Silver

by Brian January

  Skarda turned away, fighting down an urge to vomit.

  But April’s black eyes were impassive. “That would have been you,” she said.

  His stomach flip-flopping, Skarda turned back, deliberately avoiding the sight of the ruptured corpse.

  She stooped, searching through the diver’s gear. In a pouch she found extra CO2 cartridges for the knife and held them up. “These might come in handy later.” She yanked the WASP from his gut and wiped off the blood.

  Skarda looked away. To the east the stricken Cranchi was nearing the far headland, tugged by the tide. OSR would send a team to retrieve it and take care of the bodies.

  He gave a mournful shake to his head and pulled out the silver finger bone, turning it over in his hand. Then he looked out to sea. “I’ve got a funny feeling this is going to get a lot worse before it’s over.”

  April eyed him with an expression he couldn’t read. “It always does.”

  TWO

  Tyrrhenian Sea, Off the East Coast of Sardinia

  THE 190-foot sailing yacht Tethys rocked gently in a light chop, the warm illumination from its two deckhouses splashing scallops of light onto the dark sea that surrounded it. With the approach of dusk the wind had died, and the captain had ordered the sails stowed and a drift anchor set for the night.

  Now it was party time.

  The thumping boom of a hip-hop rap leaked from the fore deckhouse, interrupted by the bright squeal of a young woman’s laughter. At the bow, a crewman in his early twenties leaned against the rail, smoking a cigarette and watching a waxing three-quarter moon rise above the eastern horizon.

  He was the only person on deck.

  From the southeast came a disturbance in the water, the bow wake of an oncoming vessel, phosphorescent in the moonlight. It was a thirty-five-foot go-fast boat, powered by an electric engine that made only a whisper of sound.

  Leaning forward in the cockpit, Morgana Lafayette bared her teeth in a savage grin. The moon’s rays brushed over the bare skin of her face and arms, turning it to a metallic bronze, and a stray breeze played with the thick tendrils of black hair that coiled down the sides of her face and tumbled onto her shoulders. Her pale gray eyes shone like silver coins.

  The pilot maneuvered the boat closer. The Tethys’ transom was raked sharply aft, draping Morgana in shadow as they moved beneath it. She put out a hand to steady the boat, then nodded at her lieutenant, an Athenian in his late twenties named Makris. Slung around his neck was a Chinese QBZ-95 assault rifle.

  He returned the nod. Stretching his body out flat on the angled slope of the stern, he inched forward by raw muscle power until he could reach the bottom rung of the deck rail. Then he grabbed it and hauled himself up, swinging around to stretch out his hand to Morgana. She scrambled aboard. Three other men followed, also carrying Chinese rifles.

  Stretching to her full height on the Tethys’ deck, she grinned again. She was wearing black paratrooper cargo pants, a black T-shirt, and Haix tactical boots. Slung across her left breast and shoulder was a black leather baldric that strapped in a Scorpion SA Vz 61 submachine gun and a twenty-four-inch cutlass made from black carbon steel.

  So far, the man on the bow hadn’t heard them—hardly a surprise given the pounding thump of the music from below. Morgana could see his silhouette, his body turned to look out to sea, his shoulders and legs bobbing up and down to the beat. She assumed he had been given guard duty to prevent anyone from the party from falling over the side in a drunken stupor.

  Pulling out a pneumatic pistol, Makris padded forward on the starboard side, hugging what little shadow he could find, keeping his eyes trained on the sentinel. When he’d moved within range, he aimed and fired.

  A second later a dart sprouted from the crewman’s neck. He whipped around, his eyes going wide when he saw the five intruders advancing on him, the cigarette dropping from his nerveless fingers.

  Then his knees buckled and he hit the deck, unconscious. The 2cc’s of telezol would keep him out of commission for hours.

  Morgana moved ahead, making her way past the yacht owner’s private cockpit, now covered by a canopy. The Tethys was a ketch-rigged boat, and so had a mizzen mast aft of the main mast; just in front of this was the aft deckhouse. She passed this by, heading for the bow. The main salon, where the party was going on, was just forward of the pilot house and the twin helm and navigation stations. In front of this were the crews’ quarters.

  They had to take out the crew first.

  She stepped into the main deckhouse. Inside, the noise of the party was louder, the music booming in her ears. Two companionways had their openings here: one for the salon and one that led to the passageways to the various cabins inside the yacht. She chose the second, leading her crew silently down the spiral staircase.

  At the bottom of the companionway they stepped into a mahogany-lined corridor that opened immediately onto a pristine galley, now empty. Ahead Morgana could hear the sound of music—different from the drumbeat from the salon—mingled with the laughter of men.

  Padding closer, she peeked inside a cabin door. It was the common room for the crew: five young men sat at an hexagonal-shaped table drinking beer and playing cards. On the wall behind them a large, flat-screened television played a movie with the sound turned low. A wireless speaker blasted out a stream of rock music.

  So five men here, plus the guard on the bow. That left two more of the crew of eight: the captain and first mate.

  They had to be at the party.

  Pulling out her Scorpion, Morgana stepped into the room and grinned. “Hi, boys.”

  Heads snapped up. Eyes went wide with shock and alarm. The crewman nearest her leapt from his chair, but she lifted the submachine gun, pinning him in place with the muzzle.

  “Play nice now. Settle down. We won’t hurt you.”

  Then Makris stepped up behind her, shooting each man with a telezol dart. Within moments they had slumped over the table, unconscious.

  Morgana turned to him. “Take Mr. Bergerac and go through the passengers’ and owner’s cabins and find what you can find.” She gestured at the other two men of her crew. “It’s party time. Let’s rock and roll.”

  ___

  Inside the salon, Achille Vacarra, owner of the Tethys, beamed. The commissioning of the superyacht had been the fulfillment of a childhood fantasy—but more than that, it was proof. Proof that Achille Vaccara, the little street urchin from the back alleys of Palermo, was somebody. He was a man. The man. How many people in this world could rise above bone-crushing poverty and become a multi-millionaire before the age of forty?

  No one could say he wasn’t a success.

  A man.

  Pouring a glass of Brunello di Montalcino, he looked across the room at his beautiful wife, fourteen years younger than he was. She was also proof of his manhood. She was standing in a knot of his friends, all successful like himself. Everyone drinking, dancing, having a good time.

  His gaze swept over the salon, lingering on a woman. She was a young one—eighteen, maybe twenty at the most. The daughter of a business associate of his. Exceptionally hot, with long, tapering legs and perfect breasts. Earlier in the day, he’d seen her sunning on the foredeck. She’d known he was watching her and she took her top off, just to entice him. To lure him in. Because she knew what he had and she wanted it, too.

  His tongue flicked out, wetting his lips. He’d just decided. He was going to make it a priority to make her one of his mistresses.

  Just then the cabin door crashed open and a tall woman and two men barged into the room, guns drawn.

  ___

  In the passageway next to the passenger cabins Marsik turned to Bergerac and indicated the starboard side doors with a lift of his chin. Bergerac nodded, crossing silently to the nearest cabin, while Marsik moved toward the port side.

  Depressing the latch, Bergerac opened the door and stepped inside, flicking on the light. Like the rest of the yacht, the walls were paneled in hand-rubbed
mahogany that gleamed in the subdued glow. The cabin itself smelled like a woman—expensive perfume, fruity shampoo.

  Padding forward, the Frenchman moved through the sitting room and into the open door of the bedroom.

  He stopped short.

  On the bed a girl lay on her back in a tangle of sheets. She was about his own age—eighteen or nineteen—and wearing a short dress, her legs spread apart, her arms flung wide. Obviously she’d had too much to drink and had come back to her room to crash.

  And she’d obviously just started to undress before she passed out, because the top of her dress was pulled down to the waist, exposing heavy breasts that gravity was dragging down the slopes of each side of her rib cage.

  Bergerac stared as a wave of lust shook him. His mind reeled.

  Then, setting his rifle down on the dresser, he moved toward her.

  ___

  Achille Vaccara glared at the bronze-skinned, feral-looking woman with the baldric and cutlass who had invaded his boat. “What are you supposed to be—some kind of pirate?” His voice was husky and low, thick with a Sicilian accent.

  Morgana smiled with exaggerated politeness. “That’s exactly what I’m supposed to be, Mr. Vaccara. A pirate. And I’ve just captured your yacht.”

  Vaccara started, alarmed that this woman knew his name. But then his face hardened into a rictus of hate. “Get off my boat.”

  At his side, the captain, a white-haired man in his fifties, darted his eyes, looking for an escape route and finding none. All around him shocked and terrified faces stared in disbelief.

  Morgana made a gesture and her men took up positions covering the two exits. “Just stay where you are, Captain,” she said. “We don’t want to hurt anybody. We just want your money—cash, jewels, that kind of thing. The sooner we get it, the sooner we’ll be on our way.”

  The captain fixed her with a cold eye. “I suppose you’ve disabled my crew?”

  “All gone beddy-bye. Now...where are those valuables?”

  He shook his head. “There’s no cash aboard. I can vouch for that.”

  She favored him with an indulgent smile. “I know you’ve recently been to Monaco and I know that Mr. Vaccara won a considerable sum of money at the baccarat tables.”

  The Sicilian scowled. “Don’t say a word, Captain. This woman is scum. She’s just a smash-and-grab artist. A petty thief.”

  Morgana’s silver eyes seemed to harden into plates of metal. “I may be a thief, Mr. Vaccara, but I’m not petty.”

  With that, she jerked the Scorpion at the ceiling and let loose a long burst of slugs. Chunks of Venetian plaster rained down. Women’s screams tore through the room. Party-goers hit the floor, ducking.

  Her second burst slashed into the sound system. Abruptly the music stopped.

  “I’m not a big rap fan,” she said.

  The display of violence didn’t seem to trouble Vaccara. He stood where he was, glaring at her with hot venom.

  Morgana addressed the captain. “Again...the money?” She swung the Scorpion, pointing it at Vaccara’s chest.

  “Keep your mouth shut,” he snarled.

  The captain hesitated. He had no reason to prove his machismo the way the owner of the yacht did. And he was well aware of the executions committed by Somali pirates off the east African coast.

  Vaccara read his indecision. “Stay where you are,” he ordered. “She won’t shoot.”

  From the passageway outside came the scuffle of feet. The door was flung open and Makris shoved Bergerac into the salon, his face stern. Bergerac had no gun in his hands: it was slung around Makris’ shoulder.

  And Makris had his rifle trained on the Frenchman’s back.

  He marched his captive up to Morgana. “I found him in a bedroom. There was a girl on the bed.”

  In the crowd a woman gasped. A man started forward, “You goddam—“

  Whirling, Morgana sighted the Scorpion between his eyes. “Quiet!”

  With a stony glare, the man backed down.

  She swung around back to Makris, her face dark with anger. “Did he touch her?”

  The Greek nodded.

  Her voice was arctic cold when she turned to face the Frenchman. “When you signed on with me, I explained my code to you. You broke that code.”

  Bergerac’s face paled.

  She turned to Makris. “Which hand did he touch her with?”

  “Right.”

  Bergerac let out a sharp shriek, followed by a babble of words in French. He whirled towards the door, his legs pumping—

  But Morgana’s hand flashed, almost too quick to follow. The cutlass was a blur of black motion as it licked out—

  In a shower of blood Bergerac’s right arm jumped from his shoulder. It hit the floor with a solid thud.

  For a moment he just gaped down at it, then sagged to his knees and stared up at her with unbelieving eyes.

  Around the salon pale faces stared in shock.

  “I’ll get the cash,” the captain said.

  THREE

  The Archaeological Museum of Phaistos, Phaistos, Crete

  IT took a lot to shake April’s composure, but Nathaniel Bennett did.

  “He’s gorgeous!” she whispered into Skarda’s ear as they neared the lab table where a man was sitting with his shoulders hunched forward, his nose an inch away from the screen of a laptop. Next to him, on a metal easel, rested a disk about six inches in diameter that had been fired out of an ochre-colored clay.

  They were in the rear of the main museum building, a neoclassical structure built of stone and mustard-colored stucco that housed an impressive collection of Minoan artifacts, from the Neolithic through the Post-Palatial Period. OSR’s file on Bennett had emphasized his brilliance: Ph.D. from Yale in Classical Languages and Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at twenty-one, followed closely by doctorates in Archaeology and Anthropology from Cambridge and the University of Chicago; fluent in Latin, ancient Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics, German, French, Russian, modern Greek, plus well-versed in ancient Anatolian and Near Eastern scripts and a specialist in the untranslated Minoan language known as Linear A. To date he’d published almost a hundred papers and monographs in prestigious academic and scholarly journals.

  Skarda and April crossed the room, their boots making distinct echoing noises on the tile floor. But the scholar didn’t look up.

  Now, as they moved closer, Skarda could understand what April meant. Dr. Nathaniel Bennett was a few years younger than his own thirty-two, with curls of light brown hair cascading around his face like a waterfall, and a profile that would send a Hollywood agent scurrying for a contract.

  “Dr. Bennett?” Skarda asked.

  Still he didn’t look up. Skarda tried to trade a glance with April, but she was staring as if she were mesmerized. Self-consciously she brushed some loose strands of hair from her face.

  He rolled his eyes. “I’ve never seen you like this,” he whispered into her ear. “You’re all aflutter.”

  She scowled and stepped away from him, her black eyes flashing. “I don’t flutter.”

  He grinned as she pinned him with her stare.

  He tried again. “Dr. Bennett...?”

  No answer.

  Skarda tapped him on the shoulder.

  With a startled cry the scholar jumped, then jerked up straight and swiveled around in his chair, looking at them, blinking rapidly.

  “Oh...yes! Sorry! I didn’t see you there! This thing has got me lost in my own world, I guess. Fascinating!” He waggled a finger at the disk, where rows of anthropomorphic glyphs marched in a spiraling circle toward the center. “I’m of the opinion that this isn’t Linear A at all, but more closely related to Cretan Hieroglyphic, which, in turn, can be traced back to Vinca. At least I think it can! After all, the Minoans started as a Neolithic culture, didn’t they? Figurines incised with Vinca symbols have been found dating from 6000 BCE.” He paused and cocked his head as a thought struck him. “Of course, it could also be an earl
y form of Hittite/Luwian—I see some correspondence in some of the signs. Perhaps whoever made the disk was fluent in Hittite and Linear A? Hmmm...yes! I’m going to have to ponder that one! But back to Vinca.” He pointed his index finger at a section of the disk. “This fish pictogram has antecedents in a similar symbol in Proto-Byblic that was later stylized into the sign for the syllable ‘MI’ in Linear A. This, of course, was carried over into Linear B, although in a simplified form. So that proves my point, don’t you think? Linear A is at heart a Semitic language, but heavily influenced by Proto-Indo-European—it’s a mutt!” He chuckled merrily. “But ultimately it derives from Upper Paleolithic and early Neolithic syllabaries. The correspondences between Linear A and the Old European script are remarkable!”