Amazon Roulette

by C. M. Gleason

  Yeah, that she knew. But there was even more Leif didn’t know…couldn’t know, yet.

  Marina clicked on the attached image and peered at the enlarged picture her friend had sent, which, thanks to the high-res screen on her computer, was nearly as clear as real life. Now that she had a sample to compare it to, she saw her colleague’s points. Close enough to be influenced by Bronze Age writings, but not identical.

  Still, it was a vowelless ogam text. No other civilization or culture was using that style and combination of long, straight lines, with others angled or perpendicular to them. The writing was distinctive to the Celts in Bronze Age Ireland and Britain—which was also influenced by the great Phoenician empire, whose trade routes clearly extended to the Iberian Peninsula.

  She hesitated, then pulled out the carved-stone sample she’d received from Roman, or Lev—or whoever from the Skaladeskas had sent the Pandora’s box of priceless artifacts. Yes, she’d taken a chance by bringing it, but there was no way in hell she was going to let this opportunity lapse while Gabe and Helen had her caught up in this investigation. What else was she going to do, stuck in a hotel room or a small, windowless FBI office?

  She still didn’t know what they wanted from her, why it was necessary that she be uprooted and brought to Chicago. Surely they didn’t expect Varden to return. And so what if there was a dead Skaladeska in the morgue…how did bringing her to Chicago help them? Did Darrow think Marina might be able to identify the guy?

  Marina placed the fragment of stone once more next to the picture she’d taken of the Northern Michigan cave images and compared both to the image from Leif van Hoest.

  Three samples: one from Northern Michigan, one sent to her from the Skaladeskas (presumably from the library of Ivan the Terrible, but its origin unknown), and a third one, sent from Leif as a sample of writings from the Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age…

  Her heart pounded and her palms became slick—for right away she saw all the similarities. But she forced herself to take her time, to look closely, carefully, even though she already knew they matched.

  And they did.

  They did.

  A chill rushed over her, followed by a shock of heat and a sudden thudding of her heart. The style and type of text in the three were the same…or very nearly so.

  Her breath turned shallow and quick as the implications set in.

  There had long been fringe theories that Europeans had been in North America as early as 500 BC; that they had traded with the primitive copper miners and taken much of the copper back home with them.

  The Phoenician empire had stretched far beyond the Mediterranean Sea to the Iberian Peninsula and, possibly, to North America, something only few, very few, anthropologists and historians—generally on the periphery of well-respected scholars—believed. There’d never been proof, but Marina suspected she could very well be holding something like that right here.

  There were other instances, too, of findings that were odd or out of place. Findings and discoveries that were unexplained.

  She turned to her computer, fingers flying. Stone pyramids lake Wisconsin, she typed.

  The search results came up: “Rock Lake Wisconsin stone pyramids” was on top, and there was a picture—

  Marina caught her breath as she looked at images that had been taken underwater—at the bottom of Rock Lake in Wisconsin—of a large stone pyramid…a stone pyramid that was the same style and shape, though much larger than the ones Matt Granger had discovered in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

  Her palms were damp and sweaty as she began to mentally connect the dots: the same stone pyramid in a Wisconsin lake as one on a smaller scale in Michigan, near the copper mines. Writings on the wall with the Michigan pyramids that bore more than a strong resemblance to the type of cuneiform characters used by Celt-Iberians, who likely had been influenced by the Phoenicians.

  She tapped on the computer again, trying to remember what she’d heard about an ancient cuneiform tablet found with an American tribe. There had been a Native American leader or chief who’d had one among his effects.

  Who was it? She typed in the search bar, scanned the results… Right. Ah yes. Chief Joseph. She read further, fascinated, and learned the Nez Perce leader had carried a piece of cuneiform in his medicine pouch with an inscription from around 2042 BC…and he claimed it had been passed down from his white ancestors.

  Fascinating…and almost eerily unbelievable. And what if—

  A knock on the hotel door had her spinning from the computer. Gabe already? Marina felt a little nudge of guilt as she closed the laptop and went to answer the knock.

  Her hand was on the knob, just about to turn it, when she looked through the peephole.

  It wasn’t Gabe.

  Marina stepped back from the door, her heart pounding. The man standing on the other side was holding a large tray covered by a white napkin. A metal warming dish was on top of it.

  The only problem was, she hadn’t ordered any food.

  He knocked again, this time announcing, “Room service.”

  Silently, Marina moved from the door and snatched her cell phone from the desk. The only person who might have sent something up was Gabe…and surely he would have warned her. Plus, he wasn’t really the type of guy to do that sort of thing.

  Maybe she was being a little paranoid, but she wasn’t about to take chances.

  She was sending Gabe a text when the knock came again. After a pause, she heard the distinctive sound of a keycard fumbling at the door.

  Her adrenaline went into overdrive as the options barreled through her mind.

  She was across the room—too far away to slam the security bolt closed, and if she made the move and didn’t succeed, he would know someone was in the room. Her best hope was for whoever it was to think the place was empty.

  As the door vibrated, Marina looked around for a weapon, a hiding place, an escape. Damned windows in a hotel room never opened more than a crack. She could hide in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain. Or lock herself inside the bathroom and call for help on her cell.

  The door clicked and the knob turned as Marina ducked into the closet. She crunched herself into the darkest corner, leaving the door half open in hopes the intruder would only give the space a cursory look.

  Just as the door opened, she heard a man’s voice.

  “What the hell are you doing, Bellhane? She’s not in there. I just saw her walking through the parking lot.”

  Marina drew in a sharp, silent breath. She recognized that voice. That accent. That tone.

  The other man, presumably the one who was trying to break into her room, responded, but her heart was pounding too loudly in her ears, and he was speaking indistinctly, so she couldn’t understand what he said—nor the response from his companion.

  The door closed with a dull clunk and rattle, obliterating any further conversation, and Marina tipped her head back against the wall in relief.

  She waited a moment, then stood and made her way out of the closet.

  Rue Varden was standing in the middle of her room.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Marina stared at Varden.

  He stood there, tall and rangy in worn jeans and a leather jacket, looking as nonchalant as if he’d walked into his own room. He wore scuffed boots and was holding coffee in a to-go cup, his swollen thumb still bruised. Though his face seemed drawn and pale. Not a surprise, considering the last time she’d seen him—about seventy-two hours ago—he’d been fairly bleeding to death on her couch. But he still gave off an unmistakable aura of confidence and strength…along with a healthy dose of the arrogance that set her teeth on edge.

  “This is becoming an unwelcome habit, you letting yourself into my private spaces,” she said coolly.

  “I just did you a bloody favor.” He didn’t seem at all surprised that she’d emerged from a hiding place in the closet. Nor was he inclined to comment about it. Instead, he walked over to the closed laptop she’d le
ft on the desk and set down the cup, then picked up not only the photos, but the delicate text sample that matched. She could see the wound she’d stitched at the back of his head, and it appeared to have begun to heal. Someone had even trimmed a little more of the hair away.

  “Sorry if I’m not kissing your feet with gratitude. What the hell are you doing here?” she said.

  He must have noticed she’d scooped the cell phone back into her hand, for he held up a palm of his own to stop her. “Just hold off before you start calling in the cavalry. You just missed being snatched up by one of your uncle’s thugs and taken at gunpoint.”

  “I thought guns were banned from use by the Skaladeskas.”

  Varden’s mouth thinned into a humorless smile. “Only when your uncle is around. Roman is the one who abhors—and fears—them.”

  So Varden didn’t know Roman was her father, not her uncle. Interesting. That raised the question whether Roman himself knew…or if that information was something Victor had told only Marina before he died. “I don’t see any blood pouring from your body, so you’re obviously not here for my surgical skills. What do you want?”

  Something flickered in his eyes as they met hers, and Marina felt an unexpected bolt of attraction stab her in the belly. She had to resist the urge to take a step back.

  “I told you,” he said, his voice subtly lower. “I did you a favor by intervening in what would have been your second—or is it third?—capture by the Skaladeskas. One would have thought you’d learned to be more careful by now.”

  Marina’s cell phone dinged with a text message alert before she could reply. She glanced down to see Gabe’s response: No I did not order room service for you! Don’t open door. Then her phone began to ring—Gabe, of course.

  “If I don’t answer this—”

  “Go ahead.” Varden’s voice and stance clearly challenged her to take the call and report him.

  “Marina,” Gabe said the minute she answered. His voice was tight. “Are you all right?”

  She didn’t know why she responded the way she did. Or maybe she did—maybe it was a combination of curiosity and bravado. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine; sorry to worry you. It was a mistake—they had the wrong room. But the steak sure smelled good!” She laughed and noticed a little of the tension eased from Varden.

  “You’re sure? If you’re in trouble, tell me you’re going to order a hamburger.”

  Marina kept her gaze averted from Varden as she replied, “I’m not hungry right now, but I’ll probably order room service later. Pizza, or the salmon looks good.”

  “All right.” There was obvious relief in his voice. “Good. Look, I’m going to be tied up here for a while longer. I’m due to talk to Sanchez in the next couple of hours, and there’s some other avenues we’re looking into.

  “I’m getting lots of work done. I’ve got a big project on, so—no worries.”

  “All right. Gotta go. Maybe I’ll stop by later tonight…?” His voice dropped low, implying someone was in earshot. Helen Darrow, perhaps?

  “Sure.” Marina couldn’t help giving Varden a side-glance. She suspected he could hear much of both sides of the conversation. He gave her a knowing look that confirmed it, and she merely lifted a brow. “I’ll be here.” Tucking the phone back into the waistband of her yoga pants for easy access, she fixed her attention on her unwanted guest. “How did you know I was here? And be careful with that, please,” she added when he gestured with the delicate stone carving. “It’s several thousand years old.”

  “And I can only guess how it came to you. As for your question…the Skalas always know where you are.”

  Marina felt a nauseating shiver creep over her shoulders, but now she understood a whole lot more. “You’re tracking me. A bug? A GPS? Where? Why?”

  “Lev wants you. And so does Roman. They all do. They need you…or so they think.”

  “You don’t.” The words slipped out before Marina could take them back, and she immediately regretted the way they made her sound. As if she cared.

  “Damn right. You,” he said, his voice cool and bitter, “are a threat to me and my position among the tribe. If you return and take your place as Lev’s granddaughter…well, let’s just say that will adversely affect my influence on him as well as Roman.”

  “Fear not, Dr. Varden. There’s no chance of that happening.”

  “That’s precisely why I’m here. If I hadn’t intervened just now, you’d be in the back of a car and on your way to the Amaz—to the Skaladeskas, whether you wanted to be or not. Lev is not well; he grows more frail by the day. And he is determined to see you.”

  “Is that why you added him—and yourself—to my Skype accounts? So I could communicate, or vice versa, if I chose?”

  “I’m devastated you haven’t attempted to connect with Dr. Herb Grace.” His voice was dry. “Obviously you knew it was me.”

  “Oh yes, so clever of you. All I had to do was a search on Google for ‘herb grace’ and the plant rue came up. A bitter herb, unpleasant and toxic.” She gave him a bright smile. “Needless to say, I made the connection instantly.”

  His lips twitched into something that might have been a smile, but was quickly gone. “I did that under orders from your grandfather. He does want to speak with you. In fact, he’s quite desperate to do so, so he wants several channels of communication open for you.”

  “He sent me the package—and it contained that splinter of stone you’re manhandling. I can only assume you delivered the box?”

  Varden looked down at it, and Marina noticed he didn’t seem to have a trace of the reverence she felt when touching something that old, potentially filled with so many anthropological secrets. It was the rare person who did, which was why it was so important she advocate for these lost treasures. “Yes,” Varden replied. “He figures he’ll tempt you into returning to the fold by showing you some of the treasures therein.”

  “Returning to the fold? I was never in the fold to begin with. I didn’t even know the Skaladeskas still existed until my father disappeared five years ago.”

  “If I’d had my way—and a few others in the fold do feel the same as I do—that wouldn’t have changed. I don’t want you there. In that, at least, we are on the same side.”

  Marina stifled a snort. “Right. I still don’t know why you are here. In my room. You want me to believe you intercepted a kidnapping attempt—which I’ll accept, I suppose, since the guy was breaking in—but why are you still here?”

  “I intercepted Bellhane then sent him off to follow you, telling him you were on your way somewhere in a cab—I’d heard you ask for one at the front desk. Or at least, that’s what he believes. His job is to find you and take you to Lev—willingly or not. I’m here to warn you, so we can avoid having that happen.”

  “So you’ve done that. Thanks. See you later.” She gestured to the door.

  “Where’s your father?”

  “Victor?”

  He looked at her closely, his startling green eyes sharp and suspicious. “You sound as if you aren’t certain.”

  Marina kept her expression blank. “He’s dead.”

  Varden shook his head. “You saved his life. Pulled him from the lake during your escape. You dove into the water and swam after him. Or so it was reported.”

  Discomfort tightened her middle as he studied her. It was almost as if he knew about her fear, about how incredibly impossible it had been for her to force herself to dive into the lake and try to save the man for whom she felt little but antipathy. A man she hardly knew. “Yes. But he died not long after. He wasn’t well to begin with.”

  “You were trying to escape, and he’d done nothing to help you while you were being held captive—in fact, he even interfered…yet you risked your life to save him by diving into a frigid lake.” Oh yes, Rue Varden definitely knew of her fear. And a lot more about her than she’d realized.

  “If you’ve learned anything about me, you know that’s what I do. I’d do it
for anyone.”

  He held her gaze with his for a moment longer, then gave a barely perceptible nod. “Which is why I came to you.” He gestured to the wound at the back of his head. “Although that didn’t keep you from contacting your spook friend.”

  She gave him a cool smile. “Of course not.” Then it was her turn to narrow her eyes on him. “How did you come to have need of my dubious skills, anyway? A tangle with Homeland Security while you were attempting one of your terror plots?”

  The expression that flitted across his face surprised her. Fury was the only way to describe it, but the look was gone in an instant, and his eyes turned from hot to cool. “That was courtesy of Sazma Marcko. He took exception to one of my suggestions, and we got into a…tangle, I believe you called it. A disagreement.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Not by my hand.”

  “So someone else stabbed him.” She lifted a brow.

  “Marcko didn’t die from a stab wound.”

  She couldn’t deny that, and apparently, neither could he. “The beetles. You must know about them.”

  Varden lifted a brow. “Beetles?”

  She gritted her teeth. “Don’t play the innocent. We both know how Marcko died—though you certainly helped him along the way. And speaking of your predilection for violence…you shot Gabe MacNeil when we were in Siberia. But not enough to kill. Why?”

  Varden shrugged. “Maybe I missed.”

  “At that close range?”

  “‘First, do no harm.’ Despite my predilection for violence, as you put it, I’m a doctor, remember?” He turned to replace the stone splinter on the desk.

  “But you’re also a Skaladeska. You’ve got plenty of blood on your hands. What’s a little more?”