by Tom Wilde
“Do you think your doctors would allow you to have a real drink with dinner tomorrow tonight?”
“Probably. Why?”
“I’m in the mood to buy you a really expensive martini.”
EPILOGUE
A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.
—ALEXANDER OF MACEDONIA
Venice, Italy
I was standing outdoors in the wide space between two massive pillars, flanked and guarded by a saint armed with spear and shield atop the pillar on my left and a winged lion on my right as I looked over the crowded Piazza San Marco in Venice. I was hoping it would turn out to be a lousy place to commit a murder. Namely mine.
It was midmorning on a bright, hot, late-summer day and the plaza was alive with crowds of people and flights of pigeons among the beautiful façades with vaulted archways and columns crowned by marble statues. Ahead of me I could see the proud domes and elaborate spires of the Basilica of Saint Mark and the tall red-and-white clock tower pointing like a gigantic arrow toward heaven. Music from a string quartet wafted in the air, underscored by the sound of small motorboats in the waterway behind me.
There was too much motion and confusion to spot trouble coming, and I hoped that meant too many witnesses in the event that someone had lured me here just to drop me in a Venetian canal. I was an easy target, standing between the marble pillars like they were oversized gun sights. It was almost a relief when I heard the voice of Mr. Ombra say from close behind me, “Napoleon called the Piazza San Marco the ‘Drawing Room of Europe.’ It is easy still to see why.”
I turned around, slowly, and saw Monsieur and Madame Ombra standing before me. They were both dressed in white—a casual suit for him and a long summer dress for her—and both wore wide-brimmed straw hats, looking for all the world like middle-aged tourists out for a stroll. I squinted against the glare of the sunlight dancing off the water behind them as I said, “Well, you’re both looking much better than the last time I saw you.”
Madame Ombra came up and took my hands in hers, kissing my cheeks in greeting. “It is with thanks to you that we are.”
I looked to Mr. Ombra. “Just how did you get away from Vanya’s island? You drove a certain government agent I know crazy when you disappeared.”
Ombra waved the question away as if it held no importance as his wife said, “We are both just glad that you received our message and decided to meet with us.”
“Let’s just say my curiosity won out over sanity. So what do you want?”
Madame Ombra smiled as she said, “We truly wanted to thank you in person. We owe both of our lives to you. Also, we wish to pose a question to you.”
“I have a question of my own,” I said. “Who are you?”
The Ombras traded a look between themselves, one that held that subtle telepathy shared by lovers of many years. Then Madame Ombra replied, “The ‘who’ is immaterial, Mr. Blake. Over the long centuries, we have had many names, but always we have stayed in the shadows.”
Mr. Ombra said, “The true history of the world will never be found in any book, Mr. Blake. For what you believe is history is nothing more than a thin tissue of lies and suppositions. The truth is far stranger. And we are the guardians of that truth.”
“Truth? The truth about what?”
Madame Ombra said gently, “The truth of our struggles, for several hundred years, to shape and guide and, yes, to rule mankind. But always as the invisible power behind the thrones of the kings and queens of the world.”
My head was spinning from the implications that poured from their words. “So, Napoleon Bonaparte was … one of you?”
“It is more fair to say that Emperor Bonaparte had the benefit of our guidance,” Madame Ombra replied. “At least at first,” she added with a slight, knowing smile.
“And so everything I saw—the treasure room in the Parisian catacombs, the Nautilus, Alexander’s sarcophagus—they were all because of … you?”
The Ombras didn’t answer. But the steady looks I received from them both made an eloquent though silent affirmative.
“You mean to tell me that your organization has been pulling the strings behind the scenes all throughout history with no one being the wiser?” I asked.
“Let me ask you this,” Madame Ombra said in lieu of a reply. “With all that you personally learned about the fate of Napoleon and the island of Corsica, why is it that you have not told the world yourself?”
While I stood in the warm sunshine, surrounded by people who went about their business completely unaware of the fact that three individuals among them were discussing crimes and conspiracies of epic proportions, my memories ran through my head in a tangled, violent collage. Finally, I found the words to say, “From what I see, the people of France have their emperor on display in Paris. And on Corsica, a sick and tired old man who once accomplished great things got his wish for a final resting place. And if anyone ever found out how close we all came to a worldwide plague epidemic, it’d have caused a panic.”
“Just so,” Madame Ombra said like a teacher whose pupil came up with the right answer.
“And that, my friend,” Mr. Ombra added, “is how secrets have always been kept. Our Benjamin Franklin said it best: ‘History is written by the winners.’”
“Your Ben Franklin? What do you mean by that?”
I received only a pair of gentle smiles in response. “So why are you telling me all of this?” I asked.
The Ombras shared their secretive glance with one another again, and then Madame Ombra said, “We have grown old, Mr. Blake, and our people are now few in number. We bear the burden of keeping safe the true history of the world, and our work will never end. We need new people who can carry on with our task. Someone with intelligence and, shall we say, special skills? We need someone like you.”
“Think of it, Mr. Blake,” Mr. Ombra added earnestly. “You would be granted access to all of our knowledge; all of our records would be yours.”
“I thought the library in Fort de Joux was destroyed?”
“No,” Madame Ombra said serenely. “When our men arrived at the chateau, they discovered that the door to the archives room had been shut, I assume by you? The fire died out and much of the library was saved. But in truth, that was only one of our repositories. And a small one at that.”
“But why keep these secrets for all these years?”
Madame Ombra said, “In our struggles to make a better world, we have had to be ruthless. If the true nature of our actions were to be made known, we would be judged as criminals, and worse.”
Mr. Ombra said, in a voice gone soft, “All you have seen, Mr. Blake, is only the smallest thread in a very large tapestry. Join us, and you will become one of the very, very few to truly know the secret history of the world.”
My head was swimming with the possibilities, and then just as quickly I started drowning in them as I remembered all the death and destruction that surrounded the Ombras like crows over a battlefield. I looked past the pair of them to the sparkling Adriatic Sea beyond and thought of an English poet who was killed, all because he learned of just one of the terrible secrets that Ombra was speaking of.
“No,” I said at last. “Sorry. But the price is too high.”
The Ombras both looked down, Madame Ombra whispering, “So. That is unfortunate.”
I felt an old, familiar tinge of pending danger dance along my spine as I asked, “So what happens now?”
“Now,” Madame Ombra said, “we part as friends, and sincerely hope we never meet again.”
“We still owe you a debt for our lives,” Mr. Ombra said, somewhat wistfully. “Tell me, do you intend to pursue the tomb of Alexander?”
“What? No. That was Vanya’s quest, not mine. And anyway, I’m officially retired.”
The two of them did it again, shared a silent communication between themselves, only this time it was like a pair of mischievous children who were up to something. “Have you had a ch
ance to see the Piazza San Marco yet?” Mr. Ombra inquired casually.
“No.”
“It’s quite beautiful,” Madame Ombra said. “It was fortunate that Napoleon spared the city of Venice when he conquered it in 1797. Although his ransom demands were quite severe. Napoleon was paid not only with gold and priceless artworks, but also in rare books and manuscripts. Still, you should be certain to see the Basilica of Saint Mark. It has a fascinating history, you see.”
“Oh?”
Madame Ombra said, “Tell me, Mr. Blake; what do you know of the saints?”
“Enough to know that I’ll never be one.”
Beneath the rim of her hat, Madame Ombra’s blue eyes were alight. “It is said that the body of Saint Mark was brought to Venice in secret in the year 828 AD, from a tomb in the place where he was martyred: Alexandria.”
I felt the word catch in my throat as I said, “Alexandria?”
“Yes,” Mr. Ombra answered with a cryptic tone. “The body of the saint was taken from the very city that was also Alexander the Great’s final resting place.”
“It seems a strange coincidence, does it not?” Madame Ombra said to her husband, but for my benefit. “How so shortly after he conquered Venice, Napoleon sailed to Alexandria. One might wonder if he learned something from those archaic manuscripts he acquired. Such as the location of a certain tomb discovered by Venetian sailors hundreds of years before. The tomb would have been empty by the time Napoleon arrived in Alexandria, of course. But who is to say if that particular tomb had once contained the body of a saint, or that of a demigod?”
I slowly turned and looked back over the piazza to the domes and spires of the basilica in the distance. At first glance, it reminded me of the Chapel du Val de Grâce in Paris, but a closer look revealed how the French chapel was a poor pauper compared to the Byzantine majesty of the basilica. My mind was surrounded by bits and pieces of fact and speculation, blown around my head like leaves in the wind: Napoleon … Saint Mark … Alexander. “Wait,” I said, not taking my eyes off the basilica domes. “Are you trying to tell me that the remains of Alexander the Great are actually inside…”
I stopped speaking as I belatedly realized that the Ombras had silently vanished from behind me. I was looking back toward the basilica, my mind churning over the possibilities, when I felt a warm hand take hold of my own.
“You mind telling me what that was all about?” Caitlin inquired.
Her presence took hold and brought me back to the here and now. She was standing next to me with her golden hair spilling to her shoulders and her lovely eyes shaded by her sunglasses. She was dressed in a brightly colored blouse and white shorts that revealed shapely legs, which were starting to show a healthy glow.
Caitlin continued by saying as if to a backwards child, “The Ombras. You know, that nice couple that almost killed you a time or two? Why did they want to meet with you? Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad I didn’t have to come to your rescue. It’s far too nice a day to ruin it with bloodshed. But why did they want you to come all the way here?”
I shook my head. “They offered me the secrets of the world.”
“Really?” Caitlin said dryly. “Was it anything like the offer Eve got from the snake?”
I laughed, feeling the spell of the Ombras’ words dissipating. “Yeah. Only I didn’t bite.”
“Good,” she said with finality. “Now, I seem to recall that we are supposed to be on a vacation and you promised me a gondola ride. Let’s see if you can actually get on a boat and not sink it this time, shall we?”
Before I could answer, Caitlin stopped and said with a delicate eyebrow arched over the rim of her sunglasses, “Jonathan Blake, I’m starting to recognize that look you have right now, rare as it is. You’re thinking of something.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“What?” she asked suspiciously.
I kept hold of her hand as I looked back over my shoulder.
“I think it’s high time you and I went to church.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Wilde has worked as a government criminal investigator on cases that range from homicide to child abduction that have taken him across the United States as well as to Germany, Romania, and Mexico. Wilde is also qualified as an instructor in police firearms and weaponless defense training. He makes his home in Folsom, California.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE BLOOD OF ALEXANDER
Copyright © 2014 by Tom Wilde
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Larry Rostant
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-3330-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-0055-7 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466800557
First Edition: April 2014