by Steve Berry
“People still debate those last words,” she said.
“And why is it so important?” Malone asked.
“It’s what he left behind,” Thorvaldsen said. “His kingdom, with no rightful heir.”
“And that has something to do with elephant medallions?”
“Cotton,” Thorvaldsen said, “I bought that museum knowing someone would destroy it. Cassiopeia and I have been waiting for that to happen.”
She said, “We had to stay a step ahead of whoever is after the medallions.”
“Seems like they won. They have the thing.”
Thorvaldsen cast her a look, then the older man stared at Malone and said, “Not exactly.”
NINE
Viktor relaxed only when the door to the hotel room was closed and locked. They were across Copenhagen, near Nyhavn, where boisterous waterfront cafés catered to rowdy patrons. He sat at the desk and switched on a lamp as Rafael assumed a window position, which overlooked the street four stories below.
He now possessed the fifth medallion.
The first four had been disappointments. One was a forgery, the other three in poor condition. Six months ago he knew little about elephant medallions. Now he considered himself quite proficient in their provenance.
“We should be fine,” he said to Rafael. “Calm down. No one followed us.”
“I’ll keep watch to be sure.”
He knew Rafael was trying to make amends for overreacting in the museum, so he said, “It’s okay.”
“He should have died.”
“It’s better he didn’t. At least we know what we’re facing.”
He unzipped a leather case and removed a stereomicroscope and digital scale.
He laid the coin on the desk. They’d found it displayed in one of the museum cases, correctly noted as an “Elephant Medallion (Alexander the Great), a decadrachm, circa second century BCE.”
He first measured its width. Thirty-five millimeters. About right. He flicked on the electronic scales and checked its weight. Forty point seventy-four grams. Correct, too.
With a magnifying glass he examined the image on one face—a warrior in regal splendor, complete with plumed helmet, neck guard, breastplate, and a calvary cloak that fell to his knees.
He was pleased. An obvious flaw in the forgeries was the cloak, which in the false medallions hung to the ankles. For centuries, trade in fake Greek coins had flourished and clever forgers had become adept at fooling both the anxious and the willing.
Luckily, he was neither.
The first known elephant medallion had surfaced when it was donated to the British Museum in 1887. It came from somewhere in central Asia. A second appeared in 1926, from Iran. A third was discovered in 1959. A fourth in 1964. Then, in 1973, four more were found near the ruins of Babylon. Eight in all that had made the rounds through museums and private collectors. Not all that valuable, considering the variety of Hellenistic art and the thousands of coins available, but nonetheless collectible.
He returned to his examination.
The clean-shaven, youthful warrior grasped a sarissa in his left hand topped by a leaf-shaped point. His right hand held a bolt of lightning. Above him loomed a flying Nike, the winged goddess of victory. To the warrior’s left, the die cutter had left a curious monogram.
Whether it was BA or BAB, and what the letters represented Viktor did not know. But an authentic medallion should show that odd symbol.
All seemed in order. Nothing added or missing.
He flipped the coin over.
Its edges were grossly distorted, the pewter-colored patina worn smooth as if by running water. Time was slowly dissolving the delicate engraving on both sides. Amazing, really, that any of them had managed to survive.
“All quiet?” he asked Rafael, who still stood near the window.
“Don’t patronize me.”
He glanced up. “I actually want to know.”
“I can’t seem to get it right.”
He caught the defeatism. “You saw someone coming to the museum door. You reacted. That’s all.”
“It was foolish. Killing attracts too much attention.”
“There would have been no body to find. Quit worrying about it. And besides, I approved leaving him there.”
He refocused his attention on the medallion. The obverse showed the warrior, now a calvaryman, wearing the same outfit, attacking a retreating elephant. Two men sat atop the elephant, one brandishing a sarissa, the other trying to remove a calvaryman’s pike from his chest. Numismatists all agreed that the regal warrior on both sides of the coin represented Alexander, and the medallions commemorated a battle with war elephants.
But the real test as to whether the thing was authentic came under the microscope.
He switched on the illuminator and slid the decadrachm onto the examining tray.
Authentic ones contained an anomaly. Tiny microletters concealed within the engraving, added by ancient die cutters using a primitive lens. Experts believed the lettering represented something akin to a watermark on a modern banknote, perhaps to ensure authenticity. Lenses were not common in ancient times, so detecting the mark then would have been nearly impossible. The lettering was noticed when the first medallion surfaced years ago. But of the four they’d stolen so far, only one had contained the peculiarity. If this medallion were genuine, within the folds of the cavalryman’s clothing there should be two Greek letters—ZH.
He focused the microscope and saw tiny writing.
But not letters.
Numbers.
36 44 77 55.
He glanced up from the eyepiece.
Rafael was watching him. “What is it?”
Their dilemma had just deepened. Earlier he’d used the hotel room’s phone and made several calls. His gaze shot to the telephone and the display at its base. Four sets of numbers, two each, starting with thirty-six.
Not the same ones he’d just seen through the microscope.
But he instantly knew what the digits on the supposedly ancient medallion represented.
A Danish phone number.
TEN
VENICE
6:30 A.M.
Vincenti studied himself in the mirror as his valet creased the jacket and allowed the Gucci suit to drape his enormous frame. With a camel-haired brush, all remnants of lint from the dark wool were removed. He then adjusted his tie and made sure the dimple plunged deep. The valet handed him a burgundy handkerchief and he adjusted the silk folds into his coat pocket.
His three-hundred-pound frame looked good in the tailored suit. The Milan fashion consultant he kept on retainer had advised him that swarthy colors not only conveyed authority, they also drew attention away from his stature. Which wasn’t an easy thing to do. Everything about him was big. Pouched cheeks, rolled forehead, cob-nose. But he loved rich food and dieting seemed such a sin.
He motioned and the valet buffed his Lorenzo Banfi laced shoes. He stole a last look in the mirror, then glanced at his watch.
“Sir,” the valet said, “she called while you were showering.”
“On the private line?”
The valet nodded.
“She leave a number?”
The valet reached into his pocket and found a slip of paper. He’d managed some sleep both before and after the Council meeting. Sleep, unlike dieting, was not a waste of time. He knew people were waiting for him, and he despised being late, but he decided to call from the privacy of his bedroom. No use broadcasting everything over a cellular.
The valet retreated from the room.
He stepped to a bedside phone and dialed international. Three buzzes shrilled in his ear before a woman’s voice answered and he said, “I see, Supreme Minister, that you’re still among the living.”
“And it’s good to know your information was accurate.”
“I wouldn’t have bothered you with fantasy.”
“But you still haven’t said how you knew someone would try to kill me today.”
Three days ago he’d passed on to Irina Zovastina the Florentine’s plan. “The League watches over its members, and you, Supreme Minister, are one of our most important.”
She chuckled. “You’re so full of it, Enrico.”
“Did you win at buzkashi?”
“Of course. Two times into the circle. We left the assassin’s body on the field and trampled it into pieces. The birds and dogs are now enjoying the rest.”
He winced. That was the problem with central Asia. Wanting desperately to be a part of the twenty-first century, its culture remained entrenched in the fifteenth. The League would have to do what it could to change all that. Even if the task would be like weaning a carnivore onto a vegetarian diet.
“Do you know the Iliad?” she asked.
He knew she’d have to be humored. “I do.”
“Cast the souls of many stalwart heroes to Hades and their bodies to the gods and birds of prey.”
He grinned. “You fashion yourself Achilles?”
“There’s much to admire in him.”
“Wasn’t he a proud man? Excessive, as I recall.”
“But a fighter. Always a fighter. Tell me, Enrico, what of your traitor? Was that problem resolved?”
“The Florentine will enjoy a lovely burial north of here, in the lake district. We’ll send flowers.” He decided to see if she was in the mood. “We need to talk.”
“Your payment for saving my life?”
“Your end of our bargain, as we originally discussed long ago.”
“I’ll be ready to meet with the Council in a few days. First, there are things I need to resolve.”
“I’m more interested in when you and I will meet.”
She chuckled. “I’m sure you are. I am, too, actually. But there are things I must complete.”
“My time on the Council ends soon. Thereafter, you’ll have others to deal with. They may not be as accommodating.”
She laughed. “I love that. Accommodating. I do enjoy dealing with you, Enrico. We so understand each other.”
“We need to talk.”
“Soon. First, you have that other problem we spoke about. The Americans.”
Yes, he did. “Not to worry, I plan to deal with that today.”
ELEVEN
COPENHAGEN
“What do you mean not exactly?” Malone asked Thorvaldsen.
“I commissioned a fake elephant medallion. It’s quite easy to do, actually. There are many counterfeits on the market.”
“And why did you do that?”
“Cotton,” Cassiopeia said to him, “these medallions are important.”
“Gee, never would have guessed. What I haven’t heard is how and why.”
“What do you know of Alexander the Great, after he died?” Thorvaldsen asked. “With what happened to his body.”
He’d read on the subject. “I know some.”
“I doubt you know what we do,” Cassiopeia said. She stood beside one of the bookshelves. “Last fall, I received a call from a friend who worked at the cultural museum in Samarkand. He’d found something he thought I might like to see. An old manuscript.”
“How old?”
“First or second century after Christ. Ever hear of X-ray fluorescence?”
He shook his head.
“It’s a relatively new procedure,” Thorvaldsen said. “During the early Middle Ages, parchment was so scarce that monks developed a recycling technique where they scraped away the original ink, then reused the clean parchment for prayer books. With fluorescence, X-rays are formed from a particle accelerator, then bombarded onto the recycled parchment. Thankfully, the ink used centuries ago contained lots of iron. When the X-rays hit that ink, molecules deep in the parchment glow, and those images can be recorded. Pretty amazing, actually. Like a fax from the past. Words once thought erased, written over with new ink, reappear from their molecular signature.”
“Cotton,” Cassiopeia said, “what we know firsthand about Alexander is confined to the writings of four men who all lived nearly five hundred years after Alexander. Ephemerides, Alexander’s so-called royal journal, which was supposedly contemporaneous, is useless—the victor rewriting history. The Alexander Romance, which many people cite as authority, is wild fiction and bears little relation to reality. The other two, though, were written by Arrian and Plutarch, both reputable chroniclers.”
“I’ve read the Alexander Romance. Great story.”
“But that’s all it is. Alexander is like Arthur, a man whose actual life has been replaced with romantic legend. He’s now regarded as some great, benign conqueror. Some sort of statesman. Actually, he slaughtered people on an unprecedented scale and totally squandered the resources of the lands he acquired. He murdered friends out of paranoia and led most of his troops to early deaths. He was a gambler who staked his life, and the lives of those around him, on chance. There’s nothing magical about him.”
“I disagree,” he said. “He was a great military commander, the first person to unite the world. His conquests were bloody and brutal because that’s war. True, he was bent on conquering, but his world seemed ready to be conquered. He was politically shrewd. A Greek, who ultimately became a Persian. From everything I’ve read, he seemed to have little use for petty nationalism—and I can’t fault him for that. After he died his generals, the Companions, divided the empire among themselves, which ensured that Greek culture dominated for centuries. And it did. The Hellenistic Age utterly changed Western civilization. And all that started with him.”
He saw that Cassiopeia did not agree with him.
“It’s that legacy which was discussed in the old manuscript,” she said. “What actually happened after Alexander died.”
“We know what happened,” he said. “His empire became the prey of his generals and they played finders-keepers with his body. Lots of differing accounts about how they each tried to highjack the funeral cortege. They all wanted the body as a symbol of their power. That’s why it was mummified. Greeks burned their dead. But not Alexander. His corpse needed to live on.”
“It’s what happened between the time when Alexander died in Babylon and when his body was finally transported back west that concerned the manuscript,” Cassiopeia said. “A year passed. A year that’s critical to the elephant medallions.”
A soft ring broke the room’s silence.
Malone watched as Henrik removed a phone from his pocket and answered. Unusual. Thorvaldsen hated the things, and especially detested people who talked on one in front of him.
Malone glanced at Cassiopeia and asked, “That important?”
Her expression stayed sullen. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for.”
“Why you so chipper?”
“You may not believe this, Cotton, but I have feelings, too.”
He wondered about the caustic comment. When she’d visited Copenhagen during Christmas, they’d spent a few pleasant evenings together at Christiangade, Thorvaldsen’s seaside home north of Copenhagen. He’d even given her a present, a rare seventeenth-century edition on medieval engineering. Her French reconstruction project, where stone by stone she was building a castle with tools and raw materials from seven hundred years ago, continued to progress. They’d even agreed that, in the spring, he’d come for a visit.
Thorvaldsen finished his call. “That was the thief from the museum.”
“And how did he know to call you?” Malone asked.
“I had this phone number engraved on the medallion. I wanted to make it perfectly clear that we’re waiting. I told him that if he wants the original decadrachm he’s going to have to buy it.”
“Knowing that, he’ll probably kill you instead.”
“We’re hoping.”
“And how do you plan to prevent that from happening?” Malone asked.
Cassiopeia stepped forward, her face rigid. “That’s where you come in.”
TWELVE
Viktor laid the phone back in its cradle. Rafael had
stood by the window and listened to the conversation.
“He wants us to meet in three hours. At a house north of town, on the coastal highway.” He held up the elephant medallion. “They knew we were coming—and for some time—to have this made. It’s quite good. The forger knew his craft.”
“This is something we should report.”
He disagreed. Minister Zovastina had sent him because he was her most trusted. Thirty men guarded her on a daily basis. Her Sacred Band. Modeled after ancient Greece’s fiercest fighting unit, which fought valiantly until Philip of Macedonia and his son, Alexander the Great, slaughtered them. He’d heard Zovastina speak on the subject. The Macedonians were so impressed with the Sacred Band’s bravery that they erected a monument in their memory, which still stood in Greece. When Zovastina assumed power, she’d enthusiastically revived the concept. Viktor had been her first recruit, and he’d located the other twenty-nine, including Rafael, an Italian whom he’d found in Bulgaria, working for that government’s security forces.
“Should we not call Samarkand?” Rafael asked again.
He stared at his partner. The younger man was a quick, energetic soul. Viktor had come to like him, which explained why he tolerated mistakes that others would never be allowed. Like jerking that man into the museum. But maybe that hadn’t been a mistake after all?