God of Thunder

by Alex Archer

  What she'd told Bart – about looking beneath the surface – had stuck in her mind. The tile with the dog on the front was an obvious knockoff of a genuine Roman mosaic. So what lurked beneath the surface of the tessera?

  She took out her Swiss Army knife and opened the flathead screwdriver blade. Gingerly, she started prying at one of the tessera on the top left corner. On a dig, everything was done by grid identification, grid by grid.

  The glass piece popped free without breaking, which was encouraging. She placed the tessera on the table, leaving room for the others as she took them off, as well.

  Pushing her plate aside, Annja continued taking the glass squares off the glazed ceramic backboard.

  Mario's note had told her to remember Haltwhistle. That had to have been a reference to the fight over the faux Roman artifacts.

  The mosaic obviously wasn't an artifact, so it was false. But Annja had to wonder how false it was. Mario had also said that an omelette couldn't be made without breaking eggs. That had to be a clue that she was supposed to take the mosaic apart. At least, she hoped it was. But she kept the tessera in order so she could put it back together if she needed to.

  Time to see what's beneath the surface, she told herself. Excitement flared within her. It always did when she felt she was about to make a discovery.

  Chapter 15

  Wolfram Schluter drove the metallic-silver-and-blue Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren hard through the late-afternoon traffic flooding out of Vienna. The adrenaline rush from the speed, almost too much for the twisting, narrow highway he was on, flowed through him and he relished it because it washed away the feeling of failure he'd carried with him out of Riga the night before.

  He'd departed by private jet from Riga and flown to Vienna. The Mercedes, his private car, had been waiting there. He'd driven it rather than take the helicopter that followed him overhead.

  Schluter liked to feel in control of his life. Nothing gave him the same kind of pleasure that driving did. Women, drugs and alcohol all paled in comparison to the excitement he felt behind the wheel of a sports car.

  He swooped into a turn. For a moment the tires broke loose, skidding across the road. If he wrecked, he was going to spread four hundred thousand dollars of elegant racing machinery across the thick forest at the side of the highway.

  Instead, he slowly muscled the car back onto the road, pushing his foot down harder on the accelerator. Then he was leveled out again and running at over 110 miles per hour.

  The big man in the passenger seat held on to his seat belt and uttered a combined curse and prayer. He was a professional bodyguard and had fought in a half-dozen wars scattered throughout Africa.

  It amused Schluter that the man was obviously afraid. Schluter was small next to him. Standing five feet ten, with a slender build, Schluter knew that an observer would have thought the big man could break him in half.

  At thirty-one, Schluter possessed the inherent good looks of his forebears. He was a true Aryan, and his bloodline was pure. His shock of blond hair looked almost white. His eyes were like bright sapphires. He was clean-shaven and looked even younger than his years.

  "What's wrong, Gustav?" Schluter taunted the big man over the roar of German industrial metal hammering through the speakers.

  "Nothing, Baron Schluter." The bodyguard's voice was a dry whisper.

  Schluter burned up the distance between himself and the slow-moving truck in front of him. "You look worried."

  "No," the big man said quietly.

  Gunning the engine, downshifting to fourth gear for just a moment, Schluter knew that his bodyguards drew straws to see who would have to ride with him when he chose to drive. None of them wanted to be with him the day he lost the road, and they were all sure that day would come.

  ****

  Twenty minutes later, with almost as many near mishaps, Schluter regretfully pulled off the highway and onto the private road that led to his ancestral castle outside Vienna. Tall spruce and pine trees arched over the road, covering it from view from above.

  The bodyguards didn't care for that, either, but the woods had always surrounded the castle and his grandmother wouldn't have it any other way.

  Thinking of his grandmother took away some of the pleasure Schluter had derived from the overland trip from Vienna. All of his life, he'd lived under her thumb. But she was getting old. She wouldn't be there to interfere with him much longer. He looked forward to that day.

  ****

  The castle sat on a hill only a few miles from Leopoldsberg, the mountainous area that overlooked Vienna. Since the eleventh century, the castle had existed in one form or another and been home to the Schluter barons. It had served King Jan III Sobieski during the Second Siege of Vienna.

  A Schluter had commanded in the Polish Austrian army then, and Castle Schluter had served as a supply depot and quartered the troops and the king at times.

  Wolfram couldn't remember which one of his ancestors had been there. If his grandmother knew he'd forgotten, she would have taken umbrage with him. For an old woman, she was quick with her hands.

  And Schluter knew she wouldn't hesitate to kill him if she wanted to. She was a monster.

  She had murdered his father, then poisoned her own daughter for being weak enough to marry such a man. His grandmother had also forced his mother to write out her own suicide note before drinking the barbiturates. His grandmother had made him watch as his mother died horribly.

  Wolfram had been seven years old. It was the worst thing he'd ever witnessed. Especially since he'd thought she was going to kill him next.

  His grandmother had looked at him with her bright blue eyes. "You're a Schluter," she'd rasped in her smoker's voice. "You carry the seeds of greatness within you. That's why I saw to it you carry our family's name instead of your pitiful excuse for a father. And it's why I named you after my father."

  When he had been born, his grandmother had taken over his rearing almost at once. That had been just as well. His father had been a drunkard and a gambler, and his mother had had a drug problem that she'd no longer had to hide after he was born. His grandmother had stopped caring whether his mother lived or not. She had the male heir she'd wanted to carry on the family name.

  He could still remember hearing his grandmother calling the police and saying there had been a terrible accident. Then, when the police arrived, they were properly respectful to her. Everything was "Baroness Schluter" this and "Baroness Schluter" that. The whole time, she held on to his hand and told him that everything was going to be all right.

  It was then that Schluter started to grasp the power that his grandmother wielded.

  As he'd grown, he longed for the time that that power would be his. Now it was almost within his grasp.

  Except for that woman, that witch Erene Skujans and her lover. Schluter had made no allowances for her cunning ways. Last night had even more sharply delineated his miscalculation of her.

  The gates opened as Schluter steered toward them. He missed them by inches as he roared through. He sped through the meticulously landscaped grounds as the helicopter with his other security guards landed at the helipad at the back of the castle.

  When winter had passed, his grandmother would have the groundskeepers busy every day until the roses and flowerbeds once more looked immaculate. Then she would sit in one of the five gardens she'd had designed and built for herself, and pretend that she was going to live forever.

  She was eighty-two. She'd already lived far longer than Schluter had thought was possible with the way she smoked and drank.

  The main house stood three stories tall and had a distinctly Gothic design. The stone was off-white, almost gray, but it held an air of eternal vigilance that Schluter had always recognized. Gargoyles straddled the roof's edge, staring down at visitors like birds of prey.

  There was a bright red Ferrari parked in front of the house. Low and sleek, the sports car gave the appearance that some kind of spacecraft had landed at Castle Schlut
er.

  To visit or to conquer? Schluter wondered, and tried to figure out where that thought had come from.

  He switched off his car's engine. The gull-wing doors lifted when Schluter hit the release. He unfastened his seat belt and got out, straightening his suit.

  Gustav crawled out on his side weakly and sagged against the fender. "Thank God," he said, then threw up.

  "Don't get that on the car," Schluter said mechanically. He, like his eyes, was drawn to the Ferrari. He knew its specifications as well as he knew the back of his own hand. The Ferrari was the dream car he'd never had.

  "Do you like the car?" a deep voice asked.

  Startled, Schluter turned toward the main house. A man stood where he hadn't been standing a moment ago.

  The man was tall, at least four or five inches over six feet. He was built broad and strong, and looked very fit. His face was strongly chiseled, making the goatee he wore stand out even more prominently. His long black hair trailed down to his shoulders. A gold hoop earring glinted in his left ear. He wore an Armani suit.

  "I love the car," Schluter said. "It has a twelve-cylinder engine, a carbon-fiber body and an F-1 sequential shift. Only four hundred of this model were manufactured."

  "I have three of them," the man said.

  "Three?" Schluter couldn't believe it. The car cost in excess of six hundred thousand dollars. He knew because he'd priced them. He'd wanted one but his grandmother wouldn't pay for it.

  "Three," the man repeated. Then he grinned. "I couldn't decide which was my favorite color. So I bought a red one, a yellow one and had one custom-painted, blending from sea-foam-green at the front to kelly-green at the back."

  "It sounds beautiful."

  "It is. I should have brought it." He shrugged. "But I drove it last time."

  "I don't know you," Schluter said.

  "That's because we've never met," the man said. "I'm an old friend of your grandmother's. She invited me. She said there was a problem and I might be able to help."

  All the goodwill and envy Schluter had for the man disappeared in a heartbeat. "What problem?"

  The man shrugged as if he didn't notice a change in Schluter's demeanor. "I don't know. We only spoke over the telephone. I just got here myself."

  "From Vienna?"

  "Yes."

  "That's impossible. I would have passed you on the road."

  The man grinned, too arrogant and cocky for Schluter's taste. "I don't think so," he said with uncompromising self-assurance.

  "What is your name?" Schluter demanded.

  The man shook his head. "Let's go in and talk to your grandmother. If she wants you to know my name, she'll tell you."

  Angry now, noticing that his bodyguards had appeared around the main building, Schluter shook his head. "No. I'll have your name or you won't enter the house."

  The man put on a pair of sunglasses he'd been holding in one hand. "You're making a mistake."

  "You're the one who's made a mistake." Schluter turned to his bodyguards and raised his voice. "Throw him out."

  The bodyguards started forward at once. Most of them reached for weapons, doubtless because of the man's size.

  They hadn't counted on his quickness. The way he moved was fluid and graceful. Before Schluter could blink, the man had a pistol in each hand. They were short-barreled but big-bored semiautomatics.

  He pointed one of them at Schluter's head and the other one at the group of men. "Big, big mistake," he commented quietly.

  Schluter froze, hesitant to move because he didn't doubt the man would open fire.

  "Wolfram!"

  Recognizing his grandmother's voice, Schluter cursed. He told himself that he would have escaped the man's marksmanship and that his bodyguards would have killed the man.

  "Go away, Grandmother," Schluter said. "I can handle this."

  The big man laughed.

  Schluter's ears burned with rage. No one had ever treated him like that. He started to speak.

  "If you do it," the man promised, "I'll put a bullet right between your eyes."

  "Wolfram!" His grandmother came down off the steps, hobbling on her cane. She was thin and bent with age, but she had her hair taken care of every week. Schluter was accustomed to her appearance, because there had been few days of his life that she hadn't imposed herself.

  Today she looked different. She wore makeup for the first time that Schluter could remember. Rouge showed on her pale, withered cheeks and lipstick on her lips. She wore a dress that Schluter had never seen before, a pearl-gray one that hinted at what little figure she had left to her. The light of the early evening revealed her age.

  She glared at him with her pale, watery blue eyes. "You will stop this instant!" she ordered.

  Schluter ignored her order. His bodyguards kept their weapons leveled at the man, who acted as though he hadn't a care in the world. But the man's pistol never wavered from Schluter's face.

  "Who is this man, Grandmother?" Schluter asked.

  "A friend of our family," she snapped.

  "I don't know him."

  "He was a friend before your time."

  Schluter took another look at the man. He didn't look any older than Wolfram. Thirty, maybe thirty-five. But Schluter doubted that. He'd only given the man an extra five years because of the way he conducted himself.

  "Have your men put their weapons down," his grandmother ordered.

  Schluter returned the man's imperturbable gaze. "He can lower his weapons first. In fact, he can turn them over."

  The man smirked, then shook his head to say that would never happen.

  His grandmother hardened her voice and stood as straight as her bent back would allow. "You will obey me, Wolfram."

  For a moment Schluter wanted to dare her to do her worst. But he couldn't. Her worst could leave him bereft of his inheritance. He wasn't prepared for that.

  Taking a breath, he gestured to his men.

  They put away their weapons immediately.

  The big man shoved the tails of his coat back and holstered both pistols behind his back. He was still smiling.

  "Wolfram, I want to introduce you to this man. As I said, he's an old friend. And he's here to help you with your problem."

  "My problem is well in hand," Schluter said.

  "I don't think so. From what I'm told, your men killed Mario Fellini in New York City without getting the information they were sent there to get."

  "He wouldn't tell them," Schluter replied. "Not even when he was tortured." He had long suspected his grandmother had a spy among his men. This latest revelation only proved that.

  "I was also told that the woman, the witch, also ambushed you in the castle at Riga."

  "That didn't happen," Schluter pointed out.

  "You were lucky."

  Schluter knew better than to argue with his grandmother when she was in the mood she was in.

  "Now I want you to come into the house so we can discuss this in a civilized manner," his grandmother said. Then she turned to the big man. "I'm asking you to forgive my grandson."

  The man bowed and took her hand in his. He touched his lips to the withered flesh.

  A smile curved his grandmother's lips and it looked as if she was embarrassed, blushing. Schluter was astounded. He'd never seen his grandmother behave that way.

  "Of course," the man replied in a soft voice and courtly manner. "Anything you wish, Kikka. I always told you that."

  In all of his life, Schluter had never heard anyone call his grandmother by her given name.

  The man released his grandmother's hand and turned to face Schluter.

  "Wolfram," his grandmother said, "this is Garin Braden. He's going to help us with the Riga problem."

  Chapter 16

  The work disassembling the mosaic was intense. Annja had to get up a few times and stretch her cramped shoulder muscles. Since the living room area was large enough, she brought out her sword for a while and went through some of the kata she'd b
een taught.

  She was sore from the battles she'd fought. As always, focusing and becoming one with the sword left her more energized than exhausted. She returned to work with renewed focus.

  Gradually, the tessera were all removed and placed on the table. When she was finished, she was ultimately disappointed.

  There was nothing on the glazed marble behind them.

  She stared at the picture of the dog she'd assembled on the table next to the glazed-tile background. She'd put each piece next to its mate, re-creating the picture because that was how she'd been trained to handle artifacts. Everything that was found together stayed together, in the same juxtaposition it had been found.

  All that work, and she still didn't have anything to show for it.

  Okay, you're frustrated, she told herself. Take the relaxing bath you've been missing the past few days and let the thoughts percolate for a while. Maybe a nap.

  Retreating to the bathroom, she got a clothing bag out, stripped down, then dumped her clothing into the bag. She added the old clothes she still had. She enjoyed having new jeans, but until she'd had them for a while they didn't feel like her old jeans. She loved the comfort of familiarity, and the new jeans didn't feel lived in.

  While the water ran to fill the tub, Annja went through the selection of bath fragrances and found some bayberry that smelled pretty good. She wanted a long soak, so she emptied the bottle in the water.

  Her cell phone rang. When she got to it, Caller ID showed the number started with an international code. It was 06 and she knew that one belonged to Italy.

  Dreading the call, knowing it was going to be from Mario's family because she'd told Bart to let them know they could call her, Annja answered the call. "Hello."

  "Annja."

  The man's voice surprised her. She didn't recognize it. "Yes. Who is this?"

  "Pietro Silvestri. I'm – " He stopped himself. "I was Mario's brother-in-law."

  "I remember you," Annja said, switching to Italian because she could tell English was difficult for him. "The soccer player."

  "Yes."

  Annja remembered Pietro Silvestri as quiet and shy among the burgeoning and boisterous family. She'd bonded with him because of that. He'd been early in his marriage to Francesca and not used to the family, either.