The Medici Dagger

by Cameron West

  “Anything left in there?” I asked.

  He looked at me pleadingly. “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right,” I replied, then double-dosed him. “Sweet dreams and a peach, Mobright.”

  nine

  Idouble-dosed Pendelton, and Beckett, too. That gave us maybe four hours to do whatever we were going to do before Gibraltar was back on the snoop. I was confused and pissed, but at least I was in control. I had no idea where we were, but if Beckett was telling the truth, then we had to be in some sort of official building with other Gibraltar agents around, so I stripped Pendelton and put on his clothes to increase our chances of blending in.Ginny was semi-anesthetized and couldn’t have cared less about clothes; she was still trying to figure out why we weren’t jogging. I got her to do some deep breathing, which seemed to clear her head some. Then I ran my knuckles up and down her spine and massaged her shoulders like she was the champ. This recharged her enough to prevent her from bumping into things while we were escaping.

  When Ginny asked what was going on, I instructed her to just do what I said and everything would be all right. For once she put up no argument.

  Before we left the room, I inspected the closet. Beckett’s raincoat and hat were in there, all right. I slipped the coat on Ginny and with our chins down, we entered the hall. We appeared to be in a hotel after all, and made our way down two flights of stairs, passing half a dozen people, none of whom seemed interested in us.

  By the time we made it out to the street, adrenaline had replaced most of the evil stuff in Ginny’s system, and her eyes were clear andpurposeful. We quickly melted into the throng of Milanese and tourists on the sidewalk.

  “All right,” Ginny barked, “what the hell wasthatabout?”

  She’s back.“Check where we are,” I said. “Can we walk back to the hotel or do we need to get a cab?”

  She regarded the street sign. “It’s two streets over. That way.”

  I took her by the elbow. “Let’s go.”

  “Hey, give me a second, will you? I’m dizzy.”

  “Sorry,” I said, slowing down a bit.

  “Who were those people?”

  “Gibraltar,” I said.

  “Gibraltar? That’s a rock . . . and a mutual fund.”

  The lunch crowd provided us great cover.“It’s also some kind of government intelligence agency,” I said, “unless Beckett is an amazing liar. I don’t know. I’ve never heard of Gibraltar. How can we be sure they’re not working for Krell? And how’d they track us to Milan. Is Tecci here?”

  “Who’s Beckett?” Ginny asked, way behind me.

  “The top dog. I knocked him out with a tasty uppercut.”

  Ginny stopped dead in her tracks. “You socked a government intelligence agent?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. An international one, actually.”

  I tugged on her like a Central Park pony. She stumbled forward, staring at me. “And by the way,” I added, “nobody says ‘sock’ anymore. Not since poodle skirts went out.”

  “Who cares?” she said. “The government will protect us from Krell. Governments protect people.”

  “No they don’t. And besides, he called me homespun! The smug son of a bitch.”

  “So, naturally, you socked him.”

  “And drugged him. Mobright and his buddy, too.”

  Ginny looked at me as though I had committed a grievous error. A tour bus honked loudly as it maneuvered toward us through the heavy traffic.

  I shrugged. “Listen, I’m improvising, all right?”

  We passed a busy fruit stand where a lady called out,“Mele, ciliegie, banane!”The deep red cherries caught my eye.

  In my peripheral vision I spotted two grim-faced guys in wraparound shades, charging up the street, coats open.

  Damn!

  “I’m really sorry,” I said to Ginny, shoving her hard into a group of people, knocking over the stand, sending fruit flying. I whistled loudly at the two guys, waving at them with my other hand.

  The bus was thirty feet from me. I dashed into the street right in front. The driver went wide-eyed, honked his air horn, and tromped on the brakes just as I dove under, watching the squealing tires to see if they were going straight or fishtailing. If they fishtailed I was dead. They stayed straight.

  I heard screams from the crowd as the bus passed over me, stopping while I was still under it. The floor above reverberated with the tromping of feet and shouting passengers.

  I feigned a scream of pain. Horrified faces appeared through the tire smoke. I scanned them for the two grim ones. I saw one. Then it disappeared. I watched his brown shoes rush toward the back of the bus. I spun my body around like a break-dancer and pulled my knee up for a karate kick. The shoes stopped. One big-knuckled hand touched the pavement. I saw a gun with a silencer in the other; then the emotionless face angled over. I launched the kick as hard as I could, heel out.

  I heard the satisfying crack of bone, teeth, and sunglasses, as blood spurted from his nose and mouth. Then his unconscious head smacked on the pavement. The gun lay in his limp hand. I scanned around me. More faces.

  I caught sight of the second guy, midway up on the fruit-stand side. He saw me look at him and smiled, then disappeared. His black shoes headed for the back. My only thought was to get to the other guy’s gun. As I lunged for it, the shoulder of Pendelton’s big jacketsnagged on a piece of the bus frame. I tugged at it frantically, once, twice, a third time before it tore loose.

  The black shoes stopped next to the rear tire. I dove for the gun, but someone picked it up. I looked back at my pursuer. Sunglasses, sideways smiling face. Gun with a silencer pointing at me, finger on the trigger.Too late. It’s over. Then a “poof” sound like a fist hitting a pillow. For an instant I thought I was shot; then I saw the smile disappear, the face hit the road, the silvery glare of sunlight on spreading blood. Someone had killed him.

  Rolling out from under the bus, I sprang to my feet, looking for the shooter, and saw Ginny. Then through the throng I saw a male figure wearing a cap and a big coat rushing toward her in the midst of confused people and scattered fruit.

  “Ginny!” I shouted.“He’s got a gun!”

  She turned toward the sound of my voice and covered her face in terror. The man reached into his pocket. Then, as if in slow motion, I saw him press something into Ginny’s hand and rush off, disappearing into the milling crowd. Astonished, I dashed over and dragged her away.

  We ran as fast as we could, zigzagging through the tangled streets until we were out of breath and certain that no one had followed.

  Sweat pouring, we stopped in an alley and leaned side by side against a dirty brick building.

  I took in the sight of Ginny—drenched hair, heaving chest. I wanted to hold her and smother her with kisses.

  Ginny wiped perspiration off her face, leaving a bright red streak.

  “Are you cut?” I asked desperately.

  “I-I don’t think so. I . . . it’s . . .” She checked her hand carefully and licked the red liquid. “Cherry juice. You pushed me into a goddamn fruit stand, you asshole!”

  “Yeah,” I said, breathing a big sigh of relief. “I did.”

  She frowned at me. “Please tell me what the hell just happened.”

  I did, although I refrained from admitting that I would have let thebus flatten me or taken a chestful of bullets if it would have kept her safe.

  “So the third guy—the one who ran toward me—he shot that other one who was going to kill you?”

  “He must have.”

  “And you thought he was going to shoot me? You know how much you scared me?”

  “Yes I do. Did you get a look at his face?”

  She shook her head. “You think it was your friend Archie?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. What did he put in your hand?”

  “This,” Ginny said, handing me a crumpled business card.

  I flattened it out. A phone number and the handwr
itten name Dracco.

  The wail of police sirens several streets over made Ginny shudder. “Dracco?” she said. “Who the hell is Dracco?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Crammed into a telephone booth, Ginny standing on tiptoe next to me, leaning in to listen, I dialed the number. A gruff voice on the other end of the phone said,“Cosa vuoi?”“Dracco?” I asked.

  Silence.

  “Sono un amico di Archie Ferris.”

  Nothing, then click. He’d hung up.

  Ginny and I looked at each other, puzzled. I dialed again.

  Same voice.“Cosa vuoi?”

  “Dracco? Um, io sono un amico di—”

  Click. I was starting to get mad. So was Ginny.

  “Give me this,” she said, ripping the phone out of my hand. She jabbed in the number. The same voice answered,“Cosa—”

  “Ascolti, idiota!”Ginny yelled.“Qualcuno mi ha dato un biglietto da visita col suo nome. Io sono con un ragazzo chiamato Reb.”

  I got the“Listen, you idiot”and“Reb”parts.

  Ginny covered the mouthpiece and whispered to me, “I told him about the card.”

  “Reb?” I heard the man on the phone say.

  “Si,”she said into the phone. “Reb.”

  “Hollywood Reb?”

  “Si.”

  “Well, put the fucker on, for chrissakes.”

  Ginny raised her eyebrows, passed me the phone.

  Everybody loves Hollywood.“Dracco?” I said.

  “The same.”

  “Why did you hang up on me?”

  “Policy.”

  “Uh-huh. Listen, a guy shot somebody on my behalf and then gave your card to my friend before taking off.”

  “Shot a guy, gave the girl a card. I see,” he said flippantly. “How ’bout that.”

  “Yeah. Then I say Archie Ferris and you hang up on me twice.”

  “I’ve seen all your movies, Hollywood Reb.”

  “Ar-chie Fer-ris,” I repeated slowly.

  “You say those words like you wanna win something.”

  “I’m hanging up,” I told him.

  “Okay by me.”

  “Come on, Dracco. Give me something.”

  After a pause he said, “All right. Somebody knows me thinks you got cash and a reason to leave the country without a trace. Don’t bother asking me who.”

  “So you’re in the travel business?”

  “I got a Gulfstream Five and a forty-thousand-dollar opening in my schedule right now,” Dracco said. “Anywhere you wanna go. It doesn’t say so on my card, but it’s implied.”

  “I see,” I replied, looking at Ginny. “Anywhere.”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” he said.

  His offer sounded good to me. “Can I call you back in a couple of minutes?”

  “Why not.”

  We rang off.

  “Did you hear all that?” I asked Ginny.

  “What do you think? Is this a setup?”

  We both whipped around at the sound of footsteps behind us. An old man wearing a dirty apron emptied his trash and disappeared into his store.

  I looked into Ginny’s eyes.

  “I think these things: The two men at the bus must have been Tecci’s. Somehow they picked us up; I have no idea how. The man who saved us and gave you the card must have been sent by Archie. We’re in danger here and we no longer have any weapons, but unless someone’s broken into the hotel vault, we still have Leonardo’s two pages, which you need to finish translating. And, I believe we’re the only ones with the Circles of Truth.”

  “Right. Well, whatever the rest of Leonardo’s writing says, I don’t have the first clue about the Circles themselves. They just look like elaborate graphic designs to me. I mean it would take a—”

  “Whoa!” I said, a strange feeling washing over me. Thoughts snapped like thumbnails on wooden match heads.Mona Kinsky!Last night at the hotel with Ginny, something had sparked a memory when we’d talked about searching for a pattern in the Circles of Truth, but I hadn’t been able to identify it then. Now I did. Patterns, graphic designs.Mona Kinsky! Of course!

  “What you just said,” I told Ginny excitedly. “Graphic design . . . the Circles of Truth are a graphic design. What we need is a computer graphics expert.”

  “It’s got to be someone we can trust.”

  “It is.”

  “Who?”

  “Mona Kinsky.” I fished a coin out of my pocket. “This is so weird . . . Mona . . . dear old Mona.”

  “Dear—old—Mona?” Ginny asked, incredulous.

  “I’m calling Dracco back. I’m booking him.”

  “We’re hiring Dracco?”

  “And his plane,” I added, my stomach getting queasy at the thought of flying. “As much as I hate to say it, we’re taking to the sky, Ginny.”

  “You have forty thousand dollars?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “On you?”

  “On me.”

  “Wow. Okay, where are we going?”

  “California.” I picked up the telephone receiver.

  Ginny sidled up to me, looking anxiously around her. “What about Gibraltar?”

  “Another excellent reason to get out of here,” I said. “Beckett and his bunch will be after us as soon as they come to, which is going to be sooner than we’d like.”

  I was suddenly aware of how close our bodies were to each other, how her musky scent drew me in. I needed clarity, not inebriation.

  “But they could be good guys,” Ginny argued.

  “What?” I said, snapping out of it. “I thought we went over this.”

  More police sirens Dopplered by us, heading for the bus scene.

  “I’m dialing now,” I told her. “I’m booking the flight nonstop to L.A. It’s the same fare for one as for two.” Ginny slapped me on the shoulder as Dracco’s gruff voice answered,“Cosa vuoi?”

  He told us to meet him in an hour at Linate Airport in his private hangar. Forty G’s American, two passengers.

  Ginny and I made our way back to the Four Seasons, where we changed and gathered our clothes, which had obviously been rifled through by Mobright. As I’d suspected, my key-on-the-windowledge trick had worked. I thanked God and my high-school physics teacher. Retrieving Leonardo and the sundries from the vault, we were off.

  Dracco was where he said he’d be. A swarthy, muscular man with a huge handlebar mustache, he wore what looked like an Armani pilot’s suit and mirrored aviator sunglasses.I showed him the business card, which he glanced at and handed back to me. “Tell me about the guy who wrote your name on that card.”

  Dracco smiled devilishly, revealing a gold canine tooth. “Relax,” he said. “There’s an old saying that everyone can keep a secret, it’s the people they tell who can’t. Only the first part applies to me. That means you don’t find out who gave her the card and nobody else finds out I took you to Tinseltown. Now show me some cash. I’m a busy man.”

  I forked over the money. Dracco counted it, stating matter-of-factly that he had filed a phony flight plan, the jet was fueled, there was plenty of food and drinks, and we had nothing to worry about.

  I could feel my hands begin to shake. Stuffing them in my pockets, I followed Dracco and Ginny onto the plane. He told us to enjoy the flight, then stepped up front and closed the pilot’s door. Ginny and I strapped ourselves into the luxurious leather seats. Within five minutes we were airborne. Within six, Ginny was dissecting me with her stare.

  “What are you doing there, balling your fists in your pockets?” she prodded. “Are you cold?”

  “Shouldn’t you start translating now or do you puke on planes, too?”

  She crossed her legs, waited.

  “Look,” I said. “I don’t like flying. That’s all.”

  “That’s obvious. Why not?”

  “Ginny,” I pleaded. “Leaves catch fire when you put them under a magnifying glass.”

  “That’s an interesting reference,” she said. �
��All right, we’ll change subjects. Who’s dear old Mona?”

  I looked out the window at the dwindling city below.

  “Mona was Martha Belle Tucker’s best friend.”

  “Who’s Martha Belle Tucker?”

  “I knew it. After the fire there’d been no one to take me, so—”

  “No one?” Ginny interrupted. “No aunts or uncles?”

  “One uncle on my mother’s side. Dell. And he didn’t want any part of me.”

  “Why not?”

  “The only thing I knew about him was what my mother had told me. That he was a wild kid, had run away from home at sixteen or so to race cars, which hadn’t panned out, so he became a truck driver—a rambling man. My mother hadn’t seen him in years. Anyway, when they dug Dell up, he wasn’t . . .”

  “Interested in rambling with an eleven-year-old.”

  “No.”

  “That must have felt terrible, to be unwanted.”

  “By Dell? I didn’t know him. Besides, I was in shock. I didn’t feel . . . anything, I guess.” I hadn’t said those words before. They sounded solitary, like the single bounce of a basketball in an empty gymnasium.

  “Of course,” Ginny said. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry for me,” I told her, shutting the door on my emotions. “Anyway, it looked as though I was going to end up a ward of the state. Then, out of nowhere, Martha stepped in.”

  “And she was . . .”

  “A mathematician. A college professor. My mother’s favorite teacher at Vanderbilt University. After my mother graduated, she kept up with Martha, called her every so often and sent her letters and pictures—first of my dad, then me.”

  “And she just showed up?”

  “Martha heard about the fire on the news, found out about my situation through an ex-colleague who lived in D.C., and decided to have a look at me to see if there was something she could do.”

  “Was she married?” Ginny asked.

  “Her husband had died of a heart attack, and she was living alone;she’d relocated and was teaching at the University of California at Berkeley. Martha hadn’t been able to have kids of her own, even though she’d wanted them, and she and George never adopted because he was against it.”