. How many times had she attacked another chopenoz on the playing field? How long had she held a weighty boz? Her strong arms and hands were accustomed to pain.
Vitt teetered on her knees, dazed.
How dare this nothing think her an equal? Vitt was through. That much seemed clear. No fight left in her. So Zovastina gently nestled the butt of her heel against Vitt’s forehead and, with one thrust, rudely shoved her opponent to the ground.
Vitt did not move.
Zovastina, as much out of breath as anger, steadied herself, and swiped the dirt from her face. She turned, satisfied with the fight. No wit, humor, or sympathy seeped from her eyes. Viktor nodded his approval. Looks of admiration filled her soldiers’ faces.
It was good to be a fighter.
MALONE ENTERED THE SUBTERRANEAN LABORATORY. THEY WERE at least thirty feet underground, surrounded by bedrock with a burning house above them. The air reeked of Greek fire and he’d felt a familiar stickiness on the steps leading down.
Apparently, biological research was being conducted here, as several gloved containers and a refrigerator labeled with a bright biohazard warning filled the lab. He and Ely hesitated in the doorway, both of them reluctant to venture farther. His reluctance was fueled by packs of clear liquid that lay scattered on the tables. He’d seen those before. In the Greco-Roman museum that first night.
Two bodies lay on the floor. One an emaciated woman in a bathrobe, the other an enormous man in dark clothes. Both had been shot.
“According to Lyndsey,” Ely said, “Vincenti was holding the flash drive when Zovastina killed him.”
They needed to finish this. So he stepped carefully around the tables and stared down at the dead man. Three hundred pounds, at least. The body lay on one side, an arm outstretched, as if he’d tried to rise. Four bullet holes in the chest. One hand lay open, near a table leg, the other fist closed. He used the rifle barrel to pry open the fingers.
“That’s it,” Ely said with anticipation, as he knelt and removed the flash drive.
The younger man reminded Malone of Cai Thorvaldsen, though he’d only seen that face once, in Mexico City, when his life first intersected with Henrik Thorvaldsen’s. The two younger men would be about the same age. Easy to see why Thorvaldsen had been drawn to Ely.
“This place is primed to burn,” he said.
Ely stood. “I made a bad mistake trusting Zovastina. But she was so enthusiastic. She seemed to really appreciate the past.”
“She does. For what she can learn from it.”
Ely motioned to his clothes. “I have that stuff all over me.”
“Been there. Done that.”
“Zovastina’s a lunatic. A murderer.”
He agreed. “Since we have what we came for, how about you and I not become one of her victims?” He paused. “Besides, Cassiopeia will have my ass if anything happens to you.”
ZOVASTINA BOARDED THE CHOPPER. LYNDSEY WAS ALREADY strapped into the compartment, handcuffed to the bulkhead.
“Minister, I won’t be a problem. I swear. I’ll do whatever you need. I assure you. It’s not necessary to confine me. Please, Minister-”
“If you don’t shut up,” she calmly said. “I’ll have you shot right now.”
The scientist seemed to sense that silence would be better and hushed.
“Don’t open your mouth again.”
She inspected the spacious compartment, which usually accommodated a dozen armed men. Vincenti’s computers and the two spare robots were lashed tight. Cassiopeia Vitt lay still on the ground and the prisoners were being guarded by the four soldiers.
Viktor stood outside the compartment.
“You’ve done well,” she said to him. “Once I’m gone, detonate the house and kill all of these people. I’m trusting you to keep this location secure. I’ll dispatch additional men when I return to Samarkand. This is now a Federation site.”
She stared toward the mansion, its top floors fully ablaze. Soon, it would be nothing but rubble. She already envisioned the Asian palace she’d construct here. Whether Alexander’s tomb would be revealed to the world remained to be seen. She needed to consider all the possibilities, and since she alone controlled its location, that decision would be hers.
She faced Viktor, stared hard into his eyes, and said, “Thank you, my friend.” She saw the momentary shock on his face as her words of appreciation registered. “No, I don’t ever say it. I expect you to do your job. But, here, you did exceptionally well.”
She took one last look at Cassiopeia Vitt, Stephanie Nelle, and Henrik Thorvaldsen. Problems that would soon be a thing of the past. Cotton Malone and Ely Lund were still in the house. If not already dead, they would be in a few minutes.
“I’ll see you at the palace,” she said to Viktor, as the compartment door slid shut.
VIKTOR LISTENED AS THE TURBINE FIRED AND THE CHOPPER blades twirled. The engine revved to full power. Dust swirled from the dry earth and the helicopter rose into the late-afternoon sky.
He quickly moved toward his men and ordered two of them to head for the estate’s main gate and control ingress. He told the final two to keep watch over Nelle and Thorvaldsen.
He stepped over to Cassiopeia. Vitt’s face was bruised, her nose bloodied. Sweat streamed down leaving furrows of grime.
Her eyes flashed opened and she clamped hard onto his arm.
“Come to finish?” she asked.
His left hand held a pistol, his right hand the controller for the turtles. He calmly laid the signaling device on the ground beside her. “That’s exactly what I came to do.”
The helicopter with Zovastina leveled off overhead and headed east, back toward the house and the valley beyond.
“While you fought her,” he told Vitt, “I activated the turtles inside the chopper. They’re now programmed to detonate when the ones inside the house are told to explode.” He motioned. “That controller will make that happen.”
She scooped it from the ground.
But he quickly brought his gun to her head. “Careful.”
CASSIOPEIA GLARED AT VIKTOR, HER FINGER ON THE CONTROLLER button. Could she push it before he shot her? Perhaps he was wondering the same thing?
“You need to choose,” he said. “Your Ely and Malone may still be in the house. Killing Zovastina could also kill them.”
She had to trust that Malone had the situation in hand. But she also realized something else. “How could anyone possibly know when to trust you? You’ve played every side.”
“My job was to end this. That’s what we’re about to do.”
“Killing Zovastina might not be the answer.”
“It’s the only answer. She won’t stop otherwise.”
She considered his statement. He was right.
“I was going to do it myself,” he said. “But I thought you’d like the honor.”
“The gun in my face for show?” she quietly asked.
“The guards can’t see your hand.”
“How do I know, when I do this, you won’t shoot me in the face.”
He answered her honestly. “You don’t.”
The chopper was beyond the house, out over the grassy meadow, maybe a thousand feet high.
“If you wait any longer,” he said. “The signal will not reach.”
She shrugged. “Never thought I’d make old age anyway.”
And she pressed the button.
STEPHANIE WATCHED FROM THIRTY FEET AWAY AS VIKTOR AIMED his gun at Cassiopeia. She’d seen him lay something on the ground, but Cassiopeia faced away and it was impossible to know what was happening.
The helicopter became a flying fireball.
No explosion. Just brilliant light erupting from all sides, like a supernova, its volatile fuel quickly joining the mélange in a destruction that thundered across the valley. Flaming chunks of debris propelled outward, then rained down in a fiery cascade. At the same instant, windows on the mansion’s ground floor shattered outward, the frames filled with a raging blaze.
Cassiopeia rose, with Viktor’s aid.
“Seems he is a help,” Thorvaldsen said, noticing, too.
Viktor pointed at the two guards and barked out orders in what she thought was Russian.
The men dashed away.
Cassiopeia fled toward the house.
They followed.
MALONE TOPPED THE STAIRS BEHIND ELY AND REENTERED THE library. Thumps echoed from somewhere inside the house and he immediately noticed a change in temperature.
“Those things have been activated.”
Outside the library door fire sprang to life. More thumps. Closer. Plenty of heat. Building. He bolted to the door and glanced both ways. The corridor at each end was impassable, flames were consuming the floor and headed his way. He recalled what Ely had said. I have that stuff all over me. He turned and studied the towering windows. Maybe ten feet by eight feet. Beyond, in the valley, he noticed something burning in the distance. There would only be a few more seconds before the fire arrived.
“Give me a hand.”
He saw Ely stuff the flash drive into his pocket and grab one end of a small settee. Malone grasped the other. Together they tossed it through the windows. Glass shattered as the sofa propelled outward, clearing a path, but too many shards remained for them to leap through.
“Use the chairs,” he yelled.
Fire wrapped itself inside the doorway and started its assault of the library walls. Books and shelves erupted. Malone gripped a chair and rammed it through what remained of the window. Ely used another chair to scrape away jagged remnants.
The floor started to burn.
Everything basted with Greek fire quickly identified itself.
No more time.
They both leaped through the window.
CASSIOPEIA HEARD GLASS BREAK AS SHE, VIKTOR, THORVALDSEN, and Stephanie ran closer to the destruction. She saw a settee fly out and crash to the ground. She’d taken a chance killing Zovastina, with Malone and Ely still inside, but, like Malone would say, Whether right or wrong, just do something.
Another chair flew out the window.
Then Malone and Ely leaped out as the room behind them filled with waves of bright orange.
Malone’s exit was not as graceful as it had been in Copenhagen. His right shoulder slammed to the grass and he tumbled. Ely, too, hit hard, rolled a few times, his arms shielding his head.
Cassiopeia ran to them. Ely stared up at her. She smiled and said, “You having fun?”
“About like you? What happened to your face?”
“Got the crap beat out of me. But I had the last laugh.”
She helped him to his feet and they hugged.
“You stink,” she noted.
“Greek fire. The latest fragrance.”
“What about me?” Malone grunted, as he stood and brushed himself off. “No ‘how are you?’ Good to see that you’re not a crispy critter?”
She shook her head and hugged him, too.
“How many buses ran you over?” Malone asked, noticing her face.
“Just one.”
“You two know each other?” Ely asked.
“We’re acquainted.”
She saw Malone’s face sour as he spotted Viktor. “What’s he doing here?”
“Believe it or not,” she said, “he’s on our side. I think.”
Stephanie pointed to fires in the distance and men running toward them. “Zovastina’s dead.”
“Terrible thing,” Viktor said. “Tragic helicopter crash. Witnessed by four of her militia. She’ll be given a glorious funeral.”
“And Daniels will have to make sure that the next Supreme Minister of the Central Asian Federation is more friendly,” Stephanie said.
Cassiopeia spotted dots in the western sky growing larger. “We’ve got company.”
They watched as the aircraft drew closer.
“They’re ours,” Malone said. “Apache AH64s and a Blackhawk.”
The American gunships swooped in. One of the Apache’s compartment doors swung open and Malone spotted a familiar face.
Edwin Davis.
“Troops from Afghanistan,” Viktor said. “Davis told me they’d be nearby, monitoring things, ready when needed.”
“You know,” Stephanie said to them. “Killing Zovastina that way may not have been smart.”
Cassiopeia sensed the resignation in her friend’s tone. “What is it?”
Thorvaldsen stepped forward. “Vincenti’s computers and Lyndsey were on that chopper. You don’t know this, but Vincenti found the cure for AIDS. He and Lyndsey developed it, and all of the data was on those computers. There was a flash drive, which Vincenti had when he died. But, unfortunately”-the Dane motioned to the burning house-“that’s surely gone.”
Cassiopeia saw a wicked look form on Malone’s dirty face. She also noticed Ely smiling. Both men looked exhausted, but their feeling of triumph seemed infectious.
Ely reached into his pocket and held out his open palm.
A flash drive.
“What’s that?” she asked, hoping.
“Life,” Malone said.
MALONE ADMIRED ALEXANDER THE GREAT’S TOMB. AFTER EDWIN Davis arrived, an army special forces unit had quickly taken control of the estate, disarming the four remaining troops without a fight. President Daniels authorized the incursion, Davis saying he doubted there’d be any official resistance from the Federation.
Zovastina was dead. A new day was coming.
Once the estate was secure, as darkness began to claim the mountains, they’d all climbed to the pools and dove into the tawny eye. Even Thorvaldsen, who wanted desperately to see the grave. Malone had helped him through the tunnel and the Dane, for his age and deformity, was a surprisingly strong swimmer.
They brought flashlights and additional lights from the Apaches, the tomb now ablaze with electric illumination. He stared in wonder at a wall of glazed bricks, their blues, yellows, oranges, and blacks still vibrant after two millennia.
Ely was examining three lion motifs formed with great skill from the colorful tiles. “Something similar to this lined the ancient Babylon’s processional way. We have remnants. But here’s one totally intact.”
Edwin Davis had swum through with them. He, too, had wanted to see what Zovastina had coveted. Malone felt better knowing that the other side of the pool was being guarded by a team operations sergeant and three U.S. Army soldiers armed with M-4 carbines. He and Stephanie had briefed Davis on what happened and he was beginning to warm to the deputy national security adviser, especially after he’d anticipated their need for backup and had been ready to move.
Ely stood beside the two sarcophagi. On the side of one was chiseled a single word.. More letters adorned its other side.
“This one is Alexander’s,” Ely said. “The longer inscription is from the Iliad. Always to be the best and to be superior to the rest. Homer’s expression of the heroic ideal. Alexander would have lived by that. Zovastina loved that quote, too. She used it many times. The people who put him here chose his epitaph well.”
Ely motioned to the other coffin, its inscription simpler.
“‘Hephaestion. Friend of Alexander.’ Lover did not do justice to their relationship. To be called ‘friend’ was the supreme compliment of a Greek, reserved for only the most dear.”
Malone noticed how dust and debris had been cleared from the image of a horse on Alexander’s coffin.
“Zovastina did that when she and I were here,” Viktor said. “She was mesmerized by the image.”
“It’s Bucephalas,” Ely said. “Has to be. Alexander’s horse. He worshipped the animal. The horse died during the Asian campaign and was buried somewhere in the mountains, not far from here.”
“Zovastina named her favorite horse that, too,” Viktor noted.
Malone scanned the room. Ely pointed out ritual buckets, a silver perfume container, a drinking horn shaped as a deer’s head, even gilded bronze greaves with bits of leather still remaining that once protected a warrior’s calves. “It’s breathtaking,” Stephanie said.
He agreed.
Cassiopeia stood near one of the coffins, its lid slid open.
“Zovastina snuck a look,” Viktor said.
Their lights shone inside at a mummy.
“Unusual that it’s not in a cartonnage,” Ely said. “But they may not have had the skill or time to make one.”
Gold sheets covered the body from neck to feet, each the size of a sheet of paper, more lay scattered inside the coffin. The right arm was bent at the elbow and lay across the abdomen. The left arm stretched straight, the forearm detached from the upper. Bandages wrapped most of the corpse in a tight embrace and on the partially exposed chest lay three gold disks.
“The Macedonian star,” Ely said. “Alexander’s coat of arms. Impressive ones, too. Beautiful specimens.”
“How did they get all of this in here?” Stephanie asked. “These coffins are huge.”
Ely motioned at the room. “Twenty-three hundred years ago, the topography was surely different. I’d wager there was another way in. Maybe the pools were not as high, the tunnel more accessible and not underwater. Who knows?”
“But the letters in the pool,” Malone said. “How did they get there? Surely the people who fashioned this tomb didn’t do it. That’s like a neon sign to alert people.”
“My guess is Ptolemy did that. Part of his riddle. Two Greek letters at the bottom of two dark pools. His way, I assume, of marking the spot.”
A golden mask covered Alexander’s face. No one had yet touched it. Finally, Malone said, “Why don’t you, Ely? Let’s see what a king of the world looks like.”
He saw the look of anticipation in the younger man’s eyes. He’d studied Alexander the Great from afar, learned what he could from the scant information that had survived. Now he could be the first in two thousand years to actually touch him.
Ely slowly removed the mask.
What skin remained cast a blackish tint and was bone dry and brittle. Death seemed to have agreed with Alexander’s countenance, the half-closed eyes conveying a strange expression of curiosity. The mouth ran from one side of the cheek to the other, open, as if to shout. Time had frozen everything. The head was devoid of hair, the brain, which more than anything else accounted for Alexander’s success, gone.
They all stared in silence.
Finally, Cassiopeia shined her light across the room, past an equestrian figure on horseback clad only in a long cloak slung over one shoulder, at a striking bronze bust. The powerful oblong face showed confidence and featured steady narrowed eyes, gazing off into the distance. The hair sprang back from the forehead in a classic style and dropped midlength in irregular curls. The neck rose straight and high, the bearing and look of a man who utterly controlled his world.
Alexander the Great.
Such a contrast to the face of death in the coffin.
“All of the busts I’ve ever seen of Alexander,” Ely said, “his nose, lips, brow, and hair were usually restored with plaster. Few survived the ages. But there’s an image, from his time, in perfect condition.”
“And here he is,” Malone said, “in the flesh.”
Cassiopeia moved to the adjacent coffin and wrestled open its lid enough for them to peek inside. Another mummy, not fully adorned in gold, but masked, lay in similar condition.
“Alexander and Hephaestion,” Thorvaldsen said. “Here they’ve rested for so long.”
“Will they stay?” Malone asked.
Ely shrugged. “This is an important archaeological find. It would be a tragedy not to learn from it.”
Malone noticed that Viktor’s attention had shifted to a gold chest that lay close to the wall. The rock above was incised with a tangle of engravings showing battles, chariots, horses, and men with swords. Atop the chest a golden Macedonian star had been molded. Rosettes with petals of blue glass dotted its center. Similar rosettes wrapped a central band around the chest. Viktor grasped both sides and, before Ely could stop him, lifted the lid.
Edwin Davis shined a light inside.
A gold wreath of oak leaves and acorns, rich in stunning detail, came into view.
“A royal crown,” Ely said.
Viktor smirked. “That’s what Zovastina wanted. This would have been her crown. She would have used all of this to fuel herself.”
Malone shrugged. “Too bad her helicopter crashed.”
They all stood in the chamber, soaking wet from the swim but relieved that the ordeal was over. The rest involved politics, and that didn’t concern Malone.
“Viktor,” Stephanie said. “If you ever get tired of freelancing and want a job, let me know.”
“I’ll keep the offer in mind.”
“You let me best you when we were here before,” Malone said. “Didn’t you?”
Viktor nodded. “I thought it better you leave, so I gave you the chance. I’m not that easy, Malone.”
He grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He pointed at the tombs. “What about these?”
“They’ve been waiting here a long time,” Ely said. “They can rest a little longer. Right now, there’s something else we have to do.”
CASSIOPEIA WAS THE LAST TO CLIMB FROM THE TAWNY POOL, BACK into the first chamber.
“Lyndsey said the bacteria in the green pool could be swallowed,” Ely said. “They’re harmless to us, but destroy HIV.”
“We don’t know if any of that is true,” Stephanie said.
Ely seemed convinced. “It is. That man’s ass was on the line. He was using what he had to save his skin.”
“We have the disk,” Thorvaldsen said. “I can have the best scientists in the world get us an answer immediately.”
Ely shook his head. “Alexander the Great had no scientists. He trusted his world.”
Cassiopeia admired his courage. She’d been infected for over a decade, always wondering when the disease would finally manifest itself. To have a time bomb ticking away inside, waiting for the day when your immune system finally failed, that changed your life. She knew Ely suffered from the same anxiety, clutched at every hope. And they were the lucky ones. They could afford the drugs that kept the virus at bay. Millions of others could not.
She stared into the tawny pool, at the Greek letter Z that lay at its bottom. She recalled what she’d read in one of the manuscripts. Eumenes revealed the resting place, far away, in the mountains, where the Scythians taught Alexander about life. She walked to the green pool and again admired the H at its bottom.
Life.
What a lovely promise.
Ely grasped her hand. “Ready?”
She nodded.
They dropped to their knees and drank.
COPENHAGEN
SATURDAY, JUNE 6
7:45 P.M.
MALONE SAT ON THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE CAFÉ NORDEN AND enjoyed more of the tomato bisque soup. Still the best he’d ever eaten. Thorvaldsen sat across from him. The second-floor windows were flung open, allowing a lovely late-spring evening to wash over them. Copenhagen’s weather this time of year was nearly perfect, another one of the many reasons why he so enjoyed living here.
“I heard from Ely today,” Thorvaldsen said.
He’d wondered what was happening in central Asia. They’d returned home six weeks ago and he’d been busy selling books. That was the thing about being a field agent. You did your job, then moved on. No postanalysis or follow-up. That task was always left to others.
“He’s excavating Alexander’s tomb. The new Federation government is cooperating with the Greeks.”
He knew that Ely had taken a position in Athens with the Museum of Antiquities, thanks to Thorvaldsen’s intervention. Of course, knowing the location of Alexander the Great’s grave certainly fueled the museum’s enthusiasm.
Zovastina had been succeeded by a moderate deputy minister who, according to the Federation constitution, temporarily assumed power until elections could be held. Washington had quietly ensured that all of the Federation’s biological stockpiles were destroyed and Samarkand had been given a choice. Cooperate or the Federation’s neighbors would learn what Zovastina and her generals had planned, and then nature could take its course. Luckily, moderation prevailed and the United States sent a team to oversee the viral extermination. Of course, with the West holding the antiagent, there’d been no choice. The Federation could start killing, but they could not stop it. The uneasy alliance between Zovastina and Vincenti had been replaced with one between two distrusting nations.
“Ely has full control of the tomb and is quietly working it,” Thorvaldsen said. “He says a lot of history may have to be rewritten. Lots of inscriptions inside. Artwork. Even a map or two. Incredible stuff.”
“And how are Edwin Davis and Danny Daniels?” he asked. “Satisfied?”
Thorvaldsen smiled. “I spoke with Edwin a couple of days ago. Daniels is grateful for all we did. He especially liked Cassiopeia blowing up that helicopter. Not a lot of sympathy from that man. He’s a tough one.”
“Glad we could help the president out one more time.” He paused. “What about the Venetian League?”
Thorvaldsen shrugged. “Faded into the woodwork. It didn’t do anything that can be proven.”
“Except kill Naomi Johns.”
“Vincenti did that, and I believe he paid.”
That was true. “You know, it’d be nice if Daniels could, for once, just ask for my help.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Like with you?”
His friend nodded. “Like with me.”
He finished his soup and stared down at Højbro Plads. The square was lively with people enjoying a warm evening, which were few and far between in Copenhagen. His bookshop across the plaza was closed. Business had been great lately and he was planning a buying trip to London the following week, before Gary arrived for his yearly summer visit. He was looking forward to seeing his fifteen-year-old.
But he was also melancholy. He’d been that way every since returning home. He and Thorvaldsen ate dinner together at least once a week, but never had they discussed what was really on his mind. Some places need not be trod.
Unless allowed.
So he asked, “How’s Cassiopeia?”
“I was wondering when you’d inquire.”
“You’re the one who got me into all that.”
“All I did was tell you she needed help.”
“I’d like to think she’d help me, if needed.”
“She would. But, to answer your question, both she and Ely are virus free. Edwin tells me scientists have also verified the bacteria’s effectiveness. Daniels will announce the cure shortly and the United States government will control its distribution. The president has ordered that it be available to all at minimal cost.”
“A lot of people will be affected by that.”
“Thanks to you. You solved the riddle and found the grave.”
He didn’t want to hear that. “We all did our job. And, by the way, I heard you’re a gun-toting fool. Stephanie said you were hell in that house.”
“I’m not helpless.”
Thorvaldsen had told him about Stephanie and the shooting. He’d spoken to her about it before they left Asia and had called her again last week.
“Stephanie’s realizing it’s tough out in the field,” he said.
“I spoke to her myself a few days ago.”
“You two becoming buddies?”
His friend smiled. “We’re a lot alike, though neither one of us would admit that to the other.”
“Killing is never easy. No matter what the reason.”
“I killed three men myself in that house. You’re right. It’s never easy.”
He still had not received an answer to his initial question, and Thorvaldsen seemed to sense what he truly wanted to know.
“I haven’t spoke with Cassiopeia much since we left the Federation. She went home to France. I don’t know about she and Ely-the two of them. She offers little.” Thorvaldsen shook his head. “You’ll have to ask her.”
He decided to take a walk. He liked roaming the Strøget. He asked Thorvaldsen if he wanted to join him but his friend declined.
He stood.
Thorvaldsen tossed some folded papers across the table. “The deed to that property by the sound, where the house burned. I have no use for it.”
He unfolded the sheets and saw his name on the grantee line.
“I want you to have it.”
“That property is worth a lot of money. It’s oceanfront. I can’t take that.”
“Rebuild the house. Enjoy it. Call it compensation for me bringing you into the middle of all this.”
“You knew I’d help.”
“This way, my conscience, what little of it there is, will be satisfied.”
From their two years together he’d learned that when Henrik Thorvaldsen made up his mind, that was it. So he stuffed the deed into his pocket and descended the stairs.
He pushed through the main doors into the warm touch of a Danish evening. People and conversations greeted him from occupied tables that sprawled out from the café.
“Hey, Malone.”
He turned.
Sitting at one of the tables was Cassiopeia.
She stood and walked his way.
She wore a navy canvas jacket and matching canvas pants. A leather shoulder bag draped one shoulder and T-strap sandals accented her feet. The dark hair hung in thick curls. He could still see her in the mountain. Tight leather pants and a sports bra, as she swam with him into the tomb. And those few minutes when they both were down to their underwear.
“What are you doing in town?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You’re always telling me how good the food is at this café, so I came to eat dinner.”
He smiled. “Long way for a meal.”
“Not if you can’t cook.”
“I hear you’re cured. I’m glad.”
“Does take a few things off your mind. Wondering if today is the day you start to die.”
He recalled her preoccupation that first night in Copenhagen, when she aided his escape from the Greco-Roman museum. All the melancholy seemed gone.
“Where you headed?” she asked.
He stared out across the square. “Just for a walk.”
“Want some company?”
He glanced back at the café, up to the second story, and the window table where he and Thorvaldsen had been sitting. His friend gazed out the open frame, smiling. He should have known.
He faced her and said, “Are you two always up to something?”
“You haven’t answered my question about the walk.”
What the hell. “Sure. I’d love some company.”
She slid her arm into his and led him forward.
He had to ask. “What about you and Ely? I thought-”
“Malone.”
He knew what was coming, so he saved her the trouble.
“I know. Just shut up and walk.”