by Steve Berry
Another Inquisitor waited for them at the door.
“She's there?” Vincenti asked.
The man nodded.
He gestured and three of the men entered the building, while the fourth waited outside. Vincenti followed them up a flight of metal stairs. On the third floor they stopped outside one of the apartment doors. He stood down the hall as guns were drawn and one of the men prepared to kick the door.
He nodded.
Shoe met wood and the door burst inward.
The men rushed inside.
A few seconds later one of his men signaled. He stepped into the apartment and closed the door. Two Inquisitors held a woman. She was slender, fair-haired, and not unattractive. A hand was clamped over her mouth, a gun barrel pressed to her left temple. She was frightened, but calm. Expected, since she was a pro.
“Surprised to see me?” he asked. “You've been watching for nearly a month.”
Her eyes offered no response.
“I'm not a fool, though your government must take me for one.”
He knew she worked for the United States Justice Department, an agent with a special international unit called the Magellan Billet. The Venetian League had encountered the unit before, a few years back when the League first started investing in central Asia. To be expected, actually. America stayed suspicious. Nothing ever came from those inquiries, but now Washington again seemed fixated on his organization.
He spied the agent's equipment. Long-range camera set on a tripod, cell phone, notepad. He knew questioning her would be useless. She could tell him little, if anything, he did not already know. “You've interfered with my breakfast.”
He gestured and one of the men confiscated her toys.
He stepped to the window and gazed down into the still-deserted campo. What he chose next could well determine his future. He was about to play both ends against the middle in a dangerous game that neither the Venetian League nor Irina Zovastina would appreciate. Nor, for that matter, would the Americans. He'd planned this bold move for a long time. As his father had said many times, the meek deserve nothing.
He kept his gaze out the window, raised his right arm, and flicked his wrist. A snap signaled that the woman's neck had broken cleanly. Killing he didn't mind. Watching was another matter. His men knew what to do.
A car waited downstairs to take the body across town where the coffin from last night waited. Plenty of room inside for one more.
SEVENTEEN
DENMARK
MALONE STUDIED THE MAN WHO'D JUST ARRIVED, ALONE, DRIVING an Audi with a bright rental sticker tacked on the windshield. He was a short, burly fellow with shocks of unkempt hair, baggy clothes, and shoulders and arms that suggested he was accustomed to hard work. Probably early forties, his features suggested Slavic influences–wide nose, deep-set eyes.
The man stepped onto the front stoop and said, “I'm not armed. But you're welcome to check.”
Malone kept his gun leveled. “Refreshing to deal with professionals.”
“You're the one from the museum.”
“And you're the one who left me inside.”
“Not me. But I approved.”
“Lot of honesty from a man with a gun pointed at him.”
“Guns don't bother me.”
And he believed that. “I don't see any money.”
“I haven't seen the medallion.”
He stepped aside and allowed the man to enter. “You have a name?”
His guest stopped in the doorway and faced him with hard eyes. “Viktor.”
CASSIOPEIA WATCHED FROM THE TREES AS THE MAN FROM THE car and Malone entered the house. Whether he'd come alone or not would not be a problem. This drama was about to play itself out.
And she hoped, for Malone's benefit, that she and Thorvaldsen had calculated correctly.
MALONE STOOD OFF TO ONE SIDE AS THORVALDSEN AND THE MAN named
Viktor talked. He remained alert, watching with the intensity of someone who had spent a dozen years as a government agent. He, too, had often faced an unknown adversary with only wits and wisdom, hoping to heaven nothing went wrong and he made it out in one piece.
“You've been stealing these medallions from all over the continent,” Thorvaldsen said. “Why?
Their value is not that great.”
“I don't know about that. You want fifty thousand euros for yours. That's five times what it's worth.”
“And, amazingly, you're willing to pay. Which means you're not in it for collecting. Who do you work for?”
“Myself.”
Thorvaldsen gave a refined chuckle. “A sense of humor. I like that. I detect an East European accent to your English. The old Yugoslavia? Croatian?”
Viktor remained silent and Malone noticed that their visitor had not touched a thing inside the house.
“I assumed you wouldn't answer that question,” Thorvaldsen said. “How do you want to conclude our business?”
“I'd like to examine the medallion. If satisfied, I'll have the money available tomorrow. Can't be done today. It's Sunday.”
“Depends on where your bank is,” Malone said.
“Mine's closed.” And Viktor's blank stare indicated he'd offer nothing more.
“Where did you learn about Greek fire?” Thorvaldsen asked.
“You're quite knowledgeable.”
“I own a Greco-Roman museum.”
The hairs on the back of Malone's neck bristled. People like Viktor, who did not appear loose-lipped, only offered concessions when they knew their listeners would not be around long enough to repeat them.
“I know you're after elephant medallions,” Thorvaldsen said, “and you have them all, save mine and three others. My guess is you're hired help and have no idea why these are so important, nor
do you care. A faithful servant.”
“And who are you? Certainly not the owner of a Greco-Roman museum.”
“On the contrary. I do own it, and I want to be paid for my destroyed goods. Hence the high price.”
Thorvaldsen reached into his pocket and removed a clear plastic case, which he tossed. Viktor caught it with both hands. Malone watched as their guest dropped the medallion into his open palm. About the size of a fifty-cent piece, pewter-colored, with symbols etched on both faces. Viktor removed a jeweler's loop from his pocket.
“You an expert?” Malone asked.
“I know enough.”
“The microengravings are there,” Thorvaldsen said. “Greek letters. ZH. Zeta. Eta. It's amazing the ancients possessed the ability to engrave them.”
Viktor continued his examination.
“Satisfied?” Malone asked.
VIKTOR STUDIED THE MEDALLION, AND THOUGH HE DIDN'T HAVE his
microscope or scales, this one seemed genuine.
Actually, the best specimen so far.
He'd come unarmed because he wanted these men to think themselves in charge. Finesse, not force, was needed here. One thing worried him, though. Where was the woman?
He glanced up and allowed the loop to drop into his right hand. “Might I examine it closer, at the window? I need better light.”
“By all means,” the older man said.
“What's your name?” Viktor asked.
“How about Ptolemy?”
Viktor grinned. “There were many. Which one are you?”
“The first. Alexander's most opportunistic general. Claimed Egypt for his prize after Alexander
died. Smart man. His heirs held it for centuries.”
He shook his head. “In the end, the Romans defeated them.”
“Like my museum. Nothing lasts.”
Viktor stepped close to the dusky pane. The man with the gun stood guard at the doorway. He'd only need an instant. As he positioned himself within the shafts of sunlight, his back momentarily to them, he made his move.
CASSIOPEIA SAW A MAN APPEAR FROM THE TREES ON THE FAR SIDE of the house. He was young, thin, and agile. Though last night she'd not seen the
faces of either of the two who'd torched the museum, she recognized the nimble gait and careful approach. One of the thieves.
Heading straight for Thorvaldsen's car.
Thorough, she'd give them that, but not necessarily careful, especially considering that they knew someone was at least a few steps ahead of them.
She watched as the man plunged a knife into both rear tires, then withdrew. MALONE CAUGHT THE SWITCH. VIKTOR HAD DROPPED THE LOOP into his right hand while his left held the medallion. But as the loop was replaced to Viktor's eye and the examination restarted, he noticed that the medallion was now in the right hand, the index finger and thumb of the left hand curled inward, palming the coin.
Not bad. Combined skillfully with the act of moving toward the window and finding the right light. Perfect misdirection.
His gaze caught Thorvaldsen's, but the Dane quickly nodded that he'd seen it, too. Viktor was holding the coin in the light, studying it through the loop. Thorvaldsen shook his head, which signaled let it go.
Malone asked again, “You satisfied?”
Viktor dropped the jeweler's loop into his left hand and pocketed it, along with the real medallion. He then held up the coin he'd switched out, surely the fake from the museum, now returned. “It's genuine.”
“Worth fifty thousand euros?” Thorvaldsen asked.
Viktor nodded. “I'll have the money wired. You tell me where.”
“Call tomorrow to the number from the medallion, as you did earlier, and we'll arrange a trade.”
“Just drop it back in its case,” Malone said.
Viktor walked to the table. “This is quite a game you two are playing.”
“It's no game,” Thorvaldsen said.
“Fifty thousand euros?”
“Like I said, you destroyed my museum.”
Malone spotted the confidence in Viktor's careful eyes. The man had entered a situation not knowing his enemy, thinking himself smarter, and that was always dangerous. Malone, though, had committed a worse mistake.
He'd volunteered, trusting only that his two friends knew what they were doing. EIGHTEEN
XINYANG PROVINCE, C H I N A
3:00 P.M.
ZOVASTINA STARED OUT OF THE HELICOPTER AS THEY LEFT FEDERATION
airspace and flew into extreme western China. Once the area had been a tightly sealed back door to the Soviet Union, guarded by masses of troops. Now the borders were open. Unrestricted transportation and trade. China had been one of the first to formally recognize the Federation, and treaties between the two nations assured that travel and commerce flowed freely.
Xinyang province constituted sixteen percent of China. Mostly mountains and desert, loaded with natural resources. Wholly different from the rest of the country. Less communism. Heavy Islam. Once called East Turkestan, its identity was traceable far more to central Asia than the Middle Kingdom.
The Venetian League had been instrumental in formalizing friendly relations with the Chinese, another reason she'd chosen to join the group. The Great Western Economic Expansion began five years ago, when Beijing started pouring billions into infrastructure and redevelopment all across Xinyang. League members had received many of the contracts for petrochemicals, mining, machine works, road improvements, and construction. Its friends in the Chinese capital were many, as money spoke as loudly in the communist world as anywhere else, and she'd used those connections to her maximum political advantage.
The flight from Samarkand was a little over an hour in the high-speed chopper. She'd made the trek many times and, as always, stared below at the rough terrain, imagining the ancient caravans that once made their way east and west along its famed Silk Road. Jade, coral, linens, glass, gold, iron, garlic, tea–even dwarfs, nubile women, and horses so fierce they were said to have sweated blood–were all traded. Alexander the Great never made it this far east, but Marco Polo had definitely walked that earth.
Ahead, she spotted Kashgar.
The city sat on the edge of the Taklimakan Desert, a hundred and twenty kilometers east from the Federation border, within the shadows of the snowy Pamirs, some of the highest and most barren mountains in the world. A bejeweled oasis, China's western-most metropolis, it had existed, like Samarkand, for over two thousand years. Once a place of bustling open markets and crowded bazaars, now it was consumed by dust, wails, and the falsetto cries of muezzins summoning men to prayer in its four thousand mosques. Three hundred and fifty thousand people lived among its hotels, warehouses, businesses, and shrines. The town walls were long gone and a superhighway, another part of the great economic expansion, now encircled and directed green taxis in all directions.
The helicopter banked north where the landscape buckled. The desert was not far to the east. Taklimakan literally meant “go in and you won't come out.” An apt description for a place with winds so hot they could, and did, kill entire caravans within minutes. She spotted their destination.
A black-glass building in the center of a rock-strewn meadow, the beginnings of a forest a half kilometer behind. Nothing identified the two-story structure, which she knew was owned by Philogen Pharmaceutique, a Luxembourg corporation headquartered in Italy, its largest shareholder an American expatriate with the quite Italian name of Enrico Vincenti. Early on, she'd made a point to learn Vincenti's personal history. He was a virologist, hired by the Iraqis in the 1970s as part of a biological weapons program that the then new leader, Saddam Hussein, wanted to pursue. Hussein had viewed the Biological Toxin Weapons Convention of 1972, which banned germ warfare worldwide, as nothing more than an opportunity. Vincenti had worked with the Iraqis until just before the first Gulf War, when Hussein quickly disbanded the research. Peace brought UN inspectors, which forced a near permanent abandonment. So Vincenti moved on, starting a pharmaceutical company that expanded at a record pace during the 1990s. Now it was the largest in Europe, with an impressive array of patents. A huge multinational conglomerate. Quite an achievement for an unheralded mercenary scientist. Which had long made her wonder. The chopper landed and she hustled inside the building.
The exterior glass walls were merely a facade. Like tables nestled together, another whole structure rose inside. A polished-slate walkway encircled the inner building and bushy indoor plants lined both sides of the walk. The inside stone walls were broken by three sets of double doors. She knew the unique arrangement was a way to quietly ensure security. No external hedgerows topped with strands of barbed wire. No outside guards. No cameras. Nothing to alert anyone that the building was anything special.
She crossed the outer perimeter and approached one of the entrances, her path blocked by a metal gate. A security guard stood behind a marble counter. The gate was controlled by a hand scanner, but she was not required to stop.
On the other side stood an impish man in his late fifties with thinning gray hair and a mousy face. Wire-framed glasses shielded expressionless eyes. He was dressed in a black-and-gold lab coat unbuttoned in the front, a security badge labeled “Grant Lyndsey” clipped to his lapel.
“Welcome, Minister,” he said in English.
She answered his greeting with a look meant to signal annoyance. His e-mail had suggested urgency, and though she'd not liked anything about the summons, she'd canceled her afternoon activities and come.
They entered the inner building.
Beyond the main entrance the path forked. Lyndsey turned left and led her through a maze of windowless corridors. Everything was hospital clean and smelled of chlorine. All of the doors were equipped with electronic locks. At the one labeled “Chief Scientist,” Lyndsey unclipped the ID on his lapel and slid the card through a slot.
Modern decor dominated the windowless office. Each time she visited the same thing struck her as odd. No family pictures. No diplomas on the wall. No mementos. As if this man possessed no life. Which was probably not far from the truth.
“I need to show you something,” Lyndsey said.
He spoke to her as an equal, and that she despised.
His tone always clear that he lived in China and was not subject to her.
He flicked on a monitor that, from a ceiling-mounted camera, displayed a middle-aged woman perched in a chair watching television. She knew the room was on the building's second floor, in the patient ward, as she'd seen images from there before.
“Last week,” Lyndsey said, “I requisitioned a dozen from the prison. Like we've done before.”
She'd been unaware that another clinical trial had been performed. “Why wasn't I told?”
“I didn't know I was required to tell you.”
She heard what he'd not said. Vincenti's in charge. His lab, his people, his concoctions. She'd lied to Enver earlier. She'd not cured him. Vincenti had. A technician from this lab had administered the antiagent. Though she possessed the biological pathogens, Vincenti controlled the remedies. A check and balance born of mistrust, in place from the beginning to ensure that their bargaining positions remained equal.
Lyndsey pointed a remote control and the screen changed to other patient rooms, eight in all, each occupied by a man or woman. Unlike the first, these patients lay supine, connected to intravenous drips.
Not moving.
He slipped off his glasses. “I used only twelve, since they were readily available on short notice. I needed a quick study on the antiagent for the new virus. What I told you about a month ago. A nasty little thing.”
“And where did you find it?”
“In a species of rodent east of here in Heilongjiang province. We'd heard tales of how people became sick after eating the things. Sure enough, there's a complex virus floating around in the rat blood. With a little tweaking, this bugger has punch. Death in less than one day.” He pointed to the screen. “Here's the proof.”
She'd actually asked for a more offensive agent. Something that worked even faster than the twenty-eight she already possessed.